Foxtrot Drill...It's Mean!

[thopkins22]

From Jason Falla.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=I-mJngnFFBY

I imagine you have to be careful to not instill a crappy trigger pull attempting to make it happen faster though.

[brickbd]

Is there a video of him shooting the drill? Dont get me wrong or read into the post, I have no doubt he can do it live, I just want to actually see it. I am not finding it anywhere by anyone. Looks like a good mental drill, especially under stress!

[thopkins22]

The nature of it doesn't lend itself to live fire...and certainly not in that time frame.

You'd have to double the number of trigger pulls to do it with live ammo...I think.;)

[Iraq Ninja]

Brick,

It is a dry fire training drill. If you shoot it live, it ain't dry no more...

[brickbd]

Brick,

It is a dry fire training drill. If you shoot it live, it ain't dry no more...

TRUE! It's just that some drills that are dry fire drills seem to be a waste of time and circus like unless there is a practical application to apply them to. I can reload, load, dry fire, back flip with the best of'em but I love drills that bring reality of the mission to the game.

Before every session, I dry fire the course of fire to get that muscle memory down. Then I run drills under time constraints to bring on the stress. Again, I am not saying that this drill has no point so please don't start in on me, I'm just wondering the point then. Feel free to school me!

[thopkins22]

It's pretty well explained in the video. It's not meant to say, "you're likely to encounter three magazines with one round each and that round will be a dud, so we need to practice this."

You get to practice a draw, three trigger pulls, three malfunction drills, and three speed reloads.

You can practice them all separately if you like. But if you dry fire a lot like I do, it's nice to be able to integrate them all into one fluid drill.

And honestly one of the drawbacks to a lot of dry fire practice without incorporating malfunction drills became clear to me the other day in my own shooting. I grip a Glock pretty high and my thumb occasionally depresses the slide release, so it doesn't always lock back on the last round. I'll catch myself hearing the click and evaluating how the sight picture was during and after the "shot" breaking as though it was dry pointed at my wall, rather than immediately reloading or rectifying the solution. I believe that this drill(and drills like it) will help break that habit.

[LOKNLOD]

You get to practice a draw, three trigger pulls, three malfunction drills, and three speed reloads.

You can practice them all separately if you like. But if you dry fire a lot like I do, it's nice to be able to integrate them all into one fluid drill.


I think it's especially beneficial for a Glock/M&P type action, so you can string a series of useful manipulations together, versus the "click - rack slide - click - rack slide" rhythm it feels like I build.

Falla's speed was impressive :eek: but running through that drill for a while at half-speed very deliberately and precisely probably wouldn't hurt me at all before trying to speed it up....

[Surf]

It's pretty well explained in the video. It's not meant to say, "you're likely to encounter three magazines with one round each and that round will be a dud, so we need to practice this."

You get to practice a draw, three trigger pulls, three malfunction drills, and three speed reloads.

You can practice them all separately if you like. But if you dry fire a lot like I do, it's nice to be able to integrate them all into one fluid drill.

And honestly one of the drawbacks to a lot of dry fire practice without incorporating malfunction drills became clear to me the other day in my own shooting. I grip a Glock pretty high and my thumb occasionally depresses the slide release, so it doesn't always lock back on the last round. I'll catch myself hearing the click and evaluating how the sight picture was during and after the "shot" breaking as though it was dry pointed at my wall, rather than immediately reloading or rectifying the solution. I believe that this drill(and drills like it) will help break that habit.brickbd, this is exactly the point. If you have the opportunity to dry fire, we should do so. Also by incorporating a sequence such as this will also work on our ability to become more fluid in our manipulations. If you wish to work them as a singular dry drill, no harm. But trust me when I say that stringing dry manipulations together has great benefit in our analytical skills and solution thought process.

I really like this drill and since seeing Jason Falla running the drill I have adopted it. I however run my own variance which suits my actual style as a right hander. I also use dummy rounds for the drill. I tend to roll the weapon ejection port canted downward in a "roll", manner and I use a much sharper "tap" action on the mag, then I go to an overhand rack. It does take more time than doing it the manner in which can be seen in the video, but that is how I like to perform a true tap, roll, rack. I will also add that when I do a thumb and forefinger slingshot, with the ejection port up, I have induced some issues where the spent dummy round has hung up in during the ejection, even flipping the dummy round backwards and the new round and slide slammed the dummy round into the chamber backwards. I needed to ram the barrel from the muzzle end with a pencil to get out the wedged round. Which is why I like to roll ejection port down. When done well, with an overhand and port down which eliminates potential issues no matter how slight, I can make the time with reasonable consistency, but it takes some very good concentration. I am still practicing however and I do find this to be a beneficial drill. Good job Jason! :)

[Jack-O]

Whats this drill supposed to teach me?

