General Categories > General Firearm Discussion
Comment from Caleb Giddings...
SemperFiGuy:
Timing is Wunnerful.............
Wunnerful......... Wunnerful..............................
But maybe Placement should get just a bit of consideration along the way.
sfg
Kendahl:
Bench rest shooters have a time limit but they spend most of it waiting for the wind to die down.
In defensive shooting, the sooner you can get bullets into the bad guy, the better your chances to come out of the encounter alive and well. Therefore, the time it takes to complete a realistic drill, including making up missed shots, is a meaningful measure of performance.
JTH:
--- Quote from: newfalguy101 on January 15, 2017, 01:54:40 PM ---Pretty difficult to improve without some means of measuring/quantify progress.
--- End quote ---
I agree. :)
And yet I run into a LOT of people who tell me they are really, really good with a handgun, though they have never used a shot timer and don't own one.
And so I'm curious if anyone knows anyone who really IS seriously good with a handgun who doesn't own a shot timer, and if so, what is their criteria set for "really good with a handgun."
abbafandr:
I know I have a whole different idea of really good with a handgun since I started shooting USPSA.
Funny how many people are afraid of competition..
For the record, I own and practice with a shot timer
JTH:
--- Quote from: SemperFiGuy on January 15, 2017, 06:11:06 PM ---Timing is Wunnerful.............
Wunnerful......... Wunnerful..............................
But maybe Placement should get just a bit of consideration along the way.
--- End quote ---
Well, that's one of the interesting things I keep running into---the idea that a timer is for testing speed. When, for people who are serious about their shooting skills, the timer is about testing accuracy at speed.
I don't know a single person that I consider advanced with regard to pistol skills who thinks "speed" is important. Every single one thinks that "accuracy at speed" is what is important.
If a person is incredibly accurate, great. But unless you are strictly a bullseye shooters, incredible accuracy doesn't actually make you a high-level shooter. (And we don't really even have bullseye pistol competitions around here currently, so that means that pretty much no one around here has that particular shooting goal in mind.) Being accuracy is necessary, but not sufficient, to be a serious shooter. Serious again meaning "serious handgun shooting skills."
--- Quote from: Les on January 15, 2017, 02:23:16 PM ---Isn't "Serious" a relative term?
--- End quote ---
Quite frankly, less than you might think, especially given the specific context. Again, we are talking about handgun shooting skills. As such, people who are serious shooters, with serious skills, are going to be accurate, fast, with ingrained unconscious competence with regard to their gun-handling. (Marksmanship skills AND gun-handling skills.)
You don't get those without dedicated practice. Which you have to be serious about. Going and plinking periodically won't get you there, and only practicing group shooting won't get you there.
As abbafandr pointed out:
--- Quote from: abbafandr on January 15, 2017, 08:32:37 PM ---I know I have a whole different idea of really good with a handgun since I started shooting USPSA.
--- End quote ---
Most people don't actually know what serious handgun shooting skills look like, because they've never actually been exposed to them. Either they've never actually tried some of the diagnostic drills out there for score (to have an idea of where they currently standard with respect to an external standard), or they've never competed or even just watched a competition in which high-level shooters were present, or they've never been in a training situation in which a serious shooter demonstrated a high level of shooting competency. There are all sorts of situations in which someone could be exposed to "serious handgun skills" and yet....most people simply haven't. (And often when they do, they are often shocked to find out where their skills actually stand.)
Worse yet, they might have been in a training or practice situation in which someone claimed high levels of shooting competency, and since it was a higher level than the watcher's, it was considered "high level" when it actually wasn't. (I've seen this happen, and there are PLENTY of YouTube videos demonstrating this exact thing.)
--- Quote from: bkent on January 15, 2017, 03:08:30 PM ---It depends on the context. A person could be serious about accuracy or having serious fun with a handgun, neither of which requires a timer.
--- End quote ---
But that doesn't actually match the context given, which is talking about being serious about handgun shooting skills---which isn't about "having fun" (though that is nice too!) nor is being accurate sufficient for serious handgun shooting skills.
--- Quote ---When moving to the context of defensive shooting, time becomes a crucial element. The idea is to become faster at the draw, target acquisition, rounds on target, reloads and malfunction recovery. Off the top of my head the only part of defensive shooting that I can think of that isn't time dependent is holstering. The number one priority of holstering in my mind is safety.
--- End quote ---
Agreed.
--- Quote ---Can a person be serious and improve without a timer, yes.
--- End quote ---
Sure. But...that wasn't the comment. It wasn't about whether or you could improve without one, it was that it was such an important tool for improvement that people who were serious about it would have one.
--- Quote ---http://pistol-training.com/drills/3x5-card-drill
It's not time dependent but we could introduce time to the drill by modifying the drill goals to include, 'as fast as possible.' Once at the point of being able to reliably slow fire 6 rounds into a hole at 3 yards, I could pick up the pace. I may not know the exact splits I'm getting but If I regularly practice and continue to push the speed of the drill from success to failure, eventually improvement will occur.
--- End quote ---
One of the common problems here is that after a certain point, what "feels" fast or slow often has little resemblance to the actual time. So sure, being able to say at a later point in time "I'm doing it faster than when I was doing it slow fire" is good....but that's about all you'll get out of it.
And nowhere was the comment that the timer had to be used for all drills. There are plenty in which timers not only don't work, but are counterproductive.
It was merely that for people interested in developing serious shooting skills, again, it was such an important tool that those who were serious would have one.
--- Quote ---One more thing on this, I'm pretty positive the world contained serious shooters that were seriously good at shooting before timers existed. :)
--- End quote ---
Depends on what you consider "seriously good." What is considered "competent" and "good" and "excellent" changes over time, and world records improve significantly over time. (For example, completing El Presidente in 10 seconds clean was considered the mark of a serious expert years ago. Now, a perfect 10-second run doesn't even classify as B-class in USPSA---it is a C-class run at 58.47% in the Production division.)
We know a lot more now about training, and we now have tools that make us MUCH better at training, and gaining competency in an accelerated fashion.
Sure, people could go without all of that. But....if someone was serious about handgun skills, and gaining competency was IMPORTANT to them, then they wouldn't handicap themselves like that.
(As an example, some of the videos of Olympic gymnastic medal winners over time are....striking. The difference in skill level now versus years ago is significant. It'll be interesting to see where the peak is in another 50 years!)
--- Quote ---Having said that, I think timers are great. A timer is a tool that allows us to analyze and dissect our performance, making training more efficient. Maybe the goal is to put 5 rounds on a pie plate at 10 yards as fast as possible. In order to do that the timer can tell us if it's the draw to first shot, or our splits that need to be worked on first. The timer also gives us the ability to easily compare our performance with others and to set objective goals.
--- End quote ---
Agreed.
On a separate note:
One of the most interesting things, for example, is how people raise emotional defenses regarding any discussion of actual handgun skill. This isn't a courtroom, where we parse sentences for relative meanings or loopholes, nor a hearing in which we discuss what the meaning of "is" is.....we are flat-out talking about what it takes to be really good at shooting with a handgun, which includes being fast, being accurate, and having quick, precise gun-handling skills (such as draws, reloads, and remedial actions).
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