Nimitz Posted July 28, 2015 Author Share Posted July 28, 2015 thanks ... I'm currently shooting 5 To Go around 2.6- 2.7 going close to far so we'll see. Even if I'm not much faster with this order I think it is a lot less risky which for me has big benefits. It's the same reason I shoot Accelerator 5,4,1,2 stop; it allows me to accelerate throughout the stage & is much less risky then shooting plate 4 just prior to the stop plate. Most people have more difficulty slowing down & being accurate then speeding up, particularly as targets get closer ... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ZackJones Posted July 28, 2015 Share Posted July 28, 2015 thanks ... I'm currently shooting 5 To Go around 2.6- 2.7 going close to far so we'll see. Sure go ahead crush me. I have my best run ever and I'm still seconds behind you . It's the same reason I shoot Accelerator 5,4,1,2 stop; it allows me to accelerate throughout the stage & is much less risky then shooting plate 4 just prior to the stop plate. Most people have more difficulty slowing down & being accurate then speeding up, particularly as targets get closer ... I hear ya but sometimes it's just so hard to pass up that close target. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Nimitz Posted July 29, 2015 Author Share Posted July 29, 2015 you'll get there ... just keep at it One thing I like to tell people is that there is not just one correct order to shoot the stages ... your shooting order should maximize your strengths & minimize your weaknesses. Just because KC & max shoot a stage one way does not mean everyone should do it that way. Just remember that as you get better you'll probably want to change how you shoot it to take advantage of new strengths in your shooting. I do not shoot any of the 8 stages in the order I did the first year I was learning to Shoot Steel Challenge ..... not a single one. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Nimitz Posted July 29, 2015 Author Share Posted July 29, 2015 (edited) got around to looking at the video I shot from Monday yesterday and boy was it ugly .... I didn't realize how poor my draw technique had become over the last 6 months with very little work on it. So I decided the only thing to do was to scrap it and literally rebuild a new draw technique from scratch based on some videos I have of the top shooter's draw stroke. Last night after a 1/2 hr of dryfire with my RFPO gun I spent 40 mins working on the basis of a new technique. I started out using the 'super low motion' technique Seeklander taught me and then progressed to about half speed by the time I called it quits. Then this morning I spent 75 rds of just single shot draws to see if it was working in live fire & videoed everything. No timer except to provide a starting beep to react to. While I still have plenty of work to do, & after watching this morning's video, I need to make more technique adjustments I think I'm at least on the right path. Even though I was only shooting at 50-75% speed the draws felt smoother and when watching the video I could see that I've managed to remove some of the 'jerkiness' in my draw. I still don't have a single, smooth, continuous motion once my strong hand moves for the gun but we're getting there. I also still have some scooping or porpoising from time to time & whenever I did a rep like that I'd do the next rep in slow mo to ensure I corrected things immediately. When I did it correctly I could easily watch the dot track straight up from the 6 o'clock position on to the center of the target & break the shot. Also, I was a lot more aware of grip pressure and could easily see what a difference the appropriate amount of grip pressure had on making the shot. for whatever reason I'd become desensitized about the connection between grip pressure and accuracy at speed and reworking my grip as put this back into focus again. I had no real issue with drawing to target 4 and shooting the stage 4,3,2,1, stop so that will be my new shooting order from now on ... Tonight another draw intensive dryfire session is on the menu as I expect this will be the norm for the next week or so or as long as it takes. Given where my transition times are I cannot expect to see any real improvements in my open times until I get my new draw working so this will continue to be my #1 training area in open. Edited July 29, 2015 by Nimitz Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Nimitz Posted August 2, 2015 Author Share Posted August 2, 2015 (edited) shot my first match since my surgery in April yesterday. unfortunately my RFPO parts never arrived so I only shot Open. Had a new personal best individual run on Smoke & Hope & only .24 secs off my current personal best stage time. Most of the other stages I had 1 or 2 strings where the runs where about where I had left off but not a complete stage. My grip was the biggest issue throughout the day as I still don't have full strength in it but it gets stronger every day. next week I'm shooting the Ok Corral SC match with both my guns & I'm looking forward to my first RFPO match ... On the MD side the match ran very smoothly with only 5 of the 40 shooters not preregistering & they were not regulars. Electronic scoring went smoothly & I pulled scores once or twice throughout the match just as a backup .... next month will be a 7-stage match to help those going to the PA Challenge State Championship at the end of the month get ready ... Edited August 2, 2015 by Nimitz Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Nimitz Posted August 4, 2015 Author Share Posted August 4, 2015 Monday's training session was planned for doing Enos Transition drills and draw practice. Ended up getting out of the house a little late so I had to forgo videoing the