5 Drills to Improve Your Carbine Skills
By Kenzie Fitzpatrick
5 Drills to Improve Your Carbine Skills
Rifles and pistol-caliber carbines are challenging to master even if you’re a great pistol shooter. The gun is longer, just as challenging to reload, can accommodate multiple optics with different zeroes, and requires excellent stability for precision shooting. The fundamentals of shooting are just as crucial to maintain while training with a carbine, just as you would with a pistol. Here are five simple drills that might seem small, but can drastically improve your carbine skills:
"Rifles and pistol-caliber carbines are challenging to master even if you’re a great pistol shooter."
"The key to reloading either kind of carbine is to use your support hand’s thumb as a guide into the magazine well."
Reloads
Every gun owner needs to practice reloading their firearms. It’s practical learning for concealed carry, home defense, traveling with loaded guns, competition, and more. The technique for reloading a carbine is just as crucial as when reloading a pistol. If you’re working on competition-type reloads like I practice most, it’s all about the setup on the belt and the mechanics of how to perform a reload. For pistol-caliber carbines (PCC), I have a magazine carrier set up horizontally on the front of my belt to accommodate an extended 33+ round magazine. For a traditional AR-15-style rifle, I place my magazine pouches and magazines vertically behind my support-side hip.
The key to reloading either kind of carbine is to use your support hand’s thumb as a guide into the magazine well. When I pull the PCC magazine out, my thumb stays on top of the magazine and then points it straight up and into the gun once it’s free of the pouch. For a rifle magazine, my thumb rests on the spine of the magazine and is pointed straight down as I pull the magazine up vertically. Then I rotate my arm with the magazine 180 degrees, so the bullets are skyward. Then insert the magazine into the gun. A pro tip I learned a long time ago is to shape your hand like you are holding a Coke can. That is what it looks like to reload an AR-15 magazine from a pouch.
I recommend dry-fire practice for reload practice and only doing live fire once you’re ready to put your skills to the test. You can practice reloads all day at home, either with dummy rounds to replicate the weight of a fresh magazine or without any ammunition. As you progress with reloading your carbine, consider adding a shot timer to your practice to determine your baseline time and set a goal time for where you want to be. For example, the Shooters Global Timer 2 allows you to save custom dry fire sessions that show your performance relative to the goal.
"Every gun owner needs to practice reloading their firearms."
"The goal is to be faster, but without sacrificing accuracy."
Transitions
Practicing transitions is huge. Competitive shooters must learn how to transition from one target to the next, both quickly and accurately. Learning how to transition from one target to the next can also be a practical safety exercise. What I’ve learned in my defensive training is to always look for a plus one, meaning bad guys travel in packs. This may mean neutralizing more than one threat, which will require transitioning targets.
This drill is essential to test in live fire, but it can also be set up at home for dry-fire practice before heading to the range. There are unlimited ways to set up a transition drill. I recommend starting with a couple of targets before gradually adding more targets to the mix. You can set targets at varying distances, add no shoots, or increase the distance between them; the sky is the limit. For starters, use two to three targets at the same distance, but spaced a few yards apart. I like to add a white paster to the targets in the center of the A zone to work on as precise shots as possible. I recommend using a shot timer (pictured is the Kestrel KST1000 Shot Timer) for this drill, and starting with the gun at the low ready position. At the beep, fire 1-2 rounds at each target from left to right or right to left. After doing this a couple of times, you should be able to establish an average baseline time of how long it takes you to complete this drill. You can set a par time on the timer, which will essentially count down from the start and beep when the time is up.
The goal is to be faster, but without sacrificing accuracy. This drill is also designed to test your ability to not overswing or underswing at a target where your hits are landing in the C or D zones. It is imperative only to set a realistic par time to work towards where your accuracy doesn’t suffer. If accuracy starts to slip, set a more realistic par time.
"Competitive shooters must learn how to transition from one target to the next, both quickly and accurately."
"Starting at the low ready and with a timer on my belt, on the beep, I’ll shoot two rounds on the steel target through my scope."
