The Sheriff's Range

The Santa Clara County Office of the Sheriff’s Regional Firearms Training Facility is located off of Malech Road in unincorporated San Jose. The Sheriff’s Range is the firearms training center for both the Enforcement and Custody Bureaus as well as surrounding law enforcement agencies. The Sheriff’s Range staff and auxiliary firearms instructors provide a number of California Commission on Peace Officer Standards (P.O.S.T) certified firearms courses. The range has two multimedia equipped classrooms, five shooting pads, one sniper pad, and one live-fire structure.

This facility is the primary firearms training facility for the Office of the Sheriff’s academies. In-service personnel use this training facility to advance their skills by attending classes such as basic patrol carbine operator course, tactical low light course, less lethal munitions weapon systems, and the use of short barrel shotguns. All courses are proctored by the range staff.

The Sheriff’s Range is the home of the Best in the West SWAT competition for the past 25 years. The Best in the West is the largest invitational SWAT competition in the Western United States. Each year, Sheriff’s Emergency Response Team (S.E.R.T) design, physically construct, and run an intensive two-day, 6-course competition pitting SWAT teams from all over the United States against each other in a multi-jurisdictional learning experience unequalled in this part of the country. ​​