How do I start shooting faster?

[rojocorsa]

Some of you might have seen this, since I posted on a different place on the Internet.

I've competed in my first ever USPSA shoot last Sunday at one club (Richmond Hotshots in Richmond, CA (SF Bay Area)), and I did another USPSA match at Chabot (Castro Valley, CA).
I am new to the game, but I am not exactly new to shooting. Unlike the first match, today I didn't have any small errors etc.

I am having solid hits, but I am too slow when shooting the metric targets. I know that in the match I did today, I got most if not all of the points on a stage, but my times made me really uncompetitive.

I am sure some of it is probably due to the fact that I've only shot 2 entire matches thus far. I feel confident with my pistol basics, except for the speed factor....so:

Any tips on how to approach this correctly in order to shoot faster?

*I am shooting production with a stock M-9.

Thank you.

[GJM]

The advice part is easy -- learn to shoot A's faster. The doing it part, is what is difficult. Dry fire a lot, live fire a lot, get instruction, go to matches.

As a Production shooter, I don't think sacrificing accuracy is a good strategy, except perhaps in practice when building speed. Penalties and C/D hits are ruinous in Production.

[Sal Picante]

*I am shooting production with a stock M-9.
Thank you.


I'm only chiming in because you're the only other retard with a Beretta.

My advice? Buy this book (http://www.amazon.com/Champion-Shooting-Proven-Process-Success/dp/1480271632/ref=sr_1_5?ie=UTF8&qid=1456849158&sr=8-5&keywords=ben+stoeger), read it, start doing that stuff:

Got video?
What is slow?
What do you consider fast?

[rojocorsa]

I placed 23/32 in the last match I did.

Here are my results, (I am still learning how to decipher all of these)


6235


I will try to get some video of my very first match up later.

[nwhpfan]

I'm only chiming in because you're the only other retard with a Beretta.

My advice? Buy this book (http://www.amazon.com/Champion-Shooting-Proven-Process-Success/dp/1480271632/ref=sr_1_5?ie=UTF8&qid=1456849158&sr=8-5&keywords=ben+stoeger), read it, start doing that stuff:

Got video?
What is slow?
What do you consider fast?

Yep, and get this one too. http://www.amazon.com/Practical-Shooting-Fundamentals-Brian-Enos/dp/0962692506/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1456884730&sr=8-1&keywords=brian+enos

I shot a few matches and was probably just like you. I shot about 99% of the points and was about %40 slower than everyone else.

I bought the books above and went to work. Within just few months of Dry Firing most nights the week I was knocking on the door of Master Class. Then I took a class from Steve Anderson (http://www.andersonshooting.com/).

But I'll give you a hint on going fast.

First, go as accurate as you can as quickly as you can. Then go as fast as you can for fast sake to see how fast you can actually go. Don't even worry about hits. In fact, don't even use a target.

Take that high accuracy standard and that high speed standard and force the accuracy into the speed. Or the speed into the accuracy. This is where you will "learn" what you need to do to do it.

[rojocorsa]

Would it sound dumb to you guys if I said I need to get a feel for my gun as far as rapid fire goes? I've never actually fired this pistol rapidly because that gets me kicked out of the ranges where I usually shoot....and I've only done two competitions thus far and up until now, speed wasn't a priority as much as being safe with the firearm was, or learning the game correctly. It was only after this last match in which I had no technical errors or fumbles (or procedurals, etc) that I realized---ok, I am ready to start acquiring speed. I think what I will do is skip the next match and only go to the practice session. That way I can get some much needed trigger time.

[olstyn]

Would it sound dumb to you guys if I said I need to get a feel for my gun as far as rapid fire goes?

Not even a little bit. Slow fire is not the same thing at all, and seeing your sights quickly and pulling the trigger quickly without losing (too much) accuracy is something that has to be learned. I've been shooting USPSA for several years and I'm still learning it, to be honest. Your scores look fine for a beginner, especially given that in 3/4 of your stages, the worst you did, accuracy-wise, was either 2 C hits or a single D hit. 69/80 points in the last one isn't even that bad, really, although it looks like you exchanged accuracy for speed on that one a bit, at least judging by the times vs the total points on the other stages.

