SHOT TIMERS
“That *felt* faster”… Who cares? It was either faster or it wasn’t.
Speed, the time it takes us to accomplish a task is objectively measurable. We shouldn’t care how it *felt*.
Being able to put numbers to things like “faster” is important if we’re going to develop our skills. The way we present our rifle, draw our pistol, reload, transition, shoulder-roll or execute our back-flipping hatchet attack are all things that we can quantify by the time they take us to accomplish. We can make adjustments to the mechanics of our movements and find out if it makes us faster or slower, independent of how it felt.
Do you even backflipping-hatchet-throw bro?
Timers help us evaluate our training and can help steer adjustments to how we set up our gear. If I move where my go-to rifle reload is, does that speed up my reload or slow it down? How did it impact my pistol reload? My transition? We’ve got to have a way of answering these questions.
You can find them at most outdoor stores. Midway USA had the best prices of the big names (Cabelas/Basspro, Brownells) that I just looked at, but Amazon has them beat.
Of all the options out there, I’ve owned the CED7000, the PACT Timer, and the Pocket Pro II. My personal favorite is the CED7000 but it also has some downsides. It’s hard to manipulate with gloves on and it’s got a rechargeable battery, which means if you forget to plug it in and it dies in the middle of range day, you’re out of luck. We use the Pocket Pro II’s at training. They’re durable, easy to adjust and take standard 9v batteries. There are dozens of websites with shot timer reviews so feel free to do your own research. Bottom line, if you make your living carrying a gun, you need to own one.
A quick note on shot timer apps - I have one on my phone in case I completely forget a timer when I go to the range, but they are… not great. None of the free ones I’ve tried do a very good job of tracking splits or filtering background noise. They work fine for dry-fire practice, but I haven’t used one on the range that I would recommend.