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Just Call Me Charlie Mike


ArrDave

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Don't sweat stage planning errors too much at this point.

I developed a reputation as having the goofiest stage plans imaginable in my first year of Uspsa.

It just comes with time and lots of stages under one's belt.

Just straight up ask people what their plan is at local matches and they'll tell you. Along with the reasoning behind it. It all comes down to execution in the end anyway, so most of us will share plans.

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Don't sweat stage planning errors too much at this point.

I developed a reputation as having the goofiest stage plans imaginable in my first year of Uspsa.

It just comes with time and lots of stages under one's belt.

Just straight up ask people what their plan is at local matches and they'll tell you. Along with the reasoning behind it. It all comes down to execution in the end anyway, so most of us will share plans.

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Will do. Got Cherokee 2nd saturday, looking forward to that rolling into GA Section.

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Don't get sucked into the "shoot the stage the way the M's are shooting it" trap. They know what they can hit, and how long it will take them. They know if they can take a target near a noshoot at 10 yards on the move and they have the patience not to break that shot until they'll get a clean hit. That might even mean aborting their movement and hitting the brakes long enough to get that hit. Younger guns usually don't - they'll settle for a hopeful sight picture and, well, hope.

Plan like a less skilled shooter. Get as close as you can to each target. Especially when there's a noshoot nearby.

Sprint faster than you currently jog, set up efficiently, shoot, downshift, and haul it out of there. Avoid shooting on the move unless you know you can hit A's and close C's almost as quickly as you can do it stationary. Shooting on the move usually shaves only 0.5-1.0 seconds, so it doesn't pay off in many cases if your hits suffer. Shooting clean is mandatory. Shooting fast is preferable. Notice which one of those has a higher priority.

You don't seem pissed enough at your inaccuracy. Anything that isn't an A/B/C should be regarded as a total pooch-screwing in Production. Both because of minor, and because the make up shots you SHOULD be taking to fix this can jack with your stage plan.

You had two flat-footed reloads that may have been avoidable - hard to tell from video. A standing reload is roughly equivalent to a mike. Avoid at all costs.

Just remember, in Production you go as fast as you can, but you have to have the points. Otherwise you can make it to the endzone ahead of your buddies and look great on youtube... but you left the football back at the 20 yard line. It doesn't count.

Edited by MemphisMechanic
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Don't get sucked into the "shoot the stage the way the M's are shooting it" trap. They know what they can hit, and how long it will take them. They know if they can take a target near a noshoot at 10 yards on the move and they have the patience not to break that shot until they'll get a clean hit. That might even mean aborting their movement and hitting the brakes long enough to get that hit. Younger guns usually don't - they'll settle for a hopeful sight picture and, well, hope.

Plan like a less skilled shooter. Get as close as you can to each target. Especially when there's a noshoot nearby.

Sprint faster than you currently jog, set up efficiently, shoot, downshift, and haul it out of there. Avoid shooting on the move unless you know you can hit A's and close C's almost as quickly as you can do it stationary. Shooting on the move usually shaves only 0.5-1.0 seconds, so it doesn't pay off in many cases if your hits suffer. Shooting clean is mandatory. Shooting fast is preferable. Notice which one of those has a higher priority.

You don't seem pissed enough at your inaccuracy. Anything that isn't an A/B/C should be regarded as a total pooch-screwing in Production. Both because of minor, and because the make up shots you SHOULD be taking to fix this can jack with your stage plan.

You had two flat-footed reloads that may have been avoidable - hard to tell from video. A standing reload is roughly equivalent to a mike. Avoid at all costs.

Just remember, in Production you go as fast as you can, but you have to have the points. Otherwise you can make it to the endzone ahead of your buddies and look great on youtube... but you left the football back at the 20 yard line. It doesn't count.

I appreciate the insight.

