59Bassman's return to action shooting

[59Bassman]

Hello all-

I bought my first handgun, a Kimber Classic Custom in late 1996, initially for home protection. My local gun shop was pretty involved with a local club that shot USPSA about twice a month. I went out once, and believed I was hooked. With my Kimber in a Bianchi Hemisphere, some highly modified Bianchi nylon mag pouches, and a small stack of Shooting Star mags loaded with 230 gr hardball I'd made on a single stage press, I started shooting competitively. I was never particularly good, but had fun.

One thing I really didn't count on was my wife getting interested in shooting, and then asking if we could try shotguns. That lead to a decade-long run with Sporting Clays, where we got to shoot with some of the best competitors in the world and had a great time doing it. But life changes, jobs change, and we found ourselves a long way from a decent Clays club. After flirting with Skeet, I found out my local club also ran monthly Steel Challenge and tried that. It was painful. My old holster and mag pouches were gone, so I went out with a thick belt, my Kimber in an Uncle Mike's holster, and my mags in my pocket. It was awesome.

So I've rejoined USPSA (and got my old number back) and have been shooting a little USPSA, 3 gun, and steel challenge. I've still got the Kimber, but have added a CZ 75 Shadow, as Production is the largest class shot at our club. I bought Brian's book and have been working my way through it.

What's most interesting to me is seeing Brian put in writing many things that I thought I'd discovered on my own in Sporting Clays. I'm struggling to take some of my old experience from shotgun to pistol, but I know a bit about where I need to be.

My major problem (among many) is front sight focus. In sporting clays, if you see your front sight, you've just missed, particularly on long targets. Making the transition to front sight focus has been a challenge.

What I know will translate is the work I did on breathing and vision. I used to work very hard on breathing from center and keeping my eyes as open as possible. Those two things would keep my shoulders down, my stress lower, and allow me to see as much as possible about what was going on around me. Being in the zone is a rare thing, but I've tasted it a couple of times holding a pistol.

Today I spent some time in an indoor range with a couple of different pistols. My goals were to work on 1) front sight focus, and 2) accuracy with the double-action first pull on the CZ.

I started with the .22 conversion kit I've bought for my Kimber. One thing I became conscious of was the width of the front sight - much wider than my CZ. It was easy to track, but I also realized while focusing on the front sight that I was pulling shots by squeezing my strong hand during the trigger pull. I worked for a couple hundred rounds on keeping my strong hand tension conscious while pulling the trigger.

One of the things that seemed to help was thinking of my hand tension as torque rather than squeezing - rotating my wrists rather than squeezing the fingers - right wrist clockwise, left wrist counterclockwise. This seemed to help stabilize the front sight and allow me to keep the tension out of my hands.

Picking up the CZ, I was amazed at how natural it felt to shoot. A couple of magazines in double action, slow fire helped me get confidence in the longer pull. After some initial teething pains, I think I'm really starting to like this CZ. It's more accurate than my wife's Beretta 92FS (my previously favorite 9MM), and pretty close to my Kimber.

Next weekend is USPSA as well as 3-Gun. I plan to shoot both with my CZ, as well as my parts AR and a borrowed Mossberg pump. I have no illusions of being a Master class shooter starting again at age 39, but I'd like to see some progress.

[Flatland Shooter]

Welcome back.

Like you, I moved over to Sporting Clays for a while. After I retired I discovered it was not so much about the shooting as spending time with friends.

Even though there were many USPSA clubs in the area, it took me a while to get up the nerve to give it a second try. It was one of the best decisions I've ever made.

Like I said, welcome back.

Bill

[59Bassman]

Two matches coming up this weekend, USPSA and 3-Gun. I'm still shooting a borrowed Mossberg 500 duck gun for the 3-gun matches until I can get a "real" shotgun for the game. I have a small stack of sporting clays and skeet guns, unfortunately none of them are appropriate for 3-gun.

I've been to the range a couple times this past week. My problem isn't so much practicing, it's WHAT to practice and where. I belong to two ranges, an indoor "square" range, and an outdoor range (where I shoot my matches). At the outdoor range I can use the action pistol bays and set up my own drills. At the square range I'm pretty limited - no draws allowed, shoot only at the one target you hang. It would sound like the outdoor range is the one to go to, except it's about 45 minutes away. The square range is so much more convenient (15 mins away), but very limiting.

