NickBlasta's Training and Match Journal

[NickBlasta]

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.

I'd love to see someone do 3.3 in live fire. I do it like it says on the tin, surrender facing uprange, 10 yards. I haven't live fired El Prez in awhile. I'll have to try it and report back.

12/1/2015

Dryfire Report

Reigning in the holiday season with El Prezents. If I do 3.5 par I can see everything I need to see for 12 alphas and not feel rushed and never bobble the reload. That's my Steve Anderson for the evening.

I ordered some full size targets to use for my live fire so I don't have to use some barely held together second hand targets or scaled ones. This'll be fun.

[NickBlasta]

12/2/2015

Dryfire Report

I noticed during the last match I wasn't contacting the gun with my weak hand during the draw nearly early enough. Sometimes it was just staying out there until the gun was almost up. So I worked on that with component draws and then simple draws and some bill drills. Felt like a solid practice.

12/5/2015

Dryfire Report

Match tomorrow is an all steel match so I set up a bunch of poppers on my wall and practiced drawing to them, shooting, transitioning, calling my shots.

[NickBlasta]

12/6/2015

Match Report

Open Div - 1st of 5 - 100%
Overall - 1st of 23 - 100%
Classifier 06-10 "Steely Speed VII" (6A 3.32s) - 9.0361 HF - 88.25%
555 of 555 available points - 111A - 100% (No penalties)

Well, finished my first weekend ('real') club match as Master. There was some decent competition actually as most of the other open field was other masters. This was to be an all-steel match so I was excited, I love shooting steel more than anything. It turned out to be pretty interesting and there were quite a few challenging shots. 40 yard plate rack, 35 yard rack, 30 yard rack, among other things.

I didn't have my usual patience with steel and rushed a lot of misses, and missing too many times meant I had some unplanned reloads, buuut it was good enough for the win. Classifier was okay, my best run on it so far.

[WJM]

Do you practice a lot of gun manipulation? Such as unloaded starts or things like that.

I don't really know your skill set on those besides 1:54 but it could've saved you time.

Wyatt

[NickBlasta]

Do you practice a lot of gun manipulation? Such as unloaded starts or things like that.

I don't really know your skill set on those besides 1:54 but it could've saved you time.

Wyatt

Gun manipulation? In open?

Do you mean 2:54? Yeah, that was mostly a combo of the weird angle and a bad grab on the mag, I'm not usually so bad at the unloaded starts. Actually I should practice that, running to the gun and loading. Most of my table start practice is like 'gun on table in front of you, load.'

[WJM]

Do you practice a lot of gun manipulation? Such as unloaded starts or things like that.

I don't really know your skill set on those besides 1:54 but it could've saved you time.

Wyatt

Gun manipulation? In open?

Do you mean 2:54? Yeah, that was mostly a combo of the weird angle and a bad grab on the mag, I'm not usually so bad at the unloaded starts. Actually I should practice that, running to the gun and loading. Most of my table start practice is like 'gun on table in front of you, load.'

Haha!

Yes sorry I got the time stamp wrong. Just something I noticed, not trying to be rude! I know Ben has an unloaded start drill in his Dry Fire book, and I believe Steve Anderson does also. (I am starting to use Andersons almost exclusively) but what I noticed is to practice loading off of belt, loading mags onto belt and loading gun, loading gun off of barrel when the gun is in the holster and mag is on table, and when both mag and gun are on table, and also when gun is on table and mag is on belt.

Just my thoughts!

Wyatt

p.s. (you're a boss)

[NickBlasta]

Do you practice a lot of gun manipulation? Such as unloaded starts or things like that.

I don't really know your skill set on those besides 1:54 but it could've saved you time.

Wyatt

Gun manipulation? In open?

Do you mean 2:54? Yeah, that was mostly a combo of the weird angle and a bad grab on the mag, I'm not usually so bad at the unloaded starts. Actually I should practice that, running to the gun and loading. Most of my table start practice is like 'gun on table in front of you, load.'

Haha!

Yes sorry I got the time stamp wrong. Just something I noticed, not trying to be rude! I know Ben has an unloaded start drill in his Dry Fire book, and I believe Steve Anderson does also. (I am starting to use Andersons almost exclusively) but what I noticed is to practice loading off of belt, loading mags onto belt and loading gun, loading gun off of barrel when the gun is in the holster and mag is on table, and when both mag and gun are on table, and also when gun is on table and mag is on belt.

Just my thoughts!

Wyatt

p.s. (you're a boss)

Thank you for the tips!

12/7/2015

Dryfire Report

Worked on drawing to small targets to kinda force my accuracy on the first shot. Started with 10 yard headboxes, was pleased, moved on to work 15 yard ones. Nice drill.