RE: The M stage plans - Both WTTurn and the other folks I'm alluding to in the recent match all ran simpler stage plans with easier engagements. They shot the targets the easiest way they could to shoot alphas the fastest way they could, none of the stuff they were attempting was outside my current level of skill. I would attempt stage plans that made more sense academically forcing longer shots with a greater likelihood of charlies, while they would try to set up in the best position to ensure alphas on everything. I take your point in not planning above my level of skill. Big 10-4 on the "less skilled shooter" bit

RE: Accuracy - my accuracy was actually "OK" all things considered. WTTurn won production that day and shot 128 alphas, I shot 113 w/ 4 D's and 5M's. 4 of my 5 mikes were running by targets, 1 M was missing a call on a on a NS partial where I dropped a shot into the NS. a couple charlies were likely due to my stage plan on Stage 2 being "over my head" and taking 10-15 yard shots on targets I could have just as quickly, if not more quickly, engaged at 5-7 yards. Another C/D pair was a hard lean on Stage 1 that I should have nixed in my stage plan, and setting up in that lean probably cost me more time then engaging it from further back. All of that to say mitigating the bad stage plan stuff I do think my accuracy was OK. #2 in production was A107 B0 C35 D3 M2. My big match killer was the targets I ran by. The no shoot didn't help but was survivable.

Edited by ArrDave
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Gotcha.

In that case you SHOULD have followed the bigger shooter's stage plans. Ignore my previous advice! ;)

If you can't execute the plan consistently 90%+ of the time (long shots, awkward leans, having to set up 13.2mm away from point X to engage a target through a tiny hole...) it's a bad plan.

You learned something - consistency wins. Those long and awkward positions are "hero or zero" situations. Put two or three stage plans like that into a match, and you'll find Deltas, Mikes, or no shoots with a shot or two.

Effective stage plans are ones you can consistently run. Straightforward ones.

Edited by MemphisMechanic
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8/12/16

Match day is tomorrow, GA state section is 2 weeks from tomorrow. Work has absolutely kicked my ass since my last match, throwing off my dryfire/livefire practice schedule somewhat. That said, I did get some good reps in focusing on my movement and exiting positions as well as coming into position with the gun up. Hopefully that pays off on the field courses.

Dry fire - picked up just 5.5 hours since the last match. my "Ideal" practice schedule should have netted 7.5 hours. so over the past 3 weeks I missed 4 days of practice, I've had 3 deadlines at work since then and that usually nets a couple 5AM days apiece, so that's unsurprising. Usually when that happens I let myself sleep in to 7A on the weekends (which means 6:20-6:30 A really since my 5 year old routinely asks "It's morning time but it's still dark out, why?")

Live fire - I did get my 3 live fire sessions in thanks to going to the range with a neighbor last weekend at my wife's urging, although that might not be as productive, I'm going to attempt to catch some more time at lunch today.

Starting to catch heat from my wife as a XL650 (planned purchase) and a deposit on a Stoeger class (unplanned purchase) happened within the past 4 weeks. Attempting to balance home renovations projects, family time, and my own hobby. I'm afraid I just ran up a deficit. The timing on the Stoeger class was very unfortunate, but I wanted to lock down a spot, I suspect I'll be "paying" for that for the better part of a year easy. So it goes. After the GA Section I'll probably take some time off.

I also managed to get a bad cramp/pull a muscle in my neck yesterday, so I'm a bit stiff today, much better, hopefully tomorrow I won't need to use any OTC pain relievers for the match... still pretty tight, but in dryfire this morning it wasn't too bad.

Edited by ArrDave
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It can get expensive both in time and money. Sometimes feels hard to put the brakes on but shooting will always be there.

Yeah..., I'll just save my pennies next month and build back up some savings/goodwill and knock out a few of her projects.

It's amazing how quick the goodwill for completed projects burns off!

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8/14/16

Well I was pretty pleased with how match day went.  I put up a solid performance, if a little slow.  I moved around a lot better than before.  This match was incredibly accuracy intensive.  

