There and Back Again: A Shooters Tale by BostonBullit

[BostonBullit]

(this is a long one, I got a lot to say to my future self)

Another weekend, another USPSA match. I went over to Harvard to shoot their monthly match yesterday and had what was arguably my best match performance in the 3yrs I've been shooting USPSA. The only real downer was shooting Stage 2, which ended up being tossed from the final results anyway, because despite how I bitched about it a competent shooter should be able to put two rounds into the "upper scoring region" (aka head) of a USPSA target at 30' over and over again. but I digress...I look forward to Harvard because they draw somewhere near 100 shooters every match so it's as close as I can get to a regional or championship match without flying all over the place. I've only made two harvard matches this season and I've bombed them both so I was really hoping to do well.

I got on Squad 3 with a couple guys from my club and another few that I've shot with before and get along with, so the vibe was good from the get go. The first stage I made a bad decision in breakdown, I took the target to the right, then the left, then left the start position and went left then right. I knew that the third target in my sequence could be taken from the start position but chose not to do that. in retrospect it wasn't a good choice. From the time I made the first wide transition from right to left I felt out of control. I broke the first shot on that left target before I settled and had to take a make-up to make sure I got my hits. that messed up my round count and put me at slide lock, then the older than time pre-ban I used as a start mag didn't drop free on my first reload. I thought for sure I had two good hits on the moving target but it was Alpha Mike. not horrible but not great and I knew I needed to keep the pace but get things under control.

Stage 4 was next and I decided to open on the right and then haul over as far left as I could get to finish. I had one pickup on the steel plate on the right but moved and reloaded well and then finished strong with good hits on the paper and steel. felt in control the whole time and still moved at a good pace both shooting and changing positions. I briefly thought about bending down and shooting through the slit between the two walls to avoid going from one side of the range to the other but decided against it. good call.

Stage 5 was the classifier "Diamond Cutter". I already have a 62% on file for this one from the Hopkinton Classifier match so there wasn't much pressure there. I think I shot what should be a 63% this time, just under 4sec but need to tighten up the hits. consistency is building though which is a good thing

Stage 6 is what made my match. We caught up to the squad in front of us and had a good amount of down time so I grabbed lunch and then got the stage breakdown from my buddy Craig who was shooting on the squad ahead of us. his plan was spot on and I was able to execute it to what I feel is upper edge of my current skill level. I didn't bobble any reloads, had good splits on the score/no-shoot/score... arrays, went one for one on two long poppers, got good hits while engaging an array on the move, and really hauled ass on the final 5 paper; felt like I was shooting my Open gun again! funny thing is when I holstered I was mad because I thought I botched my reload schedule but then after a minute realized I hit it exactly like I had planned. The run was good enough for a stage win on a high value stage..I actually thought there was a time error or something when I saw the results posted but I timed the run from the video and verified it

Stage 1 had another long wait and time to hang out and shoot the chit with people. Watching the squad ahead of us it was clear that this was going to be a memory stage and a Failure to Engage waiting to happen. I decided on a plan that would require some long shots but keep the movement to a minimum to make it easier to keep track of my targets; a lot of guys used this same plan so I guess I'm not the only one with memory issues. I got going well through my first mag, then moved quickly to my next position while reloading. had solid hits on the steel from that position which helped and then took off for my last position. I activated the swinger first to give it time to slow down and then started a right to left sweep so I could keep track of things. I didn't get the swinger my first pass through because the timing didn't work out so I had to come back to it, which I think was the right call. I ended up putting three at it for two hits but I'm not sure if it was the make-up that missed or one of my first two shots (so I'll assume the make-up was required and it). I threw a mike on one of the long paper shots but other than that I got my hits in and placed well in another high value stage.

