Video Transcript
Introduction (00:00)
So I'm a big proponent of shot timers for training. It's one of the few ways you can have a metric for your speed. And obviously, shooting is all about having a balance of speed and accuracy. It's not just about accuracy. It's not just about hitting the target. It's also about hitting the target quickly and efficiently. And shot timers are really the only way you can actually see exactly what's going on, if something was actually faster, because if you're not using a timer, you may think, "Oh yeah, that did feel faster." But you actually don't know. This is a good way of actually seeing that. So this is a Club PACT Timer, and I'm gonna show you guys kind of how it works.
Delay and Instant Settings (00:30)
Shot timers have either an instant beep that occurs, or they also have a delay. This timer, when you set it to delay, is going to be random. So some people go, "Oh, you know exactly when it's gonna go off." No, the only way I would know if it's exactly, like when it's gonna go off on delay, is if I look down and see exactly, "Oh, it says three seconds." But if I'm looking out, right at the target, and my timer is down here, I have no idea if it's two seconds, four seconds, three seconds, two and a half seconds, three and a half seconds. It's random. And that means I can't game it.
So basically, with your timer, you're gonna hit both of these buttons right here, the arrow buttons. And that is going to give you the toggle between delay and instant. And then hitting one of these based on… You see instant is on the bottom, so if you hit the bottom one, now I'm on instant. Then I hit the green button again and I'm on instant. Every time I hit the green button, it starts to roll. As soon as I fire, it gives me data. If I go to delay, which is the top button, now, when I hit the button, I have a random delay. That looked like it was about 2.2. That's about 2.8. And that was 2. So it's random. So when I hit that green button—I have it right here on my thigh strap—when I hit that green button, I have no idea when that timer is going to go. So it's good training. You're not gaming it. On some of the other timers, you can set exactly what the delay is, and then obviously you'd be able to game it.
Par Time for Dry Fire (01:45)
You wanna set your par time. So timers also have what's called a par time. You hit both the buttons again. It's giving you the setting for delay or instant. If I hit review, I skip the process. I go to par. I hit review again, and now I can actually toggle whatever time I want for a second beep. This is particularly useful for dry fire. For live fire, not as much. I don't usually use a par time for live fire, only dry fire. If I hit review again, I move which number is going to be selected. So let's say I want a one-second par time for my draw. So now I'm on delay with a one-second par time. I'm not gonna fire. So basically… Actually, I'll just go ahead and dry fire. We'll try to keep it under a second. I have a target right here. Seven yards, on delay. Let's do this.
All right, so I'm good. So I was able to get that shot off before the second beep. So you can set your par time to whatever you want. You could be one-tenth of a second; you could be maybe one and a half or more. Whatever it happens to be. This is particularly useful for dry fire. I usually keep it off and I just run my timer on delay.
Reading the Data (02:52)
So now I'm gonna show you guys kind of some data on what to look for while you're actually using your shot timer. So I'm gonna go ahead, shoot into this target right here, four rounds from the draw. And then I'll show you guys kind of how to read the data and kind of what to what to look for. Let's do this, standby.
All right. So four Alphas and I have, for whatever reason, the timer gave me some data here at the beginning, which I don't… It's probably my like pistol hitting it as I drew or my holster hitting it. So number two, shot number two, or time taken number two, is my first shot. And I can see right here it's 0.94. That's a good time for me. I should, out of the holster, I should be hitting a target in under second, from outside the waistband or from concealment. A target at seven or five yards, I should be under a second. So 0.94.
I can then also see the split between my last, the last time that it took, which before this, it was… I don't know what, I just hit the timer for whatever reason. My shot split from my first shot, which was a 0.94—and I'm using the arrow buttons to cycle through—was 0.22. So it was two-tenths of a second, bang, two-tenths of a second, bang. My next split was a 0.21, about the same. And then my next split was a 0.20. So I can use this to track my splits between my shots and see if I'm consistent. See how low I'm going. A really good shooter, at this distance on a target like this, is gonna be doing 0.15's, 0.16's. It also depends on the pistol. If they're shooting something like a 2011, they may have 0.11's, 0.12's. With a Glock, a stock Glock, most people do about a 0.20 to about a 0.25. Obviously, that's going to depend on your target size, target distance—as you get further away, your split time will get higher. These are obviously gonna shoot a little bit slower, most likely, to finesse your sight picture, make sure it's good, and then you fire again.
