Week 356: Press Six Hundred

Results may be posted until February 28th, 2020.

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.

We are going to be focusing on one of the very most essential parts of shooting – pressing the trigger without moving the gun excessively. You're going to aim at the target and press the trigger straight back. Watch the sight picture. Hold the sights on target. Don't let the gun move out of alignment with the target.

Designed by Gabe White
Target: 1”square/2” circle/6” circle - http://pistol-training.com/wp-conten...ch-circles.pdf
Distance: 5 yards
Rounds: 0


Part A: Target is the 1” square.

Do 10 repetitions freestyle where you press the trigger as smoothly as you can so the gun doesn't move – speed is not a factor.

Do 10 repetitions freestyle where you press the trigger as quickly as you can – smoothness is not a factor.

Now that you have a subjective sense of how smoothly you can press the trigger (without regard to time), and how fast you can press the trigger (without regard to smoothness), do at least 50 freestyle repetitions of pressing the trigger smoothly enough for the target, as quickly as you can. Put the two elements of smoothness and speed together. Keep the gun in at least adequate alignment with the target while pressing the trigger as fast as you can. The difficulty of the target defines the precision you need in the sights and trigger.


Part B: Repeat Part A weak hand only.


Part C: Repeat Part A strong hand only.


Repeat the entire sequence (parts A, B, and C) aiming at the 6” circle – pay attention to the sight picture and call your shots, now to an easier standard.


Repeat the entire sequence (parts A, B, and C) aiming at the 2” circle – pay attention to the sight picture and call your shots, bringing it back to a more difficult standard.


It's not important that you do exactly the number of repetitions called for in the drill. If your hands/arms or attention won't take it, do however many you feel you can. Or maybe you'll do a thousand presses each way. It may be helpful to break this drill into multiple sessions and that's perfectly acceptable.

Report in this thread when you've done this practice, what gun you were using, and feel free to report anything you noticed.

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