I've shot my CZ enough at the square range that I'm pretty confident in my ability to hit a target, but I really think I need to start working on other things now - transitions, reloads (currently eating my lunch), and drawing. Hopefully I can do these with dry fire, as getting up to the outdoor range on a week night is pretty much undoable.

[59Bassman]

Today was my first match since March. I shot Production rather than airing out the single stack. I've been practicing most with the CZ, and my local club typically has more Production shooters than SS. As it was, I think there were only 2 or 3 SS shooters out there today.

I went out about two hours before the match started, to see if I could help set up. I was handed a staple gun, a stage layout, and asked to set up the first stage. I did that, and spent some time thinking about the stage and how I'd shoot it later. The stage had a swinger and a clamshell, activated by two of the four poppers. There were another 8 paper targets. Start was with the gun and all magazines on two side tables to either side of the two windows in the building at the end of the bay.

I set up that stage, and helped with another one, and got ready to shoot. It made me feel pretty good that a number of guys remembered me, and I was asked several times what had kept me away for a few months. There were a husband and wife out for the first time, and he was also shooting a CZ from CZCustom. I squadded with them, and some other folks I'd not shot with before.

My goal today was to start to find a balance. I've always been a cautious shooter with a pistol, but I was a very aggressive shooter with a shotgun. I'm trying to balance speed with accuracy, and I think I did OK with it. Only a couple of times did I feel like I was outrunning myself, and I was willing to accept a couple of Charlies where I felt I needed the speed. I felt like my qualifier was OK, and my draws and reloads were relatively smooth.

It was hot - 95 degrees by the end of the match. I know that affected me, but it affected everyone else. All in all I think it worked well. Hopefully my classifier score will be OK - I really blew my first Production classifier, and this one felt closer to my ability.

Tomorrow is 3 gun. Nothing like a borrowed shotgun with a shell pouch to get the blood pumping in the morning!

[59Bassman]

Today was a 3-gun match. I shot my CZ, my midlength AR w/iron sights, and a borrowed Mossberg 500 with a 28" modified barrel. I was on a squad with mostly newer shooters, and we all learned a lot. I'd never tried shooting a shotgun from the weak shoulder (found out my eye condition really impedes that). I also found out just how hard you need to slam an AR mag in to get it to seat properly.

Again I worked on balancing speed and accuracy. I had more luck with the pistol and shotgun, less with the rifle. I was slow with the rifle at the expense of mostly A hits. My pistol I was willing to accept more "Alpha-Charlies" to get through the stage quickly.

I had one major mental issue when I forgot my plan and dumped a pistol mag after the first string. I was able to recover well, and if nothing else it gave me a cushion of extra rounds if I'd needed them (I didn't).

On the shotgun stage with weak-shoulder as a requirement, I ran it as fast as I could. I'd borrowed a couple of belt-mounted shell holders, and tried those for the first time. I wasn't the fastest on the stage on the squad, but I was within 10% of that time. But the thing that really got me was what I heard at the end, something I'd never heard before. Applause. The rest of the squad was hootin' and hollerin' for the guy running a hunting shotgun in 3-gun. Felt great.

A good match. On 5 stages I had a total of 7 misses and 1 no shoot. All of the misses were with the rifle, and I can live with that based on the stage. Glad I did this today.

[59Bassman]

This is Steel Challenge weekend, so I headed out with the CZ to see what I had.

Overall, I'm OK with how I shot. I know I wasn't in the running for top in Production (a very talented shooter gets that honor). I had some moments of brilliance, and some moments of sheer stupidity. I guess 5 steel plates will do that to you.

I got my first time under 3 seconds today, a 2.97 run on Smoke and Hope. It felt good.

However, today was also my first run at Outer Limits. I think my best time was right around 8 seconds, but I also had a couple over 12. I found that I had a very hard time hitting the first plate in the second box, and I'd end up throwing 3 or 4 shots at that plate before continuing.

However, my biggest problem was with front sight focus. I was staring so hard at the plates, I never picked up the front sight other than as a red spark. That hurt me quite a bit. If I could remember to defocus from the plates, I'd be OK. If I just stared at the first plate, I'd drop the first shot low. The combination of double action first shot and not picking up the front sight cost me a lot of first shots. That's certainly something I need to work on.

