top/most important pistol and rifle training exercises

With ammo prices and availability the way they are now, can anyone suggest some rifle and pistol drills that maybe are the most “efficient” to practice? I figure I have about 1000 9mm and the same in .223 to practice with before my stock gets uncomfortably close to low. I would like to maximize the usage of that ammo if that makes sense. thanks yall!

Are you doing any dry fire practice? Read Ben Stoeger or Steve Anderson's books for action pistol dry fire practice. These are aimed toward speed and accuracy for pistol sports, but it's a good start.

I do. I have a small private range at my disposal where I practice draws, dry fire and transitions however I have had no real instruction except for the occasional youtube video. Ill usually start with 20 draws with finger off the trigger, then 20-30 more with one dry fire. Some mag changes and transitions, then live fire.

I will certainly have to check out your suggestion. I appreciate the help!

I can't suggest specific drills as I am a newb. But it might help others suggest if you had any areas you know you need to improve on.

Calling Blaster! Pick up line 1.

is “everything” an answer? I think transitioning from target to target needs work. I know I could google “how to shoot faster” and “how to draw faster” and so on but I figured Id get yalls 2cents.

Forum member Blaster229 often has had great suggestions in the past. I'd do a search on his posts. I'll do a search on my subscribes to see if I bookmarked them.

Some info here: https://www.mdshooters.com/showthread.php?t=241878

Thank you! will do

****I bought a SIRT laser pistol that is the same weight and size as my competition pistol, and use it for draw, basic aiming, mag reloads (has detachable mags), etc.. I have a LaserLyte system and it records where you shoot on targets, but there are other systems that just use a smart phone, or even laser reading "cans" or reactive targets by several companies (Laserlyte pictured..) that provide feedback, etc.. You can transition from target to target with decent feedback using the laser system. I bought my cheapie laser gun for about $170, and it works well.

Ben Stoeger and others have great books on dry firing and drills, etc... Ammo is really expensive right now so I've been doing dry fire and laser training for pistol work.

I came across this video which gave me some good ideas on how to do some shooting drills. It might be too basic for some people, but as a newby I found it really helpful.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=F8MvKIiXC2M&ab_channel=JerryMiculek-ProShooter

Dry Fire ! Save your actual ammo for things that require actual recoil dynamics to experience .

Drawing , ( initial) target acquisition , grip, stance , sight alignment ( as broad catagory , substitute your preferred method/ explanation of visual indexing) , manipulation of controls , and trigger control can all be practiced Dry . Recoil control , and to lesser extent transition between different targets inherently require Recoil .

Sealion said:

Calling Blaster! Pick up line 1.

Click to expand...

Whew, so many things, where to start? I can't help you with rifle. Someone else needs to do that.

I'd have to ask is self defense oriented or slow fire marksmanship?

Don't worry about breath, stance, and trigger finger placement all that much.

Work on and pay attention to your GRIP. Your trigger finger is not responsible for pushing your pistol to the left or pulling it to the right(if right handed).
If your tiny finger is bullying your two strong hands, then your hands aren't doing what they need to do.
Grip is the first event in the string of events contributing to the shot.
Grip, draw, press out/aim, then trigger press. If your grip is off, everything after that will be off.
Your grip is essential to not (eliminating recoil and muzzle flip), but working with it. Since neither will be totally eliminated. No one diagnoses the grip. They shoot, look at the shot and think trigger mostly. But we never look at where our grip is after the shot. Instead of looking at that shot immediately, look at your grip. What moved from shot to shot?

Shoot support(off) hand. No one trains shooting support hand. I don't have to explain why. 1 hand shooting. Not 2 handed. They may not be bullseyes, but they will hit center mass.

Shoot standing on 1 leg. You'll be amazed how good(close) your shots still are. Stance does NOT help control or reduce recoil.

Shoot "gangsta" style. If you are laying in bed or on the couch and take a shot, that's pretty much how you'll shoot.

One of my biggest things is practice picking your pistol up off the coffee table(or wherever you have it). You'll be amazed how shitty your grip is in a rush. Try to be better at that. You might find you need to use your support hand to help lift it up by the slide/trigger guard and helping place it into your hand. Because your grip hand thumb will just push and slide the pistol forward.