Stage 2 was......let's say it was controversial. It actually ended up being dumped from the final results but I shot it so I'll write about it. it's 10 half targets with nothing but head showing and no-shoot below that. barrels make it so you have to move downrange and can't engage more than 2 targets from one position without breaking the 180, which you were on for pretty much every shot. it was also Virginia count. everyone on my squad was zero'ing the stage between the mikes and no-shoots. I said I'm going to take it slow, ignore the time, and just get hits because any hit factor at all was going to put you up there in stage points. It was discouraging in the end. I couldn't keep my pace as slow as I wanted and couldn't get my hits at the pace I was going. I landed almost every one of my first shots but missed almost every one of my second shots. I ended with zero no-shoots but 11 mikes. Hit factor? zero point zero Mr Blutarsky. it was so comical that when a shooter would finish we would gather round the nook and wait to see if he had a non-zero HF. when someone had a HF of like .34 we all cheered

So there it is. I need to include this much detail in my diary here so I can keep track of what I actually did RIGHT at the match. my reloads were good (not great), I moved with a purpose between positions, I stuck to my plan most of the time but altered it when required (after that first stage) and had probably my best match. now the challenge is to keep it going. more reload drills and dry firing, more drills at live fire practice....one of the reasons I felt comfortable picking up the pace was because of how my bill drills came out at my last live fire practice, more such drills to find my boundaries are a must!

and for the first time in forever I remembered to hand off my phone for video on every stage!

[BostonBullit]

Been a quiet period the past couple of weeks, just a lot of non-shooting stuff to get done between kids birthdays and work and prep for upcoming matches and such. I've been doing reload drills maybe every other night but it's damn hard to fire those up when it's late and you just finished the family chores and you still need to go to work again the next day. I don't know how some people do it, I lack that kind of willpower. but I digress....

Tonight was live fire practice and I setup a shooting on the move drill for me and a few other guys that showed up. 5 targets setup close to the left and right down a 90' pit so that you had to transition from one side to the next engaging as you go. rules were simply that all shots must be taken while moving. we ran it the simple way, start walking down the pit and shoot stuff as you get close to it, and we also tried to game things a bit by walking slowly and taking all targets from the first 20' or so of the pit. my first run was around 11s with no misses (good since the targets were like 10' away), second one was down to around 7.5s. I changed up the plan and decided to reload between each target, which is what the video below is. Finished the run 8 or 10pts down in 11.51s, not too bad but I still have trouble getting those back mags. the fact that I forgot my change of cloths didn't help, my dress shirt got in the way of the mags once or twice. to finish the night I made a run literally running (no reloads) just to see how that would go. ok, so it was more trotting than "running" but you get the point. 10pts down in 6.21s. an interesting drill, wish I had more time to do it with the targets further out to the edge of the pit and also with some hardcover and/or no-shoots mixed in but the days are getting shorter and we ran out of light :-(

[BostonBullit]

Rough time last week ending in a poor showing at the local club match on Saturday....

I had to skip my weekly live fire practice to attend the wake of a second cousin and could have worked it in on Friday before setting up for the match but chose not to for some reason. I also could have worked in more dry fire time to keep things sharp but instead did less because I was a bit burned out after trying to put as much kid time as I could during the day and wasn't motivated by the time they went to bed. this week marks the first full week at school for them both so I wanted to squeeze a little more summer in while I could.

We were understaffed for the match including the loss of the match director who was out shooting the Area 4 Championship match and I had to step in to fill that role. That combined with the fact that we had some different scoring scenarios (fixed time stage, bonus target stage) and I also run scoring kept me from focusing on the task at hand most of the day. In the end it was the misses that killed me, I just went too fast for the level of concentration I had and paid for it. At least I got to squad up with some really good shooters, Production Masters and some A/M ranked Open guys and see different approaches to stages and prepping so the day wasn't a waste!

one stage there was NO reason at all to have mikes, 4 wide open paper at 32' and I somehow threw two mikes. didn't call em so didn't make em up and have no idea where they went. started good on the all steel stage but then lost it and wasted a bunch of ammo and time before reeling myself back in. on a long standards stage I had a failure to feed after my first shot at 105'. near as I can tell the gun didn't go into battery and I didn't properly diagnose it....click...rack...click...dump mag and insert new one...click...BEEP; 12sec fixed time was gone. then when I tried to put in a new mag for the next string I caught the edge of the magwell and literally flung the mag off into the berm. my squad mates were most amused.....the good news is my strong hand and weak hand strings were solid, good hits and good cadence for the 7 and 6 sec par times. had my usual trouble with a tuxedo hardcover target on the longer field course stage leading to a mike and ruining an otherwise good run. then on the classifier I tried to burn it down and it felt good but when the smoke cleared it turned into a shitshow; mikes and no shoots and.....a buddy told me I was way outside my comfort zone on that and he was right, but it didn't FEEL like I was going too fast at the time. checking the results I was more than a full second faster than the Master ranked guys so yea, I was going too fast

so that was last week and this week is this week. last nights dry fire was draw and reload. my draw is still sundial slow and my SIRT hits after the reload are showing me why I had the mikes at the match, the control just isn't there. I'll keep working on that with the SIRT every night. on Weds night I think I'm going to do some standard bill drills and then some modified runs reloading after every two shots. I really need to work on tracking the front sight and reestablishing my grip after the reload.

