Glock26Toter

After a dull weekend last week not getting any shooting in, my trigger finger was down right burning to get out today! I shot a local match at the Aurora Gun Club. As always, we did pretty good out there considering many restrictions on the target placement. I had to start on the classifier (99-12) and managed to score very well dispite negative feelings right off the bat. I thought it was a Virginia count stage and fired an extra shot for no reason whatsoever, other than I was already thinking about the NEXT stage that was a 3 Shot per paper stage. Looking at the video I'm still a bit shocked that I scored an 89%. I like the initial grip and draw. I landed right on the gun and drew smoothly to the first target. A good thing too since I fired an extra shot at it. Obivously transitioning went well, but I was thrown off by the fact I was in the "I just screwed the pooch" mode from the extra shot, and didn't really push too hard after that. The reload was relatively smooth, but I think my arm dropped too low and I was into it pretty late causing a clear pause to complete it before engaging the first Right-Hand target. I was on the dot pretty good and scored nicely on the targets... I think that's what got me into the M level percentage. This is a good lesson to keep your cool and not freak out over the mistakes. The next stage worth looking at was full of the same type of thing... some decent shooting but plenty of mistakes as well. I nail the first popper without issue and then make a large movement error. I waited for the body to shift weight and completely nix any posibility for explosive movement. After I lumber over to the port I'm clearly in the 2-shot mode and wind up putting 2 alphas on the first target and fire my third shot in mid-transition. I do the SAME THING on the left target as I'm transitioning back for the makeup shot. This causes me to have to fire two makeup shots and execute two extra transitions before I'm back in business. It felt like crap, but where I clearly made up for all that lost time was the one-for-one on the steel and the 5 Alphas down range. This underscores the importance of shooting steel with your eyes and not your ears. Also, a second lesson about keeping cool. Here's one where everything went well for me. With a bit of relaxing banter prior to the start signal I went into this totally relaxed. This is a good lesson in offloading the previous stages and just shooting in the moment. This is imperitive for a good match. We will never have a perfect match and if we ever do it's impossible to do consistently, so leaving the mistakes behind is all we have left. I was able to do that and the only shot where I wasn't focused on the dot was the first shot on the last target. 4 shots on it to make sure, but when you are shooting that close a point shot or two can land where needed. I had 4 hits on it, and can't remember what it was, but what I do know is that I only got 3 Charlies on that stage and was rewarded with a 15.6 HF and a stage win. It made the whole match a positive experience for me and I was glad I kept it together for that stage. There were not a lot of points to be had on my good stages so I finished #5 overall (last M) but actually there were some very valuable lessons learned or reinforced today and I had a hell of a good time dispite finishing lower than usual.

Don't forget to check all your screws everytime you clean it. CMore set screws and scope mount screws will get loose when you least expect it. And yes, they ALWAYS have Loctite... but still get loose. Oh, and use Vibra-tite on the cmore screws, not Loctite. Good luck.

I shoot 9mm major and smeared primers is fairly common. When I started shooting my brass more than once, had many primers fall out during the match. I had a few missing from picked up brass to start with and then when I had a few jams I stopped. Now I recycle my brass at the metal recycler and only shoot once fired. No issues.

Go VERY EASY on that elbow. Take it from me. don't injure it further. Let it rest and you'll just have to do less reloading and less practice, and lighting your grip until you can do stuff without pain. The WORST thing you can do is injure it more by hammering, picking up heavy objects, or pulling a macho man and powering through it. Relax and rehab. I fought this for YEARS and only now can I make it through a match without pain. My recovery was to let someone else do the heavy lifting and never grab a hammer. Also, go get acupunture. Acupuncture was the single most effective thing I ever did and never saw improvement until then. Then when you can do it without pain use a HandMaster. Maybe start out with the whimpy one and them work up. There are many threads about this in here. Good luck. Also, take it easy on your back. Same drill. Don't hurt it more! Put all your macho shit aside and recover, but tha'ts another story. I'm lucky to not have back issues... but jeez, these elbow issues suck!

Dude. Not so rough on yourself. You sound like you are getting way past glass half empty thinking... like into like the glass is around 3/4 empty mode. You must be doing pretty darn good to get into B class and you mention it at the end like it's nothing. Something had to go right for you to nail a few classifiers and head well into B territory. Look at your shooting with those guys as a "here's what I learned" or even a "here are two (or whatever) areas of improvement" that were pointed out by your time with them instead of just an overall "I suck" lesson. Just trying to bring you back around buddy. This is a sport of personal improvement and not personal berating. btw, congrats on the B class achievement.

