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Draw times


ebg3

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I have fairly long arms, even though I'm only 6'. At your height, I'm guessing you would gain more time on a stage working on foot speed and movement. Most of the stages at major matches have some movement in them before the first shot is fired. Anyway, you didn't want to talk about practice techniques.

What's your adrenaline/heart rate level like when you are getting consistent .8's? If you can do that while fairly calm, go run around and get jacked up (elevated heart rate) then try it again. I pulled a series of .8's, then .7's before hitting a .69. Then I stopped. My adrenaline was flowing, hands were shakey, but my movements were explosive. For me.

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I like the math suggestion.

In a ten stage match, the difference could mean 3 seconds all other things being equal (which they are not in the real world)

Three hundred rounds (HIgh Desert Classic-we like big stages). If your splits and transitions are .1 faster then do the math .1x300 = 30 seconds?

You don't need a sub-second draw to win a match but you do need fast transitions and splits.

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Following the same logic since there isn't a big difference between most folks splits (though there might be in the resulting hits) look to transitions. For most shooters this is the biggest area of needed improvement.

To the OP, in the original post you stated your draw times on a plate rack, but what were your overall times and splits?

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You guys keep this up I'm taking notes. I have been playing the IDPA game for about 2years now and my time from bee..to first shot is 1.2~(with no cover). Currently building up a open gun for steel ans uspsa, I love this stuff so say on!!!

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I'm only 6'3" and can draw in similar times. While dry firing I can set my timer to a par time of .6 and get a good sight picture with the gun mounted right as the buzzer goes off. Can't shoot that fast as I have a 9lb double action trigger pull to prep, so I usually end up around the .9+ mark out of Production equipment.

IMO, any "disadvantage" you may have with regards to longer arms or a longer neurological pathway, is negligible and can't even be measured in the hundredths of a second.

Why you no M&P?...or maybe I'm mixing you up with someone else

Edited by waktasz
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I'm only 6'3" and can draw in similar times. While dry firing I can set my timer to a par time of .6 and get a good sight picture with the gun mounted right as the buzzer goes off. Can't shoot that fast as I have a 9lb double action trigger pull to prep, so I usually end up around the .9+ mark out of Production equipment.

IMO, any "disadvantage" you may have with regards to longer arms or a longer neurological pathway, is negligible and can't even be measured in the hundredths of a second.

Why you no M&P?...or maybe I'm mixing you up with someone else

Yup. I shoot SIGs.

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  • 2 weeks later...

I want to add something here. I have been doing a lot of practice draws since my initial post. I start out drawing very slowly with perfect technique. Then, I work on speed. This really helped a lot, but the thing that sped me up the most, was really concentrating on moving to the gun at the start of the beep as others have said. I am now into the sub second draw and hits.

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  • 6 months later...

Possible your long arms could be slowing you up I guess. Your brain signal also has a longer distance to travel not just more muscle mass to manipulate and control.

I hear Usain Bolt has trouble running fast because of his long legs.

Not the same thing at all. I am 6'6" and if you take someone shorter who has the same exact reaction time as me he will get the shot off quicker due to the difference in distance our arms travel. I've got further to go to get to my gun, further to bring it up, and further out to push it when I extend my arms. That all takes more time. It's not a matter of opinion, it's fact. Also having long arms means that my arms are reaching out a further distance making for a less stable shooting position. It's physics.

By the way Bolt is a sprinter. They are not known for having long legs, distance runners tend to have long legs. He is pretty tall for a sprinter and basically superhuman when it comes to running so I wouldn't use him as an example. He's a beast!

Edited by Babaganoosh
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Possible your long arms could be slowing you up I guess. Your brain signal also has a longer distance to travel not just more muscle mass to manipulate and control.

I hear Usain Bolt has trouble running fast because of his long legs.

Not the same thing at all. I am 6'6" and if you take someone shorter who has the same exact reaction time as me he will get the shot off quicker due to the difference in distance our arms travel. I've got further to go to get to my gun, further to bring it up, and further out to push it when I extend my arms. That all takes more time. It's not a matter of opinion, it's fact.

I was being facetious.

The distance differences that have to be traveled aren't miles, yards, or feet. They're inches. There is nothing saying you can't be as quick as a shorter person, or at least very nearly as quick.

Does the shorter person have potential, due to physical laws, of being quicker on the draw than you? I will concede 'yes'.

