Magazine Changes

[rmj339]

what is a good par time for magazine changes....  

 

single stack 

double stack? 

 

[mSNACKS]

I think 1.5 seconds from shot to next shot on the timer is pretty sporty. I know there’s plenty of people out there that can do 1 second but thats getting closer to the top. Also that time depends on game if cover garment is involved

[MikeBurgess]

A good par time for practice varies, I like to start with a time I know I can make with perfect form then work up till the wheels are falling off then back up till I'm at my current personal limit, I also like to end on several perfect reps. 

 

Be cautious to make sure if your working shot to shot that both shots (dry or live) are good shots, don't train blindly yanking the trigger to make a par time, correctly beats fast and wrong 99/100.  

Depending on your skill level this could be anything between 1 and 3 seconds to start with. 

 

[waktasz]

Dryfire? A good par time is a few tenths lower than whatever your current best is. Every dryfire session start at some par that is achievable and over the course of the session reduce it by a few tenths every few reps until the wheels start to fall off. Back it off another tenth to where it's achievable again. Repeat daily. Goal would be to get under 1 second eventually but the important thing isn't the actual time, it's the progress. Definitely do not just set to the par to 1.5 seconds or whatever, get there and call it good. 

 

 

[rowdyb]

To just mechanically perform the action, taking the shooting out of it I'd say 1.0 seconds.

[TheChef1]

I set my par time for 1.0. I dont always make it if I bobble a reload or something but im damn close if its a smooth load.

[Joe4d]

I watched Todd Jarret have a casual conversation with someone while reloading a 1911  off his belt and not really even look like he was trying or paying attention, and consistently have Mag B loaded before A hit the ground.
But for the game students...
Option A,  standing reload then move  5 meters to next target. 
Option B,  Start moving  reload on the way. 
Which gives a better score ?   I was always taught to avoid a standing reload... BUT I would think a standing reload is faster than a moving one although you are accomplishing movement during the load,,  But you can move faster if you arnt reloading while moving and also maybe have gun in better position at entry.

[waktasz]

Have you tried it, with a timer? The answer should be self evident. No need to imagine the result. 

[pjb45]

With my SV wide body, inside, and on carpet;

 

I try to see if I can reload before the dropped mag hits the ground. 

 

I could care less about the time during dry fire.  

Par time in dry fire training has a limitation IMO; Pushing speed too fast may lead to a break down in technique. 

 

With single stack inside, I just practice reloads over a bed so I do not to bend over all the time.

Outside; Most single stack reloads are done on the move for me so I practice that in live fire/dry sessions.  I really try to drop my mag while taking my first step.

 

I do look at my time in live fire, if that is a training goal for that session.  

[IVC]

Fast reload is like a fast draw - one component is the speed of the action itself, another is the time to settle on the target.

 

When you initially practice just the draw or just the reload, assume easy target or you're wasting time trying to train two somewhat different concepts simultaneously: gun manipulation and acceptable sight picture. So don't worry too much (initially) about the trigger pull or the acceptable sight picture, get to the point where you train the mechanics of the action and can do it fast. Obviously, the gun has to be in the vicinity of the correct position at the second beep so you know that when you start working on the acceptable sight picture you have a good starting point, but you don't even have to call your shot (better not to call it than to call it incorrectly; alternatively, call it but don't worry that it's not quite on target). When you add the second element, settling on the target, your par times will go up until you refine the acceptable sight picture and link the the two elements together. But, since your mechanics will be tuned enough at that time, you won't be playing the game of trading off the lack of mechanical speed for the sloppy sight picture. This is why all dry fire books tell you NOT to press the trigger in most drills of this type. 

 

Only when you have the speed sorted out should you start varying the difficulty of the targets and include some hard/small targets where the most of the time will be on the acceptable sight picture and not on the mechanics of the reload. If you do this too soon, you'll end up cheating yourself by taking too long on the mechanical part and not long enough on the settling of the sights, and you'll think you're beating the par time when you're not - sure you finished in time, but the shot at the end wasn't good. This will show very clearly when you try to confirm it in live fire. If you draw/reload in live fire on difficult targets (and you should), you'll see the distinct separation of the fast, fixed-speed mechanical part of the drill and the target-dependent, variable-speed part of acquiring the acceptable sight picture. In fact, you can see this as two separate drills and start working on them in parallel - work on the mechanical speed with tight par times and easy targets, then separately on the full drill with a good shot at the end (and the target-dependent par time). 

 

A good par time for the mechanical part would be 1.0 seconds, although you should start at somewhere between 2.0 and 1.5 if you're still working on the basic mechanics (race guns, race pouches). Beyond that you're getting diminishing returns, it's much better to have a 100% @ 1 second than to have 75% @ 0.8 seconds (unless you lost a match by 0.2 seconds and you couldn't squeeze it out of getting in or out of positions better). And if you read any of the dry fire books and see that the par time goes up for more difficult targets, don't get caught in working on those drills too soon - if they give you 1.4 second par, it's still 1.0 seconds for the reload and the rest is for the acceptable sight picture and settling the sights. If your mechanical reload isn't there, you'll spend 1.3 seconds on the reload and 0.1 on the sights, you'll feel you're doing great, but you'll train incorrectly.