Glock26Toter

So this weekend was full of shooting and troubleshooting. Basically I found that with new springs/followers (the correct ones.) I had great success with my ammo and expected results. The 1.71 round fed perfectly. The short 1.130 rounds still jammed in big sticks, but this I believe is the bullet change issue that started it all. So, IF I was to keep and use the Precision Deltas, I'm confident that my reliable length on these would be the 1.71 or very near that. However, I am in love with the 115 grain Hollow Points. I'll try Zero's next since Rick swears that accuracy will be greatly increased with them. I went out and zeroed Shiny with the MG 115 HP's and easily shot a standing 3" group so accuracy is pretty darn good. I don't fully recall the distance, but I'm going to say around 50'. We did manage to create jam and with some troubleshooting assistance from Big Panda (thanks a bunch dude!) we found that rounding off a "corner" on the chamber should stop the one jam that has been the occasional problem for a long time now. Then, we did some practice and we identified a key movement issue. "2 Large" is the hook I'll be using in my goal list now. Charlie pointed out that I explode out of the shooting position very well, and then fail to keep that steep ramp in acceleration with the next step. I can tell this is true because I can feel my weight get too far forward on me occasionally and when that happens it's usually in the middle of the run. With the "2 large" mentality I explode out of the shooting position for TWO STEPS, Not just one. This greatly increases the acceleration ramp up and in practice shaved off a couple of seconds in the drill we were doing. Meanwhile, accuracy increased. Probably due to better Deceleration. Speaking of accuracy with the new 115 Grain round I can see an obvious difference in dot tracking and muzzle rise. I need to watch the dot very carefully now and not think that it's a license to just blast away and not aim as carefully. I want the new action to result in better accuracy and slight faster splits... NOT less accuracy and much faster splits. That will come eventually by nature. A good training session was had by all! New Goals: 1. Two Large (give BOTH feet your all when leaving a position.) 2. Keep working on grip strength. 3. Watch the dot even more carefully now.

Well, since I last wrote I've been to the gunsmith and the practice range. At the gunsmith we found that I had the wrong springs on my followers in the big sticks. He swore up and down that it's the root of my problems and sold me all new springs. We tested a bit, but I knew I had to wait for the range. So, at the range today I ran several tests. First, the hollow points at 1.123 ran without any problem. Whew. Second, the round nose bullets at 1.13 and 1.54 jammed 2 times each in Big sticks and not in 140's. However, the 1.171 rounds didn't jam at all. I ran all I had, so like 3-4 big sticks and at least 2 140's and not a single jam. I'm slightly confused here, what it seems to me is, the short Precision Deltas don't run and when I swapped the springs out with the wrong followers I caused NOTHING to run. I'm going to load up about 150 of each (Hollow point and 1.17 Round nose) and shoot these and see what's up.

I just watched your vids. Looks to me like your movement issues are all below the waist. (hehehe...don't worry, I'll explain.) Bend your knees more and get way lower. The thing I see a lot is you de-stabilizing your shooting platform. Those "leaning while shooting" moves are not helping, but only causing you to drag out the position as you fight your momentum to keep the gun on target. You need to ease into your positions and use your legs as shock absorbers to slow your movement into a position, then shoot with bent knees and a stable platform. Then push very hard, out of the position to the next. You'll also find, that with bent knees when you transition your hips AND upper body will pivot and speed those transitions up big time. That won't happen unless your knees are bent and your feet are at least shoulder width apart. Watch some of Panda's You Tube vids. I know he's a GM but he has a similar build. Don't worry about how darn lightning fast he is, and just watch general body position while shooting and transitioning. Watching smaller, wiry guys won't help you as much as guys with similar frames. I do the same thing.... try to compare my movements with similar builds and that's helped me get a realistic idea of what I should look like. I hope that helps you a bit.

Dude. Keep up the good work. Sounds like you might have gotten what I was saying the other day about the reload. Most of the concentration and action is with your left hand so work on that left hand getting the mag out and to the "parking spot" THEN perform your reload. That helps a bunch with consistency in keeping the gun up. Also, quit your belly aching about accidentally dropping a mag and get a mag release button the size of Texas. Don't worry... you'll learn after the first couple mags hit the dirt and soon be reloading lickity-split like.

I went to the practice range today. Only technical testing since it was super cold and miserable. Nothing ran. Round nose Precision Delta, 1.60 length didn't run. The 1.71 length didn't run. The new Montana Gold JHP at 1.123 didn't run either. I did chrono them at 1546 FPS and that's a 177 PF. Too hot. When I got back to the press tonight I found that my powder had moved from intended 7.5 gr to 7.8. I'm not sure at what point that happened (probably at the very beginning) so I adjust it to 7.3 and will have to re-chrono the rounds and adjust from there once I get them running. I now feel there's something else going on. This happened immediately when I switched bullets but the magic length can't be that sensitive that NON of these will run even for a few rounds before failing to feed. I have pics and will go talk with the gunsmith tomorrow about the jamming. I think he'll find some issue besides loads.

