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Being accurate, but not fast


nahanshew89

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Not sure if you're just venting or looking for suggestions. If venting, just ignore the following.

I would think a lot of this has to do with what you think of as your 'acceptable sight picture' obviously your acceptable sight picture requires very stabilized sights and a very clear view of the target, resulting in a very well placed shot. Maybe at your next match try lowering your threshold for your 'acceptable sight picture' before you break each shot. make sure you see the front sight within say a 3 inch circle in the middle of the a zone, and even if your rear sights are not perfectly lined up with the front, but close pull the trigger anyway and move on.

If it is not your shot cadence then your actual foot movements may need to be reviewed.

Good luck, and hey if you're having fun, you're already doing something right!

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Not sure if you're just venting or looking for suggestions. If venting, just ignore the following.

I would think a lot of this has to do with what you think of as your 'acceptable sight picture' obviously your acceptable sight picture requires very stabilized sights and a very clear view of the target, resulting in a very well placed shot. Maybe at your next match try lowering your threshold for your 'acceptable sight picture' before you break each shot. make sure you see the front sight within say a 3 inch circle in the middle of the a zone, and even if your rear sights are not perfectly lined up with the front, but close pull the trigger anyway and move on.

If it is not your shot cadence then your actual foot movements may need to be reviewed.

Good luck, and hey if you're having fun, you're already doing something right!

I was just venting, but I'll take what I can get! I actually do break my shots off pretty quickly, in my opinion, but I'm a chunky dude so I'm just not as fast on my feet. I'm shooting against guys half my size or they're military.

My shots could.probablt be faster though as well.

Do you ever run dry/live fire drills going as fast as you can just keeping it 'on brown'?

Try it.

Then go back and shoot at the speed you see your sights.

I'll bet you are faster.

I have done some live fire training doing just that with my G35, and, say out of 6 rapid fire shots, I only get 2 not in the A zone. I haven't tried it with the XD tho, and I'm focusing heavily on Prod until I feel.comfortable enough to make the jump to Lim.

Also, see how fast you can draw and fire 6 shots into the berm at 10 yards. Have some fun with it. :)

Edit: Ooops - forgot this was the Hate Forum.

Whoooooa, a reply from BE himself? Even if you weren't supposed to, you did! I'm not worthy! I'm not worthy! :bow::bow:

In all seriousness, I want to be faster, I want to be great. I'm highly competitive by nature. I still have a blast even when I don't win, but still... I wanna win hahaha

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Speed, why do you evade me?

What kind of practice do you do to get faster? I think the answer probably lies there.

And I would advise dropping the excuses. There are lots of large slow guys that still shoot fast and move fast enough to be competitive. The difference is they are practicing.

fwiw, I was a very slow very accurate shooter until I started paying attention to Steve Anderson. Now I am still as accurate as I need to be (more accurate than I used to be, when it is required), but i'm much much faster, and working hard on getting fasterer and accurater.

Edited by motosapiens
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Speed, why do you evade me?

What kind of practice do you do to get faster? I think the answer probably lies there.

And I would advise dropping the excuses. There are lots of large slow guys that still shoot fast and move fast enough to be competitive. The difference is they are practicing.

fwiw, I was a very slow very accurate shooter until I started paying attention to Steve Anderson. Now I am still as accurate as I need to be (more accurate than I used to be, when it is required), but i'm much much faster, and working hard on getting fasterer and accurater.

Truth be told, I don't know what to do to BE faster. I practice my draw and dry fire from draw, but I have such a crap schedule at work, I don't have any opportunity to get to the range to do much practicing during the week. Edited by nahanshew89
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Speed, why do you evade me?

What kind of practice do you do to get faster? I think the answer probably lies there.

And I would advise dropping the excuses. There are lots of large slow guys that still shoot fast and move fast enough to be competitive. The difference is they are practicing.

fwiw, I was a very slow very accurate shooter until I started paying attention to Steve Anderson. Now I am still as accurate as I need to be (more accurate than I used to be, when it is required), but i'm much much faster, and working hard on getting fasterer and accurater.

Truth be told, I don't know what to do to BE faster. I practice my draw and dry fire from draw, but I have such a crap schedule at work, I don't have any opportunity to get to the range to do much practicing during the week.

Like was advised above, trying shooting as fast as you can see the gun somewhere on brown and just see what happens. If you are losing a lot of time in your movement (which you seem to be saying you are) then try working on breaking a shot as you are stepping into a position, or falling/walking out of a position.

Shooting while entering and exiting positions can shave whole seconds off of a match, if you can do it while still getting decent hits.

Also, to practice being faster, just consciously try to go fast in practice and see. When you are moving through a stage, RUN. I have told that to a couple of my friends and my dad that are just getting into it, they all kind of half jog/speed walk from position to position.

What is that old adage? If you aren't shooting, you should be reloading, and If you aren't reloading or shooting, you should be running? Try that.

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Truth be told, I don't know what to do to BE faster. I practice my draw and dry fire from draw, but I have such a crap schedule at work, I don't have any opportunity to get to the range to do much practicing during the week.

Here's what has been helping me. It may not work for you but some of it may be worth a try.

First, get used to the idea that you need to see the sights and know where they are when every shot breaks. This means you have to learn not to blink, and it means you have to force yourself to look at the sights for both trigger pulls, and not pull your eyes off early.

