NickBlasta Posted October 20, 2015 Author Share Posted October 20, 2015 (edited) 10/19/2015 Dryfire Report After yesterday I decided to target reloads again. Did 6-reload-6-reload-6 for awhile and felt pretty good about it. I can do about 4.8 seconds without missing the magwell or fumbling. One thing I forgot to mention in the match report from Sunday is that I'm starting to realize, as I get more experienced, that I have a real problem with shooting cold. My first stage is invariably my worst, and my last stage is usually one of the best, with a sliding scale of worst to best as I move through the match. This is a problem. Edited October 20, 2015 by NickBlasta Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
WJM Posted October 20, 2015 Share Posted October 20, 2015 Nick, One thing that has helped me in regards to first stage jitters is focus on getting hits on the first stage and not screwing it up. Often or not this will end up being one of my better stages because I am not so focused on going fast. May help may not. Wyatt Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Eric_Vmax Posted October 20, 2015 Share Posted October 20, 2015 Something I heard someone say. Remember to wiggle you toes, you are here to enjoy the sport and sometimes focusing on something else besides all the stage data, is to just wiggle your toes and relax. Of course when the buzzer goes off, you are on your own! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Glock26Toter Posted October 21, 2015 Share Posted October 21, 2015 That's not a problem. It's just a thing. I still get 1st stage jitters and just accept it as part of the fun. I imagine that when skydivers can jump out of a plane just as easily as they step off a curb they give it up. It's not a whole lot different for us. For me, I just choose to enjoy the "hell yes, I get to shoot again!" excitement and don't look at it as a problem. Once you can look at it like that and trust that you already know how to shoot and can trust your subconscious to take over no matter what stage you are on then that's all it is... excitement. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
NickBlasta Posted October 21, 2015 Author Share Posted October 21, 2015 10/20/2015 Dryfire Report Thanks for the suggestions guys. It's not so much jitters for me- I mean, I get those, but I can usually make them go away by doing a little calming breathing during make ready. It's just that I'm not *in gear* for the stage yet, know what I mean? I'm thinking I might try a stretch routine to physically warm up, and a full-speed walkthrough to get mentally warm. We'll see how it goes. Today I basically practiced the classifier I failed on on Sunday, Quicky II, since it's revealed a weakness I can target. Mostly this consisted of 3 targets, engaging them, reloading and transitioning to SHO/WHO. I know what I did wrong- in livefire I was attempting the reload while dropping into my offhand stance, bad idea. In dryfire I reloaded and then dropped into the stance on the hand transition, much faster. I was able to nail it in DF. One thing I noticed is I'm getting more comfortable using my left eye for WHO rather than bringing the gun over a bit to find the dot with my dominant eye. It feels a lot smoother in practice and I have fewer moments where I have to shuffle to find the dot. Interesting! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
NickBlasta Posted October 24, 2015 Author Share Posted October 24, 2015 10/21/2015 Dryfire Report Tossed up good old Prez today and ran through it a bunch. I think I like to use this drill as a benchmark for my shooting ability. When I started I could barely scrape 4 seconds, now I can nail it really well in 3.3. Fun stuff. 10/22/2015 Dryfire Report Draws and reloads focus today, started with bill drills and then went to blake drills and blakes with reloads. I think I'm gonna work on changing my hand position for my draw. Previously I would index my hand on the optic with my thumb on the lens housing. Now, if I have my wrist on the magazine floorplate, it's considerably less movement/less awkward. Gonna see if I can switch. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
NickBlasta Posted November 8, 2015 Author Share Posted November 8, 2015 10/24/2015 Match Report Open Div - 5th of 21 - 87.139%Open A - 1stOverall - 5th of 107 - 87.195%Classifier 06-04 "Fluffy's Revenge 1" (6A 1B 1C 3.12s) - 12.1795 HF - 82.13%623 of 685 available points - 89A 19B 24C 3D 2M 1NS 1P - 85.11% (90.95% without penalties) I decided to go down to Oregon for a match because I'd be leaving basically the next day for vacation. I like to shoot, okay?! It was an interesting match and I didn't shoot particularly well, there were several cases where I didn't take enough care for shooting at partials. I also hate it when people decide to use a random squad order on every stage. Just go one down each time, jeez. But I shot a little above exactly the score I needed on the classifier to (by my calculations) make M next month. Since this is an outdated update I'll mention I went on vacation right after and didn't do any gun-stuff at all. A lil' break has me jonesing for shootin'. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
