superluckycat

I use both TTI and Dawson. They both perform the same. The Dawson's are easier to get on and off though neither are that difficult. I'd buy whatever is cheaper. I've found they aren't as reliable as stock length mags which isn't a surprise. This season I put 4 aside to only use for competition so they don't get beat up in practice. I also have two dedicated to dry fire only. Gets expensive quick though not 2011 expensive. Tip: Change your springs once a season or more depending on how much you shoot. I buy 33 round magazine springs from Glock ($5 a piece) and cut them to length. I leave one more coil than the springs that come with the base pads.

Last match of the year. Finished 8th out of 33 shooters total. Gun ran good, finally, and no Mikes or major mistakes. Not too bad for only shooting 7 matches this year. Need to shoot more matches next year and hit some majors if I want to up my game. Past month I've been training movement exclusively in dry and live fire. No stand and shoot. None. Lots of shooting on the move, position entry/exit, quick step etc. Shaving time is the low hanging fruit for me right now.

Life has been getting in the way of shooting. Missed both of the local October matches. Today was my first live fire practice in over a month and was a little rusty. Shooting on the move is improving though. Cold Bill Drill: 2.11s 29 pts Blake Drill: 2.35s 29 pts SHO Blake: 4.14s 25 pts WHO Blake: 4.30s 24 pts Moving Blake (forward): 2.75s 28 pts Moving Blake (backward): 2.90s 28 pts Moving Blake (L to R): 2.71s 27 pts Moving Blake (R to L): 2.83s 27 pts 4 Aces 10 yards: 2.85s 18 pts the first live fire

Live fire today and I feel like I'm finally starting to shoot at my potential. I had gotten lazy and discouraged so I spent the last two weeks forcing myself to practice at the par times in Stoeger's book. Most shooting was speed mode so I threw a Mike here and there but I was surprised how good the points were. I had quite a few sub 1s draws at 7 yards during the different drills. Reloads were around 1.4s. Still need work but is an improvement. Gun: G35 Bill Drill 1.96s 29pts 4 Aces 2.85s 20pts Blake SIngles 1.72 13pts Blake Drill 2.10s 26pts had a 1.0s draw on this one I shot one in match mode for a 2.4s and 29 points. This used to be my speed mode time. Blake Drill SHO 4.07s 26pts Blake Drill WHO 4.27 27pts

Dawson adjustable rear sight is a little too narrow for me. Tried a set and went back to fixed.

Rough week of dry fire. Monday was pretty good, felt focused and body felt good. It was all down hill from there. Getting terrible knots in my upper back and neck. I'm sure my shoulder arthritis is contributing to it. Match tomorrow so hopefully that will help refocus my dry fire efforts. Anyone take a month off in the off season? Like no dry fire, nothing?

What is your current class in the division your training for? U Limited. Should be B after a couple more matches. How much do you really dry fire? 25-45 minutes 5 days a week. How long have you been dry firing at that level? 17 months What type of dry fire program are you doing? Mostly drills out of Stoeger's book. Once in a while I run some Anderson drills. Recently I've been concentrating on things I suck at: reloads, transitioning R to L etc. How much live fire training are you doing? 300 round session once a week if I don't shoot a match. I try shoot one match a month on average. I work on movement more in live fire. What classes have you taken? I took a class from a GM before I shot my first match. Since then nothing. It's time for some training. Do you feel your current training is sufficient for your current goals? I think my training is but my mental focus isn't. My goals were lofty a year ago but reality has since tempered them. I'd like to make A class next season. I'm 49 with a 6 year old daughter and severe arthritis in my right shoulder. Available free time and my body limit what I can accomplish. Too many reloads and draws aggravates my shoulder. Fast surrender draws hurt like hell. SHO is a bitch since I have little strength with my arm extended like that. Do you do any mental specific training? No. Do you know the training routine of any top level shooters? Not really. Just what I've read in Stoeger and Anderson books.

Live fire today. About 300 rounds. After hitting reloads all week hard I hit them in live fire also along with other things I suck at like turn and draw and transitioning right to left. Practicing things you suck at is not good for the ego but is good for match scores and classifiers. 1. Gun at the ready fire one, reload, fire. Target at 7 yards. No time or points counted. Just concentrating on the reload. 60 rounds. 2. 4 Aces: Fastest was 2.55s with a 1.22s reload. Average was probably 2.8s with a 1.45s reload. Had quite a few whiffs in there where I didn't hit the mag release right and the mag didn't drop. Didn't count points. Ran about 25 of theses. 3. Turn and Draws at 7 yards: Fastest was 1.55s. Only ran about five of these. Got a new holster with the frame weight and it was binding up on Turn and Draw. Something to work out in dry practice. 4. Blake Drills right to left 10 yards: Best was 2.46s 27 points. 5. Easy Exit - Shoot 2 targets at 7 yards, run 8 yards engage one target at 8 yards obscured by barrels. Concentrated on dismounting the gun and really sprinting between arrays. I'd gotten into the bad habit of always keeping both hands on the gun when moving, even long distances. Best run was 5.11s for 27 points. 6. 25 yard Bill Drills: These are getting better. Best run was 4.15s for 27 points. I tried going for time on one and shot 3.71s for 21 points and a Mike.

