Quick Draw with Accuracy

4

45Gunner

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Four friends have kicked in just over $100 a piece to purchase a Target Tree. Our initial plan is to utilize it at our private range to build a combination of speed and marksmanship. All of us shoot 1911's so the plan is to practice emergency reloads during the course of competitive shooting against fellow team members. For those that don't shoot 1911's, our magazines hold either 7 or 8 rounds.
All drills begin from the holster.

Have you utilized a Target Tree to build skills and if so, how creative have you become in devising drills to use it to maximum utilization? Can you share those drills?

Have you found other methods to train which promote accuracy and speed other than just shooting at paper targets against a stop watch?

(FYI, we all carry the 1911 concealed which is why we train so diligently with it.)
 
A dueling tree can be frustrating, but fun if you shoot man-on-man.

Of course, caution is required. Keeping your finger out of the trigger guard until the gun is on target is key.

Our dueling tree had six targets, so we'd set it with three on the left, three on the right. First to clear their side wins.
 
You can also start with all the targets on one side and see who can hit them and make them swing to the other side the fastest.

Another drill doesn't include the tree, but it's very challenging:
Two targets, preferably reactive steel, but cardboard will do, set right and left, at the full width of the range.
Shoot one, then swing over to the other, and back to the first, then back to the second.
Try it with one round each, then two rounds, then three rounds, reload as needed.
It sounds simple but it will get your heart thumping, especially if the range is very wide.
 
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Are we talking about a dueling tree here because if we are there is pretty much no end to the fun you can have or the training drills you can dream up.Let me know if that's what you have and I will be glad to list some of the more popular and useful things do be done.
 
If you are not practicing good fundamentals you are wasting ammo. Speed draws require you to pick up the front sight quickly and them possibly break the shot before fully extending your arms. But it's all about the front sight. If you are practicing man on man you will be focusing on beating your opponent and that's not the fundamentals. When drawing the pistol work on motion that gets the front sight in your sight plane as quickly as possible, it will naturally move toward the target, when you see it in the sight picture break the shot. I think paper is better to start with or a large steel. With a dueling post you won't know where your misses are.
 
The size of the plates on a dueling tree make for rapid draw, and hits, difficult.

Get too close, bits of lead can hurt! Rapid deployment of a fighting pistol, is a man sized target game.

But it can still work, just a fraction more time to align the front sight is required. Clear the holster, point the muzzle at the target, from the holster, pick up the weak hand just in front of the body, drive the now held in two hands pistol to eye level, compress the trigger as full extension is obtained.

The draw is a punch forward, not a lift to the eye.
 
Compared to the number of gun owners who do shoot their guns, the number who will go to an organized match is very small.
Matches are only offered at a particular time and place, and most people just never do it.
Getting together with a few friends, or even going to the range alone, is far more likely to happen.
 
I have to agree with Kraig- get thee to an organized match. Yes, it's intimidating as a first timer. Yes, you'll find out you aren't as good as you thought you were. Yes, you'll have more fun that you though was possible.
 
The most benefit from shooting a match, as in IDPA, is using the gun you carry, daily, concealed the way you do, normal dress of the day, going about your normal daily routine.

The problem with that, you find that the top shots do not do that. So if you want to do well (the natural human endeavor) your carry pistol becomes a Glock 34 for instance. An 8" slide does not lend itself to easy concealment!

The holster is not the one you carry daily either.

If you use your standard carry pistol, in my case a Glock 19, with TruGlo sights, extended slide release, in a Glock cheap plastic holster (conceals really well) then your cover shirt, jacket, vest, be something that lends itself to a match, because you are on an organized range.

But yet something that you could stop for lunch wearing, on the way home.

If you are going to use an IDPA, for instance, match as training (I know many Instructors say this is not training) but drawing from your carry holster, shooting on the move, from cover. Is as close as it's going to get.

The rules, reference capacity, is due to the average capacity allowed (at one time) was 10 rounds. But due to the fact you are not given a heads up in a gunfight, if you inadvertently end up in one! Carrying a pistol with at least a 15round magazine capacity, is not a bad idea. MORE IS BETTER, ALWAYS.

In fact a spare, go to magazine, a Glock 17 one, does not take up to much space. So pistol in same place, magazines in same place, and (I believe) the same pistol you carry, a gun game, can be good fun, and certainly better training than standing on a square range, shooting at a round black target.

My own reason from changing from a 1911 Colt45, in USPSA, and going to a Glock 17, back in 1984. I missed the safety catch in a big match!

Just once in many hundreds of draw and fire sequences. Now thousands.

A big plus in the action sports, the competitors are nice people to spend 4 or 5 hours with on a weekend.
 
Put a wall between the two contestants.

Most people recommend working on a smooth draw instead of a fast one. That's what I found to be true.
 
You can build speed on the draw by dry-firing at home. Break the sequence into its component moves and then work on transitioning into a flowing motion. Initiating yourself, you should be able get a hit at seven yards in about 0.9 seconds, +/- 0. (Old days; leather holster. Front-break holsters are faster.)

Same for speed reloads. We had a couch as a room divider; I'd stand behind it and practice. (No damage to mag lips.) You can get down to around one second.
 
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