NPRC

Unique operational & safety benefits of the Patrol Rifle® Holster

I am a nobody in the grand scheme of things. So I get it if your skeptical about changing your agencies patrol rifle car carry condition based on my opinion and experience. However, Bill Rogers is a shooting legend and this is what he says:

"The single greatest malfunction we have is failure to properly load the rifle."

Bills talking about the training environment. The safe training environment where everyone knows they are going home after the day is done, and yet properly loading the rifle is still problematic. Now take that known problem and add an incredible amount of real life stress that happens in a split second on the street, and ask yourself if that's a risk your willing to take with your officers lives by making them deploy using the traditional car carry condition (cold chamber, on safe, loaded mag inserted).

Please at least consider changing your agencies patrol rifle car carry condition to the "ready condition (hot and on safe)".

Jeff Felts

Make Ready with Bill Rogers: Reactive Carbine Shooting We take you to the Rogers Shooting School in Ellijay, GA for a one-on-one private training session with Bill Rogers. Bill is a former FBI Agent and inventor ...

AFTER ACTION REPORT

Patrol rifle CAR CARRY CARNAGE continues in earnest at the 2023 NPRC two weeks ago.

This year’s event was small. Only 54 shooters (11 citizens and 41 cops) so I think the numbers of times that I personally saw competitors forget to charge their rifle or short stroke the charging handle under nothing more than the stress of competition and really bad weather was frightening. Moreover, the competitors each received an event program outlining the COF’s. Then they were briefed three separate times, the same way each time, and told they would need to set their rifle up in the traditional car carry condition (empty chamber, on safe, loaded mag inserted). They all did well in setting up the carry car condition for three COF’s. They KNEW they would have to charge their rifles, just like they do on the street, to shoot three of the COFs. They KNEW and still managed to mess up this simple task.

At the morning briefing I explained to the competitors why CMI is now presenting a second option for patrol rifle car carry called the ready condition (loaded, hot and safe). I shared the contents of the attached article with the shooters and asked them to watch how many times today they see their peers forget to charge their rifle or short stroke it while under the stress of nothing more than training... So, they watched and as I walked around to the various ranges, I had at least a half dozen shooters tell me in amazement they had witnessed one or more of their peers forget to charge the rifle or short stroke the charging handle. I personally witnessed four officers (not citizens) do it myself, even though I was very busy running the competition. So, the ones I caught occurred just as I happened to be looking in that direction. I wish I could have had somebody keeping a tally on how many times it happened throughout the day. Maybe next year…

Click here for a link to the event program which contains the COFs. https://centermassinc.com/past-champions-scores

It’s real folks.

Respectfully,
Jeff Felts

Center Mass Inc Retail Sales & Services

The coming holidays create an incredible amount of stress on our 1st responders and definitive care professionals. I wrote this piece in 2016 to try and help citizens grasp the constant inundation of horror that you see and must deal with as you try to live a so called, normal life. It’s also for you 1st responder / definitive care pro. Please don’t forget about taking care of yourself so you can lead as normal of a life as possible. It’s ok to ask for help when you need it.

Jeff Felts
Center Mass, Inc.

HOW COULD BARNEY FIFE EVER HAVE PTSD?

By Jeff Felts, March 2016 (written for a civilian audience)

When you go to work today, what are the chances that you will encounter the death of another person? In most cases this proposition is pretty farfetched, so let’s take it down a notch. What are the odds that you will encounter another person or a child who has been maimed or dismembered?

The odds for most people encountering either scenario, a single time during an entire career, are extremely remote. However, if it has happened to you, or if it eventually does happen to you, it will be an event that you will never forget. In fact, that single experience may haunt you for the rest of your life.

Now, can you imagine facing these horrible realities on a regular basis for an entire career? For most people the answer is no way! Why would anyone do that? And when you ask them to associate a profession to this sort of constant traumatic stress, inevitably and rightfully, they align their expression with the horrors that our military personal and veterans experience during their combat tours.

