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LangdonTactical
07-01-2013, 03:03 PM
So I went to the range on Friday for some practice with a good friend of mine. I pulled a couple of drills off the forum that I have never done before to use in our practice session. Shot a P30 out of a Shaggy AIWB under a polo shirt for everything. The first drill I did was the 99 drill with a 3x5 card. I made all the times by a long shot, but ended up dropping 8 points on the drill, 91 shots in the 3x5 card. Great drill, but I was not using all the par time that I had to get my shots. Pretty much shot it as fast as I could trying to get really good hits.

The next drill we shot the modified LAPD SWAT qualification that was posted by Dr. Roberts. Learning my lesson from before, I made sure to slow down just a little and use the time. I was able to shoot it one point down, dropped one shot on the last moving run from 10 to 3 yards. A body shot just a little high on the way up to the head shot. 1587

There is no doubt that I could easily learn to shoot this clean every time. As I am sure many people do on a regular basis. So the thought crossed my mind, at what point in a shooters development should they switch over to some kind of time plus scoring for these type drills. Even further, is it practical for an agency to use a time plus scoring model for qualification of say a full time SWAT team?

I bring this up as I am personally a fan of time plus scoring. It comes from the idea or belief that in most cases you will shoot as fast as you possibly can in a gunfight, at what I like to call limit of human function, or more commonly WFO. I think that one has to be careful of shooting to a time standard of any kind and thinking that will be good enough to get the job done. I remember a conversation I had with a police officer one time. He basically told me he had nothing to worry about in a gunfight because he shot expert on the department’s qualification course of fire. His belief was that he would be fine in any gunfight because he could shoot expert.

Please don't get me wrong, I think there is a time and place for standard drills as well as minimum qualifications. I am not trying to pick a fight here either or picking on anyone’s personal current skill level. I am just posing the question, at what point should ones training or personal goals shift to going as fast as they can and not just meeting the time standard?

Cheers,

Ernest Langdon

ToddG
07-01-2013, 03:23 PM
I am just posing the question, at what point should ones training or personal goals shift to going as fast as they can and not just meeting the time standard?

Or why not try to hit harder, smaller targets in the same time limit? They're two different ways to approach maxing out a given drill.

PAR-scored exercises are about meeting a standard. It's a simple go/no-go measure. If you reach the point where you can max out the test every time on demand, then (a) decrease the times, (b) increase the distances, and/or (c) find a more challenging test.

Time Plus, obviously, measures your specific performance without creating an artificial time limit. A lot of people think that's more "realistic," but I'm not sure that's right. Rogers Shooting School, for instance, is all PAR-based... but I don't know anyone who thinks it's too easy. The difference is that the PARs at Rogers are tough and some of them, at least, are meant to challenge even the best shooters. If you went down to Rogers and shot 125 cold every day, then it's safe to say that's not pushing you anymore.

One of the things I like about the 99 Drill is that it's more about consistency than maximizing 1-time performance. Are some of the times generous? Sure. But if you're not scoring 100% on those strings, it shows that you aren't exercising discipline to guarantee your hits when you need them. Put another way, it's not about how fast you can usually get 3 hits on a 3x5... it's about how consistently you can get those hits within a time limit. If you're scoring 100% consistently on one or more of the strings, I'd definitely say it's time to chip away at the PAR.

There is a time and place for each type of drill just like there's a place for no-speed slow fire work.

LangdonTactical
07-01-2013, 03:39 PM
I think your spot on Todd and do not disagree. I think there is a place for all of the drills, and having par times to meet as a standard is very important for sure.

But there are still two question in my mind. One, is it realistic for a given "team" to use time plus scoring as a qualification? Very similar to what IDPA or your own KSTG does with the classifier. Two, when does a shooter or when is a shooter ready to really push for speed?

Just a discussion point and curious as to what others think.

Cheers,

Ernest

ToddG
07-01-2013, 03:48 PM
One, is it realistic for a given "team" to use time plus scoring as a qualification? Very similar to what IDPA or your own KSTG does with the classifier.

Sure. I'd wager the main reason most agencies use PAR & Points is because it's impossible to run 25 people through a qual simultaneously recording their times. Doing it one person at a time with a handheld shot timer would take forever.


Two, when does a shooter or when is a shooter ready to really push for speed?

My personal line in the sand has always been: When you can score 5 out of 5 on a 3x5 at 7yd on demand. While certainly not a magnificent display of world class bullseye accuracy, the 3x5 @ 7 seems to be a good indicator of whether someone has developed adequate marksmanship fundamentals.

GJM
07-01-2013, 04:35 PM
I think this thread gets at a lot of interesting questions, some of which I meant to raise after the 3x5 speed push DOW. For example:

1) How do people learn/improve? Is it better to only try things you are absolutely capable of, moving a tiny increment at a time, or to go balls to the wall.

2) Why do we miss -- because we are going too fast or because we mess up some aspect of grip, trigger, sights unrelated to pure speed? My sense is TLG thinks the reason we miss is because we are going too fast, and slowing down is generally the answer. Bill Rogers thinks a precision shot takes +/- 1.5 seconds, and that you have to slow down a LOT to guarantee a shot. Short of a precision shot, you will occasionally miss.

3) What is the trade off between speed and accuracy in defensive shooting? At opposite ends of the spectrum, consider a technician directing ONE powerful nuclear bomb versus a hiker spray bear spray in the air. Shooting a 9mm, holding a bunch of cartridges, does it make sense to slow down in an effort to make an exact hit, when making that exact hit may not end the fight, or does it make sense to shoot at the optimal intersection of speed/accuracy, where you get more chances of having multiple hits solve the problem.

For example, trying to go "slow/accurate" on the initial run, I averaged 2.71 for 2 to the 3x5 with a 85% hit rate. Going full on, I averaged 1.55 for 2 hits to the 3x5 with a 74% hit rate. Unless I am shooting one nuclear bomb, wouldn't the MUCH faster 74% hit rate be better in a fight.

4) Are par times more useful when you are responsible for a group of shooters versus improving your own skills? What do I really care about a par, other than for vanity, if I am in a process of continuous improvement?

5) How do we define consistency? Are we talking about the ability to shoot a task cold, on demand, or being able to repeat something like shoot a 3x5 10 times in a row? Based on how I learn, I absolutely lose interest in doing the same thing over and over. Is there any tactical relevance to repeating the same task over and over.

JV_
07-01-2013, 05:20 PM
Bill Rogers thinks a precision shot takes +/- 1.5 secondsFor what distances?
For what size targets?

I'm not sure you can have a blanket time for a precise shot without knowing a little more info.

GJM
07-01-2013, 05:44 PM
JV, I emailed Bill to get an exact answer, but in any event, it is orders of magnitude slower than a reactive/Rogers Range shot.

Mr_White
07-01-2013, 05:48 PM
I also prefer some kind of open-ended scoring, like time-plus or hit factor. I often have a very tough time conforming to fixed times (PARs) that have nothing to do with my ability (whether easier or harder than I can do.)

As far as what kind of scoring is best for training and practice for emergency situations in real life, despite the existence of many drills, standards, and tests that demand 100% accuracy with a PAR time, and those with time-plus scoring but with heavy penalties for shots outside the most desirable target zone, I find it highly interesting that the Rangemaster Core Handgun Skills Test uses Hit Factor (points/time) as its scoring method. It might be said that the designer of that test has more direct experience than most when it comes to producing civilian students who very successfully defend themselves from deadly criminal attack.

Like GJM, I think my sweet spot isn't necessarily where I am getting 100% hits to the most desirable target zone. But this also goes back to using your brain and paying attention to the situation at hand. There are times that no less than 100% hits to a small target are acceptable due to foreground or background issues. That's by no means all the time though.

I certainly wouldn't claim to put a number on it, but I feel like I get Rogers' point about precision shots/guaranteeing hits. I usually feel like I have to slow down a lot to truly 'guarantee' the hit.

LangdonTactical
07-02-2013, 12:28 PM
This is exactly where I was headed with this whole conversation.

Where time plus really shines is it rewards you from going as fast as you can while keeping in control of the outcome. Like both IDPA and KSTG scoring, speed is very important, but you cannot shoot fast enough to make up for poor hits either. Unlike USPSA, where you can shoot fast enough to make up for poor hits. I have seen it done and have been beaten at major matches because of that fact. (Coming in second to someone that has a few misses and a hit on a non-threat is hard to understand, but it happens)

That being said, one has to start somewhere and there has to be standards of performance that are considered acceptable.

I know that when I was very training hard to win competitions years ago, I knew how long it would take me to do any given task. Draw to a difficult shot, easy shot, movement, reloads of almost any type. I knew what my push times would be and what my safe times would be for almost any given task. Training was often geared toward improving those specific times while maintaining a very high level of accuracy. I knew all this because I used a timer for most of my training sessions. Not all of it, like TLG says, there is a time a place for slow fire with no time limit. But that was the bulk of my training focus.

I also like using the par time drills, such as the ones on Pistol-Training.com. They are a great gage, and can be modified to suit each person’s skill level. Most of them also really focus on accuracy at speed, which is what we are all striving for.

But I think as some point you have to run drills and focus on what the timer says. As ones skill level goes up, the little improvements in time are much harder to come by. For example, going from a 2 second draw to a 1.50 second draw comes much easier than going from a 1.25 second draw to a 1.15 draw.

For me it comes down to this. I want to train to move and shoot as fast as I possibly can, seeing what I need to see for any given shot. All while not having to make decisions about grip, stance, sights, trigger. I need to be thinking about what/who needs to be shot, where they can be shot, where I should be moving to, who else is in the area in front of or behind the intended target.

I think this comes from pushing speed in practice. Speed with accuracy as a gage = time plus.

So therefore I think this is the way to get the level of skill up for an individual or an elite team. Elite teams are very competitive, but if most of them can max or come close to maxing their qualification course of fire I think it puts a cap on how far and how hard they train. Time plus always leaves room for improvement and for someone to be on top.

Ernest Langdon

John Ralston
07-02-2013, 03:12 PM
My personal line in the sand has always been: When you can score 5 out of 5 on a 3x5 at 7yd on demand. While certainly not a magnificent display of world class bullseye accuracy, the 3x5 @ 7 seems to be a good indicator of whether someone has developed adequate marksmanship fundamentals.

With no time limit?

Mr_White
07-02-2013, 03:40 PM
USPSA, where you can shoot fast enough to make up for poor hits. I have seen it done and have been beaten at major matches because of that fact. (Coming in second to someone that has a few misses and a hit on a non-threat is hard to understand, but it happens)

...

Time plus always leaves room for improvement and for someone to be on top.

You have a lot more and higher level competitive experience than I do. So far, I have found that I cannot slack off one bit on accuracy in USPSA. Sometimes I don't do well because of a dumb plan that causes a slow time, but usually my failures seem directly related to bad shooting. I'm not very far into the USPSA journey though.

With you for sure on the open-ended nature of time-plus. PAR times can be useful sometimes too, but usually I dislike having an artificial limit on speed in the form of fixed times.

So with regard to time-plus scoring, how severe do you personally like the 'plus' part to be? IDPA, KSTG, GSSF (different target though), other? More or less punitive?

LangdonTactical
07-02-2013, 04:21 PM
So with regard to time-plus scoring, how severe do you personally like the 'plus' part to be? IDPA, KSTG, GSSF (different target though), other? More or less punitive?

That is a really good question and I am not sure I have a good answer? I have very little experience with the GSSF rules and scoring. But I have shot a bit of IDPA and a very little KSTG. I tend to like IDPA just a little more with the half second per point down, but I like KSTGs rules with misses and hits on non-threat targets. I am OK with the KSTG scoring up close, but as you add in distance it tends to force you to shoot slower than I think you really should. For example, I think KSTG is 1 second for each point down. So if you shot two C's on a target in 2 seconds at 20 yards, you would have been better off taking 4 seconds and shooting the two A's. If someone was shooting at you, I think the two C's in 2 seconds would be much better. As long as you follow up with a few more C's and A's and D's or whatever was required to get the job done (falling back on there is no such thing as shooting someone a little bit). Not saying that either one is right or wrong.

I don't know that there is a perfect answer here? Straight IPSC hit factor rewards speed a little too much in my book. I also know that the original IDPA scoring was .30 seconds per point down. But they decided that that was too heavy on speed and went to .50 seconds.

It also depends on the targets you may be using. I feel the IPSC target has a very large A zone on the body (too large), while the A zone in the head is very small. The KSTG target works quite well and is a good compromise. The PTC target is really nice as it give you all different size targets to shoot at as well as nice 3x5 head box and a nicely located 8" circle in the body (the IDPA targets body circle is a little low I think. If you using a target with smaller max scoring areas, you may need to adjust the time you lose for points down.

Again, I don't have the answer. I know that TLG and others struggled with this a great deal when working up the rules for KSTG.

Ernest

Mr_White
07-02-2013, 04:45 PM
...I have very little experience with the GSSF rules and scoring...

...I am OK with the KSTG scoring up close, but as you add in distance it tends to force you to shoot slower than I think you really should. For example, I think KSTG is 1 second for each point down. So if you shot two C's on a target in 2 seconds at 20 yards, you would have been better off taking 4 seconds and shooting the two A's. If someone was shooting at you, I think the two C's in 2 seconds would be much better. As long as you follow up with a few more C's and A's and D's or whatever was required to get the job done (falling back on there is no such thing as shooting someone a little bit). Not saying that either one is right or wrong.

...Straight IPSC hit factor rewards speed a little too much in my book...

Although the shape of the target is different, GSSF scoring is essentially more than twice as punitive as IDPA for shots outside an 8" circle. Accuracy is far more important than speed in GSSF, by a ton.

That's a great example you give with KSTG - I am not picking on KSTG - it's a good illustration of the dynamic that I certainly feel. It might cost a lot of time to get a little accuracy and a little accuracy loss might be quite reasonable, as in your hypothetical. The time may or may not be available to lose depending on the situation - just like the accuracy loss may or may not be acceptable depending on the situation.

I can see your point about hit factor in IPSC/USPSA rewarding speed too much if we are talking about Major caliber scoring. Shooting Minor, especially in a division that allows Major scoring, removes that dynamic right quick for me though. Or so I think. I am new enough to USPSA that I am a bonehead sometimes with the game mechanics.

GJM
07-02-2013, 07:32 PM
This is exactly where I was headed with this whole conversation.

Where time plus really shines is it rewards you from going as fast as you can while keeping in control of the outcome. Like both IDPA and KSTG scoring, speed is very important, but you cannot shoot fast enough to make up for poor hits either. Unlike USPSA, where you can shoot fast enough to make up for poor hits. I have seen it done and have been beaten at major matches because of that fact. (Coming in second to someone that has a few misses and a hit on a non-threat is hard to understand, but it happens)

That being said, one has to start somewhere and there has to be standards of performance that are considered acceptable.

I know that when I was very training hard to win competitions years ago, I knew how long it would take me to do any given task. Draw to a difficult shot, easy shot, movement, reloads of almost any type. I knew what my push times would be and what my safe times would be for almost any given task. Training was often geared toward improving those specific times while maintaining a very high level of accuracy. I knew all this because I used a timer for most of my training sessions. Not all of it, like TLG says, there is a time a place for slow fire with no time limit. But that was the bulk of my training focus.

I also like using the par time drills, such as the ones on Pistol-Training.com. They are a great gage, and can be modified to suit each person’s skill level. Most of them also really focus on accuracy at speed, which is what we are all striving for.

But I think as some point you have to run drills and focus on what the timer says. As ones skill level goes up, the little improvements in time are much harder to come by. For example, going from a 2 second draw to a 1.50 second draw comes much easier than going from a 1.25 second draw to a 1.15 draw.

For me it comes down to this. I want to train to move and shoot as fast as I possibly can, seeing what I need to see for any given shot. All while not having to make decisions about grip, stance, sights, trigger. I need to be thinking about what/who needs to be shot, where they can be shot, where I should be moving to, who else is in the area in front of or behind the intended target.

I think this comes from pushing speed in practice. Speed with accuracy as a gage = time plus.

So therefore I think this is the way to get the level of skill up for an individual or an elite team. Elite teams are very competitive, but if most of them can max or come close to maxing their qualification course of fire I think it puts a cap on how far and how hard they train. Time plus always leaves room for improvement and for someone to be on top.

Ernest Langdon

I use absolute times not for win/lose, but to motivate me and also show me what is possible. Origami, for example, is my prime bench mark, although he is a bit of a sandbagger by often posting his scores late in the week. Basically, I adjust my target times off of him by adding .25 for a 1-2 shot drill.

(Here is how I come up with that hit factor. Origami shoots appendix versus my OWB, so that gives him .15. He is also a junk carry SME so that is another .15. He uses a cheating gun, the 34, so that is worth .025. Finally, he uses special, slightly shorter Champion shirts that he buys online from Target, which is worth another .025. On the other side, I am 20 years older than him, making me smarter, so I deduct .10, making the total adjustment .25. Make sense?)

Mr_White
07-02-2013, 08:28 PM
I use absolute times not for win/lose, but to motivate me and also show me what is possible. Origami, for example, is my prime bench mark, although he is a bit of a sandbagger by often posting his scores late in the week. Basically, I adjust my target times off of him by adding .25 for a 1-2 shot drill.

(Here is how I come up with that hit factor. Origami shoots appendix versus my OWB, so that gives him .15. He is also a junk carry SME so that is another .15. He uses a cheating gun, the 34, so that is worth .025. Finally, he uses special, slightly shorter Champion shirts that he buys online from Target, which is worth another .025. On the other side, I am 20 years older than him, making me smarter, so I deduct .10, making the total adjustment .25. Make sense?)

Late in the week posting = range availability for live fire is what it is. I can dry fire when I want, but can't always shoot when I want.

G34 = cheating gun, lol. It's only cheating if you don't actually carry it...

Hey, I buy those shirts in the store!

First I thought you had crazy math but then I got out the calculator and see that it adds up as you presented it. :D

LangdonTactical
07-04-2013, 08:30 AM
You have a lot more and higher level competitive experience than I do. So far, I have found that I cannot slack off one bit on accuracy in USPSA. ?

