BenBreeg

I shot my fifth and probably final match for the year yesterday. I actually had some pretty good runs. One stage all Alphas and one Charlie. The major snafus for the match were FTE a target on a complicated (for me) stage setup with four shooting boxes and I need to work on longer target accuracy, as those tended to impact low. But close targets were all Alphas yesterday, and mediums were pretty much a high % Alphas. I've actually only live-fire practiced once all summer, but dryfired an average of 5x/week I'd say, I think it really paid off. I'm sure I will only classify D because I am terrible at qualifiers (especially WHO and SHO) but I am going to put a plan together from Ben's dryfire stuff for the winter and really stay on it. I did have a great time this year and now that I have a few under my belt I hope to get at it on a more regular basis next year.

From the Iron Maiden song The Reincarnation of Benjamin Breeg. To say they are my favorite band would be an understatement.

So since my last entry I have shot another match and got some live fire in as well as keeping up with pretty much daily dryfire. I added the timer into dryfire and that seems to help, especially just with making it a familiar part of shooting. During live fire on the timer I noticed a lot of first shots go left with the rest better grouped. When I did my lesson Matt noticed that it seemed my support hand was not really gripping the gun fully until until I was close to pulling the trigger. I tested this in dryfire and it is true that if I wait until late to fully grip with my weak hand, the sights are left. Focusing on getting my full grip as early as possible and when I do that the sights are lined up as soon as I can see them. During the match I actually was in the middle of the pack for all stages but the qualifier. The qualifier required SHO and WHO shooting. I got 3 Mikes on the weakhand portion and that hosed me. Other than that it went pretty well. Shooting a match next week and am going to focus on hits. I think the last two I was trying to balance speed and accuracy but I want to see how it goes and where I end up when I really focus on all As and let the time take care of itself.

Clairton and Pitcairn-Monroeville are within 30 minutes of Oakland, East Huntington is well under an hour, am not sure how far some of the others are. As mentioned, duck hunting nothing to write home about here.

So up until this point I wasn't using a timer for training at all, figuring I would just repeat the fundamentals and speed would come. At the suggestion of the guy I took lessons with I started incorporating the timer. I am using it for draw timing, as my immediate goal is fast and accurate first shots. It is making a big difference. While without the timer I was not drawing slow, I was at about 1.8s. Just by using the timer and challenging myself I am doing 1.3s dryfires with an acceptable sight picture on break. Will get out to live fire next week to see how it is translating.

So I took a lesson with a local GM and it went well (from a learning perspective, I shot worse than I had hoped). The plan is to shoot 1 match a month, live fire practice once a month, and take one session with him once a month. That is minimum, hopefully can get one more live fire practice and/or a second match in. This is on top of my daily dry fire practice. So we started out with the basics and I was doing draws to single shot. Lots of misses. This was pretty unexpected because I was getting hits my last practice on my own and the last match I didn't shoot too too poorly. Here was my breakdown: A- 73 B- 1 C- 31 D- 3 M- 5 So he saw me dipping the gun right before I broke the shot. Certainly not doing this in dryfire but one thing he noticed was how late my grip kind of came together. So I am tightening my grip pretty much as I am breaking the shot, not good. When we did drills with multiple shots things stayed pretty tight though. The other thing were my reloads. Once again, they had become pretty smooth during dryfire but not so good on the range. I was missing the release buttong and flubbing the actual insert. Once again, it was nice to have another pair of eyes. The position of my gun made is so the angle of the magwell and the angle of the mag in my hand weren't aligned and he could see where that was causing some issues. By bringing the gun just a little higher things ended up more aligned and smoother. So while I am going to continue using Ben's dryfire program, instead of just focusing on improving everything, I am going to keep going through all his drills but am seeing a goal of 100% A Zone first shot hits off the draw in 1.8 seconds and going to work on reload repetitions to get used to keeping the gun a bit higher. I think the mini goal will be good, it is measurable and pretty achievable in the short term.

I am a beginner but dryfire 15-30 minutes every day. I am using Ben Stoeger's program from his book. At first I was just cycling through all the groups of drills, I would do the Learning Drills first every day then each day follow up with Marksmanship, Core, Field, or Short Course. After taking a lesson with a local GM, it became apparent that one of my big weaknesses was first shot hits, so I am setting a mini goal of working on 100% first shot off draw A zone hits @ 10 yards in 1.8s (I am sure that is slow but it is where I am). So I am going to adjust my dryfire to address this focus while still addressing those other categories.

Finally got to go to the range this morning to see how the dryfire is working out. When I was doing draws in dryfire I have been focusing on consistent grip and getting the sights lined up more than on speed, I don't work with a timer. I was getting a very consistent grip there. This morning I used my phone app timer. Well, things kind of regressed grip-wise. It took a lot of effort to not just worry about breaking the first shot and rushing. I was just doing Draw-2 shots at 7 yards. Hits were mostly As with some Cs to the left. Times were 1.8ish draws and .3ish splits (nothing under .32). Not too concerned about the actual numbers at this point, but I basically chewed up my right hand with the slide. I am aiming for a high grip like Vogel demonstrates. Maybe a bit too high, had to clean the slide of blood at the end. Another side note, the set screw from my rear sight was working loose to match my front from the match last week. Got some blue Loc Tite to fix those up. Wish I knew how I did at last week's match but they still haven't posted the scores. I am sure it wasn't good but I would like to just see how I compare.

