It seems like everyone and their internet self has a sub-second draw these days. Part of me says “That’s awesome!”, and no doubt in part because there is much more info out there these days on how to train. TLG was certainly a major and relatively early online contributor to that body of knowledge and again, that’s great. But, do they really have a sub-second draw, or do they just think they do? And does it even matter?
If you can draw and hit a realistic target (open for discussion, but for me, that means the black of a B8 at 5 yards) in under one second from concealment, cold, then you have a sub-second draw. If you have to warm up or use a large target, then you do not actually have a sub-second draw. I do not have a sub-second draw. I know a couple of people who do, and they are top-level competitors. I can draw sub-second pretty easily, but only after I’m warm. Does it matter? Absolutely not.
Way more important than draw speed is situational awareness. Drawing from behind the curve is often a losing proposition. I have some experience with this, both positive and negative (thankfully no extra holes in me), and would prefer just positive next time.
Way more important than draw speed is coolness under pressure. Go to pieces and that speed will not save you.
Way more important than draw speed is hitting your target. Miss, and where does that speed get you?
Way more important than raw speed is a consistent grip and the resulting retention of the weapon it gives you. Drop your gun on the draw, or fumble it at too fast a speed and all may be for naught.
If I can have all of those things and also have blinding speed, I will happily take it. And you can have all of it if you are willing to put in the work. Serious work, and likely some natural ability as well. In my experience, there are only a very small handful of guys who will ever be able to say they have all of it. And when I say “small handful”, I’m talking about guys who I can count on one hand and have fingers left over. These are guys I have met and shot with over the course of the last 30 years, who can actually do all of the above. Rare is an understatement.
The nice thing though, is that you don’t need to be able to do all that to be successful at defending yourself, your community, or your country. The first four items though are where it’s at, and if you are missing one or more, that is the place to start shopping, rather than chasing the sub-second draw.
And by the way, none of the nation’s top police and military gunfighters who I have had the pleasure of training and working with had a sub-second draw. And none of them seemed to mind the lack of it.
I know we’ve discussed this topic many times.
I hear people telling me that they have a sub second draw all time, but can never actually verify it in person on the range, COLD.
As you said, situational awareness is much more important and being able to see, recognize, and react to a threat is what matters most.
The other thing I commonly see is people training for a sub second draw with either gun or blade and never moving off line. It makes no sense to stand directly in front of your threat when movement (if available to you) could be extremely advantageous to your outcome.
Couldn’t agree more, thanks for weighing in!
With regard to the sub second draw I saw online, the person started with their hands grasping the concealment garment.
Not realistic in my opinion.
Spot on. People treat draw speed as a goal or a gate to pass, but have no real idea what they are doing or why.
To me it’s always funny how people claiming to be under a second can never tell me how long the beep of their shot timer is. The go signal for them is the start of the beep but a shot timer only records after the beep. So by moving before the timer starts they are in essence in a race with you and taking off then saying “Go”. So alot of the time people are gaming their timers as others have mentioned here.
I am probably not familiar with all the timers out there today, but all of mine have always started recording time from the very start of the beep. There are courses of fire that that have fixed par times, and allow you the .3 of the beep to stop firing. An example would be a course of fire that has a 6 second par time, but you are ok as long as your last shot is within 6.3 seconds. It allows you the reaction time to stop shooting upon hearing the second beep. Is that what you mean?