You can prove it on the range in practice. Shoot an el prez at a solid pace to get all A's, then turn around and shoot it again like WFO at a pace that will just get everything on paper. More than likely the WFO run will have a higher hit factor. The deal is, with practice and skill, the WFO run and the solid all A's run start to get close to the same speed. So for the Dave S. and Robert V. type guys, there is very little difference in times. That is why they are so, so great.

Ernest

rob_s
07-04-2013, 10:17 AM
Where time plus really shines is it rewards you from going as fast as you can while keeping in control of the outcome. Like both IDPA and KSTG scoring, speed is very important, but you cannot shoot fast enough to make up for poor hits either. Unlike USPSA, where you can shoot fast enough to make up for poor hits.

I have beat a lot of people at both IDPA and USPSA strictly on time. I'm not shooting at the same level you are, but in many cases I can shoot faster, and shoot more rounds, than people that are focusing solely on accuracy. Sometimes I can beat them with the same number of rounds fired but just doing so in less time.

First place SSP sharpshooter, plus I beat the whole field of Experts in SSP.
http://tssaidpa.us/wordpress/wp-content/uploads/2008/06/2012-12-221.pdf


First place SSP Marksman, plus I beat the whole field of Sharpshooters and half the Experts. Note that in this case I have nearly double the points down of the SSP Sharpshooter winner, but a lower overall score.
http://tssaidpa.us/wordpress/wp-content/uploads/2008/06/2012-11-24.pdf

ToddG
07-04-2013, 11:25 AM
1) How do people learn/improve? Is it better to only try things you are absolutely capable of, moving a tiny increment at a time, or to go balls to the wall.

I think it's a mistake to look at this as all or nothing. There are times when making small incremental pushes will turn in the results you want. There are times when going "balls to the wall" will break you through a plateau you thought was unachievable. But most often, something in the middle is best. You don't want to rest on your laurels regarding speed but neither do you want to get too far into the habit of shooting so fast that you miss a lot.

My general standard for most of my practice is that I want to hit 90% of my high% shots and 100% of my low% shots. But there are times when I push the low% speed, knowing I'll get misses, because that's one aspect of improvement.


2) Why do we miss -- because we are going too fast or because we mess up some aspect of grip, trigger, sights unrelated to pure speed?

Again, it's not either/or. First, a lot of grip/trigger/sight problems occur because someone is going too fast. But people also make those mistakes even when they're not going fast because of some other factor. It could range anywhere from bad lighting to a mental error to distraction.


3) What is the trade off between speed and accuracy in defensive shooting?

General consensus among the people I trust the most when it comes to "combat accuracy" is that rounds that aren't doing serious damage might as well be doing no damage at all. Peripheral hits might make someone bleed out in 15 minutes rather than 60, but that doesn't do us much good during a 15s fight.

Shots that get fired without meaningful impact on the target waste both time and ammo.


4) Are par times more useful when you are responsible for a group of shooters versus improving your own skills?

PAR times for groups of shooters are beneficial because they establish a standard and they're much easier to administer.

PAR times for individuals are beneficial only when the PAR pushes you. If we set up an El Prez and told folks to do it in 20 seconds, most would have no problem getting all A's and it wouldn't have much training value. Set the PAR to 5 seconds and again it would have limited training value... though for an obviously different reason.

That's basically the sum total of this discussion: a PAR is about how fast you can do something with 100% hits, while Time Plus sets some arbitrary allowance for misses. Like I said above, I think both approaches have their place in individual training. Using the FAST as an example, I can't tell you how many people I know who say they've got a consistent 6-, 5-, or 4-something FAST "except I miss a head shot or two." That's not a 6-, 5-, or 4-second FAST. When SLG and I were shooting it once or twice every single day, we didn't score it as Time Plus. You either got your hits or you failed. For what I want to accomplish with my shooting, I think that's a much better standard. But when you turn it into an evaluation of lots of shooters, ignoring the difference between a 4.5s "fail" and a 15.5s "fail" doesn't make sense.


5) How do we define consistency? Are we talking about the ability to shoot a task cold, on demand, or being able to repeat something like shoot a 3x5 10 times in a row?

I think consistency is a pretty straightforward concept. To me, it covers both of those things: something I can do cold and something I can do repeatedly on demand.


Is there any tactical relevance to repeating the same task over and over.

I don't think I understand the question. No, you're not going to have to draw ten times in a fight. But if you can't draw properly 10 times in a row on the range, that doesn't speak well to your chances to pull it together in a fight, does it?


I find it highly interesting that the Rangemaster Core Handgun Skills Test uses Hit Factor (points/time) as its scoring method. It might be said that the designer of that test has more direct experience than most when it comes to producing civilian students who very successfully defend themselves from deadly criminal attack.

There are two disparate reasons why Hit Factor fell out of favor. Well, three actually:


It is complicated and requires a calculator; less of an issue these days since every cell phone is a calculator.
It rewards speed at non-shooting tasks (moving from point to point; setups; etc.) that may not have any relevance to what is supposed to be measured.
It's what IPSC uses, and anything IPSC must automatically be gamey & inappropriate for tacticalness.


Hit Factor (vs Time Plus) it what makes IPSC more of a race & athletic event than IDPA because in those games there is often a lot more going on than just draw & fire. Looking back at some USPSA match video I have, I'd say less than 25% of the time on many stages is spent actually drawing, aiming, & firing the gun. A lot is spent getting out of, over toward, and into shooting positions. We can debate whether those things have practical value but I don't think anyone would argue they're three times more important than shooting speed & accuracy.


Like GJM, I think my sweet spot isn't necessarily where I am getting 100% hits to the most desirable target zone. But this also goes back to using your brain and paying attention to the situation at hand. There are times that no less than 100% hits to a small target are acceptable due to foreground or background issues. That's by no means all the time though.

I certainly wouldn't claim to put a number on it, but I feel like I get Rogers' point about precision shots/guaranteeing hits. I usually feel like I have to slow down a lot to truly 'guarantee' the hit.

This is where the difference in philosophy comes in and why I, at least, look for 100% on low% shots most of the time. It's why I'm more concerned about getting the tough shot when I need it than edging a hundredth off the easy shot. (not to say you do the opposite, obviously!)


With no time limit?

Correct. For the purposes of who's coming to my class, I am much more concerned about marksmanship than speed. The class is mostly about building speed without giving up accuracy. But if there is no accuracy to begin with, time spent building speed is wasted.


I am OK with the KSTG scoring up close, but as you add in distance it tends to force you to shoot slower than I think you really should. For example, I think KSTG is 1 second for each point down. So if you shot two C's on a target in 2 seconds at 20 yards, you would have been better off taking 4 seconds and shooting the two A's. If someone was shooting at you, I think the two C's in 2 seconds would be much better. As long as you follow up with a few more C's and A's and D's or whatever was required to get the job done (falling back on there is no such thing as shooting someone a little bit).

Interesting take. As you alluded, SLG and I spent a ridiculous amount of time working out the scoring system even though it seems simple enough on paper now. I totally see where you're coming from and it's a valid point. I'm just not sure there's a practical way to have a scoring system that switches the degree of penalty as the target gets farther away.

The flipside is that practically speaking, I don't think two C's will physically incapacitate someone under normal circumstances. As such, getting two ineffective hits in half the time doesn't seem like a good tradeoff. Let's face it, that's one of the "tricks" to the IDPA Classifier: going at a pace at the 20yd line where you get reasonable hits in good time instead of slowing down for all good hits.

The flipside of that, however, is that KSTG has a pretty serious Failure To Neutralize penalty because two Charlies will not count as a neutralized target. So if someone really shot all C's on a target, even if he saved a couple of seconds in points he'd still give up 5 to the FTN. It would be interesting to go back and plug in 0.5s/point and a 10s FTN to past match scores, just to see what difference that would make.

The flipside of that, though, is it rewards the fast A-C over two A's. And that was something we specifically didn't want.

Like I said... making a decision about scoring was a lot harder than it looks from the outside. :cool:


I have beat a lot of people at both IDPA and USPSA strictly on time. I'm not shooting at the same level you are, but in many cases I can shoot faster, and shoot more rounds, than people that are focusing solely on accuracy. Sometimes I can beat them with the same number of rounds fired but just doing so in less time.

That's how scoring is supposed to work, isn't it? If you go fast enough compared to the other guy that you overcome the accuracy deficit (whatever it is for a given game), you beat him. I've beat guys who were slower but more accurate; I've beat guys who were faster but less accurate; and I've been beat by a whole bunch of guys who balanced the speed/accuracy equation better than I did for a given game.

jetfire
07-04-2013, 11:35 AM
I use par times almost exclusively for training, I have certain performance benchmarks that I want to hit in the long run, and intermediate goals on how to get there.

So, for example right now I can get two rounds into a 3x5 card from 10 yards in about 2.5 seconds very consistently. I can throw a hoper run out there and do it in under 2.25 sometimes, but that's not consistent.

So a training progression using pars would go like this:

End goal: 2 shots in a 3x5 card at 10 yards under 1.75 seconds
Current Performance: 2.50 seconds
intermediate goal: under 2.00 on command


For something like 2 shots on a 3x5 card, I also break it down into whatever its base components are - a draw and a follow up shot. If I've found that issue is the followup shot, I'll work on shooting quick shots from an aimed in position at the dot. If the problem is the draw, I'll work on single shot draws with a decreasing par time.

When I'm looking at standard drills like the 99 Drill, if I get to the point where I'm regularly scoring 95s or better, I'll shrink the par times to push for more speed. I like making pars smaller and forcing myself to manipulate the gun faster.

rob_s
07-04-2013, 11:42 AM
That's how scoring is supposed to work, isn't it? If you go fast enough compared to the other guy that you overcome the accuracy deficit (whatever it is for a given game), you beat him. I've beat guys who were slower but more accurate; I've beat guys who were faster but less accurate; and I've been beat by a whole bunch of guys who balanced the speed/accuracy equation better than I did for a given game.

You're taking my post out of the context of the portion of the post I was responding to. A post was made implying that one could not make up for poor accuracy with speed in IDPA or that it was harder to do, which (A) I don't think is true, although I once did and (B) there are too many other variables to be able to compare the two.

what was posted was, to quote (again) the relevant portion to keep this in context

Like both IDPA and KSTG scoring, speed is very important, but you cannot shoot fast enough to make up for poor hits either. Unlike USPSA, where you can shoot fast enough to make up for poor hits.

Which is clearly not the case given the links I posted, and which you appear to also disagree with.

ToddG
07-04-2013, 12:08 PM
You're taking my post out of the context of the portion of the post I was responding to. A post was made implying that one could not make up for poor accuracy with speed in IDPA or that it was harder to do, which (A) I don't think is true, although I once did and (B) there are too many other variables to be able to compare the two.

Fair enough. So I checked out the first link, and in SSP, here is what I saw:


Some people who shot more accurately than you, lost to you.
Every person who beat you, shot more accurately than you.
The guy who won the Division dropped the fewest points.


Now I suppose if you wanted to suggest that Ernest's comment (which you've now quoted twice) was meant in absolute terms, sure, you're right and he's wrong. But I'm pretty sure Ernest understands that someone taking an hour to score 100% hits at an IDPA match isn't going to be the winner. In context, as you like, the point was that poor hits hurt you a lot more in IDPA than in USPSA.

Let's look at that IDPA match you posted: You shot in a raw time of 68.67 seconds, far faster than the Division winner who did it in 75.22 seconds. But that raw speed wasn't enough to win the match even though you were faster than the best shooter. Pretty much demonstrates that speed alone won't win an IDPA match.

BN
07-04-2013, 12:54 PM
But there are still two question in my mind. One, is it realistic for a given "team" to use time plus scoring as a qualification? Very similar to what IDPA or your own KSTG does with the classifier. Two, when does a shooter or when is a shooter ready to really push for speed? Ernest

For those who don't know me, I've been shooting for a while. :) My first competition was in 1981 and I have been shooting IPSC/USPSA, IDPA, GSSF and other stuff since. I am also a reserve police officer for the local PD and I have been doing the firearms re-qualifications for the PD for 20 years or so.

From a "team" or group standpoint, you almost have to use par times to get everybody through a qualification in any kind of reasonable time frame. Some will pass and some won't.

From an individual point of view, you should start using some form of sliding timing plan. If a shooter can "pass" a par time qualification or skill test it is time to move on to harder things.

I like the .50 penalty per point the best. I shoot a lot of IDPA and that seems to me to be a good trade off of speed and accuracy. GSSF is 1 second per point and rewards accuracy more. When I have shot at SSG with Hack, he uses 1 second per point and I find my self slowing down more to get the points. Susan and I took some half day classes from a local trainer a couple of years ago. The emphasis was on accuracy. Susan said she didn't want to go back because it was slowing her down too much. :)

USPSA is a different game altogether. A very great emphasis on speed. When I shot mostly USPSA before IDPA started a 2.00 hit factor was considered an accuracy stage and a 5.00 hit factor was considered a speed stage. Now the hit factors can be over 10.00 for a speed stage. I don't know what changed. :) I find when I shoot USPSA now, I am a few seconds behind because my stage planning skills aren't up to date.

It seems to me that who you shoot with has a lot to do with perceptions. If you are shooting with skilled people, you will rise to the occasion and attempt to equal or beat them. If you are shooting with lesser skilled people, you will only rise far enough to be a big frog in a little pond.

Bill Nesbitt

ToddG
07-04-2013, 01:51 PM
It seems to me that who you shoot with has a lot to do with perceptions. If you are shooting with skilled people, you will rise to the occasion and attempt to equal or beat them. If you are shooting with lesser skilled people, you will only rise far enough to be a big frog in a little pond.

So much this. ^^^^^

LangdonTactical
07-05-2013, 08:53 AM
Which is clearly not the case given the links I posted, and which you appear to also disagree with.

Well to me, if you look at those scores, it does prove the point. First of all, you clearly are a very fast shooter, and should be classified at a much higher level. But you also gave up 44.5 seconds in points. That is a ton of time and I have a hard time believing that you could not have shot slower and ended up placing much higher. You are shooting at Master class speed, but your accuracy is holding you back. Be very careful of looking at the people that you are beating and feeling good about your performance when you clearly have the skills to shoot with the guys that win the whole match, not just the ones in your class.

The point is, just because you can shoot fast enough to make up for poor accuracy at your current level does not me that will get you where you want to be. That is the whole point of this discussion. Speed is a huge component, but it will not carry the day if you do not him something important.

As Wyatt Earp said "Fast is fine, but accuracy is final".

Dagga Boy
07-07-2013, 03:24 AM
Hey Ernest, let me see if I can shed some light on strictly the LAPD D Qual on this, as I am where Gary got it from. I went to LAPD D Platoon in 1989 as a 24 year old fairly new policeman who just got assigned to take over my agency's SWAT training and knew I needed help. Larry Mudgett was kind enough to take me in and give me everything. One of the "gifts" was their qual course. The "A" course is shot from the low ready (a true low ready) and I made some slight modifications to try to get a little more out of it. This is what DocGKR posted. The "B" course is fairly similar but shot from the holster with an added second of time for the middle section of drills. I used to shoot this every night after work at minimum, and was very good at it. I also shot it with a DA/SA gun which was challenging and after 10 years is why I have horrible arthritis issues in my hands.

Let me get to what is being missed on this forum versus what was intended by that course. Most here are shooting it from the holster and thus already running it faster than intended.........holy crap......he didn't suggest that slow may be good. Yes I did. That course teaches "pace". When done repetitively it teaches the needed pace at a true street level on how fast to go to get a solid accuracy standard. The problem with L/E is not getting them to shoot fast, its getting them to hit. Then the goal is to hit surgically. Then we try to minimize the number of shots fired which is why there is a heavy emphasis on controlled pairs to the body and then immediately to the head. In street shootings, constant assessment and evaluation of the threat is critical. The difference between a good shoot and federal prison can be the difference in what happened between shot number 5 and shot number 6. I also added a bunch of handling protocals to the course as well to emphasize correct gun handling and manipulations. What we got out of this course is that the group of people I trained and shoved this course down their throats with a ton of repetitive work on it ended up doing spectacular in street shootings. Text book failure drills on suspects, single head shots on hostage takers, very low round count shootings with very high hit rates, tactical reloads as an automatic response, exceptional use of retention shots (part of the "B" course), etc. My guys got into very solid shootings, and were rarely sued and always cleared by both the department and D/A's office. This was from a bunch of average cops working a part time SWAT assignment who didn't know a split time from a tee time, nor did they care much. They hardwired a pace into their subconscious as to how fast to shoot to get specific levels of high accuracy. My guys flat drilled crooks at a medium controlled speed.

Now as a young gun guy, when I was presented with this course from Larry Mudgett, I asked a typical rookie question about varying the course. "Geez, don't I always have to come up with some new and different course all the time to be creative and mix things up...?" The answer was "NO". While you needed to come up with various courses to test various skills, the qualification course was shot a lot, and remained the same. Larry said that if you want to make things "different", shoot the course stripped down in basic gear to qualify. Then when your people get the hang of shooting it, increase the difficulty by shooting in full gear, shoot it in gas masks, shoot it in the dark with a hand held light, shoot it with a WML, shoot it strong hand only, shoot it support hand only, or a mix of the above. The key was to learn a pace and accuracy standard under a multitude of conditions. So, I am sure you can max this course. My shooting partner and I maxed it all the time with full size USP 45's and SIG P-220's. We were shooting 50,000 rounds a year of .45 Ball mostly running this course. What was hard was running it with the variables. Shooting it in "No-Light" in our work uniforms with hand held flashlights was much tougher, and we were not maxing it by any stretch.

I hope this helps. I just wanted to point out that the goal of that course was never to see how fast you could shoot it, but to see how clean and consistent you could shoot it. For what its worth, I got to spend a lot of time on a catwalk watching the old legends of "D" Team (when Scott Reitz, Larry Mudgett, John Helms, Ralph Morton, Ron McCarthy and many other of the SWAT gods were operational) do one cold (no pre-run, and changed after every group) hit after another, on an ever changing shoot house with shoots (which needed to evaluated and assessed), non shoots, hostages, and changing environmental conditions. I was amazed that every hit was at such a controlled pace-never slowing or speeding up, just a constant fast walk (duck walk) with a constant surgical application of shots at a very even pace. That was also an organization that had zero tolerance for hitting non-shoots and hostages. It is not like competition in any way shape or form, but it does pay off in spades in the field.

rob_s
07-07-2013, 08:08 AM
Pretty much demonstrates that speed alone won't win an IDPA match.

