If I am shooting Alphas, am I shooting too slow?

[98006]

I'm new to the Uspsa game.Shot 4 matches total. Still unclassified,but have been told I would be a C shooter. I just shot on sat and got a 56%. Got lots of A's. Should I start pushing myself and speeding it up ?

[sirveyr]

Lots of A's are a good thing. Don't mash on the gas just so you can put some C's and D's on the target. Others will be along shortly to tell you to only shoot as fast as your vision will let you go.

Edited May 16, 2011 by sirveyr

[Corey]

how many As are you shooting. A good pace to look at starting is 90-95% of the available points. Do the math and see how many points you are losing on the few that aren't As. If its lower than the ~90% number then you need to slow down a bit and try to get a couple mroe A's. If you are hitting more than that, the try to pick up the pace a bit and see how you do. As you go faster, the wheels will come off sooner or later. You just have to know where that point is (practice is a better time to check this as opposed to matches) and then tone it down a notch.

And one thing that helped me: dont try to do anything FASTER. Just try to do them SOONER. Get the new mag ready to load sooner, get to the next firing position sooner, etc etc.

[98006]

thanks for the replies. I'm still trying to figure out how to read the scoring part. The top guy was shooting limited minor,while I was shooting production.

[old506]

I was in the same boat. I would suggest just starting to pick it up in one area. Maybe let it go on close paper with no no-shoots. Take your time on no-shoots and steel and let yourself go a little bit on a stage or two that has easy open paper? You will eventually find out what you can achieve (get away with) reasonably when you are walking through a stage.

I was hesitant, at first, to just "let it go", I didn't want to miss a target somewhere or look stupid blowing a plate rack or worse, DQ! After awhile, probably at the point you are at right now, a half dozen or so matches, I just let it go and it went pretty good. On the walk through I will look for places where I can make up time and where I need to take an extra pause, once you know what you are able to do I think you will identify these areas. As soon as the Beep goes off just let'r rip.

[CocoBolo]

sssshhhhhh the secret is to take the time you need to make the hit but only the time it takes to make the hit.

Old Salts and World Shoot Legends will say "Nothing worse than a miss, except a slow miss". While this is correct, in implies you should be missing really fast.

The biggest time adder is movement. The key is not how fast you get there it is how fast you get there ready to shoot. Think of it this way, 2 step out look at the spot you want to hit, then get you head up your gun up and on target and when you hit the spot start shooting. Most hit the spot gun down eyes down then raise their head find the target raise their gun and then start shooting about 2-3 seconds lost on every move. Try it you will be amazed.

[Hi-Power Jack]

I'm new to the Uspsa game.Shot 4 matches total. Still unclassified,but have been told I would be a C shooter. I just shot on sat and got a 56%. Got lots of A's. Should I start pushing myself and speeding it up ?

If you're new, and shooting Production, 56% is very good.

As others have mentioned, try speeding it up - but not

the shooting part, the movement part - doing everything

fast except the shooting.

The draw, the mag changes, the movement - getting ready

for the shot - but don't start shooting without seeing

the sights on the target.

Good start - keep going.

Jack

[2alpha]

No doubt I'm old school but I believe accuracy is the most difficult skill to achieve, it's wrong to feel that accuracy is holding you back. I know the current thinking is to go for speed and the accuracy will come, but that is just backwards from my experience. If you are accurate you should be calling your shots, if you're calling your shots you should know how fast you can go, it is your speedometer.

Having someone video me while I was shooting a stage helped me tremendously to see where I was losing time. It might work for you too.

[CocoBolo]

No doubt I'm old school but I believe accuracy is the most difficult skill to achieve, it's wrong to feel that accuracy is holding you back. I know the current thinking is to go for speed and the accuracy will come, but that is just backwards from my experience. If you are accurate you should be calling your shots, if you're calling your shots you should know how fast you can go, it is your speedometer.

Having someone video me while I was shooting a stage helped me tremendously to see where I was losing time. It might work for you too.

I didn't want to sound offensive but Video is great for many things and the big one is the simpliest. BE had a post on it. Pausing, yep, there you are you just shot an array of tragets and your taking a knap, ok a pause, try to recognize when you are pausing its huge when you can correct that.

Dry Fire when you can, practice when you can and shoot lots of matches, nothing good happens without effort.

[Chris iliff]

Get video, not a head mounted camera IMHO, get a buddy to video you. You will learn a ton quickly. If you can get video of your local topdog running the same stage as you that's a plus. Comparing your run to his will really help. Record his hits too, he's probably shooting more accurately than you might realize. Good luck.

[Hi-Power Jack]

I'm new to the Uspsa game.Shot 4 matches total. Still unclassified,but have been told I would be a C shooter. I just shot on sat and got a 56%. Got lots of A's. Should I start pushing myself and speeding it up ?