Friday I'll be working with Manny Bragg all day. I'm hoping that results in tweaks rather than wholesale changes to what I'm doing because I go right from that small class into the Area 7 Championship match on Sat morning. The ammo is all made and all I need to do is clean the gun after Weds nights practice and I'm set. I'm going to go over the stage listing a couple of times but it's hard to tell what things will really look like so I'm trying not to make any real plans until I see things with my own four eyes....

[BostonBullit]

My post Area 7 cliffs notes executive summary version of the past few days.....long form version coming...

I spent the day on the range last Friday with 3 other shooters and Manny Bragg. The class was excellent and Manny did an excellent job showing me just how much I have to work on if I want to excel at this sport. We went through a number of different drills on everything from basic trigger prep to reloading to moving in and out of positions efficiently. I have a crap ton of things to work on going forward and the outline of how I should be working on them so I'm pleased with that. If anyone has the chance to train with Manny I highly recommend it.

That said the (hopefully) long term gain came with a heavy short term price; my Area 7 performance. I've only shot one other major match, last years Area 7, so I'm not well versed in these things. I thought that I studied up on the stages in the weeks before the match but at the end of the match I found that I hadn't done as much prep as I thought. The class was a full day so I didn't get to Sig Academy in time to walk the stages the day before the match which was mistake eleventeen and probably the fatal one for my match performance. There is simply NO WAY a shooter of my mental and physical abilities can properly run most major match quality stages on 5mins of prep. no. way.

So as I type this I'm currently sitting in 44th place out of what was really a 80ish shooter field since a lot of the range staff didn't get to complete the match due to rain. The funny thing? I have 57.985% of match leader JJ Racaza. My current Production classification score? 57.07%. So in effect I guess I can quote the immortal philosopher Popeye who said "I am what I am and that's all that I am"....

[BostonBullit]

2013 Area 7, a very well run match IMO. It was only my second major match and I learned a lot. The biggest thing I learned is that there's no way in hell a shooter at my level should ever go into a match of this size without walking the stages the day before. You'll get lucky on some stages and have much more than the 5mins to plan what you need to do but with 8 person squads and 10 stages you ARE going to be first on at least one stage; and if it's the wrong stage then you're borked.

What went well? some things I was happy with - I called a hardcover related mike or two and took make up shots, with one exception I hit the steel really well all day, and I was able to keep to my plan on most of the stages.

What went not so well?

It started with worrying that my ghost stinger was going to get me bumped. I have measured it multiple times and it's right on that 2" line but hearing that they were putting setups under the microscope at this match I decided to not chance it and brought it in a bit more. this put the holster in a spot I wasn't used to and slowed my draws a bit.

It continued when my Zev Standard Deluxe trigger kit almost got me DQ'd after shooting a single stage. The chrono RO was able to get the striker to go using a technique I hadn't tried before to test it. I had to haul azz to the safe table and get the other trigger group back in and get re-tested before my squad finished at that stage. So now I have a holster in a position I'm not used to and a trigger with a break I'm not used to. my fault and only listing it for the sake of posterity.

I was up first on a very confusing stage and I am changing my entire approach to stage prep as a result. I will no longer begin my stage prep/plan making at the start position. No effort will be made to plan the run until I've looked at the stage diagram AND then walked around the entire stage; not just the free fire zone the WHOLE stage. once I'm sure I know where every target is at then I'll go to the start position and plan things out. I had a lapse in my standard practice of double checking round count on the stage and resulted in me missing two interior targets until my final walk through. since I was first up guess what I did on my run? yup, 2 FTE + 4 Mike. To cap it off I was fairly sure I had a miss on a swinger and instead of just taking a make up I stood there staring at it feeling like I shouldn't be done yet. so that's a 70pt hole on a high value stage.

