Brazos SC Shooter

Congrats Robert. The range diary is a great tool as PB mentioned. Enjoy the journey. It has its ups and downs but at least they are all on the road to improvement.

Hey guys, Flex and I are looking for a 3rd person to ride with us to Tulsa. I am supplying the vehicle (Honda Pilot) and we'll split the gas three ways. We had a 3rd person but they have had to cancel at the last minute. If there is anyone out there who would like to ride with us please respond or PM me to coordinate. We have not decided on the details of our departure (Time/date). It is about 12-13 hours so it would likely be early Sat morning. Drew

8/3/07 Thanks for the well wishes Robert and Catfish. This was an amazing match. The stages were fun and challenging and the staff was great, only one small contention here. I continue to learn so much by shooting these big matches. It was such a last minute decision to shoot this one and it has paid off huge. I had a blast. My squad mates were a great bunch of guys. Special thanks to Glyn for filming me. I will post the videos later. I had the great pleasure of shooting with Travis and Lee from the Army Marksmanship team. These guys are two class acts. Always willing to answer questions. Watching them both shoot was worth the price of admission. All of my stages were posted except one, but when those results are included I am currently standing in 1st place for Limited-B. I realize there is a ton of shooting left tomorrow and Sunday, but it is where I wanted to be. Now we will have to wait and see if they were strong enough to hold folks off for the rest of the weekend. Disappointments 1. Not being familiar enough with the rules. This one really chapped my ass. On my first stage of the day I was shooting along doing well then I came to a target that wasn't pasted. I stopped and said something and the RO looked at me like I had three heads. It is my responsibility to keep shooting and sort it out afterwards. It is also his responsibility to make sure that the stage is presented exactly the same for all shooters. I didn't get so much as an apology for f'ing it up. Again, another lesson learned and it pointed out that I need to continue to read the rules before nationals. 2. Still more misses than I would like to see. Once the buzzer goes off I don't seem to remember that smooth is fast. I had some great times but did not get all my hits. Proud moments 1. My reloads were smoking today. I hit every one of them and they felt smooth and fast. 2. Continue to improve on stage plan and then the execution of said plan. 3. Shooting o nthe move today felt very loose and relaxed. 4. After shooting with Matt T. at Circleville last month I really started tpaying attention to "quick feet" and moving in bursts while shooting on the move rather than steady. Things to work on 1. Leaving positions faster 2. In conjunction with #1 good follow through on the last shot before leaving a position and the last shot before reloads. 3. Calling shots. I am still behind the curve here. The misses cost me huge points. Notes for those shooting Sat/Sun Stage 11 - must engage all targets. Everyone I have talked to and everyone in our group shot it as follows String 1 - Depending on which side you prefer to start on - middle, far, close - reload - repeat String 2 - Six shots on T7 Stage 3 - tough stage, looks nothing like the original design. We were the first team of the day to NOT have an FTE. There were close to 10 total for the groups before us. Travis burned this stage up. 4-8-9-10 are really the only ones that looked like the original design. 29 Days until Ohio Sectional 37 Days until Nationals.

8/2/07 Spent the morning cleaning the gun, reloading my ammo for Area 8 tomorrow. Loaded up 400 rounds, matched head stamps and chamber checked all of my rounds. I am ready to go. I have been reviewing the stages casually for the last week or so. Things have been really crazy in the BSCS household. Tuesday was my last day at my old job. I started my new career on Wednesday and I have been spending a ton of time preparing for this move. I am not feeling much tension about tomorrow morning's match even though I have not practiced much the last two weeks. I am excited to for the remaining two majors before Nationals. Now that I have made the jump to my new job AND I have significantly more flexibility in my time, I am going to refocus these last days. I am headed to bed shortly since I am making the 3 hr drive to Area 8 in the morning. This is probably not the best scenario for shooting at the top of my game, but I need to conserve money right now and this is only way to participate in this match. I won't always have peak conditions mentally, physically or weather conditionally. This will be a great opportunity to practice maintaining a good state of mind regardless of the situation. 1 Day until Area 8 30 Days until Ohio Sectional 38 Days until Nationals.

Congrats Chris. I noticed the change in your signature but didn't think you jumped from Open to Limited. Glad to have you in the Division and it gives me someone else to shoot with and measure progress. Looked forward to shooting with you and your new blaster in the future.

My avatar says it all. I heard some where that Texas has the 3rd easiest schedule in the country. Not sure if that is true or not. I think we make it to a BCS game but I think we lost to many starters this year (13) to have a serious shot. Looking for 12-1 or 11-2 season and at least a Big 12 Championship.

There has never been a more individually dominate athlete. He is not from this planet.

