First Video - Suggestions?

[Lee King]

I've posted a couple of videos on my range diary but have never asked for any suggestions or critique. For my first attempt I humbly bow before the shooting gurus.

These videos are of a drill I swiped from Ben Stoeger's site. The set up is 3 arrays. The middle array has 3 targets, 2 at 7ish yards and 1 in the middle at 15-18 yards (I didn't measure). The left and right array each have a 1/2 IPSC plate. For the drill, on the outside arrays I shot the plate and the far middle target from the middle array (there are 6 shots on it total). I forgot my holster so I took the opportunity to practice "table" draws.

My goal for this drill was two fold. First, to practice field skills. Movement. Entering and exiting positions. 2nd to "shoot fast". I sometimes feel like I am too controlled when I shoot. I know misses are not a goal, but I will run a local match clean or with 1 M. I have a friend who will take 4-5 M on a day, but because he is so much faster still finish 1st or 2nd. When we talk about it he says "Man I just like to shoot fast". My 2nd goal was to, at least at practice, to shoot on the bleeding edge of too fast.

The videos are at 2 different times in practice. I ran the drill once or twice, then shot the first video. There were several more runs (and videos) where I had a lot of problems. Jam or two (not using my "match" bullets for practice), forgot to charge the gun and a few other things. The 2nd video is after I had run it another 6-7 times. Neither run was "clean" in that I took an extra shot to make up a miss. In the first run, I called the miss on the middle target and made it up. On the 2nd run I obviously missed the plate on the L side and made it up before leaving that position.

Humbly submitted

[High Lord Gomer]

I'm not qualified to have an opinion, but I do have a question... why go left first then right? At the AMU Junior Camp they told the kids to rotate the gun parallel to the ground wo they could turn their body and run fast when going from right to left. It seems faster than running left to right, so it would seem that it may be faster to make the shorter, first trp to the right, then make the longer transition to the left (unless you have to do a reload without breaking the 180).

Here was a pic of Daniel (I think that was his name) doing that:

[Lee King]

I'm not qualified to have an opinion, but I do have a question... why go left first then right? At the AMU Junior Camp they told the kids to rotate the gun parallel to the ground wo they could turn their body and run fast when going from right to left. It seems faster than running left to right, so it would seem that it may be faster to make the shorter, first trp to the right, then make the longer transition to the left (unless you have to do a reload without breaking the 180).

Good question. This is a case where I didn't think beyond my "initial plan". Originally I intended to run this without reloads. Then with (I'm planning L10 at SC State). But I forgot my holster so the reload part of the plan went out. I should've revised my thinking. I also get caught in the L-R trap even if I don't have a reload. I.e. I just always think L-R. I will definitely think about that. You can tell I don't get a good run going becuase I can't swing my arms coming all the way across.

[Lee King]

I'm not qualified to have an opinion, but I do have a question... why go left first then right? At the AMU Junior Camp they told the kids to rotate the gun parallel to the ground wo they could turn their body and run fast when going from right to left. It seems faster than running left to right, so it would seem that it may be faster to make the shorter, first trp to the right, then make the longer transition to the left (unless you have to do a reload without breaking the 180).

Good question. This is a case where I didn't think beyond my "initial plan". Originally I intended to run this without reloads. Then with (I'm planning L10 at SC State). But I forgot my holster so the reload part of the plan went out. I should've revised my thinking. I also get caught in the L-R trap even if I don't have a reload. I.e. I just always think L-R. I will definitely think about that. You can tell I don't get a good run going becuase I can't swing my arms coming all the way across.

Ya know.. even L10 it would be better to shoot 6, reload and move RIGHT, shoot 4 and run Left.

[Neomet]

Bit of a drift but it is faster for a righty to cover ground right to left? Its the way I prefer to run and I'm a lefty.

Lee, you shoot better than me buddy so no comments!

[bkeeler]

Lee,

Looked pretty good.....

When entering position 2 and 3 could you have taken the paper target first instead of the steel?

BK

[Lee King]

Bit of a drift but it is faster for a righty to cover ground right to left? Its the way I prefer to run and I'm a lefty.

Lee, you shoot better than me buddy so no comments!

I did notice when running from L to R I held the gun somewhat across my body to keep it pointed downrange. My body seems too upright and I never really get my left arm pumping. I'm going to try a drill with L-R movement and try it both ways to see.

That's the beauty of a video camera. I can do about 20 takes and throw out the REALLY bad ones!

Lee,

Looked pretty good.....

When entering position 2 and 3 could you have taken the paper target first instead of the steel?

