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Jeep's getting his groove back - Technique


michael.flitcraft

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I'm starting a journal to help me stay focused on my shooting goals, and get feedback as others see fit to give it. I'm keeping this seperate from my physical training so I can get more focused feedback from folks that are willing to offer it.

As a backdrop I shoot IDPA, maybe soon USPSA and these will be my focal points. Concealed carry really isn't an option for me for a while. I work on a trucking crew on a college campus, do the national guard thing, and at the end of the month should be at the base full time until I go back to school in the fall.

Previously I shot IDPA before active duty and was usually in the top 15, towards the end top 8, out of 40-60 in local matches. Platforms varied between 1911s in 45, MPs in 9 and 45, and Kahrs in 40, probably some other platforms I don't remember. I didn't shoot for most of my time active duty, as I was shoehorned away into a SCIF.

I've finally realized over the years that the Indian is more important than the bow, and have settled on a Beretta 92G. I went with this for familiarity with the M9 for deployments, ease of maintenance, durability, and to be a much better shooter at the end than I would be sticking with a striker or 1911. The last match I shot was over the weekend, and got 14/48, and 9/33 in the stock service pistol class. The match was dominated by Glocks and XD variants with some M&Ps for good measure.

Practice time is limited for me, and I'm putting a few dry fire sessions a week in with live fire every few weeks. I'll have a .22 to do accuracy work with in a couple weeks. My up front goal is to chase the accuracy, and let the speed follow. Physically I'm 180 pounds, 6 foot, and get in over 9 miles on my feet daily. My current weight lifting is focused on building strength, and my diet is relatively clean with minimal processed foods (wife is a dietitian, so the good food thing is pretty well reinforced thankfully)

So, here we go.

It's been a busy week physical wise, and honestly lacking on the gun side of things. Hopefully I'll get some dryfire and live fire in this weekend, but otherwise it's been limited to cleaning/lubrication the 92G and cleaning/sorting cases from the last two months at the club.

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Hit the range to do a little experimenting with grip, calf engagement, and sight tracking. I'm content with my grip at the moment, though it has a slight right bias, and will refine it a bit over time. The range I go to is set up in a East-West and I shoot in the afternoon, so lighting changes and gives it's own challenges. To that note, I can't wait to replace the stock rear sight and I need to get some orange paint on the front. Gun wise I think I'll get a recoil spring that's one poundage up, an extended mag release, new rear sight, put the right side decocking lever back on and reprofile it, maybe play with some grip tape on the front and rear strap and filing the stock grips down a tad in thickness.

I shot the dot drill three times at 4, 4, and 3 yards without any time pressure and focusing on making my hits. I definately have some work to do weak and strong hand only, and with few exceptions only shot when the sight picture was where I wanted it. I did have one shot that landed nowhere near where I thought it would go, and I absolutely snatched the trigger on that one. The other misses were all called. I'll make my standard for moving the yardage out as three 45 or greater scores in an effort to make it possible, but increasingly difficult.

D represents double action
S represents single action
number represents the string on the dot

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First string, shot cold. Didn't have the sight picture discipline I needed after I walked up to score it.

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I called all misses on this one, and on dot 10 string 1 my grip wasn't secured and I decided on the fly to shoot it anyway and see what the impact would be with a botched grip versus a good one. Results speak for themselves, way high - and string 2 I snatched the trigger low and quick.

On a positive note, my da/sa transitions were decent though grips show vertical stringing. I'm coming from rifles with a 6 oclock hold, and the Beretta is drive the dot. I'm sure some of it is mentally switching to make that happen, but the rest of it is likely going to be grip refinement.

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At 3 yards I did much better, and had several dots with multiple bullets in one hole. I had finally settled into a good mental groove with the exception of one shot, but was starting to feel like I was grinding away at a job and didn't want to start getting bad reps of the trigger in. Sort of like feeling your back start to give in while dead lifting; better to stop than to cause damage.


All in all I did better at this than I thought I would, and anticipate doing dots once a month as a performance tracker for accuracy work. I need to do a lot of one hand dry fire. Some minor hardware things need to be addressed, one major hardware thing (sight picture). Big time software updates coming down the pike.