It's reloads week in the dry fire garage! Been doing all reload drills this week. Start each session with 50-60 standing reloads. Then do 25 reps each of 4 Aces and 6R6. Today in addition to the standing reloads I did moving reloads, 4 Aces then 6R6R6 (Stoeger's reloads). None of these are on the timer. I'm concentrating on grip, sight picture and consistency in the reload. Trying to rebuild better habits through repetition.

I should have explained my post better. While I said I don't race the clock on 25 Bill Drills what I meant is time isn't the main goal. I shoot the drill as fast as I can read the sights but my goal is under 5 seconds (shooting major). My times will can vary from the high 3's to low 5's depending on the day. I don't accept mikes with distance shooting like I do with speed work. If you are throwing mikes are you learning anything if you don't know where the shot went? You already know how to shoot fast.

What one can do in dry fire doesn't necessarily translate over to live fire. I've been finding that to be especially true lately. On the Bill Drills: Shoot some off the clock. Pay attention to the sights and trigger pull and not the time. I rarely try and race the timer when distance shooting. If I can get good hits with my G35 (couple C's) in under 5.31 seconds I'm pleased. Judging from your videos you're making faster progress than me. Keep it up.

I love his music.

Oh yeah, the tennis elbow is pretty much gone. Just went away one day. I guess all the forearm work paid off. Also I got a shot of cortisone in my shoulder last week. I think the shoulder arthritis contributes in some way.

Live fire today. Too hot to work on movement much. Tried out the SJC frame weight on the G35. I dig it. Really helps tame the front end and my draw and transitions haven't slowed. Things to work on: I just can't seem to break 1s draws consistently, even at 5 yards. I hit .99 a couple times today. My reloads are still horrible: 1.80s in live fire. My dry fire reloads don't translate over to live fire. I have trouble relaxing my strong hand so I can shift my grip and hit the release. In matches during moving reloads I still revert back to shifting the gun over with my weak hand to hit the release. This is an old training scar. This doesn't hurt me much during field courses with one reload but it's killing me on classifiers. Results: I cleaned 3 runs of Stoeger's dots at 5 yards. The other three, not so much. But it's an improvement. I think the frame weight helps. Bill Drills: Best Run: 2.18s 30 points Blake Drills: Best Run Left to Right: 2.35s 27 points. Right to Left: 2.52s 24 points Blake SHO: Best Run: 4.79s 26 ponts Blake WHO: Best Run: 5.01 27 points Moving Blake Drill Forward: Best Run 2.90s 29 points (start at 10 yards) Moving Blake Drill Backwards: Best Run 2.77s 26 points (Start at 8 yards) El Prez: Only ran one: 6.81s 55 points. Would have been a solid A HF if not for the crappy reload Next live fire I need to hit reloads hard. Going to hit them even harder in dry fire this week.

Still getting in 5 days of dry fire a week. I've stopped chasing par times so much and am concentrating on execution. Start each session with 10 yard draws 30-50 reloads. Picked a 92 degree day with no breeze to take off from work early and get in some live fire. All movement today so I was running in this sh*t. Got in good hour and a half of shooting. Started with Easy Entry out of Stoeger's Skills and Drills then did Easy Exit and finished with Shooting and Moving Easy. All targets were 7 yards and my splits were .17-.18 average so that's a definite improvement. I still throw a mike now and then when I'm practicing for speed. Right on the edge of being out of control. Picking up the brass was torture. I was tempted to leave it. Still sticking with the G35. I love major scoring too much now.

14th match since I started USPSA. 15th out of 44 shooters. No Mikes no penalties. First match without at least one Mike. Stage 3 I had 2 light strikes which threw me off a little. Stage 4 I hit the mag release with my WH causing a jam and the mag to fall out. Loaded another one in their and that one fell out. Kind of a cluster. Time sucked. 63% on the classifier. My points are up there with the top shooters just need to keep on developing speed. Still making slow steady progress shooting one match a month so I'm happy.

I have 3 TTI extensions on my .40 mags with no issues so far. And I bought them used. No issues with the Dawsons either. Turn: You giving .40 another shot? It does get better if you keep at it. It's taken me a few months but my times are finally getting down where they were when I was shooting 9mm. It's been frustrating though. Damn gun seems to fly all over the place.

