Movement and reloads

[j1b]

I think that in theory, reloads don’t really hurt movement between boxes that are more than a couple yards apart.

In a match, that tends not to be the case so much. If a guy is shooting lim 10 or production and he starts getting into the pouches that are further back around his body things start to slow down significantly.

I shot the our final stage of the day twice at the last match....first time in Open for score and then after everyone was done shooting I ran it with my Production rig just for fun and to compare. It was one reload in Open and four in Production. I was three seconds slower with the Production rig (almost exactly) and it was a solid run with both guns...no real long or hard shots so the dot/comp didn't make a huge difference (some, I'm sure, but not a ton). After the first two reloads I'm reaching back a fair amount.

Obviously I waiver back and forth on this.

I remember one match in Tucson, I shot an open match and then switched to limited which back then was a single stack .45. Both matches were solid, no real issues either way.

My score with my SS .45 was 95% of my score with the open rig. I guess if I go off that then the difference is 5%. Hard to say if that 5% is the capacity, the dot, the comp . . . or some combination there of.

J

[G-ManBart]

Obviously I waiver back and forth on this.

I remember one match in Tucson, I shot an open match and then switched to limited which back then was a single stack .45. Both matches were solid, no real issues either way.

My score with my SS .45 was 95% of my score with the open rig. I guess if I go off that then the difference is 5%. Hard to say if that 5% is the capacity, the dot, the comp . . . or some combination there of.

J

Yeah, I have a hard time sorting out the relative weight each factor should get when I compare an Open gun with a Production gun, but it was the only recent comparison I had.

I think the best "test" would be to compare Limited and L-10...same gun, same shooter, same ammo, mags everything. Let them run the stage three times each (or five or whatever) alternating between the two with the only difference being mag capacity. Average the times for both and see what shakes out. It might be a good idea to ignore points (but maybe not misses) so that the focus is on time more than how well you shot. Of course just one stage wouldn't be definitive, but doing that a couple of times with significantly different stages, should equal out most of the factors involved. R,

[38supPat]

I can see one lesson here.

The responses say alot about the posters practice regimen

Lots of replies stating "I think" "I believe" "In thoery" but only a couple of "I tried it in practice" or we see apples and oranges compared. Doing a run of Open vs. Production vs. Limited vs. Limited 10 there are too many differences to really make a fair comparison....unless you "suppose" they are close enough.

I think everyone who posted here should post on monday what their run times were when thet ran this in practice on the weekend...and that means Open runs with and without the reloads or SS with and without reloads or production with and without reloads. Conjecture just doesn't cut it.

[G-ManBart]

I think everyone who posted here should post on monday what their run times were when thet ran this in practice on the weekend...and that means Open runs with and without the reloads or SS with and without reloads or production with and without reloads. Conjecture just doesn't cut it.

Absolutely. In my first post (or one of the earliest) I mentioned that I plan to do just that. I've done some comparison in the past but I didn't write it down so I only have a general idea....I plan on being smart(er?) this time and documenting it even if it's just for future reference. R,

[uscbigdawg]

Hey Rich, that one's calling your name (nickname) dude!

Eh...I have a single stack, but only MIGHT use it CDP (if it's even legal). I still say a properly executed reload at a position greater than say 3-4 yards, the reload is a non-factor.

Rich

[G-ManBart]

Hey Rich, that one's calling your name (nickname) dude!

Eh...I have a single stack, but only MIGHT use it CDP (if it's even legal). I still say a properly executed reload at a position greater than say 3-4 yards, the reload is a non-factor.

Rich

Hey, that's a perfect excuse to buy a new gun. See, I'm trying to help you out man! Then you could shoot a skinny gun in Limited and prove your theory

Still, I'm not really interested in theory, I want to see numbers and that's what this is about. Seth who's closing in on his B in Limited ran it a number of times and posted here that it was 1/2 a second slower, 10yds, box to box, when he added a reload...that's a pretty solid number. Jake who's an Open and L-10 GM says it's half a second extra for him. Okay, we've got two folks with a pretty good spread in classification percentage saying the exact same thing. I've timed myself in the past and it was in that ballpark, but I didn't document it....will correct that soon. Still, I'll take half a second if it's free....who wouldn't? That'd move you up ten places on some stages at a big match.

