JeremiahD

Will some kind admin please move this to "gear & accessories"?

This is, of course, the requisite newbie equipment post. For what its worth, I HAVE used the search function, read the old posts, and spent the last week or two plowing through manufacturers websites, etc Since a lot of the info I found via search is a bit older I thought I'd ask for opinions on what I've come up with. I need to quit using my leather galco carry rig. Its slowing me down, and I should put it back on easy 'daily carry' duty anyway. I have been looking for a USPSA single stack legal setup for the colt commander (4.25") I am aware of the height requirement, trigger guard etc. Also need a decent belt and quality mag pouches. I don't mind spending for quality but I'd rather not have to sell a kidney. (I'm saving my kidneys for ammo $$) So far, the best return on investment seems to be CR Speed versa mag pouches with 1911 mag spacers mounted on a CR Speed hi-torque belt. Should be about a $225 investment but I suspect it would last me through my first few years well. When I move on from my commander to a dedicated play gun, I assume I can just swap the inserts and replace the holster and be good to go For a holster the general consensus seems to be bladetech is the best bang for the buck, so... This one? http://shop.blade-tech.com/index.php?cPath=1_23_24&osCsid=n2lenc9f7efitve4vvngvemtt5#.WNMoOlUrJhE Am I on the right track? I'm guessing $300 out the door/shipped/tax which seems a bit much but again I want it to work and I want it to last. Opinions..? Better options? What say you, wise masses?

Welcome from Dayton!

Q- what's "reasonable" for EDC. A- The largest caliber, highest capacity firearm you can reasonably carry given the location, circumstances, social situation, etc. and if necessary, a backup. In other words, it depends entirely on who you are and your situation and should not be dictated or legislated based on someone else's opinion no matter how informed they may be. Me personally, I carry a commander length 1911 in .45acp, and 3 mags on an average weekday.

Good advice, thanks much! I plan on playing close attention to the rules, safety in particular.. I want to make a good impression, learn, and not waste my $$ Yeah, the intimidation factor is pretty big for me but I figure I still have plenty to deal with competing with my own skills and mental intimidation/psyching myself out that I shouldn't worry too much about the GM/M/A's watching. They're probably too busy thinking stage prep to be concerned about the C guy and his carry gun anyway...

I'm looking forward to it! I've reviewed the stage briefs on the website, looks like a good time. I'll have to brush up on those long shots. All in all I figure I'll treat it like my first match: take it easy, be safe, and have an open mind. Thanks in advance for your work putting it on!

3/21 - 4mi run, Lift #3. Practiced reloads still awaiting that book for DF. Qualifier got posted. I made C.

Well... so far this whole USPSA gig has ended up being a "fortune favors the brave" sort of proposition. I got into it by chance reading my local clubs calendar of events back in December and thought "hey why not?". so I went to the Monday shoots and really enjoyed it. I'm not a social dude but I made the effort to try to talk to folks and learn and its really paid off (thank you helpful people). I have no experience shooting a field course but heard there was a qualifier this month. A couple people encouraged me to go, even if just for the experience so.. off I went on Sunday and ended up learning quite a bit (mostly about my own limitations but hey its progress). I felt it was a pretty solid D performance (nothing wrong with that) and ended up classifying a C (hey... cool!). So.. the following day someone mentioned the Ohio state championships were coming up in May and it would be a good experience. After what I felt was a somewhat lackluster performance Sunday and the general intimidation factor of going to something with the word "championship" in the title while I'm still as green as a stick, I didn't think much of it. Today, after getting my fresh new classification, checking out the site for the event, and running the math some on Sundays scores I had that "hey why not?" moment again... and signed up. Ok, so its the deep end of the pool again.

3/20 - club practice match, indoors Hot damn, I CAN learn.

I was poking around after a somewhat disappointing first match trying to see what others do for a mental game here and found this thread. Oddly, theres a zen koan that hangs over my desk at work that illustrates what you posted perfectly. I thought I'd google and paste it below: A Zen Teacher saw five of his students return from the market, riding their bicycles. When they had dismounted, the teacher asked the students, “Why are you riding your bicycles?” The first student replied, “The bicycle is carrying this sack of potatoes. I am glad that I do not have to carry them on my back!” The teacher praised the student, saying, “You are a smart boy. When you grow old, you will not walk hunched over, as I do.” The second student replied, “I love to watch the trees and fields pass by as I roll down the path.” The teacher commended the student, “Your eyes are open and you see the world.” The third student replied, “When I ride my bicycle, I am content to chant, nam myoho renge kyo.” The teacher gave praise to the third student, “Your mind will roll with the ease of a newly trued wheel.” The fourth student answered, “Riding my bicycle, I live in harmony with all beings.” The teacher was pleased and said, “You are riding on the golden path of non-harming.” The fifth student replied, “I ride my bicycle to ride my bicycle.” The teacher went and sat at the feet of the fifth student, and said, “I am your disciple.” Funny, I went to the internet for insight all I really had to do was reread an old framed quote hanging over my computer... x,X

