stuart1336

I have not seen them before. They look good. I think I will make some this week.

Saturday 27th Night Not a lot of time today but managed to grab two ten minute sessions of dry fire with an airsoft pistol. I got some IPSC targets last week in full size and 1/3 size so put them up on the garage door. traced out the A zone as at a mini rifle comp I lost points because I was not familiar with it. I also had a target from the shield that I have reduced in size on a photocopier (now A6 was A3) that were already up there. The pistol is open sights and I am trying to relearn using them two eyes open. Worked hard on my sight picture then moved on to transitions. Snapping the eyes to the target first then bringing the focus back to the foresight. I found that 10 minutes of this is enough to make my eyes hurt. Finished up with the rifle practicing transitions on the hips. Didn't time anything as just working form.

Saturday 27th Oct Today I practiced shotgun loading. Whilst sharing a cup of tea at the range on Thursday my friend suggested that I try loading blindfolded. He explained that if I couldn't see I would rely more on my sense of touch and this would be heightened. I would also have to think more about how my arms and hands move. The goal being that you load on a stage whilst looking at the targets not the gun. I loaded 60 from FSL12 load four weak hand and 48 weak hand from caddies. To my amazement it works and I will incorporate this in my training for next few weeks.

Friday 26th Oct Airsoft Pistol on BAM steel targets at work., two 10 minute sessions. Not timed just concentrating on getting a good sight picture on the open sights. Open sights are not something I have used for 10 years. I was also using my TM 5.1 for the first time. I had it made up with a heavy weight outer barrel and its the closest thing I can get to the STI that I will be using.

Thursday 25th October Live fire at Shield Ranges I went to the range to shoot .22 and 12g live fire. Mike came to the range and lent me his AR with Maeopta 1-4 sight. I have one of these sights on order but its a few weeks away from delivery. Mike gave ma a brief on last years Superstition 3 Gun and explained that I need to work on distance rifle and working from a braced position. In the UK most of our rifle work is up close (30 yards or less) and normally off hand. I went to the practice range which is set in bays. I set up two targets at 5m and then at 25m set up some orange circle targets ranging in size from a tennis ball to a quarter. I then started with airsoft pistol holstered, engaged the two targets at 5m put the pistol down and engaged the distance targets from 4 different positions. One off hand, two braced and the last prone. I didnt time anything I was just practicing position and movement in and out of the bays. I found that its a long time since I have done anything accurate prone and I need more work at it. Mike also told me about putting the pistol down and being careful of the safety to avoid DQ. He told me his pistol in America has a very hard spring and it is easier to put it down on its right side than clear it. I quite enjoyed the prone work but need to get some more time in testing and adjusting my position and mono podding. I then went onto the shotgun range and ran a stage that was already set up there with 22 targets. i have been trying out the FSL12 load 4 system and wanted to test it live. Since starting PSG I have always used the weak hand method but I have never achieved very good times. The FSL worked really well for me.

I'm going to the USA to shoot 3 gun. My friend Mike Darby goes every year and I have managed to get him to let me tag along. Time to get serious about training and I thought what better way than a public training diary here. Here in the UK we are a little limited in the guns we can use but we get by. My main sport is practical shotgun, standard auto, with a Benelli M2. I shoot practical rifle and steel challenge with a Nordic Ruger .22. I have just bought a new AR .22 with a Tactical Innovations lower and Nordic upper. Its very nice but I have to wait until my license is changed before I can take it home. I have bought the new AR as it will take a .223 upper (singe shot only in UK) and is the closest thing I can get to what I will use in America. The Ruger is a nice gun but I have also found for competitions over here that on drills it cant compete against an AR. I also use several airsoft guns for practice and have a TM 4.3, TM 5.1 custom and a Classic Army M15A2. I have been shooting PSG for about 18 months but only had a gun of my own since January. Ten years ago I was in the Police and did a couple of courses with Glock 17 and MP5 but I was never operational with them so my live fire pistol experience is next to nothing. I do have a 1911 based long barreled pistol in .22 and when my post count is high enough I will put some pictures up so everyone stateside can have a good laugh at what we have to use over here. My training over the last six months has been building. I'm starting to get into the top ten at shotgun competitions. I also put in some good training for a steel challenge match a week ago and came 1st. I put this down to extensive use of the airsoft M15 combined with par timing from Mike Seeklanders book. I am also a student of Lanny Bassham and recently my competition results have soared as I get to grips with the mental game. I am also very lucky to shoot with Mike Darby who is in my opinion the best practical shooter in the UK and I also get to go to the best shotgun range in the country once a week. The owner there, Steve Pike, has also taken me under his wing. Over the next week I will finalise my plan for training and post it up here. In the mean time I will just post the training I am doing.

