Timers and practice.....

[kotengu]

I just got a CED 6000 to work with at the range and home to help improve my speed in shooting - mostly for pistol, but I'll use it for shotgun and rifle as well. I feel pretty good with my accuracy, but without a timer it's hard to quantify the speed, and work your way up in a deliberate manner. Either I'd shoot too fast and miss my targets, or hit the bull every time but be pretty slow.

All that being said, after just one night of dry-fire practice with this thing I wonder WHAT TOOK ME SO LONG to get one of these. It's easy to use, and by repeating an exercise on a par time, then decreasing that time just by a 0.1 of a second at a time (and doing it over and over again) I was able to push myself faster, without getting sloppy and losing control. We'll see this afternoon if it works that way at the range.

The bad news is that in comparing myself to listed par times (for example, in the back of Suarez's newer pistol book) I am worse off than I thought and definitely have my work cut out for me.

What kind of drills have you found to be most helpful in improving speed while not losing the accuracy? Any tips for a "new to a timer" shooter to make sure my practice is perfect?

Matt

 

[mpthole]

I'm curious to hear how you used the timer in dry fire practice. I've got one on my b-day and Christmas list.

 

[kotengu]

Mostly in trying to improve my holster-to-first-shot time so far - the fastest I can do and still be smooth and not sloppy is 1.8 seconds. The bad part is that my goal to work toward is to be able to go from the holster and get two to the body and one to the head in 1.5 seconds............guess I have my work cut out for me!

I also spent some time with my shotgun and some dummy shells working on my reloads (3gun match coming up). Again I was surprised at how long it actually took me - going from the shoulder (as if I had just fired a shot), reloading three from the sidesaddle, and remounting and firing I was hard pressed to finish in 6.5 seconds - seems way to slow to me, but I don't have any "standards" to measure against.

At the range yesterday I was even more disappointed in my "speed" (or lack thereof - for most of the drills in the back of Suarez's book I was at about DOUBLE the par time listed for the "beginner" - my drawstroke and time to follow-up shots definitely needs work.

The good news is the timer ran great and was really easy to use. It's something I'd definitely recommend for anyone wanting to increase their speed while still keeping their accuracy. The other good thing about it is that it gives me some very objective "motivation" to practice more and hopefully improve. I was feeling pretty confident (and therefore not pushing myself very hard) with my pistol abilities up until now........

 

[mpthole]

So the timer will register the "click" of your gun on a snap-cap when drawing and firing the first "round"?

 

[kotengu]

I've heard it will if you turn up the sensitivity enough, but instead of fooling with all that and having to reset it everytime I go to the range I just use the "par time" feature where it beeps for 0.5 seconds to start, then beeps again for 0.3 seconds when your par time has finished. As long as I make the "shot" before the last beep I'm OK.

 

[Navy joe]

Try this when reloading multiple shells off the sidesaddle. Lift the butt out of your shoulder pocket with your firing hand, move the gun to the rear about two inches while rolling the gun 180 deg. Now the loading port and saddle are right in front of your face and you stuff with your firing hand.

Another possibility is to be more tactical and load what you shoot, I usually see it as shoot two load two, keeping the gun mounted and pointed and loading with your support hand. Gaming it means not loading anymore when you know you've got enough left in the tube to finish the course. In the real world you don't have that luxury.

 

[cadfael]

I use it to practice starting my drawstroke when the time starts at the beginning of the buzzer (not the end of the buzzer), as well as reload times.

Adam

 

[kotengu]

Which brings up a good point - is there anything you can do to speed up your reaction time? I use the "random" feature on my timer so after I hit the start button a random amount of time elapses before the start buzzer sounds (seems more realistic), and the buzzer usually finishes sounding before I even acquire my grip. Is there any way to improve this without "gaming"?

 

[Ankeny]

Listen intently for the very first part of the tone and go for the draw as soon as the tone begins.

There are several threads on Brian Enos' web site regarding practicing with a timer and par time drills. Of course, the best thing about a timer is it will allow you to measure your progress over time. BTW, a 1.5 second "failure drill" is pretty swift. In fact, to do that reliably day in and day out at say 10 yards on an IPSC target would be pretty good shooting.

 

[Jeeper]

For dry fire you can set the par time to practice to. It basically just buzzes twice.