Written by: Greg Ellifritz
I got this one from the Rangemaster Instructor Course I attended last year. It is also described as the “drill of the month” in Rangemaster’s December 2020 Newsletter (opens to PDF).
Here are the specifics:
Rangemaster Baseline Skills Assessment Drill
Use a B-8 repair center, FBI-IP-1 bullseye, or the bullseye on an LTT-1 target, scored as printed. This drill is intended to be shot cold, from concealed carry.
– 5 yards Draw and fire 5 rounds in 5 seconds, using both hands.
– 5 yards Start gun in hand, at Ready, in dominant hand only. Fire 3 rounds in 3 seconds.
– 5 yards Start gun in hand, at Ready, in non-dominant hand only. Fire 2 rounds in 3 seconds.
– 7 yards Start gun in hand, loaded with 3 rounds only. Fire 3 rounds, conduct an empty gun reload, and fire 3 more rounds, all in 10 seconds.
– 10 yards Start gun in hand, at Ready. Fire 4 rounds in 4 seconds.
20 rounds total. Possible score = 200
With ammunition prices skyrocketing, many of you will like this drill because it consumes a relatively small amount of ammo. The Baseline Assessment exercise covers a lot of handgun skill core competencies in just 20 rounds of live fire. In fact, I don’t think I could honestly come up with a 20 round drill that covers so much ground.
In this time of ammunition shortages most people will be firing less ammunition on each range trip. If you don’t want to spend a lot of money, but still want to log a quality practice session, this is a good drill to use. In fact, I would postulate that the average person could maintain his/her basic proficiency if the only shooting he did was this drill two or three times a month.
I shot it a few weeks ago. It’s designed to be shot cold. I did it really cold. This drill was the first thing I did to break a three-week time period without any shooting or dryfire practice. I didn’t shoot as well as I would have liked to. My high shot broke early during the weak hand only firing stage. The other shot in the eight-ring was the first shot after my reload.
Both are very common mistakes that I shouldn’t be making. It’s OK. Now I know what I need to work on. Future training sessions will devote more time to weak handed shooting and practicing getting an optimal grip after doing a reload. I wouldn’t have learned anything if I shot the drill clean.
Not my best work, but I’ll take the 194/200 score. Give it a try. If you are an instructor who can’t regularly run this one with a score of 190/200, I would say that you have some more work to do.
