At the range--draw and shoot quick or take your time?

[Black Majik]

Accuracy is easy. Learning to be fast is hard. Work speed first, accuracy will come.

I'm the other way around. Learn accuracy and smoothness first, and speed with come.

 

[Chris Rhines]

I'm the other way around. Learn accuracy and smoothness first, and speed with come.

So are most people. So was I, when I was first learning to shoot. But it's easier and more efficient, both physically and mentally, to train for speed first. Worry about shrinking the group sizes once you've got the hand-eye coordination and visual awareness worked out.

- Chris

 

[Vern Humphrey]

Accuracy is easy. Learning to be fast is hard. Work speed first, accuracy will come.

With all due respect, it's just the other way around. If you start trying for speed, you'll never master the critical basics.

Work on a smooth, unhurried draw with no wasted motion and reasonable accuracy. Make each draw perfect. With time, you'll get speed.

 

[SpookyPistolero]

I'm with the slow is smooth, smooth is fast club.

Go slow first, get smooth, get fast. Natural.

As you're going slow, just make sure your body is memorizing the proper and most efficient steps to get things in the right place.

I forget the website, and if you're interested I'll try to find it, but it has a small target that pops up on the screen for a small amount of time, and then dissapears. The idea is to draw when the target pops up, and dry fire (calling the shot) before it dissapears again. Nice tool.

 

[flatdog]

While speed is just compression of the basics into a smaller time frame. IMO there is no fast without smooth. Incorrect application of the basics in the quest for speed will inevitably lead to missed shots.

Now you have less ammunition to solve a bad problem that you just morphed into a worse one, not good.

 

[warriorsociologist]

+1 to what Vern & flatdog said.

 

[Chris Rhines]

With all due respect, it's just the other way around. If you start trying for speed, you'll never master the critical basics.

You are, of course, free to train however you like. But you are very much wrong on this point. As I stated above, speed is much harder to develop than accuracy. That is not to say that a new shooter should just hose bullets willy-nilly at the berm. He should start with a relatively large target at relatively close distance (say, a 12"x12" square at 5 yards) and concentrate on getting every shot on that target, as fast as possible. Worry about the long-range precision shooting later, once the speed has been dialed in.

A fast shooter can always take an extra second to line up his shot. A slow shooter is pretty well screwed if he needs to get off the blocks fast.

- Chris

 

[HSMITH]

As I shoot more and watch the people that make strides faster than some others I tend to agree with Chris.

Blazing speed is more important in the beginning. Learning to let go and get rounds downrange with an acceptable sight picture is a heck of a lot harder for someone that has been punching X's for all his shooting than it is for someone that learns to get the gun out and start shooting RIGHT NOW!! The X-ring guy is going to refine his sight picture well beyond what is necessary every time, because that is all his brain knows how to do and the speed demon will fire when he sees the target somewhere on the sights. Getting the X guy to let go and fire as soon as some bit of the front sight is where it needs to be seems to be a heck of a lot harder than getting the fast guy to pull back the throttle just a hair and tighten up his shots.

I started action shooting coming from an accuracy background. I can make very precise shots, but it wasn't until I learned how to let go and shoot an 'acceptable' sight picture that I was able to generate any real speed. My first shot times on a 7 yard target came down from 1.7ish to just under one second, a HUGE gain.

ANYONE that isn't seeing some sort of sight picture on every shot beyond about 3 or 4 yards really needs to step back and evaluate what they are doing. The timer will show that you can react faster to a visual sight picture and trigger the second shot from that visual cue than your concious mind can tell your finger to hit the trigger again because you have already fired once. Double tapping is slower than sighted fire. For me the difference is almost 2 tenths of a second at 7 yards. I can double tap at about .35 second intervals, I can shoot the sights down into the high teens. Another upside is my hits are a lot better shooting the sights, faster and more accurate is never a bad thing.

 

[SpookyPistolero]

But we see this every month at the IDPA match, where some new folks show up and inevitably a couple will be from the 'take your time and make hits' group, and the others from the 'speed above all' group. By the third or fourth stage, the folks who shot for some accuracy have learned they can speed up a bit without sacrificing hits. The others who rush and flail their pistol into action are still not making hits, and their penalties greatly outweigh the time they saved through speed. The ones who start slow and work into the speed beat the speed demons.

