Things more important than a sub-second draw....

[Jared]

I had a similar discussion with @Mas once about magazine articles and I took your side of the argument. He pointed out that while it's old hat to *us* there's a steady supply of neophytes who it's all new for. I had not considered it from that viewpoint (and I would add he had real numbers for how many people buy their first gun each month, etc.) It's relatively seldom something actually "new" comes out, and we're going to revisit the same topics with new members. Else we might as well just archive the technical forums.

So, you’re right, I do forget that aspect of it sometimes when these topics come up. I guess this one is a bit closer to home for me because I was very much on one side of it at one time, and now I’m more neutral on it.

You are correct however that these things are beneficial for those starting their journey.

[JRV]

A relaxed and consistent sub-second draw is a great skill. But it’s a priorities issue.

In competition, you are very rarely drawing to a target without doing another simultaneous action that takes more than a second (unloaded starts, table starts, movement to first position, manually activating a target mover). A straight-up holster yoink mainly benefits classifier performance. A decent competitor that’s not in shape and developing gun-up movement is leaving way more performance on the table in field courses than a faster draw gains.

In “the real world,” unless you are discussing a response to an ambush (which, even then, usually requires immediate movement and simultaneous communication with any present partners/backup/teammates), a sub-second draw is not going to overcome deficiencies in awareness or disadvantageous positioning. In my limited experience, any situation of understood high risk (warrant service, felony stops) was approached with gun/gauge/rifle in hand already, and our training dictated (if you weren’t committed to responding with less-lethal) establishing a grip in the holster and deactivating retention of a situation looked like it was about to get wild and wacky. Bad positioning, poor comms, and frozen decision making were way more dangerous than mediocre draw speed.

[JCN]

A relaxed and consistent sub-second draw is a great skill. But it’s a priorities issue.

In competition, you are very rarely drawing to a target without doing another simultaneous action that takes more than a second (unloaded starts, table starts, movement to first position, manually activating a target mover). A straight-up holster yoink mainly benefits classifier performance. A decent competitor that’s not in shape and developing gun-up movement is leaving way more performance on the table in field courses than a faster draw gains.

In “the real world,” unless you are discussing a response to an ambush (which, even then, usually requires immediate movement and simultaneous communication with any present partners/backup/teammates), a sub-second draw is not going to overcome deficiencies in awareness or disadvantageous positioning. In my limited experience, any situation of understood high risk (warrant service, felony stops) was approached with gun/gauge/rifle in hand already, and our training dictated (if you weren’t committed to responding with less-lethal) establishing a grip in the holster and deactivating retention of a situation looked like it was about to get wild and wacky. Bad positioning, poor comms, and frozen decision making were way more dangerous than mediocre draw speed.

It’s like people aren’t listening.

Having a good draw and index for competition benefits everything that’s added to it in complexity.

If you can’t do it efficiently when it’s simple, you can’t do it when it’s complicated.

Someone who can get on target on a classifier “yoink” can also do it better than Joe Slow on every presentation and every table start and every reload and every gun mounting.

Having a mediocre draw speed is a surrogate for poor automaticity of index which hurts everything. If indexing and getting on target isn’t that important, I’ll leave that to the people who know.

But for fucks sake the subsecond draw is the BASE on which more complicated things can be added.

If someone struggles with basic index and presentation, they’re going to get brain fried when they try to add complexity.

[Clusterfrack]

I was listening, but didn't understand until now that you are proposing that a sub-second draw is fundamental to a bunch of other skills.

I do not agree, and have many examples of top USPSA competitors who do not have a sub-second draw. E.g. Top 16 Nationals placement.

It’s like people aren’t listening.

Having a good draw and index for competition benefits everything that’s added to it in complexity.

If you can’t do it efficiently when it’s simple, you can’t do it when it’s complicated.

Someone who can get on target on a classifier “yoink” can also do it better than Joe Slow on every presentation and every table start and every reload and every gun mounting.

Having a mediocre draw speed is a surrogate for poor automaticity of index which hurts everything. If indexing and getting on target isn’t that important, I’ll leave that to the people who know.

But for fucks sake the subsecond draw is the BASE on which more complicated things can be added.

If someone struggles with basic index and presentation, they’re going to get brain fried when they try to add complexity.

[JCN]

I was listening, but didn't understand until now that you are proposing that a sub-second draw is fundamental to a bunch of other skills.

I do not agree, and have many examples of top USPSA competitors who do not have a sub-second draw. E.g. Top 16 Nationals placement.

Christian Sailer is one who has a slow draw but fast everything else.

I think he is sub-second capable but he CHOOSES not to utilize that in matches.

I think that the other competitors you speak of are capable of it if they chose to.

Take any of the people you are thinking of and put them in a scenario where they have 1.0 seconds to hit a 3 yard target or else their dog dies. What percent of those people could do that 100%?

