Written by: Greg Ellifritz
I first heard about this drill from an article written by a collaboration between my friends at Lucky Gunner along with John and Melody from Ballistic Radio. It’s a tough drill that was originally developed by Bill Blowers and is called the “Hateful 8.”
The drill is shot on a B-8 repair center bullseye target. You can download the target and print it yourself HERE. The link opens to a PDF file.
It is an eight round drill performed at a distance of eight yards away from the target. Par time is eight seconds. Most of you will not be anywhere close to that standard.
It’s a pretty simple drill:
Load the gun with four (4) rounds total. Have two spare magazines each loaded with two (2) rounds.
On the start signal, draw and fire the four rounds in your gun.
Reload.
Fire the two rounds in the gun.
Reload.
Fire the last two remaining rounds.
That’s eight shots in eight seconds at a fairly long “gunfight” distance. Within those eight seconds, you will also be required to do two reloads. It isn’t an easy drill to even pass, let alone feel good about.
I shot the drill twice during my last practice session using my Glock 19 9mm carried concealed in a Keepers Concealment “Keeper Lite” appendix holster.
My first effort at the drill was 11.09 seconds with 76/80 points scored.
My second effort had me finishing in 9.71 seconds with 76/80 points as well.
I don’t spend a whole lot of my designated practice sessions working on my reloading skills. The chance of an armed citizen or off duty cop needing a spare magazine in a gunfight is almost unheard of. That lack of reloading practice killed my time on this drill.
Reloading a high capacity handgun during a gunfight with a criminal isn’t likely to be on your “must need” skill list. I don’t think reloads should take up a majority of your training time, but it is good to practice reloading on occasion. I prefer to do my reloading practice in drills like this on the time clock rather than by blocking out a specific amount of time to hit them in practice.
I plan on integrating this drill into my structured practice sessions. Although there isn’t a set par “score,” you should be keeping most of your rounds in the black on this one. The authors suggest the following modifications to individualize the drill to your own needs and abilities:
“So while the Hateful 8 is an incredibly soul-crushing disappointment of a drill — not because it’s not awesome, but because it shows you what you’re doing poorly — there’s not a passing or a failing score, really. It’s supposed to be a gateway. So the first goal is to make all the shots in the 8-inch circle under the par time. Second goal is to make all the shots in the black under par time. Then when you’re really getting good, if you can shoot 76 out of 80 — awesome. If you need to make it more difficult or want to challenge yourself even more, you can do random round-count reloads, but I think it’s a really cool drill to force you to not over-confirm sight pictures, to have quick hand speed on the reloads and the shooting.”
Give this one a try. It will humble you. Thanks to Bill Blowers, Lucky Gunner, and the Citizens Defense Research crew for developing and publicizing this torture device.
