In Ontario the policy is that the only thing the examiner is allowed to tell you during the practical test is where a specific control is in response to a query about its location - not how it works or how to handle a firearm safely. We've had instructors decertified for cheating in the testing and thousands of people have had to redo their tests as a result. The practical test isn't hard if you're competent. Some of the people on the forum who talk about how it's impossible to fail may have had been tested by someone who will pass anyone who doesn't stick a muzzle in the examiner's face.
Practical Test - don't know where to post this
- Thread starter bobusboy
- Start date
Tactical Trunk Monkey
Regular
- Location
- Deep South
I was in the same boat, read both non-restricted and restricted books, challenged both exams I was out of there in 30 minutes. Easy stuff bud.
Tried to explain ACTS and PROVE to somebody who was wanting to get into shooting the other day, realized I had forgotten the specific wording for each. Had to leave him with don't be a dumba-s around firearms for that little lesson........Made me sad.
Also NR is friggin easy.
Also NR is friggin easy.
OccasionallyOnTarget
CGN frequent flyer
- Location
- Burnaby, BC
Really, there is no way you should fail. Myself with limited handling experience several years earlier got 98% on the practical and my GF with zero lifetime firearms experience got 100%.
I was relearning acts and prove the other day. I try to forget that stuff as fast as possible, it is pretty stupid. The acronyms represent things of imaginary importance, and they don't even parallel the key words so it is more confusing than helpful:
A- Assume, that is always a stupid thing to do. Also, they don't really mean it anyway. Under the 4 rules system they actually mean all guns are always loaded. By the Northern Bureaucrat system only believes it for two more letter, until it gets to the PROVE nonsense.
C- Control - the real thing here is the muzzle with an M. There are several things one controls.
T- OK trigger isn't all that bad, though anyone with a clue knows that if you want someone not to touch a trigger with a finger, you don't emphasize the trigger part. The focus is on the finger.
S- "See" is a weak verb, and not related to the idea of PROOVE. and on it goes...
Your problem as a presumably competent person is to master the nonsense long enough to get out of there.
Speaking seriously, the Canadian system is essentially designed for people who don't use guns, but play with them. It is about static stuff, conceptually, of course one has to cram the basics in there also. The US 4 rules system, and potentially the military system, are built on the idea a person might not just be transporting arms, storing, picking them up for the first time with no knowledge of them, etc... It presumes self-defence, hunting, police, or military. So that environment needs to be real. No BS experts sitting around a table making up rules so the system is complicated. It presumes probably a minimal number of gun types and ammo types. Not a lot of stupid rules on transporting. Not a lot of BS sessions with guys passing their guns around to everyone else to see the latest shiny thing. Not a lot of idiotic rules for crossing fences. 99% of real gun safety comes down to just not pointing the gun at anything you aren't willing to destroy, that is pretty much it. .
So yeah, you need to forget the sensible stuff and memorize and visualize the purpose of the stuff that will be on the exam. The system makes sense once you realize it is mostly created by people who don't shoot, for people who don't shoot. But when they do shoot they draw attention to themselves by: Blowing themselves up by dropping extra shells into their shotguns; shooting each other crossing fences.
The one place where I do see difficulty with different types of gun is the making sure the barrel is clear stuff. How do you do that with a colt saa? A lever 22? A pump shotgun. Lining the barrel up with your eyeball is apparently not always the right answer... The first 4 parts of PROVE are pretty obvious:
Point the firearm in the safest available direction.
Remove all cartridges.
Observe the chamber.
Verify the feeding path.
Anyone who saw a cowboy movie could do that with a SAA, but the examine the bore part is tricky, particularly if you exclude methods that would not be practical when done 100 times an hour as the rules elaborate, and given that it begs to get you in line with the bore somehow. If you use a rod for instance, you will almost certainly be pointing the gun at a body part, and you will not really be examining the bore, just ensuring nothing the size of a marble is lodged in there. Of course, with some guns like doubles, it is easy.
(I looked at some silvercore videos on youtube, and the guy clearly did not point the gun in the safest direction possible, and he pointed the gun at his hand several times while still possibly loaded, in both the SA video, and the 1911 video. In the SA video he does not unload it, it is already unloaded. It would have been fun to see, because he would have probably pointed the gun some degrees away from the required direction in order to drop the cases. In fact he did that to chamber check it also, by pointing it down. It all looked professional enough, just hard to stay within the lines)
A- Assume, that is always a stupid thing to do. Also, they don't really mean it anyway. Under the 4 rules system they actually mean all guns are always loaded. By the Northern Bureaucrat system only believes it for two more letter, until it gets to the PROVE nonsense.
C- Control - the real thing here is the muzzle with an M. There are several things one controls.
T- OK trigger isn't all that bad, though anyone with a clue knows that if you want someone not to touch a trigger with a finger, you don't emphasize the trigger part. The focus is on the finger.
S- "See" is a weak verb, and not related to the idea of PROOVE. and on it goes...
Your problem as a presumably competent person is to master the nonsense long enough to get out of there.
