If you’re a concealed carry permit holder, or really anyone who has a handgun they plan on using for self-defense, you have a responsibility to master certain things. First and foremost is firearms safety. If you can’t safely handle a firearm you’re just a danger to yourself and others. Next is basic marksmanship; the essentials of grip, sight alignment, and trigger squeeze. These are the absolute basics you need to master. But there’s more. So let’s get to it.
Before I start, I want to take a minute to say thank you to all my listeners. I appreciate you all, and especially those of you who have recommended this podcast to your friends. Without listeners, this podcast would be as pointless as an eraser on a crayon.
So, when you go to the range you’re muzzle aware and safe and you can make holes appear where you want them. This actually puts you ahead of a lot of permit holders I have seen. Kudos. You’re ready to start learning what you need to know to at least stand a chance in a gunfight.
Today we’re going to cover three drills that will help you hone some of the real-world skills you’ll need. I’ll explain what the drill teaches you, the equipment you’ll need, and how to shoot it. This won’t be an all-inclusive list, as there are many, many more drills I’ll introduce you to in future episodes. These first three will just be to ground you in the basics.
As far as equipment, if you don’t already own a shot timer, I strongly suggest you get one. It’s one of the most important training aids you can own. It will give you an important metric. As you shoot drills, you’ll see constant improvement until you master it. When you can shoot a drill one-hundred percent from the established distance in or under the par time, you’ll need to add difficulty to the drill so you continue to improve. Adding distance from the target and lowering the par time are two ways of keeping the drill relevant. Every drill we’re covering today requires a timer. If you don’t have one, a stopwatch with an audible alarm or a smartphone app, either shot timer or stopwatch, can be substituted. But seriously, get a real shot timer. Now on to the drills.
The first drill of this series you need to master is the reload drill. Yes, you need to know how to reload your firearm when it runs dry, and you need to know how to do it under pressure. And yes, you definitely need to know how to do this. Every class I teach I have the one person who tells me they don’t really need to carry reloads or know how to do it because either: A) my gun holds fifteen, seventeen, twenty rounds or B) if I can’t win the fight with six rounds more won’t help me. The former has a horribly distorted view of his marksmanship abilities and the effectiveness of his ammunition, while the latter has the rough life expectancy of one of Captain Kirk's girlfriends.
Carry a reload. The only time you have too much ammunition on you is when you’re on fire. Bullets get used really fast in a gunfight, and let me tell you from personal experience it really, really sucks when you run out. Your opponent, due to a high tolerance for pain, the effects of drugs, wearing body armor, or your stress-induced peripheral hits may absorb a lot of ammo and still be in the fight. And, oh yeah, if you’ve never been in a gunfight before, don’t discount the possibility you may just completely miss him. And remember, the first point of failure in a semiautomatic pistol is the magazine. So if you suddenly find yourself with a malfunctioning pistol, wouldn’t it be nice to be able to just jack a fresh magazine in and get back in the fight? Let me say it again, carry a reload.
This drill focuses on performing magazine changes quickly and efficiently. By practicing this skill, you can develop the ability to swap out empty magazines and insert fresh ones rapidly. This skill is crucial in real-life scenarios where the need for a faster reload can be the difference between life and death.
Repetition of the reload drill helps build muscle memory. By consistently practicing the motions involved in reloading, you can train your body to perform the task instinctively and without conscious thought. This muscle memory allows for faster and smoother reloads under stress or when faced with distractions.
The reload drill initially requires precise hand-eye coordination to smoothly extract an empty magazine from the firearm, retrieve a fresh magazine, and insert it correctly. Regular practice improves the coordination between the hands and the eyes, leading to more accurate and efficient reloads. You’ll ultimately reach the point where your eyes stay threat-focused and you reload without even looking at your pistol. You revolver shooters will always have to look your speedloader or speed strip into your gun.
You’ll need to maintain focus and concentration to execute each step correctly. This drill helps improve mental discipline and the ability to stay calm and composed while performing a critical task. While performing the reload drill, maintain situational awareness, scanning the environment for potential threats. This drill helps develop the ability to multitask and stay vigilant while reloading, ensuring that you remain aware of your surroundings and potential dangers.
