Archive for the ‘DotW’ Category

Drill of the Week: Multiple Targets

Sunday, May 18th, 2008

The DotW this week is designed to improve transitions, moving the gun from one target to the next. The target array will involve three targets at a range of 5 yards. The targets should be about 1 yard apart. The two outside targets will be large (paper plate, 8.5x11 ...

Drill of the Week: One-Handed Speed

Sunday, May 4th, 2008

One of the worst habits most shooters get into is avoiding the "hard stuff." We love to practice what we're already good at, because it makes us feel skilled and accomplished. But instead of spending an afternoon trying to shave two hundredths of a second off your draw, ...

Drill of the Week: Changing Gears

Sunday, April 27th, 2008

This week, we're going to readdress some of the issues from Tracking Your Sights and Tracking Your Sights II in January.  Sometimes you can make perfectly good hits without much of a sight picture ... or, in the case of the photo below, no sight picture at all! This drill is ...

Drill of the Week: Circle Drill

Sunday, April 20th, 2008

After spending a couple weeks working on accuracy, it's time to ramp up the speed again. No drill serves better as a bridge between "slow" and "fast" than the Circle Drill. The Circle Drill is intended to teach students the relationship between speed and accuracy, and how time affects marksmanship ...

Drill of the Week: Dot Torture

Sunday, April 13th, 2008

We warned you last week that this was going to be an accuracy-intensive drill, and we weren't kidding.  It's called Dot Torture for a reason.  This drill first came to us from good friends at the NRA Headquarters Range in Fairfax, Virginia.  They got it from David Blinder at Personal Defense Training. ...

Drill of the Week: Ball & Dummy

Sunday, April 6th, 2008

This week, we get back to basics with one of the oldest, most proven pistol drills in existence: the Ball & Dummy drill.  As most people begin to speed up their shooting, they tend to get a little cavalier about trigger manipulation and the ability to shoot for maximum ...

Drill of the Week: Knockdown

Monday, March 31st, 2008

Following up from last week's Reactive Response Drill, this week's drill will require access to a Pepper popper steel target. The goal this week: get in the habit of shooting a target all the way to the ground.  Not really as useful for competition under most circumstances (though there are exceptions!), ...

Drill of the Week: Reactive Response Drill

Sunday, March 23rd, 2008

Last week, we began breaking the "two shots per target" habit with Rich Verdi's Non-Standard Response Drill. Now we'll expand on that concept to simulate a more realistic shooting situation. First, let's remember why we were doing Verdi's Non-Standard Response Drill in the first place. There is ...

Drill of the Week: Non-Standard Response Drill

Sunday, March 16th, 2008

Most of the drills people practice involve a predetermined number of rounds fired on the target. This is usually a double tap, two shots fired in quick succession. In fact, many law enforcement agencies teach "two to the body" as what is called the standard response, and shooters ...

Drill of the Week: 3-Position Reloads

Monday, February 25th, 2008

Learn to Reload Week comes to a close with one last Drill of the Week. Previous Drills this month were dry-fire practice, 1-Reload-2, and Surprise Reloads. We'll finish the month by practicing these skills from standing, kneeling, and prone positions. Whether you're practicing to play or to fight, being ...

Drill of the Week: Surprise Reloads

Sunday, February 17th, 2008

Learn to Reload Month continues here at pistol-training.com. In the past two weeks we've worked on dry-fire practice and then live-fire planned reloads. This week we're going to take that smooth skill and learn to apply it on demand with the Surprise Reload Drill. This drill is ...

Drill of the Week: 1-Reload-2

Sunday, February 10th, 2008

As Learn to Reload month continues here at pistol-training.com, it's time to take the skills we worked on in dry-fire practice last week and execute them live on the firing line. The most common basic reload drill involves firing a shot, performing a reload, and firing another shot to record the ...

Drill of the Week: Basic Reload Practice

Tuesday, February 5th, 2008

February is Learn to Reload month at pistol-training.com so for our first DotW this month we'll begin with the basics. There are many different kinds of reloads for different situations. But they all have certain basic elements in common ... elements which many shooters fail to master because they see ...

Drill of the Week: Drawback Drill

Sunday, January 27th, 2008

Time to put everything we've worked on so far together into one drill: precision, speed, and the draw. We will begin with a close range target, hitting it as many times as we can in a given time. With each iteration increase the distance. Since our accuracy ...

Drill of the Week: The Wall Drill

Sunday, January 20th, 2008

Over the past few weeks we've worked on getting smoother and faster. Invariably, when shooters focus on their speed they start to lose a certain degree of precision. This week, we will address that with a great dry-fire drill called The Wall Drill. The Wall Drill was developed by ...

Drill of the Week: Press-Outs

Monday, January 14th, 2008

This week we're going to work a very specific technique which will improve both accuracy and speed during the draw. Ironically, we won't be drawing our guns at all during this drill! This week we'll work on press-outs. A press-out is simply extending the gun from your ready position ...

Drill of the Week: The Draw

Sunday, January 6th, 2008

This week, we work on the draw, or presentation, of the pistol from a holster. The last two Drills of the Week have involved learning to track our sights during recoil so that we can break a shot as quickly as possible but still know we're going to get ...

Drill of the Week: Tracking Your Sights (II)

Wednesday, January 2nd, 2008

This week we'll build upon the last DotW, which involved learning to watch your sights as the muzzle rises during recoil. By keeping your eyes on the front sight throughout the cycling of the gun, you should have the "fastest" possible sight picture to break your next shot. ...

Drill of the Week: Tracking Your Sights

Sunday, December 16th, 2007

We spent the last two weeks working on our marksmanship fundamentals. This week, we're going to see how fast we can exercise those same fundamentals. We'll do this by shooting a variation of the Bill Drill to focus on sight tracking. Tracking your sights is a critical aspect to ...

Drill of the Week: Accuracy (II)

Sunday, December 9th, 2007

This week, we're going to build on last week's accuracy test. We'll use the same targets (3x5 cards) and follow the same program of six shots. The difference is that this week, we're going to see how far we can shoot and still maintain the necessary accuracy to hit that ...