Probably the quickest area of improvement for beginners who are slow but accurate is to learn to be efficient with your movement, and to RUN. If you think about it, on a field course, you spend more time moving than shooting, so what you need to do is figure out the most efficient (least number of steps) path through the course, and make sure you're moving fast when you move. Also, in Production, planning your reloads is huge. If you can set yourself up to never have to do a flat-footed reload, you'll save a ton of time. (Reloads while running cost you little to no time vs reloads while standing still - efficiency, just like finding the shortest path.)

All that said, unless you've got a time or ammo constraint that's preventing you from doing both, I'd say skipping a match for a practice session is a mistake. Especially at the beginning, there's a lot you can learn by watching more experienced competitors shoot. Most of the time, in my experience, anyway, they'll be happy to give you advice on how you can improve and/or what a good stage plan is, so talk to them! Of course, if you're limited on time or ammo, then you have to make the call on whether the practice session or the match is more valuable to you, but if possible, I'd do both.

Good luck, and keep asking questions!

[GJM]

It really boils down to the same thing as for everyone else -- figuring out how to press the trigger faster, without disturbing the sights such that it spoils your shot.

[Luke]

It really boils down to the same thing as for everyone else -- figuring out how to press the trigger faster, without disturbing the sights such that it spoils your shot.

I know you are far more experienced and a far better shot than I, but wouldn't you say theres more to it than that?

i know you have to do that to go fast, but you also have to do other things a lot quicker, like get back on target, back on sights..ect. I thought no it's totally possible to be able to move the trigger very fast with no sight movement and still shoot slow. Isn't the trigger press just one part of the equation when talking about shooting fast?


EDIT: so I re read your post, maybe all of what I'm talking about falls under the "figure out how to pull the trigger fast without moving the sights..?"

[HopetonBrown]

Become a member at Richmond and they have practice every Saturday.

[wtturn]

Dry fire with a timer is the best way.

Get Ben's dryfire book ASAP.

[Lomshek]

Once you find a range that will allow it doing things like the Bill Drill, FAST, Presidente and other "speed" drills with a timer setting a progressively faster par time will help immensely.

Do a mix of shooting a par time you can just barely beat while seeing the sights for each shot and separately set a par time that is far beyond your ability (4 seconds instead of 6 for instance) and try to beat it even if that means not seeing the sights every time. Once in a while burn it down firing as fast as you can pull the trigger without losing control of the gun (.2 or .15 splits for instance) for a 5 or 6 shot "burst". Brace yourself for maximum recoil control and really crank down the grip when doing that.

Do everything else suggested by others too. I just hadn't seen anyone suggest the burn it down or fast par time strategy yet.

[rojocorsa]

"Crank down the grip"


Well how hard should one be gripping a pistol?

I always assumed you wanted a firm grip, but nothing too thight or nothing where your knuckles turn white.

[scw2]

"Crank down the grip"


Well how hard should one be gripping a pistol?

I always assumed you wanted a firm grip, but nothing too thight or nothing where your knuckles turn white.

I've been told to grip as hard as I can. If the front sights start shaking then ease off a bit until they stop.

[Luke]

I think firmness should be determined by how well your gun comes BACK DOWN from recoil. I can roll .13-.17 splits into the A at 7 yards but when reviewing my video my gun doesn't stay flat, on a good day it just comes back down to where I need it. A strong grip is good, and gun that comes back on target every time is gooder.

[rojocorsa]

I think firmness should be determined by how well your gun comes BACK DOWN from recoil. I can roll .13-.17 splits into the A at 7 yards but when reviewing my video my gun doesn't stay flat, on a good day it just comes back down to where I need it. A strong grip is good, and gun that comes back on target every time is gooder.


I will pay attention to this next time I shoot and notice how the guns come back down.

[HopetonBrown]

Ben Stoeger says skin comes off his dominant hand from his support hand gripping so hard.

[Sal Picante]

I always assumed you wanted a firm grip, but nothing too thight or nothing where your knuckles turn white.


Tastes great, less filling... You've found one of the holy-wars of pistol shooting.

All kidding aside, that sounds pretty good what you described there.

[rojocorsa]

Tastes great, less filling... You've found one of the holy-wars of pistol shooting.

All kidding aside, that sounds pretty good what you described there.

Maybe I could be wrong (since I am self-taught more or less) but I tend to keep the entire body (arms, core, etc) firm but relaxed since when one shoots rifles they want to stay relaxed.

I think what I really need is a timer at this point, so I can start measuring things objectively.

