Help a Lefty

[TrackCage]

Curious for some feedback on how I could have shot these stages differently, or what I can improve on. Each paragraph below is in order the video was shot. The reason I mention being left handed, is because unless there was clearly only one way to shoot it, my chosen path/direction for each stage is likely opposite the way most right handed shooters would run it.

 

Stage 1 was toes on X's with a wall on the right side. You needed to go to the far right to pick up the first target, then into the port to catch the remaining four targets on that side of the wall. You could not see all five from one position. Then, as you moved across to the plate rack, there were three targets in the deep right corner that you could either move all the way into that position, or shoot them as you moved laterally to the left, toward the plate rack. I chose to do the latter, as I felt that it would be wasted movement/time moving all the way into that shooting position. That said, it looked really slow picking up those three targets the way I did it. At the plate rack, too many misses. I got lucky and caught the last target before going to slide lock. Not much to say after that... on the left side, shoot em as you see em. I did engage a couple deep in the left side as I moved in toward the last target. I'm getting better at shooting on the move (see below), but have historically stopped my feet before shooting. More on this later.

 

Stage 2 is a shortened version of stage 1 (this club only has three shooting bays - so you shoot some version of each stage basically twice). Start with your strong hand touching the X, toes on the fault line. There are two targets to the far left, three in the deep left corner, and a plate rack over to the right. I chose to shoot the two on the far left first, then two of the three in the deep left. reload, plate rack, then back to the last target in the deep left. I did this because if I took out all three of the deep left targets before moving to the plate rack, I would have to do an awkward for a lefty and slow reload against my body as I moved to the right to engage the plate rack. I also felt that I would be faster moving into the last target, rather than retreating/moving laterally from that deep left position towards the plate rack. In stage walk through, I ran it both ways and determined this worked best for me. How'd I do? Did I miss any obvious chances to improve or an overall better plan? I felt overall pretty good about the execution because I knew I needed to clean the plate rack with minimal make up shots without the need for a second reload.

 

Stage 3 has an obvious path of movement. I shot the two targets in the close left position and then chose to reload. I did this because as I moved further into the corner, the space between ports was cramped and wanted to try and give myself the best chance as reloading quickly without basically doing a standing reload since the ports were only a step from each other. I shot on the left side of the barrel for two of the targets in the corner, then instead of shooting from the right side of the barrel, I moved to the next port where I could see the remaining paper targets in the corner as well as the four large poppers. I knew that from this position, to avoid a standing reload, I had to go one-for-one on the poppers (actually had one make up shot if I needed it) which is the reason I shot pretty slow and deliberate here. There was also a no shoot on one of the paper targets there in the corner. From there moving right, two more paper from the next port and three open paper on the far right. I shot an extra shot on the three open paper, but unfortunately made it on a target I already had two alpha on. One miss on this stage cost me a low hit factor.

 

Stage 4 was El Prez. Believe it or not, I've actually never live fire shot this classifier, even in practice. I shot it in about 6.5 seconds for a 69% production average. Not great, and I had a few C's and a D. This actually still helps my classification percentage as I'm a low B, so I'll take it. Still obvious room for improvement here, though.

 

Stage 5 we have a longer stage where there is a very wide transition at the start. Then, you have to go deep into the corners on either side, with 5 shooting positions total (6 if you count the start). What I did differently here than my 'comfort zone' was to engage three open paper targets on the move as I ran into the shooting position deep in the right corner. This saved me a spot as I moved left to each port. The shots turned out to be A zone hits, so it was a good risk for me to take, however I feel after seeing the video that I still engaged them pretty slowly for how open they were. Also, as I moved to the last two shooting positions, my reloads and footwork were a little slow costing me a few seconds. Overall, I scored well on this stage relative to the other shooters (2nd in production on this stage). I'm wondering if anyone sees a different way to shoot this stage that might have been a bit more efficient. Shooting arrays of six shots for the last few positions seemed like a lot of reloads, but with my current skill level/vision, I didn't see any other way to shoot it and avoid a standing reload. Thoughts?

 

Stage 6 again is a shortened version of stage 5. Missed one of the poppers in the middle position which cost me an extra second or more, as I was already transitioning my gun to the next paper target. I chose to move left here because that is more natural for me to reload as a lefty, picked up two paper targets, then sprinted back across my body to the far right shooting position and tried to get the gun up and shooting as quickly as possible (hard for me to do). I was too deep in the shooting position on the far left, as when I started sprinting to the right, I hit the interior wall with the muzzle. Just barely, but it was a good reminder to me to only go as deep into the port as necessary.

 

Overall thought: I'm really trying to work on my footwork and quick movement between shooting positions. It may not look like it to many of you, but if you check out my older videos hopefully you will see some improvement. My goal by end of the year is to be an A class contender and to continue to beat any other shooters in my division and classification. At this match, the three production shooters who beat me were two masters and one A class. Do you think I'll make A by end of this year??

 

Anyways, thanks for anyone's thoughts and comments!

 

 

[RangerTrace]

I watched the video only.  Looked pretty darn solid to me.  Sounded like you went 1 for 1 on all the steel.  The only thing that stood out to me was that you could have had your gun up and shooting a little sooner on a few of the arrays.  Keep up the good work!!

[TrackCage]

27 minutes ago, RangerTrace said:

I watched the video only.  Looked pretty darn solid to me.  Sounded like you went 1 for 1 on all the steel.  The only thing that stood out to me was that you could have had your gun up and shooting a little sooner on a few of the arrays.  Keep up the good work!!

That's fair. I realize now I practically wrote a novel. Thanks for the kind words. I was told by one of the master class guys yesterday that I bring the gun and my hands down pretty far when I reload and that keeping that up a bit higher can get me back on target sooner.