Defensive Shooting Drills: Training How You Fight

Black_Rifle_Gunsmith

[Black_Rifle_Gunsmith]

Commanding your Second Amendment rights appropriately means knowing how to defend yourself with responsibility and confidence. That means using lethal force, if necessary. After all, your goal is to remain safe and protect yourself and your property. But stocking up on ammo and guns isn’t enough. You need to know how to shoot, and shoot well under stress. If the time ever comes, pulling the trigger will require no hesitation and a lot of confidence. You need to build your shooting skills into your muscle memory.

You should practice defensive shooting drills consistently. This quick guide will teach you how to shoot more confidently and effectively with handgun drills. Let's first review drills that focus on improving your stance and quick-draw, followed by your grip, sight picture, and aim. These pistol drills will get you confident behind the trigger when speed counts. Then let's look at drills that teach you how to master malfunctions and clear jams. This guide will also review some drills you can practice with long rifles. This will ensure you’re capable of reacting to a threat and retaining the upper hand, even if your rifle or pistol doesn’t want to cooperate.

To make defensive shooting drills more beneficial, follow these best practices:

• Always know what’s behind your target, even when practicing.
• Always wear hearing and eye protection while shooting.
• Invest in a programmable shot timer to start your drills for you.
• Have a range buddy help you analyze your quick-draw, grip, and shot placement.
• Practice each drill with live rounds by placing three shots on-target. This will help you work on your accuracy and sight picture while you’re also trying to improve your speed.

1. The Quick-Draw Drill

Defensive shooting means reacting to and dispatching the threat quickly. If you’re facing an attacker, there won’t be time to draw your weapon and consider the situation. The quick-draw drill is exactly what it sounds like: Practicing how to quickly draw your weapon and get a bead on the threat in front of you. This is the meat and potatoes of all pistol shooting drills. If you can master the quick draw and an appropriate sight picture, you’ve covered the basics.

Play with holster placement. It's important to cover this first because this drill also teaches you how to configure your holster and troubleshoot your setup. Depending on your build and holster type (inside or outside the waistband), you may find that shifting from a 3 o’ clock position (pictured above) to a 4 or 6 o’ clock position (dependent on your left- or right-handedness) makes drawing easier.

This is especially true if you’re rocking an IWB holster. Your holster position should allow you to grip your handgun with at least three fingers. It should also prevent you from having to excessively bend your arm or twist. You should be able to keep both feet planted in a shooting stance with your eyes, face, and body directly on target while you draw. Play around with holster position while you perform this drill if you find drawing quickly is difficult.

Practicing the Drill:

First, assume a shooting stance. Ensure both feet are planted firmly. You should be directly facing your target. Your feet should be shoulder-width apart. Work on your grab. With your shooting stance assumed, practice pulling your weapon from its holster. Get a feel for the movement. Is it natural? Can you keep eyes on target and feet planted? Can you get your grip high on the gun’s backstrap? Make adjustments to holster position as needed. Practice drawing. Next, get comfortable with pulling your weapon up to the high-ready. As soon as your gun clears the holster, work on rotating the muzzle toward the target while you bring it up. Practice your grip. While moving the muzzle on target, have your offhand meet your weapon and main hand directly in front of your chest, pushing out and extending your arms toward the target. At this point, you should be practicing the appropriate grip:

• The “V” between your shooting hand’s thumb and index finger should be high on the backstrap.
• The trigger finger should remain indexed on the side of the slide until ready to fire.
• Your remaining fingers and thumb should be gripping the mag well.
• With your supporting offhand, place the muscle area of your thumb and your palm on the exposed side of the grip, opposite your shooting hand.
• Wrap your offhand fingers and thumb over your shooting hand fingers and thumb. Don’t interlock your fingers.
• Both thumbs should be on the same side of the grip. Your offhand thumb should rest atop your shooting hand’s thumb. Ensure the offhand thumb is not in the way of the slide. You don’t want slide bite.
• Practice sight picture and firing. With the appropriate stance, holster position, quick-draw, and grip figured out, you can start slinging rounds on-target.

