Train The World - Conquering The Crucible Drill

In this final installment of replicating real world drills in dry fire, we are going to focus on The Crucible.  The Crucible drill is the brainchild of Christopher Bean with Tactical Advantage and is a super challenging drill that incorporates skills from the two previous drills that we have covered in our series, the ASP 10 Round Skill Check drill and the Dot Torture drill.

The Crucible is a multi-target, multi-transition 10 shot drill with a reload that requires extreme mental focus and on-demand marksmanship to different targets with aggressive time standards.  There are multiple pieces of this drill that could be seen as unconventional compared to other shooting drills, but that’s what makes The Crucible a unique drill that takes ultimate skill and focus.  The drill rewards three classification levels based on the par time and target zones

The Crucible Drill

Target

The drill requires the use of two unique targets specific to The Crucible that can be purchased for live fire, but The Crucible targets have common targeting areas that can be created with some creativity for both live fire and Laser Academy targets can be used for dry fire practice.

The two targets stand 1 yard apart and 5 yards from the shooter.  The shooter stands in front of the left target.  The left target must contain a USPSA sized headbox (or depending on classification level, a one inch square) and a chest A-zone, and the right target must contain a vertically oriented 3 inch by 5 inch rectangle located in the center of the A-zone.

In live fire, two USPSA targets work great with some modifications, again, depending on the classification level - you may need to add a 1 inch square in the center of the head box on the left target.  A 3x5 index card placed vertically centered in the A-zone on the right target will meet the standard for the target zone.  

In dry fire, you will need to do some target modification and can download and print Laser Academy targets on regular letter sized paper.  The Laser Academy IPSC target meets the basic needs for dry fire practice of The Crucible.  The app will pick up and score hits to the actual IPSC target scoring zones as normal, but you can draw in a reduced size area on the right target in the A-zone area that approximately replicates the 3x5 card, which is 1 3/8ths inch by 13/16ths of an inch or 3.5 centimeters by 2 centimeters.

If you want a similar scoring zone that the app can capture, then instead of the right target being a IPSC target, print out the FBI target scaled to 58% and use the center vertical card shape as the 3x5 card.

Course of Fire

Key Concepts to Focus On

Modulation of Trigger Press

With The Crucible, it’s critical that you understand the modulation, or the care given to the trigger during the trigger press, respective to the 3 different sized scoring zones.  The headbox A-zone will require more care than the 3x5 card, and the card will demand more care than the body A-zone.

The TitanX is a great tool to work trigger modulation, especially when it comes to the Cadence drills within the Pistol/Rifle app, specifically focusing on the .5 second Cadence as that is what is required to make the more difficult 3x5 card at Laoch level.  Work to hit the timings well, but even more, watch the scores at that speed and are they wildly different from your standard shot scores, and do they trend in a different direction under stress.

Extreme Recoil Management

Where The Crucible stands out from other drills is the downward transition after the first shot.  We’re going to talk about that transition more later, but from the first shot, recoil management is going to be critical to success with the drill.  Because the muzzle of the firearm will always recoil upward, that 2nd shot can be argued as the most difficult shot because the muzzle is going up, yet we need to push the entire firearm downward into the A-zone.

This is something that cannot be perfectly tested in dry fire, but the movement can be introduced to help experience it, whether you have a Mantis unit or not.  The “Sights Meets Trigger” drill from Gabe White is a dry fire drill that can help with this skill.  Start with your sights on the shot 1 zone, then angle your muzzle upward similar to the angle of recoil angle you have while in live fire with the finger on the trigger.  Then upon a beep, drive the gun downward to the A-zone and press the trigger as quickly as your sights show you are within the acceptable target area.

If you are doing this during a Mantis drill, like Open Training or Shot Timer, you can reference your score to see how disrupted your trigger press was based on the score.  Even better is to use something that will provide a laser hit, and use Laser Academy or Lite Integration of Laser Academy into the MantisX Pistol/Rifle app and see if the hit made it on the body A-zone of the target.

Not only is recoil management needed for shot #2, but it will take more recoil management to run the shots on the 3x5 card, even doing .50 second or faster splits.  The more you can manage muzzle rise, the less the sights will deviate from the target and the quicker the trigger can be pressed to make those 5 shots.  If you have a Mantis X10 Elite, experimenting with your grip in recoil using the Recoilmeter drill is invaluable to know your muzzle rise and your recovery time back on target.

