AlphaCharis

Yes! Okay! I think I'll work on my reloads for this whole week because they have been kicking my butt.

So... I was shooting a classifier and I was kinda excited about it because I had just shot the entire steel stage right before it nearly one-for-one and I had dryfired for the four days leading up to the match, so was feeling pretty confident. CM 09-04 Pucker Factor. Back target at 17 yards and the other three getting progressively closer and smaller, with the closest being a target showing only the head box. 8 rounds, Virginia Count. *beep* Starting with the 17 yard open target: alpha alpha... alpha alpha... alpha alpha.... alpha ____? ...shoot what was the hit? *pickup shot* bravo. Another bravo.... An extra bravo. An extra shot... on a Virginia Count classifier. Penalties took my first "A class" classifier down to a 38%. *sigh* I definitely laughed at myself and kicked myself for that. Pay attention! Call every shot. And program your brain for Virginia Count. https://m.facebook.com/story.php?story_fbid=1133085993481257&id=560357470754115

Hmmmmm.... I really want to be better, so I just need to make it a priority and stop making excuses for myself. I will make the time to practice I think because I have so much to improve, I was just overwhelmed on where to start. What to start with. Because if I tried to practice everything I was bad at in one session.... the session would never end. I do like to have fun at matches, but I really want to do well at shooting, too. I'm going to put a little more focus on shooting this year. A lot of time after matches, I'm disappointed that I wasn't more serious, because it shows when I don't go through my stage enough in my head. Thank you! ALL good advice. I'm definitely going to heed Yes, so I finally started dryfiring everyday this last week... And I think practicing is very motivating because you can actually see gains at matches.... at least now at my level, because I have so many gains to make lol Video is good for me because I always think I suck and was super slow, and then when I watch the video and a lot of times it seems faster/better than I thought it went. (Other times I can hardly watch it because it does look super slow... but most of the time it's a positive thing.) This year, setting goals would be a good thing. Working toward and reaching goals sounds like it will be motivating for me. I like having something to work toward... like getting a certain time on a drill or something. I SO need to practice this. Probably everyday lol Hahaha! Yes! you are SO right. I knew this but it didn't exactly sink in enough for me to do anything about it. I had another horrible match on New Year's Day, and had had enough complaining. I've been hoping wishful thinking and matches would propel me into A class lol Apparently you have to work for what you want So, I am dryfiring! I'm forcing myself to do "at least 15 minutes" a day. That has turned in to more like 45-60 minutes. Hopefully it will last. Not hope.... I just need to DO. What do I really want? I want to be better. If I want to be better, there is no other way to do that. Live fire should definitely be on my list of musts this year. A lot of times I feel like I can't trust my gun because I never get out on the range to practice or to even make sure my sights are in alignment. I was blaming my sights just last week lol It was me. I'm mostly not confident on the longer distance stuff: 35-50 yards. I will have to plan for some sessions this year, and maybe even give up a match here and there for practice instead. That's a good idea because you can know right away if you didn't get the hit. And helps with that first shot. Sometimes I "over aim" on my first shot and take longer than I really need to because I'm not confident I lined it up that quickly, or I start thinking or something when I should just be shooting.

Oh, I'm still having fun I don't think I could live (happily) without shooting I just get frustrated when it feels like I'm in the same place as I was a year ago. Maybe I'm not. I don't know. I think I have improved at some things, but matches and minimal dryfire only gets you so far.

Hmmmm..... One of the things I need to improve on a lot is shooting as I enter/leave a position - maybe having less reloads would help me focus on that.

So when you feel like you are not improving over a long period of time... what do you do to motivate yourself?