Well, I got out to shoot another match at Aurora Gun Club today. What a nice day it turned out to be. it started out cold, but was warm by the 2nd stage, but not too warm. Holy Crap I still have not figured out my ammo issues. I loaded up the old big stick with some rounds a OAL 1.171 and went for stage 1. After 4 failure to feed jams, I dropped that mag and loaded a 140 to finish the stage. It jammed 1 more time and through all that I earned a NoShoot penalty. Obviously the 1.71 rounds are not correct. I think too long based on the half-entered fail to feed jams I got. So I put them away and went back to my short 1.130 rounds so I could get the classifier handled. Well, after several nose-dive malfunctions on that stage I didn't know what to think. I stepped into the next stage and jumped head first into "I-can't-believe-all-this-crapville" mode and tried to hose it like there was no tomorrow. I remember actually flinching backward while transitioning trying to accomplish god knows what. I got 2 mikes, but hey... no malfunctions. As I went to clean my mags I noticed that my first mag on the classifier was missing it's spacer. OOOPS. Somehow I lost the spacer and never noticed. That mag got put aside and I worked on clearing my head for the remainder of my time on that stage. Now... on to Stages 4 and 5 with ammo that I knew would run in 140 mags and NO BIGSTICKS. I commenced to win the next two stages by a large margin. I beat the HOA M shooter on both of these stages by more than 1 second. That felt really good. I know that if I can get these technical issues handled I can make to M Class. So, what's next? 1. I have some 1.60 rounds to try to see if I can get these darn Precision Deltas running. 2. I just received a case of Montana Gold JHP 115Gr bullets. I'll load these up and test with them. I have several chances to make to the range in the coming days and should be able to find a load that will run and stop screwing around by next Sunday's Centennial Gun Club match.

Nice work. It's FUN to move up. Don't worry about people "making fun" of any achievement you are proud of. We ALL made C class at one point and were just as excited as you are.

I shot the Area 2, Desert Classic match this weekend in Arizona. The match was a very challenging one with accuracy being the key ingredient. Many far targets, head shots, and other things to force you to really get your aim on. And the swingers! Don't get me started. Not even the top GM's tried to double any of them. They were fast and only 25% available. One shot... wait... one shot was the only way to be sure you had those hits. My performance? Oh, man this one will be tough to find the positive nuggets in for sure. If a positive can be had, it's that when I shot, I shot well. But the shooting was hard earned. Looking at the results, I was either above 85% or waaaaaay below it. My gun jammed on 8 of the 14 stages, and on 2 of the non-jam stages I earned a mike. Technically, I'm still not over this switch to Precision Delta bullets. The darn big sticks just don't run with those bullets and I still have some work to do to get that figured out... after talking with a couple of gunsmiths I just didn't lengthen them enough before heading to a major match. I'll make them longer. Meanwhile, I'm also going to switch to 115gr Hollow Points and see what I think about the recoil with those. In my effort to increase my splits I'm actually waiting on the gun to settle and if I can get it just a bit flatter I think I can pick up my spits just a tad. We'll see. So for the match, the times I ran, it was very nice. My positive take away stages are 1, 10, and 13. These are all stages where I was really performing at the top of my game and was not held back by the technical problems. On Stage 1 (youtube link), I ran this differently than most of the other top shooters and I stand behind my decision. Unlike most other times when I look at the way they ran it as the best way, I feel that the direction I ran it led to no retracing of my steps, and I was considerably closer to the partial hard cover targets you can't see in the back left. That position needed to be it's own position no matter how you sliced it, and mine was just closer and within the flow of the stage instead of back tracking on anything. This is supported by my score where I placed 5th Open. I was well within the Master class for this one, and the top GM's beat me by seconds on this, but I think it was due to other areas adding up and not that one decision. I could be wrong, but I see a slow start out of the start position, and a lumbering step to the right to get into that position. I just wasn't moving as quickly as I could have for any of it really. Stage 10 (Youtube Link) was the next really good (and I mean REALLY GOOD) run for me. I won this stage OVERALL. I just keep on reflecting on this one as everything just fell into place. I was running pretty hot on this as I was confident my gun wouldn't jam since I didn't need a bigstick. I had reflected on what was going on for two days and emotionaly I was ready to stop worrying about the gun and just run. I gripped the gun extra hard on this and it shows in my splits as I watched that dot carefully and "looked the shots off" just like I'm supposed to. This one goes in as a positive reinforcement... something this match really needed. Stage 13 (Youtube Link) was a strong stage and was really fun to boot. I can see myself really pushing out of each position as opposed to the lumbering, slow exceleration of Stage 10. Also, the best thing I see here is the control I had over the split pace. I shot the far, partial noshoot targets slowly and slammed the close no-risk ones very quickly. This is something we constantly work at and a positive note for sure. Then, when I hose the steel down at the end, it's not an even pace either. This is due to waiting for the dot to settle on the steel before breaking the shot. At that amped up rate I couldn't make it happen evenly, but was somehow patient enough to let it happen on each individual target so that I was sure to go 1 for 1. And we all know, 1 for 1 will always be the fastest steel. I don't remember hearing any of them, or the uneven pace. I only remember what it looked like. That feels good. I lost this match through technical errors and can only look forward to more careful equipment decisions that will allow me to bring out my "inner Master." He's in there somewhere, getting closer to the surface with each match. Here's what I'm thinking. 1. I was given a 9lb recoil spring that I replaced my 8lb with and immediately liked the gun better. I can't exactly describe the gun feeling any better but my splits seemed a bit more natural so I'll be keeping 9 pounders in there for a while. 2. After hearing from a 2nd source that I need to lengthen my round nose bullets I've decided I just didn't lengthen them enough. I'll do the "make them too long and then back them off" routine that 2 gunsmiths have said to do now. That will hopefully remove my feeding issues with these round nose bullets. That will allow me to really perform Step 3 well. 3. I've just purchased a case of 115gr FMJ HP bullets. I'll be loading these as recommended and I'm hoping to see a bit flatter gun and this, coupled with stronger grip should lead to faster splits. If I like the hollow points better I'll see about getting rid of the round nose, but think there could be some value in practicing with them so that I basically shoot slower and watch the dot harder while practicing and then in a match I can turn up the heat a bit by running the flatter shooting round. hmmm? Goals for next time. 1. Increase grip strength. 2. keep watching the dot. 3. Get the technical issues resolved. I have previously not been documenting my place, but will start doing that at the end for the sake of logging. Area 2: 35th Open. 6th A Class. 75.2%

