Camo Cowboy's performance analysis journal

[Glock26Toter]

Yeah, I was thinking about that, but PT did get back to me. (in fairness it had only been a day) Anyways, they have invested in some new equipment and they are 1-2 week lead time now. Yay!

I don't know if that's just ass-kicking on their part or CK's dent in the market.

Either way. I think I'm going to stick with PT.

And Drewbeck, I'll keep that rearward mount offer in my back pocket if I decide to go that way. Thanks!

[Glock26Toter]

I spent the entire weekend training with Bob Vogel. A HUGE thank you to Cha-Lee for organizing the event!

I must have been ready to hear exactly what Bob had to say because if I had to sum this class up in one word it would be Epoch. I mean Epoch in the true definition of the word not to be confused with the one most people use... Epic. (they are pronounced the same, but Epoch is defined as "the beginning of a distinctive period in the history of someone or something." Possibly a notch overstated, but the point being… I’m going to become a GM now.

There will be a tad more reflection on this moving forward to say the least. Right off the bat, I’ve identified some very clear things that I need to accomplish. I truly believe that when I’ve gotten fairly deep into these initial tasks I WILL BE A GM. I don't mean to make that statement with any arrogance. I'm simply committing to it in writing and saying it out loud for goal setting purposes that Bob reminded us we all must do. No champion has ever won and didn't expect to win or NOT say "I will be a champion at..."

This is my decision to put “make GM” on my goal list. For a while now I’ve kind of said I didn’t have much for goals and put a few areas for improvement on my “goal list” but now I’m putting “I am a GM” as my affirmation statement.

All the other stuff are things that I will think of more as a task list to get me there.

Here’s the short list.

1. Work on my knees the same way I worked on my elbows to get them healthy. (I won't get into detail but they hurt like hell sometimes and are within my power to fix with the same level of training I did on my elbows.)

2. Dedicated practice. Already on my list, but what I have not done consistently is train with a specific goal in mind. I’ve never really done specific drills and cataloged my performance and especially have never matched it up with other GM’s (yes I said “Other GM’s”) to see how it stacks up.

3. I’ll work on increasing my GM knowledge. I feel “GM Stupid.” What I mean by that is that I don't know a LOT of strategical things that other GM's know. Here are a few statements that make me feel GM Stupid.

I don’t know my performance for Bill Drills.

I don’t know my average performance for most classifiers.

I don't know for certain what my splits/transitions are at key distances.

In a given stage I don't know how to make the decision of prioritizing accuracy or speed. (I know the easy answer of "both," but not the real answer when deciding on a stage plan)

I don't know how other GM's perform in all of the above.

While this statistical knowledge can be overdone, it can also be underdone as in my case. I see GM’s adding up hit factors and looking at stages and adding up splits, transitions, draw, movement and they can usually tell within seconds of how they will execute a stage. I feel like I need to be able to do that and am sorely lacking in my ability to do so.

The reason this is important is because I need to go into a stage and KNOW I can execute my plan. If I already know that a swinger is open for 2 seconds, and my splits are .15 with a .20 transition it’s simple math to know whether I can cram 1, 2, or 3 static targets in before coming back for that swinger. If the math adds up then the execution is simply that. Whereas if you have not done the math it’s just “as fast as I can… and maybe I’ll make it.” GM’s don’t do that!

So back to affirmation and task list…

I am a Grandmaster.

I’ll work on documenting and comparing my performance against other GM’s with a much more dedicated practice regimen and structured practice drills. This will include more realistic dry fire routines. It will also include application of key gun handling and movement skills learned in past and recent classes. I’ll also spend more time reviewing performance videos and statistics of other Grandmasters.

I am a Grandmaster.

Task list:

Work on the new grip I learned this weekend aggressively in dry fire.

Make sure I get more engaged in my dry fire routines with scenarios and more realistic trigger engagement.

Live fire Practice once this week with a classifier and/or drill and document my performance.

[Glock26Toter]

I spent about 30 minutes dry firing tonight.

I worked on sinking in the new grip and my hands are tired. That must mean I'm doing something right. Much more pressure on the gun and especially with support hand. I'm forcing my support hand a touch more forward. Not nearly as pronounced as Bob Vogel's but this allows me to concentrate my palm pressure on the grip just above the mag release. This makes sure I miss the mag release and really helps to stabilize the gun. During the class my PT Grip gun started hammer following. I had swapped out to old "staticy" and was fully expecting to drop a tad in performance. What I found, is that by employing the stronger and forward support hand grip I was easily able to eliminate the static. The dot still tracked less consistently than the PT unit, but with that dot moving in pretty tight ovals rather than all jumbled my accuracy was great.

