War HOGG 5-Shot Drill: Burn It Down, Track The Dot, Own Your Grip

The War HOGG 5-Shot Drill is designed to enhance shooting skills, discipline, and the ability to perform under pressure, making it a valuable training exercise for participants.

Simple Drills Tell the Truth

Most shooters want complicated. They want a drill with a diagram, a catchy name, and some “secret sauce” they can blame when it doesn’t work.

But the drills that actually make you better are usually simple, and that’s exactly why people avoid them. Simple drills don’t give you a place to hide.

The War HOGG 5-Shot Drill is one of those truth-tellers. It’s one of the core shooting drills we run in War HOGG Tactical firearms training courses because it exposes what matters: your grip, your recoil management, and whether you can call your shots instead of guessing.

If you’re running a pistol-mounted optic, this drill will put your red dot under a microscope.

And if you do it the War HOGG way, measurable, repeatable, and honest, it will make you better fast.

Why We Built the War HOGG 5-Shot Drill

Five rounds is the sweet spot.

One shot can lie. Two shots can lie. But by the time you’re on shots three, four, and five, the truth shows up. Grip pressure shifts. The gun starts wandering. Your sight tracking gets sloppy. Your trigger starts getting “busy.”

And the five-round string gives you clean logistics too: if you’re running a 15-round mag, you can get three iterations without turning your practice into a reload event.

This drill is designed to do two jobs at the same time:

1. Evaluate what your hands and eyes are actually doing under speed.

2. Build repeatable recoil control and shot calling you can trust.

   
   

What This Drill Tests (Whether You Like It or Not)

This isn’t just “shoot fast.”

This drill tests how you produce speed.

• If your grip is inconsistent, your dot path is inconsistent.

• If your recoil control is weak, you’ll chase the dot and stall between shots.

• If you can’t call shots, you’ll rely on hope, and hope is not a performance plan.

The best part? You don’t need my opinion. The dot will tell you. The target will confirm it. The timer will expose it.

The War HOGG Rule: This Is Not a Cadence Drill

Let me say it plain:

This is not a cadence drill.

Stop trying to shoot to a rhythm. Stop trying to “run a beat.” The red dot always gives you permission when to shoot. 

Your job is to track what the dot does under recoil, then press again when it returns to an acceptable area. Not when you want it to. When it’s earned it.

That’s how real speed is built: not with panic, but with repeatable sight tracking and a grip that doesn’t negotiate.

Equipment and Setup: Keep It Honest

You don’t need a bunch of gadgets to do this right, but you do need the basics:

Use your normal range gear. Bring a shot timer. If you can, record a little video, because video shows you what your ego tries to hide. And write your shooting performance data down.

I use The Firearms Training Notebook for the same reason I use a timer: it removes the lies.

If you don’t record your times, hits, distance, and notes, you’re not building a firearms training program, you’re just burning ammo.

For targets, keep it clean and measurable. I like a B8 replacement center or the War HOGG Tactical Training Target (multiple B8s) because the B8 gives you more data than a simple pass/fail zone.

The War HOGG Skill Builder Standard: Shoot It Cold

If you’ve followed our monthly skill builders, you know the standard:

No warm-up. Just shoot the drill. 

Why? Because performance on demand matters.

In the real world, duty, self-defense, or even competition, you don’t get to “warm up” with a few practice reps until you feel good. The first rep matters. So we measure the first rep.

Here’s what that looks like: you show up, you shoot the drill cold, and you record your shooting performance data, distance, target, score, times, and what you saw. Then you write notes about what went wrong (or right). Those notes become your dry-fire plan for the month.

This is how we get better without guessing.

Range Execution: The Baseline Run

Head out to the range and run the drill cold.

At a minimum, shoot it at 5, 7, and 10 meters. If you have the space, push it back to 25 meters and see what happens when distance starts punishing sloppy fundamentals.

Run the drill the same way each time so your data stays clean. If you keep changing targets, distances, or rules every range trip, your results are meaningless.

Measure what matters, then build skill against the same standard.

How to Run the War HOGG 5-Shot Drill

Here’s the drill:

On the beep, present the pistol, from the ready position, or draw from the holster, and fire five rounds as fast as you can while keeping the hits accountable.

That’s it.

Now here’s where people mess it up: they make it about “going fast” instead of about seeing.

This drill is about observing what the dot does and what your grip pressure does while the gun cycles.

The Focus: Track the Dot Like an Adult

The focus is simple:

Observe the red dot’s recoil behavior and what you’re doing with grip pressure. 

Watch the dot lift and return. Ideally, it lifts straight up and returns in a predictable path. Under speed, the dot will often appear as a red line or streak as it cycles.

Here’s the skill: fire the next shot the moment that streak is in the acceptable target area, without waiting for the dot to settle like you’re shooting slow bullseye.