[ranger]

I can shoot really fast in USPSA and IDPA - the problem is hitting the target. Shooting fast and getting solid hits is a lot harder that it looks in TV!

[TCinVA]

The only way to get faster is to go faster.

Grip the gun hard. All the top shooters have very strong grips which they apply to the guns they are shooting. They may not be using 100% of their grip strength, but even if they are only using 80% it's likely a lot more force than you are currently generating with 100% of your grip strength. So grip the gun hard.

The right grip helps the gun track predictably. In other words, the front sight lifts as the slide cycles and drops right back to where it was when you fired the last shot if your grip is good. If this isn't happening (and for many it isn't) your grip mechanics need work.

A significant level of grip strength applied to the grip allows you to aggressively work the trigger...so the sights aren't disrupted as you work through the trigger pull at speed.

There's also a mental aspect to this. You have to learn to "see" what you need to see at speed. In other words, in the fractions of a second that the sights are in motion to recognize when you have the sight picture you need to make the shot called for and then to execute a good enough trigger press to make that shot. Your brain's bandwidth for processing the visual and tactile information coming at you increases as you get more experience doing it.

In Aim Fast Hit Fast, one of the exercises Todd had his students do was a few mag dumps. The goal was to obtain a solid grip and then to fire the pistol literally as fast as they could make the gun work while pointed at the berm. The goal was to give the student an understanding of how fast they could make the gun go bang, and to have them focus visually on something on the gun...like trying to see the empty cases eject from the pistol. If you can make the gun work with sub .20 splits and see the shells streaming out of the side of the pistol, you can shoot it with reasonable accuracy at that speed, too. All you have to do is watch the sights.

To use Todd's favorite car analogy, driving smooth at 35 miles per hour does not prepare you to take a corner at 135 miles per hour. At some point to get faster you have to go faster. You have to familiarize your brain and body with the demands of operating at a higher level. If you ever watch Top Gear's episodes where they put a host in a Formula 1 car, they talked about their inability to "think" as fast as the car goes. They were, in other words, unaccustomed to making decisions and inputs at the speed necessary to pilot the vehicle at the speeds it was capable of going. They lacked confidence on when to make inputs and how much input to make.

Same thing applies to the gun. You have to learn to aim fast, work the trigger fast, recover fast, and repeat the cycle. A couple of weeks ago at ESS I used the NRA bullseye target at 10 yards to work on this. I worked on my grip and my trigger pull at speed and by the end of the session I was firing the gun at just a little bit under my absolute physical limit (meaning the physical limitation of how fast I can make the gun go bang doing nothing but moving my trigger finger as fast as possible) while keeping all the shots within the black. My splits ranged from .15-.17 which won't set records but is plenty damn fast by any measure...and those shots were aimed. They were aimed because I had learned how to see a "good enough" sight picture, to trust it, and to make a "good enough" trigger pull to keep those shots in the black.

[Sal Picante]

Maybe I could be wrong (since I am self-taught more or less) but I tend to keep the entire body (arms, core, etc) firm but relaxed since when one shoots rifles they want to stay relaxed.

I think what I really need is a timer at this point, so I can start measuring things objectively.


Again, I think that sounds about right... The hands grip, the rest, well, they along for the ride...

[gtmtnbiker98]

The only way to get faster is to go faster.

Grip the gun hard. All the top shooters have very strong grips which they apply to the guns they are shooting. They may not be using 100% of their grip strength, but even if they are only using 80% it's likely a lot more force than you are currently generating with 100% of your grip strength. So grip the gun hard.

The right grip helps the gun track predictably. In other words, the front sight lifts as the slide cycles and drops right back to where it was when you fired the last shot if your grip is good. If this isn't happening (and for many it isn't) your grip mechanics need work.

A significant level of grip strength applied to the grip allows you to aggressively work the trigger...so the sights aren't disrupted as you work through the trigger pull at speed.

There's also a mental aspect to this. You have to learn to "see" what you need to see at speed. In other words, in the fractions of a second that the sights are in motion to recognize when you have the sight picture you need to make the shot called for and then to execute a good enough trigger press to make that shot. Your brain's bandwidth for processing the visual and tactile information coming at you increases as you get more experience doing it.