You have been very dedicated. Keep it up. Don't forget to journal the improvements here too. When you say "reloads are atrocious" what do you mean? Break that down. What goes well, what needs improvement?

Dang. Nice shooting. As long as you are getting your hits you are well on your way. The only thing I can see is some target engagement issues and slight movement improvement. You seem a bit rigid. Robotic movements of "lock in and then dislodge" (i.e. jerky movement) that could be smoothed out a bit. Engagement... for instance on the middle array. If you had taken those right to left, you would have ben shooting a lot sooner and therefore moved out of that position at about the time you actually started engaging the left target. Also, set your stance a bit more wide and purposeful for maybe TWO positions in that last window. You broke that up into several and didn't move your feet at all leaving that last left position a bit unstable. Again... couldn't see the angles but I'm pointing out a smoothing of the edges a bit so that you ease into a position WHILE engaging the first target and then ease out while finishing the final target. (emphasis on EASE and not move too quick so as to destabilize your shooting platform.) Shooting fundamentals like draw and grip and all that crap you are way past. Unless you start picking on actual draw time and reload times so you can shave off 100ths. That's for micro-process improvement that's being worked on constantly. Video is GREAT for reminding you of these things during your trip to GM. Make more videos. You don't have to get fancy, Gopro makes a $149.00 cheapie now-a-days that fits the bill for utility to get you watching yourself. Keep up the good work man.

I shot the PPPS Match this weekend. A ton of fun, as always and the stages were challenging and fun. There was one illegal stage and as usual I'm impressed with Panda's ability to spot them so quickly. He knows the rules very well and I'm always sticking my nose in the rulebook in order to gain even a percentage of the knowledge he has. I'll get there and I've been keeping my ear close to the ground for an opportunity for a CRO class as I believe that will boost my goal of better understanding the rules. I screwed up the classifier due to a high primer. The reason I kept the video was for the beginning. In analyzing the start, I'm watching my draw and first shot movements. I can see that I take a bit of dip with my head... something I've always worked to avoid. I'm willing to let it go this time due to the position and low stance desired in order make the shift to the other side of the barricade. The positive point of the stage would definately be the draw and the movement after the click. It points out that I was ready to move immediately after the final shot on the array and that I was also able to quickly realize I needed to stay on that target and not overcommit, and completely break my stance. The area for improvement... more reloading details. I went back home and check all my pre-loaded rounds and found many high primers. I fixed them all and adjusted my primer depth so this won't happen again. It seems to me, that the only reason the primer depth adjustment even exists is to get out of adjutment once a year to keep us on our toes. boooo! The other negative was that I basically sandbagged the rest of the stage. I wish that I wouldn't have done that and it was far out of character for me. I can't remember ever doing it before. Once I knew it was screwed, I show slow and basically strolled up to the front barricade. Had my head stayed in the game I would have easily gone 2-3 seconds faster and not allowed a malfunction to cost me more match points than neccessary. I'll work on not doing that in the future. My remaining stages were pretty strong and although I had mixed feelings about my performance I placed 2nd overall and took top Open. I'm still not jumping up and down as it's not about the results but rather how I feel I performed. There were some moments of clarity and dot tracking at an M level for sure, but there were other moments of missed stage plans and movement errors. Overall I think it was another day of reminders that I still have quite a bit of work to do before I can gain the consistency needed for a GM ranking.

Nice shooting. Remember the positive, forget the negative.

I have a Taco with a "Bedslide 100" production unit. I paid a lot of $$$ so if you have the knowhow and the tools to build a quality unit I say go for it. If not, the Bedslide is top notch. I got it for $850 while buying a topper and a few other accessories for my truck so I spent like $3000 or so with the shop and got a nice package deal. At any rate, I've driven trucks my entire life and never, have I had one that was so damn efficient. It's an entirely different animal with a sliding bed. What I'm trying to say is whether you make one, or buy one they are darn cool units to have.