I had a couple of instances of forgetting to reload leading to multiple flareups of EGS (empty gun syndrome) and lost seconds. I need to be better about setting visual queues that will trigger my memory telling me to reload.

I had one over time shot on the standards stage...I was shooting weak hand and about to break the final shot when the buzzer sounded and instead of letting off the trigger my left index finger decided to squeeze harder. .33 = -5pts.

The runs I was most happy with where two of the better designed and decorated stages - Maple Sappers and When Pigs Fly. unfortunately on Maple Sappers I had to flat out Mikes and almost a FTE. Always follow the scorer, if I wasn't there and he called the FTE it would have stuck; although I had to admit that I missed two shots at an open target that was only like 50' away which was embarrassing. I got two runs at pigs fly due to a taping error. I requested an overlay on a charlie call (and won it) and in the time that was spent checking it there was confusion and two targets got taped. my time was good on that run but I had a mike. on my second run my time was slower due to the need to makeup a shot on a tuxedo target but I got all my hits.

I only needed one extra shot on a 100' set of one full and one mini popper which was really nice, too bad I then threw like 7 shots at a full size popper that was only 50' away giving away all the time I had saved by making the long shots (and blowing my mental state). it was the last stage of a loooong day, need to find a way to get tougher mentally so I don't meltdown in situations like that.

[lugnut]

You don't need visual queues for reloads... that's mental. Plan them. Know how many extras you have for potential make ups if you can.

Yeah- not having time to walk the stages in a major match (or any for that matter) just doesn't make sense to me. Too much time and money to NOT do it ahead of time.

[BostonBullit]

I plan them, and sometimes I remember the plan but sometimes I don't. the mental part of my game needs to get stronger but I'm not sure how to go about that aside from those brain trainer games I see advertised. I literally choose to run stages in a way that isn't the most efficient possible if there are too many targets coming and going for me to keep track of. sometimes it means an extra stop or a standing reload, sometimes it means more running, but the end result is less FTEs and mikes. I try to plan for make-up shots but I have enough trouble keeping a basic reload schedule in my head so I don't push it too much.

You can see two prime examples of this stuff in the video above. when I go to the left rear shooting position in Stage 8 watch the muzzle of the gun dance between the targets. that's because I was supposed to work from left to right but instead I went to the closest target first and knew I was doing something off-plan. Then on Maple Sappers just after shooting at the swinger I was supposed to transition to the last paper target on the far side of the range but instead my eyes (and gun) went to a target midway across and I paused, knew something wasn't right, and had to transition again. not coincidentally that's the target I thew the two mikes on. having the mental lapse and settling on the wrong target is one thing, allowing it to knock me off enough to have two mikes is unacceptable. it's the same thing that derailed my run on Boston Strong.

I'm getting better at remembering what went on between BEEP and show clear so that's a positive sign. but until I can get my brain fully functional I think trying to give myself some visual queues to jog the memory will help.

[lugnut]

"The biggest thing I learned is that there's no way in hell a shooter at my level should ever go into a match of this size without walking the stages the day before. You'll get lucky on some stages and have much more than the 5mins to plan what you need to do but with 8 person squads and 10 stages you ARE going to be first on at least one stage; and if it's the wrong stage then you're borked....."

and then you say:

"I plan them, and sometimes I remember the plan but sometimes I don't. the mental part of my game needs to get stronger but I'm not sure how to go about that aside from those brain trainer games I see advertised. I literally choose to run stages in a way that isn't the most efficient possible if there are too many targets coming and going for me to keep track of. sometimes it means an extra stop or a standing reload, sometimes it means more running, but the end result is less FTEs and mikes. I try to plan for make-up shots but I have enough trouble keeping a basic reload schedule in my head so I don't push it too much."

"I'm getting better at remembering what went on between BEEP and show clear so that's a positive sign. but until I can get my brain fully functional I think trying to give myself some visual queues to jog the memory will help."

Pete, read your quotes above. You are contradicting yourself buddy. You aren't giving yourself enough time to do what you need to do. You haven't learned anything from A7 until you realize that most of the work happens before the buzzer goes off. I went to this match the afternoon before I shot. I was there for a while... as well as many others. I did as much as I could to determine a good plan. Once I got a good plan I did what I could to visualize what I was going to see on match day. I played it thru my head over an over again.... I visualized where I needed to be, when I needed to reload, when I needed to turn, what I needed to see, etc., etc.

