So what should I be doing for drills

[Alaskapopo]

You might want to practice your failure drills on rifle. Ask your local shooters who's good at this and do a little training , maybe with a group. Rifles screw up all the time. You know tap, rack, bang. Look, observe, act, -all that stuff comes in handy. Start empty shotgun, load four, shoot three, load eight-stuff like that. I like throwing clays up like Tom Knapp and shooting them. Shoot a box of shells as fast as you can-you can just lay clays on the ground-to make sure your gun will shoot that many that fast. I would buy a case of slugs, two or three cases of shells and go out and pattern, get some stages and just put clays on a berm and practice like that. Then you have something to visualize when you drill. Move when your drilling like box steps or something if yoiu can move too far. After you shoot the match, you will know better how you need to drill and practice.DVC

Thats strange because the rifle is the gun I see running the best generally at the matches I attend. The shotguns have the most problems. Pistols usually run well too. If I had a rifle that malfunctioned I would take it off line until I figured out why it did it and fix that problem.

As for the OP's question I practice what I am weak at such as left shoulder shooting and positional shooting. I also need to work on getting into and out of position well. That and foot work.

Pat

Edited April 11, 2012 by Alaskapopo

[Kyle O]

In the past, the more concerned I was with how I was gonna finish, the worse I did. When I bombed the first stage and give up on doing well, I placed very high up. I guess I'm saying only worry about shooting smooth, best advice I have for you!

[kellyn]

Well I can tell you my training regime before Texas State Multigun:

1)4-1 Pistol Practice with TGO himself. Lots of transition drills at 10 and then 20 yards. Followed up with man on man bouts and then team dueling tree battles. About 300 rounds. He remains a better pistol shooter than me!

2) 4-4 Shotgun match at Rio Salado about 90 rounds.

3) 4-5 Rob Leatham Drill Masters match. About 100 rounds.

4) 4-7 Switch optic from Tac Limited (Leupold Prismatic off, Leupold 1.5-5X on)and rough zero at 50. Short Range rifle practice out to 75 yards. Offhand snaps on lollipops at 75. Sideways rifle practice. About 125 rounds.

5) 4-8 Tac Carbine and pistol match. We shot off VTAC barricades out to 200 (including the sideways ports!!!) and did a lot of VTAC drills at the match. About 125 rounds. Also did some pistol practice and zeroing, about 50 rounds.

6) 4-11 Rifle zeroing and LR practice. Made sure optic was zeroed out to 400. Then did rifle and pistol transition Virginia count drills. MGM lollipops at 200 meters: engage with rifle from prone, standing supported, reverse kneeling, and rested positions (3-4 shots) followed by pistol array (MGM lollipops and BC zone) at 25 yards. About 300 rounds.

7) 4-13 .22 Rifle practice. Offhand snaps out 100. About 200 rounds

8) 4-14 Az Police Games 3 gun match. About 200 rounds.

9) 4-15 Sporting clays or more rifle work.

10 4-17 Tuesday Night Steel (pistol) about 100 rounds.

11) Shotgun loading every other night.

I think practice independent of matches is very important BUT I also think attending matches is also necessary to prepare yourself for bigger matches.

[Shooter115]

WOW... Holy crap Kelly, that's awesome thanks for sharing. Thats probably more rounds than I shoot in 2 months. I would need to get a second job to buy the ammo components, but even if I had the ammo I couldn't spend that much time at range with just the one job I have now. Sorry to say your training regiment is out the door for me. Wish I could, but not likely for this shmuck.I usually get out for one good practice session on Saturday or Sunday every week and will typically burn about 50-100 rounds in each weapon. As far as matches go, one a month is about all there is here in MN and I have to drive 2-3 hours to go to them. In 4 weeks though we are starting our own action pistol shoots on our home range, so I'll soon be able to do some comps without the long drives. It's just pistol, but that's probably the weapon I need to work with most anyhow.I try to practice at home as much as I can, but working 50 hours a week and having a 2 month old son doesn't leave much for free time. I also have to keep up with my ammo loading in that spare time as well. I do what I can and that's about all I can do Edited April 12, 2012 by Shooter115

[sparks1]

Shooting is a degradable skill. Which is why I dropped some Appleseed Project events. I was instructing more than shooting and my skills suffered.

The amount Kelly shoots for practice is indicative of a high level of performance and dedication. I couldn't do it either, I just want to keep the edge and have fun. (In that order)

[TGibe]

Transitions from firearm to firearm is where I see a lot of guys really eat up time.

I run transition drills almost everytime I go out.

I'll do a run with transitions from everything being loaded and on safe,end loaded on safe.

Empty chamber on everything/end loaded and on safe..

And Empty Chamber/ end Empty Chamber..

You can practice dry at first and work into live fire.

I set up 3 tables parallel to each other and have 3 or so targets for each firearm and will mix up which direction/firearm I start with.

Reloading pistol never hurts,if your shooting Tac-Ops your focus should be reloading the shotgun.

Like the guys say,draws are not overly important..just don't drop it!

Hope this helps,also when ending with anything loaded an saf'd NEVER should you have advanced past that weapon.

Just got back from my first Ironman and the transitions from gun to gun is where I lost the most time. On 11 stages with at least 2 transitions per stage I probably lost 120-200 seconds overall and I know I lost 90+ seconds getting my first shot off on the long range bonus targets (borrowed gun, 20x scope, forgot to take safety off, etc.). Definitely something to work on even though I realize that Ironman is going to be the extreme. However, with a shorter stage 10 seconds wasted will be a higher percentage of time lost to the field.

Definitely going to take Overwatcher's advise and add transition drills before the NW Multigun match next month.

[Alaskapopo]

I would say practice sports you can alway load a random spent round in your mag when you go to the range

Slap mag

Pull charging handle

Observe chamber

Release charging handle

Tap forward bolt assist

Squeeze trigger

Ready-up drills help with faster target acquisitions

Work on trigger pull on rifle with a dowel stick in your barrel and a dime sitting on the dowel

This is what the military teaches

SPORTS takes to much time.

Tap, Rack, Reacquire

I have a range available to me with a 0-600 yd range and a couple of of 50 yd bays. I figure most of my long range training should be between 100-250 yds, as that is where i have seen the majority of steel placed.

Tap is for handgun mags with AR's its push pull and rack and roll for a most malunctions. (pushing up on the mag and pulling down to make sure its seated and then rolling the rifle to the ejection port side as you run the charging handle to allow crap to fall out and charge the rifle). If that fails then you need lock the bolt back strip the mag, rack the bolt 2 to 3 times and insert a new mag and rack again. The best solution is to have an AR that does not malfunction.

pat