But the best thing that happened today was my wife telling me that if I could put a red dot on our old Ruger Mk 1, she'd try Steel Challenge with me (there are other women shooting it). I place an order for a scope mount with Brownells faster than my 2.97 time on Smoke and Hope today.

[59Bassman]

Today was a USPSA match at a club about 1.5 hours from me. This was my first match at that club. On arrival, the folks were very friendly. I was a bit shocked that there was no "Safety Area", and I was told to holster near my car. That was certainly a first for me at a match.

It was going to be hot today, with a high of 99. I had stopped and bought a couple large bottles of Powerade, which I was happy to have. I paid my money, got my stuff ready, and got squadded up. I was on a squad with the owner. This range is a "for profit" range - they put on training classes. We started on a stage with three shooting positions. The first position was 3 paper, 1 popper, second position was 2 steel, 1 Texas Star through a low port, then the third stage was 4 paper standing in a box.

I was second shooter. I made a plan, made ready, and started shooting. The first three went well, then I hit the steel through the port. First two steel went in two shots, then I took 12 shots to clean the Texas Star. In hindsight, all of my focus was on the steel, not on the front sight. At 15 yards, that was a big mistake. I did not do all that well on that stage.

Second stage, two 3-piece steel plate racks and two small poppers over a chest-high barricade, then 7 shots under. I would have been fine up top, except I nailed one of the poppers low three times and it wouldn't fall. I ran dry, reloaded, and went under the barricade. I had not counted properly, and did not anticipate a reload on 7 paper, so I was again surprised by the gun running dry. Ick.

After those two, I remembered front-sight focus. The third stage I executed to my plan, turning in what I consider a pretty good run. Fourth stage was similar. The fifth stage was the classifier - three head shots from a seated position. I felt OK about it until I heard the calls of "Mike". Two Mikes. Ick.

The final stage was a hoser. Lots of steel, lots of paper, one shooting position. Loaded, made ready, and prepared for the first 4 paper and the first steel. Drew, began firing, and it felt great. Front sight focus, I called my shots, and knew I had hit well. Last shot on the first mag was the second paper on the last target, and it went "POP". RO stopped me, and sure enough it was my first squib. The bullet is now a memento. Drove the bullet out, and while I was reloading the scorer came over to tell me that I'd been all Alpha until the squib.

So I made ready, and knew I was in the groove. I shot, and realized after my first reload that I lost front sight focus. And the scores reflected it. On the first mag, it was great. After that, there were a number of Charlies and a Delta or two.

So what did I learn? I learned two things. First, I need to continue front sight focus, and try to lose the target fixation. Either that or start shooting open.

I also learned that I need to work on my grip. In trying to go too fast, I'm losing the grip that I've worked on. Lots of things to work on, but that's why we do this, right?

[59Bassman]

I spent some time at a local indoor range yesterday, shooting a number of different pistols. I started with my Ruger Mk 1 and really worked on trigger press, watching the front sight, and trying to call the shots. Unfortunately, even when I thought I was dead on I was pulling low. I kept after it for a while, still feeling like everything was working except where the holes were appearing in the target.

So I pulled out my Production CZ-75 and started putting some rounds downrange with that. Still low, this time a bit to the right. The trigger is much better on the CZ, and the groups were somewhat tighter, but still not where I wanted them to be.

To mix it up, I had brought my wife's carry Beretta 92 Compact. I recently swapped the mainspring for a lighter one to work on the trigger pull, and it's now much better. But still, I was shooting WAY low. about 4 - 5" at 15 yards. The shots were pretty consistent left-to-right, but very low. I kept putting more rounds through the Beretta, feeling what I was doing when I pulled the trigger. And then I thought about relaxing my middle, ring, and pinky fingers on my right hand. The next 10 rounds were a 1.5" group right around the small bullseye. The next set was similar. The gun seemed to come back to target just as fast, but I wasn't squeezing the gun as hard with my right hand.

Switching back to my CZ produced the desired result. My shots were much closer to the bullseye, and the gun was still controllable with a lighter grip. To verify that this might work, I pulled out my old 1911 and tried the same relaxed grip with a .45. 8 rounds obliterated the center of the target at 15 yards, and left me grinning. Maybe part of my problem on Saturday wasn't a flinch - it was holding the gun too tightly.

It was a good trip to the range. I guess sometimes just shooting to try different things without being focused on the draw or time might be able to help me try new ideas to improve.