And again you're leaving out a key part of the quote (which I'm tempted to quote again for you but I'm guessing at this point it's just willful), which is that it is possible to win a USPSA match on speed alone.

LangdonTactical
07-07-2013, 01:18 PM
Hey Ernest, let me see if I can shed some light on strictly the LAPD D Qual on this, as I am where Gary got it from.

Thanks for the reply. Just to be clear, I really did not start the tread with the idea of picking on or even as a discussion of the LAPD Qual. I just used it as a drill when I went to the range, and then the question came up in my own mind about speed vs accuracy. Which lead me to the time plus scoring and personal training standards or if there is a place for Time Plus scoring in a qualification for any team?

Thanks for the insight to the origins and history of the qual.

Dagga Boy
07-07-2013, 02:37 PM
No problem. In context, the biggest issue we always had was best use of ammo and training time. Many top tier military units get pallet loads of ammunition and training time. Most L/E don't. I was actually shocked when i went to LAPD at how tight they were as well with budget money, training time and ammunition and equipment. They were as poor as everyone else. The key to many of these courses was "bang for the buck". The LAPD "A" course gives a ton of stuff for a box of ammunition. I remember a guy trying to sell a LAPD SWAT legend on how awesome he and a couple of his guys were at "point shooting" after a 5 day school where they were shooting 500 plus rounds a day in close range. The response was classic. "That is awesome, but we don't have the ammo budget to maintain that kind of shooting program, so we just use our sights instead."

One of the things Wayne and I focus on is consistency and the guarantee of solid hits. Wayne often uses the analogy of driving on the highway at a 130MPH. You can do it, but there is little room for failure, you have to be totally dialed in, and you have very little time to deal with unexpected issues. On the other side, when you are at 70MPH, you can do this almost without thinking, and you have a lot of room to deal with un-forseen issues. Relative to shooting, we run some drills with the students at full-speed and driving to the maximum of their capabilities. We let them see that it doesn't take much to "drive off the road" (or off the bull in our case) when running at maximum speed. We then have them run the drills at a speed where they know every round will hit perfectly every time to find their "70 MPH" that they can do in autopilot and can counter things like a less than optimal grip from the holster, a little less than perfect trigger press, or or stalling the trigger or not properly using the sights. In a fight in less than optimal conditions like a range, we want them running at 70 MPH and we want them on autopilot so that they can work with the whole picture of a shooting involving a live adversary. I have nothing against pure speed and its attributes. The key in my mind (and I am very okay with others thinking different) is that I consider speed as a combination of speed of both running the gun AND the speed at which you can think and critically assess what is going on in the whole situation. Essentially, the speed of problem solving and not the speed of how fast you can simply press a trigger. We all have different goals on what we are looking for. Some want a USPSA rating, or to win a IDPA title. Others have a totally different idea of speed shooting like World Fast Draw, while others have a need to deal with human adversaries....and these will be dependent on the environment you are in as well (overseas military, domestic L/E, citizen home defense, citizen CCW, pure War, etc....). I guess "how fast is fast enough" is dependent on what the goal is on the other side. Having been in a couple of shootings, I came away from them with the idea that I can only go as fast as I can guarantee to be "right" on my decision and getting the opponent down as fast as possible.....and that may take slowing down to hit in a place to put them down with the weapon at hand.

GJM
07-07-2013, 03:25 PM
Very interesting, and great minds must think alike, because Bill Rogers in his "Sunday night" lecture, uses the speed analogy. His take, though, is that you want to train at the 130 or whatever mph equivalent of the physiological limit. That way most stuff is pretty sedate by comparison. He says the problem with continually training at the pistol equivalent of 70 mph, pretty soon 70 starts to feel fast, and the day you need to go 95, the wheels come off.

Here is an example. My wife was convinced she needed 2.5 seconds to put two shots, open carry, into the 3x5 card (2.0 for shot 1 and a .50 split). We have an email study group, and two members did some break out on the 3x5 this week. She decided to go push her self today. In her first session, she got down to the 1.70's for two hits. She was incredulous and never thought that would have been possible. She went onto other stuff, and came back to the 3x5, and was easily putting, open carry, two hits in less than 2 seconds. If she had stayed with "par" of 2.5 seconds, the day she needed to do it in 2.0 would have been ugly. I believe this is a case where training at 130 mph helps you drive 70, or whatever is required that day, with more confidence and success.

Dagga Boy
07-07-2013, 07:21 PM
Much of this is context and what you are trying to attain. My thrust is purely defensive/offensive use of the pistol under the legal parameters in place in the United States. Most of the folks I have trained over the years were not top tier military, not competitive shooters, and not people who wanted to become true experts with firearms. They have been mostly people who have to carry firearms as part of their job, or those simply trying to attain a solid level of confidence with a firearm in order to protect themselves....which includes "when" to use them. Most of these people think that they just pull the trigger fast. With them accuracy standards MUST come first.

For the training junkies and serious students and shooters who are squared hard on the fundamentals and have mastered the accuracy side, then of course trying to pick up speed is the way to go. Its why we train. For many, making the environment more difficult is not in the cards, so pushing speed is a way to improve.

Driving analogy: I drive fast and offensively. I take it seriously. When I went to the Petty Driving school I had no issue maxing a NASCAR track at the fastest a non-licensed NASCAR driver can run (147 MPH). I had zero issue running this fast (and the other students had tons of issues including one guy pulling over and quitting after hitting just over a hundred due to fear). I had also been chasing idiots in uncontrolled pursuits for a long time. Just watch the first chase scene in End of Watch for a good glimpse. I've been in high speed wrong way chases that look like Ronin, so having a nice wide banked track with a properly equipped vehicle allowed me to run much faster than those I was with in class. For most of them, they have only driven at highway speeds and never under stress all their lives, so they had to learn to really guide the vehicle with stress (accuracy) as we had to hit specific markers before they could increase their true speed. I also know there were students there who were serious about "racing" and focused on strictly learning to race at speed on a track. For those folks, there is no doubt that they would be much better "daily drivers" because of their race focused driving. The only issue was going to be that they were going to be short on the massive stress and unpredictability side of driving on the street at those speeds, and in reality would hopefully never have to use those skills. Like shooting, they were still better prepared in some areas than the First Responders who drive like this all the time, but don't take it seriously and can be a real danger to the public they serve due to not being serious about driving skill.

Mr_White
07-07-2013, 08:05 PM
Very interesting, and great minds must think alike, because Bill Rogers in his "Sunday night" lecture, uses the speed analogy. His take, though, is that you want to train at the 130 or whatever mph equivalent of the physiological limit. That way most stuff is pretty sedate by comparison. He says the problem with continually training at the pistol equivalent of 70 mph, pretty soon 70 starts to feel fast, and the day you need to go 95, the wheels come off.

Here is an example. My wife was convinced she needed 2.5 seconds to put two shots, open carry, into the 3x5 card (2.0 for shot 1 and a .50 split). We have an email study group, and two members did some break out on the 3x5 this week. She decided to go push her self today. In her first session, she got down to the 1.70's for two hits. She was incredulous and never thought that would have been possible. She went onto other stuff, and came back to the 3x5, and was easily putting, open carry, two hits in less than 2 seconds. If she had stayed with "par" of 2.5 seconds, the day she needed to do it in 2.0 would have been ugly. I believe this is a case where training at 130 mph helps you drive 70, or whatever is required that day, with more confidence and success.

That is some excellent improvement. Congrats to your wife!

GJM
07-08-2013, 09:21 AM
Much of this is context and what you are trying to attain. My thrust is purely defensive/offensive use of the pistol under the legal parameters in place in the United States. Most of the folks I have trained over the years were not top tier military, not competitive shooters, and not people who wanted to become true experts with firearms. They have been mostly people who have to carry firearms as part of their job, or those simply trying to attain a solid level of confidence with a firearm in order to protect themselves....which includes "when" to use them. Most of these people think that they just pull the trigger fast. With them accuracy standards MUST come first.

For the training junkies and serious students and shooters who are squared hard on the fundamentals and have mastered the accuracy side, then of course trying to pick up speed is the way to go. Its why we train. For many, making the environment more difficult is not in the cards, so pushing speed is a way to improve.

I have a slightly different view, no doubt heavily influenced by Bill Rogers. His philosophy, is that you establish human reaction times for a normal person (not Vogel, Sevigny, Leatham) and then create par times (for what each event, like a draw, first shot, second shot, transition, etc.) should be, and then train from day one to human reaction time standards. He does that in his basic class, and reports that he gets a higher percentage of his basic class students thru the advanced Rogers test than the "extremely experienced" folks that show up for his advanced class. His view is that training to slower speeds is wasting ammo and creating negative baggage that will then have to be undone in the future.

Dagga Boy
07-08-2013, 03:44 PM
I differ from Mr. Rogers in that I have gone away from focus on reaction and split times as the priority and place emphasis on evaluation time. Again, different goals, and experience. Personal opinion is that evaluation speed needs to balance (key word-balance) with shooting speed. Others don't, and it doesn't bother me.

GJM
07-08-2013, 05:05 PM
Bill Rogers discusses this at length in his Sunday night lecture as it is a common objection by folks shooting slower. He describes the research on how many frames we see per second, and how that way outpaces our ability to shoot. He also describes the tests they have run on the Rogers range to test this, and how time after time, shooters are able to discriminate shoot and no shoot targets much faster than they can shoot.

ToddG
07-08-2013, 05:10 PM
... and how time after time, shooters are able to discriminate shoot and no shoot targets much faster than they can shoot.

If I can anticipate nyeti's response: real people moving around erratically in the dark are a lot harder to identify positively as lethal threats than any static paper, steel, or cardboard target could possibly be.

I personally think there's still a lot to be gained from doing target ID/discrimination drills that make you engage that part of your brain before shooting but you just can't imitate "furtive movement" with a photograph.

GJM
07-08-2013, 05:21 PM
If I can anticipate nyeti's response: real people moving around erratically in the dark are a lot harder to identify positively as lethal threats than any static paper, steel, or cardboard target could possibly be.

I personally think there's still a lot to be gained from doing target ID/discrimination drills that make you engage that part of your brain before shooting but you just can't imitate "furtive movement" with a photograph.

And to respond, Rogers emphasizes speed once the decision to shoot has been made. Presumably being able to shoot faster, once the decision to shoot has been made, allows you more time for target evaluation?

ToddG
07-08-2013, 05:31 PM
And to respond, Rogers emphasizes speed once the decision to shoot has been made. Presumably being able to shoot faster, once the decision to shoot has been made, allows you more time for target evaluation?

I'm with you 100% on that. Most of the "other stuff matters first" arguments seem, really, to be excuses for not pushing the shooting part. Sure other stuff matters first. Other stuff matters more. But once the synapse fires and things go from Orange to Red, shooting is shooting.

GJM
07-08-2013, 05:34 PM
And Bill says, that while they try to do things in a tactically sound way, they specifically aren't teaching tactics. They are teaching you to shoot to the physiological limit, and you will then apply that ability to tactics appropriate for you.

Dagga Boy
07-08-2013, 06:00 PM
Haven't a clue how many shootings Mr. Rogers has been in, seen first hand, or otherwise participated in, so I'll just give him the benefit of his status in the industry. I am probably jaded by my previous work location and the legal environment, but personal experience has been that at a certain speed you are shooting faster than reaction. Meaning you are shooting faster than you can stop. I am not saying that "fast is bad", my opinion is that at a certain point you are chasing a level of speed that may ending up hurting you in the aftermath. Like when the last couple rounds end up in a back, or misses due to the target no longer being there. I know how that happens, many experts know as well, but it can end up being a major issue. Through my own personal window, those shootings that were very low round counts due to very precise shooting went better than those that were not. Same with speed to target. Always a good thing, BUT, outside of the range I will always lean towards slower and right than faster and wrong.

I am all for making up giving yourself more evaluation time by being fast to the target and fast to highly accurate hits. It is what we advocate. My point is after we are well past reaction time on splits, should we be trying to improve those splits, or stay at that pace and improve the accuracy.......don't know what it is right, but I lean towards the more precise accuracy than the minute improvement in splits. Also, I have simply found things to be very chaotic and very dynamic in these encounters and there is so much Murphy involved that often times the best success is with a solid pace.

Car analogy again: Police pursuits were a lot like gunfights. Most of the time I would push the bad guy hard. I liked them to see me right on their back and push their stress. The key to this was knowing when I was at the end of being sure I could react to something bad so I could back off and let them go "too fast with poor accuracy". Essentially, I could drive and push much harder than my co-workers due to training. However; if I pushed as fast as the crooks were going, past my "sure thing" zone, I would end up buried in a tree right behind them. Hope that makes sense.

I guess I am trying to answer the end of Ernest's question "how fast is fast enough" I guess it all depends on what your goal is. For me its how fast I can hit with a very high level of predictability while maintaining the ability to be "right" when I started, and stopping when I should with as few rounds as possible in between in the shortest amount of time.

GJM
07-08-2013, 06:53 PM
I am all for making up giving yourself more evaluation time by being fast to the target and fast to highly accurate hits. It is what we advocate. My point is after we are well past reaction time on splits, should we be trying to improve those splits, or stay at that pace and improve the accuracy.......don't know what it is right, but I lean towards the more precise accuracy than the minute improvement in splits. Also, I have simply found things to be very chaotic and very dynamic in these encounters and there is so much Murphy involved that often times the best success is with a solid pace.

I wish you could have attended the Rogers School, as it would clarify a number of misunderstandings you have. The Rogers School completely operates on par times, and if you shoot faster than par and miss, you are disadvantaged because on many tests there is not enough time to make up a miss. A number of the tests have a fixed amount of cartridges in the pistol, so miss and you have permanently lost the opportunity to score that target. Overall, assuming two shooters, both of whom hit each target, the faster shooter has no higher score than the slower shooter.

Given your focus on police work, I would think you would appreciate the emphasis that Rogers places on one hand shooting, training strong and support hand shooting to a degree of difficulty I have never seen elsewhere. Fully 50 per cent of the Rogers School test is one hand shooting.

I am not going to try to justify the credentials of Bill Rogers, beyond saying I find it instructive that folks like Todd Louis Green have returned multiple times, even organizing a PF group, and certain elite units of the military have been repeat customers for decades.

A final point, the mission of the Rogers School is not to teach tactics, but rather to teach shooting, all hands, at an extremely high standard. Would you rather have a team mate that is confident, to use your analogy, driving at 130 mph, but with the judgment to only drive the speed necessary to get the job done, or let your guy experience high speed the first time on the day he needs to do it to save his or your life?

YVK
07-08-2013, 07:28 PM
Methinks a bit apples and oranges here, technical skill of fast shooting vs target discrimination time and ability to put on brakes when needed. Seems like common pattern of thread deviation; same happened in Slavex' transition thread when technical stuff got mixed with tactical.

GJM, it would be an interesting experiment - unless BR has already done it - to paint one of 8 inch plates as a no-shoot, without students knowing which one, sometime midweek and mid course of fire, when everyone is already conditioned to press on a gas pedal. Would be a nice proof of a theory, one way or another.

GJM
07-08-2013, 08:28 PM
Not sure about mid week, but they randomly put a splash of a certain color (targets normally painted white) to test this notion that people were shooting too fast to discriminte, and guess what, no hostage targets got shot. I think a great danger to hostages is bad shooting, where you miss the bad guy and hit the good guy, as much or more so than target discrimination.

Wayne Dobbs
07-08-2013, 09:47 PM
This discussion basically breaks down into a group of shooting TTP performance improvement seekers and a much smaller group of folks who understand that real world street scenarios are drastically different from pure shooting performance metrics. Both are valid and both need to exist, but they're like auto racing and production automobiles for the regular customer. The racing consumer is focused on and interested in the nth degree of performance and perhaps innovation in dedicated racing cars and driver performance. The standard customer is focused on dependability, performance to a relative degree, price and appearance. Racing has given us much better cars, but the two are as different as chalk and cheese (to use an old British saying).

I love to study shooting and the focus on how we gain hundredths or tenths of seconds during performances. I love to work hard on saving time with smooth draws, slick transitions, quick reloads and all the other things that make for a great "racing" performance. It's fun, it's challenging and it's certainly enlightening. It makes me a smarter shooter and a better informed trainer. These activities make me analyze fundamental performance factors at a deep level. I know a lot more than I used to know and I want to know more. But, having been in many dozens of actual street encounters with known or suspected armed offenders as a uniform cop, a Federal Task Force Investigator, a dope cop and a SWAT cop, I know lots more reality with regard to making deadly force decisions than many folks. I know that shooting is not as big a portion of this "race" as we would like to think it is. Darryl's correct and not just because he's my business and training partner. He's right because there is the critical interval between locating the subject(s) to be evaluated (and perhaps shot), doing that evaluation (complex in itself) and then taking the steps to eliminate/control that threat. Only after that process is done to a near certainty can you then launch the deadly force option. And, if it comes to shooting as a needed response, shooting at the speeds most folks shoot match target problems will NOT give the desired results. We can easily outdrive our brain's headlights by shooting too fast. We still have to run the evaluation phase while we deliver those shots or risk achieving a result we have a hard time defending. I had several situations where I was executing draws and/or sight alignments and trigger presses on suspects that had done something that looked like a threat (one even involved a shot officer), but the facts didn't match up with the appearances. Had I delivered the goods on these maggots, I'd have been in deep trouble. My shooting ability was outdriving my evaluation process and it was frightening how it happened.

Quite a few years ago, I watched a local SWAT cop and former SEAL doing lots of one shot and two shots practice from a ready position and from the holster. He was moving at about 15-20% of his speed ability and was working very slowly and deliberately. I asked him why he didn't work hard on speed. He laid a nugget of wisdom on me I've always remembered. He said, "When the time comes to shoot, you'll go fast. The problem you have to face is, will you go fast and right.....or fast and wrong?"

If your true goal of shooting is to handle street shooting problems, learn your fundamental executions well. Learn about threat evaluation and discrimination. Then execute at a speed where the results are guaranteed. Slow it down and make sure of your decision and your shot delivery. It works...

