Quick Trigger Drills

[Braxton1]

I've been reading the Bill Rogers book "Be Fast, Be Accurate, Be the Best". In there, he talks about how most of us are screwing up by training new shooters to shoot very slowly at first and expecting them to speed up later. I think that there is a lot of validity there, so I am trying something different with a couple of inexperienced shooters that I know.

The drill started out as "From a high ready position, fire an 'Upper A/B' shot in 0.50 seconds". Range was about 5 yards. That ended up being too easy, as they were doing it pretty easily in the .30 range.

I didn't know a better way to push this issue, so I thought about it on the way home. Where I think that I screwed up was in the fact that I only tested the shooters' abilities to press a trigger 1/2 inch in a half-second, which really isn't that challenging. Starting from a low-ready probably would've worked better.

So, I thought that a better drill would be to have two targets at 5-ish yards, spread out about 3 yards apart. Start out aiming at one A/B. On the signal, don't fire at the first one, but transition over to the other one and fire one shot. 0.50 par.

This would test the shooter's ability to index with the eyes first and then snapping the gun over, picking up an acceptable sight picture, in addition to the quick straight-back trigger press.

After they get used to this drill, we could add "Shoot at the first one, transition, shoot at the second one" with the same par time. (I am thinking that we don't want to fire at the first one at the start, because we'd want to eliminate the distraction of that first shot and concentrate on the 'transition and fire' part.)

We'll do this one tomorrow.

Any thoughts?

[LPatterson]

Speaking as a civilian NRA Basic Pistol Instructor I think it is better to teach a new shooter how to properly align the sights and hit a target than worry about how fast to pull the trigger. Unless your post was about teaching new police shooters, most new civilian shooters should be worried about hitting what they shoot at. I guess it breaks down to who the students are and what they need to do with the new skill.

[pjb45]

There was a quote from one of a pair of instructors that went something like, "we prefer speed to accuracy, we can always teach accuracy"

My sense is depending on the current skill level different aspects of the game take priority. My reality is that speed usually ends up winning over accuracy at the C/B/A level shooters in local matches.

At the M/GM level, the speed is pretty much the same for everyone, accuracy is then what differentiates the winners from second and third place in major matches.

I like BE idea of starting out with the student just shooting into berm. Looking at the sights is a critical success factor.

Look at TGOs YouTube video for Action Target. I came away with a different perspective.

Matt Burkett often said in his class 'shoot faster'. If I had a dollar everytime Taran said go faster, I would have a lot of dollars.

So there is no one adage that has a priority over another.

[want2race]

To redefine, how about inexperienced to USPSA shooters? New to handguns, I agree with LPatterson. Familiar with handgun fundamentals but new to USPSA, I like Braxton's concept.

[Sam]

Most new shooters obsess over the sight picture. Fast and accurate is the result of thoughtless action.

[Skydiver]

Most new shooters obsess over the sight picture. Fast and accurate is the result of thoughtless action.

I hope this gets added to the Maku mozo! set of quotes that get emailed out daily.

[sperman]

My experience is the opposite. I focused on speed from day 1, and it took me a long time to find the sights. Fast misses aren't any better than slow alphas.

[Skydiver]

Slow alphas will still net a nonzero hit factor in Comstock and Virginia Count stages, while fast misses can easily make for zeroed stages. I have lots of experience with the latter.

[bkeeler]

Take a look here! http://www.brianenos...ords.html#speed

[Steve L]

I like Braxton's idea. Aim slow, shoot slow, well to me slow is slow. "Aim fast, Shoot fast"

To me the process like said previously is a no thought process but goes something like this:

See Sight

Break Shot

Call Shot

Align Sight

Repeat

I can only shoot as fast as I can do those things.

Edited November 4, 2011 by Steve L

[bofe954]

My reality is that speed usually ends up winning over accuracy at the C/B/A level shooters in local matches.

I'll buy it up until C class, and not even then among similar skill level C shooters. When I was a slow C (not that C's are slow, just me) I'd get beat by B's and A's by a few seconds on a stage and they could throw a mike and still win. When I shot against other C's it was generally who missed that lost, not who was slow.

I am a B, probably closing in on an A card now. I'll beat solid A shooters if they start throwing mikes and no shoots trying to blitz through a stage. I can post results. A good master could probably shoot a stage fast enough to have mike's and still beat a good B/A, and a GM could do it easily. Closer matched shooters, accuracy may not win, but misses will lose.

There've got to be 100's of threads debating speed vs accuracy, and we all know it's a balance. You have to work on both, but the easiest way to get beat by someone in a class below you is to start picking up penalties.

[kevin c]

When we say, "Shoot faster", we're talking about getting faster accurate hits, aren't we? Do do we actually need to speed up the process of aiming and shooting, or can other things be done quickly that allows faster hits?

Maybe it's just my own impression, but I was kinda thinking that a lot of what the top shooters do is being quick and efficient on everything up to the time the gun is presented to the target, so that they can actually take the time to aim and get off the accurate shot.

[Seeker]

When we say, "Shoot faster", we're talking about getting faster accurate hits, aren't we? Do do we actually need to speed up the process of aiming and shooting, or can other things be done quickly that allows faster hits?

Maybe it's just my own impression, but I was kinda thinking that a lot of what the top shooters do is being quick and efficient on everything up to the time the gun is presented to the target, so that they can actually take the time to aim and get off the accurate shot.

+1

[Sean Gaines]

I like the drill! But I think every shooter is different, shooting is dynamic. So when I get a new shooter, I want to know what he knows and doesn't know. Kinda like an incomplete puzzle, than you find the peices that they need, and you teach them drills to work on their main deffencies, until you can mold them into shooter that is much better than he was before he took the class. There is no way he will know everything, once he has taken the class, but at least you can steer them in the right direction. I think follow up classes are great to find out how they have progressed, or if they.

As far as your drill, you may find that some can do it and some cannot.

As far as the speed vs accuraccy debate. I like doing the timing drills, which works on both. Basically where you load their mag to capacity and start off slow shooting at a 5" target at 7yards, and speed them up throughout the entire magazine. repeat over and over, until they see what they need to see to shoot faster.

The quote I like speed and I can teach accuracy has nothing to do with shot speed, it has to do with physical running speed, once you have that, they can teach you how to shoot. Max Michel said that...