7/22/07 400 round live fire session - I was able to get an early evening live fire session in. I didn't have any ammo loaded up for my limited gun so I went and shot the single stack. I worked on slow fire and really seeing my sights. I am forever working on keeping a good sight picture as the tempo increases. It doesn't always happen but that is why I practice it. I also spent a fair amount of time on strong hand and weak hand shooting Session Observations 1. My groups for weak hand were much tighter than my strong hand. 2. When engaging two targets from a draw, my groups on T1 are much better than T2. This has to be a lack of visual patience. 3. I need a new load for my 45. My cases are really dirty as am I. Last time I checked I was running about 167-169 PF. This is just too soft for TG. I made the decision earlier last week to go to Area 8. I sent in my application for that and the Ohio Section Match. I am looking forward to getting two more major matches in before heading to Tulsa. 10 Days until Area 8 40 Days until Ohio Sectional 49 Days until Nationals.

7/19/07 Results came in from my match this weekend. I was the first B-Class shooter and second in Limited. My misses were much higher than I would like. I am still not seeing or calling every shot which is why they are high. I wanted to see what running the match on the outer edge of my abilities would mean in the way of results. Obviously I won't win at Area 8 or Nationals in that fashion but I was really curious what would happen. I tried to remain consistent from stage to stage. I won 3 stages, was 2nd on two, 4th on one and the the last two were bad 10th and 12th which knocked me out. I have read many times on the site how "monkey motions" and moving targets are designed to distract you and that is exactly what happened the first time through. Now I just need to work on how to feel as calm as I did on the reshoots on the first run. Place Name No. USPSA Class Division PF Lady For Age Match Pts Match % 1 Rich W. 24 A44777 A Limited Minor No No Senior 566.9749 100.00% 2 Drew B. 21 A56546 B Limited Major No No 551.5144 97.27% 3 Randy H. 30 B Limited Major No No 534.7590 94.32% 4 Mike S. 9 A56088 D Limited Major No No 521.3330 91.95% 5 Frank H. 2 FY47389 B Limited Major No No Senior 512.5565 90.40% 6 Jesse R. 28 FY42906 B Limited Major No No 474.2051 83.64% 7 Mike M. 12 A47043 C Limited Major No No Senior 462.6066 81.59% 8 Gary R. 20 FY40277 B Limited Major No No Super Senior 438.7706 77.39% 9 Jim A. 17 A51168 U Limited Minor No No 410.0463 72.32% 10 Tom R. 7 L2634 C Limited Major No No 404.5215 71.35% 11 Dan B. 25 Pen U Limited Major No No Senior 363.2084 64.06% 12 Tim K. 1 U Limited Minor No No Senior 236.8154 41.77% 13 Jim D. 13 A57437 U Limited Major No No 228.7657 40.35% 14 Sue M. 5 A56728 U Limited Minor Yes No 145.8807 25.73% Speaking of Area 8, I sent in my application yesterday and am looking forward to getting another major match under my belt before Tulsa. After this one I will have the Ohio Sectional as my last major match tune up. My dry fire practice schedule has really taken a hit lately. Things are pretty crazy in the Brazos household. I gave notice at my job last week and am making fairly drastic career change. My career priorities have really shifted over the last 6 months and things that were previously important to me no longer are. I am making this change because I want to be 100% responsible for my income, I want a better home/life balance and I want the flexibility to shoot more without trying to figure out how to fit all that in to my meager two week vacation. 52 Days until Nationals.

Better late than never I suppose. App went out today. I am looking forward to this one. Looking at Friday for now but would love to shoot Friday if any of the reserved squads open up.

7/15/07 Match - Shot a match at Rayner's today. These matches are always a blast and they put on one hell of a match. There were some great new props I hadn't shot before. Unfortunately, I didn't have my camera set correctly so I don't have any video of this match. There were 8 stages and I shot the match twice. It was awesome to get that much match time in. I felt I was seeing targets better today and was really comfortable with the game plans I had on each of the stages. I had some challenges on the props I hadn't seen before, but after shooting them, I did much better on the reshoot. I still have too many penalities/no-shoots. I can feel my confidence growing. I haven't been practicing every day but I have felt like I am been able to still make gains. 56 Days until Nationals.

Reading some of these posts made my head hurt. The only thing I can, which I read on this site, is do not use OAL as a means for changing PF. Focus on matching bullet weight and powder charges. Here is a prime example of a linear relationship not existing. I worked up 5 different 10 round loads starting at 4.7 gr of TiteGroup with 185 pr Precision moly bullets at an OAL 1.225. On this particular day 4.7, 4.8, 4.9 and 5.0 grains all chrono'd at the exact same PF of 183-185. Short story is work up several recipies and try them in different conditions, hot, cold, mild temperatures so you know what your load will do in each.

Nice. That song always gets me pumped. Those Texas boys can tear it up. Congrats on the win Clint.

7/9/07 45 minutes of dry fire - I must be thinking about my reloads too much. It seem like they are getting worse and more inconsistent. Continued to work on basics. I slowed the reloads down and just worked to do them successfully over and over. Thanks Matt. I appreciate it. I enjoyed watching you shoot both of the field courses. The thing that jumped out to me first and foremost was your quick feet and quick movement. I tend to keep moving but it isn't quite as "snappy". I also shot you back a response to the PM. 61 days until Nationals.

