See what you need to see training.

[Risto]

What was your strong hand start position? You said “touching the gun” but does that mean lightly touching with the heel of your hand like a USPSA start or strong hand already gripping the gun (which I would discourage because establishing grip at speed is part of what we’re trying to do here as part of the drill).

Mostly my middle finger touching ready to dive down.

But some times I did get a full firing grip specifically to replicate a dry fire grip that I had just previously refined to stop dot movement. (If that makes sense)
——
Also, would you ever recommend just shooting into the berm with the goal of just watching the dot move?

[JCN]

Also, would you ever recommend just shooting into the berm with the goal of just watching the dot move?

I don’t recommend that because I’m a fan of multitasking.

Watching the dot move isn’t a goal. Timing the trigger to correspond with the nadir of the bounce / low point accurately is the goal.

So even if you’re shooting max splits, I would rather have you do it on a full size target at 3 yards and still be able to see where the rounds are going.

I do recommend videoing though. Even an iPhone from the side close up to see muzzle bounce and timing can help a ton.



You can learn so much by playing things back at 0.25x.

[JCN]

@Risto if you play that video back at 0.25x you can see that the timing was off initially, then settled into one bounce then fell out at the end when I pulled out of my grip and stance and didn’t follow through fully.

Most smart phones are great for this and I’ll run the slider back and forth to correlate what I think I saw and felt during the shooting to what it actually looked like.

[JCN]

Also @Risto note that your groups were fairly consistent in size across different distances and sight pictures and trigger presses because of scaling.

That is the point of the drill! To be able to know how fast you need to go or not go to get that spread on a target at whatever distance you’re going for. And how that looks. And how that feels.

[Clusterfrack]

Shadow2, CO rig. Great drill!

15yd pairs < 2.0s. Cold. As in literally freezing cold here. Felt a little sloppy visually. I want to run this string again and focus more precisely on the center of the spot.



7yd pairs < 1.5s. Better. Looking at the target spot, tracking the dot.



3yd pairs < 1.0s. This didn’t require as much visual focus on the target. Just observing the red streaks and watching holes appear. Felt the most relaxed.





15 yd string again, this time I felt more precise and relaxed. Pretty happy with this one.

[JCN]

@Clusterfrack thanks for running this. For others, note that the vision and hits scale appropriately for speed and distance.

Also note that he has enough mind’s eye that he knows when something feels off, then corrects something and the results improve.

Also note that with his mechanics, those times allow for alphas and close charlies at those distances.

There is absolutely no shame at all at in a wider spread. That’s why we train and your mechanics and vision are where they are at.

The goal is to scale faithfully at different distance and speeds so you’re only taking as much time as you need to confirm the sight picture you know will give you the spread you have trained at.

For others also, note that that vision and pace we are talking about: these are very functional “hit a bad guy” practical paces and spreads.

[Clusterfrack]

Hwansik Kim defines 3 types of confirmation:
1. Index shooting, no visual confirmation
2. Flash sight picture and/or sight in motion
3. Stable sight picture

Others have similar ways of describing it, like Max Michel's Flash, Floating, and Focused sight pictures.

As well (and I know @JCN has other ways of thinking about this), one can shoot:
"Reactively" where you confirm the sight picture before breaking the shot, or
"Predictively" where the shot breaks sooner than vision and muscles can respond to adjust aim, although you can still confirm/call your shots.

Using the Hwansik scale, I shot:

15yd: 1st shot: Confirmation 3. 2nd shot Confirmation 2, Reactive.
7yd: Confirmation 2, Reactive.
3yd: Confirmation 2, Predictive. A few shots may have been verging on Confirmation 1, but I was really try to see the dot throughout. (This was a small enough target that Confirmation 1 is not a responsible approach.)

[JCN]

So @Clusterfrack and I have some healthy disagreement on what to call what.

In general I’m not a fan of Hwansik’s nomenclature because:

1. Index shooting without any visual confirmation shouldn’t really be done as a general thing unless no choice.
2. Flash and sight in motion encompasses 90%+ of practical shooting. So it’s all lumped in and compressed into one arbitrary group (“confirmation 2”) which by itself isn’t very descriptive.
3. Stable sight picture. Depending on what you mean by “stable” this almost never happens in practical shooting.

So basically all of practical shooting is compressed into Confirmation 2.

Lumping into a binary “I used confirmation 2” is doing your vision a disservice. It’s like saying “I hit steel” without any finer breakdown inherent in that.

So in general I like graded feedback. This is super nerdy, but @Totem Polar I see the target in sounds.

I’ll sing and make noises to myself (sometimes verbally, sometimes internally) that correspond to the feeling of the vision.

I’m actually trying to keep my shooting in vision, proprioception and feeling and away from human words and conventions.

It comes back to the “tigers and sharks” efficiency. I don’t want a verbal language middle man anywhere near my automaticity.

I know @Clusterfrack doesn’t really think of things in words when he shoots or sees, but “confirmation 2” is so broad that it’s unhelpful. I want to know confirmation 2.25 or 2.8…

The Max Michel “flash, floating and focused” is a little better because it splits “Confirmation 2” into Flash and floating. But it’s still just words.

So I don’t really use any terminology when I shoot… I just describe what I saw in the window when I replay it in my mind.

