Top 5 Combat Drills | Special Forces Training | Tactical Rifleman

This week, on Tactical Rifleman, we are going to cover Karl’s favorite 5 Rifle Drills for New Shooters. Yes, there are hundreds of great drills out there. Yes, you need to practice all your critical skills, such as transitions, malfunctions, and speed reloads. However, first and foremost, new shooters need to develop muscle memory. That takes thousands (7-9k) of repetitions of the same CORRECT movements and actions.

    You’ll see that each of these drills builds on the drill(s) before it; so that you are continuing to push those said movements and actions into your subconscious mind. It’s like driving… the first few months, you had to think about brakes and turn signals. Now, you just drive subconsciously. That frees up the conscious mind to focus on signs, signals, and other drivers. Likewise, you need to push all these basic shooting skills into your subconscious mind. That frees up the conscious mind to focus on “Is it a Threat” and “Is it a Threat that warrants Deadly Force?”

   Master these drills, through lots of repetition of each. If your unit doesn’t have that much ammo, then start with dry firing, and wrap up with live fire. Once, you have mastered them, then add all your critical skills to these drills:

Add Transition to Pistol Drills, every time your rifle runs dry or malfunctions
Add Tactical & Speed Reloads
Add Turning & Moving Drills, to these drills
Use Dummy Rounds, to induce Malfunctions during these drills.
Once you have mastered these five drills; we’ll give you plenty of other great shooting drills to work on. When you are ready to test; use the timed Critical Task Evaluations (CTEs) to see if you make the standard. If you don’t know them, we are going to cover them in an upcoming video, on Tactical Rifleman.

    Again, we know there are tons of other great rifle drills out there. I know all the Internet Ninjas are gonna start screaming how “Their Drill is Better” or how we “Obviously don’t know how to Shoot.” Yep, you guys are awesome. However, these are still Karl’s Top-5 Combat Drills for New Shooters. Thanks for watching. Strength & Honor, TR.