alpha-charlie

If my math is correct I will be making Master class in Production when the classifications are updated. Started the year out in B class struggling to make A class. Made A in April and now this!!! Whoa!

Local Match.......no video Shot a local match today at my home club (Porter County Poppers)that had 2 classifiers. Going in I knew that if I could shoot a total of 166% between the 2 of them I'd make Master. There were 5 stages altogether and my squad ended up shooting the classifiers last. The first was Six CM 08-03 and the 2nd was Take 'Em Down Cm 03-03. Out of the 2 I was more confident in Six, easy hits at close distance. My time was 3.29 with one C. I knew that wasn't good enough: 83.44%. Surprisingly I shot Take 'Em Down extremely well: 8.04 with one C, 94.53%. If my math is correct I should be making Master when the updates come through; 85.7327% I've always dreamed of making Master and knew I could but it's really a crazy feeling right now. I don't feel like I'm a Master class shooter but there's no turning back now. Very exciting but scary too. One more BIG step to climb. Wish I had it on video but I decided just to focus on shooting today and not worry about any of that. Good times. Results: Took 1st in Production with 3 out of 5 stage wins. Clipped a couple of no-shoots but I made them up right away, something I usually have trouble with.

BOO-YA!!!!!

100% legal. Have at it.

Definitely in for next time. You thinking spring time?

Height: 55" Width: 40" Depth: 32"

Reload practice..... My new mag pouches arrived today. What a HUGE difference!!!! My other pouches are a very popular brand but I just couldn't get them how I wanted them. So the lesson learned is: when a nationally competitive GM recommends a better product for you, it would be wise to take that advice. My new pouches are the Ghost mag pouches that can be found at the online IPSC store. They're cheaper than my old ones by a few bucks and come with 2 pouches!! The traditional style and the style that has them turned outward. I'm sticking with the traditional style as I'm not having any trouble with that set-up. They're also much easier to adjust to the size of your belt and rotate if you choose to. Now my main problem is hitting the mag release and getting the mag out of the gun. I seem to be all thumbs with this most times. Other times I can do a sub one second reload. Just gonna have to keep practicing.

Results from local....Porter County Poppers 2nd place. There were 2 stages that were more complicated than the others. These had tight shots and multiple different ways to shoot them. I placed 1st (my stage) and 2nd on these stages. I could have very easily took 1st on both of these stages but somehow I didn't load one of my mags up and went into slide lock with one shot left on the stage. The static reload cost me a bunch of time. The 2 hoser stages are where I took a beating. I was shooting very accurate but my times were slow. Looking back at it now I was shooting at the same speed that I was on the more difficult shots. I never really "turned it up" when I could have. I think shooting like this at a major match could have worked out good if it was an accuracy themed match. I seem to have throttle problems at matches and on particular stages. I've got some good drills lined up to work on this problem. (Up close wide open target and then transition to 25 yd plate...repeat) Another good thing about this match was that I wasn't nervous or worked up at all during it. Even when I went into slide lock accidentally, which happened as 2 swingers were going back and forth, I never really panicked like I usually do. Reloads still need work as they cost me tons of time on the hoser stages. New Ghost mag pouches should arrive Tuesday and I'm pumped about breaking them in.

Local match..... Designed a stage, helped set-up, and then shot in the rain. Shot pretty decent today. I was pleased to see that I designed the hardest stage for the match which I think incorporated alot of different disciplines of shooting. I designed it around alot of my weaknesses: tight shots, movement, a swinger, texas star, and distance shots with hard-cover and then a distant target with a no-shoot. The no-shoot target is next to the popper that activates the swinger. Trying to get people to slow down in order to hit it before shooting the swinger or maybe not risk it and have to wait on the swinger. Devious. Also for production shooters, I designed the star, swinger, activator and static target close to one another to make them rethink shooting it in one position. (10 shots). Feeling confident in my accuracy after last weekend so I went at it with one make-up shot on the star and finished in slide-lock.....close one. Someone did mention that I was moving/shooting slower than usual but I think it was minimal. I was really seeing my sights today and wanted to focus on points and technique. My technique was good and my accuracy was great. My times will probably be slower than some shooters tomorrow but I don't anyone will be able to beat my points. The no-shoots and hard cover might as well not even have been there. I didn't worry about them and just put the sight in the A-zone and made the shots. There was a stage with two simultaneous swingers that I surprisingly didn't have a problem with. Remembered my instruction last week and stopped looking at the target as it was swinging and just looked at the A-zone as they were moving. No problemo with those today. Found it much easier to shoot them that way. I finished today with 2 B's, 10 C's and the rest A's on (4) 32 round stages.

