Most shooters don’t fall apart on the first shot; they fall apart somewhere in the middle of a string of fire—that’s where this drill lives. The secret is to build your firing platform early enough and hold it together long enough to make it through the entire string without degrading your stability.
At the core of this training drill is a sustainable grip from the get-go, which is an integral part of your shooting stability. A sustainable grip is one that does not change pressure or position midstream and cause unwanted input onto the gun or move your muzzle out of alignment for even a fraction of a second.
Our drill this month trains you to acquire a multi-round-durable grip from the start and continually pressure-test it under time and transition stress, holding you to an all-clean-hits standard.
Here’s the Drill
Set up one paper target with a designated center mass (A-box) at the 10-yard line (T1) and two steel targets, one at the 15-yard line (T2) and one at the 20-yard line (T3). The paper target must be centered between the two steel targets, with at least 5 yards of lateral spacing.
Shooters seeking more of a challenge may increase difficulty by either reducing target size, increasing distance or setting a greater penalty for a miss.
On a Gradient
Start with a holstered pistol, hands below your gun belt. On the buzzer or “go” signal, draw from the holster to T1 by building an early two-hand grip, bringing your stability to alignment, and deliver two rounds on T1. Follow that with one round on T2, two more rounds on T1, one round on T3 and then end with two more rounds back on T1 for a total of eight rounds.
Run it initially not for time—just get all eight of your hits and figure out what it takes to run it clean. The next time, though, guarantee all your hits again, but also take a baseline time measurement of your run.
On the next run, simply accelerate your transitions—of course avoiding over and under travel—and then check your time. Do not record your time unless it’s a clean run.
Each time you run it, probe for any weaknesses, stay hard on the gun, visually focus and gradually decrease your time by a tenth of a second or so. Eventually, the wheels will fall off. Welcome to the edge of your skills envelope!
When it all starts falling apart, go back to your guaranteed-hits pace and start over from there. This drill is designed to be run a minimum of three times sequentially—so you will need a total of 24 rounds for each iteration.
Destabilization
The objective of this drill is to purposely destabilize your fire control mid-string. After at least three runs and upon your first failure, ask yourself an important diagnostic question: “At what precise point did which wheel fall off and why?”
Did you lose mental or visual focus? Change grip pressure or position? Over or under travel? Drop out of alignment or fail to realign? By applying the gradual pressure of a decreasing time limit, this drill stresses your firing platform to reveal any fault-line cracks. Identifying the edge of your skills envelop is the first step to crossing over it.
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