Andy's range diary to get more better

[ngodwetrust21]

I am currently classified as C class in USPSA. I am definitely sandbagging at this classification, but it is not intentional. I have only shot around 6 classifiers and I bombed several of them trying to go way too fast. Realistically, I feel I am a high B class or low A class shooter. I don't have a lot of free time to go shoot matches, so I could stay in C class for a while. What I do have time for is an hour of dry fire a night and a range session a week. My goal is to pick a drill or two out of my Ben book and practice that in live fire and dry fire until I can do it. I started with the bill drill because I figured it would be the easiest. I worked on it this month and got to the point I could do it consistently. Before I started working on the bill drill, I couldn't even dry fire the bill drill in 2 seconds. Much less pull it off with live ammo. There really is something to this dry fire thing which was pointed out time and time again when I watched the shooterssummit. It was really hard to ignore when you are sitting here wanting to get better and you are being told over and over again by these top level shooters they got good because they dry fired... a lot!

Bill Drill Link

The plan is to post the live fire session when I get to the point I can do the drills I am working on. The drills I am working on now are the dot drill and the 25 yard bill drill. Both of these are going to take some serious effort. However, I feel like these drills fit together very well.

[AlphaCharis]

On 12/23/2016 at 7:59 PM, ngodwetrust21 said:

What I do have time for is an hour of dry fire a night and a range session a week. My goal is to pick a drill or two out of my Ben book and practice that in live fire and dry fire until I can do it. I started with the bill drill because I figured it would be the easiest. I worked on it this month and got to the point I could do it consistently. Before I started working on the bill drill, I couldn't even dry fire the bill drill in 2 seconds. Much less pull it off with live ammo.

 

How has the dry-fire been going?  I've been working a lot out of Ben's book as well, and having those par times to work toward has really motivated me - I hadn't been on a timer before this and my sessions were very sporadic.  The par time has definitely helped with pushing my speed and helping me to fine-tune my draws and reloads.  

 

Have you gotten any live-fire practice in from the drills you were running in dry-fire?  And if so, did you see a huge difference in practicing it at home before you headed to the range?  I have also been wanting to do this, but haven't caught up with loading ammo and have no practice rounds loaded, yet.

[ngodwetrust21]

I am getting better folks.

 

 

[ngodwetrust21]

On 2/1/2017 at 5:25 PM, AlphaCharis said:

 

How has the dry-fire been going?  I've been working a lot out of Ben's book as well, and having those par times to work toward has really motivated me - I hadn't been on a timer before this and my sessions were very sporadic.  The par time has definitely helped with pushing my speed and helping me to fine-tune my draws and reloads.  

 

Have you gotten any live-fire practice in from the drills you were running in dry-fire?  And if so, did you see a huge difference in practicing it at home before you headed to the range?  I have also been wanting to do this, but haven't caught up with loading ammo and have no practice rounds loaded, yet.

 

I am seeing huge dry fire gains from working the book from Ben. Live fire is a necessity as I am sure you would guess. I dry fire 3-4 days a week and live fire every other week. I am getting close to M class. In the last match I shot, I came out ahead of about 8 M class and 10 or so A class. The only person to beat me was a GM. Currently at like 82% A class. This time last year, I was shooting middle of the A class shooters and was in C class. 

 

Dry fire is key for me. In live fire, I really pay attention to recoil management and how my splits look shooting A’s at different distances.

 

I will continue to work through the books the remainder of the year and see how it works out. I have made significant gains from this year to last. Still trying to master the dot drill (best I have done is 3 misses at 7 yards). I do a lot of work at 25 yards in live fire. My thinking is if I can hit at this distance quickly, I can hit clocer targets quickly as well. Best I have done a bill drill at 25 yards is 3.5 with all A’s. If I push around the 3 second mark, I pick up 2 C’s on average.

Edited May 2, 2018 by ngodwetrust21

[ngodwetrust21]

As you can see, I am not much for posting in the range diary section. However I feel as though I have had some recent breakthroughs this year in the last couple matches that are worth sharing. I am currently classified as M Class in Production and CO.  I have been shooting Production for the last 5 years and switched to CO in 2020 due to a bit of boredom/frustration in my progress shooting Production. I certainly feel reinvigorated in my drive to train and compete. So aside from a newfound drive the train and compete with the switch from Production to CO (which many would have imagined already), why even bother taking the time to post this? Shooting CO where I am not so focused on the minutia of hitting every reload, position, and sight picture perfectly; I feel has given me the freedom to focus more on how I attack each stage as a whole by putting the focus on blending positions and shooting on the move. 

 

I recently shot TN State and had a good finish, although I shot scarred and didn’t feel like I shot to my full potential. I shot 245-A, 23-C, and 2-D. You can see from the video how slow the splits, transitions, and movements are. I am especially slow on targets that have hardcover or noshoots anywhere near them regardless of distance. Had I shot this same way shooting production, I would have instead been reflecting on the missed reloads and sight alignment rather than the stage as a whole. With CO though, there is at most 1 reload and the bullet goes exactly where the dot is pointed (no second guessing did that bullet go where I think it went). Shooting CO it forces me to solely focus on the execution of each stage.

 

 

The next match I shot was GA State. Although I didn’t shoot as accurately, I decided this match that I was going to trust myself and shoot to my capability. Despite a few gun hiccups, I feel I did just that. Instead of focusing on missed reloads and sight alignment with shooting production, I am now more focused on how I could have attacked stages differently. A few examples from the stages in the video below.

 

On stage 1, I decided to reload into the targets on the right. This left me shooting on the move into the farthest targets on the stage. Instead, I could have shot the targets on the right on the move and reloaded into the farthest targets on the stage. This would have left me shooting the last 6 farthest targets on the stage from a comfortable stationary position.

 

On stage 8, I decided to reload moving into the end of the stage. This obviously wasn’t the correct move to make. I should have reloaded after shooting the targets at the far right shooting position while I moving to the far left. This was the only part of the stage where there wasn’t anything to shoot at while moving. If I had done that, I could have shot the targets at the end of the stage while moving forward.

 

My final big criticism is on stage 9 where I spent way too much time on the swinger and I reloaded at a bad time. I should have trusted myself to take two well aimed shots on the swinger, shot my way up past that, and reloaded moving into the final position.

 

Long story short, if you feel your skill level is becoming stagnant shooting the division you are in you should try shooting something completely different. Aside from giving you a shot in the arm from the excitement of shooting something different, it will force you to focus on different aspects of your game that you have been neglecting.

 

 

Edited September 29, 2020 by ngodwetrust21