I have been focused on performance shooting for almost 30 years now, and the training industry seems to be warming to the idea. Is that a good thing?
For over 40 years almost all high-level shooting technique and training has resulted from competition. IPSC kicked it off and then Steel Challenge, Bianchi Cup, Sportsmans Team Challenge and others contributed. Today, most of the highest-speed shooting comes from USPSA, but is it still relevant?
If you are an enthusiast who is going to put in a lot of time and effort to being the best shooter you can be, then I say have at it. If you have a job that requires you to carry a gun, more training and ability is better. If you are responsible for training other professionals, who are not going to put in the time and effort you do, maybe the latest and greatest techniques are not the way to go.
That may sound contradictory, or even deceptive, but I don’t think it is. I have absolute control over how much time and effort I spend on my shooting. I have almost no control over how much time and effort other people will spend. If my job is to train other professionals to win fights, and I know I only have a day or two a month to train them, I’m simply not going to have them work on the same things I work on. To be clear, I’m mostly talking about subtle differences, not major ones like weaver vs. isoceles, or something like that.
How much ammo and range time does a professional actually have each year? Looking at pistols, a basic LE position, in an agency that tries to do a decent job, usually looks like 12 actual shooting hours a year and maybe 800-1000 rounds. That’s actual time spent shooting, not how many days or hours are allotted for training. That 12-hour figure is based on 4 range days a year.
A good SWAT team is going to be closer to 72 hours a year of actual shooting (not counting CQB time and whatnot). That is going to look like somewhere around 5000 rounds a year. A top-level full-time unit may look more like four to six times that much. There are certainly exceptions that train more but they are EXCEPTIONS. Many actually train less than the numbers I have presented.
What does a high-level competition shooter look like in comparison? Anywhere from 8 hours a week to 30 hours or more. That’s 382 hours up to a whopping 1440 hours a year. Not including dry fire time. Ammo consumption from a low of about 50,000 rounds a year to four times that much. If you think these disparate groups of people are all best served with the same type of training…
An example or two may help here. My grip is a fluid thing. I know how much pressure to apply to get the results I want for a given shot. If I want to play with a relaxed shooting hand and a firm support hand, I can do so. The guy shooting 72 hours a year cannot do that. Instead, I would teach them to grip the gun about as firmly as they can, while still being able to articulate their trigger finger independently.
This may not get them to win a sporting championship, but that’s not what they are trying to do. It will get them solid hits at real-world times while minimizing gun issues. What do I mean by gun issues? Fights seem to feature way more malfunctions than range training does. Part of this is the training itself (subpar in many cases), and part of this is the fog of war. Friction and stress combine with lack of ability to cause normally reliable weapons to malfunction. That is a simplification, but it should do for our purposes. If they decide one day that they want to be better, then they can play around with other stuff on their own time.
If we have those same 72 hours to train, I’m not going to spend much time at all working on things like shooting in and out of a position. Can that be helpful in CQB or some other situation? Sure, but the return is not worth the time in this instance. Again, if they decide they want to get better at that sort of stuff, I’m happy to work on it with them offline.
When you have a limited amount of time and attention from your professional group, you focus on the basics. Things that have been proven to win fights from the beginning. Combat marksmanship featuring a solid grip, a decent stance, and the ability to make acceptable decisions under stress. How you get there is much less important than simply getting there. Getting there is hard enough but completely doable. Let’s not complicate it by trying to get them to shoot faster than they can get solid hits on real-world targets. That is best left to the individual who understands their limitations and wants to push them out. I assume that includes most of the readership here, but probably not the people we are responsible for training.
As TLG would say, “train hard and stay safe.”
I really appreciate your comments. Perspective can be difficult at times. Knowing the goal is paramount, the process may vary. For most, learning not to outrun your headlights would be a good idea. One learns that by going too fast, fixing the dings, then backing off. What and where you drive may be the determining factor. Perspective.
import perspective, if you are even a modest shooting enthusiast you are aware of how much time competitive shooters spend on the range and in ammunition burned up. I have several friends in local and state law enforcement, they don’t spend even one tenth of the firing time that a hobbyist will shoot. The State police here will only shoot about 400 rounds of pistol a year and 100 rounds of rifle a year in training rounds and then some of them will keep the rounds to stockpile and shoot even less during the year. My of my closest friends is a state Trooper (he is about 20 years younger than me) I am able to out shoot him in every aspect without effort, as I learned about his training, I began to understand why. Another retired LE friend was the TRT team captain for East St. Louis, his firearm handling skills are much different, but this was all self motivated and self taught, I would want JJ along side in any fight in life, he is also a self taught scholar in the principles of our founding fathers
While I appreciate all of you articles and thoughts, this has to be my favorite. I have had this exact conversation with a lot of guys that just don’t understand it. I’ve seen training at the range with people who qual 4 times a year and maybe shoot once or twice, and they are focused on jumping out of their car and engaging from awkward positions when they can’t shoot a group at 7 yards. Has never made sense to me. Thank you for the write up.
Mr SLG,
I have a group thread with some gunsmith buddies of mine. Today we were discussing the 5 Shot SME holster and I mentioned why TLG was embossed on them. One of my buddies, an experienced police officer, mentioned how Todd got him to take his training seriously and what an inspiration he was to hm. This was profound to me, particularly in a profession that may save a life one day. I have always taken my training seriously, but just wanted to thank you for carrying on Todds work and continuing to be an inspiration to many, myself included. Keep up the good work. Your passion for training and teaching is awesome and i can assume often times thankless.
Thank you very much! It is rewarding to hear how Todd affected people in and out of our business.
Everyone has a different schedule, responsibilities, finances, etc. You either have the time, or you don’t. Competitive shooting USED to be for folks with LIMITED time and money. You would win this month and maybe I would win next month. Unfortunately, it has become a ruthless crusade. For those that can enjoy it, drive on.
I can’t disagree, but when more people discover a thing, the bar rises. If it wasn’t for the crusaders we would not know what we know today about techniques and training methods. Because of them, we all have the opportunity to shoot better if we want to.
My point is that people always speak of the “shooting community” and “friendly competition”, and I just haven’t seen that. Maybe in Topeka, Davenport, or Skokie, but nowhere near to where I live.