Train the Way You Fight
If you carry a concealed handgun, you need training. Not a state-mandated permit course — actual training from a qualified instructor who can teach you the skills necessary to not simply shoot, but fight with a handgun. Sure, gun owners with the most rudimentary of shooting skills somehow manage to survive life-threatening attacks all the time, but it’s not because using a gun effectively under extreme stress is easy.
“We don’t rise to the level of our expectations – we fall to the level of our training.” – Archilochus
If you want to carry a gun for self-defense, you’ll need to expand your skillset past casually blasting away at a bullseye on a square range. A big part of that skillset is learning how to shoot faster with some semblance of accuracy. The best way to learn that is to… get some training.
Sorry, there’s no way around it.
But until you can arrange for that to happen, here are a few tips that will help get you pointed in the right direction.
Applying the Fundamentals to Shoot Faster
You can’t go fast until you have a solid grip, stance, and a good grasp of the other fundamentals of handgun shooting. These will look slightly different from one instructor to the next, but the core principles are the same. I don’t claim to be any kind of speed shooting expert myself, but I have had the benefit of learning a variety of handgun skills from some excellent teachers. In this video, I demonstrate the way I was taught the basic building blocks of handgun shooting for self-defense, which are crucial for building up speed:
One more quick note about the grip. If you have a good grip, the gun should be snapping right back into place after each shot, and you also shouldn’t have to adjust your grip in between shots. If your gun is too big or too small for your hands or it has too much recoil for you, it might be really tough to make that work.
That’s one of the reasons I almost always recommend a 9mm for less experienced shooters. A full size or maybe a compact 9mm with adjustable backstraps tends to work really well for most people, especially when they’re first learning how to use a good grip to effectively manage recoil.
Speeding Up
Once you have a grasp of the fundamentals, you can try adding speed. How do you know if you understand the basics? Well, unless you have a coach to observe you, sometimes you don’t know for sure until you try to add speed and things just fall apart. But one litmus test you can try is to set up a small target like a 3×5 card at 7-yards. If you can’t hit it on demand about 95% of the time with no time constraint, you need to keep working before you try to go faster.
If that kind of accuracy is easy for you, then you can use that same 3×5 card to start working on follow through. The next video explains how to build on that to start developing speed.
It’s worth mentioning that the traditional form of the Bill Drill involves drawing from the holster rather than from the ready position, but as long as you’re timing yourself and measuring your progress, the drill can work either way.
Like I said before, I’m not an expert speed shooter and I’m not out winning awards at this stuff, but I’m fortunate enough to get a decent amount of trigger time to keep my skills intact. On a good day, shooting Bill Drills at 7 yards, I’ll usually average quarter second splits in between shots. That’s not bad, but it’s a place where a lot of shooters plateau unless they’re getting in consistent, focused practice at least a few times a month.
The Bill Drill is just one way to measure and build speed, and is great for focusing on recoil management and sight alignment. Be sure to change it up from time to time and use different drills to work on other aspects of shooting quickly like target transitions and reloads. Pistol-Training.com is one of my favorite places to pick up ideas for new drills.
One Piece of the Puzzle
Speed is an important part of developing your self-defense skillset, but it’s still just one part. There are plenty of other aspects to effective handgun use like draw stroke, shooting on the move, strong hand and weak hand only, and shooting from unconventional positions.
Also keep in mind that shooting itself is just one part of your larger self-defense strategy. Knowing when to shoot, and how to avoid the need for self-defense to begin with are just as important. Unfortunately, they’re not quite as fun to learn. But as cool as it is to be able to shoot fast, it’s really not a skill you ever want to be forced to put to use in the real world.
I found this informative .
DOJ certified firearms instructor. i start my students out with a bb pistol then too a 22Lr. once they have learned all the proper technics then we go to the range. only problem. Most shooting ranges will not allow rapid fire, or 1 shot per second. sucks, but i do it anyways and then deal with the range master.
One thing to remeber is shot placement. if you can use instictive shooting , you don't need to rapid fire at your perp. 2 shots to the chest is all you should need.
I enjoyed the article very much. Especially the videos. Very informative
I found this informative .
DOJ certified firearms instructor. i start my students out with a bb pistol then too a 22Lr. once they have learned all the proper technics then we go to the range. only problem. Most shooting ranges will not allow rapid fire, or 1 shot per second. sucks, but i do it anyways and then deal with the range master.
One thing to remeber is shot placement. if you can use instictive shooting , you don’t need to rapid fire at your perp. 2 shots to the chest is all you should need.