YVK
07-08-2013, 09:55 PM
Wayne, thanks, it is an excellent post.

GJM
07-08-2013, 11:56 PM
Wayne, I am not sure if your post is a general commentary, or a response to the series of posts referencing the Rogers School. So I am clear, are you suggesting that the par times used by the Rogers School are somehow unsafe or inappropriate for defensive use of a firearm?

I am also getting a mixed message on the importance of pure shooting skills. Looking at Nyeti's earlier posts, he fired 50,000 rounds of .45 a year through his duty pistol, and shot the qual at least every shift, and in a whole bunch of configurations. Unless he just enjoyed making noise, presumably he was actively improving his shooting skills. I know you to be an excellent shooter, and assuming you weren't born that way, you developed those skills through hard work.

However, it seems you are somehow equating those continuing to advance their shooting skills, either through exercises like the Drill of the Week, or Time Plus exercises as originally brought up by the OP, as the "auto racers?"

Dagga Boy
07-09-2013, 12:31 AM
On my end, there is stuff I do for pure shooting speed, and stuff I do for what I think is a good means to prep for street encounters. I shot a lot of falling plate matches.....including showing up to matches in a black and white before work and shooting my duty gun with duty ammo in uniform. I also shot those same matches in different classes with full race revolvers and autos (although I really excelled on the revolver side). I was ALL about cleaning minute amounts of time off my runs. As you know, running plates with a revolver is also unforgiving to misses. I loved doing it, keep threatening to start up again and find it to be an exceptional skill builder. I also found that it was not what I needed for the whole picture, especially as experience started mounting. As stated above, Rogers is built on maximum performance and not tactics. Got it. Totally good with it. I know lots of people who have been there and had fun and learned things. It is a speed designed program designed to test certain skills and as stated not tactics-perfect. I am sure there is a reason for the par times and standards, and works for their program with what their goals are.

The only reason I jumped on this thread is because the LAPD course was mentioned in regards to speed. It wasn't designed for that. It is a test to work in conjunction with a specific set of tactical applications and to build responses to use in the field. Different goals and I have seen the results and ours mirrored LAPD Metro's. We do a lot of drills. I do a lot with the LAPD Qual. Once I get folks onto the pace where I don't need to use a timer to initiate, I also throw a lot of no shoot range commands in it to further build in the ability to "stop", and the need to think and maintain situational awareness. Again, making the course more difficult while building an auto response.

I am sure Todd never intended the FAST test to be a street tactics drill or qual. It was designed for a specific purpose and to test specific skills and mechanics. Like many things, I am sure somebody out there is using it for something else and it may be having negative effects. That was my point with my responses. Use what DocGKR posted anyway you want, but you may end up losing some of what it is for by by trying to increase the speed rather than increasing the accuracy. Also, we have a specific set of manipulations we use with it. Given time with a group, we also work on perfecting the manipulations with the shooting portion.

Sorry I jumped in on this as it is back to the same thing. Just roll with whatever you think works for you.

Dagga Boy
07-09-2013, 01:08 AM
For some reason I couldn't edit my post........When I said we shoot lots of drills, those include some of the Rogers stuff to gauge certain performance levels.

ToddG
07-09-2013, 09:23 AM
I don't think anyone in this thread is saying speed/accuracy/skill is unimportant but some comments may accidentally come off that way to some people.

I don't think anyone in this thread is saying awareness/tactics/judgment is unimportant but some comments may accidentally come off that way to some people.

As for Darryl's comment about getting more accurate rather than getting faster once achieving a certain balance of both, I now have a blog article to write. :cool:

GJM
07-09-2013, 11:15 AM
Seems like it can't be a thread without pictures, and to discuss TLG's point, we need to start to specify what accuracy/speed trade off we are talking about. This morning, I went out and shot some dots, to gather data (Gen 4 G17, OWB, Filson vest):

1) So the first picture, is drawing and firing at a intentionally slow pace at 7 yards (about 2.25 draw from concealment):

http://i250.photobucket.com/albums/gg251/GJMandes/IMG_1474_zps42adb74d.jpg (http://s250.photobucket.com/user/GJMandes/media/IMG_1474_zps42adb74d.jpg.html)

2) Next, same distance of 7 yards, I drew at my natural speed, about 1.70. I did focus on firming up my grip, locking out better, and this was the result:

http://i250.photobucket.com/albums/gg251/GJMandes/dot2_zps36ab789d.jpg (http://s250.photobucket.com/user/GJMandes/media/dot2_zps36ab789d.jpg.html)

3) Then I shot at slow fire, precision speed, at 10 yards. This is my result:

http://i250.photobucket.com/albums/gg251/GJMandes/IMG_1476_zps2c37938c.jpg (http://s250.photobucket.com/user/GJMandes/media/IMG_1476_zps2c37938c.jpg.html)

4) Then I did draws at 10 yards, at a natural speed, and this was the result:

http://i250.photobucket.com/albums/gg251/GJMandes/IMG_1477_zpsdd6ed39a.jpg (http://s250.photobucket.com/user/GJMandes/media/IMG_1477_zpsdd6ed39a.jpg.html)

5) Finally, at 7 yards, I drew at hard/natural speed (1.4-1.5), and this is what I got:

http://i250.photobucket.com/albums/gg251/GJMandes/IMG_1478_zpsbc81bc22.jpg (http://s250.photobucket.com/user/GJMandes/media/IMG_1478_zpsbc81bc22.jpg.html)

So my question is, in terms of the intersection of speed and accuracy, are there trends/observations in these targets that jump out, that would push one to more speed or more accuracy?

Dagga Boy
07-09-2013, 01:27 PM
I don't think anyone in this thread is saying speed/accuracy/skill is unimportant but some comments may accidentally come off that way to some people.

I don't think anyone in this thread is saying awareness/tactics/judgment is unimportant but some comments may accidentally come off that way to some people.

As for Darryl's comment about getting more accurate rather than getting faster once achieving a certain balance of both, I now have a blog article to write. :cool:

Let me clarify so we are on the same page. More accurate is strictly for the world I am training for and my goals. For a competitive shooter who is already hitting A zone and top scoring levels already with ease due to their size, then doing it faster makes total sense. What we have found in looking at anti-personnel shootings, the scenarios are so dynamic with so much going on that the speed tends to not be the issue, it is the accuracy and decision making. We pretty much work a ton on B8 bulls on top of silhouettes in our classes. We are looking to put rounds in a fist size target at speed, and then also slow down and hit a head or other small target when needed and to understand what that speed is for the individual.....and some are fast.....and some are slow. There was (still is in places) a huge trend for L/E to shoot fast and spread trauma........total horse crap and an excuse for poor control. I know exactly nobody who can stack rounds on top of each other in the real world, which is why we try to attain it in training as we know that the accuracy will degrade on moving humans and the speed will naturally try to accelerate when you are in fear. We attempt to train to counter this. Again, that is our little window to the world, and we use training that has worked enough to verify that it is a viable means to get there. Others have a different window and goals, and for them an increase in speed may be a better way to go. I came to a nice agreement with a member of an elite military unit on a similar issue. He said that he and his guys are usually moving and shooting faster than they can process information when working overseas, which explains a lot. He said he totally understood why we train our people for working within the U.S. to not go faster than you can think and process (out running your headlights) as his people would have a very hard time working here and would probably all end up in jail.

ToddG
07-09-2013, 03:31 PM
Let me clarify so we are on the same page. More accurate is strictly for the world I am training for and my goals. For a competitive shooter who is already hitting A zone and top scoring levels already with ease due to their size, then doing it faster makes total sense.

That seems like an overly broad brush. I bet you couldn't find a dozen pistol OIS in the history of modern policing that involved a marksmanship challenge as great as, say, a 50m El Presidente. While it's certainly true that mid-tier shooters in most of the action pistol sports tend to put more emphasis in getting faster for close, easy targets you'll find very few top shooters who feel the same way. The 25yd Bill Drill is a pretty common staple in the training regimen of many competitive shooters.


What we have found in looking at anti-personnel shootings, the scenarios are so dynamic with so much going on that the speed tends to not be the issue, it is the accuracy and decision making.

I've yet to meet a gunfight (2-way exchange) victor who said, "I felt like I had more than enough time." The either/or approach doesn't seem well founded to me.

Is accuracy important and sometimes its lack results in failure? Yes.
Is judgment important and sometimes its lack results in failure? Yes.
Is speed important and sometimes its lack results in failure? Yes.

Of course, it's very easy to tell when accuracy was the cause of failure, and it's often easy to tell when poor judgment resulted in failure. For some reason, we rarely assess a loss as "if he'd been out of the holster and put a bullet in that guy two seconds sooner, he might have won." But when you start watching a lot of FOF you see where the difference does, in fact, often show itself as meaningful.


We pretty much work a ton on B8 bulls on top of silhouettes in our classes. We are looking to put rounds in a fist size target at speed, and then also slow down and hit a head or other small target when needed and to understand what that speed is for the individual.....

Agree with this 100%. I'd say somewhere between a quarter and a third of the shots students fire in my most common class (AFHF) are at 3x5, 2", or 1" targets. I'm a huge believer in the ability to put multiple accurate rounds into low% targets at speed. One of my biggest beefs with much of the training community is that so much time is spent on going from really fast to really really fast on big, wide open, easy targets. The assumption is that somehow, all bad guys stand still, stand in the open, and provide full torso targets for you. Sometimes they do! But often they don't and being able to hit what's presented on demand is, at least to me, the goal of serious defense-oriented pistol skill development.


There was (still is in places) a huge trend for L/E to shoot fast and spread trauma........total horse crap and an excuse for poor control.

Again, agree. Putting rounds into non-vital parts of the body is meaningless. It's not like the heart and brain are floating randomly through you. Heck, I just watched one of George Zimmerman's expert witnesses testify that he could literally rip your heart out of your chest and you'd still have 10-15 seconds, minimum, to engage in almost any normal physical activity. That's with the heart gone. Why waste bullets and time hitting someone in the D-zone? (or whatever the correct anatomical equivalent term would be)

jetfire
07-09-2013, 04:09 PM
Earlier today I was training by shooting two shots into a 3x5 card as quickly as possible from the draw. Now, I know that it's Internet Fact that I don't need to be super accurate since I was using a .45 ACP with the hardball (which I'm told makes them all fall) and we all know that .45 ACP stopping power is the best. But anyway, as I was training, I started dropping the par time by 10ths until I hit a point where I couldn't make the shots 100% of the time. That was about 2.30. So then I dropped the par down to 2.00, with the goal being "get two shots off in the general direction of the 3x5 card". I did a few reps at stupid speed with the wheels coming off, and then reset the par to 2.30. What do you know, I was crushing 2.30 like a sir.

Shrink par times! Go faster! Win all the things.

GJM
07-09-2013, 04:55 PM
I would like to try to move this from the theoretical to the specific. I posted some pictures and descriptions in hope Wayne/Nyeti would say too fast, too inaccurate, or appropriate as the case may be.

So, Wayne/Nyeti, what are your standards for accuracy as described in terms of hit X size target at X distance?

What are your standards for speed at these various distances?

What are your time standards for target discrimination?

Can you name some cases where LE or civilians "out ran their headlights," after the shooting began and paid consequences for it?

rsa-otc
07-09-2013, 07:13 PM
Agree with this 100%. I'd say somewhere between a quarter and a third of the shots students fire in my most common class (AFHF) are at 3x5, 2", or 1" targets. I'm a huge believer in the ability to put multiple accurate rounds into low% targets at speed. One of my biggest beefs with much of the training community is that so much time is spent on going from really fast to really really fast on big, wide open, easy targets. The assumption is that somehow, all bad guys stand still, stand in the open, and provide full torso targets for you. Sometimes they do! But often they don't and being able to hit what's presented on demand is, at least to me, the goal of serious defense-oriented pistol skill development.



Again, agree. Putting rounds into non-vital parts of the body is meaningless. It's not like the heart and brain are floating randomly through you. Heck, I just watched one of George Zimmerman's expert witnesses testify that he could literally rip your heart out of your chest and you'd still have 10-15 seconds, minimum, to engage in almost any normal physical activity. That's with the heart gone. Why waste bullets and time hitting someone in the D-zone? (or whatever the correct anatomical equivalent term would be)

Right now I'm going thru the NRA LEO instructor course again to maintain my certification. I almost had a heart attack today when they were saying that rounds spread out in their overly large center scoring areas were good combat hits. I'm thinking to myself DUDE you missed any vitals by a good 4 inches. I have to give these guys respect for their creds since both were long time SWAT operators and instructors for major city departments, but calling hits on that big a target good hits is doing everyone a disservice. It's not just the NRA schools when I went to the S&W academy back in the 90's they didn't want you to shoot groups because a bullet passing through an already damaged area isn't going to do anymore damage. So there I am shooting groups and the instructors come by and admonish me for doing so; to which I reply "With all due respect, you tell us that our accuracy is going to decrease by 50% in an actual shooting, add that to the target is going to be moving, Do you really think my group is going to be that small, or that my bullets are going to travel through the same area? So why don't I try and train to hit with as much accuracy as I can as fast as I can maintain good hits recognizing that no matter how hard I train I'm not going to get the same grouping in a real life encounter but I am more likely to get good hits on target. If I train to get 12" groups they are likely to be 24" groups in real life, some of those shots are going to miss the opponent and travel down range". Their response was carry on and they didn't bother me about it again.

I'm really not dissing the NRA, they put on a good school with a lot of good info and really get students on the path to be good instructors. It's just that accuracy standards took a big hit in the 80's when everyone started using the FBI Q target and went to pass/fail. I miss the old B-27 using the competition scoring where you got full credit for a hit only if it was a hit at what you were shooting at, namely the center of the target. I understand the 10 ring was located to low. I have started to see targets that have the B8 scoring rings located on them in generally the appropriate areas, this year I've moved to using those type targets and developing Q & training courses of fire around them.

Dagga Boy
07-09-2013, 09:17 PM
I would like to try to move this from the theoretical to the specific. I posted some pictures and descriptions in hope Wayne/Nyeti would say too fast, too inaccurate, or appropriate as the case may be.

So, Wayne/Nyeti, what are your standards for accuracy as described in terms of hit X size target at X distance?

What are your standards for speed at these various distances?

What are your time standards for target discrimination?

Can you name some cases where LE or civilians "out ran their headlights," after the shooting began and paid consequences for it?

1. We don't. We have a time standard and target standard and have students work into developing a pace for that based on their abilities. The pace is 100% guaranteed hits. We let them push past it and then work them to what their 100% every time pace is. We have an almost endless series of ways to run this that will always give different number of shots fired results, but the time and target standard are fixed.

2. Don't have one. We change things a lot. Verbal cues, audible, visual, contagious fire stimuli, and unknown's. We have a lot of articulation questions of our students....like "why are you pointing a gun at that target"?

3. Tons, and its not after the shooting starts. Most issues are "starting too fast", "starting too late", "never starting", shooting before you wanted to, shooting too fast to hit, failure to recognize a failure to stop, not knowing when to stop, failure to stay in the fight, and the list goes on. I can sum it up with a simple failure of situational awareness and proper application of force within the situation.

Luckily, this has also inspired an article..............could be funny what Todd and I come up with;).

Dagga Boy
07-09-2013, 09:30 PM
That seems like an overly broad brush. I bet you couldn't find a dozen pistol OIS in the history of modern policing that involved a marksmanship challenge as great as, say, a 50m El Presidente. While it's certainly true that mid-tier shooters in most of the action pistol sports tend to put more emphasis in getting faster for close, easy targets you'll find very few top shooters who feel the same way. The 25yd Bill Drill is a pretty common staple in the training regimen of many competitive shooters.



I've yet to meet a gunfight (2-way exchange) victor who said, "I felt like I had more than enough time." The either/or approach doesn't seem well founded to me.

Is accuracy important and sometimes its lack results in failure? Yes.
Is judgment important and sometimes its lack results in failure? Yes.
Is speed important and sometimes its lack results in failure? Yes.

Of course, it's very easy to tell when accuracy was the cause of failure, and it's often easy to tell when poor judgment resulted in failure. For some reason, we rarely assess a loss as "if he'd been out of the holster and put a bullet in that guy two seconds sooner, he might have won." But when you start watching a lot of FOF you see where the difference does, in fact, often show itself as meaningful.



Agree with this 100%. I'd say somewhere between a quarter and a third of the shots students fire in my most common class (AFHF) are at 3x5, 2", or 1" targets. I'm a huge believer in the ability to put multiple accurate rounds into low% targets at speed. One of my biggest beefs with much of the training community is that so much time is spent on going from really fast to really really fast on big, wide open, easy targets. The assumption is that somehow, all bad guys stand still, stand in the open, and provide full torso targets for you. Sometimes they do! But often they don't and being able to hit what's presented on demand is, at least to me, the goal of serious defense-oriented pistol skill development.



Again, agree. Putting rounds into non-vital parts of the body is meaningless. It's not like the heart and brain are floating randomly through you. Heck, I just watched one of George Zimmerman's expert witnesses testify that he could literally rip your heart out of your chest and you'd still have 10-15 seconds, minimum, to engage in almost any normal physical activity. That's with the heart gone. Why waste bullets and time hitting someone in the D-zone? (or whatever the correct anatomical equivalent term would be)

Todd, I agree with most of this. In regards to the gunfight stuff and "feeling like you had enough time". I have had plenty of conversations in this regard with it not being a sense of enough time, because time is totally warped in these incidents. I have had many who "had no problems hitting", "just did it like we do in training". I just talked to one recently who apologized to his guys for "shooting so slow".....they laughed at him because he in fact shot so fast it sounded like it was full auto. My favorite on a pretty dynamic incident was "I just put the sights on and dropped him like an Elk"......yes he is a fanatical hunter. The key on many was that they were not letting the crook dictate the time, just the initiation. They went off the time they could hit, and did it on purpose. This is what we base our program on. Could be completely wrong and we are working off of the wrong thing, but it keeps working, so we are sticking with it........."even if y'all think we're idiots";)

SeriousStudent
07-09-2013, 10:34 PM
.......snip.....

Luckily, this has also inspired an article..............could be funny what Todd and I come up with;).