I went out and got some practice today. I was concerned with some fast reloads but quickly found myself doing some dumb things and getting too many mikes... even for not worrying about accuracy. I changed gears and slowed way down in order to shoot alphas. It helped a bunch as I was able to get better hits and I just did some simple standing reloads and a few reloads moving to another box. I wasn't feeling super productive and didn't stay long, but now that I'm reviewing a couple of vids, I do like a couple of my reloads and think my movement was good. By the end of the day I had received my new DAA Belt. Previously I had a COM belt and have been running that belt for a loooong time now thanks to a gift certificate way back when. I stuck all my gear onto this new belt and I'm shocked at how much better this belt is than my old one. This thing really does hold the gear more rigidly and that translates into a totally different feeling with my draw. Quite a bit more feedback from the equipment means a better understanding of each micro movement and I believe this can only lead to better movement. This is a bit like changing out the street suspension of your car for a racing one. Maybe you did just fine racing on the old suspension, pushing it to it's limit, but once you upgraded you noticed that every bump in the road told you valuable information you've been waiting for in order to drive just a tad faster. I'll always recommend quality equipment to people who want to get even a little bit serious... in the last several months I've gone from "my first" in many pieces of equipment to top notch DAA equipment and I can totally see the benefits. I'm sure there are plenty of good brands out there, but for me this recent upgrade to a brand that clearly fits me and my current ability is paying off big time.

After boning another classifier with a sluggish, missed reload I decided I need to try to figure out what was going on. (Actually there were other problems, but the reload has boned me a few times recently so it was the one recurring problem) I dry fired last night and set the timer for a 1.1 second par time with a random start delay of 3-4 seconds. Upon signal, I drew to a target and maintained a sight picture until the par time signal fired. (not long, only 1.1) At which time I performed a reload as absolutely fast as I could move. I also randomly transitioned to another target during the reload in order to try to step up the tension. This led to a recreation of my fumbled reloads. I was happy to have felt exactly what I felt when these reloads failed. I identified that I would change the angle of my thumb to a more natural, grip/fist action thus causing my thumb to actually slip off the bottom of the mag release button and touch my index finder just under the mag release. After more analysis I figured out that it was actually way more comfortable and faster if I just allow this action every time. It's really the difference between just making a fist, and trying to hit a button with your thumb. Seems obvious now that if you just allow the fist making to happen to hit the button you reduce a conscious action to a subconscious one. So I moved the angle of my mag release down so that my index finger almost touches it coming around the other side. After more practice I'm confident that this new angle will eliminate my missed reloads and allow me to move more smoothly and therefore faster. Bring on a mandatory reload classifier so I can test this theory!!

I say go back to the "scoop" draw. I always put it in quotes because I also feel there's no such thing as a scoop draw. It's just elimination of the downward movement. If you pick up a beer, do you reach around and grab it from it's far side? So why lift your hand any higher than needed to get your thumb around the grip?

I'm very happy for you. I'm glad you saved up and got to experience training from a world class shooter. I just signed up for a Manny Bragg class and can't wait for that also. I've taken some classes from great shooters in the past and it's very motivating. Game changing... good stuff. I look forward to seeing your game improve after this.