Also, I see far more safety violations from those speedy starts than from the folks ingraining safe, efficient movements in their drawstroke.

 

[flatdog]

A fast shooter can always take an extra second to line up his shot. A slow shooter is pretty well screwed if he needs to get off the blocks fast.

A fast shooter who takes an extra second becomes a screwed slow shooter.

If you compress the basics. That is correct grip, presentation, flash sight picture, trigger press, etc. There will be no need to slow down to refine your sight picture. You will hit your target with as much speed and accuracy as you can muster at any practical distance.

Confidence in your ability gained from ingraining the fundamentals combined with a proper mindset, is a powerful tool.

Personally I'd rather tickle a wild lion in the arse with a feather. Than get caught in a close range fight with a pistol, any pistol.

 

[Vern Humphrey]

But we see this every month at the IDPA match, where some new folks show up and inevitably a couple will be from the 'take your time and make hits' group, and the others from the 'speed above all' group. By the third or fourth stage, the folks who shot for some accuracy have learned they can speed up a bit without sacrificing hits. The others who rush and flail their pistol into action are still not making hits, and their penalties greatly outweigh the time they saved through speed. The ones who start slow and work into the speed beat the speed demons.

Also, I see far more safety violations from those speedy starts than from the folks ingraining safe, efficient movements in their drawstroke.

As the man said, you can't miss fast enought to win -- either in competition or in a real gunfight.

Let's remember what we're talking about here. We're talking about training -- we aren't born master-class pistol shooters. We have to learn. And the best way to learn is to start slow, developing a smooth, no-wasted-motion presentation and shot. Thoroughly train on the basics, and speed will come.

 

[lycanthrope]

Not to take one side or the other......but speed doesn't always come easily. A lazy cadence can also be ingrained along with learning fundamental techniques and that can lock a shooter into a place where speed is limited. Some shooters always wait for "perfect" sight alignment without realizing there are better ways to shoot closer targets and are unaware of differing types of focus on varying targets.

You must learn fundamentals AND speed.

After you learn safety fundamentals FIRST, I don't think it matters from which end you approach it from.

 

[DRZinn]

Guys, guys, GUYS!!!!

It's not just fast vs. accurate. It's accurate enough and fast enough.

As was mentioned in the very first post, if you're faster than the other guy and accurate enough to put rounds in center mass, you're gonna win, nine times outta ten.

If you're more accurate than the other guy, and fast enough to hit him before he hits you, you're gonna win, nine times outta ten.

It's always a compromise. I'd rather have two rounds somewhere in his chest before he can pull the trigger than one round almost ready to squeeze off into the exact center of his sternum, when he shoots me.

 

[BullfrogKen]

If we are able to place an entire magazine's worth of rounds into our adversary, in say . . . 3 seconds? How much time does it take for the body to react to the damage and succumb to it? A time interval probably more than instantaneously.

Consider the actions a person who has been shot might do in the immediate aftermath of being shot:

Fall down dead, or incapacitated;
Run away;
Surrender, some other way communicate they have decided to end the fight;
Continue doing whatever they were doing before they were shot.

Handguns work well as behavior modification devices, pyschologically, but are marginally effective at best at producing immediate psychical results unless fortune is on our side that day.

Most people shot with handguns continue doing whatever they were doing before they were shot. Of the two choices: being a blazingly fast draw and accurate shot, or moving off the line of force. I'm convinced moving off the line of force has far more importance.


Otherwise, the best we can do is tie.

 

[zoom6zoom]

And since no one else has said it... when you start practicing drawing your piece, start with an unloaded one...

 

[sevesteen]

I'm fairly new to semiautos--Years ago I had a .357 revolver, and rarely practiced anything but single-action carefully aimed fire. At my current skill level with a subcompact .40, I'm happy if standing carefully-aimed fire gives about 8 out of 10 in a 5" circle at 10 yards. I've found that going to firing as soon as I get a flash sight picture gives 8 out of 10 rounds in 6 or 7 inches, in about 4 seconds.

 

[BullfrogKen]

Or, we can use a Ring's Blue gun. The ASP ones always seem over-molded, and are too tight in my holsters.

But, since the majority of people do not invest in a drone training replica . . .

Yes, when practicing, an empty gun checked and rechecked, with all ammo placed in some other room when practicing at home is a must. And it is probably a good idea to do the same as a novice learning how to draw a gun.