Chapter 13
BALANCE OF SPEED AND PRECISION
No matter how long you’ve been shooting, you’ve probably realized that to achieve greater precision - accuracy inside of a smaller area - you need to take more time. You also probably realize that if you shoot faster, taking less time, you’ll give up some precision. That’s the tradeoff in defensive shooting, and every situation has a different balance of speed and precision.
All defensive shooting (all shooting, really) is a balance of speed and precision, and always has been. I have hunting books written in the early 1960s where the author talks about this concept, so it’s not exactly new. Thinking about it and systematizing it is new, however, and I believe that the Combat Focus® Shooting program was the first to approach it in a very analytical manner. The Balance of Speed and Precision has become one of the core concepts in that program because it is so important to becoming a more efficient defensive shooter.
WHAT IS YOUR BALANCE?
The optimum balance of speed and precision for any situation will be determined by a combination of you, your attacker and your environment. Change one factor, and your balance of speed and precision - you at your most efficient - will change as well.
Even in an identical scenario, two different shooters will have different balances because they have different capabilities and levels of competency. Even your own balance will change from day to day (or even hour to hour) as your level of fatigue changes.
Inside of your environment there are a wide number of variables that affect your balance, and realistic training helps you to experience and understand those variables. The size of the target, your distance from the target, the conditions under which you shoot, and even your anticipation of the need to shoot all affect your balance of speed and precision.
The target dictates precision
The target, as we’ve already discussed at length in the previous chapter, dictates the precision needed. If it’s a paper target, the scoring or hit zones are predetermined; for an attacker, his physiology and his position relative to you dictate the precision you need to deliver.
The target determines the precision needed; you can’t change it, you can only recognize it.
Your job is to recognize the precision that the target dictates, but remember that you can’t change it. You could decide to shoot to a greater level of precision, but I hope you now understand that it’s inefficient (or even functionally impossible) for you to do so.
Your skill determines your hits
Your skill - or, more precisely, your application of your skill - determines whether you land the shots you need. In other words, your skill determines your accuracy.
No matter how good a shooter you are, there is always some variability between where you intended the shot to go and where it actually lands. Some people have more deviation between aim and hit than others, but everyone’s shots will deviate some. Controlling the amount of deviation will mean the difference between an accurate shot, one which hits within the target area, and one which doesn’t.
Your application of skill - such as controlling your muzzle deviation - determines whether you get the hits you need.
Deviation control is the mechanism by which you exercise your application of skill, and it takes both time and effort. The amount of deviation control you need also varies; a large target area in close demands less deviation control than a smaller target area which is further away. In cases where the precision needed is rather loose you can get away with less deviation control, which means that you can shoot faster. As more precision is needed you’ll be forced to apply more deviation control - more skill - if you are to land accurate shots. That is going to take more time.
What causes deviation? You might not have good alignment on the target. This can be due to using the alignment guides (sights) incorrectly or simply not having the gun in and parallel with your line of sight if not using them. You may not have mastered the trigger stroke, and instead of staying steady the muzzle moves off target as the trigger is compressed - or off target when the hand relaxes as the trigger is released. Some people blink just before the shot goes off, disrupting the visual contribution to alignment. A loose grasp can contribute to excessive deviation, and if you’re not solidly planted - feet not moving - when the shot breaks, or if you’re still in the process of extending, your deviation will increase.
To reduce deviation, you must apply your skills. A proper sight picture (where appropriate), better trigger control, a strong unwavering grasp, and making sure that you have a solid stance before you stroke the trigger are some of the ways to do that. On the practice range, this takes some concentration. The point of practicing is to develop the ability to apply the skills without having to think about it.
Your confidence determines your speed
It might seem odd that your confidence is in control of your speed, but it is. Confidence in your own abilities determines how fast you’ll shoot (unless you’re shooting out of panic).
I’m not referring to confidence in terms of your personality or emotional makeup; instead I refer to the correlation between what you think you can do and what you really can, which is a product of your training and practice.