But when I’m shooting, it’s grunts and sounds for vision rather than words…

I ran the 3 yard and the 15 yard today just live to get a sense of what the sight pictures would look like at those speeds.

The 3 yard had enough time for me that I could get a nice medium streak that I could place and time the press.

The 15 yard had a slow moving dot that I drifted to the target and timed an inline press.

I expect the time parameter to be challenging enough for others that they’d only have enough time to get some red somewhere in the window for the 3 yard and a medium moving dot on the 15 which is what I was trying to do with this drill.

[JCN]

I’ve posted this one before but hopefully it’ll have more context for people after trying this drill in dry and live.



It’s too bad that AimCam makes such shitty software and interface. It’s such a PITA to set up.

If people really need to see it, I can try and get it active to do a first person video.

Of note, in real life things look more streaky. So I’m not sure how much video helps.

[BWT]

I did the thing.

The blue tooth adapter didn't work so I don't have 15 yards video. I'm doing the dry fire between drills and I'm documenting the notes. I could try to edit the videos down but I've already spent probably an hour documenting / notating this. Disclaimer, they put me in the far right stall (next to the wall) so the tripod feed could not be on my right to see my draw stroke effectively, etc. It is what it is. It'll get better with more attempts.

I did not bring the tape measurer with me to the range because I assumed I'd be on the 8.5x11. Pushing for these speeds - I was off the target multiple times. If I wasn't supposed to attempt these speeds then I'm a bit puzzled about this.

15 Yards

1.) 2.13 draw / .46 split
2.) 1.94 draw / .44 split
3.) 2.09 draw / .48 split
4.) 2.15 draw / .56 split
5.) 2.35 draw / .57 split



ETA: I was off the paper I estimate by about 2 inches. Guessing a 10'' group.

7 Yards -

https://youtu.be/fzKtuWGi7NM

1.) 1.76 draw / .25 split
2.) 1.78 draw / .28 split
3.) 1.60 draw / .25 split
4.) 1.65 draw / .22 split
5.) 1.54 draw / .20 split



ETA: I was also off the paper here by about 2'' - I'm guessing a 8'' group here.

3 Yards -

https://youtu.be/BudrreJ4YEU

1.) 1.11 draw / .20 split
2.) 1.34 draw / .21 split
3.) 1.23 draw / .21 split
4.) 1.20 draw / .20 split
5.) .95 draw / .22 split



ETA: Looks to be a 10'' group here as well. I'll bring the tape measurer next time.

Unrelated Drill - but I was there and I figured push some things for drill and I wanted to try from concealment.

I also ran a drill where I'd fire one shot and reload and fire one shot ten times just because I never get to shoot from a holster or reload from concealment.

1.) 1.89 / 2.55 reload
2.) 1.9 / 1.41 reload (I wrote this down but I think this might've been bad data as another shooter joined the range - I turned the sensitivity all the way down on my shot timer... but I still think this is so low it has to be wrong.)
3.) 1.92 / 2.56 reload
4.) 1.72 / 2.61 reload
5.) 1.73 / 2.57 reload
6.) 1.68 / 2.37 reload
7.) 1.86 / 2.21 reload
8.) 2.29 / 2.94 reload
9.) 1.81 / 2.52 reload
10.) 1.62 / 2.38 reload

I averaged about a 1.84 draw and about a 2.41 reload.

I then attempted a Bill Drill shooting to try to keep it in the center of the torso (I need to buy some USPSA targets).

1st Drill iteration (from concealment)-



Draw time 1.57 , .20, .19, .19. .19, .21

2nd Drill iteration (from concealment) - I noticed something funny after documenting this with the red dot going dim.



Draw time 1.49, .19, .18, .19., .20 ,.20

3rd Drill iteration (from concealment) - I noticed the dot was dropped to about level 1 or 2 from 8 (I changed the batteries at the beginning of the month).

I shot it again and the dot dropped off again and I called it for the night.

Draw time 1.50, .21, .18., .17, .20, .19


Insights

What I observed is I believe I'm not at a skill level to shoot these near these speeds. I didn't make the time once and maybe that's the goal to push myself - which I'm sure it is then I'd honestly consider was this an effective way to push this.

I think something I need to do is get comfortable seeing what I need to see. I also noticed 3/3 I ran all of my bill drills (I was also the most warmed up - something to keep in mind maybe for myself) with an almost 1.5 second draw 3 times which is about .3 seconds slower than when I was shooting for a 1 second par time at 3 yards. There is something about the decisiveness of the bill drill that allows me to shoot faster and perhaps it's because I've shot it in dry a lot. Perhaps it's because I was warmed up already (I think that's a factor). I had faster splits (some down under .20) - I had faster draws (.3 seconds faster than when I did the others). I also seem to go faster when I am in a string than I am in a pair and I don't quite know why for splits. I think part of that is the feeling of aiming at a dot versus a mid torso.

I think I really need to sit down and ask myself what I'm looking to do here.

The Ugly

My SRO is broken and at this point I need to take it off and ship it back to Trijicon. That'll probably sideline me for a bit, but that's also why I invested in an EDC gun and a competition gun - it is what it is.

I'll chew over the post more later and analysis. I'm probably giving and capturing more data than necessary, but the honest to God truth is we need that data to improve for the baseline.

Thanks and have a great night.