I CANNOT do this in 5 minutes for most stages.... maybe I'm slow, but I can't. I try to get to local matches an hour early. That gives my about 10 extra minutes per stage... some stages might take 3 minutes, others longer.

It's not your brain that is the problem- it's the mental preparation that you need to work on.

Now as far as the execution goes- sometimes things will go a little wrong. Yeah, I completely ran by the last port on the left on stage 9. I got a little overzealous, had to back track a bit to get back to shooting. That stuff happens sometimes... but the PLAN needs to be ingrained in your head as much as possible.

I'm not the best shooter in the planet by a long stretch... but I'll tell you this. I want to give myself every advantage I can when I shoot. What does this mean? If I do my best to make sure my ammo works, my gun works, my equipment work and my PLANS work BEFORE the match I've just given myself a HUGE advantage.

All I have to do then is execute the plan and shoot... not always easy for sure... but I don't have to worry about the other stuff.

I see people that are what I think are better shooters than me... I see it all the time. But they f*#k up. They go to slide lock, they do unnecessarily reloads or reload in the wrong place, simple get lost in the stage, their ammo sucks or their gun pukes. The timer keeps on going either way.

I don't mean to be harsh, that's not my intent at all. I want you to understand what it takes to overcome your issues. I'm trying to help you find ways to kick ass! I just hope no one else is reading this. Good luck buddy, see you around.

[lugnut]

A little nugget of information relevant this this post above.

I recall reading something in one of Saul Kirsch's books- I think it was his book on the mental game.

He described a stage that he was about to shoot. It was a blind stage.... meaning you had to shoot it without any walk thrus or seeing anything. I recall that while was waiting he was listening to other shooters he knew while THEY were shooting... he was paying a attention to their splits, delays, etc. He tried to use the audio feedback to help him prepare for the stage. I think he said he won that stage.

Pretty cool stuff.

[partyboy424]

Try doing your walkthrough of the stage and then immediately reversing it. Same way cops catch someone in a lie. You can tell the grandest story in the world, until your asked to tell it in reverse. Once you can do it forward and backward it should be pretty well ingrained, this also helps for when you do still end up running by something like a port and get that "oh f*#k what am I forgetting" moment, because you now know what the stage looks like coming from both directions.

For our stage as well, I also went to all of the targets and then looked at the ports from the target to see where the confusing parts would be. Like that target that half the competitors shot from two different ports for no reason other than confusion.

[BostonBullit]

I shot that one from two different spots because I'm thorough, not because of confusion.

[partyboy424]

haha, yeah you and about 150 other competitors. To overcome that one, I just kept telling myself that the array from the last port had to start on hardcover from left to right. The target that everyone shot twice was to the left of the hardcover and it was a regular all brown target. So many people came to those ports just thinking "I'll shoot everything I can see" which was totally not the way to do it and caused a whole lot of guys to run dry as they started bending around far more than they did on walkthrough and realized they could see half the targets on the stage from the different angles.

[BostonBullit]

Ok, I admit it, I got a bit burned out after Area 7 last month. It's the wind down of the season up here in my neck of the woods and everything'll be moving indoors soon for what few matches we have during the winter, so it's felt like there isn't much to work towards. Part of it is that I thought I built up a good momentum going into the A7 match only to crap myself on a few stages and end up middle of the pack in Production; kind of a let down. So basically I haven't been doing any dry fire practice at home and my live fire with the club group has been limited due to lack of sunlight...not a recipe for advancement. I HAVE been spending some of my live fire time working on my biggest issue (accuracy). Manny told me in class that I should spend half of my practice time or half of my practice ammo on the thing I need to work on most so that's what I've been doing. I did dot drills for the first half of practice sessions and two weeks ago it went great, last week not so much; inconsistency is my super power.