Good live fire training session yesterday with the G35. Last two training sessions I went back to the G17 to see if my shooting improved. It didn't noticeably. I concentrated on staying nice a relaxed, especially my arms during draw. Definitely showed up in my Bill Drill times. Times are now as fast as I was shooting with the G17. -Started with a mag into the berm to track sights and get a feel for recoil. -Haley slow draw where you start at 5 seconds and work down 1 second. (Didn't get down to 1 second though.) -Ran two mags into a target at 10 yards. 1 shot per second. Kind of a bastardized timing drill. Again concentrating on feeling the gun recoil and tracking sights. -One round of Stoeger Dots at 5 yards. Still not close to cleaning it but getting better. -Blake Drills. Last run was 2.40s for 25 points. -SHO Blake Drills - 5.5s for 27 points. These are tough for me because of my shoulder arthritis. -WHO Blake Drills - 5.5s for 25 points. -El Prez - Last run was 5.95s 51 points. -10yd 4 Aces - 3.2s avg 16-18 points. -Bill Drill - 2.08s 29 points. 2.17s clean run. -25yd Bill Drill - Avg was 4.58s-4.97s 26-28 points with one crappy run for 20 points.

Thanks for the kind words. I hope you progress faster than I am. I just have too many bad habits developed over years of not knowing what I was doing. Dry fire this morning. Concentrated on breaking down the El Prez into it's individual components, then breaking down those components: Turn and draw, transition, reload, transition. No par times just working on the techniques. It was a good practice and I learned a lot. I revamped my hand start position and index to better establish a good weak hand grip. Then concentrated on snapping my head around to the first target and turning into a comfortable shooting position. I broke down the reload next. I've developed the habit of always transitioning L to R. Which means on the reload I'm transitioning back to the first target and it's been throwing my reload off. I changed to transitioning R to L after the reload based on this. It's going to take a while to get used to this one. Did a few full El Prez's at a leisurely 7s par time but concentrating on technique. Finished up with some more reloads. Going to continue working El Prez for the rest of the week since it highlights two of my weaknesses: Turn and Draw and Reloads.

Live fire today. Went back to the G17 to switch things up. Man, 9mm is so much easier to shoot. 10yd Surrender Draw facing uprange: 1.65s avg. with A's and C's. Really need to practice this one more. 10yd Draw: 1.15 avg. mostly A's 10yd Draw SHO: 1.50 avg. A's and C's 10yd Blake Singles SHO: 3.30 avg. 11 points avg. 10yd Blake Singles WHO: 3.50 avg. 13 points every time 10yd 4 Aces: 3.50s avg.16 points avg. Reloading without a mag well sucks. 10yd Blake Drill: 2.55 avg. 24 points avg. Last string was 2.40s and 24 points Best El Prez: 6.70s 54 points. The rest were pretty abysmal. Turn and draw really throws me off. 7yd Bill Drill 2.01 22 points 2.13 26 points 2.18 28 points 25yd Bill Drill 4.92 26 points 4.75 24 points Things to work on Turn and draw/surrender position: I find myself not establishing a good grip which throws off the whole string. Reloading: Same issue as above. I don't establish a good WH grip after reload and accuracy really suffers. 25 yard Bill Drills: I haven't been practicing these much lately and it shows. Reloads with the Production gun. Good Stuff My WH grip is getting better with a standard draw just need to do it all the time now. I'm throwing the first shot after the draw low left less.

$45 a week on average for ammo, range fees, match fees. That doesn't include guns, mags, etc. I'd say $4-$5K a year.

You may find that what worked 5 years ago is over-training now if you're middle aged. I've had to go to three day a week weight workouts for the main body parts and cardio, forearms (tennis elbow), abs on the remaining days.

Today was my 13th match since I started shooting last year. A lot of the local talent showed up for the match today (myself not included). Lots of no-shoots, hard cover, and 25 yard targets. Again, no fricken consistency. Stage 1: Had the jitters and took me 5 rounds for two 25 yard poppers. Too slow. Stage 2: A little better, starting to get into the groove and speeding up. Stage 3: Best stage. Felt good on this one. 15 out of 62 shooters. Stage 4: Good stage until I ran right by an easy target. FTE. That one hurt. Would have a good HF otherwise. Classifer: Back to my old bad habit of choking on classifiers. Stage 6: Table start and gripped too high with my weak hand, hit the mag release and whoops. Got it reloaded quick but threw me off. Had a light strike too later on. I will get good at this damn game! I will learn to call my shots consistently. Period. And grip the damn gun. I also need to respect no shoots and long steel shots more.

Still keeping up the 5 day a week dry fire and weekly live fire sessions. For DF I've been rotating through the drills in Stoeger's book. Doing a couple from each section for 5 minutes a piece. Live fire today. Did three drills out of Seeklander's book. I'm really starting appreciate his drills. 1. L-R Prep and Press with 2 rounds on each target. 60 rounds. 2. Shooting and moving forwards and backwards with a reload. 120 rounds. 3. Long movement into position. 120 rounds. Getting faster and more accurate on prep and press. No mikes at all today on this drill. I did shoot a few mikes on each of the last two drills at the beginning. Once I started waiting for the sight to settle my hits got better. Today was good for learning visual patience.

I recently switched from a G34 to a G35 to try Limited Major. My Bill Drill times are about .3s slower. My 25 yard groups at speed opened up. Major is quite a bit less forgiving than minor. Given all that I'm still enjoying it more than Production. The scoring is great. Stage planning is easier and you can concentrate more on the shooting.