Shooting Drills – Keepers' Test

Jim Tarr shot this drill during our 2018 “Handguns & Defensive Weapons” season, and it struck me as deceptively difficult. It comes to us from Spencer Keepers of Keepers Concealment Holsters, and it’s all about draw speed from concealment and pinpoint accuracy.

Gear
Your actual concealed-carry gun (no cheating!), shot timer.

Drill
Target is a 3x5 card, stapled vertically to a backer so you can see all shots. From seven yards, draw and shoot three rounds.

Goals
Hit the 3x5 card with all three shots. Three seconds is a good goal to aim for, but if you start out blazing away trying to make three seconds you will likely find that 3x5 target is a lot smaller than you thought.

My advice is baby steps: Do the draw as fast as you safely can, sure, but keep your shooting pace at a level where you’re getting all three hits. Then see how many times in a row you can get all hits, note the average time, and use that as your base.

Push yourself to go faster, but once the misses start coming, back off to the base time—lest you start developing bad habits. Once your fundamentals return, pick up the speed again. With practice you’ll see your average time for all hits drop, which is the progress you’re looking for.

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