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.

Fûck if I know?....I had to read this 3 times.

😎

If I had known a guy could qualify to be in a "black death beret seal combat ranger" unit...I would have signed up!

Do they give you a patch? Badge? Or just a carry card??

Yep! You can’t miss fast enough to win.

It sounds like an overused cliche but the faster I try to go in a match, the more it costs me.

Where is them videos? We needs them videos. Without them videos it don't not exist.
Show them videos. Bullets be danged.

It's such a secret unit it doesn't exist.

i inherited a holster used by that guy, from a friend who actually took him once or twice at a shoot.
i have to kind of snicker, as i once shot a ccw class with no front sight on my p220, it had fallen off.

If you used that same B21 target that Jorge1 used you can get away with no front sight.

I'm curious, honestly how many of you guys can shoot this drill clean?

Accuracy is always job 1. Being fast and accurate should be every shooters goal. You have to go fast to get fast and only a shot timer will show you the way. If you are training for life outside of competition only count A zone hits. Personally I only go as fast as I can always keep every round inside of 6" out to 25 yards. I am not a natural or a great athlete but have learned from experts and never settled for 'good enough'. Dryfire is your friend. The standards 'flave posted will keep it real for you.


mike r

Well, Bluedreaux never said that. And the OP didn't either. Nobody is talking about prioritizing speed over safety but you.

It wasn't me. No apologies necessary.

I can with 4" circles, I don't have that target.

That depends on what you're "winning" and what you consider a miss.

Do you want to know who says "Slow is smooth and Smooth is fast"?

Slow people. Slow people who want you to be slow with them.

Excellent, thanks for answering. I run the drill consistently in about 18-20 seconds, but I shoot it clean with no penalty seconds for misses... usually.

All I can add is spend the money@Gunsite/Thunder ranch and hopefully you'll understand.

My vote is to master the basics of presentation and marksmanship, then build speed. If you get in the habit of seeing a proper sight picture upon presenting the pistol, you will look for at least a flash sight picture when you're rushed or under pressure. This relates to any situation where the pistol is raised into the line of sight. For very close work I taught 3-5 shot bursts from a low retention position, before getting the gun up for more precise shooting as needed or other threats at intermediate distance. This with movement of course to get the officer off the line of attack.

Deflave would have been loading it with the wrong ammo, so there's that too...

I highlighted the most important thing that you noticed. When you went into "warp drive" it "really strains the good habits". I think those of us that have shot a lot and fast, we have all noticed that. What that tells me is you need more practice with the fundamentals of marksmanship and keeping that sight picture and maintaining proper form and trigger control. It is so easy to get sloppy or lazy when shooting fast. When you see that happening, more slow fire accuracy practice is needed. You will never get good and fast, if you aren't "good" to begin with... Keep practicing keeping your shots into a small target, while working on increasing speed. You can do this at 5 yards. When you are shooting a ragged hole at 5 yards, increase your distance. Practice double taps first, if you must. If you can't keep both shots clustered in tight to one another, then you know you won't be able to keep more shots close and on target... I'm not a pistol shooter, per se. I much prefer rifles, but I also plan on tearing up the competition tomorrow when we shoot our bowling pin match... Head to head and fast and accurate is what I like.. Keep it safe...

What are you going to shoot in your bowling pin match?

The secret to bowling pins is a flat nosed bullet. Hopefully the new 9mm likes them as it will see a few pin matches.

When money or booze is on the line it’s my STi comp’d open 38 super. Hard not to like a hard hitting pistol with a 27 rd mag and the recoil of a .380 at best.

I was just curious what speed shooter BSA uses.

Aren't pin shoots usually just five targets?

Takes a lot of poop to knock those pins 3 feet back off a table, back when I was attending pin shoots, hardly ever saw anyone who was competitive attempt to use 9mm or 38 super for the job? .45s were pretty standard, using at minimum a 200 SWC or revolvers using 44 special, the fly weights like 9mm just knocked pins over and required a bunch of follow up shots to roll them off the back.

If your match is set up to just knock the pin off a rail, the 9mm is the money gun. If you use tables that are 4' deep and need to push a pin 3' back and off the table, then the .45 ACP is the go-to cartridge--enough gun to move pins, but not so much recoil as to slow you down.

Absolutely. This becomes even more true as pins gain weight and get tumors.

Yes. The standard format is 5 pins. Occasionally you'll see 6.

Also, the vast majority of pin guns are factory 1911's. Very few have any mod's beyond a trigger job.

