Moltke's Range Diary

[USA]

Congrats on your win.

[Moltke]

Friday 29 May

Today we shot stage 3, 4, 1, and 2 of the USCA National Championship.

Real quick I'll go over general loading and movement rules throughout the match 1) rifles slung in front can have a mag inserted whereas rifles slung on the back cannot 2) no loading actions until you enter the appropriate free fire zone 3) 180 is sometimes in effect so you have to be muzzle aware depending on gun conditions. I used a front slung rifle the entire match with a mag inserted the entire match because the gun didn't bounce or bother me, AND I didn't want to take time loading when entering a new free fire zone.

Stage 3 started seated in a chair with 4 rifle targets on / in the edge of the woods, then clear the rifle on the way to the next shooting area, draw the pistol and engage various pistol targets including a fast moving clam shell, then dump the pistol and move to some more long range rifle in the woods (at a steep decline). I started the course of fire with my elbows on knees and brought the gun up perfect to break the first shot. I fired 7 shots for the first 4 targets, hampered by the lack of visibility in the woods since I was only using a 1x scope. Thank god for the big yellow backers that were placed there or the Irons division shooters would have been pretty neatly screwed. I dropped my magazine out of the gun and racked the charging handle while leaving the box calling EMPTY GUN on the way out to make sure the RO saw, heard, and knew exactly what was going on. The pistol part of the course was done well with a variety of shots mixing easy paper and easy steel, with hard paper and hard steel all at once, I think I threw 1 extra shot?? Then dumped the pistol and ran hard for the last position. Being careful not to load the gun until I was in the box I did grab my magazine very early and orient the gun into a good loading angle. Upon entering I seated the magazine and racked the charging handle while plopping down onto my ass for a downhill seated position in order to avoid prone. With my feet propped on the front of the shooting box and knees on elbows, I had a very stable position to make quick work of the long range rifle targets.

Stage 4 started standing on the left side of Peacemaker's largest tactical bay shooting 2 plate racks obscured by no-shoot targets, then reloading while moving laterally to engage 8 more pistol targets hidden between walls, and finally onto a chain supported swinging wobbly platform to fire 40 rifle rounds into paper targets at the back of the bay. Personally I think 40rds of rifle was unnecessary from one position but damnit if I was going to do it then I was going to do it the bestest. In USCA there are mutliple scoring zones on cardboards unlike 3-Gun and I decided to take my time on these papers. Instead I wish I had gone just slow enough to get 2 hits on each because I still took a ton of "target time" from C's and D's. Timer beeps! Draw and burn the plate racks, reach for my reload which is stuck but get it in the gun before I come to a stop (no time lost), fire 3, move, stop, fire 3, move, stop, fire 2 from the total gamer position that nobody else was willing to try - get my hits and run. As I slowed down and came to a stop I shot 5 steel faster than I realized I could and surprised at that fact I dumped my pistol. Stepping on to the platform with a magazine in one hand and rifle in the other I leaned hard left just like I planned to shift my weight stable non-swinging position so I'd avoid feeling like a 5 year old on monkey bars while speed shooting my rifle. But then I thought, wow this is stable... And that, that thought right there screwed me. I stopped thinking about which targets to shoot before moving and instead just started blasting. Not only did I get poor hits on paper, I shot 2 targets more times than needed... and those extra shots weren't even Alphas.

Stage 1 started with some pistol shots moving laterally and then rifle shots from a VTAC barricade, and I should have used my Binos before shooting. Instead of scoping the targets at 10x to see what I'm shooting and where to aim, I just eyeballed them and considered it good enough. I burned through the pistol and the easy up close papers, then proceeded to shoot the target in the legs half a dozen times hearing hits but not hearing hits called. So I changed my point of aim in preparation of leaving that target (usually what I do as an Irons shooter is shoot the four corners of a square around my original point of aim) and got it the hit I needed on my first hold high right. The rest went easy but I was enraged at myself afterwards for shooting the base and costing me probably 10-15 seconds of time. Had I not made that mistake I would have absolutely crushed that stage even against the scoped shooters.

