Getting faster?

[Shooting Bull]

We all reach a point where we simply can’t fire our guns any faster. When you reach that point you improve your stage times by improving transitions from one gun to the next. I got that. Totally understand. But that doesn’t mean I can’t still try to improve my speed with the guns. Since I’m a Duelist, I especially want to improve on pistols.

 

When shooting a stage the absolute last thing you want to do is think. You relax and let your subconscious shoot the stage. But when you do that your body falls into its own natural rhythm/speed. Again, I don’t want to consciously think about shooting faster so, how do I increase my body’s natural rhythm/speed? 

[Tall John]

1) You can spend about $1200 getting your pistols short-stroked with lowered hammers and 2) work on your reloads to get them as light as is possible, safe and legal but it seems that there is no substitute for Practice, Practice, practice!  I can say that my guns are as good as any world champions’ yet I still perform in the lowest quartile as a 63 yr old senior, blind in one eye and whose brain turns to jelly at the buzzer BUT…..

 

Be sure to ask the speedsters in your club for tips and coaching and be a gracious sponge.  Most of these tips are stupidly simple once heard but we don’t know what we don’t know!

 

As an example, In early July i got some advice from An old, and highly respected cowboy on how to initially handle my rifle.  I practiced three days straight for about 15 minutes and his five simple steps took nearly 5 seconds off my time.at the next match and I moved from the bottom quartile to just below the 50% mark in two matches.

 

Our bodies do what we teach them and what they are used to.  If the only time we spend with our guns is at the match and cleaning them then improvement will be agonizingly slow!  

[Arth Ritis]

 

DeadEye on youtube posted a video about running the pyramid drill going through practicing at various speeds 12 days ago.... 

I'm very much dead last of the pack being new but it caught my attention.

[The Original Lumpy Gritz]

Muscle memory plays a big part.

[Widder, SASS #59054]

Deadeye produces some of the best videos in SASS/CAS.

 

Thanks!

 

..........Widder

 

[John Kloehr]

I think if I spent a half hour switching between revolvers (draw, aim, holster and draw the other), a half hour with a bunch of dummy shotgun rounds loading, closing, (dry) firing, shucking, and reloading, a half hour practicing switching between the pistols and various long guns, I might take take 10 or more seconds off my stage time. With (a lot) more practice, maybe 30 seconds.

 

As to hardware, the lever safety spring on my Miroku 1873 might be worth as much as 5 seconds. There are a few other possible hardware gains, this is the only one I notice and is annoying me.

 

I'm a 60 second shooter on a 20 second stage. Actual shooting is not much of my problem though I have been ammo-limited. Considering a miss is 5 seconds, live fire is worth some practice but is in no way my main time suck. Transitions are where my big gains will be. With 40 seconds to work on, very little of it can come from live fire.

[Creeker, SASS #43022]

Don't let my friend Shooting Bull fool you - he IS one of the speedsters.

And one of the (many) things I admire about him is his desire to always get better.

 

He has never rested on his laurels and when confronted with an idea or philosophy that differs from his own - he has always given it fair consideration before adopting it or dismissing it.

[Stump Water]

2 hours ago, Shooting Bull said:

When shooting a stage the absolute last thing you want to do is think. You relax and let your subconscious shoot the stage. But when you do that your body falls into its own natural rhythm/speed.

 

You're settled in.   You're not pushing the envelope.  Not a bad strategy at "big matches".

 

2 hours ago, Shooting Bull said:

I don’t want to consciously think about shooting faster so, how do I increase my body’s natural rhythm/speed?

 

You have to.   You have to consciously pull out the stops and tell your self to go wide-ass open.  If you don't try to shoot faster you'll never learn to shoot faster.

[wyliefoxEsquire]

Bull,

A close friend of ours (as the story goes) was showing off his straight trigger.  An excellent lady shooter said the trigger will save me 0.08 seconds per pull.

She was excited, "This is great, I need that".

[Math side-bar, 0.08 X 10 shots per stage X 12 stages = 9.6 seconds]

In support of many above comments, small improvements can easily multiply.  

