KelsonAK

[KelsonAK]

Range diary for the past weekend....

Attended the USPSA RO class. Dang - if you can make it happen, it is worth it and I'm pretty confident it will improve your performance in the game.

[Glock26Toter]

I agree. My understanding and confidence took a major upswing when I did the RO class. I recommend it to everyone.

[KelsonAK]

Range Diary -

My shooting was pretty minimal this week. I pulled the .40 M&P out of mothballs to see if I remembered how operate it. Evidently - I don't. Dot drills were consistently low. Most of the time was spent working with the wife and another shooter - did a basic skills assessment and have everyone on a dry fire/live fire training program for the next 6 weeks.

I really like the feel of the Tanfo better.

So - when Bud's had a Stock 2 come on sale for a bit under $900 - I ordered it. In a week or two I'll be able to give my side by side comparison between the Stock 2 and the Stock 3.

[KelsonAK]

Range time was good - although I did a lot less shooting and a lot more watching. I have put together a 6 week training plan and there are 6 or 7 folks playing along. Last night was the first live fire exercise for the group, and.. I learned a lot about other people learning. Two of the shooters at the start of the evening simply couldn't slow fire into a 2" dot at 5 yards. Describing 'surprise break' and 'slowly increase pressure on the trigger' didn't help.

It wasn't until one of them said 'I know this is supposed to work, but I don't feel like I have any control over things'

AH.... light bulb.

Accept the wobble.

Once they understood that they needed to accept the wobble - both of them went from low lefties to drilling the snot out of the dot. Slowly.

Then one of them giggled.

Set up 5 to go for fun. After the dots - the 10 inch plates looked HUGE. The two shooters that started out not able to hold a 2" group had shot the stage before and when they shot it 'accepting the wobble' they went from 12 second stage times to 8's. No improvement in draw, transitions or any of that 'fancy stuff.' Just accept the wobble and release the shot.

That was fun.

Oh, and I signed up for the NSSF fantasy camp in Vegas this morning.

[KelsonAK]

Need to catch up.

Two club matches since last update. 'Meh' overall performances (by my judgment) - really, I didn't do bad, just didn't do some things to my expectation. Both matches I shot the classifier reasonably well - and both (per classifier calc) look to be 67% runs. That makes 4 of the last 5 classifier runs a 67 or 68%. I got video of this match that I'll be analyzing - but the obvious was the inconsistent accuracy.

Shot a steel challenge match this weekend also - used the Stock II. So far - I like it but I don't. It 'feels' faster - but I don't shoot it as well. Still getting it sorted out - had a few light strikes - and I'm not sure I'm happy with the short dawson front sight compared to the Henning on the Stock III. I have a tendency to shoot low with it - like really low - and I'm not sure if it's just yanking or if it is a combination of yanking AND taking a funky sight picture where I'm getting the whole front sight post in the slot. With equal height - I can see the whole front sight and a window of color on all sides - I can see part of the slide in the sight picture when the top of the post is even across the top. In a few cases at practice on Tuesday I saw my sight buried and taking the shot put it low.

Signed the spouse up for the NSSF camp before they ran out of space - she's very excited to go!

[KelsonAK]

She reminded me that this was the first match where I designed/set up all the stages. The guy that usually comes up with the stages for the match wasn't able to make it, so I volunteered last moment to come up with a couple. We usually do 3 or 4 and a classifier - depending on time. Went with 3 and a classifier Sunday. A short, medium and long course. I really like stages where the stage briefing is - start here like X - shoot em as you see em - and there are options right off the bat.

[KelsonAK]

Had a good week and a great weekend. Got some dryfire in - a good practice session on Tuesday (25 yard B/C zone steel - working on draw, reloads, and some Bill drills) - shot the 'adult league' on Friday (smoke and hope both 'normal' and with 2 shots per target) and then worked (and shot) a vets charity shoot on Saturday. Had fun, won a prize for some outstanding rifle work...

