saibot
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Posts posted by saibot
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Kind of a slacker day for me today, didn't touch a pistol. Read Sean Gaines' excellent post and spent some watching the YouTube videos he posted with examples of great footwork. I spent a little time comparing those with my videos and found some big areas for improvement to work on. I need to GET MOVING SOONER!
I hope my elbows, wrists, and hip feel better tomorrow. (Who am I kidding? I'll be back at it tomorrow regardless). So close to B class!
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Match (10.26.13)
I made it out to Dundee today for a USPSA match which was Halloween themed since it's right around the corner. The Glock is starting to feel a little more natural now and let me focus more on just shooting than the last pistol match I shot, which a first with the G34. I shot very consistent today and didn't have any major mistakes. My shot calling has suffered since I do a lot of dry fire and not much live fire and I didn't notice I shot into the black on a target earning me a Mike. One stage had you start with a Trick or Treat pumpkin filled with candy and you had to carry it the entire stage. I didn't realize the awkward position which made reloading almost impossible so I ate some serious time. Other than that, I shot everything else pretty well and with a reshoot on the classifier I shot just under an A. Still not enough to push me to B class, but dang close. Most of my reloads were really fast and I didn't miss any the entire match. All in all, a really fun match!
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I have 49,000 rounds on a Glock with a Vanek trigger and a Jager striker and not one issue with the trigger, striker or pistol yet.
That's good to hear since I have the same setup. How much dry fire do you have on that system? Do you use a snap cap?
Thanks
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Dry fire (10.25.13)
Since my elbows and wrists are staring to show some wear I intended to take it easy tonight but wound up having too much fun and spent 1.5 hours dry firing. I started with my usual, a couple of "stages" cold to see how it goes like that since I usually start a match in that state. The first run was pretty bad, the second better, and by the third I was cooking. I need to learn to cook on the first cold run. Not sure how to go about that, open to suggestions!
I did the first dozen drills of Steve Anderson's book and mixed in a few of my own. I then set up two shooting boxes about 15' apart with a single target in front of each. I would draw and "shoot" two rounds, move to the second box and "shoot" two on the second target. It was pretty ugly at first but I worked on starting to move as I was shooting the last shot on the first target and the breaking the shot as I was stepping into the second box and was able to consistently do it in 3.4 seconds. Great drill! I hope all of these little efficiencies stick with me on match day.
I finished up with running the same two stages I started out with and was hit and miss since I was getting tired and needed to eat some Alieve. Looking forward to tomorrow's match! I hope my lack of live fire isn't going to burn me too badly.
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practicing some vision drills to pull my focus back to the front sight with both eyes open while seeing only one fuzzy target. I think if I can start shooting with both eyes open it's going to be the biggest improvement I'll make this year.
...beat.
That is great, dude, I am glad to read that retraining for both eyes open seems promising for you. My last biggest improvement in shooting was vision-related too. I love vision!
Man it's tough! It's just so ingrained in me to close an eye to get a hard focus on the front sight. With both eyes open I don't seem to be able to get a hard focus on the inside front sight without creating two targets. I just need to spend more time on it I guess. I wasn't going to change anything before tomorrow's match, but will start hitting this hard soon.
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Dry fire (10.24.13)
I spent 1.5 hours dry firing this evening. I started out cold running a couple of stages which are definitely not as good as when I'm warmed up, but good to know. I did the Seeklander A and B drills, then practiced some transition drills. Did a bunch of El Prez and made up some draw, shoot, reload drills for fun. Ran the same two stages with much better times. I noticed I was standing still to do a reload before moving to the final position and tried it where I started moving as I fired the last shot and reloaded on the move to the next position, and hot damn, knocked two seconds off the time! I need to remember to always do that. I'm beat. And my form was getting sloppy so I called it and spent the last few minutes shooting on the move and practicing some vision drills to pull my focus back to the front sight with both eyes open while seeing only one fuzzy target. I think if I can start shooting with both eyes open it's going to be the biggest improvement I'll make this year.
...beat.
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Dry fire (10.23.13)
Since we were running the press tonight I didn't get much time to dry fire, maybe 30 minutes if that. Practiced my draw a bit, lots of reloads, stepping reloads, some El Prez and some more reloads. I started missing more than I was nailing since I'm pretty beat. But some dry fire practice is better than no practice at all.