Smooth is fast.

Smooth takes practice.

OR!!!!

Figure out a way to be 25 again with what you now know.

[The Original Lumpy Gritz]

1 hour ago, Creeker, SASS #43022 said:

Don't let my friend Shooting Bull fool you - he IS one of the speedsters.

And one of the (many) things I admire about him is his desire to always get better.

 

He has never rested on his laurels and when confronted with an idea or philosophy that differs from his own - he has always given it fair consideration before adopting it or dismissing it.

Just as long as he doesn't run!   😂🤣

[Widder, SASS #59054]

1 hour ago, Stump Water said:

 

You're settled in.   You're not pushing the envelope.  Not a bad strategy at "big matches".

 

 

You have to.   You have to consciously pull out the stops and tell your self to go wide-ass open.  If you don't try to shoot faster you'll never learn to shoot faster.

 

I agree with SW on this.

Although I ain't a champion shooter, I do know a little about speed shooting.

And unless you push the envelope on your abilities, you'll never find out where those abilities can lead you.

 

If your practice routines are keeping you riding on the bus to Bucksnort, you're gonna have

to catch a fast train to Yuma to discover your new ventures.  

 

There are too many top shooters in SASS/CAS that give out good, free advice that can help us all.

Find a few of those 'free advisor videos' and see if you can adapt to some of their advice.

 

Push yourself.  Then push yeowndangself a little extra.   Just how bad do you really want the Caddy?

 

 

..........Widder

 

[Shooting Bull]

3 hours ago, Creeker, SASS #43022 said:

Don't let my friend Shooting Bull fool you - he IS one of the speedsters.

And one of the (many) things I admire about him is his desire to always get better.

 

He has never rested on his laurels and when confronted with an idea or philosophy that differs from his own - he has always given it fair consideration before adopting it or dismissing it.

You are far too kind, my friend.

[Shooting Bull]

3 hours ago, Stump Water said:

 

You have to.   You have to consciously pull out the stops and tell your self to go wide-ass open.  If you don't try to shoot faster you'll never learn to shoot faster.

 Is it safe to assume you only do that during practice?

[Rip Snorter]

Hitting, of course, always the priority - life or game.  Missing faster will not aid survival or winning.  

Edited July 17 by Rip Snorter

[Stump Water]

15 hours ago, Shooting Bull said:

 Is it safe to assume you only do that during practice?

 

Monthly matches.

 

Yeah, you're going to miss more... at first.

[Straight Arrow Hombre]

Just a couple of thoughts about increasing your speed with the pistols. When you dry fire, go as fast as you possibly can for a number of runs. Set a par time and see how fast you can run ten. Then dry fire using “targets” and pay attention to your sights see how close you can get to your max speed par time. Do this regularly and see if you can close that gap and shave time from both drills. When practicing live fire, see how close you can get to your dry fire times. You should be able to cycle your pistols faster than you can acquire the targets. Use your live fire time to see where the ragged edge of hitting consistently is and back off the throttle a smidge. Paint the targets each run and see where you’re really hitting at speed. 

[Two Dot, 14911]

Try to not fall during the stages. Lol

[Waimea]

Make yer thumbs go faster.

[Shooting Bull]

1 hour ago, Waimea said:

Make yer thumbs go faster.

I ain’t Widder.😁

[John Kloehr]

11 hours ago, Straight Arrow Hombre said:

Just a couple of thoughts about increasing your speed with the pistols. When you dry fire, go as fast as you possibly can for a number of runs. Set a par time and see how fast you can run ten. Then dry fire using “targets” and pay attention to your sights see how close you can get to your max speed par time. Do this regularly and see if you can close that gap and shave time from both drills. When practicing live fire, see how close you can get to your dry fire times. You should be able to cycle your pistols faster than you can acquire the targets. Use your live fire time to see where the ragged edge of hitting consistently is and back off the throttle a smidge. Paint the targets each run and see where you’re really hitting at speed. 

