RE Factor Dead Man’s Hand

RE Factor Tactical has an entertaining, thought provoking tool to spice up your routine range days. We recently tried out their IQ Targets and Dead Man’s Hand shooting decks. While the IQ targets can be used as a standalone tool, depending on your own creativity, the decks are designed to pair with the targets.

Dead Man’s Hand looks like any other standard deck of playing cards except that, instead of just a number, each card has a drill. Number of rounds, intended target, and required movement is all included on each card. The targets themselves are simply an array of colored shapes with numbers or letters in them. While it doesn’t sound like rocket science, the randomized combination of visual inputs (colors, shapes, letters, numbers) requires a surprising amount of thought. Combining the mental tasks of target discrimination and counting rounds with movement and presentation from a holster creates a well-rounded training session.

The deck can be used solo by simply setting up an IQ target and just drawing cards off the top until you run out of ammo. But if you like friendly competition, grab a training partner and put each other on a shot timer for each drill. On our first outing with this set, the author indulged his inner showman by fanning out a group of cards and allowing three other shooters to take turns choosing cards from the hand.

There are two Dead Man’s Hand decks – for pistol and carbine, respectively. There are also two separate IQ targets match up accordingly. The rifle target has fewer shapes that are larger, to compensate for the increased distances on the carbine drills. As long as you have the range space to accommodate movement, the IQ system forces you outside the comfort zone of slow fire marksmanship to engage a number of oft-overlooked skills that are vital to competence behind a gun, whether you carry one for security or sport. And they do so in a way that’s accessible and much more entertaining than flipping through a binder of drills printed off the internet. For only $19.95 per deck and $2.50 each per target, there’s a lot good training to be had for the price of a couple movie tickets and some popcorn.

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