Go for all Alphas in matches, until speed catches up later?

[sherpa]

I'm aware there are already many threads discussing about accuracy over speed, and letting speed follow as skill develops. But perhaps since I haven't reached yet a high level of being able to shoot accurately and fast (due to many factors as imperfect index - sights not aligned when I raise the gun, grip doesn't bring sights back to alignment consistently, slow sight acquisition resulting to about .5 splits or higher at average, etc.), should I just keep focusing on shooting all 'Alphas' first as my ultimate objective when shooting every stage at matches no matter how slow? In other words, totally ignore the time factor (in either short, med or long courses) and just shoot for A's.

Obviously there's a lot to practice and develop, but I'm referring to matches only and just want to get comments and suggestions on this.

Edited May 30, 2009 by sherpa

[Matt P.]

ok, I imagine this thread to be answered by all with many opinions.

here is my opinion;

if you are serious about shooting and improving, get professional instruction now.

If you are a league only type shooter then just follow your gut and work on that if you really want to.

[persona non grata]

Let's say you get done shooting a stage, it could be a medium sized field course or a long 32 rounder, and the RO is walking around scoring the targets and all you hear is "TWO, ALPHA! TWO ALPHA! TWO ALPHA TWO ALPHA! TWO ALPHA! ", then you're shooting too slow. I think the conventional wisdom here is to strive for 80 to 90% of the maximum available points. When you go to a match, you can take a notebook with you or just an index card, or you can wait to you can see the results posted to the web (just take the max points possible per stage and divide by 5, that is the minimum round count required to shoot that stage), your total raw time for the match (if there aren't a whole bunch of movers/swingers) you should be striving for, IMO, should be less than the minimum round count for the entire match. That might be a good rule of thumb to follow. Your HF is your points divided by time. Since time is in the denominator of the equation, how many seconds you shoot a stage has a huge, HUGE effect on your HF. Sometimes it is downright amazing how spread out the results can be just based on one guy being 1 or 2 seconds slower or faster than another guy.

[persona non grata]

I wouldn't necessarily buy some professional instruction just yet. You might skate by for a little while just having a local A or B class shooter take you under his wing. If you happen to have some other local matches you can carpool to, you can sometimes learn more talking about shooting on the way up there and back than actually shooting the match. There are volumes of information here on this forum. Then there are few shooters's websites worth checking out. Then there is Steve Anderson's two dry fire books. The second one has about 80 pages dedicated to stuff it had taken me several years to figure out on my own through the school of hard knocks.

[Matt P.]

Let's say you get done shooting a stage, it could be a medium sized field course or a long 32 rounder, and the RO is walking around scoring the targets and all you hear is "TWO, ALPHA! TWO ALPHA! TWO ALPHA TWO ALPHA! TWO ALPHA! ", then you're shooting too slow. I think the conventional wisdom here is to strive for 80 to 90% of the maximum available points.

Actually for myself, 80% of points is not my goal. 95% of points is my goal with 90% being a bare minimum. There is no substitute for accurate shooting.

The reason why I said if he was serious to go out now and get professional training was so he would not develope bad habits that would need to be untrained and retrained.

[persona non grata]

oh, yeah, good point. I don't think about that. Another thing about professional help is they can nip any potential safety issues in the bud, like right NOW! before you get DQ'ed from a match.

[ironb]

I'm aware there are already many threads discussing about accuracy over speed, and letting speed follow as skill develops. But perhaps since I haven't reached yet a high level of being able to shoot accurately and fast (due to many factors as imperfect index - sights not aligned when I raise the gun, grip doesn't bring sights back to alignment consistently, slow sight acquisition resulting to about .5 splits or higher at average, etc.), should I just keep focusing on shooting all 'Alphas' first as my ultimate objective when shooting every stage at matches no matter how slow? In other words, totally ignore the time factor (in either short, med or long courses) and just shoot for A's.

Obviously there's a lot to practice and develop, but I'm referring to matches only and just want to get comments and suggestions on this.

this was my theory too, and I think it's working. i wanted to first get good accuracy, then focus on time. i think the good accuracy part is due to good trigger control, gun control, grip, etc. My plan was to ingrain the "holding/controlling" the gun part and make it "automatic." then work on my speed. this game plan, i think, is paying off. (granted I've only been shooting for two months).

do you have any of the Practical Shooting DVDs? there are a lot of good tips in there.