What I'd love to see is some of the folks claiming that it doesn't cost them time put up some proof...say a video of themselves doing something simple like ten yards box to box, a number of times and show us they can do it in the same time. Until then it's a nice theory with no proof. I'm willing to video myself and show it slows me down, but someone can just come back and say they could do it faster and not lose time...okay, ante up, show those skills and make believers out of me/us! Until somebody's willing to do that I don't see how anyone is going to put a whole lot of stock in their theory as it's really just an unexplored concept....which is nice and all but doesn't mean anything really. R,

[j1b]

I can see one lesson here.

The responses say alot about the posters practice regimen

Lots of replies stating "I think" "I believe" "In thoery" but only a couple of "I tried it in practice" or we see apples and oranges compared. Doing a run of Open vs. Production vs. Limited vs. Limited 10 there are too many differences to really make a fair comparison....unless you "suppose" they are close enough.

I think everyone who posted here should post on monday what their run times were when thet ran this in practice on the weekend...and that means Open runs with and without the reloads or SS with and without reloads or production with and without reloads. Conjecture just doesn't cut it.

I love the challenge, but am gonna pass.

You know I shoot production Pat - if I'm moving I'm loading.

Fundamentally I'm not certain the original question even matters to me if you want to get down to brass tacks. I assess my stages based on how I know I can shoot them fastest. Almost always that involves compromise. It means moving slower from box a to box b in order to avoid a static load in box C. Or whatever the scenario is. I can do the analysis that says if I load between box A and Box B it's slower than if I don't load. The reality is it doesn't matter. Because I know that the "time lost" loading between box A and Box B will be more than compensated for by not doing that static load in Box c.

It's all about objectives.

So many moons ago there was all this chatter on the Benos forums about the sub 3 second el pres. A great many shooters were engaged in it. I never went to try. Never even contemplated it. And I've never felt threatened by the folks that got close.

See, what it takes to do a sub 3 second El Pres is I'm certain a high degree of skill. But you give yourself 100 times to do it and you increase your odds. A match is about on demand. That's what a match has ALWAYS been about. There's often times compromise there too. Those times where you look at an activator, a swinger, and a static and have to make the decision - do you shoot the popper, activate the swinger, shoot the static and then come back to the swinger? Or go popper swinger cause it's safer. Sometimes it's a no brainer, but the times it's close are always interesting. If you set it up in practice you'd only do it one way - because you can. But a match isn't practice. It's a match, and in the absence of absolute knowledge you have to rely on trust. We're not talking trust of your best friend, nope, this is the truest trust. The question is, do you trust yourself . . .

At the end of the day, the root question for me is how do I shoot the stage the fastest. There's compromise in every decision made. Otherwise, there'd be no decision to make. I think understanding things like what the original questions asks are more about understanding your shooting game versus understanding if one moves faster with or without a reload.

I'll frame that up one last way. Fundamentally we all understand that if the "move" is one step then there's probably a challenge. I'd rather have a limited gun, because I wouldn't have to load in one step. If the move is 5 steps it becomes much more digestable. If you load like TJ in the video, it all matters a lot less.

I guess the reality is that there is a difference, the question is at what distance does that difference become meaningful. This is an extreme, but imagine if the question was do you run a mile faster or slower if you reload within it. If I tried that 20 times I'd say there was no difference. I'd say it 20 times. Because we're talking 1 second inside of something that probably takes me 7 minutes to do.

I want to shoot every stage as fast as I can. Not as fast as possible. As fast as I can shoot it with the points I need. That's my end goal.

Jack

[Ben Stoeger]

I want to shoot every stage as fast as I can. Not as fast as possible.

BOOM

[Ron Ankeny]

Pat:

Your point is well taken. Knowing always beats guessing. I have practiced box to box drills and a couple of the Burner's plate rack drills (moving up) many, many times with reloads and without. With 3-4 steps between positions, there is no difference. As the space is reduced, the reload causes problems. That said, I am slow as hell moving. I believe the faster or more explosive the shooter, the bigger pain in the butt a reload becomes. That is solely based on personal observations.

[Ben Stoeger]

I can see one lesson here.

