WJM's road to Master

[WJM]

Well, I just typed this entire thing, only to have it say I can't have a link in my post and it deleted everything so here it goes again.

A little preface, I have been a somewhat long range Rifle shooter my entire life. I have been shooting rifles since I was 4, and loved every minute of it. My only knowledge with pistols has been the Ruger MKIII that I bought when I was 12, and my dads Ruger Bearcat .22 pistol.

In March my dad and I bought a Glock 34 9mm, and the addiction began. At that time we bought what we thought would be the best competition holster a custom kydex one, which worked flawlessly for a very long time.

After owning my gun for less than a month I decided to shoot a pistol competition and learned about IDPA. I shot my first classifier on March 22, after owning my pistol less than a month, and putting new sights on the gun the night before. Looking back my time was extremely slow, and I knew that I could have done better, but at the time I was focusing more on accuracy than on speed, and I was happy with a measly 179 second classifier. This earned me the class of Marksman, one that I would be in for 6 months because of my lack of doing a classifier.

Around a month later I shot another match, placing 13th in my division! I was extremely happy that I had moved up the ranks so quickly considering that my goal at that time was just not to be in last place. I learned that shooting steel was fun, but one lesson I wasn't able to grasp for another 6 months, was that on steel it is fastest to have one shot, and one hit per steel plate.

My dad and I began training very hard or so we thought. We would burn through 250-400 rounds per person per week. Shooting every weekend became standard for us, and we slowly both go used to our respective guns (me using a G34, him using a Beretta 92FS).

It was after the ICORE that I learned of a local pistol expert who was teaching classes his name was Tom Nelson. I took a class from him in May, and just like any hobby or sport, you learn more in 4 hours with a master, than 2 months on your own. He introduced me to a drill where you draw, fire a down zero shot, reload from slidelock, and shoot another round down zero in less than 3 seconds. Thus began my obsession with a sub 1 second reload from slidelock.

After the class I focused on reloads and speed shooting paper a lot.. There were a lot of mozambiques done, double tapping multiple targets, reloads with retention and other things like this.

The next match I shot was a night match, in which I placed 11th in my division. I don't really feel like this was a true test of my abilities, simply because it was something I had never practiced, but none the less I did it and I placed what I felt was ok.

The next match I shot was what we call at our Local Match the Supershoot. This match I placed 14th, and I noticed something. I kept being beaten by the same people, and I wasn't moving through the ranks like I felt I should be. I self diagnosed, and noticed a few things. My draws were extremely slow, my reloads were near perfect, and my movements as well were very slow. My dad and I began training for draws until we felt that we hit what was acceptable which was around 1.5 seconds.

The next match, is the one which I will forever think was the most pivotal in regards to my shooting career. It was IDPA state, and I had been practicing for months for it. I had gotten used to my Dawson magwell and Warren Sights, and was used to my gun backwards and forwards. I had a goal at that time of placing first in Marksman. I practiced and practiced, woke up that day, did some dry fire at home, and was ready.

But alas it wasn't meant to happen. It turns out I didn't know the rules as properly as I thought, and 21 seconds of procedurals combined with 2 FTN's because of hard cover, lost me my first place by 13 seconds. This made me angry at myself, how could I make such silly mistakes and ruin what I thought I trained so hard for. Then I took a step back, watched the video I took of my match performance, and was disgusted. I thought that I was flying super fast, but points down from reckless stage planning crushed me, and eventually ruined me. That day I made a personal goal to win the next IDPA state in Enhanced Service Pistol, yes a lofty goal but I live my life by the quote "Aim for the stars, that way if you hit the moon you're still better than you were."

I made a plan of what I needed to do. I set a few personal goals, and set a difficult goal of doing 1 hour of dry fire every single day. As well as succeeding in getting a consistent 1 second draw, and a 1 second reload.

The next match I attended I was shooting in my teachers squad, and I wanted to learn as much, but also wanted to beat him kinda. I shot the match in what I thought was a blazing speed, but one stage and procedurals again ruined me. This is when I realized that accuracy on steel and paper matches, trumps speed. Even though I was sometimes able to use my very fast splits and transitions and make up for misses, I noticed that Tom hitting one target with one shot was still faster. This made me angry at myself simply because I knew better.

I am pretty much caught up right now, I wanted this post to be a summary basically, and then in future posts I can write about specific goals that I have had and achieved and those that I am working on.

