Sharp as a Marble - I hear speed comes in time

Glenn Reynolds has the same problem I do

I’m a decent shot with a handgun, though — as I find out whenever I shoot in competitions — while my accuracy is good, I don’t have the speed that real pistol competitors have. They’ll get off five shots in the time it takes me to get two, and they’ll be at least as accurate as me.

I didn’t compete yesterday because it was one of those rare times when both girls were out of the house having sleepovers with friends (kind of a last hurrah before school started back up) so the Mrs. and I did what parents do when the kids are out – get stuff done around the house.

But even at my last competition, my speed was what killed my score, not my accuracy (well, minus one stage where I had 70 penalty points, but that was an outlier). I’m so focused on getting an accurate hit that I’m slowing down. I realize this comes with practice, and practice is going to be in short supply for a while until the ammo & gun buying frenzy subsides.

Incoming Fire

Fast Enough - Misfires And Light Strikes on 1/9/2013 8:55 AM

Comments

Gerry says:

on 1/7/2013 at 10:26 AM

I can be fast or I can be accurate but typically not both. My goal is to go as fast as possible while still going for 0 points down on every target.

If I try to just go fast, I lose too many points to make it worth the effort.

I can live with the being in the middle of the pack if I get good hits every time.

Robb Allen says:

on 1/7/2013 at 10:39 AM

Honestly, I'm a C class level shooter, and I think that puts me ahead of 90-95% of the entire human population.

Heaven forbid I'm ever actually in a gun fight, but I would hope my accuracy would win over someone just hosing down a bunch of rounds in a general direction.

Ken says:

on 1/7/2013 at 12:00 PM

It's universal. I remember reading Dave Sim's advice to aspiring cartoonists (I was into Cerebus back in the day): "First you get good, then you get fast."

Tom says:

on 1/7/2013 at 12:27 PM

Dry fire practice! There's plenty of drills out there. One that helped me: pick a target (spot of tape on the wall or whatever), close your eyes, draw and mount your gun. Open eyes. Repeat until gun is on target when you open your eyes. Do a few times from low ready too as it's not all about the draw.
After that, work on a cadence at the range. Set up an array of targets and you should have a nice cadence going between targets.
Another tip that really helped me was that it doesn't matter how fast you get to the target, it matters how fast you get to the target *ready to shoot*. So keep the gun up in front of your face and you should be mounting it as (or a fraction before) you step into position.

deadcenter says:

on 1/8/2013 at 8:35 PM

You have to make a conscious decision to shoot faster. Everyone that's been through a structured marksmanship class has the mindset that the site picture has to be perfect, front site perfectly centered in the rear notch, front site covering the center of the target was the only acceptable site picture that your brain will allow before giving the "press" command to your trigger finger. What got me from B to A class was redefining the "acceptable" site picture from center of A zone to within the A and C zones. I shoot a lot more As than Cs and I still get the occasional D, but my time decreased dramatically mainly because of the decrease in the split times when shooting paper.

Cadence is wonderful if the targets are arrayed symmetrically. If the targets are randomly placed, at different heights, paper at 5' steel plate at ground level, etc., cadence will lead to missing the target because you're using timing to determine when to press the trigger instead of using the front site.

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