Brazos SC Shooter

6/24/07 2 hrs of live fire practice (500 rds) It was good to have my gun back in my hands. I took the last week off and I have not practiced since the IN Section match. I took some time to think about my performance and what I should do to adjust my training regime so that I am better prepared for Nationals. I was sure that I was better prepared than I was. I can see now that I was not as disciplined with respect to seeing all A's in my dry fire. I am going to slow everything back down where applicable to make sure I am doing this on every repetition of every drill. Today's session was 20% draw to a single A zone hit, 50% slow/moderate fire working on calling my shots and seeing a good sight picture, 20% strong/weak hand slow fire and 10% draw 2 reload 2. I was able to solve the doubling problem on the Brazos. It took many tries this morning to get the gun back together and have it work properly. It kept having problems with the hammer following the slide to the forward position. I am going to send it back to Bob this week so that he can take a look and get it running like it should. The trigger still felt good after my adjustments but I want him to make sure everything is tip top. I also spent some time getting my Trojan running consistently. I bought a lighter recoil spring and that solved the problem. My reloads are running about 167PF where the factory ammo was running about 185-187. With the 12# spring it ran flawlessly again. I am noticing heavy powder marks on the side of the case which leads me to believe my load is too light. I don't think the case is sealing off as tightly due to the lower PF. I had this same thing happen when loading to 40 minor in my HK. 77 days until Nationals.

There is nothing better. Great idea on the A-zone.

Never ever ever ever put a mag back on your belt at the end of a string. Put them in a pocket or hold them in your hand until you get back to your bag. Download and reload before doing anything else. I have done it myself. Good thing is it is an easy fix. Create a post stage routine just as you would your pre stage routine.

Another thing to account for, per the inertia comment, is the distance you are running between boxes. Longer runs with more speed require bigger braking distances. My grasp of the obvious is underwheling isn't it. I have a drill I run where the boxes are about 7 yrds apart and I can brake on the last step before putting my right foot in the box when moving left to right. At the Indiana Sectional there was a good 20-25 yrd sprint to a shooting box that required 2-3 steps of braking before entering so that my sight picture was solid when and I was able to fire when my first foot planted in the box and my other foot came off the ground.

Congrats PB. All of your work is paying off in spades.

Flyin40, Flyin50...whatever it takes.

+100 Great timer, tons of features. If you are using Steve Anderson's dry fire drills book, the repetitive mode is great for doing them efficiently.

6/18/07 I very special thanks to David and the entire group of folks who hosted a great match this weekend. The CROs and ROs were awesome. Everyone was professional, efficient and most of all fun to hang with. The match ran like a well oiled machine as there were no back ups and no waiting when we arrived at our stages. This was my first IN Sectional and it will not be my last. I also want to say that I enjoyed meeting and shooting with the folks from Squad 24. This group was positive and encouraging and all helped to keep things moving along. A special thanks to Sue who shot all of my match video. I appreciate it very much. It has provided me with a ton of information to use for improvement. I am really disappointed in my performance. I thought I was better prepared for this match given my practice routine. I had some equipment issues but the morjority of the problem was my shooting and, in particular, one very bad decision with respect to a stage plan (7 misses and 30+ spots on that stage alone). It did not feel like I had much front sight discipline, and how well can you expect to shoot without that. Once again Bob @ Brazos shows why his customer service is second to none. I emailed him some clips of what my gun was doing, last night, and he called me this morning to make arrangements to get it corrected. It looks like me dropping the gun one the beaver tail during dry fire might have done something to cause these problems. Things I am proud of 1. State of mind - I was able to remain positive during the match even with my bad stages and equipment issues. I also did not allow the gun problems to frustrate or distract me mid-stage. 2. With the exception of the Texas Star I had few make up shots on the steel. This is a big improvement especially for the ones that were longer shots and on the move. 3. Visualizing my plan before shooting. Based on my results I might need to put this in the following section. There was only one instance where I got confused and didn't shoot the targets in the sequence I had intended. 4. At the encouragement of Sunuva and an RO on Stage 9, I made an appeal to the Range Master about a call. Normally I wouldn't have done this but I am glad I excercised this option. It resulted in the call being changed and proved beneficial. Things to improve 1. PENALTIES, PENALTIES, PENALTIES - the bad stage plan killed me here. Outside of that it was pretty clean. 2. Nail reloads before moving rather than while moving 3. More shooting on the move. I scored pretty well in the places where I moved but I saw lots of places where I could have kept moving but didn't. 4. Shoot within my level. Trying to make shoots that I don't "have in my bag", as golfer would say, will only hurt. The key work here is trying. If I have to try then I haven't practiced it enough to succeed consistently. Here are some of the videos. Overall I was pretty happy with my plan and my score. The places I could have cut time were 1) shoot the first 4 targets while moving to my first position, 2) nail the reload then take off 3) move more quickly through the 3rd array by switching from walking fowards to walking backwards 4) the two times the gun doubled resulted in the extra reload. Could hammer the close targets much quicker and again nail the reload before moving. I did not jump back as far as I had intended in order to get the two in the second port. I hit my spot for the far left targets but could come in shooting sooner. It is hard to tell from the camera angle but I felt good about coming into the box B. I could have done without the two make up shots though. Trouble at Training Camp - Some folks I talked to planned on taking the four plates through the second port with their strong hand. I contemplated this for a little while but went for getting them through the door. However I touched the ground outside the door with my toes (doorway was a fault line) and got a procedural here. Oops. I didn't let missing the handle distract me and kept plugging away. No extra shots on the steel was nice, even though I wasn't burning it up. Decided to reach around the last corner rather than try the strong hand again. Scored 4 alphas on those two so it worked out. Took a make up shot on T1 but scored well on this stage. There is no reason I couldn't have shot this faster. Sometimes the pace in my head is slower than I am capable of shooting. I think this is more of a confidence issue than my inability to shoot well faster. Gun doubled on the second array and went to 1/2 cock which caused me to pause. All other times that happened I was able to keep going. You can see I heard to shots and was ready to move but when the gun didn't fire the next time I hesitated. Once I got rolling again things went pretty well. Again I could have hammered on the close targets more than I did and my shooting on the move could have been faster. Small tweaks in my plan could have helped. Should have shot the three poppers in the beginning in a better order. I liked that the further steel required no make ups. Didn't account for an extra shoot and ran the gun dry. Came to a stand still at that moment and then was slow to begin shooting as I moved into the last position. There is so much to learn and improve upon. 83 days until Nationals.

