Accuracy with Concealed Carry Gun

[pax]

Microgunner,

We may be talking past each other. Not a true disagreement so much as needing a little more context to be sure we're on the same page. Let's see...

Having worked as both a lead instructor and as a coach with hundreds of beginning, intermediate, and experienced shooters over the past 12 years, I'm reasonably familiar with what works and what doesn't in teaching people to shoot better. Pretty much everything I've said comes through the context of teaching people to shoot within a formal class setting, and with how people practice after they leave the formal class setting.

Within that context, I'd say you're absolutely right that it's important for the beginner to focus completely on building a good technique. They need to learn the basic skill set before adding any stress, doing everything smoothly and correctly. That repetition builds in some good strong neural connections that will tend to endure when we add more complexity or more difficulty to the task.

As you noted, people will naturally move a little more quickly and with significantly more confidence once those neural connections are in place and well-practiced.

They won't, however, move anywhere near as fast as they're actually capable of moving. That type of speed only comes with deliberate effort.

The sequence is:

1. Learn the broad outlines of the skill.
2. Practice the broad outlines just until you have the basic idea.
3. Refine your technique to get all the "little stuff" in place (grip the magazine in this particular way, or bend your elbow to that particular angle).
4. Practice performing the complete, refined skill in a way that is smooth, efficient, fluid, and safe. Do this until you can do it without focusing on each tiny step along the way. At first, you run through a type of mental checklist ("Is the top of the front sight equal with the top of the rear sight? Is there an equal amount of light on both sides of the front sight? Is the front sight lined up in the middle of my target?" etc etc). But later on, you just think, "Front sight, press." The checklist has become second nature, and gets activated whenever you decide to line up your sights. Practice until you reach that point, and a bit beyond.
5. As the skill becomes "more natural" to you, add extras to increase difficulty: speed, movement, distance, additional steps (such as drawing and moving at the same time, or shooting multiple targets).
6. Push for increased speed.
7. Push for improved accuracy at that speed.
8. Repeat steps 5, 6, 7, and 8.

So first work on accuracy and basic gun manipulations. Then push for speed.

You do have to push for speed, because once they've learned that they can hit the target accurately, even confident shooters will (almost always) settle themselves into a comfortable shooting pace that's nowhere near as fast as they're really capable of going.

They do that because they don't want to give up the satisfaction of hitting where they aim.

That's also how you get the shooter who's proud and happy to put a dozen shots somewhere on paper as long as he shoots them all super-fast: he can't shoot more accurately even if he slows down, so he might as well pride himself on his speed.

By the way, as far as I can tell, many if not most untaught and self taught shooters settle for step 1 plus practice. Once they can make the gun go bang and sometimes hit paper, they're happy enough to just keep doing that. When we get those guys into a class, they're often shocked at how much better they can be and how much wider the field is of things they could learn.

pax

 

[Microgunner]

But even those shooters who don't consciously push themselves toward higher fire rates will still shoot faster as they become more comfortable and repeat the drill enough times.

Agreed, I believe we're on the same page, just looking at it from slightly different angles.

 

[Frank Ettin]

Speed isn't a natural byproduct; it has to be deliberately fostered.

I disagree. When beginning a new skill accuracy is the goal If I were learning to knit I'd begin very slowly concentrating on correct technic . As my skill improves so will my speed.
Practicing marksmanship (trigger control, sight picture etc) is fostering speed. IMO.

I'll go with pax on this. IME on this subject she knows what she is talking about. But you're probably not all that far apart.

Here's an excellent post by pax on the subject in a thread focusing on increasing speed while retaining accuracy:

I get the gun back on target quickly enough but it takes too long for me to reacquire my sight picture. I have to let the sights "settle" longer than I'd like. Typically, is this a grip issue? Stance?

Typically, it's a confidence issue more than anything else. As long as you have a secure grip (aren't letting go with your non-dom hand after every shot, don't need to readjust your grip all the time), and as long as you are snapping the gun back to the target quickly to manage the recoil, then your delay is almost certainly a confidence thing.

If you've gotten in the habit of waiting for and then "snatching" a magic moment when everything is absolutely perfect, it can actually slow you down even though each individual shot will feel fast. Instead, what you need to do is accept the slight wobble in your sights, accept imperfection while continuing to realign the sights through the wobble, and press the trigger smoothly.

Here's one of my favorite learning to go faster drills: http://www.corneredcat.com/the-speed-up-drill/

It's good because it improves both speed and trigger control. Too many go-fast drills teach one while destroying the other.

pax

And some more good advice from pax in the same thread:

After you have learned good trigger control and are using an extremely consistent grip & shooting technique, then you can start playing around with how much of the sights you need to see.

Until you have learned good trigger control, playing around with sight / no sight / partial sight pictures is just wasting good ammunition.

After you have learned good trigger control at fast speeds, that's when the other stuff comes in.

Crawl, walk, run, run faster. You can bypass the crawl & walk stages and even travel really fast by jumping off a cliff and flapping your arms a lot, but that probably won't get you where you want to go in the shape you want to be when you get there.

pax

Let's look at how humans learn a physical skill.

• In learning a physical skill, we all go through a four step process:
  
  
  • unconscious incompetence, we can't do something and we don't even know how to do it;
    
    
  • conscious incompetence, we can't physically do something even though we know in our mind how to do it;
    
    
  • conscious competence, we know how to do something but can only do it right if we concentrate on doing it properly; and
    
    
  • unconscious competence, at this final stage we know how to do something and can do it reflexively (as second nature) on demand without having to think about it.
  
  
• To get to the third stage, you need to think through the physical task consciously in order to do it perfectly. You need to start slow; one must walk before he can run. The key here is going slow so that you can perform each repetition properly and smoothly. Don't try to be fast. Try to be smooth. Now here's the kicker: slow is smooth and smooth is fast. You are trying to program your body to perform each of the components of the task properly and efficiently. As the programing takes, you get smoother; and as you get smoother you get more efficient and more sure.
  
  
• I have in fact seen this over and over, both in the classes I've been in and with students that I've helped train. Start slow, consciously doing the physical act smoothly, and soon you will have reached the stage of conscious competence. You can do something properly and well as long as you think about it.
  
  
• To go from conscious competence to the final stage, unconscious competence, is usually thought to take around 5,000 good repetitions. The good news is that dry practice will count. The bad news is that poor repetitions don't count and can set you back. You need to work at this to get good.
  
  
• If one has reached the stage of unconscious competence as far as trigger control is concerned, he will be able to consistently execute a proper, controlled trigger press quickly and without conscious thought.
  
  
• And as you proceed from conscious competence to unconscious competence you will be able to go faster without a deterioration of result. But to make the most of your increased skill, you will need to push yourself.
  
  
• In other words, as your facility at a task increases you will be able to do it faster. But to really get faster you must work at it and push yourself.
  
  
• pax' "speed-up drill" is very good for that purpose.

 

[1-DAB]

Good stuff. I'll have to try that drill next time I hit the range.

 

[K_Mac]

An interesting and informative discussion. As my skills have improved my ability to shoot accurately faster has also improved. As usual I find Pax to be the clear voice that only comes from much experience teaching. This statement absolutely describes my experience regarding shooting fast:

They won't, however, move anywhere near as fast as they're actually capable of moving. That type of speed only comes with deliberate effort.

Great fundamental skills are indispensable but speed has to be learned and practiced. Many skilled handgun shooters find it very difficult to adjust to not having the time to pay meticulous attention to every detail when shooting quickly. That is a mind-set that has to be ingrained by doing I believe.