Will it be in the same magazine as last time? Just curious, I'm hunting down a subscription card.

ToddG
08-17-2013, 10:30 AM
This past week we ran a Drill of the Week that was designed to show how scoring systems affect assessments and priorities. Shooters fired five rounds at an NRA bullseye target from a distance of 7yd and recorded their time and points (out of a possible 50). Those raw results were then scored according to the rules of three different games: IDPA, KSTG, and USPSA.

Below are the results for each game. The number in parentheses next to the name represents which run/attempt since all participants shot the drill more than once. The number in parentheses next to scores represents the rank (from first to last) in that game.



Ranked by IDPA score:


IDPAKSTGUSPSA
1ToddG (1st)2.292.29 (1)21.83 (3)
2OrigamiAK (1st)2.842.84 (2)17.60 (6)
3ToddG (2nd)3.114.11 (4)22.75 (2)
4AJZ (1st)3.123.12 (3)16.03 (8)
501G8R (1st)4.125.62 (7)17.94 (5)
62a-d0 (1st)4.394.89 (6)12.59 (12)
7dustyvarmint (2nd)4.394.39 (5)11.39 (15)
82a-d0 (3rd)4.715.71 (8)12.94 (11)
9AJZ (2nd)5.157.65 (12)16.98 (7)
102a-d0 (2nd)5.187.18 (10)14.46 (9)
11OrigamiAK (2nd)5.338.83 (14)23.49 (1)
12Corey (1st)5.487.48 (11)13.22 (10)
13dustyvarmint (1st)5.586.08 (9)9.65 (17)
14Skintop911 (1st)6.108.10 (13)11.22 (16)
15Corey (2nd)7.1510.65 (15)11.78 (14)
1601G8R (2nd)7.1812.18 (17)18.35 (4)
17Skintop911 (2nd)7.4711.47 (16)12.10 (13)




Ranked by KSTG score:


IDPAKSTGUSPSA
1ToddG (1st)2.29 (1)2.2921.83 (3)
2OrigamiAK (1st)2.84 (2)2.8417.60 (6)
3AJZ (1st)3.12 (4)3.1216.03 (8)
4ToddG (2nd)3.11 (3)4.1122.75 (2)
5dustyvarmint (2nd)4.39 (7)4.3911.39 (15)
62a-d0 (1st)4.39 (6)4.8912.59 (12)
701G8R (1st)4.12 (5)5.6217.94 (5)
82a-d0 (3rd)4.71 (8)5.7112.94 (11)
9dustyvarmint (1st)5.58 (13)6.089.65 (17)
102a-d0 (2nd)5.18 (10)7.1814.46 (9)
11Corey (1st)5.48 (12)7.4813.22 (10)
12AJZ (2nd)5.15 (9)7.6516.98 (7)
13Skintop911 (1st)6.10 (14)8.1011.22 (16)
14OrigamiAK (2nd)5.33 (11)8.8323.49 (1)
15Corey (2nd)7.15 (15)10.6511.78 (14)
16Skintop911 (2nd)7.47 (17)11.4712.10 (13)
1701G8R (2nd)7.18 (16)12.1818.35 (4)




Ranked by USPSA score:


IDPAKSTGUSPSA
1OrigamiAK (2nd)5.33 (11)8.83 (14)23.49
2ToddG (2nd)3.11 (3)4.11 (4)22.75
3ToddG (1st)2.29 (1)2.29 (1)21.83
401G8R (2nd)7.18 (16)12.18 (17)18.35
501G8R (1st)4.12 (5)5.62 (7)17.94
6OrigamiAK (1st)2.84 (2)2.84 (2)17.60
7AJZ (2nd)5.15 (9)7.65 (12)16.98
8AJZ (1st)3.12 (4)3.12 (3)16.03
92a-d0 (2nd)5.18 (10)7.18 (10)14.46
10Corey (1st)5.48 (12)7.48 (11)13.22
112a-d0 (3rd)4.71 (8)5.71 (8)12.94
122a-d0 (1st)4.39 (6)4.89 (6)12.59
13Skintop911 (2nd)7.47 (17)11.47 (16)12.10
14Corey (2nd)7.15 (15)10.65 (15)11.78
15dustyvarmint (2nd)4.39 (7)4.39 (5)11.39
16Skintop911 (1st)6.10 (14)8.10 (13)11.22
17dustyvarmint (1st)5.58 (13)6.08 (9)9.65




Some comparisons based on the data above...

Greatest difference between someone's IDPA rank and KSTG rank: 4 places.
Greatest difference between IDPA rank and USPSA rank: 12 places.
Greatest difference between KSTG rank and USPSA rank: 13 places.

Top two IDPA were top two KSTG in same order.
Top four IDPA were top four KSTG but not in same order.
Of top four USPSA, only two were in top ten IDPA and/or KSTG.

Of bottom four IDPA, three were bottom four in KSTG, too.
Of bottom four USPSA, two were bottom four in IDPA and only one was bottom four in KSTG.

ToddG
08-17-2013, 11:04 AM
More analysis...

Out of top four IDPA, three (1st, 2nd, 4th) were clean.
Out of top four KSTG, three (1st through 3rd) were clean.
Out of top four USPSA, only one (3rd place) was clean.

GJM
08-17-2013, 11:14 AM
Question Todd, how would you relate the appropriateness of the various scoring methods to desirability in a defensive shooting?

For example, Origami's second run at 1.83, dropping just 7 points, ranked a lowly 14th out of 17 in KSTG scoring, yet his first run at 2.84 ranked 2nd. It sure seems like I would rather hit the guy 5 times in 1.84, and at that rate, 10 times in 2.84 (using the extra second for 5 more shots) in a real defensive scenario.

Using just that one example, it looks like USPSA is the most realistic from a defensive perspective and KSTG the least realistic?

ToddG
08-17-2013, 11:32 AM
Using just that one example...

I'd suggest that if a single run by a single person was going to provide definitive data, I could have just shot it once myself and drawn all the conclusions I wanted. (by the way, the conclusions drawn from either of my runs would be substantially different than the one drawn by Gabe's fastest run)

The reason I ran the "all or nothing" test a week earlier was to confirm that if we used a realistic sized target (like an 8" circle or USPSA A-zone), most folks would score 100% hits and then we don't really see a lot about how the different sports' scoring systems apply to results.

For this test, the target used was small. Or rather, the gradations of the score were weighted toward very tight groups dead center of the target. The goal was to create a range of scores (points) to replicate actual match results better. In this test there was no movement of the shooter or target, lighting conditions were likely ideal, etc.

As for what is "realistic," I continue to err on the side of accuracy over speed. Is the NRA bull a realistic wide open chest target at 7yd? Probably not. Does it maybe represent the reduced target you'll see of someone's head or chest around cover, or a threat at greater distance, or a target this is moving, etc.? Perhaps.

Something you probably understand a lot better than I do given your hunting experience: in real life, marginal hits don't score "partial points." Hits that don't have an immediate or near-immediate effect might as well not have been fired when we're talking about a gun battle that can be measured in single digits' worth of seconds. Were hits to the 7-ring on the NRA target meaningful? Sure. But would a hit to the 10-ring (let's say the heart or the brainstem) be better? Yes. So in "game" terms, maybe worth more points...

GJM
08-17-2013, 12:11 PM
I'd suggest that if a single run by a single person was going to provide definitive data, I could have just shot it once myself and drawn all the conclusions I wanted.

So are you suggesting that one example was an anomaly that doesn't reflect the relevance of the scoring systems to defensive use of a handgun or that in your view this example is representative, and you so value accuracy that the results make sense?

Since you brought up the hunting example, I will answer that but broaden the answer to include use of a long gun to hunt but also defend against larger animals, which is something I have experience with. In hunting, as opposed to defending, the first shot is WAY WAY more important, because it is usually your one opportunity to shoot an undisturbed animal with a precision shot. Once the animal is alarmed, and running, the marksmanship challenge get orders of magnitude more difficult. Defensively, there are times accuracy is paramount, and times speed is paramount. In Zimbabwe, a friend of mine missed the brain on a charging cape buffalo with his last round of .458 Lott, and was so badly gored he almost died. A few winters ago, my wife and I were charged by a moose in deep snow, and to make a long story short, as I fell over backwards when my snowshoes got caught, I managed to draw and fired one round of .40 from a P30 in front of the moose as I was falling in the air and turned the moose at about 3 yards, avoiding serious injury or worse. Those very different examples show sometimes extreme speed and some times extreme accuracy may be required.

Back to Origami's example, given that the participants in this DOW of the week were shooting 9mm and not .375H&H, how can the KSTG scoring system rank 2.84 clean at 2nd and 1.83 at 14th, considering the small difference in accuracy?

ToddG
08-17-2013, 01:12 PM
So are you suggesting that one example was an anomaly

What? How did you get from "single run by a single person [wasn't] going to provide definitive data" to "that... example was an anomaly?"

It's all data. It's all included in the analysis.

<hunting examples snipped ... thanks for that perspective!>


Back to Origami's example, given that the participants in this DOW of the week were shooting 9mm and not .375H&H, how can the KSTG scoring system rank 2.84 clean at 2nd and 1.83 at 14th, considering the small difference in accuracy?

Um, because that 1.83 dropped a lot of points in comparison? And you're still cherry picking data by looking at #2 compared to #14 with a full second time difference between them. How about #1 (2.29 clean) and #14 (1.83 -7)... that's less than half as much time difference for the same accuracy difference. Apples to apples, #1 to #1.

I think you're getting hung up on the target. The target was just a means to get data as I explained earlier. The shooters all knew what the target was and what would be required to get hits in time. It's noteworthy that even though the instructions didn't call for it, every single participant made more than one attempt and half of them have clean and not-clean runs to look at. To me, that's the most interesting data I got regarding my own shooting: what did I need to do in order to guarantee best hits in time under stress?

Regardless of the target, the demonstration is that someone who scores 86% of the total possible points in 1.83 seconds beats the guy who scores 100% of the points in 2.29 seconds and the guy who scores 96% of the points in 2.11 seconds... in USPSA. But in IDPA or KSTG, the guy who drops 14% of the available points, even if he's blazingly fast by comparison, doesn't win and in fact does pretty poorly (that #1 spot drops to 11 and 14, respectively).

Flexmoney
08-19-2013, 10:09 AM
I think you're getting hung up on the target.

It is a good place to get "hung up" on, isn't it? If Cooper or Wilson felt a Bullseye target was appropriate, then I would think they would have used one. Which Bullseye target was used, btw (3.85in 10ring) ?


Regardless, the experiment is biased quite a bit toward accuracy.

If we just do the math, a point down in IDPA is worth half of a second. That equates to a Hit Factor of 2 in USPSA. KSTG is twice that,right...which equates to a Hit Factor of 1? [Hit Factor, means points per second ... kinda like mile per hour]

Then, an even tighter target was used, which further pushes the bias toward accuracy. Thus, the results are a bit predictable.


Why not run it the other way? Use the proper targets and score them per their game. For a single run, you can layer the targets (clip one to the back of the other). Or, just trace the outline of the scoring zone(s) from one target onto the other.

Run it for speed. See where the scores come in. Heck, push it a bit...bring the targets in closer. Maybe even add a reload, to another 5 shots on a second target. Like this: http://www.uspsa.org/classifiers/06-03.pdf

Mr_White
08-19-2013, 10:55 AM
Which Bullseye target was used, btw (3.85in 10ring) ?

It was the NRA B-8. 10-ring measures a hair over 3", basically 3-1/8".

Flexmoney
08-19-2013, 01:14 PM
It was the NRA B-8. 10-ring measures a hair over 3", basically 3-1/8".


What were you running on your quick run...about 0.20s splits? Better?

ToddG
08-19-2013, 01:26 PM
It is a good place to get "hung up" on, isn't it?

If you want to look at it in a vacuum, sure. I've already explained (multiple times) what was being measured, how, and why. It also came on the heels of a similar set of runs measured more like you recommended (also discussed and mentioned previously), and almost everyone got 100% hits, making the exercise pretty much worthless.

Anyway, you said it yourself: this demonstrates how the different games weight accuracy versus speed. That's all it was supposed to show. I'm genuinely confused by how defensive some folks feel about the fact that the best USPSA-scored result wasn't also the best everywhere else. Gabe doesn't seem butthurt over it. I'm not butthurt over the fact that my score wasn't #1 on the USPSA chart.

Again, all the raw data is right there for anyone who wants it. Calculate and conclude to your hearts' delights. Don't like the test? Ignore it altogether. Drama: avoided.

Edited to add: regarding "if Cooper or Wilson..."

There are quite a few folks who do use tighter targets, including many who use the black of the bull from this drill, as their accuracy standard. They tend to have a common background... and it's not running action shooting matches.

Mr_White
08-19-2013, 01:34 PM
What were you running on your quick run...about 0.20s splits? Better?

Yeah, right about that. I'm not very fast on the trigger. I pretty much see .18s to .22s. Faster run (#2) was ~1 sec draw, ~.2 splits x 4. About on track to be a tight-ish 2 second bill drill if it were six shots instead of five.

Flexmoney
08-19-2013, 03:25 PM
Anyway, you said it yourself: this demonstrates how the different games weight accuracy versus speed. That's all it was supposed to show. I'm genuinely confused by how defensive some folks feel about the fact that the best USPSA-scored result wasn't also the best everywhere else. Gabe doesn't seem butthurt over it. I'm not butthurt over the fact that my score wasn't #1 on the USPSA chart.

Again, all the raw data is right there for anyone who wants it. Calculate and conclude to your hearts' delights. Don't like the test? Ignore it altogether. Drama: avoided.



Where are you getting "drama" and "butthurt"? Why do we need to go there with the rhetoric?

My critic was to simply point out that the test was biased toward accuracy. I'm OK with that, but believe it should be highlighted.




It also came on the heels of a similar set of runs measured more like you recommended (also discussed and mentioned previously), and almost everyone got 100% hits, making the exercise pretty much worthless.

How is it worthless? Wouldn't that show the similarities between scoring methods? Giving speed the advantage in those shooting scenarios ?

GJM
08-19-2013, 03:27 PM
I think this is a great topic, and really goes to the heart of the things we ought to be discussing on a forum like PF.


I'm genuinely confused by how defensive some folks feel about the fact that the best USPSA-scored result wasn't also the best everywhere else. Gabe doesn't seem butthurt over it. I'm not butthurt over the fact that my score wasn't #1 on the USPSA chart.

I don't think defensive is a fair characterization of having a discussion about this. If the point of the DOW was to compare (and presumably discuss) different scoring systems, and this Time PLus thread is entitled what it is, I think a full discussion of this is what is to be expected.

I am not sure whether OrigamiAK intended this, but his two runs really teed this up for discussion.

My issue isn't that OrigamiAK's 1.83 run wasn't first in the other disciplines, but rather that it was 14th in KSTG. Without knowing anything about different scoring systems, if I had to pick any of the runs by any of the participants for my result in a defensive scenario, I would have picked the 1.83 Origami result. The reason is it had a one second draw, which I assume was fastest, and 4 more shots at sub .25 splits. Compared to his KSTG "second place" run, which was a second slower, he could have placed about 5 more shots, and if we just counted his points for the same time would yield about 86 points in the same time as his initial 50.


There are quite a few folks who do use tighter targets, including many who use the black of the bull from this drill, as their accuracy standard. They tend to have a common background... and it's not running action shooting matches.

I think this is a great point to elaborate on and I would be interested in your thinking on it.

I don't know whether this is something new, but I have come to believe that you value small increments of additional accuracy much more than increases in speed. As a result, many of the drills of the week tend to have scoring and penalties that have the effect of incentivizing people to shoot slower.

Looking at a recent post in your training journal that had a lot of data, and thus is easy to refer to -- after the last year's effort and many thousands of rounds fired, your average FAST went down from 5.12 to 5.06, at the cost of an increase in the time for the draw on the first shot of the 3x5 from 1.43 with the Glock up first to 1.54 and now 1.60 with the 1911. By my rough math, you got just over a 1 percent reduction in your average FAST (reflecting time and points, with a scoring system in itself heavily weighted towards accuracy) at the cost of a 12 percent reduction in speed of your first shot (with many considering a first shot to be extremely important). There was also a slight reduction in the speed of your second 3x5 shot. Given how hard you work at this stuff, and how carefully you performance track your results, I have to believe you intentionally made this tradeoff.

I think it is a worthwhile discussion as to whether your tradeoff of accuracy against speed reflects just your personal aesthetic or can be tied to some real world use of a handgun?

ToddG
08-19-2013, 03:29 PM
OK, back in front of a computer instead of on my phone...

Flex... you're one of eight USPSA Area Coordinators, correct? I agree completely with your assessment that actual match scores would be more demonstrative than a few guys shooting a single drill a couple times each. Can you get me the raw times and scores (not just points but A-zone hits, B-zone hits, etc.) from your Area championship this year? If you can send that to me as an Excel file (even a tab- or comma-delimited text file would work) I'll run the numbers to see how things would have been different if it had been an IDPA or KSTG match. Given how much differently the sports deal with things like procedurals, no-shoots, etc. it should be interesting if not fully dispositive.

You can even remove the participants' names if you'd like and I'll just assign them an alphanumeric based on their overall ranking, division, and class in USPSA.

The only caveat is that -- since I don't even begin to pretend to understand all the details of USPSA scoring -- I may need your help making sure the comparisons are all apples to apples.

Flexmoney
08-19-2013, 03:39 PM
. Like both IDPA and KSTG scoring, speed is very important, but you cannot shoot fast enough to make up for poor hits either. Unlike USPSA, where you can shoot fast enough to make up for poor hits.

I'm going to disagree with EH just a bit. ...



Yeah, right about that. I'm not very fast on the trigger. I pretty much see .18s to .22s. Faster run (#2) was ~1 sec draw, ~.2 splits x 4. About on track to be a tight-ish 2 second bill drill if it were six shots instead of five.

So, your 5 hits on your fast run gave you 86 points. Or, around 17 points per hit (86/5=17.2)? (or, did I read the test wrong?)

So, taking one more shot would have added 0.20s to your 1.83 time ( = 2.03s) and gained you more points. And, even another 0.20 split would have put you at 2.23s with even more points. (Still fastest?)