Thanks for reading,

Wyatt

[WJM]

The Reload obsession.

Ever since being introduced into a reload drill which involved drawing, shooting a down zero hit, and then reloading from slidelock, and shooting another down zero hit, I have been addicted to practicing my reloads.

I am sure myself like many others have watched that old Travis Tomasie video when he was with the Army, and he is practicing reloads. I have watched it so much that it would probably be creepy to admit it.

When I first was introduced I had a simple goal of just making it under 3.0 seconds, with my best time that day being 2.79 seconds. After 3 months of not doing any better in this drill, I knew that I had not really sped up at all. I mean I was now consistently doing it at 2.79 instead of just doing a simple fluke best run, but I knew I had to do something different. I began not only doing live fire training of this drill, but also dry fire.

I bought a magwell, because I figured the competition at my level wasn't going to be any different if I shot in ESP or SSP, and soon fell in love with magwell.s I was soon bringing my reload from slidelock times to around 1.2 seconds, and my draw to a consistent .9-1.0 seconds. This was enough to bring this drill down to around 2.2-2.4 seconds on average.

When I began shooting USPSA and noticed that the difference between IDPA and USPSA was for me that in Limited you hardly have to reload from slidelock, and instead you almost always reload by dropping the mag with bullets in it (which earns you a procedural in IDPA). This made me practice reloads while having one in the chamber, which are obviously faster because of the less steps necessary IE not having to hit the slide lock lever.

My latest draw shoot, reload, shoot, was also my fastest, at a 2.11. Im sure it can be done faster, but I also dont practice it anymore. I have realized that at least for me, it is almost useless. Because such a poor grip can be used and still get a fast draw and reload, it makes no sense to train purely for speed and a crappy grip, so I have instead graduated to either a draw shoot 2 head shot, reload shoot 2 pelvis, or the redback one drill of drawing shooting 5 at the pelvis, reload, shoot 5 at the chest, and then reload and shoot 5 at the head. All in under 7.77 seconds.

My times as of last nights dry fire practice were around a par time of .8-.9 for a reload with a bullet in the chamber, and a draw of .9 seconds very consistently. Which after 8 months with a pistol I am very happy.

I will upload videos whenever I get enough posts to allow it to let me put links in my posts.

Thanks for reading,

Wyatt

[WJM]

The last thing I wanted to post until I start posting when I train, is my current speeds to reflect on.

I think it will be wise to do this around once a month or so, unless I do a new drill or find some new breakthrough in my game.

Draw- At anything less than 17 yards, .95 in practice, 1.3 in match. Past 17 yards, 1.4 in practice 1.5 in match.

Mozambique- 1.41 seconds down zero, 1.01 draw, .19 split, .2 split.

Bill drill- 2.05 seconds.

Blake Drill- 2.15 seconds.

I will go shoot the El Pres tomorrow.. but I want to say it was around 5.

Draw shoot reload shoot- 2.2 ish, haven't done a serious one in a while.

Draw shoot 2 reload shoot 2- 2.6 seconds ish.

Reload from Slidelock- 1.2 seconds

Speed reload- .9

Splits- To me these are extremely variable just because of the distance, but for me at sub 10 yards they are .2 on average, past that .3 or .4.

Reaction time- Simply pressing the clock and getting used to shooting when you hear the beginning of the beep. - .14 seconds

I also have one other drill I do inspired by Ben Stoeger, draw shoot 2 shots in 2 seconds. I practice this a lot because I feel like most shooters biggest downfall is they can't shoot distance at speed and accuracy.

Anyways that's my last little lost before I actually start posting videos and photos.

Thanks for reading,

Wyatt

[WJM]

I shot a USPSA local match this last weekend and honestly I would rate my shooting performance as average. I am always hesitant to rate myself, but my dad also agreed I shot about an average match. Not my best, I had some major misses, bombed the classifier but also had a couple of good stages.

In my division I placed 3rd overall, losing to a GM and a very high level A class shooter who the way he shot should be a GM. Overall in the classification I placed 5th, losing to a GM, the A class shooter, another basically GM shooter (like 94%), and an open shooter.

The classifier I bombed as I said. I shot it at a B class time, when I ran it after tho I was running it at a M-GM time which to me just says I had a bad first run, but hey thats ok I know what level I am at and what I need to improve on. I ran one stage in the video different from anyone in my squad, shooting as far away as possible (in order to try my weakest part of shooting) and overall I was really happy with how I am shooting at further distances because of that being my weakest link that I have been practicing on.

