Fun Training Exercises To Try This Summer

Have you been to the range in a while? If you have, did you do any fun drills or did you just stare at a paper target and dump ammo downrange? A lot of us don’t go to the range as much as we should because life just gets in the way. Work and other activities make it hard to find time, but the cost of ammo is also a contributing factor.

I remember buying ammo by the case and shooting until there were blisters on my finger. But that was back in the day when ammo was about the same cost as candy. Now, ammo is equivalent to little gold coins that make you cringe every time you pull the trigger. I recently sighted a hunting rifle and every time I fired the gun it cost me $1.50. That adds up quickly when you’re not paying attention and get the trigger jitters.

But the good news is there are plenty of fun drills you can do that don’t burn through gobs of ammo. Getting some quality training, having fun, and not spending all your money sounds too good to be true, right? It’s not. You just need to spend a little more time setting up the range for various drills. Drills and exercises on the range are designed to improve specific skills. This could be accuracy, weapon control, speed, or a mixture of them all. And the good thing is most of them do not require a ton of ammo. Let’s look at some fun drills you could be doing this summer.

Mag Change Drills

Mag change drills are among my favorite because they help improve in so many areas. Depending on the specific drill, you can improve accuracy, speed, mag changes, and drawing your weapon all in one short drill. The one I do the most is a simple 3-4 drill. That’s three rounds in four mags for a total of 12 shots.

To start out, I recommend performing the drill at your own pace with no timers and targets that are reasonable to hit. Seven yards is a good starting point for this drill. Load up three rounds in four mags and place three of them on your vest or belt with one in the gun. Start with the gun holstered. When you are ready to start, draw the gun and fire all three rounds as fast as you can while still hitting the target.

When the mag is empty drop it free and load the next mag. Repeat this process until the last bullet is fired. To increase your skill or make it more fun for multiple shooters, add a timer and deduct three seconds for each shot missed. To make it harder, move the targets further away or make them smaller. If you want to use less ammo, load two in each mag instead of three. The less ammo you shoot will cause faster mag changes.

This is a fun drill that doesn’t take long if you have several people who all want to have some friendly competition. If you’re on the range by yourself, just run through it 700 times and you will be changing mags at John Wick speed in no time.

Transition Drills

Another fun but crucial training drill is the transitional target drill. This can be done with a handgun or rifle and the distance can be changed to meet your skill set. For the transitional drill, you will need one larger target (we will call it target A), one medium size target (C), and a dueling target tree if you have one (B). If not, some other type of small target is fine. 

For this drill, you will start with firing two shots at target A. Each time you fire at this target, you fire two shots. Transition to target C and fire two shots before transitioning to target B and hitting one of the small targets on the tree. If you have a tree with targets that flip out of the way when hit, perform this drill until all targets on the tree are flipped back. Each cycle is five shots. As you become proficient with this drill, increase speed and/or move further back to increase accuracy.

I would recommend starting at seven yards with handguns. This drill can be performed with a PCC or rifle such as an AR-15 as well. If you want to incorporate some mag-change drills, load 6-10 rounds in each mag. This will cause you to run out during the drill and perform a mag change. The last time I ran this drill, we performed the first three (we had a 6-plate tree) with a handgun and the last three with a rifle. Transitioning between a handgun and rifle is an important part of training if you ever plan to carry both.

The Big-Little Drill

I have no idea if this is a real drill or if my drill instructor in the police academy made it up, but it’s fun. For this drill, you can use metal targets or random bottles and other items laying around asking to be shot at. This is an accuracy drill, so you start out with the largest item on the left and move to the smallest on the right.

I set mine up at 25 yards to make it more fun. I normally use a pop bottle or milk jug followed by a 16oz bottle or something comparable. Next a pop can and then a shotgun shell for the smallest item. If you want to add more items in there, go ahead. The idea is to start with the biggest item and move to the smallest. This drill will also work with rifles, you just set it up further out.

I have metal targets in different sizes, but there is something more satisfying about watching the bottles fly through the air when you hit them. I like to run this drill with my lever action rifle at 50 yards and 75 with my AR-15. One of my old instructors would use the drill at the end of the day so we could shoot at the bottles and cans from our lunch break. Golf balls are also fun to shoot at if you want a really small target.

Ready to hit the range?

There are all kinds of range drills that make shooting on the range a little more fun. Some drills are much different than others while some drills are the same thing with different names. It doesn’t really matter what they’re called, or how close you follow them. The point is to get out on the range and do some training.

Start with a drill someone else did and make it your own. Change the distance so that it is challenging for you and adjust the ammo count so you can afford it. Not getting to the range because ammo is expensive or because you want to hoard it all is not a good excuse. I love saving ammo, but you still need to train. If you don’t want to shoot very much ammo, then don’t. Find some drills that take very little ammo and have some fun anyway.