Reloading faster

[GJM]

Having trained with Robert Vogel and Manny Bragg, I knew they reload faster than I do. Yesterday, I was watching a video of Ben Stoeger shoot a drill with targets at 7, 15 and 25, reload and repeat, and his reload was 1.09, which he remarked as being typical.

Leaving aside open versus concealed, and slide forward versus slide lock, it is clear that Ben, Manny and Robert reload a LOT faster than I do. Two questions:

1) what is a world class reload par time for slide lock from concealment?

2) how do you get a reload that fast?

[JV_]

1) what is a world class reload par time for slide lock from concealment?

Open or closed front cover garment?

[YVK]

Having trained with Robert Vogel and Manny Bragg..

2) how do you get a reload that fast?

Did you go over reloads with Manny?

I assume the video you saw referred to expected, not surprise reloads?

[GJM]

Time for open front and closed front slide lock reloads.

We discussed reloads, but Manny was open carry. Expected, since surprise could be no delay to a lot, and I am not sure what that time would be.

[TCinVA]

Today in class Mr. Vogel said that the top level guys have a reload that's about equal with their time for draw to first shot on target, at least from competition rigs.

He spent a good bit of time talking about the details of the mag holder itself and most importantly the way the mag is pulled from the holder and reference points to aid in the reload. At dinner last night and again today he talked about using the cutout in the frame of third gen Glocks as a reference point for his left index finger when he's reloading.

Economy of motion, consistent reference points, the right gear...and a lot of practice.

During the reload work today and keeping in mind Mr. Vogel's habit of touching the left index finger to the frame of the gun, I realized something I have been doing wrong for years that I never really noticed before. It's going to take some dryfire to correct it but even with just that little bit of knowledge I managed to make a marked improvement on my reload speed almost instantly.

So far the class for me has been realizing a lot of seemingly little things that aren't so little in practice.

[Mr_White]

Having trained with Robert Vogel and Manny Bragg, I knew they reload faster than I do. Yesterday, I was watching a video of Ben Stoeger shoot a drill with targets at 7, 15 and 25, reload and repeat, and his reload was 1.09, which he remarked as being typical.

Leaving aside open versus concealed, and slide forward versus slide lock, it is clear that Ben, Manny and Robert reload a LOT faster than I do. Two questions:

1) what is a world class reload par time for slide lock from concealment?

2) how do you get a reload that fast?

1: I don''t know for open front. From closed front, I can only say that the fastest live fire reload I've seen on the timer has been like 1.19. That's peak performance for me so far and most of the time I will be somewhat slower than that. I'd say my normal range is maybe 1.3 to 1.7 but sometimes I do better or worse than that. My reloads rust fast, which I am kind of suffering from now. I would say world class performance is a goodly step better than mine. So maybe 1.10 from closed-front is world class and 1.00 is top of the heap world class. I am just guessing though, especially because I don't think that anyone who would properly be described as a world-class pistol shooter reloads at that level from closed-front concealment. Everyone who is proper world-class is reloading from open carry in IPSC/USPSA or is Bob Vogel or maybe someone else in IDPA, but that's with open-front concealment.

2: Practice it a lot. Spend 30 minutes a day on dry slidelock reloads for a month and then tell us where you are at and what you have noticed. Drive all parts of it. Drive hard to the shirt, clear it, and get hand on mag. Drive the mag to the mag well and drive it in. Drive the gun to the target spot and hit it. I have only been able to do that pretty well when I get my reloads up to a higher level. Unless I am really sharp, I need to decelerate the mag a little bit before it goes into the mag well or risk screwing up.

Just as important as the above, do not tell yourself that it isn't possible to move precisely that quickly. Start with belief. Belief in yourself, that you can and will do it. Then set about making it happen.

Even when you miss at doing this (I haven't hit it yet), I bet you will find more performance gains than you previously recognized were possible (I have.)

What are your slidelock reload times now? Can you post a video?

[GJM]

Darn, you mean it is the standard 10 per cent technique, 90 per cent hard work, like almost everything else in shooting.

I have just started the closed front reloads and they are 1.9-2.2, so I have a lot of room for improvement.

[theblacknight]

My slide locks from under t-shirts are usually 1.3-1.5s.

When I practice gamer reloads from my production belt, the things you need to beat into repetition is RACING to the mag release as fast as possible while the pistol still vertical while racing to the fresh mag. If you don't, you will smash the base pad with the fresh mag. I duct taped my 1st mag that I always use 1st in dry fire/at matches so the plastic doesn't get chewed up. Also for me, getting a flash visual on the well itself helps to hit it when you are trying to get under 1.2.

[Sasquatch]

I'm no expert, but I do have some experience in what doesn't work. When I first started practicing reloads in dry-fire, I would simply try to perform the whole reload as fast as I could. My good reloads definitely got faster, but I was still screwing up a large percentage of them, even after a fair bit of practice. A friend suggested to break up the reload into distinct 'steps'. He said to start by trying some Burkett reload drills (just dumping the empty mag and getting the fresh one from the belt to just barely indexed in the magwell). This was a big help to me. I still can't get the 1 second reloads, but it's very rare for me to screw it up, too.