So I worked on that as well as some movement where my feet were slipping on the tile floor as I pushed off as hard as possible.

I was much more mentally connected and aggressive and it felt really good to complete my routine and have my body feel like I had been at a match.

Tomorrow I'll head to the range after work, check my zero and do some drills.

Goal list:

Work on the new grip.

Take dry fire very seriously

Live fire once this week.

Document my performance.

[Glock26Toter]

It was an interesting few days this past weekend.

I had my gun in my truck and was all ready to head to live fire practice on Thursday, but thanks to some work related issues I wound up in Phoenix by 8:00PM. It was a rough couple of days with some long hours, but eventually I wound up back in Colorado and made it to 2 matches this weekend. I was a bit worried how the stress and how less than 10 hours of sleep between Thursday and Saturday would affect me. I don't think it did.

First, I shot the super classifier up at CRC on Saturday. It was right in line with my latest goal set to get more details on many aspects of my performance. This includes knowing what classifiers I need to practice and how I perform on many of them.

I got a spreadsheet full of data and wound up logging pretty much the same set of classifiers I have on record now. I had 2 in GM, 2 in M, 2 in A, and 6 that were 5% below M. (I ran them all twice.)

Upon checking my splits and transitions I never really saw consistent splits less than .20 or transitions less than .25. This was cursory data since all the aspects of the stage weren't considered, but in looking at the timer after each stage I rarely saw anything in the teens for splits or below about .22 for splits. The only stage I saw some .18-.15 splits on I wound up with a mike.

I don't want to make a bunch of assumptions on said cursory data, but looking at most of these classifiers I should have been in the .18 average range and transitions should be much closer to .20 when targets are within 4 or 5 feet of each other. (most classifiers that were shot) This obvious "not up to par" shooting is underscored on 13-07. That one I logged .25 splits and .31 transitions. It was the slowest times I had seen on the clock and I had no explanation for it. It felt slow, looked slow, and was slow. (for a guy that's about to make GM.)

This is exactly the kind of thing I was looking for and I know what I need to work on now and will do just that.

On Sunday the match was at Weld County. It was a match with considerably more movement than normal. 3 of the 5 stages were recycled shotgun match stages and were equal to or longer than any stage I've ever seen with regard to shear distance.

Wow, it was a lot of fun!

I was super aggressive on movement and posted the fastest time on all but 1 stage. Unfortunately, I let the shooting suffer and although I still pulled out an HOA I would like to have done it with a few less deltas, and slightly slower times.

The classifier was 09-09 "Lightning and Thunder." This was one of the Bob Vogel class drills and my performance on it underscores the importance of being able to change shooting speed to match the challenge. With a par time of 5 seconds on all strings you do a 75' string, 45' string with reload, and a 30' strong hand only string. As long as I don't waste any time there's no reason a shooter of my ability shouldn't be able to land all my hits. I was able to call each shot, with a deliberate execution and in all cases finished with maybe .5 - 1.5 seconds left on the par timer. If felt REALLY good to show myself I could do that. The accuracy wasn't quite what I had hoped but nothing to sneeze at with only 3 charlies. This netted me a 96% classifer.

I found that part of the problem with this type of classifer is that with such a scattered mess of hits all over the target it's actually hard to aim. Under normal conditions we are used to seeing a concentrated taped area that automatically draws our attention. With a new target the perforations are easy to spot so same idea. But with these targets that get scattered, random hits all over the place I find it distracting to aim. Does anyone else see this?

So, it was quite a fun weekend of shooting and I can't wait to hit it again. I was supposed to shoot yesterday after work with a buddy but was screwed by this Colorado winter.... I mean spring. However, with a promising forecast at the end of the week I'm hoping to make my Thursday practice and then more matches this weekend. Maybe CCPS will even have a match!

Goal list.

Keep working on the new grip. Feeling good now.

More dry fire. 3 times last week...do it again this week.

Live fire once this week... well, already 1 rain out. Thursday looks good.

Document my performance.

[Glock26Toter]

I purchase a DAA Shotmaxx timer. It came yesterday. My first impression is that it's way easier to use just as a timer when alone. There was never anyplace for me to comfortably locate my Pocket Pro either in dry fire or live fire practice. This wrist location is just the ticket and maybe I'll use a timer more. (often, I just give up on the timer altogether.) I also think the random start feature is better than the Pocket Pro.

