At what point can you be called a good shooter?

[schadenfreude]

Time for a straight answer. The best Web site for practical pistol shooting is without a doubt
Brian Enos' Forums . There is an entire section on skills and another section on classifier scores. Surf on over there and you will get a pretty decent idea of what "good" looks like in USPSA type shooting. Practical shooting has a lot of emphasis on speed.

The problem with asking a question like yours is you will get such a broad spectrum of answers. Guys will remember their tightest groups, not what they can do cold and on demand. They will also remember their fastest times not their par times. Then there are the folks who just peddle BS.

Like I said before, a good pistol shooter is one who has an understanding of the fundamentals and has developed solid technique. Accuracy and speed can then be developed.

Thanks for that link. Like I said in my original post, I was more interested in hearing about what groups and distances a "good" shooter can put up.


I know some people will disagree but for me there are benchmarks of skill. Growing up playing pool it was when I could run 10 racks of nine ball or run 100 points in straight pool. Once you hit those marks, you were coming into a certain skill level. By no means were you good enough to be called the best or even compete for that matter but it garnered a certain label, and most could say with a certain degree of accuracy that you were "good"

Now that I am have become interested in shooting I was looking for some of the same things as it helps me strive for higher plateaus.


Thanks to everyone for the replies though. I read each one and can honestly say I have a slightly different mindset.

 

[incursion]

You could break and run 10 racks of 9 ball in a row? Sweet geeze, that is crazy good.

 

[Hal]

What do the rest of you think--is this at least in the ballpark?

John,
Ever read or hear about Carroll Shelby and the DB9

 

[Navy joe]

Benchmark you say?

5.5 seconds with clean( all A) hits and then you will be pretty darn good with a stock gun. The super blaster open guns with good pilots are sub 5 at the highest level. I am in the mid 7s right now, competent, just not good. Ran one in IDPA under six down two but the range was 7 yards. String 2? stage 2 of the classifier.


As far as groups, it is gun dependent, and means little except for practicing trigger control. I currently expect to hold 25 rounds, 5 shot strings into a centered 5-6" group at 25 yards offhand with approximately a .75 to 1 sec shot cadence. With my G34. I hold about the same with my G17, but get sloppy chasing holes because I know in the back of my head that the fixed sights aren't regulated to where I want them so I try to Kentucky windage them.

 

[Idaho]

When you can snatch the pebble from my hand, grasshopper. . .

 

[Ankeny]

Navet Joe:

A clean run on CM99-11 in 5.5 seconds would be a hit factor of 10.909. In Production division that would yield a per centage in excess of 100%. Let's see, Master Class is 85%, Grand Master is 95%... never mind.

 

[Navy joe]

Ankeny,
I realize that it is a 100% + run. I'm pretty sure some folks have done it. That defines pretty good for me. I just think that eventually every pistol shooter will judge their ability on the El Prez, it's universal, with only slight variations. 5.5 clean is the outer limits. I've seen A class production shooters do 5.5 sloppy, and my 7 seconds aren't nice yet either, guess that's why I'm only 60% on this stupid thing. Schaden, try it, you will have so much more fun than just paper punching.

 

[Blueduck]

Worse than me= "Not a good shooter"

Almost as good as me= "Good Shooter"

Better than me= "Gamer"/"Cheater"-/"Jerk"

Seriously for all the 3" at 50 yard claims I once saw Rob Leatham one of the top shooters of all time claim in a post that he could not Guarantee hitting a 3" target at 15 yards EVERY single time on any given day. Frankly I was more impressed with him saying that than any of the championships he's won.

To me person who can hit a 3" target (not a 3" group- big difference) 95+% of the time from 15 yards with a "real" handgun, from hind legs as opposed to competition guns with optics off rest is a "good" pistol shot.

 

[JohnKSa]

Hal,

The only thing I know about Carroll Shelby is that he designed the Mustang and some other cars.

Isn't the DB9 a high end sports car? I must be slow tonight, I'm not making the connection to this topic...

 

[Black Snowman]

To rephrase what was said before, if your shooting is limited by your equipment and not your ability you are certainly a good shooter.

I consider myself a fairly good marksman with a pistol. I'm not even in the running for a bullseye competition but I'm signifigantly better than most of the people I see shooting at the local range.

If you can keep it in the black of a bullseye target (8"?) off hand at 25 yards 95% of the time I consider that quite good pistol marksmanship. I rarely see people put a target out that far. 7 yards seems to be the norm.

But, to answer the question in the subject line directly. You can be called a "good shooter" whenever you can convince someone to say it

 

[Ankeny]

Navy Joe:

CM99-11 was shot at the 2002 factory gun nationals. Sevigny was the only Production shooter to nail the classifier at 100%. The next closest production shooter was Jarrett at 95%. Only one production shooter out of 70 even came close to meeting your definition of pretty good. You have some mighty high standards.

