Favorite Drills

[ToddG]

Yep. First time I saw it was in a Hackathorn "Combat Pistol" class in '97 but I imagine it's been around a lot longer than that.

[climber2016]

[Steve]

Ahh sorry guys in this case it was denny hansens daughter shooting a version of the box drill that goes like this

2 targets about 3 feet apart (approx) drill goes hammer to target 1, hammer to target 2, brain box to target 2, brain box to 1... (single rounds) to brain box

[Steve]

Yes.... I teach a variation of it were after your two sets of hammers you transition to handgun for your brain box shots....

But im pretty sure from the article and a few of pats classes that that is the content of the box drill he does.

[ToddG]

We're talking about two different drills here.

climber2016 gave a diagram of the Box Drill. Someone can design a different drill and call it a box drill, but the Box Drill (as John_Wayne777 described it and climber2016 showed it) is THE Box Drill.

The drill being described is a variant of a X-Drill, also sometimes called a Figure-8 drill. However, by shooting the heads once instead of twice, you lose one of the major benefits of a true X-Drill (changing your cadence as dictated by the size/distance of the target).

[Larry Vickers]

Todd is correct as I know the truth to be - the X drill is commonly called the box drill and is also commonly mistaken (at first) when I mention the Hackathorn shooting on the move drill known as the box drill

I do it with every class (the box drill) - pistol or carbine - and it is the single best shooting on the move drill I know of

If you have not tried it yet you are missing a real treat!!

be safe

Larry Vickers

www.vickerstactical.com

[rob_s]

We do the "shooting on the move" version at our matches. It proves.... interesting.

We throw in another twist that I got from Randy Cain where you have to "minimize the angle". In other words, you shoot the target that is at the closest to 90 degrees to you at all times. So, if you're advancing down the left side, you shoot the target furthest to the right first, then the center, then the left.

I also like this drill because it plays with people's holdovers. We had one guy shoot the drill with an Aug, and you could have covered all of his groups with a 50 cent piece; all just above the 0 down on an IDPA target.

I like adding "thinking" elements to drills. Some at the matches complain that they are too "scripted", but trying to remember the script is what makes you think.

[smithjd]

I believe that we are actually talking about three different things...

The "Box Drill" that LAV, and TGreen spoke of is the movement drill as I know it also, with my first exposure to it in a Ken Good class. You can really take it to an extreme by incorporating angles, lateral and vertical displacements, bilateral shooting (i.e. switching hands), and pivots, all within the box.

The "box drill" as it is taught by Pat Rogers (the class Denny's daughter was in in the magazine) is a failure drill. Although it is similar in execution to a variation of the X drill, the purpose and intention are completely different. Everyone gets two to the center mass, and immediately reverse course giving everyone one to the head. Presumably Pat calls this a "box" drill because you have shot the targets in the shape of a box when done.

Whereas the X drill is all about driving the gun from target to target and "changing gears" a/k/a focus types.

[JLM]

How big should the 'box' be?

[ToddG]

Which one? Apparently, there are at least three different things people are calling the Box Drill!

For the real box drill, it doesn't have to be a specific size. You can do it with different number of targets, different size of the box, etc. The concept is what's important, it has you aggress, shift laterally right, retreat, and shift laterally left.

You can also turn things 45-degrees so you get all four diagonals in practice, too.