Match draws?

[Singlestack]

I can do sub 1's all day long in practice. I have only done it at a match once or twice. I did a 1.57 at Ala State on a 5 yard shot.

How do I bring sub 1's from practice to a match??

[Flexmoney]

(John, I gave your question it's own thread. Sounded like it deserved it.)

How do I bring sub 1's from practice to a match??

My question is...what is the difference?

[Steve Anderson]

I had a .93 on front sight city (the ro was showing draws so it was probly the same stage) I got it by staring at the letter A on the first target and WANTING a bullet hole in it.

The way to get there is to get you practice times far below 1 second. That way, when you go a little slower in the match you'll still be around a second.

Do NOT TRY to do a fast draw at the match. trigger freeze will surely result.

What is your best dry fire draw?

SA

[Loves2Shoot]

You want your draw to be rock solid. If the .25 seconds it takes you to do a perfect draw verus a fast draw, then do the perfect one, and realize that is your "real" draw time. That extra .25 is well worth it.

[Alan Meek]

Shot a 9 round speed shoot stage last saturday in ~3.5 seconds. Draw was 1.96 on a target with hardcover covering the c/d zone. I would seriously consider selling my soul for a consistent 1.2 draw. Well more practice.

[Mad Scientist]

John,

That was a tough stage to mesure draws . I thought that the way to shot that one was to shoot inside target first so you could back out on the other Two trgets to get set up for the next aray.

Doing that puts you heavy on your week side and drawing across your body.

my draw was 1.23 acording to the RO. I typicaly draw on demand a little lower .

my best practice draw is .87 but my best real match draw that I can remember is 1.09

Bottom line I would not get hung up about It. There were not any stages that realy shocased draws at that match.Even the clasifier was under the table mini mart.Besides IMHO worring about draws below 1.2 is futile. there is only one draw on most stages .The most important thing for me on the Draw is a REALY GOOD GRIP.If you go for broke and mis the Grip you are *&*& ed untill the next mag change. when you shoot Open on a 24 round field course with a big stick that mag change never comes.

I think That the best place to make up time is in transition. most people have good slits but dont work on shooting as soon as the sight hits the A zone.

I watched Max shoot and what you hear is B B B B B B B

enter a b Class shooter and what You hear is BB BB BB

The splits are great followed by a long transition.

Next Time you run a stage look at the timer and find out What your times are.

draw

splits

transitions

movement.

if your transitions are double of your splits you can improve greatly there.

I personaly try to get them down within 1.5 of the splits.

E.G. 20 split 30 transition.

Sorry bout the thread drift Johnnie

[j1b]

I'm going to back Steve's advice.

I've shot in a lot of matches, and I've never duplicated performances at a match that I have in practice. I know - everyone says practice like you shoot a match. I call BS on that. I personally think that a lot of the top shooters do as well.

You practice to learn, to understand what can and can't happen. The fastest draw that I can remember doing in practice was a .61 second draw. I can think of countless times in practice that I could burn .69 - .75 draws. Guess what - never did it in a match (that I'm aware of) I used to be able to draw shoot reload shoot in less about 1.8 seconds. Never did that in a match either. What that did was give me the ability to shoot a 1 second draw in a match, or a 1 second load in a match.

If you're consistently doing sub 1 second draws I would guess sub .90 second draws are near by. Then shortly after that - some sub .80's. At that point a comfortable 1 second draw will be a strong point.

Give it time and be patient. A miss in a match takes more than that .40 seconds away. I think your approach today is solid.

I don't know if that is precisely where Steve was going - but without putting words in his mouth I think that is kind of what he was alluding to.

Thanks

JB

[Steve Anderson]

Johnnie's advice is right on, and Jack is right about what I was alluding to.

If your match draw is going be .xx slower than your practice draw, then your practice draw needs to be .xx faster than you want your match draw to be.

And, Transitions is where it's at!

SA

[Ron Ankeny]

Amen to the transitions. My comfortable match draw is .20 seconds slower than my fast practice draw. Part of that is the fact that I am always slower shooting 2 shots than shooting one shot and I want the match to start with that "Kodak" moment.