NickBlasta Posted November 12, 2015 Author Share Posted November 12, 2015 11/7/2015 Livefire Report Haven't touched a gun in two weeks! I was in NYC and apparently they frown on that kind of thing there? Now that I'm home again I decided to head out to a range that had been recommended to me. It's a quiet range about an hour away but they have some little action bays so it might be suitable for practice. I didn't spend a lot of time there because they gave me an orientation for like an hour, but I did practice after that for about 300 rounds. I fired mostly drills with my old Limited gun, it's always weird to go back to, but I plan to shoot Limited tomorrow at the match as kind of a fun offseason thing. Hopefully with this new range I can LF more frequently. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
NickBlasta Posted November 12, 2015 Author Share Posted November 12, 2015 11/8/2015 Match Report Limited Div - 7th of 23 - 70.18%Limited B - 1st of 2Overall - 23rd of 53 - 58.37%Classifier 99-47 "Triple Choice" (10A 1C 4M 18.42s) - 0.76 HF - 12.11%565 of 620 available points - 93A 23C 4D 4M - 84.68% (91.13% without penalties) I didn't end up using my G35 after all, but for fun I ended up trading gear with one of our Limited GMs. I used his Glock 24 setup and he used my Open gun. It was pretty fun, and I did okay other than being rusty shooting a gun with irons. I sucked out loud on the classifier on the weak hand portion, all but zeroed it. Interesting classifier though, haven't shot that one before. It was a fun off-season diversion. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
NickBlasta Posted November 12, 2015 Author Share Posted November 12, 2015 11/11/2015 Dryfire Report I decided to try a new holster position that's more in line with what I see a lot of open shooters use. Previously I had the gun pointed down-and-back, now it's got the muzzle pointed down-forwards. Feels like it's easier to get a good support hand grip faster on the draw. Since this is the first DF since I've been back, I didn't use a timer. Just ran some draws and then a few times through the "stage" I have set up on my wall, so there was some side to side movement and transitions. Feels good, like riding a bike. Misc Oh yeah, this happened. So excited! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
a matt Posted November 13, 2015 Share Posted November 13, 2015 Congrats on the above classification, well done... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
NickBlasta Posted November 16, 2015 Author Share Posted November 16, 2015 Thank you. 11/13/2015 Dryfire Report Continuing with the gun re-familiarization I did my favorite drill, El Prez. Second run I smacked the mag release with my hand and dropped it. Oops! I find I can hit about 3.5 with really calling all my shots. I can push it hard and go about 3.2 with just seeing the dot on brown. Really importantly though my reloads are solid! I almost never mash it into the magwell and get the mag hung up anymore, used to do that all the time. I did have a funny moment where I missed the magwell entirely and released it and it went flying upwards across the room. Dryfire Report 11/14/2015 Got word the match on Sunday was cancelled due to rain. Does shooting in waders effect your times? Interesting experiment... Anyway. I hunted for matches and didn't really find one I wanted to attend. There was a steel shoot but they didn't allow open guns so I spent a DF session with my 9mm, trying to decide if I wanted to go. I ended up not but it was fun to practice some drills with my G35 anyway! I think I like the holster position in front of my thigh, kinda like appendix carry. Maybe that's dumb, who knows. Work is really killer for me this time of year. I feel bad for training less but it's difficult. Not to find the time but finding the will being so bone tired all the time. Bah humbug! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
NickBlasta Posted November 20, 2015 Author Share Posted November 20, 2015 (edited) 11/17/2015 Match Report Open Div - 2nd of 5 - 95.892%Overall - 2nd of 19 - 95.892%246 of 270 available points - 40A 1B 8C 5D - 91.11% (No penalties) Brutal storm knocked out our power, so since I couldn't work or do much but hang out on my phone, I decided to go to the action pistol match. Driving there was rough, but the match was fun. I think the work I've been doing on my hustle has paid off, but I still need to work on being more fasterer. The deltas wrecked my points kinda, but I was happy with finishing 96% of the GM. Edited November 21, 2015 by NickBlasta Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
