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Just Call Me Charlie Mike


ArrDave

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11/11/16

Practice log update.  Match tomorrow.  As it sits I satisfied my weekly dryfire goal (5x a week for 25 minutes on the clock, not including set up/tear down), I also exceed my live fire practice because I got a new match gun so I was eager to get familiar with it and test it with my ammo.  Dry fire this month was mostly focused on vision, observing the relationship on my sights on the target.  In transition popping my eyes to the location on the target I wish to hit prior to the sights showing up.  Having the discipline to observe the sights on the target while the gun is firing before moving off.   The theory being (obviously) to remove hesitation and increase accuracy.  We'll see.    Very stout squad tomorrow, so looking forward to the fellowship and competition (2 very high M's in production, a couple A's, lots of B's, an Open M, Open B).

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So a very highly competitive on a national level GM ( I won’t kill you with suspense, it’s Sal Luna) has moved to Atlanta and now shoots monthlies with us.  Which is awesome, so I can see how I’m doing somewhat on a national level with each club match, so that’s pretty boss.  The stage names this match were all election themed for the most part, named by a SAfrican ex-pat so take them with a grain of salt.  Weather was wonderful Georgia Fall day.  The smoke from the wild fires wasn’t bothering us any, for whatever reason, warmed up a bit around mid day.  Great day being outside.  I had an awesome squad with an Open M, 2 PRD M’s who I like to chase, a couple PRD A’s who I like to chase, then filled out with some PRD B’s, and a guy I used to run against in IDPA shooting SS.  Finished 4th /20 in PRD (88%), 8th / 58 overall.  The match was challenging.  3 “Standards” type stages, a steel speed stage, and 2 hose fest speed shoots with enough rope there to hang yourself.  1st B PRD netted me $15 off my next match up there, so awesome.  See you boys in January. 

Stage 5 Partial People Eaters

So this was my first fixed time classifier.  Pro Tip that nobody told me until after I shot – use ALL of the time they give you, don’t try to beat the clock, try to use every ounce of time.  You incur per shot penalties beyond 4.3 seconds on each string (4 seconds being par time) – so don’t run over.  Nobody explained to me how it was scored (FYI – it’s the % of total points), so it behooves you to shoot points.  I was trying to pick up time on it thinking yes more hit factor! Which was a disaster and netted me a cool 54% classifier.  Not climbing out of B class today.  Ended up giving away a LOT of match points on this stage (41).  Take aways – don’t get rattled with a fixed time, get your alphas.  And work on SHO/WHO in live fire (said every USPSA shooter ever). 

Stage 6 Balls of ….

Total steel stage. Unloaded start.  Poppers went well.  Reload went well.  Plate rack started going well, until it didn’t, then I started panicking and hung up 3 mikes in a hurry.  Ended up leaving a plate up rather than going forward with the standing reload, not sure I made the right call there.  Probably would have been the right call on other stages, was not the right call on steel-a-palooza.  So my raw time leaving one up with a total of 4 mikes was 14.64, Mr. Champ (ok, it’s Sal Luna, current USA region IPSC champ) cleaned it in 10.51.  I need to work on steel.  Really that’s a confidence in shot calling thing, which I’m already working on. The Champ actually bested KC on this stage as well.  An Open GM ultimately won the stage.   I noticed on video I'm searching for mags, I'm considering if bullets out might not be a better choice.   Things to consider when buying my proper USPSA belt rig. 

Stage 1 -  Naked First Lady

Looking at the video of this, I’m really spending a lot more time than is probably necessary on the second position and the last position.  Each array had 4 targets, 2 of which were partials.  First position is 2 HC partials/2 open, last position was 1 NS partial, 3 HC partials.  I posted up too hard in the second position.  I didn’t transition as fast as I should have on the move for the 3rd array, which got me reloading a little late rolling into last position.  A little bit of over aiming going on here for sure as well.  I need to dryfire some hoser partials on the move, and I need to get more comfortable at 8-10 yard partials.  I was 88% of the champ, he had 6 more points and was 1.5 seconds faster. 

 

Stage 2 – Bad Black Stuff

So there were two shooting boxes, 8 partial targets with a couple pieces of steel hard cover obscuring some targets from either box.  Procedure was engage 4 targets, mandatory reload moving to the next box, engage 4 targets.  This was Virginia Count (meaning only 16 shots could be fired, no make ups).  The champ had 2 mikes on this stage, so I got the stage win in production.   Needed to shave about a second off my raw time here.  Again – practice partials at 10 yards to see what I can get away with.

Stage 3 -  Political ports

Seated Start, gun starts on table, ALL MAGAZINES start on table, 19 classic targets.  That’s a 38 round count stage for those tuning in at home.  There were 5 port holes to shoot from, with 4 targets apiece, so that’s 4 reloads.  That means I have to stand up and figure out how to manage my ammo.  Some folks stowed 4 magazines (going to the table a total of 3 times) and some folks decided to reload off the table for the first reload.  I took this approach.  I also decided all the targets were at 3-5 yards, so why not full ricky bobby and see how it works out?  End result – I had one of the fastest raw times (half second off an M) and SIXTEEN charlies.  If I was shooting major in limited, it’d have been a solid run.  As it wasn’t, I ended up at 90%.  Sure had fun though, lol. 

Stage 4 – Election Blues

So at this one club, with this one MD, this bay always nets us a super challenging long range stage.  Today was no exception.  There was basically a start box, then 4 yards or so in front of that was another pair of boxes and the barricades cut off your view on the targets down range.  4 targets were across the back 30 yards down range, which extended out further.  I put up a pretty quick time on it at about 31 seconds, the champ bested me by a solid 3.5 seconds.  I nearly had better points them him, excepting that pesky mike.  I am proud of myself on one of the long targets I called a bad shot high and made it up immediately with a close Charlie.  Turns out the first one was also a close Charlie barely on paper, about an inch down from the top of the target near the alpha line.  Either way I was happy to have called that shot, sad that I didn’t register the bad trigger press I was aware of at the time, but netted me a mike.  As it stands, the raw speed buoyed me and I ended up 3rd in PRD on the stage at 82%.  I know where I probably have 2 seconds of time lost – on the

 

Big take aways moving forward

-        Work on shooting partials at 8-12 yards at a brisk pace.

-        Continue to work on match reloads – probably cost me 4-5 seconds on the match. 

-        Work on calling shots

-        Work a little on hosing on the move (just a little)

-        SHO/WHO live fire (just a little)

This was the debut of my match gun – an AccuShadow.  As much as I dog on the accu-bushing being unnecessary – it does provide a bit of confidence knowing your pistol can mechanically hit anything they throw at you… it did help with my confidence.  For sure.  I was really surprised at myself saying that.  Gun ran like a sewing machine.   

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  • 1 month later...

12/16/16

 

So looks like ol’ Ma Nature is going to hold out and not rain out my last chance at a proper December match tomorrow.  So I’m grateful for that. 

 

Dryfire has been going well.  Work has just been crushing me this last quarter but still I’m probably pretty close to my goal of 5 days a week for 25 minutes average.   I’ve basically adopted the stance of “Dryfire every day unless there’s a compelling reason you cannot”.  Mostly that’s been going into work early, but once it was a wretched hangover.  So it goes.

2 weeks ago I switched to bullets out pouches on an inner/outer belt and I’m happy to report my reloads are INSTANTLY better than my high and tight bladetechs revolution universal single mag pouches.  In live fire I saw my times come down from about 1.4 shot to shot at 5 yards, to 1.2 average with some 1.1’s mixed in.  When you start to taste success it really does motivate you to get after it.  I will break 1 second reloads by my January match.  Or I’ll get a lot of blood blisters trying.  You can see my thoughts on my bullets out pouches here:

I hate it when it’s the arrow and not the indian, but I can say with confidence that the bullets out pouches allow my lanky arms to get on magazines more comfortably and faster.  10/10 would recommend. 

My draw to a 5 – 7 yard target is consistently sub second, only going over when I miss my grip. 

Live fire has been going well, I’ve made it out once a week totally satisfying my goal for shooting.  Mostly been shooting dots.  I’ve been mostly shooting the dots at 5 yards going 5 per and getting pretty close to cleaning them.  I’ve moved them out to 7 yards and starting again at 2 shots per 5 seconds.  There’s a whole new respect for trigger and sights moving that 2” dot out to 7 yards.  It’ll be a couple weeks probably before I can kick it up to 3 per and clean the 2 per consistently. 