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Live fire (10.22.13)
I had an unexpected opening in my schedule and the weather was amazing so I ran out for a quick range session today. Although I relish any chance I get to shoot and train, when a last second range trip pops up it isn't usually super productive since I don't go with a solid training plan and probalby get less out of the trip than I could have. I setup 3 6" plates about a yard apart and a single USPSA target with some pasters. I shot some groups two handed, strong hand, and weak hand. I moved back to 25 yards and hit the steel with an 80% hit rate (lame). I shot slow fire at 25 yards with my typical load and once with a test load (shorter load, JHP). The new load is grouping MUCH better so I'll play with the seating depth and see how that works.
I worked on some 2/reload/2 drills then some El Prez drills on the steel, and some variations on those. I noticed that my hit rate has dropped pretty badly and I'm having a hard time getting a hard front sight focus. Dry fire training scars?
Dry fire (10.22.13)
I spent about 1.5 hours dry firing tonight, starting with a couple of stages I setup instead of running drills first that way so I have a better idea how I'll perform cold. Next was the Stoeger A drills and C drills. Then a couple of stages again and some shooting on the move.
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jdphotoguy, thank you for updating this for us.
...getting closer.
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Dry fire (10.21.13)
I spent 2 hours dry firing tonight starting with a bunch of draws, then did the Seeklander A drills (draws) and the Seeklander B drills (reloads), adding a bunch of extra reps along the way. Then setup and ran though a couple of stages for a while, and wrapped up with shooting on the move, with some reloads thrown in for good measure. One thing I did differently this session was tried shooting with both eyes open. It feels so darn strange and I had to put tape on my lens to even be pointing at the right target. OrigamiAK had some great info for me to try and some vision drills to work on which I'll start doing. He's a genius.
On a side note, the results from this weekend's match came out and I managed to take 7th overall out of 29 shooters which is very good for me, especially considering I had some serious issues on the first stage since my hands were cold. Looks like all of the dry fire is staring to help a little.
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When shooting iron sights I always close my non-dominate eye, regardless of distance. I've tried a few times in dry fire to open them both and it's a disaster, there is just too much data to process and I don't know which target or dot is the correct one. So my question is, is this holding me back? Any GM's out there who only shoot with one eye open? If this is a known issue to progress any ways to fix it, or am I going to have to move to open and get a dot?
Thanks, guys!
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Match (10.20.13)
I shot the "Outlaw USPSA" match at my club today. We lost our USPSA charter because of a muzzle of berm rule at our club that USPSA didn't like. So it's a 4 stage match with no classifier (bummer). Anyway, they tend to be larger field stages with lots of targets and steel, and targets at some longer distances.
In a lapse of judgement I tried some ProGrip for the first time before shooting the first stage. The stuff works very well, but I really threw me off because I couldn't slide my hand into position and it took me a second to recover and get started. I know better. Like the old saying goes, never change anything before a match, except maybe your underwear. It was also in the forties this morning any my hands were cold and like bricks. Between the ProGrip and the frozen hands I couldn't seem to hit the darn magazine release button so I wound up standing still trying to get a mag out. Meh. Happened twice that stage and I also had a failure to go into battery with the new Glock. Speaking of which, this the first match with the new pistol and I really like it already. The accuracy is noticeably better than with my previous pistol.
The second stage was a little better than the first, but not by much. After that I was warmed up and starting shooting to my ability. I hate the "two stage warm up" BS that I seem to have.
I also reverted back to some of my old ways instead of the nice refined, new and improved methods that I've been doing in dry fire. I guess my old bad habits are pretty deeply ingrained. I noticed that I wasn't really calling my shots and getting a good sharp front sight focus which I can attribute to dry fire errors. I'll have to keep working on that.
But overall, I'm happy with the new pistol and the dry fire is showing some improvement. I just need to mix in more live fire practice to keep things in check. Eager to see the match results!
A couple of highlights from the match worth mentioning. I did a fair amount of shooting on the move and had the gun up and ready to shoot while entering positions (mostly). I also tried to leave while shooting, typically a close/easy target. Trying to always be shooting. I think my movement helped even out my slow, frozen hand shooting. My steel shooting was also better than usual. We had 2 or 3 Texas stars and a plate rack. Lots of poppers and mini poppers. I also picked realistic stage plans and stuck to them, which helped on one tricky stage where at least a third of the shooters wound up running back to clean up a mini-popper.