Sunday - steel challenge match. Shot my best times for 5 to Go, Accelerator and smoke and hope. Dropped 2 seconds off my Smoke and Hope time - shot my first sub 3 second Smoke and Hope. That puts me about half way to 'A' - which is about right compared to my USPSA classifier scores lately. Kinda sucked on Pendulum - but not terribly bad. Just not good.

Shot rimfire as well - but the Ruger seems to have trouble when the ammo is at or below freezing. I put the magazines in my pocket between stages and it started to behave. I do kinda hate the factory sights on the 22/45 lite. Kinda sucks when your centerfire time is faster than your rimfire times....

This week? Continue to work fundamentals. Dry fire is reloads and transitions. Live fire will likely be move - shoot - move - shoot.

[KelsonAK]

Little catch up:

When the temperature drops below 20 (plus wind chill,) my times in Steel Challenge starts to go up....

A bit light on the dry fire practice over the past few weeks. My day job has been a bit busier than usual. Things are starting to settle down a touch, and am starting back on a regular dry fire schedule - right before I do my morning yoga.

Live fire practice on Tuesday night (was up to about 50 degrees) - set up some dots (because cha...) and 5 to Go. Have done a bit of work on the Stock 2, including a taller front sight and some more trigger work. Still getting occasional light strikes on S&B primers, but much reduced. I am starting to suspect the issue may be the firing pin block.

Did some 'go so fast you break it' work on the steel. What is it like to shoot 5 to go in 3.5ish regardless of if I hit a damned thing? Then back off to actually hit things every time it goes bang. Learned 2 things: #1) I thought I was gripping the gun hard. Nope. Harder. I got the feel for what 'hard' really is on my hands though - and am working on that in dry fire. Gripping the gun hard like that is actually exhausting... #2) I have a pinky finger. I need to use it in my grip. It was kind of just 'there' and not being used as part of the grip. The combination of gripping the gun hard enough and using my pinky finger is a big deal and has a noticeable difference on the repeatability of recovery from recoil. Again - this week's dry fire work is almost entirely grip related.

[KelsonAK]

Notes from the field: 2 days at the NSSF Sports Shooting Fantasy Camp

First up - I've been doing it wrong.

Well, maybe not wrong, but not right enough. Working with Jerry and Kay Miculek - lots of tweaks to the grip. Over the past year and a half or so, I've gone from a fairly locked out and straight elbow to a slight unlocking but still pretty elbows down and with what I thought was a tight and high grip. Kay said 'I want to see veins bulging' about my support hand and then had me bring my elbows out, essentially changing the concept of the vice grip from 'with the hands' to with the arms expressed through the hands. Jerry focused on the same thing - however I was already changing my grip by the time I got to him so he thought my technique was 'pretty good.' High praise indeed.

Got to spend time with KC Eusebio and he made what I think are fairly big changes to my draw and stance. I started out fairly 'square' to the target, with my strong side foot back a little, feet out at an angle, and some bend at the knee to get an athletic stance. KC tweaked that, where my strong side foot is back a bit more - with an even more aggressive bend in the support side knee and the strong side leg almost locked out. He also had me bring my draw up vertically after the hands meet more than I had ever done before - what I would call making a chicken wing - before punching out. I found it made a lot of difference in consistency.

Jessie Duff and Dianna Muller both were working exits and entries. I'm still digesting this and I suspect that this is where I'll be making up the most time.

Julie Golob was 'Transition Woman' and very nicely pointed out that I didn't use my hips enough. Loved working with her - she is just... bubbly.

Trigger - Jerry gave me something that made sense on trigger control with the visualization of 'rolling through' the trigger. Kay would say - 'prep and press' - but the press part seems to turn into a smack the snot out of it. Roll through - well now, that's something else entirely.

Great, great time. Learned a huge amount - and have a huge amount of work to do based on what I've learned. There is a bit of a decrease in overall performance as I integrate the new techniques into my shooting - but by the end of day two I was nearly close to 0. Must, must dryfire.

More on this later - as I digest it, but dang - what a great weekend at the range.

[KelsonAK]

Wound up with a bit of gout the past week or so - seems that eating that many shrimp doesn't agree with me. Match on the weekend was slower as a partial result - but I'm seeing results from the grip change in my points.