Did a lot of transition work with just my 3 usual targets. Up and down transitions where I did the mozambique to each target, left to right, etc.

12/8/2015

Dryfire Report

SHO/WHO is really perishable for me so I did a lot of that today. Mostly focusing on not being quite so deliberate, but seeing what I need to see and then breaking the shot and speeding up my transitions.

12/10/2015

Dryfire Report

Didn't have a lot of time, but I scraped some together and did some bill drills with a focus on continuing to improve my trigger speed. I see some improvement in my par times which is good.

[NickBlasta]

12/12/2015

Livefire Report

Ironically I planned to dryfire on Friday but couldn't get away from work, so I went on Saturday. Friday was perfect weather, if a bit cold, and Saturday was rain and gale-force winds. I planned to do a set of several drills to get an idea of what my 'current' times are but the weather was so bad my targets wouldn't even stay standing. They would fall over, so I went out and put a bunch of weight on the stands, and then there was so much wind the stickers bent and snapped. I did manage to shoot about 200 rounds but I did a lot of single target drills like bills and 4 aces on whichever of my 3 targets was actually still standing. Sigh!

[NickBlasta]

Had some computer troubles so I've kind of been saving up my activity posts. In doing so I'm sure I forgot some of them. But I'm back on track.

12/13/2015

Match Report

Open Div - 4th of 12 - 84.44%
Overall - 5th of 53 - 84.44%
425 of 480 available points - 57A 7B 30C 1D 1M - 88.54% (91.66% without penalties)

Yearly charity match at this particular club. It's an outlaw match so if you see weird stuff (like 10 in your magazines on the fixed time steel stage) it was probably mandated by the stage brief. I thought I shot like crap, argh 37 B/C and a mike, but I had some fun at least.

[NickBlasta]

12/17/2015

Match Report

Open Div - 1st
Overall - 1st

Typical Thursday match only with a lot more mud, rain, and wind. There was a pretty funny moment where I was standing in the ready condition for about ten minutes because the timer died and nobody could find a spare or batteries. So I got pretty soaked for only a 4 stage match. Otherwise it went okay, we basically removed all the paper after the first stage and ran only steel because even with bags the cardboard targets are useless.

In other news, I cut down the follower tab on the slide stop and pretty much locked it in place with a little hole for the detent. My gun should never slide lock ever again. That's like 90% of the malfunctions I ever have, so this should be a measurable improvement.

[my00wrx1]

A very impressive journey. I see you have dry fire reports but I am curious what your current dry fire and training routine/plan is?

[NickBlasta]

A very impressive journey. I see you have dry fire reports but I am curious what your current dry fire and training routine/plan is?

Thanks! I should probably be more consistent with reporting my dryfire, but I usually bank them in my head and then forget what I did.

My basic training routine is:

Dryfire 3 days a week. 30 minutes to 1 hour.

Live fire 2 days a week. Matches or practice.

Day off 1 day per week.

Flex day 1 day per week. This flex day can be used for any of the 3 activities.

12/19/2015

Livefire Report

I'm finding it hard to practice meaningfully on the range with this terrible weather. Maybe it's the design of their action bays but the wind comes right down into them and knocks over all my stands or tears the targets off the backers. I wonder if I can build a wind-resistant target setup.

Practiced anyway because I got invited to a fun steel the next day and I wanted to get some trigger time on my match gun and also some of my .22s. I practiced on paper for a time but the weather was not good, so I moved onto using the range's steel. Set up 5 plates and practiced a little steel challengey stage.

[NickBlasta]

12/20/2015

Match Report

Draw Division - 1st of 15 - 83.88s (26.43s faster than 2nd)
Open Division - 2nd of 13 - 76.33s (0.11s slower than 1st)
Carbine Optic Division - 2nd of 7 - 80.45s (7.58s slower than 1st)
Overall - 3rd, 4th, and 5th of 59

I shot the steel challenge thingy. Fun steel. Outlaw steel. Whatever. I haven't done this in like 9 months so I did a lot better than I did back then and I felt like I had more fun. The divisions make no sense ('open' is all .22 handguns and all optic-sighted handguns for example) and I don't think a few of the stages were run very consistently but hey, it's fun steel. I liked that they had an unloaded start stage. I'd do it again next time I feel like shooting 600 rounds in a match or whatever it was.

[NickBlasta]

12/23/2015

Match Report

Rimfire - 1 win

Centerfire - 5 wins, high overall

I liked shooting pins the first time so when I got invited to someone's regular pin match, I thought it'd be great fun to go. Cool little match, I need more practice with my .22. I think everyone there was surprised when I showed up out of nowhere and won the match.

