Train – Practice – Repeat
Practice drills, tips and tools for Students, Trainers, Security Teams, Clubs and Law Enforcement,
to stay connected and make practice a true extension of training.
OUR MISSION
HandgunDrills.com is focused on PRACTICE not practicing. Specifically helping Students with Concealed Carry practice.
After all, designing effective practice of a physical sport requires skills of its own. We believe how you practice matters more than what you practice.
VISIT THE ROLE BASED PORTALS
HandgunDrills.com products and website help Students take charge of their practice and help Trainers stay continuously engaged with their Students through practice long term.
We believe this can create a productive Win-Win relationship where both Students and Trainers benefit and excel.
“And every course tells them at the end to “Practice, Train.” But the question is “How?” However, few options exist to structure their practice. Your system provides such a framework for all these situations. Your system allows documentation of the range time both statistically with the Drill Cards and subjectively with the Training Log where they can sum up the experience in their own words.”
Frank Mayer, Professional Firearms Instructor
HandgunDrills.com Point of View on Concealed Carry Practice
Concealed Carry practice has unique goals, tied to self-defense with a legally concealed firearm, with a vast amount of information and techniques tied to this purpose. Practicing well and continuously improving has many benefits to your investment and results. We believe that for a Student to be successful they must learn and practice proper technique to develop proper skills, and to do that they need a Trainer or Trainers. Trainers will teach much much more than how to drills. We believe this Student-Trainer relationship is so critical, we don’t recommend that you buy our products without this relationship in place.
We have designed our products and website to support several basic outcomes for Students within the Student-Trainer relationship.
- Take charge of your practice and continuously improve them. Know what to practice and why, how to practice (dry fire or live fire) and what the practices tell you. Use the PDCA Continuous Improvement model for practice.
- Read and understand drills in a new way. Know what the drill will do for you as a practice drill or test, what it won’t do, and why.
- Choose drills based on skills you need to work on now, because it changes often. Know the right drills for skills you are working on from the skill level you’re at now.
- Know how to evaluate your performance and results including shots that miss, to make corrections based on what you know is correct or to seek help from a Trainer. Know what you know and know what you don’t know.
- Create a record of practices, performance and all activities. Document your journal for all Concealed Carry related training, practices and education. (Or just use it as a reference book for dills to shoot. You decide.)
THE PORTALS AND THEIR FOCUS
Resources are organized into four portals, representing various roles and affiliations a person may have. Since each role has unique goals and requirements, the application of the available Handgundrills.com resources are presented in the context of how they are best used to support each role.
About The Student Portal
The Student Portal presents how the resources may best be used by a Student that is practicing between training classes or one-on-one sessions with their trainer. It includes application of both dry fire practice at home and live fire practice at the range. The Student role applies to anyone, including Trainers, that are in practice mode.
OUR FOCUS here is to help Students; Practice with a purpose, what they learn in training, from the skill level they’re at, with the time and ammo they have.
About the Trainer Portal
The Trainer Portal presents how the resources may best be used by a Trainer to help a Student practice between Training classes or sessions, to extend their instruction of proper technique and influence throughout the Student’s periods of practice.
OUR FOCUS here is to help Trainers; Stay connected to their Students through practice homework and establishing a long term relationship with the Train-Practice-Repeat cycle where the Student continuously improves.
and as a result, help their Students continuously improve, achieve higher level training and build their business through long term relationships.
Never say goodbye to your Students again!
About the Security Teams and Clubs Portal
The Security Team and Club Portal presents how the resources may best be used by a team member in both the Student (Member) role and leadership role. The leadership role may or may not be a training role, but a role that sets policy, procedures and organizes activities. In the team format, there is an emphasis on the team all acting consistently and meeting consistent requirements which may include practice requirements and standards.
OUR FOCUS here is to help Teams; Advance the they’re practice and documentation goals together in a consistent, uniform way, primarily by leveraging the advantages of individual Drill Cards that include portability, sort-ability, share-ability and standardization of format. These features save time in organizing activities, selecting and communicating drills, and provide consistent standards for performance and documentation of results.
Always be together and on the same page!
About the Law Enforcement Portal
Law Enforcement includes local and state police departments, and national/federal agencies such as FBI, CIA, ICE and FAM. We recognize that Law Enforcement presents a spectrum of practice and training levels for various purposes including but not limited to non-tactical Officers and tactical Officers (such as SWAT or SRT teams). Training and practice for that spectrum can run from non-tactical officers that must qualify once a year but have little or no ammo provided or requirement to practice in between qualifications, and in contrast, tactical officers usually have regular training and practice with additional advanced tactical performance requirements.
OUR FOCUS here is to help Officers/Agents to expand their practice regimen by incorporating greater choices and variation in practice tools and approaches. Drills acknowledging both fundamentals and high skill levels with combinations of drill attributes such as movement, cover, multiple targets, and decision-making are highlighted in this portal.
Add some new twists to your practice!
The Student Practice Cycle
Applying the Plan-Do-Check-Act (PDCA) Continuous Improvement Process to Handgun Practice.
HangunDrills.com applies this model to the physical act of handgun shooting, which is a process, has many similarities to manufacturing processes. In simple terms, the Process is viewed as a set of Inputs (such as technique or focus) that have some effect on the Output (desired result). See the Student Role Portal for more details.
For example this can be used to:
- reduce variation of outputs of the shooting process such as shot placement and minimize time. That is, improve accuracy and repeatability and increase speed.