Classifier was 'disaster factor' - and that's appropriately named. All about trigger control it seems - and it also seems my trigger control runs about 90% when there are no shoots

Practice this week was all about movement. Since my toe is feeling better.... Set up something similar to 03-12 Iron sides - 8 foot barricade, two targets on the left, two targets on the right, and one little steel in the middle with something forcing me to get into a squat. Started with 2.4 second times to first shot. Meh. Transitions with reload to the other side of the barricade were about the same. Just going 'faster' shaved a little off - .2ish each direction. Changing from a 'lunge' or a 'lunge and run' to a sidestep and getting the gun out of the holster faster got me to 1.7ish first shot and 1.8ish transition. Very repeatable results, and a faster 'to stable' process.

Dry fire this week is all about grip.

[KelsonAK]

Drove down to Kenai for the Snowshoe gun club match this weekend. 3 hour drive south - very very lovely - where they had 4 stages set up for a bit of fun. First stage was the carnival stage - 2 texas stars, a couple mini poppers and a polish plate rack. I think it took longer to set up than to shoot... The other stages were fairly normal - well set up and a fun shoot. The classifier was ironsides - which I had done some practice for this past week.

Overall - I got video of all the stages - I'm ok with how I did. I still am not moving fast enough between target arrays. I'm not set up for leaving. My splits were very conservative - I was maybe a bit overly alpha hunting. Now that summer is here - time to work on sprints! My grip was improved - I'm continuing to work into my shooting what I learned from the folks at the NSSF fantasy camp.

Had some issues with ammo - seems that S&B primers and Winchester cases are the ones that are prone to not go bangity bangity for me.

Classifier - my movement was good - could have been more aggressive on splits - overall, looks like a 78% production time - which is my new high water mark. I feel that it is fairly representative of my skill set as they are expressed now. In practice, just banging at a b/c steel I could get a 1.7 first shot off the beep. In the match with an A zone focus - that slowed down to about 2.5ish.

So -

grip and movement the next week or so!

[KelsonAK]

Just a few notes:

Dots (6 in 5 at 5) - shot 3 out of 4 clean on Tuesday. Working on grip is really, really helping. Also spent some quality time with ending flat on the trigger. Kinda psyched to see the work paying off - will see if it is replicable now

[KelsonAK]

Notes for the past week:

Shot reasonably well at the USPSA match on Saturday. Kinda biffed it on the classifier stage that was at the end of the match.

Sunday was 3 gun. I shot reasonably well there too - but - kinda biffed it at the end of a long day.

See a pattern? I do. Get tired at the end of the day and the technique suffers and my concentration suffers and therefore I suffer....

Video review shows that my foot work continues to improve and my splits are still slower than they probably need to be for the difficulty of the shot. I think I'm just seeing more than I need to see and waiting for the sight picture has me waiting too damned long.

Noticed the same thing in 3gtun on Sunday but mostly with the rifle. A lot of close up partials with no shoots all over the place and 1) I wasn't entirely sure of my scope over bore offset and 2) I was being to conservative with my sight picture.

So...

THis week for live fire I'm going to do some work on figuring out how fast I can shoot at varying distances and still keep A's. That will give the confidence going into a stage so I don't stand around waiting for too perfect a sight picture but can recognize 'good enough.'

Will also spend some time with the AR at various short range distances to determine my offset and document it. Will tape it to the side of my rifle.

Dry fire - grip. WHen I got tired and lost my mental edge I lost my grip and went back to the 'old way' that isn't the 'good way.' Dry fire will also work on transitions from right shoulder to left shoulder with the rifle - the 'big match' will have some of that and I am going to be ready for it.

[Glock26Toter]

Just like anything else. Do it enough and you won't get tired by the end. Another thing is to concentrate on what you need to do and NOT on what stage you're on, or what you have to do after the match. Keep shooting until someone makes you go home!

[KelsonAK]

it isn't that I shouldn't get tired....

It's that when I do, I need to take that mental moment to remember 'grip, sights, stance' and not just rip it.