The math shows that you could, in fact, have made up points with speed. (And, I assume your hits weren't really all that bad either?)

Mr_White
08-19-2013, 03:49 PM
I'm going to disagree with EH just a bit.

...

So, your 5 hits on your fast run gave you 86 points. Or, around 17 points per hit (86/5=17.2)? (or, did I read the test wrong?)

So, taking one more shot would have added 0.20s to your 1.83 time ( = 2.03s) and gained you more points. And, even another 0.20 split would have put you at 2.23s with even more points. (Still fastest?)

The test under discussion is this one: http://pistol-forum.com/showthread.php?9217-Week-77-Variable-Scoring-No-2

So, 7 yards, draw and fire five shots to an NRA B-8 bull (50 possible points), time it, add up all points, then score for each of the IDPA (+ 0.5 sec per point down), KSTG (+1 sec per point down, and USPSA (points/time) systems.

Here was my entry for that drill:




starting position (ready, competition holster, duty holster, or concealed): Concealed
gun & holster used: Gen3 G34, Keeper


Run 1: 2.84 seconds, 50 points
IDPA: 2.84
KSTG: 2.84
USPSA: 17.60

Run 2: 1.83 seconds, 43 points
IPDA: 5.33
KSTG: 8.83
USPSA: 23.49

USPSA's scoring seems most realistic on this one.

My breadth of competition experience is nowhere near Ernest Langdon's but FWIW, my sense is that USPSA is very accuracy-oriented. When I shoot USPSA, it is imperative that I shoot nearly all As (if I want to do well, anyway.)

ToddG
08-19-2013, 03:59 PM
My critic was ti simply point out that the test was biased toward accuracy. I'm OK with that, but believe it should be highlighted.

I'm pretty sure everyone on the forum, especially the guys who run the DotW every week, understood how tight the accuracy standard was for this drill. I realize you just joined today but perhaps we deserve the benefit of your doubt on that point. Again: the target was specifically chosen so there would be a wider spread of points scored just like you'd see at an actual match.


How is it worthless? Wouldn't that show the similarities between scoring methods? Giving speed the advantage in those shooting scenarios ?

Sure: in all three games, between two guys who score the same number of points, the guy who did it faster wins. How does that give us any real information about how the different games weight speed vs. accuracy?


I don't think defensive is a fair characterization of having a discussion about this.

Fair enough. If I've overreacted to the comments then I take 100% blame for that.


I am not sure whether OrigamiAK intended this, but his two runs really teed this up for discussion.

I agree completely but I think you're still too focussed on his results in terms of a single discrete drill instead of what they were meant to represent, which was "match results." You want to say that someone shooting Origami's group in Origami's time did awesome. OK. But you're basically saying "the DotW wasn't <realistic, or whatever> and so this particular run was The Best." That's not at all the point of it.

What Gabe's results show is that for a single shooter, turning up the speed to accept worse hits helps in USPSA and hurts in IDPA/KSTG. That is how the DotW relates to this thread.


As a result, many of the drills of the week tend to have scoring and penalties that have the effect of incentivizing people to shoot slower.

I'm not sure how you get there. Let's look at the last ten completed DotWs:

77: 7yd on a bullseye target designed for 25yd
76: 7yd on 8" circle, USPSA A-zone, or 8.5x11 sheet of paper
75: 8" circle, USPSA A-zone, or 8.5x11 sheet of paper
74: 8" circle, USPSA A-zone, or 8.5x11 sheet of paper
73: 1" squares (a drill you recommended for the DotW, I'll point out)
72: 3x5 (a drill specifically intended to push people's speed on a low% target)
71: 99 Drill (definitely agree this is an accuracy-weighted test)
70: Garcia Dot Drill, 2" dots at 7yd (also definitely accuracy-intensive)
69: Triple Nickel (about as far from accuracy-intensive as you can get while still hitting the backstop)
68: 3-Two-1 (I'll grant this is accuracy-oriented but still based on modulating speed)

Now one thing I will say is that most of the drills tend to be all-or-nothing in terms of score (except for the bullseye stuff). This is based on the realities of shooting real people with real bullets in real bad situations. A C-zone hit might be worth decent points in a match but on a person it is little better than a complete miss.

When SLG and I were writing the KSTG rules we seriously considered having just two scoring zones: A and zero. You either got an effective hit or you were scored zero points. Why didn't we go that route? Because talking to competitive shooters they made it very clear they wouldn't want to participate... specifically, "that wouldn't be fun" is what we heard from most folks.


Looking at a recent post in your training journal that had a lot of data, and thus is easy to refer to -- after the last year's effort and many thousands of rounds fired, your average FAST went down from 5.12 to 5.06,

Dude, I'm going to say this as politely as I can: that's a lousy bit of cherry picking you did by comparing my last Glock result with my latest 1911 result instead of the more apples to apples 9/12 1911 result with the 8/13 1911 result.

But even sticking with that lopsided comparison, let's look at the actual numbers and what they mean:

My latest result is better than the Glock score even though my reload on average was almost half a second slower. Why? Because I put a lot of emphasis lately on being more consistent getting those two 3x5 hits. You talked about the "reduction in speed" of those shots but seemed to leave out that I went from hitting 83% of them to 96% of them. That's important to me. If it's not important to you then you can recalculate the results differently by -- wait for it -- weighting speed and accuracy differently to get the results that matter most to you instead. Call a head miss an additional 0.1 seconds and a body miss 0.01 seconds and people would shoot the drill a lot differently. :cool:

Flexmoney
08-19-2013, 04:02 PM
Can you get me the raw times and scores (not just points but A-zone hits, B-zone hits, etc.) from your Area championship this year?...

The only caveat is that -- since I don't even begin to pretend to understand all the details of USPSA scoring -- I may need your help making sure the comparisons are all apples to apples.


They should be listed on the USPSA site (match results) in that manner. If you look under the individual shooters results, they show the Alphas, Bravos, etc. with a tally.

But, you aren't going to get much of an argument from me on the scoring being vastly different. IDPA has a 2 hit factor. That gives me time (0.50s) to take 2 extra shots to make up that one shot down.

With USPSA (minor), I would only have time for one make-up shot. But, it would be worth it in most cases...as the points would outweigh the time to make them up.

ToddG
08-19-2013, 04:07 PM
So, taking one more shot would have added 0.20s to your 1.83 time ( = 2.03s) and gained you more points. And, even another 0.20 split would have put you at 2.23s with even more points. (Still fastest?)

The math shows that you could, in fact, have made up points with speed. (And, I assume your hits weren't really all that bad either?)

Is that how USPSA scoring works? If you just keep shooting a target you keep getting more points? I thought it was like IDPA where you only scored the best hits up to the number required for the target. Because if that's the case, then without a lot more information than Gabe's raw results show us it's impossible to know how many more shots he'd have needed to earn more points. Would his next shot have been an 8, 9, or 10?

All of the "would have could have if and or but" in the world doesn't change the information we do have. That information, admittedly limited, gives us a result in which the guy who shot 86% points beat the guy who shot the drill in 15% more time wins USPSA but loses in the other sports. I'd say that pretty much proves Ernest's contention, above.

Flexmoney
08-19-2013, 04:08 PM
Yeah, right about that. I'm not very fast on the trigger. I pretty much see .18s to .22s. Faster run (#2) was ~1 sec draw, ~.2 splits x 4. About on track to be a tight-ish 2 second bill drill if it were six shots instead of five.


PAR time was talked about early in the thread. You know what would be interesting...

Lets call you the Batman on this one. Let's take your 1.83s run and make that the PAR time. Then, see how many points one can collect in that amount of time. (Any over-time shots...remove the highest point hit from the score.)

ToddG
08-19-2013, 04:13 PM
They should be listed on the USPSA site (match results) in that manner.

So I take it that you're not going to send me the results in a format I can calculate? That's fine, obviously, but I was just trying to address your criticism from earlier that we should have used actual match results. I'm still willing to do so if you can get me a file that I can work on.


But, you aren't going to get much of an argument from me on the scoring being vastly different. IDPA has a 2 hit factor. That gives me time (0.50s) to take 2 extra shots to make up that one shot down.

If it were that simple, why doesn't the guy with the least points down win every IDPA championship. More to the point, why don't the top IDPA guys -- like Vogel, who certainly understands the scoring system -- take all those extra shots to guarantee zero points down?

I imagine it's for the same basic reason IDPA veterans tell folks not to try for zero points down on Stage 3 of the Classifier (which is shot from 15 and 20 yards): because the time needed to guarantee 100% points on every single shot isn't worth it. Sure, taking an extra half second might be worth on if you know you're going to miss but you don't know in advance.

Obviously that's a little different from the explanation you gave, but by your system, again, it's relying on perfect shot calling and processing that information in zero time. There may be folks who can do that, but they're certainly not the bulk of competitive shooters.

Flexmoney
08-19-2013, 04:15 PM
I'd say that pretty much proves Ernest's contention, above.

???


Is that how USPSA scoring works?

Like most IDPA targets, most USPSA paper targets can be shot as many times as you like.


If you shoot a -3 on an IDPA target, you have effectively given up 1.5s. Make the shot up. Do it in less than 1.5s and your score is better. Same thing with USPSA targets, except you don't usually get that generous amount of time.

ToddG
08-19-2013, 04:18 PM
Lets call you the Batman on this one. Let's take your 1.83s run and make that the PAR time. Then, see how many points one can collect in that amount of time. (Any over-time shots...remove the highest point hit from the score.)

That works for me. We've already got this week's DotW up. I'm on vacation the following week and would like to be sure I can participate so I'll post it for the DotW on 30-Aug.

I don't think it will show much about how Time Plus compares to Hit Factor, but it will definitely show us all how much slower we are than Gabe. :cool: And in all seriousness, it definitely will show how a really tight PAR time can be more challenging than people normally consider. (Rogers 125-point test comes to mind as similar, since the whole thing is essentially PAR time but few people walk away feeling like they've mastered it)

ToddG
08-19-2013, 04:20 PM
Like most IDPA targets, most USPSA paper targets can be shot as many times as you like.

What you said before was:
"taking one more shot would have added 0.20s to your 1.83 time ( = 2.03s) and gained you more points."

I'm trying to figure out how you know it would have gained more points. I understand that you're assuming his next shot would have scored more points than his worst extant hit but that's not a given. Well, for Gabe maybe it is. :cool:

Flexmoney
08-19-2013, 04:27 PM
So I take it that you're not going to send me the results in a format I can calculate? That's fine, obviously, but I was just trying to address your criticism from earlier that we should have used actual match results. I'm still willing to do so if you can get me a file that I can work on.

You can do that work as easily as I can.





....Obviously that's a little different from the explanation you gave, but by your system, again, it's relying on perfect shot calling and processing that information in zero time. There may be folks who can do that, but they're certainly not the bulk of competitive shooters.


I figured that would come up. Don't sell yourself and Gabe short. :)

Seriously though...you and I both know you were calling your shots.

Flexmoney
08-19-2013, 04:29 PM
What you said before was:
"taking one more shot would have added 0.20s to your 1.83 time ( = 2.03s) and gained you more points."

I'm trying to figure out how you know it would have gained more points. I understand that you're assuming his next shot would have scored more points than his worst extant hit but that's not a given. Well, for Gabe maybe it is. :cool:

Statistically, he was likely to get 86% of the points. Do you honestly think otherwise? For Gabe...at 8y...shooting a 3in target?

He actually had time to make 2 extra shots before he got to your time. So, statistically assuming...that would be about 35 extra points.

Mr_White
08-19-2013, 04:37 PM
turning up the speed to accept worse hits helps in USPSA and hurts in IDPA/KSTG. That is how the DotW relates to this thread.

My interest in considering the scoring systems centered around pondering (quite subjectively) which scoring system seemed most relevant to self defense. That self defense situation obviously could take many forms, but without the addition of bystanders/no-shoots/a high consequence background, etc., USPSA's scoring system struck me as the most applicable in this case.


That works for me. We've already got this week's DotW up. I'm on vacation the following week and would like to be sure I can participate so I'll post it for the DotW on 30-Aug.

I don't think it will show much about how Time Plus compares to Hit Factor, but it will definitely show us all how much slower we are than Gabe. :cool: And in all seriousness, it definitely will show how a really tight PAR time can be more challenging than people normally consider. (Rogers 125-point test comes to mind as similar, since the whole thing is essentially PAR time but few people walk away feeling like they've mastered it)

Sounds fun. Just off the top of my head, doing the shooting math, I may be able to get it done fast enough to get another shot in there, but given that the full-value target zone is a ~3" circle, I don't know whether that will actually improve my score or not. I may only be able to improve my score on this with more accuracy. I will shoot it a few times and see. It will be interesting to find out how it works.

GJM
08-19-2013, 04:39 PM
Now one thing I will say is that most of the drills tend to be all-or-nothing in terms of score (except for the bullseye stuff). This is based on the realities of shooting real people with real bullets in real bad situations. A C-zone hit might be worth decent points in a match but on a person it is little better than a complete miss.

Many are all or nothing, and a shot that misses a one inch square by 1/4 inch has the same value as a shot that misses an entire IPSC target.



Dude, I'm going to say this as politely as I can: that's a lousy bit of cherry picking you did by comparing my last Glock result with my latest 1911 result instead of the more apples to apples 9/12 1911 result with the 8/13 1911 result.

But even sticking with that lopsided comparison, let's look at the actual numbers and what they mean:

My latest result is better than the Glock score even though my reload on average was almost half a second slower. Why? Because I put a lot of emphasis lately on being more consistent getting those two 3x5 hits. You talked about the "reduction in speed" of those shots but seemed to leave out that I went from hitting 83% of them to 96% of them.

Let's focus on your year to year 1911 numbers. Your draw went up from 1.54 when you were new to the 1911 to 1.60 a year later. In exchange for that, your hit rate to a 3x5 card went up 8 percent from 88 to 96 percent. Can you explain why being able to hit a 3x5 card 8 percent more accurately, when you were already at 88 percent, is likely to translate into more success in a defensive encounter when it comes at the cost of a slower draw? Since the upper CNS is smaller than a 3x5 card, and a lot harder to hit on a moving adversary, it is hard for me to relate to some small increment in increased accuracy on an arbitrarily sized piece of paper that is larger than an upper CNS being worth a definite increase in draw time to shot one.

GJM
08-19-2013, 05:12 PM
My latest result is better than the Glock score even though my reload on average was almost half a second slower. Why? Because I put a lot of emphasis lately on being more consistent getting those two 3x5 hits. You talked about the "reduction in speed" of those shots but seemed to leave out that I went from hitting 83% of them to 96% of them. That's important to me. If it's not important to you then you can recalculate the results differently by -- wait for it -- weighting speed and accuracy differently to get the results that matter most to you instead. Call a head miss an additional 0.1 seconds and a body miss 0.01 seconds and people would shoot the drill a lot differently. :cool:

I realized that I failed to respond to your reload question. I don't have all your raw times, but I think I can back into them by taking the averages from your journal entry. The reason that your average scored FAST dropped from 5.12 to 5.06, despite having a reload that was on average .57 slower with the 1911 is because the FAST rules heavily weight accuracy.

If my numbers are correct, your average raw FAST with the G17 (on the comparison days you provided info for in your journal) was 4.24, and your average raw FAST with the 1911 was 5.00. However your 3x5 hit rate was 96 percent with the 1911 and 83 percent with the Glock. So the average .76 second faster G17 FAST was trumped by the 13 percent increase in 3x5 accuracy, so that the net average FAST was .06 better with the 1911. Does that compute?

I am not smart enough to do the scoring, but it would be interesting to take your same results with the Glock and 1911, and translate them into USPSA scoring and see what the trend would look like.

ToddG
08-19-2013, 05:24 PM
You can do that work as easily as I can.

So I'll consider this closed.


He actually had time to make 2 extra shots before he got to your time. So, statistically assuming...that would be about 35 extra points.

Thirty five more points would have been more than the maximum possible number of points from two rounds on a 10pt target. Your math doesn't add up. I think you mean 17.5 points. Without knowing which "hits" would get pulled away (did he score a 6 or did he just score a bunch of 8's and 9's) it's impossible to say how it would affect his result, anyway.

Here's an example: If Gabe fired five rounds and scored 43 points, maybe he shot three tens, a seven, and a six. Take away those two worst hits (13 points) and replace them with 17.5 and he's well ahead. But if he shot three nines and two eights, taking away the two eights and replacing them with 17.5 points gains him a much smaller benefit. And all of this assumes that his makeup shots wouldn't have required any time for thought and would have fallen into the statistical mean for his previous shots. There have certainly been folks who've fired makeup shots to fix a "C" and just ended up with an extra "C" bullet hole.

At a certain point, what a shooter could have done if he'd done different doesn't really help analyze real data.


My interest in considering the scoring systems centered around pondering (quite subjectively) which scoring system seemed most relevant to self defense. That self defense situation obviously could take many forms, but without the addition of bystanders/no-shoots/a high consequence background, etc., USPSA's scoring system struck me as the most applicable in this case.

edited to add: I agree that if we're talking about shooting a wide open torso target at 7yd while standing still, USPSA's scoring system was more representative of reality in this instance. But keep in mind that's because we're basically saying that hitting a bigger target than the 10-ring was just as good as hitting the 10-ring, which brings us right back to the issue of putting too much emphasis on the target. E.g., compare the all-or-nothing results from last week. Plenty of folks shot the bullseye slower than they shot the 8" circle. Why? Because perhaps they were trying to score points on a bullseye instead of an 8" circle this time. :cool:




Many are all or nothing, and a shot that misses a one inch square by 1/4 inch has the same value as a shot that misses an entire IPSC target.

I think I addressed that, yes? Graduated scoring zones make sense for games and qualifications because people are keeping score. People don't have hit points and a shot that has no serious short-term effect on a threat... well, it has no serious effect. That's why you see people with a less competition-oriented bent tending toward all-or-nothing scoring:
FAST drill
Hackathorn 3-second head shots
Triple Nickel
10-8 Pistol Standards
Hackathorn's "The Test" (though some people do count points rather than in/out of the black)
Most of Defoor's standards (specifically once you're closer than 25yd)
etc.