 

I read “Get to Work” by Steve Anderson and it really fleshed out a lot of the concepts he alludes to on the podcast, so this will be the first match since applying his grip tweak, and I’m confident it’s going to go well for me. 

In other news I appealed my thrown out classifier (78%) so they’re counting that and I’m up to 67% and change.  This weekends match will cause two more 60%’s to roll off (probably).  I’d have to shoot an average of 82% on both of the classifiers to go up to A.  Depending on the classifiers they pick it might be doable.  More realistically I’ll need to roll off my 66% on the next one.  It’s funny, it behooves me to just let the classification happen, but something about having a % over what a “passing” grade is is too alluring to not chase.  I’m not going to let them write off high ones going forward, if I’m to be an A, then I’ll be an A.  Though the $500 of the area 6 B class production purse is mighty tempting but that’d be legit sandbagging!  Who knows, maybe I am just a high B.  Lots of time between now and Area 6. 

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12/17/16

So the match was overcast and cloudy, but there was a match.  Hooray!  First match with a proper inner outer belt and going bullets out.  Shame on me for not grabbing the right ammo, I grabbed practice ammo and had high primer.  That's no good.  All in all, I had a pretty mediocre match.  Finished at 85% in Production in the #2 slot to an A.  If I had a decent match I probably could have hung with him, but he had a decent one, and I didn't.   Stage breakdown goes.

Stage 2 - 

And I just put my stuff down on the Bay "We're going by alphabetic order - David, you're first.".  Aww shucks.  It's 45 degrees, I've not walked any of the stage.  So I got a legit 5 minute walk through and didn't get a good burn on the stage.  My accuracy was pretty sloppy for a bunch of 5 yard targets.  I missed my reload so I was standing for a bit.  2 of 15 in Prd.  not too bad I guess. 

Stage 1 - And my discipline is trash.  I mike steel like it's my job!  They were mini poppers at 10 yards.  Otherwise it went OK.  Good points, all easy shots, pretty hoser friendly.  Good one to hang yourself on, like I did on steel. 

Stage 5 - Pucker Factor.  Shot it in bullseye mode, super slow.  C class classifier.  Nah we'll re-shoot that one.  

Stage 4 - Eye of the Tiger.  Brilliant turn and draw... except I hung up the double action before I settled into my index.  Alpha Mike.  On a 6 shot stage.  For those following at home, my points are a maximum of 30.  A No Shoot is worth -10 points.  That's catastrophically bad.  Yeah, we'll re-shoot this one.  Play for pride!

Stage 3 - Annnnd I had a high primer.  Everything went well otherwise.  All 3 charlies were very close, less than a paster width, from the perf. 

- Pucker Factor - Reshoot - 76.6%, first try.  (A Class)

- Eye of the Tiger - Reshoot 88% - First Try.  (M Class)

So that should bump me to A class.  Nuts, now the B class purse from Area 6 is off the table, the dude who stomped me today is an A.  Going to have to get after it hard between now and A6...

 

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So I've been thinking a lot about how it felt to do those reshoots.  

 

On Pucker factor my thought process going into the stage when it counted for the match was "get those alphas and no mikes" and so my body did.  When i found out how bad that was, I figured out what high hit factor was and my instruction to myself was "Get as many alphas as you can as quickly as you can".   The end result was 4 alphas, 3 charlies and a close delta (pretty sure it was my double action.  I indexed poorly on the target and my grip hadn't settled out as I started my trigger press.  ) I wasn't super jazzed, but it didn't feel fast, it felt like i was seeing exactly what I needed to see, raw time was like 3.66s vs the 5.74 or whatever it was the first time.  

 

On my reshoot for Eye of the Tiger, it was the same feeling "shoot the head boxes as rapidly as you can, try to get alphas.  The results were 2A's 4B's in 3.10 and a master score.  

I didn't actively aim the gun, I observed with my eyes where I'd like to hit and timed the shots based on what I was seeing.  That seems like a nuanced difference from aiming the gun with a hard sight or whatever, but the feeling is incredibly different.  

 

I think my visualization is slightly wrong how I'm doing it... regardless, I need to be able to tap into this on field courses.  I guess that's the name of the game. 

 

I do think practicing enough to the point you know you can do any of it is important to finally let go with the conscious mind and just focus on what you're seeing.  I'm going to continue to think about this more.  

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Well... after the weekend I had a 66 roll off and not a 60 so with the DB roll I'm now a 74.2093% B class shooter.  I will probably go shoot the classifier at the indoor match next week  to see if I can do it by the end of the year.  

Further reflecting on the match, it looks like I need to bump my A6 aspirations to A class.  Which will be immense.  I got beaten by an A class guy last week at the match pretty handily (I was 85%).  I went back and looked at the scores, that was a pretty rotten match for me.  On zero stages did I have a stage where I was reasonably pleased with how it went. 

Stage 2 - it was 40 degrees, we showed up late, mags were not loaded.  I stayed indoors loading mags and getting a new shooter up to speed.  I got purely the 5 minute walk through.  The stage wasn't difficult I started on, but I went first.  This has me thinking: I need to load my magazines the night before the match.  I also need to be earlier to the match.  Because we were picking up another guy rather than our usual duo on the ride to the match.  My buddy woke up late and was running behind.  Lesson learned: Load mags the night before text buddy to confirm he's awake.   On the actual COF, I dropped probably 3 more charlies than was reasonable for a 5 yard hose fest that this stage was.  I had poor discipline on a target and had 2 charlies within about a paster width from each other about a paster from the A perf.  First reload didn't go well on this stage, but I can't really expect that to improve.  

Stage 1 - Miked steel 4x.  mini poppers at 10 yards I just didn't give them the respect that they deserved, because I kept trying to shift out of position too soon I probably wasted 4-5 seconds shifting out then shifting back in on those makeups.  hit steel, don't shoot at steel.  

Stage 5 - Pucker Factor - i was rattled due to my mikeapalooza on stage 1 steel so I went WAY TOO SLOW.  On the reshoot I stepped up to the line pretty cold after screwing with some other dudes gun that was having issues and drilled a 79% with a C/D on the 20 yard target.  My mindset on the reshoots is important.  I was afraid of making bad hits and didn't have the right frame of mind.  Even though it's Virginia count I have to try for alphas rapidly, if I am going to drop hits just call them.  lead with the eyes.  That needs to be EVERY stage. 

Stage 4 - Eye of the Tiger - Shot 4A's, 2 B's and a Mike in 3.06 seconds.  If that mike had connected with a B I would have crushed the HHF for the stage.  Reshoot was 2A's 4B's in 3.10s.  If one of those B's found an A instead that'd have been a GM score.  Ok this is one stage I can't really be upset with my performance.  That one went well, I just threw my first shot high and to the left.  

Stage 3 - This went OK.  I had a couple close charlies that maybe should have been A's, but I'm not even upset about that.  I had a high hard primer that took 3 strikes to go.  Cost me at least a second.  So remember that update to my process?  That's also going to include better QC on my "match" ammo.  

 

All in all, I had 1 stage that I shot reasonably well, despite a mike on the match.  But it was a huge boost to my self image just having hammered the reshoots reinforcing my self image.

Re-thinking my stage plans

Stage 2 - If i had it to do over again, I would have advanced down the corridor on the left wall to give myself a wide angle on the targets sooner, rather than hugging the right wall like i did.   As I leave the position push hard toward the right wall then same thing at the array on the left. Push back toward the left wall hard with a reload and gun up fast on the target on the right.  Step while twisting to clear the barricade and take the target on the left, then take the two low partial head boxes.  I always do this on head boxes, but I needed to shoot all alphas up to this point then hopefully only dropped bravos on the head boxes.  I dropped my splits to .5's-.6's and got all 4 A's.  I probably should have rolled with .3's and been OK with BB or AB on each.  