I for one certainly agree with them, but there is one problem with that answer. The question included the words “regular basis for an entire career”. This is where a disconnect exists not only for our citizens, but more importantly in my opinion, for our public servants as they don’t reconcile with themselves that they can never “un-see”, “un-hear”, “un-touch” or “un-smell” 25 years’ worth of never-ending, compounding, death and mayhem. With each death they encounter, the memories compound and they never go away. This is evidenced in part by alcohol abuse, attempts to use humor to cope, su***de and sometimes completely anti-social behavior, just to name a few symptoms.

Your firefighters, nurses, doctors and cops work every day in a world filled with death, dismemberment and chaos right here in good old Podunk, U.S.A. Unlike their military counterparts, your public servants’ tour of duty is not limited to relatively short increments of time in the combat zone. The public servants’ tour of duty never ends until retirement. It starts the day they are sworn in and from that day forward, they are barraged with death and dismemberment for the next 25-30 years with absolutely no breaks in between. In the case of your cops, they also have to deal with having a job where many people flat out hate them. Every month, sometimes multiple times, their peers are murdered somewhere in the good old safe zone known as the U.S.A. These factors justifiably lead to the fear that rests in the back of every cop’s mind of never knowing when, where or how they are going to get physically attacked, multiple times throughout their career. Yet somehow, they are expected by everyone in society to magically compartmentalize their fears and horrible experiences, and man-up!

Every day throughout our great nation the Grim Reaper does his job thousands of times and his appetite never stops. When he takes his victims, whether it’s naturally, by overdose, su***de, accident or murder, your public servants go into action to try and save a life or determine how the life ended.

So how hard can it be for Barney Fife in Perfectville, U.S.A.? Let’s do a little math by saying Officer Fife responds to at least one death investigation a month (natural, O.D., su***de, accident, or murder) and two personal injury accidents where people are horribly disfigured. This would be a pretty slow jurisdiction by any cop’s standards. In a 25-year career, Officer Fife would have responded to the scenes of at least 300 dead human bodies and at least 600 seriously maimed citizens (including children) at accident scenes. With every image, touch and smell, comes a memory that Officer Fife must deal with. Remember, Fife is not Superman; he’s a person just like you, but he somehow has to compartmentalize his emotions so he can continue do his job and maintain “normal” relationships with his family and friends, as if he has never experienced the Grim Reaper’s work.

The average citizen has no way of knowing what Fife has seen or done. What they know is how Hollywood portrays cops dealing with death predominately at murder scenes where tough homicide detectives never have a problem dealing with it. Conversely, every citizen understands and supports the efforts we all put forth in helping our combat veterans suffering with post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) as they served our country during a time of war. Therefore, they generally have a very hard time understanding why a guy like Officer Fife, who works as a patrolman in Perfectville, U.S.A., could ever have PTSD. They associate PTSD with combat veterans or public servants working in major metropolitan organizations, but not the Fifes of their respective professions.

More importantly, the Fifes of the world themselves often don’t recognize that they need help for many of the reasons that the citizens do, until it’s too late and they have done something to physically hurt themselves, committed su***de or irreparably damaged their careers and reputations.

I hope this article has enlightened you to the never-ending realities that all of your public servants’ face on a daily basis. They need your support more than most will ever share.

Respectfully,

Officer Jeff Felts (ret.)

To: All shooters
From: Jeff Felts
Re: Thank you for being part of this year’s event!

Congrats to the 2023 NPRC winner Ofc. John Bear of the Adrian PD (MI) and the 1st winner of the NPRC OPEN, Curtis Hargitt.

The conditions on Saturday were atrocious with a monsoon of rain all day long and a constant 10-20mph wind with temperatures in the 50’s. It was remarkable to watch all the competitors with positive attitudes having fun and enjoying the day.

The COFs were very difficult this year. The average shooting distance this year was a whooping 16 yards, but don’t let that fool you, they were very tough. As a result, John Bear is the first shooter to win using a non-magnified optic in 15 years. He had a total of 2,245 points. His closest competitor had 2,068 points.