Airsoft Rifles Work! Yesterday I shot our club steel challenge and won. I took three stage victories as well. On one stage I even beat the major calibre shooters who only fire 5 shots to my ten. I shot the same course back in April this year and came 8th in class. This is the first time I have won any stage or competition. What I have realised as well, is that although I won the competition I think there is scope to improve my times a great deal more. Results below are winner in Apr, my time April and My time yesterday. The stage wins were 2, 3, and 5. 1 13.06 15.35 14.12 2 13.67 13.68 11.18 3 15.03 17.37 11.36 4 16.68 21.28 25.39 5 15.55 16.51(M)13.31 6 15.53 21.38 15.27 I think the distance we shot on stage 4 may have been increased as all times were higher. It was my worst stage and I shot it first. I shot every stage first in my sqaud as I have a hard time waiting! and no one else wants to go first. Stage 2 was a smoke and hope type and it was this one that I beat everyone including the majors. On stage 3 the next fastest competitor was 85% my score. I had a five week plan leading up to the competition. As it turned out I didnt do as much as I wanted and I went off track a little with the airsoft after two weeks so there are some things I would change for the future. This is what I did Weeks 1-4 4 sessions airsoft on steel 6-900 rounds 1 session live fire shotgun (its my main sport) range night local club 2-300 rounds .22 on 3-4 stages for fun week 5 2 seesions airsoft on steel 600 rounds Thursday 1100 rounds .22 live fire on steel challenge course. Wrote course notes and plans Friday - visualised course and ran it 4-5 times in my head, wrote affirmation to calm nerves and went to bed early after taking care to wind down. Saturday Competition. Arrived first, walked the course visualising. Went to practice range and practiced first shot dry for 5 minutes. After week two I went from par timing to timing individual shots after working out how to do this with an airsoft rifle. Then I began chasing times and form slipped. It is very hard to stick to par times the seeklander way when you get distracted by good times. I will be changing this. Also I only practiced shooting 1, 2, 5, 4, 3 and when it came to the competition This only accounted for three stages. If I had thought about it and designed the airsoft course around the stages I could have hammered it. In the US your Steel courses are all the same and BAM have done all that work for you. Airsoft accounted for the main improvement by I have to say that without the frame work provided by Seeklanders book and Basshams Mental Management program it wouldnt have been half as effective.

LMAO Neil, I wish I had read your post a week ago. I was at your two gun "Help for Hereos" match and came 6th to your 4th!!!! A few days after posting I bought Lanny's audi book so I have had it about three months. I drive a lot (2000+ miles a month) and listen to it most days. I reckon I have been through it over 15 times and each time I pick up something different or get a reminder of something I have forgotten. As a review of the audio book Mental Management for Shooting sports I would say that the content is very similar to his book. If your on a budget just buy the book. There are very few differences. The actual recording quality is very poor and the sound levels from section to section for an expensive product are very poor. For me I think it was just about worth the money. I learn quite well from audio and repetition. The content like his book is very good and I have seen some rapid improvements. It really has helped with competition. I'm a new shooter (just over a year) and found it very frustrating at competitons that the harder I tried the worse I shot and then I would give up mentally and shoot fantastic. Now understanding more about how my head works and how this relates to shooting has really helped. The two gun match I have just shot is a good example of how things have changed for me. My preps were not that good. The three weeks before consisted of 10 days on holiday in Spain and one week of training. The training was five ten minute sessions with my airsoft rifle, a trip to the range to zero only to have my rifle break and about an hour of live fire shotgun. I mamanged to borrow a gun and set it up only to find my friend forgot to bring it to the competition! I should have been all over the place but I wasnt. I shared my friends rifle and decided to shoot to my plan and what ever happened stick to it. The plan was to focus on the stage prep, working out the course, then when it was my turn take two deep breaths and just hit every target without paying any attention to speed and just see where the subconcious took me. The first 3 stages went very well and the times were encouraging but I tried not to focus on them and instead focused on refilling my mags and my friends as he was the RO. On the fourth stage I deviated from the plan. I though the first 5 steels I could take easily and decided to do them as fast as I could. The result was two misses and a fumbled reload afterwards. I realised I should get back on the plan and dismissed the stage as "Not like me" and the rest of the day went very smoothly and I had my best result ever. I must also say I enjoyed this competition more than any other as a result. When you concentrate on the performance and not the result it kind of frees you up to enjoy it more. I beat some people I know can out shoot me with a rifle or shotgun just because I had a system to put it altogether on game day. I have Steve Andersons books and have adapted them to shotgun drills. Sauls would be next on my list and perhaps I could get a look at them, Neil, if you are going to the Steel challenge at Shield. That should be a good match and we will see afterwards if people still make fun of me using an airsoft to practice with my BAM airsoft targets ;-)

Does anyone use airsoft rifles to practice? Here in the UK steel challenge is shot with .22 rifles. Our laws don't allow anything larger in semi auto. After seeing all the BAM videos I thought an airsoft would be a good training aid. Recently I imported a set of BAM steel challenge targets and they are brilliant (although very expensive after import taxes). My times have come down considerably. The real benefit is the ease of training. I can go out and run a stage 30 times in ten minutes. What I have found is AEG rifles are not built for this type of use. I bought a mid price (£170) Classic Army M15A2. After a few sessions the trigger burnt out. After a warranty repair the second trigger burnt out after 1k of rounds. I then had an electronic trigger fitted (£100). This cured it but I do find I can only shoot one mag (300) before the motor gets hot. Two mags and it's getting uncomfortable to hold. The motor is in the pistol grip. The airsoft people I have spoken to have never come across either problem as no one fires 600 single shots in their game. I have seen Keith Garcia uses an airsoft rifle but can't find anything else on the subject.

This week I have read with winning in mind and I'm half way through freedom flight. I'm really taken by Lanny and his system. I'm tempted to buy Mental management for shooting sports as a download (postage to the UK is a bit slow!) but at $130 I thought would find a review first. I can't find any. Has anyone bought it? Would anyone who has recommend it? It has to be the most expensive CD set out there.