The Test

“The Test”, sometimes referred to as the 10-10-10 Drill, is arguably one of the most prominent drills among practitioners of the pistol. To the best of my knowledge, it was introduced by Ken Hackathorn. Larry Vickers added to it by providing a different way to score it. Let’s take a look at it.

Course of Fire

Target: B-8 Repair Center (printable versions of this target are available from several locations on the internet which can quickly be found by using one’s favorite search engine to search for “printable B-8 repair center target”)

Hackathorn Scoring: Scored by the rings with 100 possible points. A score of 80 or better is required to pass. A score of 90 or better is considered good. A score of 95 or better is considered excellent.

Vickers Scoring: Scored by time limit. Hits outside of the black but still on the B-8 target add a 1 second penalty. Shots off paper add a 3 second penalty. Passing requires a final time, that is raw time plus penalties, under 10 seconds.

About the Drill

As mentioned, the original concept is attributed to Ken Hackathorn. Pretty much every handgun enthusiast and instructor that I know knows this drill. I’ve personally shot it in many classes I’ve attended and often set up at my local range as a litmus test for skill degradation. It’s also pretty common to see somebody challenge an unpopular opinion on technique and gear on social media with a request to “post 10-10-10” as proof of existing competent proficiency with a handgun.

There are several variations to the course of fire that can either alter the difficulty or round count. The most common variation involves changing the start position from a ready position to the holster. However, we can also add concealment or movement while drawing.

My Thoughts on the Drill

I’m a fan of the drill. It’s easy enough to set up and run at a local range. Given the time limit, one can use a 1 second split pace to not get in trouble at ranges that don’t allow “rapid fire” which is commonly defined as a rate of fire that exceeds 1 round fired per second. While that pace is relatively easy for a competent handgunner to achieve a passing score, one can still challenge themselves by attempting to clean the drill with a 100 or with 10 hits in the 1.7″ X-ring.

Another thing that I like about this drill is that it can be set up as a competitive challenge like a shoot off. The scores can be used to determine the winner. In the case of a tie, the number X-ring hits can be used as a tiebreaker. While the technical difficulty of the drill’s course of fire doesn’t change in a competitive context, the additional stress from friendly competition has a funny way of negatively affecting one’s ability to shoot it clean.

Achieving a passing score, regardless of whether one uses Hackathorn or Vickers scoring, doesn’t seem to be all that difficult but it does require one to have a well developed grip that is durable enough to withstand ten (10) consecutive rounds of fire and having a decent trigger press. There is sufficient time to perform a few minor grip adjustments during the drill, but they would need to be minor and one would have to have sufficient awareness to detect a minor grip correction is required before the impacts begin to wonder outside of the 8-ring, which has exactly an 8″ diameter just like the A-zone on an IDPA target . Furthermore, a significant portion of the generous time limit can easily be wasted on a poor and slow presentation.

Shooting a clean 10-10-10 is very doable, but more difficult to accomplish since the 10-ring has a diameter of 3.3″ which is smaller than the A-zone in the head box of an IDPA target. To accomplish this, the shooter would need to have a consistently quick presentation, a durable grip, a good trigger press, and sufficient visual patience to allow for just enough visual confirmation before sending the round at the 10-ring.

Drill Difficulty

I didn’t have to work hard to calculate this drill’s difficulty because it is the example used in chapter 20 of Karl Rehn and John Daub’s book, Strategies and Standards for Defensive Handgun Training, to illustrate the methodology. Granted, the example uses the variant of the drill with a holstered start. However, I can reuse the same example and make adjustments to estimate the standard course of fire’s difficulty.

Using the example in the book, we know that the 10-ring which has a diameter of 3.3″ is roughly equivalent to 8.4″ at 25 yards. We are using the 10 ring as the reference target area because shooting The Test clean requires all 10 hits to be placed in the 10 ring. Knowing that we know that USPSA Grandmaster (GM) should be able to place the first hit from a ready position into an 8″ A-zone at 25 yards in 1.3 seconds and should be able hit the A-zone nine (9) more times with a split time of 0.4 seconds between each shot. That gives us a GM par time of 4.9 seconds. Dividing the GM par time by the drill’s par time gives us 49%. That is somebody with 49% of a GM skill level should be able to clean The Test in 10 seconds.

Using the difficulty scale presented in the first post of this series, I will label this drill as a normal difficulty drill.

Note that changing the start position increases the GM par time to 5.1 seconds since the time to the first hit increases from 1.3 to 1.5 seconds. That results in a relative difficulty of 51% which is a marginal increase. Adding concealment to the start position increases the time to first hit from 1.3 to 1.8 seconds which yields a 54% relative difficulty.

I mentioned that a passing score is easier to achieve than scoring a perfect 100 in the previous section. This should be glaringly obvious since the diameter of the 8-ring is more than double the diameter of the 10-ring. Doing the math on that should confirm this observation. A GM should be able to place the first hit from a ready position into an 8″ A-zone at 10 yards in about 0.9 seconds and hold a split time on that same target of 0.22 seconds between subsequent shots. That gives us a GM part time of 2.88 seconds and a relative difficulty of 28.8%. As such, I will label passing this drill as having an easy difficulty level.

A passing score using Vickers scoring would require all impacts to occur in the black or within the 9-ring. Given the 9-ring has a diameter of 5.5″, it places the difficulty of this drill somewhere in the middle of a clean 10-10-10 and achieving a passing score using Hackathorn scoring. Let’s do the math on that. A 5.5″ is roughly equivalent to an 8″ circle at 15 yards. A GM should be able to place the first hit from a ready position into an 8″ A-zone at 15 yards in about 1 second and hold a split time on that same target of 0.25 seconds between subsequent shots. That gives us a GM part time of 3.25 seconds and a relative difficulty of 32.5% which is also well within an easy difficulty drill level. This is equivalent to passing The Test with a Hackathorn score of at least 90.

Closing Thoughts

There are so many things I like about this drill. It’s easy to set up and easy to remember. The difficulty is right in the middle of the road. I’m not convinced that posting a clean 10-10-10 on social media proves much of anything. However, being able to consistently shoot a clean 10-10-10 is something to work towards being able to do as the consistency is evidence of competence and proficiency with a handgun equal to that of an advancing USPSA C-class shooter or an IDPA Sharpshooter. Developing that level of performance will require some dedication and effort to the craft.

While a passing score with either scoring method is easier to achieve, however, it’s not going to be possible to pass it consistently on demand without at least having rudimentary proficiency with the pistol. I’d go so far to argue that passing The Test consistently requires at least a minimum level of competence with a pistol. This is why I think the 10-10-10 works well as a litmus test for one’s own ability where a score under 80 using Hackathorn scoring should be a clear indicator that skills are in serious need of honing.

Go shoot the drill and see how it goes. If you passed, then great. If you didn’t, then go work on those fundamentals until you can. Either way, keep leveling up.

If you do give The Test a go, then leave a comment below and let me and other readers know how it went.