IronEqualizer

12-14-11 Picked up my limited gun today from Freedom Gunworks. It is like a work of art. I have always viewed my competition guns as a tool with the thought that it WILL get beat up with dry fire, live fire practice, and shooting matches. It is hard to think of this gun that way. I am hoping this will be THE tool used to get me to the next level. No more capacity issues compared to my competitors. This levels the playing field. Now it is all up to me. But then again, I guess it always has been.

12-13-11 Dry fired 30 mins. Changed it up and worked a 29 round stage. Focused on movement, and being agressive. I want to attack the stage. The first 15 mins were disappointing. I missed reloads and nothing really felt smooth. The last 15 mins I became more dialed in and had much better runs. I need to get to the point of doing it right the first time. There is no 15 minute warm up at a match.

12-12-11 Dry fired 15 mins. Worked on movement. Blah day. I just could not get into it. I am bored with these drills and need some new focus but have not come up with anything yet. I need to work with the IDPA gear but really have no desire to do that either.

12-10-11 Live fired. EAGC IDPA match. Not an error free day of shooting but not terrible. I still need to work on some drawing and reloading with a concealment garment if I plan to shoot any state matches next year.

12-9-11 Dry fired 15 mins. Worked a little with the IDPA gear since there is a match tomorrow. I told myself after my last poor performance in IDPA that I would spend at least 1 day a week practicing with this gear. I have not done that. I have focused my practice on other aspects. Being a well rounded shooter is tough. There are just so many things to learn and so many different aspects of the sports to stay on top of.

We would be happy to have you at EAGC. Welcome to the forum.

We have a draft of the match and RO t-shirts that will be used at the match. Please feel free to comment or give suggestions. Not sure how to get an image to show up in here but here is the link.T-SHIRT LOGO

12-8-11 Dry fired 30 mins. 0430 sucks. I pushed through not wanting to get up to dry fire before work this morning. Movement drills again. I need to change some things up. I worked on the drill I struggled with yesterday as my first drill today, and all went well. 15 mins in though, and I felt like draw, shoot, run, blah, blah, blah. I was really bored with the drills. I need a new challenge or figure out a way to work in a little more movement in the limited garage space.

12-7-11 Dry fired 30 mins. Movement drills. Same drill but with hard cover and no shoots on targets. Practice hard. I actually ended up doing the drill with the same par time on several runs. I will set this same thing up again and keep at it until the hard cover and no shoots add no more time for me. I did struggle the last half of the practice session. I was stepping in and drawing to a close target with a no shoot on it, after the first array I did a reload and then ran to the last position. I missed so many draws stepping in and fumbled several reloads. I think I will start on this drill tomorrow when I am fresh instead of after I have been running around for 15 mins. I seemed to be really tense for most of this drill. I filmed quite a bit of the dry fire this morning and I seem to be really pumping my arms while running now. This has really picked up my speed some. I hope this is a subconscious action come match day.

12-6-11 Dry fired 30 mins. Movement drills. Movement felt really good today. When I initially started one of the drills I have been doing I had a par of 4.5 secs. Today I was beating my new par of 3.8 secs. I hope this transfers to match day soon.

12-5-11 Dry fired 30 mins. Movement. If nothing else I am getting better at running. Sometimes I feel like I do the drill perfectly and other times I know my timing is off. The running part seems to be getting better. I still have to consciously do the arm pump thing and it doesn't always work out. I have been focusing on just being more agressive in movement also. Making sure I am pushing off as hard as I can and really digging in when running. Doing this while still getting the timing right while coming into position while engaging a target is an art form. The M's and GM's really have it down. If nothing else, if I ever make it higher than A class I will know I worked for it. They don't give away M cards.

12-4-11 Dry fired 30 mins. Movement. I finally pumped my gun side arm to get some momentum this morning. I am still working on timing also, but I picked up several tenths on my par time by using both arms to get going instead of just my off side arm pumping and my gun hand stationary in front of me. Everything with my movement is still all a conscious effort. I think I finally noticed some improvement with it though. I can't wait to get on the range and run a few drills.

My vote is for the Ruger 22/45. Mine has been great for me. Better than 2 buckmarks I have and better than my tactical solutions conversion for a 2011. I shoot the Ruger in our local steel matches.

BS stage and should have been thrown out. Totally illegal. There is no place for it especially at a state match. It is too late now, but brush up on the rules and next time protest something like this. I too lost a state match once because I was not familiar enough with the rules. I should have been awarded a re-shoot on a target that fell while I was shooting it. It was left hanging by one staple. I asked for a re-shoot but the SO denied me and I was too new to realize I could have taken this higher. If you screw up while shooting then you have to suck it up, but in this case your shooting skill was not what was being tested. My 2 cents.