Stage 2 was all rifle and was a jungle run ending with a rooftop barricade shooting steel set deep into the woods. Based on the round count I wouldn't have to reload until I was at the roof prop so it was burner ammo up close and Stillwood Steadfast 69gr for the far stuff. Upon mounting the rooftop barricade, I assumed a position that most don't which is having as much of my body off the barricade as possible. I see people want to lay on it, and I did at first too, but since I have practiced using one of these at Peacemaker I have decided that I would rather assume a modified reverse kneel to have the forearm supported by the barricade and my strong elbow supported by my knee. Not only is it stable, but its fast, repeatable, and I can move the gun around in a much bigger arc (far left & right) than I can if I'm laying on the roof. Anyway, this stage went very well and I had to "thread the needle" by shooting between a couple trees for the far right steel. Fun stage and would like to see more like it, but would also like to see more pistol on close papers instead of wasting rifle rounds on targets that I can shoot with a pistol.

[Moltke]

Congrats on your win.

Thanks Jim!! ^^^Spoiler alert!!

Edited June 1, 2015 by Moltke

[Moltke]

6 June

I showed up to the Freedom Munitions 3-Gun match hosted by Tarheel and was squadded for the afternoon. At 1100 in the AM it was already brutally hot (90 degrees??) and my PM squad hadn't even started yet. We were scheduled to shoot 1, 2, 3, 4 on the first day and 5, 6, 7, 8 on the second day (thankfully a morning session). I shot Factory at this match as a last minute decision.

Stage 1 - Long shotgun run and gun with 3 50+ yard slug shots. I got my game plan down, knew what I wanted to do, and then when I was on deck I needed to adjust my belt. To do so I removed my 12rd Invictus Practical shotgun caddy and forgot to put it back on. Of course at the end of the couse of fire when I thought I was going to have another 12 shells to load... I had an empty gun and no rounds left on my body.

FFFFFFFFFFUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUU*****************************************************************************************************************************************

So yeah, that sucked. I ended the course of fire staring at 3 clay birds which became 3 FTE's. Ouch. A bad way to start the day.

Stage 2 - This stage involved all 3 guns, started prone in a vehicle, and finished with a downhill advance with targets on both sides. While in the vehicle I could not get stable and then got a little trigger happy, slapping around and missing the targets. I slowed down and got my hits but in the meantime I burned my arm, chest, stomach and neck because brass was bouncing off the wall I was snuggled up next to. Oh well, its burning but keep shooting! Happy to exit the van and charge down the hill blasting shotgun targets.

Stage 3 - Stage 3 started with long range rifle shooting from an overturned empty wire spool and then became a small shotgun and pistol dance. I shot this pretty much like everyone else except instead of reloading my shotgun I dumped it and went under the low port to hit the birdshot and slug targets with my pistol. I was a little disgruntled and dehydrated by this time so I wanted to have some fun and went supine laying down facing forward shooting between my legs. It was ballsy but I got the hits and it was fun.

Stage 4 - The house stage with Mike and Nancy! I chose to start with the shotgun and use my hot #6 Pheasant loads on the far steel and dueling tree.... it was more than enough with my Modified choke in the gun and sounded like pure anger exploding from the shotgun. I think Mike was laughing behind me but I can't be sure. After finishing there I blasted the rest of the steel with the pistol and was so happy to be done for the day.

All day on 6 June I was scatterbrained, lost, unfocused and just could not pull it together. The heat was bad but I'm used to the heat, I was drinking water whole bottles at a time, and was just dragging ass all day. My mental state suffered for sure and so did my shooting.

7 June

Stage 5 - This was a liner uphill run from box to box, starting with the rifle freestyle unsupported at targets out to 100 yards, then pistol targets out to 25-ish yards, then shotgun steel and flipping clays along with slug targets at 50 yards. All the shots were easy, this stage was about who could do it the fastest. The only difference between the way I shot this course and most others did was I chose to reload and reholster my hot pistol so I could shoot the slug targets with it. Looking back on the plan I wish I had not and shot the pistol dry then dumped & run.

Stage 6 - Close range pistol through a van with a couple hidden steel targets, and then long range rifle from the bed of a pickup truck proned out over the roof. This course was easy but people were not taking the time to really learn the course of fire and as a result at least half of our squad left 1 steel un-shot and un-engaged, some left more.

