SeaTact

stale answer is "not yet". Adding some diary notes. Did some precision shooting at 20 yards with my G17 RMR and G34 with Sevigny sights. Factory ammo and sight picture notes: 147 gr Atlanta Arms reman groups 2-3" above my current POI sight picture. 115gr new ammo from Freedom Munitions seems spot on. Groups are still tighter with AA. 15 yd 8" steel plates-- POI works best if I focus on the top 1/3 of the plate. Have to see where Speer Lawman ammo groups...

6 years and counting...updating this journal(!). If you started out as a brand new pistol shooter like I did in 2010, let's compare notes. - I have kids, which changes everything for me. What I'm Still Doing - I still shoot twice a month but no longer compete. So why post here? Enos forums are the best for people who really want to refine their shooting technique, no matter what their goals are. I'll never stop learning here. - Stock Glock shooter. There have been some amazing striker pistols out there now. I probably would've been a Walther PPQ user if it'd been out in 2010. What I've Recently Learned - I'm refining my bill drills and during dry fire I'm realizing I need to focus on working on my trigger release. For 6 years I've been focused on the press and paid almost no attention to the release part. More to come...

IDPA State Match 2013 WA state match was a lot of fun. A lot of moving & disappearing targets. This'll be my last match with the G17, though. Lessons Learned -- I'm OK with <10 yard targets. I seem to go into automatic mode and groups are good. BUT.... -- I revert back to old, bad habits when under time pressures of the disappearing or moving targets. Don't see the sights, trigger jerk, yadda yadda. Going to have to go to the square range and do some bill drills at longer ranges-- been doing them almost exclusively at 7 yards. -- Same thing goes for anticipating the shot during time-pressured precision shots. On FAST drills even at 7 yards, I always shoot low when I push the speed on the 3x5" card. Not low-left or low-right. Just low. -- Going to do some dot torture drills with a time component. No idea what my par time is for the full 50 round drill. We'll see... "New" Gear, Same Philosophy Multigun competitions seems like a lot of fun, but that's going to be years down the road if I ever get into that. Despite that, was looking into buying my first long gun. At the LGS, I instead discovered a used G34 for $430. Looked brand new to me, internals were great, and the copper lube was still in place. So now I have it. Wasn't planning to get one, but couldn't pass it up. The G17 is now going to back as a primarily home defense gun-- I replaced the internals with new stock parts.

Still going... Been a little while, yes. But I still shoot when I can, and still dry fire. Some updates since it's almost been 4 years so far. I took my original post dated Jan-2011, and updated it for 2013... My bio: -- 40-something male. Still old. Right-handed. VERY near sighted but I'll wear soft lens eye contacts in competition. -- New to pistols but not to marksmanship. Not new but still learning! Always will be a student of the gun. My current gear: -- Bought my first gun in August 2010: Glock 17, Gen 4 -- Completely stock. No mods at this time. Stock polymer sights. 5.5 lb connector -- Well, maybe the only "mod" was a 25 cent trigger job. Polish and cloth only. No Dremel. Did that just yesterday and it did seem to help Still shoot stock Glocks, making the switch to a Gen4 G34 with Sevigny sights and green fiber optic front. -- Uncle Mike's instructor belt. Ares gear ranger belt -- CompTac Paddle holster -- CompTac twin mag pouch x 2 -- SureFire G2X Tactical (wow, it's bright) -- Peltor Tactical 7S electronic muffs -- ICE Naro eye protection -- Stack of IDPA paper targets -- no shot timer (yet) CED 7000 Shot timer +-- Had a Serpa holster, but didn't like the retention tab. Still shooting IDPA, now SSP Sharpshooter. My slow progression is based on infrequent competitions and weekly dry fire on average. Just time constraints on my part. I've only been to 3 IDPA competitions this past calendar year-- 2 club matches and the state match most recently, where I placed solidly in the middle of the SS group.

