jamautry's road to rebuild

[jamautry]

Its time to rebuild and continue my progression forward in this sport. I started in practical shooting in 2006 and made steady improvement during that year and into 2007. In June of 2007 I moved overseas to progress my career forward. I returned back to the states in Feb of this year and began to test the waters and have found I have a long road ahead to get back to my previous skill level much less move beyond it. While I couldn't shoot overseas I did have the ability to buy various guns to try different platforms. So since Feb I have tried all the various guns I have acquired over the last 3 years and have decided to go with the M&P platform for production and SVI for limited and open. I have decided the best road is to stick with one division and concentrate on it and rebuild my skills. I have settled on limited division using my SVI 6". So I am starting this thread with the idea of tracking my progress, as motivation to stick with my plan, and as a mean to get fellow Enos users feedback on my progress. The plan is to start a consistent dry fire program based on Ben Stoeger's program mixed in with live fire work centered around calling my shots and accuracy drills. I know it will take time but look forward to the journey.

[gfmun]

Looking foreward to following your progress. Should have your -M- card in no time.

George

[jamautry]

Looking foreward to following your progress. Should have your -M- card in no time.

George

Thanks George. I have the new SVI all sighted in and ready to go. Had a hiccup on the holster but that is getting straightened out. Should be match ready for the Sep matches. Hopefully will be able to get up to DFW for some matches.

[jamautry]

I am finally going to get to do some live fire practice today. I am still short a holster, as Blade Tech is having to redo mine, so I think I will take the opportunity to really work on my accuracy. I plan on shooting groups out to 50 yards and concentrate on trigger control and calling shots. I like to think of myself as an accurate shooter but lately I haven't been very accurate. In the Area 4 match I did terrible at the 50 yard shooting stage and it wasn't because I shot fast.

[jamautry]

Following up on a topic I started in a different section besides technique I need to devote time to the mental side of the game, namely forgetting about the results. I just need to focus on the task at hand.

[jamautry]

Just got back from my first match since June. I got a chance to finally use my new SV I picked up back in June also. I really haven't done any practice going into the match other than rereading BE's books for the third time. I really do feel that I finally got what he was saying this time through. The thing that finally jumped out at me was to relax and let your eyes do the shooting and just stay in the moment. Reflecting back on the match I think I was relaxed throughout the match and stayed in the present while shooting. I wasn't worried about going fast or results or anything like that. For the most part I felt I shot a good match. I made my share of stages errors just from being out of practice but the shooting and moving was good. I lost focus on some of the shots in the match but I was in the present just shooting and observing on the vast majority. A few things I noticed while shooting:

1. By staying in the present and using my eyes to observe I was able to shoot the moment I saw an acceptable sight picture.

2. I was able to successfully use a Type 2 focus by just trusting myself on the wide open shots < 7 yards.

3. The red dot fiber must go. It is completely distracting. I feel the few poor shots I had were a direct result of seeing the red dot instead of the top of the front sight on the precision shots and pulling the trigger which resulted in high shots that cost me points especially on the classifier stage.

4. Always, always read the stage description and then find all targets during the walk through. The shooter order got moved on one stage which resulted in me being the first shooter. I was not prepared but rushed to get ready. The shooting part of the stage was great but when I got done I had not engaged one piece of steel because I didn't even now it was there.

5. I experienced moments of truly driving the gun with my eyes. On the last stage there were two plate racks and as I worked my way through the racks, especially the first one, I would just look at the plate the sights would snap into focus, the gun would shoot, the sights would rise and then I would snap my eyes to the next plate and repeat.

Overall it was good to get back into this and I was happy that for the majority of the match I accomplished my goal, which was to just stay relaxed and observe the shooting and drive the gun with my eyes.

Tomorrow I will try out some new reloads and do some group shooting while working on calling my shots

[SeaTact]

Glad you mentioned the fiber optic sight. I have stock sights on my Glock and was considering getting a red sight. Recently I feel really comfortable with my index and type 2 focus. The dot and goal post seems to do just fine in my peripheral vision. Thanks for mentioning it-- guess I'll stick with stock sights for now.

[jamautry]

I ran into a bit of a snag last week. I had intentions of shooting my 1911 this year in IDPA and use my SV for limited in USPSA. After a week of dry firing getting ready for the IDPA classifier I just could not get used to the 1911 plus I was getting a few jams with my reloads, as a result of the OAL being a tad long for my Kart barrel. So the afternoon before the match I abandoned the 1911 in favor of my M&P that has a thin black front sight I really like. I got a 100 rounds of live fire practice in with the M&P that day and another hundred before the classifier plus some dry fire. Stage 1 and Stage 2 went as planned averaging 29 seconds per stage which meant I had 40 seconds for stage 3 and still make Master. Well I had a train wreck on stage 3 and needless to say I didn't make Master, for that matter I shot it soooooo poorly a missed Expert by 0.17 seconds. So the post-mortem clearly showed that by not practicing shooting kneeling around barrels for so long (4 years) I killed my score.

Positives from the match:

1. Shot my best time for Stage 1 and 2 ever

2. The thin black sight works great

3. Splits and transitions were very good

Things to work on:

1. Draw - incredibly slow, averaging 2 seconds (my lack of dry-fire really showed)

2. Reload - see above

3. Shooting around barrel

4. Stay visually patient throughout the whole match

5. Don't let desire for a score creep in your head

In conclusion I need to spend a lot of time dry firing and handling the gun. So to help out, I have decided to follow the experts advice and stick with one gun all season. I have never done this before, but it is something I need to do to get the results I am after. So as much as it pains me I will but the 6" SV in the safe and shoot with the M&P exclusively so I can keep the same platform in both USPSA and IDPA for this year and help with my gun handling issues.

P.S. I plan to order a IDPA legal SV ASAP so next year I can shoot the SV platform

Edited February 19, 2011 by jamautry

[jamautry]

It has been awhile since my last post. During this time I have been able to make a number of local matches plus last weekend's Space City Challenge and my shooting has begun to improve. This past month's classifiers have been in the high C-low B range and could have easily been higher if not for a bumble here or there. I am also shooting some of the field courses in the high B to low A range. During the Space City Challenge I shot some stages well and on others I did poorly mainly due to gun problems and on one stage a complete mental meltdown where I left three mini poppers standing because I didn't even know they were there. A GM on my squad did give me some helpful advice "you can't outrun the 22 year olds so master shooting while moving". That comment plus a comment I read on another range diary discussing shooters who move fast and shoot slower vs those that shoot fast that move slower relatively speaking; got me to thinking. I fall into the shoot fast and move slower biased crowd. I have excellent spilt times (low teens) and have worked my transition times down; I also am a very accurate shooter generally. So while I will not give up on trying to move faster I will focus on my shooting speed and accuracy, shooting on the move,reloads and strong and weak hand shooting. I think this will be the most efficient way to move up.