In Aim Fast Hit Fast, one of the exercises Todd had his students do was a few mag dumps. The goal was to obtain a solid grip and then to fire the pistol literally as fast as they could make the gun work while pointed at the berm. The goal was to give the student an understanding of how fast they could make the gun go bang, and to have them focus visually on something on the gun...like trying to see the empty cases eject from the pistol. If you can make the gun work with sub .20 splits and see the shells streaming out of the side of the pistol, you can shoot it with reasonable accuracy at that speed, too. All you have to do is watch the sights.

To use Todd's favorite car analogy, driving smooth at 35 miles per hour does not prepare you to take a corner at 135 miles per hour. At some point to get faster you have to go faster. You have to familiarize your brain and body with the demands of operating at a higher level. If you ever watch Top Gear's episodes where they put a host in a Formula 1 car, they talked about their inability to "think" as fast as the car goes. They were, in other words, unaccustomed to making decisions and inputs at the speed necessary to pilot the vehicle at the speeds it was capable of going. They lacked confidence on when to make inputs and how much input to make.

Same thing applies to the gun. You have to learn to aim fast, work the trigger fast, recover fast, and repeat the cycle. A couple of weeks ago at ESS I used the NRA bullseye target at 10 yards to work on this. I worked on my grip and my trigger pull at speed and by the end of the session I was firing the gun at just a little bit under my absolute physical limit (meaning the physical limitation of how fast I can make the gun go bang doing nothing but moving my trigger finger as fast as possible) while keeping all the shots within the black. My splits ranged from .15-.17 which won't set records but is plenty damn fast by any measure...and those shots were aimed. They were aimed because I had learned how to see a "good enough" sight picture, to trust it, and to make a "good enough" trigger pull to keep those shots in the black.This is as good as it gets.

[GJM]

The only way to get faster is to go faster.

Grip the gun hard. All the top shooters have very strong grips which they apply to the guns they are shooting. They may not be using 100% of their grip strength, but even if they are only using 80% it's likely a lot more force than you are currently generating with 100% of your grip strength. So grip the gun hard.

The right grip helps the gun track predictably. In other words, the front sight lifts as the slide cycles and drops right back to where it was when you fired the last shot if your grip is good. If this isn't happening (and for many it isn't) your grip mechanics need work.

A significant level of grip strength applied to the grip allows you to aggressively work the trigger...so the sights aren't disrupted as you work through the trigger pull at speed.

There's also a mental aspect to this. You have to learn to "see" what you need to see at speed. In other words, in the fractions of a second that the sights are in motion to recognize when you have the sight picture you need to make the shot called for and then to execute a good enough trigger press to make that shot. Your brain's bandwidth for processing the visual and tactile information coming at you increases as you get more experience doing it.

In Aim Fast Hit Fast, one of the exercises Todd had his students do was a few mag dumps. The goal was to obtain a solid grip and then to fire the pistol literally as fast as they could make the gun work while pointed at the berm. The goal was to give the student an understanding of how fast they could make the gun go bang, and to have them focus visually on something on the gun...like trying to see the empty cases eject from the pistol. If you can make the gun work with sub .20 splits and see the shells streaming out of the side of the pistol, you can shoot it with reasonable accuracy at that speed, too. All you have to do is watch the sights.

To use Todd's favorite car analogy, driving smooth at 35 miles per hour does not prepare you to take a corner at 135 miles per hour. At some point to get faster you have to go faster. You have to familiarize your brain and body with the demands of operating at a higher level. If you ever watch Top Gear's episodes where they put a host in a Formula 1 car, they talked about their inability to "think" as fast as the car goes. They were, in other words, unaccustomed to making decisions and inputs at the speed necessary to pilot the vehicle at the speeds it was capable of going. They lacked confidence on when to make inputs and how much input to make.

Same thing applies to the gun. You have to learn to aim fast, work the trigger fast, recover fast, and repeat the cycle. A couple of weeks ago at ESS I used the NRA bullseye target at 10 yards to work on this. I worked on my grip and my trigger pull at speed and by the end of the session I was firing the gun at just a little bit under my absolute physical limit (meaning the physical limitation of how fast I can make the gun go bang doing nothing but moving my trigger finger as fast as possible) while keeping all the shots within the black. My splits ranged from .15-.17 which won't set records but is plenty damn fast by any measure...and those shots were aimed. They were aimed because I had learned how to see a "good enough" sight picture, to trust it, and to make a "good enough" trigger pull to keep those shots in the black.

I don't know of a single shooter in the world that can, on demand, shoot .15-17 splits to the black of a NRA B8 at 10 yards. I have trained with Leatham, Vogel, Bragg, and Rogers, and not a single one of them was even close to that.

