Shooting Range Drill: How to Shoot a Keyhole

Scott Ballard
Instructor at the SIG Saure Academy
Setup: Place several targets a few yards behind cardboard barriers with small, randomly shaped holes to shoot through.
Range: 100 yards.

Shoot: You can shoot from any position, but prone is most common.

At the buzzer, place one shot on each target without hitting the barrier. If the bullet strikes the barrier instead of going cleanly through the hole, it counts as a miss. One shooter can drill with a par time, or two shooters can go head-to-head for the fastest time.

The degree of difficulty increases as you move out. What is easy at 100 yards will be difficult at 200 and extremely challenging at 300 yards.

Skills: This develops focus and concentration. The drill also teaches you to trust your equipment. If you know the rifle and have all your dope right, all that matters is your reticle and what it is covering. But the mind can get distracted by the fact that you are shooting through holes that are forward of the target, and that lack of focus will cause misses.

This drill is good training for hunters, as they often have only a little patch of deer to shoot at through a hole in brush.