How Fast Can You Pull...

[alellis]

Guys

I am happy to report that I am responding to treatment.

After only three rounds of three sets per round I am up to 40 in ten seconds

I would also like to point out that in my opinion this is by far the most informative shooting forum I have ever come across. I have learned an awfull lot my only problem is remembering and putting it into practice.

al

Edited January 6, 2006 by alellis

[alellis]

Pardon me.

AD

al

Edited January 6, 2006 by alellis

[Pin Shooter]

Hello Spook,

My name is Mark itzstein and I live in Australia. I mainly shoot Revolvers in all matches, and have spent the last few years refining all things that spin. I have read many of your posts, and have learnt a lot from these pages and my involvment with ICORE. I also am perplexed at what it takes to reduce the mechanical action of pulling / squeezing the trigger. One of the things that I have learnt is that pulling as fast as possible doesn't work for me. I get better results focusing on smoothness. I read the article about Jerry firing 8 shots in under a second, and all things being what they are, Jerry is a human like the rest of us. If he can do it, then it can be done. I start every practise session with a full cylinder on a target at 10yds as fast as I can shoot. My best result to date is 1.08 seconds for all 8 shots. Once I have fired the first string they always slow down to 1.15 /1.16/ 1.17. I can only assume that this is the result of finger fatigue. What I did notice was the more relaxed I was the quicker I was. ( I have reads Brians book 10 times and it is still sinking in )

I also have thoroughly tested the theory between K/L/N frames as feeling quicker with the smaller gun. It is only a feeling. I cannot in any way prove that the smaller frames are any quicker in my hands. Hope some of this may help your journey.

Regards

Mark

P.S. I do actually think that Jerry is Super Human, and I am glad he sets the bar so high. It makes us reach higher.

[10mmdave]

Hello Spook,

My name is Mark itzstein and I live in Australia. I mainly shoot Revolvers in all matches, and have spent the last few years refining all things that spin. I have read many of your posts, and have learnt a lot from these pages and my involvment with ICORE. I also am perplexed at what it takes to reduce the mechanical action of pulling / squeezing the trigger. One of the things that I have learnt is that pulling as fast as possible doesn't work for me. I get better results focusing on smoothness. I read the article about Jerry firing 8 shots in under a second, and all things being what they are, Jerry is a human like the rest of us. If he can do it, then it can be done. I start every practise session with a full cylinder on a target at 10yds as fast as I can shoot. My best result to date is 1.08 seconds for all 8 shots. Once I have fired the first string they always slow down to 1.15 /1.16/ 1.17. I can only assume that this is the result of finger fatigue. What I did notice was the more relaxed I was the quicker I was. ( I have reads Brians book 10 times and it is still sinking in )

I also have thoroughly tested the theory between K/L/N frames as feeling quicker with the smaller gun. It is only a feeling. I cannot in any way prove that the smaller frames are any quicker in my hands. Hope some of this may help your journey.

Regards

Mark

P.S. I do actually think that Jerry is Super Human, and I am glad he sets the bar so high. It makes us reach higher.

Hi Mark, Happy New Year and all that stuff.

On your 8 shots as fast as you can.....didn't I read somewhere that Jerry's time started

at the first shot and ended with the last ?? so you only time 7 splits ???

(anything to help )

So will we see you at the PSA this year ??

DaveP

[spook]

Hi Pin Shooter!

Holy Crap that's fast. I'm still stuck at .20 as my fastest ever

[Pin Shooter]

Hi 10mm and Spook.

Dave, the way I timed the 8 shots was after the first shot as you have suggested, leaving 7 splits. which brings the splits in at .15's and .16's. Don't forget that the 1.08 is a best ever, and not in a match. Dave, did you ever practise your fastest single tables, with a timer? If you did I would assume some of the best times that you achieved were in the very low 2's. Take out the reaction from the beep to the first shot, leaves you with the remaining 4 spilts, in just over a second, with pin loads and aimed shots. This is how I started thinking about reducing my splits. Hitting a pin is a lot harder for me than slapping minor factor shots onto a target, and the flinch factor reduces with the lighter recoil of the load. As much as I hate to admit it, I believe that I still flinch. One of the tools I use to reduce its effect, is the 8 shots as fast as possible. Remember, you don't need a sight picture, you are only focused on a close target, and the speed of those 8 shots. I am fully aware that should that stage show up at match, and I want all A's I would be in the mid - high 2's, allowing 1.2 - 1.4 for the draw and first shot, and then .25 splits for the remaining 7 shots. We had a stage similar to that, at the regionals a couple of years ago. From the beep, you had to run 20 yards to a door, which once opened presented 3 NRA targets at maybe 10 yards, and put 6 on each with a reload between each target. Several of the top shooters were watching the stage, and discussing the speed at which they had shot it. I try not to listen to match talk, but I am weak, and I was very concerned that I would not be able to match their speed. When the buzzer sounded all I wanted to do was smoke it, and when I got to the door, I attacked the target with great fury. When the smoke had cleared, I looked forwards to see where the hits had landed, and all but one were in the X ring. I don't know if the focus on speed, improved my accuaracy, or of the focus on accuracy increased my speed, but I have not been able to recreate that scenario in practise since. I am a big believer in some days you can and some days you cannot. I just wish the days that I can, I was somewhere that mattered.