Even things like the Garcia Dot Drill is all-or-nothing.

My standpoint has always been pretty straightforward: if a shot 1/4" farther away was worth something, I would have made my target a little bigger to begin with.


Can you explain why being able to hit a 3x5 card 8 percent more accurately, when you were already at 88 percent, is likely to translate into more success in a defensive encounter when it comes at the cost of a slower draw? Since the upper CNS is smaller than a 3x5 card, and a lot harder to hit on a moving adversary, it is hard for me to relate to some small increment in increased accuracy on an arbitrarily sized piece of paper that is larger than an upper CNS being worth a definite increase in draw time to shot one.

Folks have been using 3x5 cards as a "kill zone" for head shots since before I was born. It's a simple, cheap, easy way to create a low% target that approximates an occular window. I absolutely concede that it's not anatomically correct. Like most targets, the setup for the FAST was a compromise between anatomy and convenience. So sure it's arbitrary. So are all targets. Why arbitrarily pick a target at seven yards instead of five or ten? Etc.

Put another way: I think both the 3x5 and the 8" are already generous. That's why giving people partial credit for being even less accurate doesn't inspire me.

As to your first question, again there is more to it than just what you're describing. The '12 test was with a kydex holster and the '13 test was with a leather holster. I've said before (and recently, as you know) that the leather holster typically costs me 0.05-0.10 seconds on my draw. I'd call that even, then, if you're splitting hairs between 1.54 and 1.60 average draws.

Even if you discount that equipment different, realize that I was missing three times more[i] (88% hits versus 96% hits) a year ago. So if that effort [i]does cost me a twentieth of a second, yes, I think reducing my odds of a miss by two thirds is worth it. Especially on a target which, as you point out, is overly generous to begin with. :cool:

Mr_White
08-19-2013, 05:24 PM
...Obviously that's a little different from the explanation you gave, but by your system, again, it's relying on perfect shot calling and processing that information in zero time. There may be folks who can do that, but they're certainly not the bulk of competitive shooters.

Not sure of the actual length of time to process that visual information, but it seems like it is largely stacked on the time already taken for recoil recovery or target transition as the case may be. Even when we're talking about the last shot on a target, processing sure seems like it happens awfully fast.

Get out the brain scanner!


I figured that would come up. Don't sell yourself and Gabe short. :)

Seriously though...you and I both know you were calling your shots.

I was calling my shots! :D

ToddG
08-19-2013, 05:27 PM
Gents... before we get too far afield from the discussion of scoring systems I'd suggest:

* discussing my personal FAST results in my training journal instead of here
* discussing the time to process makeup shots in a separate thread
* discussing anatomical correctness of targets in a separate thread

Mr_White
08-19-2013, 05:50 PM
Gents... before we get too far afield from the discussion of scoring systems I'd suggest:

* discussing my personal FAST results in my training journal instead of here
* discussing the time to process makeup shots in a separate thread
* discussing anatomical correctness of targets in a separate thread

Right here: http://pistol-forum.com/showthread.php?9306-A-Separate-Thread-For-Anatomical-Correctness-Of-Targets&p=154987#post154987

GJM
08-21-2013, 01:11 AM
I have been reflecting on the role of speed versus accuracy. There have been a number of inferences to teams, whether they be HRT, military or other. I want to learn from those teams, but at the same time I am not on one of those teams, and my defensive use of a firearm is likely to be quite different.

While HRT, for example, might conceivably have to defend themselves, in most circumstances they would seem to be dealing with a hostage, and initiating an action. Many military teams initiate bad things against bad people.

While hunting, I am also initiating the contact, and have a requirement for an extremely accurate first shot, as the marksmanship challenge generally gets much harder after the first shot. By contrast, in a defensive scenario, it is me that is likely reacting, as opposed to initiating violence. It sure seems that a very fast first shot, with reasonable accuracy, might change the dynamics of an encounter. Then, once the fight is on, accuracy may leap ahead of speed, since the value of the quick shot is history.

This makes me want to spend even more time on an explosive draw, but possibly look to a tighter accuracy standards with successive shots?

ToddG
08-21-2013, 07:25 AM
This makes me want to spend even more time on an explosive draw, but possibly look to a tighter accuracy standards with successive shots?

Why make it either/or?

You're trying to predict what you'll need in a defensive action but if we've learned one thing from Givens's student database it's that people are rarely in the "average" gunfight. Being able to draw very fast to a low% target might be the critical skill you need. Being able to dump a lot of rounds very quickly into a torso might be the critical skill you need. Or some other balance of speed & accuracy. That's why practicing with different size/shape/distance targets is important.

Even then, you'll work toward being more accurate at your fastest, and faster at your most accurate. :cool:

GJM
08-21-2013, 09:20 AM
Different pont. I am not suggesting a fast draw to a larger target, and I spend a bunch of time with two inch dots.

I am talking about the difference in philosophy between "shoot for the dot," versus shoot at a speed "that guarantees a hit on the dot." Going back to a DOW some weeks ago, with practice I was able to get my first two shots down, as I recall, to a 3x5 from concealment in an average of 1.53 with a low 80's percent hit rate. If I want the 90 plus percent rate that is your goal, I would be more like two seconds.

I would rather have the faster draw and two shots.

ToddG
08-21-2013, 10:32 AM
I would rather have the faster draw and two shots.

Ok. It sounds like you know what you want and how to work on it. That's excellent. As you know, I'm a huge proponent of goal setting, performance tracking, and practice planning.

My priorities are different, so I practice differently. Easy.

GJM
08-21-2013, 10:50 AM
My priorities are different, so I practice differently. Easy.

So the obvious question is, given this thread is about the balance of speed versus accuracy, why are your priorities for a first shot different?

For example, if you could draw to a first round hit on the 3x5 in 1.35 with, for the sake of discussion, a 80 percent hit rate, why would you prefer a 1.60 first round hit with a 95 percent hit rate?

ToddG
08-21-2013, 11:23 AM
I was trying not to bog down the thread with my personal values but since you asked (and since sharing my opinion is what I do best :cool: )...


For example, if you could draw to a first round hit on the 3x5 in 1.35 with, for the sake of discussion, a 80 percent hit rate, why would you prefer a 1.60 first round hit with a 95 percent hit rate?

I'm operating on a few premises:

The 3x5 represents a low% shot.
I'm purposely taking the low% shot because either it's all I've got or something about the circumstances dictate choosing it over an easier target.
The low% shot is likely a head shot which means a miss to the "target zone" is likely a complete miss of the entire target.
My split to that low% target is greater than the 0.25 difference in times you hypothesized.


So given:

the immediate need for a critical hit,
the increased chance of sending an errant round downrange on a "close miss,"
the math saying that two shots to that low% target are only slightly going to increase my chance of getting a hit (95% chance of a hit with one and 96% chance of at least one hit with two) and will take longer than the single shot,


... in that case I think guaranteeing the hit is worth a little extra time. To me, that's what low% targets usually represent: the must hit target.

There are times when I use low% targets without less strictness in terms of accuracy because I think there is benefit to pushing speed (especially in terms of vision and recoil management) on very tough targets. But that's practice, not application.

GJM
08-21-2013, 11:57 AM
For the sake of discussion, I will assume anything out of the 3x5 is a miss, although I don't believe this to be the case since a shot a smidge out of the 3x5 will do something, and I can't remember the last time I missed the whole head.

Here is my math comparing a hypothetical 1.35 first shot with a 83 percent hit rate to a 1.60 first shot with a 96 percent hit rate. Assume the make up shot takes .40. The 1.35 shot saves .25 each time, but requires about one more shot in 8 runs, to account for the difference in accuracy. This computes to .25 x 8 = 2.00 seconds, less the required .40 make up shot, means the faster first shot is 1.60 faster across eight repetitions.

Further, that assumes the shot that missed the 3x5 did nothing, that there is no tactical value to a faster first shop ininterrupting the attack, and that the 13 percent better marksmanship will always translate into a hit on a moving target -- none of which I believe.

A related issue is shot calling. The value of learning to shot call seems you can go at a faster speed, but realize when you need to make up a shot, as opposed to trying to slow down every shot to attain a certain accuracy, allowing an overall faster time with necessary hits by using shot calling combined with a faster pace cadence.

Kevin B.
08-21-2013, 12:16 PM
For the sake of discussion, I will assume anything out of the 3x5 is a miss, although I don't believe this to be the case since a shot a smidge out of the 3x5 will do something, and I can't remember the last time I missed the whole head.

Here is my math comparing a hypothetical 1.35 first shot with a 83 percent hit rate to a 1.60 first shot with a 96 percent hit rate. Assume the make up shot takes .40. The 1.35 shot saves .25 each time, but requires about one more shot in 8 runs, to account for the difference in accuracy. This computes to .25 x 8 = 2.00 seconds, less the required .40 make up shot, means the faster first shot is 1.60 faster across eight repetitions.

Further, that assumes the shot that missed the 3x5 did nothing, that there is no tactical value to a faster first shop ininterrupting the attack, and that the 13 percent better marksmanship will always translate into a hit on a moving target -- none of which I believe.

A related issue is shot calling. The value of learning to shot call seems you can go at a faster speed, but realize when you need to make up a shot, as opposed to trying to slow down every shot to attain a certain accuracy, allowing an overall faster time with necessary hits by using shot calling combined with a faster pace cadence.

I appreciate what you are trying to do, but I really do not think it is as easy as reducing it to a math or statisitics problem. I think it is a mistake to try to choreograph your response to an attack based on flat range performance. That is not to say there is no value to flat range shooting.

The flat range is a place that I go to gain a better understanding of my ability to shoot and to work on deficiencies in my shooting. That understanding shapes my response to the circumstances I am confronted by, with my default position being to deliver hits as quickly as possible. In the real-world, many of the shots I take are not as fast as the would have been on the range because the stakes are much higher.

GJM
08-21-2013, 12:38 PM
Kevin, I don't believe we are in disagreement.

I don't have experience shooting at people, but I have, in relative terms quite a bit of experience shooting animals ranging in size from a gopher up to an elephant. My goal is to use all available time to make an accurate shot. However, there are times when you don't have enough time, and you have to do what you can with the time available, skill that you have, and hopefully luck.

My math exercise is solely aimed at discussing Todd's prioritization of accuracy over speed in a training environment versus my belief that speed and accuracy are equally important.

Mr_White
08-21-2013, 12:48 PM
For the sake of discussion, I will assume anything out of the 3x5 is a miss, although I don't believe this to be the case since a shot a smidge out of the 3x5 will do something, and I can't remember the last time I missed the whole head.

Here is my math comparing a hypothetical 1.35 first shot with a 83 percent hit rate to a 1.60 first shot with a 96 percent hit rate. Assume the make up shot takes .40. The 1.35 shot saves .25 each time, but requires about one more shot in 8 runs, to account for the difference in accuracy. This computes to .25 x 8 = 2.00 seconds, less the required .40 make up shot, means the faster first shot is 1.60 faster across eight repetitions.

Further, that assumes the shot that missed the 3x5 did nothing, that there is no tactical value to a faster first shop ininterrupting the attack, and that the 13 percent better marksmanship will always translate into a hit on a moving target -- none of which I believe.

A related issue is shot calling. The value of learning to shot call seems you can go at a faster speed, but realize when you need to make up a shot, as opposed to trying to slow down every shot to attain a certain accuracy, allowing an overall faster time with necessary hits by using shot calling combined with a faster pace cadence.


I appreciate what you are trying to do, but I really do not think it is as easy as reducing it to a math or statisitics problem. I think it is a mistake to try to choreograph your response to an attack based on flat range performance. That is not to say there is no value to flat range shooting.

The flat range is a place that I go to gain a better understanding of my ability to shoot and to work on deficiencies in my shooting. That understanding shapes my response to the circumstances I am confronted by, with my default position being to deliver hits as quickly as possible. In the real-world, many of the shots I take are not as fast as the would have been on the range because the stakes are much higher.

I don't think these posts are in opposition to each other. GJM's post seems like some of the nuts and bolts behind the part I bolded in KevinB.'s post.

ToddG
08-21-2013, 01:01 PM
My math exercise is solely aimed at discussing Todd's prioritization of accuracy over speed in a training environment versus my belief that speed and accuracy are equally important.

I absolutely get where Kevin is coming from, too, but like you, George, my brain often goes all mathy about this stuff. It's a great example of missing the forest for the trees, probably, but in this case we're specifically talking about a tree. Does that make sense?

Now let's talk specifically about this statement: "Todd's prioritization of accuracy over speed in a training environment"

There are a lot of folks -- including quite a few folks I admire -- who would say the exact opposite about me and my classes. One well known instructor has made some very public disparaging comments about what he calls "Aim Fast Miss Fast."

Compared to him, then, I'm prioritizing speed over accuracy. Compared to you, perhaps I'm prioritizing accuracy over speed.

Anyone can get faster if they accept poorer accuracy. My goal is to get faster without sacrificing accuracy. Because -- and I think this gets back to Kevin's point and he can correct me if I'm wrong -- at the end of the day what matters is what my practice has enabled me to do when I really need to do it. When (if) that time comes, misses cost me ammo and time. Since general experience informs us that most folks get less accurate (but not slower) in those cases, I don't want to see if 95% becomes 80%. I certainly don't want to see if 80% becomes 50%.

Going back to the math, think about what you're proposing in terms of the Rogers test. Would you rather go in knowing that you'll score 100 (80%) points plus some makeup shots (if you have time) or go in confident you'll score 119 (95%) points up front? At Rogers, as you well know, a makeup hit is better than a miss but it's certainly substantially worse than a hit on your first try.

Again, that's just me. It's how my personal view is molded by my priorities and beliefs. I'd never criticize the guy who wants students to make all hits on a 5" circle as long as everyone understands how that affects training and skill-building overall (both positive and negative). Nor do I criticize someone who decides 80% hits on target-xyz is appropriate or acceptable, with the same caveat.

But if you can't get a hit on a low% target first time every time when you absolutely need to, under stress, under time pressure, then personally I think that's a serious deficiency. And in my opinion, it's easier to back off from 95% to 100% on demand than it is to back off from 80% to 100% on demand. The F.A.S.T. is a great example, because I've seen a lot of incredible shooters who can't seem to hit that 3x5 consistently on demand under the simple stress of winning some random blogger's challenge coin.

Mr_White
08-21-2013, 01:02 PM
13 percent better marksmanship will always translate into a hit on a moving target

This is an interesting aspect of this and one that we have touched on before. At some point, the marksmanship problem can become difficult enough that 'guaranteed hits' are nowhere to be found. Does shooting in a manner that guarantees the hit against static targets in training translate into any benefit against targets so difficult that hits can't be certain, say, over an approach in training where one shoots for hits, but maybe doesn't guarantee them?

Kevin B.
08-21-2013, 01:21 PM
I don't think these posts are in opposition to each other. GJM's post seems like some of the nuts and bolts behind the part I bolded in KevinB.'s post.

Nor do I for the most part. Where I think we begin to differ is when GJM posits that delivering a shot in 1.35 with the option for a follow-up is preferable to delivering a slightly slower first shot with a significantly higher probability of a hit. On the flat range, I call that good training. In the real world, I consider it irresponsible.



I don't have experience shooting at people, but I have, in relative terms quite a bit of experience shooting animals ranging in size from a gopher up to an elephant. My goal is to use all available time to make an accurate shot. However, there are times when you don't have enough time, and you have to do what you can with the time available, skill that you have, and hopefully luck.

My math exercise is solely aimed at discussing Todd's prioritization of accuracy over speed in a training environment versus my belief that speed and accuracy are equally important.

GJM, apologies if my post came across as condescending; not my intent. However, what I see you promoting is not a balance of speed and accuracy but rather speed over accuracy. Perhaps, it is a matter of perspective.

GJM
08-21-2013, 02:28 PM
Kevin, I didn't take it as condescending at all, and I am especially interested in your opinions based on real world experiences.

I definitely am not prioritizing speed over accuracy, but rather trying to strike what I believe is a better balance between speed and accuracy. In the example, I gave, we were discussing a 83 percent versus 96 percent hit rate to a 3x5, with zero points if any shot was even a pencil eraser width out. The question was what is the value of a 83 percent likely hit to a 3x5 in 1.35 versus. 96 percent likely hit in 1.60.

I believe TLG views accuracy so much more than speed, that for example he has set the scoring system of the FAST to deemphasize speed. Consider a 2 second penalty for any miss to the 3x5, and no graduated scoring on the head or body, on what is arguably a 5 second drill. He has told me, more or less, that he would rather shoot a 4.99 FAST clean 96 percent of the time, than a 3.99 FAST clean 75 percent of the time. That raises two issues -- what happens if today is the day it takes a 3.99 level performance to save your life, and if we really thought 4.99 is where it is at, are we better able to do that by always training to 4.99 or pushing until the wheels come off?

Using flying for example, I train in the jet simulator at FlightSafety each year, and at Bell Helicopter doing crazy emergencies. Especially in the simulator, where there is no downside to failure, we load up with every conceivable emergency until we are down to both engines flamed out and a dark cockpit. In the real helicopter, we are more careful because we don't want to wreck, but we do autorotation profiles that would scare most anyone. We never intentionally do this stuff in normal flight, but we train to a "where the wheels fall off level" because there is no guarantee what we might get on our worst day.

Back to shooting, given there are little downsides to routinely pushing until the wheels fall off, and I don't know exactly what a worst day scenario might look like, I think that is preferable. Todd feels differently, and I have been trying to explore why in this thread.

Mr_White
08-21-2013, 03:06 PM
Consider a 2 second penalty for any miss to the 3x5, and no graduated scoring on the head or body

...

if we really thought 4.99 is where it is at, are we better able to do that by always training to 4.99 or pushing until the wheels come off?

Just to these two specific points:

The lack of graduated scoring on the 'body' and 'head' of a FAST administrated on either the PT.com or IDPA targets is one of the psychological issues I have had with shooting the FAST the way TLG intends. I understand that TLG considers the 3x5 and 8" circle the only targets on the FAST, and the rest of the head and body are misses...I have historically had a hard time treating it that way. When there is a shot a little above the 8" circle that is too low anyway (IDPA target) and a shot barely out of the 3x5 in what would be the nasal cavity, my gut reaction isn't "failure!"