Return of Dryfire........ Dryfired tonight for about an hour. Admittedly I've fallen off on my practice sessions which has really shown as the season has progressed. The best match I shot all year was my first major. The best classifiers I shot were also at the beginning of the year. This was after a winter of dryfiring and preparing for the season. A little bit of being burnt-out by running every other week to scorching hot majors and not practicing has really set me back. It was fun to dryfire again. Never thought I'd say that but it was. Concentrated on reloads. Had to start at the basics and then speed up after awhile. I'm still nowhere near where I should be, but it was a good start. Sometimes I nail em and sometimes I can't get my right hand to work. They have to be automatic, which will only come from doing thousands and thousands of them.

Advanced USPSA class with Ben Stoeger Spent the weekend taking Ben's 2nd class to help smooth out some problem areas. Learned alot again and realized the "secret" to becoming great at this game......................pause for effect..........PRACTICE. Plain and simple. If you want to be o.k., practice every once and awhile. If you want to be good, practice alot. If you want to be great, practice your ass off. Make your practice sessions harder than any match you've ever been to. Try and shoot 19 pieces of steel on the move, weak hand only, with your mags loaded to production division requirements in 20 seconds. Sound impossible? NO, IT'S NOT. Other than fine tuning your fundamentals and a few other key elements of the game, there's not too much else to it. It's perceived as being very complicated but I think shooters make it harder than it actually has to be due to struggling through stages. I know I do. "You're your own worst enemy." (Not my quote). Find a good way to shoot a stage and execute it to perfection. And the only way to execute it to perfection is by having all of your fundamentals flawless. For the rest of the secrets to this game, you'll just have to take the class and find out first hand.

+1 They ship extremely fast and if you call to ask when they'll be in stock they won't b.s. ya. They'll tell you straight up, we really have no idea when those are coming in. It may sound weird but at least they're not telling you 3 weeks and you have to keep calling and calling. Great people over there.

That Eagle makes me want to shoot Limited.

Michigan Sectional......??? What a rough day. I have a bunch of excuses but the only thing that happened is that my mental game took me completely out of this match. Other than a GM I was the highest classed shooter (A) and got stomped on all day by B's and C's. There was nothing complicated about this match and I can only think of one stage (the last of the day) where I actually was calm and remember seeing my front sight the whole time. I wasn't on my sight at all even though I wanted to shoot for points. A 2 hour rain delay got the ball rolling. When we got shooting again I couldn't remember my stage breakdowns, I wasn't on my sights, and I even ran past a foot pad activator which I had to put go back and activate and then go back to the port (about +5 seconds on that one.) I even triple tapped a mini-popper when it wouldn't go down. Yea, it was a forward falling popper. In summary, I SUCKED the big one today. The way I look at it is that it's the off-season now as all of my majors are over. And it's time to train. No video, out of disgust I stopped recording myself after about 5 stages. I know what I screwed up on.

Michigan Sectional in the morning. Walked the stages today and they seemed pretty straight up. Not alot of hard cover or no shoots and only a couple of swingers. There are some stages with a lot of shooting on the move and then a long distance to the next set of targets. It has a little bit of everything but could easily be seen as a hoser match. I'm not gonna look at it like that and fall into a hoser mentality and get nailed with a bunch of mikes on easy targets. It's all about points tomorrow and I'm gonna try to pick up as many A's as possible. My way of thinking is that the competition will see it as a hoser match and blaze through it with a bunch of C's and D's. If I'm a little slower but have more points per stage I think that should work out just fine. Last major of the year, let's do this!!!!!