I hope Sam contributes. Sam has a good match draw and a blistering fast practice draw.

[markm]

I think listening to Max's shots is more like BBBBBBBBBB!

[Flexmoney]

Sounds like many agree that match draws are slower than practice draws...

So...what is the difference?

[rhino]

I think the differences depend on several factors, including how the timing is done.

Match draws are always done with an RO (hopefully) providing an essentially random delay between the standby command and the recommended 3 seconds. If you can anticipate when an RO is going to hit the beeper, then that RO is too predictable in my opinion.

So how do you practice? Do you have a buddy run the timer? Do you use a random delay and time yourself? Or do you used a fixed delay and time yourself?

If the latter, it's very possible that times are consistently lower because the shooter is easily able to anticipate when the timer will beep. That essentially reduces a large amount of the time between the sound and reaction to the sound because the "reaction" has effectively begun before the actual stimulus (the sound of the timer). It's like the difference between having the light tree in drag racing vs. having a guy stand there and drop a flag.

Another thing is that people are almost always more relaxed in a practice session, and I'd bet that the best times are achieved when they just "do it" instead of trying to do it really fast. In a match, the overall arousal level is much higher, and an inevitable amount peripheral muscular tension is going to slow things a bit.

[EricW]

So...what is the difference?

This will piss some people off...

I think some of the difference is due to the "I never lose money in Vegas" phenomenon. 9 out of 10 people I talk to that go to Vegas come back ahead. The other one will only lose a couple of bucks. So, either my circle of friends are all statistical anomalies, or....gasp!....it could be human nature to fool ourselves. Yeah, most everyone here can rip off sub 1 second draws in practice, but are we checking that we're getting 100% A's? Or, do we just assume that the shot went through the ragged hole centered on the A-zone where the rest of the bullets probably went?

Come game day, I think reality sets in and people back it off a notch because they're usually shooting cold, and demand some extra visual input before letting the shot off.

[rhino]

I'm glad you said that, Eric. I sometimes have the same thoughts, but being a lower-end C class shooter, I don't think it would go over as anything other than sour grapes or skills envy on my part.

[SmittyFL]

Also, I think a lot of it is in practice you are generally only thinking about that one draw and one shot. All your focus is on the draw and one shot. During a match you're thinking about where to reload, foot placement for the port, getting good hits on the 30yd target, not tanking the stage and costing yourself the match, etc., etc.

At least that's what I think it is for me.

[mcoliver]

In dry fire, I draw from a comfy, solid stance already indexed on the target. The burner has problems keeping up with my speed.

Come match day and the stage designer screws it all up by requiring my feet to be together, toes on the line, heels touching the table legs, hands here, there...groan.

On the few stages that didn't require me to be in a certain position, my draws pretty well matches up with a comfy dry draw. I agree with Steve and the rest, push those draws in dry fire. Once you feel your not rushing those .7 draws, 1.1 with an A-hit is really easy (of course you'll also need an easy-to-hit target for it. )

[kevin c]

Mcoliver is on to something that makes a big difference in my case - start position. How many of us have close to the same time draw from all positions? Most of us practice gun holstered, hands at side, may be surrender and strong/weak hand draws, if we are really conscientious. But most of it is hands at side, gun holstered. There, I can get to .7 at point blank range in dry fire on occasion, but only after lots of work. The other start positions don't get nearly the attention, and most of those are over 1.5 in dry fire, which means 2 plus in a real match. And forget about sitting, turning and holding objects. I'm lucky if I just get my hand on the gun solidly for those start positions.

Practice does make a difference, though, even if the practice performance is miles from match performance. I started practicing table top draws. I didn't believe that I could do it in under a second, but there it is after a day's dry fire. Now, live fire, and then match? Maybe I'll do a table top start for this Sunday's match...

[Jasonub]

my draw time at practice can be as low as .8 on a 7 yard target with an a hit. but for competitions im happy with a 1 second to 1.3 seconds at the same distance

[Steve Anderson]

I think this is all as it should be.

