How do you know if you can shoot faster if you never try?

Wolffy

Wolffy

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Legitimate question.
Seeing several threads here and other places where the advice given is to slow down. Is slowing down really what you should do?
Slow is smooth, smooth is fast?
Slow down and get your hits?
You can’t miss fast enough?

For sake of this thread let’s keep it to pistol competition shooting.
 
Yesterday, I spent an hour doing modified bill drills with an open pistol finding out how fast I could go.
173.5 PF.

My times are not important. What I learned is. Inital Grip is a major factor.
Having a relaxed body is also important.
"Trigger freeze" is a real possibility when your at .2 second splits. Letting the weak hand do most of the grunt work helps immensely.

Point is, ya gotta try to go fast before you figure out HOW to go fast.
Plus it's fun to pretend to be John Wick.
 
Short practice yesterday for me too. Was testing first shot from the draw times. When I drew, snapped to the target and fired, my clean shots were .95. But when I consciously slowed down toward the end of my draw, they were in the high .70s and low .80s.

The whole “slow down” thing is more to get people to focus on being smooth and eliminating mental errors, which usually results in a faster time overall. In regards to the draw times, it allows you to anticipate when the muzzle will be pointed at the right place so you can break the shot sooner. A few different reasons to keep it “smooth” or “slow down.”

When I practice I spend most of my time doing the drills as fast as I can go “smoothly.” Once I warm up, I push it till it begins to break, then I’ll back off. Definitely have to stretch ourselves, but keep it “slow” or “smooth” for competition!
 
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I need to find a balance. I shoot middle of the pack in total score in matches but there will usually only be maybe 10-15% of the shooters who have fewer points down. I know I'll give up the accuracy if I speed up, which I do in drills, but it gets ugly every time I do, so I don't try it in matches.
 
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My time is usually competitive, my hits not so much.
I suspect this has a lot more to do with dry fire being the bulk of my practice than the pace of the shooting.
Don't generally get much live fire other than matches, maybe a monthly session of a few hundred rounds.
 
You have to push yourself way out of your comfort zone to get better at anything.

Being smooth is a function of a good stroke/swing/whatever. It becomes smooth when you are getting it right.
Tiger doesn’t slow down his club speed to hit a further shot. Instead he delivers a smooth swing that produces a faster club speed.

The fastest times feel slow because you are doing everything right and present in that moment. It feels slow because it’s efficient. And many times we do need to slow down to active that efficiency.

Slow is just slow generally tho. Just my opinion.
 
fieldgrade said:
I need to find a balance. I shoot middle of the pack in total score in matches but there will usually only be maybe 10-15% of the shooters who have fewer points down. I know I'll give up the accuracy if I speed up, which I do in drills, but it gets ugly every time I do, so I don't try it in matches.
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Don’t speed up your shooting. Speed up everything else.
 
NKD said:
Don’t speed up your shooting. Speed up everything else.
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I'd be real happy if I could carve 3.3 seconds out of each 17-18 round stage. Not sure where I would most easily find that.

Looking at yesterday's scores I shot about well as I do currently running a 1911 in 45 (8 rd), and incrementally outshooting a handful of good shooters my "vintage" who were shooting 1911's and other semi-autos in 9MM (10 rd), and who just as often outshoot me. Pretty much everybody else faster than me was 10-40 years younger than me. I don't know how much I can blame on the years and the mileage.
 
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fieldgrade said:
I'd be real happy if I could carve 3.3 seconds out of each 17-18 round stage. Not sure where I would most easily find that.

Looking at yesterday's scores I shot about well as I do currently running a 1911 in 45 (8 rd), and incrementally outshooting a handful of good shooters my "vintage" who were shooting 1911's and other semi-autos in 9MM (10 rd), and who just as often outshoot me. Pretty much everybody else faster than me was 10-40 years younger than me. I don't know how much I can blame on the years and the mileage.
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I’ve just found all the time left on a stage to be everything but the actual shooting. The biggest chunk often just the transitions between targets. Especially the longer stages. Snap that gun to next target!
Maybe worth a little focus on timer next practice session.

