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Others said about one in five qualify as expert.

That's about right. The news that qualifying "expert" is somehow a gimme would come as a surprise to a great many soldiers seeking additional promotion points, or the Expert Infantry Badge. 36 of 40 is tough, and usually requires many trips to the range and several hundred rounds.

The DC shooter wasn't a "sniper" - but he was a competent marskman. Every "expert" that climbs on the "my grandma can shoot better" bandwagon is doing a disservice to the training profession.

If it's that easy, we certainly don't need "experts" to train our soldiers or police, they can get all the training they need from reading Soldier Of Fortune.

This article is cr*p.

>>36 of 40 is tough, and usually requires many trips to the range and several hundred rounds.

You obviously don't go to the range with the kind of people I do. That bunch will go through a few thousand on a good *day* at the range (single trip).

A thousand rounds of milsurp .223 is only a couple hundred bucks. That's very little for the gov't to spend, and a few range trips are an awfully small price to pay in time, for someone who makes their living as a soldier.

For professional soldiers in combat arms MOS's, the level of shooting ability to obtain an expert badge should be damn near a requirement. Or at least for anyone close to infantry.

The last time I qualified, in the spring of 1991, I hit 40 for 40 at Fort Benning. 20 were from the foxhole supported and 20 from the prone position, UNsupported. Meaning you had to balance on your elbows as your bipod. That includes four or five targets at 300 meters. Some ranges have clearly visiable targets and others have targets that are blended into the background somewhat. That day, my 300 targets were blended in. I could see the berm behind where the target was suppose to be, but mostly it was a black spot in the middle of the berm. I fired at the black spot and hit them all. The clouds coming and going caused shadows also. Wind, your breathing, your positioning, all fall into it. But, I never qualified less than expert on any range I ever fired the M16 or M14 on. Does that make me Sergeant York? Probably not, but I can still hit what I shoot at. So, whether his Army training made this guy an "expert" or not may or may not matter. It is the duty of every soldier to shoot expert. You want to do your best. Plus, on most promotion score sheets, you get more promotion points for your level of rifle marksmanship. So, why not get all the points you can when going up for E5 or E6? Plus, I just love to shoot. Period.

In fact, the very range down in Tacoma, Bullseye, which the feds are all over right now about the same of the AR15, is where my wife and I go to shoot our pistols right now. They have a very good indoor range.

I was a tanker. Our personal weapon was M1911A .45 cal pistol. the ones we had were old used up pieces of junk. The slides would rattle when you shook the pistol!

The only people that didn't qualify as expert were losers. It was simple. Shooting an M-16 (which we did for familiarization ) was easy too. We had a good old boy sargeant that could hit a plate at 400 yards while in a standing position.