Written by: Greg Ellifritz
I found this pistol shooting drill in a recent Justin Dyal article in SWAT magazine called STANDOFF HANDGUN DRILLS: Accuracy at Situational Speed.
Designer of the drill
From the article:
The purpose of the Par 5 drill is for the shooter to gain an appreciation of the linkage between sight alignment and trigger break at different tempos. The drill consists of four strings of fire, each shot at 25 yards in a time limit of five seconds on a standard NRA B8 bullseye center from the ready position.
String 1: Fire one shot.
String 2: Fire two shots.
String 3: Fire three shots.
String 4: Fire four shots.
The four strings give a combined ten shots and 100 possible points. Late hits are scored as misses. If you are just getting acquainted with the drill, a starting point may be to simply count the number of hits in the black, e.g., seven of ten.
This is a hard drill. Your group will not likely look anything like Mr. Dyal’s as pictured above.
I ran the drill six different times last week with my Glock 19. My first couple runs were in the 70s. Most were in the 80s. I ended on my best run with a 96 score. That was far and away my best performance of the day.
My best of six runs
Some of you can’t even hit a target at 25 yards, let alone put most of the bullets in the black. If your skill levels are not high, you can still utilize this drill.
Start at 20 feet instead of 25 yards. Shoot the drill until you get at least a score of 90. Once you can regularly get 90 points, move the bullseye to 30 feet and repeat. Focus on accuracy and speed, seeing what you need to make the shot on each string. When you get good enough, increase the distance.
I think this is a valuable drill and plan to use it often in future training sessions. Thanks to both Justin Dyal and SWAT Magazine for sharing the Par Five Drill.
