What Effective Training Can Look Like With 100 Rounds

I just got back from San Mateo County, California, where I was training some law enforcement, and one of the sergeants pulled me aside and pointed out a guy walking onto the range. He said, "Watch this, he's just going to mag dump." Sure enough, the guy ran three mags straight through the gun, back to back to back. The sergeant's question was fair: what training value is that guy actually getting?

That's the conversation that led to the following video. If you've got 45 rounds on your belt and you're rotating ammo from duty to training, or you've got 100 rounds and a range day ahead of you, you might as well get something out of it. So I wanted to put together a session of 100 round pistol drills and show what you can actually accomplish with a restricted round count if you train with intent instead of just mag dumping.

The Goal: Awareness Behind the Gun

With 100 rounds, I'm not trying to prove anything. I'm trying to develop self-awareness behind the gun and tie cause to effect. That's the highest return on investment for both time and ammo. If you want a different behavior out of the gun, you have to change your behavior behind the gun. That's it. If you keep gripping with an inferior grip, the gun will keep behaving in a way that doesn't serve your eyes or your hands.

We use a framework in every class we teach: See, Feel, Do. See what the gun is doing. Feel what your body is doing. Do something about it. The grip you start with needs to be the grip you finish with. Tension, grip pressure, what you're actually looking at; those are the levers. And you have to be honest about which one is failing you on any given rep.

What follows is the progression I'd run a newer shooter through, or anyone looking to sharpen their fundamentals: stance, grip, sight picture, sight alignment, trigger control, breathing, and follow-through.

Drill 1: Trigger Control at Speed

Start this one dry, then go live. I run it at 7 yards on a USPSA target with a 1-inch black paster in the A-zone.

Dry, I work the draw deliberately. Drag the dominant hand up, rock into the middle finger, defeat the ALS, drop the elbow, feed the support hand, set the grip pressures and lift the sights to my eyes. My eyes are target-focused the whole time, confirming a small area on the target where I want the dot to align. Then I smash the trigger on an acceptable sight picture and alignment to target. The job is to skillfully swipe one finger across the trigger without disrupting the sights. I'm aware of the wobble zone or movement of the dot, seeing how much disruption I'm creating before the gun even goes bang.

Live, I shoot five from the holster to the A-zone, then five to the head box with the gun already presented, going off the buzzer on delay. I'm checking my response time, what it takes to go from a set grip, in the ready position, to a good credit-card hit.

What this drill is really testing isn't the durability of your grip. It's the consistency and discipline of it. Can you hold your pressures through a string of shots? In the Marines and the military in general, we were taught the "interrupted" trigger press was the most accurate way to shoot. That's a joke if you haven't addressed the foundation, stance, tension, and a real understanding of what a good grip feels like versus a bad one. Fix those, and the trigger press takes care of itself.

Drill 2: 50/50s

Easy setup. Drop the magazine, retain it, leave one in the chamber. Push the distance — I'll do 10, 15, 20, or 25 yards. Draw, get the sights on target, and press the trigger twice as fast as you can. The first press fires a round. The second press is a click on an empty chamber.

That click is everything. When the gun goes bang, click, and I'm still staring at the dot in its disruption cycle, I know I'm dot-focused instead of target-focused. My brain has to ask: why is the tension building? Why am I watching the dot instead of aiming small at the target?

I also use 50/50s to work shot calling. The further the distance, the harder it gets, especially when you're returning the gun as fast as it left. If the dot lands at 11 o'clock off the paster, I want to know why. Is it a pressure change on the dominant or support hand? Is tension creeping in? Is my posture drifting? Every one of those inputs shows up in the outcome.

After five rounds of 50/50s at 10 yards, I validate what I've learned by shooting doubles, what the military called hammer pairs, what the practical shooters call doubles, whatever. Two rounds at the same rate as the 50/50s, with pauses between sets so I can See, Feel, Do. If what I saw on the 50/50s matches what I see on the doubles, I've got a read on the gun at that distance.

Drill 3: Graduation Drill

Back to 7 yards. This is a predictive shooting drill, and it's where most shooters fall apart. You see it on bill drills constantly, guys draw, present, and after round three, the whole grip falls apart. They're scrambling to keep rounds in the A-zone.

Instead, graduate the round count. Two rounds, then three, then four, then five. In class, we run three sets at each count. After each round count, the whole class goes downrange to paste. If you didn't leave the A-zone, you don't paste, and you get to see that you already understand what the drill is asking.

The goal is to maintain the grip you started with all the way through five rounds. Build the grip, set the pressures, establish your visual connection, look small as you lift the gun. Those deliberate pauses between strings give you the chance to adjust before the next rep. You're testing the durability of your grip and your ability to predictively shoot the A-zone.