Shot my first match today. It was really a good time. Shot at Clairton near Pittsburgh. Learned lots! I actually hadn't fired a live round since the intro class almost two months ago but have dry fired almost every day. I made it through the match without a DQ, so that was good. My key takeaways: -draw and reloads are fine for now, they didn't affect my performance -what did was an ambiguous sight focus, I think a lot of the time I was just kind of looking through the gun. This seemed to happen much more on the poppers, I guess waiting for them to fall causes you to look at them -in dryfire I grip the gun hard, I am pretty much unaware of how hard I gripped the gun on my runs -rehearse the stage in your head always!!! I was good on this until we had an "easy" setup which was three targets, reload, three targets. It seemed to straightforward I didn't do any mental walkthrough before shooting. Before I knew it I had shot the first three and was two shots into the second array before realizing I didn't reload That was pretty much it except on stage 4 I was shooting and realized my front sight was coming loose. I probably should have stopped? Not sure but I didn't think about it then. Finished the stage and it fell at my feet literally after the last shot. The screw was still in the slide and I screwed it back in and finished. The gunsmith who installed it didn't put any kind of Loctite in there. Met some nice people, in fact everyone was really great. Can't wait to think about what happened, continue the dryfire, and make sure I get some live fire before the next match to work on sight focus during real shooting.

My latest order was placed Tuesday, got my shipping confirmation 20 minutes later, and it is out for delivery from my local post office this morning (Thursday). That is plenty fast for me. They have also been very responsive when I e-mailed them questions.

Have started to get more organized. At first I was just doing Ben's A routine from the 15 minute dryfire. Now I have different sessions, including the A routine and different sections from his dryfire book. Still keeping to the fundamentals, with movement being limited to a step or 90 degree turn. -reloads getting better but still overrotate the gun a bit more often than not, my grip tends to get a little lower after the reload though -have managed to get most of the tension out of my neck while still using shoulders and arms to apply pressure to the gun Will probably shoot my first match this Sunday. It’s been all dryfire and no live for me for the last few weeks. May be able to get to the range Sat morning, not sure. Little worried about the qualifier stage since it has both SHO and WHO shooting but I guess I will just take my time, those aren’t anything I have ever done live before.

Hey Redfox, I am new too and assuming you are talking about the East Huntington orientation I was there as well. They did a great job and the opportunity to shoot stages was the kicker for me. I haven't been able to shoot a match yet but I am just trying to find some time in the schedule to fit them in. Hope to see you out there soon! John

So one week in and not too bad. My program is pretty basic. At this point the foundation is Ben's 15 Minute Dryfire Routine. The main or "A" program being the core and working through the others as well as different sections of his dryfire book. Once a day for now. This week: -Reloads are a sticking point. When I turn the gun enough to see into the magwell I end up driving the mag into the other side. In other words, that causes me to overrotate the gun. If I just bring the gun at an angle where I see the edge of the magwell that seems to line up with the mag as I bring my left hand to the gun. -Getting better at bringing the gun up to my eye and not "scrunching" my neck. A little forward lean and slight head rotation down is enough. I have two bulging discs in my neck so I need to stay tight but relaxed, lots of tension in my traps and neck is going to be nothing but trouble in the long term. -Moving even a step really changes things. In baseball you run on the balls of your feet when tracking a fly ball to reduce the ball "jumping" if you landed on your heels, I need to work on smoother glide steps I think. -Just even getting one week in is helping my index. The gun may not be perfect but the sights are at least somewhat lined up at the end of my presentation. That's it for now.

A little about my background, I've been shooting for about 14 years or so but as far as handguns, I never really did much more than go to the range, shoot the ammo I brought at paper targets, and go home. Shot local league trap for a while but some other things like kids and grad school put an end to that. Have been wanting to get into USPSA for a while so now I have begun the journey. So far have a G34 with Sevigny FO front, and plain black rear. East Huntington had an orientation class last week and it was really helpful for me. Even though much of the classroom stuff is available online it was nice to have some guys to ask questions to for clarification. The best part was that everyone got to shoot three stages if they wanted. I have been dry firing but that was the first time going through a stage for me. I learned quite a few things. One, my gun is fine. As much as I like to tinker and there is a lot of talk on here about gun setup, I think the sights were the appropriate upgrade and that guide rods, springs, aftermarket triggers, etc. are not money well spent for me at this point. I actually shot pretty well and was really surprised how easy the FO sight was to see. Another thing was how, once the beeper went off, it was really different. I actually had no trouble staying on the front sight, it was just kind of there. But physically moving felt slow to me. I wasn't trying to go fast at all but I just felt like I was moving in molasses. So the plan is to shoot a match in the next few weeks and get more structured with my dry fire. I have big hands but I am not releasing the mag all the time. I have the big backstrap on and may see if the med changes the way my thumb engages the release. I have Ben Stoeger's books so I should be able to put together a program that makes sense. I will update my progress, see you soon!

Thanks for the heads up on the site and intro course, I will try to make it.

Hi guys! Been reading for a while, looking to get into USPSA for a while, this year is the plan. Used to shoot some local trap but never really got serious about pistol. Will probably just keep reading and absorbing for a while but so far have learned a lot here! John