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Quicker transitions


Mushki25

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The snow falling this morning leaves no room for error that the off season is upon me in northern Wisconsin.  I have been trying to improve my transitions for a few months now with no real gain to my .25 sec. goal.  I have read countless threads and tried many things in both dry and live fire but I am still basically stuck in the .45-.5 sec. range. I plan on working this to death this off season as next years goal of A class depends on it.

 

I am interested in everyone’s aha moments to quicker transitions.  

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Shoot with a metronome app on your phone. Live fire. (Or just force yourself to shoot a cadence at .25 manually)

 

7yds. 3 Targets. A yard apart.

 

bang bang bang bang bang bang

 

No exceptions for moving the gun between targets. Fire the second round at that pace anyway, even if it’s a miss. Make yourself snap the gun.

 

Learn to look away from the sights on round #2 and snap them to the new target. Then bring the gun to your eyes. In slow transitions the shooter is always swinging a full sight picture to the new location.

 

Edited by MemphisMechanic
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1 hour ago, MemphisMechanic said:

Shoot with a metronome app on your phone. Live fire. (Or just force yourself to shoot a cadence at .25 manually)

 

7yds. 3 Targets. A yard apart.

 

bang bang bang bang bang bang

 

No exceptions for moving the gun between targets. Fire the second round at that pace anyway, even if it’s a miss. Make yourself snap the gun.

 

Learn to look away from the sights on round #2 and snap them to the new target. Then bring the gun to your eyes. In slow transitions the shooter is always swinging a full sight picture to the new location.

 

After a quick dry fire test I can say this is excellent advise.  Thanks.

 

I would be happy to hear any other tips as well.

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I’ve always heard you shouldn’t shoot to a cadence—you should shoot to your sights (or how quickly your eyes can pickup the sights).

 

Ive found this drill very useful 

It’s got two parts, so I won’t spoil what the second part is.  My son and I did this and both of us shaved a tenth off our transition times. 

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3 hours ago, itlogo said:

I’ve always heard you shouldn’t shoot to a cadence—you should shoot to your sights (or how quickly your eyes can pickup the sights).

 

Cadence shooting is not a good habit to fall into in a match environment.

 

It is good, however, for learning how quickly you can accomplish specific tasks - like transitions. You simply don’t give yourself permission to transition slower.

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Use your legs for transitions. Everyone wants to transition with their upper body and arms. If you use your legs, it is much more stable and faster to get on target and stay there. It takes a wide and low stance to perform this quickly and well. You have to feel it in your quads, hams and butt. It works!

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9 hours ago, enzo357 said:

Can you do a sub 2 second bill drill? A lot easier doing .25 transitions when you can rip sub .18 splits.  The Enos drill is a great way

to cut time on transitions, but if you can not shoot fast....... 

I want to tell you I can pull sub 2 sec bill drills but honestly while I can do them, I am more likely to go 2.3 all alpha or pull Charlie’s if I push it to beat 2 sec.

 

All that said I still feel I need to speed up transitions in order to improve.  Memphis Mechanic’s idea seems to have merit at least while dry firing.  I get that the cadence firing will not be an option in competition, think it’s a great learning tool.  Time will tell.

 

 I’m still open to any new ideas. 

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On 11/12/2017 at 6:42 AM, Mushki25 said:

I get that the cadence firing will not be an option in competition, think it’s a great learning tool.  Time will tell.

 

You’re on the right track. In an el prez a novice will split too fast, and transition too slowly. Their second shot will go wild or low because they didn’t really see the sights on shot 2.

 

Sounds like:

“Bangbang! ...bangbang! ... bangbang!”

 

Shooting a cadence will teach you to shoot the complete array in the same overall time with better points. You’ll drop your split times from .20ish to .30ish but you will more than make that up by snapping your eyes and driving the gun with your legs. Instead of what sounded like three double taps, a person in the next bay would hear a steady bang bang bang cadence and not be able to tell how many targets are shot.

 

The trick is not to be a slave to that cadence: if the sights get a little wonky or you transition to a spot in the C Zone accidentally, you need to have the discipline to wait for enough sight picture to know you’re in the A zone.

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35 minutes ago, MemphisMechanic said:

 

 

The trick is not to be a slave to that cadence: if the sights get a little wonky or you transition to a spot in the C Zone accidentally, you need to have the discipline to wait for enough sight picture to know you’re in the A zone.

What he said

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On 11/11/2017 at 10:42 AM, MemphisMechanic said:

Shoot with a metronome app on your phone. Live fire. (Or just force yourself to shoot a cadence at .25 manually)

 

7yds. 3 Targets. A yard apart.

 

bang bang bang bang bang bang

 

No exceptions for moving the gun between targets. Fire the second round at that pace anyway, even if it’s a miss. Make yourself snap the gun.

 

Learn to look away from the sights on round #2 and snap them to the new target. Then bring the gun to your eyes. In slow transitions the shooter is always swinging a full sight picture to the new location.

 

 

There are a couple of drills in Steve Anderson's "Get to Work" book that use a metronome for this purpose.  Highly recommend the book. 

 

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On 11/11/2017 at 9:42 AM, MemphisMechanic said:

Shoot with a metronome app on your phone. Live fire. (Or just force yourself to shoot a cadence at .25 manually)

 

7yds. 3 Targets. A yard apart.

 

bang bang bang bang bang bang

 

No exceptions for moving the gun between targets. Fire the second round at that pace anyway, even if it’s a miss. Make yourself snap the gun.

 

Learn to look away from the sights on round #2 and snap them to the new target. Then bring the gun to your eyes. In slow transitions the shooter is always swinging a full sight picture to the new location.

 

This may very well be the best tip I have ever been given.  The beats of the metronome forced me to keep up in dry fire practice.  Live fire I saved a 1/2 second off my Blake drill with all good hits.  I never would have pushed the pace fast enough to make that happen without first hearing the metronome.  Thanks a ton Memphis Mechanic!

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I found that I hesitated a very small amount after firing the second shot on a target, wasn't really looking for the sights but I was waiting for them to settle before swinging. I knew there was some time to make up in there but wasn't sure where it was. Took a class with Ben Stoeger and he identified it immediately, and then helped me work on moving the gun the instant the 2nd shot broke (but not during the break, cause thats bad) and it was night and day. 

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  • 3 weeks later...

"Somewhere around this point I start to press my trigger" 

 

From the video. It is a whole thing with me to attempt aiming while shooting instead of aiming then shooting, it sort of feels like it does when you are trying to go too fast and not requiring a good enough sight picture. 

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  • 4 weeks later...

I’ve been working on transitions lately by shooting Blake drills and keeping all splits under .25 including the transitions. At first I was dropping the 3rd and 5th shots to C or D regularly, but now regularly shoot pretty well all alphas with sub .25 splits. 

 

Ive found that forcing speed at first allows me to get the feel for driving the gun and then I can focus on accuracy. 

Edited by jerkeejoe
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On 11/20/2017 at 6:50 PM, Jumprun13k said:

I found that I hesitated a very small amount after firing the second shot on a target, wasn't really looking for the sights but I was waiting for them to settle before swinging....

 

Call the shot as it breaks.

... then SEE the next target.

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9 hours ago, perttime said:

 

Call the shot as it breaks.

... then SEE the next target.

 

Calling the last shot before the transition is KEY. Because if you don't, your eyes will not move decisively to the next target.

 

Also see this:

 

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Calling he shot is def what helped me. I also spent some time working on how quickly I got off the target.  If the front sight comes back down you are slow. Call the shot and start moving the the next target as the sight lifts. 

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