6/15/07 15 min dry fire session I used this session to really concentrate on some of my fundamentals in preparation for tomorrow. I have done all of the right things to prepare for tomorrow's match. Now it is just a matter of executing my plan and drawing on the skills I have worked so hard to solidify these last few months. We are headed out in about an hour or so. I will drop the wife and kids off at the hotel and then I will take off for the range to catch a glimpse of the courses of fire. Apparently I am not so good out math or I lost count with regard to the number of days until the match. I plugged the dates into excel to get the accurate count on the days remaining until Nationals. 1 day until Indiana Sectional 86 days until Nationals.

Sorry if this was posted before. It has been awhile since I laughed out loud to a beer commercial. it's all good now. enjoy! Bud Light

6/14/07 50 min dry fire Today I focused mostly on reloads. I slowed things way down and then filmed them to see if I could find something that could be causing the problem. I did notice that my hand holding the gun is a little low when it comes back. I will not try to learn something new two days before a match but it is good to be aware of. I barrel tested all match ammo to ensure there were no issue. I also spent time sorting out matching head stamps to have all of them be the same for this weekend. 3 days until Indiana Sectional 85 days until Nationals.

6/13/07 30 min elliptical 30 min dry fire Continue to drill the fundamentals. I am going to film my reloads this evening to see if I can find the hitch that is causing problems. I will also spend time slowing these down to get them back to 100%. Tomorrow I will gauge and chamber check my match ammo in preparation for the weekend. 4 days until Indiana Sectional 86 days until Nationals.

Thanks everyone for the feedback. I am going to get to the match early and observe. As for Matt's question I don't really have an answer and won't until I see the stage. I guess that was kind of his point. Here is the stage I was talking about for those who are interested. 40 S&W Love

Glad that is all done for you Dave. This thread is worthless without pictures. Show your new teeff, yo!

Unfortunately I have not run into at least one of these situations before. Here is what I am pondering. Plesae jump in. I think it is better to shoot a full visible targets when possible, but in this situation it requirers extra movement since there are activators on one side that will block all but head shots on the other side of the stage. This happens for both sides of the stage. So the trade off is the time spent moving from side to side 4 times for 4 full targets vs. 3 times for 2 full and 2 head shots.

Thanks Matt. I have heard this more than once today. Guess I should listen.

My intent isn't to solidify my plan in advance of seeing the stage in the real world, but more a situation where if we assumed the stage was going to be exactly as it is on paper would approach A or B be better.

I wanted to know if this was a no no. I have strategy quesitons that I wanted to float by other shooters in advance of the Indiana Sectional. I won't be seeing any of my local shooters before the match so I thought I might come here. I know the stages will likely be different in person. I am still working on coming up with efficient stage strategies and could use feedback.

6/12/07 40 min dry fire session - focused on head shot sight picture drills with reloads. I am still experiencing inconsistency in my reload practice. Over the course of my session I am missing 10-15% +/-. Either the mag doesn't seat all the way or I miss bad enough to drop the magazine. Of course it is more pronounced as the par time decreases. It is not likely that I would go that fast in a match but it is disconcerting none the less. I suppose the solution is to slow it down and drill it at 100% and not increase speed until there are no misses. I suppose I need to keep reminding myself that "Ametures practice until they get it right and Professionals practice until they no longer get it wrong". 4 days until Indiana Sectional 87 days until Nationals. Thanks Catfish. I will keep that in mind. I am mainly focusing on a few details knowing that it might all be a little different in person. I am looking at where to reload and number of targets from the shooting postions knowing the exact order may change due to actual position and timing of activators etc. I am really looking forward to shooting this match.