I shot a local match at Aurora Gun Club today. Man was it windy. Pretty much all day the wind blew, but it wasn't too cold. Overall a fun match with some nice stages. (Youtube Link) The first stage was a pretty clunky stage without much flow. I started out with a malfunction on the 2nd round in the gun. There seems to be something up with my red bigstick and just when I thought it would work, it failed me again. A quick rack and I was back in business and was seeing very well through my sight. I like what I see with some low movement into the second shooting position on the right. I move quickly across the field and start shooting that wide open target as I'm breaking into that position. By the time I get to the steel where I really have to stabilize, I'm all squared up and settled in. The steel is my most positive point on this stage. They drop very quickly 1 for 1. This contrasts nicely with the improvement needed on the final steel around the barricade in the last position. I didn't settle into that position and shot 4 times to knock it down. My time was very quick on this stage, and despite the issues I ran the fastest time and won the stage. (Youtube Link) Next up, was a major movement stage. This one I was very confident in my plan and again, was rewarded with a stage win. The things I like on this one are my planting of the "rear" foot when leaning on both sides of the walls. That foot is just kid of toe-in with a straight leg exactly opposite of the leaning weight. It's a bit hard to explain but when that foot gets in the right spot you are perfectly ballanced and it's worth practicing and noting where you are best ballanced in those positions. The other thing I like is how I handled those ports to the left and right of the door. Again, I'm watching the footwork and I put that leg pretty much straight out, and then quickly work my feet across for the same position on the other side. This leads to fast splits and accurate hits on all these targets. Last stage (Youtube Link) is a hose-fest. As fast as this run looks I got too many Deltas to be really happy with it. I got 2nd overall on this stage, but I just feel like I should have aimed a bit more. I woudl feel better had I kept an eye on my sight and had more Alphas and less Deltas. This was a fun stage and maybe one where it's more fun to chainsaw through it and let go of the finer points for a minute. I can remember seeing that dot look like staic and just doing that "as long as the dot stays in the brown, keep pulling the trigger" thing. Not sure if that's good, but worth noting I guess. I think I'm going to drop my "even lower..." goal off the list. I'm pretty happy with my progress on this and feel like I can let it go for now. Here's what I need to work on: 1. Increase grip strength by continuing to work toward building it daily. 2. Keep watching the dot and use grip strength to control it. 3. don't worry about trying to increase splits and have faith that #1 and #2 will naturally lead to it.

Good idea to work the grip. We can easily hit it too hard and wind up with Tennis Elbow. Lot's of us shooters have it. (or Shooters Elbow rather.) I've been fighting Tennis Elbow (outside hurts) and Golfers Elbow (inside hurts) for years now. I'm having great success lately. Here's what I did. 1. Rest. 2. Acupuncture. 3. Handmaster. http://www.amazon.com/Ghs-A12-Handmaster-Plus-Exerciser/dp/B0002GWFSW The acupuncture has been the single most effective treatment. My right arm pain went away months ago after acupuncture and recently my left arm has been healed up too. I still get a bit of pain if I work the grip too hard, so I'm taking it easy with the handmaster for now. Once the pain is gone I can built strength more aggressively. Seems like if you are healthy now a good exercise plan and you might build the strength before you develop some elbow issue. Good luck!

Dude, I'm glad you are having so much fun and making progress. I hope you do well. My only advice is calm down and don't push so hard. It's a long road and have to remember to have fun and if you push too hard you could wind up burning out or losing the magic because you get hung up on some problem that "you just can't get past." Everyone has their own pace, but I just thought I'd give you a word of caution against potential burn out. When it comes to goal setting and analyzing your shooting be sure to read Lanny Bassham's book "With Winning in Mind." It really did wonders for my goal setting and made my shooting more fun. good luck.