Above all else, SHOOT SLOWLY. Load your mag 1 or 2 rounds at a time.
People load 15 rounds, start shooting shitty after the 2nd round, then just start getting frustrated, holding their breath, shooting faster, burning through ammo, and start missing more.
If you are holding your breath while taking a shot, if you feel the need to breath but don't, and your shot is taking too long, just stop, reset and do it all over. Save that shot. If you are taking a few seconds or more to aim, then you're taking too long. Reset yourself. Slow down. Don't waste ammo. I'm amazed at people who shoot 2 or 300 rounds in an hour.

After each shot STAY ON TARGET. Don't immediately retract the pistol and do whatever. Stay looking at that(threat). You might have to take follow up shots.

I'm tired of typing. I might post more later.

Good luck. PM me if you have a question about something.

SHOOT SLOW! Make each practice round count.

I'm a Bullseye pistol shooter and a big believer in dry fire, particularly for marksmanship. Pay close attention to the front sight and sight alignment as you dry fire. If your front sight moves or the sights become misaligned when the hammer/striker falls, that's a cue to change something. Consider having a buddy place a dime on your front sight while dry firing if possible; the goal is to dry fire the gun without causing the dime to fall off and without changing your sight picture.

If you have a need/desire to simulate recoil without expending live ammo, take a look at the Cool Fire trainer. It uses CO2 to cycle the slide and you can add a laser to it if you have a laser target. The recoil feels different from live fire but you don't have to manually cycle the gun for your next dry fire shot each time.

For live fire, I'm also a big fan of "ball and dummy" drills. The idea is to load the magazine with a mix of both live and dummy rounds (without knowing the order/sequence). It's easier to diagnose problems when the gun goes "click" instead of bang. This technique is particularly effective at revealing flinches, recoil anticipation, etc. Even better when you have a buddy observing to provide feedback.

Blaster229 said:

Whew, so many things, where to start? I can't help you with rifle. Someone else needs to do that.

I'd have to ask is self defense oriented or slow fire marksmanship?

Don't worry about breath, stance, and trigger finger placement all that much.

Work on and pay attention to your GRIP. Your trigger finger is not responsible for pushing your pistol to the left or pulling it to the right(if right handed).
If your tiny finger is bullying your two strong hands, then your hands aren't doing what they need to do.
Grip is the first event in the string of events contributing to the shot.
Grip, draw, press out/aim, then trigger press. If your grip is off, everything after that will be off.
Your grip is essential to not (eliminating recoil and muzzle flip), but working with it. Since neither will be totally eliminated. No one diagnoses the grip. They shoot, look at the shot and think trigger mostly. But we never look at where our grip is after the shot. Instead of looking at that shot immediately, look at your grip. What moved from shot to shot?

Shoot support(off) hand. No one trains shooting support hand. I don't have to explain why. 1 hand shooting. Not 2 handed. They may not be bullseyes, but they will hit center mass.

Shoot standing on 1 leg. You'll be amazed how good(close) your shots still are. Stance does NOT help control or reduce recoil.

Shoot "gangsta" style. If you are laying in bed or on the couch and take a shot, that's pretty much how you'll shoot.

One of my biggest things is practice picking your pistol up off the coffee table(or wherever you have it). You'll be amazed how shitty your grip is in a rush. Try to be better at that. You might find you need to use your support hand to help lift it up by the slide/trigger guard and helping place it into your hand. Because your grip hand thumb will just push and slide the pistol forward.

Above all else, SHOOT SLOWLY. Load your mag 1 or 2 rounds at a time.
People load 15 rounds, start shooting shitty after the 2nd round, then just start getting frustrated, holding their breath, shooting faster, burning through ammo, and start missing more.
If you are holding your breath while taking a shot, if you feel the need to breath but don't, and your shot is taking too long, just stop, reset and do it all over. Save that shot. If you are taking a few seconds or more to aim, then you're taking too long. Reset yourself. Slow down. Don't waste ammo. I'm amazed at people who shoot 2 or 300 rounds in an hour.

After each shot STAY ON TARGET. Don't immediately retract the pistol and do whatever. Stay looking at that(threat). You might have to take follow up shots.

I'm tired of typing. I might post more later.