session. My training plan called for this first week of the Enos Transition Drill using 12" plates at 10 yds and then move to 15 & 18 yds in subsequent weeks. well, I discovered that 10 yds was not much of a challenge so I'll be moving immediatly to 15 yds next time I do this drill. This drill just a visual goals, not par times and I found myself easily getting my eyes to the next target first & having the gun follow. I kept the lateral distance between each target at 1 yd as I find it more difficult to get my eyes moving first on close transitions. The wider the transition, the easier it is for me. I did 11 reps going both L-R & R-L. I then moved back to 15 yds and did about 60 first shot draws. Times are still quite slow (ave around 1.55 secs) as I'm still relearning my new draw stroke. I'll be getting video tonight during dryfire & tehn again tomorrow at the range to see where I am. On the rimfire side my replacement parts came in & I reassembled the gun only to discover the front threaded insert on my TacSol barrel is sticking up about 1/16" so the Alchin mount won't sit flush on the barrel. I tried banging on it a bit with a gunsmith hammer but no joy. You can see a pic of it in a thread I just started in teh Steel Challenge sun forum ..... maybe I won't be shooting 2 guns this weekend after all .... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Nimitz Posted August 7, 2015 Author Share Posted August 7, 2015 On Wed I started the session with the 1-2-3-4-5 transition drill at 15 yds this time. This was a little more challenging but still not really enough to push my limits so I'll probably start doing this drill & the other transition drills using 10" plates and start at 15 yds. I then did 60 draws to the 12" plate at 15 yds. After I got going I was able to consistently do sub 1.5 sec draws but I still have a ways to go here. Also, I'm mostly concerned with technique & not speed at teh moment until I'm confident I've addressed the isues with my draw stroke. Having affected a temporary fix to my RFPO gun I took it out to zero it & get some rds down range in prep for tomorrow's match since I haven't really shoot it since returning to training 2 weeks ago. I decided to setup Pendulum to give me somewhat of a challenge, no reason to ease into anything .... Shot 10 reps with my open gun and 20 reps with my RFPO before I have to call it quits. Somewhat to my surprize, my emphasis on my grip in dry fire seems to be paying off as I had only 2 misses of teh 10 open reps & 3 misses on the RFPO side for 20 reps. I was also employing my technique of not looking at the time & just focused on my grip & shooting. I did sneak a peak at one rep early in each group & on the open side it was 4.70 sec run & the RFPO run was 2.77 secs. both, pretty much where I was before my surgery .... After tomorrow's match I'll be sending off my Trail lite barrel to TacSol so I'll be back to focusing 100% on open until it comes back ... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ZackJones Posted August 7, 2015 Share Posted August 7, 2015 How long before your S&W is up and running? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Nimitz Posted August 8, 2015 Author Share Posted August 8, 2015 not good news there .... the guy who makes the barrels said ihe wasn't going to have them ready until "late this year" becuase he's running behind ... and since I already sold the SW barrel its just an expensive paperweight right now .... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
biglou13 Posted August 9, 2015 Share Posted August 9, 2015 who is seeklander and what is draw technique? what is your RFPO? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Nimitz Posted August 9, 2015 Author Share Posted August 9, 2015 (edited) He is one of the top practical shooting instructors around and a long time super squad shooter ... what draw technique are you wondering about? this is my RFPO gun Edited August 9, 2015 by Nimitz Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
biglou13 Posted August 9, 2015 Share Posted August 9, 2015 (edited) "super low motion" from 29 july post" OK now i'm having rimfire gun lust....... Edited August 9, 2015 by biglou13 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Nimitz Posted August 9, 2015 Author Share Posted August 9, 2015 (edited) ahhhh .... super slow motion is what it sounds like. You execute the technique, in this case your draw stroke, in super slow motion. When I do that for my draw it takes 15 secs to execute from timer going off until I break the shot. This enables you to see & feel every nuisance of the technique to ensure get are getting it right before starting to speed up ... hope this helps. Edited August 9, 2015 by Nimitz Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Nimitz Posted August 9, 2015 Author Share Posted August 9, 2015 (edited) Saturday I shot a steel challenge match at the OK Corral shooting range in Okeechobee where the MD is a shooting friend of mine. I managed to get my RFPO gun back together & the day before got it zeroed and did a short 100 rd training session. That was only the 2nd session with the gun since I'd been cleared to shoot again 2 weeks ago. I've been able to dry fire but only 2 short live sessions so I wasn't really sure what the match was going to be like .... well in the combined results the 2nd place finisher was 22 secs behind me this time. I also set a new match personal best of 65.1 secs for these 6 stages (Roundabout, Pendulum, Outer Limits, Showdown, Smoke & Hope & Accelerator) with 4 of the stages being sub 10 secs. This match alternates shooting Outer Limits & Pendulum one month & then substituting them with 5 To Go & Speed Option the next. Maybe I should take 14 weeks off more often .... . Actually I believe