3/19 - classifier event, 6 stages, mburg. First "real" event. well.. I could say a lot here but I'll just stick to the minimum. Treated it like a race day.. went in early and well fed with a good attitude and all my gear clean and working well, talked to as many people as I could, observed closely, focused on safety, did not DQ, learned some valuable lessons. Results: Completely pooched at least half of the stages. I could blame any of a number of things but it comes down to shooting too fast (specifically, not getting back on the sights enough for that second shot) and doing everything else too slow. Not unreasonable at my stage of learning but damn, I thought I was better at it than I evidently am. Things I learned... -Learned to walk away from a completely embarrassing stage, get over it, and move on to do (reasonably) well in the next. Pasting targets is good therapy. -Learned since you are already tooled up and excited on the first stage of the day, walking into a fast, no barriers drag race of a stage for the first should be a big red flag and to calm down and just shoot. -Learned my strong hand/offhand practice has paid off. Its something I have been trying to incorporate every time I go to the range. Its encouraging to see some results and to know if I keep practicing everything else with the same diligence I will improve. Big lesson of the day: slow down and think. This lesson was driven home by the fact that despite shooting like crap on many stages, I suddenly shot (reasonably..) well on what should have been harder stages. Anything fast, close, or didn't appear to require much strategic thought I shot poorly. The stages that added offhand, strong hand, seated start, challenging layout, or convoluted instructions I shot acceptably well. Finally put two and two together and figured out they forced me to engage my brain and slow down. 2 seconds to take a shot may be an eternity, but it beats a 10 second penalty by far. Monday night session tonight, lets see if I can apply the lessons.

3/16- PT 2 mile run, Lift #2 (I'm just going to number my lift workouts 1/2/3 from here on out for ease of tracking) This was an interesting one. Thursday was a tempo run, changed it to sprints last week. Added weight on my last leg day the day before the change. Evidently I taxed my legs a bit much. After warming up I went to take off for the first landmark and both quads went out on me. darn near ended up on the ground. pretty good pain in both legs today, suspect a pulled muscle (upper thigh, front. same place both legs). I took the rest of the run pretty easy and may have to factor in an extra rest day instead of cross until I get things worked out. DF- worked on draws and presenting to target. experimented with natural point of aim some with my eyes closed to see where I'd end up. Concerned with drilling bad habits. Sent off for Stoegers DF book. I'll start some real drills in earnest when it arrives.

3/15 - should have been a cross day but frankly it was just too cold and windy to be on the bike. I ended up taking a nap...

3/14 PT 2 mile run (cold out there!). Upper body lift.

3/13 Monday club practice match, indoors This one was a pretty good eye opener for me. Lots of observations this week. I showed up to the match early, stayed late, observed most of the shooters, particularly ones I had marked out in previous weeks to learn from. I shot the match twice, mostly to try compare where I can/should gain time or gain accuracy. I shot with two different squads than usual to get outside the comfort zone of shooting with the same folks every week. First, a quick aside... am I improving? Up until recently I have been concentrating on learning the rules, the protocols and procedures on how these things run and picking up the basics. I finally asked to get the score sheets sent to me so I can make some comparisons about 4 weeks ago. Yes, comparing across divisions is apples to oranges, and trying to draw a direct correlation between my score and some A class Open guy is only going to frustrate and discourage, but it can be done. I cant compare within my division (SS/Maj) either as there's only one other shooter so there's a lack of depth. What I HAVE been doing is marking out some of the regulars and watching their scores as they change week to week and correlating that change with my own. That's been giving me a baseline to measure how much ease or trouble others have had with that stage (particularly the Production guys, who are about as close as I can get to comparing against Single Stack). If All of the HF are up %10 over the previous week including mine, I can assume the stage may have been slightly easier and I'm running consistently. If all of the HF are up %10 and mine has dropped %5, The stage may have been easier, but I had more difficulty with that stage. The second thing that can be seen when you break it out into percentages gained/lost is the outliers. If everyone including myself ran a %10 improvement but one shooter ran it in a solid %20 better than their average, it pays to look closely at why, and how I could incorporate his or her technique. By watching all the shooters I was able to identify why some had dropped (misfires, malfunctions, missed mag changes) as opposed to simply shooting worse/slower than I did. Anyway, I made some dramatic improvements the first month (not surprising as there's a lot of gains to be made learning basics) and I have been keeping pace with everyone else and/or gradually improving, with the exception of two specific weeks. I am scoring respectable amounts of points, but my times leave a lot of room for improvement. If I can reign in the penalties and cut %20 off my overall time while maintaining scoring, I should land in the top 10 or less of this particular group (or at least %60 of stage points). This is of course all going to become more difficult once I start running "real" matches I suppose. Second, I learned the lesson to shoot and move on. By that I mean make your shot and good or bad at whatever speed, then forget about it. This week had a target array with three unobstructed targets and one about 80% covered leaving the head and a diagonal from shoulder to side leaving about a 4" A zone. I was very concerned with getting a no shoot on that target. On both shoots, first string was fine, I finished on that target. on the second string of the first shoot, I took my time, shot well... then turned around and missed the next target completely. the only thing I can figure is somewhere in my head I wanted to hurry and make that time up. Score -10sec for me. On my second shoot I let it go, did ok, then proceeded down the line to the final array where I let my concentration go and shanked 3 NS on some of the easiest targets. I wasn't watching my sights. Third, and possible most importantly (as far as overall HF is concerned) I got to observe the movement styles of about 25 people and take away a big graphic visual lesson as to why a guy (for example) running SS with an overall score of 324/360 is positively skunking a guy in Production who has a score 40+ points higher. Speed gets you nowhere if you aren't decisive and fluid. Took away a lot of little things besides that, but this post is long enough and those are the big 3.