BK

I tried to get an angle to have the whole bay in it on the video and maybe I set the drill up too wide. The middle target is all the way against the berm directly in front of the start barrel. At the 2nd and 3rd position I shot that target again. I'll see if I can get a diagram posted. You can see just a tiny bit of the corner of the target stand in the first video all the way to the right of the screen. Hitting that target coming into the 2nd or 3rd position would mean coming in with your body twisted back. I've been trying to come into positions with my gun up and I think it would've been too off balance to index back to the middle. That and my body was already semi-turned in the direction of the exit at least with the 2nd position if I took the paper 2nd.

Edited March 31, 2009 by Lee King

[bkeeler]

Bit of a drift but it is faster for a righty to cover ground right to left? Its the way I prefer to run and I'm a lefty.

Lee, you shoot better than me buddy so no comments!

I did notice when running from L to R I held the gun somewhat across my body to keep it pointed downrange. My body seems too upright and I never really get my left arm pumping. I'm going to try a drill with L-R movement and try it both ways to see.

That's the beauty of a video camera. I can do about 20 takes and throw out the REALLY bad ones!

Lee,

Looked pretty good.....

When entering position 2 and 3 could you have taken the paper target first instead of the steel?

BK

I tried to get an angle to have the whole bay in it on the video and maybe I set the drill up too wide. The middle target is all the way against the berm directly in front of the start barrel. At the 2nd and 3rd position I shot that target again. I'll see if I can get a diagram posted. You can see just a tiny bit of the corner of the target stand in the first video all the way to the right of the screen. Hitting that target coming into the 2nd or 3rd position would mean coming in with your body twisted back. I've been trying to come into positions with my gun up and I think it would've been too off balance to index back to the middle. That and my body was already semi-turned in the direction of the exit at least with the 2nd position if I took the paper 2nd.

That is why I asked could not really tell.

You looked pretty good. Maybe work on getting the shot off quicker coming into position on the steel.

Also running L-R you can lay the gun flat (like the pic in the 2nd post but keep the gun up don't drop it down.)

That is all I have keep it up!

BK

Edited March 31, 2009 by bkeeler

[Lee King]

Here is a diagram of the drill layout. The far L and R are the 1/2 IPSC steel.

Drill Layout

[Ramas]

Few thoughts you will consider to try:

1. when leaving position 1 try to cross your right foot over left foot and at the same time go lower, push your rigt hand in front of you, pointing barrel in safe direction and make bigger step.

2. when going to position 2 keep your gun parallel to the ground and more in front of you, make some pump with your right arm, run lower and make bigger steps

3. when entering position 2 try to stop wider and lower, do not shuffle your legs.

4. when leaving position 2 you just turn and then go now, try to push with your left leg and put your right leg in direction you are trying to go, going lower the same time and do not make standing turn.

5. when going to position 3 pump with your right hand and run lower and make bigger steps.

6. when entering position 3 try to stop wider and lower, do not shuffle your legs.

[CHA-LEE]

I am not an expert by any means but this is what I see.....

(1) Running from the far left position to the right with the gun crossed over your body really inhibits your ability to "RUN". When you move it looks like a paced jog, not a run. If I had to run that far of a distance from one shooting position to the next I would run from right to left with the gun pointed down range on my strong hand side so I could really dig in and run all out. That is a far distance and you should really be getting after it when moving.

(2) With no shooting boxes to enter or exit at each shooting position how do you really know if you are entering or exiting the shooting positions correctly? Did you have a stick laid down that you had to go past in order to be "in" the shooting area?

(3) From the first shooting position you start leaning back and to the left to start moving to the left as you are finishing the shots. Why not engage the first two targets from right to left so you can start falling forward and to the left in the direction you have to move for the next shooting position? As you did it, you started falling back and to the left and you had your upper body twisted to the right, opposite the direction you had to get moving. Then you had to unwind your upper body and scramble your feet to catch up and be balanced for the run to the next position. I always try to shoot the target strings in the same direction as I have to move for the next shooting position or target. It is always easier to control a forward biased falling motion verses going backwards.

(4) From the left shooting position you wait until the last shot breaks before you initiate your body movement to the next shooting position. You should be staging your body (falling into a running stance) to the next shooting position with 1 - 2 shots left in the current shooting position. How many shots in advance you start to initiate the staging of body movement depends on the difficulty of the shots. Obviously if the shots are harder you have to wait longer to start moving. But in almost all cases you should be starting to move before your last shot breaks.

