Last week I wrote about training with limited time and ammo, and I specifically called out two drills you can use to train on and test your improvement. The first was the 99 Drill, which I didn’t shoot this week, and the second was the 700 point aggregate, or the Humbler. Today I’m going to take you through the drill string by string and talk about what you can do to shoot it better.
First, the drill itself. It is shot on an NRA B8 target at 25 yards. I recommend using one B8 target and several repair centers to make things easier. You’ll need 70 rounds of ammo, a good belt/holster, and a stopwatch or a shot timer. A shot timer is preferable, but a stop watch with a countdown function can work as well.
Stage 1: Slow Fire
10 rounds
freestyle
time limit: ten minutes
First target is one string of 10 rounds, shot slow fire. 10 minutes is functionally the same as unlimited time. I recommend taking at least 30 seconds per shot here, and holstering in between shots. There’s no reason that with an accurate gun I shouldn’t be cleaning this string. As it is, shooting it cold I dropped 3 points, one 9 and one 8, those other shots in the 9 ring are touching the line, so they’re 10s. This string is all about being as accurate as you can be under basically no time pressure. 8s are unacceptable.
Stage 2: Timed Fire from the holster
5 rounds
freestyle from the holster
time limit: 20 seconds
repeat a second time for total of 10 rounds fired
Timed fire means 5 shots in 20 seconds, from the holster. I don’t believe in shot cadence, or trying to time your shots every certain number of seconds. Having a 20 second time limit means that you have enough time on every shot to make sure the sights and trigger are “good” and you can even back off a trigger pull if you don’t like what the gun is doing. On this timed fire target, I’m pretty clearly drifting the gun a little right. I dropped four 9s and the one 8 at the bottom.
Stage 3: Rapid Fire from the holster
5 rounds
freestyle from the holster
time limit: 10 seconds
repeat a second time for total of 10 rounds fired
You can tell that on the rapid fire things got a little loosey-goosey. The two 7s down at the bottom are pretty clear indicators of seeing the sight picture I want and thinking “oh man the sights look great I should pull the trigger really hard RIGHT NOW” which invariably drives the muzzle down. Still, five shots in 10 seconds is a pretty long time, even from the holster. I shouldn’t be rushing here, I should be focusing on clean trigger presses.
Stage 4: SHO Slow Fire
5 rounds
strong hand only
time limit: five minutes
Back to slow fire, this time strong hand only. The slow fire stuff should be automatic. There’s no excuse for me to be dropping 8s here, because I have the time and the opportunity to make each shot absolutely perfect. I can live with a 9 or two, but the 8s shouldn’t be happening on slow fire strings. There’s just too much time, so much time that if a shot feels bad, I can back it off, take a deep breath, and start it over again.
Stage 5: SHO Timed Fire from the holster
5 rounds
strong hand only from the holster
time limit: 20 seconds
Stage 6: SHO Rapid Fire from the holster
5 rounds
strong hand only from the holster
time limit: 10 seconds
I shot these on the same repair center because I was getting lazy with changing targets.
This got pretty wild. I dropped a total of three 6s, one you can see in the bottom left hand corner of the target and then two more on the full B8. Pretty awful shooting on my part. The timed fire string wasn’t that bad, I dropped one 6 on timed fire and that lonely 8 as well. This target shows me that I’m pushing the gun left when I’m shooting SHO at speed, as all my misses are left. It’s a recoil recovery issue – the gun tracks up and left, so when I jump the shot returning from recoil, I miss left.
Stage 7: WHO Slow Fire
5 rounds
weak hand only
time limit: five minutes
Again, I should not be shooting 8s on the slow fire stuff. If you look, I have a pretty good group up in the 8-9 region. That’s all sights. The way I interact with the sights when I’m shooting WHO is a bit different, I tend to shoot a little high. The front sight post wants to climb, and I need to either a) adjust my point of aim or b) be more disciplined.
Stage 8: Kneeling Slow Fire
5 rounds
kneeling freestyle
time limit: five minutes
Stage 9: Kneeling Timed Fire from the holster
5 rounds
begin standing, draw and kneel at buzzer
time limit: 20 seconds
The kneeling stuff I shot all on one target, and the same with the prone. Kneeling is a gimme – it’s even more stable than standing, so the points dropped should be on par with the freestyle stuff at the start of the string. There is no excuse for me to have dumped a 7 up at the top there, just lazy sight alignment and taking a “good enough” shot on the timed fire.
Stage 10: Prone Slow Fire
5 rounds
prone freestyle
time limit: five minutes
Stage 11: Prone Timed Fire from the holster
5 rounds
begin standing, draw and go prone at buzzer
time limit: 20 seconds
The last two strings are prone. Slow fire, then timed fire. On the slow fire, I smoked it. All 10s, nice and clean. On the timed fire, I rushed the first two shots because the gun wasn’t grounded as well as it should have been, dropping those two 7s. The trick on prone for me was to use the +5 Taylor freelance basepad and just drive the mag into the ground to get a stable hold. After two bad shots, I slowed down, adjusted my sight picture, and salvaged the string with three straight 9s. The prone stuff can really mess people up, but I think I can easily shoot a 95 or better here.
There it is, my first run through the Humbler. Total score, 635. Average shot value, 9.07 points. I shot 90% of the available points cold, which honestly isn’t too bad. I shot the whole test using an HK VP9 with Tula 115 grain FMJ steel cased ammo. I have two goals for the Humbler: shoot 650 consistently cold, and break 690 at least once.
Any sighting tips for the prone position? I’m not sure if it is the angle of the head/eyes in prone and sitting buttocks on ground, but it plays heck with my sight picture. At that point I’m even questioning if something else besides OrigamiAK’s description is going on.
Never even heard of this drill til now. Thanks Caleb! Now I get to go embarass myself at the 25 yard line. The sad thing is that my freestyle shooting looks worse than your weak hand shooting.
This looks pretty interesting. Components of Bullseye, PPC, and other disciplines. Prone is tough for those with c-spine fusions; rollover works ok in general.