I started on Stage 6, which had some 25 or so yard poppers and some 12 yard or so mini poppers. I miked once I believe on the big poppers and 2 or 3 times on the mini poppers, enough to where I forced a standing reload, costing me time and the 2 seconds or so to actually reload the gun.  The last array I don't think I could have entered any sensible way with more rounds in the gun as my order of engagement made me take 4 shots at 2 paper targets and left me with 7 shots for 6 mini poppers.  

Stage 1 was a ridiculous standards stage, 3 strings, start in 1 of 3 back boxes and finish in the front box.  Freestyle/Freestyle, Freestyle / Strong Hand, Freestyle / Weak hand.  I had 7 mikes, which was actually average.  A raw time of 57 was about 9 seconds off the leader, same points.  My performance here buoyed me through tanking stage 5.  It's amazing to think a hitfactor of 2.11xx was enough to secure 3rd for production on this stage, but whatever.  I had a hard time staying loose/relaxed and shooting my sights for whatever reason, especially after the reload.  I'm pretty confident most of my mikes were from shooting left handed.  

 

Stage 2 - I was a little skittish taking headshots on the upper bit of the Classic target so I took my time, especially after the mikes on stage 3.  My movement through this wasn't as smooth as it should have been.  I didn't spend a lot of time walking through it and our squads were big (15 or so) so it was tough to get a "full speed" walk through, as a result I was about 2 seconds behind the guy who I believe won the stage for production.  I'm starting to realize recognizing acceptable sight pictures for each target is costing me time.  I'm over aiming at a lot of my targets, especially hoser stuff.  

Stage 3 -  Unloaded table start, mags on table.  The stowing magazines went OK.  charging the gun went OK, and the reload from the table went well.  Movement was pretty good getting to the front shooting area.  The 3 windows we had to shoot from caused awkward leans.  THere are 2 more paper targets I could have taken from the initial shooter box at about 12 yards, but it would have caused a standing reload in the box, it took a while to find the targets and I over aimed at all of them (approx 8-12 yards)

Stage 4 - This went OK for me.  The left array was particularly crowded, I could have engaged one of the targets from the initial shooters box at about 12 yards and saved one of the leans.   Kind of had to get into the boxes to access the targets.  The targets from the center window were at approx 25-30 yards, did well on those one 2A, two A close C, and one A D (lucky mike, heh).  

Stage 5 - Tried to shoot my sights on this one and over aimed a good bit.  Rob Romero of 3GN fame was there and he recommended starting on the short side with the harder lean then transitioning to the strong side lean as it's easier to reload the gun moving to your strong side, and he recommended drawing on the second target and starting moving "shooting out of" the position.  At this point I had my stage plan and just went with it.  On the 5th target from the first side I dropped a shot for a 2A NS (didn't call it), then first target on the support side I called a mike onto the NS and took 3 to save the mike.  I definitely over aim at partials, next week I'm going to shelf my dots drill and rail on some partials at different distances.  

 

Big take aways-

- Work on shooting while moving - dropped too many charlies doing this on 3-5 yard targets. 

- Work on shooting partials

- Insist on more time walking the stages to get a few full speed runs in, it really helps me visualize the stage having run it at full speed.  Tough to do in the congo line environment, but I need to figure it out.  Not that I didn't have adequate time, just that I didn't hold up the line long enough to get a full speed run in.  

- A little more respect for steel than I've been giving it.  

- Continue to emphasize movement between shooting positions.  

- Cleats are awesome. 

 

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Heavy is the head that wears the crown, #13 in the nation (in C class) as of today's database roll 006d6b978e35147d156944effcd8cfce.jpg


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8/22/16

 

Just an update, I went back and looked, since I started logging my practice back on 6/9 I've completed 

approx 22 hours in dryfire, which is nearly dead nuts with what my regimented practice should be

Rounds in live fire is over 3100, which exceeds my practice goals.  

 

GA state section is sunday afternoon for me, so I'm feeling pretty good with where I am.  I'll get at least 4 more days in dryfire, maybe some doubles, and one more 200 round practice session on a lunch break. 

 

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Don't overdo it on the dry fire inside of three days of the match. Give your hands and arms time to recover.

