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Reducing your splits on long-range targets


Cy Soto

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A lot of shooters can easily shoot sub-30 splits on relatively close up targets but very few can shoot even mid-30 splits on 25yd+ targets. What's the secret to shooting fast splits on long range targets?

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I don't know. 25yd Bill Drill??? That would be a good drill.

Last time I tried to do 17yd Bill Drills, I couldn't get 0.3 splits, so what do I know?

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A lot has to do with the grip. I need a vice like grip to shoot faster splits.

Try isolating the grip, don't start from the draw as you might miss the perfect grip. Get your version of a perfect grip, align the sights and then start on the beep of the timer. At first, get your alphas as that will give you a baseline of your splits. After a couple of times doing that, just hose the target about as fast as you can, not really looking at your sights in a traditional matter, just try to burn it down. That will give you a great time but terrible hits (obviously). Then, get back on your sights and try to "catch" the times from your hosing run.

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Not sure of the value of spending your limited training time on something you don't do very often at matches .... If that's currently your only weakness then I guess it would make sense but I got to think there are many other things to work on that will show a larger improvement in match scores then reducing your split from a .5 to a .25 on the 1 or 2 long range targets you'll see in a typical match, but I'm certainly no GM so WDIK ...

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Not sure of the value of spending your limited training time on something you don't do very often at matches .... If that's currently your only weakness then I guess it would make sense but I got to think there are many other things to work on that will show a larger improvement in match scores then reducing your split from a .5 to a .25 on the 1 or 2 long range targets you'll see in a typical match, but I'm certainly no GM so WDIK ...

Typical club match?

From what I've heard, one of the biggest separators in terms of performance at Nationals is performance on longer range targets.

Might as well not practice unloaded starts, reloads off tables, or even swingers for that matter if they only come up 1 or 2 times in a "typical match"...

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I'm just a high-C shooter, but I have observed many top GMs at matches in the last year, and I haven't seen any of them throwing down .30 splits on long (or small) targets with iron-sights.

I suspect that just like closer targets, the key to doing well on longer targets is to practice, and shoot as fast as you can call alphas. If you start guessing, you will probably pick up some D's and M's and lose the benefit of any increase in speed.

Also, I observed that while many top GM's have fairly unspectacular splits, they all transition quickly, and they all move quickly, and they also set up and leave positions very quickly and efficiently. Not much time is gained even with a fairly dramatic improvement in your splits (like from .5 to .3). So I wouldn't stress too much about splits on long-range targets, but rather, I would work on *every* aspect of long-range targets. Acquiring the target quickly, transitioning to the next target quickly, calling alpha's, and leaving the position quickly (but not so quickly that you end up losing the last shot).

Edited by motosapiens
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Not much time is gained even with a fairly dramatic improvement in your splits (like from .5 to .3).

I would say that saving .2 is pretty dramatic. That is saving you something like 3 seconds on a 32 round field course. Splits are just as important to get right as everything else.

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Not much time is gained even with a fairly dramatic improvement in your splits (like from .5 to .3).

I would say that saving .2 is pretty dramatic. That is saving you something like 3 seconds on a 32 round field course. Splits are just as important to get right as everything else.

It is rare to have a 32-round course of all 25+ yard targets, so I maintain that even a dramatic improvement in splits on those targets will have minimal overall effect.

Even in general, it is clear from a mathematical standpoint, and from talking with just about all top shooters, that movement and transitions are *more* important to get right than splits. It also appears from observation that most gm's don't have .3 second splits on 25 yard targets (with iron sights).

Edited by motosapiens
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Ok, I've actually asked alot of people a similar question over the last year. I'm not claiming to really understand, but I'm going to just regurgitate what I think I heard. As crude as that sounds, it might really help.

There is something called shot calling. It is a skill of knowing where your shot will impact at the exact moment the shot breaks after you squeeze the trigger. I'm told this is a critical skill in shooting long shots with a handgun. So what happens is you break the shot but don't try to track the sight during the recoil cycle. Instead you move your eye to where you want the sight to be. In the case of a second shot on the same target, keep focused where you want the sight to be lined up on the target, at the end of the recoil cycle when the sight comes back to that spot break the next shot for the pair on that target. Calling your shot lets you process whether you got a mike you need to make up or move on to the next target. And allows you to get rid of traditional "follow thru." Moving to the next target let your eye go to the point where you want the sights to be in advance of your gun. If on the same array near the previous target, you move to that place after your last shot broke and let the recoil cycle complete to the new point of aim. Your eyes are faster than your hands. As the sights move into the picture, they come into focus where you were looking already and when on you break the next shot on that target, and so forth and so on.

Now I don't know if I've been miss guided, or even if I explained it right. But its really helping me out a whole lot.