I got to shoot 2 matches this weekend. The first one, at Aurora Gun Club as very interesting. I shot very badly and haven't had a match where I scored that low in years. I suspect that my mindset over a potential life change (new job basically) distracted me to the point where I just couldn't get it together. With mikes on almost every stage and 4 no shoots on the classifier my ability to pick out positive points is pretty diminished. I would say that my movement was pretty good and when I was shooting I was trying to remember to increase my grip strength. So my ability to at least remember and attempt to make progress on my goals was still in tact. I guess that's the positive to take away from this one. The next evening was the indoor match at Centennial gun club. This is a match with a LOT of beginner shooters and I like helping new people out. I try not to set any goal progress or performance expectations at this match. It's more about helping people and just shooting. However, I was very happy about the fact that I did shoot well. There were some pretty impressive stages at this match and my hat goes off to the designers. They were pretty challenging and fun stages. The classifier was one that I had never shot before and it was my first stage. I was able to see my dot clearly and move very deliberately through everything exactly as I had practiced. One of my previous goals was to treat the classifier like any other stage and optimize the micro-movements. I did just that and feel like I shot that as well as my current ability will allow. I really wish I had video or at least timer feedback as I feel like I was squeezing pretty hard to keep those splits down to around .20 at least. I was rewarded with an 85.2% on that stage, even with 1 delta. This set the tone for the rest of the match and I was relieved to offload the previous day's troubles. That alone is something that's very difficult to do and is a positive note for me. Looking at my times I was very happy with what I posted and felt like I was moving fast and not wasting time. In most cases I just watched the dot and was able to keep it in control. I don't know if I increased my split times or not, but next week I should be able to get some better feedback. There will be video and a better list of competitors to judge my performance against. The usual crowd that will put me in my place basically. Maybe I'll get a few glances at the timer also. So, my goals will basically stay the same for now... maybe a bit of simplification: 1. Increase grip strength 2. Keep watching that dot and use grip strength to keep it in control. 3. Even lower, even more aggressive with movement.

I got out to practice today. I recorded the entire session on video. I only wanted to concentrate on Splits and transitions. As soon as I got started I broke that down further and only concentrated on what to do about splits. Basically, I went from .25 splits to .17 splits by the end of 200 rounds with very little drop in accuracy. I'm not sure if I'm onto something or not, but I really felt like I learned a lot. I setup 3 open targets that were 33 feet away and 9 feet apart. In the first video (Youtube link) I'm at .23 splits on all three targets. In the second video (Youtube link) I'm at about .17 splits. I have to ignore the transitions as I moved the targets halfway through so they are only 2 feet apart in the 2nd vid. Looking only at draw and shooting I can't see an apreciable difference in my body setup or shoulders and arms. They look the same, I'm just shooting a lot faster. The difference is grip strength. I found that if I just grip the gun much harder I can control recoil and see the sight drop back on target a lot faster. Specifically I'm gripping mostly in the Thumb-Index finder region. This causes a "top of the arm" tensing, but nothing else really seems tense. If I do an overall grip tightening I wind up involving my sholders and my neck feels tense. This results in a severe drop in accuracy. As long as keep my added grip strength to the top of my hands (in essense "choking" the gun at the top of the grip) I can really speed up the shooting and not drop accuracy. This is a major thing for me and I can finally break that goal #1 into a legitimate step to work on as its own goal. I just hope it's on the right track. Goals for next time: 1. Work on seeing the steps that go into getting alpha. 2. Increase grip strength at the top of the grip only. 3. Keep getting lower and more aggressive at movement. 4. More classes and squads with GM's.

Screw all that. Just enjoy being up there while it lasts. Good job man!

I shot a local match today out at Ben Lomond Gun Club. It was a cold and windy morning only to be followed by a windy afternoon. I felt great today and feel like I shot at the top of my ability and remembered my goals. The match was just plain fun. I think the stage designers out there do a great job. I was rewarded today with a close 2nd Overall behind the GM that we all have come to know as the first place resident. I think I might have taken him today, but alas, the big-stick that I took to the match failed on me 3 times on the first stage causing me to finish down around 6th place and that may have been what did it. Besides the obvious technical issue, I felt pretty decent about the run otherwise. When I ran, I ran fast, and when I shot, I shot clean. And that big stick didn't get used again today. Now, to look at something I can use. Stage 4 (Youtube link) was a 20 round stage that required some pretty precise positioning to avoid wasting time doing a Ray Chales routine. I was very happy with my last position where I found it easy to see the last 2 targets and ran that stage very quickly. The two areas I can see obvious need for improvement are my draw, and going into position #3, the first forward target. I have this hesitation at the draw that isn't there normally. Once in a while it shows up. Maybe I'm trying to speed up the scoop beyond my ability? Not sure yet. Now, going into position 3 I look like an old-time cowboy kind of lumbering up to the position. Not very smooth, or quick. I think my eyes were like, "dude there's the target, start shooting," and my feet were like, "hang on, we aren't quite in position.. almost there... just another... few... inches." The next stage, Crack Head Olympics (Youtube Link) was a really fun stage. There was some major distance to run and I asked someone to video me so I would disappear in that wide angle like usual. I'm glad I did. This was my strongest stage of the day as I just plain hauled ass. I can plainly see my draw was a much smoother scoop stepping into the area, and then I was able to call my shots very effectively. That rear array had 4 round plates in front of a wall of no-shoots and it was a force to be reckoned with. Even I'm surprised to hear how fast I shot them, as I remember doing kind of a quick three step process when shooting them. "see-confirm-squeez" kind of shot through my head while engaging them. Not that I was thinking of each step, I just aimed very deliberate. It paid off. Out of 37 shooters I was one of 10 to get that stage clean. Looking at the vid I'm really hauling ass accross the stage and my arms are as comfortable as they can be and I really don't look like I'm running with a gun in my hand. This has been a major goal of mine for a while. When you gotta GO, you have got to "let go of the gun and RUN." I'm very happy about my reaching this goal more and more and it might just leave my list soon! Final stage to analyze in detail is the classifier CM 03-03. (youtube link) This is a great stage to end on for today as there were some mental and tecnical aspects that were very valuable. I practiced the basic array's and movements yesterday like crazy. I wasn't trying to do anything major yesterday, but wanted to learn what my current abilities are. That was a success, but today I found myself wrestling a bit with the fact that I shot similarly this so many times recently. I was like "this is easy.. you know how to shoot his." Then... "Shut-up man. That's how to create big mistakes." The real mental state needed to be "just shoot... do each step like you always do" and that's what I told myself all through Nationals. In the end, I shot it like I shoot. Comfortably executing each step and pushing as much as I dared, but not doing anything crazy. I wound up with an 87% on it so that was quite the reward for just executing and staying calm. The remaining stages were about the same. I left with a big fat smile on my face remembering the positive notes and not even thinking about the negative ones. Another day of shooting and another day of trying to improve my skills. Fun stuff! Goals for next time: Work on seeing the steps that go into getting an Alpha. That's how to speed things up. Keep getting lower and more aggressive at movement. More classes and squads with GM's.

