Three By Three By Three

Claude Werner has an interesting drill based on the “three yards, three rounds, three seconds” rubric for armed self defense. I’m neutral as to whether this idea is as applicable to the armed citizen as it is to law enforcement, but considering that most transactional violence takes place up close and personal (they need to get near us to get our wallet, keys, etc.), it does make some sense. This drill uses nothing but 12 rounds, a shot timer and a few sheets of typing paper.

3x3x3 Drill

Distance: 3 Yards
Rounds required: 12
Target: Four sheets of 8.5×11 paper
Par Time: 3 Seconds

Drill procedure: 

On audible start single, draw your pistol from concealment and fire three rounds. Shots over par time do not count. Scoring is as follows:

Level One – hit a silhouette consistently
Level Two – hit a sheet of paper consistently (8.5×11 inches, or about the size of the heart and lungs)
Level Three – hit a half sheet of paper consistently (5.5×8.5 inches, or about the size of the heart and aortic arch)
Level Four – hit a quarter sheet of paper consistently (4.25×5.5 inches, or about the size of the pericardial sac)

I shot this drill today while waiting for a student to show up for class. It’s a lot of fun, and the nice thing is there are different levels for different abilities. I just did one run through it, but I’d be confident in saying that i’m a Level Four on this scale. My times for each stage were 2.21 seconds, 2.34 seconds, 2.4 seconds and 2.58 seconds. On a whim, I halved the 1/4 sheet of paper once again, creating a target that was 2.75 x 4.25 inches. I made it on the first try, but the second try I speed-gunned it and threw a shot outside of the target zone, so I’m not confident in saying I can consistently hit that size of a target at that distance in that amount of time.

Yet.