[NickBlasta]

12/24/2015

Dryfire Report

Using recent feedback on my shooting I practiced tablestarts pretty extensively today. I had to spend some time continuing to fit my new slide stop because I found that when really hitting the magazine in, the inside-portion of the slide stop lug(?) was too fat and it was rubbing on the slide, making the gun a lot harder to rack. When I smoothed that out just a bit the gun is back to normal.

But the table starts were good. I think I took all the skin off my index finger with the slide serrations but practice was definitely productive.

[NickBlasta]

12/26/2015

Match Report

Friends urged me to come shoot IDPA so I did. No USPSA this weekend might have influenced my decision. Shot my G35 in.. ESP?

I dunno what the attraction of the sport is for people who regularly attend. Seems like the stages are super basic and there's no freestyle to it. I did shoot a non-threat in the face twice so that was exciting. White NS make a lot more sense, man.

12/27/2015

Dryfire Report

More tablestarts. Mixing it up by adding running into it for those stages where you start toes on x's a few yards away.

12/28/2015

Dryfire Report

Reload work.

12/30/2015

Match Report

Shot bowling pins again. While I had good results with my .38 super the first time, the pins are that much more heavy this week that I had trouble moving the pins that fell over on their sides. So I didn't win. I'll have to put my .45 in my bag for weeks like these if I see really heavy pins.

3/2/2016

Dryfire Report

New year! Yay! Back from a little vacation but we have a classifier match tomorrow so I practiced a few specific things I think I'll see. Tablestarts again (I think I'm a lot better now), "4 bills"- that is, 6, reload, 6 SH/WH, and some El Prez and extensive reload work. I didn't have any bobbling today, feels good.

There, all caught up.

[NickBlasta]

1/3/2016

Match Report

Open Div - 2nd of 7 - 97.774%
Overall - 2nd of 44 - 98.395%
Classifier 13-05 "Tick Tock" (13A 3C 8.18s) - 8.9848 HF - 74.67%
Classifier 03-03 "Take Em Down" (9A 2C 8.70s) - 6.0920 HF - 70.74%
Classifier 03-04 "3V" (8A 3B 1C 2M 8.08s) - 4.4554 HF - 43.20%
Classifier 08-01 "4 Bill Drill" (13A 3B 6C 2D 20.38s) - 5.1521 HF - 76.62%
Classifier 08-03 "Six" (5A 2C 3.40s) - 8.2353 HF - 74.87%
Classifier 09-04 "Pucker Factor" (3A 3B 2C 3.88s) - 9.0206 HF - 75.21%
334 of 400 available points - 50A 9B 16C 2D 2M - 83.5% (91% without penalties)

First match of the year was a classifier match. I had a feeling shooting in the cold would not result in great scores and I was right, I didn't even break 80 on any of them. It was fun to shoot, and the match was quick, but in terms of usefulness I probably should have either shot a different division or just stayed home. Lesson learned.

[NickBlasta]

1/7/2016

Match Report

1st of 10
18.86s + 11.75s - 8s = 22.61 seconds

My wife's parents are visiting so to keep myself from going totally crazy I went off to shoot a match. A lil' steel match that I haven't attended before. I think it's a fixed format where they always run the same 3 stages and then have a bonus round that changes up based on their mood. I saw some videos from last year where they race on 2 Texas stars. I wanna do that, but that wasn't on the list for this match.

Match format is roughly:

Shot with 8 round magazines.
1st stage is a mover. Any hit on the mover is -1 second to your total time. 1 magazine.
2nd stage is shooting each array of steel from one port. 3 magazines allowed.
3rd stage is shooting all the steel from one position. 3 magazines allowed. If additional runs are shot (as time allows) the lowest time is scored.
Score is total time minus bonus hits on the mover.

I had fun! The mover was easy-peasy, I understand that when it's properly greased it moves much faster. Still wouldn't be a problem for me I think. Second stage I had a minor mental malfunction or possibly lack of confidence in the moment and saved up my 2 extra rounds instead of reloading between ports, even though I was 1 for 1 on the steels. Third stage we did twice with your best time counting for score, first time was okay but I had some pickups, second time was pretty much perfect. Well, as close to perfect as I'll get at my current level of skill. If you wanna see the fun just skip to the last stage on the video. They told me that it was a club record time.

I did have a negative experience at this match unrelated to the shooting. Leading up to the last stage (I think) one of the competitors turned and yelled at me for not resetting. When I responded that I was not resetting because I was the shooter on deck, he countered that I had not been resetting for the whole match. When I replied that I had, in fact, been resetting after every shooter except when I was up on deck (barely even to reload my mags since it was only 8 rounds each) he basically accused me of lying. Since I've never met this competitor before I was very surprised to have such a hostile encounter. I would say it definitely colors my opinion of this range as a venue. Unfortunate.

