Practical Shooting Training

HOW TO USE THIS BOOK

Practical Shooting Training is the most detailed and specific training manual for practical shooting that has ever been produced. This book is the culmination of years of steady training, instruction, teaching, and writing. As our understanding of how to git gud at practical shooting has grown over the years, the concepts described inside of this book have evolved and taken on a life of their own.

Invariably the first question I get will be from people that have followed my work over the past several years. What is different about this book? This is a fair question, so let me answer.

Practical Shooting Training is a layered approach to training. Instead of dumping out all the information you need for your training and then having you sift through hundreds of pages of drills and training information we have decided to structure this book in a new way.

There are 4 levels of training. Among these different levels, every reader should be able to find where they fit in and get to work from that point. Think of each level as a self-contained training book. Each level has a different mix of drills, goals and standards. The same exercises evolve and change over time as your shooting grows and changes. Each level of training is segregated in the book so it will be easy to work within that level.

If you have never fired a round at a match before, you start out at level 1. If you are chasing your 4th National title, you go to level 4. The structure allows this book to work for a wide audience and will give you plenty of room to grow as you work through the book. The design of this book also allows us to discuss topics when they start to matter. For example, things that do not make any difference to someone finishing in the middle of the pack at a club level match will be particularly important to more advanced shooters. The nuances of activated target strategies or mastery of hit factor scoring do not matter when you are starting out. Similarly, high-level shooters do not spend that much time working on slow fire group shooting. As you progress in ability your focus is going to change. This book is set up exactly for that type of evolution.

Broad Concepts

The meat of this text is the 4 largely self-contained training levels. However, please do not neglect to understand the broad concepts that are the foundations of each level of training. There are certain things that everyone, at every level, needs to understand and those ideas are laid out in the front of this book before we even get to any drills or training.

The ideas I am referencing here are the big picture ideas that should guide your training. I will make a small list of these concepts to provide some examples.

Your grip largely determines your shooting accuracy.

You should do two or three drills in a practice session.

You should dryfire regularly.

Livefire training informs your dry training and tells you what to work on next during dryfire.

Use training to look for an assessable pattern of mistakes.

Pay attention to the right cues.

Shoot the same target order every time during a set of runs on a transition drill for easier assessment.

The above list provides a few examples of some statements that someone who has a good understanding of what we are trying to accomplish through training might say. It is not an exhaustive list but does give you a sense of the sort of things you want to understand to be able to effectively train.

Don’t worry if there are items on the above list of statements that seem like foreign language. The front section of the book is here to give that common framework and understanding of many of these concepts. Make sure you pay careful attention to the sections about how to train before you jump straight to the level you deem correct for yourself.

Choosing the Correct Level

Many people will have some sort of confusion or uncertainty when it comes to what training level they should go to and operate in. This is a foreseeable issue when you are asking people to essentially train themselves.

The best advice to give is to take a close look at the following description of the training levels. Be honest with yourself in terms of where you think you truly fit in. It is important that you train at the intended level so you can master concepts and improve quickly. Jumping to level 4 as a new shooter will not serve you well.

Many people have mastered a set of concepts and skills to move beyond where they are. The next step is to move out of their comfort zone. They need to fail, and fail frequently, to learn what they need to do to get better. Naturally, people do not like failure. They do not like beating their head against a figurative wall to marginally improve at their hobby, but that is what needs to happen in order to grow.

Other people may have a bit of talent and speed and think they have already mastered concepts they have not even begun to deconstruct and figure out. There are lots of A class shooters in practical shooting with natural speed and basically nothing else. There is nothing wrong with that. If that is you, it is important to understand how to shoot not just fast, but consistently, if you wish to improve. Instead of going fast and hoping for the best, you train yourself into a machine that makes very minimal mistakes.

No matter what your circumstances and skill set are, it is extremely important that you are relentlessly honest with yourself. Do not allow yourself to sit back and be complacent without working to be better.

The Levels

This book has 4 training levels. As you grow and improve, more concepts get layered in and the time standards tighten up. Concepts that are ignored in level 1 are emphasized in level 4. Concepts that are emphasized in level 1 are taken for granted in level 3.

Some of these choices are, in many ways, arbitrary. The borders between levels are a little bit fuzzy. Any of these normal sorts of criticisms when you lay out a training system are expected and, in many ways, healthy. The bottom line is, we wanted to divide things up into a reasonable number of levels and we arrived at the cleanest way we could see to do that.

Level 1 – Complete a Club Match Without a Penalty

Level 1 is designed to make you competent, safe, accurate, and able to shoot under pressure. It contains no time standards and does not have any advanced shooting concepts like different aiming schemes on different targets. It is designed to take you from no practical experience doing competitive shooting and get you through a club match without shooting any misses or no-shoots.

