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.
• What do real people shoot? In a documented advanced handgun class, students ran it in 2.85–4.03 seconds raw. Sub-2 is an internet standard, not an average one.
• With a rifle? Same six rounds, same seven yards, but from low ready instead of the holster — which puts the whole score on your recoil control. Around 1.5 seconds is the working par; under a second is the real ceiling.
• 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.

Why Grip is the Foundation of Shooting

Grip is the foundation of all shooting technique. The correct grip not only determines your control over the pistol but directly affects recoil management, sight stability, and speed of follow-up shots. Even with perfect stance, precise aim, and refined trigger control, an incorrect grip will undermine everything.