Stairs
Dry-Fire · At Home
Verified clear, with nobody else in the house, or use an inert training gun. Walk your stairs with the gun at a compressed ready and the muzzle in a safe direction, with your free hand available for the rail. Go up five times and down five times. On stairs you cannot move quickly, you cannot see well, and you can fall.
Live-Fire · At the Range
Twenty rounds at 7 yards on the squares. Fire two rounds per string from compressed ready, shooting at a square above your eye line for half of the strings and below it for the other half.
Service Pistol
Follow your training on stairways. Practice the footwork without the urgency.
Concealed Carry
If your family sleeps upstairs, the stairs are the only way to them. Know them in the dark.
Carbine
A carbine on stairs is awkward. Keep the muzzle where it would be safe if you fell.
AUX (when ready): two hits on a high square and two on a low one in under five seconds.
Stairs take away your speed and your balance at the same time.
Your Daily Callout — By Archetype
You take stairs two at a time. With a gun in your hand, take one.
Work out what you can see from each step. It changes as you climb.
Know which rooms your family is in before you start up.
Count your stairs once. In the dark, the count is how you know where you are.
Layer: run it at night with a handheld light.
- Treat every firearm as if it is loaded — always, no matter what you think you know.
- Never let the muzzle cover anything you are not willing to destroy.
- Keep your finger off the trigger until your sights are on target and you have decided to fire.
- Be sure of your target — and everything beyond it.
Dry-fire: no ammunition in the room. Verify the firearm is clear — twice. Use a safe backstop. When you finish, say it out loud: “Dry fire is over.”
The Four Universal Safety Rules
Non-negotiable. Every drill, every rep, every time. This applies to live fire and dry fire.
- Treat every firearm as if it is loaded — always, no matter what you think you know.
- Never let the muzzle cover anything you are not willing to destroy.
- Keep your finger off the trigger until your sights are on target and you have decided to fire.
- Be sure of your target — and everything beyond it.