Week 99: CC Dry Draws

[Mr_White]

Week 99: CC Dry Draws

Results may be posted until March 13th, 2015.

For this drill, all you need is your pistol, a target, and a safe direction. This is going be a dry practice drill that almost everyone can participate in regardless of range restrictions.

At bare minimum, verify gun is unloaded, have no live ammo anywhere in the dry practice area, and keep muzzle in a safe direction. But there is more you can do to ensure safety in dry practice. Please also read Robust Dry Practice Safety Principles and Procedure following the drill description.

Things you must be absolutely disciplined about for dry practice to be productive: grip the gun as hard as you do in live fire, pay attention to the sight picture, and call every dry shot. Be ruthless in evaluation of the quality of your sight picture and trigger press.

Designed by Gabe White
Target: 1” square, 2” circle, 3x5” rectangle, and 6” circle – download here: http://pistol-training.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/03/3-two-1.pdf and here: http://pistol-training.com/wp-content/uploads/2009/09/6in-circ-1in-sq.pdf
Range: 5 yards
Rounds: 0

We are going to draw the gun 200 times or until physically or mentally tired of it, while focusing on full speed movement and on demand certainty from a variety of start positions and against a variety of targets.

Things you really need to do during this drill: Explode into motion. Get your master and support hand grips right. As you present the gun, look for the sight picture. Press the trigger well and in accordance with seeing that sight picture.

With that in mind, draw the gun and press one good dry shot, 200 times. On every repetition, vary your start position and the target you draw to. You've got at least four targets (five if you want to include the 8.5x11” paper itself.) Start positions can be whatever you want – hands at sides, hands at surrender/opportunity, hands on head, hands in pockets, hands straight up or straight out, hands touching a surface or holding an object, etc. Many possibilities there. As before, it's fine to break up the drill into multiple sessions, or do more or less repetitions if it suits you.

Please report: gun and holster used, concealment garment (optional), start positions used, and anything you noticed during the drill.


Training with firearms is an inherently dangerous activity. Be sure to follow all safety protocols when using firearms or practicing these drills. These drills are provided for information purposes only. Use at your own risk.


Robust Dry Practice Safety Principles and Procedure (the closer you follow this, the fewer opportunities you will have to ND)


Principles:

Allow no distractions – focus exclusively on the task at hand

Keep muzzle in a safe direction

Use correct trigger finger discipline

Verify no live ammo in gun, on person, or in the dry practice area

Use dedicated dry practice targets that are put away until you consciously choose to begin dry practice, and taken down when you consciously end dry practice

Use dedicated dry practice magazines and dummy rounds/inert training cartridges that stay in the dry practice area (if you use any magazine or cartridges)


Procedure:

Unload gun in a location other than the dry practice area

Leave live ammo, and magazines with live ammo, completely outside the dry practice area

Enter the dry practice area

Verify gun is unloaded, that any magazines do not contain live ammo, and that any cartridges present are inert/dummy cartridges

Consciously choose to begin dry practice

Put up dry practice targets

Do your dry practice

Take down dry practice targets and put them away

Consciously choose to end dry practice

Exit the dry practice area and do something unrelated for a few minutes

Return gun to location and condition of your choosing

[Guinnessman]

This DOTW came at the perfect time. I have not dry fired in almost 3 weeks and I thought this would be the perfect way to get back into my dry fire routine. I posted the targets on my basement wall and dry fired from my 5 yard line. The gun used was my training HK P30 with a JMCK AIWB "George." The timer used to collect data was the Surefire IPhone App. A Laserlyte laser cartridge was used to verify my hits. The draws were from concealment in a tight T-shirt. Here are the first 3 runs:

5 yards, arms at side:

Rectangle: 1.70 1.69 1.76
Square: 2.20 miss 2.54 2.46
Small Circle: 1.91 1.96 1.77
Large Circle: 1.49 1.39 1.88 (bad draw)

5 yards, from the surrender:

Rectangle: 1.97 1.81 1.80
Square: 2.43 2.38 2.38
Small Circle: 2.32 2.19 2.05
Large Circle: 1.64 1.68 1.81

3 weeks of no dry fire really hurt my performance on the low probability targets. On the larger targets I had what I would consider some "Sloppy Hits." They were hits on the edge of the targets and I could tell I was really pushing my performance to achieve some of the times. As the session progressed past my first 3 runs, my times improved as I warmed up. I am at around 50 draws so far and will report back as the drill progresses.