[tampam4]

Whats this drill supposed to teach me?

Nothing. It's supposed to increase confidence, speed and comfort during weapon manipulation.

[misanthropist]

I sometimes run that drill but include IA drills for each "click".

But I don't do it too often...I feel like it messes with my head a bit. If I do it for too long, I have to consciously stop running IA drills after every dry fire trigger pull.

[Fireguy275]

I've been doing a similar drill I call the PIRS drill (Press out, Immediate action, Reload, Single shot).
It incorporates both dry and live fire and lets me work speed at a local range that doesn't allow drawing from the holster or firing more than one round per second.

Generally, I start doing 3-5 perfect presentations/trigger presses.
Then I load an empty magazine in the weapon and a magazine with 2 rounds on my belt.
From the ready, I press out and press the trigger at full extension.
A click gets me an Immediate action response,
which takes me to slide lock. I perform a slide lock reload and fire 1 round and prep for the next shot. I normally use 2 inch dots as my targets for this drill.

I clear the weapon and repeat the cycle. 20 live rounds will get me over 100 trigger presses and I don't develop any bad trigger habbits jerking the trigger to beat the timer.
Obvoiusly you can do it dry fire only, but I get better results incorporating dry fire with my live fire training sessions.

[Jason Falla]

After reading the previous posts about this drill, I thought I should chime in and explain a little about the origins and the methodology behind the DF3 drill.

1. Origin. This drill's was designed to train the gun handling skills necessary to complete the final stage of the 10.8 shooting test. The final stage of this assessment requires the shooter to draw and fire one round, reload, fire one round, reload and fire the last round. This drill is performed from 7 yards on an 8 inch IDPA circle in under 5 seconds. I have shot the 10.8 test clean with a 5 second par time several times, however the last drill can always pose a problem from time to time. Common mistakes are; over-griping the gun and interfering with the slide stop causing the slide not to lock to the rear, and not changing gears to ensure smooth reloads.

2. Methodology. Anyone can shoot three individual rounds inside an 8 inch circle from 7 yards, thats not the hard part. It's the consistency of being able to perform all the components of this drill together. The DF3 is designed to practice the shooter in the weapon handling skills necessary to complete 3 accurate rounds from 3 separate magazines with in 5 seconds. I included the malfunction drills to reinforce instinctive behavior when the gun fails to fire. (plus it's the only way to continue the drill with any realism).

When you can perform the draw, three sighted dry fires, two malfunction drills and two combat reloads under 5 seconds consistently go out and shoot the 10.8 drill with a 5 second par time. It's 65 rounds for 65 points, no points for over times and no points for rounds outside the circle. If you can't clean it, spend some time dry firing.

[Surf]

Thanks for the clarification Jason. If you don't mind explaining the 10.8 shooting test I would appreciate it. :)

[Jason Falla]

10.8 Pistol Test

All drills are performed at 7 yards, par time is 5 seconds. Target is an IDPA 8" circle. Score - inside the circle is 1 point outside the circle is 0. Over time is 0 points.

1. 4 body 1 head strong hand only holstered

2. transfer gun to support hand 4 body 1 head (start from high ready)

3. Rack slide with strong hand only 4 head strong hand only. Start from high ready with an empty chamber.

4. Rack slide with support hand 4 body 1 head support hand only. Start from high ready empty chamber.

5. Combat reload strong hand only 1 body. Start with empty mag slide open, aimed in.

6. 7 body 1 head. Freestyle from the holster.

7. 7 body combat reload 1 body. Holstered, 7 rounds loaded.

8. 8 head. Holstered.

9. Failure drill, reload failure drill. Start from high ready, 3 rounds loaded.

10. 1 body, 1 head, combat reload, 1 body 1 head. Start holstered 2 rounds loaded.

11. 4 body combat reload 4 head. Start high ready, 4 rounds loaded.

12. 1 body, combat reload, 1 body combat reload, 1 body. Holstered 1 round loaded, 2 mags with 1 round.

Finish. Rounds fired 65, points 65.

[SeriousStudent]

Thank you for providing a challenging weapons manipulation drill, Mr. Falla.

