When having to shoot a deadly threat (2 legged or 4 legged), it isn't about how good you look or how fast you shoot, it is about obtaining a well placed shot exactly where it needs to go to stop that threat, and doing it upon demand. This is where proper training and practice comes in.
There is an old saying to the effect of: An amateur practices until they get it right, and a professional practices until they can't get it wrong".
I like to use shot timers to show where a shooter is at skill level wise on things like draw time, multiple shot time for recoil management, and reload times. Then once you have a base time on the shooter performing with their current skills, as an instructor I teach them how to become more proficient by streamlining any access movement out of the draw, work on recoil management to reduce excess muzzle movement between shots, and reduce excess movements during reloads, in simple terms make them more efficient with less excessive movement, which then use the shot timer to see if there is an improvement. What I see is that most gains in reduction of time are usually not from pressing the trigger faster, rather it comes from reducing excess movements in how the shooter performs tasks, what I call economy of motion. The negative to a shot timer is that many of us race them trying to be faster than the next guy (It's that Cro-Magnon Male dick measuring contest thing, I'm Irish so I've lost already but I do have good style points for a dismount), and what I see is that many shooters will most of the time shoot too quickly and miss.
Not to side track the thread (But Jerry Miculek's name was brought up), but it also relates to competition vs real world gunfights. Competition is a game, and should be viewed as such. There are many lessons to be learned from competition, some of the lessons can be applied to self defense, and some of those things cannot or should not be applied to self defense.
In the competition world, if a shooter misses then they don't get to score the hit on paper, or possibly get penalized by having time added to their overall, or sometimes have to take additional shots until they hit the intended target. In a real world gunfight, if you missed your intended target, then where did that bullet go, as it isn't doing you any good, and it now becomes a liability of possibly hitting someone innocent person, which can cause injury or death, resulting in you possibly going to jail and/or civil liability. In a gunfight. how many rounds are you carrying in the firearm and how many do you have on your person, as a gunfight may be over quickly, or it could last a long time, it could only a single or few rounds fired, or it could take lots of rounds (If you run out of rounds, then what do you do if the fight isn't over).
I have seen some competition shoots where they have the shooter slice the pie on a doorway, only being allowed to slice it one direction and only once overall, this may work in competition but not in the real world of having to search for a badguy(s) in real life as you may need to pie that doorway several times (not including looking high and low, over and under furniture etc). I have also seen on many competition shooting ranges where the shooter isn't allowed to scan past the far corners of the target backer line or break their left-right 180-degree line, as this again may work in competition and I do realize that it is done for safety purposes, but it doesn't always apply well to the real world of having to work in a 360-degree environment of having to search/scan/move.
Relative to all of this is the gear that is involved. I see many shooters at classes that show up using an outside the waist band holster, and no concealment garment is used. For me if I am not in uniform with body armor with a duty belt (Safariland 070 SSIII holster) or full SWAT gear, then I am carrying concealed in a IWB with a cover garment over the gun and magazines, so this is how I should be training.
So my emphasis is that it is about a well placed round(s), and not about how fast you shoot those rounds, as I view it from a self defense gunfight persepective.
CY6
Greg Sullivan "Sully"
SLR15 Rifles
TheDefensiveEdge.com
(763) 712-0123
