One of the things we learned from the Vickers Tactical pistol course was that Larry may be opinionated, but he’s not flashy. For him it’s fundamentals over “flopping all over the ground like a fish.”
But what is his secret sauce? What is the one thing above all others that LAV stresses to his students and why?
First person with the correct answer will win a Vickers Tactical hat and we’ll post your reply on Kit Up!
Please use the comments section for your answers and be sure to include a valid email in the comment form so we can contact the winner.
Good Luck!
{ 40 comments… read them below or add one }
Mind set. The determination that you will win and not giving up.
Thought it was speed is fine but accuracy is final.
That was Col Cooper.
Know and adhere to the real world safety rules that govern professional firearms handling.
Only accurate hits on target can decide the fight in your favor – therefore accuracy is King.
Trigger control no matter what which gives accuracy!
Drill, Practice, Repetition, call it what you want but you need to be training constently.
Gotta be fundamentals and trigger control right? Larry has always said that the fundamentals have to be firmly locked into your game. He also talks about trigger control being very important and not “el *******” the trigger. Knowing Larry though he probably simply said, training. Learn the fundamentals and train.
Larry's secret sauce seems to be "train like you mean it"….in other words, focus on the basics and expand from there. Flashy tricks and such have no place in a life and death situation.
Steve and Redband are probably right though. Larry stresses accuracy above all else. Only accurate hits on target are going to win the fight.
No bad guy ever died from a fast miss. Make your hits.
broiling beats frying-or, accuracy over speed
Speed is fine, accuracy is final.
LAv stresses the shooting fundamentals- there is no use shooting if you can't do it with the proper procedures and ways.
Accuracy
Trigger Control
why?
You can have perfect sight picture, perfect stance, perfect, wind at your back, birds singing and if all you do i snatch you're still going to miss…On the other hand some of that other stuff can be off (and likely will be at the point when you need to use your gun) and you can still get effective hits.
Brent wins, I believe
The answer i beleive is like Vickers…Not flashy, In the end all the training in the world won't save your ass if you don't apply COMMON SENSE to any issue, Vickers doe's that!
Sounds fun and helpful course.
He pushes accuracy. I find it interesting you called it vtac though. Thats Kyle lamb’s company, and I’ve read/heard they don’t necessarily get along. That’s all hearsay though, so treat it as such.
Dry firing
I agree with Brent. 'Speed is fine – Accuracy is final' is LV's trademark quote and moto. Here is a link to his page and he even calls it 'a moto':
———————
Accuracy
As anyone who has taken one of my classes can attest I am very accuracy oriented. My classes always stress a high degree of accuracy. That is because in a gunfight accuracy will almost always suffer. There are many reasons for this not the least of which is you may very well be receiving fire from your assailant. In addition there is a high likelihood that you will be moving, your enemy may be moving, and it could be in an environment of limited visibility.
All of these factors and countless others will have a negative affect on accuracy. The hope is that if you strive for a high degree of accuracy in your training that when your accuracy suffers in a gunfight, it will still be enough to get the job done. This approach has been used with great effectiveness in Tier One special operations units for years. I am a product of that school of thought, and I have trained a great many of these soldiers with that approach uppermost in my mind.
Whenever I teach drills, I always tell my students to shoot as fast as they can, but not at the expense of a reasonable accuracy standard. One of the techniques I use frequently is to place a 25 yd pistol bullseye center target on the chest area of an IPSC or IDPA target. I then tell the students to shoot as fast as they can on each and every drill but always strive to keep the shots in the black of the bullseye. On drills such as shooting on the move this is opened up to keep your shots on the replacement center paper. This is commonly known as the “aim small, miss small” approach. Part way through the first day I will peel off the bullseye and show the students the large ragged hole that inevitable results from this drill. This reinforces the teaching point that speed is fine, but accuracy is final – words that I live by.
Another question I get frequently asked is what is the acceptable mechanical or intrinsic accuracy for a service pistol or carbine. Meaning what should the weapon/ammo combination be capable of producing from a shooting device or rest that eliminates shooter error. Keep in mind I come from a surgical accuracy oriented special operations background with little margin for error. Based on this and years of experience I have concluded that a service pistol should be capable of head shots at 25 yds and a service carbine should be capable of the same at 100 yds – basically 5 inch groups. However there is a catch; I have found that under conditions of stress a shooter will only be able to shoot to within roughly 50 % of the accuracy potential of a given weapon. And that is only for the best shooters; the majority will not even be close to that. That means in order to achieve my standard of head shots (5 inch groups) at a given distance the weapon/ammo combination needs to be capable of at least 2.5 inch groups. I personally measure that accuracy standard with 10 shot groups. Many quality service pistols and carbines with good ammo will achieve this but there are many other factors involved such as sights and trigger pull characteristics. By these criteria it is not hard to see why a tuned 1911 pistol is so popular in selected spec ops units. Keep in mind that any effort to make a weapon more accurate almost always means tightening tolerances which can lead to a less than acceptable reliability standard for a combat weapon. A balance between accuracy and reliability has to be achieved. Surprisingly there are many pistols and carbines that do a good job offering an acceptable blend of both. In addition weapons of this type will require a higher degree of end user maintenance to keep them running. Don’t expect a pistol to shoot like a custom 1911 but be as forgiving about maintenance as a Glock 17; it just doesn’t happen that way.
In closing always strive to maintain a high degree of accuracy in your training sessions. It will serve you well in case you ever have to use your weapon for real. Remember the motto of this website: Speed is fine – Accuracy is final.
http://vickerstactical.com/tactical-tips/accuracy…
He actually seems to emphasize two types of "secret sauce". First; that speed is great but accuracy is what gets the job done at the end of the day, and second; to keep things simple, basic, and practical.
Repetition. Do something over and over again and it becomes muscle memory
fast is fine, accuracy is final.
Edited:
Speed is fine, but accuracy is final . LAV teaches students to "shoot as fast as they can, but not at the expense of a reasonable accuracy standard."
Larry is all about KISS, keep it simple and stick to the fundamentals
Listen/Learn/Apply
No matter what this little contest is? , Larry Vickers is an awesome American and i am sure glad the man was on our side. God bless Larry.
Simplicity.
Practice practice practice.
And some more practice.
Aim small, miss small.
The flimsier the product, the higher the price.
Practice and Accuracy.
Larry Vickers; Speed is find, Accuracy is final.
Tigerswan; "Brilliance in the Basics." "There is no such thing as "advanced tactical skills" – there is only perfect execution of the fundamentals under stress. "
Lets just say that Delta Operators have the shooting game down to a science. They are definitely the best in the world.
Slow is smooth; smooth is fast
Trigger control, you can miss any of the other fundamentals, but with trigger control you can be confident that your shots are going to the place you're aiming.
Same thing that Kyle Defoor explains in his courses.
I would say something but I am the guy in the middle wearing a VT Hat already ;)
I have got to learn not to stand in front of cameras, I have broken too many already.