thermobollocks Posted November 20, 2015 Share Posted November 20, 2015 Did you drop any points on the classifier? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
NickBlasta Posted November 21, 2015 Author Share Posted November 21, 2015 Did you drop any points on the classifier? A few to deltas, no mikes. 11/19/2015 Match Report Open Div - 1st Overall - 1st of 10 - 100% 373 of 400 available points - 55A 24C 1D - 93.25% (No penalties) Got out to shoot another small midweek match after work. It's starting to get dark early again. And cold! I could barely feel my hands on the COF. I find it difficult to shoot when dark, sometimes the target is indistinct in my vision and hurts my shot calling, leading to unnecessary pickups. There was no competition for me, just another guy shooting an open revolver, so I was basically just shooting. I thought my movement shows continual improvement. Preparing for the charity match this weekend with some unusual targets for my dryfire... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
NickBlasta Posted November 22, 2015 Author Share Posted November 22, 2015 11/21/2015 Livefire and Dryfire Report Interesting day today. I mentioned DFing with unusual targets the other day. It's in preparation for the match this weekend. We have a match here called the Movember Classic, a charity match for men's health. It's also a bring-together match for all the USPSA and IDPA shooters. So it is an outlaw match that uses USPSA rules and divisions, and IDPA targets and scoring. So I did my dryfire today on these. Nothing too complex or pushing myself, ran through a bunch of what are essentially familiarization drills. I found myself several times firing what would be low A-zone hits which would be down 1 here. Don't want that! So I focused on only making 0s acceptable hits. Also man, they have the whole headbox to work with? What luxury. Then I went to the range and did some live fire. Had the place to myself, did 200 rounds. I used the IDPA targets but I only have the 1/3 scale ones I made, so I set up the targets at pretty close distances to translate to 7/15/25 yards. Did some doubletaps, blakes, and bills, easy stuff but great for remembering where that circle is for the match. I also tweaked the feedlips on two of my magazines and confirmed function today, so I'm back up to a full compliment of big and short sticks. This'll be handy for the match as they are also high round count stages for the most part. Should be fun! So pretty... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
thermobollocks Posted November 23, 2015 Share Posted November 23, 2015 You may have had like 20 people tell you this already, but with your run on that fixed time stage, you had a comparative boatload of time remaining. In those cases, it can be way more helpful to get the alphas instead, since free time earns you nothing. But, there are other free time courses where you might have to weigh 6 guaranteed alphas against 10 tossups, more or less. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
NickBlasta Posted November 23, 2015 Author Share Posted November 23, 2015 11/22/2015 Match Report Open Div - 1st of 14Overall - 1st of 99154.88 Raw Time + 9 PD (159.38s total) Well, here's the charity match. Like I explained previously it's an outlaw match that uses USPSA divisions and rules and IDPA targets and scoring. So, my thoughts going in to this were that I've never shot IDPA but I know that the scoring leans towards shooting few points down if possible. So my plan was to shoot way more conservatively than I would normally and shoot mostly 0s. I probably wouldn't pull off a lot of stage wins but the other open shooters would probably shoot it like it was USPSA and have a lot of highs and lows, and so maybe through consistency I could place well. There were also two all-steel stages that I knew I could gain lots of time on, I love to shoot all steel stages. I ended up winning! I had lots of fun and the stages were very interesting. One of my favorite matches this year. Oh yeah, I also got to shoot from a treadmill. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
NickBlasta Posted November 24, 2015 Author Share Posted November 24, 2015 11/23/2015 Dryfire Report Had a productive session today where I warmed up with draws and SHO/WHO work and then moved on to practicing shooting on the move at different paces to see how fast I can go and still call good hits. I wanna go do that in live fire at the range. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