Just taking a stab at it in the dark!
 
fieldgrade said:
I'd be real happy if I could carve 3.3 seconds out of each 17-18 round stage. Not sure where I would most easily find that.

.
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Foot work and target transitions. Majority of the "good" shooters shot at the same pace and some what accuracy. The movement, foot work and transitions is where the difference comes from
 
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Mike Overlay said:
Foot work and target transitions. Majority of the "good" shooters shot at the same pace and some what accuracy. The movement, foot work and transitions is where the difference comes from
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Right from the Masters mouth!
 
As some others have said, you have to do both slow and fast. Slow to get the motions and muscle memory ingrained, and fast to push yourself to find your limit and to get to the next level. The point of “smooth” I think is just that your motion is efficient - nothing wasted and nothing “abrupt” (compared to the rest of your sequence of motion - you will not be able to speed up that part with the rest). A single smooth fluid grip/draw/presentation/trigger press or reload can be sped up and still be smooth. A bunch of jerky steps will turn into a mess when you push it faster.

Once you can draw and come up with sights indexed reliably where you are looking at the target, how fast can you do that reliably?

Once you can get A zone hits reliably, how fast can you do that at 3,5,7,10,15,20 yards? How fast can you get 2 A zone hits? Where is your transition from double tap to controlled pair to 2 aimed shots? Put another way, how good does your sight picture have to be at various ranges?

How fast can you transition between targets? If the targets aren’t far apart should be close to your split times above.

Get a timer if you don’t have one. Learn your limits. Use the par time dry firing and in live fire to push your limits. But do not completely forsake the “smooth” practice making sure you are doing everything well and consistently either.

To do your best at a match you have to get hits as fast as you can. That means you have to know how fast that is - what your limits are. To get better you have to improve those limits.

That’s just the shooting part. As someone said, once you are decent there, the time is mostly elsewhere. Stage planning, movement, reloads (if you need to do them in matches while moving, practice that way), and transitions.


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I've heard BJ Norris explain it on several podcasts like this: When you first learned to drive, driving 60 on the highway felt like you were losing control. Now that you have many hours behind the wheel, you don't feel out of control until you go 100+

Same thing with shooting **DURING PRACTICE** you should be trying to hit that uncomfortable speed. You should be shooting faster then you are comfortable and work on getting your eyes/hands/brain to catch up.
 
Geerubb said:
I've heard BJ Norris explain it on several podcasts like this: When you first learned to drive, driving 60 on the highway felt like you were losing control. Now that you have many hours behind the wheel, you don't feel out of control until you go 100+

Same thing with shooting **DURING PRACTICE** you should be trying to hit that uncomfortable speed. You should be shooting faster then you are comfortable and work on getting your eyes/hands/brain to catch up.
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You should post up some rimfire steel vids. Doesn’t get much faster than that!
 
I can't stand the old slow is smooth parroting (hence the screen name). Some of the best times and scores I've ever put up in uspsa or steel challenge were definitely not smooth or methodical. They were elegantly dancing the line with being out of control. Especially in uspsa when I'm trying to get my 300lb self up to (and especially back down from) speed. When you are learning the basics and learning to call shots it's important to know what speed you can go at, but when you've got that part down, I think you have to find the speed you're comfortable with and see how far you can push it.
 
slow is slow said:
When you are learning the basics and learning to call shots it's important to know what speed you can go at, but when you've got that part down, I think you have to find the speed you're comfortable with and see how far you can push it.
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This is so important. I shot a lot of steel prior to USPSA and made me realize how much harder paper and shot calling is. Didn't really even understand what it was before then. USPSA quickly exposes every weakness in your game.
 
NKD said:
This is so important. I shot a lot of steel prior to USPSA and made me realize how much harder paper and shot calling is. Didn't really even understand what it was before then. USPSA quickly exposes every weakness in your game.
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I'm in the same boat, started out shooting a lot of steel. When I switched to uspsa, I quickly learned that you don't get that reassuring "ping" back from paper targets.
 