Since this seems to be the SIRT users thread thought I'd post the question here: anyone tried to reduce the grip circumference? I've just recently switched to the no-extra-backstrap grip on my Gen4 Glocks, so I'd like to match the SIRT grip to my Glocks as closely as possible.

Geez, how did I miss this topic?? @Vipers, if you're going to stick with only 1 gun and carry it, hobby shoot/plink more than compete, I don't see the downside of sticking with the G19. If you're going to get the chance to try the G17 and/or G34, let us know what you think. I live in the area just like splashdown -- I just shot my carry G19 in an IDPA match and it was great. Still have my Gen4 G17

Draw stroke revisited Finally can get some competition shooting in soon-- I think. I the meantime it's been a while since I'd practiced drawing from my IDPA concealment, reloads, and reloads with retention. I focused a lot of time on making sure I established a proper grip. Lessons learned: -- Found a good index for getting a proper grip. Seems like indexing my middle finger to the trigger guard worked for me. During all the times when I knew I got a good grip, it seemed like my middle finger was the first point of contact on the gun. That finger then gets wedged under the guard while the rest of my hand wraps around firmly and properly on the grip. Will keep working on that. -- On reloads with retention, I have to sweep my cover garment first, before stowing it in my pants pocket. Duh. -- One of my older posts talks about visually confirming the position of my magazine and my index finger to the magwell before inserting. There's probably a very shot and imperceptible pause, but it really minimizes bobbling the reload and catching an edge while inserting. Mind you, I don't have an extended magwell or a plug.

Not easy trying to find old posts on this subject. If anyone finds links and I missed a good thread, I apologize in advance. For the last 2 years I've been keeping my thumb forward position regardless of shooting 2 or 1 handed. So if i'm shooting right or left hand only, with my G17, all my strength of the grip is in my three fingers and my thumb was just relaxed and touching the frame, going along for the ride. Just recently I noticed that my thumb fits pretty nicely in the thumb well that's located on the frame of Glocks. So I can do a tight grip and include the strength of my thumb muscles, without hitting the magazine catch. Recoil seems to be a lot less. I just can't remember what direction my recoil goes, though. Is this an accepted position? Where do Glock shooters put their thumb?

Strong hand shooting -- include the thumb or not? Up until now, when I shoot one handed, be it right or left, I gripped my Glock with all of my fingers and used essentially no pressure on my thumb, similar to the thumbs forward two-hand grip. Just this week I realized that my thumb fits nicely in that "well" on the side of a Glock grip. "hmmm," I thought. Just came back to the range and did some 7 yard shooting with my strong (right) hand. Some shots with a "crush" grip-- thumb down and squeezing the grip with my entire hand instead of just my fingers. I was really surprised-- shocked to the point that there should have been a "!" character over my head-- that the perceived recoil was really flat. Switching back to thumb forward finger-grip only, there was more recoil. This really shouldn't be too surprising but it was for me. Going to post this question elsewhere but I'll have to search the BE forum first. Lessons learned -- Thumbs down, fist grip for single hand shooting will be the new norm for me. But... -- My NPA shifted with this style. Front sight angled away slightly (to the right for my right hand, for example). I think I can adjust to this but we'll see.

Dry Fire Work When it comes to grip, stance and trigger control, I've been using my SIRT more often than my Glock. I'll take my Glock and confirm trigger control occasionally, and definitely use it when doing holster work. I recently discovered that I can use black dot targets, and instantly tell whether or not it's a hit. Great feedback and I think this will help me with bullseye/long range shooting. Lessons Learned: -- I experimented with trigger finger position after reading a web post. Up until now I've been shooting with the trigger centered on my finger pad. After some quick experiments yesterday, it seemed like my aim was more steady if I have my trigger finger closer to the first crease. Maybe. That was some dozen or so dry fire cycles so that doesn't make it proven yet. I'll shoot this way through the next match and see what happens.