Stage 7 - This stage was a linear downhill advance with all targets on the left side, starting with the pistol on steel & papers & slug targets. After dumping the pistol I picked up my shotgun and shot on birdshot targets until it was empty then dumped it too, having already shot the slug targets with my pistol. So I moved to the rifle. I was confident about getting first round hits but then couldn't see the Larue targets in the shade and had to reposition for the MGM flashers, so there was considerable extra time on the rifle part.

Stage 8 - This stage was built for Factory shooters, as far as I can tell it was the only one that was really Factory friendly throughout the match. Start with the shotgun holding 8 + 1, their was no advantage to mass loading and based on space between shooting positions and the round counts in arrays it worked out well. Start, shoot 5, load 4, shoot 5, load 4, shoot 3, load 4 slugs, shoot 4 slugs, empty the gun on pistol optional steel then dump and finish with the pistol. Very division irreleant course of fire and I actually liked it alot because of that.

Overall I placed 4th in Factory at this competition and I'm happy with that score considering all the bad shooting that I executed on day 1.

[Moltke]

13 June

I took a Steve Anderson pistol course today. It started with his "dry fire tune up" in the morning and after lunch we went into discussing and developing the mental game. Steve is a very smart guy and anyone who hasn't taken his class should go out of their way to get into one. Not only does he know dry fire and classifiers for those who are interested in achieving Grand Master in USPSA but he knows how to break down and execute field courses with incredible speed, accuracy, and efficiency. However none of that is worth a dime unless he can convey that information to other shooters; and since communications & motivation is his bread and butter, he can get a point across to anyone. This is actually my third class with Steve and each time I have got something "more" out of his instruction. It's like when you read the Enos book yearly and you interpret something that you've read before in a new way because as a shooter... you've grown since the last time you'd saw it. Aside from making me faster and more accurate, helping me breaking down stages and more efficient at execution; every time I've had a class or refresher with Steve he grows my mental game. Recently I have had a problem staying "in the zone" regarding mental focus and I'm fast, and I'm accurate, but losing breaking focus kills my score in matches. And Steve showed us all a very good "stay in the zone" drill at the end of the day! I expect to see my scores improve for the rest of the year while I try to figure out how to apply his teachings to 3Gun instead of just USPSA.

[Moltke]

Friday June 19

Went to Peacemaker today and practiced close range pistol and shotgun on a plate rack. Warmed up with some pistol draws, then running a plate rack at 10 yards, then stepping into a box and breaking a shot on just 1 plate on the rack as quickly and efficiently as possible. Then I replicated the exact same thing with the shotgun and realized that my shotgun at 15 yards.

Afterwards I went to shoot some long range with a local sponsored Pro shooter. Picked her brain about the industry and 3 Gun as a sport, sponsors and politics; and decided that the more I learn about it the less I like it. I just want to shoot and do well, have fun with friends and learn stuff as I build myself into a more capable shooter. Anyway, it was a good day!

[Moltke]

Saturday June 20

Shot the local 3-Gun match at my home club Peacemaker National Training Center and crushed it. I decided to shoot my irons rifle with 1x optic, shotgun with 8rd tube, and CZ with 15rd magazines in the Optics division... and even with my reduced capacity guns & irons rifle, I placed 3rd overall. The courses of fire were fun, fast, included movement, one had a low port, one had a round robin run, shooting from a van and the long range was visible and shootable by all divisions (because you could clearly SEE the targets).

[Moltke]

June 27-28, 3 Gun Nation MidAtlantic Regional in Virginia

This was a very fun weekend and actually got some decent shooting videos. If I had shot a clean match then I would have still been 6 seconds short of winning, and still 3rd place because the top 2 guys were only half a second apart. Bummer. CoF #2 was definitely my favorite because I've never shot a pure 3GN style, self starting, polish plate rack, rifle on steel inside 50 yards, run and gun gauntlet like that. It was also nice to beat Chris by a few seconds on a drag race!

1 -

2 -

3 - not captured on video!

4 -

5 -

6 -

7 -

8 -

Still trying to figure out how I want to do video in the future. GoPro? Pivothead? Cellphone camera? This was all shot with my Android tablet and looks much better on the device than it does on youtube for some reason.