Majicmike said:
Just wondering, for the guys who shoot matches do you practice with the same ammo,, weight?
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I shoot some pricey .45 match ammo in matches that's loaded to just make CDP division power factor, and don't run it during practice sessions only because it cost too much.
 
Majicmike said:
Can you feel difference?
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honestly? not really. I'd have to time some drills to see if it shaves some time off, but where I shoot in the middle of the pack I can shave 5 seconds off and not move up on the score sheet. The fast shooters can be splitin' hairs on time and they need everything they can get.
I bought a couple thousand rounds of it, but I'm not buying anymore.
 
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Guys,

Slow is smooth, smooth is fast started in the US Army Jumpmaster course around the 1980's. As a way to teach JMPI.

The saying then moved on to other aspects of Army training in the 1990's up to now as a saying that most gun people have heard.

The key to the term is when a person is multi-tasking a physical activity like shooting a match stage or clearing a building. The term applied makes since. When doing more simplistic tasks like shooting other phrases work better.
 
The way I've always understood the saying is "slow down and do things smoothly, in turn you'll be quicker than if you hurry and make mistakes"
It's this understanding of the "slow is smooth" adage that I don't agree with. If you are thinking about anything other than the stage plan, you've already lost. You can't rush, try, hurry (Steve Anderson's words) or intentionally slow down in an attempt to be smoother. You shoot absolutely as fast you can see targets and call shots. I think the calling shots is most important part because as you improve, you naturally shoot much faster and as you get faster, mistakes in form/grip/focus are amplified. Calling those bad shots and firing a make up quickly makes all the difference in a good shooter and a great shooter.
 
I only have one load for the STI that I compete with, and the 650 is dedicated to that load. I don’t know whether it has shot any factory ammo at all. Maybe the first week I had it.

Everything else is on the 550, including other 9mm loads.


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fieldgrade said:
honestly? not really. I'd have to time some drills to see if it shaves some time off, but where I shoot in the middle of the pack I can shave 5 seconds off and not move up on the score sheet. The fast shooters can be splitin' hairs on time and they need everything they can get.
I bought a couple thousand rounds of it, but I'm not buying anymore.
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Back in the 1900s, the early 80s, Mike and I were IPSC terrors. On a lark once we loaded 45 acp Just to major in 152,165,185,200,215, and 230 weights. We checked them all to make sure they made 175 and then shot some. We were amazed, we handed out a bunch to some Really good shooters for them to shoot.
Result was....you Could Not Tell One from The Other. We had to load from 1,150 fps to 760 to make Major through all weights available. So, from the lightest to the heaviest when loaded to a Specific Power factor no one cold tell the difference when all were loaded in the same mag. More useless info...I'm full of it...ramblings of an old man!
 
BatteryOaksBilly said:
Back in the 1900s, the early 80s, Mike and I were IPSC terrors. On a lark once we loaded 45 acp Just to major in 152,165,185,200,215, and 230 weights. We checked them all to make sure they made 175 and then shot some. We were amazed, we handed out a bunch to some Really good shooters for them to shoot.
Result was....you Could Not Tell One from The Other. We had to load from 1,150 fps to 760 to make Major through all weights available. So, from the lightest to the heaviest when loaded to a Specific Power factor no one cold tell the difference when all were loaded in the same mag. More useless info...I'm full of it...ramblings of an old man!
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And you would be horrified to know what I paid for Asym Practical Match 230 gr .45acp
 
slow is slow said:
If you are thinking about anything other than the stage plan, you've already lost
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One more thing and then I'll go check the mail box and quit ramblin'. The last Real match we had here was 3 stages long. Not a single person knew what we were doing! We kept all the shooters away from the match area and called them down one at a time. No pre planning for position or reloads or Anything. Here's your problem, Go solve it. We had winners that day that had only been mid pack shooters before, but damn they could solve the problem. The match was set up behind an 8 foot wall of tires. We told them what color the shoot targets were and nothing else. Buzzer went off and ….chaos... "Kinda" like a real problem but with nobody shootin atcha.
 
I'm gonna run some 124 gr NATO Saturday just because it cycles my Fusion better. It's impossible to tell the difference in recoil in that boat anchor anyway.
 
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