[59Bassman]

Well, I found out that on my last match (Sep 3), I got a DNF on the last stage (after the squib) as the scorekeeper neglected to write my time down, and I blew the classifier with the two mikes. Even with a tie for last in the classifier and a DNF on the last stage, I was not DFL in Production.

Today was USPSA at my local club. I showed up later than normal, and felt like I was running behind the whole day. 5 stages, about 120 rounds total. The first thing I noticed was that I should have brought a 1911 - I've never seen so many guys shooting single stack at my club before. I squadded up and headed to our first stage.

There were three of us on the squad that had acted as RO or scorer, so I ended up scoring for most of the day. It meant that when it was my turn to shoot on the first stage, I had not really spent a ton of time thinking about the stage. However, it was pretty straightforward - 8 steel through one narrow opening, then 5 targets through a low opening about 10' away.

I made the mistake of running dry on the steel, and when I rammed the mag in the slide dropped forward. This is not infrequent with my gun, but this time I must have hit it too hard, as a fresh round did not get stripped in. Click. I had reasonable hits, and was OK considering the time to mess with my malfunction. At least this time I saw my front sight.

Second stage I caught fire. Ended up with a very nice run and good hits. Third stage was the classifier, and unfortunately I did not shoot my best. I guess I'll be a sandbagger with these classifiers. Last two stages went pretty well, although I did wing a no-shoot on the final stage.

I think that keeping score for the group helped me. I was busy enough that I couldn't overthink the stage. I had a brief time to plan what I was going to do, and then I had to do it. I also really thought about front sight focus, and it seemed to be there. Today felt like a better balance between A's and C's - the last few matches I've shot a bit more out of control, and had more C's and thrown some more make-ups downrange. Today's balance felt better.

Tomorrow is 3 gun. More practice with my Production pistol, and a few more rounds through a borrowed duck gun.

[59Bassman]

3 gun day.

I had a really, really good day. With one exception, the stages that used pistol went exceptionally well. We had a pistol drill stage that was a modified Bill-El Prez drill. 6 rounds on one target, mandatory reload, 6 rounds on another target, and then two shots each on 3 targets. I had one C hit on that stage, with a reasonably fast time. On the rifle stages, I wasn't the fastest, but I was pretty clean all the way through. The only real error I had was forgetting to engage one steel target on the last pistol stage, a mental error that will cost me 15 seconds (10 for FTE, 5 for the miss) - ouch. Today was the best day I've had since I started back with action pistol shooting.

However, I got the results back from yesterday's shoot. The two stages I thought I did well on were OK. Not as good as I thought I'd done, but OK. The three that I didn't do as well on (particularly the classifier) I really didn't do well on.

I'm struggling with the thought that I'm going to end up being classified as a "D" shooter. I guess that it's nothing more than a percentage, but it's pretty disappointing.

I grew up shooting shotguns. So when I got into Sporting Clays, I knew that I was going to do well at it pretty quickly. And I did. I never put in the effort to make it to Master class, but I was high A and had some pretty good showings.

But with pistol, I shot for a few years during and right after college and then had about 12 years off (shooting shotguns, you know). I don't have the experience with a handgun that I did with a shotgun. It should not be a surprise that I'm not an expert pistol shot. But even still, I guess I was hoping I'd be a bit better. Right now my Classifier average is about 36%. I don't feel like I've shot my classifiers up to my ability, but it's still indicative of where I am on any given Saturday.

I am still having a good time, but I'm frustrated that I'm not really shooting where I think I ought to be. The struggle now will be to allow myself the time to get better.

[59Bassman]

Well, my 3-gun results weren't as fantastic as I'd hoped. On the pistol stages, while I did do OK, I had the one stage with the FTE on a steel target. That FTE really, really cost me. Like 15 seconds on a sub-30 second stage. Ouch.

But while I started getting a bit depressed about not making the top 1/3 (which I'd really want to do), and being slightly out of the top 1/2, I did some real analysis of where I've been and where I am. One third of the shooters at the 3-gun match were the "supersquad" - serious guys with years of experience. To make the top 1/3, I've got to be in the mix with them. As it was, that 15 second penalty dropped me about 3 spots. Even if it took me 3 seconds more to hit that steel, I would have jumped into the top 1/2.

