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Mr_White
08-05-2016, 10:27 AM
Going to keep working these dry core skill drills back in since it's been over a year since we've done these for the DotW...

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Week 176: CC Dry Draws

Results may be posted until September 5th, 2016.

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.[/i]

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

[b]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

s0nspark
08-07-2016, 03:36 PM
This one was very good timing - I just got my milled slide back this week and needed to focus on presentation drills to get acclimated to the RMR.

Gun: CZ P-07 w/ RMR07 and X300U
Holster: T. Rex Arms Raptor w/gel pad

My target setup is this:

http://i288.photobucket.com/albums/ll170/s0nspark/dry-fire-targets_zpsos2cnlnb.jpg

The right target should be obvious; the left one is a set of 3x5 squares at 7/10/15/25 yards, scaled for use at 12 ft which is the distance I have to work with in this room. After about 30 reps to center mass I started calling out where I was looking: A, head, body, right circle, 3 on the main target or 7, 10, 25 on the scaled target, as examples. (I find this helpful when reviewing video of my practice so I know what I was aiming for.)

I ran several sets of draws, varying my hands between several normal positions for me - in pockets, arms crossed, at sides - and towards the end of the session I did some reps where I was not squared to the target to start so I could incorporate some repositioning and movement. I made a point to start slowly just to get my bearing with the RMR but did start pushing for speed after about 40-50 reps.

Boy, the dot is paying off even in practice. It gives me a LOT of feedback as I present and press the trigger... From this drill I learned I have a tendency to drop the front sight into place rather than presenting the gun straight out and, with the RMR, that can mean trouble. I caught myself a few times ready to press the shot but the dot was missing or too high in the glass. Oops. I also discovered that I have been trying to bring the gun up to eye level while dropping my head - sort of a "meet in the middle" thing - and, well, that is one reason why I've spent a fair amount of time looking for the sights when I should be on target. After discovering these two issues, I tried to focus more on just bringing the gun up to my eye and keeping my head up which proved to be a lot faster and more consistent.

When I do things right, the dot is just there and is much quicker to use than going through the sight alignment/verification process. I still have a LOT of work to do to achieve the consistency I need, but I am pleased with my initial results. I'm going to work this drill at least for the rest of this week and see where I am next weekend.

RJ
08-12-2016, 01:48 PM
8/12/16 Friday

Did this drill at home, in my concrete-walled laundry room. It was kinda hot out (91) so I did 60 reps.

Pistol: Walther PPS M2 with 7 round mag. I used a snap cap.
Holster: JM CK IWB Version 3, clipped at 8:30 strong side (lefty)
Concealment garment: XL T shirt
Other: I wore what I have on every day here in Fl; cargo shorts, T shirt. In other words, exactly as I carry. I've stopped wearing my Ares Aegis belt as it is too uncomfortable/a PITA to adjust. I've been wearing a normal leather belt, which I wore for this drill.

Things I noted.

1) I put my iPhone timer on a par of 2.0s. I was not making these; my 'click' occured at 3 or even 4 seconds.

Possible Solution: At rep 20, I changed my "T shirt grab" from running my weak hand under then up, to just grabbing a big handful of T shirt and pulling up vigorously. I think this saved me 0.5s on the draw.

2) I am seeing a fuzzy front sight at the break. This isn't the pistol, it's that unless I consciously tilt my head back to put the sight in focus of my bifocals, it's fuzzy.

Possible Solution: I might look at getting some yellow fingernail polish to highlight the front sight. The OEM Walther white paint is getting a bit dirty from use (I have the rears blacked out already.)

3) The leather belt vs. Aegis Ares belt had no effect whatsoever on my draw. I find the leather belt much more comfortable.

Possible Solution: I think I am going to get rid of the Ares belt and look at a good leather gun belt, with holes for adjustment.

Very good drill; it made me consider a few things.

scw2
08-20-2016, 02:05 PM
Decided to focus on draw speed, so worked on this for ~30 minutes today. Gear was CZ 75 and CCC Gestalt with a polo shirt, targets mainly a 8" circle to push speed, but mixed in 2"-8" size targets for variety.

Some things I noticed:
1. Being a bit off on acquisition of grip leads me to hitting knuckle on belt, which has been bothering that joint. Now I know why. Good thing now is I not get immediate feedback if I move my hand a fraction low and hit my belt.

2. I've started to be able to "feel" when I have a non-neutral grip, which leads to sight misalignment. On a few draws my other hand automatically corrected it, which was cool.

3. Trying to be loose until the very end to improve speed. Also trying not to push the gun down into holster but instead to snatch it straight up and into my draw motion.

4. Par is still well above 0.9 sec from surrender, but can make it with hands from side. Probably a 0.2-0.3 sec gap in live fire that I'd like to close.

Will run this for a few days over the next week and see if I see any improvement or new insights. Expect to see a lot of improvement from surrender.

Clusterfrack
08-29-2016, 09:31 PM
Gun: Sig p320c w/SF XC-1 weapon light
Holster: JMCK AIWB with homemade pillow
Garment: Cotton T-shirt

Observations:
The drill was good, but tiring. My shoulder is sore.

Failures were all due to not clearing my shirt enough. I have been flagging my thumb a bit more with the Sig than with the Glock because of the slide lock position, and this is causing some problems with snagging my garment. I'll be swapping in the new model slide lock, which should solve that problem.

I raised my holster to the higher position and am very happy with the adjustment. It's a bit easier to grip, and doesn't seem to print any more than the lower position.