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On my way to A...


superluckycat

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Background

I've been a hack pistol shooter for 20 years or so.  Mainly dicking around with the tactical shit.  You know the type.  In that time I developed many bad habits the worst being a horrible pre-ignition push and a blink.

One day I decided I wanted to get good.  Really good.

I started shooting USPSA in April of this year.  Since then I've had a dedicated training plan of a minimum of 45 minutes of dry fire 5-6 days a week and 250-300 round live fire session once a week or a match.  Rarely do I miss a dry fire day but I do miss live fire training on occasion.

I've shot 5 matches so far and my last match in July I finished just under the middle of the pack.  My two official classifier scores are a 54% and a 69%. I need to get back to shooting matches.  Damn family.

I use a mix of Anderson's books and Stoeger's book for my dry fire practice and Stoeger's Skills and Drills for live fire.  In past couple months my shooting has really seemed to "click".  I don't feel like a hack anymore. I'm easily beating the majority of the times in Stoeger's Skills and Drills book to make B class.  I shot an 84.9% El Prez the other day and I can clean 2.0-2.10s Bill Drills with regularity.  I've dipped sub 2.0 a couple times.  Starting to get sub 1.0s draws on 5 yard targets.

Who knew, this regular training thing works.

Things I Need To Work On

Accuracy - My distance shooting needs work.  The culprit is the pre-ignition push (and the blink). It's getting better but I rarely shoot a clean 25 yard Bill Drill unless I slow things down.  And truthfully most of my training lately has been dedicated to speed.

Shot Calling - I can call one or two here and there but I'm not consistent.

SHO & WHO - I've hitting been this hard in dry fire lately.

Movement - I've been concentrating mainly on my stand and shoot skills.

Goals

Obtain an initial classification of B in production this season.

Make Master by end of next season. 

 

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I stepped out of my comfort zone this morning and ran some drills from Anderson's latest dry fire book:  "Starts and Stops on Steel",  Holding Steel, etc.

I found myself calling the shots pretty consistently.  "That's a miss on steel."  "That was two C's."

Now I just need to start making them up.

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On 9/30/2016 at 9:20 AM, SCTaylor said:

You're background and goals seems pretty similar to mine. Keep up the good work. Best of luck to you!

Thanks for the encouragement.  I've seen you all over this board and have read some of your diary.

Have my first match in two months tomorrow.  We'll see if the training has paid off.

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8 hours ago, superluckycat said:

Thanks for the encouragement.  I've seen you all over this board and have read some of your diary.

Have my first match in two months tomorrow.  We'll see if the training has paid off.

How'd it go?  

 

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21 hours ago, Butters said:

How'd it go?  

 

60.66%.  24 out of 51 shooters. 8 out of 20 Production shooters.  Better than I thought I did.  I hosed a couple of stages.  Nerves really got me,  Note to self: Don't skip matches for 2 months and leave the energy drinks at home.

I'll  try to do a match breakdown tomorrow.

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Typing this from my bed.  Threw my back out this morning so no dry fire for a couple days. I wonder if it would be detrimental to dry fire from my bed?

Stage 3 Field Course - First run of the day was my best.  Had plenty of time to plan and I executed my plan.  Concentrated on shooting A's.  26 A 6C

Stage 4 Field Course - Wheels started to come off now.  23A 6C 2D 1M.

Stage 5 Classifier CM 09-04 Pucker Factor - 4.13s 2A 4B 1C 1D 6.25HF.  Shot it way too fast for my current skills.  Still good for a high C percentage.

Stage 6 Fixed Time Standard - Shoot 3 targets at 10 yards, reload and reengage.  Repeat with SHO.  6 seconds to complete each string.  Didn't have the mag seated after the first reload and it fell out of the gun. DOH!  First time that's ever happened including practice. Had an overtime penalty on the SHO.  This one really hurt my match score.

Stage 1 Field Course - Tried to go fast.  Ended up not going very fast and shot 21A 10C 1M.