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I have to give you tremendous credit for setting up your goals, and working diligently towards

those goals.

I'm 71 years old, started shooting 63 years ago, and NEVER have been able to force myself

to be disciplined enough to dry fire or set goals working towards improvement.

So, YEAH!!! Congratulations.

And you just might inspire me enough to , ONE DAY, get started at a self-improvement

program.

Good luck with yours - sounds like you're headed in The Right Direction ...

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6-22-2016

Breakfast of 2 turkey sausage patties, western omlette, and 2 scrambled eggs with decaf and water.*

Lunch was a really interesting, and delicious chicken/cauliflower chopped salad with onion, carront, celery, ginger, mushrooms, zucchini, peas, and cabbage.* 


Dinner was 1/2 a chicken, two bowls of rice, two bowls of green beans with mixed berries for desert.

Preworkout suppliment was 2 servings of C4 taken 5 minutes before the workout started.

Body fat measured at 13.2% - to note I'm using one that measures via electrical currents, so hydration status has massive impacts on readings.

Bench press 80x5, 80x5, 75x5, 75x5, 75x5

Incline dumbbel press 50x5, 50x5, 50x5, 45x5

Dumbell flies 25x8, 25x8, 30x8

Barbell shoulder press 30x5, 35x5, 35x5

Side lateral raise 20x8, 20x8, 15x8

Facepulls 170x8, 180x8, 180x8

Barbell shrug 230x5, 230x5, 250x5

Close grip bench press 60x5, 55x5, 50x5

Strong hand and weak hand focused dry fire is in the works for tomorrow after the gym.

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6-24-2016

Had a bit fo a setback on Thursday, hand got caught between furnature and a steel door frame. Nothing broken, but an hour later I couldn't hold a glass of water. The swelling went down a lot over night, and thankfully nothing is broken. That put dryfire and livefire back until today, and eliminated the gym. Still tender, so I don't think loading up a barbell is the smartest thing until the swelling is gone.

During lunch I started working on the dry fire base setup described here: http://pistol-training.com/archives/5185

Specifically I focused on the strong hand and weak hand only shooting, as that is what I struggled the most on.

After work at the range I ran my first F.A.S.T drill (http://pistol-training.com/drills/the-fast) on a reduced target. Target was scaled 75%, so I shot it at 5.25 seconds. Since I'm working on fundamentals/techniques I shot without concealment, so my time isn't exactly valid. My first time was 8.07 seconds, clean, second run was 7.29 clean.

I shot a couple 26662 drills ( http://pistol-training.com/drills/26662-drill) and finished with a dot torture again for kicks. Shot a 49 out of 50 at 4 with dots, so time to move it out to 5 yards. One hand shooting has improved a lot with moving my elbow down and in a little, which helps keep the gun recoiling up and down for me. My thumb is flagged up and forward just shy of the slide applying pressure to help keep the pistol in place.

The biggest place I can see improvement for me is on the draw and working on the press-out. I did some press out dry fire and it's far easier to run the double action this way for me, and produces smaller groups. I just need to make it muscle memory, as when I'm looking back at video I don't see the hammer cocking until the gun is settled down completely on target. After that, I'll start to push the time and trigger a bit more.

Any inputs would be appreciated

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To note, this is cross posted to get different feedback from folks with different backgrounds. The more eyes the better, and the more in depth the feedback will be after culling it all together.

The inputs I’ve been given so far, is focusing on changing from arcing out of the holster and acquiring sights then popping a shot, to coming out of the holster up without a bunch of wasted body motion and coming out at a near 90 degree angle from my chest. Working on getting the trigger in motion while the pistol is moving towards it’s final resting point is another major point of improvement.

I messed around with nothing in my hands while cooking dinner and noticed that I need a straight drop holster to make this happen, but my holster is a 10 degree forward cant. To make that cant work I need to move the holster way, way far back on my waist to where I’m not exactly looking forward to doing it. I need to play with my mag carrier location too - it might make a lot of sense for me to get a competition belt/war belt to set it up and leave everything in place. Similar concept as picking one platform and keeping it - minimize the changes in the process to focus on the technique, to grow my skill set.