Normally I do get vids. I reviewed them last practice, but not this time. I'll have to make sure to do that next time. I agree that it's very valuable and have seen a major improvement since I started using video to review matches... I would say I review about 50% of my training sessions. Need to do more I think.

I was able to get out this morning for some practice. After talking a friend of mine he put me on the right track with what to try to look at next. He asked me how fast some of my shooting times were and even though I had looked at them last time, I found myself guessing and didn't really have the answers I should have. I decided after talking to him that I'm being too broad in my goal setting. Just trying to "get more alphas" or "push harder" or whatever I've been doing for a while is no longer going to cut it. It's been good for a while, and for A Class that was what I needed. Now, it's time to get more granular with it. I've asked myself "how do I get more alphas?" and what exactly can I do to "move more aggressively" and I went out today to find out more details about my current ability and therefore analyze the details that might get me somewhere. I setup a drill with two arrays about 15 feet apart. Each array was a no-shoot in the center of two targets with 100% of the A-Zone showing. (it's basically CM 03-03 paper array and similar arrangement.) Since it was modeled after CM03-03 I put a barricade up to have to lean around. After shooting it many times, what I found was this: My splits to maintain all alphas or just 1-2 charlies is .25 (give or take .02). My transitions are .30 (give or take the same .02) Leaning around the barricade was about .85 (usual .02). I did several runs without the leaning aspect and that wide transition ran about .40. This seems about how I've been shooting for a while now. I found that if I got any additional speed out of any one of those movements... like I was able to get my splits down below .20 then I would likely plug a no-shoot or get a Delta. Same with everything else. No matter where I stole time from it would severely impact the accuracy. I never tried slowing anything down as this was my "this is how fast I can do this comfortably" speed and didn't see any benefit to slowing down. The entire time I maintained my 1.20 first shot time and didn't concentrate on speeding that up all... that was last time and I found that with some practice and concentration on that alone I could usually maintain accuracy at 1.10, but consistency suffered. Any faster and I would either miss or felt like I didn't call the shot and relied on luck for a decent hit. So, I guess in summary my current ability is a 1.2 second draw, .25 splits and .30 transitions. I need to work on how to shave time in those actions one at a time... I think. Of course I still have my secondary overall goals, but as for breaking things down to just shoot a bit faster I might have found something to hang my hat on.

I only got to shoot 1 match this weekend. I chose Boulder Rifle Club since it was a section qualifier. The stages there are usually very accuracy based and loaded with no shoots. No different this time. I've heard a complaint or two about Boulder, but I can't see a basis for them. The stages to me, are challenging and fun. Sure there are some restrictions on movement and I think the guys running it up there do a fine job at making up for it by loading up the accuracy. So I worked on my "pushing harder" and slipped up a couple of times with some deltas and a mike as a result. I kind of feel like it was worth it as I was noticeably working on my goal. The problem I have is that I just don't see fast enough if I push. I can get "lucky" and score my alphas faster sometimes, but consistently it seems that my current split times of around .25 or so are as fast as I can get the alphas. Hopefully more trigger time and concentrating on that specific goal will help. On one stage I was really in tune with my movement and won the stage very nicely. It wasn't a big stage, but after reviewing each section I found a couple of things that I could work on the make the stage the most efficient. One of them was to step backwards slowly while engaging the first set of targets. They were wide open so no risk, but if you could just gain a few feet it meant transitioning to the next array as opposed to having to move. I did this and therefore used my shooting time to prep for the next array. This saved me a bit of time and allowed me to even more efficiently move to the last array since it was a forward angle now instead of straight across. I'll be sticking that one in the "positive reinforcement" file as I can't really find much else from that match. I lost sight of the plan on the very next stage and got into the shooting box in a different spot than I had practiced. This first position required squatting to see the first arrays under a wall. When I squatted I saw different targets than intended since I was not in the same spot. Oops... I FTE'd a target and never knew it until the very end. On the next stage I thought I moved fairly quickly, but pushed a bit too hard for the alphas and wound up with some deltas. I had a jam too... this was caused once again, by not doing exactly what I practiced and using a troubled magazine. I had been avoiding using my big stick all day as it jammed in practice and I forgot to take it out of rotation. During walkthrough I was like "why not load this magazine?" and was quickly reminded when the third round out of the gun resulted in a jam. so, basically I feel like I was reminded of many areas that need improvement. These areas are nothing new to me and the reminder is that they take a while to work on and I think I'll just keep the same goal list for now and keep working at it. My next step, I believe is going to be to get more training. I'm looking at some advanced classes or drill ideas from some guys I've already trained with along with a new instructor by the end of the year or very early next year. I think this will help me to identify specific techniques to get through these goals.