Stage 1 - My stage plan went OK.  I didn't execute it well, but I think the plan was OK.  I went left, shot in on paper, paper, mini popper(MP), MP, reload go to the back right shooting box and shoot in on paper, paper, MP, reload while advancing to the third position.  There is a mid low port in front of me with 2 open targets at 5 yards then on my right another port with 2 open targets at 5 yards.  I will call the targets T1-T4 left to right T1 and T2 in the first port, 3&4 at the right port.  I wanted to shoot while advancing on T1 and shoot in on T2, then shoot while retreating on T3 and T4 before doing a reload on the 180 degree transition to take the mirrored array on the left.  Looking at the video I don't think this was as quick as devoting more attention to moving into position and shooting in on T1, shoot T2 & T3 while planted, shoot 1 shot on T4 flat, and begin moving backward out on T4 on the second shot.  I think my splits would have been quicker.  Then same thing on the next position, but I think i rant that last position OK.  

Stage 5 - Pucker Factor.  Can't shoot with fear.  Shoot with hope and observe what your sights are doing.  

Stage 4 - Eye of the Tiger.  If the mike would have connected, 100%.  I shot it with the appropriate amount of aggression, just either my trigger press or discipline slipped.  As the reshoot was basically an identical time, I did this one right.  

Stage 3 - There's nothing I would have changed about how I shot this other than all ammo going off on the first strike.  Looking at video and how much time I watched the hammer fall on the same round if it had gone on the first strike I would have won the stage, as it is my buddy won it with less than second faster raw time with two more points and I spent at least a second watching the hammer hit the firing pin.  So it goes.  We can fix this issue.  

So how is my training going forward going to change?  Probably isn't.  Going to keep drilling ASP, grip, and trigger control.  going to keep drilling reloads.  Might put more of a focus getting into and out of positions in dry fire.  I'm going to do some dry fire practice purely on poppers.  That continues to be an issue for me.   In Live fire I'm going to start drilling on some partial targets and just wailing on them as rapidly as possible, being OK with dropping hits into hard cover just being AWARE when I'm doing it and making it up.  

All in all I'm encouraged, my practice is paying off.  My big failures for the match were with my prep for it.  I concede my head being out of it somewhat being mother hen to a first time shooter, but in January I'm just going to have to stay frosty.  I can control all of those things, I'm going to continue to grind it out in the dryfire dojo.  I shot my first M class time, which lines up with my Bassham Affirmation, so I'm riding high right now in practice.  Onward and upward.  

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  • 3 weeks later...

1/12/17 Pre match training recap. 

So last match was 12/17, next match is 1/14 so approximately 4 weeks since the last match.  I now have a proper USPSA rig in every sense of the word.  It's all Ghost gear, actually. 

I ended up being steered largely by deals.  I settled out on the Ghost belt, which is great and only like $40 on amazon. For mag pouches I got the Ghost 360 (the pouch body functions great, the belt attachment breaks the contact with the inner belt a little much for my liking.) .  For a holster I ended up testing out the Ghost The Thunder (formerly the Stinger) holster.  There isn’t a lot of reviews on the internet, but looking at my buddy’s Ghost – The One, I was impressed and it’s similar with the exception of the actual bit retaining the gun.  I’ll get to a review on it after I spend more time with it.  It’s not as rigid as a Boss, but it may be rigid enough to be passable.  I’ll say I’ve never reached down and not had the grip where I was expecting to find it in dryfire.  All of that to say I’ve basically shaved my head and drank the Kool Aid for USPSA at this point.  Onwards and upwards to practice summary.

 

Holiday season is rough.  This one especially with the work calendar being nigh obscene.  On top of that we had an ice storm here recently further putting the kybosh on free time for practice due to the whole family being home.  That said, I’m supposed to average 17.8x minutes a day in dryfire (based on 5x a week at 25 minutes), I hit 17.7x – so we were basically there.  I ended up taking one week off live fire due largely to work.  I ended up breaking a TRS after just a month in the gun, but I suspect I grabbed one of my old OEM spare ones that was in my bag purely as a stop gap if I were to have it go down at a match before I had a match gun / practice gun set up.  I replaced it with another mystery spring in my bag, which I *hope* was a CZC TRS that was never installed before.  I probably aught to label them. 

 

In practice this month I spent a lot of time focusing on Trigger Control.  A lot of double action dry fire with a single handed white wall drill.  I found that the biggest predictor of no or very little front sight wobble in SHO dry fire was the feeling of rigidity in my wrist just behind where my thumb meets my wrist.  If that’s solid there is no or little enough to not matter at practical distances sight wobble.  Obviously with 2 hands the same holds true but Mr. Lefty gets to crush the stew out of the gun into Mr. Righty. 

 

I also spent time working on static reloads for classifiers.  I got to be pretty quick, right at about a second shot to shot (M/GM time), but not cold and not consistently enough for my liking.  I’m still fumbling too much on finding the magwell for about the first 20 or so reps, but after that it becomes more rare for me to miss.  I’m going to rule out it being a mental prep thing.  When I practice in dry fire I’ve been awak for less than 20 or so minutes so it could very well be a mental acuity thing, my performance does get better once I’m caffeinated. 

 

Other than that I’ve been focusing on not “cheating” in dryfire and seeing where the front sight is when I “fire” the shots.  I’m seeing when my index is bad or when my trigger control is flagrantly bad if my wrists are not locked out.  That’s all going well.  Hitting the “next level” on speed is going to require quicker hand speed, from the holster, to the mag pouch and back up and driving the gun between targets.   Next month I’ll work on wide- ish transitions. 

 

I did come up with a dryfire array I really like.  I generally use 1/3rd scale USPSA targets (metric and classic).  I’ve got some 1/6 ones printed as well.  So I’ll do arrays of entering a shooting box straight on a 1/3rd, transition close to a 1/6, then about a 60-70 degree transition over to another 1/3rd target 10 or so feet away.  It’s great on position entry, transition, and dialing in the correct speed/sight discipline for the target difficulty. 

 

For this weekend I want to shoot to the best of my ability (obviously) and hit at least a 66% on the classifier, then I’ll be A class.  Forecast is set for  a high of 68 and starting the day at 51.  Good day for shooting, albeit unseasonably warm. 

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1/15/17 - Post Match Update

Overall - things went pretty well. The only things that stood out as errors were hunting for targets on the memory stage and miking steel.  Other than that, it's the ubiquitous "Do everything a little bit better".  I was 85ish percent of the match winner, which is the high M I normally chase.  On the field courses I generally did a little better but he pulled away from me on the standards a bit and the memory stage.   Weather was a pleasant mid 60's (unusual for a GA January - but I'll take it).  On to the stages. Overall the shooting went well, I saw my sights while firing, made up a mike, and a charlie that I had called a delta.  

Stage 5 - Roger lost his Sole.  Start hands on marks, you could go left and take 3 of 4 targets in the first array then catch the last target on the way by the window on the right - I opted to just post up in the window since you had to go that way anyway.  Next position was a couple steps ahead through another window.  Reload to the end of the porch where there were 3 you had to shoot from that position, move across to the last position, and take the target stack.  The plans were all pretty much this with some people for doing a bit onthe move.  I wouldn't change the plan, executed it well enough.  

Stage 6 - First position 4 paper, advance to the front left corner to 2 paper and 5 steel, 2 steps to the right last position 2 paper and 3 steel.  I was going to do more steel in the first position but my friendly nemesis (the M whom I chase) suggested that was aggressive.  Good thing I listened to him because I had 3 make ups on steel.  I'm shooting AT steel not aiming for the center of the popper.  I have to be more disciplined on that.  I was 17 seconds and change, probably should have been mid to high 15's if i went clean on I was clean on the steel.  I definitely need to get this under control for match performance.  

Stage 1 - Fins Everywhere - Standards stage, stand and deliver form the box - First string, engage each target once, reload, engage each target once strong hand only.  Second string - engage each target once, reload, engage each target support hand only.  3 mikes, I saw 2 of the mikes as they happened, I missed the 3rd.  Not a lot to do about it on a Virginia count stage.  I've been putting a premium on marksmanship - I need to continue this and drill fundamentals.  

Stage 2 - Snake Charmer - so I didn't come up with the plan for this stage.  I need to do a better job breaking up the stage, the plan I ran was a good one - increased the likelihood for alphas though I don't think it was any faster than what I was coming up with.  I did some shooting on the move with this and it went really well, 4 alphas.  Look at that in the video, totally burned down the partial in the top of the stack like a boss.  The delta I dropped was a close delta.  Pleased how quickly I sunk down into position.  Reloads sitll need to be a bit faster.  

