Elite Performance LLC

Shooting Background | Elite Performance, LLC | Brady Hardin

I began my path into pistol shooting in 2015 at 20 years old as a means to become proficient with my carry gun. At my first competition, a local IDPA match, I did not do too hot. Dead last of 37 shooters to be exact. My final score for this 6-stage club match was 447.62 seconds, under the old half second scoring rule too. I dropped 230 points with a 332.62 second raw time. Despite falling on my face very hard, I was instantly hooked on competitive shooting. Falling on my face just motivated me more to improve. I very quickly learned that I did not know anything and had a lot to learn to become better.

What stood out the most to me was a lack of speed and an inability to be accurate. I discovered the purpose of sights and how they worked but was still very lacking in speed. Something I decide very early on after that first match is there should be no excuse for why I could not draw and reload just as fast as the pro shooters. So, I began dryfiring every day to improve my proficiency. I didn't know it was called dry firing until a few years later.

​Fast forward to 2017, I had been traveling to and competing in a few sanctioned matches for a year and had improved from where I started. After I competed in the Florida State IDPA Championship, I was not pleased with my match performance in the slightest despite my best efforts to improve on my own. I decided it was time to seek out some help to get better. A few weeks after the match, I took my first training class with long time competitor, champion, LEO, and friend Matt Sims. I took a one-on-one class with Matt, a self-defense class. After a long day on the range, I was overwhelmed with new knowledge and eager to start training hard. The most memorable and impacting moment of this class was when Matt explained what makes a high-level shooter and a very deadly gunfighter. Equipment, skill, and will. Equipment can be bought. Skill can be learned. But the will, that is what drives us to get better and constantly strive for improvement. Someone lacking the will to get better and put the work in will never reach their full potential as a shooter.

From that day forward, my will to improve and chase down my goals hasn't stopped. I made Master class in IDPA in 2018 and B class in USPSA.