Ask me how I know.

I'll be on stage two working Sunday, come say hello!

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Will do Tyler. Saw you have a pretty strong finish at Nats, look forward to getting your impressions of the match


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The 2016 USPSA Georgia State Section is in the books and I had a strong outing.  I’m still pretty new to the game (3 months or so in) and I got a good result, I had a commanding win in C class (arguably sandbagging, but not enough classifiers on the books to start dropping flubbed ones) and 33/124 at 72.22%. The results here:

https://practiscore.com/results/24822?q_class=0&q_category=0&q_division=5

I was 72.22% of Sal Luna (#7 at this years Production Nationals).  I would have been 5/35 in B class and 9/23 in A class. I watched that guy shoot a couple stages, he’s an animal.  Really good for me to see that.   

It is my intention to win B class (or A if all of a sudden I start shooting A classifiers) at Area 6 Championships in 2017.  As it sits the guy who won B class was about 15 seconds faster than me with about the same points.  I felt like I did get nearly the most out of my current level of skill, I really am quite pleased with my performance and where I feel like I am as a shooter.  To have “won” B class, I really need to tune up my long field course strategies/execution.  Comparing my times to the B class winners time, the other 7 courses of fire I actually beat him by 7 points on the more “execution stuff” but the pendulum more than swings the other way as I hemorrhage points on the long field courses (11 of the 15 second difference is on 3 stages Watching some vids of the Ms/GMs I know from the match I made some goofy decisions that cost me time. 

That said some general items:

-       -   Transition speed – I need to be driving the gun harder in transition.  Good bit of time to pick up here

-       -   Split time – I need to develop confidence to run the gun faster on stuff from 5-10 yards and not take 2 hard sight pictures as I am currently, just index with a good hold then observe my sights lift twice and ensure hits.  I know through practice that I can do this but it’s not automatic yet.

-     -     My reloads are a little slow – need to increase my hand speed down from the gun to the magazine. 

-     -     My match draw is not at all as refined as my practice draw.  I’m slow bringing the gun up and read the sights a little too long, probably at least a 10th per stage on that. 

-    -      Burning down the footspeed, this probably goes hand in hand with my reloads. I am capable of faster, I just need to practice moving from box to box more (tough to do in a single car garage which is basically what I practice in).  I am going to start trying some Olympic lifts to develop foot speed (and general fitness because that’s not a bad thing)

-     -     I’m starting to move with more conviction and confidence, but it’s not quite there yet.  Seeing Sal Luna run a couple stages really helped me.

Stage specific booboos

-   -     Stage 11 I lumped in the 3rd to last target as I entered the last position engaging at 10 yards when there was no compelling reason to do so.  Cost me points and time as I threw a CM on that target and it probably cost me a second (at least).  The stage plan was not great coming into the last 3 positions, I should have kept it simpler.

-  -      Stage 1 – I did OK on this one, but I got out of sequence on how I should have engaged the targets, leaving the first 2 arrays to catch the garget at the back left by the barrels I should have taken him as quickly as was responsible, then immediately transitioned onto the 5th target in the first array, when the gun got there I should have planted and shot it then immediately swung back onto the 3 hoser targets and taken them on the move (I posted up and “burned” them down which I think was slower.) 

-  -      Stage 2 I didn’t have any stand out errors, stage plan seemed OK, but running steel arrays with confidence is a big piece of what the M’s can do and I’m just not there. I am hoping a better front sight will improve my hold on steel and tuxedos).

-  -    Stage 3 only thing I could have done better was to hit 2 alpha on the clamshell, there might be a little room for improvement on splits and transitions, though I seem to be swinging the gun around alright. 

-  -      Stage 4 – Crushed it.  (Chrono, thanks Patrick @ Cook Ammunition LLC (go to facebook and buy match ammo from him, tell him David sent you and that you agree that David’s shadow trigger is nicer than his, I’m not sure that works as a discount code.  He’s offering a 147 9mm minor load, a 124 JHP match load.)

