Way to go. Congratulations. (IMG:style_emoticons/default/smile.gif)

So what's my SR Pistols score? (IMG:style_emoticons/default/spin.gif) (IMG:style_emoticons/default/grinbig.gif)

Ummmm .... third place with 395? (IMG:style_emoticons/default/wink.gif)

Seriously, I wouldn't know where to start when it comes to giving you a specific Skill level. I will go on record as saying that it is more than a mere 1 though.

2/3 in SR4 I think as im yet to enter and try a good base line with my skill of 0 we wont know. Plus we dont know how fast you are that could be your agility not skill but a 2/3 looks and sounds about right 3 is professionally skilled so may be a high 2.

2/3 in SR4 I think as im yet to enter and try a good base line with my skill of 0 we wont know. Plus we dont know how fast you are that could be your agility not skill but a 2/3 looks and sounds about right 3 is professionally skilled so may be a high 2.

First, AWESOME job!

***

Target shooting has nothing to do with combat shooting other than to demonstrate control of the gun.

Your Pistols skill is at a 1 because you showed pretty good control. There is some work for you to do. However, this is just the beginner level and does not reflect the tactical realities of a gun fight. Can you do this on the move? Have you fired at moving targets while moving yourself? Can you shoot, move, reload on the move, and continue shooting? Do you know how to clear a double feed? Can you shoot one handed, at any angle to the target, from hip to eye level, while moving? Do you know how to do an after-action assessment? How fast is your draw? Finally, do you know how to handle the police?

See below.

***

It's the INDIAN, not the bow. Just because you don't have a tricked out, $2,000 1911 target pistol doesn't mean one cannot do well. Too many "gear queers" forget that. They try to buy success, forgetting that only work "buys" success.

I attended www.fpftraining.com's "Homeland Rifle" (actually, it's called Minuteman Rifle, but he didn't update the website) this weekend. I was using a Vector AK-47 with underfolding stock. Other guys were using tricked out AR-15's with red dot optics...and getting terrible groups at 25 yards (I'm talking 6-8" off with a group size of 4"-12"). They had the gear, but not the skill. My "inaccurate" AK-47 was getting mostly centered 1" groups for slow fire prone. Once they trained up through this morning, they got on target and had no trouble. But, they had to go through the process of learning HOW to make their gun perform. By the end of the course, they were handling their rifles properly, doing the manipulations, and shooting pretty well.

At Long Range International's "Long Range Hunting Course", I took a Savage 10FP with Pride Fowler RR800-1 scope. This is a sub-$600 gun with a $500 scope. It had NO trouble hitting an 18"x24" steel target at 1,000 yards. Everyone THINKS they need a $4,000 Accuracy International gun (one guy had one, another had a Tubbs rifle that probably cost $5,000+.) Here's my review of the course: http://www.thehighroad.us/showthread.php?t...e+International

Here's another review that show pictures of Stan. Stan is 69 years old and has a really nice rifle in 338 Lapua. He shoots it at targets that are one mile away. He posted one of his one mile targets on the wall of the barracks at LRI. It was an 11" group.

http://longrangeinternational.com/forum/vi...?f=21&t=310

Stan is the guy in the second picture with Titania. BTW, that guy whacked a gazillion pairie dogs with a $160 Marlin rifle in 17 HMR out to 325 yards (IMG:style_emoticons/default/spin.gif)

***

Are you right handed? The following assumes a right handed shooter. It is best to diagnose shooting problems in person, so these are "best guesses".

Shots going left or to the 7 o'clock position indicate problems with trigger pull.

"Front sight, trigger control!" This is your mantra.

Front sight
Press straight back
Front sight

By seeing the front sight a SECOND time for each shot guarantees follow through. If you see vertical stringing where they're more or less in a line, you're not following through.

The really low shots are probably due to that or anticipating the recoil. The latter problem means you are moving your body before the bullet exits the barrel. Most folks do this because they're trying to resist recoil.

Take a look at these videos:

www.downrange.tv -> DRTV Videos -> Latest on DRTV -> "SIGTIPS: The Wall Drill" and "The Bump Drill".