The bummer about the unit is that it won't work with my phone to send data to the app that I stupidly paid $5.00 for before researching. This is a very common problem and is due to lack of engineering on DAA's part AND I think the software developer. Neither admits it, but with 10's of 1000's of successful Android/bluetooth applications out there they could get it right if they wanted to and/or had a big enough audience to warrant it. Either way, If they ever catch up to the rest of the world on this product I think it will be a very cool unit indeed.

From a stand alone timer perspective it seems to be just the ticket for me to train with and the Spy mode will hopefully prove useful in better analyzing my match performances.

I did some dry fire practice last night with just draws and reloads. I'm still trying to smooth out my draw and have it become so ingrained that I don't develop that weird hesitation during certain conditions. There's no reason for it, and I found last night that par time exercised really helped to keep it smooth. I did draw, 2 on paper, 2 poppers, reload, and engage everything again. With realistic timing on all the targets I was able to consistently beat a 3.6 second par time.

Practice this afternoon will include:

Ben Stoeger drills referred to me by a buddy. (baseline establishment)

Sight in both guns.

Chrono with both guns. Need to investigate to ensure I have the best load for the new gun. Just been shooting my regular load at about 178PF.

A movement drill. Most likely figure eight barrels. Simple to setup.

[drewbeck]

I wouldn't be too worried about the app, I've found it to be more work than it's worth and it's easy enough to just write down whatever you want to document. The important part is that you actually keep a notebook and consistently write stuff down if you want to have history to look back on.

[Glock26Toter]

I made it out to the range this afternoon as I promised myself.

It was quite a day of learning on all fronts. Like Drewbeck mentioned I found that it will be much simpler to just keep a notebook instead of worrying about technology on the range. While I did use my phone and entered data directly into my spreadsheet I just found that lots of data had to be cut&pasted and otherwise massaged afterwards to make the spreadsheet usable. I just didn't take the time on that little tiny screen to do it correctly. I'll keep a small notepad from now on and just jot it down while on the range. I can enter it all for safekeeping when I get home.

The timer was awesome to use. I found it comfortable and while the beep reminds of a mouse fart, I could still hear it. I actually think it lends itself to slower response times because I have to actually listen for it.

At any rate I did the following:

Sighted both guns in. The Hulk was way off since I put a new dot in. The Hulk remains a flatter gun than the new one and is pretty much dead on from 10 - 25 yards. Shiny is about 4' high at 25 and dead on at 10.

I chrono'd both guns too. Found that with my Chrony I'm at 176pf with both guns. This is a bit of shock to me and I actually think that Shiny has dropped since breaking in. I'm super happy about this as it means I can drop .2gr out of my load to get closer to the 170pf that I like best. I'm hoping this settles the dot a touch and maybe that's been my problem with splits.

I then ran the Ben Stoeger drills that were recommended to me. I found that (due to that darn spreadsheet) I didn't take the time to record all my splits, but did properly keep score to get a baseline.

For the entire exercise I missed 2 times and got 2 deltas. Otherwise not too shabby of an exercise with a total score of 45.46. We shall see the upcoming improvement.

Since I didn't record my splits/transitions on the first drill, I ran another one where I just put 2 shots on each of 3 targets at 7,10,15,25 yards recording the entire string.

I then did some movement with the figure eight exercise and ran a bunch of SHO/WHO shooting without keeping track of anything.

It was a good day practicing and I found that, as before my splits are comfortable at .22-.32 and my transitions are .29-.33 throughout the various distances. Those times don't strike me as something that will get me to GM. I have a lot of work ahead of me.

[Glock26Toter]

I was able to hit both matches this weekend. One at BLGC and another at Clear Creek.

BLGC was a windy day for sure. I HATE wind. Mostly because I can't wear my cowboy hat! HAHA! I just don't like it because it makes the entire day a chore. Hard to hear, hard to talk, you have to keep your gun covered... it just takes a large portion of the fun out of a match for me.

Despite the wind, I shot well and feel like I've cranked it up a notch since I've started really pushing the "I am a grandmaster" mindset. I still lacked consistency, but I didn't feel like my mistakes were quite as numerous as previous matches.

I used my new Shotmaxx timer and Gopro on almost every stage and got lots of data and vids. I haven't had time to process the videos (but did review them), and likely won't post them. I just doubt I'll have any time this week but wanted to get my journal out of my head before I just skip it altogether. I have a busy week of travel ahead and today is the only opportunity.