Primary to Offset
Whether I’m competing in 2 Gun, 3 Gun, AK competitions, or a PCC-only shooting sport, I run two different optics on all my competition carbines. For PCC and AK competitions, I have a primary 510C optic on the top Picatinny rail, with a 25-yard zero for PCC and a 100-yard zero for AK. Additionally, I have an offset 407C red dot optic mounted at a 35-degree angle using the Viridian Weapon Technologies Pinch Mount, zeroed for 7 yards. On my Stag Arms 3-Gun rifle, I run a Trijicon Credo 1-8 scope, zeroed at 100 yards, and the same 407C offset setup as above. Now, with all those optics, I must know how to aim at specific targets and transition from primary to offset. I work on this in both dry fire and live fire.
For working with my 3-Gun rifle, I’ll set up a Caldwell AR500 IPSC Steel Target at 50-75 yards and a paper target at about 10 yards. Starting at the low ready and with a timer on my belt, on the beep, I’ll shoot two rounds on the steel target through my scope. Then, as I transition from steel to paper, I’ll slightly rotate my rifle to the left until the red dot comes into view on the A zone of the target. Using the red dot, I’ll shoot two rounds. You can reverse this process by starting with the offset dot on paper first and then transitioning to steel with the scope. After working through this drill for a while, I’ll add more targets, no-shoots, and longer-distance steel targets, and continue to mix up the drill.
If you’re curious to see how this drill transitions into the competition world, watch an Instagram Reel from a 3-Gun competition to see how I use both optics.
"Whether I’m competing in 2 Gun, 3 Gun, AK competitions, or a PCC-only shooting sport, I run two different optics on all my competition carbines."
"The best technique for this is to run as you normally would and pump your arms with the carbine, throwing the buttstock up over your shoulder in the process."
Entries
Learning how to enter and exit positions with a carbine can feel a lot different than doing so with a pistol. The weight and length of a carbine is so drastically different from a pistol, but the muzzle discipline is even more challenging to manage with a long gun. The goal of a proper entry with a carbine is to get the gun up before the final shooting position, with the same cheek weld every time, and shooting as soon as possible. I like to work on entries without any ammunition first to work on the mechanics and positioning before running live-fire drills.
For a simple entries drill, I will design a mock shooting box. I’ll then place a paper or steel target downrange to shoot at. I will start outside of the box, first focusing on running with a carbine. The best technique for this is to run as you normally would and pump your arms with the carbine, throwing the buttstock up over your shoulder in the process. As I near the end of the shooting box and am slowing down, I’ll take smaller, shuffle-like steps and begin to mount my gun. I shoot as soon as my red dot crosses my target, maintaining a low center of gravity, with my knees bent and shoulder width apart. For this exercise, I always land with my hips squared toward the single target. If you have an array of targets at varying degrees, you might have to change positions or have a broader stance to swing the carbine left or right.
"I recommend starting with the outside positions on the VTAC barricade from a squatting or standing position."
Viking Tactics (VTAC) Barricade Work
Positional shooting is absolutely everything when it comes to carbines. You must know how to establish a stable shooting position to shoot accurately at any distance with a rifle. If you’re new to a VTAC wall, I don’t recommend running a “drill” yet, but rather working on building a stable position from the various options on the barricade. The best advice I can give is to have as many contact points as possible to stabilize the rifle, whether that means with your body or the wall. As I’ve mentioned with every other carbine drill, you can do all of this in dry fire practice, which I highly encourage before live-firing, to establish good habits. You need to have a plan for positioning yourself and your carbine before sending rounds downrange.
I recommend starting with the outside positions on the VTAC barricade from a squatting or standing position. The key to success in these outside positions is to rest the handguard (not the barrel) on the wall as far inward as possible, so that the rifle is touching the side and bottom of the cutout. Use your support hand to make a C-clamp to stabilize the rifle in this position. It’s beneficial to create a wide base with your legs so that your body remains centrally stable. You can also use this positioning and the C-clamp method when shooting through the square windows. The only difference is that it might be more natural to move the rifle to the right corner rather than to the left by default. As you move to the lower positions on the VTAC Barricade, you can take a double knee position while still maintaining a wide base. For the lowest position, use your strong-side knee as an elbow support for even better stability.
I will leave you with those positions and recommendations to practice for now, as the unconventional low ports and angled rectangles require more advanced shooting techniques. Remember to work on building the most stable platform possible to minimize the rifle's movement as much as possible.