Nimitz Posted January 27, 2014 Author Share Posted January 27, 2014 My understanding is that even if you can't run a full 8 stage match you can still be sanctioned and you upload stages as you shoot them. For any stage that folks don't have a score for they just get the max 30 sec time & your classification is determined accordingly. Then once you do shoot it it gets replaced with the score you do shoot & a new classification is determined .... Is that what you all are doing? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ZackJones Posted January 28, 2014 Share Posted January 28, 2014 Yup that's it exactly. I've shot 7 of the 8 stages so far so my times will come down enough that I'll be classified as D for now. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
alma Posted January 28, 2014 Share Posted January 28, 2014 Learned something interesting at the USPSA group practice session on Saturday. I was consistently shooting center high on 25 yd targets when I let a friend of mine (who has a Shadow on the way) try my gun. His first comment was "hey your FO dot on the front sight is in the middle of the post ...seems kinda low". well on my G34 the dot on my Sevigny sight was right at the top so I could just line up the dot with the notch & it would be level. with about 40,000 rds down range like that I was subconsciously lining up the dot of my Shadow with the notch which was putting the sight high ... obviously I could spend a lot of time retraining myself to shoot the new front sight but the better plan is to swap it out for a Dawson sight which is like the Sevigny was on my G34 ... I'll have to live with it for Saturday's match ... great, another new conscious thing to clutter my mind during the match .... but hopefully I can get it sent out & returned quickly after Sat. This same friend trains with Manny a couple of times a year and we did an interesting drill that they do ... with a plate rack in the middle at 15-20 yds set up 2 sets of paper targets at 5 yds. One set on the left side & one on the right. make sure their is a good 10 yds between the sets of targets. The drill is for one shooter to line up in front of each set of 2 paper targets such that for the left shooter the targets are slightly to hiss left & the reverse for the right shooter. You also setup a fault line a couple of yards in front of each start line. On the timer both shooters engage their respective paper targets and then move forward to engage 3 plates. Fastest time to hit the 3 plates & get 4 As on paper wins. You must have 4 As to count your time. This drill works best when one shooter is slightly better than the other ... if you have a training partner give it a try, you'll be surprised at what you learn ... I have a SP01 Shadow Target Custom and run a Dawson FO rear sight to give me a nice three dot sight picture. Maybe you would like that since you can index off of the dots or notch and post. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Nimitz Posted January 28, 2014 Author Share Posted January 28, 2014 Alma thx but I've tried those and didn't like it ... too busy. I like a nice plain rear sight and the FO dot at the top of the post ... I have way too many rds down range to change now ... and given the results of yesterday's SC training session on Pendulum w/17 yd plates it looks like my issue has been solved ,,, Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Nimitz Posted January 29, 2014 Author Share Posted January 29, 2014 Ok, I hope you all are happy .... against my better judgment I decided to brave the artic-like conditions this morning (54 deg, 12-14 kt winds, overcast w/chance or rain) and go train .... My really annoying ammo issues aside, it was a good session. I shot the Speed Option SC stage and when my ammo worked I was consistently running 4.7 sec runs. Draws to the first plate (15 yds) were around 1.9 with a best of 1.7 secs with only one miss. Most runs were also 5/5 & when I did miss a plate it was usually the trap plate (#1) as the plate shooting order for this stage is usually 5, 4, 1, 3, 2 I changed my hammer & firing pin springs back to what it was originally but with no better success .... I didn't have time to change the trigger rtn spring back but I don't know if that really would be the difference ... the only thing I know which may be different between the original batch of 100 I tested where I went 98/100 and now is that I've been putting a lot more pressure on the upstroke to seat primers due to some case alignment issue I've yet to figure out. Don't know if this is causing issues with the primers or not .... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Nimitz Posted February 3, 2014 Author Share Posted February 3, 2014 although changing my FP spring back did help somewhat there are still too many LS with the Tulas so I put them up for sale & bought 25,000 CCIs which I shot on Fri and when clean for 6 full mags. managed to sell my 14,000 Tulas as well so not too bad ... Interesting steel challenge match on Saturday. Since my open 22 is still in AZ getting some more bling I decided it was time to bite the bullet and start shooting centerfire ... Although I didn't have any spectacular runs I had a steady match with no major screw-ups. Most strings were at 5 secs or under with a few 3 sec runs in smoke & hope & roundabout. When it was over I ended up finishing first in the production division although to be honest there was not a lot of strong competition. I finished 24th overall behind all the open shooters and 2 limited shooters All in all I was pretty happy with my first ever SC match using my 9mm ...Tues will be back to normal training ... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Nimitz Posted February 4, 2014 Author Share Posted February 4, 2014 This morning's training consisted of group shooting at 25 yds, the Dot Drill & 2@25 Groups were ok with an all-SA group of 3.25" H x 4" W & an all-DA group of 4.5" H x 2" W For the Dot Drill I decided to start at 5 yds since at 7 yds it was still quite a challenge .... I managed to get 3/6 clean dots with the other 3 each having 2 misses apiece. I was easily making the 5 sec par time so I need to take just a little extra time to refine my sight picture on the DA first shot as 3 of the 6 misses were first shots ... For the 2@25 drill I'm at 15 yds right now vice the final 25 yds. I had 9 clean reps with 2 As and 6 reps with A/C and 1 rep with 2 Cs. Times ranged from a high (1st rep) of 2.48 secs to a best of 1.93. the other runs were 2.25, 2.30, 2.25, 2.11, 2.05, 2.02. Draw times were still on the slow side, hovering around the 1.6 sec mark. Once I get my draw to where it should be at around 1.1-1.2 or so I'll easily be making the sub 2 sec goal for this drill and can then move to 20 yds. About half of the Cs I shot were center low & the other half were center left. I had no Ds or Ms. the center low hits are simply from pulling the trigger before the post settles in the notch & the center left hits are from my weak hand grip and usually the first shot. I'll address this in dry fire now that I'm back to my regular routine .... I've decided to shoot the US Steel Nationals in March since it's here local again. I will be shooting both rimfire open & production divisions so I'll even get to walk the prize table for whatever scraps are left by the time they call my number .... as a reference point, my score from Saturday's match would have put me in about 105th place overall in centerfire out of 195 competitors last year ... so I should at least get a koozi ... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Nimitz Posted February 5, 2014 Author Share Posted February 5, 2014 This morning I tested some ammo in a friend's gun to see how it would work so I only had time for 2 drills where I normally do 3 in a session ...started out doing singles on the 10 yd Blake drill as a warmup than switched to the normal 2 rds/target. About half the runs were shot clean and the others were typically 4 As/2 Cs. Only had 1 rep where I had 2 Cs on the same target and they were both center left hits side by side about 3/4" apart. Best time with 6 As was 2.58 secs. Splits were in the .30 range and transitions were in the .4 range during the drill. Most of the C hits were on the middle target; there were 4 Cs on the first target & 2 one the 3rd target. The C hits were also center left which tells me I was breaking the shot too soon as opposed to pulling off the target too soon ... Then did some standard Bill Drills with a best of 2.52 with a 1.36 draw & .23 splits. Also did 1 3yd BD at 2.19 with a 1.08 draw & .22 splits ... finished up with one 22 yd & one 28 yd plate rack run and went 6/8 each time. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Nimitz Posted February 6, 2014 Author Share Posted February 6, 2014 Having mailed in my registration this morning to shoot the US Steel Nationals in late March, I've decided to switch my near-term training to 100% SC. My plan is to train on one stage each training session and shoot at least 20 reps of rimfire and 20 reps of 9mm. I'll shoot more it time permits in my 1 hr sessions. That will give me 15 training sessions before the Nationals which means I can work on each stage at least twice. I may also focus on the more difficult stages and only shoot Roundabout and Smoke & Hope once depending on how things go. After the Nationals are over I'll focus what time is left on getting ready for Area 6 in April .... at least I'll have no excuse for not missing a single piece of steel at Area 6 ... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Nimitz Posted February 10, 2014 Author Share Posted February 10, 2014 So some buffoonery on my part when I arrived at the range on Friday prevented me from doing any training for the US Steel Nationals so this morning was my first session. Per my plan I'm working on the easier stages first and saving the more difficult ones for when it gets closer, I shot Smoke & Hope today. My open rimfire gun won't be back together until tonight so I just shot 9mm. My average time for all runs was 3.40 secs and my average draw time was 1.40. Best time was 2.91 but I may have jumped the timer on that run. Best draw time was 1.21 secs.. On a 7 yd 18" x 24" plate there is no reason not to have at least a 1 sec draw so I've got plenty to do on my surrender draw in dry fire. Transitions were ok at around the .30 sec mark with the transition from 2 to 5 around .5 secs. I was hitting the stop plate over 95% of the time with one hit while not hesitating to get a better sight picture (something I noticed I was doing during my first 9mm match) which is an improvement as well. Finished the session with a couple of one shot draws and a transition on to plate #2 to keep me honest. Of the 5 reps, 4 were in the 1.25 sec range so I certainly should be able to execute 1 sec draws on this stage .... more dry fire ... Overall, I was happy with my first dedicated US Steel training session ... Next up on Wed will be Roundabout & I'll be shooting both divisions from this point forward ... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Nimitz Posted February 12, 2014 Author Share Posted February 12, 2014 (edited) Good session this morning, even though the first 15 mins were in a pretty thick fog. Today was Roundabout and I shot my 9mm first. Average time for all runs was 4.34 secs with an ave draw of 1.79 secs. Not sure where this falls as the first plate is at 15 yds. Best run was a 3.57 sec & best draw was 1.66 secs. Initially I had a little trouble with the first plate but toward the end I was hitting it on the first shot consistently. Also, had the trap plate (#4) bite me a few times when I got moving too fast. I need to watch out for this on all stages ... I also need to remember to transition with my lower body and not my arms. I'll be setting up my video camera from now on to see what's going on here ... Got my open rimfire gun back together last night and needed a few minutes to resight it since I had to take the C-more off. After getting a few hits on the right center edge of a 2" bullseye I called it good enough. I'll sight it in on the bench Friday ... Average time for all runs was 2.56 secs with a best time of 2.28 secs. First shot ave was .74 secs. With the exception of one run where I just completely lost focus ( after missing the stop plate with 4 rds I just stopped ...) I was going 5-for-5 consistently. I only have one match score in 9mm and my ave time for Roundabout was 4.90 secs so it looks like I'm making progress. For open rimfire my best match score was an ave of 2.48 secs/string but my average for all matches is 3.0 secs/string so it looks like I'm improving there as well. To finish up the session I shot a few plate racks at 24 yds and was consistently missing high. When I pushed the post down to just below the notch I hit every time. I'm going to try and put the gun on a bench rest this weekend and try to see what's going on. It looks like the gun currently doesn't shoot POA/POI at that distance but we'll see. I have the fixed competition rear sight on my Shadow so I don't know if I can fix that or not with a new front sight ... I recently changed out the front sight to a Dawson 195x.090 which is what AA said I needed. I'm getting ready to switch to 147s from my 124s and I've heard some folks say they shoot high & had to change to a taller front sight like what I just put in. Unfortunately if the gun is already shooting high with 1244s this may only get worse ... Edited February 12, 2014 by Nimitz Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
trgt Posted February 12, 2014 Share Posted February 12, 2014 I'm getting ready to switch to 147s from my 124s and I've heard some folks say they shoot high & had to change to a taller front sight like what I just put in. Unfortunately if the gun is already shooting high with 1244s this may only get worse ... Hi Nimitz, I'm also shooting a SP01 Shadow, and did find that the 147 shooting a few inches higher than 124 @ 25 yards. Seemed counterintuitive, but I guess the explanation is the 147 bullet with lighter powder charge is actually still in the muzzle when recoil starts and the barrel is lifting? I also noticed a difference between trying to fine tune POI on a pistol rest vs freehand, maybe the recoil is reacting off grip butt differently than when you just hold it. I ended up getting the HAJO TAC rear sight from CZ Custom, then tuning height with freehand only shots (not bench rest). Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Nimitz Posted February 12, 2014 Author Share Posted February 12, 2014 Hmmm ... Interesting explaination. I really don't want to go to an adjustable sight so I may just have to figure out what the required hold is at long distance .... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
