What is a 2-2-2 Drill?

A 2-2-2 drill is an incredibly powerful drill for testing your ability to transition between targets. Simply put, it consists in it’s most basic form of putting 6 rounds into three targets, 2 rounds each, as quickly as you can with acceptable accuracy.

How to Perform a 2-2-2 Drill?

Performing a 2-2-2 Drill using Dryfire with Project MARS

Project MARS supports running 2-2-2 drills at home. MARS Mobile is best used with standard “metric” USPSA targets or “classic” IPSC targets. Ideally, you’ll have a laser dry fire setup that will allow you to fire semi automatically. Check out our equipment guide for more details on the ideal dry fire setup.

• Make sure that you are dryfiring in a safe environment. Make sure there is no ammunition located anywhere in the dryfire area.
• To begin, setup any target (ideally a USPSA practice target) on your wall.
• Setup your phone with MARS Mobile, with the rear facing camera pointed at the target.
• Add at least three target areas covering your three targets.
• Select the “2-2-2” mode. Begin.
• The “Shooter ready?” range command will commence
• Position yourself 7 yards or so from the target
• When the shot timer rings, fire 2 shots into the first target, 2 shots into the second target, and 2 shots into the third target attempting to keep all shots in the center of the target (A-Zone on a USPSA Target)
• If you want to change the drill up, shoot the targets in a different order (e.g. right to left)
• Additionally, I sometimes like to change up the rhythm to make the drill more difficult (e.g. shooting 1-1-2-1-1).

Interpreting the Results

If using USPSA style targets, your hit factor will be calculated based on the minor or major power factor (depending on your selected settings). Your goals for improvement with this drill will generally be as follows.

Goal 1: Improving Hit Factor

Hit factor is a concept used in USPSA to determine a shooter’s ability in a given stage as compared to other shooters. Achieving a higher hit factor is desirable. If you aren’t familiar with hit factor, read this article, as an understanding of the concept is critical to maximizing training benefits.

Just as some USPSA stages are more difficult than others, as you add more difficulty to the drill (e.g. shooting from further away, drawing from the holster, closing your eyes until the buzzer goes off), these factors will negatively impact hit factor score as they will add time to the drill. Keep this in mind as you challenge yourself more. Over time you want to see your hit factor for this drill gradually improve.

Goal 2: Shooting Speed

The main goal of the 2-2-2 Drill is to develop shooting speed while transitioning between targets, maintaining a combat proficient level of accuracy. You want to shoot a string of fire as quickly as you possibly can while maintaining minimum acceptable accuracy standards. At say 7 yards, an acceptable group running this drill with a 9mm pistol would be all hits within the large body A-zone.

Goal 3: Shooting Cadence

The reason for establishing shooting cadence is that it keeps you from developing bad habits and it will keep you from plateauing in terms of your speed. It’s better to go slower at first, focusing on the fundamentals of marksmanship, picking up speed gradually as you get better with a given weapons platform.

Goal 4: Maintaining Accuracy while Shooting Fast

With this drill, we aren’t worried about bullseye shooting accuracy. Rather, we’re focused on practical accuracy. We want to get lots of hits in a reasonably accurate target area, in as little time as possible, rather than getting 2 ultra well placed hits on each target, but taking significantly more time.

Applying the 2-2-2 Drill in a Live Fire Range

Finally, the whole point of dryfire is to make as many gains as possible before trying a particular skill on the live range.

A 2-2-2 drill on the live range isn’t so different than the 2-2-2 while dryfiring. Keep in mind that some ranges have limits on number of targets. If this is the case, I like to use a wider paper target and section off 3 distinct areas (e.g. have 6″ circles that i’ll be shooting into at a close distance like 7 yards).

The ideal would be to have 3 separate standard USPSA targets spaced a yard or two apart in a private shooting bay. Unfortunately very few ranges have this sort of range available, so you’ll have to work with what you have available.

Practicing with MARS Mobile first will help you familiarize yourself with a 2-2-2 drill maximizing the benefits of live fire training. All of the concepts of dry fire training with a 2-2-2 drill carry over to a live fire context and are extremely applicable to competitive shooting.