That said, I bought back my Ruger Mark 1 pistol from a buddy of mine for the price I sold it to him, and my initial purchase price was $20. A full detail strip and scraping all the caked on crud made a big improvement on trigger pull. I need to get a few more mags for it to make the most out of my time on the range since I just have one right now. I do miss having a slide release/bolt hold back, but for the price there’s no reason to complain. The reason for purchase was cheap marksmanship practice, and there’s no fooling with trying to convince myself that it’s good for anything else. The lack of recoil and motion in my hand are a fraction of 9mm, to say .40SW, so know what the tools are in the tool box and what they’re to be used for. This is going to save a lot of time for me, as I cast my own 9mm bullets and coat them myself as well.

A quick trip to the range today with the dog and I humbled myself even more than with the Beretta. The sights are really setup for precision in comparison, but it also makes it much easier for me to see how changes in grips change how the sight picture changes. It will probably help with sight tracking as well, since the front sight moves less under recoil and doesn’t reciprocate backwards. That will make for less motion and be easier for me to see what’s going on in the moment, but I need to avoid falling into a trap. The effort needed to track sights on this vs. the B92 is huge, and if I put the same effort as the .22LR into tracking I will be far behind the 8 ball so to speak.

Job wise things have changed a lot, for the better if you ask me. My unit got me a temporary job on a 4-10 schedule as a GS-11 until school starts, which far trumps the $8.50 my university was paying me. The major downside is an 80 mile one way commute onto a military base, which makes for a limited amount of time of dry fire and live fire practice for the time being. From a shooter’s stand point, I’m going to have to be more disciplined with my limited time on the range. Lifting will probably change as well since I’m going to try and use the gym on base during lunch to maximize my free time at home.

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Shooting wise no live fire yet this week, did 2 hand and 1 hand wall drills after dinner tonight and will be working in some draw work tomorrow. Planning on getting to the range with the .22 for some marksmanship work and do a FAST from concealment during the weekend.

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  • 2 weeks later...

Been slacking on getting the livefire and dryfire in, as well as keeping this journal up to date. I'm going to make sure I do 3 minutes draws every evening this week and work on just that movement, and 2 minutes at the end of that working on the press out.

Live fire consisted of 100 rounds on the July 8th, doing 26662 and shooting 2 inch circles from 5 out to 10 yards. Pushed my speed a bit and dropped more shots than I was happy with, but finding your weaknesses is part of growing. I had one dryfire practice prior to this journal, and I need to do a lot of work with one hand. Especially support side.

We did have a local IDPA match, and I got 12 out of 54 overall. My buddy Sean beat me by less than a second, with the same points down. He aims to shoot fast always, and I only really gave it the *thumb rest [generic]* on the last stage. Next month I'm going to bring some speed to the game. For those interested in seeing the scoring, you can find this month's here: https://www.uberscoremaster.com/osm_...A-18401C3B22E3 Last month's score is here (I got 14): https://www.uberscoremaster.com/osm_...D-A730860FCF30

I'm happy with the progress, and knowing that I can push the speed more and keep better groupings than I thought. The stage I pushed was stage 6 of this month (first link).

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15JUL16
Headed to the rifle range with my AK74 to get a break from pistols, get a rough zero, and bang some steel at 200. It's been years since I've shot beyond 25-30 yards, so this was a much needed change of pace.

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I must say I love finally being a member of a private club.

After doing a rough zero from 200 I moved down to verify the zero I had and check on a paper target. Then walked back to the 190 or so yard marker and shot standing for a few rounds before heading over to the pistol range. I was rewarded with a thunk each time before I ran out of ammo. I'll take this for a rusty shooter with astimatizm, no magnification, surplus ammo, and standing with a Vickers sling. If this group was prone with a USGI sling I would have been livid at myself.

