Pistol Drills with low rounds count

[rvb]

I like Dot Torture, but as a test more than a drill.

It's really 50 rounds of shooting groups, with a little extra stuff mixed in to mess with your grip. For round-limited drills, it's not something I'd focus on...
Shoot a couple groups, a little SHO/WHO, and be done. The rest (draws, reloads) can be done in dryfire. as I said above, Garcia dot drills are better use of limited live fire.

I do like to pull out dot torture a couple times / yr at our club practice nights to hear the groans from the guys who aren't used to slowing down and getting hits! ha!

-rvb

 

[Psode27]

Oh c'mon! With a name like "youngmilsurpguy", isnt it sac-religious to NOT surround yourself in every odd-ball caliber you can think of? Pick up an FN model 1903 and do some matches shooting some 9mm browning long... while reading through this I was amusing myself with that thought... I have nothing helpful to offer as far as training, sorry. Best of luck!

 

[BehindBlueI's]

It's really 50 rounds of shooting groups, with a little extra stuff mixed in to mess with your grip. For round-limited drills, it's not something I'd focus on...
Shoot a couple groups, a little SHO/WHO, and be done. The rest (draws, reloads) can be done in dryfire. as I said above, Garcia dot drills are better use of limited live fire.

I do like to pull out dot torture a couple times / yr at our club practice nights to hear the groans from the guys who aren't used to slowing down and getting hits! ha!

-rvb

You can put time pressure on Dot Torture. Just get a baseline of where you shoot it clean, then start deducting a few tenths of a second from the par time.

New shooters at a Garcia Drill seems like a recipe for frustration, although of course it could also be modified by decreasing distance at first.

 

[rvb]

You can put time pressure on Dot Torture. Just get a baseline of where you shoot it clean, then start deducting a few tenths of a second from the par time.

of course. I usually use a combined comstck setting on the timer to actually time the whole drill. But it's still primarily a 50 rd accuracy drill.

New shooters at a Garcia Drill seems like a recipe for frustration, although of course it could also be modified by decreasing distance at first.

Frustrating, yes... Because it's hard. It really works the thing you need to learn most from live fire... Timing / recoil control.

-rvb

 

[in625shooter]

I sort of laugh when the emphasis became 1,00-1,500 rounds in like a 2 day school. You don't need all that for good quality training. Ballistic masterbation sure but training, not really.

Any 30-48 round Police PPC type course give you decent marksmanship training, you can set up some IDPA type stages like the El Presidenta. (they don't require more than 18 rounds per stage) for some tactical type or shooting from cover type training.

One exercise I still run in my classes is this simple reload drill. Have 3 mags loaded with 1 round each. Have one in the gun ready and start, shoot that goes slide lock, reload shoot that slide lock reload etc. It can also be done as a man on man if you have a group. You can have folks watch and really do it "tactically" and if they look down at the gun away from their threat they are out.

Add a timer all the better

You can do a similar drill with transition between rifle and pistol as well as reload drills with your rifle.

 

[cedartop]

It's really 50 rounds of shooting groups, with a little extra stuff mixed in to mess with your grip. For round-limited drills, it's not something I'd focus on...
Shoot a couple groups, a little SHO/WHO, and be done. The rest (draws, reloads) can be done in dryfire. as I said above, Garcia dot drills are better use of limited live fire.

I do like to pull out dot torture a couple times / yr at our club practice nights to hear the groans from the guys who aren't used to slowing down and getting hits! ha!

-rvb

So I haven't done the Garcia dots in a while, but since I am getting back to some of the Stoeger book drills I did them today. One thing is for sure, anytime I want to convince myself once again that for me, my G43 should not be my EDC, just run the Garcia dots with it. Ouch! Good news is, I also ran them with the 1911 I got back from AllenM recently and that went pretty well.

 

[GIJEW]

I sort of laugh when the emphasis became 1,00-1,500 rounds in like a 2 day school. You don't need all that for good quality training. Ballistic masterbation sure but training, not really.

Any 30-48 round Police PPC type course give you decent marksmanship training, you can set up some IDPA type stages like the El Presidenta. (they don't require more than 18 rounds per stage) for some tactical type or shooting from cover type training.

One exercise I still run in my classes is this simple reload drill. Have 3 mags loaded with 1 round each. Have one in the gun ready and start, shoot that goes slide lock, reload shoot that slide lock reload etc. It can also be done as a man on man if you have a group. You can have folks watch and really do it "tactically" and if they look down at the gun away from their threat they are out.

Add a timer all the better

You can do a similar drill with transition between rifle and pistol as well as reload drills with your rifle.

1500 rounds in a weekend class can easily become ballistic masturbation. I haven't been to one, but it might be that it translates to increased repetitions: the difference between education and training--as in building a conditioned reflex. All depends on supervision and correct repetitions

 

[BehindBlueI's]

Frustrating, yes... Because it's hard. It really works the thing you need to learn most from live fire... Timing / recoil control.

-rvb

Right. But IMO, it's not a place for newer shooters to start. Can the shooter hit a 2" circle at 7y consistently with zero time pressure yet? That sort of frustrating, not "I'm not acing this ever time" frustrating.

 

[in625shooter]

1500 rounds in a weekend class can easily become ballistic masturbation. I haven't been to one, but it might be that it translates to increased repetitions: the difference between education and training--as in building a conditioned reflex. All depends on supervision and correct repetitions

I agree, was just commenting g on the push the last several years that a lot of classes quoted to 1,000-1,500.

What I have seen is we run around 600-800 in 3 day classes with qualifications as well as several specialty drills (reload drills, transitions, failure to stop, downed/disabled officers etc) and that is on the upper limit if what most folks can do. Quantity doesn't equate to great training. Folks get tired and it becomes counterproductive but some people want to play Seal team 6!

 

[rvb]

Right. But IMO, it's not a place for newer shooters to start. Can the shooter hit a 2" circle at 7y consistently with zero time pressure yet? That sort of frustrating, not "I'm not acing this ever time" frustrating.

OP didn't say he was a new shooter, just getting started in uspsa / defensive shooting. if he can't hit the target, it's certainly ok to scale the time/distance even target size accordingly, but learning to control the recoil and return the gun to zero is just flat critical for uspsa. (more so even than hitting a 2" target @ 7 yds.) with only 300 rounds to last a few months, spending it on group shooting isn't ideal. 95% of the group shooting learning can come in dryfire.



-rvb