The Mozambique Drill: History, How to Run It & Par Times (2026)

Sat, 18 Jul 2026 10:00:00 +0800

The Mozambique Drill in 60 seconds (BLUF)

What it is: Draw and fire two rounds to the body, then one precise shot to the head, on a single target at seven yards. Also called the Failure Drill or Failure to Stop.

Why it exists: It trains the moment your first response doesn’t work — two fast hits, no reaction, and now you need one slow, exact shot under pressure.

What’s a good time? The classic par is 5 seconds from the holster at seven yards. Around 3 seconds you’re genuinely quick; world-class shooters have run it under one second up close.

The hard part: The gear change. Your brain has to shift from “fast and loose” torso shots to a “small and exact” head shot mid-string — most people either rush the third shot and miss, or stall for half a second.

Train it anywhere: The 2+1 rhythm is a pattern skill. An airsoft pistol or a dry-fire rep against a par time on a free Airsoft Shot Timer app builds the same draw, cadence and transition without a single live round.

If you’ve seen John Wick clear a room — two quick shots to the chest, one to the head, next target — you’ve watched a Hollywood-polished Mozambique Drill. Keanu Reeves trained the pattern for the films, and Tom Cruise made an alley version of it famous in Collateral years earlier. But the drill wasn’t invented for the movies. It came out of a real gunfight at a real airport in 1974, and it survives in police academies and competition warm-ups today because it tests something almost no other drill does: what you do when your first answer fails.

Double Tap on Airsoft Shot Timer

The Mozambique Drill: History, How to Run It & Par Times (2026)