 

[Hal]

John,
(oops - my bad - - it was the Aston Martin DB5)

- Carroll Shelby -
When Aston Martin introduced their DB5 they heavily advertised it's ability to go from zero to 100mph and back to zero in under 30 seconds. Carroll Shelby said if he couldn't take a stock Cobra and beat that time, he'd quit making cars.



*FWIW - and it's a matter of some dispute because it wasn't official - The stock Cobra Shelby used was right off the assy line and wore street tires- the time was 12.4 seconds.


Connection here is that 1" @ 15 yards is where some folks would start saying a fella has "potential".

 

[longeyes]

One inch at 15 yards? The Human Ransom Rest. Yeah, saw that on Ripley's.

 

[JohnKSa]

To me person who can hit a 3" target (not a 3" group- big difference)

There shouldn't be a big difference unless you can't adjust the sights on the pistol.

If you can shoot 3" groups 95% of the time then once the sights are properly adjusted you should be able to hit a 3" target about the same percentage of the time.

Example: I dug out a target from the last pistol competition I entered. This was slowfire standing rimfire pistol. I shot 25 rounds from a stock Ruger 22/45 with a 5" bull barrel at 25 yards. The group size was 4" center to center. 23 out of 25 shots went into a 4" circle centered on the bullseye. (All were within a 5" circle centered on the bull.)

Given that I adjusted my hold during the shooting to compensate for a small misalignment of the sights, and the first two shots were the ones that fell outside the 4" circle, I think that demonstrates pretty well that group size should be very similar to the target size.

All things considered, it's a bit harder to hit a 3" target than it is to shoot 3" groups, but the difference shouldn't be 'big'.

 

[Blueduck]

I'd disagree a bit John, I think it's important to distinguish "group size" from target size.

I've seen a lot of folks whose relativly good groups wonder around a target a significant amount, not only day to day but draw to draw regardless of how sights ar adjusted if at all. When I first got into shooting Glocks I found myself having this problem way more than ever before. My problem turned out to be inconsistent grip which I think is a fairly common problem even among good shots.

This is especially fun to explain to rifle newbies who hear about 3.6" championships groups at 1000 yards and assume the guy who shot it could walk out on his back porch and hit a softball with his first shot at that range, when in truth after all the math and wind doping the first shot actually hit 3-4 feet off the aiming point. It's just how close he/she can get the other shots to that first miss that counts in scoring.

Then again as I don't even meet my OWN definition of good shot why would anyone listen to me anyway

 

[Ankeny]

I got it...a good pistol shooter is one who holds a Master class ranking in all divisions available in their chosen sport. That would be Master in SSP, SSR, ESP and CDP if you shoot IDPA. If USPSA then Master in Production, Revolver, Limited L10, and Open.

 

[Sean Smith]

One inch at 15 yards? The Human Ransom Rest. Yeah, saw that on Ripley's.

I've actually seen a friend shoot about 1.5" @ 25 with a 10 shot group. That's 1-hand, unsupported... no cheating by shooting off sandbags. used an old Clark Bullseye Longslide. He's also got a box or two full of medals, trophies, etc. from shooting (and winning) at bullseye competitions over a decade or two. 1" @ 15 would be easier, but mainly for psychological reasons.

Having seen what a genuine (now retired from competition) bullseye shooter can do accuracy-wise, and the amount of work it took him to get there, I tend to be hugely skeptical of most accuracy claims on the 'net, for obvious reasons.

What is "good" and "bad" is relative and subjective, even though it is measured objectively. I'm alot better than alot of people, but I'm also alot worse than some people.

 

[Sean Smith]

I got it...a good pistol shooter is one who holds a Master class ranking in all divisions available in their chosen sport.

That means that the only good pistol shots are folks that can spend lots of money on hardware? Or is a good pistol shooter going to shoot Master class in Open shooting a Production gun?

It also occurs to me that a great shooter in IDPA or IPSC could be an alarmingly inaccurate slug at bullseye, while a great bullseye shooter would be a glacially slow slug in IDPA or IPSC. In both cases we are judging "goodness" based on unrealistic games.

 

[Ankeny]

Sean:

I was just popping off. BTW, becoming a five division USPSA Master class shooter only requires three guns. In fact, it really isn't that tough to get an M card in all of the divisions if a person just works at it a little bit.

Yeppers, some folks think good is dependent upon accuracy, others think good with a handgun is a matter of spped, others think good is a matter of both. I stand by my original post. Anyone who understands the fundamentals (and can accomplish them as evidenced by shooting a decent group), has proper technique, and can call their shots with all certainty at the instant the pistol fires is probably pretty darned good, regardless of the discipline.