Thanks Waders.

Do those matches start from the holster?

I just got an e-mail that matches are back on June 7. Thank Christ.

We always had to start with pistol/revolver touching rail in front of start line, must have been on the order of 45 angle?

Wheres that wretched video? Show us the video. Show us the bullets. Show us the Good and Fast and the Fast and Good videos for our comprehension. Pour forth the edumacational education.

Hi flave, I just got home a little while ago. Man, we shot a lot today. Here's what I use for my pin guns generally:


Although, this year I changed it up a bit. I was hoping a match grade barrel and more capacity would trump my good old faithful 3rd gen smiths...

Boy was I wrong. I even threw in a new CZ into the mix.. That sob has a 19 round mag capacity...

Played around with my new 45 springfield armory XD tactical that holds 13 rounds in the mag as well... I learned I'm going back to my old 3rd gen smiths. Those things are so damn reliable, they eat all of my crappy pistol reloads with ease and shoot very accurately. I used to dominate the mid bore category with my 4006, and get lucky with 5 hit wins with my 4506. Not this time. I had my azz handed to me in the bigger bore matches... Walked away with a good win using my Ruger mkII's though:


5 shot wins in less than 5 seconds is usually a good thing.. Like I've said before though, I'm more of a rifle shooter. My biggest feat today was beating rost495's score over on the black rifle challenge with irons... I'm having a drink over that one right now... As for pistols, I grew up in Nevada and had a 29-2 when I was 14. Jackrabbits were good fast targets of opportunity. Now I occasionally shoot steel targets I make in my spare time. Made this dueling tree the other day, while my girlfriend watched. Took all of about 2 hours to make this thing:

AR500 plate, should last a long time and it will be great practice for working on speed....

To better answer your question on the bowling pin shoots. I'd suggest you use something that is damn reliable and hits where you are pointing. Magazine capacity is not the most important thing, as I learned today!!!! If you can effortlessly hit what you are aiming at, you'll have an advantage over your opponents... Always accuracy then speed. A good guy at the club said something that rings true, there is a very fine line between being too fast and not being accurate enough, or being more accurate than needed and not fast enough.. You have to find the happy medium...

People who are trying to avoid a massive clusterfuck while working with a bunch of un/undertrained people?

True chidt right there.. ^^^

It depends. Typically they do not start from a holster. As JefeMojao said, touching the rail in front of you. Our club has portable little stands and your gun must touch that. Here's a pic of our club set for a round of pin tops (same thing as regular pins, except just the tops and we shoot them with .22lr--it's pretty fun; it goes fast!)

Deflave's Depends, (Oh boy, what a topic)

Is spot on.
And a lot depends.

Self defense shooting is a lot like hunting in this respect.
And the situational differences cause a lot of arguments in the hunters who
refuse to acknowledge them.


I can go from 4 yard shots to 400 yard shots in 50 yards of walking.
One from a walking hunt, the other could be out of a stand providing a rest.

The 4 yard shot? Time is if the essence. Even a calm deer won't be long.
Get it pointed toward the center of the front half, and shoot.

You done killed a deer.

The 400 yard shot, or, the fifty yard shot through a hole in the brush?
Now you need to slow down and be deliberate.
This one has to be good.

Congratulations on your win, and I do believe all competition is good competition, but (unless I'm missing something) it just doesn't seem like bowling pin matches involve a lot of fast shooting.

And that's fine to a point, but when people are paying big money to learn to shoot fast I think it's a little disingenuous.

Sooner or later you have to move fast, to be fast.

I've heard Rob Leatham say "smooth is fast and fast is smooth"

Waders, we also shoot from low ready. When it’s rimfire pistol night we also shoot pin tops. We shoot 9 tops and a stop plate. We always shoot 2 shooters against each other. Winner goes on, loser goes to the loser bracket, 2 loses and your out. Our targets are at 18 yards, outside under lights if needed.
We shoot centerfire pistol the second Thursday and something different the 4th Thursday. Rimfire pistol, long gun, under 40 pistol, rimfire rifle, like that. They are fun shoots. To win you have to be fast and accurate. Most of the time to win a round and move on you won't get to far into a reload.

So has every other instructor. LOL

I think that's why they say it.

Leatham sure looks smooth and not fast when making magazine changes' but the timer says he is fast

The expression "fast is smooth" is accurate, but it's something that is often used to keep people focused on fundamentals. And if you're trying to get a shooter from 7 seconds to 5 seconds on a Bill Drill, that may very well be an effective means of getting that shooter to where he needs to be for that particular period of instruction.

