Jeff's latest:



Very interesting to hear his perspective.  I've heard cops say the exact same thing about their first matches... before the match they thought they were awesome and got completely crushed.  It can be a humbling experience, but my advice for the average shooter (who is safe and understands the fundamentals of marksmanship) is to go and stick with it.  Complete at least 10 stages of fire (which would be a couple of matches).  You will learn a ton.

I took my carry pistol (at the time a compact .380ACP) to my first match (IDPA 2002) and did fine with accuracy, but was shocked at how quickly everyone else shot.  While continuing to compete, without formal training I got a lot faster... but was still slow compared to the winners.  Over time the competition drove me to get more training from master class shooters and others.  I tried a lot of different competitions (outlaw USPSA, 2-gun, steel, biathlons) and in the military got to try military style competitions (where everyone uses MILSPEC equipment and ammo).  It did leave me a little bit lost as to "what is good enough".  Do I need to be Master Class or a USPSA Grandmaster to be good enough?  Did winning Army EIC really make me top dog?  Every year top competitors try to get better and better... the competitive scale isn't absolute... it is relative.  

One of the more interesting finds in my search for "good enough" was this:
The real risks during deadly police shootouts: Accuracy of the naive shooter

This study shows that LE training isn't really all that good, but also that novice shooters had 75% hit accuracy on distances from 3 to 15 ft. and tended to aim for the head.  Additional research has shown that they tend to use point shooting and split times are .25 seconds.  That should be very concerning to conventionally trained shooters who aim center mass and whose qualifications involve shooting at a much, much slower pace.

Recent Army research has shown that there is a point of diminishing returns on training.  The study shows that for the best results you really should shoot at least to a USPSA Class C.  A lot of properly structured training programs will get you to Class C.  The study shows Class B is better and beyond Class B is the point of no measurable return on the 2-way range.  

Dave "Boon" Benton has a great discussion of training progression here.  He indicates that for marksmanship validation "you must be "unconsciously" competent in weapons manipulations before you even consider moving on to Phase 2. Being unconsciously competent means you do not have to think in order to react and perform the tasks – you can do it in the dark, on the run or anywhere without a thought."  

A combination of formal training and competition is a great way to get there and competition can be a great motivator for getting there.  Most shooters don't really know what they don't know and competition can expose them to the reality.  I think competition is at its best when it is affordable and encourages training and high standards.

But as Jeff says, competition doesn't teach tactics.  Jeff alludes to the fact that competition also often doesn't include physical stressors (carrying, lifting, climbing, distance running).  I would add competition doesn't include return fire.

So competition can be a pathway to improvement for most.  Competition is worthy for soldiers (who already have training on tactics, fitness, medical, Force-on-Force etc) to compete to improve their speed, accuracy, and gun handling.  

But if you are a civilian Master or Grandmaster who is interested in self-defense or needs firearms skills for the job...it's really a mistake to assume you are "king of the world" or to spend every spare moment on competition while neglecting other important training modalities.  

Besides concerns about training scars, what most puts me off of competition is that I witnessed many "gamers" at local matches make handloads with minimal powder and modify their pistols with questionably safe triggers and light springs to handle their home brew subsonic competition loads.  I shoot a lot faster without recoil too, but why would it even matter?  

Also solid instructors like Paul Howe already train their students to standards roughly equivalent to USPSA Class B... so there are other pathways to getting your speed, accuracy, and gun handling to where it should be.

This needs to be in GD

Have not seen the video.  I took a class with Frank Proctor who related how he had been a Green Beret who taught other Green Berets how to shoot.  He heard about local civilian competitions, ignored them for a bit then went to see.  He saw that they were doing things which he didn't even know was possible.

Interesting,  but at what range (ie, distance) does that advantage wash out?  

As in, if I shoot a bad guy at 10 yards with 0.2 splits, can I keep that pace and accuracy at 200?  Does it even matter (esp if target is moving and cover available)?

IME (very limited), most of these matches are 35 yards and closer... where time probably matters A LOT.

And good points about tactics,  especially team tactics.

Thank goodness this isn't in GD.