Another thing I noticed is how much dry fire has improved my draw. Consistently in a match condition I am able to pull a 1 second draw which is a big improvement on before.

Anyways here is the video, thanks for reading.

Wyatt

[Richc2048]

Nice job Wyatt. I got some time in with Tom Nelson in during the MAG 40 he was running in September. He got my draw time down to a sub second with a great sight picture.

Best of luck to you. You have a great teacher and you look solid in you're video.

(I hope it's the same Tom we are taking about. If not this whole entry doesn't make sense. Tom of the Gun Dudes.)

[WJM]

Yes that is the same Tom that I mentioned that you know! He is very accuracy oriented, which I wasn't in the beginning.

Most people start with accuracy and move to speed, I started with speed and had to add accuracy, which has been very difficult for me.

Thanks again,

Wyatt

[WJM]

Got done shooting a match last night. Learned some very valuable lessons, and overall it was a good experience for what it taught me. Not so much how much I learned about my shooting, or improving my shooting, but for the overall lessons.

Lesson 1-

Its DAMN hard to see your sights when they are fiber optic and their is little light to light up the fiber optic. Essentially the entire match I was forced to index. Which for me was a very bad old habit coming to the surface. I was angry at myself for doing this, but I had to do it.

Lesson 2-

The accuracy that I have been working on has helped while indexing! When before I was dropping 10 points a stage, or vast amounts, I am now dropping 12 points total for the whole match, (while indexing). While I still don't like this method in this situation it was really the only solution. It still ended up being ok and I placed second which I was happy with (losing to a open gun shooter).

Overall I am happy with my performance and how much my accuracy has improved, but as far as going back to the indexing problem, I really have been working away from this idea, and been working on pure accuracy.

Anyways I ran it fast and fairly accurate, so I am happy just frustrated I couldn't use my sights.

Wyatt

Also as a side note I figured I would post videos of my other matches just to remember how I was shooting.

IDPA State 2014

USPSA first match

Average day of practice, along with reload practice.

Edited November 20, 2014 by WJM

[WJM]

Did another match this weekend, our club calls it ICORE, but really it is more of a primary steel challenge.

I think it may help me to rate what I thought my performance was, and what it wasn't for future reference.

Draw- 9/10 I felt like it was very consistent throughout the entire match. The reason I downmarked it a point is because while it was consistent it could have been faster, and also I wasn't as comfortable drawing with heavier clothes which I need to practice with.

Splits- 8/10 I shot too fast. And that is why I lost the match. Especially on stage 3 I lost the entire match off of one stage, simply because I didn't focus on trigger work and sight alignment.

Sight Alignment- 8.5/10 While I lost the match due to improper sight alignment on two stages in my opinion, I still was able to hold onto the lead by using proper sight alignment the rest of the time.

Grip- 10/10 My grip was consistently fantastic strong hand to weakhand to free style. I was happy with it considering it rained and snowed the entire day.

Stage Planning- 9.5/10 There were two stages where I could've done them better, the Pro-Am one, and the baseball one. In total I could've shaved around 7 seconds off my time just using better planning, which would've gave me the far lead, but overall I suffered no penalties and had a few stage wins.

Honestly I would rate my performance as average. The weather was definitely the largest factor in this, I had one stage where my trigger finger was so cold it actually wasn't functioning properly. This caused a lot of misses.

Here is the video,

Thanks for reading,

Wyatt

[WJM]

Sorry for not writing in a while, between college finals and engineering exams I have had my plate full.

I did a competition yesterday after not looking at my gun since cleaning it after the previous competition. Yes thats right, I went from dry firing once a day for an hour, along with range sessions to nothing for a month.

Now to the competition, it went, well it was very bad.

I had lots of misses, lost front sight focus, had movement issues, and other things.

The biggest thing for me which really ruined my day was gun malfunctions. I can safely say that after 20 thousand rounds, and what I have figured to be 40k dry fire racks trigger pulls and the like, I haven't had a single malfunction.

