Bill Drill Time Standards 2026: Par Times From Concealment vs Open Holster

The Bill Drill in 60 seconds (BLUF)

• What it is: Draw and fire six rounds into the A-zone of one target at seven yards, as fast as you can keep them all in. That’s the whole drill.
• Why it’s brutal: Six shots leaves nowhere to hide. A bad grip, a slow draw, or flinching all show up instantly in your hits and your times.
• What’s a good time? From an open holster: roughly 4.5s for a new shooter, sub-3s for a solid club shooter, sub-2s for someone who can genuinely shoot. From concealment, add roughly half a second to every one of those — a clean sub-2 from concealment is genuinely rare, not a weekend goal.
• How fast is the record? Around 1.1 seconds for six A-zone hits, with a draw near 0.40s. It’s a legitimate number and a terrible training target — see below for why.
• The two levers: Your draw (first shot) and your splits (time between shots). A shot timer breaks both out for you so you know which one to fix.
• Train it anywhere: You don’t need live fire to build the pattern. An airsoft pistol or a dry-fire rep with a par time on a free Airsoft Shot Timer app trains the exact same draw-and-run mechanics.

If you’ve ever watched someone at the range draw and rip six shots into a single target in about two seconds, you’ve probably seen a Bill Drill without knowing its name. To a bystander it looks like a John Wick impression. To anyone who trains seriously, it’s one of the most revealing tests in shooting — because there is absolutely nothing to it, and that’s exactly why it’s so hard to fake.

Most drills let you cover for a weakness. A slow reload can be hidden behind good movement; a shaky first shot can be excused on a hard target. The Bill Drill strips all of that away. One target, seven yards, six shots, one timer. Either your grip holds the gun steady enough to fire six fast rounds into the A-zone, or it doesn’t — and the timer and the target tell you which, every single time.

What Is the Bill Drill?

The Bill Drill was created by Bill Wilson, the founder of Wilson Combat, and named after him. There’s a running joke that the name comes from Bill Rogers, or Bill Jordan, or from the idea that you should be able to cover your six-shot group with a one-dollar bill — but Wilson himself will tell you it’s simply his drill. It became a staple of practical shooting because it distills the two skills that win matches into one clean rep: getting the gun out fast, and controlling it once it’s up.

The course of fire hasn’t changed in decades. You stand at seven yards facing a single IPSC/USPSA (or IDPA) target, pistol holstered, hands relaxed at your sides or in a surrender position. On the buzzer you draw and fire six rounds into the A-zone as fast as you can while keeping every hit inside the scoring zone. Miss the A-zone and the run doesn’t count the way you want it to — speed only means something if all six are where they belong.

What makes it such a good diagnostic is that six shots is just enough to expose a grip that comes apart under recoil. One or two shots, most people can muscle through. By round four or five, a weak grip lets the muzzle climb, the sights stop returning to the same place, and the hits start walking up and out of the A-zone. The Bill Drill doesn’t test whether you can shoot fast; it tests whether you can shoot fast repeatably.

How to Run the Bill Drill

Set a single target at seven yards. Load six rounds, holster, and get into your normal start position — for most people that’s hands hanging naturally, though many competitors practice from a surrender or “hands up” position to standardize the draw. Start your shot timer, wait for the random beep, and on the tone draw and fire all six into the A-zone.

The mental cue that separates a clean run from a scattered one is where your eyes go. As USPSA champion Ben Stoeger describes it, you want to look at a specific spot on the target, bring the gun up to your eye-target line, and fire all six without your grip coming apart — without your support hand loosening, without your firing hand driving the gun down to chase the recoil. Pick the spot before the beep, not after. If you draw and then go looking for where to aim, you’ve already lost half a second.

Run it in strings of five or six repetitions, and score honestly. A run with a great time but two shots in the C-zone isn’t a good Bill Drill — it’s a warning that you’re pushing past your current control. The goal is the fastest time at which all six still land in the A-zone, and that number should creep down slowly as your grip and recoil control improve.

Bill Drill Time Standards: What’s a Good Time?

Here’s the honest answer most people want first — with the caveat that almost every chart you’ll find online quietly leaves out. A Bill Drill time means nothing until you say what you drew from. A competition rig with an open-front race holster and a belt-mounted magazine is a completely different starting line than a concealed appendix rig under a t-shirt, and comparing the two is how people end up either badly discouraged or wildly overconfident. So here are both, draw-to-last-shot at seven yards with all six hits in the A-zone:

Level	Open / competition holster	From concealment
New shooter	4.5s or slower	5.0s or slower
Developing shooter	3.5s	4.0s
Solid club shooter	2.5–3.0s	3.0–3.5s
Advanced / “you can shoot”	2.0s	2.5s
Competitive / expert	1.7s	2.0s
Top-tier	1.4s or faster	1.7s or faster

The rough rule behind that second column is that clearing a garment costs most shooters somewhere between a third and a half of a second, every single rep. It doesn’t touch your splits at all — it lands entirely on the draw, which is why the concealment column shifts by about the same amount at every level rather than scaling.