Also, I thought hard about how much pistol competition I've actually done. While I've done a lot of shooting competition, my experience is almost all shotgun, comparatively. I've probably shot a couple dozen pistol matches, but most of that was nearly 15 years ago. I went at least 8 years in there without even shooting a pistol. I cannot expect that my shotgun skills would translate directly into handgun. Something that bears this out was the shotgun stage in the 3-gun match. I was the only shooter with a wood-stocked duck gun. The gun capacity is 5. All other competitors had mag tubes that allowed at least 8 in the gun. Most other competitors had some sort of pouch or holder that held the shells oriented in a specific direction. I shot using my old sporting clays dump bag, with the shells jumbled in. I still managed to be well up in the mix with the shotgun. Rifle, not so much.

Last weekend was Steel Challenge. I shot my CZ again, and somehow shot to the same hundredth of a second as I had the previous month. I had much better front sight focus, and felt much more in control. While my time did not improve, I felt better about the match. I did not have the extremely fast runs that I had the previous match, but I also didn't have the spectacular blowups. I think it will all come with time.

This weekend was USPSA at another local club. I shot the stages twice, once with my CZ and once with my SS Kimber .45. It was very interesting to get a chance to reshoot. I was a slight bit slower with my 1911, but much more accurate (at least I think I was, we'll see when scores are posted). I didn't feel uncomfortable with my CZ, but shooting my Kimber was like shaking hands with an old friend. I'm wondering if I won't end up eventually with an STI Eagle in .40 to get the capacity with the feel of my 1911. I managed pretty good front sight focus, and only had a couple of mental errors, including winging another noshoot with the Production gun.

My focus at matches continues to be front sight. My focus away from them continues to be patience with my progress.

[59Bassman]

This weekend I picked up my new 3-gun shotgun, a 26" VR Winchester SX3 Composite. I've got a mental hangup that won't allow me to ever own a Benelli, the FN SLP's rifle sights and cantilever are too odd to my shotgun sensibilities, and I'm not a huge fan of Mossburg - so the SX3 it is. I picked the gun up on Friday afternoon and immediately took it to the range. It was a good trip - the gun fired 75 rounds (mostly my light 1oz handloads, but some slugs and buckshot) without a problem. I don't think I've fired an autoloader that felt that fast cycling before.

Last night I decided I needed to replace the front bead with my normal shotgun bead - a HiViz Comp Sight. To do that I needed to take the old bead off. I used a pair of pliers to try to turn the old white bead, and found out it was a plastic cap on a slotted grub screw. Twisting revealed the slotted screw, so I used a small screwdriver to try to back the screw out. With no pressure at all, the shoulders of the screw broke off, and I was left with a shotgun with no bead. About 2 hours of monkeying around with a vise, a drill press, some needle files, and a whole lot of patience later, I had the grub screw out and had my new front fiber optic LocTited to the rib. This made it look like every other one of my shotguns.

The Winchester is an interesting beast. Most of my shotguns require some grinding to fit. I take a relatively large amount of drop and a very long Length of Pull (~16.25"). I have to extend every shotgun I buy, and typically grind down the comb and refinish the stock. This sucks on a gun that costs $3K. With the Winchester, the synthetic stock is dimensioned such that I was almost where I want to be with the LOP short, and it's perfect with a small stack of spacers. This is also with the stock in the "neutral" position, with no cast and in the middle of the vertical adjustment. I think this will make slugs and buckshot a bit more comfortable to shoot. It'll also help with the stages that dictate a weak shoulder string with the shotgun. I'm going to run this gun shorter than my normal clays guns to facilitate a quicker mount and the awkward shooting positions that our match director is fond of.

This morning I took the gun (and my wife - woohoo!) out to shoot skeet. I used to be a 3X per week Skeet shooter, but I haven't shot in about 4 years. I had extended the SX3 to the length I think I'm going to fit it to (pad and spacers on order) and left the mag tube extension on just to offend the old timers. I also brought my sporting clays over/under just in case the SX3 didn't cycle well.

As it turned out, I just shot the SX3. We shot 2 rounds. My first round I shot 21 out of 25. My second round was a 24. Not too bad for a "riot" shotgun with a too-short barrel for the game. I actually think the extended tube helped with a smooth swing. My wife did very well also, turning in a 20 and a 22. And for the first time this year, I felt something odd about my shooting - at least at this, I'm GOOD at it. Not like AAA in .410 good, but I'm a pretty decent shot with a shotgun. I was able to help a woman break her first target while I was out there, and the new gun felt great, even if it's not a real clays gun.

