Written by: Greg Ellifritz
My friend Claude Werner recently wrote an article where he postulated most shooters don’t do any real structured practice with their firearms. They plink or play, but they generally don’t perform drills designed with realistic standards in order to improve performance. In the article, Claude talked about sharing details and photos of his practice routines to give novice shooters an idea about how they might better spend their practice time.
I think that is a wonderful idea. I plan on sharing the drills I shoot in my weekly practice sessions. Hopefully, you will get a little value out of my posts and come up with some new drills to make your own practice sessions more effective.
My weekly practice sessions are continuing to be reduced in frequency by daily life activities. It was almost three weeks since I last shot.
My stated practice plan this year was to begin each session with the Guerilla Approach Consistency Drill. I ran the drill four times with my Glock 17 pistol. I definitely do poorly on this drill if I don’t shoot it at least a couple times a month.
Round 1- with five misses = 27.64
Round 2- with four misses = 28.59
Round 3- with three misses = 30.41
Round 4 – no misses- 22.42
After 4 tries, I finally shot a good one
After the Consistency drill, I shot the Hateful 8 Drill two times with my 17 as well.
First round- 11.89 seconds- 78 points
Second round- 12.85 seconds- 75 points
Hateful 8 targets
After burning up seven magazines from my Glock 17, I transitioned to shooting a backup/hideout gun. Today I shot two different pocket guns. I shot a modified version of the Nevada CCW qualification course from Claude Werner’s Indoor Range Practice Sessions book with my Browning Baby and with a new FN1905 .25 auto. Distances were three and seven yards.
Top face target with Browning Baby. Bottom Bullseye with 1905
My new FN 1905 .25 auto shot the drill without any malfunctions. I liked the gun, but it isn’t really compatible with my big hands. In order to activate the grip safety, I have to grip the gun with a very high grip. Instead of “railroad tracking” my shooting hand, the little .25 created a much more difficult problem to clear. A piece of skin on the web of my thumb actually got pinched and caught between the slide and the frame. The pistol was literally dangling from a piece of my skin. No fun at all.
Strong side thumb after shooting the little 1905
Total rounds:
119 9mm Glock 17
12 .25 acp Browning Baby
17 .25 acp FN 1905