Last weekend was my clubs final match of the season, we had a good turnout and I was lucky enough to squad up with a few friends who could help with the scoring device and timer duties. There was a little running around in the beginning to correct some issues with Practiscore setup (my fault) but after that things went smoothly. My first stage didn't go so well, 2 mikes into hardcover targets and one clean miss put me in a big hole for the rest of the match. I had a reasonable run on the all steel stage and thought I was in good shape there but at the end of the day I dropped down to 6th (I think) on that one...watching the video I see where I lost a lot of time and what I need to work on. Another inconsistent performance and another middle of the pack finish. not surprising considering I haven't been working on what I know are issues in my game

After the match I was able to run the stage I had the mikes on again with a friends CZ SP01 Shadow Target just for giggles. I ran two mags through slowly to get a feel for the gun and then ran the stage again on the timer. The run was slowed down when we had to stop to check for a potential squib so I don't have an actual comparison time but I know this: when I finished he said something to the effect of "wow, you were going A LOT faster than I would expect for someone who's shooting a gun he hasn't used before", and it felt like I was driving it faster than my match run with the G22. went to check the hits and they were all there. the tuxedo targets, which absolutely kill me in matches, had two hits on them lined up solid in the center horizontally. dropped into the C for a shot or two but they were lined up down the middle. So the hunt begins again...or really I should say it continues...seems like half the USPSA shooters in the country are looking for the same thing and then I'm at the disadvantage of living behind the lines, not gonna be easy...

[lugnut]

Hang in there Pete. The ups and downs are all part of the game. It's never easy to build up everything for one match... there's always the possibility of a major let down. Gotta look at every match the same IMO.

As far as the gun... well it seems like most of the cool kids are using the CZs these days. However I know a few people that have switched back to the Glock... locally and otherwise. Some guns may just work better for others but I'm a firm believer in the "It's the Indian not the arrow".

No cool gun will make up for good, quality practice. Patience my friend.

[BostonBullit]

Unfortunately Lug I don't have a work/family situation that allows for good quality practice at the moment; and won't in the near future. Even dry-fire is hard to get good results from when on most days you're so tired by the time you get to it that you're just going through the motions. It's a situation that's not unique to me, but it's still the situation I'm in.

On the CZ, I don't really care what's cool or flashy or popular (you should know that by the way I dress); I only care what works. I'm not going to pickup a CZ and all of the sudden be a Master class shooter, no delusions there. But I also can't keep rollin along fighting the glock either. I know some people can drive a glock really well but I'm not one of those peoples. Some other people give in and nudge the sight over but I won't do that either. When I first picked the glock back up after shooting Open last season I was back to my usual low left 7 o'clock hits. It's taken me 5k rounds this year to work my way from that low left to just plain ol left. Some days I can put rounds where I want during slow fire but most of the time not. I've just never shot that damn gun well

I might take the USP out of the safe for this Weds night live fire and see how I do with that....talk about not conforming to what the cool kids are shooting

[lugnut]

On the practice time I hear you... 100%. Sometimes my intentions are bigger than my actions as well! After supper time.. it's easier to sit on my ass... or, when the kids were here... hang around with them.

Here's the thing with your issues with the Glock and I totally understand what you are dealing with. Trigger pull and sight alignment fundamentals are the same for any gun, whether it's an open gun, a CZ or Glock. With the cool triggers on an open gun and some CZs it's "easier" to "manage" the sight alignment with a sweet trigger. I'm no expert on this subject as I have some issues too (they NEVER go away) but when you are pulling the trigger you are also subconsciously doing something else to move the gun. Sounds like you might have been anticipating the ignition and been pushing the gun down (low shots) but you've fixed this which is awesome. As far as shot to the left there are numerous issues that could be causing that. It might be where and the way your trigger finger is pulling the trigger back, but it might still be the grip or tensing of the grip AS you are breaking the shot. This makes you insane s you KNOW the sights were aligned in the middle of that tuxedo!!!! I agree, you should never hold the sights "off target" to get your desired hits... you will never get better doing that. Smart.

Bottom line- you need to find what works for you! And you need to be having fun! I don't get down your way for practice but if you let me know in advance I'd be happy to swing by and let you use my CZ for the practice! Do you go to the Dynasty after practice still?

Edit: I can also let you use my G34 fwiw. Bill like this over the G22 a bunch. Just saying.