Anyways, I was relieved to see almost no splits over .18 for the weekend. I would say my average split time is .17 with several .14's. There are a few things contributing to this. First is that I think I'm quite a bit more amp'd up in a match than in practice and I'm more aggressively shooting. Another is that I've become aware of this and I'm pushing harder to fix it.

Unfortunately this leads to letting some rounds fly without having a decent sight picture. So I'm performing more makeup shots. In almost every case, over these last two days my makeup shots have not been needed. Most are 3 Alphas, or 2 Alphas/Charlie. I think I'm pushing for faster splits, achieving this, but not trusting myself. More practice while achieving sub .20 splits should help this quite a bit. Also, I did drop .2 grains out of my recipe and I believe this has settled the dot just a tad. I can't say that I see an obvious difference, but certainly it's helping to get that 2nd shot off.

So overall, although there were several planning and engagement mistakes that kept me from winning either of the matches (not to mention Cha-Lee also turning up the heat.) I feel like I made some progress toward my goals. I documented like crazy, increased my split and transition times, and overall increased my shooting a tad.

And then there was my decision to re-shoot Sunday's "Fluffy's Revenge 2" that turned out well for me. I wound up shooting that thing in 2.86 seconds and dropped 2 points. This was a 13.333 HF and the new Open HHF for that stage. It felt good to not have it be some "just got lucky" run. I just pushed hard and was able to call the shots at some of the fastest speeds I've managed to date. These shots were the same type I was making up during the match, but this time was just able to trust myself and call them the instant I saw them and move on. It was definitely a Brian Enos moment where I showed myself what an alpha looked like at speed and hope to repeat that moving forward.

From a technical standpoint, I decided to go back to Autocomp (from HS6) and see if that settles the dot a tad more. The only reason I went to HS6 in the first place was because of the powder shortage, so I've decided to start shooting Autocomp again and save the HS6 for the next shortage. I was unable to detect a difference when I switched to HS6, so I'm curious to see if I can detect a difference going back to AC. I've loaded a few rounds and will chrono them today after work. If the load works, this weekend will be the true test.

So, let's sum this up.

Keep working on the new grip.

More dry fire. I really think this is helping. Much more aggressive and realistic than I've done before.

Live fire once this week... well, this might not happen this week, but maybe Friday if I get back from NC soon enough.

Document my performance. A tad sloppy in the actual document, but at least reviewing data during the match is helping.

Edited May 23, 2016 by Glock26Toter

[Glock26Toter]

I took today off since I had plenty of hours at work and was knocking off early anyway. My daughter graduates from High School today. WHAT?!

So, I ran out to Aurora to get some chrono and a touch of practice in.

I chronographed my new Autocomp loads at 180PF, so I think it's safe to drop that load by .3 grains and see how 7.3 grains of Autocomp treats me next weekend.

I then used a bunch of misc practice ammo of unknown loads to run the Stoeger drills. I wound up with a slight improvement over last time and identified a new area for improvement.

When shooting I'm occasionally letting my left arm bend just a tad. When that happens the dot picks up a diagonal track, and I start throwing my shots to the right. With a much more firm grip on my left hand if my arms are not also equal it really throws that track off. I need to make sure to keep arms AND hands equally firm with that new grip. When all is in alignment I can easily maintain sub .20 splits and watch the dot within the Alpha zone at almost any distance. (I mean sub .20's close, and more like .25's at 25 yards but watch the dot within the alpha zone at any distance.)

So I'll see how the new load runs this weekend and hopefully have a match or two that will make me feel like I'm making progress.

[Glock26Toter]

This week has been one with lots of things going on.

I read the Saul Kirsch book, Thinking Practical Shooting. And it was a good read indeed.

I also had some time to sneak back to the range and chrono the 7.3 grain rounds and found they were at 168pf and that's cutting it way too close. So I loaded up a bunch of 7.4 grain loads and decided I would chrono after Saturday's match.

I shot the match and things were off from the start. In thinking back over all the bullshit that occurred I think I can sort of explain why it was the worst match I've had in years. Really, what I think happened is that all the mindset stuff in the book made me believe that there was going to be some miracle and that I would suddenly be this GM with more finesse than I had ever had before. When, it didn't happen (obviously!) it was a let down of sorts and things just didn't click for me that day. (all subconscious.. I didn't really think that.) Also, there was a bunch of drama over a stage that we had to modify during the match and and a shooter got pretty upset and a lot of discussion was produced over it. I let that affect me way more than it should have and just plain felt like shit the rest of the day. There was also some drama over another stage and that too, got into my head even though it had nothing to do with me.