[Blueridge]

Let's say you get done shooting a stage, it could be a medium sized field course or a long 32 rounder, and the RO is walking around scoring the targets and all you hear is "TWO, ALPHA! TWO ALPHA! TWO ALPHA TWO ALPHA! TWO ALPHA! ", then you're shooting too slow. I think the conventional wisdom here is to strive for 80 to 90% of the maximum available points. When you go to a match, you can take a notebook with you or just an index card, or you can wait to you can see the results posted to the web (just take the max points possible per stage and divide by 5, that is the minimum round count required to shoot that stage), your total raw time for the match (if there aren't a whole bunch of movers/swingers) you should be striving for, IMO, should be less than the minimum round count for the entire match. That might be a good rule of thumb to follow. Your HF is your points divided by time. Since time is in the denominator of the equation, how many seconds you shoot a stage has a huge, HUGE effect on your HF. Sometimes it is downright amazing how spread out the results can be just based on one guy being 1 or 2 seconds slower or faster than another guy.

I agree with quite a bit of what was said above, but I have a few areas that I see differently...

First of all you should know that I shoot revolver in competition primarily. That being said I have to say that accuracy should come first, and then work on speed. Most of the time I am in a squad with auto shooters, so I do not gauge my speed through a course of fire based off them. I have to know how fast I can go through the stage and maintain my best accuracy. I generally shoot near the top with many of the shooters in my squad accuracy wise, but my stage times drop my standings a bit (sometimes quite a bit ). What was said above about shooting faster having a huge effect on the hit factor is right, but shooting accurately has as much an effect on hit factor. When I look at the results from a match often I find that I have finished higher than a number of auto shooters. Many of them have faster times than I do, but my accuracy is what has caused me to finish higher. An added note to this is that I use a Ruger Alaskan in competition (using .45Colt, speedloaders, and a 2 1/2" barrel) So I am not using any of the more common revolvers that other competitors do. I own a S&W 625 that I COULD use, but choose not to.

My point is that you have to be comfortable with accuracy and speed when it comes to shooting sports (and shooting in general). You must balance speed and accuracy in a way that is best for you. If you focus first on accuracy it is not a matter of speed catching up, but over time picking up the speed in a manner that you can control. Accuracy saves you time since the more accurate you are the fewer makeup shots that you will need. If you are shooting at a level of accuracy that you are pleased with but are not doing as well as you like, then try to pick up the speed a bit until you find your balance.

[G-ManBart]

Doing well in our sport has very little to do with shooting "fast". Fast, accurate splits won't hurt, but it's not what wins. Look at any big match, pick a stage to review, and in most cases the winner will have shot 95% of the points or better and anything under 90% would be unusual (not impossible, just not typical).

Try to shoot all A's, knowing that a few will be close C's and you're on the right track. Further, some shots (partial targets with no-shoots or hard cover) are going to give you only half an A-zone and sometimes you'll get two well placed C's on those...that's not going to hurt much. Shooting too fast, having misses, hitting no-shoots etc is what hurts.

I'm absolutely convinced that you can win your class at big matches at least up to B (I've proved that) and maybe even A (almost proved that at Nationals) by not having misses, procedurals, no-shoots etc and simply shooting solid points (95%+) as long as you have a reasonable plan for each stage and move pretty well. Edit to add: Actually, I did prove it at Nationals. I had one mind-numbingly stupid miss (on a wide open target), which was my only penalty of the match, and that cost me first A.

Fast stages are the product of efficient movement, accurate shooting and a decent plan. Shoot each shot only as fast as you can see and call your hits (meaning mostly A's) and you'll be going about as fast as your current ability will allow. R,

Edited May 31, 2009 by G-ManBart

[Jman]

Speed doesn't just happen. It's a matter of throttling up. At the beginning, sure, be more deliberate and aim small. But once your gun handling is sure and SAFE you need to consciously speed up. Watch video's of our own GM's and Super Squad on YouTube etc. It's not that the best shoot fast. They get into position to shoot faster. FWIW.

