Chris iliff

The video of YOU shredding a stage!

No, NEVER YES, ALWAYS AND ..........SMOOTH IS SMOOTHSlow is just slow. Smooth is just smooth. Fast is just fast. That whole first quote saying is just for suckers. Learn to go as fast as you can and get your hits at that speed. MOVE MOVE MOVE

Look, Hit Factor scoring means points divided by time. Soooo, ........ You could shoot ALL THE POINTS AND LOSE. Knowing this, SPEED, in this game, is the one factor that can always be improved upon. You should do everything as fast as possible at all times. This is why in a Manny Bragg class he will scream MOVE MOVE MOVE the instant you fire the last shot on an array.

Don't slow down. Ever That's terrible advice. Never slow down. Learn to shoot at speed and be efficient.

Hey Chris, yes. 115 Rainier JHP's. It's compressed, but not too bad. Brass and primers look really good, but the performance is great. I know guys do it, but it scares me a little. I have never used compressed loads. Thanks for the info.

Noximus03 ^^^^^^^^^^ 115's, right? ^^^^^^^^^ Is that a compressed load?

You know, I'm kidding about the left hand, lol. I'm right handed, left eye dominant, and 6'4". Tall can suck at times, especially at 47 years old and 50 pounds overweight like me!! Good luck.

Well first,......left handed? Can't help you there. Ok, you looked good for the most part and your self critique is spot on. I noticed one thing that stuck out and I think it might get you some time savings. You have a noticeable bobble in your step at the "beep". It is there in almost all the courses where you have movement right after the buzzer. It's an up/down movement kinda, it's there and it's not efficient. Other than that, looking good.

Most smiths use a 17. When primers got hard to get I managed to get some wolf primers. Long story short a 17 will not always light off wolf primers. Soooooo, I put in a 19. This upped my trigger right at an 1/8 of a pound increase, but every round went bang.

Yep, I fought the good fight on this and was an early proponent of PO. It's a sad day when IDPA FIGURES OUT A PIECE OF THE FUTURE MARKET BEFORE USPSA. I actually spoke about this and wanted USPSA TO LEAD ON THE ISSUE, I guess we aren't the cutting edge of handgun sports. Sad sad sad.

Throwing this out there. Steve Anderson will do a class with you live via the Internet on a computer. He has written some of the best books about DRYFIRE and USPSA you can read. Plus, the guy has a gift for analysing and instructing. Might want to give Steve a call, he is towards the top of the vendor area, Anderson Shooting. Also has a podcast that's pretty good, you better like Van Halen though.

Shooting..... Beyond a doubt, it is now John Wick.

Great movie. Best gun handling I've ever seen in a movie. I really enjoyed this movie a lot. I loved the movie Heat and the running gun battle,........this is a bit different. This is almost exclusively up close handgun work with semiautos. The premise is nothing new, ex-hitman dragged back into the game. Good cast, not much talking, all out action with guns. Someone really good with a handgun trained Reeves.........Taran?

Listen to Nimitz and motosapiens.

^^ THIS!!! Makes a 19 second difference in time over a 27 stage match seem even more insurmountable. Actually, I feel the opposite is true. This is why I picked Ben as the man to dethrone the Frenchy. The accuracy is already there. Really, all Ben needs to do is make up .7 over a stage. This is an over simplification, but I believe this is where Ben excels. Breaking down his own shooting and devising the best course forward. I am not sure anyone is better at this and I base that opinion on reading his books and watching his steadfast rise in the shooting ranks. Between the shooters listed, Ben has the least number of years shooting. This hasn't been his life work so to speak. In the relatively short amount of time he has been doing this, he has figured out "how to do it" quicker than his competition figured it out. This isn't something that is learned, it is the one skill that someone will need in order to go toe to toe with EG and get wins consistently. I chose Ben because I believe he has this skill more so than the others mentioned.

I saw this in another thread and found it interesting. I have believed for awhile that Ben is our best bet in beating EG. Eric shot 424 A 70 C 7 D 1 PR 385.56 seconds Nils shot 358 A 108 C 34 D 1M 1 PE 1 PR 380.12 seconds. Ben Shot 423 A 70 C 8 D 404.51 seconds. I Think it speaks volumes about what it's gonna take, and how close Ben is. What say you?

This is really interesting.

