Making accurate follow up shots can be an important skill for self defense and pistol competition. The skills you need to shoot a pistol faster will take time and practice to develop. Factors that influence your ability to shoot a pistol faster include proper stance, grip, recoil management, sight picture and trigger control.
Training to shoot a pistol faster
Each element of pistol shooting builds upon the previous one and influence your accuracy and ability to shoot a pistol faster. Practice each of these elements individually until you do them properly. Your skills with a pistol are directly related to the level of firearms training you do.
Proper stance for shooting
The purpose of your shooting stance is to give you the most stable platform to shoot from. Your shots will not be accurate if you are off balance. The recoil from a gun will push you off balance if you don’t have a strong stance to counter it.
A proper stance will allow you to remain stable when a force is applied to you from a couple different directions. Imagine where your feet would need to be for you to remain stable if someone tried to push you from the front and the side at the same time.
Proper Pistol Grip
You cannot control your pistol and manage recoil without a proper grip on it. Your hand needs to be as high on the back-strap as possible without interfering with the operation of the slide. The barrel should be directly in line with the bone off your arm. Your support hand needs to fill in the gab between your fingertips and thumb of your primary hand.
Grip your pistol harder with your support hand then you do with your primary hand. Your primary hands main function will be pressing the trigger without changing the sight picture. Apply slight forward pressure with your primary hand and back pressure with your support hand. The push pull technique will help to keep the pistol very stable.
Pistol recoil management
The proper grip will help you effectively manage pistol recoil by giving you better control over it. Extend the gun toward your target but do not lock your elbows. Allow your arms to act like shock absorbers each time you fire a shot.
Proper pistol recoil management will bring the gun back into the same position it moved from when you fire the shot. If the pistol returns to the same position you can regain the proper sight picture before making the next shot.
Proper sight picture
Your eye is just like a camera lens and cannot focus on multiple objects at the same time. Focus on the front sight post of your pistol and allow the target and the rear sight to blur out. Proper sight focus will help you to improve your accuracy and target acquisition. Target transitions will become smooth and faster also.
Trigger Control
Proper trigger control is the most important part of handgun accuracy. Each element of shooting a pistol can be done perfectly and bad trigger control will keep you from being accurate. Trigger control drills are a great way to help improve your trigger control and make you a better shot.
An individual does not rise to the occasion in a self defense situation; they will default to their level of training. Regular training is important to maintaining your abilities with a firearm.