how perishable is handgun shooting

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roval

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i had a self imposed exile from the range as well as the highroad for the past half year or so as i had other things to attend to. accdg to my range pass i went more than 30 times last year but before today i had only gone 6 times and the last time was sometime in May . i wanted to see how much my shooting changed so i made a video of my first shots.

brought my 1911, xdm and the super redhawk and a new czp10c


 
After an seventeen-year hiatus (1991-2008), I came back to find myself actually shooting better. Not sure how that came to be, but I had been doing a lot of reading on things like grip techniques and trigger control as I was re-entering the sport..
 
I think it all depends on a bunch of variables.
Things like, what's your total proficiency level? Are you a "good' average shooter, able to stand at the range bench and hit a target, taking your time and aiming carefully? Are you a Master level USPSA shooter who knows his split times and transition times and when to throw a "C" because an "A" would take too long and get him a slower time? Are you a defensive carry type who's very happy with drawing form concealment and getting a solid hit on a bad guy at 5 yards in under 2 seconds? Are you a Bullseye Standard Pistol shooter expecting not to drop any points at the 50 yard slow fire stage?

Some of those things take very regular practice to maintain. Stop practicing and you're going to lose a great deal of your edge and won't be able to hang in competition like you once did. Some of those things are more like "riding a bicycle" and you probably won't really forget how to do them as well as you ever did.

And of course, it all also depends a bit on the individual.
 
I believe that there is a base level of competency that we all have physically and mentally, and that constant practice builds on that base. You can never shoot worse than your base, all other factors being the same, but your base can change with age and age's impairment on the body and mind. You will lose what you built over time without practice, down to the base. Good pro shooters, like any good athletes, can have a relatively "bad" day depending on what they ate or how late they stayed up the night before. The average shooter will diminish but not generally notice it like the pro would. Just my theory on it.
 
once I had figured out the fundamentals - and became familiar with my weapons. My state of mind has always been the largest factor in my handgun shooting. If I'm patient - i shoot very well. If my mind isn't totally "there" then I don't shoot as well.
 
what i noticed during that range session is that my shots improve after rhe first magazine like it always does. at 10 yrds with my baseline only being a ramge shooter at least for 5 1/2 months there wasn't much change. for 25 yrds i did miss more than i would with that 10 inch gong. the p10z which i didnt include had a nice trigger but at the end of the session maybe due to my first use of the gun the trigger felt heavier ( my trigger finger running out of gas).
 
I put my handguns down almost completely for about 2 years while I spent much more time shooting sporting clays.
Turned out to be a tough road getting back to being just an average shot again. My eyes also got worse which didn't help.
I think it depends on what kind of shooting you do. I notice after I joined USPSA years back my skill level became much better. I think that kind of shooting is a diminishing skill with out constant practice, especially at my age.
 
Most of us will have ridden a bicycle a lot as a kid. Most of us will NOT have ridden a bike much as an adult. If those folks picked up a bike and tried to ride, they'd be able to do so - albeit maybe a bit wobbly the first few pedal strokes. So one might say the old adage is true - "it's like riding a bike..." because you never forget how...

But...

Say in high school and college, you were a competitive single track racer, but then didn't ride a bike from 25 until 45... I have no doubt, if that person wanted to ride down the block and get an ice cream cone, they could safely and successfully. However, if that person were dropped on a single track course and wanted to compete RIGHT NOW, life would be very interesting, and frankly, my money would be bet against them even reaching the end of the course.

Laying off with a pistol for a while, then picking up after the hiatus on a square range, without any action component, without a significant precision or speed component, sure, anyone who knew their fundamentals can recall and perform them sufficiently. Drop those same rusted skills into an IPSC race, or into a defensive shooting situation, the performance score would quite likely drop significantly.
 
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Any golfers here? Do you really think if you hit the links only once or twice a year, you're gonna hit par? Ever?

Shooting is an intensely perishable skill. If you don't shoot regularly, you're gonna suck. If you don't get out and shoot a lot of rounds downrange at least a couple times a month, you're gonna suck. Sorry, but that's the reality.

I'm a LE firearms instructor. If you think you only need to get to the range once a year to keep your skills up, you are sadly deluding yourself.
 