In practice, the desire is to draw as fast as possible and shoot an A.

In the match the desire is to shoot an A, and do it quickly.

SA

[Bear1142]

I cranked out a 1.10 on that particular stage at the AL Match and I'm perfectly happy with it and the 6 A's I got on the array. Although I had a miss on one of the last targets (another story), I think I probably had the fastest limited time on the stage. I don't think another 2-3 tenths off my draw would have helped me run the stage faster. I really feel the first two shots on any stage helps to set the rhythm of the run. A bad draw/rushed draw clings to me throughout a stage like the proverbial "monkey on my back". Having a comfortable draw along with two good shots has a very calming effect on me for the rest of a stage.

Erik

[Nik Habicht]

Practicing I'm usually standing still --- in a match, I often take a step as I draw, either to get out of a contorted/unstable starting position or to get another target to open up for me....

[Singlestack]

I did not shoot the far right target on that array at Ala. I started on the one on the left just to get a faster draw

I can really push and get sub 9's in practice but not consistently. I'm also known to trigger freeze on the second shot when I'm pushing resulting in a mike. I think my problem now is that I'm trying to slow down. I'm faster than I am. I'm in the place I'm sure a lot of "B" shooters have to go through. You see the guys that beat you do it in xx time and you know to beat that you have to haul butt and points suffer as a result. I shot a 64.168 match against Max at Ala and I was holding on to the reins very tightly. I was pleased with my results only because it was the first major I have shot where I saw every shot (ok, except 3, 2 of which were through that stupid pipe that I filled up with smoke and could not see through anymore. I won't ever stick my gun in a pipe again).

I have video of myself at Ala and the place I see where I am losing time the most is in movement. I'm taking too many small steps when accelerating and stopping. I had to laugh. On stage 3 I look like I'm running in place at one point.

So, back to practice. I know I can do sub 1 sec draws. I just have to let myself do it come match time.

Having a comfortable draw along with two good shots has a very calming effect on me for the rest of a stage.

Thats what I am looking for and succeeded in having at Ala. I still want a fast draw though.

[Loves2Shoot]

I think my problem now is that I'm trying to slow down. I'm faster than I am. I'm in the place I'm sure a lot of "B" shooters have to go through. You see the guys that beat you do it in xx time and you know to beat that you have to haul butt and points suffer as a result.

Bingo!

If you are trying to do anything you are handicapping yourself. Speed up, slow down, whatever. You have to react to your vision. Your skill set will determine how long it takes you to do things.

Just see it, then do it. Don't worry about how fast, your intent to do it as fast as you can will take care of that. I think that is a huge hurdle for C/B Classer's, trying to be fast.

If you worry AT ALL about doing something as "fast" as anyone else, you will not shoot to your potential, you have to just shoot in the moment, your skills determine where that will pan out in the match.

[ORCA]

I've observed that many people who slow thier draw down for a match slow down every part of the draw. I think the draw should be done at full speed and more time spent at the end of the draw on the sights. Matt B. pointed this out in his DVD. I've always had good draw speed and I've been able to improve it, but I struggled with accuracy. For me the key to accuracy was getting the gun into the sight plane early, it made a huge difference.

[mcoliver]

I started practicing table top draws. I didn't believe that I could do it in under a second, but there it is after a day's dry fire. Now, live fire, and then match? Maybe I'll do a table top start for this Sunday's match...

Dang it! I was quite happy with my 1.9 until you posted. Is this from condition 3 (mag inserted, no chamber)?

A bad draw/rushed draw clings to me throughout a stage like the proverbial "monkey on my back".

Yeah, couple that with the nagging thought of surprise when you actaully pulled it off and manage to hit that popper.

  I've observed that many people who slow thier draw down for a match slow down every part of the draw.

This is where the problem lies for me and probably for some shooters I observe. Several times I've caught myself thinking while shooting a stage, "What the heck are your doing?! Run idiot!"