The reload drill can be modified to simulate different scenarios, such as reloading from a seated position, behind cover, or while moving. Practicing various reloading techniques helps you adapt to different situations and become more versatile in your response to potential threats. By regularly practicing the reload drill, you can enhance your speed, efficiency, coordination, focus, situational awareness, and adaptability. These skills are essential for effectively managing ammunition changes in real-life self-defense situations, ultimately improving the overall competence and confidence.
This drill doesn’t require a lot of equipment. You’ll need a shot timer (told you), a target stand and target, gun, holster, at least two magazines/speedloaders (the more the better), and a mag/speedloader pouch.
To shoot it, start seven yards from the target, gun in hand , round chambered, empty mag in gun for semiautomatics, one round in cylinder indexed to fire next trigger pull for revolvers. Set a five second par time if you’re shooting a semiautomatic, seven seconds if you’re shooting a revolver.
At the signal, fire one round, drop the empty magazine from the pistol, or eject the spent cartridge from revolvers. Draw your magazine/speedloader, reload your gun and fire one round. Aim for center mass hits on the target, either the X on B27 targets, the down zero on IDPA targets, etcetera. Once you’re consistently beating the par time, back up to ten yards. Progress to fifteen, twenty, and twenty-five yards, then start cutting the par time down.
When shooting semiautomatics, I carry my spare magazines bullets to the rear on my left side just forward of my hip. This way, when I draw the magazine I put my index finger along the front with the tip just below the bullet. This removes the need to rotate my wrist and allows me to bring the mag straight up into the magwell. When I perform the reload, I hit my mag release button and slide my support hand down to ensure the empty mag is removed from the gun. I keep the gun at eye level with the grip canted at about a forty-five-degree angle toward my left side. (I’m right-handed.) Keeping my eyes downrange I draw my spare magazine and bring it up and into the gun orienting the mag by bringing my index finger toward my hand holding the gun. Once inserted I slide my left hand up to take the support grip and hit the slide release with my right thumb.
I know I could shave some time off by reaching for my spare mag while I’m hitting the mag release. I don’t, because if the empty mag doesn’t fall free, I’m able to pull it out with my support hand. Nothing like trying to remove a stuck empty mag when you have a full one in your hand. Especially in a gunfight. So I’ll live with the extra half-second. This is how I do it. There are many ways to skin a cat. Find the one that works the best for you.
When shooting revolvers, I carry my reloads just forward of my right hip. To reload, I bring the gun close to my chest into my workspace, push the cylinder release with my right thumb while pushing the cylinder open with the first three fingers of my left hand so that my left hand is holding the gun. I orient the gun vertically muzzle up and hit the ejector rod with my left thumb. Once the cylinder is cleared I orient the gun muzzle down while drawing my speedloader with my right hand. I put the tip of my index finger against the tip of a bullet and guide my fingertip towards an empty chamber. This helps line up the rest of the rounds with the other chambers. Seat the speedloader, turn the knob and drop it, close the cylinder with the left thumb, and back in the game.
Let me take a quick minute here to tell you about the answer to your photo and video needs.
Now, what if you’re in a gunfight, you’ve engaged one bad guy, and now there’s a break in the action? Because you don’t know if there are additional opponents, you want to have a fully loaded gun, but you want to retain a partial magazine, or partially reload a revolver cylinder. I give you the tactical reload drill.
The tactical reload drill focuses on performing magazine changes quickly and efficiently while maintaining control over the firearm. By practicing this drill, you develop the ability to swap out partially empty magazines with fresh ones effectively. This skill is crucial in real-life situations where the need for a tactical reload may arise, allowing individuals to maintain a sufficient ammunition supply during a potential threat encounter.
Unlike a speed reload where the empty magazine is discarded, the tactical reload drill emphasizes retaining the partially empty magazine. You learn to stow the partially empty magazine in a pouch or pocket, ensuring they have a backup source of ammunition if needed. This drill trains you to be resourceful and maximize your available ammunition in dynamic situations.