Lots of people train under a specific set of circumstances constantly, never varying what they do to any significant degree - same targets, same distance, same stance, same everything - except trying to do it faster each time. This is the basis, in fact, for standards and benchmarks: an unvarying set of conditions under which objective measurements can be made.
This idea comes to us from the competition side of shooting, where sports medicine meets scoring rings. It is based on the belief that shooting is a purely physical or athletic activity that needs to be quantified. This works only as long as you can control the variables; since you can’t control the variables of an attack, this approach leads to an unrealistic understanding of your own limitations.
Let’s say that you train using a fixed course of fire. Since you’ve done it many times, you know that you can draw and fire two rounds on target in, say, 1.5 seconds. Remember: that’s when you know you’re going to shoot, you know the distance, you’re in a perfect stance, you know what your target is and where it is, and you’ve rehearsed the entire sequence in your mind.
Now do the same thing - only you’re at the bus stop holding your child’s hand and looking expectantly down the road when someone comes up behind you with a knife. You now have to process the threat through your mind, orient to the threat, fire more than two rounds, and instead of that nice Ruger GP100 range gun on your hip you’ve got one of the ultra-light Smith & Wesson Centennials loaded with hard-kicking +P rounds in your pocket.
What’s likely to happen? Your over-confidence and lack of realistic practice probably results in trying to draw and shoot at the same rate you do your phenomenal double-taps on the calm shooting range. Ever shoot a lightweight revolver too quickly? Then you know what happens to your deviation control: it usually gets very poor.
Understanding your actual ability will keep you from being under- or over-confident.
You’ll attempt to shoot too fast because you’ve not trained under conditions that you just experienced. The result is greater deviation (less accuracy), which, as we’ve already discussed, translates to being inefficient.
Being under-confident also stems from not training realistically - for instance, always using your sights in practice because you ‘can’ rather than you ‘need to.’ When the attack happens, you of course default to attempting to employ them, despite not really being able to (body reactions) or really needing to (target very close.) Between doubting your ability to shoot using the threat focus you’re forced into, and taking time trying to line up your sights just like you do on the range, you might end up shooting more tentatively. Again, the response is inefficient: wasted time.
Shooting the same choreographed drill under controlled conditions does not increase your confidence to recall skills on demand!
The way to correlate your skills and your confidence in those skills is to train under the expected (probable) shooting conditions. That means practicing with random targets and distances, under different conditions, to develop a mental spreadsheet of what you can/need to do under many combinations of factors. Understanding your actual ability will keep you from being under- or over-confident, shooting too slowly or too quickly. You should always be shooting as fast as you believe you can get the hits, and realistic practice is how you come to a fact-based belief under any given set of variables.
FACTORS THAT AFFECT YOUR BALANCE
I mentioned above that there were a number of things which directly affect your balance of speed and precision. First, of course, is the size of the target: that area which you recognize as being the optimum for rapid and reliable incapacitation in your attacker, or that which is delineated for you on the practice range target.
Not understanding the factors that affect your balance of speed and precision, and, moreover, not training under as many variations of them as possible, will give you an incomplete picture of your own abilities. It’s that incomplete picture that causes people to shoot at a rate other than what their ability allows, producing an inefficient response.
Size of the target
It’s deceptively simple: the smaller the target area, the more deviation control you must apply to get your hits. The more control you need to exert, the more time and effort it’s going to take. The larger the target area, the less deviation control you’ll need to get accurate hits, and the faster you’ll be able to shoot.
Delivering higher levels of precision takes time and effort and illustrates the need to train to what the target requires, rather than to some arbitrary standard. It goes right back to the confidence issue; shooting at artificially higher levels of precision than needed leads to a lack of correlation between what you can do and what you believe you can do.
Distance to the target
In handgun training it’s fashionable to ignore distance to the target and instead focus on the size of the target. The rationale behind this is that as you get further away the target appears smaller, and therefore paying attention to the size automatically takes care of the distance as well.
