Skills and Drills: For Practical Shooting

By Ben Stoeger and Hwansik Kim

Elevate Your Shooting with Skills & Drills: For Practical Shooting—The Ultimate Training Manual

Unlock the secrets to top-tier performance with Skills & Drills, the definitive livefire training guide from renowned shooting expert Ben Stoeger. Drawing on his remarkable experience and success at the highest levels of competition, Stoeger has meticulously refined his training methods into this groundbreaking manual.

Skills & Drills represents the pinnacle of livefire training for USPSA/ISPC competitors. This comprehensive guide is packed with advanced drills and concepts designed to elevate your shooting skills to new heights. Dive into detailed practice tips that maximize every session, and explore insightful sections that pinpoint common mistakes and teach you how to correct them effectively.

Whether you use Skills & Drills as a standalone resource or alongside Dryfire: Fundamental Shooting Techniques for Training at Home, you’ll benefit from expert advice, advanced drills, and much more. Discover the path to becoming a top competitor with the most detailed and involved live-fire manual ever created.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Skyhorse
• Release date: Feb 25, 2025
• ISBN: 9781510779457

Ben Stoeger

Ben Stoeger is a two-time U.S. practical shooting champion. He competed in Athens, Greece on the US pistol-shooting team in the 2011 World Shoot, in which the U.S. took first place. Ben travels the country teaching pistol-shooting classes to the masses at all levels, and has seen dramatic results from his students.

Book preview

Chapter 1

YOU ARE DOING IT WRONG

If you are bothering to read this book, then it is likely that you are already on some sort of a training program. This may not be a formalized plan. It may be that you go to the range every Friday and practice with 200 rounds at a time, and then shoot a club match every other week. When I am working with students in a class setting, I find it common to talk to people who shoot roughly 10,000 rounds a year. Some people I work with shoot even more, and some have been doing so for years. If this reminds you of yourself, then read carefully.

You are doing it wrong.

If you have been shooting USPSA regularly for a couple years, then you have no business being in C class.

If you have been shooting for a few years and practice regularly (something like 10,000 rounds a year or more), then there is absolutely no reason for you to be stuck in B class.

If you have been at this for years, are committed to a serious practice schedule, train for major matches, and shoot regularly, you simply shouldn’t be stuck in A class.

You are all doing it wrong!

It is time to take a hard look at your own practice methods. When you are at the range, what are you trying to accomplish? Do you have vague and indistinct goals? Do you go out to work on your accuracy or work on your speed?

It is time to think about your training mindset. Shooting isn’t like weightlifting. You don’t get better just by doing reps. Sure, you need repetition in order to improve, but shooting is about more than that. This is a thinking game. You need to invest actual mental energy in your training. You need to be involved and engaged in your training. You need to pay attention. Going through the motions will not get you where you want to go.

If you think you are one trick or one little technical change away from greatness, you are kidding yourself. There are no magic pills. There is no snake oil. There are no secrets. There is only training and learning.

Once you accept that you are doing it wrong, then maybe you can start doing it right . . . or at least a little better. I am here to help.

Training Paradigms

I think it would be a helpful exercise to identify a few of the more common training paradigms that I have seen. By training paradigm, I mean a framework for your training. Everyone does things a little bit differently, and I want you to think about what paradigm you fit into best. Nobody likes to be pigeonholed, but you should take a minute and consider what paradigm you fit into. Then, take another minute and think about where you would like to fit into.

No Real Practice

It is very common to see people in the training paradigm in which they don’t really do too much of anything. They show up to club matches or the occasional major match and really don’t have very high expectations in terms of results.

These shooters may put themselves in the I just do this for fun category. They may not know how to practice. They may not have range access. The reasons for not practicing are virtually endless.

If you find yourself in this category of shooter, then I am a bit surprised you are even reading this book. If you are interested in improvement and want to do better, the bottom line is that you absolutely can get better at shooting. You may be thinking that you don’t have the time for it. You may think you don’t have the money. The fact is, with just a few minutes a day, and maybe 30 bucks a week in practice ammo, you can make huge strides. Your practice should be carefully structured in order to get the most bang for your buck, but certainly you shouldn’t let life get in the way of better shooting if that is your goal. Don’t be this person.

Used to be Good, Quit Practicing

There are many shooters that used to be hardcore about their training. Maybe they worked hard for a few years and climbed the ranks. Maybe they had a bit of talent and drive and it took them to Master or GM class.

I have met enough of these people to know that the bottom line is that for some reason they lose that spark. They lose the drive that new shooters have. Usually, this is the result of reaching a plateau. Improvement comes so fast and easily in the beginning of your shooting career that when the improvement seemingly stops, it can be extremely demoralizing. If you are a Master class shooter right now, it could take you six months or a year of dedicated training for you to start noticing improvement.

If anything, this is a question of motivation. If you have hit a plateau, and then you give up on training, you can get the spark back. Plenty of people find the spark again when they change divisions or remember how much fun shooting can be. However, without some motivation, you aren’t going to get