Edited June 30, 2015 by Moltke

[Moltke]

I am interested in any critiques of the posted videos. Where am I slow? Where am I wrong? I have done some of this on my own already and made a list where it looks like I'm slow but anyone else (Alma) who'd like to do a review, I would appreciate another set of eyes.

[alma]

Let me start by saying I admire your drive and how well you have been shooting lately. You kicked my butt at this match as you have done all year long. I have a lot that I can learn from you, especially when it comes to your long range rifle performance.

1. Gain some confidence with your rifle with doubling on the close paper. You should be way faster than that when you are up close and personal with the rifle.

2. Try not to let each pistol target suck you in so close. It seems like you should try to run down the center and shoot instead of sneaking to each side.

3. Didnt see it

4. Same here. Maybe dont zigzag so aggressively. It would be interesting to put a test on the clock to see if getting a little bit closer is costing you more in time than you are saving from slightly faster splits on paper. At that range your doubles should be a little faster on that close paper. On the second pistol gong/steel array you should have planned your position to ensure that you had full view of all of the lower plates. It looks like you might have stopped with one plate behind a tree so you had to move to hit it. I think I was watching the last and second to last plates and running until I had them both in view before stopping to take the gong. In the last position your transition to the plates on the right was very slow. It looks like your head is locked into your shoulders. Your eyes (with head following) should be immediately swinging to those targets with perhaps your gun trailing slightly. I am assuming that you forgot about the orange plates when you swung past them for the two right targets. If that was your actual plan then you should have stopped to shoot the orange plates on the way over to the right. I dont like swinging past targets only to have to swing back again later. You looked to be very slow transitioning to those orange targets. Maybe some Steel Challenge is in order?

5. Might have considered tossing a quad into the shotgun on the way to the position with the clay launchers.

6. The video starts a bit late but my guess is that your rifle splits on the close paper could speed up. You should have planned the rifle reload to coincide with your transition and position shift. No advice needed on your last target.

7. Speed up your rifle splits on close paper. The whole benefit of holding onto that thing with the paper should be burning two as fast as you can pull the trigger at anything under 25 yards. Go do some trust exercises with your rifle and truly double taping medium range paper targets to see what your results are. On more than one occasion while watching these stages I have thought that it looks like you are coming into a pistol position ready to shoot. Very often your gun is still down lower, you stop, and then you bring it up the rest of the way. Your gun needs to be up and on target before you are ready to shoot. On closer targets I want to be starting to squeeze off rounds while my momentum is still settling in. Partially the problem may be that you arent reloading with lightning speed and you have to finish the reload before you can shoot but get that gun up and on sights before you stop to shoot. I am wondering if I should have left one or two of those steel for the shotgun since I had rounds left in that.

8. Always start the Texas star by shooting the topmost plate. This one spun on you more than it should have because of the plate that you started on.

[Moltke]

Thanks Alma, so true.

[Moltke]

July 4

I was signed up for Peacemaker USPSA and it was raining when I got there, the match director said he hadn't yet bagged any targets, and so I bailed to shoot Steel Challenge instead. No pasters, no movement through mud, no reset at all, and something I don't shoot very much.

I shot pretty well, with times that an A class shooter should probably have and lost only to the rimfire optics rifle division shooters (aka, cheaters!)

[Moltke]

July 5

Today I shot Gravitas Outlaw Steel Match at North Mountain. What a great time!! Red white and blue painted targets everywhere, even some of the steel was painted to look like little british soldiers wearing the redcoat uniforms. Very impressive setup. In the AM session I shot pistol twice as myself and under an assumed name, placing 3rd and 4th in Limited. Then in the PM session I shot shotgun in the Tactical division and won, even with all the reloading, using an 8rd tube, and shooting against 2 guys with subguns! By the time I was finished shooting the shotgun on most stages the very nice paintjobs were mostly obliterated and the redcoats were back to wearing their usual solid dull grey.

I also brought out a new shooter to this event and she did very good with no special competition gear. A .40 caliber Beretta PX4 off the shelf, leather hip holster, and 3 standard capacity magazines... Considering that the accuracy requirement for this match was HIGH and this was some of the hardest pistol shooting that I have seen in the action sports... wow, she crushed it. For example - there were 24 five pointed stars each 6 inches in diameter with a 2 inch hole in the center. The surface area to actually get a hit was minimal. Knowing that these targets weren't easy and watching experienced shooters spend half a magazine on something... it was a great learning experience to watch the AM session.