[TCinVA]

I don't know of a single shooter in the world that can, on demand, shoot .15-17 splits to the black of a NRA B8 at 10 yards. I have trained with Leatham, Vogel, Bragg, and Rogers, and not a single one of them was even close to that.

Given the same set of circumstances, namely being set up on the target pushing speed with the same 9mm 1911 after having gone through about 1/2 a case of ammo previously working just on that one thing I'm reasonably certain they could easily best me. I don't know if any of them practice the same thing in the same way, but if they do I'm certain they probably have done considerably better lots of times.

The goal of the exercise was to work on pushing my upper limit and my ability to control the gun under recoil while still trying to hold to a somewhat reasonable standard of accuracy. That and to do just about anything to take my mind off of the visit with Todd that had just transpired. The end of the session was not "on demand" level performance. It was "just fired 400 rounds trying the same thing" level performance in sort of a walkback fashion (started at 5 yards, ended at 10) over the hour's worth of range session. That's why I said "by the end of the session" in the previous post. I wasn't doing that on the first mag.

I was pushing to see how fast I could go while maintaining reasonable accuracy. I went outside the black lots of times working up to that point...but that's how you get faster. You push. And that's just one aspect of improving overall speed. There are much bigger gains to be had on draw speed, mag changes, and target transitions than just shot to shot splits. Still, if you want to check your grip that's one of the best ways I've found of doing it. If your grip is right the front sight goes right back to the place it left so you can trust it's there and work the trigger faster. I've found that doing this ups my "comfortable" speed, the speed at which I know I can get an accurate hit. Before I started doing the things Todd recommended above an aimed accurate followup shot at .25 seconds was impossible for me to grasp. Now I'm quite comfortable working at that pace on a reasonable target size.

I know for a measured fact that I don't have that kind of .15-17 control when my hands are nearly numb, like the conditions I was in Saturday.

Since TGO was mentioned:


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YLRxohRdIys

He's using a similar sort of concept on another really good version of the same thing...finding out how many shots he can deliver in a specified period of time. I guarantee if I set him up for an hour he'd easily be able to beat my heavily practiced best because by the looks of things he's already doing that on some of his runs in the video. That final 10 round string he fired was nice and tight and he had time left over in the 3 seconds he was using to fire those 10 rounds.

[rojocorsa]

Thank you for your input TCinVA.

Funny that rapid firing into the berm is mentioned because I was thinking of "sacrificing" a few rounds doing just that next time I have the chance to. I think it's important for me to get a feel for it.

[GJM]

This post by TLG is a gold mine of info on splits, draws and reloads:


9-Aug-13
NRA Range, 7hr (split over three separate practice sessions)
~1,400 rounds

GOALS: solidify grip, work on tracking & marksmanship, verify -017 working properly after return from SACS


I started with 5-shot draws to a 3x5 at 10yd followed by 5-shot draws to the 8" at the same distance. I paused before pressing out on each draw to verify or correct my grip.
Shot DotTor at 7yd and scored a miserable 44. I identified two specific problems. First, somewhere along the way I started putting a lot more finger through the trigger guard than I used to. It was pulling the gun slightly to the left (probably exacerbating the grip issue I discovered previously). Second, I was having a very difficult time getting clear focus on the front sight dot (which is what I use as an aiming point). The orange paint on my front sight had dulled -- probably just muzzle debris accumulation. On a lark, based on things Gabe has said in the forum and backchannel to me previously, I decided to take another stab at running the front sight black instead of orange. It seemed to work pretty well. While I didn't repeat DotTor, I did a bunch of moderate speed drills on 2" circles at 7yd and got much more consistent hits than my slowfire DotTor attempts.
A big chunk of the day was spent shooting 2-, 3-, and 5-shot drills with short loaded magazines to verify consistent lockback. In particular I did a lot of three mag drills (2R2R2, for instance) to make sure I was reacquiring my grip properly after the reload as well as on the draw. I burned through a ton of ammo doing this. Every time I'd have a failure to lock back I'd slow down and be more conscious about acquiring my grip, speeding up again gradually.
Some of the high round count "burst drill" stuff happened after I blacked out my front sight and I didn't see or feel any drop in speed or confidence with my hits at speed.
As the day came to an end I had 300rd left and thought, naturally, that I should shoot 50 FASTs. Most interesting to me was how the numbers compared to the first time I did 50 FAST with this gun and the last 50 FAST runs I did with other guns:


ExpertAdvancedIntermediateAvg% 3x5 hits% 8” hitsDraw3x5 splitR/L8” splits
SACS/Warren today341335.0696%99.50%1.600.422.270.20
SACS/Warren 09/12172855.6188%97.00%1.540.432.380.21
Glock 17251785.1283%96.50%1.430.401.810.20
HK45301275.5485%96.50%1.570.522.030.23

(the HK45 also had one Beginner score, a 10.07!)