NickBlasta Posted November 27, 2015 Author Share Posted November 27, 2015 11/24/2015 Match Report Open Div - 2nd of 4 - 87.667%Overall - 2nd of 17 - 87.667% Dropped in for another indoor match. Feels like there's more people attending recently, probably due to the crappy weather. 90 rounds is a lot for 3 stages, you can tell an open shooter was in charge this week. I thought I did okay, some of my stage plans were not great and my WHO is soo slow! I don't feel I can go faster without seeing what I need to see for a good shot. I'll have to work on this. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
NickBlasta Posted November 27, 2015 Author Share Posted November 27, 2015 11/25/2015 Dryfire Report Long sesh today, focused on a drill I picked up off the internet based on improving transitions. Basically you move the sights to a target, shoot once (and calling your shot) and then as soon as possible, move your eyes to the next target and drive the gun to that spot. In live fire you'd be snapping your eyes to the next target while the gun is rising from the shot rather than waiting for the gun to come down first. I like this, felt it was productive. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
NickBlasta Posted November 30, 2015 Author Share Posted November 30, 2015 11/26/2015 Match Report Not so much a match really as an informal event, though it was in a shoot-off format. We drew a pretty big crowd just getting together to shoot pins on turkey morning. Though I've been interested in trying it, I've never shot pins before. It was pretty fun. Everyone was saying you need .45 to really move the pins but I thought that both .40 and 9mm worked very well. The only guy that beat me was shooting a 9, in fact. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
tha1000 Posted November 30, 2015 Share Posted November 30, 2015 10/20/2015 Dryfire Report Thanks for the suggestions guys. It's not so much jitters for me- I mean, I get those, but I can usually make them go away by doing a little calming breathing during make ready. It's just that I'm not *in gear* for the stage yet, know what I mean? I'm thinking I might try a stretch routine to physically warm up, and a full-speed walkthrough to get mentally warm. We'll see how it goes. I have the same issue, as I am generally a lot slower out of the gate than after I am warmed up. I'm considering doing 15-20 minutes of dryfire prior to leaving for the match to see if that helps any.. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
NickBlasta Posted December 1, 2015 Author Share Posted December 1, 2015 10/20/2015 Dryfire Report Thanks for the suggestions guys. It's not so much jitters for me- I mean, I get those, but I can usually make them go away by doing a little calming breathing during make ready. It's just that I'm not *in gear* for the stage yet, know what I mean? I'm thinking I might try a stretch routine to physically warm up, and a full-speed walkthrough to get mentally warm. We'll see how it goes. I have the same issue, as I am generally a lot slower out of the gate than after I am warmed up. I'm considering doing 15-20 minutes of dryfire prior to leaving for the match to see if that helps any.. I don't think that would help. It's not a familiarization issue, it's a match pressure issue. I've learned to just roll with it and accept it and let it propel me into the first stage. 11/27/2015 Dryfire Report Experimenting with the 'scoop' draw today instead of my usual draw where I come down onto the back of the gun and then pull up. The timer tells me it's actually faster than my previous method. I don't know if it's going to matter on a field course, but maybe it'll shave .1 off a classifier for me. 11/30/2015 Dryfire Report Did more work with the new draw starting off with bill drills. I feel sometimes like I have a slow trigger finger. Moved on to work on transitions by running the hopkins. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Wesquire Posted December 2, 2015 Share Posted December 2, 2015 (edited) 10/21/2015 Dryfire Report Tossed up good old Prez today and ran through it a bunch. I think I like to use this drill as a benchmark for my shooting ability. When I started I could barely scrape 4 seconds, now I can nail it really well in 3.3. Fun stuff. 10/22/2015 Dryfire Report Draws and reloads focus today, started with bill drills and then went to blake drills and blakes with reloads. I think I'm gonna work on changing my hand position for my draw. Previously I would index my hand on the optic with my thumb on the lens housing. Now, if I have my wrist on the magazine floorplate, it's considerably less movement/less awkward. Gonna see if I can switch. When you say you are getting el pres in 3.3 seconds, what distance, start, and live fire scores are you doing? Because you'd only have to get like 65% of the points to get a 100% classifier with that time. Edited December 2, 2015 by Wesquire Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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