alma Posted February 12, 2014 Share Posted February 12, 2014 Dawson gives you a good formula for figuring out front sight height adjustment needed to correct POI - https://www.dawsonprecision.com/CategoryProductList.jsp?cat=SIGHTS+FRONT 147s should impact higher. I was switching off between 124s and 147s last night. In my Glock I noticed quite a bit of difference in felt recoil between the two weights (favoring the 147s) but with the added weight of the CZ I felt like the added recoil of the 124 was minimal enough that I might stick with them to save a few cents per round. The 147s did look to be slightly more accurate out of my Shadow than the 124s. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Nimitz Posted February 12, 2014 Author Share Posted February 12, 2014 thx! When I did the blind 147 vs 124 test last month I could easily tell the difference between the two. In fact, I started to send the rds thru my chrono and would call whether the velocity was going to be around 890 or 1050 before it registered on the chrono. After calling 10 rds in a row correctly I decided to switch. As with you, the 147s were slightly more accurate at 25 yds than the 124s ... 3" grps vice 3.5"-3.75" grps Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Nimitz Posted February 15, 2014 Author Share Posted February 15, 2014 Unfortunately I didn't make my training session yesterday - a scheduled medical appt didn't work out as planned .... However, dry fire is going well and even though I seem to have trained my way out of the issue I was having about engaging the RH safety on the draw, I stumbled onto an extra power safety spring made by a forum member ... sperman, and ordered one. Hopefully that should put an end to the issue. Did a quick calculation for a new front sight just to see where I was at based on shooting 2" high and if true I'll need to add .015" to my FS. I made up a bunch of 147s and on Mon I'll do a POA/POI test for real at 10, 15, 20 & 25 yds to see where I really am. Probably should have done this before switching sights last month but just becuase I used to train astronauts to fly the space shuttle don't mean i've got any common sense .... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Nimitz Posted February 18, 2014 Author Share Posted February 18, 2014 At yesterday's training session I ran my 147 load POA/POI test but I'm not sure at the moment if I have an issue or not .. I posted my results in the CZ sub forum "shooting 147s with a Shadow" if anyone wants to take a look and chime in ... I started off the session with my CZ shooting Accelerator: For 17 strings the average time was 5.08 secs; there were 4 runs with one makeup shot, 6 with 2 makeup shots & 8 runs were clean. Fastest run was 4.05 secs. Ave draw time was 1.73 ( 10 yd 10" plate) which was a little slower than normal but I rarely missed the first plate. Almost all my misses were on the trap plate (#4). Transitions on the 2nd - 5th plates were pretty consistent in the mid .4/.6/.7/.5 ranges for all runs. I think that with a little more focus coming off plate #5 and onto #4 to cut down on the misses and I'll be easily into the mid 4 sec range. The only time I've shot this in a match my string time average 5.48 so I'm moving in the right direction here ... I did notice I was still transitioning a lot by moving my arms from one target to another vice using my lower body which made it harder to stop on each target, I need to continue to focus on this aspect of transitioning ... For 16 rimfire strings my average time was 2.76 secs with 14 clean runs and 2 runs with one makeup shot. Fastest run was 2.56 which I repeated 2 other times. Ave first shot time was .73 secs. Transitions were consistent at the .4/.5/.5/.4 range. I was pretty happy with going one-for-one on 14/16 runs although I think I'm still a little slow to the first plate. There is no reason not to be in the .45 sec range here My average over 7 matches for this stage is 3.16 secs so I continue to improve here as well. One goal for this session was to focus on keeping my upper body/arms still and transitioning from target to target using only my lower body, something I've been focusing on in dry fire too. I brought a video camera to capture the movement but didn't remember to bring the attachment to mount it to the tripod .... it's in the range bag for tomorrow ... Up for tomorrow is Showdown ... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Nimitz Posted February 19, 2014 Author Share Posted February 19, 2014 (edited) Up for today was Showdown ..... 