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Dry fire (10.19.13)
Session 1 - 1 hour
Feeling a little demoralized from last night's dry fire session I hit it again this morning really focusing on perfect form and going slowly. Once I was satisfied with how I was moving and my sight alignment I sped things up and was getting a good consistent draw with perfect sight alignment at full extension (and just a little prior). Still not fast, clocking in at around 1.2 seconds, but I'll work on that once the motion is subconsciousness. I worked on reloads a bit and then on the Ben Stoeger transition drill. Good day for it, and I was a full .5 seconds faster than last time I did it, and with good hits. I think the better draw is helping me out here. I'll have to tune up tonight and in the morning before tomorrow's match.
Dry fire session 2 - 1.5 hours
Still working on my draw which is getting better. I did the Stoeger movement B drills for a while then did some of the drill from his dry fire book. I worked on the El Prez a bit then created a couple of stages and ran through them. Lots of close/far targets and lots of reloads. I didn't nail them all, but today they were going in like butter. Let's hope all of this translates into better live fire in my next match. I did notice that I'm getting pretty sloppy on the distant head shots so I'm really having to slow way down and focus on the CENTER of the front sight.
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Dry fire (10.18.13)
I spent about 45 minutes trying to lock in my draw with varied success. Not as consistent as yesterday which is pretty frustrating to say the least.I didn't start until after 9:00 so maybe I'll chalk it up to being tired. I'll try it again tomorrow morning to see what that does for me. I did all of the Seeklander A drills then did some reloading drills. I finished up with running a couple of "stages."
Overall rating of meh...
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Before each match I used a nylon chamber brush and scrubbed the heck out of the chamber then applied a liberal amount of Slip 2000. Once I started that ritual it ran flawlessly with whatever ammo I fed it.
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Dry fire (10.17.13)
I had a big day of dry fire over a couple of sessions. Session one was for about an hour and a half and session two was for an hour. Well it really paid off and I had quite the breakthrough with my draw. Before my second session I watched the Seeklander DVD and noticed that the instant the gun is extended he breaks the shot. I don't know how that never resinated with me before, but I started thinking about that and realized to do that you'd have to have perfect sight alignment at full extension and that only comes with perfect NPA which only comes from getting a perfect grip on the pistol. I started paying attention to where the sights were when I extended the pistol and rotated my grip on the pistol until the sights would come up in perfect alignment every time. After what seemed like a thousand draws I had my grip nailed down and was able to replicate it consistently. I'm pretty darn excited to play with this grip, where I come strait down with my hand forming a "U" on the beavertail. It's hard to describe, but in essence, my hand is rotated a little more counter-clockwise than I'm used to doing. I'm anxious to try it out in live fire to see if it's a disaster durning recoil or not. But I'm optimistic.
I also worked on my transitions with a couple of drills to help improve my speed since it's probably the biggest bottleneck to my performance right now. I used some 1/3rd size USPSA targets for the Ben Stoeger transition drill where they start touching and you establish a par time. Then you start moving them apart and still hit the par time. I started modifying it and adding more targets and on and on...
Did a bunch of reloads and some strong hand, weak hand shooting as well. Dang good day of dry fire!
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Dry fire (10.16.13)
Pretty light since I spent most of my cycles reloading 1k rounds of 9mm. But I did manage to work on my draws a little and cut some of the grip tape off my grip to restore my reloads. I worked on my NPS and adjusted my grip until I could draw with my eyes closed and the sights would be on target when I opened my eyes. I've been rebuilding my fundamentals from the ground up so it's been slow going. My reloads started to get better once I was warmed up a little.
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Live fire (10.15.13)
I shot 205 rounds on a handful of drills. Started out shooting groups at 7 yards, freestyle, strong hand, weak hand. Plate at 25 yards, and head shots at 25 yards, again, working on accuracy. Shot the Frank Garcia drill at 5 yards with 1.5" dots. Shot a bill drill, and the four aces drill on a head.
Then I tried setting up 3 targets at 7 yards (or maybe 10?) and tried to shoot by cadence to see if I could speed up my transitions. After some self analysis it seems that my transitions are one of my weakest points and I'm looking to speed that up significantly. Instead of bang, bang...bang, bang...bang, bang, I want hear bang, bang, bang, bang, bang, bang. I got down to 2.60 with my splits close to my transitions but I was really shooting out of control at that point and got a couple of C's. Draws were pretty slow at around 1.40 with a few down to 1.19 range. Not great.