So.... I"ve been really frustrated lately. Like... not even wanting to watch/post any match videos. I am SO SLOW and haven't improved this year. I had such high expectations for this year that have been unmet. Pneumonia, bronchitis, nasty medication allergic reaction/hallucinations/etc. I was hoping to dryfire a bunch this year. I started being more active, took the kids hiking when I could until bronchitis took over my life and and prompted an asthma attack after any exertion. Ugh. I'm going to need to just either take it easy and not get better at shooting and be happy with that... or go for it and suffer, but be better. I think I'd rather improve. Maybe just pushing through it will help me get better. Or maybe I was just using it all as an escuse. I don't know. I have not been happy with the past 11 months. Well.... I have had a LOT of fun shooting. Just haven't imporoved as much as I would have liked. --End self pity rant.--

This year my asthma has kicked my butt. Pneumonia back in February, I wasn't even all the way better when I got sick again in May. My lungs have been horrendous ever since and been coughing and wheezing for almost this entire year. I've still shot matches all year, but haven't dryfired or practiced at all.... so, I guess you could say this year hasn't been all that productive... but it has been fun Except for the suffering. lol I got to go to several majors this year, including Area 1, Production and Open/L10 Nats; learned a ton; and will hopefully be well enough this winter to restart my dryfire I started at the beginning of this year. I would love to make A class this next season. Cracked my gun back at Production Nationals, Springfield sent me a new slide and frame, so not shooting the G34 right now. Just wanted to get something in my journal. Here's my match from today.

#pewpewing This match at Custer I thought I did pretty decent at. Some places I felt a little slow. I had been wanting to shoot at some longer range stuff, so the first stage we shot was perfect lol You can see the walk back to the targets at the end of the video. A few days after this match I headed to Prodcution Nationals! where I had fun but was also disappointed in how I shot. I also cracked my gun in two places. Slide and frame. I'm shooting my Glock 34 for now.

#pewpewing I am shooting WAY more consistently lately. Was pretty happy with the way I shot on Sunday. Disappointed in a few mistakes here and there, but overall, it really felt like I was improving - especially in transitioning from target to target, shot calling, and entry and exits. Still much to be desired, but felt like things went more like I planned for them to go. My last match before this one I had a long list of things that I wrote down that went wrong. On things that went right, I put one thing: I remembered to bring an extra mag on stage 1 and 5 in case I screwed up. (I'll probably post the list later with my match so I can remember the things I need to do to avoid what I did wrong.) Despite the short list of positives and very long list of negatives, I ended up placing 63.50% of the M and GM first and second place Production shooters. I used to shoot around 54-58% of the top two Production shooters - then the average had been around 61% Last several has been 65.93%, 63.5%, and last Sunday was 69.11% I'm hoping I can become more consistent in my shooting and looking forward to seeing improvement. Of course, it all depends on how they did as well, but basing it on the same two people is a pretty good good gauge of how I did. Oh, toward the end of the day I switched my division to Lim10 because I forgot I needed to get classified this next month. I calculated my percentages based on Production. I was the only Lim10 shooter lol So now I have an 11% (#hardcoverfail) and a 66%.

#OPEN DIVISION! Dot off. Holster. Lock. Tension... So many things! That's too complicated lol Full match here

#pewpewing I was pretty pleased with this match. I felt really consistent, my stage planning and memorization was good, executing them went mostly to plan - except for one, my reloads were better, and I was a little better at being ready when coming into position. Still a long way to go, but I'm having fun. While I was shooting, I felt really slow and my splits felt really slow, but I don't think it was as bad as it felt. I shot 92% of points and had 1 penalty for the day - a mike on a swinger. #problemo fixed Fixed the crimp to almost nothing - just enough to smooth the bell back out.... No tumblers!!

So...... Sunday's match highlighted a lot of my weaknesses. Here's a 45-second video that sums up my match on Sunday!!!