thought of you tonight. Walked in to the local club match and the first thing I see is the seated, gun-on-the-table start... I paid an extraordinary amount of attention to range commands.

I agree. I'm too new to understand some of the social nuances of this sport but to me Its like talking during a golf. Its fine to chat, but then your guy tees up, you hush

I remember an instructor calling it the "high Sabrina" ('70's charlies angles reference)

3/12 Took a rest day rather than a cross day to align for the new schedule this week. Looking forward to tomorrows shoot.

Thanks for the encouragement! I've got a long way to go. good news is the journey seems like a good trip so far.

I'm not sure I'm clear based on your post but I think you are saying you drew your unloaded pistol and set it on the barrel prior to the 'make ready' command? If so that violates... 10.5.1 Handling a firearm at any time except when in a designated safety area or when under the supervision of, and in response to a direct command issued by, a Range Officer. My apologies if I am misunderstanding.

3/11 PT- changed out my usual long run day to try working in sprints and direction changes. Ran for time, not distance so I did :30. Warmed up, ran, sprint for a landmark, recover. worked in sprinting tight squares around the shelter buildings. Knees held up surprisingly well. I think this may replace my tempo run days earlier in the week. By the way, sprints after leg day are not cool. Practiced :30 of drawing and presenting to target

3/10 Callout at work kept me off the range at lunch. Probably for the best so I can continue to work on a few basic things. PT- Leg, back, and core.

Thanks for the encouragement! I checked out Chads website, I do a version of the exercises he suggested, but never gave the concentric/eccentric idea any thought. I'm going to stick to what I'm doing for now for consistency's sake until I have a better base established in a few weeks, then I may tweak the workouts some. His wrist curls and the barbel reverse grip tricep extension may be just the thing.. Thanks for the tips, one question. When you say "look directly at your mag well", should I be bringing the gun up into my line of sight, or go ahead and look down into my accustomed workspace around chest height?

3/9 dry fire After getting this weeks score sheet I sat down to think a bit on why I'm getting the HF I am despite scoring a respectable number of points. I took at look at other shooters in similar divisions and its primarily speed. 2 penalties (1 NS/miss) obviously dragged the HF down as well, so I don't need to be shooting any faster than I can see my sights. I suspect my biggest improvements in speed can be made during reloads and transitions between arrays. I can then focus on shooting only as fast as my sights. (yeah, I'm that basic.) At this point its best to focus on the basics so draw/present/reload now gets its own day. Rather than focus strictly on DF without feedback and drill bad habits I sat down to think a bit and decided to set up a camera on a tripod and take a few videos, and found the following: 1- my draw isn't bad at all. Practice should make it more fluid though. I am presenting the gun well. I need to get right on target though. 2- My reloads need work. I could also use some advice on reloading while not taking my eyes off target (as in how to best bring the gun in so I can use some of my peripheral vision while not breaking 180). Eventually it should be second nature without any visual ques, but I don't want to drill bad habits like taking my eyes off the target until it is. 3- I should invest in a proper competition belt, holster, mags rather than the loosely attached carry equipment I'm using. My mag pouches have a lot of play at the belt. DF- Did a minimal amount of DF, instead focused specifically on draw-present-fire-withdraw/reload-present. PT- basic lower body stretches. rest day. Reviewed my current workout plan to tweak one weekly run towards sprints and direction changes rather than strictly cross country