The sub-2-second Bill Drill has been the classic gold standard for years — the line that separates people who think they’re fast from people who actually are. But it’s worth knowing that the standard keeps moving. As trainer Brennan Brennecke puts it bluntly, “the internet will tell you that in order to shoot a good Bill Drill you need to shoot it sub two seconds — that’s an old standard, and the new standard is way faster than that.” At the top level, shooters are running the drill in the low 1.4s from an open holster, which means a roughly one-second draw and five splits around 0.10–0.15 seconds each.

Don’t anchor on the elite numbers, though. If you’re a new shooter, getting six clean A-zone hits in 4.5 seconds is a genuine milestone. The value of the drill isn’t hitting someone else’s time — it’s watching your time come down while your hits stay in the A-zone. That progression is the whole point.

How Rare Is a Sub-2 Bill Drill From Concealment?

This is the single most-argued question about the drill, and the honest answer is: much rarer than the internet makes it look. Ask on any concealed carry forum and you’ll get a version of “I’ve been shooting for years and my fastest clean run from concealment is 1.64” — from people who train regularly, not casual range visitors. A sub-2 from concealment requires a draw at or under one second plus splits in the high teens to low twenties, and that combination is uncommon enough that most shooters who claim it are quietly dropping a shot or two into the C-zone.

It’s worth watching what a room full of full-time instructors actually shoots, because it recalibrates the target fast. In one filmed training session, a group of professional instructors ran Bill Drills from concealment for the better part of an afternoon and settled into a consistent band of roughly 1.6 to 1.9 seconds clean, with first-shot times between about 0.77 and 1.07 seconds. Their honest self-assessment of that band was “consistently in the 1.7s from concealed is really, really solid.” One of them had been chasing a personal record of 1.5 from concealment for a long time and still hadn’t gotten it that day.

Two details from that session are more useful than the times themselves. First, the word “clean” is load-bearing. A 1.56 with three Charlies was immediately dismissed in favour of a slower run with six Alphas — the group scored every single rep and refused to count anything that wasn’t all-A. Second, one instructor named the thing that quietly stops most people from improving: “I’m pretty happy with 1.59, I’m not hungry anymore — that’s the issue.” Plateaus are usually a satisfaction problem long before they’re a technique problem, and the number on the timer is what makes that satisfaction visible.

If you carry concealed and want an honest benchmark, forget sub-2 for now. Run ten clean reps, take your average rather than your best, and set a par time about 0.2 seconds under it. A free shot timer app will log every run so your average is a real number and not a memory of your best day.

How Fast Is the Record — and Why It Shouldn’t Be Your Target

Because everyone eventually asks: the fastest widely-circulated Bill Drill sits at around 1.11 seconds for six hits, with well-documented runs in the 1.14–1.20 range from top USPSA Carry Optics shooters. Six shots in a shade over a second means a draw near 0.40 seconds and splits around 0.14 — numbers that feel physically impossible until you see them on a timer.

Here’s the part worth understanding, though, because it changes how you should read that number. Shooters chasing records openly admit they aren’t shooting the drill the way you should train it. One record-chaser explained that his 0.40-second draw only exists because he begins pressing the trigger before the gun reaches full extension — he knows the round will land because he has a feel for where the gun points, not because he’s confirming a sight picture. As he put it, if he waits until he’s fully extended, he can’t shave that half second, and “when you’re going for a world record, you need that advantage.”

That’s a valid answer to a very narrow question — how fast can six rounds leave a pistol and hit paper — and a terrible model for the skill the Bill Drill is supposed to build. The drill’s whole value is that it forces you to confirm and control six shots in a row. Train the record technique and you’ll build a habit of firing before you’re actually looking, which falls apart the moment the target gets smaller, further away, or is standing next to a no-shoot. Use the record as a fun fact and a reminder that the ceiling is higher than you think; use your own clean average as the number you actually chase.

Reading Your Draw and Splits on a Shot Timer

This is where the Bill Drill goes from “fun party trick” to “the most efficient training tool you own” — and it’s impossible without a timer. A shot timer doesn’t just give you a total time; it records the time of every shot, which means it hands you a full breakdown of the run: your draw (time to first shot) and your five splits (the gaps between shots two through six). Those two numbers tell you exactly where your time is going.