Stage 3 - Barrels of Hope - Memory stage.  I came up with the plan on this that worked, and it went well because the guy who won the stage, my friendly nemesis, ran a slight modification on it.  He fired form the middle position first while I opted to run it left to right for simplicty sake because that's how I was programing it.  I overran the middle position and did a bit of target hunting.  It wasn't as bad as the last memory stage I shot.  It actually was OK.  Hits were decent, didn't see my delta so need to work on that some more.  

Stage 4 - Quad Standards 2.  If you're a match director please don't flex the fact you have 50 yard bays by running this classifier.  This is no fun.  If I were a match director doing this, I wouldn't have done Quad Standards 2 and the other standards stage which test basically all the same skills.  If I did it, it would have been a speed trap stage with maybe 2 mandatory reloads. These stages take FOREVER to shoot and the thread of enjoyment for the day rapidly evaporates as you walk up and down a 40 yard bay.  Some guys tried to get all 8 shots in each string and scoring their targets sounded like this - "1 charlie......5 mikes.  1 delta..... 5 mikes.  1 charlie, 1 delta.  4 mikes.  2 delta, 4 mikes".  it was ridiculous.  So I shot a 45% on that classifier, my friendly nemesis shot a 55%

So this month in practice will be devoted to further drilling fundamentals.  I want to spend my live fire doing 4 aces at 25 yards at least once.  Continue to do the dots at 21 feet. I probably need to be shooting accelerator a lot, thinking about it.   The new ghost holster went fine.  That's a good value position for the hanger and the holster.  The Ghost Belt is confirmed to be stiffer than the DAA Pro belt, so that's a good value.  

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  • 3 weeks later...


1/26/17 - Shot a classifier match. 

 

So recognizing the first of my goals for the year was in jeopardy of having the clock run out (make A class in first quarter)- I decided to go shoot an indoor match.  My match for februrary already is going to be at the club that picks freaking terrible classifiers (Partial People Eaters, Quad Standards) so the likelihood of shooting decent classifiers there was slim to none.  I needed a 66% to walk away an A.  I ended up shooting like a 73.50% Tick Tock - speed was lame - bobbled the load, reload and mentally was just too cautious and left a lot on the table in terms of speed.  Ended up dropping 3 C's.  I'll take it - I did what I needed to do. So I'm A class now.  Hooray (once the USPSA website updates that the activity fee is paid which the MD assures me it has been paid!)

 

They then set up a field course and I ended up finishing a second behind the other Production A who won it. I was about a second off his pace and it's because I was fast and loose in the last position.  The 20 yard shots in the first array went well, dropped a close delta on my double action, which I called, but didn't think it was bad enough to make up...Reloaded into the next position which was tidy.  I ended up indexing on the middle target in the second position just to the right of the A zone and was rewarded with 2 C hits about a paster width apart - silly.  Dwelled too long on sights for the 12 yard target (2A'd, tho), then moved and reloaded like a champ into the 3rd position where I was more interested in shooting than actually aiming - so I ended up dropping a charlie apiece on each target in the last position and actually needed the make up shots to tidy up deltas/mikes.  Should have settled down and seen my sights rather than rushing. So a little points, a little time left on the table.  

 

This weekend is my february match.  I have exceeded my dryfire schedule.  I have met my live fire schedule.  I just need to stay the course through the weekend and put together a good match.  My squad this weekend is comprised of pretty much entirely A and M class production shooters.  It will be a good test and great prep for Area 6.  Next goal is to shoot 80% of the production winner at A6.   Which means with this crowd I'll need to shoot 85% or better from  either of the two M's who tend to win the club matches.  I have done this and can do this.  Just need to go do it.  

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2/10/17 Pre Match wrap up. 

So I exceeded all of my practice goals, I think i've made a breakthrough in vision for shot calling so I'm optimistic that will net better splits/transitions Saturday. My group sizes are shrinking.  Reloads are pretty tidy in practice these days - having issues getting it down below 1 second.  They're hovering around 1.25s +/- on a 5 yard target in live fire.  

 

Weather is forecasted to be warmer than usual (49-60 degrees) and my squad is very deep with talent.  Nearly entirely production, with 4M's, 4A's 3 B's and a couple unclassifieds.  I'm one of the B's because my activity fee is still showing on the site as being unpaid for the classifier that should put me up over the edge into A class.  

 

The outside chance does exist that I shoot less than a 69 but higher than a 60 then I may not bump to A for a while longer... I've already emailed about the activity fee, the MD assures me it's been paid... we'll see I guess.  At this point it won't break my heart if it doesn't go through, I'll be a B class for area 6 and would have a strong chance finishing well there and there is a cash payout.  Who knows. 

 

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2/11/2016

So coming into this match, if I had to lay out a list of my weaknesses, it’d look something like this –

-        Memory Stages

-        Steel

-        Low Ports

-        Support hand shooting

So yesterday’s match had 3 memory stages, one where all 3 were shot through low ports.  There also was a falling steel stage with 3 positions, 2 of which were low ports.  The other two stages were classifier stage and a hose fest field course.  So for the past month, I was training pretty much exclusively fundamentals, thinking that my trigger press needed some refinement, and then “stand and deliver” classifier type shooting and not field courses, which I was training previously in dryfire.  The squad yesterday that showed up was shooting in production was 3 M’s (Tyler, Andreas, Micah), 3A’s and 2 B’s (myself and another guy who is usually 5% off me).  Plus 3 production ballers shooting PCC (2 G’s and 1 M).  It was a stout squad. 

  Getting started on Stage 2 - the one field course/speed shoot I was fairly high up in the order.  There were two ways you could attack the stage.  The back grouping of targets, and the middle grouping of targets and the front grouping of targets.  The front grouping you could absolutely take from the middle, but you would be shooting 6 targets at 8-12 yards where you had the chance to engage them a maximum of 8 if you ran forward 3-4 yards into the last position, but it forced 2 positions of easy targets and an additional reload.  In my head it seemed a no brainer to engage everything from the middle and not advance.  I ended up executing the plan poorly  in 20 seconds.  If I shot with authority and moved with authority I could have maybe done 18.5 on it.  Stage win was Tyler, who shot the 3 target grouping plan.  He only dropped 3 C’s to my 9 C’s – so he was faster and more accurate.  This seemed an instance where more aiming and less running would work in production, but I’m finding more often than not less aiming and more running is better for points per second, which is obviously the name of the game. I dropped too many points. 

Stage 3 – the swinger stage.  So I got talked out of what I thought was a valid plan which would have worked better for me which was to activate the swinger on the way to another position.  I think for the guys who talked me out of it, that was a good plan.  I miked the swinger because I never get a chance to practice on them.  In my last position I ended up miking 2 more targets, but what’s worse is I didn’t see the mikes as the gun fired.  Lame.  Time was OK – .75 off Tyler but 3 mikes, so theres that.  I need to practice entering and leaving low ports, for sure.  A guy who is normally a production A was shooting with me and observed I was too erect – and I can see that.  I missed the last position because I managed to film the inside of my pocket for a half hour.  So there’s that.  (lol)

 

Stage 4 – So I did a great job programming this stage – but I programmed in the wrong target from the final position – so I re-engaged a target I had already shot as opposed to the target next to it.  There were 4 A’s on it.  So that’s a 2 mike FTE.  So playing the “what if I had shot the right target game, I would have shot 82% of the stage winner and would have been in second place.  So that would have pulled me up to 78% in production but not enough to advance me a place in the rankings.  The guy I’m going to be chasing at Area 6 would have still beaten me at 82%.  This stage was interesting.  You could shoot it from 2 positions with a standing reload or 3 while reloading on the move.  We talked ourselves into doing a standing reload because the spot you had to hit in the middle was illusive and more likely to make you re-engage already shot targets or go hunting for which one you needed to be aimed at.  The fast and lowest risk plan was to stand there with a standing reload.  That’s 2 months in a row where that is the case.  Accuracy was really really good on this stage for me, the shots were not easy but I was crushing it.  The furthest target was a no shoot stack, leaving probably the top 60% of the A zone on a classic target and I 2A’d it.  One thing important on this is that Micah was willing to accept sights on these targets that would net A/C or even D hits (but not mikes) given his split times.  Tyler, to a lesser extent, did the same.  I think this is a situation where I could have traded 2 more A’s for C’s and been better off on time. Another win on this stage was I processed my first target I grazed the barrel on the first shot, watch the video I transition back onto the first target with my 5th shot very smoothly and land a hit.  You had about half the A zone split along the Y axis to aim at, I was A close C on that target.  The A was the first shot, hit the barrel on the follow up, then the make up was aimed at the A/C line. 