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Off to the pistol bays I went to do some one handed work after being humbled by it yet again during a match (worse than usual though). I shot some circles (bottom right, 2 hand, upper right right handed, upper left left handed, in that order) with the Mark 2 and noticed something I don't see with the Beretta. When releasing pressure with my pinky finger, I get one hand groups that are similar to my 2 hand groups - but when I mash and hold for dear life the groups are twice as large.

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I put up another target and did the top 2 mash grips for right/left, and the bottom 2 with less pressure from my pinky on the bottom and had the same results as this target. It is possible that I was tired and had a lazy focus, but replication from both hands leads me to believe otherwise. I think since there's such a large difference in grip size between a B92 and a MK2 that grip techniques have a much more profound effect with the .22LR since there's more 'air space' on it. I need to cast some 9mm and load before I can verify the same with the Beretta.

17JUL16
Did 5 minutes of draw work and eliminated a majority of the wasted upperbody movement. Will be hunting for a good deal on a holster that rides .5 inch lower than what I currently have. Spent another 5 minutes working on the press out, and found that if I exaggerate lifting the front sight a bit I can pick it up and push direct to the target with little to no movement. I'll be painting the front sight dot bright green to help aquire it a bit faster. Spent another 2 minutes per hand doing one hand double action presses. Forearms are killing me.

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Pistol skills-

18JUL16
Spent 10 minutes doing on doing draw work, and 2 minutes doing strong hand and weak hand only trigger manipulations. Trigger manipulations were double action, keeping the trigger back, resetting by racking the slide, then a single action press. Rinse and repeat for both hands 2 minutes each, no 2 hand work involved.

19JUL16
Spent every moment my hands were’t occupied practicing my reloads, as I frankly suck at them. With my old 1911 and M&P if I seated hard with a forward/up motion of my palm it would drop the slides with 199% reliability. I determined that I can do this with the Beretta with pure vertical seating motion of the palm. However, this is very dependent upon the weight of the magazine going in (read- how many rounds). With 1 snap cap I had 50% repeatability. With 5 in it, I had repeatability going up to 75%. I only did this once with a full mag of ammo since I want to minimize admin handling, but it did function far easier with the weight of ammo in the magazine.

At the end of the night with the dog next to me watching Parks and Rec I found it was much smoother to not even look at the pistol when reloading, and when I looked it was typically a slow, painfully botched reload. Hand positioning and the index finger seemed to play a big part of this for me.


Does anybody know if the magazines included with Beretta’s 92A1 blue gun will work in a real gun, or real mag in the blue gun? Link - http://www.berettausa.com/en-us/beretta-92a1-inert-training-aid-2-magazines-/e00554/ My thought is having the weight of a real mag without the ammunition for this could be helpful.

My understanding is the 92A1 has a beveled mag well, which my 92G barely has - and I’m using 15 round surplus mags with a boxed front part vs. the 18 round models that have a full taper at the top (much easier to reload quickly). Being able to practice on a gun sans magwell will just make it that much easier.

20JUL16
No practicing, helped to replace a cylinder head on a 5.7 hemi truck, install headers, and cat back. I thought my old supercharged mustang was loud - this thing woke the dead to file noise complaints.

21JUL16
Did 5 minutes of press-out work from the low ready. Decided to order a 18 round magazine or two when they come on sale to compare the ease of reloads. Will order an extended mag release and range holster for the Ruger MK1 next week, and some magazines for it the first week of August.

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  • 1 month later...

Hadn't done a damn thign since the last update.  While I thought I'd be able to, a 3.5-4 hour daily commute during the summer with national guard obligations and getting the house ready for our wedding reception when that wasn't going on killed that off real quick.  School started back up, and I've got more free time, and touched my press for the first time since July.

Only updates are I got a 105 grain SWC mold to make my lead last longer, and I'm almost out of primers for the Beretta.  Have a thousand or so rounds made and ready to do some work with.  Got new grips for the .22 trainer to fill my hand gaps better and 2 more mags, so I'm not burning through 9mm working on sight alignment/related accuracy work.

 

So, part duex......

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  • 2 weeks later...