FWIW - I'm head up the Quantico Shooting Club and oversee the monthly USPSA, SCSA, PRS and multi-gun (PCSL) matches. Most of our shooters are civilians and retired military. We do have regular competitors from the USMC Shooting Team as well as Navy and USAF team shooters. We get local law enforcement teams, some FBI, operators from Chesapeake and Rangers from the local Forts. The results, with the exception of the military team members who regularly attend, mirror what Gerwich is stating. I see lots of testosterone in the beginning but the finals results usually have them mid-pack, but with eyes wide open and a list of things to improve. Understandably situations differ and they're shooting as an individual versus in a team, but those who stick with it and practice show noticeable improvements. One of the previous Weapons Battalion commanders started shooting USPSA with his issued .45. His first match was full of frustrations but now, two years later, he's incredible with that single stack.

Excellent questions.  In the end it's better not to be shot than to get a perfect hit so I place a premium on using cover and if I don't have cover using movement to my advantage.  Proper use of cover,  movement, and surprise is where most people go wrong in fights.  Paul Howe said everybody he saw get hit in combat was standing still out in the open.

Ben Stoeger went on record saying these days he only shoots target focused (both irons and dot) and therefore his iron sights are blurry at 25 yards.  He slows down his trigger pull a bit as distance increases.  Apparently that is enough to get A-zone hits at 25 yards.  But the bullseye crowd has been competitive for a long long time and I know I use a front sight focus (irons) when trying to hit the X-ring on a bullseye.  I am iron sight front sight focused at 40-50 yards on silhouettes.  I see distance work more similar to bullseye shooting.

But close in speed matters.  I found I could out-shoot dot guys at 3 yards and in with point shooting.  

At a recent class I did livefire man-vs-man draw from concealment and shoot (side by side) at a 2 arm length distance (conversation distance).  We were both facing a silhouette, but reading each other to see when it was "GO TIME".  One dude was not practiced in his concealed draw and was so slow I could put a shot in the upper thoracic before he could get his pistol all the way out of the holster.  Another dude was more practiced and carried his Glock appendix... but I always beat him.  A third guy had an optic on his appendix carry Glock and clearly practiced a lot... I struggled to keep up with him if he started first, but if I started first I beat him.  I'd prefer to move while drawing and shooting (which was the point of the exercise), but it shows that being slow close in is a bad thing.

Paul Howe talks briefly about the development of his combat standards.  Competition shooters influencing special ops training is nothing new.  Paul trained with John Shaw ("World's best 3-gun shooter") back in the day:



Paul's standards might have been inspired by Shaw's MidSouth, but went through an iterative process where the results from combat operations resulted in changes, which were then trained and evaluated again during subsequent combat operations... resulting in more changes and further refinement of training/combat/evaluation.

Good stuff

Spot on.

I've seen many cops leave a USPSA/IPSC match with tail between legs and fragile ago crushed.

[butthurt] ".... IPSC will get you killed on the street"

In a few months Im going to do a part II
Where I cover the mostly civilian competitive shooters
That SF hired to train SF guys to shoot better.

Attached File

Nonsense... We've been assured that "shooting games" and the LPVOs that dominate them are not suitable training for real combat or SHTF scenarios and if you don't have an ACOG/RMR optic on your rifle then you can't operate operationally.

Cops are the same way

I started shooting competitions before I started in law enforcement 28+ years ago.

Humbling experience to this day but I still try to hit a match 2-3 times a year.

This is the reality that should be trained for:

New Tests Show Deadly Accuracy & Startling Speed Even Inexperienced Shooters Can Achieve in Shooting Cops

“Training that is focused on accuracy first and speed second is not going to cut it” in preparing officers for the realities of a gunfight, he told FSN. The emphasis needs to be on developing “relevant speed, especially at close distances, combined with precision shooting.” That life-saving blend is possible to achieve, but it requires specialized instruction that goes far beyond mere qualification shooting and, being a perishable skill, it demands continual reinforcement.

This is so true. During my time accuracy was often the sole thing emphasized during marksmanship training in SF.
The result guys could not truly shoot well under pressure. Like in CQB in live fire training, you would see mediocre accuracy when students tried to move fast through the house.
They just could not get the balance down right between speed and accuracy.

Sure, on the flat range at their own speed, they could keyhole targets, but once under pressure many could not hang.

One other advantage to competition is that competitions involve using a variety of skills in each stage.  Current Army research suggests that being able to execute skill-to-skill-to-skill such as what is seen the FAST Drill (Draw from holster, shoot, reload, shoot) correlates well with actual performance under pressure.  

I was never a big fan of the FAST Drill until I heard the research results as FAST always seemed unrealistic to me.  It may be unrealistic, but it is a drill worth training.