short stroke speed

[Buck D. Law, SASS #62183]

As for shooting the rebar down ,,, I have shot that target on three different ocassions the first time I used one round ,the second time 2 rounds and this spring one round was used ....

 

Oh and I use a ladder sight and blade front site out to 900 plus yards on my highwall with good effect

 

 

Jabez cowboy

 

I'm really good at skipping rocks.

 

 

 

[The Dakota Clay]

I don't really have a dog in the fight, but I figured I'd put a few of my own twists in the mix...

 

Shorter is shorter. No doubt. If two guys were getting exactly the same rifle splits all the time, and then ONE picked up a short stroker and did a lot of practicing to get used to it, then yeah, I'd expect him to pick up an edge. The biggest advantage, as others have mentioned, is less movement away from your firing position, rather than the actual faster travel.

 

In my own personal experience, equipment advantages usually mean a lot more at the BOTTOM end of the pack than at the top. Fast guys will be fast, even if you give them bone factory weapons, whereas those of us in the middle and bottom end are much more likely to fumble and fight with our equipment, and need all the help we can get. If a short stroke helps me stay engaged on target, then I KNOW I will shoot faster, because target engagement is one of my slowest functions. Fast guys can pick up a target and snap the weapon onto the plate like second nature, so if they bobble, they'll recover a lot faster than I would. I'd be a heck of a lot more likely to "short stroke" and drop the hammer on an empty chamber than one of our top shooters would, and odds are, I'm gonna lift my head off the sights and think "XXX happened?" instead of just re-cycling like a well practiced top shot would.

 

Familiarity is going to be key. I used to shoot a factory Marlin with a garage slick and spring job and a happy trigger. At the time, I was considering a SS, so I tried out another shooter's SS Marlin (.45colt vs my .44mags). By the end of the string, I had almost broken my hand. I was slamming into the front of the stroke like a brick wall. Needless to say, I needed practice getting used to the shorter stroke.

 

So for me, equipment aint going to make a slow shooter fast, but it might make him "less slow".

 

Then there's the "voodoo factor". I've spent 18yrs as a competitive professional athlete (obviously not as a shooter!), and if there was ONE thing I learned about equipment, if you BELIEVE it gives you an advantage, then it likely WILL give you an advantage. Whether the stars are actually aligned or not, if you're confident that they're aligned perfectly for you on that day, then you'll likely perform to your best ability. If knowing you have a SS kit in your rifle helps you "wake up on the RIGHT side of the bed" a few extra mornings before matches, then I'd say it's worth it.