What is decay rate for perishable firearms skills?

[DefiantDad]

I realize, generally speaking, everyone is different.

Having said that, there is probably a big difference between having to practice every week, versus every two weeks, or every month.

So, generally speaking, how long do you reckon shooting skills (and more particularly, handgun skills) are retained, before they start to decay enough that you need to get back into practice?

Another way of asking is, if you can't shoot every week to keep up (and I am not sure my wallet can keep up, even though I am being very diligent about it these days) then is every month OK, and if not every month then every two months?

Or is it that, if you can only practice every two months, then you might as well not bother and just practice every 3 months?

Or even, if you don't shoot every week, then you are probably going to decay to a certain level (like riding the bicycle) and it won't make much difference between 2 months or 6 months.

I hope I explained this question well enough, despite it sounding a bit complex how I wrote it here.

 

[allaroundhunter]

Being in college, I only get to shoot over summer, Thanksgiving, Christmas, and Spring break (for the most part).

I do notice that my accuracy and trigger technique is not as good at any other time as it is at the end of summer (when I am shooting almost every week). My magazine changes are also about as slow as they can get at the beginning of summer and are quite fast at the end.

Every week that you aren't practicing your skills are decaying. Fortunately, you do not need to fire live rounds to be practicing. Snap caps are a wonderful tool, and should be utilized.

 

[DefiantDad]

Thanks; that is interesting feedback.

 

[Sheepdog1968]

I heard one instructor say two weeks for pisto and two months for long arms.

 

[italy4nra]

I was at the range for a year twice a week. my pistol groups at 25 meters were nice.
I hurt my shoulder and could not raise the left arm, in and out of hospital and missed the pistol range for 3 months. Bench rest and rifles kept me happy.

Last Saturday was my first pistol range visit.

Groups? It looked like a sawed off shotgun. Granted, I have lost muscle in the left arm and shoulder and depend on an isosceles stance. I was sorely disappointed about realizing I have to reclimb the skill hill.

 

[scaatylobo]

Dry fire

You lose little or no skills if you actually dry fire for 15 minutes twice [ or more ] a week.

The skill of shooting is breath control and FRONT SIGHT and your gtg.

That requires very little actual shooting of live ammo.

Hope this is something of what you were seeking.

 

[ljnowell]

I wrecked my back and couldnt work in 2008. Started shooting regularly, because it was about all I could do. Got real proficient again. Then from May 2011 until March 2012 I only shot about three times (went back to work and was real busy). I joined a Bullseye league this March and WOW what an eye opener. It goes pretty fast. It took me six weeks of weekly competition and twice a week practice to get back close to where I was.

 

[jrdolall]

I think you can practice in your living room and retain most of your skills without pulling the trigger. The muscle memory will stay and you will be able to get back in the groove much more quickly than if you don't practice at all. Set up some step drills and any other drills you normally use at the range.

I played baseball in college and two years with the Astros farm system back in the day. We only saw live pitching, other than in actual games, maybe 1-2 times per week but we swung the bat 2-3 times per day. Either in the cage, off the tee, or with a tire. It was not the same but it simulated the actual act well enough to keep you from being too rusty. Same concept to me.

 

[Remllez]

Defiant,

Can you afford to shoot a .22 every week? I think ones skills diminish faster than we think.
I'm fortunate because I have an indoor range 5 minutes away from my house and I have a pistol course complete with gongs up to 200 yards at my cabin which is less than 2 hours away.

It cost no money to dry fire as said above and holster work with a blue gun cost you nothing but time as well. The act of shooting live ammunition is more important for shooters who compete than for the average shooter.

If you can practice just once a month so be it but make that practice count...If you carry for self defense you owe it to yourself to keep sharp, all this is not to say you can't have fun with your gun however...

 

[Sam1911]

Great question!

It seems to depend a lot on what level of skill you're at to begin with, and how much degradation is acceptable to you.

For guys competing at Grandmaster levels, taking a week off might see their edge slip. For some shooting very proficiently, but at common "Expert" levels, a month away will probably require a bit of re-familiarization to get back to where they were before, but skipping a week doesn't take much away.

(For me, a bigger issue than taking a week or two off is switching to another gun/platform. Getting 1911 stuff out of my hands/head and putting the revolver stuff back in -- at levels I'm used to competing at -- takes several weeks of practice and probably 1,000 rounds.)

For shooters who concentrate their efforts on simpler goals, like someone who shoots a box or two at the range and then only shoots at game animals at moderate distances, they're probably not losing skill over the course of the spring and summer when they aren't shooting.

