Thinking Man's Corner

Article by: William G.

Speed kills? Sometimes. Going too fast can mean missing the target completely, shooting an aggressor that ceased being a threat two shots ago because you were going too fast, shooting too soon, mistaken identity, on and on. Going too slow can get you, your partner, or an uninvolved party killed. Where is the balance?

You have to have a sub second draw, or you will get beat! Beat by who, at what, under what circumstances? Can you perform a sub 1 second draw to first shot (fight stopping hit), from a retention holster, if you are: ambushed in your car, having the first clue you are in a gunfight being hit by a load of buckshot and having to draw weak hand from the ground, while you are moving in front of a woman holding a child to shield her from a drunken spouse with a knife? Show me proof of a sub 1 second draw to first hit, on the street, at 10 yards, on a well-lit day even if the person suspected imminent gun play. I will wait. Standing prepped in front of a known, stationary target, warmed up, primed and ready, is a completely different set of circumstances than how people function normally in the real world. The argument then becomes that even if a sub 1 second draw is not possible on the street, practicing it is beneficial because it makes you faster than you would have been otherwise. Ok. If you have the time and money to do that, go ahead, I don’t care. It is simply my humble opinion that there are so many other skills that are so much more important to work on.

In reality, you are doing good to get a 1.5 – 1.75 draw to first hit in an actual real-life violent encounter. You can mitigate the time lapse by incorporating movement into your draw. Move WHILE drawing. Work on things that are PRACTICAL and probable, not range ninja fantasy camp. Surely now, one of my detractors will bring up the 1 second standard put forth by Col. Jeff Cooper in the oh so long ago glory days of Orange Gunsite. Were you there? That was done with an open top holster, on a known test, after you had been practicing for days, or after you had gone through warm up exercises; and it was timed by a Tag Heuer stop watch. It was closer to 1.25 seconds. Well what about the standards now that they have turning targets? Have electric ear pro? I can hear when the button is pushed if the range master is close enough, and if not, I hear the system start before the targets turn. Can’t hear it, but have good vision? You can see the targets turn. They are facing for 1 second. So, you have around 1.25 seconds. Oh, yeah, remember that you know what is coming, unlike a surprise attack on the street. This is an impressive display of skill, under artificial conditions. Repetitive ability of high skill is a noble and necessary goal. Unrealistic expectations are dangerous, since they mostly just boost the ego under false assumption of artificial skill.

Can you do it cold, on demand, tired, injured, sick? Check out Ken Hackathorn’s “Wizard Drill.” 5 shots, 4 stages, 3 to 10 yards, all with a 2.5 second par. It’s the same for a Glock 47 with Acro from a kydex speed rig, on a warm spring day; or with a Charter Arms Bulldog in 44 Special, from under a heavy jacket and sweater, in the rain, while it is 30 degrees outside, you are wearing gloves, the sun has set, and you have a sinus infection. What is achievable under all conditions with any gun? Is this to say that a 2.5 second draw is ok and street survivable? No, but it may be. It is a baseline of realistic ability under any conditions. Being able to execute the Wizard Drill or the “Old Bakersfield Qual,” with a high success rate is much more realistic and practical than shooting something like the “F.A.S.T. drill” or “Elanor.” Leave the games for people who want to show off on the internet, and don’t waste precious time and ammo on things that are not realistic. I know I will be spat upon by the fan boys, and hear the cries of “those things build skills.” Sure, ok, maybe; but skills for what? And, again, what skills are most important for someone sworn to protect, uphold the law, and preserve life if at all possible? Shoot them for fun, occasionally if you want, but look at them for what they are, neat range tricks and not realistic fighting skills.

If we buy into the line of “peak human performance/reaction time” is around .25 second intervals, we first need to put that in context. What exactly are we reacting to? Is it a steel target on a pre-programmed “test” that you shoot over and over and over on a static range, and you KNOW what is about to happen? Is “.25 peak reaction” really valid on the street? No, not really. Looks and sounds cool to some, but it’s not real cool in front of a grand jury after you shot someone who didn’t need shooting, or shot more times than are justified.  Same thing with .15 second split times. But, but, but, you have to shoot them fast and until they aren’t a threat anymore, and you have to put lots of rounds in the bad guy so you can live! Maybe, under some very specific circumstances.

Let’s take a sacred moment to ground ourselves in oh so harsh reality. As a Peace Officer or private citizen in the continental United States of America, under non-occupied and normal conditions, you WILL be held responsible for every round you fire. You WILL have to articulate why your actions, and EACH bullet, were lawful and NECESSARY. FULL STOP. That means you have to actually make life altering, split second decisions, under situations that are tense, uncertain, and rapidly evolving; AND be able to plainly and clearly state why you did what you did. There are very, precious few that can process information, in situations that are not pre-known, in a quarter of a second – repeatedly. Want reality? You will be at .35 – .50 of a second for recallable, articulable decision processing and actions. Oh, and that is IF you practice a lot, have a ton of simulated experience, the right training, AND are not tired, wounded, or sick. If you don’t have the right training, skills, and abilities, you may be close to full 1 second splits.

