First target is a 3×5″ card that is obscured by the “car” window and also has a “no shoot” hostage right in front of it with a potential 20-second penalty if it gets hit.
Second target is a full torso as seen through the same “car” window.
Third and fourth targets are wide open.
The phrase see what you need to see gets thrown around a lot by shooters. It’s especially common among competition shooters because they tend to spend more time practicing transitions between different size and/or distance targets at speed. On its face it’s not a terribly difficult concept: spend the time and effort necessary to get a good enough sight picture, but no more than that.
For a single target, that means shooting at the speed your eyes tell you is appropriate instead of shooting at a pre-determined rhythm. For multiple targets of varying difficulty, it requires you to change gears and speed up or slow down your shooting depending on the shot you’re taking right now. If you don’t, you’ll either (1) shoot the difficult targets too fast and miss or (2) shoot the easy targets too slowly and waste time.
Without intending to, this stage we set up for last month’s KSTG match did an excellent job at testing that ability. Watch and listen not only to the split in between shots on one target but the time it takes to acquire and settle the sights for the first shot on each target. As the challenge goes from that first disaster-factor target to the easy unobstructed ones, the acceptable margins of error for sights and trigger both widen considerably.
The easiest way to practice changing gears is to set up targets at varying distances on the range. For folks like me who do most of their practice on a single lane of a public range, drills like 3-Two-1 and 26662 are my favorites for reinforcing the ability to modulate speed based on the amount of accuracy necessary from target to target and shot to shot.
Just see what you need to see…
Train hard & stay safe! ToddG
Thanks for the post and drill links, TG. One thing I’ve wanted to ask on your drills is about how you would score at your classes. Does a bullet hole have to be completely within the line to count as a “hit”?
NWG — It depends on the drill. For example, Triple Nickel requires the full bullet diameter inside the line according to the guys who developed it. For most drills, though, I follow the traditional bullseye/IPSC/IDPA rule that any shot breaking the line scores.
If you count breaking the line, you give a slight benefit to larger caliber bullets. If you don’t count them, you slightly penalize larger calibers.
Many thanks