Pew Pew Crew

Pew Pew Crew: Monthly Drills

Before You Start

The four rules, every time, no exceptions:

  1. Treat every gun as if it's loaded.
  2. Never point the muzzle at anything you're not willing to destroy.
  3. Keep your finger off the trigger until your sights are on target.
  4. Know your target and what's behind it.

One person runs the line. Every session needs a designated Range Safety Officer, someone not shooting that string, watching muzzles and calling the line. Rotate who it is each month, but never skip having one.

Standard range commands:

Command Meaning
"Make Ready" Load and holster/ready the gun
"Is the line clear?" RSO confirms everyone's ready and safe
"Standby" Buzzer's coming
[buzzer] Go
"If clear, unload and show clear" String's over, gun goes empty, RSO visually confirms

After every string: scan left and right before doing anything else, holstering, reloading, walking downrange. This is a habit, not a drill, build it in every single time.

This covers pistol, rifle, and shotgun, all three skill levels (Beginner, Intermediate, Advanced), for all 12 months. It's built to run the same way every year as a repeating cycle, and it's forgiving if a month gets missed.

How this stays flexible:

  • Missed a month? Just pick up at the next scheduled session with whatever's listed there. Nothing has to be made up or run out of order, each month stands on its own.
  • Look up drills by name, not number. The "Month 1," "Month 2," etc. labels below are just this year's layout, not a required sequence. If the crew runs Barricade Work in March one year and October the next, that's fine, find it by its name in whatever month it lands.
  • Repeats every year. Once you're through all 12 months, start back at the top. Skills like reloads and malfunction clearance benefit from repetition anyway, so cycling back through is the intended use, not a fallback.
  • Every session covers all three levels. Beginners, intermediates, and advanced shooters all run the same core skill that month, scaled to their tier, so nobody's left out and nobody's held back.
  • Pick your platform. Each month lists a pistol drill, a rifle drill, and a shotgun drill side by side. Run just one, run two, or run all three, whatever the session calls for. Nothing requires all three firearms to show up every time.
  • Steel or cardboard, your call, with real distance minimums. Anywhere a pistol or rifle target is called for, AR500 steel (USPSA-shaped or full-upper silhouette, whichever's set up) works in place of cardboard, but only past a safe standoff distance: 10 yards minimum for pistol calibers, 100 yards minimum for rifle calibers, unless your specific plates are manufacturer-rated for closer use (check the rating before assuming otherwise). Several drills below are written at closer distances than that (pistol at 5–7 yards, rifle at 15–25 yards), those months should stay on cardboard/splat unless your plates are rated for the shorter range. Where the doc says "cardboard," that also covers splat targets, same setup: mark or tape off the center-mass/head boxes on whichever backer is up. Shotgun buckshot stays on cardboard/paper/splat always (steel not rated for shotgun will pit or spall), but shotgun slugs can go on rated steel at a safe distance, same rule as rifle.
  • Marking hit zones differs by target type. On cardboard or splat targets, tape or draw the center-mass/head boxes as described in each Setup. On steel, a full-upper silhouette plate already has the head/body zones built into its shape, no marking needed; a flat USPSA-style plate needs a paint pen or chalk line instead of tape, since tape won't hold on steel through multiple hits.
  • Bonus drill each month. After the three core drills, every month has one optional Bonus drill, things like low-light work, weapon retention, and rifle-specific gaps (one-handed manipulation, optic-to-iron-sight transitions) that round out a full tactical curriculum but don't need to run every single session. Treat these as extra credit, not required.

A few terms that show up over and over, no shorthand assumed:

  • Par time: A time limit for the whole string of fire, set on a shot timer. You start on the beep and must finish (all shots fired) before the second beep. It's a target to work toward, not a "hurry up," go slower than par until you're clean, then start chasing the time.
  • String / rep: One full run of the drill from start to finish. "5 reps" means run it 5 times.
  • Center-mass box / head box: Taped-off or painted-on scoring areas, a chest-size box and a smaller box up top, per the target-marking note above. Not a real product, just a zone you mark yourself.
  • Low-ready: Gun up in position (in the shoulder for rifle/shotgun, or drawn for pistol), muzzle angled down below the target, ready to come up and fire quickly.
  • Mount: Bringing a rifle or shotgun up into the shoulder and getting a sight picture, the long-gun equivalent of a pistol draw.
  • Sling-carry: Rifle or shotgun hanging on its sling instead of already in the shoulder, takes an extra step to get into action compared to low-ready.
  • Slide-lock (pistol) / Bolt-lock (rifle): When the gun's slide or bolt locks back because the magazine is empty. Some reloads start from here on purpose.
  • Holdover: Aiming slightly above or below the actual target to compensate for bullet drop at distance, instead of adjusting the sight itself.
  • Shell carrier, port loading, chamber load (shotgun): A shell carrier (sidesaddle or buttcuff) holds spare shells on the gun. Port loading feeds them in one at a time through the loading port, the normal way to reload. A chamber load drops one shell straight into the open chamber instead, the fastest way to get a single shot back from empty.
  • Buckshot vs. slug (shotgun): Buckshot spreads multiple pellets, used at close-to-moderate range. A slug is one solid projectile, used to reach well past buckshot's effective range.
  • Patterning (shotgun): Firing buckshot at a large paper target to see and measure how wide it spreads at a given distance, the shotgun equivalent of zeroing a rifle.

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