The History Behind Some Shooting Drills

[BarryinIN]

Most shooters have heard of the El Presidente drill and perhaps the Mozambique, but may not know where the drills and their names come from. Many are based on real life events, and I think it helps to know that.

The Mozambique

A "Mozambique", to many people, simply means any drill calling for two rounds to the body and one to the head. There is a story behind it, that I will get to.

Originally, the drill was to fire the pair to the body, followed by a pause and slight lowering of the gun to assess the effects those shots had before delivering the head shot.

Current teachings are to fire the two body shots and take a sight picture on the head. If your sights cover flesh or cardboard, indicating a still-upright threat, you shoot. In a training environment with fixed cardboard targets, the target won't move and it will be an automatic bangbang, bang.

This drill came about during the "troubles" in Rhodesia in the 1970s. Mike Rousseau, a former student of Jeff Cooper's was on his way to the Mozambique airport. As he rounded a curve in his open-topped Land Cruiser, out stepped a terrorist with an AK-47 held at port arms who demanded that Mr Rousseau get out of the vehicle.

Mike's most convenient weapon was a Browning HiPower, which he drew and fired two quick rounds to the terrorist's chest area. Rousseau slightly lowered the Browning, to see the apparently unfazed terrorist fiddling with the AK. Some versions of the story claim Rousseau hit the AK with at least one of his shots, which could be, given where it was held. At any rate, Rousseau snapped the Browning's muzzle up for a head shot. He mashed the trigger in his excitement, pulling the shot low and into the terrorist's throat, but the result was still a happy one.

Upon hearing of the incident, Col Cooper thought a drill incorporating a transition from two quick chest shots to a careful head shot had merit, and the rest is history.

Sadly, Mike Rousseau was later killed in the Rhodesian war.

The Dozier Drill

Five Pepper Popper falling targets are lined up at around seven to ten yards. On the signal, draw and drop all five poppers in five seconds or less.

Why?

In 1981, US Army Brigadier General James Dozier was kidnapped by Italian Red Brigade terrorists and held hostage for around a month and a half. They got him by posing as plumbers. Five of them bluffed their way into his Verona, Italy apartment, where they opened their plumber's bags, took out SMGs, readied them, and then tied up his wife and took the General.

Jeff Cooper wondered: Had Gen Dozier been carrying a pistol and was trained in it's use, could he have shot all or most of them before they had their SMGs out of the bags and ready? After some thought, he determined it took about five seconds to unzip a canvas bag, take out an SMG, deploy the stock, and ready it.

That is what the drill is supposed to recreate.

A variation of the Dozier is called:

Tourist or Terrorist

In this, two shooters can play. One shooter is assigned the target on their end. The other shooter gets the other four.

The start is initiated by the shooter with four targets. When he or she goes for their gun, only then can the other shooter draw.

What usually happens is the shooters clear their targets at nearly the same time. The lesson here is that action beats reaction, and starting from behind is hard to overcome. Shooter A, representing the tourist, can down four "terrorists" before Shooter B, representing the terrorists can respond and drop a single "tourist". With the results being so close when you are expecting it, it shows how difficult reacting to an unseen threat on the street can be.

And the granddaddy...

The El Presidente

In the early 70s, before Gunsite was established, Col Jeff Cooper was doing a lot of teaching in Central and South America. When on a job training and evaluating the bodyguards to the President of Guatemala, he was stuck with the problem of needing to evaluate a large number of these people with little time with which to do it. He devised this test that not only could be setup in seconds, it took even less time to run, yet allowed the evaluator to see several things.

Always remember that it is a test. It is rarely the best way to solve the problem. It is used as a skills evaluation only.

Three targets are setup side by side, one yard or meter between shoulders. The shooter stands 10 yards away, facing away from the targets. At the start signal, the shooter turns, draws, puts two rounds into each target, reloads, and puts two more rounds on each target.

Two shots, two shots, two shots, reload, and repeat.

Par time was ten seconds, with all shots in the center ring ("A-zone", "-0", etc.).

In addition to the raw time/score, it allows the evaluator to judge the shooter in movement, their draw, ability in engaging multiple targets, firing multiple shots (on the same target or in transitions between targets), ability to shift eye focus, and a reload. That's a lot from simply lining up three targets, spending a few seconds shooting, and expending 12 rounds.

People sometimes criticize the El Prez for not being the tactical way of engaging (the third guy has time to react by the time he is hit) but they miss the point. The point was that it was a test of skills, not a plan of action. And in that, it's genius in it's simplicity.

The movement (the turn) isn't much but it can show you at least one important thing. When it comes to shooting and moving, a lot of people do one then the other and can't seem to shoot and move at the same time. You may be only drawing and not actually shooting during the turn, but you will see people who turn, then start the draw. No, you shouldn't draw the gun until facing down range, but you can clear your concealing garment and get your hand on the gun during the turn. If the shooter can't combine turning and getting their hands on the gun, you have to question their ability to combine more complex shooting and moving skills.

If you wanted, you could add movement while shooting to the drill. The drill is a building block that can be modified to suit one's specific needs, and the variations are limitless.

The El Presidente is NOT something to be practiced. For one reason, again, it is not the best way out of the situation, therefore you shouldn't practice doing it that way.

For another reason, it is a test. A quick and dirty yardstick. It should be done cold, not practiced. If practiced, one can become very good at doing El Presidentes and only El Presidentes, and that destroys the value of it as a testing tool. So don't do it often. Anything more than quarterly is probably too much, and I would suggest no more than twice a year and a max of three runs when you do.

It's a simple way to track where you are. That's all. Like most simple ways of doing things, it won't tell you as much as a more detailed method, but the problem with detailed methods is that most people won't do them. This is so easy to setup and run there aren't many people who can't spare the 30 seconds it takes to do it. Do an El Prez once or twice a year and you at least have some standard to go by. Do an El Prez now and then and record your progress as time goes on. If there is no progress, you know you have some things to work on until next time.