Focus on trigger control. Most guys can aim really well; it's the trigger part that's the problem. Rob Leatham demonstrates this in his pistol course: the student aims and he works the trigger. Suddenly, their "shooting" dramatically improves. There may be a video on his site showing this (I think I saw it on "Guns and Ammo TV").

Additionally, I see that you're anticipating the recoil, as shown by several shots that are very low. There are three ways to mitigate this problem:

1) Relax a "switch" in your mind when you're starting the firing sequence. Turn it off and relax. This will prevent "stress" in your brain from manifesting itself in your hand. This is the most important one. You already learned to do this by yourself during your warm-up. Just focus it during the firing sequence.

2) Tighten your front hand a bit. This will also reduce the effects of poor trigger control, causing less movement in the sight picture. Support hand should be around 70% of the pressure, with the remaining 30% of pressure coming from your strong hand.

For one handed point shooting, use the convulsive grip.

3) Ball-n-Dummy Drill. Have a friend load your magazine without you looking. Mix in some dummy rounds. Try not to look into the action while loading. When you shoot, if you're anticipating the recoil, your gun's muzzle will drop when it goes "CLICK" on an ballistically challenged round. Obviously, don't do that!!!

You can keep saying it all you like, but 'Combat Shooting' is not the Pistols Skill in Shadowrun. Combat Shooting (while not actually being a skill in and of itself in Shadowrun) involves various other factors besides the ability to aim and squeeze the trigger of a firearm. An Olympic athlete could have what is considered to be a 7 in Pistols, but have never been under fire, never taken a combat course, never even drawn his weapon in a rapid manner. He still has 7 in actually shooting the pistol though.

You never played any sport? No egg and spoon races at school perhaps?
Anyway, good job.

Here's your tournament in SR1-3 terms;

1. 6 shots @ Long range in 10 turns
2. 12 @ Medium in 13 turns w. 1 reload
3. 12 @ Medium in 13 turns w. 1 reload
4. 12 @ Short in 13 turns w. 1 reload

Score of 7= 1 success, 8=2, 9=3 & 10=4

So, say you got 12 "10's" out of 12 at short range, that equals 4 successes each time. One simple action to aim, one to shoot each turn and 1 turn/2 simple actions to eject clip/reload = 13 turns. Your reaction is probably less than 4 ;)
With a TN of 3 [4-1 for aiming] 2 in 3 dice succeed which means your 4 successes cost 6 dice. Depending on your combat pool expenditure your skill could be as high as 6.
For more accuracy, you need to show your results for each range division rather than grouped.

Fortune,

You are absolutely, completely wrong.

Pistols does include all those skills, because that's what's needed to run the gun in combat.

Shrug. I personally know quite a few people (including two Olympic competitors) who have never been in combat, but are damn fine pistol shots. The presence of combat is not a requirement for skilled pistol use. The skill of firing a pistol (only) has nothing to do with combat.

What you describe is Combat Shooting, which is a completely different thing.

So what you're saying is my pistols skill is also my running skill, my dodge, and several other skills rolled into one? Damn, I've been wasting BP.

Seriously though, pistols in SR lets you aim at, and hit, a target (stationary or moving) with a pistol. Yes it covers snap-shots as well as aimed fire, but at the end of the day, everything else you're describing falls under other skill headings.

Don't be silly.

You're separating everything out...that's not how the body and mind work. The Pistols skills allows you to shoot and perform a simultaneous action (versus do one or the other). In role playing terms, the character gets to move and shoot. Yes, the game really doesn't work like that--glossing over it is fine. The main idea here is that the original poster's query was to evaluate his Pistols skill. We're going from REAL WORLD to GAME. In that CONTEXT, he lacks skills in many critical areas and target shooting just demonstrates control of the gun.

I saw this inability to perform simultaneous actions this past weekend in FPF Training's rifle course. People would STOP to reload. The gun goes "CLICK". The shooter would STOP moving, look down, drop the mag, pull a fresh one, insert and tug, operate the bolt, acquire a sight picture, and then move. Meanwhile, we're all hollering "MOVE MOVE MOVE" because that pause equals ballistic perforation.

If the Pistol skill was all about target shooting, then why aren't 'runners spending their time aiming for 15 seconds in the middle of a hall? People standing around in combat are bullet magnets. Go watch some police dash cams on You Tube and LiveLeak...they don't stand around.