7/8/07 1 hr 45 min dry fire - spent this afternoon outside working on the basics. Lots of reloads, wide transitions and SOTM. Even though I have had bobbles of my reloads in practice, I have not had that happen in a match until yesterday. I bobbled the reload and dropped the last mag I had. I had also run dry so I had to pick up the mag, rack the slide and then take the last shot on a target I had already engaged with 1 round. I did the same thing in the the Indiana match but my reload was clean so I probably pulled it off faster than the 2.5 seconds I would have taken for the miss. However, yesterday dropping the mag, picking it up, racking the slide and then taking the shot probably took longer than 2.5 seconds. 62 days until Nationals.

7/7/07 Today's match was a nice surprise and it turned out to be a special classifier match. All in all I had a good match. Based on my calculations I think I had my first 100% classifier. I am a little suspect so I will wait to see the final scores tomorrow. I will publish some videos tomorrow. As usual it was good to shoot with my friends and meet some new folks. Matt T. was especially helpful and very impressive to watch as he ran the field courses. That is a model of shooting on the move that I can learn from. I was able to video a couple of his runs so I can use them for reference. 63 days until Nationals. Edited to add videos It appears there was no 100% classifier. I had added two extra shots into the score and that made the difference. In the final results I was 4th overall in Limited and 1st in B Class. - This was the one I thought 100%. Based on the calculator this was an 84.36% run. It lets me know that I have it in me to be an A class shooter and I am ever improving toward M class. I just need to keep working.I felt really good about the others classifiers as well. I hadn't been shooting classifiers up to my B class ranking since I made B class. 3 out of 4 were at least that high, with one boarderline A and one boarderline M. The field courses were a ton of fun, nice and long and lots of rounds. My shooting on the move is getting better. Here are some additional videos

7/5/07 45 min of dry fire - I was surprised to see the rust build up as quickly as it did. I have been in a funk since the IA Section match and have not practiced much since then. I did have my gun in the shop for several days during that time. Got the blaster back from Bob on Tues. but have not gone to the range yet. I trust everything is tip top. I am looking forward to the Circleville match on Sat. 66 days until Nationals 7/6/07 Tonight after work I will spend time reloading for tomorrow as well as get the gun all cleaned up. If things go well I should also be able to squeeze in an outdoor dry fire session. If Steve Anderson should happen to read this, please send me an email regarding one-on-one training. I have not been able to send PMs to you since your box is full. Maybe we can chat about it tomorrow if you will be in Circleville. I am very interested in getting together before Nationals. 65 days until Nationals

Really glad to hear that Nemo. Good people reap their due rewards. Glad to hear things are turning around for you and by the looks of it, carma is down on you.

I am still waiting on that resume of yours...

Proud to be a Texan. Real Men of Genius Apologize for the thread drift in advance.

7/1/07 I sent my blaster back to Bob on Wednesday to take a look at the trigger. I made an adjustment before my last range session and it stopped doubling but I wanted him to give it the once over to maker sure the trigger pull was back to where it should be. I should have it back on Tues. and will resume my sessions then. I have gone back to look at my goals and unfortunately I am not nearly as far along as I had hoped I would be. Am I a better shooter than I was when I started this diary, absolutely. By this time I was supposed to have achieved the following; 1. A Class shooter - still a B. My match performances have improved a great deal but my classifier scores are C Class. My year end goals are still in tact but I am going to have to pick it up. To achieve this I am going to pick up one or two more USPSA matches per month. 2. Lose 15-20 lbs. I have not been committed to this goal. My sparse workout routine has been just enough to maintain my current weight. 3. I intended to shoot 2 major matches in IDPA and 2 in USPSA. I am now shooting for 4 in USPSA. I have shot one and have three on the calendar. I am looking to pick up a 4th but haven't decided which one to shoot. 4. I have been able to maintain the average dry practices per week but I have not been able to keep the live fire commitment. Not sure if this will change due to some near term changes in my work situation. 70 days until Nationals.

Never, under any circumstances "pack" when going to New York. Check out my range diary for more details. NYC is one of the most unfriendly gun/gun owner cities/states in the union. Great places to see and excellent food but never take a gun unless you are going to a competition.

I might be biased but... Brazos all the way. Bob builds a great gun and his customer service is awesome.

6/25/07 1 hr dry fire Today's session was outdoors with a ton of shooting on the move. 6am came really early but it was really nice outside. I have worked on slowing things down a bit to focus on a better more consistent sight picture. It was a very productive session. I had to fly to Toronto for work this evening. Made sure not to bring any guns for practicing. They are polite but I think their firearm policy makes New York's look tame. Not sure but didn't want to risk it. Luckily it is a short trip, will return tomorrow evening and will only miss one session. 76 days until Nationals.

Good Stuff. Many blessings to you and your family.