From: Your Defensive Handgun Training Program this drill is one of my favorite drills and one that is vastly under appreciated in many ways. I think that it should be done almost every practice session, and the drill is truly the “rubber meets the road” drill in terms of focusing on learning how to manage the three key areas: trigger management, sight management, and recoil control (grip management). Any time I begin training on a new gun I use this drill to learn the feel and timing of that particular gun/caliber.
Drill: Extend Prep and Press/Alternating Target Area
Rounds Per Repetition: 2 Total Rounds: 40 Total Repetitions: 20
Accuracy and Time Goals: 90% combat effective hits, no misses
Purpose: To work on managing the sights, trigger, and grip (recoil control) and improving each of these areas on the second half of the draw process.
Start position: High Ready [HR] (where hands meet after draw).
Target type and setup: Threat Target/s at 5 yards, centered on the shooter.
Prop setup: N/A
Action/s: From HR on the sound of the timer, extend the gun while managing the sights and trigger (visual shift and verification), and fire two (2) shots on the body. On the next repetition go through the same process and fire two shots on the head. Alternate back and forth between target areas for a total of 20 repetitions (10 to the body, 10 to the head). When assessing hits, each target area should have 20 shots on it.
Critical Points: Sight and trigger management, building a proper grip and recoil control, follow through and reset. Remember that manipulating the trigger in the different areas may require slight different manipulations (See AP versus CP on page 164 of the book or see my youtube page). Note that this drill uses different areas of the target to practice different sight and trigger manipulation processes, and that the head shots are only done to learn what is necessary to hit this area.
Visual Cues: Each repetition start focused on the center of the target. Shift the focus from target center to front sight for the shots where a hard sight focus is necessary (likely the head shots). Focus on being visually aware of the alignment of the gun via the angle of the slide and general visual awareness for shots needing a softer sight focus (likely the body shots).
Mental Cues: Actively visualize the entire drill.
Advanced Distance: Increase distance to 10+ yards
In summary, I strongly recommend you use this drill to really help your shooting improve. Before beginning anything much more advanced, learning how to improve your fundamentals will do much more for you that a drill that adds too many things to think about at one time. This drill will allow you to expand your knowledge by pushing and experimenting with skills that will truly help you align the gun faster, see what you need to in order to hit the shot, and manage the trigger in a way that does not move the gun. Use it to take your shooting to the next level!
Until Then – Train Hard!
Mike S.