Jim

[ihatepickles]

An example might help. Realize that hit factor is points divided by time. If 3 shooters each fire a 32 round course, there's 160 points available.

Shooter 1 gets 100% of the points and shoots the course in 32 seconds. HF is 5.

Shooter 2 gets 90% of the points and shoots the course in 28.8 seconds. HF is 5.

Shooter 3 gets 80% of the points and shoots the course in 25.6 seconds. HF is 5.

All 3 shooters have the same finish on this stage and there's almost a 6 1/2 second difference between the extremes.

What if there's less points available for the stage, how does that effect points vs. time? If 3 shooters each fire a 12 shot course, there's 60 points available.

Shooter 1 gets 100% of the points and shoots the course in 12 seconds. HF is 5.

Shooter 2 gets 90% of the points and shoots the course in 10.8 seconds. HF is 5.

Shooter 3 gets 80% of the points and shoots the course in 9.6 seconds. HF is 5.

Same as the last example, the hit factors were the same. There's nearly 2 1/2 seconds difference in the spreads.

So what does it all mean? I think it means that shooting fast is a lot more fun that shooting slow, but that's just me. There's many ways to interpret this information and I think I'll leave that to better shooters. My personal goals are to limit myself to 2 C's if there's 12 shots or less. I'll accept 6 C's on a 32 shot course.

[Supermoto]

keep shooting the A's and they will come faster, know when you have a good sight picture and break the shot, if you confirm your sight picture, then its to slow. don't be afraid to shoot some C's, they happen. D's are basically a miss without the penalty. work on movement, it is the biggest time saver and it will allow you to shoot in your comfort zone. In practice, push your comfort zone, find out where you fail and then dial it back for a match.

At my local matches, it comes down to points, about once a match, some one will run a stage 2 sec faster, but always drops alot of points. We usually are within 1 secc of each other, most times even closer, its the shooter that consistently getting 90-95% that wins, they might now even will a stage.

Edited May 30, 2009 by Supermoto

[jkrispies]

I'm also a learning Single Stack shooter. I've ramped up my speed lately particuarly in terms of movement planning, movement speed, and reloads and my accuracy hasn't suffer too much while my times and overall placement have increased; I'd definitely say that if I'm hitting 100% alphas, then matters are probably more wrong than right (unless I'm shooting all steel) and 95% overall is my ideal.

A wise statement that I've read on this forum quite a bit is to shoot slow and do everything else fast. I've taken this to heart and made movement an integral part of my dryfire practice, and it's paying off.

[zhunter]

Let's say you get done shooting a stage, it could be a medium sized field course or a long 32 rounder, and the RO is walking around scoring the targets and all you hear is "TWO, ALPHA! TWO ALPHA! TWO ALPHA TWO ALPHA! TWO ALPHA! ", then you're shooting too slow. I think the conventional wisdom here is to strive for 80 to 90% of the maximum available points.

Actually for myself, 80% of points is not my goal. 95% of points is my goal with 90% being a bare minimum. There is no substitute for accurate shooting.

The reason why I said if he was serious to go out now and get professional training was so he would not develope bad habits that would need to be untrained and retrained.

Great advise. I too shoot for 95%, but am fine with anything over 90%

[38supPat]

An example might help. Realize that hit factor is points divided by time. If 3 shooters each fire a 32 round course, there's 160 points available.

Shooter 1 gets 100% of the points and shoots the course in 32 seconds. HF is 5.

Shooter 2 gets 90% of the points and shoots the course in 28.8 seconds. HF is 5.

Shooter 3 gets 80% of the points and shoots the course in 25.6 seconds. HF is 5.

All 3 shooters have the same finish on this stage and there's almost a 6 1/2 second difference between the extremes.

What if there's less points available for the stage, how does that effect points vs. time? If 3 shooters each fire a 12 shot course, there's 60 points available.

Shooter 1 gets 100% of the points and shoots the course in 12 seconds. HF is 5.

Shooter 2 gets 90% of the points and shoots the course in 10.8 seconds. HF is 5.

Shooter 3 gets 80% of the points and shoots the course in 9.6 seconds. HF is 5.