I shot a match at Aurora Gun Club today. Something I've been doing recently is to keep a copy of my goals printed and taped to the lid of my box. Today I reviewed them before the match and was able to make some headway with them. I got a squad with a GM and he and I really talked quite a bit. More than usual and it was a side of him I haven't seen much of. I think it was a result of my goal to just talk to them more and open myself up to that in general. The other goals were to push harder for alphas and get more aggressive with movement. On the first stage of the day I felt really good about those two. (youtube link) My aggressive shooting shows in both the time for the first shot and the cadence I'm able to maintain on the first 9 targets (3 arrays). I drew and just landed the dot immediately on the steel. I pressed the trigger the instant I saw that and it was a very quick first shot. I moved out of that position as fast as I could and things fell apart a bit when I got to position two. I started shooting way before I was stabilized and am reminded that "pushing for the alphas" can easily turn into "losing visual patience." I scored several charlies and 2 Deltas in that second position whereas I only scored 1 or 2 charlies in the first position. The run overall was nothing to sneeze at, but I think it was very valuable to get both positive reinforcement of my goals AND a reminder of what needs work in the same run. My next runs wen't well and I was able to continue working on my goals. I only shot 1 or maybe 2 more Deltas during the rest of the day and did get 1 mike on the final stage. I'm not really too upset about that mike for two reasons. The main reason is that Lanny Bassham would not let me focus on it. The other reason is that the shot was an edge hit that would have been a C hit, but the target was blacked out with hard cover so that only the A zone was visible. I did see and call the Alpha shot on the edge, but the dot is big, and the target was close so it just didn't make it. But overall on that stage I was focused on the Alphas and the aggressive movement that earned me a great hit factor despite the mike. So I'm happy with my goal focus today and will just continue working on those goals for now. To repeat my current goals: Push harder at those alphas. Get lower and more aggressive at movement. More classes and squads with GM's.

For just starting out, don't worry so much about such an aggressive practice regimen. Dry fire to get used to the gun and trigger finger discipline, but I think the best thing to do when you are starting out is make it to the matches. When there, watch, learn and ask some questions. Don't bug the hell out of everyone, but us experienced shooters generally like to help new shooters out. The problem with setting up such aggressive training sessions is that you might be practicing more bad habits than good. I'm not saying don't practice, just practice basics and cement them in and make sure you are doing it correctly. Don't practice too much speed or complex drills.

I had my final day at Nationals. I rained some more and even hailed for a while. Our group was definitely the unlucky ones when it came to whether. I don’t feel like it was a disadvantage, but who could argue that it didn’t cause some issues? Might our times have been a tad better overall if we didn’t have to shoot at bags? I’m not sure, but I can see why it gets people down. I just refuse to let it. I had a great time and my overall experience with this year’s nationals was very good. What I did? I shot to the best of my ability this year. I was able to maintain my mental stability throughout and really performed well when it came to just doing one stage at a time and not letting the previous stages performance affect my next one. I did this each day and feel like I shot the last stages just as well as the first ones. This is actually very exciting for me as this is something I’ve rarely successfully done. Having done it here I can now clearly feel what it feels like and can work build on this as a recipe for success. As far as the shooting goes, I don’t think I did anything spectacular. I shot a bit conservative and didn’t take any risks. I picked each stage run with the lowest risk in mind and regret it on a couple of stage, but for the most part I’m happy with what I did. A couple of things I did particularly well, would be Stage 11, Blaster Master. I scored 15th overall on that stage and just happened to hit everything. I called my shots, moved quick and got into quite the awkward center position exactly as I practiced it which allowed me to continue calling shots and took me to a smooth finish. The other think I like that I did was to reload very well. I didn’t fumble a single reload. In one instance I left my #1 mag pouch empty and when I reloaded my hand just naturally passed up that pouch and landed on mag #2 and I reloaded without missing a beat. I remember thinking “huh, that just came out of #2” while engaging the next array. I was rewarded with a 6th place A Class finish for this nationals and with my best place yet in the books, I can look forward to some new goals for next year and my matches down the road. New goals for this year: Push HARDER. I definitely need to try to pick up my Alpha hunting speed and narrow down splits just a hair. Sometimes I surprise myself and while a clean Nationals is a feather in my cap, it’s a sign that I could have pushed a bit harder. You have to break some eggs to make an omelet. Work on way more aggressive movement. I’m just not getting low enough and pushing hard enough between positions. Watching videos of the GM’s on the same stages I was on I can plainly see why they are consistently about 2 seconds faster. They aren’t normally more than 2 seconds faster… usually I’m only trailing by that 2 seconds. Where is that time? Splits and moving slightly faster. They just get a bit lower and wait another step before putting on the brakes entering their next position. Find more mentors. I need to work on some more training in the form of classes or get on some squads at major matches that have plenty of GM's. To sum it up for moving forward: Push harder at those alphas. Get lower and more aggressive at movement. More classes and squads with GM's.

