Setting shooting goals and having a solid plan are key to building marksmanship skills, and we got something to keep you on track. Each month, we’ll bring you a skill builder exercise designed to be as indoor range friendly as possible.
Last months shooting skill builder exercise was the War HOGG Self Eval. Building off your performance from the self eval, let’s look at shot 1. This will be either a pistol, a carbine or possibly both depending on what platform you used. Our intent at War HOGG Tactical is to supplement your firearms training program and help you become more efficient and effective with your firearms. Remember out montra is Be 1% Better Everyday!
How The Skill Builder Works
Start the beginning of the month shooting the monthly skill builder shooting exercise. After shooting the skill builder you will need to record your data in your copy of The Firearms Training Notebook. You will develop your dry fire training plan and work your training plan throughout the month. Around the end of the month reshoot the skill builder and see your shooting performance improvement.
Equipment Needed
Your normal range and firearms equipment
Live Fire Range
Dry Fire Training Area
Shot Timer, we recommend the PACT Club Timer III. Click the link to learn how to use a timer effectively in your marksmanship training.
The Firearms Training Notebook – available on Amazon
Recording device and tripod or holder
3x5 and 4x6 index cards (Your Targets)
This Month Skill Builder Exercise
This month skill builder is going to focus on the pistol presentation from the ready, low ready carbine presentation or both. We will also be talking about reaction time and how to improve it. Head out to the range and conduct 10 either pistol, carbine or both presentations from the ready position. Remember, no warmup just shoot the 10 rounds. Record your time, marksmanship data, target used and distance in The Firearms Training Notebook, don’t forget to use the note section at the bottom of the page to write down any information you learned during that range session. For example, red dot always comes in from the left side of the optic.
Before you leave the range work on improving your reaction time.
Improve Your Reaction Time
This is an area where a lot of shooter loose time. If you wait till the end of the beep of the timer, that is a half a second waisted. A simple drill to work on your reaction time involves heading to the range. Either with your shooting “CREW” or by yourself.
Start with your firearm pointed on the target, weapon on fire and your finger on the trigger. As soon as you hear that first note of the timer, fire the shot. Most shooter are typically around 0.3ish for a reaction time. You can easily trim this time down into the teens as your ear gets in tuned to the timer. Just this reaction time drill can start to improve your overall performance time by getting your firearm to start moving to the target sooner.
Making Your Dry Fire Plan
For this month’s drill, take your 10 shots and figure out your average time. Take a new page of The Firearms Training Notebook and title is pistol presentation or low ready carbine. Using your average time I would add anywhere .10 to .25 seconds. As you start making good dry trigger presses and sight on the target at or below the par time, you can start setting your par time lower at either .05 or .10 seconds. The idea is to keep reducing the time until you are at the best time for your performance. Remember, do get wrapped around what others are doing for time, this is your firearms journey and you will get there if you put the time into your dry fire training.
The Pistol Presentation
The red dot pistol presentation can be difficult if you don’t have proper pistol presentation technique. To start have the pistol in a ready position where you can see the front sight post out of your periphery sight and the muzzle orientated down range. Your head should be in that neutral position where you are seeing out of the center of your eyes. Every person is going to have a slightly different ready position based of their body type.
The concept is to present the pistol as flat and in straight line with the eyes. Some shooters will present either above or below that line of sight, thus reducing your efficiency to get the red dot on target and fire the shot.
As the pistol is being presented out, look for your reference points. Point 1 is the front sight post out of your praifery, next is the body of the optic, then the glass of the optic and the red dot should be there. It’s always a good idea to record your range session and review the footage as you are developing your dry fire plan. The video will pick up things that you might not realize you are doing right or wrong.
Glock shooters will a red dot sight have to do a slight wrist roll because of the pistols grip angle to pick up the dot.
Carbine Low Ready
The start position for the carbine low ready is with the carbine stock seated well in the shoulder and muzzle pointed at a 45-degree angle, roughly at the base of the target. When you drive the carbine up to the target, ensure you have rearward pressure with a good stock to shoulder contact an place the carbine on fire. Your head should not have to move to the optic, if this happens you do not have the stock in the correct position on your shoulder. Don’t forget with the carbine there is a point of aim, point of impact difference depending where you zeroed your carbine and depending on your optic mount hight.
Check On Your Work
Sometime near the end of the month, head back out to the range and reshoot the 10 rounds with your pistol presentation, carbine low ready or both and see where your performance is at. You should see improvement if you have put in the dry fire work during the month.
Have Accountability
It’s important to have accountability with your shooting performance. Yes, you can do it own your own, however having a shooting partner, tribe, group will keep you in check.
If you don’t have any accountability, you can always join us in sharing your marksmanship growth. Go to our On The Range (OTR) Patreon “CREW” member’s page or our On The Range Podcast “CREW’ Facebook group page.
Me and my co-host / co-author Mark Kelley of Kelley Defense conduct a bi-monthly interactive zoom call with our Patreon “CREW” members where be breakdown each shooters skill builder. We have even reviewed video of “CREW’ members shooting during our zoom call and give immediate feedback on where we see they can improve their shooting skills.
Conclusion – Put In The Work
To see improvement in your marksmanship skills you must put in the work. This means having a solid dry fire training plan and a way to record your progress like with The Firearms Training Notebook. Use your additional tools like a shot timer and video to take your dry fire training to the next level and see the increased performance during your live training.
Train Hard, Stay Safe and see you “On The Range” - Rick
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Rick Hogg is the owner of War HOGG Tactical, Inc. and is a 29 year US Army Special Operation Combat Veteran, as well as an SOF K9 handler, that has taken his 13 combat deployment, both Iraq and Afghanistan, and teaching experience as a Special Forces Advanced Urban Combat (SFAUC) instructor and harnessed them into a combat proven techniques training company, War HOGG Tactical, Inc.
Veteran owned, War HOGG Tactical, Inc. a North Carolina firearms training company that travels the country teaching firearms training, tactical training and K9 training to civilians, military and law enforcement agencies teaching through combat proven techniques and experience to improve students marksmanship proficiency. War HOGG Tactical conducts firearms training and tactical training in states like North Carolina, South Carolina, Pennsylvania, Florida, Ohio, Tennessee and more.
War HOGG also conducts product development and product field testing along with a variety of consulting services in the defense, firearms and entertainment / film industry.
War HOGG Tactical also offers free law enforcement firearms training via Project Officer Survival with support from our industry partners. If you are interested in hosting a free law enforcement training course send us an email for more info.
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