We aren't talking the razor's edge of competitiveness, with 9 of 10 shots in the center of the Nike logo on some perp's hoodie. The idea of a base level of shooting is a good one, tho, as we are talking COM hits, and a 7 ring hit is still a hit, regardless. If you can do that by walking up to the line and hitting 7's after a six month layoff, fine. Your OTHER skills would be better off getting practice, like being aware, or changing some bad habits. Even your door locks.

I hadn't shot a gun in years - was scheduled to work the night before a CCW class, got off at 2:30 AM, stayed up to get to the class at 8AM, attended the sessions and we shot at 2:30 PM. Most of my qual hits were inside the 7 ring and a lot inside the 8. Two years off shooting with a gun I never practiced with - G19C - and behold, they were all kill shots.

So much for a stationary target at 21 feet, tho. Can any of us do that with one moving at a walking pace approaching us, or while moving to cover? Accuracy in shooting is nice, EFFECTIVE accuracy is what is trained in the military on pop ups, engagement courses, etc. We should be practicing inside a shoot house, not a range, one laid out with the floor plan of our home. If you can tackle that and get ten 7 rings, you can adequately defend it.

BTW, one hit by the perp and you lose. Paintball, anybody? Point being, there are no precision paintball contests - just hits, same as combat.
 
Old Dog said:
Any golfers here? Do you really think if you hit the links only once or twice a year, you're gonna hit par? Ever?

Shooting is an intensely perishable skill. If you don't shoot regularly, you're gonna suck. If you don't get out and shoot a lot of rounds downrange at least a couple times a month, you're gonna suck. Sorry, but that's the reality.

I'm a LE firearms instructor. If you think you only need to get to the range once a year to keep your skills up, you are sadly deluding yourself.
Click to expand...


i shoot regularly just not this year as i had to attend to something related to work.. i enjoy shooting. i shoot 200 to 300 rds typically per session and i must have gone 33 tp 36 months last year.. i was just documenting what effect a several months layoff will do in my case.
 
Tirod said:
The idea of a base level of shooting is a good one, tho, as we are talking COM hits, and a 7 ring hit is still a hit, regardless. If you can do that by walking up to the line and hitting 7's after a six month layoff, fine
Click to expand...

I agree, in general, the precision required for defensive shooting isn't extreme, however, I might pick on your statement a bit here to illustrate my point - and that which you described in the second part of your post - that picking up the pistol at the range and delivering a COM sized group isn't really a good measure of your "go time" ability with the handgun.

"If you can do that by walking up to the grocery store counter, getting surprised by a guy with a ski-mask, drawing from concealment, and hitting 7's on the moving perp, rapid fire, after a six month lay off, fine."
 
It certainly doesn’t take much of a hiatus for me to notice a difference. For about 2 years I made sure to shoot at least 50 rounds a week, and typically shot more than that. Then projects around the house kept me away from my range from March of this year until October.

The first 30-40 rounds after that were downright embarrassing, but after that I quickly got back into my groove.

The same thing happens to me with a shotgun. Back when I used to shoot clays a couple times a month, I could get a limit of 15 doves with less than a box of shells. My best was 15 doves with 19 shells. On the other hand last year, after not shooting a shotgun for over 5 years, I used up 75 shells to get my limit!
 
Worsening eyesight has been my biggest issue over the years. I'm by no means blind, but I find that each year, I need a stronger prescription.
 
Old Dog wrote:
Shooting is an intensely perishable skill.
Click to expand...

Agreed.

After my absence from shooting for some years, I was essentially starting from scratch. Fortunately, the old lessons and experiences helped me get back up to speed faster than it took me to acquire the skills the first time around, but even with guns I had been very familiar with, it still took about a year.
 
As with most things, it depends. It depends on the individual, it depends on how long a layoff we're talking about, and it depends on what level of skill/performance we're discussing.

I recently fired my first pistol shot in roughly a month, and it came as the first shot of a USPSA match. That's a long layoff for me. I felt rusty on the first couple of shots, but the objective results of my performance in terms of speed and accuracy (combined) were pretty much in line with my usual level of performance over the last year. It doesn't seem that any actual degredation had begun.

Conversely, I played my first round of golf for the year back in mid-October. I used to play a lot of golf (36 holes a week being common, with hundreds of balls at the range). I have basically quit the sport. During this recent round, I hit a few shots that were quite good by the standards of a recreational golfer... and quite a few horrendous shots. I can still do things many golfers cannot do... but I cannot do them on demand or with repeatability. And that was with zero stress, just playing with buddies and drinking a beer or two.

