MQW

I agree, the 550 is much easier to learn on and you will make way less mistakes which means more properly loaded ammo to shoot in the end; I have a 650 and if I had to do it over, I would buy the 550. Talk to Brian, but I would not go the Square Deal Route. 1. They have proprietary dies. 2. It is not set up for rifle. I would consider a 550 to start with. I have both the 550 and 650 and if I was just starting out, I would go with the 550. It is easier for a beginner to learn on, and it will do everything you want. If you find that you need to upgrade, they hold their value well. My $.02

Well, here's the thing, our self-image has to match our skill level or we will end up self-destructing at some point; I watched this happen to a shooter I was coaching back in '09; he and his father have done a tremendous amount of work in the realm of the warrior mindset, his father has actually published a number of books on the subject over the years, but the son never quite got that it took more than just self-image and visualization to become a champion, that it also took very Deliberate or Deep Practice over a period of time to get there; he never put in the work necessary to get to the level that he believed he was capable of; I can say that he had a lot of raw skill sets and quite possibly could have done very well, but he shot the '09 US Nationals with me and another member of our team, did a lot of really un-thought through things to get to that match i.e. using someone else's gun without really training with it for any length of time, etc.; he ended up DQ'ing on the second day after launching a round into the side berm during a reload. He has not shot a match since that time. My point is, it takes a lot of well-rounded training to become a champion - visualization, self-image, deep or deliberate practice of all the necessary skill sets, lots of rounds downrange over a period of time - all play into that, and without all of that, you will never become a champion. Also, again, your skill level has to match your expectations, thats why I have become very process-focused, instead of being results focused, being results focused will get you in trouble every single time; your concern, no matter what level of shooter you are, should be something like this... focus on each target within each stage and shooting that target & stage correctly each time, then everything else will come and you will get the end result you are looking for; hope this helps; I would suggest reading "10 Minute Toughness" by Dr. Jason Selk, that book is one of the most recent up-to-date works on the mental game on the market & is being utilized by a large number of pro athletes right now and it's spot on, also get "Talent is Overrated" by Geoff Colvin, it gets into what Deep or Deliberate practice is.

Outstanding, Thanks, I am downloading it now. I was pleasantly surprised to find that SureFire finally released an updated version of their free app on 5/23/2011. Version 1.5 works for iPhone 4's. It can even pick up dry fire! It definitely works with my Glock & snap cap. I haven't tried to do it with holster draw strokes so I don't know if the app will get confused. But hey, it's free and even my CED7000 can't pick up pistol clicks.

Having done this type of training now going on 30+ years, I would agree with just about everything being said here, but with one caveat, get yourself a good trainer, none of these exercises or drills can be done correctly without proper training on correct technique; I spent the whole of 2010 and first part of 2011 re-learning how to train before I actually was able to get into a solid training regimen; I have been working with a guy who has his Masters in Physical Therapy & Minor in Kinesiology and will not train with anyone else, due to the fact that I am 51 yrs old but I can tell you I am in the best shape of my life right now and have recovered from a lot of over-training injuries developed over years of improper training via the military by training with this guy. This is definitely my weakest skill. For the most I try I cannot get that necessary "explosion" to move fast from one shooting position to the next. I'm tall and a little overweight (1,84 meter, 100 Kg), which may have some influence in my "slow" moving, but I think I can move faster than I do today. Just see how slow I move today: What exercises for a 52 old man do you recommend to get more "explosion" when moving from box to box? Thanks for any ideas, Demetrio.

Okay, you got my attention, my question then is, how do you take the small but deliberate pause to get on track again without losing too much time or at this point, does it matter? this is my single biggest issue when shooting in competitions; its way different in combat, because you can take the time to breath yourself down while behind cover or while moving thru an urban situation or before you go thru a door, etc. that doesn't really work when you are under the clock?? whats your read or a possible solution to this?? Thanks. Good stuff. One could apply analogies for that pertaining to doing pretty much anything. The first that came to mind is when you are shooting a stage and something "goes wrong." Note how your mind stays stuck there and it's difficult to get back in the flow, unless you make a deliberate pause, and redirect your attention. be

Spot On, brother! What should you do? Calm yourself, quiet youself, master your senses. Look right into the source of mind, always keep it shining, bright, clear and pure. Do not give rise to an indifferent mind. -HONGREN

That book is one of many in my library dedicated to the training of warriors, and one of my favorites. His words are still true today, the only difference is the weapon in hand.

Yes it most certainly is, I love this technique but you have to train it constantly or you will lose it. I learned the same thing from Manny and Len Baxley. Len calls it Slack out, but its the same animal. Basically taking the slack out of the triggger during recoil so when your sights are on target you can squeeze one off. Its really fast.