I also had a couple of FTF's from the Glock. I think it was due to me hitting the slide stop on accident.
All in all, a pretty crumby day of practice. I took the night off and didn't dry fire.
Meh...
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Thanks, OAK. It's been quite the learning experience. Somewhat frustrated with the pace, but just trying to be patient and keep at it. I often feel like I just started but getting some of the little things figured out. Hope I can shoot like you one of these days!Saibot,
Congratulations on jumping into the river and getting on the ride. Rejoice at all the self-awareness and technical ability you will enjoy!
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Speed should never be a goal. Speed is a result of doing things correctly and fluidly. If you are not doing things correctly, adding speed is counterproductive. Development of speed happens when you take your time quickly.
If you are not seeing your sights, but still shoot well you could either be point shooting, or that you simply don't remember that you saw your sights. You may have seen them correctly, but for some reason, likely because you were focussed mostly on speed, your conscious mind doesn't recall it. Try moving back to 15 yards and shooting the exact same way as you do at 7. If the size of your group is less than twice the size of your group at 7, chances are your seeing the sights and not remembering them. If your group is twice the size as at 7, chances are you're just point shooting and never got a proper sight picture. If it's larger, then you're likely target obsessed and need to recalibrate your attention back to your sights.The remedy is different depending on what the problem is, but lets go on the assumption that you are not getting a sight picture, as you suspect.
Go back to slow practice.
1 - Look at your target and zoom in on your intended POI. As you move your hand down to your weapon and establish your grip, and also move your support hand to a fist on your chest, you should be shifting the focal point of your eyes to the point in space that the front sight will occupy when you are at full presentation.
2 - As you draw your weapon from the holster you should be visualizing the arc and angle the weapon will take from the holster through the air to full presentation. You should strive for your front sight to follow this path from your holster to the point of full presentation and meet in the spot that you shifted your focus to. It is very important to visualize the arc in space the front sight will travel through, and then train slowly on this until you find yourself doing this without having to think about visualizing the arc.
3 - The moment that your front sight enters your peripheral vision, begin tracking its motion through the arc. Dont look directly at the front sight, but mentally tack its location as it moves into the center of your vision. As the front sight moves through the arc, steer the gun so that the rear sights line up properly with the front sight at or before you are at full presentation.
The goal is that the instant you are at full presentation, that the sights are aligned, you are focussed on the front sight blade, and are immediately able to take your shot. Don't rush your motions, but move in such a way that everything you need to do in order to fire a properly aimed shot occurs at or immediately before you are at full presentation. Do this very slowly until you can't stand doing it any longer. More important than the motion of the weapon during the draw stroke is what your mind is doing during the draw stroke, and to a lesser extent what your eyes are doing.
Always visualize the arc in space that the front sight wil travel through, and always begin steering your weapon to a proper sight picture while still in motion. If you find your mental focus waning, stop and pick it up again later, you don't want to practice the physical motions without the mind being fully engaged.
Visualizing the arc the front sight will track through does two things - when doing this you are actually leading the motion of your pistol with your mind, rather than following it with your mind as if you were merely paying attention to it. The conscious mind is very logical, but also very slow, and often can't keep up with an action at increased speed in real time. This is why we fumble when we increase speed beyond what we are capable of observing. The other thing it does is give your subconscious mind another piece of information as to what you want the gun to do when you draw it from the holster. The subconscious mind learns skills by observation, and many have theorized based on exprimental research that the subconscious mind doesn't distinguish between what we are actually doing, and what we are visualizing. By employing a cooperative visualization with an action, we increase the rate at which a procedural memory is persisted. By having the subconscious participate in the learning of the action, as well as providing additional information as to how to perform the action, we significantly decrease the amount of time it will take to be able to perform the action completely sunconsciously. Brute force repetition sucks - this is a much better mechanism for persisting procedural memories.
After doing this awhile, try doing it with your eyes closed. You should be able to draw your weapon, mentally trace the path through the arc with the front sight, and orient the rear with the front, and when you open your eyes at the moment you are at full presentation you should have a near perfect sight picture, in clear focus. If you don't consistently get a proper sight picture, go back and keep practicing slowly.