Picked up the XDm 4.5" 9mm I won at the Indiana match. It took a bit, but they finally shipped it to my dealer. I was looking around while in the store and found the exact gun in the display case, NIB $529. Hard to beat the deal I got. I'm still tickled with winning the gun. I have never won anything!! I recently bought a new inner and outer belt, so I could set my old one up as a production rig.......I guess, lol......... Like I'll ever shoot that shit, lol.

I don't shoot IDPA, I might have at some point, but the negativity from its own supporters has convinced me not to even try. Besides, I think some of the rules will get you killed in the streets. The streets are dead to me.

Moto I think the "fire more than 2" advice is terrible. If you are "seeing" your shots then there is no reason not to get your hits. Like every target, we can get two A's if we try. I always ambush them at the dwell point, or whatever the point is where they kinda stop before reversing direction. During a Manny Bragg class he explained that he tracks them. Then we practiced doing this. Basically following them with the sights from the moment they are visible through their entire arc. It's different, but with practice it is pretty hard to miss them. At first, following them felt awkward, but I got better at it during the session and can see the merit. I don't have a swinger at home, so burning it in never happened for me. With that said, I still ambush at the dwell point but then kinda track it as it reverses direction and this is where I get my second shot. Either way, good luck and video!

What a great match! Indiana 2014 was awesome and kudos to all that put it on. Jake Marten made it happen and I can only say that I hope he continues putting on these matches. First my crew was great on stage 18...... Chad Boncquet, Justin Shirar, and a new to USPSA shooter named Blake. Good crew and hard workers. If you read the record post above then you probably want to know how I did, or maybe you could give a fat baby crap......either way, I finished 7th Master at 77.098% of Max Michel. I honestly feel that my month of dedicated practice earned me 5 extra percent. There is no way of knowing, but I feel like I just had the best match of my year and closed the gap by several % on Chad and Kurt. Speaking of those two, WOW!!! Chad Boncquet = 1st Master Open Kurt Evans = FIRST "A" Open, AND HE BEAT ALL MASTERS!!!!!!! Simply unbelievable. Highlights? I roomed with a guy that is an amazing Master Open shooter from Ohio and has forgotten more about this stuff than most of us will ever learn.....Bill Seevers. Bill is a great competitor and I am glad to say now that he is my friend. I got to see some great runs and I watched him closely. I had some good runs on several stages, nothing spectacular. I shot 91.75% of all points, which should have been a little higher, but I only had one penalty for the match. I was consistent. People even told me I was consistent, which is a good thing. I was behind the gun and loved what I was seeing and felt several times that my practices paid off! When I learned there might be 15 Master Open shooters I wanted to finish mid pack or higher. Well, I squeaked in at 7th Master and met that goal. OOOPS, ALMOST FORGOT............ I WON A SPRINGFIELD ARMORY XDm-9. !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! AWESOME