Then do some drills at close range (say 3 targets at 7 yards or so) and just see how fast you can get shots onto the paper, but......... this is important..... don't just throw the gun out there and double-tap, you need to learn to see the sights at those speeds. So don't consider the drill a success unless you see where the shots went from looking at the sights. Treat every drill as a shot-calling drill. Before you look at the targets, try to score them from what you saw. At first it may be rudimentary, but if you do this on every drill you will get better at it. Once you start calling your shots, it will free you to shoot fast with confidence, because you'll know the shots were good.

Live fire is important, but it is also really important to see the sights for each trigger pull in dry-fire. I wasted alot of time only aiming and seeing the sights until my brain sent the signal to pull the trigger, instead of continuing to aim until the gun goes off (and noting the sight picture at that instant). You can be very accurate that way, but you can't be fast *and* accurate that way IMHO.

To reiterate, learning to call your shots is the most important skill you can learn, and as you get better at it, you will find it will dramatically speed up your improvement at every other aspect of your shooting, and it will make your dryfire much more valuable.

At least that's what I think and what has been working for me. I'm still only an A-class shooter, but I'm getting close to making M (even with the handicap of shooting SS minor), and the big difference has been starting to learn to call my shots, and treating every drill as a shot-calling drill, in dryfire and in live fire.

I have also found that working on shooting while moving has been valuable in learning to call shots, because the sights are moving around so much more you really HAVE to look at them harder and be more aware of them.

Edited by motosapiens
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This is not the strongest case for dry fire as I am not a high-level competitor, but I can tell you that all of my relatively good match showings were preceded by at least four consecutive days of daily dry fire, 20 to 90 minutes.

For an added bump in performance, physical exercise can't be beat. A lot of shooters focus on crush grip strength, which is fine and I do so myself, but leg and core work are also very beneficial since we move around on a lot of the stages.

With such work under my belt, I don't have to tell myself to go faster at a match. I just naturally go faster, because I can.

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This is not the strongest case for dry fire as I am not a high-level competitor, but I can tell you that all of my relatively good match showings were preceded by at least four consecutive days of daily dry fire, 20 to 90 minutes.

I sort of assumed that anyone who is serious about improving is dry-firing at least a little 6 days a week. If you're not doing that, and you're asking questions about how to get better, then the first answer should be to start dry-firing every day.

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From what I gather, moto, there aren't that many shooters who dry fire anywhere near 6 or 7 days per week. Those who do it tend to be the better guys. If I encounter anyone who does it for a sustained period (years) and is staying in a lower class, I'll be very surprised.

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From what I gather, moto, there aren't that many shooters who dry fire anywhere near 6 or 7 days per week. Those who do it tend to be the better guys. If I encounter anyone who does it for a sustained period (years) and is staying in a lower class, I'll be very surprised.

So you're saying that people who practice often improve?

That is a profound observation. :cheers:

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I agree with learning how to call shots and figure out acceptable sight pictures for certain targets/distances. Look at target transitions, not just splits.

I like to shoot "singles" in live fire, 3 targets, 1 shot per target, it will push your transition speed up. Another good drill is "the Blake drill" 3 targets, 3-10 yards out, 2 shots to each target and you want it to sound like a bill drill (splits and transitions the same), focus on the speed part of that drill (you will drop some shots) but after a few times you will start to see the front sight and get your hits.

The key for me was finding the sweet spot between speed and getting hits, but once it started coming together it all got easier.

As far as movement (if you're slow there) get a $10 speed ladder from Amazon and work on foot speed. I found some drills for a speed ladder online, figured out the foot work, now I do the same footwork drills but set up targets and dry fire while doing them.

Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

Edited by Nickb45
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There is a lot of information here. I really appreciate it you guys. I'll work on it. I did about 20 minutes of sight picture practice, from draw, just now before work. I can already see how it's going to help. I think I'll buy that dry fire book from Steve Anderson too, I've got the sample and I can tell it's gonna be invaluable. Thanks again, and keep the tips n tricks coming!

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Thanks, Jack, I'll do a search for it.

Just for the record, this was in the Hate forum, just so I could blow off my steam, but when the man himself, BE, replied to it, it got moved here.

I still appreciate everything that's been offered up so far, but I wanted to set the record straight that I never intended to start a new "shoot fast" thread.

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Thanks, Jack, I'll do a search for it.

Just for the record, this was in the Hate forum, just so I could blow off my steam, but when the man himself, BE, replied to it, it got moved here.

I still appreciate everything that's been offered up so far, but I wanted to set the record straight that I never intended to start a new "shoot fast" thread.

Technically, you broke the Hate forum rules...that was why it was moved...LOL.

Hate Rants

Rants involving shooters, firearms,....."

Although you yourself was the shooter being hated and doing the hating....but I moved it because there was good stuff in here and there was still good stuff being posted...

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EngineerEli is so right. I was exactly like you about 20,000 rounds ago. I had to learn to accept a less "perfect" sight picture. Read Lenny Bashams "with winning in mind". I went from slow and accurate to taking 2nd place in Area 5 last year. Performance is done subconsciously. I was thinking too much and waiting for that perfect sight picture. Working on speed drills like Bill Drills and changing your thought process during the stage and stage planning will give you the speed you are looking for.

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