I've got a good feeling about this shotgun.

Edited October 8, 2011 by 59Bassman

[59Bassman]

Time to face the music. My first classification came in. I'm officially a D class shooter in Production, my first USPSA classification. I'd be lying if I said I wasn't somewhat disappointed.

This weekend was USPSA pistol and a 3-gun match. The pistol match went pretty well. I was squadded with some really good guys and thought I shot OK. There were some difficult problems to solve, and I thought I did OK in selecting an acceptable solution. My CZ had one malfunction - I mistakenly shot to slide lock, and when I slammed a mag home, the slide dropped but did not pick up a fresh cartridge. Slam-click reseat mag, rack-bang. Probably an additional 8 seconds there.

And on the classifier, I did what I always seem to do - I shot a no-shoot. I don't know what my mental block is on the no-shoots, but I seem to punch 'em with annoying regularity. At least 3 of these first 4 classifiers had no-shoots with holes in them. On a short classifier, that really makes a difference. I spent a lot of time focusing on front sight and grip. It seemed to help - a lot of the stages felt smoother shot-to-shot.

Also at this match I was listed as winning my first stage in a division. I have a hard time believing it - I think they may have recorded the wrong time. I think my real time was 10 seconds higher. I guess it's karmic payback for getting a FTF in a match last month for someone not recording my stage. At any rate, I re-calculated where I would have ended up with a different time on that stage, and it would not have changed the overall scores. I ended up shooting 6th out of 25 shooters, my best finish thus far. I'm pretty happy with that. Of course the classifier was my worst finish of the 5 stages. This D class ranking isn't going anywhere for a while, apparently.

3-gun was interesting. It was my first time shooting on a squad with the more experienced 3-gunners. It was pretty neat watching the different choices they made while breaking down the stages. This was my first time using my new Winchester SX3 and my Otto belt. The SX3 had a couple of malfunctions, which I attribute to lubrication and old, nasty hulls used in the reloads. I also managed to wedge my thumb in the load gate, which may get me to send the trigger out to CRUMS.

Overall I was pretty pleased with how I shot. Moreso when I saw the scores. I shot a pretty slow match, but accurate. In the scoring system we're using now, that mattered. Scoring A hits with pistol and rifle helped me even out the differences with the guys shooting faster but scoring a couple Deltas. I ended up 9th out of 19, which I'm OK with at this point. The faster guys I was shooting with were really very good. It was just nice to watch and learn what I could.

I'm still enjoying my shooting, and trying to be patient. All trigger time will help, as will a bunch of dry fire. Eventually I'll find a classifier without a no-shoot and have a shot at carding a decent score or two.

[59Bassman]

Saturday was Steel Challenge. My club shoots 6 of the 8 stages once a month (except November and December). The stages change occasionally. To me, steel challenge distills a whole lot of what I like about action pistol shooting into a pretty quick, pretty intense package.

I shot my CZ, although I brought my old Ruger Mk 1 to consider shooting. My first stage went horrible. It was Outer Limits, and I just never got it completely together after the move. Even my DA first shots were going very well, but the first shot after moving was typically a miss. What helped was thinking about a solid grip before firing. Then the hits got a bit better. I decided to focus on grip for the rest of the match.

Somehow I ended up shooting about 7.5 seconds faster than the last two months. I also was 2nd in Production (only a few shooters, but still). I had a couple of really good runs. Also a couple of really bad runs. But I never shot to slide lock (loading 10), which is a first for me in Steel Challenge. Also my first DA shots seemed much better than in the past.

All in all, I'm pretty happy with how I shot. I need to do a bunch of dry fire with the draw, as I've been lax on that lately. Some progress is very nice to see, though.

[59Bassman]

It's been a while.

I shot three matches in November (USPSA X2 and a 3 gun), and I think two in December (USPSA and 3 gun). I missed all of January due to crummy weather and a funeral 1200 miles away.

I'm still a D class shooter, although I'm getting better. C class should not be too terribly far away. One of the things that I've noticed from videos of my shooting is that while I'm normally pretty accurate, and I'm reasonably fast while shooting, my movement is KILLING me.

When I see the really good shooters in action, it appears that after the last shot breaks they "leap" towards the next position, and move at high rate of speed until they get there.