This last competition I had 3 malfunctions in 200 rounds. As soon as the day started my gun felt sluggish (not due to lack of lube I clean my guns after every match, and they are very much properly lubed), and it felt very weak. The gun didn't feel like it wanted to cycle properly and I dont think the recoil spring was working properly. Sure enough I traded out my recoil spring with my dads new recoil spring, and it worked flawlessly. Along with this I had extractor and mag issues for most of the day. It amounted to around 10-15 seconds on my clock, but I still placed 6th overall and 2nd in my division for the match. (Lost to the first place in my division by half a second).

It could've been a lot better, but I am ordering new parts for my gun tonight, and plan on keeping a detailed journal of how many rounds I shoot through these springs, just for my own personal satisfaction.

Oh and an improvement. For christmas I am lucky enough to receive a Double Alpha race belt with a stoeger DOH for my Glock 34, which means I will be shooting production for the foreseeable future. Along with SSP. Hoping to be Master class in IDPA by March, and Master in USPSA by October or so.

Thanks for reading.

WJM

[WJM]

Today I completed hopefully the first of many goals.

In the back of my mind I had always thought of this, but I truly made it a goal as of 3 months ago. I wanted to succeed in running a Master Class IDPA classifier before the year was over.

This would mean I had gone from not picking up a pistol to shooting in Master class in under a year. Well today I did it.

Ran the classifier in a total time of 86.67. Was a total of 23 points down (Still need to work on those 20 yard shots), but overall I thought it was good.

The weather was snowing and raining and it was a balmy 34 degrees, was wearing a hoodie that messed up my draws and reloads but overall I can just tell that the dryfire is paying off and I am loving this.

Thanks for reading,

WJM

Also if it seemed like I didn't want people to post on here you have my most sincere apologies I want as much criticism as possible thats the way I learn best.

[WJM]

Its been a long couple of weeks!

For christmas I really wanted a new holster and belt system to be able to compete in USPSA! My dad and I ordered the BOSS holster from Ben Stoeger, and holy moly this thing is incredible. The reloads are smooth as glass and the draws are perfect.

I have been getting into my dry fire rhythm again of an hour a day. Usually a half hour dedicated to concealment and IDPA practices, along with a half hour with my new USPSA belt rig and I am starting to feel good. Usually I will set up two random stages with dry fire targets, and that type of thing.

I have done two matches in the last week, a steel challenge and a local USPSA match.

First the steel challenge. Well it went better than I thought. Surprisingly my best stage was Showdown, the next best was outer limits. I figured smoke n hope would be my best just because it plays to my strengths of transitions and draw, but alas it wasn't.

The USPSA match went very well however. I had two stages go extremely well (placed in top ten of both) two stages go alright, and two stages go very bad. The bad stages were luckily not worth that many points, but unfortunately the one was a classifier. I guess the positive thing is that it was such a bad score that it won't count when I get classified. The classifier was Razor's edge, which the more I think about it was a complete Zero or Hero classifier. I had the time but damn hitting away from those no shoots was really difficult. This classifier also played to every single one of my weaknesses. Having a low port to shoot from, shooting at speed at very very minute accuracy, and just yeah that was basically it.

I decided that I need to practice this classifier. Not really because I want to run a GM score on this, but because I really need to practice my weaknesses and this will be a good way to find out how I am improving on it.

Thanks for reading,

WJM

[WJM]

Getting used to this holster and production is a blast!

I can't believe how much I am loving to shoot production. For me there is more thinking involved and it is more enjoyable.

I have been dry firing my usual 1 hour a day, and I have seen drastic improvements in my draw times, reload times, sight acquisition, and front sight focus. My draw from my new holster is now sub 1 second, and my reload from the new mag pouches with the production gun without a magwell has also gone to between .9-1.1. Which I am ecstatic about.

I still occasionally bobble a reload occasionally in dry fire but thats mainly because I am going past my comfort zone as Ben Stoeger says and I am going to make a mistake occasionally. I have been watching Training to Win, reading his Fundamentals book, along with skills and drills. It has been really really helpful.

Oh! I have been doing dry fire for the classifier El Presidente 09-11 I believe or maybe its 99-11. Anyways I have a par time of 4.5 seconds and I have been hitting that pretty consistently if not faster than that.

Signing off for now I may post a dry fire video of my reloads and hopefully someone reading this can critique them.

Thanks for reading,

WJM

[Richc2048]

That's awesome. I was running limited minor then I switched to production while I waited for my free glock 35. My 35 came in but production is so fun I stayed in it.