Good luck. PM me if you have a question about something.

SHOOT SLOW! Make each practice round count.

Click to expand...

Great post, but the bolt text especially is GOLD.

I try to shrink whatever I am working on into a simple low-round count exercise, then repeat it to help make it feel intuitive. I do a LOT of dryfire practice when trying to work on something for competition, or to help lock in what I learned in a defensive course. I also do single round practice for many things, works with handguns or carbines. My own "knock the rust off" practice drill is to load 1 round in a few mags, draw and fire 1 round on a target probably 20' away instinctively, repeat till I hit where I want. Next is to start with the same draw and fire a single shot, then reload, and fire the 2nd shot with the sights at a further target, and recover the sight picture to the same POA. After that I might mess around with other stuff, but round for round not as valuable as the single shot exercises, those can teach you a lot with a few rounds of ammo.

thanks to everyone for the suggestions and direction. looks like I have a lot to practice!

Here would be my advice, assuming you have access to a shot timer and a place where you can draw and shoot.

Shoot Tom Givens' Rangemaster "Core Skills Test". It is a 40 round course of a fire (so less than a box of ammo) that you will shoot from 3 to 25 yards. It incorporates the slightest bit of movement (a sidestep, of dubious value, but easy to do even in a shooting booth at an indoor range), strong-hand only and weak-hand only work, reloads, head shots, etc. One of the good things is that it can be shot at a variety of different targets and utilizes Comstock scoring so that, when you're done, you'll find yourself within a "range" of scores. You can then, in order to improve, identify what areas you were most deficient in (speed up close, accuracy at distance, taking the extra half-beat on head shots, slow on reloads, recoil control on the Bill Drill stage, etc.) and then WORK ON THOSE INDIVIDUAL skills.

Also, Givens has partially developed the Core Skills Test to reflect the type of shootings his students (65, I believe) have been involved in (all but three won their fights.....those who did not were unarmed the day they needed a gun). MOST of the shots are up close, but there are SOME at distance. I should also mention that the stats of his student gunfights are similar to those of FBI and DEA agents, half of whose shootings each year occur when their agents in plainclothes are mistaken for Joe Schmo and experience an attempted armed robbery or assault.

Here is the Core Skills Test:

3 yds From Concealed Holster Sidestep, Draw 4 rds
5 yds From Concealed Holster Sidestep, Draw 3 chest, 2 head
5 yds Low Ready Strong-hand only 4 rds
5 yds Low Ready Support-hand only 5 rds
7 yds From Concealed Holster Draw 6 rds (this is a Bill Drill)
7 yds Low Ready 3 rds loaded in gun 3 rds, reload, 3 more rounds
10 yds From Concealed Holster Draw 3 rds
15 yds From Concealed Holster Draw 4 rds
25 yds From Concealed Holster Draw 3 rds
40 rds total

Can use IDPA target or something similar (USPSA, etc.), scored 5, 3, 1 (i.e, 5 pts in the A/Down 0 zone, 3 pts in the C/Down 1 zone, etc.)

Take total pts and divide by total time, then multiply that # by 20, and then you'll have your total score.

Scores:
80-100= Very Good
101-124= Advanced
125-???= Master

I typically score at the low end of Advanced. I think once I shot a 120.

I think this test will give you a good idea of where you currently "stand" and help you identify specific skills to work on. I have not shot it in a while and since I have not been shooting as much over the last year, I am eager to try it again soon to see how my reduced level of live-fire practice may have affected my skills.

Hit me back with any questions.

hogarth said:

Here would be my advice, assuming you have access to a shot timer and a place where you can draw and shoot.

Shoot Tom Givens' Rangemaster "Core Skills Test".

Here is the Core Skills Test:

3 yds From Concealed Holster Sidestep, Draw 4 rds
5 yds From Concealed Holster Sidestep, Draw 3 chest, 2 head
5 yds Low Ready Strong-hand only 4 rds
5 yds Low Ready Support-hand only 5 rds
7 yds From Concealed Holster Draw 6 rds (this is a Bill Drill)
7 yds Low Ready 3 rds loaded in gun 3 rds, reload, 3 more rounds
10 yds From Concealed Holster Draw 3 rds
15 yds From Concealed Holster Draw 4 rds
25 yds From Concealed Holster Draw 3 rds
40 rds total

Can use IDPA target or something similar (USPSA, etc.), scored 5, 3, 1 (i.e, 5 pts in the A/Down 0 zone, 3 pts in the C/Down 1 zone, etc.)

