I’m a pretty big fan of the shotgun. While handgun shooting makes up the majority of my practice and training, shotguns are a strong second place. While the shotgun didn’t get much love in the GWOT era, it’s been gaining ground over the past few years. While I don’t claim any credit for this renaissance, I do benefit from and enjoy this resurgence. Last year I wrote two shotgun drills that gained some ground, and recently a spark of inspiration gave me an idea for a new addition. Let’s take a look at my Shotgun Bullseye Course.
Setting Up the Drill
The Shotgun Bullseye Course is a pretty simple drill to set up. You’ll need your shotgun, 16x slugs, and 25 yards of distance. A shot timer will be helpful to measure par times and mark progress. The entire course of fire is shot on a B8 bullseye, and I highly recommend bringing at least 4x targets. Using two LTT-1’s, or a VTAC target is great for this drill. While this can be shot on a single B8, using fresh targets for each stage will help make scoring easier. No reloads occur on the clock, so spare ammunition doesn’t need to be readily accessible.
Scoring the Reedy Shotgun Bullseye Course
Scoring is even more simple than the setup. Shooters need 90% on this drill to pass, or 144/160 points. Score hits as you see them, which each ring directly corresponding to their value. Line breaks count toward the higher value ring. A complete miss is a reduction of 10 points per miss. Breaking the par time is a failure of the drill. There are no special provisions for different actions, sight configurations, etc.
If you’re familiar with the B8 Repair Center, it’s not a particularly large target. Slugs are pretty big, and you also have the wad to consider as well. You could potentially have 8x impacts on target per stage. Again, shooters benefit from using fresh targets at each stage for scoring purposes.
Firing the Drill
All stages are fired from low ready with a round in the chamber. Shooters can place the safety in the configuration of their choice. Starting position is low ready, with the muzzle at the base of the target. Start signal is the beep of the shot timer.
- 25 Yards
- Fire 4x rounds, par time is 8.5 seconds
- 15 Yards
- Fire 4x rounds, par time is 6 seconds
- 10 Yards
- Fire 4x rounds, par time is 4 seconds
- 5 Yards
- Fire 4x rounds, par time is 2.50 seconds for semiauto shotguns, and 3.0 seconds for pump-action.
If using a single target, I recommend marking your hits between each stage. Hopefully you noticed the difference in par times for the 5 yard stage. Be sure to use the proper the par time for your gun.
Inspiration Behind the Reedy Shotgun Bullseye Course
I can’t take full credit for the design of this drill. Some of you may already have a familiar feeling when reading this course of fire. I took great inspiration from the Hardwired Tactical Super Test when fleshing out this piece. The Super Test is one of my favorite pistol drills, and one that I consider to be an excellent standard to hold oneself to in your personal practice. While I tweaked par times, round counts, and more, the people at HiTS provided an excellent foundation to build upon.
I’ve also gotten some help from friends along the way. Feedback is critical when sorting things like this out, and I always try to get outside opinions to make sure I’m not missing anything. Special thanks to Jonathan Willis of DTI and Gunset Training, along with Nate Parker of That Shotgun Blog who were the first folks to give me their thoughts on the Shotgun Bullseye Course. Matt Haught of Symtac Consulting also provided valuable suggestions in my second round of feedback. These guys are fantastic shotgun shooters and instructors, give them some love too!
My Results
I’ve shot quite a few rounds of the Shotgun Bullseye Course in various forms throughout development. For this finalized version, I recently made it to the range and ran through it four separate times. Twice with my Beretta A300UP with a Steiner MPS, and twice with a bead-sighted Remington 870P. It doesn’t get much different than those two when it comes to defensive shotguns. Here are my most recent scores, remember, you need a 144/160 to pass:
- 146/160 using the A300UP and Remington Slugger Low Recoil
- 130/160 using the 870P and Remington Slugger Low Recoil
- 138/160 using the 870 and Federal Tactical LE Hydra Shok
- 142/160 using the A300UP and Winchester Super-X
As we can see, I only passed the Bullseye Course once in its final configuration. I left a lot of time on the table during each run, rushing to get home to family. That caused me to drop quite a few points. In previous iterations, with tighter par times, I typically had no issues staying above 90% while staying under time.
Even with a simple bead sight, I felt pretty good about the time constraints, and was getting solid hits at 25 yards. However, feeling good and doing good aren’t always the same thing. Giving up a point or two here and there adds up. Be patient, take your time, and get your hits.
Final Thoughts on the Reedy Shotgun Bullseye Course
Overall I think this is a pretty good skills test. There’s a high marksmanship standard, enough rounds to work recoil control, and par times that are tight enough to put on pressure while being generous enough to allow good hits if you don’t rush yourself. However, that statement may be a little biased since this is my drill. I’m looking forward to running this again during my next range session and trying to redeem myself.
What do you think? Give it a try for yourself and let us know how you did in the comments! You can also check out some of my other shotgun drills below.
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