Finally got a chance to test my new loads. Bullet is a 105 grain .38 special semi wad cutter from a Lee 6 cavity mold, loaded on top of W231. This is uncommon, yes, but works great for my Beretta as the bore is oversized than the standard .355 for 9mm. I'm also running a lighter-than-standard recoil spring and mainspring. i'm also not responsible for your reloading practices, nor are you responsible for mine.

I sent a few magazines through my Ruger Mark 1 to warm up, and then shot and took notes. 4.1 and 4.5 gave the best groups, with 4.3 being a bit open and 4.7 shooting like crud, and resulting in malfunctions. 4.1 felt sluggish, and could essentially feel the cartridge loading process, while 4.5 felt like a 9mm and likely will continue to function in a less-clean gun. I'll be making a run of 50 rounds each and a separate run of 4.2 grains before doing a final decision on my go-to-load. After this I'll be modifying my bullet feeder to run these bullets without sizing required. I'm doing Hi-Tek coating in the garage myself.

I hadn't shot SWCs in years, and nearly forgot how clean of a hole these things punch. 4.5 was a bit cleaner of a hole, as it's going faster. Finding the right overall length can be tricky with little room for error, but it's working.


Also finally got replacement running shoes and weight lifting shoes, and I'm off to the gym. It feels good to be back into this stuff.

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  • 1 month later...

Figured it's time to name my Beretta - uGly ducklinG (it's a 92G) - since I intend to keep riding it hard and putting it away wet.  I'm also cheap and took a dremel to the left decocker and slide stop to keep my hand from getting stabbed during sling shots, and prevent lock backs mid-mag (still haven't bothered to cold-blue...should probably do that).  

I hadn't been able to do much shooting for the past serveral months, and was going ho-hum at a local IDPA match until a few stages in.  At that point I decided heck with accuracy work - that's easy to practice and setup on, chase the fastest shooter in the squad for raw time, and just trust the front sight.

I don't recall being this in-tune in a very, very long time.  I sent most shots low on a plate rack initially, and got a re-shoot- but then I had the epiphany that I had reverted to using the incorrect sight picture from rifles (Beretta is my first drive-the-dot pistol).  Groups opened up, as expected, but my speed was phenomenal for me.  Accuracy tightened up towards the end as well.  Had one round fail to fire, and racked it out before I realized what I was doing and going to the next target.

Nice to know that I was able to get back into the groove, although the accuracy is going to need some work.  That's fine though - I found a good balance today.  Another thing to think about is running on auto-pilot isn't a great thing.  We have a new guy setting up idpa stages, and he's setting them up directly to make those running on auto-pilot to fail (i.e. 3 shots per target, have to load to division capacity vs. downloading on limited, etc).  It bit me in the butt twice, and thankfully it's just a game.  I need to do more shooting, but explicitly I need to start working problem-solving drills/lessons in.

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I hadn't been able to do much shooting for the past serveral months, and was going ho-hum at a local IDPA match until a few stages in.  At that point I decided heck with accuracy work - that's easy to practice and setup on, chase the fastest shooter in the squad for raw time, and just trust the front sight.

I don't recall being this in-tune in a very, very long time.  I sent most shots low on a plate rack initially, and got a re-shoot- but then I had the epiphany that I had reverted to using the incorrect sight picture from rifles (Beretta is my first drive-the-dot pistol).  Groups opened up, as expected, but my speed was phenomenal for me.  Accuracy tightened up towards the end as well.  Had one round fail to fire, and racked it out before I realized what I was doing and going to the next target.

Nice to know that I was able to get back into the groove, although the accuracy is going to need some work.  That's fine though - I found a good balance today.  Another thing to think about is running on auto-pilot isn't a great thing.  We have a new guy setting up idpa stages, and he's setting them up directly to make those running on auto-pilot to fail (i.e. 3 shots per target, have to load to division capacity vs. downloading on limited, etc).  It bit me in the butt twice, and thankfully it's just a game.  I need to do more shooting, but explicitly I need to start working problem-solving drills/lessons in.