Break it down the way top shooters do. A one-second draw plus five 0.20-second splits already puts you at 2.0 seconds even. So the question every run answers is simple: is your time bleeding out of the draw, or out of the splits? Most amateurs assume they need faster splits, when in reality the biggest, easiest gains hide in the draw and even in the start signal itself.

Brennecke demonstrated this with real timer numbers. On one run his first shot landed at 1.23 seconds because he waited for the beep to fully end before moving. On the next run, reacting to the very front of the tone instead, his first shot came at 0.72 — half a second saved on a two-second drill, without changing his grip or his splits at all. Half a second is a quarter of the whole run, bought purely by reading the timer and reacting to the start signal a hair sooner. You would never find that free time by feel; the timer put a number on it.

The splits themselves reveal grip quality. If your first two splits are tight (0.15s) and your last three balloon (0.25s+), your grip is degrading under recoil and the sights aren’t returning to the same spot — that’s a grip-and-recoil problem, not a trigger-speed problem. Brennecke’s cue for fixing it is to “paint the A-zone” rather than shoot reactively: instead of see the dot, bang, see the dot, bang, you see your red dot or front sight settle once on a specific spot, then let it streak up and down through that same point while you trust the grip to bring it back. That mental shift — trusting a grip you built out of the holster instead of re-aiming every shot — is what flattens those late splits.

Run the Bill Drill With Airsoft or Dry Fire

Here’s the part almost every Bill Drill article skips: you don’t need live ammo to build most of this. The two things the drill actually trains — a fast, consistent draw and a grip that survives recoil — are pattern skills, and patterns are built through reps, not through burning through a case of ammo. Ammo cost and range access are exactly why so many shooters plateau, and it’s a solvable problem.

Dry fire is the cheapest option. Set a par time on a shot timer — start at a realistic target like 2.5 seconds — clear and safety-check your pistol, then draw and press the trigger six times before the par beep sounds. You get the draw, the sight settle, and the trigger press against a real clock. The Airsoft Shot Timer app does this for free: it gives you the random start beep and a par-time buzzer, so you can run par-time Bill Drill reps in your living room and actually track whether your draw is getting faster week to week. Pair it with the mechanics in our dry fire training guide and you’re training the identical draw you’d use on match day.

Airsoft takes it a step further, because now you get feedback on your hits too. A gas blowback pistol at seven yards (or a scaled-down distance indoors) gives you a real trigger, real recoil impulse, and a real point of impact, so you can run the full Bill Drill — draw, six shots, check your group — without a single live round. If you shoot practical airsoft or Action Air, this is your most realistic off-range rep, and it’s where the shot timer earns its keep: the app doesn’t care whether the “bang” came from a 9mm or a green-gas GBB, it just times your draw and splits the same way. For more on bridging the two worlds, our airsoft-to-firearms training crossover guide covers what transfers and what doesn’t.

Variations to Keep the Drill Honest

Once your standard seven-yard Bill Drill is repeatable, there are a few ways to keep it challenging. The simplest is distance progression, and it’s worth knowing roughly what each distance should cost you. Five yards is the speed lane — expect to run about 0.2 seconds faster than your seven-yard time, because the A-zone is subtending wide enough that you’re barely confirming anything. Ten yards typically adds 0.2 to 0.4 seconds and is where sloppy grips get exposed, since the same splits that stayed inside the A-zone at seven will walk straight out of it here. Twenty-five yards turns the drill into a completely different animal — most shooters roughly double their seven-yard time, and plenty discover they can’t keep six rounds in the A-zone at any speed. There’s even a fifty-yard version floating around the competition world, where a sub-2 run is treated as a genuine feat. The A-zone never gets bigger; only your margin for a mediocre grip disappears.

There’s a counter-intuitive payoff hiding in that progression, and instructors bring it up constantly: training on a small, demanding target at distance makes the close-range drill feel easy. Spend a session drilling a steel plate or a point target at fifteen yards where every hit is accountable, then walk back in to seven yards and open up on a full USPSA target, and the same speed that felt reckless before suddenly feels controlled. Instructors regularly set new personal records on the seven-yard Bill Drill immediately after a long block of accuracy-focused reps at distance. If your times have stalled, the fix is often not more speed reps at seven yards — it’s harder accuracy reps further back.

Ben Stoeger’s favorite variation adds target transitions. Set three targets edge to edge, draw, and fire two rounds on each while shifting your vision to the next target between pairs — a “moving” Bill Drill that trains how fast you can drive your eyes and the gun together. Start with the targets touching, then spread them apart so the gun has to travel farther each time. Stoeger’s warning is worth repeating: this is a training exercise, not a match technique, because shooting that aggressively makes mistakes easy — but for pushing your visual speed and finding your real limits, it’s excellent. The last useful twist is adding concealment: run the draw from a covered holster and you’ve turned the Bill Drill into a genuine self-defense benchmark, which is exactly what that “sub-2-second from concealment” question on every shooting forum is really asking about.