...

From my time in practicing and trying to get better, I subjectively feel a lot of efficacy in the approach of pushing hard, including making the wheels come off, as a way of improving my entire range of performance, from the lucky to the probable to the guaranteed. Again, the phrase comes to mind, "the better I am, the luckier I get." I think training to shoot a probable sub-4 FAST clean is a great way to get a guaranteed sub-5 FAST clean.

ToddG
08-21-2013, 07:11 PM
The lack of graduated scoring on the 'body' and 'head' of a FAST administrated on either the PT.com or IDPA targets is one of the psychological issues I have had with shooting the FAST the way TLG intends.

The last four words are key: psychological issue is as intended. :cool:

YVK
08-21-2013, 08:14 PM
For the sake of discussion, I will assume anything out of the 3x5 is a miss, although I don't believe this to be the case since a shot a smidge out of the 3x5 will do something, and I can't remember the last time I missed the whole head.

Here is my math comparing a hypothetical 1.35 first shot with a 83 percent hit rate to a 1.60 first shot with a 96 percent hit rate. Assume the make up shot takes .40. The 1.35 shot saves .25 each time, but requires about one more shot in 8 runs, to account for the difference in accuracy. This computes to .25 x 8 = 2.00 seconds, less the required .40 make up shot, means the faster first shot is 1.60 faster across eight repetitions.
.

Look at it backwards. One option is a 17% miss rate, another is 4%. Almost one in five vs one in twenty five. Relative risk reduction for miss - failure to neutralize in gamer's lingo - is 76%.

I don't think second make up shot is admissible since it ain't guaranteed to be a hit.

Which gets to Gabe's and your points of how much miss is important, see below


I understand that TLG considers the 3x5 and 8" circle the only targets on the FAST, and the rest of the head and body are misses...I have historically had a hard time treating it that way..

..which is entirely expected when a drill measured in a dichotomous way by virtue of target used is being extrapolated on a life scenario best measured by an ordinal scale.

GJM
08-21-2013, 08:27 PM
Look at it backwards. One option is a 17% miss rate, another is 4%. Almost one in five vs one in twenty five. Relative risk reduction for miss - failure to neutralize in gamer's lingo - is 76%.

Assuming this is real world and not gaming, the 3x5 is an arbitrary shape, larger than the upper CNS. I don't believe TLG, or anyone in this thread has tried to suggest that a shot near the width of the five inch part of the card is necessarily a better stopping shot than a shot a smidge high or even well below, that is centered. Regardless of whether you want to focus on the 17 percent or the 83 percent, we do know that the 100 percent alternative is a slower shot every time, and in a great enough amount of time that you could fire another high probability shot with the time savings.

YVK
08-21-2013, 08:58 PM
Assuming this is real world and not gaming, the 3x5 is an arbitrary shape, larger than the upper CNS. I don't believe TLG, or anyone in this thread has tried to suggest that a shot near the width of the five inch part of the card is necessarily a better stopping shot than a shot a smidge high or even well below, that is centered. Regardless of whether you want to focus on the 17 percent or the 83 percent, we do know that the 100 percent alternative is a slower shot every time, and in a great enough amount of time that you could fire another high probability shot with the time savings.

Devil is in details. What's a smidge? Is smidge above is as important as smidge below? What about to the side? What about smidge above smidge? Is 96%, at freaking pretty darn good 1.6, is only a smidge below 100%, making a point that 100% is invariably slow invalid?

Point is 3x5 is a binary target, you hit or you don't; real life is ordinal, center hit is best, just of is good, smidge above it is OK etc. It doesn't matter how much penalty TLG assigns to a miss. You can't overlay ordinal scoring principle onto a binary target. If you want to go binary and extrapolate to a real life, we should make a reverse trapezoid
target between edges of a mouth and center of eyes, let's see how popular that will be.

GJM
08-21-2013, 09:18 PM
1.6 is freaking awesome -- until the day you need 1.2 to save your life, win the match or shoot the elk. On that day you will have wished you trained until the wheels fell off in practice rather than at a speed slower than you are capable of, in the name of consistency.

ToddG
08-21-2013, 10:08 PM
1.6 is freaking awesome -- until the day you need 1.2 to save your life, win the match or shoot the elk.

What about if you need a 0.5 to save your life? What if you need <your best time - 0.01s> or any other number? We can all sit here and pull made-up scenarios out of thin air.


On that day you will have wished you trained until the wheels fell off in practice rather than at a speed slower than you are capable of, in the name of consistency.

That's a specious argument. You're assuming without evidence that "training until the wheels fell off" will guarantee your ability to make that hit and that practicing in a way that maintains consistency necessarily won't get you there.

GJM
08-21-2013, 10:57 PM
That's a specious argument. You're assuming without evidence that "training until the wheels fell off" will guarantee your ability to make that hit and that practicing in a way that maintains consistency necessarily won't get you there.

I am actually quite careful in life to avoid using terms such as "always, never" and "I guarantee." I think in terms of more or less likely.

As regards your assertion, I never made such a guarantee. I think a fairer statement is, based on what I observe in others preparing to deal with difficult unknown circumstances, those folks are frequently training to failure, with a hope that what they are dealt in real life is easier than their training, and I believe that is a more effective training strategy than your consistency based approach which only trains to the level you expect to perform to when it counts. In the last year, I have also heard Bill Rogers, Manny Bragg, and Robert Vogel each tell me that they believe in training to failure in practice as a means of performing best when it counts. That doesn't mean Bragg, et al, are saying you should throw each shot and hope it hits, but rather a significant amount of your practice should be out of your comfort zone. I can't believe this is controversial, given how athletes, commercial and military aviators, and others train. It also seems consistent with what Ernie Langdon said in the first post of this thread:

I bring this up as I am personally a fan of time plus scoring. It comes from the idea or belief that in most cases you will shoot as fast as you possibly can in a gunfight, at what I like to call limit of human function, or more commonly WFO. I think that one has to be careful of shooting to a time standard of any kind and thinking that will be good enough to get the job done. I remember a conversation I had with a police officer one time. He basically told me he had nothing to worry about in a gunfight because he shot expert on the department’s qualification course of fire. His belief was that he would be fine in any gunfight because he could shoot expert.

ToddG
08-21-2013, 11:15 PM
As regards your assertion, I never made such a guarantee. I think a fairer statement is, based on what I observe in others preparing to deal with difficult unknown circumstances, those folks are frequently training to failure, with a hope that what they are dealt in real life is easier than their training, and I believe that is a more effective training strategy than your consistency based approach which only trains to the level you expect to perform to when it counts. In the last year, I have also heard Bill Rogers, Manny Bragg, and Robert Vogel each tell me that they believe in training to failure in practice as a means of performing best when it counts. That doesn't mean Bragg, et al, are saying you should throw each shot and hope it hits, but rather a significant amount of your practice should be out of your comfort zone. I can't believe this is controversial, given how athletes, commercial and military aviators, and others train.

I've never once, in four classes at Rogers, heard him or any of the other instructors suggest going wild or "shooting 'til the wheels fall off" or anything like that. I certainly don't believe he's ever suggested that missing a high percentage of shots was an effective training technique. Nor do I recall Vogel telling folks that missing a lot was good training as long as you missed really fast.

But I think you simply misunderstand the point being made here which is especially surprising given some of the conversations we've had in class before. I've never said "stay in your comfort zone." I stated repeatedly in one of your previous threads that I do push speed and, again, I think folks who've been through one of my classes would say that's the case. What I see in this thread is that you object to my arbitrary acceptable error rate but think yours, because it's lower, is just fine. But yours is just as arbitrary. You and I both know that if you accepted 10% hits on a 3x5 at 7yd you could accomplish that substantially faster. We both agree 10% is too wild. We both agree 100% is too limiting.

As I stated in the previous thread, there was a period of time when I did the "wheels come off" thing for certain drills to break through a plateau. As I stated in that thread, I think it's a valid way to break through plateaus. But once that's achieved, the benefit isn't as great. If it were otherwise, all you'd need to do to get wickedly fast and accurate would be to go to the range and shoot wickedly fast all the time. But there aren't a lot of folks who take that approach.

You've brought up aviation a few times so let me ask you this: when you do those simulations, do you run them on a timer? Are you trying to shave a couple tenths of a second off how fast you hit a button, trim a sail, fix a gizmo, or whatever? Or are you trying to reach a point where you can accomplish those things correctly the first time, every time?

Kevin B.
08-21-2013, 11:30 PM
I think it is absolutely worthwhile to push to your point of failure. I do it in the gym, I do it when I run, and I do it when I shoot. It is how I move that point of failure.

But when it comes time to perform in the real world, I operate at the highest level that my training tells me gives me as close to a 100% chance of success. I try and put as much distance between my performance and the point of failure as circumstances permit, because the penalty for failing is severe.

There is a lot of talk about accuracy vs. speed and striking the right balance. In the real world, the speed thing seems to take care of itself. It is the accuracy piece that most people have issues with. I am not sure the any of the drills that sparked this conversation are biased toward accuracy, but if they are it is probably a good thing.

GJM
08-21-2013, 11:47 PM
You know, as well as I do, that Rogers runs their target system as full speed from day one. He makes a big point in his lecture of saying you don't learn to drive 130, starting at 20. For most that attend Rogers their first time, that is certainly shooting at a speed that their "wheels have fallen off." At Rogers, the target speed is a constant, and hopefully it is accuracy that improves.

I absolutely disagree with your point about being able to go substantially faster with just a 10 percent hit rate, and this is a major disagreement that we have. Your answer to most accuracy issues is to go slower. As I have read Brian Enos write, and heard Bill Rogers say, it doesn't take any longer to shoot the spot on the target than the whole target. However, it does take proper technique. Invariably when I miss, absent slowing to precision pace, the answer is to do something better with my technique, not slow my time.

The point of high level simulator training is to load the pilot up with a near impossible sequence of emergencies, with the objective of exposing the pilot to circumstances beyond what would likely ever happen in flight. You also do things in the sim, you would never try in real life, because of the high probability of a crash. Mistakes, frankly, are a good thing, because we often learn more from our mistakes, than what we do right, and remember those lessons longer.

ToddG
08-21-2013, 11:55 PM
Rogers may be "until the wheels fall off" for some, but not for all, and not forever. There are plenty of plates on the test that I have to wait for, and I'm sure there are plenty of other shooters who are even faster. You're proving my exact point: if people have never pushed themselves they don't know how fast they can go, but you can't just keep pushing without dialing the accuracy back in.

And with that, I'm bowing out. I've explained what I do and why. You seem to want to redefine that and pigeon hole it. I've got nothing more to add.

YVK
08-22-2013, 12:06 AM
In the last year, I have also heard Bill Rogers, Manny Bragg, and Robert Vogel each tell me that they believe in training to failure in practice as a means of performing best when it counts.

I think you're moving between the topics, G. Those same dudes who emphasize wheels off in practice also shoot mid to high nineties % of points available when it comes
to testing and scoring, whatever their choice of test is. The balls to the wall practice speed is a tool of making self as comfortable as possible doing things at that speed, but unless one's hitting 90% or so points when it counts, i.e. during tests, in competition, etc, nobody seems to be much impressed. So if we're talking practice, it is one thing, if we're talking formal skill assessment, that's another. I personally couldn't care less if it is time plus, of par, or binary, or graduated scoring system. To me it only matters as a specific quirk of a given competition system. For personal feedback and improvement they all provide data I need, and all of them will have legit limitations when tried to be applied to "real life".

Mr_White
08-22-2013, 02:11 PM
You also do things in the sim, you would never try in real life, because of the high probability of a crash. Mistakes, frankly, are a good thing, because we often learn more from our mistakes, than what we do right, and remember those lessons longer.

OMG

YOU WILL FIGHT LIKE YOU HAVE TRAINED

YOU MUST NEVER MAKE A MISTAKE

MISTAKES BECOME MUSCLE MEMORY

MUSCLE MEMORIES BECOME TRAINING SCARS!!!!!

:D

...

I appreciate all the patient discussion from everyone. Thank you!

GJM
08-23-2013, 05:57 PM
I think you're moving between the topics, G. Those same dudes who emphasize wheels off in practice also shoot mid to high nineties % of points available when it comes
to testing and scoring, whatever their choice of test is. The balls to the wall practice speed is a tool of making self as comfortable as possible doing things at that speed, but unless one's hitting 90% or so points when it counts, i.e. during tests, in competition, etc, nobody seems to be much impressed. So if we're talking practice, it is one thing, if we're talking formal skill assessment, that's another. I personally couldn't care less if it is time plus, of par, or binary, or graduated scoring system. To me it only matters as a specific quirk of a given competition system. For personal feedback and improvement they all provide data I need, and all of them will have legit limitations when tried to be applied to "real life".

Correct. And my belief is, that "balls to the wall" practice results in higher on demand performance than always striving for consistency in practice.

Today, I shot some dots at 7 yards to warm up, and then proclaimed it "test day" for the FAST. I shot 4 in a row clean at 4.70-4.95, and they felt like they took all day. My first shot was in the 1.50-1.60 range. Then I decided to work some draws at 5 yards for absolute speed from OWB concealment. I got to .97-1.00, which is fast for me from OWB concealment. Then, I decided if I could physically draw the pistol in .97, I should be able to hit the 3x5 card from 7 yards about as fast, as it shouldn't take any more time to hit a spot than a whole target. 1.20 is the fastest I have ever been able to hit the 3x5 from OWB concealment, and 1.35 is more like what I expect when I am on form. In 10 rounds fired, I started with shots around the neck, and then managed to hit the 3x5 in 1.05 multiple times, although not every time. I reloaded, and managed then to hit it successively at 1.15.

First, if I set a part time of 1.6, which was about my FAST performance minutes earlier, I would never have realized I had the potential to do it .55 faster. Second, knowing I can shoot it at least in one session sometimes at 1.05 and consistently at 1.15 is a tremendous confidence booster in shooting it at 1.60, because you feel like you have all the time in the world. Third, I am also confident that there is a time slower than 1.05, but much faster than 1.60, that with enough practice will become the "new 1.60."

Besides finding it personally motivating to continue to push, with there being so little downside to failure in practice, I feel it is clearly the best way to achieve the best possible on demand performance.

rob_s
08-24-2013, 08:00 AM
1.6 is freaking awesome -- until the day you need 1.2 to save your life, win the match or shoot the elk. On that day you will have wished you trained until the wheels fell off in practice rather than at a speed slower than you are capable of, in the name of consistency.

and what happens when you wake up one night to a phone call from the local PD that your dirtbag kid is locked up (again?) and it occurs to you that all that time spent chasing a fantasy would have been better spent at home with your family working on a certainty instead of some romanticized fantasy of a "gunfight"?

We don't train in a vaccuum. Time spent at the range is time spent away from reality. Time spent at the range training for an event that has a <0.1% chance of occurring is taking time away from the reality of family, job, other activities that contribute to general happiness, fitness, etc. I know people that have wound up divorced because of time spent at the range. There's a word for that type of person, it's "idiot".

Everyone balances everything. Not just speed vs. accuracy but also reality vs. fantasy. If you're training for your fantasy "gunfight" you should probably study statistics on self-defense events and train to the highest likelihood. If you're training for a competition you should probably study the scoring and learn how speed:accuracy is weighted in the scoring and apply that to your level of shooting (to my earlier point that I can beat people of my same classification simply by blazing away and letting accuracy suffer)

And sometimes it's just not your day. That elk wasn't meant to be yours. That dirtbag got the drop on you. That other competitor got a lucky shot on that 20 yard popper. You can never cover ALL of the variables. What if the elk wasn't going anywhere but was 300 yards away and you weren't accurate enough to make the hit? What if the dirtbag attacked you with a knife when you were unarmed and you haven't trained in any sort of empty-hand defense? What if you arrive at the range to find that they have set up an entire match of steel targets at 15 yards and out? what it, what if, what if...

This stuff ain't rocket surgery guys. Eventually everyone has that epiphany, and it sure is liberating when it happens.

Dagga Boy
08-24-2013, 09:37 AM
"I try and put as much distance between my performance and the point of failure as circumstances permit, because the penalty for failing is severe."

Thanks Kevin, you put into better words than I have what we try to do.

RobS also makes a point that has been part of an article I am working on. I spend more time at weekend long Volleyball Tournaments, and private and team coaching for my daughter. Most of my discretionary money as well. At this point in life as a retired cop, solo parent to a young girl, who has spent most of my life "training for the day" (and won everytime the day came so far), at home with my kid and a SIRT pistol is a better investment for me than a hundredth on my splits. Guess I won't win a trophy this year again, but still have a very intact mean gene.

GJM
08-24-2013, 10:18 AM
We don't train in a vaccuum. Time spent at the range is time spent away from reality. Time spent at the range training for an event that has a <0.1% chance of occurring is taking time away from the reality of family, job, other activities that contribute to general happiness, fitness, etc. I know people that have wound up divorced because of time spent at the range. There's a word for that type of person, it's "idiot".

Everyone balances everything. Not just speed vs. accuracy but also reality vs. fantasy. If you're training for your fantasy "gunfight" you should probably study statistics on self-defense events and train to the highest likelihood. If you're training for a competition you should probably study the scoring and learn how speed:accuracy is weighted in the scoring and apply that to your level of shooting (to my earlier point that I can beat people of my same classification simply by blazing away and letting accuracy suffer)


Rob, have you considered the possibility that some of us just plain enjoy shooting, with getting better at shooting as a primary goal in itself, and have a wife, who enjoys shooting and getting better at shooting just as much, as their training partner at every session? In our case, shooting makes our relationship stronger, and along with flying, exercising and hunting are activities we do together. I am a better pilot, hunter and shooter because I do that with my wife, and we share, dissect, compete, encourage and coach each other.

There is a word for this -- extremely lucky.

Kevin B.
08-24-2013, 11:53 AM
Rob, I would add that for some people the fight is a lot more real than it is for others. They put time in at the range because they would like to enjoy the reality of family, job, and other activities that contribute to general happiness someday.

52Hubcap
07-27-2014, 10:22 PM
Delete. Found answer in later post.

vcdgrips
08-06-2014, 03:01 PM
GJM, you are so far past extremely lucky as to be blessed. Good on you both!