Jim's shooting journal

[Jimgabelbauer]

Year in review..

So my first year of shooting is almost over. I think I have accomplished a lot for my first year. I shot my first match ever Jan 25th, and placed dead last. I started practicing, got matt burketts DVDs, brians book, steve andersons book. I practiced with these resources and shot my first major match (pro am) and placed 2nd D in open. Then I classified C in uspsa and expert in Idpa. Then in december I placed 2nd C and 11/84 overall at the factory gun classic, and also classified B in production. All in all, I feel I have learned so much in a small amount of time and plan to continue progressing!

Moving forward- in the first few months this year, I am going to shoot the Florida open and area 6. I know these are going to be difficult, so it should be a great learning experience! I haven't been as consistent as Id like to be with my training in the past couple months. I'm going to stick to a better plan, and work toward improving in many different areas. I am going to work on mental training daily also! 

[Jimgabelbauer]

I have been averaging about 45 min to an hour per day of dry fire..I'm learning a lot. Lately I have become very aware of shooting without tension, and have been doing much better at matches. I got the book 10 minute mental toughness, and have been working on the program. I've kinda combined it with winning in mind. With dryfire I've really been working this drill from bens program

-Start standing outside the box with at least one foot touching any part of the box. Draw, and from outside the box engage the center target with 2 shots. Move across the box, reload, and from outside the box on the opposite side engage the center target with 2 rounds. Hands may be at sides or surrender. Be sure to vary start position. 5 reps at a Par time of 4.0 seconds (novice), 3.2 seconds (laid back), 2.6 Seconds (expert), 2.3 seconds (crazy)

It's working great for me, because, I need to work on moving and reloading. I've gotten to where I can get the reload and be on target right as I arrive, so I just need to speed it up and get to the point where I can do it consistently in matches. The big thing for me though is practicing it without tension, and calling the shots. I've also made a conscious effort to really work on shot calling during dryfire, and so far it has made a huge difference!

[Jimgabelbauer]

Two and a half weeks until the Florida open, and I'm ready and shooting better than I ever have. I've realized through practice that a state of total relaxation is necessary to shoot accurately. I feel I've reached a whole new level. Re-reading brians book has been more helpful at this point than any other thus far. I think it's been six months since I last read it. I was reading through it after I wrote my last online journal entry, and the things I was describing were right there (page 128). I've noticed that for me, instead of using a mental picture, thinking of a "feel" puts me in a state where I shoot totally relaxed, subconsciously, and consistently! I've really noticed through dryfire that certain tensions in muscles will cause me to be far less accurate. I'll call a d, and think back to what I did and notice I had tension after a reload  or movement and it caused me to jerk the gun. Or today, I shot a stage that had an unloaded mags on person start. I was so relaxed and smooth, it didn't affect the shooting at all. In the past it would cause me to be tense on the whole stage. I also read the part the other night about floating the gun, and definitely could think of a couple of times shooting steel matches where I felt "it". I noticed that I did it today on two arrays of steel during the match. I say noticed because I almost wrote that I was able to do it. But, I didn't try to reproduce it or anything..I just saw it happen. (just like he says in the book) I just smoothly saw the gun go from target to target, and called my shots. I also shot very well on an array with steel 2 paper and a dt. I usually get tense shooting these kinds of stages, but not today. I shot the steel, paper, dt and called 2 a on the dt. I usually am not relaxed enough to call shots on swingers/dt's. So, this has all been great for me.  I've been dryfiring daily, about 45 min to an hour. I plan to continue this week! I also shot my first "a" classifier last week at a monthly match at the WAC(which I shot well at), but whoever entered the score put my time as 29 sec instead of 7.34. I contacted them and they said they'd see if the stats guy had the sheet and entered it wrong..said if they could they'd send a correction to uspsa. Kind of annoying, but oh well..I'll just have to shoot more A classifiers..

