The Novice Walk Back

Caleb’s been talking about accuracy and I’ve been working on it.  His version of the walk back drill is a bit much for me, but I have my own design that I use for my practice.

On most days I have 100 rounds and two Bianchi targets.  I start with one of the targets at 3 yards and shoot 5 rounds at the X-Ring, then the same at 5 yards, then the same at 7, 10 and 15 yards.  At 5, 7 and 10 yards I expect all my hits to be x-ring shots, at 10 and 15 I expect them all to be in the 10-ring.  After any shot that I throw out of my acceptable “zone” I do 5 good dry fire reps.  Not only does this help prevent me from getting caught up in the “my last shot sucked” mentality that can drag an entire practice down but it gives me more trigger pulls during my practice time, and more good trigger pulls help any practice.

The next portion of my practice time usually consists of loading one round in mag, shooting it at the x-ring, then (given that I get my hit) one dry fire repetition, then another round, then another dry fire repetition.  The only time I break this cycle is if I throw a shot, in which case I again do five good dry fire reps.  I started this routine at 5 yards until I could get good, consistent hits at 5 yards and have since pushed back to 7 yards.  Given how well I’m hitting at 7 yards, I’ll probably give it another week and push it back to 10.  My goal is that in the next few months I’ll be able to get consistent hits at 25 yards which will give me a great foundation on which to build the rest of my shooting.

At the end of my practice I’ve probably spent more time dry firing than actually shooting rounds through my guns.  Which is a really great way to save ammo (and money) and still helps my shooting.  I’ve seen more improvement in my shooting in the past two weeks of focusing on an excessive number of good trigger pulls than I ever have putting any number of rounds down range.