Stage 5 – Classifier CM13-04 The Roscoe Rattle.  Those not familiar it’s the 2 string turn and draw from surrender at 7 or 8 yards.  First string is bill drill on a single target with 2 no shoots on the outer C/D line.  String 2 is Bill drill on one target, wide transition with mandatory reload and bill drill on second target.  High hit factor in production is like 11.65 or something.  I did the math, it’s basically like a 7.7 combined time with perfect hits.  I shoot and think I threw a mike, but I didn’t call a mike (and I usually can, especially squared up to the target).  Sure enough, I shot a near perfect double.  A casual glance made it look like a single hole, but when you looked at for more than a half second it was obviously a double.  We overlaid it with the by the book CRO in our squad and he was totally convinced.  I shot 11.0682 hit factor – that’s either going to be a 94.99% or pretty much a 95% dead – a “this” close GM score, or a GM score.  That’s a pretty big win.  My time was 7.77 and I was 16A and 2C.  Shot pattern was all pretty much your hand with fingers outstretched – not bad.  Feeling good, best score of 2 of 3 of the masters so real pleased with that, then Tyler shot.  Same points in 7.07s for a HF of 12.2x – well over 100% by all reckoning.  I need to throw it in shot coach and see where I’m losing that 7 tenths – my guess is a tenth on the draw and reload, or half that and maybe better splits from him. 

Stage 6 – falling steel stage.  Reasonably pleased on how this went, I hung with one of the masters on this (he had a rough go of it admittedly) and not far off the other.  Then came Tyler.  Tyler crushed it.  Our squad was shooting 25-27s for A/M times.  Then along came Tyler at 21s. Next closest was just under 24 seconds.  I shot first on this stage.  In the initial walk through, all of the closest popper arrays were forward falling.  I did not catch that they were not forward falling anymore. The first popper was forward falling, but the rear 2 were rear falling.  So I sat and watched the things fall – costing me time, rather than driving the 2nd popper down  to get at the 3rd with a immediate second shot.  In the high port position I did end up dropping a second shot on the popper which was actually trying to get on the 3rd popper as soon as I could see the top of it, but I dropped the shot just barely onto the head of the second popper.  I could have probably done a mid 24 up to low 25 time on this. In the last array of the stage, you’ll notice my cadence picks up on the mini poppers,  I had a bit of a breakthrough. 

Watching Tyler and Micah shoot – it’s obvious that the transition and the trigger pull are distinctly different operations.  The transitions are very crisp and rapid regardless of target difficulty.  I find myself more gingerly easing into position on the transition so I don’t have to clean up my hold/sight picture as much, and that’s costing me time on sights.  The trigger pull is based on the presentation difficulty, not the speed at which the gun approaches the target (either in transition or from the draw.)

 

Last stage was the easiest memory stage.  3 positions.  Slightly off center to the right, right and left.  I did an excellent job programming this stage.  I executed it well.  I even saw where I duffed a shot into the barricade obstructing one of the targets… that I didn’t make up.  I saw it happen, processed that it had probably happened.  Did not make it up.  So I’m halfway there, the call was good, the response to it was no good.  I was .9 seconds off new nemesis [Rob, not Tyler, Rob is also an A and I’ll be running against him at area 6] (who won the stage), my points were similar to his, barring the mike.  I’m not super upset about this stage, because I saw the mike, I just didn’t make it up.    

 

All in all this match showed me my fundamentals have room for improvement, but there are more points on the table from performing well on field courses.  I need to put a priority on practicing entering/exiting positions and usually choose plans that are aggressive (in a movement sense, not a “shoot 5 targets then swing onto that mini popper with 1 round in the gun” aggressive).   I’m going to practice wide-ish transitions on 25-30 YD targets but mostly entering and exiting different arrays, and probably building something to use as a low port to dryfire through.  That match usually forces 1h shooting, and I even did some practicing with that this week.  I can walk away with my head pretty high on this one because despite my weaknesses the end result was OK.  I won B, would have been 2nd A.  I finished at 72% in PRD – which is rough.  Tyler admittedly had a good match, even still I’d like to be at 85-90% of him. 

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Update - the 11.0682 hit factor on 13-04 nets a score of 95.0012% - so now I have to appeal the classifier to get it to count.  As it sits I'm officially an A class now.  For bassham's sake I should probably revise the title of this.  

Edited by ArrDave
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  • 1 month later...
  • 2 weeks later...

So I took a class with Ben Stoeger (Skills & Drills)  on 3/16 and 3/17… and it was illuminating.  The format of the class is he would set up drills on one bay and a stage on the other where you could work on applying those drills.  There are 6 students in the class, then Ben and we had the luck of having Kita there with us.  We’d start each unit on a cold run of a stage.  He’d let each of us run the stage in turn then he would run it.   Then he would let us ask him questions on why he did what he did, and a couple times he would even run it again. 

First – Ben is an excellent teacher, and he’s a great read on people and will push you as much as you can take it.  He’s exceptionally blunt and direct but it’s a good bet that he is giving you honest feedback.  That said, he exposed huge holes in my game. For that I’m grateful. 

-        Movement – this was a big challenge for me.  I’m a tall dude and I want to lope around the stage with my wide-open gait, the problem is I must hurl my weight over my toes and then that makes slowing down into positions challenging as I fight to get my weight back centered over my hips.  Kita was with Ben and she worked with me when I was up on the stages.  With her commentary on how my stage runs looked I began moving around significantly faster.  I need to pull with my legs, stay lower and wider, and chop around the stage while accelerating, only opening up my stride when really covering ground, and chop into position with the gun up so the muzzle is stable when entering position.  Plus managing how and when you move. 

-        Tension – my transitions are too hurky jerky due to the tension in my upper body.  I need to woodshed my grip and arm positions some more to a stance that has a bit less bend.  This is giving me fits transitioning onto steel.

-        Visual discipline – I’m a little too greedy and get on the trigger a little prematurely, again, this manifests most on steel. 

-        Stage planning – it’s probably better to pick an easy to execute stage plan and execute it aggressively than it is to pick the most technically demanding and intellectually best time. 

o   Try not to exit on steel

o   Avoid wide transitions when you can – though when inevitable it’s a natural point to reload if it’s a near 180 transition

o   Shooting while advancing is more desirable than shooting while retreating

o   I picked a plan on a particularly terrible stage that was exactly the Ben plan – he just executed it significantly better than I did. 

Other observations from class

-        Tanfo vs my CZ’s – Through drilling with Ben I began to understand why he continually harps on the Tanfo frame.  First the trigger shape and grip geometry just works, it’s very easy to pull straight to the rear and the double action trigger reach is totally fine.  Second, there is enough grip space on the inner face of the grip panel to really anchor your support hand and then put a really strong front to back squeeze on the strong hand.  Plus the shape of the beavertail and manual safety forces a really consistent grip.  I’m probably going to drop down some cash for some Italian steel later this year, as much as I hate to do it.   

-        Grip aggressiveness – my practice gun grips are “just right”.  They’re not going anywhere under normal gripping but are not so aggressive that they make my hands hurt after 500-600 rounds.  It’s probably better to have a moderately aggressive texturing on your grip and then use pro grip vs. super aggressive grips that torch your hands. 

-        Walk throughs – I need to visualize each stage as much as I can, in finer detail, like how my feet will enter a position, what kind of sight picture I need to see on each target, gauging the right time to reload – when to accentuate the load vs. the speed, etc. 

