My cousin is retiring from the AF and moved back home to AR.
He asked about getting a CHL and foregoing the class and using his military quals in lieu of that.

I looked in the regs and found §5-73-320 which may be saying that but not certain.

Anyone have experience with this?

He still has to take the class, he would just be exempt from the live fire portion.  Quite frankly, it's not really worth it. He'd be better served to just take the full class.  If he uses his military pistol qualification, his CHCL will only be valid for the duration of his military issued ID card.  Almost everyone is better off just shooting with the CHCL class and getting the full five years that you get with a traditional CHCL qualification.

If I read this right, this exception is only for active duty, and does not apply to retired.

Also, it says, "may issue", which is different from the mainline process, which is "shall issue."

I understand where he's coming from--retired AF here--you'd like for your training to be recognized.  But I would just do the civilian class, because the .mil M9 qual is just for 2 year currency, anyway.  I don't think he'd save much $$ in the end.  Opinion only.

Ok I got ya.  He's technically still active until early March I believe.

I was gonna recommend the class as the laws and stuff here are different than Colorado.
Thanks for the responses guys.