When it was her time to shoot everyone was impressed. Myself, the match director, the other shooters. When too high of accuracy is required by shooters in the action sports, it really slows things down, and causes many people to have a bad time shooting. Some people just aren't going to be able to hit the targets. Having never shot with her before, I didn't know what to think but like I said, wow she crushed it. Her stance and grip need adjustment, she needs to be dominating the gun more, and embrace speed - but the hardest thing to teach is apparently already done. Her trigger control is fantastic. Just the right amount of finesse and patience to break clean shots all day long.

Edited July 20, 2015 by Moltke

[Moltke]

July 11

The training day I had at Echo Valley was so far the biggest and best to date. Finally into the double digits of attendance we started the day with accuracy, then transitioning targets, then moved into weapons manipulations and speed shooting, and then a drill to resemble the shooting in a stop & go CoF, and then an "on the move" CoF. Lastly for the people who stuck around we did some 300 yard shooting hilltop to hilltop.

Very good day.

[Moltke]

July 12

I failed to make Master today at a USPSA classifier. Very big bummer. I shot the courses of fire that I was most comfortable with and it gave me 4 scores, which should result in an initial Limited classification but it will be A class instead of Master. Oh well, I really should do Steve Anderson dry fire if I want the paper certification of Master since his program is the way to do it - but I also only kinda care.

Time to go back and focus on 3 Gun more.

[Moltke]

July 18

This weekend I shot the Topton 3 Man 3 Gun with my teammates Chris Rhines and Bill Weinell, TEAM PEACEMAKER

Stage 1 - https://youtu.be/yqe80PaNUHM?list=PLLPCEpy1jULgKVxCRHPe31dvEYGugyDhw

Stage 2 - https://youtu.be/t8_jI7GBw84?list=PLLPCEpy1jULgKVxCRHPe31dvEYGugyDhw

Stage 3 - https://youtu.be/7OB1RxNbzsE?list=PLLPCEpy1jULgKVxCRHPe31dvEYGugyDhw

Stage 5 - https://youtu.be/cv3HuO-CJuQ?list=PLLPCEpy1jULgKVxCRHPe31dvEYGugyDhw

Stage 6 - https://youtu.be/XCNIo0fd65g?list=PLLPCEpy1jULgKVxCRHPe31dvEYGugyDhw

We all made some mistakes that cost us time, but I was the only one to actually gain a penalty. +10 seconds moved us from 7th to 8th place

Edited July 21, 2015 by Moltke

[USA]

Are the training days semi-organized practice sessions? Who can attend, and is there a fee?

[Moltke]

I'll PM you about it

[Moltke]

July 24, 25, 26

Friday’s practice at Echo Valley consisted of mostly rifle shooting in preparation for the weekend’s DMR (Designated Marksman Rifle) Championship sponsored by Nightforce and Knight’s Armament, being held at Peacemaker. Since I had no DMR setup rifle I was borrowing a Colt 18 Pro from a friend, and a Vortex 4-16x Viper from another friend. A borrowed gun with a borrowed optic, and two days of prep before a major championship – what could go wrong right?

Since I use a 300 yard zero in my irons rifle for 3 Gun, I decided to go with the same 300 yard zero using this setup. Identical gun, shooting the same ammo, ballistics matched, so why not? The bullet drop and accuracy from this setup was exactly what I expected all weekend and I know that dope inside and out. That was the best thing about this setup gun, ammo, optic combo - it was very predictable and I knew where to hold to hit. Close, range, point blank, or 600 yards.

The worst thing about the setup was using a 16x scope. Now I’m certainly not saying that the scope is bad, or that the reticle is bad, because the scope is fine, and the MOA hashmarks allow for very precise holds with a smart reticle. However coming from many years of experience shooting iron sights, various red dots, and a 1x prismatic has made me a pretty good 1x shooter. That’s what I know and understand.