Everyione has to deal with adrenaline when they shoot; one of the best ways is stress breathing or taking a centering breath, in thru your nose for the count of 6, hold for 2, then out thru your mouth for count of 7; that will casue your heart rate to slow down because you are forcing your diaphragm to work which slows down your heart; Google LTC Dave Grossman on "Stress Breathing" or Dr. Jason Selk on " taking a centering breath" How do you control the sheer energy that competing seems to impose on a person? after 5 years of slugging it out at our local matches, i found a simple solution to my inability to see my front sight, and all of the problems that are generated from that basic premise. about 5 weeks ago i took my prescription glasses off, (mildly nearsighted, 62 years old, wear tri-focals) and like magic, i could see my front sight and began to call my shots for the first time. in the past 5 competitions i have managed 1 first place, 2 2nd, and 2 3rd. the problem is this. i lost two competitions by a single poorly placed shot brought on by an adrenalin surge on either the next to last, or last stage. i was unable to control the energy and blew it both times -- what would have been two first place finishes were relegated to a 2nd and 3rd. i seem to do my best when i forget about competing, and just focus on shooting cleanly. however, this competitive urge has replaced all sense of reason and control in me. any ideas on how to wrestle this monster into submission, or at least into compliance?

I am with you on this thought; I would add a caveate, its depends on who is giving you the info, I routinely shoot matches with Ted Puente, who is one of my mentors and one of the best coaches in shooting sports; I will listen to him, because what he is doing, is trying to help me be a better shooter and do better overall. You have to really trust those people you keep around you during a match, thats big a part of this game. Listen to others but take everything with a grain of salt. In the end you can only shoot a stage as good as YOU can. Who cares how someone else shot the stage.

Brother, you are dead on the money; that's exactly what I have been working on for quite a while now; I have recently been working with Dr. Jason Selk, the Author of "10 Minute Toughness", this book deals with that kind of thinking, which is exactly how we should be focused to have repeated success in this sport or for that matter, any sport we are involved in. Where is our focus? Is it on winning or on being the best we can be? We shoot in competitive sports so we all have some degree of competitiveness and want to win. Should this be our focus though? Through the Law of Attraction, as we focus on competition (winning) we attract more people, circumstances and events to compete against. So, in my opinion, we actually hamper our desire to win. As we change focus to self improvement and awareness our goals become internalized and are actually able to be controlled by us. We feel less pressure at a match because what others do is irrelevant. We focus on our shooting, on the next shot, on the next stage, with no worries of the past or future. As our self improvement goals are realized we find that the outer goal of winning actually takes care of itself.

Take a look at 10 Minute Toughness by Dr. Jason Selk, he gets very specific as to why people choke, its because when you think about what can go wrong and try to stop it from going wrong, it will eventually go wrong. You must be visualizing success for success to happen i.e. tell yourself - what to do, not -what not to do; Another great book is Talent is Overrated by Geoff Colvin. this book deals with Deliberate or Deep Practice. I'm pretty new to practical shooting, but I saw this article some time ago and I thought this forum would like to see it. It's about a book by a UofC psychologist on why we choke under pressure, along with methods for dealing with it. (I'm too new of a member to post links, but the link is in the first couple results for "uchicago news choke" on Google

Try "10 minute Toughness' by Dr. Jason Selk, this is a great book that will teach you how set yourself up for success mentally and also " Talent is Overrated" by Geoff Colvin, this will teach you what good, "Deliberate or Deep Practice" really is and how to accomplish this methodology for training. Can anyone recommend some good books that cover both the basics of competitive practical shooting as well as skills development and training methods? I'm new to competition shooting and plan to get started with pistol competitons and then maybe move to 3-gun if I really enjoy it. My birthday is coming up and my wife is looking for ideas ...