#pewpewing Oregon State Championship! Fun, challenging stages. COSSA puts on a great match! Got my first High Lady Production trophy. I had some stupid mistakes, which made some of my stages a little disappointing, and I pointed out all my mistakes all day long.... but overall I did better than Area 1, so I'm happy to see some improvement. I came away with a few key things to work on hard this month, which are my biggest weaknesses: 1. MAG CHANGES. One common thing about every one of my changes, is my poor/slow mag changes. No matter the distance I am travelling to the next position, I use that entire time to do my mag change. I think doing two things at once slows both of them down. I am going to be working on getting my mag change completed on the first step out of my position, so I can concentrate on booking it to the next spot and not tiptoeing, staring at my magwell. 2. SHOOTING EARLIER. I've been working on keeping my gun up when I transition to a new position, because I used to drop my gun down all the time. I've been getting a little better with that. Now I need to take it a step further, and have it up because I am actually acquiring my sights as soon as the target is visible as I am coming into position and then firing as soon as possible. I spend too much time planting in a position and THEN lining up my sights. Wasting so much time. 3. EXITING HARDER. When I'm leaning around a barricade or something, coming out of the lean is S L O W. I need to learn to do that kick thing to get moving out of position faster. I tried to do it at work today on my way to the copy room. I stood leaning around the doorway and then tried to do the kick thing into the copy room, and my feet wanted to stay planted. I felt really disappointed after shooting on day 2, and really had to look at my videos and think about the match to find some positives. Some of the things I felt positively about were: I was moving from position to position a little faster. Aiming better, instead of freaking out and point shooting, so I made less mistakes "rushing." AND... not pulling off my target earlier when leaving a position. Made up uncalled shots - if I didn't call a shot on a target, I took another shot - AIMED. I ended up with about 3-4 makeup shots that made up for hard cover hits that would have been mikes. HOWEVER, I did not hold fast to this "rule" of mine on some close targets - because "how could I miss," right? Ugh. My grip is getting better. Still have to remind myself often to grip tighter. But before, I was pretty much always forgetting to grip. It's getting to be more of a habit, and aiming at long distance targets is easier with the tighter grip. Even with my ammo at 135 PF, my gun isn't moving as much as it used to. Stage planning and memorization. I shot my stages how I planned them, for the most part. Didn't have any major lapses, didn't miss targets. Need to continue working on visualization and REALLY memorizing the stage. Ignore the bridge stage. I realized when on deck, it was unloaded start and I was using 5 mags in my stage plan with only 4 mag holders.... then instead of just using it out of my back pocket, was trying to do it in 4, which didn't allow for hardly any makeup shots - and thus the stage went horrible and went to slide lock twice. Complete disaster. Should have stuck to my original plan. I don't know why I thought at the time using it out of my back pocket would have been so horrible that I should try and do it with 4 mags. Stupid. But shot everything in the order I planned. lol #problemos I bumped down my charge a tenth and my rounds are still tumbling. The velocity isn't fast enough for it to be a problem. 1060 fps with 124gr RN plated (Rainier) with 4.0 gr. Titegroup. I pulled a bullet on a few of my loaded rounds.and noticed it was indented quite a bit. I think my crimp die got tightened too much somehow. I'm going to loosen that and hopefully that will solve the problem.

#pewpewing I've been more accurate lately, and having less major mistakes, but have been slow. One thing at a time I guess. Stage 5 at this match is similar to the previous match's stage 1 - the walls were basically the same, targets were rearranged a bit, and I ran this one left to right. Instead of Tuesday night where I ran it right to left. The last stage was a classifier - at 50 yards! Terrible. Even if I hadn't shot the entire classifier wrong, shooting the each of the three targets twice per string, instead of one target 6 times per string - I still totally failed and basically zeroed the stage. For prone - I tried to shoot from my side - wasn't gonna work. Tried to lay flat out, but I was too far forward and my elbows were faulting the line. Then realized I didn't have enough time to reposition, so just hung my head and waited for the timer to go off. Utter fail. I know now I have to step back a lot farther. I'm glad I could provide my squaddies some entertainment. #pronefail #problemos Also, found out later at Area 1 my rounds have been tumbling past about 15 yards. I'll have to look into this, haven't had any tumblers before. I may bump my powder down a tenth to see if that changes anything. The only thing I've changed recently is my charge, and they're a little hotter than normal - about 1070 fps with 124gr RN Rainier, 4.1 gr Titegroup, OAL don't remember. Need to check into causes of tumbling rounds. I think I only have 50,000 rounds through my barrel. But there is also a hair line fracture on my breechface, running from the firing pin hole to the edge. *sigh* #newgun....s! Gonna run my new stock Glock 34 MOS (without optic, yet) on Sunday for the first time. Interested to see how that goes! I'll have to figure out the mods I want for it. AND..... I won a Glock certificate at Area 1! Super excited! I think I'll get either a Glock 17 or another Glock 34 MOS.