 

[JohnK]

At what point can you be called a good shooter?

When I can shoot as well as my buddy can, I'll call myself a good shooter. Unfortunately he's one of those rare people who can shoot 2-3" @ 50 yards offhand...I need some new friends....

 

[Correia]

Holy crap Navy! Your standards of good for and El Prez are pretty freaking high. At the IDPA nationals this year not a single shooter did that. I would say your definition of good is what most of us would consider super human. The only way I could get a 5.5 El Prez would be if I could throw a hand grenade and then we could score the shrapnel holes.

My par for El Prez at down 0 is 8.5. According to Jeff Cooper 10 is good, so I'm just going to pat myself on the back and be happy.

Ankeny brings up a very good point. To a 3 gunner, High Power shooters are going to seem extreamly slow, but the accuracy that they get is far and away better than that of a 3 gunner. To an IPSC guy bullseye is slow and boring, whereas to the bullseye guy IPSC can seem like uncontrollable spraying at close targets. It all kind of depends on what your frame of reference is.

Skeet guys can sneer at me and my 9 shot semi auto shotgun, but I can clear 5 plates in around 2 seconds with it. But then again, I'm not going to be able to knock 25 out of 25 clay birds out of the sky with it either.

 

[Ankeny]

Correia:

The IDPA El Pres. is a lot tougher than the CM99-11 classifier. They are apples and oranges.

 

[Navy joe]

Okay, since I'm getting trashed for having good spelled out, lemme 'splain.
First, somebody said they liked benchmarks. To me, a benchmark is an absolute, everything else is just progress towards. I want to know what the best group is, the best time, whatever so I can accurately judge myself. Then someone else mentioned BEs forum, so I pounced on the opportunity to thread drift

Now, back to the 5.5 second El Prez. I may shoot one clean at that speed one day, I may not. Maybe I'll be good enough to do it on demand whenever. Anyhow, I have a better chance of doing this than I have of running a sub-four minute mile. That doesn't mean my 7-9 minute goal is bad, just that I shouldn't BS myself into thinking that I'm good.
That's the whole point, I don't believe in calling myself good because it's a trap to where you get comfortable and stop learning. A Master class shooter in almost any discipline can probably afford a little smugness and call themselves good, just hopefully not before a match. It's quite the paradox to want to be good and win matches, bets with your buddy, whatever; but not let thinking you are good to interfere with your performance or learning.

I liked this too.

Guys will remember their tightest groups, not what they can do cold and on demand. They will also remember their fastest times not their par times. Then there are the folks who just peddle BS.

I figure if you can fluke into perfect performance your on demand performance isn't so shabby. I like classifiers or bullseye course scores because it is a set course with an absolute score, no excuses, no BS, shoot it and see how you stack up.

FWIW, I missed a local, if you can call 170mi one way local, club match due to work. Two of 29 shooters posted El Prez hit factors in excess of ten with another at 9.6Hf. I find it amusing that no one shot all the points though. Winner was an Open gun at 4.7 sec and 55 points(Chris Tilley). Local weather was less than ideal, not bad for cold trigger fingers. This and more is what crowd I shoot with(not against) everytime I go out. Forgive me for think I suck.

My local IPDA guys went to Nats, so I've been exposed to a fair number of IDPA El Prez variants. It seems to me that the target spacing and height difference eats way more time than a conceaed draw ever would, what say you? Since it's a standard was concealment required at the Nationals?

 

[JohnKSa]

One inch at 15 yards? The Human Ransom Rest. Yeah, saw that on Ripley's.

I've done 1" or less 5 shot groups at 15 yards a few times with a 9mm.

Shot unsupported, 2 hand hold, slow fire, not in a competition or under any sort of pressure.

OBVIOUSLY, I'm not saying I can do it consistently. Nor would I ever bet that I could do it on any given day.

On the other hand, I think there are people out there that CAN do it consistently. I think if I started shooting 1,000 rounds a month, I could get to the point where I could do it with some reasonable frequency of success.

 

[Shmackey]

You could break and run 10 racks of 9 ball in a row? Sweet geeze, that is crazy good.

Nobody can reliably do that--ever. 9 ball is too unpredictable. Once--just once--there was a proposition prize at a pro tournament: run 11 straight (it was a race to 11) and win a million. Mind you, these were the greatest shooters in the world. Even so, the odds were so astronomical that the supporters put it out there. Strickland did it. Once.

Not to whiz on anyone's parade, but if anyone wants to bet me that they can break and run 10 straight, given one chance, I'll put up everything I have.

Back on topic: a good bullseye shooter thinks in terms of three inches at 50 yards. One-handed. Not all slow-fire either. From a .45ACP. If you see some of these people shoot, you realize there are just entirely different leagues of shooters. Wow.