 

Even before dry fire, just drawing and re-holstering over and over again will help build muscle memory and speed first target acquisition. A few years back, I talked with a fine gentleman who went through some sort of military special forces training. Part of this was the various instructors, no matter what else was the training subject, would randomly order "Draw!" The key part in his training was to get the sights aligned, but not to focus on any particular thing as the target. He remembered and recounted his surprise when he was finally on the range and his first shot was square and true to the target. He had reached a point where the sights were no longer an aid to aiming as such, just confirmation of being on target. Wherever he looked and drew, the sights simply ended up being right there. This was part of a long discussion on the NRA basics class and the simplicity of "bring the gun up to the dominant eye." FWIW.

 

[Waimea]

1 hour ago, Shooting Bull said:

I ain’t Widder.😁

 

Have you tried videoing yourself.

I find it's helpful if I need a good laugh.

Although you really have to be clinical otherwise have a good therapist on speed dial.

 

Seriously though taping your sessions might be an eye opener.

[Tennessee williams]

On 7/16/2026 at 3:06 PM, Shooting Bull said:

We all reach a point where we simply WONT fire our guns any faster. When you reach that point you improve your stage times by improving transitions from one gun to the next. I got that. Totally understand. But that doesn’t mean I can’t still try to improve my speed with the guns. Since I’m a Duelist, I especially want to improve on pistols, SHOTGUN, RIFLE, AND TRANSITIONS.

Changed that up for you. Neither of us are at the point we can't fire our guns any faster. Some day at the old folks home....maybe.

Condensed version....

Whenever you shoot, shoot as fast as you are able to safely manipulate your guns. Thats how you find TODAY'S speed limit. Yes, you will miss.

Look at it like this though. When you first started trying to manipulate(shoot) your guns faster, you fumbled a bit, maybe slipped your hammer, maybe you missed your chambers with your shotshells. You had many miscues that you could have easily avoided had you just slowed down a bit. But no, you kept at it, and your body learned to be smoother at a higher rate of speed. 

   Your body will do the same thing with those pesky misses. Run your guns as fast as you can and remain safe, you'll miss but you will find those misses start to die off because you are teaching your body to acquire those targets faster and only hold that site picture for the time you have to and no extra. 

 

 

On 7/16/2026 at 3:06 PM, Shooting Bull said:

When shooting a stage the absolute last thing you want to do is think. You relax and let your subconscious shoot the stage. But when you do that your body falls into its own natural rhythm/speed. Again, I don’t want to consciously think about shooting faster so, how do I increase my body’s natural rhythm/speed? 

You're right, you can't think about it while youre doing it. Knowing that is half of the fight!

Whenever you hear someone say "you cant outrun a miss", they are not telling you the whole story my friend. I have outran many of my misses. We both have had misses outrun us. There IS a point of being overly cautious and running too slow. Nobody can tell me different. On a 10 stage match, if I take an extra 3 seconds on each one trying not to miss, Ive just spent 30 seconds being careful. Thats 6 dang misses. The math doesnt lie. 

 

As far as changing your body's natural rhythm and speed, see paragraph one above.

  It takes me around 1,000 reps before Im comfortable with a transition and don't really have to think about it. It takes me around 10,000 before I get the speed to go along with it. 

[Waimea]

1 hour ago, Waimea said:

 

Have you tried videoing yourself.

I find it's helpful if I need a good laugh.

Although you really have to be clinical otherwise have a good therapist on speed dial.

 

Seriously though taping your sessions might be an eye opener.

 

I've also heard that if you use VHS tape they will automatically bump you up to Silver Senior Duelist. 😜

[J.S. Sooner, SASS #73526]

2 hours ago, Tennessee williams said:

Changed that up for you. Neither of us are at the point we can't fire our guns any faster. Some day at the old folks home....maybe.

Condensed version....

Whenever you shoot, shoot as fast as you are able to safely manipulate your guns. Thats how you find TODAY'S speed limit. Yes, you will miss.