Same as the last example, the hit factors were the same. There's nearly 2 1/2 seconds difference in the spreads.

So what does it all mean? I think it means that shooting fast is a lot more fun that shooting slow, but that's just me. There's many ways to interpret this information and I think I'll leave that to better shooters. My personal goals are to limit myself to 2 C's if there's 12 shots or less. I'll accept 6 C's on a 32 shot course.

I've seen this type of math before and the one problem is if the two above courses can be done in 25.6 and 9.6 seconds respectively, the top guys will shoot it at that pace down 98% of the points. That means that shooter A, B and C all come in at 82% better known as A class. In fact if an A class shooter can do it in 25.6 and 9.6 sec, theres better odds that an M or GM will do it even quicker and still down 98% of the points available.

The other issue is that while on this course shooters A, B, and C all had the same hit factor, shooter C is on the ragged edge and shooter B is not much better. A match is made up of a number of courses of fire and I'm willing to bet shooter B will have a miss or two in the match, sooner or later, and shooter C will have at least a handful, while shooter A will truck along and take home a nice A class trophy.

[Flexmoney]

Going for Alphas?

What else would you go for???

[Chris iliff]

What Flex says! And I'll add a duh.

[Bigbadaboom]

I'm aware there are already many threads discussing about accuracy over speed, and letting speed follow as skill develops. But perhaps since I haven't reached yet a high level of being able to shoot accurately and fast (due to many factors as imperfect index - sights not aligned when I raise the gun, grip doesn't bring sights back to alignment consistently, slow sight acquisition resulting to about .5 splits or higher at average, etc.), should I just keep focusing on shooting all 'Alphas' first as my ultimate objective when shooting every stage at matches no matter how slow? In other words, totally ignore the time factor (in either short, med or long courses) and just shoot for A's.

Obviously there's a lot to practice and develop, but I'm referring to matches only and just want to get comments and suggestions on this.

Get instruction or research (The search engine on this site is a great asset) the proper techniques to improve in the areas that you feel hinder you. When you are shooting in the matches pay deliberate attention to making sure you are performing these techniques properly. Don't worry about getting A's and don't worry about speed because if you are using the proper techniques the A's and speed will come. Eventually, the techniques will become instinctive/muscle memory and you'll be shooting fast A's without realizing it because you had been concentrating on what is important.

[Fergus]

What G-manBart says is right on and couldn't agree more. I would like to add that if you can shoot accurately given unlimited time etc. then consider the chart below. What you can see is that as long as you don't miss or take penalties then your hit factor is >2 and your consistency stage to stage for various minimum round stages will be better than rushing. If you strive for consistent performance then it is easier to adjust your training program as needed to focus on particular area's and improve at a higher rate.

temp1.doc

Edited May 31, 2009 by Fergus

[aztecdriver]

Going for Alphas?

What else would you go for???

I was wondering when I was going to see this. I get it, now I'm working on doing it.

For the OP - there is a speedometer on the gun - the front sight. If you aren't seeing it you aren't hitting, even if by luck that bullet hits the center of the A. My philosophy anyway...

[sherpa]

Some have suggested looking at HF. I understand this is many times useful. However, I was looking at this at the extreme with little or no regard to time at matches... if it would be effective to just focus mainly on getting only Alphas in matches, no matter how slow, until I get my skills up to a point where I can start speeding up w/ the same accuracy. Of course I can try speeding up during practice sessions... but only during matches, would it be effective to just focus on hitting only 'Alphas' w/ no time constraint and if this would improve performance eventually as skills develop?

Thanks for the inputs guys, many were useful. Keep them coming.

Edited June 1, 2009 by sherpa

[boz1911]

Doing well in our sport has very little to do with shooting "fast". Fast, accurate splits won't hurt, but it's not what wins. Look at any big match, pick a stage to review, and in most cases the winner will have shot 95% of the points or better and anything under 90% would be unusual (not impossible, just not typical).

Try to shoot all A's, knowing that a few will be close C's and you're on the right track. Further, some shots (partial targets with no-shoots or hard cover) are going to give you only half an A-zone and sometimes you'll get two well placed C's on those...that's not going to hurt much. Shooting too fast, having misses, hitting no-shoots etc is what hurts.