My first course of fire was a VTAC barricade in an open field, shooting over natural terrain against 7 targets each marked with a number. Everything was easy to spot and the targets were on the small side of what I would expect to see in 3-Gun. I shot this course of fire in 94 seconds and had some preventable mistakes that cost me huge amounts of time. These little problems plagued me throughout the day –

1) First I should have selected a different position on the barricade. The targets were all visible from y positions on through the barricade and along the steps outside however I didn’t scope out every option (pun intended). Instead I picked on that I thought would be comfortable and checked out the first 2-3 targets. Can I see them? Yes. Can I brace well against the barricade? Yes. Can I brace my shooting arm on my knee well? Yes. Okay good enough. - Wrong. Not good enough. I should have scoped the other positions because the center hole through the barricade was a better bracing position and to shoot all the targets all you had to do was swivel the gun instead of reposition to a 2^nd step. A planning mistake that cost me significant time repositioning when I could have been shooting.

2) Second, I saw something that I was not used to seeing. The target. Yes, the target. What I mean is I usually shoot irons division and I can barely see the target, sometimes I can’t really see the target but I know where it is and where to aim. It’s certainly not an ideal situation but I have gotten used to it, adapted to it, and do it pretty well. But now, now I could see the target. It was HUGE in my scope because I had it on 16x! So my immediate response being on the clock and knowing that this is a timed course of fire was to get on the trigger. And boy did I! OMG THERE IS THE TARGET!! BANG BANG BANG BANG BANG BANG BANG BANG BANG BANG HIT! Then onto the next with the same result. That’s pretty much how that course of fire went until it was over 94 seconds and six more targets later. In the words of Steve Anderson, I was “more interested in pulling the trigger than hitting the target”.

3) Thinking back on what happened after the course of fire I also realized that even though I have been shooting a 2-stage Geissele trigger for a few years now, I got used to the 1-stage Timney trigger in my newest rifle very quick. In fact, I was so used to it from a month of heavy use that I wasn’t taking the slack out of these shots with the 2-stage trigger and just pressing through. So not only did I have a complete mental meltdown because I could SEE the target for once, I also executed very bad trigger control and just slapped through most shots. Thank god for a such a solid shooting position on the barricade or I would have never hit anything.

The second course of fire was a Wobbly Chained Platform with half a dozen targets between 300 and 550 yards, generous targets and we all knew it was going to be the platform movement that was going to make this difficult. Because of the movement and I had such a ridiculous performance on the last stage I decided that my shooting position needed to be even better. So I decided the way I was going to do this was to press out and lock my arm against the forward support to stop the sway, then have to for the wobble induced by every recoil to stop before taking the next shot. Of course I picked reverse kneeling for this too and left the scope on high.

1) I shouldn’t have left the scope on high. Holy crap. The lesson sunk in this time. I thought shooting irons on this wobbly bridge in the past induced some wobble and movement… now lets intensify that 16 times. I spent a lot of time lost in the scope, trying to get stable, trying to find the targets, and after every shot it was gone again. Finally I dialed it down to the lowest it would go which was 4x and used Kentucky Windage to sling the bullets on target mostly by the grace of God at this point.

I ended up shooting this disaster in 132 seconds.

The 3^rd course of fire was out the top window of the Peacemaker house shooting targets between 300-400 yards, some of which were pretty small. This is where I changed the way I was doing things regarding my scope and dope. First regarding the scope, I turned it down to 8x because I knew that 16x was going to be too much again. However with small targets in a high power scoped game I thought I should still be utilizing that “advantage”, even though I don’t consider it an advantage in 3-Gun….

Anyway, regarding the dope changes, up until this point I was lasing, scoping, and memorizing the holds I needed for each target in order. I was using the mental terms of 3.3 MOA, 5.1 MOA, etc. However this time what I did was round the actual 3.3 or 5.1 to 3 and 5 respectively. Then I rounded even further. What was my most efficient hash mark to use as a reference point? Well, I have even numbered hash marks so I could use a 4 MOA hold for both… hold high on one and low on the other….

So that’s what I did. The actual holds for this course of fire was 3.3, 4.1, 2.4, 0, 0.2, and 1.5. This quickly became 3, 4, 2, 0, 0, 1. That quickly became 4 low, 4, 2, 0, 0, 0 high. Look at how simple those holds are! No decimals, no guesswork, actual holds based on the reticle references, and simple = quick.