When I shoot, I break the last shot, and then kind of amble my way there, looking to make sure I'm not running past any targets. It feels like I'm moving quickly, but I'm really not. So my range drills have focused on a draw, shoot, run, shoot array. I think that's going to help in the long run. I believe it's fear holding me back - fear of running past a target, fear of a DQ for gun handling, fear of running with scissors. Practicing when it's just me and no one watching seems to help.

I've also made some significant equipment changes. Over Christmas, my family gave me either AR parts or cash, so I was able to build up a dedicated 3 gun rifle with an 18" Nordic barrel and a Burris MTAC. I like that rifle very, very much. I got to shoot it for one stage at January's match before I had to leave for family issues.

Also, I just bought a Limited gun. A friend had a CZ CTS at a price I could not pass up. The pistol is a self-congratulation for making it through a pretty rough time at work over the past year. Now that I have it, though, I'm not sure I should. The gun is so nice that I wonder if I'll be a "Johnny Whiteshoes" at the range with a nice gun getting my backside handed to me by guys shooting stock Glocks. Oh well, at least I'll have a nice gun.

Getting that Limited gun feels odd for a different reason. When I shot USPSA in the 90's, there were just the Limited and Open classes. Open was completely out of the question. I shot my only gun, the Kimber 1911 in Limited class. All of the other regulars had either Para .40's or STI's. I got A LOT of reloading practice. I wanted a doublestack .40 pretty badly, but could not have afforded the mags even if I could have afforded the gun. So I shot the Kimber for a year, then moved to other shooting sports.

Now this CZ feels like the gun I wanted then. It just took me longer to get there. Kind of a sense of accomplishment to finally own the type of gun that I really thought I wanted. We'll see if I can learn to shoot it.

[59Bassman]

I shot IDPA today for the first time. A friend asked me to come shoot with him. He's considering getting back into USPSA and trying 3 gun (the guy is a former TN state USPSA champ with a revolver). Since he's considering getting a CZ, I told him I'd shoot IDPA if he borrowed my 75 Shadow. So I took my old Kimber out and tried a new sport.

One thing that bit me on at least 3 of the 6 stages was my normal aiming point in USPSA. I tend to aim for the center A, and when running faster I know I will typically pull a couple inches down. On one stage with a series of Bill drills, I managed a 5 down one point at a time. All of my shots were in a 2" group right below the perforation. I don't know whether I should practice aiming a bit higher in USPSA, or just try to remember it for IDPA.

Overall, I had a good time. I don't see myself becoming particularly serious about IDPA, but the folks were nice, I got to burn some gunpowder, and I got to shoot my Kimber again in a sport where you're really on equal footing. Also, I switched back to lithium grease as my lubricant on the Kimber from FP10 - I used Wilson Ultima Lube back in the 90's. The gun ran great. Well enough that I'm going to keep playing with grease.

I also decided that I need to work on grip and forearm strength after shooting Major for a while. I ordered a Captains of Crush trainer to start working on increasing grip strength, and will be looking at weight options for forearms.

[59Bassman]

Turns out that my first foray into IDPA I shot 17th out of 67 shooters, right under the top 25%. Out of CDP shooters, I was 2nd out of 17. Had I not had that Bill Drill aiming error, I would have been the top CDP. That's kind of neat.

I went to the range again today, and spent a bunch of time shooting my .22 conversion on my Kimber. I did a lot of shooting weak hand only and strong hand only. And I found out that I need to use more trigger finger. I normally shoot with the pad of my fingertip. When shooting one-handed, I tend to be about 4" right on left hand, the reverse for right hand at 10 yards. I remembered a thread here and tried shooting with the joint. And I was shooting the 1" bull regularly at 10 yards with one hand. The things you can learn with a .22...

[59Bassman]

This past weekend was 3 gun at a new (to me) facility. I headed down with a few other guys who shoot at my club regularly. The 3 folks I knew there were all better shooters that I am, so it was interesting to be on a squad with them and watch how they did what they did. Also interesting to have one of them remember that I'd been a sporting clays shooter and ask what I was going to do on the first shotgun stage it was flattering even if I had to admit that nothing in sporting clays prepared me for 3 gun.

After a lot of inner turmoil, I decided to shoot my new CTS, so between an almost-new AR and the CZ, I was shooting a pretty new setup. All of the guns ran well, and I ended up with a single miss on a pistol target. I am shooting low with the AR through the scope, but I'm running it pretty quickly.