[Jimgabelbauer]

I shot area 6 this last weekend. So far this has been my best match to date. I had a very solid consistent performance. I ended up 28/119 shooters. This was my first area match and was a lot of fun. About a month before the match I had acquired a ruger mark 3 and have been doing a lot of 22 practice. I think it really paid off being able to go out 3x a week and work on the fundamentals. The two months prior to the match I had been dry-firing a lot, but then eased up on that and did more live fire the 2 weeks before. It helped me to really get a lot of As and minimize the mikes, but I still have a long way to go. With penalties I ended up shooting 88.72% of the points. It was good feeling like I was capable of making every shot there. I'd like to be this confident about the shots at the Florida open next year! Practice practice practice 

Biggest things I need to work on:

Accuracy- right now I'm confident on head shots at 15 yards, I want to push that out further to 25 and be able to consistently get all my hits.

I need to do more 50 yard a zone practice too.

Reloads-I can do these pretty fast in practice when I'm warmed up. but at a match I'm not as consistent and fast, probably losing .4 per reload compared to what I know I'm capable of..

Movement- I really need to be more aggressive/efficient moving from position to position, and work on shooting on the move.

Looking ahead, the next major match I plan on shooting is the pro am. I am pretty busy with work right now, so I will be dryfiring a little less. (15 min a day instead of an hr) From the middle of may through all of June I will really be working a lot on dryfire and live fire though. The pro am will be the first major match that I am returning to, so I will see how much I have improved in a year.

[Jimgabelbauer]

Got bumped up to A class today! I've been training hard the past few days to get ready for upcoming matches. I Plan on shooting:

July- pro am

August-Florida state championship

September-ipsc nationals

October-monster match

November- south Florida custom gun sectional

December- factory gun classic

I live about 2 hours from universal shooting academy so there are a bunch of upcoming major matches close to me! 

Over the next month I plan on dryfiring an hour a day, going to the range and doing a lot of accuracy drills with live fire. Last week at the square range I started working on a 50 round accuracy drill- load mag to 5 rounds and shoot 4 strings into the lower a zone at 50 yards..

Load 5 rounds and shoot 4 strings at 25 yards, upper a zone. Then finally 5 rounds weak hand and 5 rounds strong hand at 25 yards in the lower a zone. Last week I had: 17 A 16 B 9 C 7 M. The 25 yard head shots are the toughest part for me. I have also been putting about 4-600 rounds of 22 downrange each week and this has been helping a lot

When I got a chance last week I shot a 10 yard bill drill in

2.22 with a 1.02 draw and .22-24 splits. I was pushing it for where I'm at but back in Dec I was at 3.50 with a 1.30 draw and .35 splits. Now that I know I can shoot that fast I need to get to where I can consistently do it cold under match conditions. I know I need to gain more speed on distant targets also. I have also been continuing my strength training program with weights, and am now adding some plyometrics and cardio. I've been shooting open (with my production gun and a 170mm mag ) to work on keeping the gun up, entering and exiting positions, shooting on the move, seeing wha I can get away with etc..it seems to be working for me! My goal is to make master and shoot like one by the end of the year..or sooner

[Jimgabelbauer]

Today I woke up, worked out for an hour, dryfired Steve Anderson drills for an hour. Then i went to the range and worked on 25 yard groups, table draws, and shooting a 3" circle at 15 yards strong and weak handed with my 22. Freestyle was ok, I was a little shaky from earlier. Strong hand and weak hand are improving.. 

[Jimgabelbauer]

Monday- Weights for an hour, dryfire Anderson drills 1-20 10x ea. Live fire 22 practice 300 rounds. Dryfire in evening for an hour, movement drills from stoeger 15 min program 

[Jimgabelbauer]

I have continued to do a lot of dryfire daily, and also weekly live fire and shooting around a match per week.  Today I went out with intentions of practicing, and discovered that my striker broke. My gun at this point has 19,850 rounds through it, and is a little over a year old (G34). Fortunately I just took my striker out of my 19. Ordered a new one from lone wolf. I'll replace it along with the striker spring/trigger spring before the pro am just to be safe.