Yeah…BUT, under stress these two good chest hits are elusive so more is often better. I agree several slower but accurate shots beat the dickens outa really fast misses!
Claro Roge RETIRED VIETNAM ARMY RANGER , RECON. 1969-1971. DID A LOT OF KILLING ! IN COMBAT YOU NEED TO HIT YOUR TARGET WHILE MOVING. USED MY 1911 A LOT. DOING RECON MISSIONS WAS MOSTLLY AT NIGHT. CLOSE QUROTERS COMBAT. 2 QUICK SHOTS TO THE BODY ON THOSE LITTLE VIET KONG STOPPED THEM DEAD. I DON’T BELIEVE YOU NEED TO SHOOT FAST. YOU NEED TO BE ABLE TO TAKE OUT SEVERAL COMBATANTS RATHER THAN SHOOTING FAST AT ONE TARGET. YOU NEED TO SHOOT FAST AND HIT EACH TARGET AS FAST AS POSSIBLE. THE DAY I THOUGHT WAS MY TIME UP, I HAD 3 VIET KONG ATTACK ME. THEY WHERE TO CLOSE FOR MY M60, SO I HAD TO TAKE THEM OUT AS FAST AS I COULD. WELL, I’M STILL HERE TO TELL THE TALE. .
Did a lot of killin ‘Nam, huh? I know a fair number of combat vets and none of them talks about combat quite like you do.
And you never will hear that. “I don’t believe you need to shoot fast…you need to shoot fast”. Fascinating thought process.
I enjoyed the article very much. Especially the videos. Very informative
Yeah…BUT, under stress these two good chest hits are elusive so more is often better. I agree several slower but accurate shots beat the dickens outa really fast misses!
Excellent! Concise, to the point, no fluff, very good videos.
Excellent! Concise, to the point, no fluff, very good videos.
Thanks for the tips
Thanks for the tips
Claro Roge RETIRED VIETNAM ARMY RANGER , RECON. 1969-1971. DID A LOT OF KILLING ! IN COMBAT YOU NEED TO HIT YOUR TARGET WHILE MOVING. USED MY 1911 A LOT. DOING RECON MISSIONS WAS MOSTLLY AT NIGHT. CLOSE QUROTERS COMBAT. 2 QUICK SHOTS TO THE BODY ON THOSE LITTLE VIET KONG STOPPED THEM DEAD. I DON'T BELIEVE YOU NEED TO SHOOT FAST. YOU NEED TO BE ABLE TO TAKE OUT SEVERAL COMBATANTS RATHER THAN SHOOTING FAST AT ONE TARGET. YOU NEED TO SHOOT FAST AND HIT EACH TARGET AS FAST AS POSSIBLE. THE DAY I THOUGHT WAS MY TIME UP, I HAD 3 VIET KONG ATTACK ME. THEY WHERE TO CLOSE FOR MY M60, SO I HAD TO TAKE THEM OUT AS FAST AS I COULD. WELL, I'M STILL HERE TO TELL THE TALE. .
Great Info…Thanks for The Tips
Great Info…Thanks for The Tips
Thank you lucky gunner. We appreciate you kind and thoughtful instruction
Thank you lucky gunner. We appreciate you kind and thoughtful instruction
Excellent, thank you
Thanks for the video, can you show real life instances involving a gun.
Confidence is one of the biggest factors in speed. If you doubt or second guess what you are doing you’ll lose speed. This comes from repetition of course, but also mindset! When we train people on our target systems you can see a switch flip where they learn to not “over think” what they are doing and their their skills/mechanics take over. Typically their performance will increase rapidly from that point.
http://www.targetismoving.com
Informative videos
What’s that watch you are wearing? Nice. Great article
Citizen Eco-Drive BM8180-03E
This was really informative and these are good videos. Thanks!
I enjoy the articles! Keep producing them! Thought provoking and lots of good guidance – that I am looking for.
I did two tours in Viet Nam. I was in many places including Cambodia (the US was not supposed to be there but the CIA wanted to overthrow the government and destroy their economy) Never shot anyone with a handgun in combat. The comments about killin’ and two shots to the chest in the “little vietnamese” sound off the wall to me. Combat in war and civilian self defense are two entirely different things. If you apply combat tactics and mindset to civilian carry you will likely end up behind bars. Remember, in civilian carry you are under rule of law and shooting someone must be your last an only alternative to save your life or the life of someone else. The ability to think fast is more important than the ability to shoot fast. My brain kept me alive, not my weapons. If you’ve never been in gunfights, you cannot effetively train or prepare anyone for it. You simply cannot teach what you don’t know anything about. 55If you want training, find a combat veteran who will work with you.