-  -      Stage 5 -  I spent about 3 seconds scanning targets I already shot, this was a programming error and the biggest one I had all day.  I need to work on my crow hops into setups where a quick shuffle is the way to go vs trying to grapevine which is what I basically did.  Through looking at other folks match vids there were some good ideas on engaging these targets that I just didn’t do.  That’s stage breakdowns and that’s experience.

-  -      Stage 6 – Very minor – I shot out of position which took away my space to reload, I should have stayed planted longer so the gun would be up and ready to fire by the time I got in position, I could have maybe done a half second or so better.  Draw took too long, but there’s maybe a tenth or two there.

-   -     Stage 7 – Executed my plan well enough – it was just a pretty lousy plan.  (Lean over the barricade) probably a couple seconds on the table there.  Should have gone Left center right. 

-    -    Stage 8 – reading sights a little bit too long in the first array, didn’t turn on enough of my footspeed – needed to get a few more full speed walkthroughs – one of the guys in our squad really was screwing up my walkthroughs at this point and I started getting frustrated. 

-  -      Stage 9 – My reloads not being crisp hurt me a lot on this one as my feet got me into position 2 or 3 times before the reloads were complete.

-   -     Stage 10 – I ran the gun to slide lock inadvertently, this cost me a second or maybe a little bit more as I came into position with the gun up, mag seated and the slide locked back, pulled the trigger on a locked back slide, then released the slide and went about my business.  I didn’t turn on my footspeed on this one either.

Things to celebrate –

-  -      My plans weren’t terribad. Some seemed to be OK. 

-  -      My points were pretty good, despite 3 mikes for the day (2 into hard cover and 1 where I was too deep into position to get a good shot on a target on my first stage [and went first, mind])

-   -     I took 5/124 on the port hole stage because I saw Sal Luna grab the rope on the porthole in such a way that you could wail on the targets with both hands.  Whatever, I’ll take it!

-   -     Stage finishes typically ranged from 65ish-80ish percent of the match division winner. 

-   -     With my level of participation so far, I can’t really ask for a better finish, I think I understand how to go forward and I look forward to improving what really needs it.  (that said, I was under classified and won C class, maybe they’ll send a check?  Who knows.)

-  -      I beat a couple guys I used to shoot IDPA with who consistently beat me and I know are better shooters than I, but don’t practice USPSA.  Goes to show that the skill set isn’t exactly identical (set ups, position entry/exit much different)

Edited by ArrDave
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Glad you were happy with your performance. The more matches you shoot against really solid people the better benchmark you have for your performance. Being in AZ we have a LOT of people to benchmark against and it really helps. You always know what a 100% on any given stage would be no matter who is shooting.

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  • 2 weeks later...

Back in the swing of things.  I put all my match video into Shot Coach and saw where I'm wasting time.  I'm about 8 months out from Area 6.  I seem to think I'll be a "B" for Area 6 but guys I shoot with are voting toward "A".  Analyzing the standings for GA State, I can see where the guy who won B really got me - the long field courses.  Those were by far my biggest issue - the rest of the match being medium and short course stuff me and the guy who won were level for the most part, with me pulling ahead 7 match points though those 7 stages, but when you DO count the rest of the stages (which you obviously do, lol)  he jumps WAY in front by 60 match points, which boils down to 20+ match points per stage.  

On my field courses I did several things "wrong" and most of them were due to being new-ish to the USPSA game. 

- Picked out silly arrays - several forced needless wide transitions and did not net an easier shot (one of these apiece on Stage 1 and 11)

-  Miked Steel - netted me nearly 2 seconds on 1 stage in make ups - the mikes happened settling into a new position and not letting the sights settle in.

- Doing a better job of figuring out shooting in vs. shooting out.  I made the wrong call about half the time.  

- Figure out carnival arrays better (stage 11), threw in a bunch of needless gun swinging, should have gone L to R. 

- Generally just figure out the most efficient way for me through the stages.