[KelsonAK]

So - no range log, just a practice log. I am traveling to North Carolina this week and have not put a round down range for over a week and a half. May be two weeks before I pop a primer. I am wait listed for a local match here in the Raleigh area for Saturday,

So I have been dry fire practicing draws, surrender draws and reloads, with a thumb tac on the wall. A week plus of getting away from the kids, the son in law's parents and some weird golden doodle dog have yielded a .4 second reduction in reloads (almost good now) and a much more consistent grip on the draw.

If I get to the range on Saturday - great! Otherwise I might get to the range Monday evening before I have to go back to work on Tuesday.

[KelsonAK]

Been a little while since I did one of these - have been a bit busy. My grand daughter was born a week after I left Raleigh. It wasn't exactly what we all had hoped for - she was born with one eye and some other issues and my wife is still in Raleigh tending to family. It seems that she is doing ok, but it is a bit stressful for everyone to say the least.

I did get to the range for the match that last Saturday of May. I got to shoot with the Blue Bullets team - was good to see shooters other than the same guys I see every month. I have been doing some processing -- mostly on the stage planning side of things.

Came back home and started prepping for the Alaska State 3Gun match. I shoot 'production' division in 3 Gun - which here is 10 in the pistol, pump shot gun no more than 10 in the tube to start, and unmagnified optic or iron sights on the rifle with a 30 round limit on magazine capacity. I shoot that because it is a 'match' to my USPSA division, and also because it is the 'hardest' division to shoot and because - although it is a sparsely populated division - there is a lot of 'heat' there. Mostly worked on making sure I knew my zero on the rifle at 5-300 yards and how that matched the reticle and on movement - entries and exits. I have started listening to the Steve Anderson podcast lately and his 'call it and leave it' drill is what I did mostly in live fire. Dry fire was reloads, white wall and draws.

Good news... for me - I won the division and then won the shoot off - just barely. It was a pretty brutal match for a lot of folks. Long, long days. I RO'd - so I was one of the folks that put in extra miles on each day - and a couple of really good shooters wound up DQ'ing near the end of the match because... well, they were fried. We all were - and I could have just as easily been one of those that biffed it on the last stage.

I learned a bit in the match.

1) Diet and exercise is critical to a physical and long match.

2) Get enough damned sleep the night before.

3) Take a few shooters ahead of your turn at the bat to just find a quiet place and meditate your stage plan. I worked on visualizing my reticle on the targets for the long range rifle for hold over - I visualized my foot falls and shotgun reload movements - and it helped.

4) Game everything. I could have won the shoot off by seconds instead of a fraction of a second if I had gamed it.

Going forward - my dry fire and live fire practice is gearing up for the USPSA sectional match in July. More call it and leave it. Will also do call it and leave it for charging a shooting position and retreating a shooting position. And some shooting on the move. I have a steel challenge match this weekend - so i'll get plenty of draw from surrender position practice then - but I need to continue to work on everything that is in between the shooting.

[KelsonAK]

you ever have one of those matches where you are thinking ... dang it, I'm slow. I suck. and then you look at the score and you are like... woah... cool.

Shot steel challenge this weekend. My centerfire times were kind of 'meh.' A few strings that I was happy with - a few that I wasn't. Overall about the same place I was a month ago. Partly - if you don't seat the magazine it tends to not work so well. Just sayin.

And...

Had difficulties with my Ruger magazines.. still. However I isolated it to the one and pulled it out of the rotation and that helped a lot....

In any case - I finally pulled an under 10 aggregate smoke and hope time with the .22 - a bit of a milestone for me. Previously had been doing an 11.5-12 aggregate regularly. My show down times are moving in that direction also - magazine issue avoidance would possibly have gotten me to 10. Now - I just need to remember to use my front sight with the centerfire gun...

Dry fire for the week: Entries and exits.

[KelsonAK]

So - that 9.89 aggregate for Smoke and Hope looks to be good for 85.9% in the new classification system - my first M scoring so far. VERY cool.

Prepping for the Alaska state sectional match in a couple weeks. Stages look like they are going to be fun. Dry fire and live fire practice till then are going to be on entries and exits mostly.

