F.A.S.T. Drill with a Rifle

The F.A.S.T. Drill is usually done with a pistol, but as PDN Executive Director Rob Pincus and EAG Tactical’s Brian Canova demonstrate, doing the F.A.S.T. Drill with a rifle yields some worthwhile data because several different skills can be analyzed.

The F.A.S.T. Drill (Fundamentals, Accuracy, and Speed Test) was developed by the late Todd Louis Green. It tests a shooter’s ability to get hits on a small target and then on a bigger target, or vice versa, with something happening in between, often a reload between the two targets. Rob has made another video showing a different variant on the F.A.S.T. Drill.

F.A.S.T. DRILL FOR RIFLE

As Brian and Rob do the F.A.S.T. Drill here with a rifle, it’s four shots to the body of the target (represented by a large circle), bolt-lock reload, then two shots to the head (3×5 card). Skills measured or analyzed are speed of presentation, cadence of shots into the body, speed of reload, then when switching to the small target, mechanical offset has to be factored in, and the shooter is going from fast target to slow target, a mental and physical gear change. That switch—slowing down to get the precise shots on the small target—tends to be the biggest challenge of this drill.

Or, as Rob says, this is a Balance of Speed and Precision Drill and a great addition to your tactical shooting drills.

ANALYZING THE RESULTS

Rob shoots the drill in a total of 6.08 seconds. Brian’s timer breaks down the pieces of the drill into:

– Speed of presentation to first shot
– How smooth was the cadence of the first four shots?
– Speed of reload
– Was the smaller target hit twice—did the shooter manage the mechanical offset and gear change?

These pieces of the puzzle are more important to Brian than the overall time. Of course, for anyone shooting this drill as part of their rifle training and practice, the goals are to see six hits on the target and for the time to improve steadily.