Draw. Two shots to a 3×5 card head box, reload from slide lock and send four shots into an 8 inch circle for the body. That’s the F.A.S.T, created by Todd Green of Pistol-Training.com and for a time it was one of the most popular shooting challenges in the industry.

Shooters would travel from all over the country to train with Todd and then Ernest Langdon to take a crack at winning the elusive FAST Coin. I’d know, because I’m FAST Coin #18.

Understanding the FAST

Before we get into how to shoot the FAST Drill, we do need to get a couple of things established first. The FAST itself isn’t a drill like Bill Drills or El Presidente; the intent of the drill is to evaluate several individual skills and how well a shooter can combine those skills into a performance on demand. In fact, the very name spells this out, as “FAST” is actually an acronym for “Fundamentals, Accuracy, and Speed Test” as it was created by Todd.

Todd specifically said that shooters shouldn’t just spam the FAST in practice but should instead use it as a cold skills assessment and a warm assessment at the start and end of their practice.

Todd believed that the formula to beat the FAST was to shoot it as an assessment. Then, practice the component skills in isolation, then shoot it again as an assessment, but not to shoot it more than three times in a practice session. This belief continues to be held by Simon Golob. He’s the current owner of Pistol-Training.Com and keeper of the FAST. So, with that admonishment in mind, let’s break down the test and how to improve your score.

Shooting the FAST Drill

The FAST Drill (I know in the block above I said it wasn’t a drill but let’s face it, that’s what the internet calls it) is exactly as I described in the first paragraph. The target area is a 3×5 card for a headbox, and an 8-inch circle for the body.

To perform the drill, the gun and reloads must be concealed. There is an exception for qualified LEOs and military personnel to use their duty gear. For this article, we’ll focus on running from concealment.

Load the gun with exactly two rounds and holster. On the beep, draw and fire two shots at the 3×5 card. Reload from slide-lock and fire four shots at the 8-inch circle. Any time under 7 seconds is considered Advanced. Consider times under 5 seconds the gold standard, and if you want to win the prestigious FAST Coin, you’ll need to get two times under 5 in front of Simon at a Pistol-Training.Com class. Oh yeah, there’s a little wrinkle. It also requires 100% accuracy to pass. Anything outside of the target zones and you’ve failed.

Here’s a breakdown of how to train for that. First, we’ll break the test down into its components. The FAST consists of a draw and a split to a low percentage target, a slide lock reload, and four fast shots to an open body.

Building the Skills for the FAST Drill

Here’s a theoretical breakdown of times that you’d want to hit on the FAST to get that magical sub-5 run.

• Draw and 2x head to the head: 1.90 (1.55 draw, .45 split)
• Reload and first shot after the reload: 2.00
• 3 more shots to the circle: .75 (.25 splits)

1.90+2.00+0.75 = 4.65. In with time to spare. Now just do that twice with Simon and 20 other students watching, no pressure or anything.

The Training Plan

Here’s how I’d build a range training plan to get there. After shooting my assessment run, I’ll start 25 reps of drawing and shooting 2x at the head. I’ll break those reps into five sets with a decreasing par time. Let’s say my goal is that 1.90. I’m going start my first set at a comfortable pace then each five individual reps decrease the par time until I’m closer to the 1.9. Gradually grinding my way down.

Next is the reload, and it’s the same method. For this I’ll do a 1-reload-2. The reason we do a 1R2 instead of just a 1-reload-1 is we need to make sure our grip is good enough after the reload to fire more than one shot. This gets 15 reps, again in sets of five, consuming a total of 45 rounds.

Last, I’m going to work on firing fast and accurate shots and sight tracking. Time for some Bill Drills. It doesn’t matter that I’m shooting 6 instead of the 4 that the FAST calls for, because the goal is the same; build the ability to track the sights quickly in recoil and get good hits with reliable splits at or under 0.25. I’m only going to shoot this 5 times for a total of 30 rounds, because it’s the easiest part of the drill.

If we count the initial six rounds we shot for our assessment, we’ve now shot 131 rounds. Close the practice session out by shooting the FAST itself 2x and record those times in comparison to your cold assessment time. That’s how you get better at the FAST Test. Of course, if you need the rounds to do it, check us out for top ammo choices from all the best manufacturers.