Look at it like this though. When you first started trying to manipulate(shoot) your guns faster, you fumbled a bit, maybe slipped your hammer, maybe you missed your chambers with your shotshells. You had many miscues that you could have easily avoided had you just slowed down a bit. But no, you kept at it, and your body learned to be smoother at a higher rate of speed. 

   Your body will do the same thing with those pesky misses. Run your guns as fast as you can and remain safe, you'll miss but you will find those misses start to die off because you are teaching your body to acquire those targets faster and only hold that site picture for the time you have to and no extra. 

 

 

You're right, you can't think about it while youre doing it. Knowing that is half of the fight!

Whenever you hear someone say "you cant outrun a miss", they are not telling you the whole story my friend. I have outran many of my misses. We both have had misses outrun us. There IS a point of being overly cautious and running too slow. Nobody can tell me different. On a 10 stage match, if I take an extra 3 seconds on each one trying not to miss, Ive just spent 30 seconds being careful. Thats 6 dang misses. The math doesnt lie. 

 

As far as changing your body's natural rhythm and speed, see paragraph one above.

  It takes me around 1,000 reps before Im comfortable with a transition and don't really have to think about it. It takes me around 10,000 before I get the speed to go along with it. 

Really? I thought it had something to do with Banana splits.  

[Griff]

8 hours ago, Waimea said:

 

I've also heard that if you use VHS tape they will automatically bump you up to Silver Senior Duelist. 😜

That's  Elder Statesman or Cattle Baron duelist now!  Silver Seniors are too young to remember VHS or Beta, unless they used their folks stuff! 

[Arth Ritis]

I had 5 VHS players I was pulling parts from to keep 1 running 23 years ago... as a freshman in college... guess I've always been a bit of an odd duck.

[I. M. Crossdraw, SASS# 8321]

At time there is our mind telling use to "go for it with gusto" then suddenly our body says, "slow down old man, the body can't go that fast anymore".  Just saying.🤠

[KatfishKid]

I feel like I'm right at this point too.

I'm in my second season shooting Double Duelist. I've gone from averaging high 30 second stages to the low 20s, and now I feel like I've hit a plateau. My finger, thumb, and sight acquisition all seem to be pretty well synchronized. The issue is when I try to gain that last little bit of speed. I'll occasionally break the shot just before the sights are where they need to be, almost always with my left-hand revolver. I shoot frontier cartridge duelist, so the smoke also plays a factor in limiting my speed.

Now I'm trying to decide what the best path forward is. Do I keep pushing the envelope during matches and accept a few misses until that faster pace becomes my new natural rhythm? Or do I back off to a speed where I'm clean?

Part of me feels like if I back off, I'll never really get faster. Every time I've made a jump in speed, it came from pushing past what felt comfortable.

I know dry fire is incredibly valuable, and I do it, but for me there's no substitute for live fire. Dry fire builds the mechanics, but live fire is where I really seem to learn timing, recoil management, and what my actual limits are.

I'm curious how the experienced Duelists approached this stage. Did you intentionally push your speed and live with a few misses for a while, or did you stay clean and let the speed come on its own?

[Randy Saint Eagle, SASS # 64903]

Katfish Kid, As it has been said in previous posts, work on transitions. You can lower your stage times more with great transitions. As far as dry firing goes, as you said it is good for mechanics and I basically never dry fire anymore except for transition practice. When I started I dry fired a lot and got my speed up. The problem is that you have to be honest, I never missed a target dry firing. I didn’t get the same results at the range during live firing. 🤔

 

I admit that sometimes I’m a slow learner, but I finally realized that I would never miraculously get faster by practicing slow to stay clean. 
 

Work on smooth movement with no wasted time. Move fast but smooth. Papa Dave used to say, don’t stroll from point A to point B, run. Get someone to video you when shooting. We can see things on video we don’t realize we are doing. 
 

in the words of Tennessee Williams, “Smooth is Fast, Slow Sucks!”

