GunBugBit

Cactus League at the Practical Pistol range at Ben Avery has Thursday night practice matches every week, two different Steel Challenge matches (one official, one unofficial run by the Deer Tribe folks (includes a shoot-off after the main match, so fun)) on different Sundays in each month, a Sunday USPSA match once per month, and a 3gun Nation match on the last Sunday of each month. This would be your go-to if you're hanging around the northern part of the Phoenix area.

Yes but you'd have many admirers!

We always get "a" sight picture, don't we? Unless we are intentionally keeping ourselves from seeing the sights. As I shoot a hoser sequence, I see cardboard, wood, steel, dirt, dust, my shadow, the berm, the mountain, the sky, my hands, the top of the slide, smoke, and oh, what are those? Oh yes, the sights! You could say I had some kind of sight picture throughout. At least, I saw my sights. The post might never have even lined up in the notch, but I elected to press the trigger repeatedly anyway. Because, you know, three yards and all. I see what's going on and my mind is open to using that visual input constructively knowing full well I'm going to shoot at a pace very near my personal fastest. I'll be roundly mocked if I don't hit anything, so I'm not going to ignore the input. Those of you more advanced than I are able to put lead where you want at a pace that's closer to how fast you can mechanically press the trigger. I'll wager you do sorta kinda use some visual input for that. Maybe at some point the rate of trigger presses really does become the bottleneck.

It took a few dry-fire sessions of intentionally keeping both eyes open, reinforced by a few matches where I did the same, and then it was baked in. I still have trouble in low light (only an issue during evening practice matches) and will squint my left eye in those conditions on long shots.

I'll cite a USPSA stage I shot in the not-too-recent past. I was proud that I "got 'em all." All steel down, all As on paper. And I thought I was pretty fast (for me). As I was opening up the match scores online, I thought I'd see I'd done pretty well on that stage, due to maxing out the points and being fairly expeditious in my draw, shooting, reloading and moving. I was underwhelmed with my overall placement, even though it was pretty good relative to where I usually place overall on stages. So I thought, heck, was I too biased toward accuracy? My answer to myself was, yes, on a couple of the target clusters at 5 or 7 yards, I probably was getting too refined of a sight picture. I would have likely scored higher if I'd kept the gun pointed toward the targets and pressed the trigger faster. But I thought, wait, I tend to press the trigger just about as fast as I can and still feel in control. And I pretty much concluded that I'd shoot that same stage with the same approach, and would only go faster if I knew my skill level had progressed enough for faster shooting to make sense for me. In practice matches where we occasionally have some very close targets, I go as fast as I can and the results are usually good. Refined sight pictures? Definitely not.

It's part of the game, not going away, enjoy it.

Wrong. You can see them without slowing down.

When you stop progressing, change things up. Change the pace of what you're doing and/or work on things you hadn't been working on. Video-record yourself.

I'd be fine if I got to shoot 10 rounds of .45 in the Single Stack division. I think of myself as a Single Stack shooter but when I use the 10-round mags, which tends to make it more fun, then I'm in L10, "coming up from below," so to speak, since my setup is that of Single Stack. Those who "came down from above" have advantages over me, but I don't care. I relish beating shooters on this or that stage, or entire matches, who have big equipment advantages.

A guy at my club shoots Limited with a Glock and often beats the STI 2011, CZ and Tanfo guys.

If you're in my lane so to speak, .45 is not dead and L10 shooting .45 is a fine place to hide.

If you've got the sights right there in your face because your countless reps of dry fire automatically put them there every single time you draw, might as well look at 'em. No one stands there at a match and tells you what to look at as you shoot a stage. You want to ignore your sights, you're perfectly free to do so.

The sights are right there. It seems you're arguing for intentionally ignoring them in favor of looking at the outline of the gun.

It doesn't take extra time, so none is wasted. Or I could argue that ignoring your sights is just as big a waste of time.

I didn't say to get a refined sight picture. I said to watch what's going on with the sights. Big difference.

You can do it at the same speed, with or without seeing what's going on with your sights. You pick.

My fortunes aren't tied to shooting. I still have fun if I don't do as well as I'd hoped, though my preference is to have a personal best of some kind. The joy I feel at the range with my shooting buddies compensates for all the stages that didn't go as I'd planned, or scores that weren't what I'd hoped. It's good to have total freedom from needing to perform well. I'm free to practice as hard as I can and get to some next personal best, or not practice so hard and just go out and enjoy.

You'll get faster if you direct your attention and energy toward getting faster. You will do it.

RL 550B Casefeeder: No Experience: 1+ years Average Rounds/Hour, Pistol: 450 - 550 per hour

Needed, no, but if you want to be most assured of being able to continue a match after a breakage or failure occurs, a backup gun is mighty nice to have.

steviesterno, not weird, just slow. Well kind of weird, too.

Hope you sort it out soon, AzShooter. Missed that match but should see you at the next one! Best, Bob

Anyway, I worked it out and have a good way to trim the CMC 10-round .45 magazines. Once trimmed, they'll work with either gap or no-gap Ice mag well inserts.

I'll answer and discuss if you've tried both. Have you?