As a new shooter, progressing from firing single shots to sustaining multiple shots while maintaining a solid grip and structure is crucial. This guide focuses on building that capability through structured drills and careful analysis.
Building Up to Multiple Rounds
To enhance your shooting skills, increase the set time limit to 2.5 or 3 seconds to accommodate firing multiple rounds — perhaps four rounds on target. This involves:
- Three sets with a one-second pause between each, totaling 12 rounds.
- Recording the session to analyze performance.
Set up in a position where your gun is centered on the target and visible to the camera. Start the drill by pressing start on the timer and proceed to fire four rounds on target.
Focusing on Grip and Technique
After firing the rounds, review your performance:
- First set: Fired only three rounds with a split of 16 and 20.
- Second set: Fired all four rounds — 1.99 seconds and a split of 20.
- Third set: Fired all four rounds — 2.09 seconds and a split of 21.
You may maintain the 20 and 9 split but notice shots starting to drop down, possibly due to driving the gun down too much. Focus on assessing grip stability by watching the video. Ensure there is no deviation in grip throughout the firing sequence.
Maintaining a solid grip is crucial, especially when firing multiple rounds. New shooters often lose their grip as they continue to fire. Using a 9mm, 124-grain round at about 1,100 feet per second — a relatively hot round — the grip should remain solid. With a good grip technique, the next focus is on shooting without disturbing the sight picture.
Recording Transitions
The next step is to record transitions. The objective is to fire one shot on each target, measuring movement between targets and how quickly the next shot can be placed accurately. The goal is to get good alphas on target by efficiently seeing the sights and moving from target to target.
As soon as the buzzer sounds:
- Fire one shot.
- Fire an additional shot on the next target — totaling two rounds on two different targets.
Observing and Improving Transitions
Upon reviewing the video, it becomes apparent that initially, the gun returns to recoil before moving to the second target. However, as you progress, there is noticeable improvement in maintaining a decent group on target. The gun begins to move immediately after the shot without waiting for the sights to return, which is a more efficient technique. The primary goal is to fire and transition to the next target promptly.
Once this concept is understood, you can introduce speed into your shooting while maintaining correct movement. Shots should remain in the alpha zone. The video review shows that as soon as the gun fires, it moves to the next target. Transition times improve from 0.30 seconds to 0.28 and then 0.27 seconds, indicating increasing speed without compromising accuracy.
Speed Shooting with Correct Movement
During this process, certain challenges are encountered. The slowest shot recorded was 0.30 seconds, where the gun traveled too far, adversely affecting accuracy. After making adjustments, both time was reduced and accuracy increased. Contrary to the common advice to slow down for accuracy, improving efficiency by moving the gun sooner actually leads to better accuracy and speed. Waiting causes overtravel and can result in shots being off-target, making the shooter less efficient and slower.
Common Mistake in Transitions
Many new shooters wait too long to transition after firing, leading to inefficiency. To illustrate this:
- Set up a drill with a slightly longer time limit (3 seconds).
- Fire four rounds — two quick shots on the first target, then two quick shots on the second — using a less efficient transition style.
- The rhythm sounds like “ta-ta” on target each time.
- Upon reviewing the video and timer:
- Overall times are 1.31 and 1.49 seconds.
- Transitions are 0.58 and 0.54 seconds.
Efficient Live Firing Technique
To improve:
- Tape up the targets and perform the drill again.
- Focus on shooting slower but transitioning more efficiently.
- The goal is to beat the previous fastest time of 1.31 seconds.
Set up the same way:
- Instead of shooting rapid splits of 0.17 seconds, shoot at a slower cadence (around 0.21 seconds).
- Focus on reducing transition time.
- The rhythm sounds like shooting one target with all four rounds — “ba-ba-ba-ba.”
Upon reviewing:
- Times improve to 1.06 and 1.08 seconds.
- Transition times reduce to 0.26 seconds.
- Although shooting slower, the overall time is faster due to efficient transitions.
- Accuracy is improved with tighter groupings on target.
Conclusion
In terms of efficiency, the goal is to shoot four rounds on two different targets as if shooting four rounds on one target. Achieving a consistent rate of fire with efficient transitions allows for maintaining tight groupings and improves the ability to process sights effectively. For beginners, focusing on this drill early on is crucial for developing important shooting skills.