Stage 2 Field Course - Started to get it back together again.  I remember shooting good sight pictures and even the feel of the trigger as I'm firing.  On the stages I blew I didn't remember shit.  23A 9C.

Lessons:  

Own it.  This is how good I am right now.  Not nearly where I want to be.  Now do something about it.  I have good stages but not good matches.  Need consistency.

Reloads still need work. Even though I rock them pretty good in practice, matches are another story when the adrenaline is pumping.  I'm death gripping with the SH and therefore can't easily do the "Flip" to hit the mag release.

Mental game needs work.  Just need to relax and shoot A's.  Wait for the sight picture.  Shooting more matches will help.  Coming back after two months was like shooting my first match again.

 

Capture.PNG

Edited by superluckycat
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Back is better and was able to get in over an hour of dry fire practice this morning.  Ran Learning, Marksmanship and Core Skill drills from Stoeger's book.

Speed gains are coming harder now. I can't always beat a previous par time.  When I started dry firing in April my first El Prez was 11.88s.  Now I can get it down to a sloppy 4.2s on occasion and 5.0s relaxed. 

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I love analyzing scores -- mine and those of other shooters.  As I do it, I go back and think of shooting the stages while the memory is still fresh.  "Oh, that's right, I bobbled a reload on stage 1; I hit a no-shoot on stage 3, but hey I'm getting a lot of As; and I can see my faster draws reflected in these scores; and the classifier went well this time..." etc.  And I'll think of a shooter I watched, maybe even RO'd for, as I look at his scores.  "His style of shooting two shots on paper quickly but not being very snappy on transitions actually works for him; dang he got more As than me on stage 4; oh heck, he shot the match penalty-free; shucks, he was all nicey-nice picking up my brass and stuff but he's really trying to make me look bad and is planning right now to humiliate me on Thursday night..."

Thoughts like those inspire me to increase my dry fire sessions. I have even taken to dry-firing before and after every match.

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After a warm up of Wall Drills, Draws, SHO/WHO and Transition Drills I worked on Position Entry and Exits with and without a barricade for a solid 30 minutes.

I watched the video in TennJeep's thread of the M class shooter and put those ideas to work.  I had never thought of loading up on the leg you are going to launch off of.  Worked up a pretty good sweat before work.

Finished up with reloads and a few El Prez since that drill gives me fits.

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Kind of a disappointing match yesterday. 4 mikes with one on the classifier.  It was "Too Close for Comfort" and I barely put one into the hard cover on the 7 yard head shot target.  Shot it too fast....again.

This is my fourth classifier.  If you throw out the one I shot yesterday I'm right at 60%.  I better get 60% plus on the next two if I want to make B for my initial classification.

I feel like for as much dry fire as I've been putting in I should be further along (5-7 days a week for 45mins for the past 6 months).

Stoeger and Anderson say "I dry fired religiously for 9 months and became a GM."

Bite me.

Granted there were a lot of good shooters their yesterday and my points weren't too out of line with the top finishers just SLOOWWW.

47 out of 62 shooters overall.  13 out of 20 Production shooters.

I'm officially retiring the G17 and switching over to the Stock II.  Starting dry firing with it this morning. Doing the "Flip" and hitting the mag release is soooo much easier than the Glock.  That DA trigger will take some getting used to though.

Capture.PNG

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SLC - was thinking about your match last night and ran some numbers. But first a few questions, how is your overall time compared to guys that should be similar classification? What about their A percentage to yours?  It appears your hit factor would come up a half to 1 full point by slowing down a little while getting more A's.  

 

Switching to the Tanfo is not hard, I'm doing the same thing.  The double action should not have you worried either, its a total of 7 shots at your last match. Just use the 6 reload 6 drill to really work on mastering the DA for a bit.

What mode(s) are you utilizing for training? Would you consider your self fast but not accurate or accurate but slow? Ponder that. Once you have the answer, I'd suspect you will know what needs to be a focus in training.