The problem becomes shooters that move the left hand to their cover shirt, draw, establish grip, squeeze, BAM. A-zone. Every time. And that's good. But they continue to move slow because they have it in their head that the instructor taught them to "be smooth" to the point that they will sacrifice speed.

But if you want that shooter to get to a sub 2 or 3 second time, you have to get him to move his fugking ass. To include being fast on the trigger.

We also shooting everything in a double elimination format. We normally shoot everything at 25 feet.

At our club, you are allowed to bring 3 magazines of 6 rounds each to the line. Since we don't have different matches for revolvers, this gives wheel gunners a better chance. Rarely does anybody get into a second magazine--you've either won or lost by then.

To me smooth means no wasted Motion, moving as fast as you are capable of without attempting to go faster than you are capable of

That's another part of the equation.

Getting different brains to understand what the instructor is saying.

Not saying your interpretation is wrong, just that not everybody hears what the guy next to him heard.

There are always going to be different club rules for sure. We start with a low ready, or pistol on the rail, either wait for command of commence and then fire or we switch it up and use a buzzer from a shot timer. The front edge of our table is at 35 feet, so the rear pins (for 22lr) are going to be approx. 38 feet from the shooter. The added distance creates a little more difficulty. Yesterday we had a new club member join us and he's shot a lot more pin shoots in Vancouver and the Portland area, and rumor has it that he's taken all the pins off the table at a timed 2.8 seconds. He uses a very nice souped up Volquartsen. He won a few matches, but none of the events. If deflave gets into pin shooting, he will realize that you do indeed need to shoot fast and accurately, if he wants to win. Especially if he goes up against seasoned shooters...

Do you shoot at Clark in Vancouver? We had a couple new guys come from Clark rifles yesterday.

I tend to agree in principle. But there is a reason:

Any hit on an 8" steel plate or the 6"x12" A-Zone of a silhouette is "good enough" and earns you full points. You can risk shooting faster, because the targets are bigger. (Imagine a speed match where the plates were 3" in diameter or the A-Zone was 3"x 6". The shooting would be slower.)

Bowling pins, unlike other speed targets, have a sweet spot (see the pic, below). You need to hit it to have success. I don't have a pin in front of me, but the sweet spot is probably 3"x 6" or so. If you don't hit it, the pin likely won't go back and off the table. A tipped over pin on the table accomplishes nothing, except wasting ammo, time, and possibly presenting a smaller profile to shoot at (i.e. a knocked-over pin with its bottom facing you). A sideways knocked-over pin still needs to be hit in the sweet spot, otherwise it just spins (they pivot on their chubby middle and rotate like a propeller). It's one of the factors that makes pin-shooting fun: a bad hit, might be a "hit," but it might actually make things worse.

So the targets are smaller, and when you couple that with the fact that there is no national league and no real prizes involved, the best shooters don't bother with local pin matches. Pin matches are typically a group of regular guys, shooting stock pistols, at small targets. Consequently it goes slower.

With that explanation, I agree pin matches don't "involve a lot of fast shooting."



Here's an old video my daughter took of me squeaking one out in a match. If a guy can consistently clear the table in 3.75 seconds or so, you'll do fine. Even keeping under 5.0, you'll probably be OK. Just don't miss and need to change mags:

No, I've only shot at my home club, Centralia Rifle Club.

That's fast. Very fast.

I've never been close to that.

And therein lies the biggest problem for most people.................many that try to be fast on the trigger tend to jerk it.

As range goes beyond 5 yards at any kind of refined target (like pin tops), jerking the trigger much at all get you a lot of misses.

MM

Sorry Wade, that question was for ss336. His location says Willamette valley. I was assuming Portland salem area, so shooting at Clark would be a high possibility.

Hallelujah I am inflicted. May the farce be with you.

BSA, I shoot at Albany pistol and rifle club. Because of the C-19 we haven’t shoot since the “lockdown”. We get about 15 to 20 shooters In average. It’s a club event, we have about 5 really good shooters and the rest of us. At my age, mid 70’s, I’m more of a participant than a competitor. Still fun and I can win some rounds but haven’t won’t match since 2016.
Waders, we also shoot 6 rounds and 2 reloads, except for 22rf which is 10 and 2 reloads, and your right if you have to reload your probably not a winner.
It’s a lot of fun and can be very humbling when shooting against a good shooter.

