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Wednesday, June 17
Guns and Ammo

Performance on Demand: The “War HOGG Self Eval” Drill

Sam EastonBy
Performance on Demand: The “War HOGG Self Eval” Drill

Do you have a drill that test your marksmanship and gun handling skills? The War HOGG Self Eval is a perfect drill to test numerous different marksmanship and gun handling skills while capturing 12 pieces of critical shooting performance data for The Firearms Training Notebook. This data will assist you in developing your dry fire training plan and improving your marksmanship skills.

The author drives the pistol toward the target as part of the War HOGG drill, which opens with an efficient presentation.

The Firearms Training Notebook was developed with my co-author Mark Kelley of Kelley Defense. We had our own training notebooks, but our students did not take any type of notes for their marksmanship training. That was the birth of The Firearms Training Notebook. Today, every student, law-abiding citizen, military or law enforcement officer of War HOGG Tactical receives a copy of The Firearms Training Notebook. Our student leaves with tangible shooting performance data and a tool to build their live- and dry-fire marksmanship training programs.

[Be sure to read our article on pistol shooting drills for additional training techniques to help you improve your handgun skills.]

The War HOGG Self Eval Drill is a “performance on demand” shooting exercise with no warm-up, designed to give you an accurate read on your current marksmanship skills.

The Standard

When I first get my students at a War HOGG Tactical course, I tell them a couple of things. First, don’t be afraid to try new things. I tell them, “If you do what you have always done, you’re going to get what you always got.”

A black polymer-framed Springfield Armory Echelon pistol is shown with an Aimpoint COA red dot optic mounted on top of the slide. This is the handgun and optic combination used to run the War HOGG Self Eval, a performance-on-demand drill with no warm-up. The Aimpoint COA is an enclosed-emitter pistol red dot built for hard use, which suits a cold marksmanship test that punishes wasted motion. A reliable striker-fired pistol gives a shooter a stable baseline for capturing shooting performance data throughout the drill. Because the War HOGG skill builder measures the draw, target transitions, recoil control, and a magazine change, the gun and dot need to hold up to fast, repeated work. Practicing the self-evaluation with the same pistol and optic a shooter carries makes the recorded data far more useful for building a dry-fire plan.
Fitted with the Aimpoint COA, the Echelon becomes a practical test bed for the War HOGG drill and its 12 timed events.

Second, they must change their mindset on the flat range and treat it like the street or real world. This is a critical part of the War HOGG Self Eval, seeing how they have two different size targets, and with future shooting drills.

My intent — especially for my law enforcement students — is to break them out of that flat-range police mentality and have them start to think on their own. This will help add to their survivability on the street.

Why This Drill Exists

The War HOGG Self Eval is a complex drill, but it is easy to set up. I wanted the drill to show students where their skill level was prior to our course, and show them their improvement during as we capture shooting performance data throughout the course.

War HOGG Self Eval Mag Change
The shooter executes the slide-lock magazine change that anchors the middle of the War HOGG self evaluation.

A lot of shooters can look “fast” on the range, right up until you demand accuracy, recoil management, red dot sight acquisition, target-to-target efficiency — and all with no warm-up. The War HOGG Self Eval Drill is built to remove the excuses. It’s simple, repeatable, and unforgiving in the best way. It forces you to solve four problems at once:

You must present your pistol or draw efficiently with a red dot optic, because you’re on the clock from the start. You have to target index intelligently, because you have two different-sized targets, and this will expose whether your eyes or your gun are leading the movement. You have to manage recoil control with predictability and repeatability, last conduct a slide lock magazine change.

If you want measurable improvement instead of “I felt good today,” this drill belongs in your rotation.

Equipment Needed

  • Your normal range and firearms equipment
  • Live-fire range
  • Dry-fire training area
  • Shot timer: I recommend the PACT Club Timer III.
  • The Firearms Training Notebook — available on Amazon
  • Recording device and tripod or holder
  • 3×5 and 4×6 index card or the War HOGG Tactical Training Target

The Pistol

For this War HOGG Self Eval, I’ll be running the Springfield Armory Echelon 4.5F with the Aimpoint COA. The Aimpoint COA is an enclosed-emitter pistol red dot optic built around Aimpoint’s mounting ecosystem and the A-CUT interface. The COA is designed to be compact, durable, and practical for hard use — making a great match for the Echelon.

How the Skill Builder Works

At the beginning of the month, shoot the War HOGG Self Eval skill builder exercise. Remember the War HOGG standard — shoot it cold, and this will show your shooting-on-demand performance level.