I shot this course of fire in 63 seconds and realized that I was on to something. I shot the rest of the match with my scope between 4-8x instead of 16x, and rounding holds. This might be a precision game but once you’re precise “enough” then it becomes about speed again. If the smallest targets were 2 MOA, and my hash marks were also 2 MOA, then rounding to the nearest 2 MOA and holding high or low would get my hits. Unfortunately for me, I just couldn’t get into good stable shooting positions and was pressing through the trigger instead of taking the slack out for every shot. Shooting on day 2 was at the Frontier range and wind calls were hell, along with awkward shooting positions, and most shots were between 500-600 yards. It really paid off to have the extra gear like bags and pods.

I have several things to say about this match – 1) I came to learn, and boy did I learn 2) reasonable shots made very hard due to course design 3) rarely do I get my ass handed to me by a competition anymore and 4) this was fun. I’ll be back again next year.

[Moltke]

July 31

Recently I was invited to shoot the 3GN Nationals which could result in a spot in the 2016 3GN Pro Series. I’ve been eagerly awaiting this particular Friday practice to start training specifically for this event and I wrote a very Steve Anderson-esque plan to pursue it.

Steve has taught me a lot of things and one of those things is – “Speed and Accuracy need to be trained separately”. By doing so I have made big gains in the past couple years, so that is one of the things I plan to embrace here too. The problem I’ve always had training 3 Gun is there is SO MUCH to do, to train, to measure, keep track of and work on. So… I decided to put down the timer and just shoot.

When you look at Steve’s first book, he breaks down classifiers into a dozen shooting drills designed to master the skills used in classifiers. That’s what I tried to do with the 3GN Pro Series - how do I need to break down the training plan in order to master the stuff I'm going to be asked to do? After doing an accuracy warmup with each gun, I got into Speed Mode for the rest of the day and this is what I did.

The 3GN Pro Series seems to be a lot of 1) pick it up 2) shoot it 3) put it down 4) run. Targets are generally 50 yard rifle plate racks, 8-9 clays or falling steel for the shotgun, and 10-12 falling steel pistol targets, with positions separated by about 10 yards. Pick it up, shoot it, put it down, run. Very simple, very fast, and no room for error.

So that’s how I structured this practice session. I placed 6 colt speed plate autopoppers along the berm pretty close together to resemble a plate rack at 50yd, then stood behind a table at 50 yards with my rifle staged and 1) picked it up 2) shot it 3) put it down 4) thought about running. (I didn't actually run anywhere because the next table was 40 yards downrange). After finishing a couple hundred rounds with the rifle I moved on to the 10 yard table. Now the autopoppers were kinda like a 10yd plate rack and I had both the pistol and shotgun staged. Pick it up, shoot it, put it down, grab the next one. 6rds for each run, as fast as possible, with analysis after each run.

I was shooting without a timer and judged my runs by the following criteria. Was there wasted time? Was there wasted motion? Was I getting 1^st round hits on all the targets? If there was a mistake, why was there a mistake? I found myself very inconsistent from run to run, sometimes crushing it and sometimes f*#king it up royally. After countless brass from rifle and pistol was on the ground along with 600rds of shotgun hulls, I decided that it was time to go.

This was a very ammo intensive but productive day, exhausting and I learned some things. I'm better at some things than others, my consistency blows, and I miss more with the pistol than anything else - which is surprising because most people (including myself) would say its my strongest skill.

[Moltke]

Aug 1-2

Instead of posting another long and drawn out analysis of the match, I’m going to link the stages.

St 1

St 2

St 3

St 5

St 6

St 7

St 8

I placed 2nd in Factory at this match which is my highest 3GN finish ever. Stages 4 & 8 were actually stage wins for me even with the mistakes present which tells me I need to press harder and maybe eventually I'll come out on top. That being said, this was a time plus event overall 1st place was ahead of me by 116 seconds. That's a pretty commanding lead. When I look at the times and see the mistakes in the videos, I can see where I can catch up some but I'm not sure that even with perfect 1 for 1 shooting at my top speed I'll be able to close a 116 second gap. The things I see as my biggest time sucks are - shotgun loading, birdshot misses/makeups, pistol misses/makeups, couldn't see long range targets, long range misses/makeups. If anyone cares to add to that then please do so.

