alpha-charlie

For me, when I do my live fire practice I'm usually shooting for about 3 hours. I go through anywhere from 300-500 rounds depending on what I'm practicing. I don't mindlessly blast away but I try to work on one particular problem for a long time. I usually dissect every aspect of what I'm doing and why I'm having problems with it. That's what usually takes me so long. I go through a lot of ammo and spend a lot of time on little details but so far this year I haven't walked off the range until it's sorted out. If I were to be out there for a shorter period of time I don't think I'd solve anything. And, again this is just me, if I'm not at the range to work on a particular problem area and fully focus on the solution, then that's just mindlessly blasting away. I think this goes along with how you see people make big strides in a full day of instruction. 50 round skill assessment sounds good. Something to start a practice session with to see how well you can shoot "cold," like at a big match.

Was thinking about this thread today at the range. The best shot to shot with a reload was 1.14 with a Glock 34 set-up for Production. It took a few times but I only nailed after I stopped "trying" to go fast. Smooth is fast and that's when I got it. No video tho....so does that mean it never happened??

Live Fire.......About 2 hours Hit the range today to work on some movement. I saw a drill on the t.v. show Handguns the other day that I tried out. I simply set up one target and 4 barrels. With a timer I would start at one barrel and shoot on the move from one barrel to the next. This incorporated moving left to right, forward, right to left, and then back wards. I threw in a couple reloads to push it a little more. After 34 shots I only dropped to out of the A-zone. I was pleased to say the least. I changed it up to deal with another on-going problem: shooting, quickly moving to another position, and shooting again. I've previously worked on moving longer distances but never really worked on shorter distances. If you think about it, the majority of stages have shorter distances that you move between. I used the barrels again. From the back left corner 2 shots and then move to the right barrel for 2 more shots. My hits were good but I felt so awkward and uncomfortable. I changed directions from left to right, diagonal, back to front, etc. I was off balance a lot when coming into position and was wasting too much time stopping, regaining my balance, presenting the gun and taking the shot. It's those little things that kill my times. The shooting Gods then smiled on me.........I run like a MORON. I started thinking about some videos of Ben Stoeger and Phil Strader and how they move. I thought I was moving like they said but wasn't. When moving from left to right/right to left I kept letting go of the gun with my support hand and wouldn't completely turn my body in the direction that I was running. I was kind of running sideways but stepping foot over foot. It's hard to explain but once I completely turned my body in the direction I was running while keeping both hands on the gun (while safely pointed downrange) it changed everything. I am now under much better control when stopping and setting up into position while completely balanced. Also, it's allowing me on closer target to present the gun and take the first shot (sometimes both) while still moving and headed to the next position. Today proved that sometimes less really is more. A simple drill and paying attention to the little details is hopefully going to take my shooting to another level. Feeling confident about Ohio State coming up in a few weeks, just have to stay focused and remember my fundamentals and what I've learned in practice.

Local Match on 30Apr11 Local match went pretty well on Saturday. I wasn't going to be able to make it out Sunday, but had Saturday open to go out and help set-up the stages and then shoot through. I've help set-up a couple times and it just never gets any easier. My hats off to the people who constantly do the designs, set-ups, stats, etc etc. By the time it was all set-up I was pretty tired. I shot the match well but after looking at some other shooter's times I guess I wasn't moving as fast as I thought I was. I still managed to win all the stages and take 1st in Production but I feel like I could have been faster. Alot of time was wasted by little mental lapses of my execution. Mostly forgetting a target or not following my plan is what cost me the most time. I attribute that to fatigue and that I haven't shot a match in a month. I've been concentrating on live fire practice and working on certain drills and accuracy. The practice has definitely helped as I was extremely happy with my accuracy for the match. I had one Mike on a swinger but I knew I had missed it. I'm still trying to teach my brain that it's o.k. to go back and take another shot. At least I know that I called a miss, which only leaves the insane question of "If you called a miss, why didn't you make the shot up immediately?" I don't know, but I'm very happy with my accuracy and shooting on the move. Practice has definitely paid off in those areas.

What the OP is trying to say is "What I Hate is what's on news channels (normally), BUT what I like is what's on news channels RIGHT NOW.

Thanks Chris. Ohio State should be a great first major for me this season. Good News: Out of the nearly 7,000 rounds I stockpiled during the winter break I've been able to blast away about 6,000 rounds already. Bad News: I have less than 1,000 rounds loaded and 2 cases on back-order for who knows how long. With each practice session being about 400 rounds and local matches I'll be lucky to have any left for Ohio.

Live Fire Whole lot of everything today. I shot the plate rack quite a bit and also concentrated on shoooting on the move. I really enjoy shooting the plate rack. It really makes you (well, me at least) of how slow my first shot really is. The best run I had was 2.58 with a 1.16 first shot. This was at about 10 - 12 yds. I know I can go faster, and my first shot is where alot of the wasted time is at. I feel like I'm moving pretty fast but I think I'm still plugging along at a snails pace. Maybe I just watch too many videos of GM's blazing head shots on the move and comparing that to myself. I was able to learn and control my throttle by placing targets at different distances shooting them either moving left to right or moving towards them at an angle. It was a good set of drills and I feel more confident in shooting while moving. I took my last magazine of the day and backed up to 50 yards to see how many Alpha's I could hit. 17 shots fired at 50 yds in about 20 seconds: 11 Alphas, 4 Charlie's, 2 Delta's. Having never really shot at 50 yds I was pretty pleased. I like shooting at distance, it really makes you focus on the fundamentals. Pic is below.

