That was fast

A fast shooter’s perspective on fast shooting follows the video.

That’s Molly Smith from Team S&W shooting Smoke and Hope, the fastest of the Steel Challenge stages. In the video, she posts times of 3.01, 2.81, 2.91, 4.14, and 2.93. Her slowest run, the 4.14 is thrown out per Steel Challenge rules, giving her a stage time of 11.66 seconds. That’s fast, but to truly understand just how fast it is you have to have some perspective. In terms of professional speed, it is very fast – on that stage she posted a better time than Randi Rogers’ Open run and Jessie Abbate’s Limited run.

So why is that so cool? Because she’s ONLY 14. She is literally half my age, and she’s shooting times on Smoke and Hope that are world class fast. In 10 years, think about how much practice she’ll have had, think about how fast she’ll be then. There is a theory called the 10,000 Hour rule, which basically states that the people who are great at something (Tiger Woods, Bill Gates, Todd Jarrett) are not necessarily more skilled innately, but have over 10,000 hours of practice at their specific skill which has allowed them to develop it. Whether or not you think the 10,000 Hour Rule is bogus, it’s hard to argue that having 10,000 hours of practice at a specific sport is not going to make you really, really good at it. To give you an idea of how 10,000 hours breaks down, for me to hit 10,000 hours of trigger time assuming I started today and practiced 2 hours a day, 5 days a week, and 50 weeks out of the year it would take me 20 years to reach 10,000 hours. I would have mastered the sport just before I turn 50.

Molly on the other hand will run into 10,000 hours a lot quicker than me, and that’s a good thing for her and for the sport. I really enjoy seeing junior shooters out there pulling triggers, and Molly has the potential to be every bit the legend in the shooting community as Jerry Miculek is.