Cold Performance, what do I mean by that? That’s when you first step on to the range and you haven’t practiced anything and you take advantage of being just completely, just unprepared. You haven’t dryfired, you haven’t shot groups, you’re ready to go in the moment. And a lot of people don’t practice this very often and they really should add it to their regimen. 

So, one of my favorite drills, that I have kind of changed-up for competition purposes, is one called cold heat. It’s from pistol-training.com and it’s a CCW drill that I have modified for competition. 

I have a target set up at 10 yards, I am using my carry optics competition rig and I have a timer set to two seconds par time, so the buzzer will go off, and after two seconds, it will sound again. 

My goal is to get as many shots off as possible on my target within that two second time frame. 

Coming up to the range, having a drill like this is to test cold on demand and is going to give you an idea of what your true performance is when it matters the most. 

My draw has to be quick here, I have to have consistent splits and I cannot pin the trigger. 

So, after you’ve burned up those first shots on the range you can still incorporate cold practice into your shooting day, and I have a simple five shot drill here. Two on the left, two on the right, and one in the center. 

I am going to shoot it from cold, without any practice, to see what my time is and then I will repeat it, which should probably be a bit faster. And I want to see how much faster it is with that practiced performance. 

My first run here is very controlled, focusing on hitting the center of the target. After that I really start to push things with a faster draw and driving the gun more on the transitions to get a faster time. 

There we go 0.244 seconds. There we go about two-tenths of a second difference between the cold run and my best run.

Mindset really matters when you’re heading into a practice session, so use those first shots, those cold shots, to take your measured performance and compare it to your practiced performance. 

Until the next one, be safe and have fun.