9mm: LS box: ave time 4.25; ave draw 1.86; best time 3.98; transitions in the .5/.6/.6/.5 range RS box: ave time 4.19; ave draw 1.88; best time 3.83; transitions in the .6/.6/.6/.4 range My only match score for this stage averaged 5.36 secs/run so I've had a significant breakthrough in how to best shoot this stage .... rimfire: LS box: ave time 2.47; ave first shot .73; best time 2.23; transitions in the .4/.5/.4/.3 range RS box: ave time 2.48; ave first shot .77;best time 2.10; transitions in the .4/.5/.3/.3 range I had one run with .3/.5/.2/.2 splits & there is no reason not to be around here routinely .... First shots were slower than expected going to a 10" plate at 12 yds ... need to work on this as there is time to be gained here for sure ... My previous personal best individual run at a match was 2.19 so I set a new personal best today as well ... For 18 runs I had 16 clean runs and 2 runs with 1 M/U shot My ave rimfire match score has been 3.04 so again I've had a breakthrough in how best to shoot this stage ... All in all today's session went very well. I'm now confident I've finally figured out how to shoot Showdown and expect this stage not to hold me back any longer. In prior matches I just tried to get through the stage cleanly since I was never really sure the best way to shoot it .... I've set a goal for rimfire that with the exception of Outer Limits & Smoke & Hope, individual strings need to be at 2.5 secs or less which I'm approaching. For 9mm my current goal is 3.5 secs but I don't know yet what it should really be ... Edited February 19, 2014 by Nimitz Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Nimitz Posted February 24, 2014 Author Share Posted February 24, 2014 (edited) Finally getting caught up after been out of town for a few days and out of my normal routine ... on Friday I shot Speed Option but I only have the time for 9mm. Due to various reasons I couldn't get my rimfire sighted in and after a couple of runs of missing 3/5 plates I just decided to put it away and not waste the ammo ...I did manage to finally get some video and I'm glad I did as I discovered some disappointing (but valuable info) , more on that in a minute .... My average time for 10 runs was 4.83 secs with an average draw to the first plate (12" at 15 yds) of 1.87 secs. Best time was 4.37 with a best draw of 1.68. having only shot one match with my 9mm we did not shot this stage so I don't have anything to compare to However, the most important thing I learned from this session was after reviewing the video .... at which point I realized I have extremely slow hand speed on my draw. Obviously from looking at my draw times I knew my times were slow but I hadn't really made the connection of WHY .... I had been assuming that I was taking a long time to refine my sight picture before breaking the shot which was leading to slow times. Well, while that is certainly a contributing factor, after watching some painful videos, it's obviously mostly due to slow hand speed .... So in order to start doing something about this my last few dry fire sessions have been focused on just the initial draw of the gun out of the holster to the point where the weak hand meets the gun to start building the grip. I'm focused on getting a good strong hand grip and snatching the gun out as fast as possible. At the moment I'm more focused on pure speed than perfect technique since I've got to get my hands moving faster. I'm also going to research exercises for increasing hand/arm speed to see if there is anything else I can do ... I know it's not a physical limit since in dry fire I am capable of even sub 1 second draws but for some reason out on the range my hand speed drops to a crawl .... I'm a little perplexed at the moment but I'll figure it out ... First order of business this morning was to get my rimfire pistol sighted in and since I didn't bring my 9mm I decided to do a few more reps than normal on Pendulum which has always been one of the harder stages for me. Of course I managed to leave my timer at home so I don't know really where the runs were timewise but I focused instead on just going 5/5 each run. I did 25 runs and only had 4 runs where I needed a makeup shot so I was reasonably happy with that. This stage more than any other is about fighting the urge to go faster. I always think I'm slow which is when I start to push and end up missing plates. With I month to go before the match I'm feeling pretty good about where I am in training and just need to keep up the dry fire and I should be in good shape ... Edited February 24, 2014 by Nimitz Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Nimitz Posted February 27, 2014 Author Share Posted February 27, 2014 Yesterday was an interesting day of training. I shot Outer Limits for the first time both 9mm & rimfire. I was also looking forward to reviewing video of the session since this is the only SC stage with movement. unfortunately, more buffoonery ensued and I got no video of the session .... 