Well, I’m sitting here waiting for Day 4 of nationals. Due to the schedule, I didn’t get a chance to journal Day 2 so I’ll need to review 2 days of shooting this morning. Overall the shooting was pretty decent. I didn’t do anything particularly out of the ordinary and that’s really all I want. My main goal here is to well.. Remember my goals and consistently do what I need to do. Shoot like I shoot… one stage at a time…one round at a time. That’s the way I felt Friday. The second stage I shot I kind of “fell apart” and I even said that to the RO. Looking back at the video though (youtube link) it just wasn’t that bad. I got all my hits and did what was required to make sure that happened. I had to go back on a couple targets in position 2 and 3 and that feels bad, but beats the hell out of moving on and beating yourself up over not shooting with your eyes. If it wasn’t right the time for correction is the instant it happened, I think. In other words. Even though the stage run wasn’t great I saw a mistake. Fixed it. Moved on and learned a lesson. Movement looked good and my hits were just fine. The rest of the day went fine and at this moment can’t really pick out a striking positive but I also can’t pick out a striking are that needs improvement. Maybe THAT’S the positive? Yesterday (Saturday) it was raining like hell. I couldn’t use my glasses or progrip but I think in only 1 case that was an issue. No vid on that stage, but I triple tapped some rounds downrange and both the RO’s and I thought maybe the gun wasn’t working properly. I had a bad grip coming out of the holster and when I feathered the trigger for a shot the gun rocked back and forth in my hand and I rattled off 3 “fully auto” shots. Scared the hell out of me for both the obvious safety reasons and I thought the RO would stop me. He didn’t and I composed myself and moved on for a very good stage run. My best movement was in stage 11 (Youtube link) I shot the poppers on either side with my eyes, calling the shot the instant it broke and therefore was able to move out quickly. When I went into the middle I put 3 rounds into the right front target due to some over excited energy going in, but settled into that awkward position exactly the way I wanted to. That enabled me to hammer the last targets in the back and complete the stage very strongly. Sure the day had some areas that can be improved upon, but I would say that’s only the goals I’ve already set about getting more alphas and giving up a bit of time to be more accurate. Today I’ll just concentrate on that. I don’t want to get hung up on mental battles with the fact that it’s the last day. I’m just going to shoot like I shoot, and go alpha hunting.

Well, I'm at Nationals. I just want to do better this year than last. No lofty goals. I just want to do all the stuff I need to make each shot my best and let others decide my place on the board later. (where have I heard something like that before?) I shot 2 local matches the weekend before, but with Nationals stuff I didn't have time to journal about it. Both matches had some errors relating to my new goal to speed up the shooting a bit. I've decided that I still need to try to speed things up, but cannot let myself completely forget about the importance of Alphas. So a bit of pressure on the brake pedal should bring me to a place where I'm getting alphas as fast as I can. I just finished Day 1 and watched some vids. With the incredibly slow Wifi at the hotel I've only managed to upload 2 vids but will still talk about Day 1 as a match to hopefully dump all my thoughts about it and move onto Day 2 without dragging anything with me. The first stage I seemed to come out of the gate really hot. It was Stage 23. (http://youtu.be/NA8eAd72LaY) I just couldn't seem to keep the gun straight and literally shook from side to side while trying to aim. I missed a LOT of mini poppers and although I came out without a complete disaster (no misses or penalties) I didn’t feel good about my first run. The only positive aspect I can pull from it was that I nailed a swinger array that proved very difficult. It was a “Activator – Static – Swinger” type of array, but the activation was very quick and the swinger was only visible for about 45 degrees. I hit the steel, went over to the swinger and put 1 solid alpha hit on it. I then went and got the static and put another alpha hit on the swinger on the way back. That felt good and went a long way toward forgetting about all the other things I didn’t like about the stage. My movement looked a bit labored and I had a “shove off” action each time I got out of a position that contributed to the clunkiness of the run. Second stage went well with shooting, but the gun jammed. Other than that technical problem I liked what I saw in the sights and for such careful shooting from the video looked about as fast as I could shoot that one. The positive take-away on this would be my ability to clear the jams efficiently and get back on the same target without blowing the Virginia count and adding penalties to such a bad stage. Stage 25 I was happy with. Nothing spectacular, but shot it pretty easily and smoothly, especially when comparing to how my day started out. I was finally calming down and shooting like I can shoot. Next up was stage 26. A run that really got my juices flowing. Reviewing the vid on this one shows a smooth run and I like what I see. When it comes to the punch line (final array sliding down a rail from left to right) I’m all warmed up and shot that about as well I think I’m capable of. I did drop two points on it, but what was nice is I saw the whole thing and found that target “easy” because of how well I was seeing. I was comparing my movement between that and Stage 23 and can see that I’m smoothly coming out of each position and not doing “a slight Rock back and the push forward” that I’m doing on that first stage. The next three stages show nothing spectacular, and I’m going to sum up today's journal with the note that I think I’m starting to improve my movement. I’m not getting somewhere and then performing extra motions such as getting low and I’m not habitually moving out of a position with any extra “rock back” or other movements that I can see. The shooting seems to have calmed down and I’m calling shots within my ability. I just need to keep doing these steps one at a time and moving forward.

