Nimitz Posted December 11, 2015 Author Share Posted December 11, 2015 a few runs with my open gun have been uploaded from the same match ..... no laughing allowed ... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Nimitz Posted December 11, 2015 Author Share Posted December 11, 2015 Since I was shooting Outer Limits well on Mon I decided to continue to shoot it again on Wed vice my usual generic transition training Wed session. Session began with my open gun this time and the cold stage run was a 15.58. Speed mode ave was 4.19 secs with one 5/5 run. Shoot calling mode ave was 5.11 secs. My draw + 1 drill ave was 1.76 for the draw & 2.09 for the 2 shots. Moved on to my rim fire gun and my cold stage run was 12.29 secs. Speed mode ave was 3.08 secs with 2 sub 3 sec runs. Finished off the session with 3 shot calling mode stage runs of 11.58, 11.56 & 10.96. I'm really looking forward to shooting Outer Limits in the match tomorrow ... This morning I set up The Pendulum since that's the one stage I had trouble with Saturday (regardless of why). Started with my rim fire gun this morning with a cold stage run of 9.99. Speed mode average across 7 runs was 2.04 secs with one clean & two 4/5 runs. First shot ave was .65 secs. Did 2 stages run in shot calling mode for a 9.55 sec & 9.54 sec times. First shot/2nd shot drill ave was .72/1.08 On the open gun side my cold stage run was a 14.76 with a 1.7 sec ave draw. I did a total of 6 reps in AM with no misses. My draw + 1 drill ave was 1.59 secs/2.00 secs. I finished the session with some par time draws, setting a par time of 1.4 secs and out of 25 reps I made the par time 6 times, missed the plate 5 times & averaged 1.49 secs for the rest of the reps. I'm starting to be more comfortable with my draws in dry fire but in live training I'm still lagging behind a bit. It's just a matter of time before things catch up so I just need to continue to work the dry fire. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Nimitz Posted December 12, 2015 Author Share Posted December 12, 2015 (edited) Just returned from my last SC match of the year ... an 8-stage Tier I match at Volusia County ... home of the US Steel Nationals. Had 4 new stage personal bests on 5 To Go, Accelerator, Outer Limits & Speed Option .... match time was 80.79 secs which represents a new 8-stage match personal best by over 9 secs .... a really nice way to close out the 2015 shooting season ... My "unofficial" rim fire "stage -based" classification moved to 97.53% using the same 6 stages as currently used for center fire; classification using all 8 stages would be 96.53% Using the possible Phil Strader "match-based system" with the same 6 stages put the classification at 92.28%. # of sub 2 sec runs: 2; # < 2.10 secs: 5; # < 2.5 secs: 9; # < 3 secs: 9; # > 3 secs: 5 (3 of which are Outer Limits) The only stage I "struggled" on was Pendulum with a 11.87 stage time. This was based on calling bad shots on plate 2 on runs 2 & 3 and taking M/U shots, only to see that I had hit the plate on the first shot both times .... at least I'm trusting my shot calling and taking the M/U shots without hesitation but not really sure what was going on there ... the sun was right behind the stage at the time in the morning we got there and so the plates were a little washed out against the back berm which certainly didn't help .... On Outer Limits I had a foot fault on my first run with a 4.23 time causing me to dial down the aggressiveness just a tad which results in the next 3 runs being only 4.5, 4.53 & 4.40. The good news was I went a perfect 20/20 on the stage and still managed a new personal best ... Overall I had 211 shots for the 195 rd match but out of the 16 M/U rds only 4 were from runs that counted ... all on Pendulum. I shot the other 7 stages clean at 135/135 for an over efficiency of 159/155 or 97.5%, once again right where I should be ... I only got video on a few stages as the battery died on my POV ... thought it was fully charged last night but .... I'll see if I got anything worth posting tonight .... between now and the new year I'll be evaluating how I did on my goals for the year & then decided what my new 2016 goals will be. I'll probably also take a break over the holidays as well ... we'll see. I also need to think about getting ready for my 4 days of training with Ben at the end of January ... probably going to need to go into my range supplies and look for some target stands, stapler and a bunch of those brown things .... I think they're called paper targets or something like that ? ..... lol Edited December 13, 2015 by Nimitz Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Paul-the new guy Posted December 14, 2015 Share Posted December 14, 2015 You are killing it Ken. I watched you shoot one stage, your time from the beep to the first target is really fast. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Nimitz Posted December 14, 2015 Author Share Posted December 14, 2015 just posted a video of a couple of stages from the Volusia match, 2 of which were new personal bests ... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ZackJones Posted December 14, 2015 Share Posted December 14, 2015 just posted a video of a couple of stages from the Volusia match, 2 of which were new personal bests ... Do they mark the aiming spot on the ground? I don't see any flag or post showing you where to aim. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Nimitz Posted December 14, 2015 Author Share Posted December 14, 2015 Thx man! Something I learned from shooting with Kaci at the Nationals ... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Nimitz Posted December 14, 2015 Author Share Posted December 14, 2015 yeah, they only had them out on a couple of stages (the ones I didn't get any video on). however, I have a pretty good idea of where 10' out & 2' high is so I just point at that imaginary spot ... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Nimitz Posted December 15, 2015 Author Share Posted December 15, 2015 (edited) just posted 2 videos of the recoil impulse of my open gun with my current load .... 1st is slow-mo & the second is normal speed as you can see, there is only the slightest bit of muzzle flip with the current load I've decided that since I'll be spending a lot more time training with my open gun in 2016 that I should try to optimize my SC load to get every advantage I could. My current load is 100% reliable & accurate (2" off-hand groups at 25 yds all day) so the goal to see if I can reduce the recoil impulse without changing reliability or accuracy. So this morning I went out to baseline my current load as a point of departure; check accuracy, record the recoil impulse & determine PF from the video I can determine that the recoil impulse is good, accuracy is good as well (shot a 25 yd plate rack to verify) and the gun is still 100% reliable. Recorded PF of my current load is 135. I actually didn't know what it was until this morning. When I first got the gun I tried dropping down around 105 PF but the gun wouldn't cycle reliably so I just started adding powder in small increments until it did and called it good. Never thought about minimizing it until now since I'm about to run out of N320 and it will be back to my normal WST. I'll now work up some WST loads and see if I can drop the PF & retain the current accuracy. I'll then make up about 100 so of that load to check reliability. with a little luck maybe I can remove the small amount of muzzle flip that remains .... With my current load the dot rises straight up about half way between the top of the glass & the starting center point & then straight back down. There is just the slightest bit of side to side shimmer as well but I'm not sure it's even noticeable at normal shooting speeds. With any luck by the start of the new year I'll have a new load for the year ... Edited December 15, 2015 by Nimitz Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Nimitz Posted December 18, 2015 Author Share Posted December 18, 2015 made up some new loads to test this morning. My 3.8g/WST load chronoed at 110 PF & the 4.0g/WST was 114 PF. Since I know the gun won't function reliably below 105 PF this is probably the lowest I want to try. I next checked both for accuracy and for the 3.8g load I did a 6-shot 20yd off-hand group of 2" x 2.5" & for the 4.0g load a 2" x 3" group was attained so both loads are plenty accurate. last thing to check will be reliably so I'll load up 100 rds or so & shoot them tomorrow to see how the gun behaves. No issues with the 20 rds of each load I shot this morning so hopefully this will continue. If all goes well tomorrow I'll be selecting the 110 PF load. I just uploaded video of the recoil impulse of the 110 PF load. It may not look much different than what I put out on Monday but the lack of dot movement was very noticble to me. For this load the dot never rose vertically, even a little, like it did for the 135 PF load which should have very good implications on the super fast stages like Roundabout & Showdown. Since there is very little transition between targets, being able to simply move horizontally between every target without ever having to have the dot recover should be huge in the end .... the load feels noticeably softer as one would expect dropping 25 pts in PF ... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Nimitz Posted December 21, 2015 Author Share Posted December 21, 2015 (edited) so, as in the past, After taking a short break, my first training session back resulted in some really good shooting. I need to put in some serious thought about why this is the case so that I can try and apply whatever guiding principles are at play to my training throughout the year .... I only had time for rimfire training today as I ended up chatting with another MD at the range this morning about improvements being done in our AA ... decided to shoot Roundabout Cold stage run was 7.33 secs with an ave 1st shot of .54 secs. Did 11 SM runs with a 1.67 sec ave. 2 runs were clean & 5 were 4/4. 1st shot ave was .47 secs. Switching back to SC mode I did 2 more stage runs; first was 7.15 secs with a .48 sec 1st shot ave & 2nd was 6.91 sec time with a .49 sec 1st shot ave. This was also my first sub 7 sec stage run in training. Since I also shot the stage run clean at 25/25 I decided to push one last time & managed a 1.42 sec (.42 1st shot) clean run .... wish I had been wearing my POV camera today ... but the most important thing about that run is that I clearly saw my eyes move to each target before the gun for all 5 targets .... conclusive proof that I am definitely seeing faster which results in my ability to shoot faster with the same accuracy ... I'm also on the hunt for a reliable method to remove lead from my comp without taking it off ... if anyone has a method that works please let me know ... Edited December 21, 2015 by Nimitz Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Nimitz Posted December 22, 2015 Author Share Posted December 22, 2015 (edited) Time for a short recap of the 2015 shooting season: It was a shortened season for me as I was onluy only able to shoot for 8 months this year due to my wrist surgery which took me out of shooting for 4 months I was therefore only able to shoot a total of 12 Steel Challenge matches this year in rimfire; 10 Tier I & 2 Tier II In centerfire, I shot 8 Tier 1 & 1 Tier II For the 10 Tier I rimfire matches I won 9 of them & finished 2nd once (my 1st match back after my surgery) For the 2 Tier II rimfire matches I finished 3rd & 8th For the 8 Tier I centerfire matches I won 3 & had 2 3rds I was the HOA Senior Champion at the PA State Championship & the Senior Champion for the rimfire pistol match at the Mississippi State Championship I had 3 major goals for 2015: Make GM in rimfire pistol based off the new planned classification system Make A class in centerfire pistol Win the US Steel Senior National title I accomplished the first goal at my next to last match in December I fell just shy of making A class I did not win the senior title at the US Nationals Even though I did not accomplish all of my goals I still had a great shooting year. After completely recovering from my surgery this fall I've started to see some fairly rapid progress now that I'm no longer battling any injuries and have taken steps to ensure I will remain injury free in 2016. At the last match of the year I shot an 80.79 sec time which after digging through the official sanctioned match results for the year looks to be the 9th fastest time for pistol in the country this year. While I didn't review every Tier I match, the results for all Tier II & the WSSC bear this out. With this in mind I've decided to set some fairly stiff goals for 2016: Goal #1: shoot at least one 70 sec or lower 8-stage rimfire match & an average of 75 secs or less for all rimfire matches combined in 2016 Goal #2: make master class in center fire Goal #3: Win the US Steel National Senior HOA title Goal #4: Win WSSC Senior rim fire pistol match title I plan to shoot the following majors in 2016: US Steel National Championship WSSC East Coast Championship South Carolina State Championship Mississippi State Championship Over the holidays I'll be working on my training plan for the year. Based on the last 4-6 weeks I plan to make a few changes to how I train. And lastly, I hope to have my new RFPO gun operational in the next month or so. The gun is at my gunsmith having the thumb rest installed & my new grips from Germany arrived last night & I already have a comp. As soon as my barrel arrives I'll be able to start training with it in earnest ... it should be a great 2016 .... Edited December 22, 2015 by Nimitz Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ZackJones Posted December 22, 2015 Share Posted December 22, 2015 South Carolina State Championship Looking forward to having you come shoot with us. Congrats on making the goals you set out to make and good luck in 2016. My last match of the year is this Saturday and I'm really working hard to make sure I make B class this year. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Nimitz Posted December 22, 2015 Author Share Posted December 22, 2015 in addition to setting the end goal itself make sure you set the performance & enabling goals you need to accomplish it ... I didn't list all of mine since it's pretty detailed but it's things like how much live & dry fire you will do each month, resources you need to have, etc. Mike Seeklander & Lanny Basham's books go into great detail on how to set these goals ... well worth reading. Without setting your goals properly you'll find it quite easy not to achieve them. Most people have no idea how important goal setting is if you are truly serious about succeeding ... good luck & I'm sure you'll make it if you follow your plan ... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Nimitz Posted December 29, 2015 Author Share Posted December 29, 2015 Ran Outer Limits yesterday so I got some data for Dan on transition times ... Did 7 runs at match speed where I averaged 4.26 secs/run with a 2.04 sec box-to-box transition time. Switched to SM and averaged 3.45 secs with three 5/5 runs & four 4/5 runs. On the 5/5 runs my box to box transition time ave was 1.80 secs. My other transitions times were: 1st shot- .7, 2nd shot .34, 4th shot .38 & last shot was .34 secs. The interesting thing is those times translate into about a 10.5 sec stage time which no one at the WSSC was able to do. So that means the top 5 shooter's box to box time can't be all that different since I doubt they are shooting transitions slower than me and still posting stage times around 11 secs ... I got some video which I'll try to post shortly as well of a few of the runs. I also got some video of Max at the nationals earlier this year which I may be able to divine his box to box times from ... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Nimitz Posted January 6, 2016 Author Share Posted January 6, 2016 (edited) Ok, first match of 2016 is in the books and I shot a 72.43 for 7 stages which included Outer Limits. Had personal bests on Accelerator, Pendulum & Outer Limits. I hadn't shot a personal best on Pendulum since last March and for Outer Limits I recorded my first sub 4 sec match run. I've been regularly able to shoot sub 4 sec in training so it's nice to see my match scores starting to catch up ...Also, based on the strength of new personal bests in Accelerator & Smoke & Hope with my open gun my new classification time is 85.85 secs or .85 secs from A class. There's no reason I shouldn'tq make it after next month's match. I also happen to have won the main match but my time was not all that impressive at 113.58 but it does represent very close to my previous best time.It's pretty cold this week so I didn't get out yesterday & probably won't get out tomorrow but we'll see. I have some work commitments which will get in the way as well I suspect ...... Edited January 6, 2016 by Nimitz Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ZackJones Posted January 6, 2016 Share Posted January 6, 2016 Doesn't it just suck to be so close to that next class. I'm sure you'll make A next month. Good luck! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Nimitz Posted January 6, 2016 Author Share Posted January 6, 2016 (edited) agreed but now that I've put together a much more focused training plan for my open gun I expect to see reasonably rapid progress as well. I should blow through the 85 sec barrier and keep right on moving. I've got a full 20 secs to drop across the 6 classification stages which amounts to about a .85 sec decrease per string. For most stages .2-.3 secs of that should come from just fixing my crappy draw so it's not as far away as it might appear at first glance ... I'm looking forward to a full year of intense training and see where I end up .... Edited January 6, 2016 by Nimitz Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
GunBugBit Posted January 13, 2016 Share Posted January 13, 2016 ...Had personal bests on Accelerator, Pendulum & Outer Limits..... Beautiful, good for you! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Nimitz Posted January 13, 2016 Author Share Posted January 13, 2016 Thx! Now if the weather would just cooperate ... I've missed 5 live sessions in a row & tomorrow is looking iffy ... I may have to try and get out during the middle of the day instead of the morning .... I really hate cold weather ... