Creating objective reviews of handguns is harder than I thought it would be. I feel I’ve done my level best to standardize testing, but at some point, a sandbag accuracy test doesn’t tell the whole story of how a gun runs. The starkest example I can think of is the SD9VE I tested in late 2012. That gun could be made accurate off a bag, but start to speed up and group sizes got big quickly thanks to the craptastic trigger the gun ships with. I knew I needed a standard that covered a variety of shooting situations to convey a coherent review…
I turned to Karl Rehn, owner of KR Training, with a question. How could I evaluate the “shootability” of a pistol designed for everyday carry in a repeatable and scientific fashion? Ideally, the test should be easy to set up at nearly any range that allowed drawing, moving, and shooting, and didn’t need to be needlessly complex. After a flurry of emails back and forth, Karl sent the following together.
The Rehn Test
Set up: One IPSC target at 5 yards (left), one at 10 yards (right)
Scoring: IPSC “minor” scoring (A=5, B/C = 3, D=1).
- Drill 1:
- Round Count: 4 rounds
- Description: Draw, fire 4 on 5 yard target, two handed
- Purpose: Test draw and “hosing” split times
- Goal Time: 2.00 sec (1.25 draw, 0.25 splits x 3)
- Drill 2:
- Round Count: 4 rounds
- Description: Draw, fire 4 on 10 yard target, two handed
- Purpose: Test draw and “medium” split times
- Goal Time: 2.50 sec (1.5 draw, 0.33 split x 3)
- Drill 3:
- Round Count: 4 rounds
- Description:Step left, draw, fire 1 on 5 yard target, 1 on 10 yard target, 1 on 5 yard target, 1 on 10 yard target
- Purpose: Test moving draw, transitions
- Goal Time: 2.50 sec (1.25 draw, 0.45 transition 5-10, 0.35 transition 10-5, 0.45 transition 5-10)
- Drill 4:
- Round Count: 6 rounds
- Description: (insert mag with 2 rounds plus one in chamber). Draw, shoot 3 on 5 yard target. Reload & step right. Shoot 3 on 10 yard target.
- Purpose: Test reloads, additional tests of split times
- Goal Time: 4.75 sec (1.25 draw, 0.25 split, 0.25 split, 1.75 RL with step, 0.37 split, 0.37 split)
- Drill 5:
- Round Count: 6 rounds
- Description: (insert mag with 2 rounds plus one in chamber). Draw, shoot 3 on 10 yard target. Do one handed reload, rack slide by hooking sights on something, one handed, shoot 3 on 5 yard target.
- Purpose: Test one hand reload, additional tests of split times
- Goal Time: 8.00 sec (1.5 draw, 0.37 split, 0.37 split, 5 sec reload, 0.37 split, 0.37 split)
- Drill 6:
- Round Count: 4 rounds
- Description: Step, draw, shoot 2 in head of 5 yard target, 2 in head of 10 yard target
- Purpose: Test draw, shooting with more precision
- Goal Time: 3.50 sec (1.5 draw, 0.50 split, 0.75 transition, 0.75 split)
- Drill 7:
- Round Count: 2 rounds
- Description: Start with gun lying on ground, kneeling position. Pick up gun with non-dominant hand and fire 2 at 5 yard target
- Purpose: Test non dominant hand shooting
- Goal Time: 2.50 sec (2.0 draw, 0.50 split)
I haven’t gotten a chance to run this test yet, but on paper it appears to fulfill the needs of a low(ish) round count test that still presents enough variety to get a good feel for a handgun in EDC type shooting scenarios. My plan moving forward is to run this test for every handgun I review and post the times and scores for all runs. Additionally, the low round count and the speed with which I can burn through thirty rounds means that a day of testing can yield enough data points to present an objective “score” for that particular gun.
I anticipate that this test will also give us a great platform to test various upgrades like triggers, sights, and magazine releases as well as different holster types, positions, etc. I encourage you as a reader to set this test up at your home range and run it with your EDC gun of choice. Look forward to future reviews from me including the results of this test along with my usual thoughts and feelings about the guns that I test.
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