This paper revisits defocused speckle correlation as a tool for measuring the response in metal sheets during percussion laser drilling processing. For the processing the 4th harmonic Nd:YAG wavelength (266 nm) was used in pulsed mode. It is shown that the method provides a cost efficient and robust alternative to speckle interferometry for the study of the small deformations that appear during laser processing. The accuracy was shown to be in the order of a few tens of μrads for the tilt component being measured which translates to a few nm in deflection when being spatially integrated. In the measurements deflections up to 50 nm was detected on the backside of silver and a copper sheet, respectively.