That’s not entirely true, for a couple of reasons. First is the psychological effect of distance; I’ve observed that if there is a small target at a very close distance, most students will think that’s pretty easy to hit. Whether that’s the case in reality isn’t important, because the student believes it is and usually delivers the hit. There’s a very real value to the belief in one’s abilities, as the discussion about speed pointed out.
Take a larger target further away, so it appears to be the same size as a small target up close, and I’ve found most students start to choke. There seems to be a fear about shooting at extended distance, as though it’s some esoteric skill that only ‘advanced’ shooters are able to master. It’s not true, of course, but as distance increases so does the student’s anxiety level.
It doesn’t take a lot of distance for that to happen, either. I’ve noticed that simply doubling the distance from, say, ten to twenty feet is enough to trigger some degree of performance anxiety in most students. (That’s getting to be at the outside of the most likely engagement distance, but still well within plausibility based on Tom Givens’ data.)
One of the interesting phenomena relating to the psychological effect of distance is that more experienced shooters tend to start compensating for an imagined bullet drop. (For those who are new to ballistics, the pull of gravity combined with air resistance causes bullets to drop in a smooth and predictable arc as they travel.) This is a concern with rifles at extended distances, but with handguns it usually doesn’t start to make a difference in the point of impact until it gets out in the fifty yard range (a typical defensive load will hardly drop at all at twenty-five yards). Intentionally “holding high” happens to a lot of shooters even when the distances are well under twenty-five yards, and often leads to rather substantial difference from where they thought the bullets would land.
Distance to the target, regardless of size, makes a huge difference - much of it psychological - on the balance of speed and precision.
The other major issue with target distance is that deviation increases as the range increases. Any amount of muzzle movement from the point of aim is magnified by distance, and the control necessary at ten feet is insufficient at twenty. At close distances, reducing the target size requires an obvious increase in deviation control, but at extended distances the amount of control required is more than the apparent size of the target might indicate. Only training at these varying distances, ideally to the outside edge of plausibility, will acquaint the shooter with the issues involved.
I’ve found that an occasional - and I do mean occasional - drill shooting at unreasonable distances (say, in the 25- to 50-yard range) will help cement these concepts in a student’s mind. This should only be done after achieving competency at the plausible shooting distances, however.
The conditions under which you shoot
You, your attacker and the environment in which the attack happens all dictate the conditions under which you’ll shoot. The light level, temperature, whether it’s raining, your level of fatigue, your familiarity with your gun, the surface on which you’re standing, people around you - all of these will affect your balance of speed and precision.
Most of those should be self explanatory, as they affect you physically. Can you see your attacker clearly? Can you handle your revolver easily? Can you get a good grasp on the gun? Is it so cold you’re shivering? So hot you’re sweating? All of these, and more, will have an effect on you your balance of speed and precision.
Your familiarity with your revolver will impact this balance as well. If you’re used to shooting a customized Smith & Wesson but need to use a Ruger SP101 in self defense - having not shot it all that much - the difference in size, trigger operation (feel, weight and length of travel), sights, grips, and the location of the cylinder release button will all affect how you shoot. It’s worse if you spend most of your shooting time practicing, training and competing with an autoloader but carry a five-shot revolver most of your waking hours.
The perceived penalty for a miss
Imagine this scenario: you’re walking through a park and round a corner toward the playground only to encounter a man threatening you with a knife. You smoothly draw your gun as you move laterally off the line of attack, and fire sufficient shots to cause your attacker to collapse. Good job!
Now, think about two different variations: same park, same attacker, same time of day, same weather, same playground, same everything - except in Variation 1, the playground is empty; in Variation 2, the playground is filled with children.
Is your balance of speed and precision going to change between those two scenarios? Are you going to shoot slower in one than the other?
Imagine this fellow attacking you, but the playground filled with children. Think that might influence how you shoot?
For most people, the answer is yes. Shooting at an attacker against the backdrop of a full playground brings home the consequences of not delivering accurate shots to the target area: a miss might hit an innocent bystander. I’m not suggesting that you train for this by shooting around live targets - there are some trainers who do, and I consider it highly reckless - but understand that just because you can really whip those shots out when there’s no penalty doesn’t mean you can do so when something important is on the line. Your perception of the penalty for missing will affect how you shoot (and sometimes whether you shoot at all.)
