Ammo efficient drills

I posted a poll a few months ago with a general range of ammo options as to how many rounds forum members shoot through their AR's on a yearly basis. A majority (77%) answered under 3,500 rounds. If they went to the range once a week, it would come about to between 60 to 80 rounds per visit. (Theoretically).

This is compared to some of those on here who shoot much more than that (in the 10K and up range) per year. Obviously, these guys get much more trigger time and get to get a lot more practice and training with their weapons. And its sometimes both economics and time restraints get in the way of most guys shooting that much.

So my question is, do any of you have ideas and proven strategies for ammo-efficient drills that use a low round count yet are very good training tools? For example, shooting one magazine at a target from 50 yards away is probably much more efficient than shooting 3 magazines at targets less than 10 yards away. (This idea was brought up to me in the Handgun section where someone said along the lines of: "Shooting 10 rounds from 50 yards does alot more for the fundamentals than 50 at 10 yards")

Feel free to bring up mainstream drills (Magpul, Vickers, VT, ect) or ones that you may have designed.

One of the 10-8 pistol drills has been getting a lot of play in my training lately:

One IDPA/IPSC target @ 7 yards. Hits inside the A-zone are scored 1 point each, anything else is a miss. Shot from the holster, either concealed or with retention devices engaged.

Start with a chambered round, empty magazine. Two more magazines on the belt with one round in each.

Fire one shot to the body, slide-lock reload, one to the body, slide-lock reload, one to the body.

Par time is 8 seconds to start. If you really want to get groovy, cut it to 5 seconds.

This can easily be adapted to carbine work.

Off the top of my head (just cause I did them in class this weekend) if you have a range that will allow you to shoot and move, here are two suggestions:

Ladder Drill (includes some excercise ;) ):

-Mark off a 5, 10, 15, 20, and 25 yd line.
-Place a target at the 0 with a paper plate or index card or watever you want to use for your "A" zone at the center of the chest.
-Start at the 25, fire one shot, run to the 20, fire one shot, run back to the 25, fire one shot, run to the 15, fire one shot, run back to the 25, fire one shot...continue to the 5 yd line and finish back at the 25 for a total of 9 shots!
-This is a timed drill where every miss adds 5 seconds
-IIRC, under 50 seconds is a good time for this drill, but push yourself personally and make your own standard based on your physical fitness level and try to beat your time everytime you do it.

Box Drill (Movement with Shooting):

-This can be done at any range you want, but generally it is done at 10-15 yds
-Mark off 4 spaces with barrels, sticks, or whatever you want in the shape of a box
-The rear/left spot is designated "A", the front/left spot "B", the front/right spot "C", and the rear/right spot is "D"
-Start at "A" and move while shooting to "B" then "C" then "D" using forward, right, back, and left movement techniques
-You can make it any order you want such as "A" "C" "B" "D" as well
-Fire as many shots as you like, but make sure you are making your hits


Other good drills that I will be trying soon is the ones put out by Kyle Defoor on his blog/website.

There is plenty more out there and the limit is your imagination as far as what drills you come up with.

Moved to Training and Tactics.
Recommend you check out the "Favorite Drills" sticky at the top of the page.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by GeorgiaBoy

Feel free to bring up mainstream drills (Magpul, Vickers, VT, ect) or ones that you may have designed.

---

Magpul might not be the best source for drills if you're trying to conserve ammo. All the drills I did at a recent 2300rd+ Magpul Carbine 2 class pissed ammo like water. Many drills specified 4-6 rounds per target. I get that we were working on recoil management with the high round counts, but the cheap part of me cringed a little each time.

ETA: I like drills like this, and find them very ammo efficient:

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by LHS

Start with a chambered round, empty magazine. Two more magazines on the belt with one round in each.

Fire one shot to the body, slide-lock reload, one to the body, slide-lock reload, one to the body.

---

I do a lot of reloading drills and stuff and it can make ammo last a pretty long time, have a full mag and an empty mag,

gas it up
tac reload empty mag
fire, speed reload, fire
tac reload empty mag
fire, speed reload, fire

etc... Ill do it like this with reloads, malfunctions, all the weapons handling type drills, get a lot of live fire reps in.

Magpul Drills do piss ammo, but what I took away from their training style was that they always come back to slow controlled shooting after all the ninja voodoo shit. You never went back to jam magazines until you calmed down and got your hits.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by GeorgiaBoy

So my question is, do any of you have ideas and proven strategies for ammo-efficient drills that use a low round count yet are very good training tools?

---

Due to injury and illness (me) and illness (family) last year, my total range time - compared to previous years - was severely curtailed.

Didn't shoot any type of match in almost a year, and didn't take any classes during that time either.

But I did get to the range almost weekly.

Decided to work on drills during that year, and used these: http://www.combatshootingandtactics.com/standards.htm

What I would do is pick maybe 3 of them to practice each session, and I used a timer.

My times and accuracy did in fact improve.

Found it also helps to have a shooting buddy there to compete with, plus run the timer and record scores.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Backstop

Due to injury and illness (me) and illness (family) last year, my total range time - compared to previous years - was severely curtailed.

Didn't shoot any type of match in almost a year, and didn't take any classes during that time either.

But I did get to the range almost weekly.

Decided to work on drills during that year, and used these: http://www.combatshootingandtactics.com/standards.htm

What I would do is pick maybe 3 of them to practice each session, and I used a timer.

My times and accuracy did in fact improve.

Found it also helps to have a shooting buddy there to compete with, plus run the timer and record scores.

---

Those are the standards that MAST Solutions (based out of Houston, TX) use as well.

Guys, please put drill suggestions in the stickied thread.