I did much better at movement. I made a definite plan of where I wanted to be during the walkthrough, and then when the buzzer went off I moved as fast as I could between positions. This included the 50-yard sprint down the rifle range to a second prone position. Overall, I was pleased with how I moved, and saw some improvement. It needs to be a continual focus, however.

[59Bassman]

It's been a while. I missed 3 matches in the past two weekends due to work commitments. I was not able to pull a trigger on a live round for over two weeks. However, I took my Production and Limited rigs with me just in case. I was able to spend a lot of time almost every night practicing reloads and dry fire. Brian's book was a big help in thinking my way through reloads. Also, a lot of thought about my draw helped it feel smoother, and certainly get the gun out faster.

Yesterday was USPSA at a club about 80 miles from here. I like the club, although it's a different place to shoot. Pretty far off the beaten path, but a bunch of experienced old salts wringing out their "Sunday go to meetin'" guns at a match. $15 shoot through once, $5 to shoot again. I shot Limited with my new CZ CTS the first time through, Single Stack with my old Kimber the second time.

The first go through went OK. I had a couple of real brain farts. Almost one per stage. A mike on a seated Bill Drill. Throwing an extra shot on a Virginia Count classifier (and having the argument with myself before I pulled the trigger). Never getting front sight focus on a Texas Star on the last stage. Overall I was 10 out of 17 limited shooters. I knew that Limited would be swimming with sharks, as that's where most of the more experienced guys gravitate. But I'm happy with how I shot. It wasn't completely clean, but it felt great. It's a much different experience when you're starting with 22 rounds in the gun, coming from 9 or 11.

Second go round went great after the first stage. Our first stage that run through was three ports, 12 targets. You had to shoot 4 targets through each port. My run with the limited gun was about 27 seconds. With my SS, it was 59. I made a critical error, I got too close to the wall and had the barrel through the ports. The slide was hitting the top of the port after every shot, and I was getting one FTF after another. I didn't realize it until the final couple of rounds. But after that stage, it went very well. I shot very accurately, if not as fast as I should have. Overall I was 5th out of 7 SS shooters, due entirely to that one stage. If I'd shot similarly to my Limited run, I should have been in 2nd or 3rd.

One thing I was very pleased with was that both of my classifier scores were solid upper C's. I'm still D in Production, and believe I should be higher. Seeing my two classifiers show that progress was helpful. Rather than sitting in the 30's and 40's like my last few have been, two in the 50's gave me some hope.

I know that I can do better. I had a couple of tastes of watching the sights, seeing what I needed to see, and shooting as fast as my sights aligned, rather than as fast as I was comfortable. That was an amazing feeling. I want to feel it again.

[59Bassman]

Yesterday was 3 gun at a club about 100 miles from home. Very nice club, interesting stages. I ended up shooting on a squad made up almost entirely of guys I shoot with at my local club. It was a very nice day and a really great time.

The first stage was an all-shotgun stage, nominally 20 shots. This was the first time I'd ever shot flippers, and I was nervous. So nervous about them in fact that I never got a really good plan for shooting the rest of the targets. As it turned out, when the clay went in the air, I was in full-on Sporting Clays mode. I don't remember how I shot them, but I do remember that I crushed them pretty well. They turned out to be the easiest targets of the day for me.

I got bit by some bad decision-making on a couple of stages, but I was trying different things, even if they didn't work out. What killed me was the last stage, which was slugs, pistol, rifle. I knew I'd lost some points with the shotgun (although I didn't know it would be 15 seconds - ouch!), and when I ran down to the pistol array (25 - 30 yards away), was trying to go too fast. One of the pistol targets was a small steel plate at 30 yards to activate a bank of rifle targets. I never settled in for front sight focus, so I probably burned 6 or 7 rounds trying to hit that target. That rattled me enough that I didn't settle into the rifle very well. I had good hits with the pistol and rifle, but they were just slow hits. In hindsight, I should have shot the 6 IDPA pistol targets at 25 - 30 before I tried the steel plate.

The guns ran very well. I'm currently debating using my 75 Shadow over my CTS for 3 gun, but it will probably come down to whether I can get the 75 mag capacity up to 23 rounds. My rifle ran great. I think with the latest addition of a Drissel Cat Tail, it's about done. The shotgun is close, I think I need a 2-shell carrier on the receiver end of the forend to get that right. Kinda nice to have a rig that you can't blame for your mistakes.