it's due to correcting my grip issues & the new transition dry fire training I've developed. Accelerator is still my weakest stage on a relative basis so I need to take a hard look at it to see if there is something in particular going on there. For the 145 rd course of fire I needed 160 rds which translates into 90.6% efficiency factor. While that's ok, it really needs to be at or above 95%. For that to have happen I would have needed 7 fewer 1st shot misses. On the open side I struggled with consistency. On all 6 stages I shot at least one & usually 2 good runs but again did not put together an entire good stage. The exception was Showdown where I did shoot a new personal best stage score. I also discovered an equipment issue I should have realized sooner but at least it's easily fixable. on 3 different occasions my magazine came out in the middle of a run. For each one I know the mag was seated correctly has I always listen for the 'click' as I seat the mag. After the second time the RO, a friend of mine, asked if I might be hitting the mag release button. That's when it dawned on me .... 2 weeks ago I change out my thumb rest for one which ended up being slightly more forward then my previous one which also moved my grip to where now the palm of my hand was far enough forward to engage the very nice extended mag releases I have. I actually bought a low profile one when I got the gun for this very reason but it was never an issue .... until now. At least it was an easy fix ... I also boxed up my TacSol Trail-lite barrel to ship back to the company for them to fix the front threaded insert for me. That means only open training for the next week while I wait for the barrel to come back .... no big deal since it's not like my draw doesn't need all the work I can give it ... I'm also going to change my training focus just slightly to spending most of my open time working on my draw for the next month. For RFPO I'll keep everything the same. I know there is easily 10-15 secs to gain just by getting my draw on track ... Edited August 9, 2015 by Nimitz Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ZackJones Posted August 9, 2015 Share Posted August 9, 2015 10-15 seconds is a HUGE chunk of time. If you pull that off I'm going to hire you to teach me a thing or two. Congrats on the match win. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Nimitz Posted August 10, 2015 Author Share Posted August 10, 2015 (edited) true but a .3 sec drop on my draw over 40 draws in a match is 12 secs and my draw is so poor that that shouldn't be overwheming ... particularily if I focus on it. Edited August 10, 2015 by Nimitz Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
biglou13 Posted August 10, 2015 Share Posted August 10, 2015 congrats on win!!!!! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Big Guy Posted August 10, 2015 Share Posted August 10, 2015 I did get a chance to see Ken at the match and he really kicked a$$. Awesome job!!!! Definetively see the GM coming soon. Mario F. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Nimitz Posted August 10, 2015 Author Share Posted August 10, 2015 Thx guys1 I get a little better every day ...... I always like shooting that match, well run, really nice club & an amazing lunch buffet .... and you doesn't like being able to say they've shot at the OK Corral ... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Nimitz Posted August 20, 2015 Author Share Posted August 20, 2015 Only managed one live session last week as I was fighting the flu ..... sitting around doing nothing for several days plus some great drugs & all is well .... Monday's session was more Enos transition drills & 15 yd draws. Setup the Enos drill at 15 yds again with 12" plates and did 10 reps. Ave was around 6 secs with 7 clean runs & 3 runs with 1 miss each. I alternated running the drill L-R & R-L with no real noticeable difference in time which is good. First shots were running around 1.85 secs so plenty of room there ....drill was still not very challenging so I planned to move the targets back to 18 yds for the next session. Did about 65 draws to a 12" plate at 15 yds next. Draw times were averaging around the mid 1.6s with just the one shot so I started adding in a shooting the 2nd plate as well and noticed the times at the beginning climb back to around 1.8 secs. After about 10 reps I was able to get the draw times back to the mid 1.6s including a 2nd shot which is more realistic of shooting an actual stage. Yesterday session was Enos transition drills at 18 yds & 15 yd draws. Times were in the mid to low 6 sec time so not much slower even though we've moved back to 18 yds ... a good sign that my transition training focus is working. Had only 2 misses for the 10 reps. Did about 60-65 draws to 15 yd 12" target again and times started in the 1.65 sec range & quickly dropped to the 1.5-1.55 times including when adding a 2nd shot. The 2-shot draw drills were coming in right at the 2.0- 2.1 sec time with a few sub 2 sec reps. Distance between the 12" plates is 1 yd. After watching yesterday's video it looks like I've almost completely eliminated the issue I was having with my draw. It's still present at times so still more dryfire work to do before it's completely subconscious but we're getting there. Even though that problem probably could account for up to .2 secs of my draw, what I do see now is that my hand speed still needs a lot of work. Even the sub 1.5 sec draws look very slow. It takes forever for my hand to get to the gun to index point 1. The second part of the draw from gripping the gun with my strong hand to on target looks a little faster but is still too slow. Time from gun on target to trigger pull looked pretty good so I don't think I'm losing time trying to refine the sight picture. This had been an issue with my Production gun but with my Open gun this no longer appears to be holding me back .... the big takeaways at this point will be to focus on increasing my hand speed in dry fire and to do that I'll be incorporating Stoeger's micro draw drills .... Tomorrow is more of the same with draws at 15 yds & Enos Transition drills. I'm going to leave the targets at 18 yds and work on increasing speed. Then the next time I do these drills we'll be using 10" plates at 18 yds. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Nimitz Posted August 21, 2015 Author Share Posted August 21, 2015 (edited) Good training session this morning ..... today was again 18 yd Enos Transition drill and then draw work ... For the 8 runs my ave time was 6.14 secs, including 2 sub 6 sec runs, with an ave draw of 1.89 secs. 6/8 runs were clean at 9/9; one run had 1 miss & one run had 2 misses. I then did 20 draws to an 18 yd plate in Speed Mode to continue working on my hand speed. Times were all in the mid 1.4s. Next I did 18 reps of a 2-shot draw drill where I'd draw to one plate & then transition & shoot a 2nd plate. the first 9 were transitioning to the right after the draw; ave draw was 1.51 with a total ave time of 1.89 secs. Going left to right my ave draw time was 1.48 & total time ave was 1.88 secs. Basically identical in both directions which is exactly where I should be .... Going right to left I had 2 reps with 1 miss & going left to right I had 4 reps with 1 miss. Each miss was associated with not enough weak hand grip pressure & in each case the next rep was clean when I focused on my grip. It looks like I'm starting to see some improvement in my draw speed as I continue to focus on this skill in dryfire. Next week I should have my rimfire gun back so I'll be able to add that back into training. Outer Limits footwork is also in the schedule for next week .... no match this weekend so plenty of time for dryfire ... Edited August 21, 2015 by Nimitz Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
rowdyb Posted August 21, 2015 Share Posted August 21, 2015 So when do you anticipate making GM in Production like the original goal in the first post? Or has that changed? As someone who didn't start USPSA until age 41 I'm also curious about your progress. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Nimitz Posted August 21, 2015 Author Share Posted August 21, 2015 (edited) Ah ... so someone is actually paying attention .... & yes things have changed .... After my performance at the US Steel Nationals & with the 3 month layoff due to my wrist surgery I had a lot of time to do some serious soul searching. The outcome of which was 2 key points: 1.) As much as I'd like to fool myself into believing that I can be great at more than one thing, it's just not true & I've finally comes to terms with that and what it means for my shooting 2.) With barely 25% of the time & effort I have put into USPSA Production shooting, I'm already sitting at 91.5% using the new Steel Challenge classification system planned for 2016 in the RFPO division & with only 4 matches & 4 months of serious training under my belt in Open I'm right at the very edge of making A class. Compare that with basically 3 years of full-time Production training and I was just sitting at 67%. To be fair, I was making good progress as my classification went from 45% to 56.5% to 67% in a little less than 3 years but nothing compared to how fast I progressed in Steel Challenge. So looking at all that I decided to just focus on one shooting discipline for the next year and see how far I can go.. Given how much farther along I am in Steel Challenge (for whatever reasons) I decided to focus full-time on Steel Challenge and make GM there first, at which point I'll return to Production. Even with the 14 week layoff, my first RFPO match last week was a new personal overall match best time. So looking at everything, I fully expect to be at the GM level in RFPO by the end of the year so that when the new classification system goes into effect I'll be a RFPO GM. I also expect to be well on the way to Master in open by Dec 31st as well. One of the things I like about Steel Challenged is that every sanctioned match counts for classification purposes & your classification (if warranted) gets updated 24 hrs after scores are posted. In USPSA I had very limited opportunities to shoot classifiers so even if I was shooting at a higher level it's been difficult to make it official. I do plan to shoot a monthly USPSA match even though I'm not doing any training just to keep my hand in it and as a way to do some fun shooting & take a short break every month from my focused, serious training routine. Unlike a lot of people, I look at every local match like it's the Nationals and don't go just to "have fun & fool around & shoot the s@#t with my buddies ..." Given the 11 year head start you have on me & what I read from your posts I'm assuming you're well on the way to your goals as well .... Edited August 21, 2015 by Nimitz Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
rowdyb Posted August 23, 2015 Share Posted August 23, 2015 Thanks for writing back. Now I understand. Yours is one of the few range diaries I check up on and the first I've written in. I hope you get to your goal as well! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Nimitz Posted August 23, 2015 Author Share Posted August 23, 2015 Appreciate the thought but as you well know 'hope' has nothing to do with it ... I know I'll make my goals because I have "decided" that I will, and in the end, that is all that is necessary to succeed .... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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