Drill of the Week 26: AMRAP 3×5 from Ready has been posted at pistol-forum.com. It’s the second in a series of AMRAP drills that we’ll be doing over the next several weeks.
Typically, timed drills work one of two ways:
- There is a PAR time, and you attempt to complete a given course of fire before the PAR time runs out. For example, you might be told to draw and fire six rounds in less than five seconds. You either make the PAR or you do not. This is like saying “run one mile in less than eight minutes.”
- You try to complete a course of fire as quickly as possible. For example, you might be told to draw and fire six rounds as fast as you can get your hits. There is no PAR, it’s all about accomplishing the task in the least amount of time. This is like saying “run one mile as fast as you can.”
“AMRAP” means as many rounds as possible. Rather than shooting a prescribed number of rounds, you’ll hit the target as many times as you can before the time limit runs out. To keep with the running analogy, this would be “run as far as you can in ten minutes.”
There are a number of benefits to AMRAP drills. Chief among them is that you don’t know how many shots you’re going to fire… just like in real life. You don’t stop when you want to, you stop when an external stimulus tells you to. That stimulus could be a turning target that disappears at the end of the time limit, a shot timer, or even just a shooting partner who taps you on the back to say your time is up. It forces you to stay on the gun and on the target without knowing exactly when it will end.
In my experience, AMRAP drills are excellent for building speed and recoil management. Instead of trying to hit 3 rounds as fast as you can, you keep adding to the number of rounds you’re firing. This requires better grip and stance, better reading of your sights, and better concentration. It also breaks people of the habit of mentally “ending” an exercise the moment they’ve fired what they know will be their last round.
With AMRAP drills, the goal is always changing. Today you hit the target twice in two seconds. Next time, you’ll try to hit it three times. And so on. Eventually, you’ll reach a speed where things fall apart. And that’s where the fun — and effort — really begin…
Train hard & stay safe! ToddG
And a final benefit – you can run them without a $120 shot timer!
This is a great training principle. I often tell our shooters to “shoot only as fast as you can hit”. Running AMRAP drills with turning targets is a great way to work this skill and it reinforces a seldom used skill, assessing your target as you are shooting it. If you are in Law Enforcement, Private Citizen Concealed Carry, keep a gun in the home to defend against intruders, or are just planning for the zombie apocalypse, you must train to assess the thing you are shooting while you are shooting it to determine when it stops becoming a threat to you. When the threat ends, you can now trannsition to other tasks (searching for additional threats, getting on the phone/radio to get more help coming your way, tactial reload…) I always get interesting answers when I ask shooters, what do you do right after you stop shooting? The answers are rarely well thought out, especially after someone has just completed a stress shooting course. Thanks to Todd for bringing this up.