Take total pts and divide by total time, then multiply that # by 20, and then you'll have your total score.

Click to expand...

Looks fun. I hate 25 yards "self defense" shots tho. It's just that weird distance where you can most likely get more separation/escape in a normal outside/parking lot/shopping center/store environment and get to some cover.
Or, you can easily close the gap another 5 -10 yards to assure a good shot.
Pretty unrealistic to think that you would be force on force with someone in an empty field having a duel at 25 yards. At least from a barricaded position at 25.

Blaster229 said:

Looks fun. I hate 25 yards "self defense" shots tho. It's just that weird distance where you can most likely get more separation/escape in a normal outside/parking lot/shopping center/store environment and get to some cover.
Or, you can easily close the gap another 5 -10 yards to assure a good shot.
Pretty unrealistic to think that you would be force on force with someone in an empty field having a duel at 25 yards. At least from a barricaded position at 25.

Click to expand...

It's on the edge and would most often be a "defense of others" shot.

One of Givens' students had to make a shot at 22 yds. I believe it was across the width of a street. There was also a wife who saved her husband being attacked on the front lawn (she was shooting from second floor wimdow, he was outside being beaten/robbed).

And notice the test only has 3 out of 40 rounds fired at that distance, which is again in line with what % of shots might have to be taken at such a distance based on his students' stats.

And the "Shitty grip" in a panic is why I hate my wifes (for her) M&P EZ with the grip safety,, it has refused to fire when she does "panic shooting" drills

Blaster229 said:

Whew, so many things, where to start? I can't help you with rifle. Someone else needs to do that.

I'd have to ask is self defense oriented or slow fire marksmanship?

Don't worry about breath, stance, and trigger finger placement all that much.

Work on and pay attention to your GRIP. Your trigger finger is not responsible for pushing your pistol to the left or pulling it to the right(if right handed).
If your tiny finger is bullying your two strong hands, then your hands aren't doing what they need to do.
Grip is the first event in the string of events contributing to the shot.
Grip, draw, press out/aim, then trigger press. If your grip is off, everything after that will be off.
Your grip is essential to not (eliminating recoil and muzzle flip), but working with it. Since neither will be totally eliminated. No one diagnoses the grip. They shoot, look at the shot and think trigger mostly. But we never look at where our grip is after the shot. Instead of looking at that shot immediately, look at your grip. What moved from shot to shot?

Shoot support(off) hand. No one trains shooting support hand. I don't have to explain why. 1 hand shooting. Not 2 handed. They may not be bullseyes, but they will hit center mass.

Shoot standing on 1 leg. You'll be amazed how good(close) your shots still are. Stance does NOT help control or reduce recoil.

Shoot "gangsta" style. If you are laying in bed or on the couch and take a shot, that's pretty much how you'll shoot.

One of my biggest things is practice picking your pistol up off the coffee table(or wherever you have it). You'll be amazed how shitty your grip is in a rush. Try to be better at that. You might find you need to use your support hand to help lift it up by the slide/trigger guard and helping place it into your hand. Because your grip hand thumb will just push and slide the pistol forward.

Above all else, SHOOT SLOWLY. Load your mag 1 or 2 rounds at a time.
People load 15 rounds, start shooting shitty after the 2nd round, then just start getting frustrated, holding their breath, shooting faster, burning through ammo, and start missing more.
If you are holding your breath while taking a shot, if you feel the need to breath but don't, and your shot is taking too long, just stop, reset and do it all over. Save that shot. If you are taking a few seconds or more to aim, then you're taking too long. Reset yourself. Slow down. Don't waste ammo. I'm amazed at people who shoot 2 or 300 rounds in an hour.

After each shot STAY ON TARGET. Don't immediately retract the pistol and do whatever. Stay looking at that(threat). You might have to take follow up shots.

I'm tired of typing. I might post more later.

Good luck. PM me if you have a question about something.

SHOOT SLOW! Make each practice round count.

Click to expand...