I don't KNOW if that's what happened, but the bottom line is, on the last stage of the day the wheels fell off and allowed myself to have a freaking hissy-fit and for all intents and purposes, I threw the match.

This the exact OPPOSITE of what the book was all about and I somehow spun it 180 degrees and allowed a bunch of crap to cause me an epic failure of which I vow to never repeat.

That's the real lesson that I learned this weekend. We can all have bad days... we can all have things going on in our heads... just shoot like you shoot!

When you get new information allow it to sink in a bit and don't try incorporating too much of the new information at once.

I'm already making load changes and incorporating some new grip techniques along with all the shit that I've been trying to accomplish to make a GM level performance the norm. There's a lot going on and I've got a long way to go. Calm the hell down and shoot like you shoot. That stuff will work it's way into the shooting by maintaining my goal list, just like all the other stuff along the way.

So, onto the technical stuff:

Chrono came in at 171 in shiny and 169 in the Hulk. I think I'm going to increase back to 7.5 grains and call it good. I do intend on making the green gun my primary blaster again once I get the PT grip installed so making sure the chrono is good on that one is a better plan. Also, the PT grip is in, so in just a week or two I'll have the Hulk back in action!

When I was adjusting my powder I also suspected that I had drifted up from my original 7.6 grain setting. I actually believe my original chrono for Autocomp was closer to 7.8 than it was to 7.6 as I thought. That damn Dillon powder measure is a pain in the butt to adjust and you have to check it a LOT until you've hit that magic spot where it will finally throw stable loads. I hate adjusting it.

At any rate, I honestly still don't really see a difference in the dot. I "think" I feel a tad less vibration in the gun, but if the dot is less jumpy it's by a very small margin and I'm not positive about it. The drag is, that my first match with Autocomp was also my worst match in a long time.

And the stage situation that started it all? I'm going to start another thread under "Stage Comments or Questions." to get some input.

For now, moving forward...

Keep working on the grip/arm form.

More dry fire.

Live fire once this week. (yay, still doing it!)

keep documenting. (building my "bank of information" that Saul Kirsch talks about)

Edited May 29, 2016 by Glock26Toter

[Glock26Toter]

Centennial Gun Club had their match on Sunday night as usual. I went down there to make sure I could still shoot after Saturday's shit show.

Well, it was a good match and I was pretty happy with my shooting overall. I did manage to tank the classifier. I did something very distracting and looked directly into the lights while waiting for the beep. At the moment I realized I was staring into lights, I glanced down and my last thought was "will I be able to see the dot? Should I try to stop and reset?... BEEP" I don't know if that's what put in panic mode of if I just went there on my own, but I could see the dot just fine. It just didn't do what I wanted it to do, I blew the reload and logged a 6.3HF (with 1 mike) on El Presidente.

There was also another stage where I miked, but still managed to win the stage due to a 2.5 second lead over the next fastest run. It just went smooth and I'm positive that my plan was the fastest plan on that stage.

I was able to skip a port that almost no other shooters on my squad were able to skip. This was either due to reloads needed, or maybe shooting on the move confidence. My plan was heavily reliant on some non intuitive target orders as well as moving across 3 different targets while shooting. I executed it well and everything flowed in my favor. At the end there was two targets on either side of a barrel and I shot 2 alphas, another target, alpha mike, then final target. I knew something hadn't gone right and snapped back to the 2 alpha target and breathed a sigh of relief. Only to lean over to the other target to see the hard cover mike. OOPS. I got my targets mixed up and by then it was too late.

At any rate, when all the shooting was done I had racked up 6 deltas and 2 mikes, but plenty of alphas to make me think I had overall called my alpha hits. Still lots to learn as 6 deltas is waaaaaaay too many. But at least I felt like I had gone a step forward no matter how tiny.

So this coming weekend is the Rocky Mountain 300. I'm excited for my first major match of the year. Even though it's not a sanctioned match it's a great match and I look forward to a good time.

Goal list...

Keep working on the grip/arm form.

more dry fire.

Live fire will need to happen on Wednesday.

more documentation and information building.

[Glock26Toter]

Well, another awesome Rocky Mountain 300 is in the books. I've always had a great time at this match and this year was no different.

Although fun, my overall shooting was not something that I would call at the top of my ability.

I see numerous sluggish engagements, movement that was hesitant and some downright embarrassing mistakes that cost me many points. Having said that, I did manage a 92% finish behind Henning Wallgren, and even at the top of my game would have been lucky to gain another 5% on him.