- remember when "center of what's available" is advantaged over 2 Alpha.  

 

So that's all the stage planning stuff - the skill stuff I can do a better job on in Dryfire 

- Snapping from target to target faster - this is less obvious in my first or even sometimes second shooting position, but in longer stages it becomes obvious in my 3/4/5 positions as I leisurely point the gun at several targets.  

- Reloading faster - there were several times when I was in position but the gun wasn't ready - spicier reloads are required.

- Except when foot speed is more important than reloads, - one long stretch of running I didn't immediately start running on I got my reload finished THEN started running, probably should have put more priority on the movement.

- shooting on the move - I shoot too slowly on 3-5 yard targets doing this, gotta stay lower and keep legs bent.  

- Points were pretty good - in the ball park for the top production guys

- do a better job "seeing what I need to see" with respect to hoser stuff- some close in stuff I took two slow sight pictures on when i should have just cut the target in half and let it eat.

 

Hitting the fundamentals hard in dry fire again - back to shooting my dots at 15'.  Looking forward to the next club match.  

 

Between the skills and stage break down, I think the stage break downs hurt me the most on the long field courses, 

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  • 2 weeks later...

9/18/16

So training so far is going well for Area 6 a solid 7-8  months away, LOL.   I've been hitting reloads hard in dry fire and while it's boring to hyper focus on one aspect of the game, I'm starting to notice big gains.  Consistency is improving.  I'm isolating my issue, initially it was the mag grab on the belt.  Then it was isolating how my left arm moved with the magazine, I realized that (for me) I need to basically eliminate wrist movement extracting the mag from the belt and bringing it to the magwell and let it all come from my shoulder and elbow, and now finally we're on to getting the angle of the gun exactly the same and in the same place every time.  Hand goes down super fast to the magazine but comes up in a more controlled and efficient manner.  Another week on reloads and we'll move on to transitions. I'm starting to reliably (and honestly) hit the "Reloads" drill from the Stoeger book in the 5 second par time.  Doing a variant from the Quick Step drill I can have the gun going back onto target as my feet are settling moving across the box.  In other words: It's working.  Practice works, imagine that. 

Next match is slated for 10/2, really looking forward to it. 

 

In other news, I've started honestly looking at my CZ75B vs. SP01 Shadow custom.  the 75B had the action polished by me (and it's pretty smooth) with the Cajun SRS 2 kit (basically springs and a ext FP).  The SP01 Shadow has the full monty (hammer, disco, springs, pro polish job)There is basically no difference in my performance with either gun. I actually kind of prefer the faster cycling of the 75B slide, for the same splits I feel like I get more time aiming.  The sights settle in just as easily for me.  The recoil impulse feels muted more with the SP01, sure, partially because of the heavier dust cover, but also the slide moves slower so for the same ammo it doesn't feel as sharp.  To somebody who knows how to grip again, it's largely an academic difference.  BIGGEST complaint is reaching the mag release on the 75B.  They really need the bigger D shape mag release stock on them.  The upswept beavertail and relieved trigger guard would be nice too, but I'm less convinced it's a necessity.  

 

 

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  • 2 weeks later...

9/30/16

Welcome back shooting fans.  I managed to squeeze in not one but two weeks of vacation since the GA State section.  I’ve been pretty good on my practice.  I’ve really been hammering reloads pretty hard and secondly focusing on transition speed.  The match this weekend is a 760 point / 152 rounds on 6 stages including the classifier CM03-05 Paper Poppers. 

Since you last tuned in my 72.22% major match performance goosed my classification to B class at like 63% or something.  Looking at the times and having dry fired the classifier some this morning, I have a good chance of pulling an A or potentially an M.  I guess we’ll let the front sight sort that out. 

Practice update – despite basically 2 weeks off I still was able to clock 4.5 hours of dry fire and 750 rds live fire since my last match.  Meeting my practice goal.  Weather forecast is looking good for Sunday.  Can’t wait to get out there.

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10/4/16

 

That’s with raw video, I’ll upload my shot coach video later. 