Edited October 8, 2013 by lugnut

[BostonBullit]

Ok, I'm back. Like many in the NorthEast part of the country I've taken a bit of a break from the USPSA training the last few months. I've been attending our weekly practice sessions and even a couple of local indoor matches but my dryfire and serious practice has been reduced to just below zero. To be completely honest with all my loyal readers here I'll tell you that I've spent most of the winter doing undercover work deep in FUDD territory - the clays fields. Observing the dedicated clay shooter in his natural habitat has been a very interesting and eye opening experience to say the least....

So I said I've shot a couple of local indoor matches, how did they go? glad you asked! The first match back in Dec went very well, I managed third place in Production behind two very good Master ranked shooters but only managed 79% of the winners score. For once I was able to drive the glock 22 in an accurate way which picked me up some hard to earn points on an array of zombie targets with mostly upper A zone hits. On smaller indoor matches match points from the one or two long stages are critical to overall standing and I accomplished this. That said I pushed a little too hard and had 3 mikes on the day finishing with only 75% available points after penalties.

The January match was more of a crap show, 6th of 13 with only 59% of the top shooter. Accuracy wasn't there and I left way too many points behind to be happy with that match. Rather than stay focused and try to recover after things looked like they were going downhill I decided to have some fun with it and really push things. the results were as you would expect.

So what's on tap for 2014? My plan at this time is to stick with Production for another season. My Open gun is due back in the next month or so and I'll dabble with that here and there at practices for fun but I'm not a good enough shooter to bounce between divisions. I've finally had enough with the Glock, I know some people who drive them amazingly well but I am not one of those people. It's a lot better after an entire season of using it but I've decided to try something new. To that end I've acquired a very nice CZ SP01 Shadow Target with SRT and will be using that this upcoming season. I need to get used to that first DA pull and the fact that there's NO take-up in SA. I used it for the first time at the club plate match the other night and by the end of the evening I had a better feel for it and was knocking plates down well. Now I need to dry-fire the hell out of it and really practice the reloads. The 10rnd cripple mags are 100000x easier to seat than the glock ones so that should help!

I managed a 64.7% on the classifier at the Dec match (13-05) and a 58% on my second run at the classifier in January (99-23) so it's good to see those scores leveling out. I'm sitting on a 58.64% overall classification in Production and my plan is to be an A by the end of the 2014 season. I need to clean up a lot of the little things and be more serious to reach that goal but I feel it's possible. I hovered in the high 40s since my first classifier in 2011 (I spent a season in Open as well) and it was only when I started doing serious dryfiring that I saw a big jump in my classification percentage. I need to do the same thing with the new rig and do more focused drills at live fire to get a feel for it and we'll see how things go

[lugnut]

Good luck with the CZ. You gave the Glock a fair shot. Although it's Indian and not the Arrow... some guns just work better for some people. Now I expect to see you make B at the next match right?

[BostonBullit]

Good luck with the CZ. You gave the Glock a fair shot. Although it's Indian and not the Arrow... some guns just work better for some people. Now I expect to see you make B at the next match right?

I need something along the lines of a 61.5% on a non-dupe to bump which should be an attainable goal IF I put in some practice time getting used to the CZ way of things.

[BostonBullit]

Spent a little (very little) time last night dry firing and practicing reloads with the CZ. The index is different than the Glock and I'm having a little trouble re-establishing my grip after the reload. I'm going to run the gun stock at the local indoor match this Sunday and then decide if I want to swap out to the thin alum grips. Tonight is a short live fire night, we share the range with the gallery guys and they have a home match. Hoping to get enough time to do some basic work and make sure the gun is running right with the latest batch of ammo I made. Need to force myself to dryfire the next few nights to be ready for the match....we'll see where my discipline levels are

[Steve_P]

Let me know if you want to try a pair of vz grips. I have a spare set.

[BostonBullit]

Thanks Steve. I have the wood grain ones that came with the gun on there right now, any idears how the VZ compare in terms of fatness?

[Steve_P]

They are thicker than the aluminum, but slimmer than the rubber ones.

They are also quite grippy on the hand too, which is nice.

[lugnut]

Matt Lombard has the VZ grips I believe- they are nice. I used the aluminum ones and they sucked IMO. In the end I went with the factory rubber grips- best choice IMO.

[Steve_P]

Matt Lombard has the VZ grips I believe- they are nice. I used the aluminum ones and they sucked IMO. In the end I went with the factory rubber grips- best choice IMO.

spoken by a glock guy....