The Fairfax County Firearms Training Center is located at 3721 Stonecroft Boulevard in Chantilly, Virginia. The facility covers approximately twenty-five acres and lies adjacent to the county's Driver Training Facility. The complex consists of a main classroom/office building, two fifty yard semi-enclosed, twenty point pistol/rifle ranges, an open field plate range, a steel plate reactive range, live fire shooting house and a three hundred yard rifle range.
The Firearms Training Center is staffed with nine full time firearms instructors. All staff members are certified by the Commonwealth of Virginia as firearms instructors and are also certified as armorers in various weapons. Several staff members are certified as gunsmiths. The staff provides training in firearms, tactics and weapons maintenance.
The Fairfax County Firearms Training Center provides various types of instruction in the use of firearms, ranging from basic recruit classes to advanced tactical training. Training is provided to all police officers from Fairfax County, Herndon, Vienna and to all deputies of the Sheriff's Office.
Specific training provided includes the following:
- basic recruit training in handgun, shotgun, and police survival tactics.
- qualification and in-service training of patrol officers and deputies.
- specialty unit training (tactical teams, bike teams, gang unit, street crimes unit, narcotics unit, civil disturbance units, motor squad, etc.)
- chemical munitions and diversionary device training
- sniper training building entry and search techniques
- vehicle stops
- assault rifle schools
- special shotgun schools
- host national seminars and conferences
- weapons care and maintenance
The main classroom/office building contains a main office area, four 40 seat classrooms, cleaning area, shop & storage area. Interactive training has also been incorporated with the use of the Professional Range Instructor Simulator, or PRISim System.
The two semi-enclosed firing ranges each have twenty firing points. They are equipped with pneumatic turning target systems as well as moving "running man" targets. These ranges also contain a target trap system with deceleration tubes to capture spent rounds. Shooters may fire from distances as far as fifty yards and as close as one yard on these two ranges.
The steel plate reactive area (or horseshoe range) is an outdoor range protected on three sides by earthwork berms. This range contains steel pneumatic and moving target systems.
The rifle range is three hundred yards long with pneumatic and moving target systems at one hundred, two hundred and three hundred yard intervals. Among the types of training provided here are sniper schools and assault rifle training.
The live fire house has a three hundred sixty degree firing capability and the ability to be reconfigured into various layouts. It contains an observation deck as well as an overhead video recording system for capturing training on film. Frangible rounds are utilized when training is conducted in this structure. All levels of training, from basic building searches to advanced tactical entries, are performed in this facility.
The open field steel plate range is utilized to teach various weapons handling skills by use of stationary and falling metal targets. Frangible ammunition is also utilized here.