 

Post Match Update

 

Well the match was fun.  It was all turtle targets save for the classifier so my accuracy wasn’t quite what I’d want.  I still think that I had 3 “C”s recorded on stage 1 as “D”s (I checked all my targets but did NOT walk with the score keep and review my score prior to submission, so shame on me) but the match went pretty well. 

 

Started on a standards stage with a bunch of wide transitions, it went pretty well.

 

From there we went to the Classifier CM 03-05 Paper Poppers.  The procedure is there are 2 arrays, one is 2 paper targets, the other is 6 popper targets.  You may only engage the targets in one array and when moving to the next array there is a mandatory reload.  If you miked a popper and came back to it from the paper then you had to reload again (which one dude did).  I made the decision to draw on the poppers and finish on papers because I felt like it was more efficient in terms of transitioning.  Putting it in shot coach, I probably could have saved 2 tenths or more on my draw if I had drawn to paper.  Reload was 1.6 in a match, which was previously my PR in practice, so that was good, but I gotta get that down closer to 1-1.2.  Transitions on steel were avg about .35, which I could probably shave a little off of, but that was as fast as I was comfortable on going (I don’t get to practice on steel often).  As is, I’m looking at about a 78% classifier, which should bring my rating up to 67%...at this rate I’ll be A class before area 6 which kind of goes counter my goal of “winning” b class at area 6.  I’ll have to hit it REALLY hard to win A class if that happens!

 

Next stage was a pretty challenging stage for production because there were no clearly defined shooting positions and at least 3 other guys I watched do the stage did it differently in about the same time (good USPSA stage).  Getting into the low port I was a little too eager on the distant targets and dropped an AM on one target and a D on another.  I didn’t burn it in good in the walk through and hesitated on the reload.  My raw time was actually very good (like half a second off the M who won the stage), but my accuracy was not!

 

Go over to Stage 1 at Cowboy town.  I shot the first 2 arrays REALLY slowly for whatever reason, they were wide open targets for the most part (1 stack I think had a NS on it, but that was it).  Movement was probably a little slow on the decks because I was wearing cleats and that was as fast as I was comfortable moving.  I thought I put the hammer down on run across cowboy town but I really didn’t, I’ve not tried going at a flat sprint with a gun in my hand, so I probably need to do that a little.  Like I said earlier, I got 3 D’s on here that I think were mistakes, but that’s on me for not checking.  I know I had 1 D. 

 

Stage 2 was shoot house – super straight forward  The first 2-3 positions went well, the final position has reinforced the fact I need to spend time on wide transition, my last transition was a second, should have been half that.  Decent points.

 

Stage 3 was an interesting stage, the procedure was “start outside the shooting area” so you could have run it left to right or right to left.  The barricades were such it was advantaged to shoot from right to left and finish with a full mag on the plate rack.  My initial run was CRAP and just before the stage the CRO embedded in our squad said “I’ve never seen it happen, but if you shoot through a target and knock down steel it’s an automatic reshoot” – well I did just that.  In the video you see that right no shoot on the port hole?  I winged him and drilled down a plate – oh yeah, reshoot.  Ended up taking a close 3rd (half a second slower but with better points than #2 to a GM before she busted her knee open and tore of a nail on her strong hand on the standards stage I started on). 

 

All in all reasonably happy with my day.  I had a bunch of buddies who used to shoot IDPA and formed a new shooting sport here locally come check out the match, so my focus wasn’t so hot likely leading to small bits of hesitation.  My reload practice was working as they were completely thoughtless and pretty tidy on video.  I was 83% of the M who won literally every stage in production, which is pretty good considering that M had a pretty strong day and #2 in production.  I think was like 8th overall or something at 68.94% (to an open M, which is pretty good for me) but turnout was light and it was mostly populated with new guys and C’s/B’s.  Usually the match has more M’s, A’s and high B’s.  I did beat a couple open dudes, so that was exciting but I’m sure it’s because their guns weren’t running. 