Got the scoring in from this match today.  I was right to chase this particular shooter for raw time - guy had the fastest raw time by 4 seconds, and got second place overall by six seconds (he's a master), shooting a Sig P320 with a lighter recoil spring - top guy was shooting a pretty modified Glock 34 in ESP.  I'm comparing myself to Mike (guy with the 320) since I was in his squad and he was my standard for raw times.  

Overall there were 6 stages, on 3 I was working the front sight, the last 3 I just went for speed, and where the cookies crumbled on paper is where they crumbled.  I had one stage where I told myself "don't forget about that target" and I completely blew past it - so failure to neutralize.  I had one hit on a non-threat in a packed stage and I ran it risky.  I noticed I could clear the stage from one side of the barrier, save one, and cut time by aligning for 2 threat targets and shooting them as one - half the number of shots needed, accuracy more important, and it nearly paid off (nicked the no-threat that was partway covering the 2nd threat).  Stages with * were speed demons for me

Stage 1: Raw 15.93, down 1
Stage 2: Raw 19.43 down 13 (risky 2-for-1 shots)
Stage 3: Raw 13.43, down 4
*Stage 4: Raw 16.32, down 27 (failure to neutralize)
*Stage 5: Raw 23.85, down 24 (non-threat hit)
*Stage 6: Raw 14.25, down 12

72 percentile of the match winner

So, there's a huge amount of accuracy work under speed to do here, and frankly, accuracy period.  Breaking myself of the 6 o'clock hold and going for center hold will be a fundamental thing my brain needs to re-wire.  My raw times were close to Mike's for most drills, but stages 4 and 5's accuracy is the major deal breaker for where I wound up in scoring.

Of note, classes have been kicking my ass along with work and drill, and I haven't put any practice in.  Not making excuses, just acknowledging where the priorities have been.  And that's alright.

One thing I'll do this weekend to make practice more of a reality for me is mounting the holster and mag carrier on a belt and leaving them in the safe to cut out the time of gearing up and putting things back.  Only a few minutes, but I know me, and convenience tends to make things more likely to be done.

Edited by michael.flitcraft
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  • 4 weeks later...

I've kept up without fire since the last update, then messed it all up and hopped platforms to a p226 and going appendix.  I really like it a lot, both for access/retention purposes (appendix), and the Sig (my lord it's smoooooth).

This is my second go at draw practice, working on mechanics with the new setup.  It's not blazing fast by any means, but ends ins a smooth press with a good sight picture every time.  I neeed to figure out a technique to ensure the shirt doesn't get caught up, I think it's just a timing issue with when I let go with my left hand to meet my right for the grip.  I've been working on eliminating water movement, and know I'm not great, but I've made big strides.

Any feedback is welcome.

 

Edited by michael.flitcraft
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Did some dot torture, draw and press work, and some 25 yard shooting. Amazing what a difference these sights are over the Beretta (defoor sights- serrated front plain back).

Worked on knowing the new sight picture, which is 'drive imaginary dot' for 107 grain swc2, near top of sight blade for 127 grain.

Stepped over to the rifle range and rang steel at 200 yards. Targets are approximately center of mass size. Dope is good- top of rear sight at bottom of front, tip of front sight at top of target for a hit.

There's a lot to change due to the difference in fire control and slide release, but I'm very happy with the decision to jump ship.

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Edited by michael.flitcraft
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Found this tidbit today. I'm putting it here for easy reference. I have plenty of work to do on accuracy still, as my 25 yard shooting demonstrates. I don't want to use cold weather as an excuse for it, as I want to work my skill set beyond temperature dependence/hands working easily for effective work. While it was nice to work out dope at 200yds, my 7yard dot torture and 25yd shooting are calling me back to reality.

Ben Stoeger
Posted November 11, 2011



-----------------
After learning the lessons of the 2011 season, it is time for me to put together a training plan for 2012.

First, we should take a look back at what I posted last year about my training for 2011.

I have basically cranked the difficulty of my dryfire WAY up.

Everything is a test of position, partial targets.... and other such things. I have fault lines in my apartment that I am moving around to create tough leans. I like it!

The new rule of thumb for live fire practice drills is this: If the drill is difficult for me to shoot without a penalty, it is hard enough.