The biggest difference is that my scores today were incredibly consistent. My draw was slower than I'd like because I was being careful about my grip... there's a solid quarter second to be recovered there. My accuracy -- especially to the head box -- was far better than it's ever been. I didn't have any spectacular runs; my best was just a 4.41 clean. But with the exception of a few fumbled reloads nothing really bad happened, either. My only sub-2 reload was immediately after missing the followup head shot and immediately before missing the first body shot... because I was all about getting the reload done quickly and didn't fire either bookend shot well.

Here are the raw numbers from today:

HeadBodyDrawSplitReloadSplitSplitSplit
4.77001.570.392.210.210.210.18
4.78001.660.462.100.190.190.18
4.72001.610.382.140.180.200.21
4.89001.540.362.450.180.190.17
7.39101.710.432.680.190.190.19
5.12001.610.412.440.210.230.22
4.60001.620.372.070.190.180.17
4.91001.620.372.360.200.180.18
4.87001.630.382.280.190.190.20
5.46001.750.472.410.200.190.44
5.35001.670.782.290.200.200.21
4.81001.680.392.190.190.180.18
4.90001.680.472.180.190.190.19
5.39001.590.432.830.190.180.17
4.88001.640.382.270.200.190.20
4.85001.650.432.220.190.180.18
4.79001.580.352.330.180.170.18
4.43001.490.362.040.190.170.18
6.76101.530.422.260.190.180.18
4.97001.720.442.240.190.200.18
4.95001.470.402.510.200.190.18
4.83001.650.422.130.210.210.21
4.94001.560.432.400.190.180.18
5.02001.650.452.330.190.200.20
4.96001.600.432.350.210.190.18
4.55001.540.382.060.210.180.18
4.78001.510.372.260.220.220.20
5.06001.650.462.340.220.190.20
5.24001.570.542.590.190.170.18
5.01001.640.402.360.210.200.20
4.81001.530.412.270.200.200.20
4.45001.440.432.040.180.180.18
4.54001.540.342.110.190.180.18
7.30111.460.351.980.180.170.16
4.69001.600.392.100.190.200.21
5.29001.850.402.470.200.190.18
4.73001.510.422.240.200.180.18
4.41001.520.352.010.180.180.17
7.45101.590.532.330.480.260.26
5.37001.620.432.770.190.190.17
4.52001.610.372.010.170.190.17
4.72001.610.332.150.220.210.20
4.97001.680.372.350.200.180.19
4.78001.620.372.180.200.210.20
5.04001.620.442.360.210.200.21
4.83001.670.392.190.200.190.19
4.69001.590.382.160.190.180.19
5.08001.650.522.330.190.200.19
4.55001.510.372.070.210.200.19
4.69001.630.432.100.180.180.17

[GRV]

TC,

When you first got around to developing a decent grip, i.e. it looked acceptable according to modern philosophy, did you find that your front sight started to "drops right back to where it was when you fired the last shot"? If not, what did it take to get you to that point?

[TCinVA]

TC,

When you first got around to developing a decent grip, i.e. it looked acceptable according to modern philosophy, did you find that your front sight started to "drops right back to where it was when you fired the last shot"? If not, what did it take to get you to that point?

It's more like a scale of progression.

I got away with suboptimal grip technique for a long time and I still sometimes revert to that when on the clock. My grip "looked" right and it wasn't until I took AFHF that I realized there was a whole bunch of subtlety I was missing on exactly what we're doing with the hands while they are on the gun. Establishing the master grip I want and the weak hand grip that I want at speed every single time is not automatic. Each different pistol also requires a slightly different setup to get the best results, so a bit of time has been employed experimenting with different hand placement and levels of applying force to the grips of different guns. Then as I mentioned to you in PA I realized I wasn't really gripping the gun with my two last fingers and getting them involved changes some things, too.