Visual inputs are a slower stimulus than audible. What is the most likely cue to go to guns on the street? Oh, visual? Is all your training done off of a buzzer? If you use turning targets, are they all the same, and you have been told what and where to shoot, and how many rounds? See a problem? No, you don’t, because you were waiting to hear the buzzer…… There are timers now that have wireless hook up to a small device that will flash LED lights as a start signal. Now we are getting somewhere, kind of. We still have the predetermined targets that we know is a “threat.” You really need a partner to help you set up unknown scenarios with shoot and no shoot targets. Those targets really need to be reactionary as well. You know, where you don’t know if they will fall with chest, pelvic girdle, or head shots. Let’s throw a little more realism into it. Make the targets move, while you move, and put no shoots in front, besides, and behind them. Maybe throw in some partial targets and hard cover. Do that and tell me how your 2 second “Bill Drills” and “Elanor” works for you – under realistic street conditions. By the by, the above scenario can be set up with under $25 worth of material, and a little time. You just have to use your brain to figure it out, like you would if it were for real.

Ever went for a head shot on a failure drill, and shoot over the target, or scalp it instead of hitting the eye socket? Ever swung over to a second or tertiary target and shot before you got on the torso, or winged it? Going for a rapid pair to the upper torso and hit the top of the shoulder? If so, welcome to the club, I certainly have, and too many times to count at that. Why do we do this? We are “outrunning our headlights,” or essentially shooting blind because our hands are moving faster than our brains and eyes can process. It is a need for speed that somehow creeps up on us, and makes us push the limits. You kind of have to go through this in training, to see where you have to dial it down, so it doesn’t happen on the street. You have to take a micro second pause, ever so quickly, to confirm your sights or dot is where it needs to be, as stable as it needs to be, so that your bullet goes where it is supposed to go. If you think you should be faster, try refining your movements to remove any wasted motion. Set up 3 or 4 targets with 2 – 4 sticky notes (of different colors) on the targets (maybe even duplicate the color on a couple of them). Put numbers on the sticky notes. Keep it simple, to a degree, by using random numbers, but don’t go above the number 24. Now, take index cards, as many as you want. Write simple math equations on them. Some subtraction, some multiplication, some addition, some a combination. Some with two numbers, some with three. Not too much complication, just enough to make you think. Oh, and add a color to the end of the equation. (Ex. 7-3= ____ Blue, which would mean you would fire 4 shots onto the blue square. Only shoot the targets with the blue squares. Try to get all the hits on the squares, without cutting the edge or missing. This simple exercise gets you in the habit of thinking, looking to see, controlling your rate of fire, being responsible for your hits, and only shooting the threat the amount of times required.

We can add further complications to the above, by randomly loading magazines to force reloads, add dummy rounds to induce malfunctions, make the targets smaller, draw larger circles around the sticky notes to cause different tempos on different targets, put the targets at different angles, put no shoot targets in front of-beside-and behind the actual “threat” targets (forcing you to change your angle of fire to not get a shoot through, and forcing you to avert the muzzle when transitioning between targets – you remember those rules, right? Like Never Let The Muzzle Cover Anything You Are Not Fully Willing to Destroy, and Know Your Target And What Is Behind-In Front Of-And Behind It. Those simple little rules that actually mean something, and have devastating consequences when ignored or you think they don’t apply to you.)

Shoot fast, shoot unrealistic drills, see how fast you can go, enjoy yourself. Gain speed and accuracy, develop skills, push yourself. Nothing wrong with that, when in the proper context. Careful you don’t do this too much, or put too much stock into the games. I mention some of the above “speed” drills not to detract from their purpose, or take away from those that created them. My tone comes from watching far too many people go down a rabbit hole of shooting them over and over and over instead of practicing what is really beneficial in our lien of work. In fact, if you research them you will see that they were designed as cold drills to display certain skills, and aren’t recommended to be practiced repeatidly – they are the tying together of multiple abilities. So, my tongue in cheek, sometimes hostile tone is a cry to reality for those that do waste time and ammo on meaningless pursuits of inconsequential increments.

At some point, you have to reel everything back in, get back on track, and prepare for the serious business of gunfighting. Every shot you fire will be different from the last. Shoot fast enough to hit where you intend. Be deliberate, articulate, and lawful in your actions. Speed kills, but stillness is death, find your balance. Oh, and be careful punching the gas on a 1986 Porsche 930 Turbo, when you are going around a curve at night, so that you don’t outrun your headlights and end up with engine in the front. It takes close to a year to rebuild one of those, if insurance will cover it.