Lotsa points, low Hit Factor, just go faster?

[rmantoo]

So in my last USPSA match, on almost all of the stages, I was 1st or 2nd in raw points, but in the last 3-4 in ranking, due to Hit Factor/time.

Here's a typical stage (I'm 8th, Robert Williams):

Name USPSA Class Points Penalty Time Hit Factor Stg Pts Stage Percent

1 xxx x A 97 - 8.36 11.6029 100.0000 100.00%

2 x x A 85 10 6.88 10.9012 93.9524 93.95%

3 x x C 87 10 7.64 10.0785 86.8619 86.86%

4 x x M 88 - 8.90 9.8876 85.2166 85.22%

5 x x U 92 - 12.31 7.4736 64.4115 64.41%

6 x x U 81 10 12.54 5.6619 48.7973 48.80%

7 x x C 69 30 7.65 5.0980 43.9373 43.94%

8 Robert Williams A82905 U 98 - 20.33 4.8205 41.5456 41.55%

9 x U 82 - 28.23 2.9047 25.0343 25.03%

10 xx U 69 10 21.63 2.7277 23.5088 23.51%

The above looks like SO MANY of my stages.

Do I simply need to go faster? Is it that 'simple?'

Edited August 4, 2014 by rmantoo

[LilBunniFuFu]

Simply put, YES, you need to go faster. That being said. You cannot drop too many points or else it won't even matter how fast you can run a stage. Compared to the stage winner you had one more point but he had less than half of your time. Now let's run the numbers, let's say you dropped 20 more points. Crap that's a butt load. But you managed to cut your time in half. Maybe it was possible on this stage with your abilities maybe not. so your new HF would be 78/10.165=7.673 That would put you in 5th place. How does that sound? This is all a numbers game, play with them and you can see what you need to/should do.

Best advice some one told me. Shoot alphas as fast as you can.

Keep the accuracy and try to wring out as much speed as you can.

Good luck.

[MWP]

If I'm reading this correctly there were 100 points available? You shot 98 points in 20.33 seconds?

The other shooters ranged in time from 6.88 to 12.54 seconds, a drastically different time. Hit factors are points per second. If you could have cut your time in half, to 10.17 seconds, you would only need 49 points to achieve the same hit factor (points/time).

To answer the question of why those other shooters are scoring better, yes, it appears your time is too slow.

Looks like Bunni beat me to it, need to type faster....

Edited August 4, 2014 by MWP

[BeerBaron]

given you are un-graded I'm guessing you're a new shooter.

most people would advise a new shooter to start out with a couple of things in mind:

be safe

shoot for around 90% of available points on any given stage. if shooting more than that (you are) speed up a little. if you find you start dropping much below 90% of points again, you need to slow back down till your points come back up.

as your skills improve you'll be able to shoot faster without dropping points. this is the goal.

at your stage in the learning process you can probably save a lot of time in economy of movement, better stage planning, executing faster reloads etc. and that's while still shooting at the same speed. so imagine how much tmie you'll save when you start to shoot fast too!

so for now I'd be suggesting speed up the movement a big. get a bit of mongrel in you. when the timer goes 'beep' push yourself. know how many steps to each position and take those steps like you've got smoky on your tail!

not everyone can just rock into a position and real off 6 shots at 3 targets at 20 yards with .18 splits and .30 transitions and hit 6 alphas. eric graufel can. you quite possibly can't just yet. time to do some training and push your boundaries a little.

I will say this, getting good points is a great start. going the other way sucks. it's basically useless to able a shooter who can run stages in master grade times, but with only getting 20% of the points. the faster shooting, faster moving, faster everything can be learned. having decent accuracy as a base (and good trigger control and sight awareness) is important.

[rmantoo]

I shot bowling pins and bullseye in the 80s/90s a LOT, but got away from shooting sports until 2-3 years ago.

I'm new to USPSA. I joined late last year, but only got to shoot my first match in January, and have only been able to shoot 4 this year.

I have Ben's books, and spend 2 hours on dry fire weekly (in 20-30 minute increments), and I live-fire 2-3 times weekly at the minimum.

As of 2 weeks ago, I have a timer, and have started working on drills like the Bill drill and el Presidente, etc.

I don't know what happened to the speed I once had shooting bowling pins, but I am now keenly focused on getting it back

[Hi-Power Jack]

Robert, you don't say what you're shooting - if you're shooting a revolver or .45 SS,

that might be part of your relatively slow time.

Also, depending on the stage, you might want to try to speed up Everything Else,

except the shooting - try a faster draw, faster reloads,faster movement, etc, but

keep shooting at the same speed.

If you just try to shoot faster, and do everything else slowly, you'll just go faster

and miss a lot more points.