-        Don’t use cheap primers – I had a number of light strikes and caught a substantial amount of crap from Ben as a result. I had a failure rate of about 1 or 2 per 100 or so using my S&B primers.  One primer was legit so high it wouldn’t even go into battery (loaded a bunch of bulk ammo prior to the class – didn’t bother QCing).  This got me lectures from Ben.  Turns out that my firing pin spring had sheared a coil on my practice gun.  Not necessarily the primers fault but the lesson is still applicable – I’m not going to use S&B anymore. 

-        My practice gun has a front sight not drilled in the middle of the slide.  I had issues with grips

-        I need to ask more of myself, I’d been setting intermediate goals and I need to be focusing on GM now – now that I’m putting up M and sometimes GM numbers. This is an interesting Segway to talk about Ben. Ben can ride you hard, and it seemed that the more you were capable of, the higher standard he would hold you to.  Me and the other A in class absorbed a good bit of his ire when we performed less than our standard.  The GM in class would get pressure piled on him making him earn it and perform with high expectations.  With how he treated us (A’s & GM) it’s not hard to see that he probably applies the same level of criticism to his own game then works to break it down and build it up to the next level.  But for Two of the three B’s he adopted more of an encouraging and coaching type stance.  He would bust their chops when they did something silly but would constantly encourage them to do more, especially when they would begin running with the skill he was teaching.  Outside of the group setting he is just a cool down to earth guy who was cool to BS with.  Homeboy drinks a TON of caffeine on the rage.  I’m pretty sure his blood type is Diet Mountain Dew. 

-        Working capacity in your legs – a month out from a class like this – start really training your legs.  The first day of the class amounted to a series of 5-7 yard sprints between shooting positions and everyone was feeling it come the second day.  So it’s probably not a bad idea to pre-load on ibuprofen a couple days out. 

-        Paster guns are awesome when it’s cold outside.  Keep your gloves on like a boss.  It’s not a must have but boy was it nice when I did have it. 

All in all the class was money, time and ammo very well spent.  He even gives you a copy of Skills & Drills at the end of class and will kind of steer you toward what areas you need to work on.  The biggest back handed compliment he gave me was when he got to the section in the book on how to be a GM that’s where he started directing his comments directly at me.  Coupled with a couple passing comments over the two days talking about my classification, it felt great to be recognized by a titan of the sport – certainly put a fire under me to get back to my own training.  I even re-wrote my Bassham affirmation.  It used to be dealing with M class, but now it’s GM and “precise” was added to fast accurate and aggressive.  If he’s coming to your area I would encourage you to take a class with him.  He’s an interesting dude to be around

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17 hours ago, ArrDave said:

So I took a class with Ben Stoeger (Skills & Drills)  on 3/16 and 3/17… and it was illuminating.  The format of the class is he would set up drills on one bay and a stage on the other where you could work on applying those drills.  There are 6 students in the class, then Ben and we had the luck of having Kita there with us.  We’d start each unit on a cold run of a stage.  He’d let each of us run the stage in turn then he would run it.   Then he would let us ask him questions on why he did what he did, and a couple times he would even run it again. 

First – Ben is an excellent teacher, and he’s a great read on people and will push you as much as you can take it.  He’s exceptionally blunt and direct but it’s a good bet that he is giving you honest feedback.  That said, he exposed huge holes in my game. For that I’m grateful. 

-        Movement – this was a big challenge for me.  I’m a tall dude and I want to lope around the stage with my wide-open gait, the problem is I must hurl my weight over my toes and then that makes slowing down into positions challenging as I fight to get my weight back centered over my hips.  Kita was with Ben and she worked with me when I was up on the stages.  With her commentary on how my stage runs looked I began moving around significantly faster.  I need to pull with my legs, stay lower and wider, and chop around the stage while accelerating, only opening up my stride when really covering ground, and chop into position with the gun up so the muzzle is stable when entering position.  Plus managing how and when you move. 

-        Tension – my transitions are too hurky jerky due to the tension in my upper body.  I need to woodshed my grip and arm positions some more to a stance that has a bit less bend.  This is giving me fits transitioning onto steel.

-        Visual discipline – I’m a little too greedy and get on the trigger a little prematurely, again, this manifests most on steel. 

-        Stage planning – it’s probably better to pick an easy to execute stage plan and execute it aggressively than it is to pick the most technically demanding and intellectually best time. 

o   Try not to exit on steel

o   Avoid wide transitions when you can – though when inevitable it’s a natural point to reload if it’s a near 180 transition

o   Shooting while advancing is more desirable than shooting while retreating

o   I picked a plan on a particularly terrible stage that was exactly the Ben plan – he just executed it significantly better than I did. 

Other observations from class

-        Tanfo vs my CZ’s – Through drilling with Ben I began to understand why he continually harps on the Tanfo frame.  First the trigger shape and grip geometry just works, it’s very easy to pull straight to the rear and the double action trigger reach is totally fine.  Second, there is enough grip space on the inner face of the grip panel to really anchor your support hand and then put a really strong front to back squeeze on the strong hand.  Plus the shape of the beavertail and manual safety forces a really consistent grip.  I’m probably going to drop down some cash for some Italian steel later this year, as much as I hate to do it.   

-        Grip aggressiveness – my practice gun grips are “just right”.  They’re not going anywhere under normal gripping but are not so aggressive that they make my hands hurt after 500-600 rounds.  It’s probably better to have a moderately aggressive texturing on your grip and then use pro grip vs. super aggressive grips that torch your hands. 

-        Walk throughs – I need to visualize each stage as much as I can, in finer detail, like how my feet will enter a position, what kind of sight picture I need to see on each target, gauging the right time to reload – when to accentuate the load vs. the speed, etc. 

-        Don’t use cheap primers – I had a number of light strikes and caught a substantial amount of crap from Ben as a result. I had a failure rate of about 1 or 2 per 100 or so using my S&B primers.  One primer was legit so high it wouldn’t even go into battery (loaded a bunch of bulk ammo prior to the class – didn’t bother QCing).  This got me lectures from Ben.  Turns out that my firing pin spring had sheared a coil on my practice gun.  Not necessarily the primers fault but the lesson is still applicable – I’m not going to use S&B anymore. 

-        My practice gun has a front sight not drilled in the middle of the slide.  I had issues with grips

-        I need to ask more of myself, I’d been setting intermediate goals and I need to be focusing on GM now – now that I’m putting up M and sometimes GM numbers. This is an interesting Segway to talk about Ben. Ben can ride you hard, and it seemed that the more you were capable of, the higher standard he would hold you to.  Me and the other A in class absorbed a good bit of his ire when we performed less than our standard.  The GM in class would get pressure piled on him making him earn it and perform with high expectations.  With how he treated us (A’s & GM) it’s not hard to see that he probably applies the same level of criticism to his own game then works to break it down and build it up to the next level.  But for Two of the three B’s he adopted more of an encouraging and coaching type stance.  He would bust their chops when they did something silly but would constantly encourage them to do more, especially when they would begin running with the skill he was teaching.  Outside of the group setting he is just a cool down to earth guy who was cool to BS with.  Homeboy drinks a TON of caffeine on the rage.  I’m pretty sure his blood type is Diet Mountain Dew. 

-        Working capacity in your legs – a month out from a class like this – start really training your legs.  The first day of the class amounted to a series of 5-7 yard sprints between shooting positions and everyone was feeling it come the second day.  So it’s probably not a bad idea to pre-load on ibuprofen a couple days out. 

-        Paster guns are awesome when it’s cold outside.  Keep your gloves on like a boss.  It’s not a must have but boy was it nice when I did have it. 

All in all the class was money, time and ammo very well spent.  He even gives you a copy of Skills & Drills at the end of class and will kind of steer you toward what areas you need to work on.  The biggest back handed compliment he gave me was when he got to the section in the book on how to be a GM that’s where he started directing his comments directly at me.  Coupled with a couple passing comments over the two days talking about my classification, it felt great to be recognized by a titan of the sport – certainly put a fire under me to get back to my own training.  I even re-wrote my Bassham affirmation.  It used to be dealing with M class, but now it’s GM and “precise” was added to fast accurate and aggressive.  If he’s coming to your area I would encourage you to take a class with him.  He’s an interesting dude to be around

 

Good review, sounds like a great class to take for any level of shooter. I'm signed up for Oct this year, wish it was a little sooner but that's the way it worked out with my schedule.

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So...

