"Which is more important - speed, or accuracy?"

[UpYoursPal]

Recently I've been teaching and coaching newer competitive shooters on the finer points of USPSA stages.  They all have a great time and learn a ton, but almost every time they ask me the same question - "Which is more important in USPSA: speed, or accuracy?"  And really, I don't have a good answer for it, other than "it depends".

 

Now, I know that someone has done the math here with regard to the ratio of HF to time and points, but for the life of me I can't seem to find it. My gut instinct is that lower HF stages with fewer targets are biased towards greater accuracy, as a Charlie or Delta hurts more than on a longer stage, and higher HF or stages with more points available are biased towards speed.  Does that sound right?  Does it even make sense?

 

If anyone has a good explanation that they've used before, I'm eager to hear it.  Anything other than "It depends"!

[Rnlinebacker]

Rob Leathem said in one of his videos,

 

"Small stages are about the points. Big field courses will reward time a little more"

 

If they can shoot alphas as fast as possible, relative to difficulty of target, than both things become mostly equal and you don't have to sacrifice one for the other

[Racinready300ex]

Most matches I've been to lean more toward the speed side. Typical HF's are pretty high and most stages are pretty big. If I had to pick between fast and sloppy, vs slow and accurate I think I'd take fast and sloppy.

 

Obviously it's better to have both. 

[motosapiens]

most new shooters need to improve on both. You need to be accurate at speed to win matches. The most points per second is what is always most important.

 

 in general, the op's conjecture is true, that on higher HF stages, a delta is equivalent to a smaller amount of time than it is on a lower HF stage, but that doesn't mean speed or accuracy is either more or less important. It may mean that it's sometimes not worth taking an extra 2 seconds to make sure you get 95% of the points, whereas other times it might be worth it.

[travail]

For new shooters, I would say to have them only shoot as fast as they can do so accurately. Had a new shooter I brought with me once try to go at the pace of a few of the faster guys. He said the run went great, felt good and fast. Definitely zeroed the stage though with lots of mikes....

[RJH]

Well, the math says it's basically equal. Like if you're 10% faster than me, I have to end up getting 10% more points than you for us to have the same score.

 

I'm not going to argue with Rob Letham because he's obviously an unbelievably better shooter than me, but I found the opposite to be true in general. Say you have a small stage that takes six seconds to run, if I shoot it in six and you shoot it in five I have to make up close to 20% of the points for us to be equal, but making up 20% of points can be hard to do. But in a bigger stage that say takes 30 seconds to run, if you're 2 seconds faster than me, that's only about a 7% difference in points and chances are there's a lot more points available on that big stage.

 

But basically it is points divided by time and they are kind of directly proportional

[ltdmstr]

I don't think new shooters should be at all concerned about winning matches, or even comparing themselves to other shooters.  They should be looking to develop a solid skill set and strive for continued improvement over time.  In that regard, it makes a lot more sense to focus on accuracy first, so they develop sound fundamentals.  If they focus on speed too soon, that can result in bad habits that are very difficult to overcome later. 

[Intheshaw1]

Once you have sound fundamentals, I think you need to shoot as fast as you can see at a match.

 

Steve Anderson talks about this a lot with his match mode. Then in training you focus on speed OR accuracy, but not both at the same time. Pushing speed lowers accuracy and vice versa so you need to identify what you are trying to do and have realistic expectations. I've added a A/S/M column to my training log to identify that while training to better measure results.

 

Then when you get to a match you shoot as fast as you can see.  Each target will have to have increased focus based on increased difficulty but I don't actively tell myself to be faster or more accurate.

[MikeyScuba]

I'm with RJH on the super short stages.  I had a match a few weeks back that I did in 4sec vs the next was 5.5, the C's didn't hurt much when the stages are super short and hey it's major.  When you have to slow or stop to get A's on such short stages you are gonna get beat.

 

Someone told me I was one of those go-fast types who after a few years figures out how to hit the A & C's.  Which is kinda true, the first year or two was dreadful.