And congrats on the arrival of little Ethan Michael last year - I hope he and Mom are doing well. :)

[CarlosDJackal]

...You get to practice a draw, three trigger pulls, three malfunction drills, and three speed reloads...

I watched that video a half-dozen times and did not see any malfunction drills. Am I missing something? :confused:

[YVK]

I watched that video a half-dozen times and did not see any malfunction drills. Am I missing something? :confused:

He goes trigger pull, tap, rack, then slide locks back since mag is empty and he inserts a new mag - that's what I think is happening.

[thopkins22]

I watched that video a half-dozen times and did not see any malfunction drills. Am I missing something? :confused:

Most of an immediate action drill then. Trigger goes click, tap magazine, rack slide only slide locks to the rear so the next step instead of bang is to do a reload from the slide lock. If it's not a double feed that's generally what I've been taught to do.

[ROCKET20_GINSU]

Jason,

Thanks for a great and fun little drill. I understand the methodology behind the drill and I feel that it fulfills the intent well. Its a great drill to test and reinforce weapons manipulation fundamentals and economy of motion. I'm an EX class IDPA SSP shooter and I found that it was a challenge to make the par time, I was successful about 1/2 -2/3 of my attempts. If I fumble even a little on any of the reloads I would bust the par time regardless of everywhere else I tried to make up for it.

Next time I have some free time I'm going to give that 10.8 pistol test a try. I am predicting that the 1 hand only manipulation strings under a time crunch will be a challenge. I think that training foxtrot drill will be a great way to ensure that you make time on string 12, if someone can complete the foxtrot drill dry in 5 sec, then the live fire test should be easily attainable since you don't need to manually cycle the slide. Out of curiosity who created the drill? while perfect is best...what is considered a "good" score on the test?

Best,
GU

[Surf]

Jason, thanks for the info on the 10-8 test. I actually saw your video on it and watching it really does help to me understand the stages of fire. Yep, I am a visual learner.

Anyway I finally got around to running the drill for the first time and of course I had a camera rolling. I really like the fact that I only need to set up one target, I don't need to change shooting distances and I don't need to adjust the par time on my timer. Yea, I am a bit lazy at times.

As for the drill itself it is a good drill however I definitely find the Hackathorn to be more difficult, but that really isn't the point. Again, thanks for the drill and look forward to seeing more! :)

My attempt at it http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=05P9ARD4cj4

Aloha,
Surf

[infidelprodigy]

This is a great drill that doesn't require any money or drive time.:cool: At a recent indoor USPSA match (where mentally my mind was on other things in life), I forgot my reload point during a stage (production with G17) and my thumb was riding the slide stop. While consciously I new I just needed to load the gun, my auto-pilot took over. Tap, rack, perform emergency reload, drive on. The other funny part was that this all happened while on the move and I actually increased my pace while performing th "malfunction" clearance. I almost ran out of space on the range I was hauling a** that much. On video it looked smooth as hell and only cost me 3 seconds off the top shooter for the stage.:eek:

[Looey]

Whats this drill supposed to teach me?

Try doing it with out jerking the trigger? can you do all of the skills in the video in that much of a hurry and not anticipate the shot?
Do it with empty magazines and no dummy rounds, that way your are fighting the magazine spring when you drop the Slide stop.
it will make you think about every single aspect of going thru proper manipulations in a hurry.
if you can come close to that time then ask the question again.

[C45P312]

Very impressive video. Just tired the DF3 drill and seem to be very consistent at a little more than half the speed of Jason in the video.

Definitely check out Jason's other videos. Really nice to not only get explanations of drills but to see it get performed.

-Carlo

[Business_Casual]

10.8 Pistol Test

Target is an IDPA 8" circle. Score - inside the circle is 1 point outside the circle is 0. Over time is 0 points.

1. 4 body 1 head strong hand only holstered.

Thanks for the drill outline - another great skill evaluation for us to try.

Question - if the target is an 8" circle, what part is the body and what part is the head? Or is an IDPA 8" inclusive of a body outline and the circle is just the scoring zone?

B_C

[thopkins22]

Thanks for the drill outline - another great skill evaluation for us to try.

Question - if the target is an 8" circle, what part is the body and what part is the head? Or is an IDPA 8" inclusive of a body outline and the circle is just the scoring zone?

B_C

Around the seven minute mark of the video Surf posted is a good representation of the target used. The 8" circle is center mass of the silhouette and the head is where the head is.