Edited August 6, 2015 by Moltke

[Moltke]

8 August

No practice this weekend, whaaaaaaaaaaat? Well I had a good reason. Wedding on Friday for a Team Peacemaker shooter and then Farm BBQ Party Saturday. There was however a 3-Gun demo on site for a small crowd and we got some wives & kids shooting the various guns. Fun fun weekend!!

[Moltke]

8 September

So it’s been a month without practice and I showed up to one of my biggest matches of the year this past weekend literally without touching my guns since Aug 8. Usually I practice my butt off before an event like the FNH 3-Gun Championship however for the past month my dad has been hospitalized and I have spent all my free time at his bedside. The night before the match I was tired, worried, and stressed out; thinking that on top of my other problems I was going to shoot like crap too. So I made a decision let go of it all, to let my natural ability take over and see what happens. I am the shooter I am. Just program the stage, press play, and keep shooting. So what happened? It worked out pretty well. I had one stage win, was 1 sec behind on another, and ended up placing 3rd overall in the Irons division behind two Pro’s. Because of the distraction with my Dad, I was expecting to shoot like crap but instead did okay, won a plaque, won a gun, and left happy. My only mistakes were makeup shots on high accuracy targets (mostly long range rifle) but my times were still pretty good. I just shot when I had to shoot, loaded when I had to load, and moved when I had to move. I was on autopilot so much that after I finished a course of fire I would stand there awkwardly, thinking to myself "Those were all good shots but now what?" and then hear the RO say “If you’re done unload and show clear.” It was surreal.

[Moltke]

12 Sep 2015

This was my monthly group training day I host at Echo Valley and pretty much nobody who I was expecting to show up, actually showed up. Cancellations for weather and other reasons but I did have 2 new guys come out and their first time was more like a focused training class than a general practice session. I hope that they got a lot out of the experience and I hope that they will be back. Neither of them have a regular practice schedule and neither follow an actual plan, they just kind of go to the range and shoot stuff OR they just go to matches alot. Neither of those things are a plan for success if you actually want to improve. So I started us with an accuracy warmup, engaged in some remedial training, then a movement exercise focused on efficiency, more advice and training, then some shotgun wide transitions and speed shooting, with more advice and training, especially about reloading, and finally rifle positional shooting out to 200 yards, with some very focused changes to how they sit, sight, and get stable before making a quick shot. It was a good day for it being a rainy mess the whole time but luckily we were under the covered shelter for most of it. I look forward to seeing the next match and asking if the training they received today made any difference in their scores while on the clock, but only time will tell.

[Moltke]

24-26 September

Here are my thoughts on the NRA World Shooting Championship and why I am definitely going to shoot this event every year

1) The match fee was seemingly high at $395... however that's a mere pittance compared to what it would be buying into any 1 of the disciplines represented, let alone all of them! Guns, accessories, custom work, ammo, long range dope figured out... and then a stacked prize table with the guns, optics, ammo, and accessories used during the match? Awesome.

2) Shooting different disciplines rewarded competitors who had wider exposure to the various shooting sports (that aren't found on Enos) however since all but one course of fire was using modern guns, a high performing 3 gunner should expect to be pretty competitive. Going the extra mile to practice a Bianchi mover or sporting clays would set that person up for even larger success.

3) Some of this match was about luck (as always). I'll pick on the PRS stage because it's the easiest. Those rifles were zeroed so perfectly that without a wind effect to worry about, the hits were guaranteed (front bipod, rear bag, 2 minutes for 5 shots). However if the wind was rocking... then good luck shooting someone else's gun 800 yards with a dope that you didn't figure out yourself.

4) The aim of this competition was to see how well you can apply sight alignment and trigger control on demand. Sometimes it was how accurately can you do it, sometimes it was how fast can you do it, but there weren't any non-shooting tasks to distract you from what you were there to do - get on targets and press triggers. I really liked that this was purely about shooting.

5) The match winner Bruce Piatt regularly placed in the top 10 for each course of fire but his scores at DMR and PRS were statistical outliers from his normal range, coming in at 30th and 56th respectively. As a stage points match it goes to show scoring favors well rounded shooters and you don't have to win everything, to win everything.

I came in 40th at the WSC and won a FNH SLP Competition shotgun used on the 3 Gun course of fire. An exhausting but rewarding weekend.