So true. It really gets interesting when you set up courses where the shooter goes in blind [no preview], and there are clusters of targets w/ no shoots and body positioning required for pass throughs. Any course that requires positive target ID and problem solving will tell you how fast you can really go in a zero defects environment.

Smooth is fast, combat effective hits, any hit is a good hit; old concepts that let the students feel good about their shortcomings and sold more classes.

mike r

I agree with all of that.




How are you guys getting an accurate time in those conditions? It seems like the enclosed spaces would make it hard to run a timer for each shooter.

Competition is always good and I'm glad you enjoy the game, but if you're competitive with a 3rd Gen Smith I'd argue that nobody is really shooting fast.

Training is definitely different than shooting, but I really enjoy going to a match and see what a Master class shooter in the Open Division is putting up for score so I can get a good idea of what is fast vs slow. If that requires a walk through, I'm taking the walk through because I want to use that barometer to better assess my own ability.

Totally agree on the selling more classes mantra. Doesn't mean there isn't value taken away from the class, but a lot of it gets repeated far too often.

That's why I always try and use a solid metric. USPSA (and the associated drills) come closer than anything IMO.

I agree that a master class shooter is poetry in motion to watch and demos what can be achieved. The winners can make up for hits outside of the A zone w/ speed afoot and great gun handling as a function of the scoring system. If you are a really good shooter the human factors of self defense shooting are much easier to learn and incorporate. Competition combined w/ FOF is about as good as it gets. Great topic!


mike r

We don't use timers. It's a double elimination format, and each match is shot head-to-head. If you win your match, you advance through the bracket.

The winner of each match is determined by the guy whose last pin hits the ground first. (I made reference to times in my post to give an idea of how fast you'd have to be to win at my club.)

Shoot those bowling pins outside and put them at 25 yards and see how your time is. Then go to 50 yards and see how your time is. Then go to 100 yards and see how your time is.
Be sure to post that important video. Videos are important such as speed videos and bullet test videos, I am greatly distressed when no bullets are shown. Stressed Distress is not good it ruins my whole day.
I couldn't even get my gun up to eye level in the time you shot all your pins.
Many accolades, applause's, hurrahs, and "at a boys" to you.

Gotcha. That makes sense.

Thanks.

***and who are trying to sound way smarter than they are.

If you want to avoid a cluster, don’t cluster a bunch of incoherent Yoda gibberish together.

Just say, “Go slow for now.”

And that’s the problem with instructor-speak. Everybody hears the same words and walks away understanding something different.

It’s a legitimate problem in the industry.

What if I got a group of cluster-prone shooters on the line and just told them, “We’re going to start slow. Make sure you execute each part of this movement perfectly and take the time you need to do that.”

Then actually do your job as an instructor and evaluate the students and fix problems.

Then say, “Guys, now we’re going to go a little faster. Focus on executing the technique correctly, but move as fast as you can.”

Then fix problems.

Then, “Now we’re going to speed up out of your comfort zone. The technique may suffer a little, but that’s OK for now. We’re going to work at this speed and discover where our problems are. If things go wrong break the technique down into smaller pieces and we’ll figure out where the problem is and work through it together.”

Then work them back down to a speed at which they can execute the technique before they leave.
______________

That’s how you train people. But that’s more difficult than shouting catch phrases in a red shirt and calling out the next string of fire.

^^ Well stated Blue.

That's how it's done with athletes and how we train horses.
Get the technique correct and then add speed

I’m just getting serious on this stuff and gonna run this Monday morning at the range with homemade targets (ordering real ones through Amazon).

Great info here guys thanks!

I wouldn't really consider that a "speed" drill, more of a consistency drill.

If you've got 2.5 seconds for the draw and 2.5 seconds for each reload, that leaves you with 13.5 seconds to fire the remaining 18 shots, which is a shot every .75 seconds. None of that is fast at all, but it can be very hard to keep everything together for 21 consecutive shots that you actually have to aim for.

What’s a good drill you’d recommend? El Presidente?

I’m open; just learning this stuff but having a great time with it.

I like that one. It was much more challenging than it appears. I think it’s just more of a “nerves” evaluation than speed.

Bill Drills can be useful for learning to go fast and Accelerator is frat for learning to apply that speed on demand.

*ETA-You can also skip the reload in Accelerator and make it a 10 shot drill, especially if your main focus is to work on close speed.

El Presidente is a go-fast drill but there’s so much involved (a draw, a turn, four transitions, and a reload) that it’s hard to use that one to just learn to go fast.