Visually, here's what's happening: round one sits on your reference point. Round two lifts and returns near it. By round five, that dot has strafed through the A-zone, but you've controlled it to stay in the A-zone. That's predictive shooting.

Drill 4: Progressive Return at 25 Yards

This one comes from Hwansik Kim's one-shot return drill. Look him up, take a class with him — he's put a ton of thought into metrics and exploratory drills that actually teach.

At 25 yards, I'm now in reactive shooting territory. I'll build up from one round to five, running five reps at each count. I set the grip, lock my vision on a small spot on the target, if there isn't one, I pick one, and lift the gun. Spot picking matters. Whether you're law enforcement, military, or a civilian, if you're looking general-area-direction, the dot goes general-area-direction.

On one-round returns, I pay close attention to where the sight actually lifts to and where it drops back into. On multi-round strings, I'm disciplined about visually confirming the sight is aligned with what I'm looking at before pressing the next round. I don't time it. I see it, confirm it, then shoot it.

This matters at 25 yards more than anywhere. If a law enforcement officer is shooting at a suspect at that distance, every round has to be accounted for. Waiting to see what you want to see, a rock-solid stopped dot, isn't the standard. Seeing what you need to see is.

One thing I watch closely: as the return cycle repeats, does my focus stay one inch wide, or does it open up to two, three, four inches? If the focus opens up, the landing of the dot opens as well. The hardest thing about shooting visually is keeping that anchor small and consistent. If the dot lands left and you try to squeeze it back with grip pressure, you're solving the wrong problem. Identify what's actually happening instead of guessing.

Drill 5: Two Static, Two Moving

Law enforcement doesn't teach this out of the academy, and it baffles me. If you're going to shoot, you're going to move, and you're going to communicate. None of that gets taught effectively.

The drill: two rounds static, then two rounds moving. Run it in all four directions: forward, back, right, left. I run it at just inside 10 yards.

Here's the piece most shooters miss. If you fire two rounds static, then take an abrupt step, the sights get noisy fast. The hands swing left and right with every step. The way to keep the hands neutral is to commit the upper body first, which forces the rear leg to step forward naturally. Melt into the movement like an ice cube on a hot day.

Moving forward, the upper extremity gradually moves forward, and the rear leg steps forward to maintain balance and momentum.

Moving backward, the lower extremity takes a seat, and the front leg steps back to maintain balance. 

Moving laterally, I commit weight into the direction I'm going, fire the first two rounds, then cross over for the third and fourth, and yes, round three is often fired on one leg.

On the crossover: I know people get weird about crossing your feet. You cross your feet every time you walk into Chipotle to order a bowl or burrito. You strap a gun on, and suddenly it's forbidden? That's nonsense. Listen to your body. Your footwork is not what needs your attention; your shooting is.

Drill 6: Three and Three Movement

Set up two barrels with some distance between them. Three rounds from position one, three rounds from position two. Run it lateral, then forward or rearward. Twelve rounds total, scored on par time and hit factor.

Hit factor is total points divided by total time. It's existed since 1970, and I've never heard it brought up in the military or law enforcement. Start incorporating it into any drill you can. On my run, I shot a 13.40 with a reload in there and one Charlie; 58 points over 13.40 seconds equals a 4.32 hit factor.

Drill 7: The Dope Drill

DOPE stands for Data On Previous Engagement. Five rounds as fast as you can at five different yard lines: 5, 10, 15, 20, 25. Scored on hit factor.

Track everything on a chart; first shot time, splits, total time, points at each distance. With 25 rounds, I can tell you a lot about a shooter after they run this.

On my run, I pulled a 9.98 hit factor. Almost hit the goal of 10. A trigger freeze at 10 yards and a Delta at 25 cost me. My goals for this drill: 10 hit factor with pistol, 20 with rifle. I'd argue less than a thousandth of one percent of the world's population could walk out and hit those numbers tomorrow if I asked them. That's what makes it a useful benchmark; whether you start or end your range day with it, it gives you a real read on your performance on demand.

What 100 Rounds Actually Buys You

We ended up at 107 rounds across the whole session. Trigger control at speed, 50/50s and doubles, graduation drill at 7, progressive return at 25, two static and two moving in four directions, a movement drill with hit factor scoring, and the DOPE drill to close it out.

These 100 round pistol drills deliver more training value than most cops know what to do with, more than most civilians know where to start, and more than the military is doing on any given range day. It doesn't cost a lot of time or money. If you're willing to be honest about what you're seeing and feeling behind the gun, and do something about it, 100 rounds goes a long way.

There's obviously deeper work to do with more rounds and more live fire time, and dry fire practice is where the real reps pile up. But if all you've got is a range day and what's on your belt, use it. Hopefully, we see you in a class.

— Rick