No, it covers the use of pistols in combat. Why is this so difficult to understand? It's probably because you've never actually run a pistol in preparation for fighting...or even shot a gun. Do you know how to run a gun with only one hand? (By "run a gun with one hand", I mean: reload, clear different types of jams, shoot, and generally unfuck yourself with it). I bet a Street Samurai does. It doesn't even occur to people that these skills may be important (don't even get me going on state certified Security Targets...er...Guards).

Instead, they insist that standing in a lane at the range with safety glasses on, a boatload of range rules, and waiting on time-outs is actual fight training.

And, no, Counter Strike doesn't count as experience.

Oh, well, it's just a stupid game. Play it how you like.

I resent your assumptions. (IMG:style_emoticons/default/ohplease.gif)



Exactly. And in that game, just what the Pistols skill entails is quite clear. Defense is covered by other skills and / or attributes, and positioning, along with conditional and situational occurrences are covered by (typically negative) modifiers.

cREbralFIX - I see what you are aiming at, but in SR4, your pistols skills is just that- your skill with a pistol. Having a 7 in pistols doesn't mean you've been through extensive combat pistols training or even ever seen combat before. The thing is this

Sally is an Olympic competitor with what we would call a 7 in pistols. She wins a lot of Gold medals. On her way home from a competition she is accosted by gangers and it is the first combat she has seen in her life. Since Sally wins a lot we will give her an Agility of 5 as well. So, when the Weenies step out of the alley Sally has to make a composure test to not be frightened by the sight of other pistols pointed at her in anger- this is the first time she has ever seen this outside of the simflicks- she then has to move to cover which she doesn't have the running skill to accomplish in one round, she also doesn't have the experience to know what cover is best vs. her opponents weapons or the awareness of her surrounding to notice where available cover is. Sally is in for a bad day as she is gunned down mercilessly by people with a pistols score of 2. But, by god if they had let her get her bearings and get set up, she could have shot them all in the pupil of their left eye.

Unfamiliarity with combat is what the GM enforced penalties in SR4 are for, and not knowing good tactics... well that is punishment enough without adding extra penalties on top of it.

Chris

*Points at DTFarstar*
What he said.

Sally might not be ready to take down a house by herself but she can sure as fuck put a bullet in someones head provided she isn't scared, dying, or running away.

By cREbralFIX logic a championship rifleman wouldn't be a fucking fantastic sniper (still a gun skill right?). If we're going to be making up new "Combat" skills we should also include "Combat Running" "Combat Hacking" "Combat Driving" "Combat Survival" "Combat Dodge" because by goddamn! All those things a different when someone is shooting at you and your adrenaline is pumping (or so I'm told. Repeatedly.)


@Wounded Ronin: Good shooting!

You're right, I haven't fired a gun before, but as you said yourself: it's just a game.

DTFarstar and DocTautsu covered the rest of what I was going to say. =)

Pistols skill (in SR) covers your ability to put rounds into a target, accurately, with a pistol. Nothing more, nothing less. Clearing jams while running with one hand is Armoury (I think), though SR4 mostly glosses over jams.

Wow, your post was filled with lots of very useful information. Thank you very much for taking the time to type it up, put the links in, and for even looking at my target papers to help me with my shooting! I appreciate all the work that went into your post, and I apologize for not replying sooner.

The low shots were indeed my anticipating recoil. I used to do that a lot more, especially when I was trying to shoot relatively quickly. Would you believe me if I told you that maybe 8 months ago under some circumstances I used to chronically flinch with that Ruger? Now I usually avoid doing it, but sometimes when I'm feeling tense I'll end up flinching on a few shots as you noticed. It's gotten to the point that after shooting I know if I've flinched because I can sense just a bit of extra tension in my body.

However, I will try out your suggestion about tightening my front hand a bit. As I was training for this tournament, I had realized that some of my inaccuracy seemed to be stemming from my not following through well, and I started to practice making a special effort to control the gun well after firing while at the same time not flinching. So it would seem like if I tightened my front hand a bit more, I could do better still. I appreciate your suggestion as a good way to maintain better control of the pistol.