Regards

Mark

[hopalong]

Right before I layed the 625 down (last October) I was getting relable .17, .18 splits and even had a few .15 splits mixed in occasionally.(10 yd steel targets) with my guess would be 90% or better hits.

I doubt .18 is achieveable for me right now (If I could shoot the stupid thing) due to lack of practice and not excersizing the muscles that control that movement.

IMHO (see signature line below) in a match, splits mean very little except for maybe a speed shoot......that we very seldom see anymore seems to me that USPSA stands for:

Unlimited

Shooting

Per

Stage

Assn.

What ever happened to the 3 speed shoots, 2 medium field courses, 1 long field course suggestion?

Oh well, off my soap box.

Good luck with your smoking fast splits guys and gals.

HOPALONG

[mikey357]

...well, I'm comin' in a lil' late on this one...I do a fair amount of my practice out in the back yard, on a coupla' Bianchi-style plate racks and some 2/3 scale "Pepper Poppers"...I usually use a .22, either a Model 17-6 six-shooter with a NICE action by Lou Ciamillo of "MGW" or a box-stock 617-6 "ten-shooter"...the .22 is utilized mostly to keep the "Domestic Peace" and out of respect for my closest neighbors...and because it's CHEAP to feed...

...anyway, for developing my "Speed", such as it is...or isn't...for about the last ten or eleven months I have periodically fired six shots at the 2/3 scale "Popper" at five or six yards as fast as possible...all shots on the same target...when I'm "In Practice", my splits run between 0.19 and 0.22 pretty consistently, with an OCCASIONAL 0.17 or 0.18 thrown in, with the exception that the "Split" from the first shot to the second shot is ALWAYS the SLOWEST, frequently running around 0.23 or 0.24, for reasons I don't fully understand...

When I pick up the DREADED Ruger MKII with a 2 & 1/2 lb. trigger, my splits then drop to 0.16-0.18, with an occasional 0.14 or 0.15 thrown in...Sure wish I was as fast as that with the REVOLVER!!!

The one thing I HAVE figured out is that RELAXATION is your FRIEND and TENSION is your ENEMY when it comes to going FASTER....mikey357

Edited February 17, 2006 by mikey357

[professor]

Ed's timer was very crude. Jerry was able to get it for a while to try to reproduce it so he could "officially" try for Ed's record.

He was unable to build his own and was not allowed to use Ed's timer.

If I remember right the old timer counted trigger strokes. Today's timers work off sound. Although it may be very slight, sound takes time to go from one place to another.

The timed portion of Ed's records were from first shot to last. That means the 5 shots time is actually 4 intervals between shots, so 2/5ths seconds (0.4 seconds) would be 0.10 sec between shots. IIRC, the timing device was a rotating drum with a pen drawing a continuous line. Wires ran from a contact switch to the pen and a battery. Contact by the trigger hitting the switch at the back of the trigger guard caused the pen to blip up and back down as soon as contact was lost. The distance the drum rotated between blips, and knowing the rotation speed of the drum, allowed timing the shots pretty accurately. Carrying the setup might make it a little difficult for the RO to keep up on a field course, though.

Second comment - As long as the gun and the timer are not moving relative to each other, it doesn't matter if the timing device is a contact switch in the trigger guard (Ed McGivern's setup) or a modern timer sensing the sound pressure spike reaching it. There might be a slight delay in sound transmission for the initial shot, but each subsequent shot's sound transmission time would be identical. The net result would be identical elapsed times for a 5 shot string. If a real slow RO started a shooter, and lagged behind by 11 feet at the final shot, the delay caused by sound travelling that extra distance would add 0.01 seconds to the shooter's time.