 

Ended up getting a great deal on a very gently used AccuShadow (with zero holster wear and the bevel into the mag chute is pristine – not a single nick in the paint), which will become my match gun relegating my Shadow to practice/backup duty, so pretty happy about that.  That’s funny considering the condition my Shadow came to me in – which was definitely “well loved”.  It made me a little (very little) sad to begin wearing in the paint on the muzzle going into and out of the holster this morning in dry fire.  C’est la vie for a competition gun.  Then this morning in practice I had a breakthrough in dry fire and was shattering PR times on some drills which makes me hopeful for next month’s match.  This month the name of the game is transition speed.  I’m going to burn in tons of reps with less regard for sights at high speed then in the week prior to the match, dial it back and let vision drive the gun, but I’ve got at least 3 weeks of solid speed building time. 

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  • 3 weeks later...

10/25/16

Doing some testing of my new load and figured I'd give it a chance to try my hand at discerning a difference in practical performance of my different CZ 75 platform guns.  SP01 Accu, SP01 Shadow Custom, 75B (springs & pin), 75 Compact (springs & pin).  The drill is to send a target out to 10 yards take one site picture, run the trigger twice.  

 

My practice gun (SP01SC) has a worn out RS - approx 7k rds since last change.  My Accu Shadow has a pretty fresh RS - approx 1k rds.  Both the compact and the 75B is about halfway through their spec life cycle - which is to say OEM spring weight.  

The drill is simple.  Send a USPSA metric target out to 10 yards, take one sight picture and run the trigger twice as fast as I can.  I repeated this drill 24 times with each gun.  I kept a shot timer on to observe the split times for comparison sake.  With a good grip you should realize 2A's 80%+ of the time.  The point of the drill is to see just how consistently the gun comes back to POA on a big easy target.  I taped a scaled "A" zone on to the IDPA targets I had. I didn't aim hard at the paster in the center of the A zone, just kind of waved the gun up in the A zone, confirmed a red dot in the rear notch and let 'er rip, similar to how I'd shoot a match.  I probably need to index a little bit higher on the A zones - so that's good info for practice.  In matches I find myself "over aiming" at targets at 10 yards when really i can just rip the trigger twice and have a very high probability of 2A's if my initial hold was where it needed to be. The other "bonus" bit of the drill was to watch the front sight bob up and down and attempt to call shots.  i didn't get much done in that regard on this, LOL.

The results were about as you would imagine.  in the order I shot them. 

SP01SC.jpg

SP01 Shadow Custom - Dropped 4 shots outside

SP01Accu.jpg

 

AccuShadow - 8 Shots out (eigth is low  just outside the A, you can't see from this perspective).  I think if I had shot the lighter sprung SP01 second the results would have been different, favoring the Accu.  

75B.jpg

75B - full size 5/48 dropped. 

75C.jpg

75 Compact - 7/48 dropped.  

 

So there you have it.  The SP01 frame, in my hands, doesn't do anything for me on the gun coming back to zero, as evidenced by shooting the 75B about the same.  The ONE difference that is arguably appreciable is the fact my split times on the B guns were .23-.24 running the trigger as fast as I can.  versus .21-.22 on the Shadows.  That's it.  Probably not going to lose you a stage.  

 

I'll make a video compiling the video I took of the 4 guns in recoil and post it as a follow up.  

 

 

 

Edited by ArrDave
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10/28

Well.  My USPSA indoctrination is complete.  I went back and shot the IDPA match I used to help MD last night. I just couldn't get back on board with the IDPA rule set once getting used to the USPSA rules and approach to stage planning.  I recognize the rules are the same to everybody, but I have a hard time going from "what is the most efficient way to engage this position and get to the next position" to "I have to shoot the targets in this prescribed order and only begin doing this thing once this thing is done".  I know lots of dudes who enjoy it and shoot both, but as I discovered last night, i don't think I'm one of those dudes.  I hereby commit to be an ambassador of shooting sports who won't diminish other dude's preferred sport. 

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