accuracy vs speed

[Clusterfrack]

I am practising various areas of shooting. Mainly first on accuracy. But quesions are how to balance the practice to concentrating on accuracy and speed. For example, if on a 6 yard shooting with my Glock 19 gen 4 with an accuracy most shots within 1 to 1.5 inch of the target, should I move more into practice of speed? And how accurate can I expect to become with "resonable" practice? (I know that is a very vaque question).

Yours is a common question, but many practical shooters would reject the premise. There doesn't need to be a choice of accuracy or speed, and as people develop their skill, both improve. Often people start with a tendency to focus on accuracy or speed, and can be categorized as either a turtle or a hoser. Turtles take as long as needed to ensure accuracy. Hosers like pulling the trigger more than hitting the target, and faster is better. There is some argument about who is easier to train up to be a skilled practical shooter. Is it easer to make a turtle go faster or make a hoser slow down?

I think it is possible to train both accuracy and speed, and it is very inefficient to focus on one or the other. Once you can aim the gun and hit the A zone at 7 yds, you're ready for the next steps. What are those steps? 1) Find a good instructor. As the Mandalorian says, "This is the way."

There are also some good books. My current favorite is Breakthrough Marksmanship: The Tools of Practical Shooting by Ben Stoeger
https://amazon.com/Breakthrough-Mark...dp/1091416818/

[JohnO]

I could live without all these technical threads devolving into ridiculous nitpicking about how JCN is maybe, kind of, technically, a little bit wrong on some point. We've now got two pages of how he maybe didn't shoot a target in a rapid transition drill in the right part of the face.

It was intended as a teaching point not nitpicking criticism.

[JCN]

Perhaps I'm the guilty party for criticizing a target. I didn't want to cause a crap storm. Over the years I've seen many shooters improperly target the head. Yes some because the round did not go exactly were they intended but in many cases a improper understanding of handgun projectile performance v. the human head and anatomy.

One can draw all the lines they want through sagittal MRI images. Handgun rounds don't follow lines. Plenty of handgun rounds that have impacted above the eyebrows have not penetrated the human skull. If you want to damage to the brain you have to breach the skull. The window of entry is widely recognized as the area between the eyebrows and the base of the nose and between and including the eyes for a face on target.

Additionally it's tough enough to hit a credit card sized target on an uncooperative animated being. Picking or having access to the exact angle to a specific sweet spot buried within is not feasible.

You are talking about two different points though. Where the optimal aiming point for the anatomy and where the functional point of aim is for breaching material.

If I had a rifle, I’d aim where I’d aim. If carrying 357 Sig, I’d aim where I’d aim. If carrying copper fluted XD, I’d aim where I’d aim.

Because at the speed and accuracy trade off I had, I’m not going to add the extra variable of what if’ing penetration.
I’ll count on my caliber and ammo selection to do that over aiming low and not having a chance to hit the brain like you’re suggesting. It’s two compromises and if you’re aimed off the brain, you have less chance IMO than if you’re aimed at it with a barrier in between.

Literally with a chin tuck, you cannot hit the brainstem through the eye port. Especially if the target is at lower elevation.

Here is another target off the same series, done with a different gun off a hard transition.

I put a dime on the head to give you a scale of what we are talking about for this drill... (that’s three strings of fire on the same target).



In the context of the thread, it’s important to improve gun mechanics so that you can hit what you want to hit quickly.

If you can’t do that, all the theoretical mish mash doesn’t matter at all. Which is why training credentials only go so far without self-assessment skills in practice and a little hard work.

As an aside, I enjoyed Jim Cirillo’s Tales of the Stakeout Squad and his discussion of how ammo selection really affected ability to get through the skull instead of skating or glancing off of it.

Instead of modifying his point of aim, he selected (in this case created) ammo that could get the job done.

This is a good discussion. We have some people like yourself that have reasons why they’d go for the eye port even if they can’t hit the brainstem, hoping that it hits something vital (knowing that even if not immediately fatal, getting shot in the eye would probably stop any fight). And others that have a different math and choose to aim at the target they’re trying to hit and hope for the caliber and ammo to do its part.

And other people who just repeat what they blindly heard in a tactical class without understanding why they were told that and the caveats that exist.

But again, the important part is being able to hit what you want to hit quickly off a transition accurately.

The video and target are demonstrations of that. The target with the dime has a little better shot placement, but on the video of those runs, I didn’t like the overtransition and make up even though the target turned out “better.”

In my math calculus, faster and the initial spread was better than a bobble in the transition and more accurate placement. But at my skill level, I can decide to make different trade offs of speed and accuracy depending on what I feel the requirement is for the task at hand.