Today I got to shoot the match at Aurora Gun Club. I was happy to get on a squad with an M shooter that I'm always trying to beat. He's just ahead of me in skill level and a very consistent shooter, so I can tell right away if I'm doing well by how my scores compare to his. He thinks I beat him today and I believe I edged him out on 1 or 2 stages, but I still think he stayed ahead of me. We shall see. That's what I love about this sport. We can all be competitive yet freinds. I think most people know, at the end of the day it's how you performed all by yourself and relying on the competition to make mistakes is NOT how you win and therefore we can remain freinds. I'm sure there are some people out there without that attitude and relish in others failure but everyone I normally interface with doesn't even know the definition of Shadenfreude. (on a side note, my brother raced in Moto-X and Enduro circuits most of my childhood and they were the same way. Maybe that's why I like these guys so much.) So, looking at a vid of the first stage I shot, I can see a positive note in my draw that's pretty suble. I've been working on the "shrug" ala Steve Anderson. This is a slight "pre-loading" of my shoulders that keeps a bit of tension in the upper arm/shoulder area. This does two things. 1. Get's your hand a bit closer to your gun while still looking "relaxed at sides" and 2. removes an entire movement system out of the draw. Basically, the initial "hand on gun" motion is already half over before you even start. I'm watching this vid at .25 speed and there is no movement of my shoulder between "are you ready" and "beep." Good. (and on the following vids as well. Double-Good.) My movement out of positions is pretty darn quick although could be a bit more forceful per my old "Two large" goal. My last positive on this was the engagement order. I did a bit of a reverse order situation on both far sides so the shuttle around the barrel was done during engagement rather than having to move and then start engaging. Overall a smooth run with only small areas for improvement. Next up, is a stage I designed. The obvious improvement area here was the TWO, that's right TWO MIKES. Just got a bit speedy in a couple of spots. The first was one of the headshots at position 5 (2nd array down the line on the left side) where there was a mess of no-shoots at odd angles with pretty much heads only. I called it, but was already out of the position by the time my eyes caught up to my brain. Ooops. Then when I entered the next position it was supposed to be about 3-4 steps and I was 5 in when my brain told my feet to STOP NOW! That led to the a clunky halt where I miked a wide open target. Watching the vid closely I can see myself on my toes trying to stop as I let that shot fly. At the end I'm looking over at that mike considering a makeup... but decided against it. Everytime you have to think about something that long, it's too late. Finally my best stage of the day. All the positive things to remember from this stage you can't see in the vid. It was all through my sight. I was a dot-watching-shot-calling-son-of-a-bitch. This was a total moment of "that seemed slow," but was clearly a fast and smooth run. This is the kind of thing that we signed up for from the beginning. I vividly remember every shot and could pretty much tell you every hit before they called it. Fun stuff and when I can bring my consistency up and get more stages like this, it will lead me to GM. Next I had some kick-ass angles with a cool gopro placement. Unfortunately I have a video of my talking about it before hand... followed by a video of my talking about it afterwards, but NO video of the stage. All thanks to pulling a "got the on mixed up with the off" dumb ass mistake. It would have a been a great teaching moment so I'm quite bummed I missed it. I tried to go balls-out on the classifier, but every movement seemed extrememly laborious and slow. This led to a string of shooting WAAAAY faster than I could see. I even took an extra shot, but had started to transition across a no-shoot so I got the joy of following up a penalty with a penalty. The following stage didn't go much better from an aiming perspective but thanks to close targets I managed to come out of it with a decent score despite poor dot tracking. I wrapped up the match on a low note, but with my high notes on all the highest scoring stages I think overall it was a good showing and I can't wait to see the results. I succeeded in my goal of seeing faster if only for a stage or two. But that's a big step. You have to see and feel what something looks like before you can repeat it and then work on consistency. Good times! Now I just drudge through another week of work until the next match.

Visualization and repetition are powerful tools. Keep it up bro!

Nice video. That guy made you look like a rock star thanks to some fancy editing. Well, I guess the shooting helped.

That's why our sport is so darn expensive... TWO of everything. Starting with two guns... the list goes on-and-on-and-on...

Nice work dude. I love to see performance reviews that talk about the positive. Read Lanny Basshams book, "With winning in mind" although, based on what I just read maybe you have. Forget about the negative, concentrate on the positive and keep practicing. You'll be moving up in classification in no time. I'm glad you are having fun and welcome to the forum!

