How many rounds to be good

[dashootist]

Howdy,
I just shot a big caliber bowling pin match, and I found out just how bad I shoot. The other guys have been shooting for years and years, and they're blazing fast and accurate with 1911's and 44 Magnum's. How much practice would a normal person require before becoming competitive? I have been only able to reload about 50 rounds per week. So I can only shoot 50 rounds of center fire, and I shoot about 200 rounds of 22's for practice. Is this enough if I want to be semi-competition within a year or two? or do I need to shoot more?

 

[mcdonl]

haha... depends on who you are. I shoot a lot, but just don't have the skills to ever be competitive. Some men and women can just shoot well.

I do not have dedication and patience, so I do not shoot as well as others. I think that if I had those traits I would be a better shooter.

Shooting a .22 is not going to prepare you for shooting a 1911 or 44 Magnum once you have reached a certain point. IMO

 

[mnrivrat]

Just my 2 cents worth is that it is impossible to say.

Each person develops their skills based on a number of factors. Some have little to do with the amount of rounds sent down range. 50 rounds of good practice could be worth more than 500 rounds using poor technique.

I don't know wether I would have been a good compitition shooter or not, but at my best period I was shooting at least 200 rounds a week. I suspect some do that every day . So, what I am saying is first concentrate on good technique . When you are confident your are doing it right, then do it as often as you can .

 

[Kor]

Round count is only part of the equation - unless you can immediately recognize your mistakes and get immediate feedback and constructive criticism to remediate and improve the weak points in your technique, you may very well wind up burning more ammo and $$ than you should and getting little to no improvement. At the very least, get a shooting buddy - or even a friendly stranger - at the range to observe you while you shoot. If possible, get one of your more experienced fellow competitors to coach you. What your coach MUST do is AVOID the temptation to look at your target for hits, and WATCH YOU AND YOUR GUN INSTEAD. Your coach needs to be watching for - and reminding you not to do - common errors like flinching and hesitating during the trigger pull. If possible, have your coach video you with a digital camera/camcorder, or a cell-phone camera, so that you can immediately see what you are doing wrong(or right).

Having said that, I would also say that shooting both centerfire and rimfire is a good idea - but you should be practicing different aspects of marksmanship with the two. Rimfire practice is great for mastering and refining sight picture, a steady hold on target, and controlling your trigger pull, but without recoil you cannot expect to learn or master techniques for controlling centerfire recoil. So, I would suggest you practice pinpoint accuracy with rimfire - if you have a range membership that allows you to shoot daily, 50-100 rds of .22LR a day makes a great training regimen that won't break the bank. Once you can meet a certain standard, say, 50 rds all on a 3"X5" index card @ 7 yds, then push your limits out further to 10 yds, then 15, then 20 or 25 yds - I personally did this regimen for about 15 weeks in '08, and about midway through I was able to regularly get 35-39 hits out of 40 shots fired at a 25 yd index card, standing, unsupported, two-hand Weaver stance, with my favorite .22LR CZ Kadet/SP01 pistol. If you're crunching the numbers, that's a minimum of 4000 rds of .22LR(8 wks @ 500 rds/wk) to as much as 8000-10,000rds(16-20 wks), according to my own personal, empirical experience.

Centerfire ammo is for you to practice combining and integrating recoil control and rapid fire techniques with the other skills your rimfire practice is helping you to master - and if you can reload and shoot 50 rds/wk, that's a perfectly fine place to start. If you have the time and financial resources to reload more and therefore shoot more centerfire for practice, that's great - but if you have other legitimate commitments drawing against your funds and time, you don't need to feel bad about only being able to do 50 rds/wk. I personally consider 200 rds to be a bare minimum to familiarize a new shooter with a new gun, and an additional 500-1000 rds of centerfire to be a bare minimum to learn a skill-set - again, from personal experience, I've attended shooting schools/classes lasting 2-5 days, where I and the other students required 500-1000 rds to learn the skill-sets being taught.