 

Good luck!🤠

 

Randy

Edited July 22 by Randy Saint Eagle, SASS # 64903
Added content

[KatfishKid]

1 hour ago, Randy Saint Eagle, SASS # 64903 said:

Katfish Kid, As it has been said in previous posts, work on transitions. You can lower your stage times more with great transitions. As far as dry firing goes, as you said it is good for mechanics and I basically never dry fire anymore except for transition practice. When I started I dry fired a lot and got my speed up. The problem is that you have to be honest, I never missed a target dry firing. I didn’t get the same results at the range during live firing. 🤔

 

I admit that sometimes I’m a slow learner, but I finally realized that I would never miraculously get faster by practicing slow to stay clean. 
 

Work on smooth movement with no wasted time. Move fast but smooth. Papa Dave used to say, don’t stroll from point A to point B, run. Get someone to video you when shooting. We can see things on video we don’t realize we are doing. 
 

in the words of Tennessee Williams, “Smooth is Fast, Slow Sucks!”

 

Good luck!🤠

 

Randy

I realized at TN state that I waste a lot of time putting down and picking up. You said something that stuck with me and I think it has helped me a lot "Take it with you". Taking my rifle or shotgun with me to the next window felt good, I didn't have to pause to drop the long gun, finish the string and move, while I'm moving start getting ready to draw the pistol and I can already be shooting while I'm laying the long gun down. 

[Burn Through]

If ya never fail do ya really know your limitations ?? I’m still failing but have a bang up time a doing it 

[Billy Boots, # 20282 LTG-Regulator]

Just as you think you have progressed, you have the realization that you are a whole bunch older and there isn't but maybe one in your age category so you are then competing with them youngsters (70 and below) who already have figured out the speed, transitions, etc that is needed to beat your butt.  

Good luck SB.  I'm trying too.  New powder/bullet combinations and more practice but there are those "little things" that seem to keep getting in my way [like arthritic thumbs, to many stuck hulls, life small bumps (back surgery, rotator & bicep surgery) and those "seemingly" long hauls  from A to B].  

Good news is at whatever age, God has given you/me opportunity to play this game at any speed.

[Widder, SASS #59054]

39 minutes ago, Billy Boots, # 20282 LTG-Regulator said:

Just as you think you have progressed, you have the realization that you are a whole bunch older and there isn't but maybe one in your age category so you are then competing with them youngsters (70 and below) who already have figured out the speed, transitions, etc that is needed to beat your butt.  

Good luck SB.  I'm trying too.  New powder/bullet combinations and more practice but there are those "little things" that seem to keep getting in my way [like arthritic thumbs, to many stuck hulls, life small bumps (back surgery, rotator & bicep surgery) and those "seemingly" long hauls  from A to B].  

Good news is at whatever age, God has given you/me opportunity to play this game at any speed.

 

BB,

you hit the nail on the head........and the back.  

 

At 75, I find meowndangself slowing down a little, mostly in my lack of dedicated practice and gung-ho effort.

But we can still enjoy the game and shooting with good friends.  

 

Sometimes, we squeeze in a victory and sometimes, we stumble and those friends get the big Win.

 

..........Widder

 

Edited July 23 by Widder, SASS #59054

[Billy Boots, # 20282 LTG-Regulator]

10 minutes ago, Widder, SASS #59054 said:

 

BB,

you hit the nail on the head........and the back.  

 

At 75, I find meowndangself slowing down a little, mostly in my lack of dedicated practice and gung-ho effort.

But we can still enjoy the game and shooting with good friends.  

 

Sometimes, we squeeze in a victory and sometimes, we stumble and those friends get the big Win.

 

..........Widder

 

Iszacly.  Still awesome to win but enjoyable to see those who put everything together more perfect and whoop you.

Seeing those once, twice-a-year friends, and occasional one from the past, makes trips well worth it.  Now it is recognizing those from the past that is the real challenge.

[Griff]

9 hours ago, Billy Boots, # 20282 LTG-Regulator said:

Good news is at whatever age, God has given you/me opportunity to play this game at any speed.

Sez the man that keeps challenging me to go faster... or at least act like I'm in a competition!