Those are really good times you're putting up in dry fire out of the holster and your reloads. That's awesome!

I'm in no position to critique so I'll leave that to the experts.

Are you doing dry fire drills from Ben's book or just doing reloads/holster work etc... Just as you want to? I've been just doing stuff as I feel and was wondering if any of his books helped with your training regiment.

Good luck. I'm gonna try to do the Utah state match and the area match in Nebraska. I'm already signed up for area 2. Maybe I'll see you there.

P.S. Were you the guest host on Gundudes this week?

[Shadyscott999]

Couple things...

1. nix the music on videos you want help reviewing
2. I counted a butt load of extra/makeup shots in your videos. What were the initial hits and did you NEED those shots because they really hurt your HF.

3. Get the gun up. You lose a couple tenths on every position bringing the gun up to your eyes. You literally are moving with the gun at your waist.

All in all you look pretty solid. I would guess low to mid B class? If you would get yourself a little more under control and stop all the extra shots, your score would increase dramatically.

Edited January 8, 2015 by Shadyscott999

[WJM]

That's awesome. I was running limited minor then I switched to production while I waited for my free glock 35. My 35 came in but production is so fun I stayed in it.

Those are really good times you're putting up in dry fire out of the holster and your reloads. That's awesome!

I'm in no position to critique so I'll leave that to the experts.

Are you doing dry fire drills from Ben's book or just doing reloads/holster work etc... Just as you want to? I've been just doing stuff as I feel and was wondering if any of his books helped with your training regiment.

Good luck. I'm gonna try to do the Utah state match and the area match in Nebraska. I'm already signed up for area 2. Maybe I'll see you there.

P.S. Were you the guest host on Gundudes this week?

I am doing some of his dry fire practice drills, but for the most part I am setting up scenario stages in my garage with some full size targets and 1/6 size targets to practice transitions and movement.

I will be at the Utah State USPSA match and the Utah state IDPA match, may even be an SO for the USPSA one but I haven't decided yet.

No I wasn't a guest on Gundudes but I know a couple of the people who are on there a lot. I believe Steve is a regular and Tom is the guy who has taught me a lot.

Couple things...

1. nix the music on videos you want help reviewing

2. I counted a butt load of extra/makeup shots in your videos. What were the initial hits and did you NEED those shots because they really hurt your HF.

3. Get the gun up. You lose a couple tenths on every position bringing the gun up to your eyes. You literally are moving with the gun at your waist.

All in all you look pretty solid. I would guess low to mid B class? If you would get yourself a little more under control and stop all the extra shots, your score would increase dramatically.

Thank you! After the match I believe you are talking about I sat down with a good shooter and basically hit those points into my head. (Minus the music thing of course hahaha). One thing I have been working hard on in dry fire in the last month is having my gun up as soon as I turn a corner or move into a position. I don't really remember who I read this from maybe Stoeger or Vogel or Nils or someone but I noticed in my matches I wasn't doing that but I have been practicing.

If I can ask a question tho, do you remove your weak hand from the gun when moving? I notice when I watch some big time shooters they use one hand to grasp the gun when moving in long distances just wondering if there is an advantage.

The other thing he chided me on was make up shots. Probably my biggest downfall is relying on shooting too many shots on what I thought were difficult shots. When I first was shooting IDPA I had the thought that if I dump the extra shots into a hardcover target assuring that I get a down zero it also allows me to dictate when I want to reload if that makes any sense. I have been working hard at calling my shots and well, I can say I am getting better. My hit factors have dramatically improved and I am shooting faster and more accurate than I was at that time.

I honestly don't know my classification. Out of 3 classifiers I have shot only one counted and it was a very low D class classifier. Kinda a zero or hero classifier in my opinion. I consistently place around the A class shooters when I shoot so I am assuming around there.

I appreciate the replies a lot. Stuff I still need to work out in dry fire for sure.

WJM

[WJM]

Did some more complex dry fire tonight.

Started off doing reloads and draws until I had both of those sub 1 second, just to get the mindset going in that direction. Then I wanted to add some movement in there.

Ben Stoeger has a drill where you draw and shoot 3 targets with two shots each. Use that time you did and add a half a second. This was in the Training to Win. Basically you start at low ready take two steps and move into the position. In the video Stoeger did it in 2.5 seconds so I figured that would be a good benchmark to aim for. I hit that time every time so I pushed out the distance a bit. Still was hitting it. Feeling lots better for moving into positions having the gun already raised.