6/11/07 30 min elliptical 30 min dry fire I have been committing the Indiana Sectional stages to memory. I chrono'd some test loads in preparation for the Indiana Sectional. I ran 185gr Precision bullets with 4.7, 4.8, 4.9 and 5.0 grains of TG. All four of these loads ran the exact same PF (185) which was really odd to me. I won't have time to refine this load before the weekend so I am going with the back up which was 180 gr Ranier's over 4.7 grains of TiteGroup. This clocked right at 170-171. I have searched the site and found several loads with the Precision bullets but without being able to clock them myself I will not risk having to shoot minor. I got my new plates today. I have been really torn since UT HRNS (University of Texas Longhorns) has been my tie to my Texas home. Shooting has become a big part of my life and I wanted to express that. 5 days until Indiana Sectional 88 days until Nationals. new_plates.bmp

Many thoughts and prayers from the Bennett family to yours. Losing a parent is very hard. As Moose said I dream about my father even 14 years later.

They way they set up the last 3 minutes you thought the guy at the bar was going to kill the whole family but Meadow would walk in since she was having trouble parking her car. That was an unbelieveable POS.

5/10/07 The match results from yesterday are in. It is kind of what I expected. The extra sec or more to clear all of my jams helped put the match in the tank for me. I was second in CDP and 6th overall. Not an impressive outing by any means. The pieces I can work on are eliminating the 8 seconds in penalties (5 were from hits on non threats and 3 from brain cramp) and the 27 points down. The run which I believed was going to be a stage win was aweful close. I missed the win by .04 seconds.

Good to know. Like I said, I will taylor the load after I get some chrono data. I will report back once I have more info. I have finally been able to chrono some rounds. Turns out, 4.7-5.0 are all too much. Here were the results from today. OAL was 1.225 185 Precision TiteGroup Powder 4.7 - avg 185PF (This load made 170 with a 180gr Ranier RNFP fully jacketed bullet) 4.8 - avg 183PF 4.9 - avg 184PF 5.0 - avg 183PF This just doesn't seem right. I was surprised to see these changes in powder not really change velocities. My Standard Diviations were so small that I feel confident in the quality control of my loading process. Now I am at a loss as for what powder to use to get down to 170. I saw 4.2 but it was for a shorter OAL. I will keep searching.

6/8/07 20 min dry fire - I spent a few minutes working on draws and reloads from concealment to prepare for Saturday's IDPA match. 8 days until Indiana Sectional 91 days until Nationals. 6/9/07 Today's IDPA match didn't go nearly as well as I had hoped. I felt very good about my shooting but I had many gun problems with my Trojan. I don't think I had a single stage that didn't have a failure to feed problem. In one case I had three jams in a row. The first was always after a reload and the round would nose dive into the feed ramp. I would clear the jam and take the next shot. The next bullet would jam and so on and so on. It was difficult to keep from getting distacted by this. I did not let it affect me from stage to stage but there were times where I was distracted by this during the stage I was currently shooting. I will post my issues over in the reloading area and see if there is something that group can help me pinpoint. I had more success with see my shots and calling them than I have had in sometime. I still have a lot to improve upon but I am improving. Here is a summary of the stages. Stage 1 - Take'em Down This stage went very smoothly. I had one jam at the front barricade after my reload. I did not have to take any extra shots to take down the steel. They added two barrels so you could not take all the steel from one slot. By this time in the match I was getting very good a clearing the jams so it wasn't stopping me to bad. On my reshoot it went smoothly with no jams. Stage 2 - Hidden But Not Forgotten All of the 18 round stages were a drag for us 1911 shooters since it meant an automatic extra reload. This stage went well except for the jam after my reload at the door. I had one make up shot on T-8 because a hit on hardcover. Stage 3 - El Strong and Weak Prez This was a brain cramp stage. I got my first penalties here. One for not following the stage (missed the strong hand on the first string) and the other for hitting the no shoot. I was able to see improvement on these types of stages which are similar to the dry fire drills. My weak hand string was very good. There were no misses and only a couple of points down. Stage 3.2 - Look out for the good guy standard This should have been an easy stage but this is the stage with the 3 jams back to back. As a result it was not pretty time wise. I shoot it well outside of that. Stage 4 - X Marks the spot This was my best stage. I expect this to be an overall stage win. My plan was efficient and went exactly as I had invisioned it. There were no make up shots and no jams. I have fun shooting with my IDPA friends but I think between now and Nationals, if I have to pick shooting only two matches a month, I would rather shoot two USPSA matches. It is the only thing that is going to get me where I need to be for September. I did chrono some new loads with my Brazos so that I could get a perfect load for the Indiana Sectional and for Nationals. I have switched to 185 gr Precisions. I am going to review the data but I am a little puzzled since 4.7 gr of TG chronoed exactly as 5.0 grains. In both cases I am still very hot, roughly 185PF. 7 days until Indiana Sectional 90 days until Nationals.