We’re kicking off another new series this week: Start Shooting Better. We’ll be outlining a variety of shooting drills and tests to help you improve your marksmanship. The drill we’re looking at for our first “episode” is Dot Torture. This is one of my favorite drills, but also one of the most difficult that I practice on a regular basis. In the video below, I’m joined by our friend John Johnston to help explain and demonstrate this drill. Scroll on past the embedded video if you’d rather read the transcript instead.
CHRIS: Hi guys, I am Chris from Lucky Gunner, here with John Johnston from Citizens Defense Research, also the host of Ballistic Radio. He’s here to help us kick off a series we’re doing outlining some different drills you can use to practice at the range and improve your mechanical shooting ability. Today we’re going to be talking about the Dot Torture Drill. So John, tell us about Dot Torture.
JOHN: So Dot Torture is one of those things where a lot of people confuse what’s going on. Essentially, it’s a 50-round course of fire where you’re aiming at 2-inch circles. I usually start people out at three yards and then you can progress in distance from there. All we’re really working on is mental discipline and focus and trigger control. There are multiple tasks where we draw and fire, we do some strong hand only/weak hand only shooting, shoot at multiple targets, but there’s absolutely no time limit. So really, what you’re learning is how to work the trigger correctly and handle the problem that you’re dealing with at the time.
CHRIS (VOICE OVER): To shoot this drill, you will need to print out a Dot Torture target. The target consists of 10 2-inch circles with the course of fire printed below each circle. You will probably want to print out an extra target to keep with you since it might be difficult to read the instructions from where you’re standing to shoot the drill.The course of fire goes like this:
Dot 1: Draw and fire five rounds.
Go slowly on this one. The goal is maximum accuracy. Ideally, you want to make one big hole right in the middle of that circle.
Dot 2: Draw and fire one round. Repeat that four times for a total of five rounds.
Dots 3 & 4: Draw and fire one round at dot 3, then one round at dot 4. Repeat three more times to make four repetitions totalling 8 rounds.
Dot 5: Draw, and fire five rounds using the strong hand only.
Dots 6 & 7: Draw and fire two rounds at six and two more rounds at seven. Repeat three more times for a total of 16 rounds.
Dot 8: Start at a low ready position, and fire five rounds using only the weak hand.
Dots 9 & 10: Draw, fire one round on dot nine, perform a speed reload and fire another round on dot ten. Repeat two more times for a total of six rounds.
by Chris Baker
