Written by Greg Ellifritz
I use the target pictured above (RE Factor Essentials) in a lot of my personal training and in the lower level handgun classes I teach. The company that makes the target also has a range drill particularly designed around it. They call the drill the RE Factor Tactical Shooter Standard. It is a 47 round course and is shot on the essentials target at a distance between three and 25 yards. It’s a tough course of fire.
Here’s the drill:
| Course of fire | Yard Line | Drill |
| 1 | 15 | Fire 10 well aimed shots to the bulls-eye. There is no time standard for this drill. Your score is the aggregate of your 10 shots. If your shot breaks a ring it counts as the higher ring. |
| 2 | 3 | Draw and fire 2 rounds to target #7 |
| 3 | 3 | Draw and fire 1 round to targets #1,3,5,6,4,2 in that order |
| 4 | 5 | Draw and fire 1 round to targets # 8, 11, 10, 9 in that order |
| 5 | 5 | Draw and fire 5 rounds to target #13 |
| 6 | 5 | Draw and fire 1 round to target #15, 2 rounds to target #14, 3 rounds to target #12, 4 rounds to target #13 |
| 7 | 7 | Draw and fire 1 round to target #7, reload and fire 2 rounds to target #7 |
| 8 | 10 | Draw and fire 2 rounds to target #7 |
| 9 | 15 | Draw and fire 1 round to target #13 |
| 10 | 25 | Draw and fire 2 rounds to target #7 |
All the stages are timed (with the exception of the first). The folks who set up the drill also listed what they think are acceptable par times for each stage, ranking shooters from “basic” to “expert.” Here are the standards.
| CoF 1 | CoF 2 | CoF 3 | CoF 4 | CoF 5 | CoF 6 | CoF 7 | CoF 8 | CoF 9 | CoF 10 | |
| Basic | 20 | 2.75 | 6.0 | 5.0 | 5.0 | 14.0 | 6.0 | 4 | 3 | 6.5 |
| Intermediate | 50 | 1.5 | 4.5 | 4.0 | 3.5 | 11.0 | 4.75 | 2.5 | 2.0 | 4.0 |
| Advanced | 75 | 1.15 | 3.5 | 3.30 | 2.0 | 6.0 | 3.50 | 1.50 | 1.30 | 2.25 |
| Expert | 95 | 1.0 | 2.75 | 2.5 | 1.75 | 5.0 | 2.25 | 1.25 | 1.0 | 1.75 |
I like drills like this and use them to measure my improvement over time. To simplify things, I totaled up all the time standards for each stage to create easy ranking categories. The total suggested times for the stages are as follows:
Basic– 52.25 seconds
Intermediate– 37.75 seconds
Advanced– 24.5 seconds
Expert– 19.25 seconds
I ran the drill three times. First with my duty gun (stock Glock 17), then with my Glock 19, and finally with a Glock 17 using a 3.5 lb connector. My total times were as follows:
Glock 17– Bullseye: 89. Total time: 39.83 seconds. Two misses.
Glock 19- Bullseye: 75. Total time: 38.03 seconds. Four misses.
Glock 17 (with lighter trigger)- Bullseye: 82. Total time 37.81 seconds. Two misses.
One of my runs
Having missed some shots on each target, by the company standards, all my runs were “fails.”
With that said, I don’t know many folks who can clean this one regularly, especially if he was going for a fast time.
Taking a look at my scores, I am ranked somewhere between “Basic” and “Intermediate.” I’ll be the first to admit that I am not the world’s greatest shooter, but I am a little better than “Basic.” I really don’t know how the RE Factor people came up with the standards, but I think they are a little optimistic for most shooters, especially those shooting the drill from concealment at the correct distances. My guess is that 75% of shooters who try this one won’t even make their “Basic” grade.
I like the drill and think you should try it. I’ll be working this one as my weekly standard exercise. Hopefully I’ll make it to “intermediate” by the end of the summer.
