This article first appeared on AmmoLand News on June 7th, 2025 and appears here now with fresh updates.
As a big fan of the repeating claymore, I am constantly trying to find new ways to train and improve my skills with the shotgun. Shotgun drills aren’t as common or as popular as pistol and rifle drills, but that doesn’t mean 12 gauge enthusiasts haven’t served up some challenging shotgun drills. I’ve gathered my five favorite shotgun drills to share with you.
Basic Ready Up
The shotgun doesn’t have many drills attached to it because the most essential skill with the shotgun is to rapidly put a round on target. In most defense scenarios, there aren’t a lot of shots fired. Buckshot is a devastating fight stopper, so you don’t need to Bill Drill the target.
The Basic Ready-Up Shotgun drill is straightforward. I advise you to use a smallish target. I use an IPSC-sized A-zone or a B8. These are small enough not to be gimmes and represent the vital zones of a human target. The range can vary, but I stick to ten yards. That’s the longest shot I’m going to take inside my home.
Start with the gun in your ready position of choice, either low or high ready. At the signal, you’ll aim and fire one round as fast as possible into your chosen target. The goal is to be able to do so in less than one second, and if you can get under .75 of a second, you’re going blazing fast.
The Table Drill
I took the Table Drill from Lucky Gunner’s Home Defense Shotgun Skills test. This is the third stage of that test, and I like to run it as an individual drill. This drill challenges you to mount the gun, shoot quickly, and reload quickly. It’s one of my favorite shotgun drills.
You’ll need five rounds per run and a single target of your choice. I like the B8 and IPSC A-zone. You’ll need a table, a barrel, or something similar that you can safely set your shotgun down on.
The gun needs to be loaded with three rounds of buckshot and in a cruiser-ready condition. Cruiser-ready is action closed, chamber empty, with the hammer down. Your two spare rounds need to be on hand for reloads.
At the beep, you’ll retrieve the shotgun from the table, load a round into the chamber, and fire the three rounds into the target. Conduct an emergency reload with the two spare rounds and fire those two rounds. That ends the drill. If you can do this in under ten seconds, you’re going pretty fast; under seven, and you’re on fire.
The Shotgun El Pres
The El Pres is a classic Jeff Cooper handgun drill, and a company called Justified Defensive Concepts turns it into a shotgun drill. The Justified Defensive Concepts Shotgun El Pres mixes the classic skill-building of the El Pres with the Shotgun. You’ll make multiple shots, reload, and engage multiple targets.
You’ll need nine rounds of buckshot to complete the drill. Your gun is loaded with six, and you’ll need to carry three spares on the gun, a belt, a pocket, etc. This shotgun drill requires three targets with both chest and head areas clearly defined. Each needs to be placed about a yard apart.
Unlike the regular El Pres, we start facing downrange. At the beep, you’ll aim and fire two rounds into the chest of each target. With the gun empty, you’ll conduct three emergency reloads. From right to left, you’ll fire one round into the target’s head, reload, and repeat until all three targets have buckshot in their heads.
If you can shoot it in under ten seconds, you’re going pretty fast. There isn’t a set par time for this drill, but faster is always better.
Shotgun Speed Drill
The Shotgun Speed Drill comes from Nate Parker over at That Shotgun Blog. The Shotgun Speed Drill emphasizes some of the most important training skills necessary with the shotgun. It focuses on quick engagements, rapid target transitions, and even a reload.
The drill requires three targets, and Parker intended the targets to be eight-inch circles. B-8s work great. You’ll need six rounds total to run this drill. The Shotgun Speed Drill is intended to be used with a pump gun, and you’ll get the most training value from a pump-action shotgun. A semi-automatic makes the drill easy.
Set the three targets up about a yard from each other, and shooters will be five yards from the targets. Your gun will hold four rounds, and you’ll have two ready for a reload. At the signal, aim and fire one round at Target 1, one round at Target 2, and two rounds at Target three. Now, you’ll conduct an emergency reload and shoot one on target 2 and finish with another emergency load and a shot on target 1.
The drill is pass/fail for accuracy. Any pellets outside of the circle are automatic failures. If you can get 10 seconds, you’re doing okay. If you can hit eight seconds, you’re doing pretty good with the gauge.
The Shotgun Casino Drill
We’ll end with one of the most complicated shotgun drills. The Shotgun Casino Drill comes from John Correia and Active Self Protection. It’s a complicated drill that requires a fair bit of ammo and four targets. It also allows for a lot of freedom, and the user gets to make choices and figure out what works for them.
The Shotgun Casino drill requires ten rounds of ammunition and four targets. The targets should be placed left to right at the range. Load your gun with four rounds in the tube, and keep your six rounds on hand for reloads. You get a par time of 30 seconds, which is generous but feels awfully short when you have to fire ten rounds.
The drill runs like this: Target 1 gets one round, Target 2 gets two rounds, Target 3 gets three rounds, and Target 4 gets four rounds. With four rounds in the gun, you realize you run out of ammo pretty quickly, which forces you to reload. You can reload any way you want. You can load all six rounds into the tube at once, load enough for each target, or just port load your entire way through the drill.
It pays to experiment, and one of the best parts of these shotgun drills is finding what works best for you and what works the fastest.
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Shotgun Drills – Here and Now
The scattergun remains the battle axe of home defense weapons. As Clint Smith says, “It takes chunks off people.” The primary issue with using the shotgun is the skill required to effectively train with it. It’s not forgiving, and it’s not egalitarian. For that reason, you need to get out there and train. Here are a few drills that will help you keep your skills sharp.
About Travis Pike
Travis Pike is a former Marine Machine Gunner, a lifelong firearms enthusiast, and now a regular guy who likes to shoot, write, and find ways to combine the two. He holds an NRA certification as a Basic Pistol Instructor and is the world’s Okayest firearm’s instructor.
The most challenging part of the NRA’s LEO shotgun instructor course was the change over to a slug in the chamber for a distant target (or vice-versa). Guns like the KelTek KSG make this simple. For any defensive gun, particularly a long gun, chances are you will use it with with whatever ammo is in or on the gun. I have never heard of a defensive shooting where someone took the time to armor up or ammo up. 15 years ago my Mossberg 590 got a trip to Vang Comp for ghost ring sights and porting. I have a velcro… Read more »
What are you using for your shotgun ammo belt?
(3) targets at 10, 12, and 2 o’clock, each 5-10yds apart. At the ‘beep’, from ‘low ready’, shoot 12, 2, and 10 o’clock targets IN THAT ORDER. My fastest time with a department-issued Remington 870: 1.8 seconds.