High Speed Trigger Control Drill For Ranges With Restrictive Rules

Even if they won’t let you do tactical reloads, draw from the holster, or shoot faster than one round per second, you can still do this speed drill.

This drill will answer a question for you that has plagued shooters for decades…

And that is, if you’re supposed to press the trigger slowly and have a surprise break, what do you do when you need to shoot in a hurry?

How fast can you press the trigger before your accuracy suffers?

You’re going to find out today.

I say it on the video, but it’s important to remember that this is NOT necessarily a reaction time drill.  It’s a drill to help you know how quickly you can press the trigger and maintain an acceptable level of accuracy.There’s a couple of reasons for this…first, your reaction time will be much quicker when you’re responding to a beep than to a visual stimulus because of the fact that it takes more brain power to pick out a visual “go” signal.

Second, your reaction time may be important, but it’s MUCH more important to be able to isolate the movement of your trigger finger.  If you push your speed and miss your target, it means you’re going to need a 2nd shot.  And that adds A LOT more time than just making your first shot count.

Now, there are a couple easy modifications you can do to this drill to add variety.

The first is to set your delay to 2.5 seconds and your par time to 2.5 seconds.

Start your timer, get ready to shoot, shoot on the beep, get ready to shoot again, shoot when it beeps again.

If your split is more than 2.5 seconds, your 2nd shot took longer than your first.  If your split is less than 2.5 seconds, your 2nd shot was faster than your first.

The second modification is to start at a high compressed ready position, where your support hand meets your pistol during your drawstroke, or half way out to extension and see how quickly you can make a hit from various positions along your drawstroke.  Keep in mind that it doesn’t matter how quickly you can press the trigger…it only matters how quickly you can make hits.

Sometimes, ranges don’t like shooters using shot timers.  I guess they’re more distracting than a gunshot.  Whatever the case, there’s an easy fix for this.

Simply download a free shot timer app onto your phone, take a pair of ear buds to the range, and wear them under a pair of earmuffs.  You’ll hear the shot timer better and nobody around you will be bothered.

I had run into the same problem and found or developed several “stealth” drills to be able to get in valuable fundamental training for self defense shooting…even when the range didn’t allow it.

If you’re interested in learning more, as well as drills to increase the accuracy of sensory input to the brain and motor output from the brain to your hand so you can increase your trigger speed as quickly as possible, I want to encourage you to head over to Upgraded Shooter and join our training family today.