Single best drill to track performance/skill?

[Wesquire]

My vote would go to El presidente. Only thing it doesn't test well is movement.

[motosapiens]

el prez doesn't really require to see the sights well or call your shots. you can pretty well hose it, get all the shots on paper, and get some pretty good scores just from being mechanically fast. (lol, ask me how I know!).

I don't know if there is a single best drill, or if there were, it would be important to identify it. Look at all the things that are important to doing well in matches. It's a long list; Any single drill is going to ignore much of that list. El prez ignores SHO and WHO, moving reloads, shooting while moving, shooting around barricades, calling shots on steel, unloaded starts, table starts, partial targets, activator/swingers, low ports (kneeling/prone/squatting), and a buncha other stuff too.

[Wesquire]

If you can run El pres at a GM level consistently, I can't imagine you not being able to apply those skills to nearly all of those situations. But point taken. You can also run it who and sho. You can shoot at head boxes and effectively train for longer shots. Movement won't get trained, but I can't think of another drill that can train as many core aspects of shooting well.

[Jake Di Vita]

I'd say a 15 yard el prez is a pretty good test of general shooting skill.

[dsa]

I'd say a 15 yard el prez is a pretty good test of general shooting skill.

And what would M/GM times be for that?

[Jake Di Vita]

I think it'd be fair to use the High Hit Factors from 99-11. With nothing at all to support it other than my general feeling, classifier El Prez tends to be a pretty easy one to score well on, I've shot upwards of 125% on that during matches. The 5 yard increase would probably come close to making the HHF accurate.

So that would mean GM times at 15 yards would be somewhere around 5ish and M around 6ish.

[rowdyb]

I'm sure what I like to do as a baseline has a name or a similar classifier but I don't know it's name.

T1 T2 -10 yards- T3 T4(or steel 8" round)

^15 yards -1oyrds- ^10yards

box A box B

I can build this almost on any range. I can shoot targets in a large amount of variations. I can move either direction, l or r or front and back. Reloads in the middle or not. Any kind of start almost. Mix up hard cover or no shoots. I love it, this simple square-ish shaped set up and just 4 targets.

[Wesquire]

I'm sure what I like to do as a baseline has a name or a similar classifier but I don't know it's name.

T1 T2 -10 yards- T3 T4(or steel 8" round)

^15 yards -1oyrds- ^10yards

box A box B

I can build this almost on any range. I can shoot targets in a large amount of variations. I can move either direction, l or r or front and back. Reloads in the middle or not. Any kind of start almost. Mix up hard cover or no shoots. I love it, this simple square-ish shaped set up and just 4 targets.

Sounds good to me. Maybe add a closer target you take on the move in between boxes

[Nik Habicht]

It takes a bit longer to set and shoot-- but oddly I think the IDPA classifier is a pretty good indicator of shooting skill......

One could modify it to be USPSA legal.....

But it's not a thing you'll want to shoot regularly to track progress -- maybe more like a doctor visit than stepping on the scale at home, checking your own pulse and BP?

[rowdyb]

So I have a notebook that at the beginning I was very religious about recording every draw, split, transition, movement times and hit locations from practice sessions. So I have page after page of the same drills for years worth of time. I don't do it any more but at the time it seemed to help track progress and identify where I needed to put more attention.

A basic practice session as driven by what I recorded on the sheet would be

10x one shot draws (10 rounds)

10x two shot draws (20 rounds)

10x draw shoot one reload one (20 rounds)

10x draw two, reload two (40 rounds)

5x bill drill (30 rounds)

10 shot group to head at 10 yards (10 rounds)

10 shot group to body 20 yards (10 rounds) For me this was a great 140 round session. It is heavy on the stand and shoot stuff but I'm OK with that. It worked at the time. Also almost all of my practice then was at indoor ranges, so I was limited on my movement and number of targets to none and one.

I also have tracked all the idpa classifiers i shot, whether in practice or for submission. And then drills from other places and people like Fast, Move your Eyes, Hackathorn standards and so on.

LIke I posted above, a pair of targets at two positions, two shooting areas at different distances and you can track almost anything you'd want. Between me and some guys I train with, yeah, if we're betting lunch on it we shoot El Pres as our standard test between us.

Edited December 15, 2015 by rowdyb

[motosapiens]

If you can run El pres at a GM level consistently, I can't imagine you not being able to apply those skills to nearly all of those situations

I've shot el prez at M level every time I've shot it in practice in the last year.... but I'm not really an M level shooter. I think jake might have the right idea with moving the targets further back so that hosing with your eyes closed will be punished more severely..... or putting in some partials.

But whatever.... i figure that all classifiers are pretty decent tests of skill. so every now and then I just set one up in dryfire or life fire and work on it.

my nomination for single best drill is an area match. Hard to set up in practice, but it should reliably test your preparation and execution.