 

That went poorly LOL.  First 3 stages were OK.  none were real stand out performances, but nothing too much to cry about other than leaving a little time on the table.  

 

Stage 5 (started on) - I would have run a different plan playing more to my current abilities than what I presume to be the intellectual best, I'd have drawn to the hard cover target immediately in front of the position, done the 3 in the window, then the target next to the barrel, reload (could have kept moving) and rolled through the target to the right of the barrel stack and the two targets on the right. - Reload again so I can roll through the last positions to the end of the stage.  

 

Stage 6 - Leaving the first position - didn't visualize how the reload should be and left some speed on the table between positions, should have been husting faster than that.  2nd position was OK.  3rd position I ended up having issues with throttle control moving from a 3 yard target to a 12-15 yard target - should have hit the gas a little more.  Last position entered leisurely probably should have put priority more on the movement then made it a shooting in as I settle and not taken it on the move.  Throttle control again switching from popper back to paper.  

Stage 6 - Issue with the running reload caused a bit of a bobble giving up some speed.  Bit of throttle control (slow) on the last paper before the popper then paper. 

Stage 1 - My focus was total trash.  Ended up miking on the out and back in the first position.  My sight discipline was garbage - I had like 13 charlies and 10 alphas and a delta on this stage.   My movement was good, but my set ups were a little sloppy in position 2 and 4.  Probably should have shot at least 16-17 alphas in the same time if I had but asked myself to get the alphas.  Pretty happy with foot speeds, this was nearly as fast as Sevigny's run.  

Stage 2 - I changed plans waiting to shoot to a crappy one purely because I was worried about dropping points on the swinger.  SHould have just stuck to my initial plan and let the chips fall.  Instead I missed my 3rd position, then brought the gun up on a target with holes in it - then I got lost and pretty much checked out for the match.  

Stage 3 - CM 99-46 - Close Quarter Standards - when prepping the trigger on the last target I ended up launching a shot a bit early before the gun was settled down and threw a mike.  yet and still it was like a 68% classifier - won't count but amazing you can shoot middle/high B times with mikes if you're quick.  My time on this stage was about the same as Sevigny's - he just had WAY more points lol.  

Stage 4 - First time on a texas star.  Don't do wide transitions onto mini poppers if you get an option.  A squad mate had a better plan to take the 3 paper from the left, then the 3 mini poppers you could see wth much easier transitions than the front of the box, go right w/ a reload and take the 3 paper last popper, advance for paper, reload shifting to the left - star then final paper.  The shooting was easier due to body position and not swinging the gun as far.  

 

Big areas to improve - 

- Sight discipline - maintaining alphas at speed

- Transitions - especially past previously engaged targets or any transition where you have to turn your head to the next target. 

- Set ups - more controlled /gun up sooner

- Running reloads - get more speed where I can.  Do walk throughs that account for this.  

- Throttle Control

 

Live fire - going to work on throttle control, from the holster pairs and some throttle control targets I've made that I can print off.  

 

Things I'm happy with - my foot speed was significantly better than it's been.  I'm probably on the cusp of a breakthrough once I get my set ups and reloads sorted at this new speed.  Very optomistic to woodshed on these leading into area 6.  

 

 

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Couldn't help but laugh.. "F! Where am I?!?"  Sorry man!

 

I had a similar event after my class with Stoeger (Fundamentals)... SO MUCH FASTER at the match but points were crap & had a lot of Mike's but no Ike's...  Gotta get that mental game on board.

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  • 5 weeks later...

I haven't compiled my Area 6 video because i'm so disgusted with my performance.  My mental game hasn't caught back up since my Stoeger class so I've had a couple lousy matches in a row.  A quick analysis now that the pain has subsided from underperforming.  I noticed that I had two HUGE things screwing me up.  The first is being overly cerebral.  If you’ve read any of this crap you probably know that about me purely reading this jazz and my penchant for descriptive words.  That’s affecting me because when you see this video, you’ll see my mentally directing my movements and kind of processing rather than just running the routine I’ve programmed in and trusting my skills.  This is causing me to be slow on a couple accounts – wide transitions it’s obvious, as well as processing sight pictures – aka throttle control.  It also causes me to miss positions.  The further on in the stage it is the more likely the performance is deteriorating.  The second thing is grip tension and overall tension.  My grip relaxes after that first reload or second – if I have a mike in the stage it’s usually not in the first magazine.  As I move through the stage the tension builds in my shoulders/arms causing me to start to throw shots I should make easy.  More on that later. 

Preface - work has been rough.  I had a fire spring up last week and I couldn't make it down to the range to walk the stages the days before.  I was in the office until 8:40PM Thursday evening – good news is it helped me sleep like a baby because the match wasn’t on my mind at all – first time that’s happened.  Tried to make lemonade and get to the range at 6:30A which was my guess at first light.  The first couple stages I walked via cell phone flash light and got decent plans. 

 

Started on Stage 11 – Will It Run I was first shooter of the first day – I had a couple mental hickups and was a little slower and deliberate, a couple too many charlies (26A 6C) – not horrible but not my best – acceptable.  Felt good going in the next one.

Stage 12 -  Standards stage – 6 open targets at 20 yards, 6 tuxedos (3 on each side) ranging 12-15 yards.  String 1  - 1 on 6 targets freestyle – reload – 1 on the remaing 6 strong hand only.  String 2 – same deal but weak hand only after the reload.  My strategy was just go left to right on string 1  and right to left on string 2.  I think that the freestyle zebras one hand the open targets was probably a little faster plan.  As it is, this was my best stage.  I had a HF of like 3.29xx and #16 of 1XX in Prd – but I was about 8 seconds too slow bullseying everything.  I probably could have just broken 30 seconds.  Not bad in fairness.

Stage 1 – Running down a dream – shoot house stage.  This went OK on time and not great on points.  I had 1 mike and 2 D’s.  The mike was when I “double tapped” a target, so it was an A/M in the second position – was really dumb – target was probably 11-12 yards.  The D’s were on 20ish yard targets – grip breaking down + lean not great but not the best.  Wide transitions REALLY slow me down and I missed the last position.  I’m a tall dude and I don’t need to be squatting unless I absolutely had to.  Decided to do that to mitigate a noshoot I had to shoot past through a window.  Should have just trusted my skill.   The supers did it in 24-25 seconds.  I did it in 32 seconds – There was probably 4-5 seconds in wasted time on longer transitions and not darting my eyes  on those two wide transition positions.  I was 2nd to last and my magazines got real sandy – had to clean em quick. Ran down the hill to catch a walk through on the next stage, we’ll load them later.

Stage 2 – Brutal truth – one of the trickier stages that paralyzed you with options. Had a good plan – had my walk through.  Grip being lazy caused misses on mini poppers.  Not filling magazines caused me to completely ignore the last position – BLAZING FAST TIME (lol) – all the mikes/FTEs ended up causing me a zero.  I had moved my unshot magazines forward and topped off my mag with my ULSC round so I thought I was ready to rock and wasn’t. 

Stage 3 – Find it – I had bad points – likely due to not enough grip pressure – 1 mike due to a barrel strike and 2 D’s.  I moved around the stage OK for me but in the last position did not manage throttle control at ALL.  Total bullseye mode in the last position. The theme so far is my grip is inconsistent and I remember realizing that here.

Stage 4 – Wasted Youth -  Bunch of ports – I’m tall enough to just barely make them be a pain in the ass. The second position in the port I had abysmal accuracy – 2 mikes 2 D’s – I totally missed a position on a wide transition and had to adjust – so probably 3 seconds there.  Fast dudes under 20, I was 27.  Realistically I should have probably expected 23-24 seconds with better points had I connected.

Stage 5 – Monkey Barrels – terrible memory stage all magazines started on barrels.  I shot all the targets – slowly.  Ended up with 2 mikes due to barrel strikes and bad grip.  Really starting to realize what’s going on with my accuracy. 

Stage 6 – Blind Pew – a 2 position medium course with a big steel array – 2 lonely papers and some more poppers with a clam shell.  So straightforward I had no problem ended up 73% I think I had one makeup on steel.  Shooting steel is an issue for me because the only time I get to is in matches. 