As in everything else you hear on teh intarwebs, YMMV - if you have a VERY solid grounding in the fundamentals of marksmanship and a high degree of skill and inherent aptitude, you may need several hundred less rounds to achieve competence; by the same token, if you don't get good instruction in the fundamentals at the start, and you don't get good coaching during the process, you may need hundreds or thousands MORE rounds to become competitive.

 

[rocky branch]

Friend of mine is a pro shooter.
Retired army and is currently contract training snipers.

He enjoys shooting flintlocks in his spare time.
Says that the sometimes errant "flash to bang" helps him to improve his hold.

How long does it take to become a classial guitarist?

Train and pratice,
Don't hobble yourself with unobtainable time sets.

 

[alohachris]

I was taught well and became a great shot right off the bat. I could hit 6" steel plates at 25 yards consistently, even with my 3" barrel 9mm carry pistol. Shot groups touching each other, etc.

Then I went to my first IDPA match, shot 2 points down for the whole match and finshed dead last. Why? Well, my drawstroke took about 9 seconds. Acquiring the perfect sight picture took another 5 seconds. My perfectly smooth trigger pull added 3 seconds for each shot.

I suffered from perfect-shot-itis. When I tried to go faster, everything fell apart. I jerked the trigger, first shot went way low, etc. It took me a solid year to get the balance of speed & accuracy correct.

I agree with others here: it's not the number of rounds, it the quality of your practice. Dry firing is your friemd.

 

[psyopspec]

In the book Outliers, Malcom Gladwell theorizes that it takes about 10,000 hours of good practice to hit the expert level of a given skill. Luckily, for shooters this doesn't have to be live time on the range. Like others, I'm of the opinion that it's not the number of rounds fired, but the quality of training and practice a shooter does that improves skill.

Fortunately for me, the Army authorizes one million dry fire rounds per year, and I can take the extras home to use on my personal firearms. The last time I was able to dedicate a large portion of my time to improving my skill was while I was living in AZ. I was dry-firing my personal Beretta everyday for an hour or more, competing in defensive or bullseye shooting most weekends, and shooting at steel plates once per week. The range time helped, but only after I'd spent a lot of hours over a period of months perfecting the way I shot pistol off the range.

Even then, I did relatively poor at the National Matches. No problems keeping all rounds on target at 50m, but there were a lot of guys that had more time and superior equipment that bested me. It was a humbling experience, but at the end of the day I believe dedication to quality practice takes the day, rather than round count alone.

 

[9mmepiphany]

the rule of thumb for handguns is that it takes 10k repetitions to ingrain a skill like a correct trigger release, but the good thing is that it doesn't need to be live fire. as a matter of fact, none of them need to be live fire if you practice correctly and you don't even need to have your eyes open.

i should clarify this a bit. each of these trigger presses need to be almost perfectly coordinated with perfect sight alignment...which of course means that first you need to know what a perfect trigger release feels like. i would highly recommend a good shooting (not tactical or fighting) course

 

[Sunray]

44 Magnum's aren't that great for pins. Too much recoil and muzzle jump.
In any case, it depends on how competitive you are, how your pistol is configured and the ammo you're using(Slightly more than target loaded cast 230 grain RN's or FP's will knock a pin off the table with no fuss.). Personally, I'm not competitive. I find pin shooting and competitive shooting in general to be so much fun that I don't care. I don't much care where I place shooting anything. It's recreation, not a career.
However, a buddy of mine (who is also a very good bullseye and IPSC shooter. It matters.), I went to Second Chance with, long ago, is competitive. Our first year we just went and had a great vacation. (Machine guns and SMG's are such fun.) The second year, my buddy shot 2500 rounds per week, practicing, for several months. He placed far higher than he did our first year. High enough to win a handgun(that came back unregistered in my truck. Fixed it at the border.), but he also beat Jerry Miculek(long before he started breaking records) in a Man-on-Man. My buddy won $500US when that was serious money. (Miculek is a class act too. Had his hand out in congratulations before my buddy knew he had won.)
50 rounds per week won't do it. Mind you, if you're not shooting bullseye, you should be. You have to be good before you even think about being fast. Don't stop going to pin shoots though. Just quit worrying about placing and shoot competitively because it's so much fun. Where you place doesn't matter. You'll meet some great people too. It also opens other doors. Invitations to matches you didn't hear about and to go hunting.
"...Shooting a .22 is not going to prepare you for..." It will. Same techniques. Sight picture, breathing and trigger control.

