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Thread: Five Drills for USPSA/Competitive Shooting

  1. #1

    Five Drills for USPSA/Competitive Shooting

    I'm currently looking at revamping my live fire training and I was hoping to some thoughts from the competitive shooters here. The question here is simple:

    What 5 drills, classifiers, or skills tests give you the most bang for your buck at the range? If you were to limit yourself to a handful of drills/classifiers/tests, which would they be?

    I can dry fire stages and USPSA-specific skills at home, and I'm looking at simplifying my live fire training a good bit going into 2022. I was just curious what handful of drills you guys would focus on if you were limited to those.

  2. #2
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    What are your goals and where is your skill set at?

    My live fire changes depending on what I feel is deficient and needs work.

    Or it reflects what specific thing I’ve been working on dry to confirm I’m doing what I think I’m doing.

    But whatever you do, do it on a timer.

  3. #3
    Deadeye Dick Clusterfrack's Avatar
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    Five Drills for USPSA/Competitive Shooting

    My practice sessions typically involve warming up with a few mags of fundamentals. Eg. Doubles or practical accuracy. Then, I design a 8-12 round drill around what I’m currently working on. After running that (usually in different ways) past the limits of my ability, I pick a sub-section where I failed and work that in isolation. I do that in dryfire and live.

    I dryfire a lot on the range, and often don’t even touch the trigger.

    I can’t imagine limiting myself to 5 drills.
    "You can never have too many knives." --Joe Ambercrombie
    Shabbat shalom, motherf***ers! --Mordechai Jefferson Carver

  4. #4
    Quote Originally Posted by JCN View Post
    What are your goals and where is your skill set at?

    My live fire changes depending on what I feel is deficient and needs work.

    Or it reflects what specific thing I’ve been working on dry to confirm I’m doing what I think I’m doing.

    But whatever you do, do it on a timer.
    Yeah, I probably should have been more specific to my situation in my initial post, it was somewhat vague. My bad.

    I dry fire a lot and all of my work is done on a timer. The range situation where I am *absolutely sucks*, meaning I have to drive over 90 minutes 1 way to get to a range bay. So basically I'm just focusing on confirming that my dry fire is translating to live fire. I've been running -

    15 yard bill drill (I switched to 15y when my 7y time got into the 1.7x consistently and I felt like I was getting minimal returns)

    El Prez (I'm in the 5.5 second range using my CO gun - need to get faster/more consistent)

    Merle's Standards (this gives me distance/SHO/WHO work)

    Tight Squeeze (gives me hard targets/partials at speed)

    300 Drill on B8 at 25y (10r FS/10 SHO/10 WHO)

    In a perfect world, I'd be able to get a lot more specific in my live fire, but with such limited range time due to the 3 hour travel time and thus my need to focus on dry fire, I'm essentially just trying to track fundamentals.

    So basically I was just curious what handful of fundamental drills/standards/etc you'd use to track your overall skill development in live fire. Kind of an impossible task I realize, but something that I might have to do unless I move I know you did something kind of similar with ammo shortage/prices last year and I really enjoyed reading that - you made incredible progress while shooting a very limited number of live rounds

  5. #5
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    But…

    @Kirk

    The one thing missing from your description of your times…

    How were the hits?

    A 1.7 second Bill drill from a draw to 7 yards is excellent.

    That could be a 0.9 draw with 5x 0.15 splits.

    If you’re getting all alpha at 7 yards, that’s very good.

    If you’re getting all alpha off a draw at 15 yards with 6 shots that’s seriously impressive.

    But that’s a little disconnect with your El Prez unless you have a 2.5 second reload…

    So something seems funny.

    What is your hit factor on live El Pres?

    And what are your future goals?

    General competency? USPSA specific stuff?

    I have some recommendations if you can clarify the seeming discrepancy between your Bill drill and your El Pres.

  6. #6
    Deadeye Dick Clusterfrack's Avatar
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    Five Drills for USPSA/Competitive Shooting

    Here’s what I’m doing now. Working different confirmation types. 2 positions, 10 rounds. Note no-shoot behind 6” plate on exit.

    "You can never have too many knives." --Joe Ambercrombie
    Shabbat shalom, motherf***ers! --Mordechai Jefferson Carver

  7. #7
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    Quote Originally Posted by Clusterfrack View Post
    Here’s what I’m doing now. Working different confirmation types. 2 positions, 10 rounds. Note no-shoot behind 6” plate on exit.

    Despite the way he asked it, he’s not really asking what YOU do.

    He’s asking what should he do.

  8. #8
    Deadeye Dick Clusterfrack's Avatar
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    Five Drills for USPSA/Competitive Shooting

    Quote Originally Posted by JCN View Post
    Despite the way he asked it, he’s not really asking what YOU do.

    He’s asking what should he do.
    I get that. I’m giving an example of constructing a “drill” to work on specific skills. If I could rewind the tape of my training, I would spend less time on Bill Drill and El Pres type drills.
    "You can never have too many knives." --Joe Ambercrombie
    Shabbat shalom, motherf***ers! --Mordechai Jefferson Carver

  9. #9
    Quote Originally Posted by JCN View Post
    @Kirk

    The one thing missing from your description of your times…

    How were the hits?

    A 1.7 second Bill drill from a draw to 7 yards is excellent.

    That could be a 0.9 draw with 5x 0.15 splits.

    If you’re getting all alpha at 7 yards, that’s very good.

    If you’re getting all alpha off a draw at 15 yards with 6 shots that’s seriously impressive.

    But that’s a little disconnect with your El Prez unless you have a 2.5 second reload…

    So something seems funny.

    What is your hit factor on live El Pres?

    And what are your future goals?

    General competency? USPSA specific stuff?

    I have some recommendations if you can clarify the seeming discrepancy between your Bill drill and your El Pres.
    These are great questions and I should've clarified. My hits on the 7 yard bill drill are usually As in that time frame unless I'm really pushing to set a record. I'm decent at pure hoser stuff and one of the reasons I don't shoot it at 7 is because my index is good enough that I can get away with being pretty lazy with the dot. I'd say the 7 yard bill drill is not representative of my actual skill level, it makes me sound like a better shooter than I actually am lol.

    My El Prez time is probably a better indicator of my skills. My raw time is often a shade under 5 seconds, but with .1/point scoring penalties I'm usually in the 5.5 range. 1.1 turning draw (yikes!), 1.4 reload (double yikes!), and .23 splits are about normal for me. Hit factor is 11ish. All things that need work, especially my reloads. I'm not sure at what point I should keep pushing hit factor here or try to make the drill a little harder (possibly move it to 15 or add no shoots)

    My main goals are general competency really. I haven't shot a USPSA match in quite some time, though I do plan get back to competing soon.
    Last edited by Kirk; 10-20-2021 at 02:41 PM.

  10. #10
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    Quote Originally Posted by Clusterfrack View Post
    I get that. I’m giving an example of constructing a “drill” to work on specific skills. If I could rewind the tape of my training, I would spend less time on Bill Drill and El Pres type drills.
    Yes, but you didn’t say that. Because you might be able to do those drills now because you did Bill and El Pres type drills before.

    Personally if someone has poor trigger control I wouldn’t recommend anything at distance yet and I wouldn’t add movement yet. Walk before running.

    But at a certain level of proficiency, like you said, doing more movement is helpful.

    Which is why it’s important IMO to know where his proficiency lies currently.

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