Recoil managaement. Work on finding that perfect medium of how much grip you need to apply to not only let the gun naturally recoil but manage it enough so that the front sight comes back to it's original position. You may be fighting the recoil too much and not letting the front sight settle back into it's original position. Ease up a little bit until you get the perfect combination of letting the gun naturally recoil and managing how much "muscle" to apply in order to get it to perfectly settle in the notch.

Don't have to worry about that with a Glock.

It's been said soooooo many times before, but I'll be the one to say it again.................MINOR SUCKS.

App is in the mail!!!!

Congrats!! Keep it up!!

Congrats!!!

Live Fire Don't ya just hate it when you're setting up your targets and bam!! No more staples in the staple gun. Had to improvise a little so I had three targets up and worked on the plate racks for awhile. I tried shooting the racks on the move for a change. I thought it would be a lot harder than it was but I surprised myself. Since I had no real set up today I decided to work on some different shooting positions. I don't think anyone really practices shooting around a wall with the last target being a hard leaning shot. I've done it many times in matches but never really practiced it. Also, I cut the A-zone out of a target and used it as a small port with 3 targets spread out in front of it. Having to get up close to the port really slows down transitions and eliminates any periphial vision of where the next target is. Tried different distances with the port to really work the angles. I even tried drawing and then squatting like a catcher to engage some targets. Not the stuff that'll be in the majority of matches but those shots are in there more than I think though, so I'm glad I thought to practice them too. Shooting in a catchers position is probably pretty rare but at least I know I can do it so it could be a little trick up my sleeve to help better game a stage in the future. Gonna try and get back out to the range tomorrow as well.

It's all about reaching the milestones. Congrats and keep it up!!

Classification Update: Well my math was correct. It's official now, I've made the bump to A class in Production. I remember the start of the 2010 season when I made the conscious effort to really get serious in this game/sport/addiction/obsession and started focusing my attention to making B class. At alot of points I remember thinking that it was going to be impossible and that I'd be stuck at C forever. I wish I had this diary back then so I could look back and really see how I was feeling on a day to day basis. I made B class on 7/14/2010. 9 months in B class seemed like an eternity. I'm not putting a time limit on making Master, and will continue to practice and learn from every shot until my skills allow me to move up again. I'm off today so I'm heading to the range for some live fire.

It's official, I made A class today in Production. I thought it would never happen, but then again I remember thinking the same thing when I was trying to make B class less than a year ago. It feels good to reach a milestone. On to Master !!!

Are you sure it's the sights?? Have you let anyone else shoot it ? I used to shoot to the left constantly like picture 1 and would comprise by attaining a sight picture like picture 2. My sights weren't off, it was poor support hand grip and trigger control. Just a thought before you start moving parts around.

Welcome. I'm a member at Porter County and the matches are always great. I'm guessing Gavin is your Dad?

Live Fire Practice.........about 2 1/2 hrs. Made it out to the range today to work on some movement, reloads and shooting accurately after moving. I don't think you can ever practice movement enough. It's such a time killer if done improperly that I've really started to disect ever part of it. I'm getting better due to staying calm when moving and not rushing so much. Smooth is fast. In the last couple of matches I've shot I've noticed that I have trouble hitting the mag release sometimes and this costs me tons of time. I practice reloads in dryfire all the time, but when live fire comes around I'm all thumbs sometimes. I attribute this, once again, to rushing the reload. Smooth is fast. I've also noticed that the first shot I take after moving into a new position is rarely accurate. I figured that it was due to rushing into position, being off balance and breaking the first shot while the gun was still bouncing around. Yes to all of those but once I started smoothly coming into position and was still throwing shots I had to stop and think for a second. It was my weak hand grip. Also, by coming into position nice and smooth I've now realized that I should not just be pointing the gun towards the next target, but should start reacquiring my two handed grip about two steps before coming into position. Obviously reacquire the 2 handed grip and begin presenting the gun at the next target as I step into the shooting box. These are all things I know to do, but was not executing them the way I should have been. The Ohio State Championship is coming up fast and I want to be as ready as possible. My work schedule changed so my days off will be during the week instead of Sunday/Monday. With the warm weather I hope to get to the range nice and early on my days off to get some serious live fire practice in while everyone else is at work.

No worries Dan. When they run the updates in a week or so I'll be bumping up to A class in Production. Soooooooooo, my vote is for 3, of course.

That hurt to watch. Hope you get it all worked out soon.

Saturday: Another classifier match Sunday: Local indoor match I was lucky enough to actually have a Saturday off in who knows how long so I used it to my advantage. My quest for A class continued so I found another classifier match and shot it on Saturday. I tanked 2 stages but shot the other 4 well. 2 stages I shot 85% & 87% which was awesome!!! If my math is correct I should be getting the bump to A class. With shooting 2 classifiers at Master class level, I'm looking at it that I'm already 1/3 of the way to making Master. I don't want to stick around A class any longer than I have to, but like A class I will move up when my skills deem it. Thanks to Alex for shooting Limited today so I was able to take 1st in Production at the local match. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9SFNYSE4c6A

Damn Keen!!!

http://www.youtube.com/watch_popup?v=Vo0Cazxj_yc&vq=medium