You paid money to shoot the match, gas to get there, hotel room, ammo, food, vacation time....take your time and do not shoot until you are ready. Just tell the SO that you have been pasting, resetting, whatever, that you need a minute or two to get your head straight. If this means you have to fall in with the squad behind you then so be it. Looking back did the SOs actually rush you through, or did you just not take the time you needed for fear of being seen as a slacker? It is not in my nature to sit back while others are working, but sometimes I just need a break or need some time to sit and get my head in the game.

12-3-11 Dry fired 30 mins. Movement drills. Working on timing. It is really hard to tell if I am actually getting any better. I ran a little 2 position mini stage and got a par time set then worked from there but it is still hard to tell. All I can do is my best to get the timing right coming in on a target so that I am just breaking the second shot when the next target appears. That and really being agressive moving. Using both arms to get momentum going.

12-2-11 Dry fired 30 mins. Movement drills for 15 mins, entering forward, left and right. Mini stage for 15 mins. I want to really focus on the timing of entries and using my gun side arm to help with agressive movement instead of leaving the gun floating out front.

12-1-11 Live fired 200 rnds. 45acp Ran a few different stages today, each around 16 rnds. Picked up a few pointers from my M practice partner on movement. A lot has to do with just getting the timing down. Not engaging targets too early coming in which slows you down and not waiting until you are all the way into position. From what I understand the perfect timing is when coming into a position with multilple target when not all are visible engage the first one with just enough time while still moving into position so that when you break the second shot the next target in the area has just become visible. This way you are not too early and not too late. Other things is I am still just not being as agressive moving with the gun as I could be. I keep the gun floated out in front of me and really do not use the pump from my gun arm to run with. I pump my off hand arm but just kinda keep the gun hand hovering in front of me instead of using both arms to run with. I will work on this in dry fire. For the most part the shooting we are at the same speed but he moves well. Very quick. I had a few runs that I beat him on and stayed close on many runs. About a second to two seconds off the pace. Some of his runs were blistering fast though that I could not touch. I have video of today I will go back and study as I have time. My limited gun was finished yesterday but I am still waiting on the mags to be done. It should not be much longer and I can't wait to start with this different platform.

11-30-11 Dry fired 15 mins. Worked on the movement drills again this morning. I am still not sure I am doing these as efficiently as I need to but it feels a little better each time. These are the drills that I always avoided in dry fire. They take the most physical effort but now it is really biting me. Each match I get beat because other shooters move better than I do and break the stage down a little better than I do. There are times when actual shooting skill differences come into play but not so much as movement between positions and stage breakdown. I have been stagnant for over 2 years in A class. Some due to taking a break but also some because I was focused on the wrong things. Once I became decent I just continued to focus on the things I was getting better at and never practiced things I sucked at. I hope to be able to get some range time tomorrow with a local M and focus on movement so he can help me figure out where I am losing the most time. We plan on running some drills using video so I can go back and compare our runs back to back.

The reason we shoot is because it is a game. A game gets scored and not having the scores almost 3 weeks later is unacceptable. A quality match is not over until the scores are out. If it is too much for this volunteer to get them done in 3 weeks, then other competitors at the match need to GET volunteered even if this includes half the competitors staying to tear down, and others totaling score sheets and organizing them before they leave.

11-29-11 Dry Fired 30 mins. Worked on moving into position forward, right and left. This felt a little better than yesterday but still not great. It's hard to tell if you are really doing it right. I may need to start doing some video so I or someone else can review it. It was quite a work out doing mini sprints either way.

Sometimes the proper penalty is a DQ.

Cy, For me at least this is not an us vs them, but this always gets brought up. To me it wouldn't matter if they were Cowboy Action shooters, GSSF champions, or Bullseye guys. If you come to an IDPA match, shoot IDPA to the best of your ability. If you go to a GSSF match, shoot GSSF to the best of your ability. And for me, that is the deal breaker. Not even trying is completely unacceptable. Imagine a tactical ninja coming to your match and shooting one round every minute, belly crawling between shooting positions, and taking an unreasonable amount of time to complete every stage. Now imagine a dozen of these guys at your match, delaying the match 20 minutes per shooter per stage. Yeah, you will start combing the rulebook for some reason to curb this behavior. Your "can't we all just get along" mentality will be different when it is your match that is screwed up by someone not caring at all what the match is about. Ken Reed +1 Nicely put.

I guess it's the same as if someone totally ignored fault lines for an entire match. Just give them a procedural no big deal right? There are specific points set forth by stage designers that allow for safe engagement of the targets. Ignoring cover positions and or fault lines raises the risks of unsafe target engagement. While I think no safety infractions were broken do you see how disruptive to the squad and match someone who totally ignores the rules could be.

11-28-11 Dry fired 15 mins. Still working on moving and then presenting the gun to an array. Some of this feels really awkward and I am sure the reason is because I suck at it. I have always tried to move at a pace to enter smoothly and this has kept me from really getting to the next position. So I will be focusing on getting there faster, and getting the gun on target with better timing.