I’m sure many of you have bought items from SKD Tactical. I have spent quite a bit. 

Anyways, they print their invoice on a FAST target. I’ve always wanted to try this drill. Had the chance to shoot it cold today.  It was fun and humbling at the same time. I’ve shot a similar one in a shooting course before. But I’ve always been interested in shooting performance cold.

Have you tried this test? How did you do?

Have you tried this test? How did you do?

Great drill and a classic.

I planned on more than one occasion to arrange for Todd to come to Hawaii.  I agreed to run this in a class, cold as the first shooter in a coin attempt.  Unfortunately Todd's health kept putting off his trip and he passed. I may try to do it with Earnest Langdon who now does the coin runs, but i wish i could run it with Todd.  RIP.

I now run this drill as one if my 4 standards drills, especially for our advanced diagnostics courses.  Did you run this with me?  I often run my best drills cold.  If I rip a good drill cold it is almost time to quit as it doesn't usually get better.

So how did it go for you?   

Great drill and a classic.

I planned on more than one occasion to arrange for Todd to come to Hawaii.  I agreed to run this in a class, cold as the first shooter in a coin attempt.  Unfortunately Todd's health kept putting off his trip and he passed. I may try to do it with Earnest Langdon who now does the coin runs, but i wish i could run it with Todd.  RIP.

I now run this drill as one if my 4 standards drills, especially for our advanced diagnostics courses.  Did you run this with me?  I often run my best drills cold.  If I rip a good drill cold it is almost time to quit as it doesn't usually get better.

So how did it go for you?   

Yeah. First time I shot that drill was with you guys. I thought it was slightly different, or at least closer. Haha. Think the standard you had had more parts too.

I shot it in low 7, but had a miss on the 3x5, so low 9 adjusted. 

The target said 7 yards. When I set it up, I was like, that’s a little farther than I envisioned. Haha

Really fun though! I rarely get to shoot drills like this and even more rare to be able to do so cold. Would love to shoot drills like this and Bill drill cold day 2-3 times a week.

Sorry to hear about Todd. I’ve met many awesome folks through shooting. I value each experience and try not to take them for granted.

Have you tried this test? How did you do?

Yes.  Better than you 

Yes.  Better than you 

Even the sun shines on a dogs ass some days...  even when said dog tries to hide in the shade. 

I was all messed up most of the day. It wasn’t until the open shoot after lunch where I ironed stuff out.

Yeah. First time I shot that drill was with you guys. I thought it was slightly different, or at least closer. Haha. Think the standard you had had more parts too.

I shot it in low 7, but had a miss on the 3x5, so low 9 adjusted. 

The target said 7 yards. When I set it up, I was like, that’s a little farther than I envisioned. Haha

Really fun though! I rarely get to shoot drills like this and even more rare to be able to do so cold. Would love to shoot drills like this and Bill drill cold day 2-3 times a week.

Sorry to hear about Todd. I’ve met many awesome folks through shooting. I value each experience and try not to take them for granted.

OK, I remember now.  In our first skill builder, is where we introduce standards.  All 4 were modified standards, so the FAST was run from 5 yards, not 7 yards.  The other 3 standards were also modified.  When we run our advanced diagnostics course we run the full standards and break them down into fundamental components and how to segment training in an analytical fashion for some truly amazing results. 

I had a video at one time where I ran the FAST next to Dave Sevigny's, world record video run (at that time).  Very interesting learning points.  He ran 1.03 seconds faster than I did with 100% hits.  Interesting that our reaction times and draw speed was dead on par, but he absolutely walked me from there.  1 second doesn't sound like much, but the video was eye-opening, to say the least.  It was a great visual for me and I broke down every component of our runs and where I needed improvements and where to put in work.  I was able to cut a good half second off my run very quickly with that new to me training concept of absolutely breaking things down into very small components and drilling them separately.  Fascinating stuff and great learning period of time for me back in the day.

When we get there we will cut your times and increase your performance very rapidly which will translate well to all phases of your shooting.  Maybe you and Drakiir can go head to head at that time, but he will be putting in work also.  Should be a lot of fun to watch! 

Have you tried this test? How did you do?

Looks familiar Shoot cold  I was told "don't bring a new gun to a gun fight" . . . or something like that . . .

This looks cool, I'll try it out next time I'm at HFR.

http://pistol-training.com/fastest

Interesting how they do the small target first and the large target last.  Usually it's the other way around if it's simulating a body armor drill.

OK, I remember now.  In our first skill builder, is where we introduce standards.  All 4 were modified standards, so the FAST was run from 5 yards, not 7 yards.  The other 3 standards were also modified.  When we run our advanced diagnostics course we run the full standards and break them down into fundamental components and how to segment training in an analytical fashion for some truly amazing results. 

I had a video at one time where I ran the FAST next to Dave Sevigny's, world record video run (at that time).  Very interesting learning points.  He ran 1.03 seconds faster than I did with 100% hits.  Interesting that our reaction times and draw speed was dead on par, but he absolutely walked me from there.  1 second doesn't sound like much, but the video was eye-opening, to say the least.  It was a great visual for me and I broke down every component of our runs and where I needed improvements and where to put in work.  I was able to cut a good half second off my run very quickly with that new to me training concept of absolutely breaking things down into very small components and drilling them separately.  Fascinating stuff and great learning period of time for me back in the day.