Another great way to "speed it up" and still attain the hits is

to get "better" equipment - a better trigger, better sights,

better ammo (recoils less by using the weight bullet you prefer

with a better powder). These can all add up to "speeding it

up" without "shooting faster".

I've read posts here of people who switched guns and couldn't

believe how much faster they could shoot because their new gun

was more manageable than their old gun.

Not just technique - it can also be equipment.

Jack

[blaster113]

The occasional C hit wont hurt, but too many C's and D's will really hurt your score.

[Flexmoney]

Forget speed, think efficiency.

[Loves2Shoot]

Every C hit means you must shoot the shot 20% faster just to be equal with the A hit scoring wise if you are shooting major, 40% if you are shooting minor.

[benos]

I'm new to the Uspsa game.Shot 4 matches total. Still unclassified,but have been told I would be a C shooter. I just shot on sat and got a 56%. Got lots of A's. Should I start pushing myself and speeding it up ?

The secret to quick, accurate shooting: Shoot every A at the "earliest opportunity."

It's easy, especially as a beginner, to become stuck in "stop-and-go shooting." In stop-and-go shooting, every shot is fired with a perfectly aligned sight picture, which is stopped dead center on the target.

Of course more dificult shots require stopping the gun and confirming a perfect sight picture, before you break the shot. Most of the A's in a match, however, can be secured while the gun is still moving.

Ask yourself some questions to find out where you are wasting time.

On each shot - do you see the front sight coming back down into the notch so you can shoot as soon as the sight alignment is good enough to get an A? Or do you wait to see the sights perfectly lined up on the target before you shoot?

How long was my barrel pointed at the A-zone, before I fired the shot? Your sights will spend less time in every A-zone, the more you learn how to "read the sights."

Compare reading the sights to reading in general. When reading, your eyes never stop moving. Your mind quickly transforms what is on the page as a series of letters and spaces into words and sentences that have meaning. When reading the sights, your focus never stops moving, from the target to the sights to the target, and so on. Whenever you are aware of the sights, you know, at each instant, where the bullet would go if the gun fired. Reading the sights is similar to calling the shot. Calling the shot is an often discussed topic on the forums - perhaps search the forums for more info on calling the shot.

be

[98006]

Thanks for all the advice. Gonna put it to the test this weekend

[NatNat]

Try shooting one stage as fast as you can (be reasonable ).

That helped me to see were my limits are.

The key is to only shoot this once every couple of weeks and not all the time, since it is not what you want to be doing in competition.

[Hi-Power Jack]

Try shooting one stage as fast as you can (be reasonable ).

That helped me to see were my limits are.

The key is to only shoot this once every couple of weeks and not all the time, since it is not what you want to be doing in competition.

Even better idea to try this in a practice session.

Try the dot torture targets, and try different speeds:))

But, I agree - try shooting faster and see what happens.

Jack

[Flexmoney]

Read Brian's post. He talks about seeing things in a different way.

If you keep a speed focus (fast or slow...it is a focus on speed), then you will likely end up missing as you shoot faster. You still will be getting around the stages in an inefficient manner.

Keep the shooting focused on vision. then, eliminate wasted motion on navigating the course of fire.

[lugnut]

On each shot - do you see the front sight coming back down into the notch so you can shoot as soon as the sight alignment is good enough to get an A? Or do you wait to see the sights perfectly lined up on the target before you shoot?

How long was my barrel pointed at the A-zone, before I fired the shot? Your sights will spend less time in every A-zone, the more you learn how to "read the sights."

What also helps this is prepping the trigger as soon as possible. Sounds easy but it's not that simple sometimes. Most shooters are taught to have good follow through. In this sport once the shot breaks you should get your finger off the trigger ASAP and start prepping the trigger for the next shot (unless of course you are starting to move to another position in which case your finger should be off the trigger). Prepping the trigger means pulling the trigger 1/2-2/3 the pull weight to break the shot.... once the sights are where you want apply more pressure to break the shot. This is crucial for shooting difficult shots fast IMO. Hard to do when you have hoser targets followed by tight shots... at least for me.

Edited May 19, 2011 by lugnut

[blueorison]

If you're a new shooter, keep shooting A's. Don't try to go faster. Biggest mistake of new shooters is to try to re-enact the speed of more experienced shooters. The fundamentals have to be driven into your body and your mind has to be open. If you just try to go faster, your brain will focus on speed instead of holding on to your fundamentals of shooting. Don't think of "going faster". Think of going more "efficiently".

Let your ways be more accustomed to doing the right thing before adding more speed to the equation.

[Ronnie j]

If your alpha look like this .. Too slow if they look like this If your your using the whole a zone your moving good for your ability. But that's just me , .