Just a hunch. Dave will sign with Springfield. He's already won the SS Nationals and they've got the new 5.25 that they're gonna want to rival the 34/35. The XD was a great start, the XDM fell flat for competition purposes and now they have the new 5.25 that's specifically designed for competition. I'm guessing Springfield wants that gun in the hands of a proven produciton/limited shooter who will be up at the podium at major matches, especially Nationals. Who better than Dave Sevigny? (TGO is the man but he's not winning Production or Limited National titles anytime soon.)

I made this same mistake at Indiana. With 7 of the 11 stages done I thought, "I'm shooting this match clean, I might make the 10 ten." I had 3 mikes on the next 2 stages.

I found the rule about it and it's pretty clear that you have 1 hour after times are posted. However, it turns out that a re-shoot was granted and the original run was put into scoring and not the re-shoot. If I was a shooter and my re-shoot didn't get counted I'd want it changed too. Since the re-shoot put him over my points then that's good enough for me. I don't want a "technical" victory. Besides, 12th or 13th place doesn't really matter at this point. Numbers on a scoresheet are nice but the main goal is to improve my shooting and take it to the next level. Indiana performance wasn't great but it's time to learn from, move on and focus on the upcoming Michigan Sectional.

Scoring change from the Indiana match. Of course it directly affected my placing. I now am 13th in Production and 2nd A. Since I'm not a huge rules guy I could be totally wrong, but once the score sheet is signed and results posted with the alloted time period for arbritration doesn't that mean it's a wrap?? Scores changing 2 days after official results are posted?? Really?

Went sub-minor at chrono. Shot an amazing match though.

Indiana Section...... Not the greatest showing today but not the worst. Some tough stages with some high ports, not too easy for me on those. Some ugly stages in there where I just had to make the best of a bad situation. The Texas Star where I went into slide lock twice really hurt. Hurts to watch also. Ended up with a mike there as I thought I hit the last plate but actually hit the post just to the left of it. Had 2 mikes on the laying down start stage due to pulling off the targets too quickly. I also got WAY out of position for the swingers as I had a dumb idea come into my head when I saw the left swinger was slower. Thought I could try and take both swingers first and that was completely stupid. This thought happened in about .10 seconds in my head when I stepped on the stomp plate. Both stages with mikes were ones that I changed my game plan just before shooting. WRONG. The other mags on barrel stage, not recorded, I changed also. I opted to load up my mag pouches which was really dumb. I again was talked out of my plan, but at the time I thought it was a good idea. WRONG. Stage breakdown could have been a little better overall also. I'm just glad I didn't get stuck on the saddle, that would've been a bad ending to a long hot day. Finished 12th overall, 1st A. Mixed feelings about that. I believe it's referred to as an ugly victory. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sn5wgtl2P9w

Nice one handed shots around the wall with the gun sideways. Very gangsta!!!!

Sitting in the hotel room watching Blazing Saddles on CMT. IRONY?

Thanks Ben. The accuracy wasn't there as I had quite a few mikes but I did notice something. On the longer courses where there was hard cover or no-shoots I shot clean. I also didn't sit there and take almost a full second to get a sight picture before firing. As you have pointed out before, this has been something that's holding me back. On the blazing wide open targets is where I would pull off too early and miss. This came from just wanting to let it rip today. A little off the throttle and more on the sight and it shouldn't be a problem. Something positive out of it is that I saw as much of my sights that I needed to see on the harder targets and shot sooner and more confident. As for the wide open targets, I shot them very fast but not recklessly. I saw my sights for those targets as well but "match tested" how much of them I needed to see. I've shot fast in practice but never really let loose in a match. Obviously I needed to see just a little bit more to not miss but now I have some concrete experience of fast I can go before the wheels fall off. I didn't really worry about how I was going to place today during the match, I was paying more attention to how much sooner can I start shooting and keep shooting. Hard to explain but I see it as performance until failure. I think it's good to know how far you can go. Edited for clarity after thinking about it for awhile.