This is probably beyond obvious to most but I have come to the conclusion that structured practice, a practice session with purpose, is infinitely better than unstructured practice.

And practice without a clear purpose or direction is a waste of ammo, and very likely a complete waste of time as well.

Every time I’ve been out on the range, and under the guidance of a rangemaster or instructor, I’ve performed much better than when I’ve headed to the range on my own. That’s because I am not shooting by my own set of standards, but having to meet the standards of another.

Case in point. Last Friday I spent the 100-degree morning on a pistol bay at the Ben Avery Shooting Facility, shooting a new gun, with a new optic, from a new holster, and managed to perform well above expectations.

Anytime I am put through a series of drills, and not left to my own devices, my shooting is more disciplined. My focus is on performing to a standard, and trying to keep up with the more accomplished shooters on the firing line…as well as the timer.

Lucky for me, once a month Freddie Blish, a Gunsite instructor, hosts a simple organized practice session at Ben Avery where he runs the squad through drills. These aren’t high-speed, low-drag drills for the deadly stealthy ninja. These are drills to hone your fundamentals.

Everybody wants to do the run and gun stuff, I mean who wouldn’t, right? But the truth is that’s an even bigger waste of time if your fundamentals aren’t sound.

Look, I love throwing lead down range as much as the next guy. What I don’t love it that I’m the one paying for that ammo and, while prices have come down, it ain’t cheap.

Freddie’s range sessions aren’t designed to deplete your ammo supply. The round count for this two hour session maxed out at 250 rounds, and it started with focused dryfire.

Now, I tend to hate dryfiring because I just want to get to the shooting part, but I learned a valuable lesson on Friday as I disregarded the anxiousness and simply settled in to working the mechanics of the draw, grip, presentation, sight picture and trigger squeeze.

For once it was relaxing and informative.

As I mentioned, I was shooting with new gear. It was only the fourth time I had put rounds through the Springfield Armory Prodigy (the 4.25” model). And more importantly, I probably have not shot a 1911/2011 style pistol with manual safety more than 10, maybe 15 times.

In other words, my mechanics for engaging the grip safety and depressing the thumb safety are, to be charitable, horrible. I just do not have the time behind that particular wheel to drive the gun fast.

Now, add to that this was literally the third time I shot the gun with the new RXM-300 red dot from Bushnell. I got to play with this new red dot a little on the show floor at this year’s SHOT Show, and really wanted to run it on the Prodigy in the hope – or perhaps delusion – that I would run this setup at the local weekly steel match.

I did shoot this setup at Freddie’s June training session and was painfully aware I needed to adjust the red dot so my point of aim and point of impact were at least in the same zip code. I probably have some more fine tuning to do but the time spent sighting in the day before had really helped me improve my accuracy.

By-the-way, I knew the accuracy issue was one of proper adjustment of the red dot and not the pistol itself. The first time I shot the gun, out of the proverbial box sans red dot, I was ringing steel off hand at 25 yards, and I’m pretty sure I hit the 50 yard steel as well.

What also helped this go around was I changed holsters. First time out I used a Crossbreed Rogue holster setup for outside the waistband. It’s a very good holster but not a good fit for me. It sits close to the body, for better concealment, but I prefer a holster setup with a little more space.

I ended up switching to a Safariland 5198 holster mounted to their 745BL Clip-On Holster Belt Loop. This put the gun a quarter inch or more off body. The result was a faster acquisition and draw of the gun. And it was just more comfortable for me, despite it being the first time I threw on the holster and took it for a spin.

But what exactly did Freddie have us shooting that morning? Specifically this training session revolved around practicing for and then shooting the Wilson 5 x 5 IDPA Classifier.

The 5 x 5 consists of 25 total rounds, shot in strings, and all from 10 yards. Start position for each string was hands at side. You could run it concealed or not. I think everybody ran it without concealment, and notably only two shot without the use of a red dot.

For the first string of fire you draw, fire five rounds with both hands gripping the gun. The second string of fire is draw, fire five rounds strong hand only. Third string of fire is draw, fire five rounds, slidelock reload, fire five more rounds. The fourth and final string of fire is draw, fire four rounds to the body and one round to the head.

We prepared for the 5 x 5 with controlled, timed strings. And this is where Freddie’s structured practice really paid off. We didn’t run the 5 x 5 over and over. Instead we worked on building up to it in incremental steps.

Freddie had us draw and shoot a single shot. Then two shots. Then three. And so on. He had us download mags to force a slidelock reload. We worked on all the components of the 5 x 5 without wasting ammo and maximizing the impact of each training rep.

If left on my own I most certainly would have just tried to run the 5 x 5 over and over again. The incremental approach of a structured practice delivered far better results, and made it hard to gloss over mistakes, and the proper corrections that needed to be made.

How do I know the results were better? Easy.

First, let me be very clear that I have never shot an IDPA event or shot an IDPA classifier, of any sort. And I had no clue as to where I would fall on the IDPA spectrum. If I had to guess, I figured it was going to be either Novice (IDPA’s lowest level), or ‘Have You Tried Trapshooting?’ which isn’t an actual skill level in any pistol shooting discipline but maybe should be.

Anyway…we ran the 5 x 5 with Freddie handling the timer and taking notes as he went down the line from one shooter to the next. When it was all said and done, including that high level IDPA math, I ended up with a time of 25.5 seconds.

This put me a half second out of Expert. Which means what, you’re probably asking. For classification in IDPA a shooter at 15 seconds or under is a Grand Master; 20 seconds or less is Master; 25 Seconds or less is Expert; 32 seconds or less is Sharpshooter; 41 seconds or less is Marksman; 50 seconds or less is Novice.

While I missed Expert, which was the bad part, the good news is that I knew exactly where I lost it. I threw my second shot on my first string to go down 3. I had three more shots, each down 1, that contributed to my downfall. But it was that one poor shot that knocked me out of Expert.

In addition to knowing what went wrong with the down 3 flier, I also immediately recognized what I needed to do right to avoid making that same mistake on the remaining strings for fire. And while I did drop those three other shots, they were all close enough that I realized I had it in me to run the classifier clean.

That is, with the help of more structured practice with a purpose.

– Paul Erhardt, Managing Editor, the Outdoor Wire Digital Network