When we get there we will cut your times and increase your performance very rapidly which will translate well to all phases of your shooting.  Maybe you and Drakiir can go head to head at that time, but he will be putting in work also.  Should be a lot of fun to watch!

Yeah. It was in a skill builder. Love shooting those kinds of standards. The shot timer and target don’t lie.

Looking forward to the diagnostics and analysis of the “finer things”. If I haven’t shot consistently, I’ve recently found that I tend to develop a case of “the lefts”. I found that my grip pressure seems to cause some of that as well as other bad habits that creep in there. What I noticed this past weekend. It’s also tougher fighting that in front of other experienced shooters. 

I always look forward to refining marksmanship skills. But also humbling when I sometimes find myself fighting the basics. It’s like I was almost fighting myself most of the day. Just needed to settle back down and sort of reset. But also another aspect related to why I want to shoot drills cold.

Your analysis vs DS sounds like when I was shooting IPSC often. I was on par with many things with another higher class shooter. Draw times, splits, and a few others seemed similar. One big difference was wasted motion in between targets. It’s eye opening when you start to see those things. Then need to dedicate time to work on improving.

Drakiir has Drakiir Jr or ‘lil miss Drakiir on the way. So maybe he won’t have as much time to dedicate to putting in the work. Haha

Looks familiar Shoot cold  I was told "don't bring a new gun to a gun fight" . . . or something like that . . .

Hahahaha!

What I heard was “you gotta shoot what you brought to the gun fight”. 

Looks familiar Shoot cold  I was told "don't bring a new gun to a gun fight" . . . or something like that . . .

Shooting cold, means that you don't have any warm-ups.  First drill and first shots of the day.  The concept is that you won't have any warm-up reps in a real critical incident, but of course, the amount of stress is much different.  You should always vet any weapon to be used in a defensive role.

This looks cool, I'll try it out next time I'm at HFR.

http://pistol-training.com/fastest

Interesting how they do the small target first and the large target last.  Usually it's the other way around if it's simulating a body armor drill.

The FAST was designed to focus on two lower percentage shots first from the draw then a reload, followed up by a faster string of 4.  It really was designed more around a marksmanship principle rather than a defensive drill or the Mozambique.  However, there is the variant of running it in reverse.  Some run it in reverse and omit the reload, often referred to as a turbo failure to stop, 4 body, two head.  It is more difficult for me and for most people to run it as designed rather than backward.

As with standards, you shouldn't simply rep them out, just to improve them as a drill.  In other words, some people game the heck out of the standards then claim it as their performance standard.  Meaning, I try to run standards drills where I am mostly confident in getting 100% hits, 100% of the time.  Of course, this doesn't always happen, but as a general guideline, I don't just game or rep standards as if it were a drill.  Shoot them cold, once, maybe every couple of months to track performance.  They can help in telling you if your overall training is successful in improving your skill sets, or if you need to re-evaluate that overall training plan.  Not unlike the Sig standards where they don't want shooters just repping them out.

As an example, I run the FAST near or at 100% reliability in the 4.75 - 5.00 sec range as an average.  I can absolutely game it and have shot as low as a 4.19 with 100% hits, but that is with reps and not cold, so I don't count that, or judge my overall training by that.  I am also about .15 - .25 sec slower from concealment.  Again all of this information can help guide you on training points to focus on towards improvement. 

Shooting cold, means that you don't have any warm-ups.  First drill and first shots of the day.  The concept is that you won't have any warm-up reps in a real critical incident, but of course, the amount of stress is much different.  You should always vet any weapon to be used in a defensive role.

Dogman shot the drill with us this past weekend. He was making light of things. 

He did bring a brand new gun to the shoot. Usually a great time to do so, but the cold drill was sprung on everyone.

Shooting cold, means that you don't have any warm-ups.  First drill and first shots of the day.  The concept is that you won't have any warm-up reps in a real critical incident, but of course, the amount of stress is much different.  You should always vet any weapon to be used in a defensive role.

Ahhh, now it makes sense (seriously) why I was denied my request of a single shot to see where my sights were on an unfired gun.

Ahhh, now it makes sense (seriously) why I was denied my request of a single shot to see where my sights were on an unfired gun.

My bad. I thought you were joking around. I thought I mentioned the reasoning behind the “cold” aspect of it before and after. That I also wanted to sort of shock you folks since most shoots usually start off with a sort of warmup. For you, I knew what you meant, but I also wanted to keep the true cold aspect of it. Mostly jokingly, was the part about a new gun. 

My bad. I thought you were joking around. I thought I mentioned the reasoning behind the “cold” aspect of it before and after. That I also wanted to sort of shock you folks since most shoots usually start off with a sort of warmup. For you, I knew what you meant, but I also wanted to keep the true cold aspect of it. Mostly jokingly, was the part about a new gun.

Was all good, sighting was fine . . . HK  . . . looking forward to the next time, and I'm out of new guns 

Was all good, sighting was fine . . . HK  . . . looking forward to the next time, and I'm out of new guns 

Cool. I’d love to own a VP9 (that’s what it was, right?).

Well, you should have plenty of time to pick up something new. Like a CZ P10c! 

Want a $2500 VP9?

https://www.tyrdefenseindustries.com/shop/shop/weapons/advocate/

Want a $2500 VP9?

https://www.tyrdefenseindustries.com/shop/shop/weapons/advocate/

Maybe if I win the MegaBucks. I mean I’d love to own a gun like that, or something from Salient, Agency, etc. Or guns like Wilson Combat and the like.