I have found that a lot of my students have been losing significant time on their draw just by having a slow reaction time to when the buzzer sounds from the timer. How do you find out what your reaction time is and more importantly how do you improve it?

Try the following out:

* NEEDS: gun, ammo, and timer
* Set timer for a random delay between 4-8 seconds
* Load and make ready
* Hit go on the timer
* Gun out in the shooting position
* Visual focus on the target
* Take safety off
* Place finger on the trigger and take up the slack (Don’t AD!)
* Tune your audio focus to listening for the start of the tone
* When buzzer goes, fire a shot
* Check the clock for results
* Repeat, trying to react as fast as possible

Most likely your first reaction times will be .30 or longer. Work on the exercise until they are consistently under .20 and you will already have removed a minimum of a tenth of a second from your draw!

(A reaction time of .16-.20 of a second is optimum. My personal best is a .11 at Shooters World in Phoenix during a class with Chris Dysart. Chris went from a .34 to a average .18 of a second.
That was a savings of .16 or in other terms it moves a one second draw down to an .84!)

One of the drills that I like to do most of the time and has had the most impact on my shooting ability is a timing drill. First we should have a discussion of terminology.
Timing of the gun:
I am not referring to the actual time the mechanism takes to return to battery. I am referring to learning the timing of the gun by the shooter. Since most guns return to battery in about 5 hundredths of a second, we cannot return the gun fast enough with our conscious mind. The subconscious will return the gun to point of aim by using the appropriate amount of muscle force during recoil. You will see top shooters push down on the gun if it does something it’s not supposed to do, such as hitting a bad primer and not firing. This is not a flinch. A flinch occurs before and also during the firing of the gun.

You must shoot a full magazine on every string in this drill and you must not stop and restart in the middle of a magazine. Unless there is a safety issue, shoot the entire magazine at the required splits. You must have a relaxed positive stance and grip on the gun for this to work.
The major areas this drill assists are the return of the gun under recoil, calling your shots, grip control, and solidifying the stance. If you are not using a solid forward shooting stance, you will see the gun start going out of control and the sights moving differently after about 3-5 rounds. Please refer to my previous articles for more stance information or check my website at www.mattburkett.com <http://www.mattburkett.com>
You will need three targets, tape, and about 250 rounds of ammo.
The drill:
Start out with three targets 15 yards away. Load all of your magazines. First three strings are two seconds per shot. Like a metronome, have the splits be as close to two seconds as possible. Check your split times on a timer or have another shooter help you with the drill. Two seconds per shot gives you plenty of time to shoot an extremely small group.
First string, use as light of a grip as possible on first target.
Second string, medium grip on second target.
Third string, use a heavy grip on the third target.

Now unload and review your shooting.
You shouldn’t have more than about a 2? group on each target. Compare where they are impacting on the target. Is there more vertical stringing or horizontal on the different groups? Which one did you feel more comfortable with? How did the gun feel with each grip? What exactly did the sights do? Did they rise straight up under recoil? Could you even see the sights under recoil? This will show you if you have a flinch. If you can’t see the sights going up and down, there is a good chance you’re blinking.
Figure out what grip worked best for you and use that for the rest of the drill.
Tape the targets.
String four, two seconds per shot on target 1 with your new favorite grip.
String five, one second per shot on target 2.
String six, .5 seconds per shot on target 3.

Now unload and review your shooting.
Once again we go back and look to see where our problems are showing up. What is the group dispersion on the targets? Is there a significant difference between the groups at two seconds and at .5 seconds? How much vertical error is there with the groups? What did the sights do at the different speeds? Diagnose what is happening. If you’re getting a significantly upper right lift to the sights, grip a little more with your left hand and slightly less with your right hand (assuming you’re right handed).
Tape the targets.
String seven, one second per shot on target one.
String eight, .5 per shot on target two.
String nine, .25 per shot on target three.

Unload and review.
How did your shooting go at this speed? Are the sights coming back naturally to the aiming point?
Critical things to remember:
The timing of the gun that you have learned is specific to that firearm and load. If you change any part or your load, rerun the timing drills because the gun itself has changed.

I look at swingers in a couple of different ways.
Trapping: the concept of shooting a swinging target when it is at its pause point. It helps to time them with a stop watch to know how long the pause is.
Tracking: the concept of following the swinger with the sights and breaking the shot while keeping the gun moving. Now for me I usually put the sights in the leading -1/C zone.

Most of the targets I will track then trap. Break one shot while it is on the down swing and one shot while it is stopped. Sometimes they are track/traps. It all depends on your skill level and comfort level with the
targets along with the speed of the swinger. Use a stopwatch to figure out the entire available exposure time and how long it takes to get started. If possible time it repeatedly. Activation time is fairly critical as it will tell you when you can fire the first shot and that will decide if it will be a trap or track.

If possible get to a range that has a swinger and shoot the heck out of it.
It will help you get over the negative mental associations that swingers generally have and help you build up the confidence you need to shoot well.

One of the issues that most people have is that they don’t understand trigger control. Learning the pin and reset technique will help you learn the distance of the over-travel and reset which are most important parts.
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There are four parts to a trigger.
1. Pre-travel
2. break
3. over-travel
4. reset
Warning: Do not mess with the trigger of your gun unless you know what your doing. Take it to a qualified gunsmith and let them do the work.

Pre-travel is the amount of “play” the trigger has before engaging the sear.
I like a lot a pre-travel. This gives my finger the opportunity to engage the trigger and get a feel for it. It is almost nec. to slap triggers that have no pre-travel since you can’t interface with it. I like about 14 ounces of pre-travel on my 1911 type triggers. On a 1911 you can check this by having the gun fully assembles but without the beavertail in place. Lift the left side of the three leaf spring (the sear leaf) and then use a trigger pull gauge to check the pre-travel. On a Glock this is almost impossible to measure because you are partially cocking the firing pin during the trigger pull.

The break is the actually disengagement of the sear and hammer. I prefer my triggers have about a 21-26 ounce pull on a 1911. The Glock triggers I use are set-up by customglock.com and they break right about two pounds.

The over-travel is the distance the trigger moves from the break to the contact with the frame. On a 1911 this is set by the screw at the bottom of the trigger face. I prefer a bit of over-travel. This helps keep my finger from running into the frame especially weak or strong hand.

The reset is the distance from the contact of the frame to the reengagement of the sear and hammer.

A well set up trigger should feel clean with no dragging anywhere. It should bounce back to the reset.
I have Don Golembieski of Kodiak Precision set up the triggers with a slight rolling break on the sear. The way he does them is pretty amazing. Most people can’t feel the roll on his triggers and think that they are a crisp break. Too crisp of a break for me and I can see movement in the sights.