match 5

[ChrisC]

I'm sitting here in the motel room surfing the net between dry firings with a bit of a puzzled feeling in my gut.

I just went through firearms instructor school phase 1 Monday and Tuesday and starting phase 2 tomorrow. I am having problems with my second half of match 5. I have to shoot at least a 540. So far the closest I've gotten is 529. my 7 and 25 yard line work is pretty solid but when I get to the 50 everything is strangely low and a bit wide. I end up dropping a couple of of the scoring ring.. If my 50 yard like work would have been three inches higher on my 529 we wouldn't be having this conversation.

I know I just need to hard focus on that front post.... sight picture, press, hold, release........ hopefully the moon and stars align tomorrow and I creep up past that stinking 540...

Edited April 28, 2010 by ChrisC

[Bwana Six-Gun]

Focus Grasshopper. You can do this.

Good luck.

[Forrest Halley]

I know the feeling. If my 20 yd work had been three inches higher on the IDPA classifier I'd be an expert instead of a sharpshooter. If you aren't pressed for time to take the shots, then take your time and all will be cured. I find that having the confidence in making my hits has brought me a long way.

Regards,

Forrest

[ChrisC]

i plan on knocking out the 540 tomorrow with room to spare.... mainly because i promised myself a baseball game and crawdads tomorrow night if I do

[No.343]

Put the gun away and don't give it another thought. Drink plenty of water.

[ChrisC]

thanks Javier... that's something i didn't do a lot of today and should have.. ill get up a little earlier to make sure the ice chest is ready to go... first day i was drinking every break today was a bit different....

[Northern Xtreme]

I assume you are reffering to the PPC course of fire.

Are you using a stock gun or one with an aristocract rib?

You probably dont have time to sight in for this, but the way they shoot the 50 yard line is to sight your gun in using a neck hold at 50 yards, it gives you a much smaller aiming point to put the head on top of the front sight, so you sight the gun in to hit about a foot low, or whatever the distance is, it has been so many years since I have done this I cant remember. You also need to plumb bob the target because if it is hanging a little crooked the group will miss the 10 ring. I know it doesnt sound very practical and sounds like cheating but thats how its done!

Other than that, just take your time and lay the shots in, most people dont use all of the time, if you can shoot next to someone that is good, pace yourself off of them.

[ChrisC]

stock 4 inch revo....

sighted in at 25

loads are 148 hbwc under 2.7 grains of bullseye

[Bubber]

I'm sitting here in the motel room surfing the net between dry firings with a bit of a puzzled feeling in my gut.

I just went through firearms instructor school phase 1 Monday and Tuesday and starting phase 2 tomorrow. I am having problems with my second half of match 5. I have to shoot at least a 540. So far the closest I've gotten is 529. my 7 and 25 yard line work is pretty solid but when I get to the 50 everything is strangely low and a bit wide. I end up dropping a couple of of the scoring ring.. If my 50 yard like work would have been three inches higher on my 529 we wouldn't be having this conversation.

I know I just need to hard focus on that front post.... sight picture, press, hold, release........ hopefully the moon and stars align tomorrow and I creep up past that stinking 540...

Chris, Good Luck tomorrow, Remember Seeing Beter is Shooting Better. Get that acceptable shot and take it. Sights should be crisp, grip should be firm and the target a little fuzzy. I love the 50 yard and plus shooting. But I am weird that way. Later rdd

[SLM]

What's the drop on that load? The bullets aren't even doing 800 fps from a 6" gun let alone a 4". Could they be dropping 3" at 50 yards?

[ChrisC]

i think ill try a head hold tomorrow and see if that's 10 ring material

[Northern Xtreme]

Let us know how you do, I will be curious.

[Carmoney]

Just a thought....

Jerry said one time he will sometimes change his front sight right before an important match. He said it helps him re-establish the visual focus where it's supposed to be, because there's something a little unfamiliar out there to look at. So I'm wondering if there is some little thing you can do to the front sight that would have the same effect. A thin line of liquid white-out across one of the serrations....I don't khow....maybe even a tiny piece of lint or fuzz stuck to the corner of the blade. Anwyay, you get the idea.

Good luck, Bro!--knock out those Xs for the home team!

[John Z Sr]

Good luck, the middle is still the middle, even at 50 yards, you got it, just aim and squeeze, 555 is my call

[Toolguy]

Don't do a neck hold with that gun. For that gun and load you need to aim somewhere between the top of the 10 ring and the top of the 9 ring. If your aim is steady, they will drop into the 10 and x. You're looking at about 3 to 4 inches of drop at the 50.

[Northern Xtreme]

Yeah, I agree, the neck hold only works well with an airstocrat rib or something with an adjustable front sight.

You have to be able to bring the front sight way up, and then you have to be able to get it back to where it was for the rest of the shooting.

With your gun I might be inclined to bring the rear sight up a few clicks when going to the 50 yard line, but only if I knew exactly how many clicks from sighting in at that distance.

Other than that, just hold it a few inches high. If you can shoot a decent group even if its centered in the 9 ring it should be a good score.