All of that being said, when I get it right there is a marked difference in the way the front sight behaves. When it's all absolutely dead on the sight drops right back within the acceptable accuracy range on the vast majority of targets. The sight picture is good enough to fire another round at a 2" circle at 7 yards with every expectation of easily hitting it. Getting the trigger pull right without anticipating the shot is actually what usually buggers me up when I get the grip right.

The last time I had the chance to shoot with Todd we shared the lane and spent most of the time working on variations of the 3-2-1 drill, (3 shots to 3x5, 2 shots to 2" circle, 1 shot to 1" square using this target (http://pistol-training.com/drills/1-2-r-3), mixing up the order of the targets. We did it as sort of a walkback...shoot the drill clean and then you push it out a yard. We started at 3 and worked it to 10 yards. When I took the time to get the grip right, the multi-shot drills usually showed vertical dispersion primarily due to errors in pressing the trigger too early or anticipating recoil and pushing the shot low. Horizontal dispersion was almost always attributable to not taking the time to establish a proper grip, which allows the front sight to come back down unpredictably. The magnitude of the grip error was evident in how far off the sights were. Often it was just a little bit wrong which caused the sight to come back down into the notch but too far to the left or right...which you could get away with on an 8" circle (especially at close range) but on those tiny targets sticks out like a sore thumb. When I got the grip right the sight picture I had for the first shot in a multi-shot string came back after the slide finished cycling.

When I shoot, it's almost always on the 3-2-1 target or the press six target (http://pistol-training.com/drills/press-six) even though I don't really use those drills. I find the tiny targets are good for highlighting errors and reducing my overall margin of error. When I miss...and I miss FREQUENTLY...it's usually not by much. An inch or two, but that inch or two looks massive on the target when it's hanging out there in space mocking you. This makes something like the black of an NRA bullseye target look like the size of a barn door by comparison so that seems like an "easy" target for me most of the time at closer range. In the same session I posted pics of the target I used for "The Test":


http://youtu.be/zE9TtOwKA4I

...except I did it at 35 yards in the same 10 seconds from a ready gun. 10 rounds in 10 seconds at 35 while trying to keep them in the black at a bare minimum is challenging and I couldn't quite pull it off. At 35 the focus on the sights and the sight tracking you need to shoot it clean is about the same, at least for me, as what you'd need to do to reliably put rounds inside the 2" circle at 10-15 yards. 3.5 times the distance of the original drill wasn't really all that bad because, crucially, I started from a ready position. Meaning I had already established my grip on the gun, so the sights came back on target nicely so all I really had to do was get the first sight picture, maintain my grip, and work the trigger properly. Obviously as you push the distance out that far the cone of uncertainty on the sight gets bigger but it was still good enough to keep most of the shots in the black despite a little horizontal dispersion when trying to shoot what for that distance is "at speed". The two that were high are because I got stupid and looked at the target rather than focusing on the sights toward the end of the string of fire allowing them to drift high.

Again, that wasn't "on demand" performance. That was after having spent half a case of ammo working on sight tracking and crucially the grip necessary to make the sights realign on the previous point of aim.

So long story short, I'm not "at that point" yet, at least not all the time. I tend to struggle:

1. Establishing the master grip I want at speed
2. Establishing the weak hand grip I want at speed
3. Getting the sights aligned well enough for the intended target
4. Not anticipating

When I get 1, 2, and 3 right it's great...the sight comes back to point of aim nicely from shot to shot. I can go "fast" that way because the green light of the sights is right there and all I usually need to do is work the trigger properly.

When I just get 1 and 2 right, I get a nice tight group of shots that are off by however much my sights are off.

When I fuck all 4 of them up it's a freakshow. Freakshow happens a lot more than it should.

Crucially, though, by working on all of this stuff the pace of my "comfort zone" is much faster than it used to be.

[Doublestack45]

Just received this summers schedule of matches for a nearby club in NH that has me pumped for the warmer weather. Watching a cell video that CSW took of me last fall at our final match of the season makes me painfully aware of the work I need to do before I can go faster. The concepts of "seeing what you need to see" and "following through" are where my wheels fall off on steel stages like this, resulting in dropped shots.

Awkward footwork, stuck in the mud reloads, botched Range Officer commands, it's all here.....


https://vimeo.com/158168056






Been running these low-key club shoots with my carry gear; stock gen4 19 with Proctor sights.

