My daughter is looking into her options when she gets out of high school, and we have been discussing the military. She'd love to shoot on the pistol team, but I told her the first thing she'd need to do would be rifle qualification.

Where can I find official rifle targets, course of fire, distances, scoring, etc.? I'd like to see how she'd do (and myself for that matter).

I can only speak for the army.

First, you zero using a 25 meter zero target, which has a sillouhette (sorry if I butchered the spelling there) that is scaled to look like it is at 300 meters.

After that, you go to a pop up target range and shoot at plastic "Ivans" that pop up from 50-300 meters (at 50 meter intervals).  You shoot 20 rounds from a foxhole with a sandbag support, then 20 rounds from the prone unsupported.  Your score is number of hits out of 40.

For posts that don't have a pop up range, you shoot an "alternate C" qualification, which has scaled targets from 50-300 meters and you shoot 2 rounds in each target from 25 meters - again using prone unsupported and foxhole supported positions.  This will probably be the best way for you to practice for an Army rifle qualification - do a google search for Alternate C target and see what you come up with.

As an aside, the pistol team is run by the Army Marksmanship Unit that is part of Army Recruiting Command.  They have a variet of pistol and rifle teams, and a homepage as well for you to check out what they have to offer.  Be sure to tell your duaghter that joining simply to get on the pistol team would not be a good idea.  You have to get released by your commander just to go TDY to the training - which means your parent unit has to pay for you to go away, and be a soldier short until you get back.  If you get accepted, they have to consent to releasing you from the unit.  Either scenario, especially for enlisted soldiers, is difficult due to short funds and short manpower...which is sad on a couple levels, but mostly becuase a lot of good kids, like you r daughter, get denied opportunites to do the neat stuff they signed up for in the first place.

I will quit my sermonizing, I hope this helps.  

Oh, as a final note - in my humble opinion the USMC has a FAR SUPERIOR marksmanship program for their Marines, I know they shoot out to 500 meters for qualification.  I don't know if they have a scaled target version, though...it is hard to find a place to shoot out to 500 meters these days.

LOAD SABOT!!

Tanker

Edited to add:  36-40 hits = expert,
30-35 hits = sharpshooter,
23-29 hits= marksman, under 23, go to the end of the line and try again.

For Army BRM you don't shoot at a paper target except to zero.  After that it's on pop-up silouettes and ranges from 25-300 meters.

I don't have the qualification standards in front or me, but someone will likely have the break down for Marksman-Expert.

In addtion to the basic qualification course, you also must qualify wearing the mask and night firing.

In short it would be very tough to accurately determine "how you would do" as a civilian since we don't have access to all the fun ranges the military does.

Edited to add that "wanting to be on the pistol team" is a pretty weak motivation for considering the armed forces even for just one hitch.  It's probably not reason enough to get through basic.  Unless there is a strong desire to determine your intestinal fortitude and or strong sense of duty/desire to serve your country I'd say look else where.

That said, if you daughter decides to serve, thank her on my behalf for her service to our country.

Malpaso, your daughter has a slim-to-none chance to get on the pistol team if she just "joins the military" just like that.  You need to be in touch with the AMU (or Marine equivalent) personally to see what needs to be done to ensre that program.  If she is not competing now, and at a pretty high level, she may not be accepted, and would go to "normal" military life.

My strong suggestion:
Go to the "Competitive AR" forum here at ar15.com and ask for Lew Tippie.   Discuss it with him.  He is an instructor for the AMU rifle team, but he can get you started.

As a note, in the Army qualification standards as Expert, Shaprshooter and Marksman, you can miss ALL the 300m targets and still qualify expert (there's four 300m exposures).  You can miss ALL the 300m and 250m targets and qualify Sharpshooter (four 300m and six 250m exposures).  You can miss ALL of the 300m, 250m and 200m targets and still qualify Marksman.  Of course you have to pick up all the other targets without missing, but it's really a pretty sorry state when you can still qualify by only shooting out to 150m.  

This is used as a trick to get "bolos" to qualify.  They just don't soot at the longer range target exposures, that way if they miss a closer target, they just shoot at it again with the ammo they saved by not shooting the longer ones.  

While I beleive that the pop-ups are a great way to actually qualify, I never agreed with the low standards.  The worst part about it is these are the standards that have actually became stricter.  When I first got in, we only had to hit something like 18 or 20 to qualify Marksman, and the other rankings were also lower.  

While there are plenty in the Army that CAN shoot (I was on my unit rifle team, and rarely scored less than 40) and the AMTU is a top notch shooting team, the Army as a whole is not the place for shooting.  The only people who do ALOT of shooting small arms are Infantry, and as a female she won't be doing that.

She'll shoot her rifle once or twice a year.  12 rds to zero, and 40 to qualify.  That's the truth in the real world.  Before everyone get's in an uproar, realize that if her primary job isn't as a bullet launching platform, then she only needs to know how to shoot to basically defend herself, or her position.  It's merely a "survival skill" for most MOS's.  If she's a commo-type or an aircraft mechanic, it's far more valuable for her to be doing her job and providing the combat multiplier of good commo, or a mission capable aircraft, either of which will result in far more enemy casulties than her with a rifle.  It's just the way modern warfare is.  The Army won't foot the bill for the cost of training better in marksmanship, and also maintianing it's readiness in other fields.  Everytime she goes to the range, she's not running that commo rig, or fixing that aircraft, and that costs the Army money and readiness.  

The reality of Army small arms training is that it's a training distractor that takes personel away from their primary duities.  Going to the range is the same as cutting grass, or picking-up trash.  It keeps soldiers from "doing their job".  Yeah, I think they should shoot, but I never really had a say in DA policy.

Ross