Hi dnh-- no I'm not working on followup shots. I don't know if that kind of practice is helpful without actual recoil. When I'm breaking a shot I'm working on 2 things: trying to call it before the laser flashes(this might be too ambitious). And also deconstructing what happened when the bright flash (which should be out of focus if I actually stayed focused on my front sight) tells me I missed. Was it visual impatience? Bad trigger control? Grip? The last drill I did was way fun-- printed a 1" dot and tried to keep hitting it at 7 yards. Not easy for me but it forces me to work on fundamentals

Mixed bacg of range time and dry fire with the SIRT -While getting ready for a GSSF match, I was trying to simulate a plate rack. During that, I noticed that I can print black dots and get instant feedback whether or not I hit it. Very fun. Taking Todd Green's Dot Torture test further, I printed a 1" dot and tried to hit it at 5 yards. Pretty challenging. -I've also been focusing on keeping a very strong grip with my support hand, and my low hits are starting to disappear. -At the range, I did a bullseye challenge, trying to keep a tight group at 10 yards. Lessons Learned -- Something completely different: sometimes I shoot with my glasses, sometimes with contacts. With glasses, I notice my acuity isn't the same if I'm looking at the sights through the edge of my eyeglass lens. Need to either keep my head upright, making sure my sight is centered in my eyeglass lens. Better acuity that way. Who'd a' thunk? -- Bullseye shooting is helping me lock in my stock Glock sight picture. We'll see what happens at the next GSSF match. -- Had to go back to an old post about which blurry target to shoot at when I'm front sight focused and at longer distances. Good reminder to re-review old posts.

This seems to be the thread to post info and thoughts. Just discovered something about the lasers. I printed black ink dots from my ink jet printer and taped them to a wall. If I stick with a front sight focus (and stay out of the habit of focusing on the wall after the laser hit, which I can do 99% of the time), I notice that a "hit" on the black dot gives me a less bright laser flash. If I miss the black dot and hit white paper, I can easily tell it's brighter. It's a great feedback loop without having have to wonder where I hit exactly. This especially true at longer distances where the far target is too out of focus to tell.

Back to Fundamentals...again Followup up on my improving grip strength, I realized that perhaps I was getting lazy, and not gripping the pistol with enough force. With that in mind went back to the SIRT with a specific focus on making sure my off-hand grip was as tight as possible without introducing the shakes. Lessons Learned - The "sympathetic" tightening in my shooting hand manifested again, and I noticed that with a firmer grip my SIRT shots were striking low. Not to the left, just low at 6 o'clock. - Instead of focusing on just a tight grip, I have to retrain myself to keep my shooting hand relatively relaxed and that I'm not "squeezing" the trigger with all 4 fingers. I think this work will be worth it because my recoil was much better controlled back in 8/1. We'll see what happens this weekend when I go back to the square range.

Potpourri shooting The open bay at the indoor range where I shoot was... open! I was shocked to learn. So I took advantage of it, blowing 150 rounds: -- Multiple Bill drills -- Moz drills -- FAST drill x 4 -- GSSF "the plates", paper version x 3 -- Strong hand -- Off hand shooting -- Barricade shooting at 20 yards -- Even a couple of rounds from retention. First time I've done it live. Lessons learned - I have to compete more. I was nervous during my opening shots-- a cold FAST drill. Anticipated the 3x5" card shots, flinched. Terrible opening drill with 3 misses. Fortunately these went away after I warmed up. I think I said this in an earlier post: when starting cold, I have to shoot SLOWLY. - Never leave your shot timer at home. You never know when you'll find it useful when you go shooting. duh - Grip strength exercises have really helped. I've been using the 1 lb and 2 lb The Gripp balls. When doing some front sight focus shooting, where I focused on experiencing a pre and post shot sight picture and a "crush" grip, for the first time I felt that I was actually able to track that front sight during the whole ignition/recoil/settle into the notch. The notch was shaky when I exaggerated my grip squeeze, but even when I backed off the pressure to the point I was no longer shaking, the front sight still sprang back to the notch. cool... - ... but I still can only call my shots a minority of the time. During barricade shooting I had a couple of down 1's....I just didn't recognize it until I finished shooting and walked to the target.