I shot a local match at Yampa Valley Practical Shooters this weekend. I've never been there and the funny thing is, I heard that those guys weren't very friendly up there. Nothing could be further from the truth. They were a great bunch of guys (like almost everyone I've met in this sport) and it is a very nice range. It turned out to be a nice sunny day, and they made up some pretty darn good stages. I'll be back up there for sure. I took zero vids, but shot the match with Charlie and he gave me a bit of a pointer session on the way home. He made a couple of points and looking back, I knew all these things but just didn't put them into action. My goal list will change accordingly and hopefully I'll see a bit of improvement for it. My first stage I was very happy with my accuracy and only got ONE charlie. I had a slight hesitation on target #1 as it was a 3 per paper stage, but once I got past that, I ran quick and was happy with the results. Second up was a stage that had many possibilities. I didn't maintain quite that level of accuracy, but again was happy with how I moved. I hesitated for what was probably a full second after the first shooting position and looked around for the target I thought I forgot. Nothing came up so I was off and running. There was no missed target, and the other thing I could have improved on was the swinger. I hit that thing in full ambush mode and didn't take the time to track it or place my shots worth a damn. I heard a barrel hit so I put 3 rounds down there and wound up with a C-D on it. I should have posted another second on my time and at least put an A-C on it. Next was the classifier "Merle's Standards" yeesh! I vividly remember coming out of my draw onto the first target and the dot just landed right on it. I got excited and railed the 6 virgina count rounds downrange like that target was 10 feet away. The only problem was, it was 105 feet away (or something like that) and by the time I realized I was not seeing what I needed to see to call those difficult shots I was done and the reload was in full swing. The rest of the stage, including said reload, went very well. I stabbed both reloads in my parking position very nicely and my weak hand only run got me all 6 Alphas. I went down to the far target and found that my loss of visual patience cost me 4 Mikes. If I can control that initial ass-haul mode on that first target I think I can do very well the next time I see that stage. Finally, the last stage was a lot of movement. This is one where I shot OK, moved super fast but failed to meet my "optimize the stage" goal. I got hung up right away with a poor stage plan and despite Charlie trying to correct me, I stuck to my flawed plan. I ran this stage in 19 seconds and took 3 shots to take down the initial steel. This was caused by my desire to hit a single target and haul ass to the next box. I actually ran this stage again after the match and did it in 16 seconds by staying there and taking 3 paper targets while in that same box. I'm not going to get into details on the stage, but it pointed out that it's better to go ahead and settle into a shooting position and get better points instead of "shoot on the move" and risk several mikes while you are trying to get out of a position. So based on Charlie's feedback and reviewing my performance over the last couple of matches. I'm going to ditch my previous goal of just trying to narrow down Alpha-getting. I think at this point, accuracy is already part of my mindset and I don't need to continue to sacrifice other skills to try to get better at accuracy alone. That will come with more trigger time. Now my new set of short term goals is: Speed up the shooting by working on visual patience, but breaking that shot the instant I see what need to see. (I know what an alpha looks like... stop confirming it and let it happen) Think about the stage plan and optimize each section for wasted time. Look harder at micro movements in a classifier. Reherse them just like a walkthrough.

I practiced today at an indoor range in Longmont called Trigger Time. A really nice range where you can draw from holster and no restrictions on rapid fire. Since it was raining this was our only choice... well, besides working and to hell with that! I shot about 200 rounds in a couple of hours. I ONLY took my Camo gun because I knew it could use the sight-in and I still don't trust it 100% since all the work. I spent the first part making sure my accuracy was good and it's about 2" high at 25 yards and right on at 10 yards. This should be the normal accuracy that I'm used to. Then I hit the real practice. The target system there allows for random distances and rotates the target for 2-3 seconds. It does this 10 times. I just let it go and every time it turned I drew and put 2 rounds in the target. I did this for like, 180 rounds and was really feeling good by the end. The last thing I did was a 1.5 second turn at a fixed distance (the only way to get the timing lower than 2 seconds.) I was easily able to draw and call 2 alphas with this timing. Any faster, like 1.2 and I could still make the motions work but couldn't maintain accuracy at the same level as 2 seconds. This seemed to be a valuable training day for me as it included some tuning and then just practicing one drill until I felt really good about it. The gun did jam once. Not sure what to think about that yet. Nothing is perfect, but I think I'll use old Shiny for Nationals coming up just to be sure. The main things I learned or reinforced from a day like today was: 1. KNOW the accuracy of your gun and practice it often enough that you still remember it. 2. There's nothing wrong with doing 1 drill repeatedly, as long as you are maintaining your skills. I was careful to leave before I took it to the point where my accuracy faded. My goals haven't changed, even for practice and I think I met the one about all alphas and not pushing speed over accuracy.