[motosapiens]

26 minutes ago, RJH said:

I'm not going to argue with Rob Letham because he's obviously an unbelievably better shooter than me, but I found the opposite to be true in general. Say you have a small stage that takes six seconds to run, if I shoot it in six and you shoot it in five I have to make up close to 20% of the points for us to be equal, but making up 20% of points can be hard to do.

 

in talking with elite shooters, and in running the time for numerous super squads, it seems that most of the time most top shooters will shoot a small stage in about the same time. If someone is a second faster than you on a 5 second stage, either they are better, or you screwed up.

 

Rob has also said that on hoser targets, it doesn't really take *any* extra time (just more focus) to get alphas, so you might as well get them, but on 20 yard targets for example, it can take a LOT of extra time to guarantee alphas, so just shoot them as fast as you can call acceptable hits.

 

At any rate, the best strategy imho is to just *always* shoot as fast as you can call acceptable hits. What is *acceptable* may vary based on the target difficulty and ratio of shooting/not-shooting on the stage.

[MikeBurgess]

1 hour ago, motosapiens said:

 

 

Rob has also said that on hoser targets, it doesn't really take *any* extra time (just more focus) to get alphas, so you might as well get them

 

 

A friend and I proved this to ourselves repeatedly practicing for nationals this year, it was painful to have to learn this lesson weekly thought the summer but the timer annoyingly says its true.

[AverageJoeShooting]

speed. 

you can outrun a D or M on a stage

 

also its a lot easier to teach a speedy person to be accurate than the other way around. 

i know that because I was the accurate guy who had to learn to be fast to level up between classes.

My first few matches it was like "well I shot all alpha, why didnt I win" and the resounding response was

"because you ran the stage in 30 seconds!!"

 

 

[RJH]

2 hours ago, motosapiens said:

 

in talking with elite shooters, and in running the time for numerous super squads, it seems that most of the time most top shooters will shoot a small stage in about the same time. If someone is a second faster than you on a 5 second stage, either they are better, or you screwed up.

 

Rob has also said that on hoser targets, it doesn't really take *any* extra time (just more focus) to get alphas, so you might as well get them, but on 20 yard targets for example, it can take a LOT of extra time to guarantee alphas, so just shoot them as fast as you can call acceptable hits.

 

At any rate, the best strategy imho is to just *always* shoot as fast as you can call acceptable hits. What is *acceptable* may vary based on the target difficulty and ratio of shooting/not-shooting on the stage.

 

Makes sense

[zzt]

When I first started shooting Limited I was told to go slow, learn what to do, and shoot accurately.  Speed would come with time.  I got lots of Alphas.  So many that if I messed up the scorer would say you had two Charlies on that stage.  I was slooooow.  When I tried going faster accuracy suffered.  I eventually got faster with accuracy.  As previously mentioned, your score is the number of points scored per second.  So if you are slow it is very important to shoot accurately.

 

I shoot USPSA matches with two 30 something friends.  One shoots production and is faster on his feet than I am.  His time for the match is always faster than mine, but I often rank higher than him.  He always mumbles $*((*&*&% major shooters.  The other shoots Open major and is blazingly fast on his feet.  He gets a ton of Charlies, but is always high up in the standings.

 

A couple years ago I was given some advice by a GM.  He said that if you are not shooting some Charlies you are going too slow.

[Fishbreath]

24 minutes ago, motosapiens said:

At any rate, the best strategy imho is to just *always* shoot as fast as you can call acceptable hits. What is *acceptable* may vary based on the target difficulty and ratio of shooting/not-shooting on the stage.

 

I got substantially better this year when I stopped caring about how fast I was going and started shooting at the pace dictated by the sights. It does take a lot of practice for that pace to be fast enough to win, though.

 

So I guess I'd say that speed is more important, insofar as you have to be able to shoot about 90% points at a similar pace to the people you want to challenge to beat them. You can get away with 85% and a little faster, or 95% and a little slower, but you can't shoot enough points to go a lot slower, and you can't go fast enough to shoot really terrible points and win.

