Fun (and challenging) Range Drill

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With the great weather earlier this week, I figured I had to play hooky and get to the range. How many more days like that are we going to get before the snow?

Lately, I've been focused on (obsessed with?) the Casino Drill. It's designed to be a thinking and shooting drill, and for those unfamiliar, it's this:

Screenshot 2022-10-13 at 16-39-20 Think First Shoot Second A Pistol Drill to Mess With Your He...png

21 Rounds in 21 seconds, 5 yards, from the holster, with two reloads (3 mags, 7x7x7). 1 second penalty for a miss. It can really mess with your head, because it's easy to lose count when you run dry two rounds into the 5 target, and come out of the reload doing the Dirty Harry ("Did I fire six shots or only five? Well to tell you the truth in all this excitement I kinda lost track myself.") To mix it up just a bit, I load my mags 6x8x7 vice 7x7x7, and randomly put them in the mag pouch and gun, to keep from "gaming" the count. It exercises the draw, multiple rounds, multiple targets, reloads, and...thinking. Tom Givens, who came up with the drill, recommends it to get lots of quality practice in a short amount of range time.



Be that as it may, it's a shitload of fun, and challenging. I've been grabbing everything out of the safe and shooting it the last couple of weeks: Glock(s), M&P(s), Shields, 1911, RDS, non-RDS, different calibers, etc. With a little concentration, I can easily stay within the Par time. On Tuesday, I figured I'd try something different. I have a well-loved P226 (a Herndon, VA gun for you Sigophiles) and since I have three calibers for it (9mm, .357Sig, and .40S&W), I thought I'd shoot the drill with the same gun, in each caliber, to see how they compare.

Interestingly, I shot the .357Sig better than the 9mm, probably because the 9mm was shot cold, no practice rounds, just walk up, "BEEP" and go.
IMG_2810.JPG

I've been shooting smaller (G19-sized) guns for so long, I forgot how controllable .357Sig is from a full-size gun, even more so than the much-maligned .40S&W. I might have to consider .357Sig barrels for my full-sized HD guns. I also found that I'm faster with a non-RDS gun than with an RDS. Still getting used to the dot, I guess. I expect that will eventually change. I'm waiting on a couple of moon clip holders, and want to try it with a .45ACP revolver. Par time for a revolver is 30 sec.

Bottom line: it's a fun drill, much more fun than punching holes in a silhouette. And when it's 65 deg and sunny in mid-October, you just gotta go to the range.
 

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With the great weather earlier this week, I figured I had to play hooky and get to the range. How many more days like that are we going to get before the snow?

Lately, I've been focused on (obsessed with?) the Casino Drill. It's designed to be a thinking and shooting drill, and for those unfamiliar, it's this:

View attachment 672823

21 Rounds in 21 seconds, 5 yards, from the holster, with two reloads (3 mags, 7x7x7). 1 second penalty for a miss. It can really mess with your head, because it's easy to lose count when you run dry two rounds into the 5 target, and come out of the reload doing the Dirty Harry ("Did I fire six shots or only five? Well to tell you the truth in all this excitement I kinda lost track myself.") To mix it up just a bit, I load my mags 6x8x7 vice 7x7x7, and randomly put them in the mag pouch and gun, to keep from "gaming" the count. It exercises the draw, multiple rounds, multiple targets, reloads, and...thinking. Tom Givens, who came up with the drill, recommends it to get lots of quality practice in a short amount of range time.



Be that as it may, it's a shitload of fun, and challenging. I've been grabbing everything out of the safe and shooting it the last couple of weeks: Glock(s), M&P(s), Shields, 1911, RDS, non-RDS, different calibers, etc. With a little concentration, I can easily stay within the Par time. On Tuesday, I figured I'd try something different. I have a well-loved P226 (a Herndon, VA gun for you Sigophiles) and since I have three calibers for it (9mm, .357Sig, and .40S&W), I thought I'd shoot the drill with the same gun, in each caliber, to see how they compare.

Interestingly, I shot the .357Sig better than the 9mm, probably because the 9mm was shot cold, no practice rounds, just walk up, "BEEP" and go.
View attachment 672832

I've been shooting smaller (G19-sized) guns for so long, I forgot how controllable .357Sig is from a full-size gun, even more so than the much-maligned .40S&W. I might have to consider .357Sig barrels for my full-sized HD guns. I also found that I'm faster with a non-RDS gun than with an RDS. Still getting used to the dot, I guess. I expect that will eventually change. I'm waiting on a couple of moon clip holders, and want to try it with a .45ACP revolver. Par time for a revolver is 30 sec.

Bottom line: it's a fun drill, much more fun than punching holes in a silhouette. And when it's 65 deg and sunny in mid-October, you just gotta go to the range.

Nice. I played hooky for an hour yesterday afternoon and went to the range. Just too damn nice out
 
Right? Fortunately, I'm 10 minutes from the range, so I could literally go between meetings.

Not that I'd ever do that...
Can’t say I haven’t done that before 😂
My club is 1.5 miles and 5 min from my house lol

I’m hoping to go tomorrow afternoon after the rain stops. Need one last bit of practice before the NH IDPA championship on Saturday.
 
I got the chance to shoot with Givens up in NH years ago for a replacement for the usual NEShooters summit. Well worth it!!

We did this drill. Was interesting to have to think shapes, colors and numbers.
 
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