The photo captures a right-handed shooter practicing presentation with an empty firearm indoors, well away from the live-fire range. Dry-fire repetition like this is the engine behind any improvement on the War HOGG drill. Because the self-evaluation captures 12 pieces of timed data, the slowest events point straight to a dry-fire priority. Running the War HOGG Self Eval exactly as it would be shot live, just without ammunition, trains the draw, transitions, and reload as one connected sequence. The goal is repeatable performance rather than one fast rep that collapses under stress. Reducing the par time gradually is how a shooter turns clean dry-fire mechanics into measurable gains on the next cold marksmanship test.
A repeatable draw stroke, eyes-first transitions, and a smooth magazine change all get built here, one rep at a time.

After shooting the self eval, record your shooting performance data in your copy of The Firearms Training Notebook. Don’t forget the note section, as it is critical to write down anything learned during the drill. For example, if I fumbled the magazine change due to poor mag pouch placement, missed shot three because my grip fell apart, etc. Develop your dry-fire training plan from that shooting performance data and any notes gathered, and then work your dry-fire plan throughout the month.

Around the end of the month, head back out to the range and reshoot the War HOGG Self Eval skill builder and see your improvement (if you put the dry-fire work in). You could also go back to the range mid-month for a check on how your dry-fire sessions are working for your marksmanship skills.

War HOGG Self Eval Setup

For pistols, set up at 5 yards/meters with a 4×6 index card in the upper right of the target and a 3×5 index card in the lower left, spaced about 18” apart. With two magazines loaded with six rounds each, start from the ready position or draw from the holster.

How to Run the War HOGG Self Eval

On the shot timer beep, present the pistol and fire three rounds at one card, then three at the other. Conduct a speed magazine reload, then repeat the process. After completing the exercise, record your timer data in The Firearms Training Notebook.

  • Shot 1 is your draw to first shot or presentation time from the ready
  • Shots 2&3, 5&6, 8&9, 11&12 are your split times for that target
  • Shot 4 and 10 is your target index time
  • Shot 7 is your slide lock speed magazine change time.

Those 12 pieces of shooting performance data with an overall time tell a story of where your shooting performance skills are at if you needed to use your firearm to defend yourself or your family. Common areas for improvement include Shot 1, involving your pistol presentation and holster draw. Also, shot 7, which covers your magazine change. With some dry-fire practice, these skills can often show marked improvement.

A pistol, a handheld shot timer, and a spiral training notebook are arranged side by side on a flat surface. These are the core tools for running and recording the War HOGG Self Eval drill. The shot timer captures the 12 pieces of shooting performance data the self-evaluation produces, from the draw to the final split. The Firearms Training Notebook is where a shooter logs those times along with notes on what worked and what broke down. A Springfield Armory Echelon serves as the test pistol for this performance-on-demand drill. Recording the numbers after each cold run is what lets a shooter establish a baseline and build a focused dry-fire plan.
The timer captures the data, the notebook records it, and the pistol delivers the performance being measured.

People always ask, “What is the standard?” You are the standard. Establish your baseline and constantly strive to be 1% better everyday with your marksmanship and gun handling skills.

Variations

The War HOGG Self Eval can be modified in various ways to match your skill level and available firearms.

  1. Instead of starting from the ready position, you can add a draw from your holster, whether that’s outside the waistband, inside the waistband, a duty holster, or a combination of holster types.
  2. For carbine-only practice, the distance changes to 7 yards/meters.
  3. To practice transitions, start with the carbine. When the carbine is empty, transition to your handgun to complete the last six rounds.

Dry-Fire

If your self eval keeps breaking down in the same place, you just found your training priority. Don’t guess at fixes; use your notes and your misses to identify what’s happening, then address that specific issue in dry-fire.

An empty pistol is extended toward an aiming point in a practice space, with no live ammunition present. This frame demonstrates the dry-fire technique used to prepare for the War HOGG Self Eval. Dry-fire is where a shooter validates mechanics and builds efficiency, while live-fire confirms marksmanship and recoil control. If the self-evaluation keeps breaking down in the same spot, that breakdown becomes the training priority addressed in dry-fire. A repeatable draw, eyes-first target transitions, and a clean slide-lock magazine change are the skills rehearsed here for the performance-on-demand drill. Practicing under a par time keeps the work honest and steadily lowers the times recorded on the skill builder.
The shooter runs the War HOGG drill in dry-fire, the work that actually moves the score between range trips.