[KelsonAK]

has been a rough go the last few weeks.

Granddaughter was born special needs. Missing her left eye and other neurological issues. Has triggered a few reprioritizations in life, including finances - and that precluded the travel to the state sectional. Will likely also cut back on match entries as well for a bit until we get things sorted out. So... matches are going to be few and far between.

Practice will continue, however.

Dryfire is free - so there is going to be a lot more of that. I'm good with ammo and components to get me through about 5 or 6 months - more at a conservative pace - so that will be fine as well. Prepaid, so to speak.

one of my goals was to make 'A' class in something this year. Looks like that may be Steel Challenge - I think I'm able to pull that off with Rimfire pistol. The 'new' ruger 22/45 is running like a top. Picked it up as part of a trade/sale - and it fits me better than the Ruger hunter does. I've got about 10 magazines proofed out and the gun runs really well on ammo that I have a few thousand rounds of - so good to go there.

the 9.89 aggregate in Smoke and hope is just under the 'M' bar - so that is pointing me at focusing there for a bit.

Tuesday night practice was worthwhile. First shooting I've done for 3 weeks or so. Spent most of my time with rimfire working on first shot times and a 1/2/3 transition combination. From low ready - 'speed mode' is about .39 to first shot. 'Match mode' is a bit slower - about .45-.5. .6 if I'm asleep at the beep. Transitions at 10 yards are running about .28 in 'match' mode and about .21 in speed mode. Centerfire was affirming my dryfire draw from surrender and 2 target transitions. I'm getting a bit faster there - speed mode in the .85-.9 range and match mode in 1.1ish or slightly less. That 1.1 is about a half second faster than it was a year ago and is a solid match mode first shot. So, I'm happy with that.

Big 'ah ha' was in transitions for either centerfire or rimfire. Two things really. I was seeing faster - mostly seeing transition faster - the eyes were getting to the next target quicker. And... putting a mental pause in the gun. More of a stop. On the clock - that translated into about a .01 difference in transition speed. On the target, it translated into ding every time instead of an air ball... It did make the first shot about .1 slower - not sure why there was a bigger impact there - but after the first shot it really turned into a .01ish difference in time. If the math holds - I think a sub 9 aggregate on a stage like smoke and hope is within my grasp. That would be cool...

Next week - will spend some quality time on draws and white wall drills in dry fire - and next Tuesday will set up Showdown for a practice session I think - with the goal of shooting a match towards the end of august maybe.

[KelsonAK]

Live fire drill for the week was 5 to Go. By the end of the session my rimfire pistol times were in the 2.5-2.8 range for a 'match mode' pass. Centerfire was in the 3.5-3.8 second timeframe.

Spent a bit of time explaining to folks the madness behind the method of speed mode/accuracy mode/match mode. People look at you funny when you zip through 5 to go in under 2 seconds - hitting 2 or 3 plates along the way - and are happy about it.

It did, however - help one of the guys that came out for the practice session. He is fairly new to action shooting, and doing pretty well too. He was complaining that his draw to first shot times were slow - 1.5 to 2 seconds generally. I watched him for a couple of repetitions - gave him some feedback and a thing or two to think about. Then I told him to do a couple of draws in 'speed mode' and didn't care if he hit a damned thing. So... he does. And proceeds to hit 2 1 second draws in a row (hitting his intended target...)

Called him a sand bagger....

[KelsonAK]

Ah, life...  Have been very light on the dry fire over the past couple months, have not shot a match, but have managed to keep on the gun at least weekly.  Have spent the last couple weeks getting things sorted for the Zombie Pistol Party - managed to get the local TV station and two news papers out to the range to cover it!  Have also spent some time lately putting together the training plan for the next 12 weeks.  That puts me about the middle/endish of January.  I signed up for the area 1 match at the end of march, so the end-ish of January puts me on track for a phase 1 of training, with Feb/March being some fine tuning.  I'm trying to sucker a few others into my 12 week plan here locally - I think it will be a good thing for a small group of us.

