Part 3 | The Hidden Number Shooting Drill

This shooting drill forces the shooter to do a little bit of reading, process some information, and then fire a certain number of shots. It’s called the Hidden Number Drill and can be done several different ways. One of the easiest ways to do it is to have your training partner write a number inside a notebook. You pull out the notebook and look inside. As soon as you see the number, drop the notebook, get your gun out, and fire that number of shots into the target.

Shooting Drill Variations

Like other handgun shooting drills, many variations are possible. Have a blanket covering something on a shooting table. Pull the blanket aside to reveal a number of rocks. Count them and fire that number of shots. Or a deck of cards may be under the blanket. Fire the number shown on the first card. Or just have a deck of cards, cut them, and that’s the number of shots you fire.

Use your imagination to come up with different takes on this shooting drill. The key concepts are for you to read a number, process it in your brain, and then fire that number of rounds, which means you are also keeping track of the number of rounds you’re firing and processing information while shooting.

Why Count Rounds?

To clarify, you do not count the number of shots you’re firing for any tactical reason. We do not believe you should or will be able to count rounds in the middle of a defensive encounter. But during shooting drills, you count the number of shots fired in order to occupy your brain with something other than the shooting, so you can just let the shooting happen.

This video includes demonstrations of a few variations on this useful shooting drill.

See other videos in our Pistol Shooting Drills training module:

• Part 1. Pistol Shooting Drills: The Rhythm Drill
• Part 2. The Flow Drill Firearm Assessment
• Part 4. Recognition Drills for Carrying Multiple Guns
• Part 5. Dynamic Deviation Control in Defensive Shooting
• Part 6. Balance of Speed and Precision