May Drill

For May I am giving you homework.

I want you to begin the process of developing your own personal shooting standards. Standards or benchmarks are a powerful tool because it’s a raw you vs you moment where you can objectively see if you are up to par, improving, or letting your skills slip below an acceptable level. This is different than keeping track of person records (PRs). Every day we are getting better at some things while getting worse at others. It is a natural byproduct of only having so much time and attention to spend on too many responsibilities and interests. A standard is set at the baseline where even on a bad day, you should be capable of achieving that level. A dip in performance doesn’t mean you are “bad at” that skill, it just reflects a lack of time or effort in that area. You can start by borrowing someone else’s standard, but you quickly need to figure out what makes sense for you and your mission. Not every LEO needs to shoot a pistol at a grandmaster level or be a BJJ black belt. If you don’t own a gas mask or night vision… you don’t need gas mask or night vision standards. Defining and holding yourself to well thought out standards will help keep your focus on what is important to you and on your reason for developing that specific skill. You should train to a level where you can meet your chosen standard cold and at any time.

If your yearly firearms qualification is your standard for how well you should shoot, you are wrong. State and agency qualification standards are an administrative checkbox, not an excellent way to prove that an officer can perform with a firearm at a high level. 

The goal on this month’s drill is not to get your fastest blazing time that takes a 5 minute warmup to land. The goal is to figure out what your repeatable gold standard is or should be. On these pistol shots there’s enough time that you don’t have to point shoot. You have time to get a sight picture and then break the trigger at the moment of full presentation. Don’t sit and hang out at full presentation while you over confirm for an extra half second.

If you can’t meet the standard written here, no worries. It’s completely arbitrary. Get a solid 5-10 reps in and see where you are at and if that’s good enough for you or if you need a standard that is at a higher level than your current performance. 

•From ready position- A zone hit at 7 yards in
0.75 sec

•Draw from the holster & fire 1 shot (A zone)
10y - 1.5 sec
15y - 2.0 sec
20y - 2.5 sec
25y - 3 sec

Let me know if you have any questions and have fun!

Stay safe but dangerous,

Kyle Price

Director

Upstate SC Constables Association