Environmental conditions - like being wet or cold - also affect your balance of speed & precision.
Your anticipation of the need to shoot
Many years ago I was helping out on a hunt for a rabid bobcat at a local farm, sitting in a tree stand carefully surveying the area from which the varmint would likely appear. Everything was ready; my rifle was in a position from which I could easily and without much movement bring it to my shoulder and fire. I’d been careful to make only the slightest and slowest movements with no sound. I was ready for anything, or so I thought.
I’d been there for nearly three hours when, out of the extreme corner of my eye, I saw a flash of movement in an open area well to my right. As I reflexively turned my head to check, I came face to face with the snarling animal on the ground below me and perhaps ten yards away.
I’ve hunted all my life and have never experienced “buck fever” or any other sort of performance anxiety, but this time I was surprised by an animal that I was, frankly, scared of (a rabid animal being something with which I’m not at all comfortable!). I instantly realized that, in its demented state, it could easily leap to my position and do significant damage to my person. I brought my lever action rifle to my shoulder, clumsily cocking the hammer on the chambered round, and as the butt neared my shoulder I quickly - too quickly - fired the shot. One round, one hydrophobic carnivore. The hit was a good one, but it wasn’t exactly where I intended it to go. The mercifully quick kill was as much luck as skill.
By any standard I was ready to shoot; I was on a hunt, had my gun loaded and chambered, had set myself up for the fastest and easiest shot, and was aware of the area the animal should have been in. What I wasn’t ready for was that particular shot under those particular conditions. My anticipation of the shot that came was low, even though my general state of readiness was high.
This anticipation of which I speak is the likelihood, in your mind, of having to shoot just before you recognize the need to shoot. You might be ready, you might have all kinds of general awareness, you may even have your revolver in your hand and prepped to stroke the trigger, but if the need to shoot happens in a different place or a slightly different time or under different conditions, your anticipation is low.
When you don’t know that you’re going to need to shoot, it takes longer to generate the proper response.
This is very different than competition shooting, for instance (which we’ll talk about in a little more depth in a later chapter). In a shooting competition, the anticipation of the need to shoot is quite high - you know what the targets are, where they are, how far they are from you, and a number of other things. In that case your readiness and your anticipation are roughly equal, and it takes less time for your mind to generate your response.
Now put yourself into the kind of ambush attack we’ve been considering throughout this book: you’re trying to decide between mocha and espresso when you’re suddenly attacked. Your state of general readiness is low, but your anticipation of the need to shoot is even lower. Unless you’ve trained under that kind of condition, your mind will take time to direct your response.
Your anticipation of the need to shoot - of needing to make any one shot - will therefore have a profound effect on your balance of speed and precision. In my case, I fumbled what had been a well-rehearsed cock-shoulder-fire sequence; I didn’t get a perfect cheek weld and I fired before the gun was well anchored on my shoulder. The shot worked, but the deviation was more than I had expected. The low anticipation of the need to shoot, even with my high state of readiness, had dramatically affected my balance of speed and precision. If the animal had been a little further away I might have missed him entirely.
The anticipation of the need to shoot is as much a caution as it is a training prescription. It’s easy to practice a choreographed drill on the range and turn in blistering performances. When you know ahead of time that you’re going to be shooting a specific shot your brain is primed for the performance; it knows what neurons to fire to get which muscles to do what tasks. When you don’t know that you’re going to need to shoot, when your anticipation is low, it takes longer to generate the proper response and that response is likely to not look like that well-rehearsed danced on the range.
This idea ties into the confidence issues we talked about earlier. Pretending that you’re always ready because you’ve done the same old predictable drills over and over, and done them really well, is ignoring the reality of anticipation. In the chapter on practice we’ll talk about ways to spend your range time getting used to responding better when you’re not in anticipation.