I'm absolutely convinced that you can win your class at big matches at least up to B (I've proved that) and maybe even A (almost proved that at Nationals) by not having misses, procedurals, no-shoots etc and simply shooting solid points (95%+) as long as you have a reasonable plan for each stage and move pretty well. Edit to add: Actually, I did prove it at Nationals. I had one mind-numbingly stupid miss (on a wide open target), which was my only penalty of the match, and that cost me first A.

Fast stages are the product of efficient movement, accurate shooting and a decent plan. Shoot each shot only as fast as you can see and call your hits (meaning mostly A's) and you'll be going about as fast as your current ability will allow. R,

This sounds like the discussion 45DV8 and I had after shooting th South Carolina match. I've been working hard on speed/movement lately without much emphasis on points. Even with a less than stellar finish I am very pleased with the speed at which I shot the match relative to some of the GM's that were there. I know, I know, let the sight be your throttle, but in this case I was testing myself. It's time now to bring the accuracy back in the equation.

[Flexmoney]

A common mistake is to pit accuracy against speed. (faulty mindset)

Go slow and be accurate? Go fast in spite of accuracy?

If you want those things, you get them through proper technique.

To make a shot, you have to align the gun with the target and break the shot without disturbing that alignment. Now, you ought to be able to hang up-side-down from a set of monkey bars and pull the trigger with your pinky toe...as long as you are aligned on target and break the shot cleanly...you will hit the target.

To do that stuff efficiently, you bring in techniques like grip and stance. You provide a platform that efficiently presents the gun to the target. You hold it in a stable manner to break the shot. And, you are able to return the gun to the target in an efficient manner to make multiple shots on the target.

Those type of techniques support being efficient and accurate at the same time. Pitting accuracy against speed is mental thing. You end up seeing too much, or too little.

If you can get the mindset changed to using vision to guide your shooting, you will be better off.

[Jake Di Vita]

Those type of techniques support being efficient and accurate at the same time. Pitting accuracy against speed is mental thing. You end up seeing too much, or too little.

From my experience, even when you "slow down for accuracy" you still end up seeing too little.

[jkrispies]

A common mistake is to pit accuracy against speed. (faulty mindset)

Go slow and be accurate? Go fast in spite of accuracy?

Flex, please slap me if I'm out of line here (yeah, I know you'll do it without me asking!) in that I agree with what you're saying regarding the mindset and not firing until your technique and vision are in alignment to hit the best shot possible, but I don't think there's anything wrong with using less than 100% of A-zone hits as a litmus test of your ideal speed: ie, the oft quoted 95% A hits rather than 100% A hits all the time. Admittedly, that’s NOT how Sherpa worded his statement at the start of the thread (so you’re really the only one to answer his question correctly!). It seems to me that the best advice for a new shooter who still exploring his capabilities (and retrievable data) is to aim for all Alphas as quickly as you can, but don’t go around thinking that anything less than 100% Alphas is a failure.

An analogy: a really great race car driver is going to hit every turn perfectly 95+% of the time, and about 5-% of the time his tires are going to get just a bit squirrelly. That’s not an indication that he can’t control his race car, that’s him pushing the limits in order to find exactly where that golden line between control and loss of it lies. Without the driver dabbling in his version of our C Zone, he’d never know where his limit stands and he’d go too slow to win the race. Interestingly, the race driver and the race shooter have similar results: for him, crossing the line is either a recoverable loss of control or a crash; for us it’s a Charlie or a Mike. And let’s face it, even the great ones crash sometimes.

I guess what I’m saying here is that you can have a goal of 95% Alphas without having the faulty mindset of “I gotta make sure I miss one of these Alphas so that I don’t make 100%!” Your mindset can be “I’m going to shoot this thing as fast and accurately as I can, and afterwards I’m going to realistically analyze the data to see if I succeeded, and how I can do better at the next match.” Yes, there’s some astounding shooters out there who can probably hit 100% Alphas and still be the fastest guy at the match, but us up-and-comers need to work with what we’ve got!

edit for speellling and content

Edited June 1, 2009 by jkrispies