Yes, you're right... I usually run things left to right, since it flows better and reloads are easier. The only reason I ran it that way is that I got there late, as the last person was running the stage and I had about 7 seconds to look at the stage. The guy had run it right to left, so that was the thing that was stuck in my mind. We had this stage setup the following Sunday as well, with targets in different places, and I ran it left to right then. Thanks!

#pewpewing I felt... no -- WAS -- SO SLOW all day. I mean "deliberate" Disappointed in how I shot. Reloads were terrible, especially in the last stage, which happened to be the classifier. At least it was bad enough to get dropped, lol 50.08% I think I was tired... went to bed early that night and slept 13 hours! I did do a much better job at calling my shots and shot 94.47% of the points: 132 A, 4B, 15C, 1D. Now I need to do that, except for the delta... but not be slow lol

34 shooters at our evening match on Tuesday Stage 1: 8A, 4C 1st production, 8th overall. Six Chickens Classifier, according to azshooters, it was a 66.06% That reload, again, messing it up! Stage 2: 6A, 9B, 2C, 1M, 1 NS 3rd prodcution, 18th overall. This one was a little rough, lol. Probably should have shot a makeup shot, but I was kinda afraid I would just hit another no-shoot. And yes.. standing on the 180 - I went to slidelock unexpectedly... I somehow didn't have 11 in my first mag. Stage 3: 14A, 2B, 4C 2nd production, 6th overall. After that no-shoot, I brought my focus in a bit more. I feel like I should of shot this differently, but not really sure what I should have done instead. Stage 4: 4.79 seconds 2nd production, 6th overall. There's that reload, again - keep missing it. It's so stiff. Can't wait for my Glock to get here. But I really like that I went 1-for-1. And despite talking, my draw to first shot wasn't bad. Stage 5: 11A, 3C 2nd production, 14th overall. I don't know how I messed up my stage plan. Wasn't a huge mistake, though. I was going to just hit the small popper when I was in the left port, so I would only shoot to 10, reload, move to the right port and finish off the remaining 10 rounds. When I saw the target on the other side of the barrel, I got confused for a second. Maybe it's cause I hadn't eaten for awhile and my brain doesn't work as well. That happened at Berry's Steel Open on one stage, but WAY worse... I can't wait to upload that one! So funny. I was literally staring at targets for 5 seconds, my mind racing, trying to figure out what I was supposed to be doing. My mind was completely BLANK - just staring at the targets like it was the first time I had seen the stage. I had gotten to the range at 7:00AM and hadn't eaten breakfast that morning because there were going to be food trucks. They had us turn in squad orders.... we got our food at probably 2:30 PM? We were on our second to last stage out of the 10 stages for that day. I was almost going to go on a hunger strike and refuse to shoot until I got to eat. lol Next day went a lot smoother and I didn't get hangry. Stage 6: 8A 1st production, 7th overall This was my favorite! Almost no mental errors on this one. Could have been a little faster moving down the board, but it was decent. There were penalties if you touched the ground at all. On the targets I made sure to actually grip firmly with my support hand. I got a little excited toward the end and had my only pickup shots for the whole stage on that last popper. Overall, I enjoyed shooting tonight! and wasn't nearly as frustrated with myself as I was on Sunday.

Thanks for that!! I've been overly critical for months, when I just need to calm down and shoot the best of my current level of ability, and I will improve over time as long as I keep training. My negativity has contributed to me feeling like I'm spiraling downward with no hope of improvement. *lol* I also noticed because I constantly am telling myself I suck - my confidence going into a stage suffers, and I don't shoot as well as I know I can. Like on the swinger stage, I remember thinking how slow I was going, and that I should be shooting it faster, cause I'm wasting so much time waiting for it - when really, it was unavoidable - for my level of ability, one shot per pass was fine. I shouldn't have been worrying about ANYTHING. Just calling my shots. When I become self-conscious, I rush and make mistakes. When I go into a stage only thinking about shooting, I do so much better! and feels awesome.