[Guinnessman]

The second half of my session was used to work on some movement. This session was broken down into 3 parts: Facing left, facing right, and facing rearward. The first 3 runs are as follows:

Facing Right:

Rectangle: 1.87 1.61 1.65
Small Circle: 2.00 1.98 1.81
Square: 2.17 2.68 1.88
Large Circle: 1.63 1.44 1.52

Facing Left:

Rectangle: 1.79 1.89 (bad draw) 1.73
Small Circle: 2.10 1.88 1.94
Square: 2.31 2.34 2.24
Large Circle: 1.61 1.49 1.49

Rearward:

Rectangle: 1.64 1.70 1.76
Small Circle: 2.10 1.88 1.94
Square: 2.31 2.34 2.24
Large Circle: 1.61 1.49 1.49

My times have improved despite adding movement at around the 100 draw mark. My draw has become faster and my "Economy of Motion" has improved with 100 draws. My times are now more in line with what I would expect with constant practice. If anyone has any suggestions for me, please chime in. Thanks!

[2alpha-down0]

Gun/holster: M&P40, Safariland 6360
No concealment
Start positions: Hands at sides, interview stance, hands resting on gear, and facing perpendicular to target. I also worked in side-steps to the extent that my living room allows while maintaining 5yds.

I don't have a way to time dry fire so I just had to trust that my times were sh*t-hot.

Notes:

-I only got through about 120 draws before the grip tape on the gun began to slide around too much on presentation. The grit was still intact but the adhesive just completely gave out. A few draws without the tape was an unhappy reunion between myself and the soap bar texturing of the M&P. I can't exactly take a wood burner to this gun like I did my 9, so periodic tape replacement is all I can do. Tape failure wasn't totally unexpected during the drill but it's annoying nonetheless.

-On a related note, I don't like what it says about my technique that I absolutely NEED grip enhancements to hold on to the gun effectively with my support hand. Without the tape/stippling to "catch" the base of my left thumb, my hand really wants to slide forward off the gun at the end of the presentation. How would I fix this gear crutch? Is this a gear crutch that even needs to be fixed given that all of my guns are set up for how I grip?

-Anyone who does this drill with a retention holster without fumbling the release at least once should get a plaque or something.

-Presentation consistency improved with repetition, which I suppose isn't any big surprise. Early on, I caught myself cheating on the presentation in the interest of speed and just kind of "throwing" the gun out there as opposed to my normal J-draw. As I settled into the drill, and dialed back the speed a hair, I began to see the front sight earlier at about half-extension, where I normally see it.

[MVS]

Gun: My newish VP9
Holster: My new Fricke Archangel with BTA.
Concealment: Zipped green Woolrich Fleece that I wear around the house a lot.

This was done in sets of ten to better facilitate keeping count and because I was spotting my wife during her workout. I payed special attention to my strong hand thumb placement as I am having problems on this gun with the slide not locking back. I was rewarded with the start of a blister. Now that I read back through the description I am not sure if it fits the drill, but I set my timer with a 1.5 second par time.

[Mr_White]

Now that I read back through the description I am not sure if it fits the drill, but I set my timer with a 1.5 second par time.

You can use a timer if you want to. The rationale in the drill behind not using a timer is to emphasize an on demand/match speed level of care in the trigger press and to avoid the pretty significant danger of getting sucked into pressing the trigger to beat the timer vs. pressing the trigger when you can see that you would hit. If you do use a timer then watch out for that.

[Range1]

Used a Glock 23 in Safariland ALS paddle holster and a Glock 34 in a CompTac owb both strong side just behind the hip.
Concealment garment varied from open front jacket to open front shirt or vest.
Starting positions included hands at waist level; arms crossed; surrender position; hands hanging naturally at side; hands on head; any of the preceding facing right, left or away from targets.
Things I noticed: Need to work on consistently getting concealment garment out of the way; consistency on getting pistol out as fast as possible then slowing just enough to do a proper press out; consistently apply all the fundamentals until automatic; shooting with progressive bi-focals sucks but remembering to position head correctly helps greatly; word for the week - "consistency" - work to apply it.