You don't miss ANY points by doing everything else faster.

[MarkCO]

A few things to recall...when you shot pins, your sight picture told you when it was acceptable to fire the shot...same thing in USPSA, except the target is a bit larger. While your transitions were important, they were short. Also, in pins, you stand and shoot.

So, a few new things...nothing wrong with shooting As, but are you shooting 2" groups in the middle of the A-zone, or several inches of spread? People get all wrapped up about splits...wanting the sub 0.15 second splits...until you hit A class or above, fast splits are worthless. It is all about transitions, moving AFAP (as fast as possible) between positions and setting up. While the shooting fundamentals are the same across disciplines, USPSA requires the skilled competitor to stay low in an aggressive stance, snapping the eyes to the next target and the gun follows. When you have an acceptable sight picture, don't perfect it, shoot the now shot.

If you will go watch match videos of top shooters and compare them to 50% shooters, two things should be obvious...the 50% shooter runs the gun at about 75% of the speed of the top shooters...that other 25% is all about foot movement within the course of fire. Getting the 25% back on the footspeed is SO MUCH EASIER than getting the shooting/reloading speed...so I would focus there first.

[GrumpyOne]

Listen to Mark.....he always has good advice.

[BillD]

This game is about speed. It really is, the fastest guys win, hands down. You do have to get enough points but this game is heavily slanted towards speed.

[SilverBolt]

Until you get a better feel, move fast and shoot slow. If your stage time is more than double that of the winner you are moving/transitioning too slow. Your points show that you know how to shoot accurately. Now you need to learn to do that while moving effectively. Try to squad with some of the better shooters and follow them closely on the walk throughs. Watch how they plan the stage. Little things can make a huge difference.

[kneelingatlas]

Robert,

You sound a lot like me, I notice when I think in terms of "fast" and "slow" both my times and my points suffer. I view the "speed/accuracy tradeoff" as a false dichotomy; if I'm willing to trade hits for speed I get neither. My best performances are when I merely focus on executing my plan and exploding between shooting positions.

It's pretty obvious you can shoot so I wouldn't mess with that if I were you, rather think about your movement: is the gun up and in position when you see the targets? do you start moving as soon as the bullet leaves the barrel?

I got such a great education squadding with a local GM, he didn't have machine gun splits, nor did he even look rushed, just smooth, efficient and moved without a single wasted step. He was shooting as he entered the shooting area, and shooting on his way out; he rarely stopped moving.

[Luv2rideWV]

There is a great drill that Rob Leatham does on steel. Look for it on YouTube. He takes a 2/3 scale USPSA target made of steel and sets a par time. Start by shooting a shot in that par time. Notice how nice and centered the shot is. Using the same par time, fire two shots. Keep adding an additional shot to the same par time until you see your group start to open - each time firing one more shot than before. This is the way you find your limits of control. Remember how big an A-zone is, so this gives you some idea regarding how fast you can afford to shoot. If the group opens up too much, slow down. This sport rewards speed, accuracy, and power. A tight pair of A-zone hits is worth just as much as two A-zone hits that are barely in the A-zone.

My personal goal is to shoot about 80% A-zone hits. Any worse than that means I'm going too fast. All A-zone hits means I'm going too slow. Also, since I shoot revolver, I approach every stage as though it is Virginia count.

Good luck.

[Vincerama]

Ask someone to take a video of you shooting.

I did this and when I watched it ... what?! Am I just walking briskly between target arrays? What on earth and I thinking?

It was a surprise! So having seen/realized that, I plan to at least look like I'm running between them!

BUT, of course, make sure you do enough matches so that the SAFETY aspect becomes second nature or you will DQ. Like if you speed up your reloads but forget to take your finger out of the guard, or if you run so fast that you risk breaking the 180 ... too fast. Speed up the movement AFTER your brain and body have practiced and memorized the safety.

My 2 cents.

[Gooldylocks]

This is that video that Luv2ride is talking about.

I would just echo what everyone else is saying, if you are shooting over 90% of the points speed up. something you could try while you are at the range one of these days is shoot a Bill Drill or El presidente first like you normally do, shooting 95+% of points. Next string try to push it as fast as you can get the sights in the brown and pull the trigger. Figure out your hit factor for each and I think you will be surprised.

Shooting an El pres with all the points in 10 seconds is a 55.5%. You can drop 20 points (that's a third of the total, which is crazy) but cutting your time in half would get you an 74%. Now a more reasonable number would probably be something like down 8 in 2/3rds of the time, or 52 in 6 seconds would be an 80%. Just something to think about...

[Just4FunLP]

Great stuff

[obsessiveshooter]

what a great video, thanks for posting. It gets me all amped to go do that kind of practice and then I think about how $ in ammo I just saw him go through in 10 minutes of video...