[Hambo]

One can draw all the lines they want through sagittal MRI images. Handgun rounds don't follow lines. Plenty of handgun rounds that have impacted above the eyebrows have not penetrated the human skull. If you want to damage to the brain you have to breach the skull. The window of entry is widely recognized as the area between the eyebrows and the base of the nose and between and including the eyes for a face on target.

Additionally it's tough enough to hit a credit card sized target on an uncooperative animated being. Picking or having access to the exact angle to a specific sweet spot buried within is not feasible.

Leaving out .32 or smaller, I've never seen anybody hit in the head stay in the fight. I think everybody who had a hole going into the brain died...eventually. Rounds that failed to penetrate still put the guy down, if not permanently, for long enough to end the fight. I'm not saying that you shouldn't try to be precise, just that in the real world a failure to hit the brain stem will probably accomplish what you want.

[RJ]

Yours is a common question, but many practical shooters would reject the premise. There doesn't need to be a choice of accuracy or speed, and as people develop their skill, both improve. Often people start with a tendency to focus on accuracy or speed, and can be categorized as either a turtle or a hoser. Turtles take as long as needed to ensure accuracy. Hosers like pulling the trigger more than hitting the target, and faster is better. There is some argument about who is easier to train up to be a skilled practical shooter. Is it easer to make a turtle go faster or make a hoser slow down?

I think it is possible to train both accuracy and speed, and it is very inefficient to focus on one or the other. Once you can aim the gun and hit the A zone at 7 yds, you're ready for the next steps. What are those steps? 1) Find a good instructor. As the Mandalorian says, "This is the way."

There are also some good books. My current favorite is Breakthrough Marksmanship: The Tools of Practical Shooting by Ben Stoeger
https://amazon.com/Breakthrough-Mark...dp/1091416818/

This is the way.

[CCT125US]

Not sure what exactly happened in this thread......

Some of the comments / assumptions are bordering on ridiculous.

I'm in no position to ask, but some folks should step away from the internet and go dryfire / shoot.

[JCN]

@JohnO

Here was the other video I didn't post here that corresponds to the picture with the dime for reference.
I wasn't happy with the over-aggressiveness of the transition and the need to "come back" to the target, but was still shot off a hard transition. I was used to transitioning with a much heavier competition gun and didn't dial back my inputs on the transition.

You might like these shot placements better. It's again in the context of accuracy versus speed (which is what the topic is about).

[ViniVidivici]

OP, barring actual formal instruction, another good resource is a book called "Surgical Speed Shooting" by Andy Stanford.

It addresses the mechanics involved in shooting accurately at speed. Very good resource, it's on my shelf, read it twice in my life.

[BWT]

Not sure what exactly happened in this thread......

Some of the comments / assumptions are bordering on ridiculous.

I'm in no position to ask, but some folks should step away from the internet and go dryfire / shoot.

Just an outsider perusing.

JCN speaks authoritatively and matter of factly. It rubs people the wrong way and typically stops discussions. Either SME’s walk away going “not worth my time - I’m not being paid to be this aggravated. Not worth my time” or common folks go “I don’t want to argue”, etc.

I don’t really have a dog in this fight or consider myself a better shooter than anyone here. Clearly the guy applies himself and gets out and actually shoots. But his manners seems to be the issue.

I just feel poorly about it because what happens is thread participation drops off when folks walk away irritated and the OP’s going “just here to learn how to shoot guys...”, and that’s why I care to say something because it keeps the forum alive and raises the capability of the forum as we learn together. When you know everything - you can’t learn. You can’t pour anything into a full glass.

Just my $.02.

ETA: I may be wrong or that may not be how JCN intends to come across, but it’s how I’m interpreting his comments, people’s responses, and his responses to their responses.

[Eyesquared]

He's not the one who started off with the smarmy "If you had ever live trained..." remarks. I think it is totally pointless and actually quite tactless to go around and tell people "Hey, you missed, doofus" when it is plain from the target that they know they missed. The whole point of the thread is to talk about accuracy vs speed, missing from time to time goes with the territory.

At the end of the day not everyone can get along on the internet. If people can't make their points which they learned in some class without having to namedrop their instructors or throw out a training resume, it suggests that either their ideas do not stand up well enough to be debated, or the student's retention of the material is insufficient.

Edit: as for SMEs going off in a huff, it has been a long time since I saw any people I would really consider true SMEs of shooting mechanics posting regularly on this board. There are a handful of GM-level guys who post occasionally and I didn't see any of them arguing with JCN.