[rojocorsa]

I just wanted to add, an experienced shooting pointed out to me today that while taking several shots at the same target, I was looking over the sights to check the previous hits which ended up causing me to sink the rest of the shots lower and off target.

He told me I really need to only focus on the front sight and to take shots once the sight picture is correct.

I think that me stopping to look for hits on an IPSC classic could be one of the reasons my pace was slower back when I first posted this thread.

[Slavex]

I may have missed it above, the thing about gripping the gun is that it is so your hands and the gun move together. you don't want the gun twisting out of the support hand, you want it be one big solid mass. The harder you grip without causing the gun to shake, or fatiguing your hands, the better. You also need to be able to isolate your trigger finger while gripping that hard, and for some people that is the most difficult part. Their trigger finger becomes stiffer and less manageable as they increase their grip. That takes training, like the rest of it does. Todd's mag dump drills really help show this to you. Although up here, 10 round mag dumps are nowhere near as effective as 15-20 round mag dumps in free states.

[rojocorsa]

Mag dump drills?

[Slavex]

mag dumps, or AMRAP drills. no target, just a berm (if you can) and it's all about seeing how fast you work the trigger to learn about the dynamics of the muzzle rise and recoil control, sight tracking etc. Too many are a waste of ammo, but sometimes you just need to hammer out a few mags without worrying about anything other than speed (and safety obviously). Then once you get used to what happens at speed you can start working on seeing what is actually happening. Todd explained it much much better

[JTPHD]

I've been testing out the P320 Small grip frame for a couple months in the hope that it would improve my split times. While I am able to bust out some .17 and .18 splits with the Small Frame (avg. .19 & .20 with Medium), I noticed that I'm more prone to trigger freeze when shooting drills like the Bill Drill, etc. I'm not sure if it is because I am trying to focus too much on working the trigger, or if having my hand closed more around the smaller circumference creates more tension? Anyways, just curious if any of you all have had similar experiences.

[Luke]

When I try to shoot fast I get trigger freeze. If I just shoot (like Bill drill) .14's are easy and I've seen .12's.

[JTPHD]

When I try to shoot fast I get trigger freeze. If I just shoot (like Bill drill) .14's are easy and I've seen .12's.

Cool. Looks like I just need to stop trying to control and let it happen...already sounding like Enos! LOL Thanks, Luke

[Luke]

Focus on seeing faster, not shooting faster.








Now if I could just take my own advice and use it if be doin alright lol.

[45dotACP]

Focus on seeing faster, not shooting faster.








Now if I could just take my own advice and use it if be doin alright lol.

This advice is important...I like shooting steel for that sort of stuff tbh...although a steel match is usually one or two shots at a target at most so it's really a transitions game above all else

....but perhaps if you set up a silhouette or a lollipop and work on getting hits on it as fast as you can?

Shooting good hits at speed has been my main problem as well...mostly on account of me just getting a really coarse sight picture and slapping the trigger twice...which if you're trying to get hits on cardboard is fine, but if you're trying to hit an A zone, there's a little more refinement to it than that and I'm never patient enough to get that, even though the benefit of better hits probably outweighs the slight drawback of the speed of going full retard.

[rojocorsa]

It has been almost a year since I started this post. I just wanted to chime in that I'm somehow naturally faster right now than when I originally posted this. I guess that's what happens when you just do the thing and try to pay attention.

[AGR416]

Do you have any video of you shooting?

The key to getting better times isn't faster splits, it's about shooting sooner.

That means to get in to a shooting position READY to shoot, and out of shooting positions efficiently - ie don't lose your momentum. You don't need to set up for a perfect shot.
Also, keep moving, don't stop unless you have to.

Shoot hard and easy exit/entry drills, get your gun up sooner. That will make your stage times better.

[rojocorsa]

Do you have any video of you shooting?

The key to getting better times isn't faster splits, it's about shooting sooner.

That means to get in to a shooting position READY to shoot, and out of shooting positions efficiently - ie don't lose your momentum. You don't need to set up for a perfect shot.
Also, keep moving, don't stop unless you have to.

Shoot hard and easy exit/entry drills, get your gun up sooner. That will make your stage times better.



I find that with practice and experience this is starting to come naturally.

[SsevenN]

TCinVA I just wanted to say that was an extremely valuable post to me and I appreciate your insight.

Also those are blazing splits, I can't even pull the trigger that fast let alone aim while doing so.