The responses say alot about the posters practice regimen

Lots of replies stating "I think" "I believe" "In thoery" but only a couple of "I tried it in practice" or we see apples and oranges compared.

I "think" because I tried it in practice. I very often practice 14-18 rd stages. I can fit 19 rds in my production gun, so often I shoot my practice stage without reloads just for shits and grins. I almost always am much faster without reloads.

[Seth]

G-Man,

I tried it again today dry fire outdoors. I measured by doing a run box to box with a stop watch. That was my baseline. The CED timer beep is 1/2 second. If I beat the par time, I waited for the beep. If I met the part time it beeped when I put a foot in the box, and if I was long, the beep finished before I was in the box.

10 legitimate yards from box to box with a reload is a full timer beep slower with the reload or a little longer for me. What I found was that I can't explode (yeah, like I explode) out of the box with the reload, as I'm buttoning and grabbing before I'm hauling.

The mag change is a huge impediment in fluid movement for me. I tried it about 10x in both directions and just couldn't ever match the par time.

And as you mentioned, I'm a 57% C shooter.

[38supPat]

Like Jack, I live in a 10 round world. I have no choice but to do multiple reloads on a stage, that's life. Interestingly you learn pretty quick that sometimes more reloads equals a faster time. Sometimes you are better off to fire two shots then reload to avoid having to do it later in a stage where it is more costly.

Those times where you look at an activator, a swinger, and a static and have to make the decision - do you shoot the popper, activate the swinger, shoot the static and then come back to the swinger? Or go popper swinger cause it's safer. Sometimes it's a no brainer, but the times it's close are always interesting. If you set it up in practice you'd only do it one way - because you can. But a match isn't practice. It's a match, and in the absence of absolute knowledge you have to rely on trust.

That's a gem of a statement right there. The reason I bring up doing it both ways in practice is not to convince you that there is only one way, (notice I did not come out in favour one way or the other) but that you verse yourselves in all the options. Lots of shooters go out and practice their prefered way to do things and never try the other options because they believe they are the wrong way. Quite often they are not the most efficient methods, but you never know when you might find them useful.

In practice one day we set up a simple stage, three boxes each with a single plate and a single target in front of it. It was a simple movement drill. We tried it two ways most of the session 1) shoot the plate first when enterng the box or 2) shoot the paper first. On quite a few runs I had misses on the plate, either from shooting to early entering on the plate, or leaving to early on the plate. (ya I know visual patience and all that, I've worked it out since then) before leaving I tried something different. Shoot one on paper on entering the box, shoot the plate, then one more on the paper before leaving. Interestingly my times were about the same but I didn't miss the plate. I'm not saying it is the best way to shoot it, but it solved the problem on that day and thats what matters.

[benos]

On my best form, if the mag change was perfect - it wouldn't cost me any time. Reloading while leaving a position, for a good one, the new mag would be seated before the first step was completed.

To get a jump on a quick mag change, like for everything else we do - a decisive call for the last shot is KEY. Or in other words, the mag change should begin before the bullet hits the target.

be

[fasteddy]

On my best form, if the mag change was perfect - it wouldn't cost me any time. Reloading while leaving a position, for a good one, the new mag would be seated before the first step was completed.

To get a jump on a quick mag change, like for everything else we do - a decisive call for the last shot is KEY. Or in other words, the mag change should begin before the bullet hits the target.

be

Good one Benos!

This what I've been practicing at the moment.!

[Z-man]

I take the original question to mean, when moving from port/box A to port/box B, what is the time difference when comparing moving without reloading to moving while reloading. If you have a production shooter vs. a limited shooter, and the production shooter must make a reload, I think its safe to say that in almost all cases the limited shooter will be slightly faster (assuming all things being equal with the two). In my own practice the difference comes down to .2-.3 tenths. A quick reload by mr. production will make the difference negligible, but there is less body movement and less possibility for error with mr. limited.

Several people have noted that limited times are usually faster. I would propose that this is largely because of stage planning. Take a 32 round field course with some complexity. The production shooter is often forced to engage targets in a less than ideal order (meaning less time efficient compared to limited) based on round capacity. The limited shooter is afforded the benefit of options in deciding how to deal with a stage. Check my lowly video from the 06 Kentucky Sectional.