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Nimitz Posted January 15, 2016 Author Share Posted January 15, 2016 Finally got out today after missing 5 live fire sessions in a row due to weather & other issues ... not exactly the path to shooting greatness but at least I managed to do some dry fir during that time .... Today was my first chance at executing my new live fire training program and for the most part it worked well ... got a couple of tweaks to make but nothing major. Shot 5 To Go today: rimfire cold stage run was a 10.33 due to 2.95 & 3.17 runs. Speed mode ave for 10 runs was 1.98 secs & 1st shot ave was .60 secs. Shot calling mode stage times were 9.3 & 9.22 secs. Switching to my open gun my 1st 3 runs were 3.95, 3.43 & 3.45 secs & then I posted 1 miss on each of the last 2 runs of 3.37 & 3.59 secs for a stage score of only 17.2 secs. Ave draw time was 1.54 secs. Finished up with 2 draw drills; 1 shot draw ave of 1.41 secs & 2 shot draw ave of 1.81 secs. Once I shook off the rust from not shooting for 11 days the session went fairly well. All the dry fire transition work is paying off as very rarely did I catch myself not having my eyes lead to the next target before the gun and my open gun draw is starting to fell smoother as well ... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ZackJones Posted January 15, 2016 Share Posted January 15, 2016 All the dry fire transition work is paying off as very rarely did I catch myself not having my eyes lead to the next target before the gun and my open gun draw is starting to fell smoother as well ... That's one thing I really struggle with. I know my eyes should lead but I can't seem to do it at speed. Any tips? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Nimitz Posted January 15, 2016 Author Share Posted January 15, 2016 This only started to come together for me when I added specific drills focused on transition using vision goals & not time goals. Brian's transition drill part I & II is really good & so is something I call the 1-2-3-4-5 drill. I do both of these drills at every other dry fire session & never use a timer so I can focus exclusively on the vision aspect of it & ignore the time. You're probably going to have to go quite slow at first which is why not using a timer is important. It does take quite a bit of effort, like learning shot calling, but the effort pays off big dividends. 90% of all shooters don't know how to do this correctly, particularly at speed, which is a major reason their transitions are slow. Do a search on "Transition Drill Part I" & you should find Brian's thread .... let me know if you can't find it Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Nimitz Posted January 26, 2016 Author Share Posted January 26, 2016 (edited) well with only 5 days before I spend 4 days shooting with Ben Stoger and not having shoot any holes in a paper target for over 13 months I figured I better find some and shoot them a couple of times so I don't look like a complete baffoon on Saturday ... So this morning I set up the Accelerator drill .... 3 targets, one at 25 yds, one at 15 yds & one at 5 yds. The drill is to draw & fire 2 shots on each target The attached pics are those three targets (L - R are the 25 yd, 15 yd & 5 yd targets) times were 3.65 - 3.85 secs for the drill. It's been so long I have no idea what my times used to be but I don't think these times are anything special . On Wed & Fri I'll be shooting some Blake drills, plate rach heads, close, near, close drill & the dots drill .... should be quite entertaining ... Also started the long road back to regain the grip strength I had prior to my surgery last April. I've done absolutely zero grip training since the surgery to ensure everything has healed so it's now time to get back at it. I purchased one of those grip dynamo measuring devices so that I can track my progress since you can't improve something you don't measure. My baseline 'shooting grip strength' using the method outlined by Cha-lee is 98.6 lbs strong hand & 104.8 lbs weak hand. In addition to measuring shooting grip strength vs regular grip strength I also just grip the dynameter with a quick 1-1.5 sec squeeze to more simulate how I would grip the gun when shooting vice trying to grip as hard as possible until my arms shake which is unrealistic from a shooting perspective ... Edited January 26, 2016 by Nimitz Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Nimitz Posted January 26, 2016 Author Share Posted January 26, 2016 (edited) Forgot to mention that I also recorded my all out max grip strength as a baseline as well ...Strong hand: 120.0 lbsWeak hand: 115.6 lbsLong road ahead to get to where I was pre-surgery but the benefits are just too important not to put in the necessary effort .... Edited January 27, 2016 by Nimitz Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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