Also did a make shift accelerator drill. One full size target, one 1/4 size target, and one mini popper at 6 and a half yards or so. Really helped get the feeling for how I am supposed to take shots at different speeds. This was helpful for me because I am always a little confused on how fast to take shots at each distance so this was helpful.

Hopefully these things add up in live fire. Have been hoping to go recently but we have had a quick thaw and everywhere is really muddy. May get a session next week so we will see.

Thanks for reading.

WJM

[Richc2048]

Nice dry fire session. I was reading about the accelerator. The different size targets is a good idea. I'll have to do that in my garage.

[WJM]

I set it up as close to how I would normally do it. Obviously I wish I could have 3 IPSC targets but the small popper was super difficult at that distance but it worked just fine for me.

We may have to squad up and talk with each other if we shoot together at the USPSA State Match. Would be nice to put a name with a face.

WJM

[Richc2048]

Yea. I try to get creative with the targets I have on the wall. I'll set up a ladder for a port wall, old screen door as a wall etc...

That'll be cool to squad up. I like to always meet new people. This is the only sport or group so far that I have not met a jerk in. That unprecedented considering today's gene pool. Haha.

I might be up there for the mag 80 Tom is putting on in September. I went to the Mag 40 there a few months ago in September. That place is awesome. Trying to convince my wife to move out there but all our family is out here so it'll be an uphill battle.

[Shadyscott999]

Regarding dismounting the gun when moving...

That really depends on you. For me, if I am taking over 2-3 steps I will dismount the gun ( still keeping it UP) and pump my weak arm. You will need to figure out that threshold for yourself.

[WJM]

Watched Ben Stoegers Training to Win again while I was driving to go hunt some coyotes and bobcats. Noticed that he uses dumby rounds in his mags to simulate the weight of the real mags!

D'OH! Why hadn't I been doing that from the start! Surprisingly other than them being a different weight it was actually easier to reload them! The weight was something that took around 50 tries to get it down to a very comfortable level but once I had that figured out it was very comfortable.

I did the four aces drill tonight. I set a ridiculous par time and had my dad watch me to see if I broke over it. Drew, "fired two shots" reloaded, "fired two shots", in Stoegers time of 2 seconds. I had to push myself really really hard to make this time but near the end of the night I was getting it real close to that. I feel like to be comfortable every time with it I am around 2.1 or so. Which to me is very acceptable!

For kicks and giggles my dad and I ran our slo-mo camera on our draws to see what we could push them to. To have the sights aligned and on target the fastest I could get it was around a .75 draw, and a .9 reload. Was really really happy with this since I am still trying to get used to the belt and mag system I got for Christmas.

I have a USPSA shoot next Saturday so I will have some video from that, and then an IDPA shoot the weekend after that. I will probably do dry fire for the IDPA shoot in the week up to the shoot but USPSA before that. That way I can get a balance of the two.

Thanks for reading,

WJM

[WJM]

Dry fire tonight was a success.

Started off doing typical 1 second draw drills, 1 second reload drills for the first 15 minutes or so.

Once I got warmed up I started with a few El Prez reviews just to get that muscle memory, then returned to a modified accelerator. Helped with the reloads and getting back onto target once I had reloaded, was really helpful to dry my sights back to the target immediately after I was done reloading the pistol.

The last thing that I practiced for probably a half an hour was unloaded table starts! I figured the hardest one possible would be to have to put 3 mags on your belt, and load the gun. Set a par time of 3.5 seconds and began doing this. It was really good practice to have the motion of loading the two first mags into the far back two mag holders. Anyways I was able to push the time down to 3.3 but beyond that I was having a hard time to get back on target in that amount of time.

Really productive day. Still bummed that I haven't been able to go live fire at all. This weather is killing me.

WJM

[WJM]

Well the new semester of college started yesterday, and from there I went and volunteered with the Red Cross for a few hours so it was the first day that I didn't dry fire in over a month! Also wasn't able to get my workout in but thats beyond the point.

Tonight I did about two hours of dry fire, I figured I wanted to practice reloads with more of a purpose than I have been doing so I looked up a good classifier that was fast paced and had reloads in it and ended up with two. El Presidente, and Can You Count.