Edited by SCTaylor
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Taylor - Below are the more detailed results for Production class from the last match. 13 is me.  Thanks for the feedback.

The DA first shot is not bad it's trying to do Bill Drills and Blake drills that is tough.  I'm having trouble not letting the trigger reset after the first DA shot.

Have relearn my draw also.  My thumb gets in the way of that big beaver tail.  With the Glock I came over the side of the grip.  With the Tanfo I have to come in from the rear.

All my times were slower this morning but that's to be expected getting used to a new gat.

 

Capture.PNG

Edited by superluckycat
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Stock II is starting to feel a little more natural now.  Times are getting better.  Still have trouble with the mag binding in the mag well if I don't have the gun angled right.  Steel on steel has a lot different feel than plastic on plastic.  I do like that mag release though.

Been working on movement a lot in dry fire:  Draw, fire on 2 targets, run (and reload on some) to other of the garage and engage 2 more targets.

Shooting on the move in all directions.  Side to side is a bitch.

 

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Couldn't make it to the range today so I ran some drills in the back yard with the Tanfo airsoft pistol.  

I've got a bunch of 5" steel plates hung from shepard's hooks and I made a couple shooting boxes from PVC pipe.

Ran some Call It or Leave It drills using this setup and some shooting on the move to steel in all directions.  Also draw and shoot 4 plates.

My neighbors probably think I'm crazy.  

 

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9 hours ago, Slow250 said:

That's pretty trick, obviously you see value in the airsoft pistol as a training tool. Mind giving some pros and cons for using it in backyard training?  I'm considering trying one out.

Pros

Gun is all metal with the same weight and feel of the real thing.

You are actually pulling the trigger instead of just getting a sight picture.

It holds 2" groups easily at 7 yards.

You have "recoil" as the slide functions

It's fun - Breaks up the monotony of dry fire

More time behind the gun

 

Cons

Of course the recoil isn't like the real thing

Trigger is different, not terrible but different

Eats through CO2 pretty fast

 

90% of my training is still done with my real gun in dry fire and this isn't meant to replace it but it is fun to get out and shoot some actual "bullets" when you can't get to the range.

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On 10/6/2016 at 7:19 AM, superluckycat said:

After a warm up of Wall Drills, Draws, SHO/WHO and Transition Drills I worked on Position Entry and Exits with and without a barricade for a solid 30 minutes.

I watched the video in TennJeep's thread of the M class shooter and put those ideas to work.  I had never thought of loading up on the leg you are going to launch off of.  Worked up a pretty good sweat before work.

Finished up with reloads and a few El Prez since that drill gives me fits.

Do you have a link to the thread?

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Solid hour plus of dry fire this morning.  A little Wall Drill, Slow Fire Trigger and 10 yd index to warm up then went into Position Entry/Exit and shooting on the move.  Started mixing the two, adding moving reloads and basically shooting mini stages.

Didn't use the timer much this morning as I'm trying to focus on technique:  Attaining a good weak hand grip on the draw and maintaining it through transitions and shooting on the move.  I've found myself slacking on my WH grip.  Also making sure I'm seeing A's.

Finished up with some reloads: 6R6R6, 4 Aces.  Tanfo reloads are getting better.  When going fast I tend to drop the gun lower than it needs to be.  My reloads are fastest and most consistent when I keep the gun about chin level.

Bad news:  With all the emphasis on WH grip I can feel my Tennis Elbow flaring up this morning. 

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Finally ran the Stock II through a practice session on Sunday.  Had at least 20 light primer strikes with my reloads and Geco 124 grain ammo.  The Glock came back out until I have time to go through the Tanfo this winter.

In the few uninterrupted strings I shot, the DA isn't as bad as I thought it would be.  Warmed up with the Dot Torture drill and all the DA shots were good except for SHO which is another story.

All my times were slower with the Stock II which is understandable I guess.

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