An MLB pitcher's hand might reach 95 mph as he delivers a fastball. This is an extreme example; a person's hand will not reach that kind of speed in drawing a gun. Let's crank it way down and work with an assumed 20 mph hand speed throughout the draw motion. This could be fast or slow, but it's just a number to plug into the arithmetic. For the total distance the hand has to move during a draw (both vertical and horizontal motion), let's assume 4 feet for the tall man, and 3.5 feet for the shorter man. These numbers could also be a little off but let's just plug them in and see what we come up with.

20 miles = 105,600 feet = 1,267,200 inches

1 hour = 3,600 seconds

So, 20 mph = 1,267,200 inches / 3,600 seconds, equating to 48 inches in

0.1364 seconds for the taller man's draw.

Average human reaction time is 0.2 to 0.25 seconds, for a total draw

time of 0.336 to 0.386 seconds (dropping the ten thousandth of a second digit).

We came up with a very fast draw time, so the assumed 20 mph average hand speed throughout the draw motion is probably high. No matter, let's apply the same approach to the shorter man who has 6 fewer inches to move his hand.

For the shorter man, we have:

42 inches of hand travel in 0.1193 seconds.

Figuring in a reaction time of 0.2 to 0.25 seconds, the shorter man's total draw time is 0.319 to 0.369 seconds (dropping the ten thousandth of a second digit).

The difference comes out to less than 2 hundredths of a second, based on an example where one man's height causes him to have 6 more inches to move his hands than another man, but their hand speed is the same.

The percentage difference in speed is around 5%. If the shorter man has a hand speed of 20 mph, maybe you can develop a hand speed of 21 mph (5% faster), and/or maybe somehow make your draw motion more efficient, allowing you to equal his draw time.

Edited by GunBugBit
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Taller guys have some advantages from the extra couple of ways to shoot a stage.

We don't have to:

Charlie Chaplin around barricades (better accuracy and speed).

Take the extra step to get to a target (~.5) seconds (speed and accuracy).

Shoot over stuff rather than around (speed and accuracy).

Reach that extra target through the a portal or window (~1 second).

YMMV

It doesn't really matter how fast your can mechanically draw a gun if you aren't accurate. A faster reaction time and faster target acquisition can also make up for slower mechanics.

BBC put something out so you could compare yourself to Olympians. Link to BBC Olympian comparison

DNH

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  • 3 weeks later...

In the dozens of shooters I have coached from a 1.5 draw to a .7 draw, I have not found any physical limitations.

The only physical issue has been "love handles" that make it more difficult to get to the gun, and these were quickly overcome.

And, even if there was a permanent physical limitation, what could we do about it?

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As a 6'6" guy my biggest issue is with ports. Both places I shoot matches at use 6 foot stockade fence. The ports are always cut right below the top crossbar. I have to do some serious bending to shoot thru those ports. I lose a lot of time. Way more time then I do with a draw. As for steel challenge thats a different story

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I'm finally to the point that I don't worry as much about my draw, I think for the time being, I'm somewhat in maintenance mode. If I can consistently be between 1.1 and 1.25 seconds, I have other parts of my game that I'll gain more performance boost. I'm not a GM,,,,I'm not sure where I would actually land right now, I'm just coming back after a long layoff and my previous club wasn't always fond of shooting classifiers, so I know I'm not where I belong.

Not that I won't ever come back to working on my draw, but I know I need to focus more on entering/exiting shooting positions, shooting on the move, moving faster when I'm shooting on the move, maintaining accuracy at higher rates of fire (gotta get the points), and game planning the most efficient way possible to solve a given problem. Not that I don't do those things now, I just know there is more to gain there.

I can gain a tenth or so on my draw, but there are seconds out there for me to gain by maintaining what I can do on the draw and reloads and focusing on the other aspects of my game.

A wicked fast draw looks cool and hey, time is time in this game so every bit counts, but I think where I've grown the most in this game is the realization that there are a TON of things to learn/get better at that will drive down times that don't "look" fast.

I LOVE being one of those guys that shoots a stage and when people hear/see the time, they are surprised.....because it doesn't "look" fast. Based on my current athleticism or lack thereof, I'm not going to outrun many people any more, but I HAVE do be efficient all round.

Some people can shoot like their hair is on fire and excel through sheer athleticism. I can't. I have to be smooth, efficient, and capable of taking risks in my game plan to gain time.

Sorry, I know I veered off the purpose of the thread a bit.

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  • 3 weeks later...

It would be interesting if you can break the .84 barrier. If you do, be sure and let us know when you do and what you did to accomplish it. Maybe it's a mental barrier maybe more practice or different technique or eliminate some excess movement.

Sure, may not mean a lot in a match other than Steel Challenge but I think you can learn a lot from these little challenges like this and others (like what's the furthest you've hit a target, tightest group off a bench rest, etc).

Stay curious my friend.

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