Indiana match practice At this point I have shot 2 matches this year. I am signed and paid for the Indiana Section match. I have scrapped up enough money to get one case of bullets from MG. I plan to gun up and prepare as best I can. I am rusty, out of practice, and want to make as good a showing as possible. I have one month. I plan on detailing all practice and seeing what one month of dedication can yield a guy who hasn't shot much in a year or more. I plan on shooting close to 3,000 rounds, ....1,000 per week the last 3 weeks leading up to the match. I haven't got it exactly figured out, but whatever I do, I will write it. It will be posted after the match, good or bad. Aug 6th DRYFIRE entry/exits, shooting on move. Shooting multiple close targets snapping eyes. Move Eyes, find target spot, find dot, repeat. Wide transitions. Aug 7th DRYFIRE reloads, 2 reload 2, moving reloads, reload xfer to WH. Draws, draw xfer to WH, draw to SH. Gun up, eye snapping to targets. From a ready position I pick various objects, keeping the gun up I practice moving my eyes first....... eyes, find the exact target spot, find the dot, repeat. I worked this........eyes, spot, dot, repeat, until my shoulders burned. Reloaded 200 rounds Aug 8th Reloaded 300 rounds Aug 9th Reloaded 200 rounds. Dry fired surrender draw, Relaxed draw, 3 yards, 7 yards, 10 yards. Dry fired table pick ups. Practice moving the eyes first in my DRYFIRE. Match tomorrow at Warsaw. 3rd match of year. Excited to shoot. Aug 10th Shot my 3rd match of the year at Warsaw. Warsaw puts on a very good match, like I expected. I knocked some of the rust off, still some rust left, actually quite a bit. I had some decent stages. I tried a different stage plan (gamed) on one that did not work out. It probably added time, lol. I had a reshoot on my first stage, targets were all pasted and still some spots left on the kindle. This cut into my available ammo, had to borrow some rounds from Rob just to finish. It was a disaster. I will forever bring 250 or more rounds to locals from this day forward. Splitting rounds between two mags, shooting make ups, thinking instead of shooting, it was ugly on my last stage. Very ugly. 1. Keep stage plans simple. Still, somehow managed the HOA. I find this embarrassing actually. All in all, it was a great day. I got to shoot. Aug 12th Gunned up and dry fired. 3, 7, 10 yard draws, sometimes I feel like this is a waste of time. I'm easily below 1sec on these. I do them because I know they are perishable skills and it's a good warm up. Did surrender draws, draw to SH and draw to WH too. Next up it was all position entry and exits. Using the timer for a start beep I varied my distances and angles. Also worked wide transitions. Sometimes I get a bad grip so I used tonight to concentrate on getting a good grip FIRST, then hauling ass and finally decelerating with gun up and ready to shoot ASAP. I am gonna kill position entry and exits for the next month. If I can build up some new found skill on these I will be happy. Haven't exactly nailed down my live fire routine, but it will include a lot of this. Jumped rope Reloaded 200 rounds Aug 13th Dry fired grip. Lots of reps just gripping the gun from hands relaxed. I got to have a more consistent grip moving forward. 2 reload 2. 2 reload xfer WH 2. Draw to WH. Mostly just concentrated on getting a great grip and then lots of reloads. Did not use a timer. Aug 14th Dry fired grip. Not many reps about 20-25 min of DRYFIRE. Again, got to have a better more consistent grip moving forward. Draw, draw to WH, draw to SH, turn and draw. Position entry and exit. Head shots. Always striving for a good grip first on everything I did. Reloaded just about 100 rounds, lol, I ran out of brass. But, no fear, I'm picking up 1000 more tomorrow. Looking at Ben's latest book and trying to formulate a plan from his book for all my upcoming live fire. Whatever I decide it'll be written here. My goal is to show what can be done in one month of concentrated DRYFIRE and a strict live fire routine. I want to crack the top 8 at Indiana. Would love to get on the podium for Master class. I think I have identified my weaknesses and I'm gonna pick 5 and work them. 1. Wide transitions/aggressive transitions 2. Position entry and exit 3. Hits on steel 4. Shooting on move 5. Difficult shots/change ups The whole GRIP thing is one common denominator that helps with all things I listed. I have cussed myself doing each of the above because my grip was off,...more than once. Time to get the grip squared. No more grab and blast. Get the grip, grip, grip first!!!!!!!! Aug 15th Position entry and exits. DRYFIRED grip, draws, surrender draws. Think I had a break through in thinking. If I am thinking "haul ass" I haul ass. If I'm thinking "shoot as soon as possible" I am still hauling ass, but my time to get on target is decreased. Gonna try to change my thinking to "shoot as soon as possible". This takes care of the haul ass. I'm gonna experiment with this. Aug 16th Reloaded 500 rounds Aug 17th Shot Ft. Wayne. What a great match and squad. Kudos to Ryan, Corey, Ralph and whoever else set up this good match. Tons of fun. First stage felt better than anything I shot at Warsaw the week before. Slowly getting in the match groove. Didn't have this matched planned, but glad I threw it in the schedule. I got to shoot with 3 Masters and Kurt. Basically Kurt is a master shooter, so 4 Masters. He is sandbagging "A" class like a pro. If Kurt gets a tad more accurate and develops a little better mental game we are all in trouble. I think I ended 3rd overall and 3rd in open. Kurt the "A" class, schooled three Master Open shooters. Chad was second, and that's with completely Zeroing the classifier. Followed by me in 3rd. I just shot slow. I was off the pace on almost all stages and giving up a couple, to 3-4 seconds a stage is difficult to overcome. My weakness today was makeups on steel. Which is number 3 in my live fire routine listed above. Couple that with some transition work and I'll be well on my way. I can feel myself getting back in the shooting groove and I'm glad I went to Ft. Wayne. I will use this to hone my live fire training for the State Match. I will be ready!!!! 