[broadside72]

For new shooters, I always suggest getting most of their points at first. Then learn better stage planning and then going faster. Go faster until your HF falls off. Then slow down until the HF stabilizes and then work on raising HF at that speed by being more accurate. When HF flattens out, start going faster until HF falls off again. Repeat. 

[SGT_Schultz]

I think a new shooter needs to develop four different skillsets to not get bogged down in C class forever AND to start racking up small victories on the way to bigger ones.

 

1. Shooting accurately

2. Shooting quickly without destroying accuracy

3. Moving quickly

4. Moving efficiently

 

Unlike some, I don't assign that list an order in which to work on.  All need to be worked on near simultaneously from the beginning with a training plan that allocates time to each skillset during every practice session.

 

Come to think of it the same four skills, relentlessly refined, get you to GM and eventually (if the talent is there) to the top of the sport.

Edited December 7, 2021 by SGT_Schultz

[GrumpyOne]

[motosapiens]

13 minutes ago, broadside72 said:

For new shooters, I always suggest getting most of their points at first. Then learn better stage planning and then going faster. Go faster until your HF falls off. Then slow down until the HF stabilizes and then work on raising HF at that speed by being more accurate. When HF flattens out, start going faster until HF falls off again. Repeat. 

a rule of thumb i suggest to newbs is that if you're getting 95% or more of your points, you probably need to be a little more aggressive. If you are getting 85% or less, you probably need to be a little more patient. Perhaps not for each individual match (since odd things and luck can happen), but as a general trend.

Edited December 7, 2021 by motosapiens

[PatJones]

28 minutes ago, GrumpyOne said:

Sometimes a fast D is better than a slow A.

[CHA-LEE]

When are you NOT rewarded for shooting good points as fast as possible?

 

Capturing 90% - 95% of the available points is a good measure of being "Aggressive Enough" while shooting.

[konkapot]

When I very first started...was unclassified still...I spent 3 days with Frank Garcia. He was quite specific re: points. He said 92% of the available points is a good goal for a match. This really helped me....at first. 

 

Re: Teaching someone to shoot accuracy first and THEN hoping speed will come.....

 

My profession is teaching people how to shoot. I have to start with accuracy and then, when possible, move on to "speed."

 

That being said........the biggest obstacle to my personal shooting goals has been to push out of my comfort zone wrt hits:time. So the focus on speed first might have value. 

 

When I bring former/current LE to matches they struggle the most with the overall "tempo" of our discipline. 

Edited December 8, 2021 by konkapot

[vluc]

We are competitive and don't want to place lower than we'd like, but I've always sacrificed a local match to push my limits.  Now I also have the luxury of matches every weekend and able to shoot at least twice at each match.  But if only do one and done, most are reluctant to crash and burn.

 

 

[Flea]

12 hours ago, konkapot said:

When I very first started...was unclassified still...I spent 3 days with Frank Garcia. He was quite specific re: points. He said 92% of the available points is a good goal for a match. This really helped me....at first. 

 

Re: Teaching someone to shoot accuracy first and THEN hoping speed will come.....

 

My profession is teaching people how to shoot. I have to start with accuracy and then, when possible, move on to "speed."

 

That being said........the biggest obstacle to my personal shooting goals has been to push out of my comfort zone wrt hits:time. So the focus on speed first might have value. 

 

When I bring former/current LE to matches they struggle the most with the overall "tempo" of our discipline. 

Sorry for the newbie question, but what does "available points" mean? Assume you have a stage with 14 paper targets and 4 poppers. And does 92% apply to all classes or just those who are M or GM? Thanks

[konkapot]

If there's a 20 round stage there's 100 points available. So 92 out of 100 points. 

 

Not super exact; a stage with a lot of partials might skew that a bit, a stage with a lot of steel would skew it the other way. Has been a pretty good guideline

Edited December 8, 2021 by konkapot