I’m not saying it has or should be utilized. But skill capable.

I’m not sub second capable from the gear I normally carry with. But I choose that for safety reasons.

I would be interested to know if any of the people you’re thinking of have shot Can You Count? I suspect if you looked at their breakdown they would all be sub second.

[jlw]

Bryan and I did not discuss the sub-second draw as a stand in for a broad set of skills or for automaticity. We discussed people chasing that single, specific metric. Assigning any other meaning to what we specifically discussed is done in bad faith.

[GJM]

I was listening, but didn't understand until now that you are proposing that a sub-second draw is fundamental to a bunch of other skills.

I do not agree, and have many examples of top USPSA competitors who do not have a sub-second draw. E.g. Top 16 Nationals placement.

An important reason this is correct is how you draw has a big effect on draw speed. A draw where your hand comes down onto the pistol and pushes the pistol down against the holster is slower but allows many folks better follow up shots. JJ told me he changed his draw to this method for this specific reason. Pretty sure I have posted video on PF of doing three consecutive sub .50 draws, and drawing and shooting three eight inch steel in 1.10 or some crazy number. It is a parlor trick and irrelevant to USPSA or defensive use of the pistol compared to a draw that takes twice as long and allows better follow-up shots. My overall shooting has improved since I stopped being preoccupied with blazing fast draws.

[JCN]

An important reason this is correct is how you draw has a big effect on draw speed. A draw where your hand comes down onto the pistol and pushes the pistol down against the holster is slower but allows many folks better follow up shots. JJ told me he changed his draw to this method for this specific reason. Pretty sure I have posted video on PF of doing three consecutive sub .50 draws, and drawing and shooting three eight inch steel in 1.10 or some crazy number. It is a parlor trick and irrelevant to USPSA or defensive use of the pistol compared to a draw that takes twice as long and allows better follow-up shots. My overall shooting has improved since I stopped being preoccupied with blazing fast draws.

You can’t get a stage worthy grip in 0.9 seconds?

I think you can.

[John Hearne]

"The Chart", in that form, started with something from a training outfit called Midwest Marksman, and was debated/discussed/a lot added to it here on PF, and John Hearne's automaticity part got on it too. There are a lot of people involved in its creation, including some I don't even know.

Whenever I find myself disagreeing with Gabe, I have to really think hard about what I'm saying. Regarding the origins of that chart, it is one of the few contributions to our craft that I have some sort of majority stake holder position in. That chart goes back to a thread here on PF back in 2014. The original version was all mine and then Gabe shortly chimed in with the Midwest Marksman chart but I was not aware of it when I did my work.

The entire thread can be found here: https://pistol-forum.com/showthread....hlight=project

Rereading the whole thread is interesting, especially given the statement by Ken Hackathorn in post #1. To refresh, you don't have to be great but you have to bee good. The question is what's "good." The chart evolved with my own research. Most of the people who post it haven't heard my talk where I argue that the point of diminishing returns is the middle of the third column.

There's always room for improvement but a lot of battle tested people don't expect a sub one second draw. Paul Howe's standard for a hit to what is effectively a USPSA A zone is 1.7 seconds from a duty rig or concealed carry. I'm sure Paul would say faster is better but at some point you have to work on the other pieces of the puzzle.

And just so everyone on the internet can hate me, I think that the sub second draw is due to the rise of AIWB and a starting position that places the hands at the edge of the garment. As another friend I highly respect calls it - a parlor trick. While there are folks good for sub second draws from strong side hip, they are very few and far between. I'm not sure if ever said a number but I think Gabe recognizes that the penalty for a concealed strong side hip draw is more than the 0.25 his standards allow.

And in case anyone doesn't hate me, I think that a reliable 1.5 draw stroke is the point where you start working on something else. I'd recommend that if you can deliver 1.5 reliably, start shrinking the target and work to keep the time the same. We tend to use bigger targets than reality would suggest and there's a lot of "stuff" in the 8" circle that isn't impressive. A high chest hit that stays in a 5.5" circle is game changing. If you're AIWB, that point of enough is probably around 1.2 seconds.

And since it was asked, I ran some drills at the range today from my duty rig (Safariland ALS with nub) at 7 yds. I used a B-8 repair center and the possible results were "Black" (9 or 10) "Eight" (8 ring) or "Miss" (Anything else). Hits to the "Black" averaged 1.43, hits to the "Eight" averaged 1.34. I ran it 10 times and had two misses (on the paper but not in the 8 ring) and they averaged 1.39. I'm not training with any event in mind and this is close to my "walking around skill." I can crank up the dry practice and get these numbers down but they tend to return back to this level.

[Clusterfrack]

Damn, it's tempting to abuse my shitmod privileges and lock this thread after @John Hearne's post...