Rinse, wash, repeat. If practicing with live founds, fire three-shot groups on-target, then re-holster and repeat the drill. This will allow you to triangulate your shot placement and figure out if your sight picture or grip are incorrect. Practice this drill until you can confidently maintain a shooting stance, perform a quick-draw without failure or hesitation, get on target consistently, and make consistent groupings. Then, continue repeating this drill for as long as you own your guns. Work on getting faster and faster. Invest in a shot timer to help gauge your speed. This is the most effective way to learn real muscle memory.

2. The Mozambique Drill

Now that you know how to quick-draw and meet your target, it’s time to practice what you should do when the threat in question is coming hard and fast. Usually, a single round or gut shot won’t do the trick. You need to practice shot placement so you can ensure each round on target works to quickly bring down the threat. We’re talking about the Mozambique Drill, commonly known as the Failure to Stop Drill. Build this drill into your Quick-Draw practice. Ideally, you should be practicing the Mozambique Drill while you’re running through your quick-draw drill. The Mozambique Drill (also called the Failure to Stop Drill) is incredibly simple:

• Put two rounds center-mass, in the chest
• Put the third round in the head of the threat

Practice getting two rounds on the center mass of your target. Work on getting that third round right between the eyes, nose, and mouth. Crudely known as the “double tap”, this drill is guaranteed to stop any attacker, regardless of weapon or caliber.

3. Clearing Jams Drill

You can call this the “Oh, crap” Drill, and it’s critically important you practice. Anyone can “get good” at anything when conditions are right. Real skill comes in fixing malfunctions and deficiencies and achieving the same standard. This philosophy applies to defensive shooting. With this drill, we’re practicing how to clear a jam or weapon malfunction so we can get back into the fight quickly – in a matter of seconds, at most. You can practice this drill with handguns and semiautomatic rifles like the AR-15. Setting up this drill requires the use of a snap cap (an inert round), or a spent shell casing. Using either option, we’re simulating a round that got stuck feeding, a dead primer, and a stovepipe.

All these common malfunctions can be fixed with this drill:

• Chamber your snap cap or casing. Make sure your weapon’s in battery with the spent casing or blank in the chamber, ready to fire.
• Load a magazine. You can technically practice this drill at home with no live rounds, but it greatly helps to practice shooting live rounds at the range after clearing a malfunction.
• Prepare to fire (Bonus: Use a timer). Obtain a good shooting stance and get your weapon to the high-ready position with a good sight picture.
• It helps to use a buddy with a whistle or a shot timer for this drill. A shot timer can be programmed to randomly start your drill with a buzzer or ringer. This will help simulate an unexpected jam.
• Clear the jam. When ready – or when the shot timer rings – immediately move your offhand to your weapon’s magazine and remove it. Quickly rack the slide or charging handle several times to clear the simulated jam.
• Reinsert your magazine (empty or with live rounds), rack a new round, obtain your sight picture and pull the trigger on-target. This completes the drill. Repeat this drill at a slower speed, mastering each step. Work on getting faster while retaining accurate shot placement.

Summary & Tips

Practicing the quick-draw drill will make you more confident with your handgun. It’ll teach you how to react to threats and draw your weapon quickly. The Mozambique Drill will improve your ability to quickly acquire a target and put rounds where they’re most lethal. Practicing clearing jams is critically important, too – you can’t always count on your weapon working 100% of the time. Remember the Four Rules of firearm safety:

• Treat every weapon as if it's loaded, at all times.
• Never point a gun at anything you don't intend to destroy.
• Keep your finger off the trigger until you're ready to fire.
• Know your target and what's behind it at all times.

[Lurkinanloomin]

Soon to be illegal in Virginia.......

[jagusafr]

One suggestion, with the caveat that I agree with 95% of your post: If we’re “training like we fight”, shouldn’t there be the occasional drill WITHOUT ear protection? The fog of war/personal protection includes the noise and fury of responding to live, loud weapons fire. Should there be a balance between safety and realism?