I also agree that one area I could improve in is trigger control. I think part of that is also the size of my hand versus the size of the grip on my pistol. I always felt just a bit awkward pulling on my trigger...like my hand was just somewhat, slightly not fitting with the gun, so that I often don't feel 100% comfortable with my finger position on the trigger. I don't notice it every time I shoot but sometimes I become aware of that. Another thing is that on a Ruger P97DC the trigger pull has been described by some as "mushy". You have to squeeze it relatively long to fire the pistol. Perhaps I should experiment with different finger positions on my trigger in order to systematically try and see which particular finger position contributes to the best trigger pull.


I appreciate your photos you linked to, and your stories about how some people get all enamored of expensive gear while ignoring their fundamentals. It was a very interesting read.


Finally, regarding the combat skills you mentioned in the above post...I won't say I'm good at them or anything, but I've practiced some of them at least briefly during that one day tactical pistols course I mentioned earlier. Some of them, like shooting while moving, I still practice occasionally on my own when I go to an outdoor range.

Thanks again for your very thoughtful and long reply. I appreciate the kindness you've shown me by giving me suggestions as to how to improve my shooting, and for articulating different ways in which I could continue to grow as a hobbyist through many different aspects of firearms use.

Sweet! Finally, a "serious" attempt to answer the question of what value my SR Pistols score is! (IMG:style_emoticons/default/smile.gif)

Unfortunately I don't have any way to tell which shots were at exactly which distance, but I imagine that as far as combat pool is concerned that everyone present would be putting full pool into their attack, since nobody was attempting to take cover in their stall and shoot while timorously peeking out while ducking up and down erratically.

Let's see...an average man with attributes of 3 would have a combat pool of (3+3+3)/2=4.5->4. However, a man with just one extra point in Quickness, Intelligence, or Willpower would have (4+3+3)/2=5, so I guess for the sake of figuring out what my SR Pistols score "should" we it would make sense to have the math reflect being able to put up to 4 or 5 pool dice into taking the shots.

Thanks! (IMG:style_emoticons/default/smile.gif)

The issue about which shots were which is that you shot at medium range at both targets, making a full SR assessment a problem. You could take the more accurate shots as being the closer range ones. This assumes the .45 is a heavy pistol by the way.

As for combat pool, the more pool used the lower your skill. Bugger that. I would go with a 4 pool and assume that participants only contributed half their pool to each shot. The environment may have been competitive but only in the full duress of a life and death struggle does the full pool manifest (IMG:style_emoticons/default/spin.gif)
Hence your skill is 4 (at least considering short range).

Easiest way I can think of to test this is head to a paintball range. Have several guys pop up from concealment and take pot-shots at you while you engage pop-up targets (or the shooters themselves) with a pistol.

Accuracy under stress is what I think the SR pistols skill is really intended to measure.

Wounded Ronin,

Would you happen to know the name of the competition you were in?

Also, you should shoot in Mr. Completely's match. They do an online monthly postal match. You shoot the target, take a digital photo of it, and email it in. Winners get bragging rights and a good time.

Yes, the competition was the Clark County Games Pistol Shoot in Las Vegas, NV.

I think I've heard of those mail-in pistol competitions. I've heard the competition is really fierce. Ha ha, I just might have to give it a try. Thanks again for the pointer. (IMG:style_emoticons/default/smile.gif)

Just curious...what did you decide was your Pistols skill level? For 3rd Ed, what do you think your combat pool is?

Well, if I'm totally average, my combat pool would be 4. If I'm a bit mentally talented or a bit agile it could be as high as 5.

Now, I can only put as many pool into shooting as I have skill. So even if my pool were 6 or 7 but my Pistols score were only 2, I could only roll 4 dice on the attack.

Link's assessment of 4 is probably reasonable, I guess, i.e. rolling 4 dice from skill and contributing 2 pool to be able to roll 6 dice for each Pistols related action. My skill could theoretically be as low as 3, and I could be contributing 3 pool to each shot. However, full pool use means you're doing everything you can to shoot the target and totally neglecting other considerations, so that would probably mean benching the pistol or something like that.

Note that the textual descriptions in the SR3 BBB might not match up with the mathematically derived skill level from this thread. Basically, the SR3 fluff descriptions of each level of the Pistols skill make a lot of the skill levels sound pretty basic up until 5, 6, 7, and 8. (I can't find the text online ATM and I'm about to leave.)