This is what real dot shooting looks like: track, confirm, press, repeat.

The Goal: Repeatable Recoil Control and Fast Follow-Ups

The goal is not “spray five rounds and hope.”

The goal is:

• Repeatable recoil management

• Rapid follow-ups

• Clean, accountable hits

  
  

If you’re doing it right, you’ll often see split times hovering around 0.2 to 0.3 seconds, but only if your grip and tracking are solid and your hits stay honest.

Let me be clear: fast misses don’t count. They’re just loud mistakes.

Scoring: Give Yourself Real Feedback

You can score this a few ways depending on what you’re working on.

I like the B8 replacement center bull because it gives me more information to record. The black doesn’t just tell you “hit or miss”, it tells you how well you’re controlling the gun, and where your consistency breaks down across the string.

If you want a simpler pass/fail standard, use an IPSC A-zone (roughly 6×12) and hold yourself to it, either it’s an A-zone hit or it isn’t.

Pick a target that matches your mission and the range you’re on. Just don’t pick one that lets you lie to yourself.

The Dry Fire Element: Five Presses, Not One

Most shooters dry fire like this: one press, rack, holster, done.

That’s not training. That’s checking a box.

For the War HOGG 5-Shot Drill, you must press the trigger five times in dry fire, because we’re working a five-shot string and watching what changes across the reps.

With each press, watch your dot. The dot movement tells you exactly what your hands are doing. If the dot jumps hard on press three, you just learned something: your grip pressure changed, your trigger press degraded, or both.

Your goal is simple:

As little dot movement as possible during each trigger press. 

And don’t be afraid to experiment. Sometimes the fix is a small adjustment, like trigger finger placement, that suddenly cleans up the whole string.

Dry fire is where you build the pattern. Live fire is where you prove it.

The Skills You’re Building

This drill develops three primary skills:

1. Recoil management - is my dot returning to the same spot

2. Red dot tracking - Can I see my dot / red streak in the acceptable target area

3. Calling your shot - Do I see the dot "check off" as I press the trigger

Shooters learn to observe the dot’s movement during recoil, watch it lift out of the window as a red blur, and snap back as it returns to the target area.

That visual tracking is what allows immediate follow-up shots without waiting for perfect alignment. It builds intuitive control over muzzle flip through a firm, high grip and proper stance.

And here’s the truth: consistent practice minimizes erratic dot paths and reveals what’s wrong, uneven / changing grip pressure, weak structure, sloppy recoil management. The dot doesn’t care about your feelings. It reports the facts.

Common Mistakes This Drill Exposes

This drill is a diagnostic. If you’re paying attention, it will show you exactly what to fix.

• Chasing the dot: You’re waiting for perfection instead of accepting “acceptable.”

• Inconsistent grip pressure: The dot path changes because your hands are changing.

• Over-driving the gun: You’re muscling it instead of controlling it.

Write these down. Make it recorded performance data, not an emotional reaction.

Build the Monthly Plan: Shoot, Record, Fix, Retest

Here’s the War HOGG methodology:

1. Shoot it cold and record your performance.

2. Use your notes to build a dry-fire plan that targets the actual weakness.

3. Get your reps in during the month.

4. Retest near the end of the month and prove the improvement.

This is what separates training from “range time.” Training is problem-solving with a timer.

Check On Your Work: The Retest

Near the end of the month, head back out and reshoot the War HOGG 5-Shot Drill with the same distances and target standards. Compare your results.

Now, real life happens, so keep your rules practical:

• If you have a mechanical malfunction (failure to fire/extract), reshoot the drill.

• If you fumble your draw, presentation, or grip: finish the drill and gather the data. Then decide if you want to reshoot. You still captured five data points, so it’s not wasted.

The point is not perfection. The point is honest measurement and targeted improvement.

Bottom Line

The War HOGG 5-Shot Drill is simple on purpose. It evaluates grip deficiencies, recoil management, dot tracking, and shot calling, all in one repeatable string.

Shoot it cold. Record the truth. Use dry fire to fix what the data exposed. Then retest and prove you’re better.

Be 1% Better Every Day. That’s not a slogan. That’s a standard.

Train hard, stay safe, and I’ll see you On The Range - Rick

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Rick Hogg is the owner and primary instructor of War HOGG Tactical, Inc., a North Carolina–based training company that travels nationwide delivering firearms and tactical instruction. A 29-year U.S. Army Special Operations combat veteran, SOF K9 handler, and former Special Forces Advanced Urban Combat Course (SFAUC) instructor, Rick applies decades of operational and instructional experience to a building-block training methodology focused on mastering the fundamentals of marksmanship and producing repeatable performance under stress.

War HOGG Tactical provides combat-proven firearms training, tactical training, and K9 training for law enforcement agencies, military units, and law-abiding citizens. Courses emphasize practical application, measurable improvement, and skills that hold up when it matters most.