Well for you, you need to learn to shoot accurately.Originally Posted by Luke
Well for you, you need to learn to shoot accurately.
Likes pretty much everything in every caliber.
Steve Anderson's book Get to Work has some really good descriptions of the three shooting modes. I'll summarize them below:
Accuracy Mode: measure and track your gains in accuracy. Do not judge speed. E.g. shoot an El Pres at 25 yds with all A's and don't worry about the time.
Speed mode: Measure and track your gains in speed. Do not judge accuracy. E.g. shoot an El Pres as fast as you can and don't worry about the points.
Match mode: Focus on seeing your sights and calling each shot as the gun fires as acceptable or unacceptable. Do not think about accuracy or speed while you are shooting. E.g. shoot an El Pres and be able to tell what your hits were without looking at the targets.
I set my goal prior to each drill during practice. Am I working to make gains in accuracy or speed, or am I testing them together in match mode? Right now, I don't work in accuracy mode for very long. I'll shoot some groups and ring small steel at 45 yds, but most of my practice (live and dryfire) is in speed and match modes.
Last edited by Clusterfrack; 07-20-2016 at 10:25 PM.
“There is no growth in the comfort zone.”--Jocko Willink
"You can never have too many knives." --Joe Ambercrombie
Based on what I got from talking to dudes who made GMs, to become one this shit has to take over your life. Or become your life, however you want to call it.
In this case I'll be part of the hive.
It's much easier to learn to go fast than it is to learn to be accurate.
For USPSA competition my experience has been opposite of this. I am a USPSA Master class shooter, been shooting USPSA for ten years, and my strengths are consistency and accuracy, I am not fast enough. I have unfortunately been left behind by some of the faster guys who 5-6 years ago would shoot very fast and inaccurately but overtime they just kept the speed and the accuracy came, I use to beat some of them. They now kick my ass. I have had a hard time getting faster at the same pace they got more accurate. I have shot roughly 88% at the last 2 Productional Nationals, I am having a hard time building the speed to catch up to those guys at or above the 90%. If your goal is to shoot GM classifiers your typically going to get higher HF dropping some points at blazing speed rather than trying to guarantee A's.
Do you want to be an actual GM, or just have a GM classification?
I've always been bad at pacing myself. I'm always in a hurry, always do things way too fast, often to a fault. - But when I started shooting USPSA, I realized it wasn't a bad thing. I'm pretty bad at stand 'n shoots. I think its a mental thing, mostly. - However, I typically do pretty good on field courses. Mostly because of the speed in which I do them at.
To poorly paraphrase a Stoeger podcast: "Repetition doesn't make speed. Driving your toyota corolla around town for 200,000 miles gets you lots of repetition, but it doesn't make you ready for the race track."
From the moment anyone picks up a handgun they're trying for accuracy. Lots of people are capable of shooting ragged holes standing still under no time constraints. Make them move (at all) and the wheels start to come off. Make them move quickly and its something different entirely.
It seems to me that most will choose to move slowly and retain what accuracy they can, as opposed to learning how to operate while running around like a crackhead.
www.ASkydex.com
My guess is that everybody thinks the other guy has it easier.
The guy that starts out trying for dime-sized groups for a decade and then discovers USPSA finds that he has trouble leaving that accuracy standard behind. The guy that started out wildly blazing away with "combat accuracy" at various timmy classes and then tries competition suddenly finds it difficult to hit the A-zone reliably.
As a regular listener to his podcast, I think your current reigning USPSA Production world champ would disagree with you. In fact, I believe he won this past year without winning a single stage, simply by focusing on hits rather than time.If your goal is to shoot GM classifiers your typically going to get higher HF dropping some points at blazing speed rather than trying to guarantee A's.
I think... no I KNOW that I can "win" C-class, or maybe even B some places, by hauling ass and making up misses with time. I don't think that's the case at A and above, and pretty certain it's not the case at M and above. That's said more as a fan and observer of the game than a winner, or even participant of late, unfortunately.
Heh....and here I am both slow AND inaccurate!
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Well... Sort of?
I mean, I like shooting, I like the people involved in the sport and so the sport takes up a lot of my life.
The reality is that you have to be involved in some level/capacity with the sport. It doesn't have to rule your life. You don't need to shoot all the majors. You don't need to become an RO and run matches. But you do need to enjoy being there and planning a bit for the endeavor: e.g. Do you have an ammo budget/reload? Do you have access to a good range? Are you able to meet the time commitments involved in practice?
All that said, I think if I wasn't shooting, I'd be doing other things at the same level of intensity. I've joked with a few friends that when they outlaw guns, I'll just start playing ping-pong...
Regarding what to practice and how; forget the "tastes great less filling" arguments. Figure out where you stand, then see what you suck at and make plans to DO THAT SHIT more.
How do you know what you suck at? Pick 5 classifiers that you can set up at your range: Try El Pres, Tight Squeeze, Neuvo El Pres, Front Sight 2, and High Standards.
(Same basic target layout and ease of setup)
Shoot them. Figure out your score (HF). Figure out what % that is using AZshooters App. Figure out a %-age.
Ok, now, qualitatively: What did you mess up? Did you hit the no shoots? Did you go to fast? Did you drop too many points?
Pick one and start working on that shit right away.
I'm not a GM, and I'm not really much of a participant anymore since I went back to school, but I whole heartedly agree with this. Every time I made real gains, it came from working hard at the things I sucked at.
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