1. Work on hits on steel 2. Work on stand and shoots, transitions (multiple targets across a wide area) 3. Work on SH, WH, shooting. Aug 18th Reloaded 400 rounds Aug 19th DRYFIRED. Mostly worked aggressive transitions and eye snapping. Worked shooting on the move and 2 reload 2. Varied my starts and draws from relaxed to surrender to hands on the wall. Felt good. I need to be aggressive in all my shooting related endeavors. I have a tendency to "let up" through a stage, or even a match. I must remain aggressive throughout!!! Reloaded 200 rounds Aug 20th FINALLY LIVE FIRE SCHEDULE BEGINS!!!! Set up El Weak and Strong Presidente. After running this at Ft. Wayne and totally jacking it up, I decided it was a good classifier to use as practice for SH and WH. Also, it will be my next 100 project classifier. Don't believe I'll be at this one long. Ran it 3 times, 75, 85, and 92%. First two runs had mikes. Last run I purposely slowed it down and got my hits, duh, 92%. Wasn't even pushing. Good to know with no practice and only 4 matches things are coming back. Worked on wide transitions, hits on steel, and position entry and set up. Felt good. Fired 200 rounds and felt practice was very productive. I need a new timer!! Mine is old and wore out. I can't hear the beep, the sensitivity is crap, it records echoes on almost all shots. Thinking the new small ced7000. Aug 21st Reloaded 200 rounds. Arms hurt, elbows hurt, ......getting older sucks. I was hitting it fairly hard and I don't want shooters elbow or any other soft tissue trauma from over use. I am going to take tonight off and not touch the gun. Phil is gonna let me borrow his timer, hopefully it's better than mine. Aug 24th Shot Atlanta today. It was not that good of a performance. I am watching Chad, Kurt and Stump real close. I am consistently 2-4 seconds slower than them. On almost every stage. Short speed shoot stages I am fine on. Hoser type stages they get me every time. Watching Chad I can say that his transitions are very aggressive. German Blitzkrieg over Europe aggressive. In addition, he is moving and shooting targets that I am stopping to shoot. Partials with no shoots 10 yards and closer don't phase him, he is blitzing right through them. Today was a disheartening shooting experience. I have a lot to do before the state match. Aug 25th Went down to the range, 88 degrees, phone says it feels like 103 degrees, humidity 100%. Got a short stage with partials set up, going to work on shooting on the move on partials. Going to work on close targets from the draw, hands on a wall. Also gonna do some transition work. Going to try and do all this incorporated in my little mini stage. One component at a time. Things I diagnosed from the Atlanta match. Well,..........the heavens burst like God was gonna float another ark, I didn't get one shot fired. Ran up to the garage and worked on the close stuff and transitions. Also, surrender draw. I DRYFIRED for about 25 minutes. Not what I wanted, but it is what it is. Fell asleep last night upset about my match performance. Woke up this morning still upset about the same thing. I am now pissed at this rain. Sprinkles, deal with it, but this is monsoonish. Aug 26th FINALLY,!! Got some live fire done, 148 rounds. Very happy with what I accomplished. I needed the reinforcement. I have been conservative at my few matches and tonight I cut loose. Partials on the move no problem. Set up an 11 shot mini stage and worked it left to right and right to left. I started With my match mode mentality and was close to 9 seconds. Quickly pushed the envelope and was right down in low low 6's. Hell yeah. It was rocking. I loved it. Was gonna do 200 rounds but it started raining AGAIN. WILL CONTINUE WORKING THE GOOD STUFF. GOOD STUFF. Aug 28th More live fire, 200 rounds. Started with 5 Bill Drills, went from a first completely cold run of 2.15, right into the 1.80's with the last two at 1.84 and 1.83. Moved on to working on very wide transitions and was surprised at how difficult this was to get below .75. Most runs right at .80's. Worked it left to right and right to left. Next up was some group shooting, nothing special, worked at about 11 yards. I then loaded up some magazines and worked on arrays across a wide area. Two partials, a 7" plate and then two open targets. I liked this because I feel it is an area of weakness for me. I tend to kinda be lazy in situations like this, just shooting. Tonight I DROVE the gun from target to target and stayed aggressive through the whole array. I saved ten rounds and worked on 50yards. Happy to say I am 4 for 10 in the A zone. All my hits were on the paper (metric, head target). Well, not happy, but I'll do this more, striving for 10 A's. Aug 30th 200 rounds.. Partials and transitions. I sweat my ass off, don't know how productive it was, but I got better times on my drill as it went. 5 days=748 rounds. Good stuff. Going to keep working. Indiana State right around the corner. Sep 2nd Ground Hornet training. Part of my new cardio workout. I went down to range tonight, get this.......stood on a ground hornet nest. This was not good! Took two stings to get my full attention, then as I looked down, pure panic set in. I must have had 30 or more of the angry things on my legs. Thank God I wore pants and had a hat. I started running and sweeping them off with my hat. I made it to the house without my shirt and hornet free. I got whacked by the little bastards only 4 times and count myself lucky. Worse was ring finger of my strong had. It swelled and hurt like a dickens. Hence, I ended up just going some DRYFIRE in the house. After dark, I waged war on those little demons and introduced them to what I like to call, a ground Molotov cocktail!! I know certain bees are getting scarce, but these little bastards were evil mean. Didn't want to take a chance of one of my kids accidentally getting into them, or anyone else for that matter. Sep 3rd This ain't going good. I should have over 1500 rounds down range. As of tonight's 200, I have 948 total. Not bad, but I wanted more. I'm trying, but things sometimes just don't work out, lol....... Dug up hornet nest, man it was huge.....all dead. Too bad suckers! Ok, so tonight was a good 200 rounds of SH and WH practice. I push a little left when shooting WH, easily corrected. Practice was good. I used paper partials and 8" plates all at 8 to 12 yards. Did draws and arrays. Sep 6th A little over 200 rounds. Worked on shooting on the move at partials and a plate at about 13 yards. Worked on partials at 20 yards and got in some reload practice on several runs. I really loved tonight's practice. Things were clicking and the dot was always were I wanted it. Wish I had some comparisons, like Chad or Kurt, so I could get a real good idea on my times. I also worked on the A zone at 7 yards, one shot draws are right at 1 sec. I'm slipping in the stand and shoot stuff, lol. They are fun. Sep 8th. Shot roughly 120-150 rounds. Nice 6 round transition drill. Worked on speeding up the transitions with some success. Also worked 8" steel plates at 18 yards. Worked draw to partial at 7-8 yards,.....got the A @ 1.15 average. For fun I did one shot draws to my plate machine at 25 yards. Consistently in the 1.90s, got down in the 1.70's on a few. Went 3 for 3 starting, then got cocky and missed 3 in a row, then smoothed it up and went into the 1.70's to finish that up. Finished with head box at 30+ yards. Sep 9th I have practiced 24 times in the last month. I feel that I'm a better shooter. I am anxious about the Indiana Match. I really want to see where I stand. I chrono'd my rounds tonight. I chose 6 at random and individually they were all above 170PF. My average was a PF of 173.4. I only shot about 1250-1350 rounds, which isn't quite half of what I intended, but the quality was high. I think it will be fine! Tomorrow after work I drive south! It will be what it will be. I'm excited.

