Carbine Training: The 18 Drill

The 18 drill is one of my old standby’s.  18 yards, 18 rounds, 18 seconds, 18 inch aiming area.  Sound pretty simple?

This is a carbine drill that is shot from three positions- standing, kneeling and prone.

To set up for the drill, the shooter loads three magazines with six rounds each.  One is inserted into the gun and the gun is charged.  The other two are placed somewhere on the body for two emergency reloads.  The shooter starts in the standing position,  facing the target, safety on, gun in low ready.  On the tone, the shooter fires six rounds standing, performs an emergency reload, and goes to the kneeling position.  From the kneeling position, the shooter then fires six rounds.  The shooter performs an emergency reload, and then goes prone.  The shooter then fires his/her remaining six rounds.  Time stops on the last round fired.

We score it as all or none on the target.  The run has to be “clean” with all 18 rounds inside the aiming area.  Usually we shoot this on the B21 target with all hits to be inside the “coke” bottle (a little more generous than a true 18 inch circle) or anything in the “Down One” or “C” zone on a IPSC or IDPA target.  The “Down One” or “C” zone is larger than 18 inches, but with a little ingenuity, you can make the scoring work with just about any target, by adjusting the target area to fit.

 

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About Jerry Jones

Jerry Jones has been a Sheriff's Deputy in Kentucky since 1996. Jerry is currently assigned as a patrol deputy, firearms instructor and senior operator/training supervisor with a multi jurisdictional tactical team. Jerry is Kentucky POST certified to teach firearms, SWAT, and sniper operations and deployment at the Academy level. Jerry is also the President/CEO of Operation Specific Training and the Law Enforcement Representative for Apex Tactical Specialties.

3 thoughts on “Carbine Training: The 18 Drill

  1. Very similar to Jeff Gonzales’ version of the Modified Navy Qual. Distances and scoring area a just little bit different, and the MNQ calls 3 mags of 5 instead of 6 rounds. But a great drill for working many aspects of carbine shooting. Thanks for sharing.

  2. Also very similar to the drill used by Pat McNamara shot at 50 yds: 5 rounds standing, 5 rounds kneeling or squating, 5 rounds sitting, 5 rounds prone–all hits must be inside an IPSC A-Zone.

  3. I run a similar drill based off this which I first learned from sully, instead I switched it up since I’m not to huge on going prone at 18 yards from a bad guy, I choose to go 6 standing chest reload, squat or kneeling 6 rounds, reload, 6 standing brain box

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