 

[possum]

dry fire and do it alot. I shoot about 25-30k rds a year in handguns, but i dry fire about three nights a week. and that right there will make a world of difference. it is not so much how much you shoot, or how much you practice, but how good you do so. Practice dosen't make perfect, perfeft practice makes perfect. maybe you would be aided by taking a training course, and watched under the eye of an experienced trainer.

 

[hso]

50 rounds a week isn't likely to get you where these guys are.

 

[Kwanger]

I think a lot of improvement will come if you just keep attending and shooting matches - doesn't have to be your expensive magnum 44 ones - anything will do for now, and you can concentrate on your chosen discipline later. Just putting yourself in that environment will accustom you to the level of speed/accuracy required, and everyone is usually very friendly and the very good people are more than happy to give you pointers on technique etc. You will also pick up on things, such as what others are doing to be faster/smoother just by being there.

 

[Gary G23]

Back when I was a serious competitor my Master class buddies were shooting 1000 rounds a week.

 

[jmorris]

I shoot more IDPA than any other game and am a 5 gun master, if I only live fire 200 rounds a week I don't fall off my game too much. While moving up I shot 3 local matches a week plus practice >600 rounds a week.

As for how fast you are going to move up, you would need a crystal ball. Don’t forget if one game doesn’t suit you there are many others.

 

[MrBorland]

Lots of good thoughts here (e.g. that it's not strictly about round count), so as a newb to competition, I'll add my reflections on this, my first year of competition. In short, I'm not able to shoot as much as I'd like, or likely need to, so I have to make the best use of my time.

1. On dry-fire: There's a lot to think about once the buzzer goes off. A good, quick sight picture, and quick sight picture to the next target, and smooth reloads are skills that can't be ignored, but with all the other stuff going on, you simply can't also be thinking of this stuff - it has to be hard-wired and done automatically, and dry-fire practice helps you get there.

I found Steve Anderson's book Refinement and Repetition is a good place to start, but there are plenty of dry fire programs and drills. Ben Stoeger's 15-minute program seems a good start as well. I try to get in 30-40 minutes (preferably twice) per day. I feel I'm largely wasting my time if I go to the range without having done my daily dry-fire work.

2. On live-fire: I've been going to an indoor range, where I have to stand in a stall. Fortunately, I'm allowed to draw, rapid fire and reload, but it's not the same as being able to actually shoot some actual course of fire. I've found I'm really struggling at matches because it's not what I've been practicing with live fire. As such, I'll be going to an outdoor range where I practice more match-like techniques.

At the range, I've been shooting about 200 rounds of .22LR and 100 of centerfire once per week. I use the .22 to work on my draw and first shot on target, and transitions. I don't use it where I'd have to recover from recoil and make another shot, such as double taps, Bill Drills, etc.

Ideally, I'd shoot more CF, but I'm willing to first go to an outdoor range to shoot more efficiently.

I also shoot a bit for accuracy (i.e. groups shooting, or participating in an on-line postal match (see link)) at every session. There's always time and need, it seems, to work on the fundamentals.

http://postalmatch.blogspot.com/

3. On match pressure: Like many newbies, I suffer from Buzzer Brain. It's discouraging as Hell to work so hard during the week, then have it seemingly all fall apart when the buzzer goes off. But, it's part of the learning curve, and I've found it more productive to look at what I did right rather than wrong. For instance, yesterday, I figured out, all on my own, the best way to shoot a number of the stages. Sure, I had some oopsies (a 15 second one, by shooting a single target twice while ignoring the 2nd), but OTOH, I'm slowly starting to be able to read the courses better. Once the course it read, I have a plan, then I mentally rehearse the plan and try to stick to it when the buzzer goes off.

