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drawing to plates


ErikW

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I spent several magazines on the plate rack today. My draws were consistently 1.5 (+ or - .1) from surrender. Down to my last two rounds, I decided to draw to a single plate, from hands at sides. Times were 1.16 and 1.29, about what I'd do on paper at that distance. (The difference is much more than my surrender/sides draw difference.)

WTF? You think maybe while LAMR for the plate rack I should just treat it like I'm only going to shoot the first of the six plates? Even if I miss, the time evens out with a makeup shot.

The other weird thing is I was doing 40 yard draws to a steel IPSC, and getting consistent 1.4 draws. Faster than drawing to a plate at 12 yards?!?

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I would treat each shot as its own seperate event and the one you are shooting as the most important. I think that you are "thinking" ahead or maybe thinking "I got to blaze those plates or be careful aim its a plate". I think either will hurt you at high levels of shooting.

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Another example of the 'one-shot is faster than two or more' effect?

A psychologist friend believes it's hard-wired into our brains.

"draw, shoot, stop" is a smaller program for the computer of our brains and thus loads and runs faster than "draw, shoot, index, shoot, index, shoot, index, shoot, index, shoot, index, shoot, stop"

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Maybe you need to slow down on the first shot in order to save time in your transitions for the next shots?

Matt Burkett showed in his 4th video how shooting with similar split and transition times was faster than shooting really fast splits, and then suffering slow transitions. Could it be that your single shot is faster, but is accelerating out of control, instead of decelerating for a smooth transition? (note that I'm not using "accelerating/decelerating" literally--I mean the feeling of accelerating--attempting to drive the gun faster and faster).

Just a thought. Would like to hear others refutations and additions.

DogmaDog

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Matt Burkett, has a great comment on this in his videos/DVD's.

It seems to me, that it usually is first a break down in shooting position. It's easy to get unstable and then just start firing misses due to a break down in the fundamentals.

Another cause may be assuming that the plates are going to fally, simply because we point the gun in the area. It's like others have said. Make each shot, be each shot. Bang/Transition/Bang/Transition/Bang, etc.

Doing the above and doing some quality dry firing with Mr. Anderson's book, has helped me out quite a bit.

Rich

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I am still learning to only let myself go as fast as I can, and "See What I Need To See." I struggled with this during practice yesterday, but then when I slowwed down and focused on seeing, I shot great for our IPSC league night.

This should probably go in the Quotes forum but it seemed appropriate:

"The mind is its own place, and in itself, can make heaven of Hell, and a hell of Heaven."  ;)

John Milton

Paradise Lost

Thread Drift; I want to thank AikiDale for the quote. I thought that after I finished my masters course in Milton I wouldn't ever see any of his writting again.

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Erik,

I've experimented heavily with your question and feel that the difference in draw times is to be expected. Hitting one plate does not require the solid index and position that is vital for shooting racks of plates consistently. I'm not saying that there's nothing to learn from what you noticed, but just that's it's not a totally valid comparison. So you might use the lesson to experiment, but not to conclude.

This reminded of an entry in my notebook, from long ago. (I just looked it up) On mid-range targets, it may take .1 - .2 of a second longer to "set up," before shooting. Use this time to relax; it is usually time well spent.

be

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What I usually experience is a momentary "damn I hit it" which throws off my rythm thru the rest of the plates. I have worked on what a fellow shooter told me and that is to trust my shots and move on. At the same time with falling plates I become aware of what I see and if I pull a miss I go back and get it last. When I don't do this and I pull a fast draw and miss then try to hit that target again it throws off my whole string.

This is what I have learned and observed shooting both IPSC steel plates and Steel challenge plates. Also I have watched Koenig shoot steel and he in My eye is the smoothist shot and I mean smooth!

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i just shot a plate match this saturday, we didnt draw from surrender, but i noticed lots of shooters were getting 2 second+ draws on the steel, and we had one paper target stage their draw went down about half a second.

I shot a pretty strong match, beating out the IDPA experts that were there, most of them are one or two seconds away from making master in IDPA. what gets them is the sub one second draw i can usually pull off on steel.

the winning difference at our match is im 21 years old, others are 40+ most are 50+

i cant figure why in practice i shoot my Glock 34 like a A class shooter but in matches i shoot C class... cant seem to get better, almost like i am unintentionally holding back/ who knows??

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Harmon, we have a 16 year old kid at our club that is blazing! What we have told him is not to hold back and be polite around us older farts! LOL! Maybe you are subconciously being to polite and not wanting anyone to feel bad. Forget what us old farts do just shoot to your potential, we'll get over it and one day you will be in our shoes and some young kid will blow you in the dust and you too will get over it!

One thing that us older shooters might have that might not be ingrained in you yet just as the 16yr old at our club is focus and disipline but it will come if you work on it.

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Trust me.......Harmon isn't exactly taking it "easy" on us older shooters. He's young, he's fast, and he's got natural talent...... and I feel fortunate to call him a friend. Now if only I could start SHOOTING faster to catch up with him...... :D:D

Mike

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