Follow up shots?

B

baddarryl

New member
I recently saw a video of me in an IDPA match and couldn't believe how slow I was with follow up shots. Feels so much faster in real life. I usually end up in the top 30% percent of all shooters in our local matches. My accuracy is there, but not my speed. Not even close to the experts. Part of this is my draw, but also follow up shots. I use my sights heavily to be accurate. How to I pick up the speed of my follow up shots and keep my accuracy? Thanks.

Here is the video. The 9 shots on the left are timed against a swinging 'no hit' so it is not really reflective, but the final 9 shots on the right are. They were at about 20 yards I guess.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BwJUB7DbDqI
 
That seemed adequate shot speed for the swinger and what appeared to be > 20 yard shots on the right side. There looks like room for improvement on your reload speed. I would also suggest putting some sort of weight (empty mag) on the bottom fronts of your vest so you can swing them out of the way easier on the draw. What was your time and points down on that stage?
 
Other than getting tangled up in your cover garment and flubbing the reload a bit, your shooting isn't bad at all.
If you want to be able to shoot as fast and accurately as the experts, just practice morning, noon and night, with tens of thousands rounds going down range each year.
Nothing to it.
 
I think your shooting was done at a decent rate of fire. It is not world class, but I am guessing you don't shoot 10,000-25,000 rounds a year as a primary job. Your emphasis should be more on accuracy and not speed at 20 yards. You are not doing yourself any good if you are out racing your ability to get good hits. You seem to have a good balance of speed and accuracy. Now if you have a stage with multiple targets, that are both near and far, you have to find the proper balance. In other words if you distant target is first you have to slow down enough to get good hits, but don't let that tempo carry over to the closer target. This will help times on a stage.
 
Thanks guys. That is just about all the shooting I really do. Once a month IDPA and maybe hit the static range once or twice more. 200 rounds a month max. I don't necessarily race and do put accuracy as priority, but the competitive side of me does come out so I naturally want to be faster! I am going to get a faster holster. That is a cheap leather one that is squeezed by the belt and I will look into the vest tip. I do remember reloading on that stage and double checking before releasing the slide for some reason.

IAMDB- I am looking at the scores and I can't remember the stage number. I was either 10th place or 16th overall for the stage with 32 shooters.
Thanks again.
 
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Other than what has been posted you did fine. Speed will come, however, it is more important at this stage to practice, perfect movements, once you are smooth speed will come somewhat automatically. You can dry load to practice that as well as your presentation. Your 9 shots took about 9 seconds. Depending on your score, that is fine.

A new IDPA rule, I don't know when it will take effect, but, it will cost 1 second for every point down instead of .5 second. there will be some crying at the range...... I am not the fastest shot either, I just try not to miss.
 
Even the expert will slow down with age. Speed is for the young, and speed is only for the moment. I no longer compete in time trials, but rather take my time and shoot for accuracy. All those trophies I have mean nothing to nobody but me, and will get thrown out after I am dead and gone.
 
I think where I am coming from is that if I ever needed to engage (God for id) someone I would want to drop 3 in the zone as fast and accurately as possible. Bang, bang, bang. Maybe I have watched too much Hollywood movies, but man some of the guys at the range sure can rattle them off.
 
10 + years of comp shooting will do that for you. Just make sure you push yourself. Don't let yourself stay comfortable for too long. If your making 95% of your shots speed up a bit. If you only making 75% of your shot, slow down a bit. Alot of time can be made up improving your draw, reloads, and moving to position faster. Also, try to stay with ammo close to the minimum power factor for your class. That can give you a slight edge. I like to run practices with hot ammo, then use light loads for comp. It almost feels like your cheating.
 
While the top shooters can actually hose with .11-.13 shot splits, that's far from common. We had a professionaly made video of our IDPA state championship some years ago, and each stage included an on-screen shot timer. You could follow the splits and transitions for every shooter, and splits of .25 second is very common for people expecting to drop few points.
We also had a stage that was designed to time reloads. Fire a shot, reload, fire a shot, for the three reloads defined by IDPA. Most people seem to think that reloading is a two- or three-second exercise, but retention reloads were averaging six or seven seconds.
I find that when I'm shooting, everything seems really slow, but when I see myself on video, I'm surprised by how fast it appears.
 
For as much as you shoot you're a good shot and more importantly a safe one. Practice trigger reset and mag changes. Put everything at the the same position on your belt so you need not search for it. Soon it will become a natural act to draw, shoot and change mags quickly.
 
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