Improving speed with range restrictions

[mizer67]

My regular practice range has a "1 second rule", that no more than 1 shot per second can be fired. They're (overly) concerned about random shooters lobbing projectiles out of the range and getting it shut down.

Other than changing ranges, are there drills that can be done dry or with this restriction to improve speed?

[StraightUp_OG]

None that I can think of. The only way to experience and understand shooting at speed is shooting at speed.

Are there matches held there and are they restricted by the same rule?

[trgt]

How about drills targeting speed in specific areas when you are at that range

- draw to first shot
- shot / reload / shot
- draw / shot / reload / shot

- dot drills but dots at four corners of paper, so have big transition to each dot

... to work on speed in these areas w/o being impacted by rule ?

Edited August 16, 2014 by trgt

[jstagn]

How about head shots at 20+yds.

[Hi-Power Jack]

I'd talk to management, tell them what I have in mind and my credentials

(experience shooting) and request the rule be amended at certain times

- like if there's no one else at the range??

Worth a shot.

No outdoor ranges nearby? Where is Lutz?

But, otherwise, I like the ideas listed above ...

very creative.

[mizer67]

Matches are not held to the same rules but are only held once a month.

This is an outdoor range, with very high berms (~20+ ft.) and wooden eyebrows every few yards to destabilize any high rounds, and eyebrows on top of the berms as well.

There's really not much chance a bullet could escape (in my opinion) but they've been fighting with the neighbors for several years and one of the neighbors has appeared to have pulled rounds from the berm to seed their house in an attempt to get the range shut down.

It does depend on who's working as to what I can get away with. The ROs are all volunteers so it just depends on who's working and how seriously they want to enforce that rule that day. There's really no one that competes that's an RO though. Usually, if I go faster than ~.5 splits I'll get an immediate talking to, so I spend most of my time at 50 ft. on 3" targets or at 75 ft. on a 5" target.

[Hi-Power Jack]

I spend most of my time at 50 ft. on 3" targets or at 75 ft. on a 5" target.

That sounds like a Great Plan.

[Jshuberg]

There definitely are some things that you can work on that will help you immensely when you are able to shoot fast.

When you shoot, use a metronome app with earbuds under your hearing protection, and set it to 1-2 seconds. When you hear it click, fire a round and hold your trigger to the rear. When you hear it click again, relax your finger and let the trigger reset spring move your finger forward until you feel the reset click, and then squeeze again. You should be able to respond to the metronome click (try not to jump the gun with the timer in your head, but to actually respond to what you hear), and reset the trigger and fire again in under .2 seconds (although I'm not sure how you'd time it). Also, don't move your hands at all between shots. Work on your grip so that it returns you to a proper sight picture without having to move any muscles to get there. Work on tracking your sight, watching it lift and come back down into the rear. Try and see every instant and every motion it makes. Don't look at your target between shots, stay focused entirely on your front sight. Another way is to actually close your eyes as soon as you see the front sight lift, and only open them when you hear the metronome click while you're simultaneously resetting/squeezing the trigger. This will help you to develop both your grip and visual skills in recognizing a flash sight picture.

Basically, the idea is that you don't slow down every aspect of shooting when you can't shoot fast. What you do is to actually shoot quickly in every way except one - delaying the trigger reset. You also want to train yourself not to shoot entirely to an internal rhythm as many people do in slow fire, but in response to something you're seeing, hearing, or feeling. In the case here you shoot in response to hearing the metronome click. When you are able to shoot fast, it's simply a matter of developing two new skills - 1) changing what you're responding to to either seeing a flash sight picture, or to feeling the shot break for close-in stuff, and 2) tracking a front sight that's continually in motion. All other aspects of shooting fast can actually be learned and developed during slow fire.

In fact, if you do develop most of the skills necessary for rapid fire during slow fire training, you'll be that much better at shooting rapid fire since there are only two things that you need to change, instead of trying to learn all of them at once and finding yourself all over the target and more frustrated in the process than necessary. I've spent a good bit of time decomposing the fundamental shooting skills into much smaller training units than most people do. This is an example of that - simplify and isolate various skills into smaller units of training. Think of it as how a bodybuilder isolates one muscle group to the exclusion of all others for maximum results. So far I think the approach seems to work well, so give this a try and see what it does for you.

Hope this helps!

Edited August 18, 2014 by Jshuberg

[Nimitz]

The difficulty with trying to be creative with your training is that there are many aspects of the sport you won't be able to practice and will therefore develop into weaknesses if you can train them. A common training misconception in our sport is that if you practice the hard stuff and become good at it, you will also be good at the 'easy' stuff. Shooting 25 yd partials will not make you good at shooting 5 yd partials, you have to practice those too ...

My advice is to dry fire every day and develop a robust dry fire training program where you can practice 90% of the skills you need and then go seek out an outdoor range that supports action shooting sports ..

[jroback]

When you shoot, use a metronome app with earbuds under your hearing protection, and set it to 1-2 seconds. When you hear it click, fire a round and hold your trigger to the rear. When you hear it click again, relax your finger and let the trigger reset spring move your finger forward until you feel the reset click, and then squeeze again. You should be able to respond to the metronome click (try not to jump the gun with the timer in your head, but to actually respond to what you hear), and reset the trigger and fire again in under .2 seconds (although I'm not sure how you'd time it).

I like this practice idea. Let me ask a newbie question, however. It seems like what you're training here is 2 sequential actions after a signal (click, sight picture, etc): release trigger from rear to reset point, then squeeze trigger. Does this imply that as you're driving the gun from target to target you want to hold the trigger to the rear (not allowing it to reset) until you get the appropriate signal (sight picture) and then you reset-squeeze? Is this what top shooters do, or is their "hold" point after the reset? In other words, should the metronome practice be to hold trigger at the reset point then on the click squeeze-reset, then wait for the next click? Thx.

[Nimitz]

A metronome is a great tool to learn to speed up your transitions and trigger speed. Why set it to 1-2 secs? Start out at 150 beats per min and see if you can keep up with pulling the trigger that fast while maintaining a sight picture. Then move to 3 targets and practice shooting 2 shoots on each and transitioning between all 3 targets while maintaining time with the metronome. Increase speed until you csm't keep up ...

[Jshuberg]

I suggested 1-2 seconds because 1 second is the fastest the OP can shoot at his location. While working on fast trigger reset/press during slow fire, it doesn't really matter how fast you're going overall, so 1-2 seconds is fine. Generally, I agree that when using a metronome for speed training you increase it's speed until you start to fall apart, but the OP isn't able to do that. Doing the above won't teach him how to shoot controlled rapid fire, but it will solidify some of the underlying skills necessary for rapid fire, and will almost certainly make learning to shoot rapidly easier when he's able to get to a location that allows it.

As far as the question on the timing when you perform trigger reset during transitions, this is what I do in the order in which I do them. Other people may do things differently, some exceptional shooters actually use a controlled slap, but the below does work well:

1) Visually acquire the next target and put focus on POA.

2) Turn to the target from the knees while simultaneously:

a) Shifting focus back to front sight

Relax trigger finger and allow it to move to trigger reset

If the target is close, say inside 7 yards I trust my grip will hold a good enough alignment and I begin to press the trigger the instant my front sight crosses center mass. This works most of the time, but not always The further away the target is, I wait to begin the trigger press until my front sight is over the center of the target, and then I give myself a fraction of a second to ensure the sights are properly aligned before pressing the trigger.

[jroback]

Thanks for the clarification. This approach makes sense.

[empire12369]

Shoot 1 round reload off table or belt and repeat. Work transitions back and forth.