This has made my practice... frustrating... to say the least, but I really think that its the only thing for me to do.

Well.. I have to say that last years training had the desired effect. The harder the stage is, the better I do. I have gotten my accuracy and consistency up to an extremely high level.

About 80% of my practice was at the 25 yard line (at least) at partial targets. I just worked simple sorts of drills at that distance.

As far as what I didn’t do in the last year.. I have to say I made almost zero progress on being faster through a stage. As far as speed on gun handling and standing and shooting, I am pretty sure I moved backwards. I just didn’t practice those things a whole lot. The World Shoot also showed me how much more practice I need to do while off balance. So much time was spend at that match shooting from a position that wasn’t comfortable.

I guess the best way to sum it up is to say that I have made big strides in the single most important skill. Accuracy is far and away the biggest determining factor of who wins a match, especially a hard match like the US Nationals. I just need to have a training plan that works some other elements a little bit more, so I can push forward in those areas as well.

I have decided to organize my training into 4 categories, or “blocks”. The idea is that I work on each block in equal proportion to all the other blocks.

I am not going to draw a distinction between dry fire and live fire. It really doesn’t matter. I am going to practice each block in equal proportion no matter if I am using ammo or not.

Block 1: Extreme Accuracy

This block is where I want to set up distant or difficult targets. Using the rule of thumb from last year, I want to make it just hard enough that it is difficult to shoot without a miss penalty or a no shoot penalty. Right now that is about a 30 yard partial. I would like to push that back to about 40 yards over the course of the next year. Also in the accuracy block, I want to shoot strong hand only and weak hand only at the same partial targets, to improve my accuracy there. Finally, I like the “dot torture” drill from Pistol-training.com and will continue to use it.

Accuracy is the most important element of shooting, and it is what swings matches. There really is no forgetting that.

Block 2: Classifiers/Hosing

One area that I pretty much did not practice last year was the sort of practice that makes up most people training almost exclusively. I am talking about draws, reloads, and transitions on target that are set at about 10 yards. Drills like El Prezidente and Bill Drills are included here.

I simply did not push these skill sets higher at all in the last year, so they fell back some.

When shooting classifiers or hosing drills I want to put my focus primarily on the speed at which I can perform them. Accuracy will have to take a back seat during this block.

Block 3: Short Course/Specialized Skills

This block encompasses shooting while off balance, picking the gun up off stuff, swingers, bobbers, prone shooting, and so forth.

I am thinking of short and simple drills that isolate a couple skills at a time. For example, load the gun then go prone then shoot a couple targets.

The training focus in this block is on smooth execution of specialized skills and accuracy.

Block 4: Run and Gun/Field Courses

The fourth and final block is to focus on my training for getting stage times lowered on big field courses.

In this block I will set up movement drills and focus on getting the time between positions lower.

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Did 2 ten minute dry fire sessions today.  First one was breaking down the draw into two parts and working on them - discovered that hooking the thumb is a huge help (thanks!!).  Also discovered that I can't run a outside-the-waistband mag carrier and reliably have the shirt clear the pistol on the draw.  I'll need to up a tshirt size to do that one, or just be patient and buy an aiwb mag carrier once some bills are paid off (option 2).  Another thing I need to work on is my support hand movement - after the shirt is pulled up and pistol is coming out, my support hand 'pulls' the shirt back down and then jumps back up to the gun.  Totally subconscious, and thankful for video review.

The George I'm using has a solid belt clip, not a loop, and came up with the gun once on a draw.  No bueno - my belt was a low profile, and I switched to a double layer leather with no issues and much better engagement between the belt and clip.  Good to find this out now rather than later.  I still need to work on speed, I'm rushing the grip and still haven't hit the par times Ben has in his dry fire book.  Good to know some equipment and technique points of improvement as well.

Session two was using a 1/4 scale idpa target simulating 20 yards.  Messed with trigger manipulation and how my finger 'hooks' on the trigger vs. going more perpendicular to the bore.  Ironically hooking and pulling the force to the 4 o'clock resulted in absolutely no sight movement.  That's going to have a huge impact on my 25 yard shooting.