The solution to match pressure and Buzzer Brain, I suppose, is to have realistic goals*, be patient with ones self and, of course, shoot more matches. Due to personal and professional obligations, though, I can only manage 2 matches per month, which makes proper dry-fire and live-fire even more important.

One thing I've noted that seems to simulate match pressure is videoing yourself, especially if you know you will post it online. Try videoing yourself doing a dry fire drill, and tell yourself that no matter what, it'll get posted on youtube. Or maybe better, post it on the Brian Enos sight and ask for feedback. There's a subforum just for that (see link).

http://www.brianenos.com/forums/index.php?showforum=142

4. On realistic goals: Goals should be specific. There seems to be nothing wrong with having, as a goal to be semi-competitive by next year, but what exactly does that mean and how do you get there? Better goals might be to watch the front sight for each shot, to reload smoothly, to have a plan for each stage, to stick to the plan, to avoid procedurals, etc. I imagine doing these things well will get one their win eventually.

Goals are not fantasy: For example, a goal of hanging with the local 5-gun master at the next match isn't a goal - it's a fantasy - because it requires a skill set one currently doesn't have. Be sure to know the difference so you can set realistic goals.

 

[Toaster]

Have you ever heard of the theory of "10,000 hours of practice"?

 

[ranger335v]

"How much practice would a normal person require before becoming competitive?"

It's a secret, the big name shooters know but won't tell.

 

[GRIZ22]

Each person develops their skills based on a number of factors.

50 rounds a week isn't likely to get you where these guys are.


These two statements give you a complete answer. Remember, there are people who shoot up 1000 rds a week and still can't really hit anything.

 

[4sooth]

At my peak I was shooting about 40,00 rounds a year for a period of 2-3 years. Once I got to this amount of shooting I went from C to A class in six months. Shortly after my life style prevented me from ever shooting this much again. My current skills would put me in the middle of B class. In the mid eighties some local shooters who went on to become world level were expending 3000 to 4000 rounds a week in training. Max Michel Jr. while in the Army was going through 1000 rounds a DAY! 100,000 a year is common for many world level competitive shooters.

 

[Blind Bat]

Currently, I burn through 800-1000 rounds of ammo a month and it's only my budget that keeps me from going through more. That being said, I think training and dry fire practice provide a lot more benefit than simply going to the range an tossing a bunch of ammo down range. Especially if you are reinforcing bad habits.

I was frustrated with my level of improvement after last year's IDPA season. I noticed there was a guy by the name of Mike Briggs who would win every match he attended. I started taking lessons from Mike and my IDPA shooting improved way faster than during the previous year when I had been practicing by myself. I figure the money I spend on lessons with Mike ends up saving me money on ammo in the long run.

 

[1SOW]

All the shooters above have valid points.

I'm an 'old' shooter who started with Bullseye .22 and much later into action shooting, USPSA, Steel Challenge and have done some pins-but not many. I'm just a C+ shooter on a good day.The GM and B classs shooterhooters shoot A LOT to stay there. A strong 'B' shoote I know said he got there in 6 months of intensive shooting and practice (dry fire, mag changes, movement etc.)

- Everyone does have different abilities, but everyone can progress with effort.
- All agree dry fire and related practice is necessary
- Learn the right way the first time. Trying to "UN"learn a bad method makes it much harder. Read from those who know. Watch the better shooters carefully for free tips. Don't be shy about asking questions (most good shooters ENJOY giving advice. Take an applicable shooting course if it's available and affordable.
- Work from the basics up: stance, grip, sight use, trigger pull, shot transitions, movement, draw, etc. Work on each one and grade yourself.
- Just shooting isn't enough-effectively learning something by shooting is needed.
- If there is a pistol 'League' in your area, it can be a great way to get good tips and compete weekly.

I believe steel shooting is more closely related to pin shoots than the other disciplines; but USPSA, IPSC, and others can help your shooting for pins too. They require all the basic gun handling skills along with speed. Get out and join up.

 

[Ankeny]

That being said, I think training and dry fire practice provide a lot more benefit than simply going to the range an tossing a bunch of ammo down range.

I couldn't agree more.