. The stage could have been run very differently (and efficiently) with more bullets in the gun.

However, how significant is all this? If you have reload for round count reasons, you have to do it. Better to be moving that static (that, I think, is indisputable). If you don't have to reload, then get your butt moving. My .02cents

Edited May 1, 2009 by Z-man

[vluc]

I want to shoot every stage as fast as I can. Not as fast as possible.

Jack

A lesson I know but which I never seem to learn....

[uscbigdawg]

I like that Jack!!!

Bart - You've got Seth and jake. I've got Matt C., Matt B. and Brian agreeing that it's either zero, when properly executed (which was my qualifying statement as well), or not enough to matter.

I do need another single stack. 40 or 9?

Rich

[Jake Di Vita]

Here's the thing...when timing yourself with and without a reload while actually shooting, there are more variables than just the reload - so it really isn't a true indicator of the time it takes.

Even if the reload is done in the first step, it is still going to cost you some time. The reason is, my first step is where the vast majority of acceleration comes from and I can't maintain as great of control over fine motor skills (reloading) when I accelerate as fast as I can. So if I have to accelerate slower in order to ensure I hit my load, there is time lost in that translation. And that is under the condition that the reload is executed seamlessly.

So to reiterate, if you can move with a reload as fast as you can move without one, then you aren't moving fast enough when you don't have to load.

[bkeeler]

On my best form, if the mag change was perfect - it wouldn't cost me any time. Reloading while leaving a position, for a good one, the new mag would be seated before the first step was completed.

To get a jump on a quick mag change, like for everything else we do - a decisive call for the last shot is KEY. Or in other words, the mag change should begin before the bullet hits the target.

be

This is my problem instead of reloading while leaving I am still reloading half way to the next position. I start the reload after I have made the first step when it should be done before the first step.

Do one thing at a time I just have it backwards.

I am working on executing this properly.

"Reload while leaving a position...." not after I already left.

BK

[Chris iliff]

I'm going to do this drill as described in the very first post. I really don't care about the arguments or opinions,......I want to know for me. What is best for me. I have done static, first step or two, and reloaded all the way to the next shooting position. The last ones do suck. I will post my times b4 Monday.

[Chris Tilley]

YES! its an extra movment that will cost more time... small amount in some places (.01's) and large in others. (.10's) with the chance of a missed load... (1.00's)

CT

[G-ManBart]

Bart - You've got Seth and jake. I've got Matt C., Matt B. and Brian agreeing that it's either zero, when properly executed (which was my qualifying statement as well), or not enough to matter.

I do need another single stack. 40 or 9?

Rich

Well now we've got Chris T. saying it adds something...even if it's not much. I'd still submit that for the average shooter, who most definitely isn't Brian, Matt B, Matt C, Jake or Chris T. it's likely to cost time...they're not capable of reloading before the first step is done the way Brian described. I still don't see how that can't slow down the first step slightly (the way Jake describes above), but even taken at face value, I don't see how it's true for the vast majority of shooters.

I'd say go with a SS in .40 as it's a bit more flexible than the 9.....heck, I'll even send you FREE once-fired Win brass for it if you pay the shipping

[Blueridge]

From what I have read most of the posts (understanably) refer to auto shooters reloading. While the information is valuable, it does not seem to really equate to reloading revolvers. The method for reloading an auto and a revolver is a bit different, and that is why the reloads take less time on average with the auto. Some different things have to be paid attention to with a revolver and more steps in the process. You are not going to see many (if any) revolver shooters completing a reload on the first step leaving one location to the other.

[38supPat]

Yes, but the revolver shooters have no choice but to reload frequently and they all have to do it. So it make take longer but it's the same for everyone.

[38supPat]

I guess the funny thing about this is the origional question is kind of irrelevant (no offence)

In revolver, you can only have 6.

In production (USPSA) and Limited 10 you can only have 10.

In limited it must be a 140 mag, but everyones holds about the same.

In Open you can have a 170 mag and again everyones holds about the same.

So really in whatever division you shoot, you may or may not have to reload on a stage, but everyone in your division has to do it too. In Limited and Open you have more choice of where you are going to do it but A) it WILL be when moving and generally, if it's a good place to do it, everyone in your division will do it there too.