9mm was first and I averaged 7.47 secs over 14 runs. Best run was 6.81 secs with a total of 3 runs under 7 secs. I also experimented with a couple of different shooting orders to see if one was faster. First I shot 1, 2, 5, 4, 3. I also tried 2, 1, 4, 5, 3 and 1, 2, 4, 5, 3. Even though my first shot was faster drawing to the 18x24 35yd plate my overall times were slower because of the movement element and having to shoot the 18yd 12" coming off moving. I settled on 1, 2, 4, 5, 3 for the time being. This allowed me to engage the large plate as I started to exit the first box & engage the 2nd large plate as I entered the 2nd box. This allowed me to have the fastest index & shoot the quickest between movement which is where I figured most of the time was to be gained. I purposely did not research what was the 'accepted' way to shoot this stage because I wanted to do some discovery on my own. It will be interesting to go look up what that is today. On the rimfire side my average run time was 4.67 secs with average movement between the boxes at 2.09 secs. Best time was 4.27 secs with a fastest movement time of 1.91. With the gun pointing at a cone in line with the stop plate (exact center of the stage) I tried drawing to the closest plate 1st (18x24) and then also drawing to plate #1 which had a larger swing but would include the benefit of shooting the 2 large plates between movement. It turns out I was faster drawing to #1 first which allowed for the least overall movement. This was also the first time I had ever shot a pistol with an optic and incorporated movement. At first I was surprised at the amount of movement of the dot coming out of moving and had to remind myself that as long as the dot was on the target I could break the shot and didn't need for the dot to stop moving ... I didn't have any trouble going 5/5 with only 3 runs of the 20 requiring a makeup shot. Since I have nothing to compare to at the moment I'm not sure how 2 secs stacks up for a transition time between the boxes ... it seemed a little slow to me so I think there is a lot of room for improvement. I have not really done any exit &entry drills in quite some time so I'll probably add that to my dry fire routine over the next 3 weeks. I'm also going to try 7 practice this stage a few more time since this one stage could be the place I gain or lose the most time ... hopefully at this Saturday's match we'll shoot it as well. We were going to shoot it last month but most of the one bay were we can setup it up was under water so we shot 5 to Go instead ... Also got to try out my rubber grips and so far I'm liking them, with the palm swells the grip now fills up my hands nicely. I got the new thick AL grips from DAA last night as well so I'll probably bring them with my on Fri to see how they feel as well ... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Nimitz Posted March 5, 2014 Author Share Posted March 5, 2014 Finally getting a little time to get caught up ... shot 5 To Go this past Friday ... averaged 4.75 secs over 18 runs with 5 runs requiring a M/U shot. Ave draw was 1.89 secs. Ave transitions were in the .8/.7/.7/.5 range. My fastest run was 4.18 secs & best draw was 1.81 secs. I was drawing to a 10" plate at 10 yds. My last match average was 5.73 secs so I dropped a whole sec off my times on this stage however this was training vs match performance and I'll have more to say on that later ... This Monday I shot Roundabout. Average time over 17 runs was 4.03 secs with a best time of 3.30. Ave draw to the 15yd 12" plate was 1.97 secs. Previous match times were 4.69 secs so I'm continuing to drop time here, at least in practice. On the rimfire side my ave run time was 2.49 secs. First shot averaged .82 secs and transitions were in the .3/.5/.3/.3 ranges. Over the last 10 matches my run times have averaged 3.02 secs so I'm still continuing to show improvement here as well. This morning I shot Smoke & Hope. I decided to shoot this today because of the poor showing on I on this stage at Saturday's match ... Ave time over 20 runs was 3.08 which is .4 secs faster than the last time I shot this. Ave draw was 1.44 secs to the 7yd 18x24 plate. Transitions were in the .3/.5/.2/.5 range. On the rimfire side my ave time was 2.40 with an ave 1st shot of .63 & transitions in the .4/.5/.2/.5 ranges. Ave of my last 10 matches was 2.94 again, still showing improvement her as well. Having shot Smoke & Hope & Roundabout twice since I started getting ready for the US Nationals I can compare how I'm doing .... on the 9mm side for Smoke & Hope I've dropped my time by .4 secs while keeping my draw speed the same which means my transitions are improving. For Roundabout I've reduced my time by .3 secs while my draw speed has actually gotten slower which means my transitions are improving here as well. On the rimfire side I'm showing a much less dramatic improvement (only about .06 secs) which is to be expected given that I shot 10 rimfire matches as opposed to only 2 centerfire matches ....I would expect at some point my dramatic 9mm improvements to slowdown but so far that's not the case I've also been doing a few reps of each stage in 'Speed Mode" where you only concern yourself with going as fast as possible & do not score or judge accuracy. You are simply trying to see how fast you can go to get some idea of what it feels like to drive the gun fast ... Roundabout I did 2 