Silhouette Torture
#22Tuesday
Decades ago, David Blinder created a 50 round drill for focused practice loosely based on Dot Drill 101 from the Brian Enos Forum. The late Todd Louis Green, who founded pistol-training.com, expanded on it, and codified it into a practice session containing most relevant defensive pistol marksmanship skills. He called it Dot Torture and put it up on the pistol-training forum.
ETA comment from Simon Golub of Pistol-Training
Dot Torture came to us as is. We simply photocopied the target and Todd liked it a lot, giving Blinder the correct credit on the target. –Simon
ETA 2 from the source, David Blinder, himself
I got shooting dots from John Shaw at Mid-South which I believe he got from IPSC. I am also the one who named it dot torture. Todd did some modifications and definitely popularized it.
I’ve made my own version of it using the target employed for the Swiss Concealed Carry License live fire test. Today was an opportunity to shoot it with my LCP II .22. It was fun. A .22 understudy for your carry pistol is a concept that can be very useful. Shooting .22s is inexpensive and has some benefits that centerfires don’t have, minimal recoil and Over Pressure Event being the principal ones.
The demanding nature of the target requires the shooter to know the zero of their pistol very well at whatever distance is being used. In the case of the LCP .22, at three yards the hold was about halfway up on the white circle in the chest of the silhouette.
I recently mounted a Ruger ReadyDot on my Taurus TX22 Compact. https://thetacticalprofessor.net/2026/08/03/readydot-on-tx22-compact/ It zeroes quite well at both 10 and 20 yards.
Although I started to shoot Silhouette Torture with it today, rain set in and I wasn’t able to finish. I was able to shoot it enough to learn that the hold at five yards was on the head. The 15 MOA dot completely covers the head at that distance but it’s not hard to hold. Knowing your pistol’s zero at different ranges, whether using iron or Dot sights is useful.
The Silhouette Torture target is attached. Its instructions are on the 2nd page of the 2 page PDF.
My Red Dot Adventure series is available on my Patreon page for those who are interested in exploring what Dot Sights can and cannot do.
He Saved My Life!
#mousegunmonday #win
The victim of the robbery wouldn’t go on camera but said, “He saved my life!” Customer’s mousegun comes to the rescue. The surveillance video of this incident shows a customer in a Michigan convenience store react to an armed robbery of the store clerk.
The customer draws a pocket carried, probably laser equipped, mousegun from his pocket, activate the laser, and fire seven shots in three volleys at the robber. His initial volley of three shots is taken at the closer end of the Near Phase of Public Space, probably about 12-15 feet. He made at least three hits for the seven shots; a minimum of a 43% hit rate. The firing solution required him to shoot past the clerk who is downrange and in close proximity to the robber. He was able to do this despite shooting with his Primary Hand Only.
The robber was neutralized by the customer’s bullets and the clerk was unharmed. #WIN It wasn’t a 25 yard headshot but it was beyond “arm’s length.”
Legal post-mortem: The District Attorney ruled that the shooting was Justified as a Defense of Another Individual.
SELF-DEFENSE ACT (EXCERPT)
Act 309 of 2006
780.972 Use of deadly force by individual not engaged in commission of crime; conditions.
Sec. 2.
(1) An individual who has not or is not engaged in the commission of a crime at the time he or she uses deadly force may use deadly force against another individual anywhere he or she has the legal right to be with no duty to retreat if either of the following applies:
(a) The individual honestly and reasonably believes that the use of deadly force is necessary to prevent the imminent death of or imminent great bodily harm to himself or herself or to another individual.
Note that some common taters to the video were outraged that charges would even be considered. In any use of deadly force against someone, a decision will have to be made about the legality of the use of force. The news story was published three weeks after the shooting and the decision had not yet been made, pending the completion of the POlice investigation. Anyone who shoots at someone else for any reason is going to have a period of sweating it out waiting for the decision about prosecution. Be ready for that.
The robber was arraigned for three charges including armed robbery. He could face up to life imprisonment because he’s a three-time loser.
I’ll do a more in-depth analysis of this incident on the Incidents and Walkbacks Tier of my Patreon page in a day or two.
tacticalprofessor 
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