A guy who shoots for STI recently let me participate in his daily training session. I probably learned more in 2.5 hours with him than I have in my last 2.5 years of hand gunning. Some things I picked up:
Short version:
Shoot slow, move fast.
Long version:
1) Because steel poppers, etc are generally smaller targets than a full-sized IDPA/IPSC target, he said that the secret to shooting steel is to slow down and hit it the first time. Lets say that you can acquire/fire in 1 sec and hit the target 50% of the time, but if you were to take 1.5 sec, you up your percentage to 90%. Taking the extra half second to guarantee a hit is preferable to taking 1 sec to miss, and then having to recover (0.2 sec) and shoot again which costs another 1-1.5 seconds.
2) As long as you are taking sure shots, you can afford to shoot a bit slower. Make up you time when you transition from one target to the next by keeping your arms extended and "driving" the gun as fast as possible.
3) Draw your pistol at a pace that you are comfortable with, but once your gun clears the holster, drive it as fast as possible to the target. Being smooth and doing it right the first time is faster than getting ahead of yourself, fumbling around and having to recover.
4) Relax and just have fun with it.
5) Don't be a dick and shoot yourself (or anyone else) in the foot.
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Calmer than you are...
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