That's how rust/loss of skills generally manifest for me. The spread of discrete results gets really wide and very unpredictable. Bad results are not strange outliers or infrequent disappointments... they become common and closely spaced, or even strung together.

One issue specific to shooting: If you ever had to work through a flinch, given enough time off, you will likely have to work through it again... even if it's just for the first shot or two.
 
For the last year and a half I was shooting at least once a week at an indoor range. 25yd max and most shooting was done at 7-15yds, standing and stationary. I thought I was a pretty good shot.

About 3 months ago we moved out to the country and I don't have access to that indoor range. I do have access to a friend's outdoor range just a few minutes away. We shoot once or twice a month. I can practice out to 100yds with my pistols and we regularly shoot at 50-25yds. I also get to practice drawing and moving.


My point is that even though I'm technically shooting less I can pretty confidently say that I'm a better shooter than I was when I was shooting every week. I think a big part of retaining skills is the quality of practice when you do get to shoot, even if that's only a half dozen times a year.

I agree you have to have some kind of regularity though. Once or twice a year or even less is probably going to be more diminutive.
 
Shooting in general, not just handguns, is very perishable. The people that don't notice the deterioration as much are either the very skilled or the very lousy. In one case, diminishing skill simply brings them back to the realm of we mere mortals. In the latter case, they suck so bad you can't tell anyway. Most of us are somewhere between those two extremes. Our skill deterioration is noticeable.

Several decades ago, I carried a handgun a lot. We had an enviable training budget, more range time than most. While still better than average, I'm nowhere near where I was 25 years ago. I shoot often, but I don't currently have copious amounts of ammo and someone qualified to critique me every time i go to the range. A class or two a year is all I can manage these days.
 
I've found that after a 25+ year absence from skeet and trap shooting, I was able to get back into it very easily. After a year of absence from rifle shooting, it took no time to get back into proficiency. With handgun shooting, if I stopped for a month, it would take several trips to the range to get the consistent accuracy I had before the absence. Of all 3 types of shooting, I think that good handgun shooting skills are the most difficult to master and the easiest ones to forget.
 
Many variables and for myself it was/is being able to bring the mental and physical control together. For those well tuned to their tools the transition can be easy while others may encounter a longer acclimation period. Sometimes I feel tuned to the gun and other times numb. Those numb times are embarrassing like not being able to hit the side of the wall being within spitting distance. No consistency whatsoever. ;)

When one is so off do you keep at it?
 
My best scores were when I was shooting bull's eye 3x a week.
These days 1 or 2x a month is the best I can manage, and my goal is to stay competent at 10 yards on silhouettes.

Skipping a month of practice at bull's eye really affected my performance, while skipping a month or even two months shooting at the 10 yard line hardly seems to matter.
Since I've been shooting the same pistol regularly for over 25 years, I'm "dialed in" to it---sort of like putting on a pair of comfortable old shoes.
 
I was one of my department's firearms instructors and we always preached about marksmanship being a perishable skill but I had a guy that would show up for quarterly quals and shoot a consistent 80-85% and he never, ever practiced or shot in his spare time. While other officers would scrounge all the ammo they could to practice as much as they could and barely manage to shoot a 90%.
 
Perishable as in a loss of skill? Has more to do with the loss of upper body tone. Handgun shooting requires a certain amount of muscle tone.
"...never forget how..." Knowing and doing are different things.
 
roval said:
i had a self imposed exile from the range as well as the highroad for the past half year or so as i had other things to attend to. accdg to my range pass i went more than 30 times last year but before today i had only gone 6 times and the last time was sometime in May . i wanted to see how much my shooting changed so i made a video of my first shots.

brought my 1911, xdm and the super redhawk and a new czp10c


Click to expand...
I don't know how good your shooting was before you took a break,but it really good now. Thank's for sharing your video.
 
Sunray said:
Perishable as in a loss of skill? Has more to do with the loss of upper body tone. Handgun shooting requires a certain amount of muscle tone.
"...never forget how..." Knowing and doing are different things.
Click to expand...
i did do some push ups and some upper body exercises the week before going to the range. one thing i didn't do was use my grip exerciser..When i did that a week before a range session last year my hands were more shakey and tremulous.
 
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