Shilberry's Diary

[shilberry]

I'm a newbie shooter (all shooting, not just USPSA) just hoping to get better.

Been following the forum a few months and thought I'd do this to help my accountability and maybe pay forward a bit of the wisdom I've gained by reading people's diaries here (CHA-LEE I'm looking at you, and I hope you read this, your diary is awesome and inspiring!)

Had a match yesterday and I've come to the realization that I'm a total hoser - I'm unclassified still, shooting times close to the Limited B shooters, but only picking up 70% of points on a normal basis. Going to work on visual patience and waiting for the sights to settle down. Strangely (at least to me) I do way better on steel - I almost always go 1 for 1, so it leads me to believe I have accuracy somewhere in me, but when shooting paper I allow myself to take C's and D's.

Another match tomorrow, going tell myself to not just call my shot, but to call an A. Hope I don't overload the conscious mind.

Edited July 19, 2013 by shilberry

[shilberry]

Didn't make it to the match this weekend, thanks to the rain and what felt like a knee strain during my run Friday.

Did however get some good dry fire practice - and did something a little different this time. I focused on going slow, with my eyes closed with draws and reloads so I could really drive home what it feels like to get a good reload, and a good consistent draw. After doing this for about 15 minutes, when I started to bring it back up to speed I felt like the clumsiness was greatly reduced. I was alot more consistent, and the wheels didn't fall off even at par times where they were previously. I'm not sure if it was because I had been at it for a little bit, so it was easier, or if it's this new method. I'll find out in tomorrow's dry fire to see if these new gains are kept.

[shilberry]

To the range today, and lots of dryfire at night.

Range: worked on my draw - it's been super slow ever since I switched to the CZ. I'm having trouble getting that first shot off in less than 1.2 seconds, and keeping it in the a zone. I can get it there if I pull the trigger faster, but the I can't consistently place the shot. Also did 25 yard group shooting, and some call your shot 15 yard drills. I can see the sights lift about 50% of the time in practice, and I *think* I can in matches too - but there are shots when I see the target during scoring where I have no idea how the shot ended there.

Dryfire: Reload practice. Trying to keep things smooth and consistent. Currently, the mag will go in really smoothly about 70% of the time at my goal pace. I seem to have more trouble with the mags in the rear, so I'm going to work on that more.

[shilberry]

Match today had good points and bad. On the classifier there was a lean left, lean right setup. First batch I was hosing and missed the steel on 2 shots. 2nd string I forced myself to calm down and see the sight and made good shots. Working on trying to do that start to finish, and I think I'll see alot of improvement. The second string didn't seem to go that much slower, even with the extra energy spent on waiting on a slightly better sight picture. Part of my confusion may be figuring out what an acceptable sight picture is for various distances. Close stuff is going fine, I just need to get a better focus on anything > 10 yards it seems.

My CZ decided to stop working after the first stage, the trigger bar hopped off the spring that's holding it up, after some great customer service from CGW, I got it back up and running. I can't wait for my new CZ frame to come in so I can build it up and have a backup gun.

[shilberry]

The CZ acted up on the first stage, but after another spring adjustment I got it back up and running and we were good to go all day today.

Still a hoser, and it seems to be getting worse. I see my sight, they're still wobbling, but I decide to pull the trigger anyway which is resulting in alot of dropped points. Had 4 misses today, and I haven't done that since I originally started months ago. Going to spend alot of time in dry fire accuracy mode to see if I can put a stop to that. The last few months I'd been focused on pushing par times, and not enough on really being honest with myself.

Also noticed that my DA pull is horrid. Next range trip will be a box of ammo focused only on that. On the pluses - did great on the hoser stages, whenever I got within 5 yards my times and scores were pretty great, which I guess is to be expected. Also, I'm seeing more of the sight moving, and what's going on which is definitely a positive. I saw, and felt when the shots were wrong, but I need to program to re-do the shot.

Also on the plus side, got a lot of tips from a local GM, and he's offered to spend some time with me in a few weeks to help work out some of the basic mistakes I was making. Can't wait to do that, and I think that will get me ready for Ben Stoeger's class that I signed up for in September, extremely excited about that class.

[shilberry]

Range day!

Worked on the DA shot a while, put a heavier recoil spring in because I was planning on doing .22 practice with the Kadet also. Hoping that it will make things alot easier when I switch back to the lighter spring on match day. I noticed something really interesting - I was so focused on the DA pull and how it felt and other things I saw the sights going clear as day. For the first time it I was able to see the entire recoil of the gun - saw the explosion, watched it go up, then slowwwwllyyy go down back to a sight picture. It was an interesting feeling, and it stuck with me the entire trip once it started. Hopefully, it's the start of something beautiful!