Most "concealed carriers" are probably in between those extremes somewhere. Not dealing with "match-grade" skill levels to begin with, but trying to remain proficient enough to be safe with their gun and to have a fighting chance to make a shot if they must. But what each one considers acceptable is going to be very different, so how often they need to practice to meet that goal is likewise going to vary a whole lot.

 

[LeonCarr]

Dunno if this answers the OP's question but if I shoot my Remington 700PSS .308 every week or so continuously, the first three shot group of the shooting session at 100 yards is usually a one hole group. If I lay off and don't shoot it for a month or so, the first group of the shooting session expands to about an inch, same rifle, same ammo, same everything. I find the difference is less pronounced with handguns and shotguns shot at stationary targets. Shotguns at flying targets IME has the highest rate of "perishablility" I think in that it takes longer to get back into the groove to hit the clays or birds.

Just my .02,
LeonCarr

 

[Snag]

I think most of what you loose over the course of a couple week or more is the mental aspect part of shooting. Like scaatylobo said most of it is remembering to breath, concentrate on front sight, pulling the trigger straight back, and thinking one good shot. All things you can do at home dry firing if you wish.

 

[Sam1911]

most of it is remembering to breath, concentrate on front sight, pulling the trigger straight back, and thinking one good shot.

Which statement points out that we're each answering the question from the view of our particular chosen discipline. Those are all indeed skills or functions that a precision rifle shooter focuses on. They're not at the top of a handgunner's list of skills which rely much, MUCH more on eye-hand coordination and smooth function at speed than the checklist/process that goes into competitive and/or precision rifle marksmanship.

And those kinds of skills devolve differently and at a different rate. It may be possible that a benchrest shooter or precision practical rifle shooter needs to hone his skills every few days or he sees a drop in performance. I'm not sure. But as what he's doing isn't the same kind of high-speed physical 'dance' that a USPSA pistol or 3-gun shooter does -- or a trap or skeet shooter does, for that matter -- my guess would be that constant conditioning is less critical to him. And I'd imagine that highpower rifle, bullseye pistol, IMHSA, position smallbore and other disciplines all fall somewhere in between those realities.

All things you can do at home dry firing if you wish.

And that's the one thing that's pretty universal.

 

[mavracer]

Skills will decay at an inverse rate to the rate in which they are aquired.
As you get better the more work it takes to get better.
When you quit working the finer skills will go first at a faster rate it will take a long time to forget how to load the dang thing.

 

[BSA1]

A long time.

In my own case 30 years.

Last week I brought a used S&W Model 10-6 ex-cop gun. It shows heavy holster wear but the action is tight. I have not fired a K-Frame revolver for 30years since my early cop days.

I took the gun out for the first time today. With Mactech 158 gr. RN Lead ammo shootng single action using the old one handed FBI stance I easily placed 5 rounds inside of 2" at 15 yards.

What made this even more impressive to me is the gun has its original magna style grip which does not even come close to fitting my hand and left my second finger dangling with nothing to grip.

In double action mode the gun shot a little to the left (away from sun) largely due to it shifting it my hand for the above mention to small grip. Even so all of my rounds went in the X and 9 ring.

I will soon be in the market for larger set of grips that fill the gap between the rear of the trigger guard and frame and that group will shrink.

For the record I have not shoot any type of handgun for the last two years due to poor health and really have not shot much for the 10 years.

To me this means if you learn the basics, I mean really learn the basics and you remember those skills your shooting will not diminish a lot.

Dang I wish I knew how to post pictures from my cell phone.

 

[tightgroup tiger]

I took ten years off from shooting when my father died. Shooting was our thing to do. I was angry that he died and lost interest in shooting.

After I moved to NC I started shooting again, I went to get my concelled carry here because they wouldn't honor my permit from PA and found out I had to qualify with a handgun to prove to prove my proficiency.

After not shooting a pistol for 10 years I still shot 46 out of 50 bulleyes in qualifying. Granted it was only at 7 yds to qualify and I felt insulted that I had to shoot so close but I hadn't forgot.

Now, I did discover that I couldn't put 75 rounds through a 4" circle at 25yds like I was doing before I took my hiatis. It didn't take but a few times at the range before I got that back also.

Sam 1911 is right though, it depends on where your proficiency was when you quit shooting. I picked mine up again pretty quickly but I wasn't bullseye shooting at 25yds either. I expect someone that could consistently hit a 1 1/2" bulleye consistently at 25yds off hand would have a much harder time getting their skill level back then just getting them through a 4" circle like I do.

 

[DefiantDad]

Thanks everyone for sharing their stories and personal experience with varying lengths of time off. Great insights from all the posts. I like the postulate that the finer skills go first (makes sense) but also pretty impressed by some of you guys for skills retention after long periods of time.