I'm a few matches behind! I went to Berry's Steel Open in St. George, Utah a few weeks ago.... FUN! It was 18 stages of steel awesomeness, which I will make a video for later. Had NONE of the previous malfunction that I had been having. Note to self: TAPING the basepad meant for a dimpled spring because you're running with a square spring is not good enough to run with in a stage! You will see the butchering of this stage in my video later. #pewpewing Shot a USPSA match on Sunday, which was - inconsistent - I'm kind of in a funk, I think, which I will get out of! I had fun, but was also frustrated on a few of the stages (only 4 out the 7 of 'em.... lol) and was super down on myself for sucking. Need to move past that, and let go of the previous stage - bad or good - and focus on the stage at hand, shooting it to the best of my ability. So many mental errors. #practice Concentrating this month on gripping tighter with my support hand in dryfire. It has not become habit, yet - in dryfire OR livefire. I shot a stage last night and made sure to grip hard with my support hand and.... it. felt. awesome. All alphas. I ended up 7th overall on that stage of 34 shooters and 78.85% of the Open Master who won that stage. More of that. Stage 1: decent, but could have been better. Especially on steel Stage 2: Pretty good except for the trigger freeze and slow reload Stage 3: A good stage, messed up on my reload though and had some trigger issues and pulled a delta Stage 4: Bleh... Should have hit the left target again - and on the right - if two of my hits would have just been a cm to the left - would have been perfect. At least I didn't zero the stage Stage 5: My trigger control has been BAD. Thinking about going to a trigger with some travel so I can break my bad habit of slapping the trigger. This stage was terrible, with 2 no shoots. The second one was from a really bad, loose group. Stage 6: Finally a good stage! I didn't make any huge mistakes and scored well. Stage 7: UGH. More terrible trigger control. More loose gripping. Lesson: Ugh... All the things.

I always flip and (mostly) catch If I happen to flip it out at the wrong angle, I don't go chasing it. And then I hold it open for the RO to see it's clear. I hate searching for a round off the ground, especially if it's in mud or disappears in sand. Also, at a major - I don't want to spend time looking for my round; I want to see my targets being scored. I've never had an RO complain or give me dirty looks or anything.

Some people mentioned the loaded indicator instead of using the press check - one thing about relying on that is I noticed on my XDm that it was up even when there was no round in the chamber. A bunch of crap had collected under it, which I couldn't see until I took it apart and cleaned it. I personally never rely on that thing anyway, and forget it is even there, so never thought about cleaning under it. I currently don't press check, unless I did something out of order in my routine and couldn't remember if I racked the slide. Does sound like a good idea, though, just to eliminate as many problems that could happen on a stage. Every second counts.

#springs! Got new mag springs! Realized I had 3 with the dimpled springs :/ But I cleaned my other 4 and put the new square springs in - my old ones were all an inch shorter than the new ones. Now I either need to get the dimpled springs, or see if I can just get new basepads for the 3 oddball ones so I don't have to worry about two different kinds. Especially since I bought 15 of the square springs. Hopefully the new springs solve my malf issues, since I'm flying out this Thursday for Berry's Steel Open! #drypewpewing Trying to do dryfire everyday, even if it's not for very long. 20 min Wednesday and 30 minutes on Thursday, Friday I only had time to get my mags cleaned and new springs in before date night. I suggested loading ammo and dryfire for date night, but he didn't go for it :/ Focused on unloaded starts (taking mags from my belt this time) and reloads. Could see a lot of improvement. Noticed I had a habit of always looking at the target as I was going for my gun, so wasn't looking at the magwell during loading. Switched it up a bunch, practiced reloads and movement as well - drew to various targets, kept gun up moving to other targets - unloaded starts were looking pretty good.