Efficient Transitions

We discussed transitions within the Dot Torture drill builder blog last week, but The Crucible includes a non-traditional transition downward to the chest A-zone from the head box and a transition left to right during the reload.  The downward transition is a unique one that we are just not used to doing.  As with any transition whether it’s two zones on a target or from target to target, make sure you are moving your eyes to the next target zone quickly so that you can “snap” the pistol to where your eyes are.  If you tend to keep your eyes on your sights while moving to the next target zone, you will most likely travel past the target zone and that costs time to make the correction to get back on target.

One way to see how well you transition, if you have a TitanX, is to jump into Dynamic Drills.  The Dynamic Training drill can track the entire course of fire and provide information about how efficient you were with the pistol with the transition, but also give you the reload time.  Dynamic drills do not provide shot scores, but analyzes and scores transitions, overtravel on target and shot delay times, which all 3 of these concepts are used within The Crucible.

     

The most valuable data might be viewing your shots on the Dynamic Drill Trace View screen and what direction they trended in for shots 2 through 5 and shots 6 through 10.  The shots on the target will be numbered.  Based on what you see, you can work on just the transition from shot 2 and 3 to practice getting that score close to 100, and working the reload.  Note that the drill may not show a transition score with the reload, depending on how much movement happened with the reload itself.

Efficient Reload

There is only one reload, but because the drill is timed and the reload happens during a target transition, more care is needed to ensure you get the reload completed before trying to move the sights and shoot at the right target zone.  For Laoch level, the reload really needs to be close to 2 seconds to give as much time as possible to execute other skills within the drill.  This means for your reload, you need both hands working in parallel with each other, one pressing and releasing the magazine while the other is retrieving the reload magazine and indexing it into the magazine well quickly and firmly.  

There are a few tips to help you reload faster.  One is creating a visual reference on the magazine well of the pistol to draw your eyes to it.  Secondly is how you obtain and create another index reference on the reload magazine, especially since The Crucible requires the reload magazine to be from concealment.  Your reload magazine should be ‘bullets forward” in your magazine pouch.  Practice getting the magazine in your support hand quickly after clearing the cover garment similar to how you would clear the garment for the draw, grasping the magazine and aligning your index finger along the front of the magazine.  Having the index finger along the front of the magazine will help align the magazine with the magazine well, providing a proprioceptive index. You could even practice just taking your index finger and pointing to the magazine.

Cognitive/Mental Focus

Finally, the biggest challenge to The Crucible is to keep mentally focused through the entire drill.  Many times when people run the drill for the first time, they either put incorrect shot counts on a target zone, and/or they forget to execute the reload.  Walking through the entire drill dry multiple times helps you focus on automating the steps, then the mental focus can be directed to the skills the drill demands because any breakdown of mental focus will most likely reflect in missed shots, and with The Crucible being a pass or fail only drill, you cannot afford to miss a single shot.

Options to Execute The Crucible With Mantis Devices

• Open Training (Ready Position = Holster, Shot Count = 10, Repeat = 1, Magazine #1 = 5, #2 = 5) This drill will focus on shot score showing marksmanship skills for all shots and will show your reload time.  You must have a resetting trigger with the Mantis device or a TitanX.

• 1R1 Drill (Ready Position = Holster, Shot Count = 10, Repeat = 1, Magazine #1 = 5, #2 = 5) This drill gives you the Dynamic training looking at transitions/overtravel/delay.  No shot score, but will provide the prompt to reload and reload time. TitanX only.

• Holster Draw Analysis Multiple Shots (Shot Count = 10, Repeat = 1) This drill will give you the holster draw breakdown on shot 1 and shot scores on shots 2 through 10. TitanX only.

Are You Up To The Challenge?

The Laoch classification submission can happen digitally, but the targets need to be captured on video before the execution of the drill and the post drill targets must all be captured in one continuous video without any cuts for the drill.  The Gallowglass and Seanalair drills must be in person with Christopher Bean or anyone he designates can be a witness.  Here’s a printable drill sheet for The Crucible that you can reference at the range or for dry fire.

The Crucible is not an easy drill, even at the lowest classification (Laoch), but it is attainable! Focus on the key skills listed above separately, then begin to bring them together into one fluid course of fire.  Remember, the wins are in the process, not the final outcome. Press on!