I’ll be honest with you all. I haven’t been shooting as much as I should.
For the last 20+ years, I have consistently practiced by shooting at least 500 rounds a month.
Last year I only fired about 3,000 total rounds. It was the fewest number of rounds I’ve fired in a given year since 1997.
I’ve started out this year traveling a bunch. I spent two months in Mexico, two weeks in the Dominican Republic, and another two weeks in Japan. Combine my traveling obligations with recovering from a nasty knee surgery and my 2025 practice sessions have been miserable.
My last major practice session was on November 3, of 2024. I spent some time teaching a lady friend to shoot back in February. On that day, I fired about 50 rounds. Other than that single range session, I haven’t been to the range in more than five months. I didn’t dry fire during that time period either. Constant medical appointments for my stage IV cancer, rehabbing after a devastating knee injury, and traveling out of the country has seriously diminished my gun practice.
I took six months off from teaching and plan to get back to work teaching two or three weekends a month next month. It’s time to tune up my shooting practice.
Last week I scheduled my first full live-fire practice session for the year. I decided to shoot the Wilson 5 x 5 test cold to see how badly my skills had degraded.
I found the drill in the Drills section of PistolTraining.com. That page is an invaluable resource for shooters and I encourage all of you to check it out.
The Wilson 5 x 5 drill is designed to assess your baseline skill level. It requires a shot timer and a single IDPA-type target. You will need 25 rounds to complete the exercise.
Range: 10yd
Target: standard IDPA target
Start position: Hands at your sides facing target. No concealment garment necessary.
Rounds fired: 25
Another quick and easy to set up/score shooting test by Bill Wilson of Wilson Combat. It is intended for a service pistol of 9mm caliber or larger, concealed carry suitable holster and ammunition with a power factor (bullet weight x velocity) of 125,000 or more. Scoring is standard Vickers with a half second penalty per point down.
There are four strings of fire, each for time:
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- Draw and fire 5 shots freestyle.
- Draw and fire 5 shots SHO (strong hand only).
- Draw and fire 5 shots freestyle, reload from slidelock and fire 5 more shots freestyle.
- Draw and fire 4 shots to the body and 1 shot to the head freestyle.
Bill Wilson’s suggested scoring:
Grand Master: 15 seconds or less
Master: 20 seconds or less
Expert: 25 seconds or less
Sharpshooter: 32 seconds or less
Marksman: 41 seconds or less
Novice: 50 seconds or less
Not proficient enough to carry a handgun: Over 50 seconds
Last week I fired the drill without any warm up or dry fire work. I hadn’t fired a gun at all in more than three months. The timed drills felt very jerky and forced, but I managed to get a 19.38 second total score, placing me in the “master” category with my stock Glock 19 carried concealed in the appendix position.
After I finished, I immediately ran the same drill again an managed to score an 18.5 on my second run.
I’m going to use this drill as my “warmup” for all my shooting practice sessions this year. Getting to a “grand master” score of 15 seconds or less will be a challenging, but attainable goal for my 2025 practice sessions.
Give this drill a try during your next range session. I think you’ll like it.
