Range Timer

[JNG]

On the advice of a respected fellow shooter, I bought a range timer and now do all my practice with it. What a difference it makes! I'm improving more quickly now than I ever have, all because of that little buzzer in my ear.

Highly recommended as a training tool.

 

[SC_Shooter]

Agreed. Isn't it amazing how much more focussed you can get between beeps?

Which timer did you go with?

 

[slow1911s]

Just wait until you can focus on the front of the beep .

 

[SC_Shooter]

Just wait until you can focus on the front of the beep .

Yep, that's the real skill.

 

[rvb]

Just wait until you can focus on the front of the beep .

Agreed, react on the "B" in "beep." Most buzzers are ~0.4s but the clock starts running immediately. don't waste the 0.4s.

One caution here is getting to used to the delay you have set. Before you know it you'll either be jumping the gun with ROs who use long pauses or not ready for the quick ROs. A couple of options is to use a random start or (what I do) set a REALLY long delay start and force youself to learn to listen for and react to the beep (if the delay is ~15 seconds it's hard to "guess" when it's going to go off). You'll be better prepared to deal with ROs who push the start time rules. You can watch the start countdown to train on the short end of the spectrum and give yourself little time to get settled just as some ROs would.

Another caution is getting wrapped up in par times... you want As in dryfire, too!! And sometimes it's good to just use the start buzzer and not use a par.

Be creative... you don't have to use the par for start to finish time on drills. Break your drills into components and develop pars for them. You can develop more than shooting skills, such as movement, table draws, getting out of chairs, etc.

Keep a log of pars for specific drills.

Check out Steve Anderson's dry-fire book (Refinement Through Repitition, or something like that). It's a good starting point for a dryfire routine.

Don't drop your timer on a concrete floor too many times, or you'll have to buy a new timer. [D'oh!]

A couple of pasters over the speaker keeps the beeper from making your ears ring after a couple hours of practice.

Your true ability is what you can do cold, not after dozens of reps. That should be your expectation on match day.

happy dryfiring,

-rvb

 

[JNG]

Good stuff, thanks for the advice. What I've been doing (again on a recommendation), is starting off "cold" with two shots from concealment, as fast I can be sure to put them in the A.

I note the time.

I then progress through the rest of a series of drills (each involving two shots), using three guidelines:

1) If I miss the A, I have to redo the drill
2) If I take longer than I took to fire the first two shots "cold," I have to redo the drill
3) If both shots are As, and the time is equal to or less than the time of my cold shots, I get to progress to the next drill.

This set of rules is helping me focus my practice time much more efficiently on the things that need more work.

 

[bwframe]

Which timer did you go with?

Which timer do you all recommend?

 

[JNG]

Which timer do you all recommend?

I got a Pocket Pro II, and it does everything I want it to do (variable random start delays, good memory, etc).

Pact Club Timers are awesome, but a little more costly.

 

[rvb]

CED 7000 is awesome for training.

Repeat pars, multiple and varied length par strings*, buzzer volume control (2 settings), many delay options, good belt clip and arm strap options, memory for multiple strings (in live fire you can shoot the same drill multiple times and compare runs).

*for example, on el-prez you can set a par to the first shot, par to the shot after reload, and par to the last shot... multiple beeps through the drill.

downside is the buttons are WAY too tiny.

-rvb

 

[bwframe]

CED 7000 is awesome for training.

Repeat pars, multiple and varied length par strings*, buzzer volume control (2 settings), many delay options, good belt clip and arm strap options, memory for multiple strings (in live fire you can shoot the same drill multiple times and compare runs).

*for example, on el-prez you can set a par to the first shot, par to the shot after reload, and par to the last shot... multiple beeps through the drill.

downside is the buttons are WAY too tiny.

-rvb

This is the one I've been considering. I don't mind the tiny buttons, but am concerned about the display size. Wonder if it's readable without taking off the shooting glasses and putting on the reading glasses?