Level 2 – Get to B Class

Level 2 introduces basic time standards for many exercises and it also introduces the concept of different aiming schemes based on different targets. If you understand USPSA safety rules and how to shoot your gun accurately (even if a little bit too slowly), the next goal is to make USPSA B class or a similar skill level.

Level 3 – Get to Master/Grand Master

Level 3 has advanced concepts like dynamic movement, predictive shooting, multiple aiming schemes, and GM time limits for basic exercises. Once you are competent, accurate, and you have some measure of speed, the next challenge is to become one of the best shooters in your club and achieve a high rank inside your shooting sport. Making GM was my first goal when I started shooting USPSA. Setting a goal like making GM will force you to learn in order to achieve that goal. It will come with practice and dedication.

Level 4 – Achieve Competitive Excellence

Level 4 emphasizes consistency of performance and building a deep understanding of how to blend different techniques together to marginally improve scores. If you are basically training every day and have already ranked up inside your shooting sport, you are likely looking to train at Level 4. This level is appropriate to those that are chasing important titles at big matches. It is for the top shooters that are not afraid of challenges. If you can accomplish (after a bit of practice) pretty much any skill with a handgun that you see on Instagram and want to do very well at big matches, this level is for you.

The Drills

The bulk of this text is a series of training drills. Please pay careful attention to these directions so you can get the most out of it. Just as it is important to understand how the training levels work, you will also need to understand how the drills are supposed to work.

There is a lot of variety to the drills in this book. Some of them are small and simple. They have a strict time limit and an easy-to-assess performance standard. Other drills are complex, open ended, and difficult to do a performance assessment on. You will need to engage your brain to understand what exactly you are trying to accomplish for each drill and how that fits into your larger plan for shooting.

Many of the drills are open-ended in terms of their physical construction. It will be up to you to build out the shooting positions and targets. Try to build the drill in such a way that it reflects what you are seeing in matches.

It is common that people will build things to be harder because they want to feel comfortable at matches. Making the targets much tougher and more punishing than matches is not a bad idea to get you used to difficult scenarios, but you do need to be careful. You should bear in mind that much of your training is getting used to being relaxed and comfortable on challenges that many people consider easier. It isn’t enough that you can smash targets perfectly at 25 yards, you need to be able to shoot at warp speed at the 5-yard line without tensing up or inducing errors. You need to work the whole spectrum of potential scenarios so your training should reflect this.

Start positions/conditions and other procedural issues

Many of the drills in the book are left open-ended in terms of the start position or some other procedural issue with the drill. This is intentional. Feel free to practice any start position you want to and work that into the drill you are training on. Try to mix it up in your training the same as it would be mixed up in a match. Hands up, hands down, back to the targets are all good options for training (to name a few). Mixing it up from hands relaxed at sides is always good.

The standard tests are drills that are strict with a par time are the ones you want to pay careful attention to the start condition. You want to make sure that you measure yourself accurately against the standard, so you have a realistic idea of where you stack up and what you should focus your efforts on next.

Par times

Time goals are referred to as par times. These times should not be considered a pass/fail sort of test, but instead they should give you a good idea of where your times should fall in general on a particular exercise.

For example, if the par time for the drill is 5 seconds, shooting the drill in 5.2, 4.8, 5.1, 4.7, 5.4, and so on means you are pretty much in the range you are meant to be in. Shooting the drill once under 5 seconds does not mean you pass. Shooting it over 5 seconds once does not mean you fail. Instead, the par time is giving you an idea where your time should be falling. A bad rep where you bobble a bit on the reload coming in just over the par time means you are generally where you need to be.

The par times are a guide. They exist to give you a push in the right direction. They should not serve as a hard limit. Use them for the information they provide you, but do not let them take over your life or dominate your training.

Equipment considerations

There are some equipment considerations that should be addressed, especially as it relates to the par times. This book is designed to be picked up and used by people in different divisions and shooting both in USPSA matches in the US, and IPSC matches outside the US. The equipment rules vary, and the popular gear varies as well. Some people will be using iron sights and some will be using optics. Some people will be using race triggers and others will be using near-factory Glocks.

In the same way as the construction and start positions are open-ended, you should use your head when it comes to equipment as well. Some things in this book will get a LOT harder depending on the gear you have. This may require you to adjust your expectations or standards. The book is targeted at a wide audience. If there is some time standard or some drill that does not seem to work for you the way your gear is set up, make a reasonable adjustment to the construction or the par time. There is no reason to get hung up on minutia.

Physical limitations

Many users of this book have one or more physical conditions that may hamper their development in shooting. This book is written from the point of view of an able-bodied adult and is pointed towards the same audience. Just like when it comes to issues of equipment, you should be reasonable when it comes to physical issues. If you are not yet old enough to legally drive a car, you likely have not physically developed to the same extent you will in adulthood. You may have some injury that impacts your results in certain areas. Be smart and adapt this material to suit your own