On another high note, I got a used sp-01 today that I'm planning on rebuilding myself since I love to tinker. Took it out to the local place to get it cerakoted, can't wait to get this new project started.

[shilberry]

Shot a fun local match - and all the focus on accuracy during dry fire and not just blazing par times is helping. Didn't have any penalties, but still only had about 85% of the points, way up from the 70% last weekend. Botched the reload on the classifier, and then hit the safety with my weak hand so I can't wait for the new gun to be done w/ it's new smaller safeties.

There was a stage that I probably could have shot on the move, but I wasn't sure I could have been accurate with it. Going to start working on more movement also. I wonder if it would have been better to go ahead and do the movement since that's the end goal and hope the dropped time would have offset the probable C's I would have gotten. I just kept thinking you can't miss fast enough to make it up.

More reload practice is going to be the focus this week, as well as the accuracy focus.

[shilberry]

Range day!

Spent all my ammo working on calling my shot. Started off slowly, at a distance and took a while to get into it, then moved it closer and shot faster. With more distant transitions it gets harder and I have to slow down and really focus on relaxing my face and just watch. This seems really counter intuitive to me since with any other exercise, if you want to get something done you want to try harder, with this I need to just relax.

Local match tomorrow, so I'm going to try telling myself at make ready to just relax and call it. I think I'm finally starting to understand this whole zen thing - I also have a feeling this is just the tip of the iceberg. There's no feeling like watching the whole gun recoil cycle happen, and knowing exactly where the shot went.

[shilberry]

This weekend's match got rained out, and only got to shoot one stage before it happened. It was the classifier ofcourse, and I managed to call some shots, but I only really remembered the misses. Is that how it is? I couldn't make them up, but it was interesting to 'know' when I wasn't in the A-zone.

Range day this week I did the same drills, working on calling my shots at speed. Transitions with the 22 for a while, then bill drills with my production setup.

After that, some 25 yard shooting to do some accuracy work. Groups are getting tighter and tighter and that's a good feeling.

[shilberry]

I got my initial classification as a C which I'm happy with considering the really terrible start I had.

Had a good match this past weekend, things are starting to come together. I shot 85% of the points, and only had 2 penalties, 2 shots into the hard cover of a zebra target at the end of the day. Focused on all a-zone called shot hits, and I thought they might have felt wrong, however didn't try to make them up because I had too aggressive of a stage plan.

Started my local master coaching session this weekend also, went through a ton of rounds in a day but learned so much about recoil control and medium distance accuracy. After going through the 1k rounds this week I decided to pickup reloading so started that process, and I should have the last of the stuff I need today to start assembling my press. Should make it cheaper per round, but like everyone says it will just allow me to get to the range and shoot that much more.

[shilberry]

Today's match was fun. SUPPERRR long and the squads were too big, but fun. I had a ton of failure to feed problems, which I hope have been fixed with cleaning all my mags, new 10% springs, and a 12# recoil spring rather than an 11#.

Actual technique related - I kept going back and forth in stages between burning it down time wise, with misses, and slow accurate shots. I need to work on visual patience on the second shot. Its almost like my body is wanting to shoot at an accelerated cadence, I call the shot high, I can call the miss, but it would be better if I could just not take that shot. It's almost like my brain is on auto pilot sometimes. I went 1 for 1 on practically every steel, so I know i can be accurate, I just need to always be accurate.

I'm trying to find a local range that will let me setup targets and run around and practice this stuff, as currently I only have access to indoor ranges, and I'm not sure I'm getting what I need from that. I'm on pretty much every wait list around so hopefully something turns up soon!

[shilberry]

Finally found an outdoor range that will let me practice. They're about an hour away so it's kind of far, but it will do until I can get to the top of the wait list for the closer one.

Spent most of the visit chronoing loads and taking baseline times. Only way to go from here is up!

Draw: 1.2s consistent, .9s somewhere on paper, 10 yards.

Bill drills: did 3.5s where I could consistently get all A's. Wheels fell off at 2.5s, all shots on the paper... but that's all I could guarantee.

I noticed on the bill drills that even if I started with target focus, it would quickly switch to front sight focus by shot 3. I wasn't able to continue tracking the sights with target focus and still hit anything. Don't know if this some kind of tunnel vision, or what I should be expecting.

[shilberry]

This weekend was the first time to play in a match since I went to AR to take the class with Ben and Mink.

Not enough dry fire time, and not consistent in going out and shooting resulted in my going back to all my old ways - hosing the crap outta stuff and not aiming. Luckily, this weekend there was a match on Sunday also, so I got to have redemption. Much better the 2nd day, trying to call every shot and making sure I actually aimed. Shot a much higher % of the points, but had a few mistakes. One with stage planning (I skipped a target) and the other was a headshot I swear I called, but turned out to be a miss. More dryfire work on being honest with shot calling and transitions will fix that.