[Round_Gun_Shooter]

stock 4 inch revo....

sighted in at 25

loads are 148 hbwc under 2.7 grains of bullseye

The water is a big deal but without oxygen to those muscles your not steady. Good air flow is important

I figure this is too late to help you so if nothing else, best of luck.

Edited April 28, 2010 by Round_Gun_Shooter

[ChrisC]

I have been making sure I was breathing... some of those guys looked like they were about to pass out before the 24th round was fired...

since today is the first day of phase 2 we are getting a lot of new folks (phase 1 was optional, you could have shot the 480 in front of an instructor, but I chose to shoot on the line with 14 others to get better acclimated to the bangs) we will break down every stage again and re zero our guns..

on a side note today we are going to have 20 to 30 mph winds at our backs...

thanks to everyone for all your ideas...

Mike... I did a few things like that, I smoke my sights and change my glasses during the day.

Today will be a "get back to basics" hard focus on the front sight, equal height/equal light, and pressing the trigger to the rear.

as Bruce Lee once said, "I fear not the man who has practiced 10,000 kicks once, but I fear the man who has practiced one kick 10,000 times."

Edited April 28, 2010 by ChrisC

[Matt Griffin]

A good "tip of the day" when you need to break a mental barrier is to put all of your non-sight attention on the feel of the trigger against your fingertip, try to discern the texture of the trigger during the pull. This usually distracts you enough not to do whatever it is you're doing, although it's a better auto trick than revo. Alternately just crank down with your weak hand a bit more than usual, concentrate on the strain.

H.

[R112mercer]

Hi Chris. I'm a long time PPC shooter. Here's some tips for the 50 yard line:

-Your load should drop about 2-3" at 50 from 25, try to find how many clicks up that is and dial it into your gun before shooting. I find that if I have to use Kentucky windage and can't see my hits the groups open up more. You may also have to adjust your windage, alot can happen when you're shooting twice the distance you're zero-ed for. REMEMBER TO RESET YOUR SIGHTS when you come back to 25!

-Pay close attention to sight alignment here. Your sights may be aligned correctly but slightly off the X ring and you'll still get a good hit. But if your sights AREN'T aligned properly the shot will be way wide even if you break the trigger with the sights on the X. Very minor sight misalignments have HUGE impacts at far distances.

-Try to keep your neck from being strained/canted/bent, particularly on prone. Having your neck bent restricts blood flow to your eyes, and reduces your ability to see clearly. Also, in prone, guys tend bend their neck and end up looking through their glasses on an angle. The polycarbonate lenses in most glasses (even prescription lenses) bend the light alot when there's more material in the way (just like a pencil in a glass of water will seem bent due to refraction).

-In prone guys tend to think it's an easy six shots because they're laying down. I've found some of my worst shooting was in prone for precisely that reason, you can't slack off here. If you have time place four targets down range and shoot each position on a different target to see where you need the most work.

-Try to take your time with the first six shots on sitting to make a nice big hole in the X, it'll gice you something more focused to aim for instead of that big black wall.

-Wear a watch with a chronograph to keep track of how much time you have left. The rules state that the start is hands relaxed, but not that you can't have the finger of one hand on the start button of the watch. I use the cheap $5 watches you can get at Walmart.

Good luck!

Edited April 28, 2010 by R112mercer

[Bubber]

Ahem! tic, tic, tic, Ahem!, tic, tic. Well did you get the mudbugs and the game? We wants to know. later rddd

[ChrisC]

well we didn't really shoot a match 5 today, we broke down the steps and did them by the numbers.. he told me to shoot for groups today and I ended up holding a few here and there but was told to shot for groups not time and had most of everything i shot at the 50 and the quick 6 in the 9 and 10. i have a few of the weak hand 50 in the 7 and 8 but we worked on correcting that as well. tomorrow will be a hard day of training and I thank each of you for your insight.

another neat thing the instructor is doing said that everything we do is for score, no matter if he breaks it down by stages or we shoot the whole match so don't bother asking what counts and what doesn't.

this year the powers that be decided to allow auto pistols on the range for this match 5, which I have yet to see an auto make break the 540 yet and only have a handful of revos make it thus far. the next two days forecast shows thunderstorms and 40 mph winds so it should be entertaining at the very least.

[Northern Xtreme]

It takes a damn good auto to match the accuracy of a revolver at 50 yards.

[ChrisC]

yeah the instructor is in the 1490 club..... of course after he shot my carmonized 686 he said if he had a gun like that he'd have to start competing again...

i can tell he is against the auto's, he has mentioned the names of several championship ppc shooters that shoot their autos well, just not as well as their revo's...

i dry fired the whole match in my room just a bit ago.. my mail issues were going past the break of the trigger, over gripping with my trigger hand, and not getting my sight zero as constant as I should have...

working on these items today brought my groups in quite well. then next week is back to run and gun he told me to bring my 627 and my 610 for him to play with...

[No.343]

When I used to shoot bullseye I learned that in high wind situations shifting the orientation of my toes would sometimes help a little bit. I would get my normal NPA with my normal posture, but experimented with rotating the front of my feet. My heels and everything else would stay in the same position. This may be a little much to think about at this point without practicing it first, but I found it helpful. Best of luck.