Colonel, USAF (ret)

[Black_Rifle_Gunsmith]

Respectfully, I disagree. I wouldn’t risk blowing my ear drums out at the range, ever. Especially considering it’s going to ruin my auditory situational awareness if it’s ever needed. — Fires NCO/JFO, ret. (with Tinnitus)

[SanchoP]

Defensive shooting = dead meat

[mad_as_he$$]

I have been in three events where guns were discharged in confined space(s). One in a house, one in a vehicle and one in a store. They were all very loud and disorienting. That said I also have tinnitus from shooting most 22lr as a kid, but also hunting with long guns. I would protect my hearing if I had it to do over again; but one needs to be aware how loud a pistol shot will be in your own home. Oh and there is now way you can communicate to another person with a whisper after a shot in an enclosed space.

[jagusafr]

Ditto the tinnitus here, BRG. Just seems as though disorientation could be reduced if one had been in that situation even once before.

[Magnum44]

I realize its impossible to discuss and transfer all the knowledge of the technique of safely drawing from a holster in one short article, much less the other matters you cover. But I really think you should emphasize the practice of what you do with your support hand during the draw so as not to muzzle yourself while drawing or returning the gun to the holster, and muzzle awareness throughout so as not to muzzle anyone who is not the threat while drawing.

Other than that, good post. :)

[Yo-Yo]

One suggestion, with the caveat that I agree with 95% of your post: If we’re “training like we fight”, shouldn’t there be the occasional drill WITHOUT ear protection? The fog of war/personal protection includes the noise and fury of responding to live, loud weapons fire. Should there be a balance between safety and realism?

Colonel, USAF (ret)

No, sir, never train without proper hearing and eye protection.

We also don't perform the occasional drill of standing downrange and having gunfire whizzing past us, just to orient ourselves to the feeling of being under fire.

The training benefits do not outweigh the safety risks.

[Magnum44]

One possible solution. You can now get good electronic hearing protectors that st inside your ear like a miniature hearing aide for under $1000. Cheaper ones for $500.

I carry everywhere I legally can. I have just recently begun to where the miniature electronic protectors, not everywhere yet, but when I am at the range or when I volunteer for church security. I may decide at some point to just wear them all the time. Haven't made that decision yet as they are low profile but not invisible.

[metmom]

Oh and there is now way you can communicate to another person with a whisper after a shot in an enclosed space.

Or you could learn some sign language.

I find it works well at the range with my son, who also knows it.

[metmom]

I have just recently begun to where the miniature electronic protectors, not everywhere yet, but when I am at the range or when I volunteer for church security. I may decide at some point to just wear them all the time. Haven't made that decision yet as they are low profile but not invisible.

These days, someone is likely to think they are hearing aids.

[Magnum44]

Thats kind of what I am afraid of. Dont like to admit how old I am getting. LOL

[USS Alaska]

Since my body gun is almost always a revolver and not a semi-auto, jamming is not an issue, but accuracy is.

I only have 5 or 6 shots before I need to speed re-load or switch weapons, but that could be very iffy, so I better be accurate.

I practice at 15' to 25' because in my house that will work, and on the street {mall, wherever} out side of 25', unless I'm being shot at, the perp {s} are not a real threat.

Since these events are not a game, you better put both a lot of thought and practice into different situations.

Carrying a weapon, without constant practice and situational awareness, and the will to use it, is just extra weight to be lugging around.

[real saxophonist]

[mad_as_he$$]

Good idea.

[Big Red Badger]

BRG,,
.
Good Stuff,
Thanks!

[PGalt]

Thanks Good info. “Practice, practice, practice.” - Simo Hayha

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fvCrE5NCsts

[Manly Warrior]

First, insure that you can repeatedly hit small targets at reasonable ranges slow fire: if one cannot call and place precise fire on point targets, running and gunning at B27 size cutouts is perhaps fun, but not too productive.

Dry fire and slow fire ought to be be exercises in everyone’s repertoire, in my personal opinion.

How much ammo do you carry for real? Train to conserve that while neutralizing every target reasonably expected. Seek cover,move off line, and primarily use your greatest weapon and asset, your mind to avoid