The Essential Shooting Guide is designed to identify a shooter’s weaknesses, and supply specific tips and shooting drills to improve upon them. The 91-page booklet is used in conjunction with our Essential Target and measures in at 4×6″ so that it can easily fit inside of a pocket or range bag. The Essential Shooting Guide begins with our Essential Pistol Drill, which is a 150-round “warm-up.”

The Essential Pistol Drill works on multiple aspects of pistol marksmanship to include: basic marksmanship, drawing from the holster, reloads, target transitions, differing trigger manipulations, and combat-focused shooting. Upon completion of the drill, you will easily be able to diagnose the specific areas of your shooting that need improvement. The guide then offers subsequent chapters that include a multitude of different tips and drills that are specifically designed to improve upon weaknesses and refine skills. On top of the specific drills listed to improve deficiencies, there are also tips that will aid in enhancing these particular deficiencies and can help to point out what specific errors you may be making. The identification of the actual causal factors that lead to a shooter’s deficiencies is key to correcting the problem.

Essential Shooting Guide

For instance, if you find that you are not scoring highly enough on transition drills you will find that chapter six focuses explicitly on drills that improve the speed in which you are able to accurately transition between two or more targets. One such drill is called the Nevis drill, which was named after SFC Liam Nevins, who was killed in Afghanistan while serving as a Special Forces Soldier with B 5/19th SFG(A) in support of Operation Enduring Freedom.

The Nevins Drill begins with your pistol presented, at the sound of the buzzer you fire 1 round into the 10 target, then transition and fire 1 round into the 9 target, then back to the 10 target, etc… Continue doing this as quickly and accurately as possible until you have fired a total of 12 rounds, (six into each target). The purpose of this drill is to simply improve your target transitions through repetition. This drill helps the user to find a specific rhythm to teach shooters to transition smoothly between targets, thus making their transitions faster, and much more accurate.

Essential Target

The tip included in this drill is to look with your eyes before you transition or lead with your eyes. This means that as soon as you fire the first round into the 10 target, you should immediately look at the nine target with your eyes, then bring the sights to your eyes. Do not stare down your sights while transitioning because it will often cause shooters to overshoot their target.

For instance, if you see that you are shooting high and right of the 9 target and low left of the 10 target, it is likely that you are staring through your sights while transitioning between targets. This deficiency is easily fixed by acquiring the target before acquiring your sights. Staring through the sights while transitioning will slow a shooters ability to accurately acquire a target and make the rounds much less accurate.

The score of this specific drill is the fastest time the drill is completed with zero misses.

Some fundamental deficiencies shooters may have might not be apparent. The drills in this booklet help to identify even the most minor flaw so that even advanced shooters can improve their marksmanship by using this book. Deficiencies The Essential Shooting Guide can help improve upon include: general marksmanship, improper trigger manipulation, shot anticipation, improper sight alignment, reload speed, shooting under stress, draw speed/ efficiency, shooting on the move, and more.

Essential Shooting Guide Specs:

Measures 4×6″
Multiple shooting drills
Designed for use in conjunction with the Essentials Target
Provides space for recording results
91 Pages of content
Made in the USA

We strongly recommend using this book in conjunction with our Essentials Targets as the two items will offer a solid iteration of marksmanship.