Skills and Drills: Rolling the Dice

A Game of Chance at the Range

In this installment of Skills & Drills we mix things up a bit. This drill includes a randomly produced string of fire. Being able to hit a small target on command while processing other information is an important skill that needs to be continually honed — even if we don’t like to do it. No two runs of this drill will ever be alike, and it’s a lot of fun to shoot too.

Dice Drill at 5 Yards

First, this drill is much more fun if you have 50 rounds already stuffed into magazines; it’ll cut down on the breaks for jamming mags. As the name implies, you’ll need a six-sided die (or a smartphone app that mimics one). No, we won’t be rolling up a character sheet for a rogue mage, but rather determining what targets, sequence, and round count to shoot. The target itself includes five circles of assorted sizes, numbered one through five.

[Download and print your own here]

Instructions:

Place your target at five yards. Load your pistol and orient it on a shooting bench pointed downrange. Using a cup or an empty ammo box, roll your die. Yes, we realize there are six sides per die and only five numbered circles downrange — please bear with us.

Roll results:
1. Shoot each dot with one round each (five rounds total)
2. Shoot the even numbered dots with two rounds each
3. Shoot the odd numbered dots with three rounds each
4. Shoot the four corner dots with two rounds each
5. Shoot dot five with five rounds
6. Shoot every dot twice

The drill ends after 50 rounds are spent.

Scoring

Each round is worth two points, so 100 points are available. Simply subtract two points for every shot that doesn’t break a target line. If you shoot 90 or above, increase the distance or add one of the possible complications outlined below.
Optional Complications
– Memorize the roll results (this isn’t hard after you run the drill a few times).
– When one magazine goes dry, perform an emergency reload and finish the sequence without checking the instructions again.
– Use two dice for two sequences shot in a row.
– Shoot the drill one-handed.
– Add a par time for each sequence (start with three seconds).