(5) Your shooting speed seems to be stuck at the same speed. All of your shots are happening at the same cadence regardless of shot difficulty. You should be able to speed up and slow down your shooting speed based on the shot difficulty. Are you sure you are calling your shots? Are you looking for holes in the paper or waiting for the "Ding" on the steel to confirm a hit and initiate the next shot? To shoot fast you must be able to call your shots and never look for holes in the paper or wait for the "Ding" of the steel. This comes down to what an "Acceptable" sight picture is for a given shot. For a close (up to 7 yards) full targets you don't need much of a sight picture to get your hits in the A zone. That should be pretty much point shooting for those distances. For the smaller, tighter, or further away targets you need a more refined sight picture to call your shots. But even then it comes down to how much is enough and what is overkill for a given shot when it comes to determining an "Acceptable" sight picture on a difficult shot. Only testing your limits will be able to tell you what type of shot needs what level of sight picture. If you run that drill again, test your abilities on point shooting the close targets and then getting just enough of a sight picture for the harder ones. This is where Brian Enos talks about “Looking the shot off”. Your brain should be able to process the sight alignment and sight picture and once it deems the alignment acceptable for the given conditions the shot should break automatically. Once you are able to do that, your shooting speed will be dictated by what you are seeing not some given split time you are trying to achieve. High speed seeing = high speed shooting.

[Lee King]

All great comments. Thanks everybody!

[Bigpops]

Lee,

Thanks for the post. I am learning a great deal from all of this too. Keep the videos coming. One day i will be brave enough to post one!

[Filishooter]

I am not an expert by any means but this is what I see.....

(1) Running.....That is a far distance and you should really be getting after it when moving.

+1 To expand on this, it looks like your taking short quick steps throughout the entire movement. Think of it like gearing. You can use those quick fast steps to get moving, then after the first couple steps you need to switch gears and dig in and get those long aggressive power strides going. As you reach your next position and start to slow down, change back to the short quick steps to get on the brakes and to get your feet back under your body for control.

[38supPat]

I'm not qualified to have an opinion, but I do have a question... why go left first then right? At the AMU Junior Camp they told the kids to rotate the gun parallel to the ground wo they could turn their body and run fast when going from right to left. It seems faster than running left to right, so it would seem that it may be faster to make the shorter, first trp to the right, then make the longer transition to the left (unless you have to do a reload without breaking the 180).

Good question. This is a case where I didn't think beyond my "initial plan". Originally I intended to run this without reloads. Then with (I'm planning L10 at SC State). But I forgot my holster so the reload part of the plan went out. I should've revised my thinking. I also get caught in the L-R trap even if I don't have a reload. I.e. I just always think L-R. I will definitely think about that. You can tell I don't get a good run going becuase I can't swing my arms coming all the way across.

As this was a practice it's a good idea to get out of the idea of having an ideal plan for a stage. Unfortunately this is typical for most peoples practice. Which is why I'm starting to refer to it as training not practice.

Most shooters will set up a string or stage to practice, figure out the "best" way to shoot it, then run it over and over again. This is ok if you are focusing on something specific that has nothing to do with shooting a stage, just general practice. Like feeling or tension or calling shots. Even the simplest stage can be run a number of different way, and we can see how that has an effect on our shooting or stage times.

On the stage in the video, you should run it both ways from the start position. What you assume is best might not be, even the conjecture that if you had run the other way it "might" be faster is only a guess....unless you try it and see for sure. It could also be run completely left to right, or right to left. You can also change up which target you leave or enter on in each position and see how it affects your times.

A good example of a simple stage to try something on; I was practicing oone day with another shooter and he had set up a simple stage, three positions each with one target and one plate. We ran it quite a few times and I tried it three different ways. Enter on the paper, leave on the plate...had some misses trying to leave to early before calling the shot. Enter on the plate and leave on the paper....had misses on the steel fring a shot before settling into position. Then I tried just to see what would happen, enter on the paper with one shot, fire one on the steel, then one more on the paper to leave. I never missed the steel this way trying to push in or out of the box and had equal times to the other runs....sometimes you gotta try something different to learn.

In reality because of match stage designs you may not have the option of doing it your prefered way, so having practiced both just puts another tool in your shed that can be used when needed.

It is a really good idea to practice things that don't make you comfortable or go against "accepted" techniques. It might end up that the accepted way is best, but now you'll know why and by how much.

[Chris iliff]

Here is a diagram of the drill layout. The far L and R are the 1/2 IPSC steel.

Drill Layout

You have an idea of the distances you used between barrels?

Edited April 1, 2009 by fourtrax

[Lee King]

Here is a diagram of the drill layout. The far L and R are the 1/2 IPSC steel.

Drill Layout

You have an idea of the distances you used between barrels?

Unfortunately I didn't measure it out. I'm guessing between the outside barrels is about 15-18 yards. I tried to space them evenly. Really I just used as much as made sense with the bay I was in.