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I believe too many shooters focus on split times when there is much bigger gains to be had by focusing on things like movement and transitions ..

If you close your eyes and just listen to the cadence of shooting from a lot of shooters it sounds like this:

Bang, bang ................bang,bang .................bang, bang

If you listen to a top GM on the the same stage it would probably sound like this:

Bang, bang ......bang, bang........bang, bang ..... Bang, bang

Since the secret to our sport is points per sec when you are not shooting you are not earning any points ...

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A lot of shooters can easily shoot sub-30 splits on relatively close up targets but very few can shoot even mid-30 splits on 25yd+ targets. What's the secret to shooting fast splits on long range targets?

Tracking the front sight.

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Yeah, track that front sight. Even with a dot, the times I'm able to shoot the fastest splits I've seen the site and tracked it the entire time. When the sight is on the target, you break the shot... the fastest way to make that happen again is watch it come back. No matter how far the target is. The fastest splits I ever shot were on that one classifier where you start way back and it's a 6 second par time. I got all my hits and all I remember is the dot looked like "static" to me. I watched it the whole time and as long as it stayed on target I just kept pulling the trigger.

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In the last 10 years of shooting Area 2, many Nationals, and other local matches, I have never seen a 32 round COF with all targets past the 20 yards mark.

As Don Golembieski once told me, if you know where your front sight was when the shot broke, you don't have to worry about where your shot went--in other words, shot calling.

Kind of easy to see where this came from; Brian, TGO and Don all shot together for years.

To quote someone on this forum, splits are for show and transitions are for the dough.

To feel comfortable shooting 25 yards, make 80% of your practice at 25 yards.

I took Matt Burkett's advice about practicing at 40 yards, it makes 18 yard targets look like there are at 7 yards.

I have a couple of steel targets I use for shooting, they work great at 40 and 50 yards--tracking your sights and trigger control are the key.

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To quote someone on this forum, splits are for show and transitions are for the dough.

+1

I just gotta believe for the average rank and file shooter that spending their limited training time on reducing splits on 25 yd targets vice learning how to move & transition better is not a very good use of their time. For you GM & M shooters out there, sure this may be very helpful but not for the typical C/B shooter. Also, lots of shooters never go to a level II match, nevermind an Area or the Nationals where this type of target may be seen more often ...

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BE said it. Track the front sight. For me, I was shooting before and after the introduction of scopes. It may sound odd, but to this day I can still see (in my mind) my front sight at the 1990 Nationals on a swinger at 25 yards. I timed the target and saw that I had about .4-.5 seconds to get two shots on the target as it paused left or right. Since I knew I could get off two shots at .3 splits (with iron sights), I was confident that I could gain an advantage on this stage. While shooting I saw an A and a C, and that's exactly what was on paper when it came time to score. BUT, this came only through many rounds of agressive practice. I was pretty in tune with what the "big boys" were capable of (i.e. their times, the target distances, etc.) so I used that as a goal and then pushed toward that during practice. What I learned was that I could deliver hits beyond what I was visually comfortable with. Note, that's not to say I did not see my sights. I simply learned to accept a different visual reference to know if the shot was good, or not. And regardless of how fast you shoot, tracking the front sight will be **the** way to determine this. Learn to see the sight lift off the target. Start with slow fire and don't progress until you can see the front sight lift. Then pick up the pace a little. Then continue to shoot a bit faster. You'll be surprised what you can do at speed. BTW, one of my favorite drills with newer shooters was to have them empy a magazine into a berm with no target. The only goal being, see the front sight lift for every shot. That's step one. Once you learn to stop blinking and focus on the front sight, then introduce a target. Once you learn your abilities and limitations at varous distances, that will carry you a long way in matches.

Grunt

Edited by Grunt
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All great advice. However I would say that a large percentage of the rank and file have not mastered what you talk about and therefore trying to reduce split times by a .1 or two on long distance targets seems counter productive to me when they are literally wasting secs due to transition and movement issues on the same stage.

Given who the OP is , he does not have these issues so reducing split times on distance targets can indeed be important to him given who he is competing against ....

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  • 3 months later...