I looked up both online, found a relatively fast time for both, set them up in my garage and went to work. I was able to bring my El Pres time to around 4.0 seconds or so, which was flying for me, and bringing most of my reloads to sub 1 second some around .8 seconds.

For the can you count I have a friend who did this classifier and ran one of the strings in 3.25 seconds which would've been a GM pace, so I figured well why not run it at that pace if I can. I was able to bring the time for one string down to 2.8 seconds which is much faster than I would be able to run in real life but it still is good to get my mind thinking that fast and putting pressure on myself. When I put pressure on myself I tend to screw up and I like it when I screw up it lets me know where my faults are and how I can stop making mistakes.

Using a small piece of paper and placing it in the chamber of my Glock has helped immensely. It allows me to press the trigger at a very very light weight, but it allows for some feedback and helps to imitate pulling the trigger.

Anyways it is turning out good, have a match Saturday and probably doing some Live Fire on Thursday, then next week I am live firing Tuesday and Thursday, and have an IDPA match Saturday.

Thanks for reading,

WJM

[WJM]

Did a fairly intense live fire practice yesterday, and then some BS shooting with my cousin the day before.

I wanted to go to an Indoor range to see how my Glock grouped, and well it was disappointing. Maybe I expect more from a gun just because of my precision rifle background, but wow this thing is fairly inaccurate. I couldn't bring them to less than 5 inches or so at 30 yards. To me thats unacceptable but I guess I will have to get used to it.

Indoor ranges are hard for me to shoot at. It seems like everyone and their dog is shooting an AK and that always causes me to flinch but it was okay for some speed. Basically did drills of 2 to the pelvis, 2 to the body, and 2 to the head in rapid order. Definitely helped with my short transitions.

Live fire yesterday was awesome! Unfortunately the weather here is still not awesome. We are at the point where its not cold enough to freeze the ground solid, so it makes miles and miles of mud. So naturally we found the driest spot possible and set up the targets. We were able to run the accelerator a lot, and then just some group shooting and 25 yard drills from Ben Stoeger. Stoeger has a drill at 25 yards where you draw and shoot 2 shots in under 2 seconds both being Alphas. Doesn't sound super difficult but I am getting the hang of the split time necessary for that distance.

Ran the accelerator cold (figured thats how I would run in a match, and ran it 4 times to see an average. Ended up with a mid 6 second average for it, and I was very pleased with that simply because I was pulling all Alpha's consistently. Getting really really good at 15 yard shots (what I feel most comfortable with) but what I was happy about was that my splits increased in time at the different distances. For example at the 7 yard target consistently I shot at a pace of .22 splits, at 15 yards I shot at a pace of .34 splits, and at 25 yards I shot at a pace of .44 splits. I wanted to focus on that gradual increase just so my accuracy wouldn't tank. I know I could run this drill if I wanted to much faster, but I am trying to go from the process of learning speed first and not knowing accuracy, to learning how to be accurate at speed. I was consistently getting a .9 draw on the 7 yard target, along with a 1.1 reload which is showing that dry fire is helping a lot.

I have a math tomorrow that is USPSA, so I will probably dry fire tonight for a couple hours or so, and then I need to clean my gun (I clean it every 600 rounds or so, and then before every match no questions asked).

Anyways thanks for reading,

WJM

[WJM]

What a day!

When I think about my worst shooting day to date I can probably remember this one hopefully for a long time.

First the positive! I am getting better at long courses. Mid range courses are still my best ones, but courses requiring 30-40 rounds are slowly becoming a lot easier to me. I nailed all my reloads which I am accrediting to dry fire!

My draw was awesome! Until I got to the classifier, and naturally the one time it really matters if I get a fast draw is the time my draw goes to shit.

A few things I learned after today is that I need to work on moving into positions and out of them. When I enter them I am usually pulling the first shot into their because I am stepping on the ground as I shoot, pulling my shot off the goal.

Honestly I am just very disappointed in myself for how I did today. I threw.. 5 no shoots? Maybe it was only 4. Either way its completely unacceptable, but hey it happened and move on. The point loss was something I was unable to make up form the rest of the day. Caused my hit factors to go super down. Im just disappointed because I know I can run with the masters on courses, and I didn't show that today. I hate not running what I am capable of, but i'll be honest it was just a bad day. Everyone has those right?

Thats the video from today. Don't mind my terrible scores but its alright I learned a lot!

Thanks for reading,

WJM