[cnote]

Nice

[wtturn]

This is that video that Luv2ride is talking about.

I would just echo what everyone else is saying, if you are shooting over 90% of the points speed up. something you could try while you are at the range one of these days is shoot a Bill Drill or El presidente first like you normally do, shooting 95+% of points. Next string try to push it as fast as you can get the sights in the brown and pull the trigger. Figure out your hit factor for each and I think you will be surprised.

Shooting an El pres with all the points in 10 seconds is a 55.5%. You can drop 20 points (that's a third of the total, which is crazy) but cutting your time in half would get you an 74%. Now a more reasonable number would probably be something like down 8 in 2/3rds of the time, or 52 in 6 seconds would be an 80%. Just something to think about...

Thanks for posting! Good stuff, here.

[rmantoo]

Thanks again for all of the advice- and that video.

I mostly shoot either a HK USP 45 or an XDM 45 4.5". Both in Limited. Dawson fiber optic sights, mild magwells, Grayguns trigger on the HK, and Springer triger on the XDM.

I've shot one match in SS with a Chip Mccormick Racer 1911.

All are with my own loads, courtesy of an RL1050, mostly Xtreme 200gr HP plated bullets, and various loads of whatever powder I happen to have access to... lately it's been Alliant E3. The HK and XDM seem to eat ANYTHING I feed them, but the XDM will accurately fire a much wider range of loads than the HK.

Yesterday morning and today I exclusively ran Bill drills, el Presidente, F.A.S.T., and Rob's "Par time drill" (my name for his drill in the video- although I used a shootNsee target as I don't have a steel torso target yet, but the shootNsee gives almost as much feedback).

Total rounds yesterday: 86

Total rounds today: 94

I am recording my times on all of these drills (i've printed out the drills from pistol-training.com and typed out Rob's and put them in my 3ring binder with my pet load data for my USPSA guns, which goes to the range with me every time ).

I'm REALLY trying to avoid focusing on making it 'come together' for one drill... I'm REALLY trying to increase my speed during non-trigger events overall, but especially target to target transitions...

My biggest "AHA" moment came looking at my El Presidente times. I shot it 3 times yesterday and today, first time through at 'normal' speed, and subsequent times trying to go as fast as I can acquire my sights.

At an average of about 15 seconds, I hit all As, but at an average of just under 8 seconds, I'm 50% As, and 50% Cs/Ds. I'm not sure what that translates into in a Match, for points, but it FEELS hellishly faster.

A couple of thousand more reload practices and I'm pretty sure I will be able to drop almost a full second off of ALL stages involving reloads. 50-100, 3-4 times a week has already helped me dramatically.

I spent 30 minutes shooting each day, and last night another 30 in dry fire, focusing on transitions and sprinting between targets and calling my shots as soon as possible when in the next box.

Edited August 8, 2014 by rmantoo

[LilBunniFuFu]

Here is your translation for the bill drill times you put up.

normal speed (lets say 12A) 60/15= 4 HF

faster speed (lets say 6A 3C 3D) 48/8= 6HF

according to Classifiercalc HF of 4 will be a 37% a high D while a HF or 6 will be a 55% a high C

Which would you prefer?

Hope this helped and good luck.

Edited August 6, 2014 by LilBunniFuFu

[Jayohee]

Don't think of it as "going faster" think of it as moving more efficiently. My guess it that not only are you getting into/out of position slower but you probably have more shooting psitions than the competition as well. Learn how to navigate the stages properly by not having to do the ol' step-stop-shoot, step-stop-shoot.

1. Plan ahead and minimize the amount of distance you need to cover in order to hit your targets

2. Be ready to shoot the sec you get into position (gun high ready)

3. Be ready to move the sec you call your last shot (lean out or explode out)

All these things save time, not just 'shooting faster' or moving quickly

Edited August 7, 2014 by Jayohee

[SilverBolt]

Best practice for target transitions I have found is to shoot Speed Steel matches. If you are not fast and accurate it will come out in Speed Steel. Shooting steel is helping my USPSA game immensely.

[Gooldylocks]

Best practice for target transitions I have found is to shoot Speed Steel matches. If you are not fast and accurate it will come out in Speed Steel. Shooting steel is helping my USPSA game immensely.

+1

[amish_rabbi]

just a point... F.A.S.T. isn't a drill, its a test. Run your other drills then once a week or month run a couple fasts to compare times

[Kwontanamo]

here are some other links to videos that I think will help

The Shooter's Mindset: https://www.youtube.com/user/prchico520

NBC hot shot's: http://107.23.206.114/hotshots/

personally, I've been studying how a lot of the pro shooters get in and out of position, as well as shooting on the move

hope this helps