Looking for assistance in doing Pal and RPal

chef-ryan

chef-ryan

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Mckellar, Ontario
Hello ladies and gents, I am looking for some help, I am currently studying the safety course guides and was wondering in anyone in the parry sound area would be willing to help me with know the practical portion. Since i work most weekends it makes it hard to do the courses, so i intend to just challenge the exam.
 
I just finished my PAL course on Nov 6. The practical is pretty easy and it may differ between instructors. For my practical, I was first asked to locate certain cartridges from a bowl, ex. "find me a 3" shotgun shell" or "what type of cartridge is this?". Next I had to flip 3 cards indicating the 3 types of actions that I would be working with. They will setup a scenario by indicating safe pointing directions and tell you to either cross a fence or assume a certain shooting position. The only thing you have to know is basically your ACTS and PROVE. It is mostly common sense and you should not have a problem if you have read through the material on the manual. Get used to the firearms used for the practical especially if you have not handled firearms and you should be good. I hope that gives you an idea of how it will go!
 
I recently passed both. What I found that really helped was to stay calm, slow down and think before doing anything. The test is doing it right, not doing it fast.

Hope this helps.
 
I would recomend taking the course first. They teach you everthing you need to know. I also had trouble with the weekend schedule thing. Look around and find weekday courses. I know York Region offers weekday courses.
 
the downside is york region is 3 hour drive from me .. but apparently i might have a local contact who has his restricted and would be able to show me what i need to know, sometimes its who you know not what you know .. lol
 
Get a hold of a local firing range and see if they can recommend any of their members who might be willing to let you handle one or two of their unloaded hand guns.

Actually, I found the handgun portion of the practical test easier than the long gun portion.
 
You'll have to find someone who has ALL of the actions to familiarize with
-- revolver
-- semiautomatic pistol
-- pump shotgun
-- break action shotgun
-- semiautomatic shotgun
-- bolt rifle
-- lever rifle
-- semiautomatic rifle

If you are stuck there is also YouTube.

I recommend taking the course because the same firearms you are tested on are the ones you get to practice with. I'll put it this way, I passed the RPAL but nearly a year has come and gone before I actually acquired a handgun and right out of the box I struggled with proving this handgun I had no familiarity with. The safety, slide release, lock open button might be different from the one you practised with to the one you are tested on. The cost between challenging and taking the course is not that much and the course is very interesting and you can get the dumb questions out of the way in a class environment instead of at the range.
 
I'd never handled a real handgun before the course, and while I have lots of non-PAL airgun experience (pistol and rifle) it was not a substitute for handling the actual thing.

It's one weekend, your boss/company will survive without you for one weekend. It was also good because the instructors have seen you for 2 days handling firearms and talking the theory. So if you have a weak spot, you know before you're put in front of the testers.
 
They know what you're asking. I doubt anybody online is going to say, "Sure, I have guns at my home - come to my home, guy I met on the Internet!" Ask at local clubs or local instructors if they'll walk you through the practical. Its easy money for them - quick $40/test for the challenge and say $25/50 for the practice round. All with no expense for them.

I challenged the courses successfully, but I had a good setup:

I didn't want to wait until the next course I could register for (+2 months) so the instructor gave me the name of one of his buddies who supplies the guns for the course. I met the buddy and he guided me through the practical tasks as we practiced with real guns.

The following day I met the instructor at his home, wrote the test and then did the practical portion on the very same guns I practiced with the day before.

As mentioned, you'll have to do a bunch of things: ID cartridges (e.g. show me a 3" shotgun shell, show me a slug, show me a .45, show me a semi-jacketed round, etc.).

Once you do that, you pick up the gun he tells you to (e.g. pick up the pump action shotgun) and prove it safe, including putting the safety on. Then he'll tell you to load two rounds, and chamber one of the rounds. Then clear the firearm.

Lather rinse repeat for a few of the other firearms, but for some of them, you will need to demonstrate a shooting position (e.g. the kneeling position, or the one handed stance for handguns, etc.). Then he'll ask you to pretend you are crossing a fence while hunting, so you clear your firearm, push it under the fence, cross the fence, then prove it again.

Then you're on a range, where someone calls a cease-fire. Stop shooting, make your gun safe, step behind the safe line.

After that, you're done shooting at said range, so now you have to make your gun legal for storage/transport in a case, including the "ATT" and locking the case...

For me, the hardest thing was to maintain muzzle control of the handgun during the lock-up stage.

Short of pointing the firearms at your instructor (auto-fail), it's actually fairly difficult to fail.

g'luck

P
 
thanks PUbb i was kinda looking for that, I was hoping some people on here are examiners and might know people in my neck of the woods i dont expect a stranger to let me into their home, i might also have a lead with a friend of my boss who owns many different styles of guns including a couple handguns. If not i might even contact some of the stores that also offer courses. I have done a bunch of digging plus e-mailing gun clubs within an hours drive of me, posting here was just one of many lines i was tossing in the pond, if you dont ask you never know.
 
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