Edited January 12, 2016 by NickBlasta

[NickBlasta]

1/8/2016

Dryfire Report

Long sesh today as I really felt the need to get back in the swing of things now that the inlaws are gone. El Prez to draw to first shot to 4 aces.

Edited January 13, 2016 by NickBlasta

[NickBlasta]

1/10/2016

Match Report

Open Div - 2nd of 11 - 93.28%
Overall - 3rd of 59 - 93.2%
Classifier 99-59 "Lazy Man Standards" (12A 5C 2D 5M 21.31s) - 1.5955 HF - 21.17%
509 of 630 available points - 87A 28C 6D 5M 2NPM - 80.79% (92.69% without penalties)

So, I think I simultaneously had a great match and a poor match. I thought I did smashingly on every field course. I moved quickly, shot quickly, and called absolutely every shot. I even had time to process whether or not it would be worth it to make up a delta (I judged not and moved on to the next target in both cases). I was punching consistently with and above the other open masters at the event.

It all went so bad on the first stage though, the classifier. I'm not sure why. It wasn't even in my head or anything, but my hands wouldn't settle and I didn't feel in control like I did the rest of the match. You can see me flexing my hands above my head while waiting for the buzzer, it was nasty. I'll have to work on it.

Overall I think I have improved a lot since last year. Looking forwards to the new season.

[NickBlasta]

1/12/2016

Dryfire Report

I was doing a little safe-cleaning and happened to pull out my CZ-75. It's pretty old, a pre-B model. Since I haven't shot it in awhile, at least not since I've started shooting a 2011, I decided to do a little dryfire with it. I like it, it's not quite as different going from the 2011 to this as it was going from plastic to the CZ. I should get some more mags for it.

1/13/2016

Livefire Report

Went out for some livefire practice. Did shooting on the move, set up some swingers and some clamshell movers and practiced on those. I feel like I have a lot of confidence with movers that some competitors lack and I was able to consistently 2A on them by aiming, not trapping them or whatever. Fun stuff.

1/16/2016

Dryfire Report

I read Foley's little announcement about PCC and I decided I'd take my PCC out to shoot the 3 gun match with on the weekend. So I practiced with it for awhile since I haven't handled it in forever.

[NickBlasta]

1/17/2016

Match

Probably one of the tinier, more informal matches I've shot, but my shotgun was barfing all the time so I don't think I did very well. I really just wanted to shoot my PCC and they only had one rifle stage with 5 rounds. Oh well.

I did cut together this video from the week though. Some stuff from the match, some practice footage, some random cool bits.

[NickBlasta]

1/18/2016

Dryfire

El Prez for awhile. I still see consistent improvement running this drill and prefer it as my overall skill benchmark.

1/19/2016

Dryfire

6-6-6. It's surprising how awkward going to my second pouch is because I literally never do it in a match setting. This drill's great for my reloads. I've noticed that as I get better and consistently nail them, the higher up the gun stays. I pretty much reload in front of my face now.

1/20/2016

Livefire

I set up a different array from last week and did a number of the same drills. Platerack and some plates. SOTM, draws and transitions, various distances.

[NickBlasta]

1/24/2016

Match

Centerfire Optic - 1st
Centerfire PCC Optic - 2nd (4.69s slower than 1st)
Overall - 3rd and 5th of 36

Fun little steel challenge at a new club for me. I thought I shot okay, shot the stop plate while in the groove a couple times without picking up a mike, oops. Whoever put pop-up tents over the shooting boxes is a genius. I was surprised how popular this was at this club, attracting a ton of shooters despite the weather.

[NickBlasta]

1/27/2016

Livefire and Setup

I kind of lost my mind and asked one of the local clubs if I could set up and run a match in their bays since nobody schedules any shooting events in the 5th week around here. So I spent some time with my fellow volunteers setting up stages. After that I went and livefired drills for awhile. Bit of this and that and some SOTM.

1/29/2016

Livefire and Setup

Did the rest of the match setup today, all the stages are on the ground. Lots of work but I think it'll be a fun match. Should I do an effortpost on it? I had a particular set of goals in mind for this match with choices and challenging the shooters. Livefired again too, bill drills, 4 aces, draw to shot.

1/30/2016

Dryfire

Did two kinds of unloaded starts today, unloaded in holster with mags on belt, and then mags and gun staged downrange separate from each other. Feel good about this. Moved on to shooting into and out of positions.