Brian has really done a lot of work in this area and thats what got me looking hard at how visualization works and doesn't work; I have been working with Dr. Jason Selk the author of "10 Minute Toughness" now since July 2011, in preparation for the World Shoot in Greece; one of the things I haved learned while working with him is that in order for you to actually experience the visualiztion fully, you have to be doing it from the first person, or as you stated "from the "drivers seat", a majority of the research done into visualization has concluded that when an event is properly visualized, your body will actually believe it's doing the event for real, the brain synapses fire causing the muscles to flex and move as if they are really doing the event; you want to get to the point where you see it, feel it and smell it; I have been able to do that by first visualizing past successes on stages at various matches, then I move on to visualizing the upcoming stage after I have gone thru it a number of times durng the walk-thru and then mentally until I can see everything happening exactly the way I want it to happen; by doing this- I actually see it , feel it and smell it, if you can get where I am going with this. It does take time but not as much as some of the sports pyschologists would have you believe, Dr. Selk's program is designed around a 10 min. time period which is perfect for shooters, and has been very successful with a large number of pro athletes within the NFL, Pro Baseball and the US Gymnastics Team. I utilize it before every match and again, before every stage I shoot; I also use it before every practice, to set myself up for success each time. Another thing you may look at, is "Deliberate or Deep Practice" which is covered well in a new book by Geoff Colvin, "Talent is Overrated", he speaks about how the best of the best got that way and how it isn't something you are born with but how you train & practice, a lot of really great info in this book, a lot of research throughout the years has gone into it. Should I use it when trying to work in a new technique or is it solely to reinforce existing techniques? Also, to be effective, should my visualization be from a "driver's seat" view, or can it be from a 3rd person perspective? How much time do the GM's spend visualizing? Any other visualization principles would be greatly appreciated…I just finished a sports book, The New Toughness Training for Sports, which expressed the importance of visualization in sports, so I figured I'd take it more seriously. I can clearly visualize correct sight alignment on a target thanks to the Bruce Gray drills, but I find it difficult to visualize something else, like a reload. And I will often finish a stage and only recall seeing the brown target and front sight, so I feel I have little to work with there, but I can easily visualize myself from a 3rd person perspective. Help me out. I guess I need the basics of how to visualize, I understand you get better at it the more you do it. Thanks. Bill

You are dead on the money for running but for training, I would say that one of the new balance minimus shoes would be better; I do all of my fitness training in either the vibram five finger shoes or the new balance minimus shoes, they allow your foot to be strengthened & function correctly without any artifical support (which can actually cause problems in the long run); In today's fitness training world, we have come full circle back to functional training for all of your training needs, if you get very specific about your training, as in, our longest stages in action shooting are 25-30 sec. max, so your training should be based on that; I do fairly solid bike rides as part of my training, but I spin for 2 -5 min. with 20-40 sec. sprints in between for 30-40 min, that actually does more good than riding for 2 hours without sprinting. I also do a considerable amount of kettle bell training and power yoga based training for functional flexibility, burst speed & powerful movement; Just my two cents , but FYI, I am 51 now, and am in better shape than I have ever been, I have spent 33 years in the military with over 10 years in the SOF community and am still currently serving in the USAR. I didn't learn any of this from them, I had to find it out by working with some of the top Trainers and Physical Therapists in the US. Every person's foot is different. Go to a running shoe store and have them fit one for you. It's what I did, and now I just buy the same shoe just the updated styles when I have enough miles on my current pair.

Yes, there is, but not in the way I believe you are thinking; If I were you, I would consider contacting Ted Puente, he along with Manny Bragg & Frank Garcia have developed a technique called "Aggressive Trigger Reset", and I can tell you having trained with Ted numerous times, it works, I am applying this method now and it has made a significant difference in my shooting. BTW, Ted just took the Bronze Medal at the World Shoot in STD Div. and Manny was on the Gold Winning STD Team. Check it out. Is there a way to train ones self to shoot from reset when shooting something like a Glock or MP?

There is an airsoft company that specializes in IPSC pistols and tactical rifles in HI; I forget the name of them but is you google Hawaii Airsoft they will come up, that's how I found them.

Getting a good coach, taking a good class is paramount to excelling at this sport; most of the great shooting coaches have done all the work and figured out how to get thru all the minutiae and have the gems to teach you and get you on the right track; after having trained with a number of solid shooting coaches, from my experience, Ted Puente & Ray Witham are two of the best coaches I have ever worked with. Ray, got me from high B class to A class rather quickly by showing me how to negotiate stages correctly and how to drive my gun better; having started training with Ted regularly this year, I have come to realize this guy has more overall knowledge of shooting in general than anyone I have ever worked with in the past and I have been a senior marksmanship trainer with the US Navy, US-ARNG & USAR for over 28 years, so I don't take this stuff lightly. Another thing to consider is the mental game, I have read Lanny Basham's book on shooting, alll of Saul Kirsch's books on shooting and I have read Brian's book also; the best book I have read on the mental game, is "10 Minute Toughness", the author, Dr. Jason Selk, has cut thru a lot of, I'll say it again, "minutiae" and taken this topic to the next level; most of the mental game books talk about developing visualization techniques, such as VMBR, which will take a dedicated person at least 45 min. to a hour everyday, for at least a month, to develop the proper habit patterns & thought processes; most of us do not have that kind of time; Dr. Selk has developed a 10 min. program that actually works, (he is the Sports Psychologist for the STL Cardinals, the US Gymnastics Team and many other great athletes in the US); I know this because I am using it right now to get ready for the World Shoot; he was a protege of the great coach, John Wooden, for approx. 18 mths before Coach Wooden passed a few years ago; Wooden developed things like focusing on the process rather than the outcome, like focusing on one stage at a time, rather the entire match or if you want to get very focused, focus on one shot at a time, or as Doug Koenig has been known to say, I'll paraphrase because I don't remember the exact words, "each shot is a match in itself" ; Dr. Selk has taken it further by utilizing Relentless Process Focus and Relentless Solution Focus (Helps keep your head from getting negative); I would highly recommend this book along with another book I am reading "Talent is Overrated" by Geoff Colvin; this book deals with "Deliberate Practice" or how to practice with correctly, because most of us do not; it also deals with other things like what separates the great performers from everybody else, very interesting stuff. hope this helps.