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I worked on some reloads today and draw work.  Par time of 1.1 with appendix carry, button down shirt with the last button undone, I beat the clock 75% of the time.  That is SIGNIFICANTLY better than previous.  I'll be doing work with t shirts this week.  Target was a IDPA target scaled for 7 yards.  Will be working on 25 yard and 50 yard over the next two weeks.  Still have some work to do with the reloads, but we're getting there.

I detail stripped the P226 today and did a little smoothing of the action.  Most work was performed with Mothers Mag/Aluminum polish and q tips (tip - q tips in a drill goes much, much faster and easier).  

-Hammer spring deburred on the ends, polished inside and out.  Buffing wheel for most work, q tip for inside
-Hammer strut, long leg, had edges broken/slightly rounded with diamond hone.  Leg was mirror polished.  Hammer strut/hammer interface 'curves' was lightly polished with q tip/polish
-Hammer polished lightly w/ q tip/polish where it rubs on the sear during double action
-Sear polished where it rubs on frame/ejector with buffer wheel, where it rubs against hammer with q tip/polish
-SRT safety lever mirror polished
-Ejector polished where it rubs against sear with buffer wheel
-Reassembled with slide/glide per Bruce Gray's recommendations

I did not touch the trigger bar, as I didn't feel like having an exercise in patience in getting it in/out.  I'll figure out the trick for it at a later date.  I'll polish the pins and pin holes at a later date if I get bored, but as of now they're not going to get messed with at all.

End result - double action went from 'stiff/workable' and smooth to 'easy as heck to work' and much, much smoother.  I can fully appreciate what a gun worked over by Bruce Gray or Robert Burke must feel like after this.  My work would be a better proxy for Sig's $150 trigger job, save keeping the original hammer spring.

Total time invested was about an hour and a half for everything.

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Yesterday I fired 96 rounds out of the P226, with a dot torture, 2 inch dots, and a b-8 repair center. Didn't have a tape measure, so I paced it out (1 step = about 2.5 feet). I paced to 5 yards for dot torture, 5/10/15 for 2 inch dots, and 25 yards for the B8. Outside temperature was about 25 degrees and dropping, sun was setting to my 10 o'clock. Fingers were almost numb.

I 100% failed the weak hand only part of dot torture, and dropped 2 shots otherwise. 2 inch dots I called my fliers as they occurred, always a dip, never a windage problem. I'm coming from Beretta's with longer/smoother pulls, so this will take some work on my part. On the B8 I had 7 out of 10 on paper, 6/10 in scoring rings. I didn't bother scoring them, and likely won't until I get 10/10 on paper.

I'll have a bit of a curve as I adapt to the Sig, and I'm sure the scores will get better and drills improve a lot more with warmer weather. But either way, dry fire continues tonight with weak hand only accuracy work. Tomorrow will be reload components, with draw as well.

I didn't log initial rounds when I got the pistol, but I'm sure I shot somewhere in the neighborhood of 120 when I first got it, and put another 200 through it to get to yesterday, so I'm going to estimate 296 rounds fired, previous unknown. 1 failure to go into battery, semi-wadcutter without enough crimp (was spec'd for the now-gone beretta - ammo problem not gun problem)

1987 W. German P226
2016 to date - 296 rounds fired
0 parts breakages
1 stoppage

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Yesterday did 5 minutes of weak hand and strong hand only dryfire for accuracy. Played a little with focus, and went back to one-eye for a little bit. Apparently my eyes have gotten weak enough that I can't see the serrations on the front sight with both eyes open right now, which will play hell with groups.

Today did 10 minutes of one hand accuracy work, played with how much trigger finger to use (might be WAY more than expected), and worked towards getting a sharp focus with both eyes open. Did this by spending a few reps doing single eye and then double until the serrations got fuzzy, then went back.

Interestingly enough to get the sights to minimize movement while firing, I nearly have to get all my finger on the trigger. This is surprising, but ergonomically it somehow comfortably works.

Looking forward to keeping the new year going in the right direction.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

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