CrashDodson

I actually drove to Fayetteville the morning of the match and had a IV therapy. Had never tried it before, had hours to kill so figured why not. It honestly worked. I felt great all day, and walking the stages the day before in the humidity was brutal enough.

Thats just GM level shot calling bra!

Awesome thats encouraging!

im a month after you. I sold my 1050 with M7 to buy the Evo. I made a lot of ammo before I sold but have run out. I've started buying ammo from friends. Having professional ammo made for Nationals. Maybe its like SV and they artificially keep the wait times long to keep the allure of exclusivity high. haha. Im just a pretty impatient person when it comes to anything.

Obviously. There are not many DQable offenses that are not related to safety. The problem is not forgetting to be safe. The execution of the action is what it is. The problem is controlling the anxiety. The speed at which I execute a draw or reload has been programmed via 100s of thousands of reps that are "safe" in practice. As we improve and as we work harder for something the expectations for ourself also grows which has lead to this issue I am now facing which is new to me. If i could simply turn off these emotions then there wouldn't be the need for this conversation.

Congrats on your first Major. I know how nerve racking it can be. Just to echo some ideas here. Really focus on your walk through and your visualization. The standing reloads were a big time sink. Make sure you are walking the stage in your head over and over until your time to shoot. Know where your going, know where your feet are going to be and where your planning your reloads. If your not shooting you should be moving. There were a few times were you ended up shooting from an awkward exaggerated foot forward position. If you need to post up to shoot get a good solid base. There was a time or two where you made up a shot at the last minute, with a big time gap between your last and next to last shot. Sometimes its better, score wise, to let those go. @ 2:47 you took a second shot on the target blind. You had already transitioned your head to the next target. Work on that shot calling. When doing target transitions snap your eyes to the center of the available scoring zone and the gun will follow. Grip the gun hard with your support hand. really hard. Get yourself a good dry fire program going and you will get a lot of the low hanging fruit out of the way fast. Have fun!

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Ed, Im not sure how the current backorders get processed...but for reference I ordered direct from M7 in mid March and I am still waiting on mine. There were likely a lot of orders early on so hopefully you will not have to wait as long.

Thats a solid idea. The two times it has happend its like I just got back on the trigger too quick. Its not a slam the mag in and the round goes off, its the transition back to the target but getting the finger back on the trigger and obviously too hard too soon. After training with JJ several times he is a big proponent of prepping the trigger and it is something I have added to my dry fire and constantly working on. My trigger is nothing crazy, probably around 2lbs. I have large hands so I run long triggers, so there is not a lot of room in the guard for my finger which likely adds to the issue. The nerves are definitely the biggest part of the problem. I can run 4 aces drill live and push sub 2 second runs and never have this happen. At a major match I dont feel like I am trying harder or "pushing" but I can feel the surge of nerves/adrenaline leading up to the first stage. Ive read the basham books as well as dozens of other performance related books but I still dont yet have control over it. For those recommending exercise before, how soon before do you do this.

I agree on pushing till the wheels fall off, and they have fallen off and rolled beside me. Currently at a match I have a go and stop. No real ability yet to turn it up or down, though I could see that as an advantage. Granted I could shoot a stage at 50% intensity, but dialing back 5% or something like that I would not know how to or what that would feel like. Not sure I could perceive the difference in 100% and 95% effort in regards to shooting.

Off topic but its my thread, can you explain the reason for not wanting friction on the web of your strong hand? I use dry hands and when my hand is slammed into the beaver tail its not moving. Ive built up a pretty good callous right there at this point.

I like the physical activity idea. I am definitely going to try that. Im married with 3 kids and put on monthly USPSA matches for our club. There is very little time for me to get to shoot any other level 1 matches then the ones at my club. Honestly by the time the match starts im so tired and my mind is on making the match run smooth I dont have a lot of focus for my own shooting. Granted I do usually shoot well, just not a major match level of intensity and focus. I also know thats just not in the cards unless I hand off the MD reins to someone else. We just dont have enough help where I could sit in the stat house and collect match fees and focus on me. On the rare occasion that I get to shoot an out of town level 1 I do feel like I approach it with the same intensity and focus to shoot well as I do major matches, but there is still the lack of anxiousness that happens the morning of a major match, which at this point I am not in control of. Something about the build up, travel to, walking stages, lots of people adds to the excitement of it all. In practice I have always just gotten my finger out of the guard, but never really intentionally placed it anywhere. I can reach my mag release and reload without breaking or shifting my strong hand grip. I will play around with trying to find a placement for my finger and maybe using that grip tape idea.

I have been shooting USPSA for about 3 years or so now. I am the match director for a USPSA club. I shoot only limited division in which I am currently M class. Last year I got DQed for dropping a brand new pistol on the first stage of a major match, never even fired a shot. Later in the year I got DQed on the first stage of the second day at nationals. My first ever trip to nationals, DQed for an AD right after a reload. This last week we had a local outlaw match, its a match thats been running the same 8 stages since the 80's. There were about 70 or so shooters and I DQed after ADing a round over the berm during a reload on the first stage. This year at an area match on the first stage of the day I got a bad grip which resulted in me dropping a mag, fumbled the reload after that. Ive never been DQed at a regular monthly uspsa match. Ive also shot plenty of Major matches and not had any issues. Ive never been DQ'ed on a 180 call. I dry fire A LOT. I also shoot live fire at least once a week. I never run into these issues in practice. My issue seems to be gun manipulation while being on the edge/anxious. I find myself a rather calm individual. I dont really get stressed out with work or life. I dont let my emotions get out of control. I am very competitive, and I go to a match to shoot my best and win, nothing less. I do find myself with an upset stomach on most major match mornings, I used to get the same thing when I raced dirtbike enduros. A nervous/anxious feeling...adrenaline running high. A few miles into the race Im fine, after the first stage of the day Im usually good to go. Anyone have any recommendations for getting that first stage out of the way that doesn't involve tequila? Wake up earlier? Drink less caffeine (probably not going to happen)? Do some youtube worthy yoga in the safe area? I have two majors in the next two weeks plus nationals and looking for any advice.

Variations in brass and coated bullets. .015 is nothing to worry about.

Might need to slow it down a bit too

Thats how I have been doing it. We just had an incident where the cable got shot this weekend. Im sure that can happen in any setup though

Do yall use the coated cable or just the regular wire rope

From what I have read drilling a hole in ar500 is not that simple

Anyone have any ideas for attaching a mount point to a popper that doesnt have any holes in it? I found this grounding connector. Not sure how well it would work.

@Trent1k1 do you have clips or something pre-attached to the cables and do you have one of each size pre-ran through the conduit? Or do you attach the cables to the props with wire rope clips during setup?

Ive used the ghetto approach of hammering in a spike at a 45, but this sounds like a better idea.

I have a few poppers without any holes in them so I have been having to rig it so the popper falls onto the cable. This past weekend the cable did get shot once and slowed down a squad.

not a bad idea either

that's a solid idea

For all of you that use steel cables and what not for activators, how do you deal with the cable after? If I cut a length of cable for a certain activator, its almost usless unless down the road I have the exact same distance to run again. How do you store all of those pieces of cable and organize them? Anyone have any neat tricks for securing the cables using something other than wire rope clips?