[miller_man]

G19/Archangel
Concealed under shirt and hoodie
Start;varied

Did about 100 or so in 2 sessions yesterday. Started with hands at sides, surrender, in pockets, holding a pillow, leaning on chair, ect..

Have been working on getting a good, complete grip before this drill so I did pretty well with that. Will admit I had 2 or 3 that were somewhat flubbed. I've found getting aggressive with everything about the draw is how I need to do it - maybe more of a controlled aggressiveness, lol. Aggressively ripping the cover garment up, pinning it to the chest with support hand and then driving the strong hand (again AGGRESSIVELY) on to the pistol and then bring it out with full grip.

Drawing to the different targets was fun + tough. I had to work to slow down the push out on the smaller targets to keep from bouncing the front sight all around it. I ended up using movement on the draw after awhile and that Really makes it tough on the small targets.

Really find the bottom of the rear panel on my G19 slides out some on the heel of my palm. Have placed grip tape on there and loved the results but find it irritating for carry and eventually wears out/slips off. Been thinking about going the stippling route, and this gives me more desire to do so.

[Jared]

Done, just now actually.

JM Custom IWB version 2, Volund Atlas belt, Beretta 92FS and Beretta 92 Vertec Inox. Concealed under a T-shirt.

The big thing I was working on here was to see how things would work out with the Vertec, which I just picked up and compare it to the normal 92FS. I did all the shots to either the 2" circle or the 1" square. Definitely learned some things about how my hands are going to interface differently with the different frames. So far, the Vertec looks like it might be a better overall fit for me, but I'm going to have to verify that with actual live fire.

I definitely had the best results by being aggressive getting the shirt up and the hand to the gun. Seemed like if I got lazy with that I had a greater tendency to wind up with both shirt and pistol.

[Mr_White]

Completed the drill with a Gen3 G34 in a Keeper concealed under polo shirt/t-shirt. I spread the drill over multiple sessions. Used the 1” square/2” circle/3x5” rectangle/6” circle/8.5x11” paper as the varied targets. Did a lot of random start positions – hands all the way up, hands partway up, hands over my eyes, hands cupping my ears, fingers in my ears, hands or fingers touching different surfaces at different angles and with different amounts of arm extension, hands holding an object. Basically just tried to use any odd start position I could think of to emphasize variation, even at the expense of more practical start positions. It definitely felt like I got a lot of good practice at applying different levels of care to the sight pictures and trigger presses demanded by the various different targets.

[Corey]

Did this drill over several sessions with an M&P9 FS and Blade-Tech IDPA holster with open front concealment. I used a mix of start positions, hands at side, surrender, and surrender with back to target. Found I could only go about 50-60 reps in one session before I started having problems with trigger control. Going to keep working this along with my physical therapy on my elbow and shoulder and see if I can get my endurance built back up.

[EricM]

Finished this up earlier today, Gen 4 G17 concealed AIWB under T-shirt. Biggest thing I'm still struggling with is picking up the sights early to be ready to fire upon reaching full extension. I do a J-shaped draw and when I'm pushing to move as fast as I can I have a tendency to fall back into old habits of not getting on the sights until I'm at full extension. I've needed to back off a little coming out of the 3 to make sure I'm keeping the muzzle level and am able to get on the sights ASAP...though I suspect it's actually still faster this way in the end (backing off a little but firing upon reaching full extension vs. rushing it out of the 3 and getting to full extension before having a sight picture).

It's a great feeling when everything goes smoothly and you break a clean shot on the 1" square right at full extension.

[40Green]

I did this with an HKP2000 w/x300 in a Safariland 6365 and Safariland IWB holster with an untucked shirt. I noticed that using the one inch square has helped me really focus on the front sight and notice where it is placed on the target. It has helped me to begin picking up the sight post sooner than I normally would. I used a timer with a par time and found that when transitioning to a larger target that I was waiting for the second buzzer to go off. Over the course of a few sessions I found that I had reduced the time by about a half second and still had a good sight picture. It wasn’t anything astoundingly fast but it was an improvement.

I also played with one handed survival shooting draws. It was something that I recently learned the motions for at training and found there I needed to shift some gear and belt keepers around to reach the holster with my left hand. Retention devices are a pain to run in reverse, I managed to smooth that out considerably in just a few minutes. At least I know I can reach everything left handed now.