[Thomas H]

My nomination for best drill for skill tracking purposes is a 2x variation on the FAST drill from Todd Louis Green.

Assumptions about the drill, to optimize it:

• Just one drill, not multiple stages and setups.
• Drill should be easy to set up and shoot, with limited equipment.
• While there is no round limit, something you can run in less than 5 minutes is handier.
• The point isn't to make something you drill multiple times to get better, the point of the drill is that it is a testing shooting skills that you perform periodically, to see if your shooting skills have changed or improved.

Here's the basic drill:

http://pistol-training.com/drills/the-fast

(For the purposes of my suggested test, ignore the ranking and the penalty times for equipment and such. You are tracking changes in your ability, so all of your numbers are only being compared to each other.)

My variation for skill tracking: 2X FAST-ish

You run the drill twice. Total rounds: 12.

• In the first run, you draw, fire two shots to the head box, then while performing the emergency reload move as fast as you can to one side until the reload is finished, then stop and perform the body shots.
• In the second run you draw, fire the shots to the body first, then while performing a speed reload move as fast as you can in the other direction until the reload is finished, then stop and perform the head shots.

Skills checked:

• Draw to low percentage target
• Draw to high percentage target
• Multiple shots at speed to an easy target
• Splits on a low percentage target
• Moving while reloading (in both directions)
• Speed reload
• Slidelock reload
• Moving into a shooting position
• Moving out of a shooting position

If you want better data, run the 2X drill three times. (In case one run was a fluke.) You can look at draw times, split times, transition times and reload times. You can track distance of movement per reload. You can check accuracy on harder targets and easier targets.

Tracking that over time (and practice, hopefully) should give you an idea of where you are improving.

It certainly doesn't test everything used for USPSA matches, but I happen to think that it tests many of the things we MUST do well to succeed at USPSA. (And shooting in general.)

IMO, of course. Plenty of other good drills out there.

[Wesquire]

I still think El pres is the single best drill. I say that because it is also incredibly easy to modify. You can change the distance, shoot head boxes, shoot while moving, who, sho, etc. The basic setup stays the same. The drill tests your speed, accuracy, gun handling, and transitions very well.

[motosapiens]

I still think El pres is the single best drill. I say that because it is also incredibly easy to modify. You can change the distance, shoot head boxes, shoot while moving, who, sho, etc. The basic setup stays the same. The drill tests your speed, accuracy, gun handling, and transitions very well.

but then it's not one drill, it's a bunch of them, like an area match.

[Wesquire]

Is it not a bill drill if you shoot it from 10 yards?

[motosapiens]

Is it not a bill drill if you shoot it from 10 yards?

if you shoot bill drills from 7, 10, 15 and 25 yards, it's not one drill. That's all I'm saying.

Anyway, what is the point of the question? is there any value in naming one single drill as the 'best'. Will it make you focus more on that drill than on the dozens of others that are just as good but weighted towards different skills? Or is it just an intellectual exercise to pass the time when the weather is too crappy to go outside and play?

Edited December 17, 2015 by motosapiens

[9x45]

It takes a bit longer to set and shoot-- but oddly I think the IDPA classifier is a pretty good indicator of shooting skill......

One could modify it to be USPSA legal.....

But it's not a thing you'll want to shoot regularly to track progress -- maybe more like a doctor visit than stepping on the scale at home, checking your own pulse and BP?

Agree, at 90 rounds it incorporates everything without focusing on just one thing. More like a monthly checkup, like qualifying for duty. It's not so hard to setup either, only 3 targets, a barrel and barricade. If you run it with big sticks, it goes pretty fast. Besides for me I have scores going back to early 98.

[Smitty79]

Best drill is Cris Cross. See Skills and Drills for set up and times

[GunBugBit]

El Pres has us perform the basic set of raw skills seen on many of the classifiers, so it's a good one to gauge how we should be able to do on them. Doing this drill at 15 yards instead of the standard 10, as Jake suggested, is a better test of how good a shooter you are because a lot of us seem pretty accurate at 10 yards but not always at 15 yards.

[Nimitz]

It takes a bit longer to set and shoot-- but oddly I think the IDPA classifier is a pretty good indicator of shooting skill......

One could modify it to be USPSA legal.....

But it's not a thing you'll want to shoot regularly to track progress -- maybe more like a doctor visit than stepping on the scale at home, checking your own pulse and BP?

Agree, at 90 rounds it incorporates everything without focusing on just one thing. More like a monthly checkup, like qualifying for duty. It's not so hard to setup either, only 3 targets, a barrel and barricade. If you run it with big sticks, it goes pretty fast. Besides for me I have scores going back to early 98.

Ok but do I have to wear one of those gay cover garments when I do it ...?

[IronArcher]

Not even IDPA shooters need to.