Dave Sevigny developed this drill to test draw speed and trigger control. It’s quite challenging. All you need is a steel target and a shot timer.

1. Draw and fire (freestyle) until you get a hit on the target. Record your time. Repeat for a total of five draws.
2. Draw and fire strong hand only until you get a hit on the target. Record your time. Repeat for a total of five draws.
3. Draw, transfer gun to weak hand and fire weak hand only until you get a hit on the target. Record your time. Repeat for a total of five draws.

Remember, you fire however many shots you need to get a hit. At the end of the drill you should have a total of fifteen times recorded. Add them all together to get your score. All fifteen runs — 5 freestyle, then 5 SHO, then 5 WHO — have to be shot consecutively with no “free passes” or excuses.

The target needs to be put up against the berm to prevent rounds skipping out of the range on a bad draw. The target needs to be steel because you continue engaging it until you score a hit. If you used a paper target and realized after the fact that you missed a shot, you have no way to score your time for that run.

Dave considers anything under 23 seconds to be a Grand Master level score. His personal best is 20.71! If you are drawing from concealment, the “GM standard” is 26 seconds.

(For a more “tactical” drill, you can do a standard weak hand only draw but keep in mind that this will be significantly slower for most people than the strong-to-weak transfer. Unless you have specific professional training in the safe execution of a weak hand only drawstroke, do not attempt it with a live gun.)