I would buy a good two part epoxy, clean the hell out of the grip with alcohol then smear the epoxy on, filling it in. I use to build my grip up using this. I went away from the practice, but could see how this could be used to smooth it up. The stuff I used was sanded easily. I would shape the crap out of it and then use skate tape. Worked great. I gotta have a pic somewhere. I'll see if I can post it.

so I do it, but I don't think I do it correctly or I would have been a GM class by now I thought that was relatively snarky of me, so I deleted it, ......but not before you captured it in a quote. My shame captured forever. There are no secrets. GM class is there for the taking.

First get "With Winning in Mind" by Lanny Bassham. Second,....3rd person mind video is easier than 1st person. 3rd person=you watching yourself from a distance. 1st person = you seeing the exact things you would see, ie.... Arms extended, pistol, etc...... Like the camera was your own eyes. 1st person is harder, but better. Try to do it in first person. Next, walk the stage and see it all, every target, wall, barrel etc. when you have sufficiently memorized the stage, you are almost there. Now run this movie in your head. Exactly what you will do, see every position as you enter it, every target as you shoot it, watch your sights rise and fall, make your "head movie" as accurate as you can. The more details the better. Repeat this at least 7-10 times before you shoot. Edited to add........DONT USE ANY WORDS IN YOUR MIND MOVIE. JUST SEE WHAT YOU WANT TO DO AND DO IT. Hard to explain, but read the book and you'll get it.