- reduce variation of inputs to the shooting process that affect the output such as start delay, movements, recognition and decisions. These are things that slow you down or make you miss.
- break the drill process down into smaller steps (stages/shots) and measure each step. Splits would be an example of an output for each shot.
- determine which process steps, if improved, will yield the greatest benefit to the desired outputs (shot placement and time).
Questions & Answers
What is in the Concealed Carry Book of Drills and how can I use it?
The Concealed Carry Book of Drills is a system for recording all of your concealed carry activities such as practice, training and educational activities. Core the the system are the utility of Drill Cards, a unique one-drill one-card format that provides the complete drill instructions on one side and a place to record your shooting results 7 times on the other. The book can also be used just as a personal reference library of drills or record drill scores and results.
- Book of Drills – A high quality portable leatherette binder for your range bag that contains the Drill Index and 3 types of cards for simple tracking of all of your practice and concealed carry activities.
- Drill Index List – List of Drills with accuracy levels, drill attributes and credits.
- Individual Drill Cards – A card with the drill instructions on the back and results tracking on the front, including the Loadout used. It uses a standard format including 10 standard drill attributes and a standardized accuracy rating system for all shots.
- Log Cards – An open format card to track anything you deem important to your concealed carry activities such as training, practice, and education. Used for practices notes in addition to drill card results for significant plans, observations, and summaries.
- Loadout Cards – A card describing how you leave the house when you carry concealed. Includes a unique ID (name) and description of each Loadout you use and wish to practice with, and track separately from other Loadouts. A Loadout is primarily the combination of a handgun, ammo, holster, carry position and concealment clothing.
For more detailed information on the products and how to use them please visit How-to-Use.
What are some of the important features of the website?
- Learn Drills – We don’t sell drills. We sell Drill Cards. Learning drills is always free and credit to the drill designer is always given, as is our industry practice.
- We sell Drill Cards that contain our copyrighted format to give you a place to record your shooting results. Drill information and shooting instructions are included on the back for reference.
- Our drills cards are found in the Store-Library, since it serves as a place to pull up the drill and learn it as well as buy the card if desired.
- To learn drills, simply access the Drill Cards in the store and read the complete drill instructions and information on both sides of the cards.
- For even more convenience, first use the filter to first only the dills with the attributes you want, then review and learn the ones you like.
- Store Drill Filter – Drills are characterized by accuracy level and drill attributes. The filter and the Drill Index in the book contain this same information.
- Drill Attributes – There are 10 standard drill attributes that will relate to the skills you are interested in.
- Shot Accuracy Ratings – There is also a standard “relative” accuracy rating for each shot or group of shots in the drill, to allow you to quickly determine the level of difficulty you will experience in the drill.
- The filter in the Store will allow you to sort for any combination of drill attributes and accuracy difficulty as well as by specific drill title or drill designer (Trainer). Filter Instructions are located above the filter.
- Podcasts, Blogs and Articles – These are additional sources of instruction and information that we will provide that originates from specific Trainers, industry sources and HandgunDrills.com.
How do I best use the Practice Plan Template?
Download the template and print it.
The Practice Plan Template is available in all portals, this template is a starting point and guide to help make planning a practice session simple and fast.
The template uses the well-established 4 step Plan-Do-Check-Act (PDCA) continuous improvement system and applies it to create a worksheet for handgun practice.
As you use the template the steps will become automatic and you may not need to use the form to plan and complete a practice. When this happens simply record the important information for the 4 steps as you go on a Log card.
What are Practice Packs and how would I use them?
Practice Packs are simply a set of Drill Cards created for a specific practice purpose, such as the focus and skill level of a training class.
Practice Packs or individual Drill Cards can be given out to Students as homework after training. They are usually 3 drills related to the skills focused on in class.
Practice packs are easy to create. Simply buy the Drill Cards and assemble them into the packs in an envelope for each Student. The Practice Packs in envelopes provide a good opportunity to talk about addition training and also a good place to add coupons, marketing materials for classes and product promotions.
Can I download targets and how do I do it?
Small Targets can be downloaded or printed directly from the website as PDF’s for free.
These are the current printable (8 1/2″ x 11″) targets used in the drills.
Small format targets are available as part of the Target Sets in the Store but are not for sale individually.
Large format targets are available individually in the Store and are also included in the Target Sets.
What are the Guiding Principles of HandgunDrills.com for Concealed Carry Practice?
- Practice proper technique or don’t practice. Qualified trainers provide proper techniques. Only safe, proper techniques should be practiced.
- Practice with a purpose by learning how to practice. Acquiring any new skill requires practice. Safe and effective practice requires skills all its own.
- Fundamental skills come first. Handgun shooting is a process that is built on fundamental skills and steps. Always work on fundamentals.
- Your goals drive everything. Your goals should be clear and drive all of your training and practice activities.
- There is no such thing as unlimited resources. Your resources are limited, especially time, ammo and practice environments. Get the most out of the resources you have.
- Measure or wonder. Use performance measurements so you know exactly where you stand and can improve the right skills from there. Never leave the range again wondering if you’ve improved.
- You must put in some time. Since skill level erodes over time, regular training and practice are required to maintain a skill level as well as improve it. Make your time count.
- Drills only point the way. Drills develop and test sets of skills in various ways and provide insights into which skills you need to work on now.
- Practice must vary. Practice should be multifaceted and designed to practice what you learn in training to meet your goals.
- Practice should be fun (or at least it helps a lot). Shooting is serious but there is nothing wrong with enjoying new achievements and mastering new things. It motivates most people to keep going.