Well, I just wrapped up another great weekend of shooting. I got to shoot two matches. One at Aurora Gun Club and the other down at Centennial gun club. Since my performance reviewing has slipping a bit I made several videos out at Aurora and my wife joined me for her first match in around 12 years. She has taken nicely to shooting my spare open gun and does a great job at developing stage plans on her own or with other shooters in an effort to "leave me alone" (her words, not mine.) I greatly appreciate that and it sure did allow me to operate as needed to perform at my usual level while engaging her in a casual, stress free way. It was a hell of a good time. so anyways, the match at AGC was a good one with a good variety of stages. there was one hoser stage, a pretty complex aimer, and a couple of simple ones. The first positive that I see in the first video is my transitions. I like the way I very quickly whip over during the transition and quickly move my feet at the same time to maintain a valid cone of fire and stable platform. Those triangle shooting areas up front are close to 180 degrees of shooting and required three separate stances. I thought I did well at those. My areas for improvent don't show in the vid... they are aiming. I earned TWO Mikes on that stage and clearly didn't call every shot. Next up was a fast stage for me, but again, earned a mike from shooting faster than I can see. The movement was quick, but the most obvious area for improvement was not going deep enough into the right-hand port. Another step or two would have allowed faster transitions and allowed me to engage the entire array without leaning back and forth. The classifier! Well, I think I have reached the point in my shooting where I'm really going to have to step up the action during classifiers. At this M - going to - GM stage of the game I fail to see how there is any room for brakes while driving toward 95% or better scores. This was pointed out to me at Area 2 where I went balls-out and scored a 94%. (not quite GM, but the point remains that I got to that score by hauling ass faster than I thought possible.) At AGC I didn't perform this very well and wound up shoving my old mag back into the gun with the new mag and by the time I figured out how to get the new mag out of the way to let the old mag drop... well, it was too late for anything but to see what happened if I went full-auto on the array. Several mikes and noshoots later it was the ZERO side of said "Hero or Zero." So the following night I went to Centennial. Concentrating on running the clock and coaching new shooters, my performance at indoor matches is not something I concentrate on. Therefore, there are no vids to be had for reference and not much for performance analysis. However, the classifier was a bit more on the Hero side of the spectrum and is worth reviewing. It was a simple turn and burn (Eye of the Tiger) and everything lined up nicely. A very aggressive turn and draw was followed by even more aggressive dot watching. This was a total moment of "as long as that static from the dot stays on target keep pulling the trigger as fast you can." I clearly called every shot and was able to perform in a truely subconcious manner. I love these moments and can only hope that more of them will lead to a GM classification one day. I walked away with a 98.9% on it.... 2.66 seconds and dropped 2 points. hehehehehe! THAT, is why we do this. So, I can still see that "shooting faster than I can see" thing happening and can't decide whether I'm shooting faster or seeing slower recently. I'm hoping it's the former and that going forward, my seeing will catch up more often. Goals: See faster.

Welcome to the sport! It's crazy fun. Remember, when reviewing your performance ALWAYS walk away with the positive and forget the negative. It will help to keep the fun up and keep you on the road to improvement.

Take your stage walkthroughs very seriously and count your shots. The fist couple times going through, count the shots and get all of them by the end. Once you are sure you have them, get even more serious. Don't do that half-assed... "I'm gonna go over her and shoot stuff.... then shoot those..." as you stroll through. Hold your hands exactly as you do with a proper grip. ONLY move your trigger finger and actually place each shot while visualizing your sights on every shot. With speed you know you can achieve. Programming bro! Not a stroll with a guess.

You might have to let accuracy slip a bit. Blaze through a stage or two and just shoot brown, or less. That might help you see what it feels like to haul ass with a gun in your hand. Then you can rein it back in and try to do it while shooting accurately. I've gone back and forth where I feel like I'm moving too fast.. then shooting well but moving too slow.... the balance is what the game is all about. Sounds like you are spending too much time on the one side. Heck. Maybe remove your rear sight or something so that you run a stage without any expectation of accuracy. Just guess while trying to get the same time as a particular shooter ahead of you by a class or two. That would give you an idea of what it's like to ride that Fast and Inaccurate side for a bit. I'm thinking the other shooter is to give you an idea of whether you are really pushing your speed during the exercise.

My understanding of the game took a sharp increase after I got the RO Cert. I hope the same for you. Also. Keep reading the book... it's easy to think you remember a rule, but not being afraid to look it up will make us all better RO's.

Your accuracy/shooting skills are very good. Seems the work you have ahead of you is not in sight or trigger control issues. What I see is many accessory movements and some poorly timed reloads. Try to be more efficient in your movement. There is a drastic lean when reloading and your gun arm drops quite a bit. In order to work on less movement think of the reload from the left hand. Try positioning mag pouches so that you snag the mag and bring up in a quick and comfortable motion. Then put the gun where the mag is. You'll find it's quite a bit higher than it is now reducing extra movements in arms. Practice this dry-fire WITH NO GUN. If you just grab a mag and bring it up, by the time you are quick and comfortable you'll find it's way high, in front of your face. Then add the gun into the scenario and see what happens. While talking about extra movement that can, and does include the entire reload. You have many mag pouches on your belt. Use them. You should be reloading whenever you need to in order to avoid a standing reload. E.G. Last stage with the port. I think you should have reloaded twice. Once going into the port, and again coming out of the port. This would avoid the severe time loss of coming out of the port - reloading - going back in the port. Anytime you can make a reload concurrent with movement you don't have take reload time out of your shooting time. That's a plus. I hope I'm helping. You have come quite a ways since your first posts. Keep up the good work!