On the citizen side, the NPRC OPEN, Curtis Hargitt won with 1,700 points. His closest competitor had 1,304 points. In the NPRC OPEN the citizens shoot the same COFs as the cops. I must tell you; this was incredible to watch as the intent of bringing citizens together with their LEO’s to train and prepare all the stake holders in a community’s response to violence could not have worked out more perfectly. It was clear that the shooters were bonding, learning from each other and most of all, having fun.

For scores and to view the event program containing the COF’s, click this link https://centermassinc.com/past-champions-scores

Thank you to all the shooters, to our Premier Sponsor ATEI, to Daniel Defense for the rifles you donated to the Chudwin Award Recipients, to all our other sponsors, vendors, supporters, friends, Advisory board members, volunteers, staff and our hosts, Multi-Lakes Conservation Association, the Ohio, Illinois, Georgia, and Michigan Tactical Officers Associations, Americansnipers.org and the Oakland County Sheriffs Office.

Mark your calendar now for next year’s NPRC & NPRC OPEN on October 19, 2024. Get registered early!

Also, please remember to submit any patrol rifle shootings to the Patrol Rifle Survey so we can gather data and potentially share with you next year what actual engagements look like from a statistical perspective. https://centermassinc.com/patrol-rifle-utilization-survey

Finally, please remember to recognize and nominate your peers for the Chudwin Award throughout the year. https://centermassinc.com/the-chudwin-award

I hope to see you all back next year and wish you all the very best until then.

Respectfully,
Jeff Felts
NPRC Chairman

Go risk your life officer, and let me handicap you while your at it... That's the way I feel about the LE professions patrol rifle car carry method. I've been wanting to change this for 20 years and I'm finally going to try and influence others to try a different method. I hope the attached article at least opens debate on the subject at your agency. Thank you for reading it.

Jeff

PATROL RIFLE CAR CARRY CONDITION
Is there a different or better way?

As one of the old guys who helped influence LEO’s in the Midwest when the profession transitioned from the shotgun to the patrol rifle, I can tell you that it was a tough fight that took years to win. A concession that we collectively made back then was to adopt the shotguns car carry condition, mainly because we were afraid of negligent discharges (NDs) and it made the transition training a bit easier. Another reason was because quality, lockable, in-car patrol rifle racks were not widely available back then, and finally, there was concern that a rifle may discharge in a crash, which we now know is highly unlikely. Therefore, the patrol rifle’s equivalent car carry condition meant that the rifle’s bolt was closed on a cold chamber (empty), the safety selector on safe, and a fully loaded magazine was inserted. This requires the patrol officer to properly charge the rifle upon its deployment. However, when stress is induced both in training and on the street, this simple task has proven on occasion to be forgotten or done improperly (generally a short stroke) causing the rifle not to load and putting officers and citizens’ lives in great danger.

Center Mass, Inc., started teaching patrol rifle instructor schools in 1997, and we were advocates of the aforementioned car carry condition. Our instructors wrote a white paper called “Patrol Rifle Training, Equipment and Policy Considerations.” We donated that work to the National Tactical Officers Association who published it in 2002 and it was utilized for years as a resource to help agencies across the nation in transitioning to the patrol rifle.

