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Finally classed and need help


WrxGuy90

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So I've finally classed to the little 'ol D class. My problem now is I feel like I've hit a wall. I've done the dot torture drill a couple of times and dry fire every now and again (more could be done). But what's the best way to get to the C class and beyond. My live fire training is very limited especially now with the craze of ammo. My main practice is getting out there and shooting a match once a month. Any other tips out there? Thanks everyone

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dry fire will get you a long way

when I cant get out Ill set mini stages in the yard and keep droping my par time.

I would say you could easily make b class on dry fire .

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Wow. That much improvement huh?!?! Guess ill just have to start doing it more often. What's the best way though? Since I don't have much of a yard I'm limited to my house and ill practice by picking a few small items point, aim, squeez. Then move a few steps and repeat. More or less trying to shot call my targets. Is there a better method ?

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Welcome.

Dryfire will get you a long way. It sounds like you have limited time to practice in live fire.

Anything you do right now doesn't matter until the buzzer goes off. What you CAN do is consciously think about how you can shoot stages faster and more accurately.

Seek instruction or the top shooter at your club. Hell, it doesn't even have to be the top shooter. You made D, look for a good B. They are a level above where you want to be.

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Let the C class come to you. It will.:)

Dry fire, during these ammoless times, is beneficial.

A great piece of help for me was to always keep the gun up and ready when moving ftom one position to another. Smooth but fast transitions help to. Thqts gameday/live fire stuff though.

Dry fire!

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Have you figured out why your classifier scores are D class? A big part of improving is figuring out what your weaknesses are and practicing them as much as possible. Dry fire practicing your draws and reloads with a par timer will make a big difference in what your classification is.

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A great dry fire practice drill is to practice your aiming with your eyes shut. Look at the target and where you want to hit it. Now shut your eyes, draw your gun and point it at the target. With practice you will start to come real close to aligning the sights with the proper point on the target. After a bit of practice doing this, now repeat the exercise but do not shut your eyes. You might be surprised at how quick you can bring the sights into a proper sight picture. It is always quicker to have the gun come into position naturally than it is trying to force it into position

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Thanks y'all. I'm seeing that dry fire is where it's at. Looks like my Speratic practice is not enough. Ill have to get on it. And I'll try the eyes shut deal today. It's worth a shot. A lot of the High C and the B class guys say that I drop the gun and run to the next target. I watched a few of my videos and noticed that I do. Got to work on keeping it eye level and moving to the next target

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Even with a steady supply of ammo dry fire is your friend. Books and dvds can also be helpful, and cheaper than a class or ammo. At some point a class would be good, there are theories on that but for me money matters. Having someone run video at matches or in practice is very helpful. You would be amazed at some of the goofy crap I saw myself doing on film.

Learn how to practice. Practice doesn't make perfect. Perfect practice makes perfect.

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I'll post some videos up shortly. I've just got to play with the sight a little bit and figure out how. But yea, I've watched a few of my videos and seen where I could use some improvements... Not dropping the weapon when on the move, having a better grip(I won't count the last one, so cold my hands where numb haha). Just little things that will take time I guess

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I certainly agree that dry fire is important since it is the quickest (not to mention free) way your gun handling skills will improve, however, I will disagree with everyone here and tell you that unless you can figure out a way to live fire more than once a month at matches your progress is going to be slow and probably a little frustrating, I do not believe you could make B class on dry fire alone .... live fire teaches you things you can't learn in dry fire but which are absolutely critical to becoming a better shooter, namely trigger control & managing the sights. that being said you shoukld still be dry firing 5 times a week for 30 mins each session ...

When you shoot a match you are as good as you are going to be that day and trying to do anything else at a match is just setting yourself up for disappointment, not to mention plenty of Deltas & Mikes ...

You simply have to figure out a way to send rounds down range on a regular basis if you want to see improvement. Now, here's the kicker; frequency of training is much more important than quantity. You will improve much faster if you can shoot even only 100 rds/session 3 times a week than if you shoot 500 rds once a month.

Also, learning how to train properly is the reason most of the rank and file shooters don't progress a fast as they think they should. Taking a class or 2 from a recognized GM instructor is worth its weight in gold. You will learn important things you'll never see in any book. I've had live training from Mike Seeklander & Steve Anderson and they are a large part of why I continue to improve while my shooting buddies don't. One 2 -day class provides enough tarining material for me to work on for 6 months and I live fire 3x/wk. There are plenty of others out there as well.

A very well known GM once said: you're never going to win the Production Nationals by shooting twice a month ....

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I agree. I know my lack of ability to get range time really hurts me. And I understand that although dry fires will help, only shooting will improve my second shot after recoil. I've looked into a few local matchs around town to at least get some sort of trigger time more often. I used to shoot idpa but stopped once I got my sti bc they don't approve of the full length dust cover. But since its not a sanctioned match here I may make a few phone calls to see if they can squeeze me in and just toss my score card

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So which one best describes you..?

1)Slow but acurate

2)Fast but wreckless (miss all the time)

3)Slow and wreckless

C and D class shooters will mostly fall into one of those categories..

If you have platued and D class (assuming you don't have some sort of disability), then you're simply not going for it..

Cheers,

Los

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I wouldn't say I'm slow but I'm far from fast. My times are about middle of the pack. My last scroes were majority A's and C's. but I did have 11 M's. I'd say its safe to say I have a tendency to shoot faster then my skill set allows. My controlled pairs/double taps, whatever you best call it, army spot on. I believe that's where a lot of my C's come from. I don't know if that helps best describe me or not

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Look, this is simple. Lets get real here, no one needs to be stuck in any class if they don't really want to be there. I'm qualified in this opinion, .....I was stuck in C class at 58% for 4 straight years.