BE said it. Track the front sight. For me, I was shooting before and after the introduction of scopes. It may sound odd, but to this day I can still see (in my mind) my front sight at the 1990 Nationals on a swinger at 25 yards. I timed the target and saw that I had about .4-.5 seconds to get two shots on the target as it paused left or right. Since I knew I could get off two shots at .3 splits (with iron sights), I was confident that I could gain an advantage on this stage. While shooting I saw an A and a C, and that's exactly what was on paper when it came time to score. BUT, this came only through many rounds of agressive practice. I was pretty in tune with what the "big boys" were capable of (i.e. their times, the target distances, etc.) so I used that as a goal and then pushed toward that during practice. What I learned was that I could deliver hits beyond what I was visually comfortable with. Note, that's not to say I did not see my sights. I simply learned to accept a different visual reference to know if the shot was good, or not. And regardless of how fast you shoot, tracking the front sight will be **the** way to determine this. Learn to see the sight lift off the target. Start with slow fire and don't progress until you can see the front sight lift. Then pick up the pace a little. Then continue to shoot a bit faster. You'll be surprised what you can do at speed. BTW, one of my favorite drills with newer shooters was to have them empy a magazine into a berm with no target. The only goal being, see the front sight lift for every shot. That's step one. Once you learn to stop blinking and focus on the front sight, then introduce a target. Once you learn your abilities and limitations at varous distances, that will carry you a long way in matches.

Grunt

excellent discription.

I would add on the training tricks is to at 50 yards quit shooting the 2nd shot and just push/track

the sights back to the original aiming point.

by not wanting to shoot another shot it frees your mind to see what is or isn't going on while tracking.

Edited by Powder Finger
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For me, shooting long distance shots aggressively or not really depends on the penalty for missing my aiming point. Here is a good example. If there are long distance or partial targets that have hard cover on them or in front of them, your penalty for missing your intended aiming spot is really nothing more than an extra shot to make it up. If you shoot aggressively and call one of the shots marginal then all you have to do is make it up. If you are cranking out .20 - .25 splits aggressively and need a makup a few shots due to a marginal called shot, you are usually ahead of the game verses shooting slow .50 - .60 splits. Now if the partial target has a no shoot in front or behind it, that bumps up the risk factor on shooting too aggressively and sending marginal shots down range. In these cases I will bias my aiming point on target to center of mass of the available target and still try to shoot fairly aggressively then only make up shots that I call total misses off the target or into the no shoot. Usually this results in .25 - .30 splits for me with rare makeup shots needed.

Realistically I never think of actually pulling the trigger when I shoot. I make a decision on what sight alignment / sight picture is good enough to produce solid hits for a particular target drive to the goal of being patient enough to wait for that sight picture. Once the required sight picture presents its self the shot breaks on its own and the shot is called. I could care less what my actual splits are while shooting a stage. My only goal is getting the gun onto the next target as soon as possible so I can produce a valid sight picture to break the shot.

The actual speed of the shooting has more to do with recoil management and the ability to get the sights back onto target in a valid sight picture condition as soon as possible. The sooner a valid sight picture presents its self, the sooner the shot can break. If you have a poor grip and allow the gun to muzzle flip excessively and return the front sight to an unaligned position. You then have to align the sights again, then get the sights back on target before breaking the next shot. All of that wastes a good chunk of time. Eliminating this waste is what produces fast on target splits with solid hits.

Edited by CHA-LEE
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  • 4 months later...

For me, shooting long distance shots aggressively or not really depends on the penalty for missing my aiming point. Here is a good example. If there are long distance or partial targets that have hard cover on them or in front of them, your penalty for missing your intended aiming spot is really nothing more than an extra shot to make it up. If you shoot aggressively and call one of the shots marginal then all you have to do is make it up. If you are cranking out .20 - .25 splits aggressively and need a makup a few shots due to a marginal called shot, you are usually ahead of the game verses shooting slow .50 - .60 splits. Now if the partial target has a no shoot in front or behind it, that bumps up the risk factor on shooting too aggressively and sending marginal shots down range. In these cases I will bias my aiming point on target to center of mass of the available target and still try to shoot fairly aggressively then only make up shots that I call total misses off the target or into the no shoot. Usually this results in .25 - .30 splits for me with rare makeup shots needed.

Realistically I never think of actually pulling the trigger when I shoot. I make a decision on what sight alignment / sight picture is good enough to produce solid hits for a particular target drive to the goal of being patient enough to wait for that sight picture. Once the required sight picture presents its self the shot breaks on its own and the shot is called. I could care less what my actual splits are while shooting a stage. My only goal is getting the gun onto the next target as soon as possible so I can produce a valid sight picture to break the shot.

The actual speed of the shooting has more to do with recoil management and the ability to get the sights back onto target in a valid sight picture condition as soon as possible. The sooner a valid sight picture presents its self, the sooner the shot can break. If you have a poor grip and allow the gun to muzzle flip excessively and return the front sight to an unaligned position. You then have to align the sights again, then get the sights back on target before breaking the next shot. All of that wastes a good chunk of time. Eliminating this waste is what produces fast on target splits with solid hits.

And that my friends you should be the definitive answer...

A good drill for this is Mike seeklander acceleration deceleration

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