I have a new thesis, see if this makes sense, or if you can disprove it:

Decay is slower, if you have shot longer (and, presumably, reached a certain level of proficiency, before you temporarily stopped).

Does this seem to match with your experience or can you falsify it and reject the hypothesis? (Again of course, we are speaking generally among the broad population).

This is of course an unscientific poll.

 

[Cosmoline]

Muscle memory, if you want to call it that, seems to stick around a long time. So once I have practiced enough with a new stance, I'll remember it intuitively months down the line or even years. But the conscious parts, often involving fine aim and second-to-second control, tend to degrade fast. So I can get into my revolver stance instantly with no problems, but my accuracy may be a bit off if I haven't shot a handgun for a month or two.

 

[9mmepiphany]

Decay is slower, if you have shot longer (and, presumably, reached a certain level of proficiency, before you temporarily stopped).

This is an incomplete thesis.

I think someone posted earlier about what level,or rate, of deterioration is acceptable before you think it reaches the level of decay.

A shooter at a higher level will perceive a smaller level of deterioration...and deem it unacceptable...than a shooter with lower expectations of performance. Those higher skills go away more quickly, because they took more work to attain. So a more proficient shooter's skill would actually decay faster, but could still be better than that of a less skilled shooter.

(It is easy to get to 80%, it is the next 10% that is hard and the next 5% after that is even harder, with only the truly gifted reaching the last 5%.)

It has been my experience that a 2 week layoff of shooting a handgun quickly and accurately is more than enough to show a measurable drop off of skill level...something like only being able to accurately shoot 3, or even 2, rounds a second instead of 4.

One of my mentors, USPSA/IPSC Grandmaster (top 10 in the World), told me if he had to choose between unlimited dry fire or limited live fire to maintain his skills, he would always choose dry fire. But this isn't just any dry fire, it has to be dry fire with correct technique and focus

 

[PT92]

I realize, generally speaking, everyone is different...

For me what you said there answers it.

I like to make the analogy of shooting to other sports like basketball, tennis, golf, or even the 'Over 35 Adult Hockey League' I play in--I think we tend to forget sometimes that what we do is indeed 'a sport.' I see some guys I play with that have hands naturally gifted like Sidney Crosby and a few others that play just as well but work their tail off in order to reach that level (no 'God-given talent).

Specifically, I mean that some people have an 'innate' ability to excel at a particular sport and, thus, do not have to devote the same amount of time as say the fellow who was not born with that 'shooting-gene.' And that's where the amount of time devoted to pursuing the shooting sport comes into play. As somebody earlier stated, I also have buddies that shoot maybe 4-5 times a year and suck and vice versa as well.

Essentially and as you mentioned at the outset, I don't think there is a universal answer to your question but it's definitely an interesting one.

-Cheers

 

[DefiantDad]

Yup, agree with all points raised in recent posts.

 

[Sam1911]

A shooter at a higher level will perceive a smaller level of deterioration...and deem it unacceptable...than a shooter with lower expectations of performance.

And that's a big part of why I present my comments about the differences between high skill levels in different disciplines as a theory only. I've never reached high levels of proficiency in benchrest or bullseye or IMHSA, etc. For all I know, true masters of those sports can tell a dramatic, game losing fall-off of their edge if they don't keep in constant practice. It may just be that the differences between an expert performance and a masterful one are minute enough that only those dedicated to the pursuit will notice the decline.

But there are plenty of shooting tasks that don't require such a fine (brittle?) edge. My grand dad never would have made the grade as a competitive rifleman, but no one could ever recall him taking more than one shot to harvest a deer. He was more than skilled enough to accomplish his goal with total success. I don't remember him ever going out to practice, except to take me to shoot the .22.

 

[gym]

I find that a few mags maybe a box, and it all comes back if I haven't shot for a couple months. I stiill handle guns every day. They are in and out of my hand 20-30 times per day, That is a part of why I can pick up any of my guns and they feel like they belong. Between one in my pocket all day, and one either in a holster or a fanny pak, or someplace else, i maintain the "feel'. At night when I walk my dog out back, where there is no light, I always have a gun, and practice removing it from where it is to the ready position. My neighboors are old timers and are fast asleep, I sometimes use my laser just to see if I am on target or not.
It's good practice, the gun never feels foreign to you that way.I also found that after 50 years or so of shooting pistols. If I aim at something, even from the hip or with one hand, I am usually right on target, snapping on that laser sometimes amazes me how, on, I really am.

 

[Deltaboy1984]

I try to dry fire as much as I can.

 

[DefiantDad]

Well.... I don't actually know what to look for when dry firing.

I manipulate the trigger, and everything looks stable. So, I don't really get how much practice I am achieving, versus at the range, when the gun actually goes bang and I feel the recoil.