During the tactical reload drill, you are encouraged to maintain situational awareness while performing the reload. This helps develop the ability to multitask, ensuring that individuals remain aware of their surroundings and potential threats even during critical reloading moments. This skill is essential for maintaining personal safety while transitioning between magazines.
The tactical reload drill enhances grip and manipulation skills. You practice gripping the firearm securely while manipulating the release button, extracting the partially empty magazine, and inserting a fresh one. This drill helps develop muscle memory and dexterity in handling the firearm effectively during reloading sequences.
The tactical reload drill requires you to balance speed and efficiency. While speed is important, it should not compromise the control and retention of the partially empty magazine. Practicing this drill improves timing and efficiency in executing tactical reloads, allowing you to maintain readiness while minimizing the risk of fumbling or dropping magazines.
The tactical reload drill can be modified to simulate various scenarios, such as reloading from different positions, under low-light conditions, or while moving. By practicing different variations of the drill, you develop adaptability and versatility in performing tactical reloads based on the specific circumstances you may encounter in real-life situations.
By regularly practicing the tactical reload drill, you can improve your speed, efficiency, situational awareness, grip and manipulation skills, timing, and adaptability. These skills collectively contribute to a more effective reloading process, ensuring you can maintain a sufficient ammunition supply and readiness during self-defense encounters.
You’ll need the same equipment as you did for the reload drill. Shoot this one the same way, starting at the same distance with the same times. Be forewarned that this drill is a little more complicated so it’s going to be harder to master.
The last drill we’re going to cover in this episode is going to teach you how to put something between you and the bad guy in a gunfight. You’ve heard that you should try to get to cover in a fight, but you’ve never practiced shooting from behind it. It takes some practice to keep as little of you as possible from being presented as a target yet allow you to return fire effectively.
The barricade shooting drill focuses on shooting from behind cover or around obstacles. By practicing this drill, you learn how to effectively use cover to protect yourself while engaging threats. It trains you to position your body to minimize exposure while still maintaining the ability to accurately engage targets.
The barricade shooting drill requires you to adopt different shooting positions, such as crouching, kneeling, or leaning to the side. These positions help improve shooting mechanics and stability while shooting from unconventional stances. Practicing shooting from different positions enhances balance, control, and accuracy.
Engaging targets while partially hidden by a barricade or obstacle can be challenging. The barricade shooting drill trains you to quickly acquire proper sight picture and accurately engage targets while dealing with partial obstruction. This improves target acquisition speed and the ability to effectively engage threats in dynamic environments.
The barricade shooting drill often involves scenarios with multiple barricades or obstacles that require you to move between them. This develops adaptability and problem-solving skills, as you must assess the situation, identify the best cover options, and make quick decisions on movement and shooting angles.
The drill helps you become comfortable with shooting from various angles and orientations. Shooting around corners or through openings in a barricade requires adjusting shooting angles and understanding the impact of bullet trajectory. Regular practice in the barricade shooting drill improves spatial awareness and the ability to accurately engage targets from different shooting positions.
To set this drill up, place a target downrange. You’ll need something for a barricade. If your range has barrels you can use stack two up and place them seven yards away from the target. If your range is truly awesome and has a Viking Tactical barricade, use that. If your range doesn’t have any props, use another target stand with a target on it. Anything that you can use to simulate cover will work, but you need to be able to shoot around it from the standing, squatting, kneeling, and prone positions.
You can use a timer with this drill, but to start out just get familiar with what the mechanics of shooting from each of the positions and scoring effective hits.
Hopefully you’ve learned something from this. If you have suggestions on this topic or one you’d like to hear about, please by all means let me know. Put it in the comments section if the app you use has that feature, send me an email or text, use a carrier pigeon or smoke signal, whatever it takes. I’m actually very responsive to comments, and extremely appreciative of anything that would help me make this podcast better and offer more value to the shooting community.
After a COVID and ammo shortage-induced hiatus, we’ve brought back our popular Ladies Only Basic Handgun Clinic, with the first one being held on August twenty-sixth and twenty-seventh. Details are in the show notes.
As always, if you enjoyed this podcast consider letting one of your like-minded friends know about it. We’re listed in all the major podcast directories, or you can listen in at our website. Until next time, shoot safe.