Target Transitioning (04:31)
Now I'm gonna show you guys how to get data from target transitioning. So I have two targets right here. They're obviously very close, so I don't really care, as far as that goes. I'm gonna draw, I'm gonna shoot two rounds into this guy, I'm gonna shoot two rounds into this guy, and I'll show you guys how to break that data down. So make sure I have four rounds. Yes, I do. Standby.
All right. Not the greatest. I'm just going nice and slow to show you guys what's going on. So I have my data right here. Four shots. I can immediately see what my first shot was—a 0.98. So I'm still under a second and I wasn't necessarily pushing myself. What I can do here is I can see my first shot split, which is a 0.35, which is horrible for this distance, but I was just going slow. But now I can see between that shot there, bang, bang, which is was a 0.35, my next split, which is a 0.56, that's my target transition before the next shot. So you can use your timer to track your target transitioning, your reloads, all sorts of different stuff.
So for me with targets like this, the transition this wide, I want my transition to be about the same time-wise as my shot split. So if my shot split is a 0.20 here, my transition needs to be like a 0.30. This was a 0.56. It wasn't great; it wasn't super fast. It wasn't Aimbot. And then my shot split once I got there, my second shot, was 0.37. So I had a 0.35 on him, I then had a 0.56 transition, and then I had a 0.37 split. So you can start using a timer to watch your reloads, watch your target transitioning, watch your draws, set a par time if you're dry firing. It's really important.
Reloads (05:57)
I'm gonna go ahead and do a reload and show you guys kind of how to diagnose the speed of your reload based on your shot timer. So I'm just gonna fire two rounds into the head. So nice and slow. A better accuracy standard, so five-inch by five-inch box here at seven yards. Reload, two, reload, two. See what that looks like. Random delay. Standby.
All right. So all in, I did definitely fudge the reload, slipped when I went down to grab the magazine. So first shot was a 1.03. I had some weird data from like it hitting my holster. So first shot 1.03 into the head, not too bad. My second shot was a 1.46, so I had a 0.43 split. Obviously, cause I have a smaller target and I wanna make sure I'm getting good hits. My next time, my next split, that's my reload. So that's how much time it took me between my second shot to my reload and the next shot. So 1.6.
So the way to calculate this is obviously the reload is faster than this because once the magazine is seated, I'm still driving the gun out, and then I'm waiting however long I need to to make sure my sight picture's good, then pressing. So I usually, depending on target size or distance, I'll subtract maybe two tenths off of this and that's my raw reload time. So my reload time right here was probably a 1.4. I fumbled it, not great. I try to keep my reloads around a second. So if I see my split time on a reload and it says 1.2, 1.1, I know I was under a second, cuz it's about two-tenths of a second after my reload to drive the gun out, find my sights, and then press that trigger. So that's one way you can kind of see exactly what your reloads are doing. And then my split after that was a 0.38, which is obviously a little bit slower than what I was doing before because I'm shooting into a smaller target.
Conclusion (07:33)
So PACT timer, it's my favorite timer. I've used a bunch of different timers. This is my favorite. We sell them on our website. We stand by them and they're a hugely important training tool. It's really the only way you can push yourself. It's very hard to push yourself otherwise in terms of speed. Obviously, with accuracy you can just stand there and shoot B8's all day, shoot A zones at 50 yards, pistol, whatever. And you can just do it over and over again and get that group down. But if you're not necessarily pushing your speed, you know, how good is your shooting? If you can do A zone, 10 rounds A zone, say in 10 minutes, well, great accuracy, but your time's horrible. You should be able to do that in 10 seconds, you know, at 25 meters. So get a timer, push yourself. Give yourself par times when you're dry firing. Come out to the range, look through your data, click these little arrows right here to cycle through, give it a shot.