A Three Year Difference

It is interesting to look back through old notes or video of my past shooting and see the changes in technique and development of skill. Almost exactly three years ago I participated in the first phase of the pistol-forum.com 2012 Performance Challenge that consisted of shooting the FASTest and the “300” to set a baseline, and then shooting the same set of drills at the end of the year to evaluate improvement. It isn’t exactly 1 year later, I am not even shooting the same gun anymore, nor am I following the rules exactly, but thought I would see where I am compared to three years ago. In the previous test, I was shooting a Beretta 96D from a Safariland 5188 holster. Was a nice set up. This go round I am shooting a Gen4 Glock 22 from a Safariland ALS. Everything else is the same, even using the same jacket for a concealment garment.

2012 FAST runs.

2015 FAST runs.

Unfortunately, I am between shot timers right now, so my iPhone had to serve as my shot timer, and not as my camera so there isn’t any video. My first run was clean, but glacial. My second run was where it needed to be in terms of speed, but I put a nice two round group just below the 3×5 target zone, instead of inside it. A mental mistake on my part, not making that slight adjustment up to put the sights where they needed to be. The third run I managed to put it all together, running my best FAST ever at 5.81 seconds. Keeping in mind that I haven’t shot this drill in three years, I am pleased with it. My weak point is still getting those first two hits on the 3×5 in a reasonable time frame. If I spend a little time working that skill, I think a sub 5 second run is in my furture.

“300” Scores

My 300 scores are signifincantly improved as well, even though I only shot 9 rounds on the WHO portion of the drill. Even though I am shooting a different gun, I don’t think this much skill improvement can be attributed soley to a gear change.