When I hosted Pat McNamara several years ago he brought out the timer, clicked the button, and after it went “beep” he said “do you know what that sound is?” Lots of serious answers from all the serious gundoods in attendance, and then he said “it’s the sound of a little bit of poop coming out”.
They say if you take a class and have at least one takeaway then it was a success.
Several years later, that’s my one takeaway.
But I probably say it once a week or more so it’s a good one.
Came across this 60-post thread from four years ago tangentially related to this topic.
https://pistol-forum.com/showthread....ncus+fast+test
Quite a few useful nuggets there.
Not measuring with a timer is a lot like sex as a virgin.
You don’t know what you don’t know. You could think you’re awesome at it and have zero frame of reference.
For measuring efficiency with granular skills, for developing comparative metrics on how fast is “too fast,” to compare yourself against any quantifiable metric utilized by any trainer other than the occasional crusty dude marketing himself to like-minded crusty dudes and wanna-be crusty dudes...
Timer, timer, timer.
“I’ve never seen a timer in a gunfight!”
Well then, you might as well shoot into a berm with your eyes closed, because I’ve never had a cardboard silhouette, a steel plate, or a B8 target pop off rounds at me. Training isn’t gunfighting. Force-on-Force isn’t gunfighting. It’s all a skill-building and skill-vetting laboratory, and if you’re not going to treat it as such, then don’t bother—you’re just plinking.
When I see someone griping about using a timer, I'm inclined to think that they don't really understand what the tool is for. It's like someone telling me that this crescent wrench doesn't drive nails worth a damn. That person isn't going to work on my house.
There are some areas of instruction where I don't use a timer because the people I'm working with aren't ready for it yet. But it is a priority for me to get the timer involved as quickly as possible so that the people I'm teaching become accustomed to accomplishing useful tasks in the time frame that a typical defensive situation is going to last.
One of the great stressors in an emergency situation is time. It is an emergency precisely because we know something bad is going to happen in a short period of time if we don't do something about it. In every area of emergency response timers are used. Whether that's timing how quickly a fireman can get his gear on or timing how quickly a combat medic can stop a femoral bleed using a live pig, we use timers in one form or fashion in any place where we are training human beings to respond to a lethal exigency because they need to know how to manage the extremely limited amount of time they will have to prevent a bad outcome.
The idea that armed self defense should be an exception to that rule is fucking ridiculous.
Timers exist to reliably acquaint people with getting important work done within the time frame they are actually going to have to save their life.
Splits are useful as a diagnostic tool for looking at how you are managing your grip, trigger, and sights. Especially your grip...because a good grip will allow the gun to come back to more or less where it was before you fired the shot. Which means you can start working the trigger sooner. Which means that another accurate shot to the same place takes less time. Someone who can shoot sub 1/4 second aimed splits and hit something is someone who has a good grip, has learned to process what they are seeing on the sights at speed (you can see an acceptable sight picture in hundredths of a second) and is able to work the trigger good enough to get the required hit. These are all good things. The point of looking at splits is not to chase the lowest number possible, but to get quantifiable information about what is happening in those fractions of a second where the shot is happening and recovery from the shot is happening.
Speed is the product of efficiency. Efficiency is making the best use of limited resources...and when life is at stake, there is no more limited resource than TIME. People who are accustomed to working within the time they are going to have through repeated deliberate exposure are better able to work through a pre-trained process that gives the best chance at a desired outcome.
In medicine there is the golden hour, a MEASURED period of time where medical intervention has the best chance at saving a life. In self defense we don't get an hour, we get a golden few seconds to do something useful with a life saving tool.
"Tactics" is fine.
"Tactics" isn't shooting.
When it comes time to actually shoot, you have to shoot. That requires knowing how to actually make the bullet hole appear in the spot you want it within the time frame you've got to deliver it. You can't "tactics" that.
Nor can someone who isn't able to perform with the firearm suddenly manage to handle a rapidly evolving situation AND shoot the gun with any level of intelligence.
Proficiency in the use of the tool is the price of admission for being able to problem solve with the tool.
There isn't a debate here.
Practically everyone who is involved in the effort of training people to competency or proficiency with a defensive firearm uses timers in some form or fashion. This includes every major institutional academy in policing and the military.
I don't think Pincus does, but Pincus is fucked up and can't shoot. So his opinion is moot.