FYI, For all those shooters that are or are planning to shoot both USPSA & IPSC matches, where sometimes, and more often lately than before, we have to pick up all of our mags from a table, from inside a bag, etc. and load one, then secure the others, I have found a solid alternate to the belt or mag pouch mounted magnets seen with the various shooting supply vendors (really there is only one I know of being sold by lots of companies); instead of paying high dollar for one magnet plus shipping, after much research I found this company that makes the correct strength and size for our sport; it is- EMOVENDO Magnets & Elements, webpage is : www.emovendo.net; the product SKU is: HK80SH, 80 pound Hooks - Slim Hook, you get 4 of these magnets with detachable hooks that screw in for a total of 19.99 plus shipping, that's 4 magnets for less than one magnet from the aforementioned companies. What I had to do to properly mount it, was go to the local Ace Hardware and pick up a couple small round-top hex head screws with the right thread size & a small metal washer, that fit the magnet's threaded tube, then I personally wanted a little support for the threaded tube & magnet, so I got a thick nylon spacer that was the same length as the threaded tube (the outer dia. of this tube is 9/32", I could only find one very thin nylon washer in that size), so I had to ream out the inside of the spacer a very small amount to get the spacer to fit over the tube; once that was done, it was very easy to drill a small hole where I intended to mount my magnet on my plastic mag pouch (personally I use the Universal Shooting Academy mag pouches although I don't think they are available anymore but I know this will work with any of the plastic mag pouches); next I screwed the hex head screw thru the plastic (I drilled the hole small so the screw would thread its way thru the plastic), as the hex head started to come thru the plastic on the outside of the mag pouch, I started to thread it into the tube of the magnet, once this was snug, I turned it down very tight by turning both the magnet and turning the hex head, this gave it a very tight fit and it doesn't slip when I mount a full magazine; I have used this with fully loaded .40 Cal. 140mm STI and SV magazines with no issues, this magnet holds them firm; so now we have an alternate solution instead having to buy one type for a high price. I will provide a picture of the finished product in later post. Hope this helps somebody, it took me longer to find the right magnet and parts then it did to put them all together for a finished magnet mounted on the side of my mag pouch. Regards, Mark

New business or not, I would make him pay for the replacement barrel and do it the way you told him you wanted it done, so he doesn't try this with anyone else; what an ego, to do this without contacting you first, whatever happened to good customer service??

Try Shay at Akai Custom, he has recently done most of the work for Millenium Custom, he does great work and you will not have to wait a crazy amount of time for a gun, probably two, 3 months max, could be less as he just started up his own operation. Shoot me an email at teamgargoyles@hotmail.com and I can get you his contact info; he has some of his guns up on the Millenium Custom facebook page. Regards, Q

You are dead on the money with this post; I am associated with LTC Dave Grossman (ret) author of "On Killing", On Combat" and co-Author of "Warrior Mind-Set", this last book is very relevant to competitive shooters as it covers a tremendous amount of info about stress response, Stress Inoculation, Visualization, etc.; one of the things Dave speaks about a lot, is "Stress Breathing or Tactical Breathing", for you I-Phone owners, there is even an App that helps you practice this technique; I use this technique in all of my matches, no matter what type of match it is. It saved me from some real problems during the USSA Pro Am last year, with the super hot and humid weather; I really, really try to hydrate myself correctly all the time, but I forgot about what eating a meal with a lot of protein does to your system; I had a fairly good size breakfast around 9:30am, thinking I would be fine for a 13:00 start time; wrong answer, my stomach was still digesting the protein and pulling all of my hydration away from my extremities, so I started the match behind the power curve; I had to use stress breathing to bring down my heart rate at almost every stage, I was over-hyrdrating the entire time but it didn't matter because I was already very de-hydrated due to the incorect meal; anyway, the breathing technique enabled me to stay in the game, I didn't perform at my best but I didn't pass out or become a heat casualty either, that was really all I wanted to accomplish for that day beside getting the beta on the stages by shooting them in Open class the first day; I was able to come back the next day and shoot well enough to take the High-Military title in Limited Div.

