Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Handguns Good and fast or fast and good?

There was a thread a while back about learning to shoot good and fast - i.e. learn good habits with slow speed practice, learn to shoot good, then learn to shoot fast. But someone, perhaps Bluedreaux*, commented that one should learn to shoot fast first, then learn to shoot good.

I've been practicing mostly the getting good on Wednesday mornings, acquiring the sights and sight picture, feeling for the trigger reset, etc. Speed is middle of the road, five shots in a hair over 2 seconds. Occasionally I'll try really fast but it's always been on the same bullseye.

Tried fast and good this morning on a large five bullseye target similar to the one below, about 35x23", going around the outside to the middle clockwise and counterclockwise, randomly, whatever, five shots as fast and accurately as I could. It's a definite step up in my personal training and after trying a couple of techniques I settled on one that seemed to work. I can keep all five rounds in the red part at "sorta pretty fast" speed but going into warp drive really strains the good habits.

Anyway, what say you guys? Get good and then work on fast, or get fast and then work on getting really good (aka accurate)?


P.S. A Glock 34 or a S&W M&P 5" barrel definitely contribute to both goals - fast without losing good.




* if it wasn't you then apologies for a CRS moment...

Ive shot many a match with this guy over the years, trust me on this, this short video contains all you need to know for learning how to shoot , slow or fast.
https://youtu.be/li0rGtXh23I

My answer is that it depends.

And you have to understand that not all national level champions in USPSA agree on the proper teachings of marksmanship.

Add to that, there are a number of handgun disciplines out there. And I can fugking promise you, that not all of those national level champions agree on the proper teachings of marksmanship.

But I will say this, if you want to shoot fast(er) you need a timer. And you need a stack of USPSA targets. And you need lots of ammo.

But this is worthles if you do not use standardized drills so you can realistically gauge where your skill level is at. One thing all national level champions will agree on, is a good time vs a schitty time, on a standardized drill.

http://pistol-training.com/drills

And if you can compete, you should be. In my opinion there is no substitute for it.

Here is one of my favorite drills...

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=ggWV06GKmWU

I say marksmanship as a fundamental and work efficiency. What keeps me from getting the shot off? Am I finding the sights/dot, have I prepped the trigger, or is the gun just waiting on me. A timer keeps you honest. I don't get wrapped up on split times, but I try to keep an even cadence. Speed should build itself to a degree.

The last training class I took was a four day with Steve Anderson (Grand Master USPSA) and he stressed acquiring the sight picture before letting the shot go. In his opinion acquiring the sight picture should be "muscle memory" before trying to go fast. He also pushed "dry fire" exercises for performing the draw and sight acquisition/trigger pull as one movement, and magazine changes on the run. If you are serious about raising your level of performance with a pistol consider a class. There are lots of folk out there offering 2 and 4 day classes, look for some one with credentials that only offers a small class. Our class had sixteen folk in it, mostly made up of Military and Leos. Be prepared for the first two to four hours of the class to be devoted to basic gun handling skills with another hour devoted to holding the sight picture while completing the trigger pull.. Our particular class went through timed drills the second day and then again on the fourth day to check improvement.

Skittish,

How much did your time improve in those two days?

Just curious.

Shoot as fast as you can line up the sights, a quick miss will not equal a fast time.

I'm just a back yard shooter, won a few things over the years, but for me, when I was starting to learn & get serious about shooting, I focused on being to shoot accurately, meaning a consistent sight picture & a smooth trigger squeeze. If you don't know how to get a consistent sight picture & not jerk the trigger, you really can't score on the more difficult courses of fire or as the range increases.

Then I worked on speed; everyone is a little different as deflave implies so it does depend on where you are on the skill continuum; & he's also right in that it takes a lot of rounds downrange & a lot of targets. Some people, probably most people also get to a certain skill level & plateau, either because it's the end of their skill level or because they don't want to work as hard as it takes to get to the next significant skill level.....................I truly marvel at how truly, truly good many of the pros really are............parallels the contrast between a tour pro golfer & a good club player.

When I was competing, such as it was, I would burn up 2-300 rimfire rounds & around 500 centerfire rounds a week.........just practicing.

Keeping up with that kind of shooting today could be expensive or require a lot of time running a loader.

I also still think that there are 3 kinds of basic people when it comes to shooting (any kind of shooting)...........those that are "naturals" who generally have a short learning curve & can get really good, really fast, those that have much less natural skill but can get very good with diligence & practice, & those that will never be very good no matter how much they practice.

JMHO, YMMV

MM

I see another testing video in the upcoming future. It will be grand and glorious. It will showcase the talents of the most fast and the most accurate. It will be then combined by an Illustrious one that will be able to do both. It will have blazing speed and unbelieveable accuracy.
Many will be forever changed in their heart and their mind.

Unless you're shooting for money or glory, it doesn't really matter. What matters is who comes out on top of a shooting and like Deflave says, "it depends". You don't have to be fast or good but you have to be fast enough and good enough...or vice-versa. If some guy gets a bullet into you first, it likely won't matter that you'd have hit him "better" if you'd hit him because after being wounded, you likely won't hit him. OTOH all the speed in the world won't matter if you can't hit your target.

I'd say Bluedreaux is absolutely wrong in that you need to be able to at least safely engage the target before worrying about speed. He's right if he's saying that speed comes before pinpoint accuracy in a gunfight.

It just depends.

If you're talking about gaming to the exclusion of gunfighting then...carry on.

It's a continuum, first you learn the fundamentals of how to shoot a pistol/revolver, then you learn how to shoot them accurately. Next you shoot and shoot a lot; paper, steel, near, far, plate racks, El Presidentes, or other standard courses where you know what a good time looks like versus a pizz poor performance.
Takes a lot of time and ammunition and concentration, but given enough shooting, times become faster.....just the way it works, there are no short cuts.

Deflave I took your advice, minus trip to the hospital I’m getting better

Used to shoot with Jerry Miculek, he shot an 8 3/8” Model 27, fast as hell, didn’t hit a lot. He got accurate, and he got even faster, after about a million rounds.

Practice, practice, practice.

Don't train, don't know my ass from a hole in the ground, but, playing around with some batshlt crazy guys at a shoot house up in Ft. Chaffee a couple times had the events [chaos] I was witnessing in slow motion before my eyes, don't know what in hell that was, but sure was fun, not real of course, but very easy to read and assess.

Will go back if i get another invite.

By no means am I fast like Lena Miculek or Eric Grauffell fast never joined the military so I'm no black death beret seal combat ranger. When I went to gunschool at John Shaw's outside Memphis fast wasn't fast but smooth was fast. Took me a day to "get it" but I got it. And yes smooth is faster than fast is fast. Don't be fast be smooth.

Jesus Christ, what a mouthful, did it mean anything 🤔

LOL...

Quite the contribution.

Sensible.