Center Mass, Inc., will now begin presenting a second car carry option for agencies that field scout cars with lockable rifle racks. This option is called the ready condition, whereby the patrol rifle is deployed with a round in the chamber and the selector lever on safe. The patrol rifle is then locked in the scout cars rifle rack. This allows the rifle to be properly loaded and press checked in a safe environment, prior to a shift, just as we do with our duty pistols.
Why? Do your officers carry their handguns on the street without a round in the chamber? Of course not. If they did, do you think they would remember to charge the pistol and do it properly as they rolled up to violent scenes? As a profession, we know that would not be good policy as it would unnecessarily jeopardize our officers’ lives. Therefore, we require pistols to be charged for duty and trust in our officers training and judgment to be safe with their pistols on the street, and before and after every shift.
Why then should the patrol rifle be any different? Moreover, most American LEO’s carry semi-auto pistols with no safety. Yes, it’s true that when the pistol is holstered its trigger is covered, but when the pistol is drawn the officer becomes the pistol’s only safety mechanism and everyone accepts that as best practice. It seems the patrol rifle is viewed differently, even though it has a mechanical safety switch, which makes it impossible to fire when it’s engaged. It can be argued that this mechanical safety feature makes the patrol rifle far safer for officers to deploy than their pistol. Yet, we make our officers hit the street with unloaded rifles.
Could we not view the scout cars locked rifle rack the same as a pistols holster? Yes, the rifle’s trigger is exposed in many rifle racks and the safety could inadvertently get moved from safe to semi, and in a perfect storm, something could inadvertently get within the trigger guard and depress the trigger causing a discharge. Yes, that could happen, but what will never happen again is an officer deploying on a violent scene with an unloaded rifle.

I have witnessed my peers, students and competitive shooters forget to charge the rifle or short stroke the charging handle under stress countless times in the last 40 years. I have designed and conducted many courses of fire for my agency, at the schools my company runs and at the National Patrol Rifle Championships that specifically and repeatedly force the shooter to remember to charge the rifle. I find myself watching in consistent amazement how often this simple task causes officers problems.

Therein lies the problem. We know this happens in training and on the street. So, let’s assume you poll your officers, and they tell you they have never forgotten to charge the rifle or accidentally short stroked it in training or on the street. Well then, I would say carry on smartly with your traditional car carry condition as you obviously don’t have this problem. However, what if they tell you that this has happened? Are you going to provide more well intended training as the corrective action? Or might you consider taking a more decisive action to solve the problem once and for all, so the only thing your officers must do while under any sort of stress is go hunting, make positive ID, move the selector switch from safe to semi, and not miss? If it was me making the decision and I was not sure how to proceed, I might consider a test run with my most experienced rifle armed officers first to see how it goes. If it’s a success after some time, then I’d be more comfortable with expanding the practice. And if the practice brings no added value, I could go back to the traditional method and know that I at least tried a new approach.

I don’t believe that this is just an officer training issue as we have collectively hammered home the absolute importance of properly charging the rifle with countless reps and all kinds of various stimuli to try and create stress inoculation. We’ve had nearly 30 years to fix it and this recurring problem still exists. In fact, this training starts at the academy, carries on throughout the officer’s career at in-service training and we even send some officers to special high speed patrol rifle schools, but the problem persists, even amongst our most proficient patrol rifle armed officers.

I do believe our profession’s priorities might be upside down as it seems that we are more fearful of a negligent discharge (ND) with a patrol rifle, rather than ensuring that our officers are 100% ready to protect themselves and the citizens they serve by having loaded rifles. Speaking of priorities, just take a look at how many holes are in every single PD’s walls, ceilings, lockers and floors from pistol ND’s, yet we still mandate that pistols are made hot when you hit the street. What’s the difference? Will there be more patrol rifle ND’s if you allow loaded rifles? Perhaps, but administrative loading and unloading the patrol rifle is 100% a training issue that can be mitigated by you as it has nothing to do with the stress associated with the violence officers encounter on the street, because that stress does not exist before and after a shift. I hate to make this comparison as the police are not the military, but we should learn from any source possible. For example, when our armed forces leave a base to go on a mounted (in a vehicle) patrol, they often have no idea if they will end up in a gun fight (just like a cop here in the good old safe USA). The only difference is the armed forces have loaded rifles at the ready. In fact, the armed forces even allow 18-year-olds to carry loaded M-4’s (patrol rifles) in vehicles that don’t have lockable rifle racks. Why is that? Because the services have just a bit of experience in knowing how conditions can change in a split second from serene, to full-on combat. As a former Army Drill Sergeant (guy who trained new solders) I can tell you with the utmost confidence that those 18-year-old boots have nowhere near the gun handling experience that your cops have. Yet we send our experienced, educated, degree holding cops on the street with unloaded rifles every day, because we are more afraid of them having a negligent discharge, rather than increasing their odds of winning a gun fight. In short, we need to be committed to giving our officers the best possible chance for survival as we ask them to risk their lives.