Frequently Asked Questions

What is a good Bill Drill time?

For all six shots in the A-zone at seven yards from an open holster, roughly 4.5 seconds is a realistic new-shooter time, sub-3 seconds marks a competent club shooter, and sub-2 seconds is the classic benchmark for someone who can genuinely shoot. Elite competitors run it in the low 1.4-second range. Add roughly half a second at every level if you’re drawing from concealment. The number only counts if every hit is in the A-zone — a fast time with hits in the C-zone means you’re going faster than you can control.

What is the fastest Bill Drill ever shot?

The fastest widely-circulated times sit at around 1.11 seconds for six A-zone hits, with well-documented runs in the 1.14–1.20 range from top USPSA Carry Optics shooters. That requires a draw near 0.40 seconds and splits around 0.14. Be aware that record attempts are shot differently from training reps — shooters chasing the number start pressing the trigger before the gun reaches full extension, relying on feel rather than a confirmed sight picture. It’s a real number, but it’s not a technique to copy.

Can you shoot a sub-2-second Bill Drill from concealment?

It’s possible, and it’s much rarer than the internet suggests. It requires a sub-one-second concealed draw plus splits in the high teens, and even full-time instructors typically run clean concealed Bill Drills in the 1.6–1.9 second band. Most people who claim a sub-2 from concealment are dropping a shot or two out of the A-zone. Score every rep honestly and use your clean average, not your best-ever run, as your real number.

What’s the difference between the Bill Drill and the Mozambique Drill?

They test opposite things. The Bill Drill is six rounds into one scoring zone on a single target, so it measures your draw plus sustained recoil control under speed. The Mozambique drill is two rounds to the body followed by one deliberate shot to the head, so it measures your ability to change gears — to break the fast cadence and place a precise shot. Most shooters find the Bill Drill exposes grip problems and the Mozambique exposes transition and trigger-control problems. Running both gives you a much fuller picture than either alone.

Why is it called the Bill Drill?

It’s named after Bill Wilson of Wilson Combat, who developed it. Despite the popular myths, it’s not named after Bill Rogers or Bill Jordan, and it has nothing to do with covering your group with a dollar bill — that’s just a memorable coincidence people repeat.

How do you shoot a sub-2-second Bill Drill?

Break the two seconds into a roughly one-second draw and five 0.20-second splits. The fastest free time usually hides in the draw and in reacting to the start beep sooner — shooters routinely save half a second just by moving on the front of the tone instead of after it. The splits come down when your grip stops the muzzle from climbing, so you “paint” one spot in the A-zone and trust the sights to return rather than re-aiming each shot. A shot timer showing your draw and each split tells you which one to work on.

Can you practice the Bill Drill with dry fire or airsoft?

Yes — and you should. Dry fire with a par time on a shot timer trains the draw, the sight settle and the trigger press; an airsoft pistol adds real recoil and a real point of impact so you can check your group too. Both build the exact draw-and-grip pattern the live-fire drill measures, at a fraction of the cost. The Airsoft Shot Timer app provides the random start beep and par-time buzzer for both.

What target should I use for the Bill Drill?

The standard is an IPSC/USPSA metric target or an IDPA target at seven yards, scoring the A-zone (or the down-zero zone on IDPA). Any target with a defined center scoring area works for training — the point is that “fast” only counts when all six rounds land inside that zone.

Does the Bill Drill really improve your shooting?

It does, because it isolates the two skills that carry over to almost everything else in practical shooting: a fast, repeatable draw and recoil control under speed. Six shots is just enough to expose a grip that fails, and the timer turns every run into measurable feedback. Track your draw and splits over a few weeks and you’ll see exactly where you’re improving.

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The Bill Drill’s genius is its honesty. Six shots, one target, one number — no room to fool yourself. Pick the column that matches how you actually draw, write down your clean average rather than your best run, and stop comparing it to a record shot with a technique you don’t want to build. Grab a shot timer, whether you’re on a live range, dry-firing in the living room, or running an airsoft pistol in the backyard, and start logging your draw and splits. Watch which number moves and which one sticks, and you’ll always know exactly what to train next.

If your draw is where the time is going — and for most people it is — our pistol draw guide breaks the draw stroke into four phases you can train separately, and the competition holster guide covers how rig choice and holster position change that first number. For a broader menu of drills to build around the Bill Drill, see our complete guide to classic shooting drills and the Mozambique drill guide.

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