Speaking seriously, the Canadian system is essentially designed for people who don't use guns, but play with them. It is about static stuff, conceptually, of course one has to cram the basics in there also. The US 4 rules system, and potentially the military system, are built on the idea a person might not just be transporting arms, storing, picking them up for the first time with no knowledge of them, etc... It presumes self-defence, hunting, police, or military. So that environment needs to be real. No BS experts sitting around a table making up rules so the system is complicated. It presumes probably a minimal number of gun types and ammo types. Not a lot of stupid rules on transporting. Not a lot of BS sessions with guys passing their guns around to everyone else to see the latest shiny thing. Not a lot of idiotic rules for crossing fences. 99% of real gun safety comes down to just not pointing the gun at anything you aren't willing to destroy, that is pretty much it. .
So yeah, you need to forget the sensible stuff and memorize and visualize the purpose of the stuff that will be on the exam. The system makes sense once you realize it is mostly created by people who don't shoot, for people who don't shoot. But when they do shoot they draw attention to themselves by: Blowing themselves up by dropping extra shells into their shotguns; shooting each other crossing fences.
The one place where I do see difficulty with different types of gun is the making sure the barrel is clear stuff. How do you do that with a colt saa? A lever 22? A pump shotgun. Lining the barrel up with your eyeball is apparently not always the right answer... The first 4 parts of PROVE are pretty obvious:
Point the firearm in the safest available direction.
Remove all cartridges.
Observe the chamber.
Verify the feeding path.
Anyone who saw a cowboy movie could do that with a SAA, but the examine the bore part is tricky, particularly if you exclude methods that would not be practical when done 100 times an hour as the rules elaborate, and given that it begs to get you in line with the bore somehow. If you use a rod for instance, you will almost certainly be pointing the gun at a body part, and you will not really be examining the bore, just ensuring nothing the size of a marble is lodged in there. Of course, with some guns like doubles, it is easy.
(I looked at some silvercore videos on youtube, and the guy clearly did not point the gun in the safest direction possible, and he pointed the gun at his hand several times while still possibly loaded, in both the SA video, and the 1911 video. In the SA video he does not unload it, it is already unloaded. It would have been fun to see, because he would have probably pointed the gun some degrees away from the required direction in order to drop the cases. In fact he did that to chamber check it also, by pointing it down. It all looked professional enough, just hard to stay within the lines)
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Seriously, congrats, but I think it is easier to do if you can actually buy into it, and don't have the clutter of actual safe handling behaviour in your head.
In the course we teach you the right way to toss the cleaning rod and catch it in the bore without endangering fingertips.
I haven't heard of an instructor so loony as to fail someone for following the instructions to put a cleaning rod down the bore from the muzzle, while holding the rod.
Most folks here probably don't remember how controversial having people look down bores from the muzzle end was in the Canadian shooting community was when PROVE was first introduced 20 years ago. I've had a student who did great in the courses go on to look down the muzzle as the first step after a misfire when on a range with his first rifle. Someone is going to eventually blow their brains out having a brain fart and doing EPROV.
pretty much everything has been covered. just:
-be able to identify the types of actions
-know how to prove them safe
-match ammo to the gun
-navigate around obstacles (usually this is done with a breach because of how fast it is to prove safe)
-obvious trigger and muzzle direction stuff
-one thing that MAY be on the test is stuff on different types of bullets (eg. boat tail, hollow point, soft point, FMJ, AP, etc.)
-different shooting positions and how to get into them.
if you know the books the written is cake, and as i said just know the stuff above for the practical.
-be able to identify the types of actions
-know how to prove them safe
-match ammo to the gun
-navigate around obstacles (usually this is done with a breach because of how fast it is to prove safe)
-obvious trigger and muzzle direction stuff
-one thing that MAY be on the test is stuff on different types of bullets (eg. boat tail, hollow point, soft point, FMJ, AP, etc.)
-different shooting positions and how to get into them.
if you know the books the written is cake, and as i said just know the stuff above for the practical.
In the course we teach you the right way to toss the cleaning rod and catch it in the bore without endangering fingertips.
I haven't heard of an instructor so loony as to fail someone for following the instructions to put a cleaning rod down the bore from the muzzle, while holding the rod.
Most folks here probably don't remember how controversial having people look down bores from the muzzle end was in the Canadian shooting community was when PROVE was first introduced 20 years ago. I've had a student who did great in the courses go on to look down the muzzle as the first step after a misfire when on a range with his first rifle. Someone is going to eventually blow their brains out having a brain fart and doing EPROV.
Interesting. I'm sure anyone taking your course is probably pretty well covered. My thing as a guy who has challenged these tests is that part was counter intuitive and an easy place to make a mistake. I'm sure glad your student didn't get hurt in the incident you describe. I think the firearms companies should consider some Canadian only models, that like my black powder guns have a cleaning rod under the barrel, just so we can all stay safe out there
About half of my students have no prior firearms experience. I cover the course material thoroughly and set up the gun handling so that every student handles each gun type six times during the CFSC, sometimes more with the CRFSC, which seems to be be more than with some other instructors. Usually the only students from the courses who fail the written tests are those who have poor English comprehension or have learning disabilities. The fail rate on my CFSC practical tests is about 0.5-1% - usually when someone is moving around with a gun and lets it point at the examiner. The fail rate is higher with the CRFSC because it is so easy to sweep yourself with the muzzle and get an automatic fail.
