I've been musing yesterday and this morning on the Bill Drill... I posted this on the Handguns forum, but that's more of a "hardware" forum. Maybe some folks here will have comments?
I like looking at gun porn as much as the next guy, and I have a pretty pistol or two in my safe, but I tend to spend a lot more time shooting my handguns than fondling and admiring them. I haven't been doing nearly enough pistol shooting for the past few months for a variety of reasons. Thinking about the K-frame thread the other day drove me to the range to correct that deficiency, and after a while I found myself reverting to my old favorite pistol drill, the Bill Drill.
"Invented" by Bill Wilson of Wilson's Combat (Bill used to be a pretty hot IPSC shooter before he became one of the preeminent custom 1911-smiths in the country), the Bill Drill (and the reload variant Double Bill Drill) is IMHO the perfect drill for the self-defense-minded pistol shooter.
I use a lot of different drills in my pistol training. Some days I'll do a bunch of draw-and-fire single shots, other days I'll do a lot of multiple-target drills, other days it will be mostly distance work. But I almost always incorporate a string of Bill Drills into my session, usually toward the end of the day.
The Bill Drill goes like this: load your pistol with 6 rounds and holster. Face off with an IPSC or IDPA silhouette target at whatever range you choose (I usually use 3 yards to start, then move back until I'm firing at 15 or 20 yards.) Use an electronic timer, set for a 2-3 second delay. On the signal, draw, aim, and fire 6 rounds into the A-zone of the target as fast as you can hit. Record your time(s) in your range log for future reference.
That's it. Just draw and fire 6 shots as fast as you can hit the -0 or A-zone of the target. It's simple, it's fun, and you'll find you get faster and more accurate the more you do it. If you miss even one shot, don't record your time. The only strings that count are the ones where you have zero misses.
It's not unreasonable to expect a competent defensive pistol shooter to execute a Bill Drill on a 5-yard target with zero misses in well under 5 seconds, and on a 15-yard target, in under 7 seconds.
I like to incorporate a few Double Bill Drills into my routine as well. A Double Bill Drill starts out like a regular Bill Drill, but after the first six rounds you reload on the clock and then execute a second string of six shots.
Some folks tell me they think this drill is a waste of ammunition. Well, I don't think it is. Yes, you can burn up a hundred rounds of ammo in a hurry. But you can learn a helluva lot about the current keen-ness of your pistol-shooting skills by doing so, and you can actually force yourself to hone your skills very rapidly. Pistol shooting is a highly perishable skill; if you don't practice, your skill falls off quickly. Keeping track of your Bill Drill times is a good benchmark of your proficiency.
"Speed is fine," some say, quoting the late Bill Jordan, "But accuracy is final." They forget that Jordan never said speed was unnecessary. In fact, he firmly believed and stated emphatically in his book that the first man to make his hit in a gunfight almost always won that gunfight. A defensive pistol shooter can't afford to ignore speed training if he truly wishes to not place second in a gunfight for his life.
The Bill Drill forces you to make repeated hits at your maximum speed, which really tests your grip, stance, trigger control, and follow-through. The Double Bill Drill does all that, but forces you to work on making smooth, fast reloads as well.
Just thought I'd share those thoughts with y'all today. If you haven't tried the Bill Drill, you ought to.