Stage 7 – Black Spot – Similar to the other stage but with a plate rack.  2 makeups on plates due to how the gun was sitting in my hand.  68%.  These two stages are probably most representative of “where I’m at” 70-75% of the top dudes.

Stage 8 – Hold my beer – carnival stage.  Shoot one array with activator, reload strong hand only.  I was starting to mentally check out at this point – shot the second string freestyle.  10 penalties.  ZERO!

Stage 9 – thrown out.

Stage 11 – Six Sixty Six -  I decided I would run the most aggressive plan and attempt to just burn it down because the match was basically done anyway.  I had 3 mikes and a pretty good time (both on the clock and from a fun perspective) I saw 2 of the mikes happen and remember them but I was commited to swinging for the fences on this one.  It ultimately netted a 57% run – which is silly.  Realistically had I shot it would have been a second to two seconds slower and I’d probably been in that 70-75% band again. 

 

With 2 zeros I was 54% in production.  Playing the “what if game” had I not zero’d 2 stages and shot the final stage seriously then I probably would have been in the 65-70% band.  I had a goal of shooting better than 80% on the match.  Yeah – that was WAY too aggressive.  Dudes I shoot with who are GM’s were high 70’s.  70% would have been an achievement given my level of participation and time I’ve got into the game so far.  But now I know!

 

Big take aways – Grip discipline – I’m seeing what I need to see when I decide to pull the trigger but my grip isn’t there.  My post shooting routine is updated.  I’m going to go ahead and fill 6 extra magazines  and keep them in my range bag.  If I’m faced with that situation again I’ll just throw on the new magazines after I’m immediately done – shoot the next stage – then deal with my magazines.  I’ve got the magazines in the bag anyway, might as well use them.  I need to figure out how to shoot matches in “match mode” and stop being so damn cerebral. This is the biggest thing costing me time (decisiveness moving, decisiveness on wide transitions and throttle control)  I’m going to take a little time off and work on my head a bit.  I think I had too much invested in my identity as a shooter and less in my approach to shooting

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Can you provide a summary of your last post ?      :mellow:

TLDR: I zeroed two stages, one for failing to reload mags and one for failing to shoot a strong hand string with my strong hand. Issues due to being too cerebral when the buzzer goes off, not gripping hard enough late in the stages and too much tension causing inaccuracy


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1 hour ago, ArrDave said:


I zeroed two stages, one for failing to reload mags

 

Have to change your pre-shooting routine to ensure that

mags are loaded - can't afford to make that mistake.    :mellow:

 

I wonder what else are you missing right before you shoot?

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21 hours ago, Hi-Power Jack said:

 

Have to change your pre-shooting routine to ensure that

mags are loaded - can't afford to make that mistake.    :mellow:

 

I wonder what else are you missing right before you shoot?

My last name starts with BL - I shoot first on pretty much every match I shoot and I shoot top of the order at every club match at least once, sometimes I get a break, but rarely.  I'm going to load up my practice magazines the night before and have them ready to swap out when I'm the last shooter, then just throw them on my belt as I grab my kit and run to the next stage, catch up on mag maintenance when I actually have time to.  

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  • 4 weeks later...

I am plugging back in on my training.  Per the wifes request I took a month off.  The first match back is this weekend.  I hit a live fire session yesterday trying to ease into it.  My trigger control eroded a little bit as I was hitting low.  Toward the end of the session I had it sorted out again.  This makes me want to practice my trigger control until I can't anymore! 

 

In other news, the VZ diamondback grips on my practice gun which I was inoculated to previously feel rough in my hands.  Gonna take a minute to get back to that point.  

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5/29/17

After action report for the match.  So coming in with like 4 days of dryfire and 1 live fire session and a month off otherwise.  My expectations were pretty low and I did pretty well.  Stages were balanced where you had enough rope to hang yourself.  I decided to listen to Steve and JJ/Rob.  I wanted to see my sights on each shot and whatever time it took, it took that long.  

 

1st Stage (Stage 6) - So I shot first on the squad.  I was hitting everything and went one for one on steel as I recall - I was moving around pretty good.  Steel didn't fall (2 out of 4) despite center punching.  Called for popper calibration and got a re-shoot.  Next run I swapped up my approach a little and I probably still wouldn't have done it that way.   All in all - nothing to cry about - finished well on the stage.  Probably should have gone Steel while advancing paper while advancing back track then repeat.  i was 3 seconds off the stage win but st

2nd Stage  (Stage 7) - 2 boxes, from Box 1 had to shoot 1 paper (open) and a texas star at about 9-10 yards.  Mandatory reload to Box 2 - Mini Popper, open paper, Target stack with a noshoot, and a swinger that had NS.  The side you could ambush it on had the NS.  I ran the star like a boss went 5 for 6.  Teed up the mini popper no problem to activate the swinger, took the open paper, 1 shot on a presentation of the swinger.  The partial target, then 2 shots on the swinger... and the second shot landed int the NS.  Still good enough for a 2nd place finish despite the penalty - just by a wide margin (82%).  I ran the star like a boss!

3rd Stage (Stage 8) - Field course.  My mission of seeing my sights slowed me down.  I missed a position by a bit to see the mini popper hiding down range.  Advancing from the first position I was too conservative on the open targets.  Transititions are a bit sluggish  but the second array is the only thing I'm a little upset about - I finished well on this stage as well. 

4th Stage (Stage 1) - High value field course.  They gave us the choice of taking some 20+ yard shots or you could run a significant amount further and advance and take the shots.  I advanced since my confidence at distance wasn't there due to month off.  I still finished up 2nd at 95%.  I was beaten by 2 seconds but had better points.  I'm not sure what the stage winner did.  I made up a hard cover hit on a no shoot, called what I thought was a D and made it up too.  Pretty strong shot calling for me.  

5th Stage (Stage 2) - A side scroller through ports with lots of targets shot from different angles.  I shot them as I saw them for simplicity sake.  i did not dwell on targets I needed to ignore - which is a BIG win for me.  That's something that was giving me fits.  I had 2 mikes - 1 was forgivable (as forgiveable as a mike can be) - it was less than a bullet diameter from the edge of hard cover.  The second, I think I just heeled a shot over the top - I didn't see it happen.  Booo.  So I was 71% when I should have been 91%.  Less than a second off the pace of the stage win (a G) so that was good.  I'm still proud of this stage.  

6th Stage (Stage 3) - On the Move Classifier - so this is the one stage where I didn't let my sights dictate my pace and tried to shoot the pace of the HHF.  As a result - 3 no shoots, 1 mike!  lol.  Whoops.  

7th Stage (Stage 4) - Back to letting vision dictate the pace.  It was a weird hose fest where the first 6 paper needed to be shot 3 times and the final 3 ducks needed to be shot twice.  throw in 2 MP and 1 P from the first box.  I tried to be cute with engaging a popper with each of my first mags rather than just a standing reload.  What I should have done was draw to the right target, engage the left target, advance to the next target on the left, reload on the way up, engage the 2 targets on the left, reload in transition to the 2 papers on the right and the steel array, reload while advancing.  I'm not sure what the best way to do this was.  I was a second and a half off the pace, but my way netted the best points (by 5 alphas) - but the factor for the stage obviously favored the speed.  Plan was executed as well as it could have been, in the last position I made up a C - probably should have let it slide - but I did it pretty quick so i don't know that it hurt me but I don't think I gained anything. 

8th stage (Stage 5) - Last stage went pretty well.  I was 4th at like 89% and it was due to speed - nearly 2.5 seconds.  I'm not sure what got me... just have to wait for the G to drop his match vid and find out.  again, it was a weird stage and I'm not sure the best way to shoot it.  

 

All in all - the match was a big success.  Finished 2nd in PRD at 89%.  My total time was 4 seconds off the match lead.  All the points were basically the classifier and the carnival stage.  I didn't have any stage wins but I was 2nd - 5th on most of them.  I threw the videos in ClipShot and it appears a lot of my controlled pairs are like .4-.5 splits.  I need to get that down to .3 and have control.  Transitions a little sluggish, reloads went well - gun was generally up in position.  I felt the trigger on most shots which was good.  Excited to get back to training.  

 

I might borrow a buddy's Sig P320 X 5 and mess around in limited next month - since he stippled it  and went all nuts just to see what it's like for a bit.  

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