I hate to say this, but what recently made a lot fo difference in my game was getting a correct shooting glasses prescription; I started in IPSC in 2000, I have always worn glasses but did not have an issue being able to focus on the front sight until I returned from Iraq in '05, I was almost 46 then, started to notice I had a hard time seeing the front sight clearly with the prescription I had then; When I started shooting for Team Gargoyles, I went to the eye doctor to get lenses made for the frames they sent me to try; I found out very quickly how much this made a difference, as I had been a high B shooter since I started in IPSC and shot into A class within a couple months of changing my script; seeing everything you need to see clearly, makes a world of difference; I have since put some serious time into training again and spending solid time with a good shooting coach/trainer, i.e. Max Michel, Travis Tomaise, Taran Butler and Ray Witham at various times in the past 6 years; they have definitely shortened my learning curve drastically; I also only associate with positive thinking shooters that are willing to help each other become better; I have no time for people who are more worried about putting other shooters down or creating a lot of negative influence, that is no way to attract new shooters to this sport; Reading Sauls books, Re-reading Brians book, getting training in Vizio-Motor Behavior Rehearsal (VMBR - this is an advanced form of visualization training utilized by pro athletes) has all helped tremendously; another thing that has really helped me is training specifically for the types of movement we do in this sport, i.e. short, burst speed, multiple times in a matter of seconds, etc. everything that I am doing now is getting me ready for continous solid performance at the World Shoot in Greece.

Howdy, have you thought about getting your hands on some of Scott Warren's training targets, that's one thing that would help, this training target "sticks" over a std Metric target and shows you a correct aiming point on the target; by shooting this way with enough repetitions, you then will start instinctively holding on the correct aiming point on the target, the cheap way to do this is paint a 3" or 4" black dot at the top of the A zone and shoot at it, you can also make a template from an IPSC target, either metric or clam-shell, so you can spray multiple 3" or 4" circles on a target and train on that. Work on shooting controlled groups of five into the dots, take as much time as you need to get all five in the dots, once you are doing that consistently, work on decreasing your total time/splits but only when you can do it consistently out to 25 yds, work your way out in 5 yd increments; you may also need to make the dot bigger for anything past 15 yds. This is a good drill. The common term "let your sights be your speedometer" really makes sense if you think it thru; you should only shoot as fast as you can see a clear, concise sight picture for long shots; you can possibly afford to not have a "perfect" sight picture when you are shooting close wide-open targets out to 10 yds, but anything partial with hard cover or No-Shoots or ANY Steel, needs a solid sight picture and trigger press to get good first round hits in the A zone. There are some good precision/accuracy drills out there, Saul Kirsch has some great drills in his book, one great drill in putting an open IPSC Target at around 10 yds and then having a steel rack at about 20-25 yds; Draw and shoot the paper clean, as fast and accurately as you can, then do a clean, fast transition to the Steel, this will cause you to slow down just a tad on the trigger for the steel so you get the hit, missing on any steel is not good for the score at all. Hope this helps. Regards, Q

I quit shooting production when I got back from Iraq because was shooting a Langdon Tactical Beretta, which by the way, is an excellent production gun but at the time, Taran Butler showed that it was holding me back, he thought I would improve faster as a shooter by shooting a 2011 with a great trigger job which would allow me to concentrate on getting better at other skill sets; that was in '05, I can shoot the LTT Production gun much faster than before because I learned more rapidly using shooting the 2011 and am now able to transition back and forth depending on what type of shooting I am doing; I use the LTT gun for military training now and I routinely out-shoot all of my peers in the military when shooting a std M9; I guess my point is, their is a lot you have to learn as a new shooter, and unless you have a lot of prior experience shooting a particular gun, i.e. 1911 or M9/M11 in the military or as an LEO, I would start with a gun that has a consistent Safe Action trigger pull- 3lbs or less, good sights and functions flawlessly, e.g. an S&W MP9 or MP40 are good choices to start with; then once you figure out where you want to be, such as in Limited Div., upgrade to a 2011 from one of the great smiths out there.