SM runs in 9mm with the fastest being a 2.42 sec run (1.34 sec draw & transitions in the .2/.2/.2/.2 range). My best SM mode in rimfire was 1.62 secs (.6 1st shot & transitions in the .2/.3/.2/.2 range). For Smoke & Hope my 9mm SM run was 2.19 secs with a 1.13 draw & transitions of .2/.3/.2/.2. For centerfire the run was 1.70 secs with a .56 sec 1st shot & transitions of .2/.2/.3/.2 Remember, although I'm noting the actual transition time while training, I only record the time in tenths of a sec since I'm only concerned with generalities at this point. While I understand there may be a big difference between a transition time of .21 & .29, for my current purposes I'm not concerning myself with the 100ths ...I just want to know if my transition is under .4 or under .3 or under .2. Since the beginning of the year I've noticed a trend that I only last night finally realized its significant and the resulting need to do something about it. What I've been noticing is that there is starting to a be a growing gap between my training performance & my match performance. Until last night I hadn't put too much significance to it but after reading a blog from Mike Seeklander last night about performance I realized I have a problem. Basically Mike says that the only performance results you have are match performance. Coming off a match and telling yourself "I'm better than I shot today" ... well, guess what? No you are not! Your match performance IS your only performance! So, while it's really cool that my times keep getting lower in training if I can't duplicate them in a match is really doesn't mean anything. So since I obviously posses the physical skills to shoot those times in training there has to be some other aspect I'm not accomplishing if I can't duplicate that in a match. Well, that leads me to my mental toughness program which I've been slacking off a bit on as the culprit. Mike's blog gave some excellent suggestions for methods to address this and I'll be incorporating these techniques in my next match on Saturday as well at the following Saturday to see about closing this gap for the Nationals. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Nimitz Posted March 5, 2014 Author Share Posted March 5, 2014 This weekend's Steel Challenge match was an exercise in frustration for me, at least on the open rimfire side .... I decided to bring my box of Federal 22lr I had, thinking it was good 'match' ammo ... oops, it's actually pretty crappy, at least in my 22. I had so may ammo related issues I lost count, causing my stage times to be all over the place. On the 9mm side, my overall stage times were better than last month's match on 5 of the 6 stages so I was happy with my continued improvement here ... I ended up finishing 2nd in Production behind a Master class shooter & in open rimfire I managed to still finish 4th behind 3 Master & one B shooter. For the overall I finished in 10th place. Luckily I have over a 1000 rds of quality CCI 22lr to use for the Nationals so ammo won't be an issue there ... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Nimitz Posted March 5, 2014 Author Share Posted March 5, 2014 As a follow-on to my earlier match performance discussions I've also been trying to take note of my 'cold' 1st run of the day vice warmed up performance and looking at ways to close that gap. A good example of that was this morning's session. My first run of the day on Smoke & Hope was 3.93 secs with a 1.76 sec draw. The 2nd run was 3.58 secs with a 1.54 sec draw and after 5 runs I did 8 runs in a row all under 3 secs with draws averaging 1.19 secs. Clearly after I 'warm-up' I shoot better, the question is how to close that gap since the top shooters perform 'on command', not just after warming up. It would be nice if I could just go somewhere and shoot 20 rds or so to warm-up before a match since that's about all it takes for me but since there are no practice putting greens at our matches I need to figure out some other technique ...not really sure how to approach this one yet .... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ben Stoeger Posted March 5, 2014 Share Posted March 5, 2014 My first run of the day on Smoke & Hope was 3.93 secs with a 1.76 sec draw. The 2nd run was 3.58 secs with a 1.54 sec draw and after 5 runs I did 8 runs in a row all under 3 secs with draws averaging 1.19 secs. Clearly after I 'warm-up' I shoot better, the question is how to close that gap since the top shooters perform 'on command', not just after warming up. Do a little bit of dry-fire as your warm up before you start your training session. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Nimitz Posted March 6, 2014 Author Share Posted March 6, 2014 Good point. I've done that once in a while but I need to make that a formal part of the beginning of each session and at a match as well ...thx! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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