If the label of failure must be attached, then that failure starts with guys like me who have not stood up and pushed back on the status quo, or at least brought the subject up for debate, even though we have known the problems associated with the currently accepted car carry condition exist. A personal experience happened to me in the fall of 2014. I was working my last few shifts before I retired. I literally drove around with blinders on so I wouldn’t get into anything, but in typical Jeff Felts style, I drove right into two groups who were gun fighting each other. At that point I was 49 years old and had been using and training with a patrol rifle for over 30 years. Countless hours as a soldier, cop and SWAT cop, let alone with my company and the NPRC. Guess what Mr. Patrol Rifle himself did as I bailed out of the scout car? I unknowingly short stroked the charging handle of my agency issued pool gun as I took off chasing the suspects up the stairwell of a Section 8 housing complex to the 4th floor. After the arrests, I realized my rifle was not charged and that I had unknowingly risked my life and that of the other cops who came to back me up. I didn’t tell anyone as I was extremely embarrassed. However, I did diagnose what likely happened and guess what, I’ve seen the same thing happen in training many times before. When I pulled the charging handle back it angled downward and stopped at the front of the collapsible stock leading me to believe under stress, that my rifle was charged. Why didn’t you look at the charging handle to ensure it was done properly, Jeff? Well, on the street things can get very dynamic in a split second and you must keep your eyes on the threat so you can respond appropriately and in a timely fashion. Ergo the street is not the sterile flat range, nor can we recreate every dynamic scenario our officers will encounter in the training environment.

As the founder of the NPRC, I receive the various nominations for the Chief Jeff Chudwin Patrol Rifle Excellence Award. I have received nominations over the years where the nominee has had a malfunction, and one whereby the nominee unknowingly short stroked his charging handle (verified by body cam) while under the most extreme stress imaginable and then came face to face with a killer. Ever sense I learned of that incident I have felt a sense of culpability because if I had stood up earlier and advocated to change this practice, there’s a chance this nominee would have never been in that situation. Today I am standing up in the hope that it will help inspire others to at least consider changing their patrol rifle car carry policy and training in the name of officer safety and survivability.

Please consider simplifying your officers’ job and increasing their survivability by allowing them to properly load their patrol rifles in a safe and sterile environment before the start of a shift. Take the time to hammer home proper administrative patrol rifle loading, press checking and unloading in the training environment. Then trust your officers with their loaded patrol rifles just as you trust them with their loaded pistols. By doing this, if they should need to take a shot, they will have confidence the rifle is properly loaded and the odds of hearing the dreaded metallic click are greatly reduced.

Respectfully,
Jeffrey G. Felts
Center Mass, Inc.
[email protected]

For the first time in NPRC history we have two recipients of the coveted Chief Jeff Chudwin Award for Patrol Rifle Excellence! Congratulations to Deputies Brian Zelakiewicz & David Mayer of the Oakland County Sheriff’s Office, Michigan. These two deserving heroes responded with poise, overcame unexpected, split second, adversity and improvised amazingly to stop a homicidal maniac saving the lives of an innocent women and her children. To read the full citation click herehttps://centermassinc.coreware.com/cache/file-f0d29434ecf7f341dcb95c204780c5b4.pdf

Want to test your agencies training program against that of your peers? Want to diagnose your strengths and weaknesses? How else could you do this short of the real gun fight... Send a couple of your officers and I promise they will bring back invaluable information for your agency. For more info click this link https://centermassinc.com/nprc-and-naaac

5 weeks! Get signed up ASAP to ensure you get a slot. https://centermassinc.com/nprc-and-naaac