The best way to improve your score is to build efficiency in your dry-fire program. Start by using your recorded times to set an initial par time that allows you to complete the sequence with clean mechanics. Then, repeat the drill in dry-fire exactly as you’d run it live. This includes:

  • A repeatable draw stroke
  • Eyes-first transitions
  • Smooth magazine change

When your mechanics are consistent under the par, reduce the par in small increments — maybe 0.1 to start. The goal is repeatable performance, not one fast rep that falls apart under stress. Dry-fire is where you remove the wasted motion and build being efficient with your gun-handling skills. Live-fire is where you validate your marksmanship and work on recoil mitigation.

The Skills

Whenever you are conducting any type of training session, either dry- or live-fire, the question should always be, “What marksmanship/gun handling skills am I improving?” Having no firearms training plan means you are just wasting your number one most precious commodity, your time! This is where The Firearms Training Notebook comes into play to build that training program.

Your Phone Is a Helpful Tool

A key piece of training equipment we all have but seldom use is our phones. I use mine to record both my live- and dry-fire sessions. It gives me a chance to see if I am being inefficient with the skill I am trying to develop.

A black striker-fired pistol sits on a wooden shooting bench at an outdoor live-fire range. The Springfield Armory Echelon is staged here ahead of a run of the War HOGG Self Eval drill. The self-evaluation is shot cold, with no warm-up, so the bench is the last stop before the timer starts. Running the War HOGG drill from a cold start gives a shooter an honest read on performance on demand. 2 magazines loaded with 6 rounds each are all the ammunition needed to complete the 12-shot sequence. Starting the skill builder without warm-up rounds is what makes the recorded shooting performance data meaningful.
No warm-up rounds come before the War Hogg self eval, since the drill is built to read true performance on demand.

I use a tripod with a phone mount and place the camera more right or left facing, depending on what skill I am working on. For magazine changes, I position the camera to capture the left side of my body since I’m a right-handed shooter. When drawing from the holster, I move the camera to my right side to monitor my technique with the Safariland 6360RDS level III retention holster while drawing my Springfield Armory Echelon 4.5FC equipped with an Aimpoint COA.

Have Accountability

Accountability matters in your shooting performance. You can do it alone, but having a partner, “CREW”, group, or tribe helps keep you on track. There might be something they see that you missed, and it helps with having training accountability.

A modern handgun with an optics-ready slide is pictured with a rugged red dot optic mounted directly to the slide. This Springfield Armory Echelon and Aimpoint COA pairing is the setup used to shoot the War HOGG Self Eval skill builder. The enclosed-emitter design is compact and durable, which makes it a practical match for the hard use the War HOGG drill puts a pistol through. As a performance-on-demand test, the self-evaluation reveals how well a shooter manages recoil control and red dot acquisition under the clock. Each run captures shooting performance data that feeds a focused dry-fire plan aimed at the weakest part of the sequence. Training this cold marksmanship test with a carry-grade pistol and optic keeps the results honest and the improvement measurable.
Topped with an enclosed-emitter Aimpoint COA optic, this striker-fired Echelon is built for the kind of hard use the War HOGG Self Eval demands.

If you don’t have a network, join ours. Share your marksmanship growth with the On The Range (OTR) “CREW” member’s page. My co-host, Mark Kelley of Kelley Defense, and I hold bi-monthly interactive Zoom calls with our OTR CREW members. We break down each shooter’s skill builder and even review members’ training videos live, giving immediate feedback on ways to improve.

Exclusive Discounts for Those Who Serve

Springfield Armory has a long history of supporting the men and women who protect and serve. Through its FIRSTLINE program, Springfield provides an additional way to recognize that commitment by offering eligible qualified professionals access to select Springfield Armory firearms at discounted pricing through a straightforward, streamlined process. All FIRSTLINE handguns ship with three magazines.

For law enforcement officers who are purchasing individually, programs like this can reduce the barrier to getting quality duty equipment into service, especially when the agency isn’t supplying you with a duty pistol.

Bottom Line — Put in the Work

The War HOGG Self Eval Drill is a skill builder that rewards efficiency and punishes sloppiness. It forces a clean draw or pistol presentation, disciplined transitions, good grip with recoil control throughout, and an efficient slide lock speed magazine change.

Shoot it cold. Record your time and your hits in the Firearms Training Notebook. Dry-fire with par times to make sure your seeing improvement. Then, retest to prove you improved. Because in the end, the timer doesn’t care what you meant to do, and neither does the target.

Editor’s Note: Be sure to check out The Armory Life Forum, where you can comment about our daily articles, as well as just talk guns and gear. Click the “Go To Forum Thread” link below to jump in!

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