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Iron SightsAuthor: Iron Sights
Welcome to Iron Sights podcast hosted by Scott Howell. This podcast candidly seeks to create opportunities and deliver impact by sharing the experiences and wisdom of successful entrepreneurs and thought leaders who unapologetically aim to WIN in health, fitness, business, and life. Welcome to old school meets new school, tradition meets innovation, and imperfection meets excellence. Thanks for listening and enjoy the show. Language: en-us Genres: Business, Entrepreneurship, Fitness, Health & Fitness Contact email: Get it Feed URL: Get it iTunes ID: Get it Trailer: |
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#219 After Dark: How One Line-Level Officer Rewrote the Qualification and is Shifting His Whole Agency's Shooting Culture with The 9mm Musashi
Friday, 30 October, 2026
You've heard the complaint a thousand times: law enforcement qualifications are a joke. A static firing line, a generous time window, a pass or fail check mark, and everyone goes home. Nothing changes. Nobody improves. Nobody cares. So what actually moves the needle? Joey, an ISP repeat offender guest and the host of the Sketchy Boyz Watch Club podcast, sits back down at the Iron Sights table to walk through exactly what he did at his agency to change that, and the answer is smaller and smarter than you'd expect.The core tweak: Joey took the same yard lines, the same round count, and the same generous time window his agency had been using for decades, and added one thing. A number. Hit factor. That single change, borrowed straight from the USPSA world and dropped into a law enforcement qualification, transformed a checkbox administrative task into something officers are talking about in the locker room, texting each other about, and quietly trying to top on their own time. This episode breaks down exactly how he built the case, wrote the memo, navigated the chain of command, and earned the trust that made it all possible.But this conversation goes way beyond the qual. Joey and I dig into the compare and contrast between policing HIS former mega agency, LAPD, versus a sub-100-sworn department, what leadership looks like when you're a line-level officer trying to create change from below, and why the reputation you build every single day, online and off, is the real currency that determines whether your ideas ever get a fair hearing. The pre-academy shooting orientation the agency built, the dry fire retention problem he's trying to solve, and the honest conversation about social media consistency round out one of the most practical firearms training episodes I've dropped.If you're a firearms instructor, on SWAT, or anyone trying to move culture from the inside, this episode is a roadmap worth sitting with.In this episode:• Adding hit factor to an unchanged qualification, same yard lines, same round count, same pass/fail tracking, reduced misses and got officers voluntarily asking to come back to the range, simply because a number replaced anonymity• Joey's PASO (Pre-Academy Shooting Orientation) program gets new hires to instructor-level standards before their first day at the academy, eliminating weekend remediation calls and freeing up bandwidth for harder classroom material• The core argument for running with a gun in hand during the qual: body cam from a recent OIS at Joey's own agency showed the officer moving laterally and shooting simultaneously, making the traditional draw-at-the-yard-line approach a training scar, not a safety feature• Earning administrative trust before submitting a change memo is the actual prerequisite: Joey credits years of visible commitment, personal performance, and consistent behavior online and off for why his proposal got read, considered, and approved• Mark Smith's framework for why a faster draw matters operationally: an untrained attacker can fire roughly once every quarter second, meaning a 1.5-second draw gives that person approximately six chances to tag you before you fire a round• The hit factor scoring system creates individualized intrinsic motivation without a public leaderboard: some officers chase the top, some refuse to be last, some just want something new to brag about, and the number surfaces all three without the instructor having to manage any of it• Social media consistency is a real qualification for making internal change: officers and admin who see someone bashing their agency or their firearms instructors online will not hand that person the trust needed to rewrite policy• The next planned tweak, transitioning from one target to three targets with two rounds each at the same six-round total, shows how incremental framing keeps the sell easy and the culture shift continuousChapters:0:00 Intro: The Capable Standard plug1:20 Show intro and guest welcome4:38 Sketchy Boyz Watch Club: origin story and how Joey got the gig8:27 Watches, storytelling, and why sentimental value beats safe queens12:54 Buck Pierson, Staccato, and the people behind the product18:36 Joey's background: LAPD, Army ROTC, and the path north21:36 Mega agency vs. small agency: leadership, ownership, and opportunity35:25 How competitive shooting cracked open Joey's training philosophy43:15 Breaking down the old qual and the case for changing it45:10 The hit factor overhaul: same qual, one new number, everything changes1:18:04 Writing the memo and navigating the chain of command1:35:24 Social media, reputation, and the trust that makes change possibleMentioned:Joey — Police officer, former Army officer, and host of the Sketchy Boyz Watch Club podcast, returning for his third appearance on Iron Sights to discuss his work overhauling firearms qualification and training at his Bay Area agency.Mark Smith — Firearms instructor and owner of JBS Training Group whose drills, explanations, and tactical framework heavily influenced how Joey teaches officers and built the foundation for Joey's qualification proposal.Jack Carr — Author of the Terminal List series, mentioned as a recent guest on the Sketchy Boyz Watch Club podcast, recorded around the time Season 2 of the Terminal List show dropped.Buck Pierson — CEO of Staccato 2011 and Marine Corps veteran, mentioned as a guest on the Sketchy Boyz Watch Club who discussed the sentimental story behind his beat-up SKX007 watch from his time in the Corps.Meenom — Main figure at Sketchy Boyz Watch Club who noticed Joey's limited recording setup and sent him a new microphone and computer to improve the podcast's production quality.Eli — Editor at 8482 Media who handles editing for the Iron Sights podcast, shouted out by Scott as the reason the show exists.Joe Dawson — Friend of Scott's in the Pacific Northwest and a watch enthusiast who gifted Scott a Seiko Arnie and has been encouraging him to go deeper into the watch world.Chris Kuras — Owner and founder of Good Dude Concepts, mentioned for having a custom watch made for the brand that went viral in the community overnight.Lieutenant Colonel Phelps — Prior infantry officer and ROTC leader at UCLA whose core leadership philosophy, summed up as 'give a shit,' made a lasting impression on Joey early in his career.John Constantine — Retired US Secret Service agent with fifteen years on the Counter Assault Team, whose Iron Sights episode dropped the same morning this conversation was recorded and whose discussion of Pete Blaber's hierarchy closely mirrored themes in this episode.Pete Blaber — Former Delta Force commander and author of The Mission, the Men, and Me, whose leadership hierarchy of mission, men, and me was referenced as a framework for understanding selfless leadership.David Acosta Jr. — Instructor at Achilles Heel Tactical who wrote the 'Learning vs. Parroting' article referenced in the conversation about honoring the source of borrowed instructional material.Shane Foster — Person Scott previously discussed the differences between small, mid, and large agency policing opportunities with, referenced when comparing LAPD's scale to Joey's current smaller department.Hunter Freeland — Firearms instructor mentioned for his point that simply telling officers to 'shoot a match' is performative without proper context and preparation.Vic — Friend of Joey's who encouraged him to get out and start shooting USPSA matches.Ray — Friend of Joey's who, alongside Vic, pushed Joey to start competing in shooting matches.