Once you can do this with your eyes closed, begin adding speed. Do this by not paying any attention to your weapon hand at all. Your mental focus should be moved to your support hand, as conscious observation of the weapon hand will slow down your aquisition of your grip and draw. Visualize the arc that your support hand will follow, both up to your chest at position 3, and then forward to where it mates with your weapon hand. When your hands mate, shift your mental focus to the front sight, and drive the gun forward while alighning the rear with the front.
The motion of your weapon from the draw, the shifiting of the focus of your eyes, and driving the rear sights to the front should all be able to be performed without conscious effort. It may take a little time to "let go" of trying to mentally follow everything, but you have to do this in order to shoot as quickly as possible. The conscious mind is simply too slow to be able to manage paying attention to all of the things that your body and mind are doing, so you need to offload as much as possible to the subconscious. The exercises above are one of several ways to do this in the shortest amount of time and greatest retention possible.
If at any point you begin to fumble, or lose mental focus, slow down or take a break until you are able to do this properly. Again, what is most important is not the motion of the gun through the arc or the alignment of the sights, or the shifting of your focal point. What is most important is that your mind is visualizing what is necessary, and that you are mentally tracking only the things you need to. The mind leads the body, and so the way to perfect the action of the body is through the mind.
Once again, speed should never be considered a goal. Being able to increase speed is the evidence that you are performing the action correctly. Yes, you can increase speed to push yourself, but simply pushing yourself is *not* the most effective way at training yourself to achieve increased speed, and in many ways can be counter productive as you will be practicing poor performance. Increased speed is achieved when you are doing everything correctly, and eliminate the necessity of the conscious mind to be in control of what you are doing.
Hope this helps!!
Great post!!
Thanks for sharing.
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Dry fire (10.14.2013)
I spent an hour and a half dry firing really focusing on figuring out my draw and perfecting my reloads. I discovered that if I roll my strong hand wrist forward where so the web of my hand hits the beavertail first I seem to nail it most of the time and my sights index on target easier. I'll have to lock that in.
Big thanks to OrigamiAK for the extended magazine release today. I did the Seeklander B drills that focus on the reload and did a bunch of extra reloads extending his drills. I seem to do better when keeping my crush grip on the pistol but keeping my arms loose. I am very happy with the speed and consistency I'm getting to with the reloads as long as I get a good hand position on the magazine. That starts to decay and I start missing my reloads and I have to force myself to get my index finger all the way down on the front of the magazine, then I start nailing them again.
I put a sheet of the Dawson grip tape made for my G34 on my pistol and the extra size is screwing me up. It's already marginal for me to reach the mag release button and with the tape it's pushed me over the threshold and I'm not always getting the mag ejected. Darn catch 22.
I also set up a couple of stages and "shot" those for a while. Lots of fun!
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Ya, that's probably a really good idea. I can see bumping it and sending those little parts off into the gravel and losing them.Good start. I would put all those small parts in little zip locks that you typically get with parts purchases.
Thanks, all!
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Great list of parts and ideas! I got all of the parts today and put them in a ittle parts bin that fits in the front on my range bag. I should be able to repair just about anything that might break.
Thanks for the help with this.
good set of backup parts, I would include a locking block, extractor plunger, spring and spring load bearing and also a slide stop (the spring broke on me also) so I think you would be good to go
Thanks, Sean! I'll add those to the box. I added an extra mag release today and have the slide stop on it's way. I'll get the extractor plunger parts next time I place an order.
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Live fire (10.13.2013)
More "cross training" today. I shot a local sniper match and although it was a blast, my head wasn't in it and I made a ton of mistakes that cost me a lot of points. Although it's sight picture, trigger control, and follow though, I am having a hard time changing gears between the different disciplines. I may wind down all of the rifle business for a while and focus on the pistol.
41 rounds down the pipe of my new bolt gun.
Saibot's Performance Journal
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Dry fire (10.28.13)
I spent about an hour "shooting" some stages and working on my draw and reloads. The draws were really starting to cook which was great because everything seemed to go down hill from there. My stepping draw drills were hideous and everything seemed slow and just off tonight. I probably should just call it a night when things go like this but I powered on through. Missed as many reloads as I hit, slow times, etc. Oh well, I'm sure it'll be fine tomorrow. That's what I get for taking a day off I guess.