So... week 1 is about grip and trigger control.  I've got the 'slow fire' white wall drill down cold.  Hurray.  Problem is, when I speed up my point of impact moves down about 3 inches at 5 yards.  That translates into a foot low at 20 yards 'at speed.'  No good.  So for week 1 - I'll be working on a whitewall drill with a timer.  The general idea is at the beep try to beat the end of the beep tone to drop the hammer, without having the sights move.  Mostly it's about the sights - not about beating the beep.  The beep is just encouragement to move swiftly - not a 'par time' to make.  I suppose I could just 'go faster' - but the beep helps me with the sense of urgency without the beep being the focus of the drill.  To prove it out I'll be using dot drills for live fire.  Who knew that the more you do the whole run around shooting stuff thing the more you wind up working on shooting groups!

I'm also about to take on running the local 3gun and steel challenge matches.  The steel matches are easy.  Pick 4 stages and then RO 'em.  The 3gun matches are a bit more involved, in that I need to do some stage design.  Good thing I've been coming up with stage designs for a while now AND pilfering good stage designs whenever I come across them!

 

[KelsonAK]

Has been a busy month and a half.  Note to self - coming up with stage designs that don't require taping but are still interesting for rifle work is tough.  Even harder when you can't run around much because of ice and snow.  

Have been hitting the dry fire hard the last few weeks and it is paying off.  Had one of those 'aha' moments at the range tuesday night as I was doing dot drills and messing with grip pressure.  You know - the 6 shots in a 2" circle from a holster at 5 yards in 5 seconds?  I usually average 4 out of 6.  Until tonight.  I had several 6/6 and the sights were just bumping up and down.  weak hand grip pressure and not just the pressure, but how I visioned the grip pressure being applied (tips to palm, not palm to tips.)  

So - will be ironing that in to dryfire this week and go for a repeat next week.

This weekend is steel challenge, and the temps should be about the freezing mark (up from the last match) - so I'm looking forward to it.  Will run the tanfo in limited guise and the Ruger 22/45 with a dot and see what can be done at a normalish temperature instead of that stupid single digit stuff we have had for a bit.

Yea, pretty cool to see the impact of grip application so plainly.  A bit gobsmacked actually.

[KelsonAK]

Did you ever have one of those shooting experiences where you just start giggling?  Yea.  Have been working on trigger control and grip in dry fire the last few weeks - finally got to the range for a live fire session and spent a little time shooting 'the dots.'  First one out of the holster I screwed up - kinda forgot everything I'd been working on.  Refocus - next three dots clean.  Started giggling during the second clean dot, since it was starting to seem 'easy.'  4th dot and a 'pft' instead of a bang for shot 6 (was also clean up to that point) and spend a few minutes looking for a squib rod.  5th dot and a 'hard' primer or maybe it's time to clean the top end - but I'm still giggling because I'm just watching the sight up/down with no suprises as to where the holes are going to be on paper.

Ah well...   also set up smoke and hope and tested out some of the ruger work I did over the break.  They seem to have an issue in the cold (it was about 3 deg f, maybe a bit lower) and I've been working on them to get them to run at temp.  Seems that my efforts are paying off.  No real difference in speed for me on S&H between my open rimfire and iron sight rimfire.  Speed mode had me at a 1.5-1.6 (with a miss or two) - match mode had me at 1.9-2.1 - which is right about where I want to be.  

If you haven't ever just giggled because it's working - you should try it.  It's kinda fun....

 

[KelsonAK]

Saturday Steel match hovered between -2 and 2f - decided that it was too damned cold to draw from a holster so just shot the rimfires.  Have both Ruger 22/45s working well in the cold now (that was a bit of effort...) and even with the cold turned in my best match times to date, including my first M runin Speed Option.  In fact - all of the stages were within a second or less of M for iron sights.  One malfunction for the match - unsure of the cause.  Using a red dot was inconsistent for me - my overall times for the open rimfire were slower than my iron sight by a skosh - but with lower individual string times turned in for open.  In other words - I'm faster but a retard in open.   

Working draws, whitewall and reloads in dryfire this week.  A couple weeks out from the next USPSA match.  Prepping for this coming weekend's 3gun match - have stages to design.