I simply could not figure out my own predicament! I was shooting 4 matches a month, April through October, during this period.

I needed a new direction. I needed a new ATTITUDE, I needed a lot. I bought Steve Anderson's first book. I did drills 1-12, 3-4 times a week. I got bored. I forced myself to do the drills. I discovered things. I did the drills. I learned things. I did the drills. This went on about 2 months.

End result, I made B, finally, I was a B class Open shooter. In fact, I dang near skipped B! Less than a year later I was an A in Open and I had stopped the dry fire when my B card arrived.

The fact is you have to want it. The fact is, DRYFIRE will take you there. Steve Anderson wrote the book on DRYFIRE, two books actually. If you commit to a routine, say, 30 minutes a night on drills 1-12 for 3 or 4 night a week the gains are gonna scare you. I find DRYFIRE to be scary powerful.

I do feel that live fire is crucial, we shoot a live fire sport, never been to a DRYFIRE match! I much prefer live fire, but I still DRYFIRE occasionally, it's a tool, we need all the tools we can get.

Oh, if you get those Steve Anderson books and wear yourself out over a couple months I got a sure fire cure. Call Steve and take a DRYFIRE class. Holy crap, I can't believe how much time his instruction took off my pars. Guys got a gift of instruction and discernment!!

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I wouldn't say I'm slow but I'm far from fast. My times are about middle of the pack. My last scroes were majority A's and C's. but I did have 11 M's. I'd say its safe to say I have a tendency to shoot faster then my skill set allows. My controlled pairs/double taps, whatever you best call it, army spot on. I believe that's where a lot of my C's come from. I don't know if that helps best describe me or not

My guess is that you are fast but wreckless..

In my opinion that is much better than slow but accurate..

11 m is far from acceptable accuracy..

First thing I would work on is improving your hits..

You could be have the fastest time in the whole match but with 11 mikes your toast..

That's like zeroing one or two stages..

Do not slow down but make it your entire focus in the match to make every hit..

Once you accept that the most important part of the game is to hit the target the path to self improvement will be obvious.

Good luck in your journey..

Edited by carlosa
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Yea. I tell myself every match to "slow down and make sure the sights are lined up and squeeze." But then I hear the buzzer and I loose focus. My first stage is always the worst because nine times out of ten its the first time I've fired in a month and I'm just excited I get to shoot again. When the results came out and I saw how many mikes I got I was pretty upset.

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Look, this is simple. Lets get real here, no one needs to be stuck in any class if they don't really want to be there. I'm qualified in this opinion, .....I was stuck in C class at 58% for 4 straight years.

I simply could not figure out my own predicament! I was shooting 4 matches a month, April through October, during this period.

I needed a new direction. I needed a new ATTITUDE, I needed a lot. I bought Steve Anderson's first book. I did drills 1-12, 3-4 times a week. I got bored. I forced myself to do the drills. I discovered things. I did the drills. I learned things. I did the drills. This went on about 2 months.

End result, I made B, finally, I was a B class Open shooter. In fact, I dang near skipped B! Less than a year later I was an A in Open and I had stopped the dry fire when my B card arrived.

The fact is you have to want it. The fact is, DRYFIRE will take you there. Steve Anderson wrote the book on DRYFIRE, two books actually. If you commit to a routine, say, 30 minutes a night on drills 1-12 for 3 or 4 night a week the gains are gonna scare you. I find DRYFIRE to be scary powerful.

I do feel that live fire is crucial, we shoot a live fire sport, never been to a DRYFIRE match! I much prefer live fire, but I still DRYFIRE occasionally, it's a tool, we need all the tools we can get.

Oh, if you get those Steve Anderson books and wear yourself out over a couple months I got a sure fire cure. Call Steve and take a DRYFIRE class. Holy crap, I can't believe how much time his instruction took off my pars. Guys got a gift of instruction and discernment!!

I've heard of a lot of people tellin me to get his book. I just haven't ordered it yet. It always seems to be one of those thing I forget to add to the cart when placing a order. Which book exactly is it. I need a couple things and this time IT WILL go into the cart. A buddy of mine and I always go shoot together and he's always two to five places ahead of me. I'm tired of it. He will be classified in a couple of months so It'll be a race for him and I to C

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Yea. I tell myself every match to "slow down and make sure the sights are lined up and squeeze." But then I hear the buzzer and I loose focus. My first stage is always the worst because nine times out of ten its the first time I've fired in a month and I'm just excited I get to shoot again. When the results came out and I saw how many mikes I got I was pretty upset.

Don't slow down, just focus on making every shot..

Once you get through that mental aspect you will see your performance greatly increase ..

Edited by carlosa
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Steve Anderson's book is called, Refinement and Repetition: Dry Fire Drills for Dramatic Improvement.

Wanted to add that I agree with Nimitz and his post above.

Notice in my post above that I was shooting 4 matches a month and had been for quite some time before I got Steve's book. If I would have incorporated Steve's book earlier, like my first year shooting, I'm confident I would have made B that first or second year. I've seen so many shooters benefitting from this knowledge in the last 4-5 years. What took me 5 years to do, most guys can easily accomplish in 1 or 2. As a whole (USPSA shooters), we just have a firmer grasp on what works because of the prevalence of good info and forums like Brian's. I'd also suggest Brian's book, by the way.

I have different feelings about dry fire and live fire than some. I do believe, like Nimitz, that at some point, sending rounds down range is going to benefit a shooter more than anything else. We don't have dry fire competitions, we have shooting competitions.

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