Henning shot like the champ he is and I congratulate him on a well deserved top spot. One day I'll give him a run for his money, but not today.

So how can I eventually give him a run for his money?

Well, I can shoot more plate racks like the two I took down on stage 3. Especially the right one. That was a "show yourself what's possible" moment. There are other moments too, like some of the steel engagements during the stage 5. I was able to adjust my target as the steel fell to keep it falling at a good pace. Had I not jacked the movement would have possibly taken the stage win on it. I also had some target acquisition and split times that were well into GM territory. These are things I need to keep doing.

How to do that?

I can start to believe myself when it comes to splits and what I'm seeing in the sight. There are times when I'm in tune and pulling .15 splits on partial targets with all the confidence of a GM, and then there's wide open targets that I'm running .22 splits on and losing HF like crazy. The problem, when I'm shooting slow splits isn't the lost split time. It's that the transitions and movement becomes sluggish too. I'm just like running underwater type of thing. I have other moments where everything is clear and I'm pulling splits like a madman, so my movement explodes using the same energy and it all works well. Those are GM moments and this brings me back to my current overall goal of reaching consistency.

I'm able to shoot like a GM sometimes. When I can shoot like a GM all the time, well... I'll be a GM.

Stage 4 (the only stage not on Vid) is a good example of how I'm shooting these days. The first half was crazy. I was shooting super fast splits and powering through the ports across the front with confidence and knew damn well I had mostly alphas, with a couple of charlies but not having to wait around for the dot... it was just there and I knew it instantly. I hosed through a partial with a confident engagement that required quite a slow down from the port hose-fest, but executed it confidently and accurately. Then there were two colt poppers that I just fell apart on. I kept moving after missing, went 1/2 way into a reload, when back up to engage, and missed some more. By the time I finally finished those targets I did a standing reload and had to wait for the port to drop before moving on. It was a disaster that should never have happened. If I had just stayed put until I got those poppers and then moved on, all would have been fine.

So, basically I came away with a good finish, but feel if 3 more GM's had shown up I would have finished 4th.

Goal list...

Work on confidence of instantly breaking the shot when sight is correct.

Keep working on the grip/arm form. (really starting to sink in now)

more dry fire.

Live fire once this week.

more documentation and information building.

[Glock26Toter]

I made it out to AGC for some practice after work.

I felt a bit disconnected and not really into it. With afternoon sun beating on me and the fact that I had forgotten my materials box (tape, stapler, etc...) and had forgotten a notepad I just felt a tad off.

Running the Stoeger drills I found that I did much better with hit quality but my time suffered by about 5 seconds over the course of the drill. This was due to MUCH slower times in my reloads and SHO/WHO engagements. The rest were improvements, especially at 25 yards.

Reloads were, for some reason almost painful for me. I think it was because I was only loading 10 rounds in each mag. I did a bit better with full mags on some drills I did afterwards, but by then I was thinking too hard about it and although slightly better, they still didn't flow well.

Also, I had a very tough time with SHO/WHO. I learned a new method in the Bob Vogel class and I'm starting to think it's just not for me. I took forever (1.45 - 1.85) to get the first shot off during the drill. When I ran a bunch of shots afterwards I found it's just not a comfortable position to get into for me. I modified my stance back to my old way and found it much more consistent but still benefited from a slightly modified grip that Cha-Lee had brought up during that same class.

By then, I was SUPER hungry and thirsty and decided I better get the hell out of there before I did more harm than good.

The good news is I had 1 mike and 1 delta so it was the most accurate session to date.

Next time I think I'll run the same drills and not worry so much about SHO/WHO and just do what feels comfortable. Also, I MUST EAT and take some water.

[Glock26Toter]

It was a two match weekend. Out at Colorado Rifle Club I shot a pretty strong match and had a great time. The match down at Pueblo West Sportsman's club... not so much.

I've found that I'm making a lot of technical, small errors in my game. There are some draw inconsistencies, reload problems, and I shot 2 No-Shoots and a mike at the Pueblo match that were not called. I think I'm just pushing a bit hard in trying to put some mustard on my game and finding that the elevated pace is a bit tough to maintain. I don't like the idea of reigning things in and feel like I just need more practice and more dryfire to smooth things out.

I did a bunch of analyzing my videos from the match (only 1 vid per match) and some dry fire videos and have identified a few things.

1. My draw has gotten a bit faster and smoother and I I'm coming out of the holster at a slightly different angle than before. When I switched to the PT grip I had changed the angle slightly because it was getting a bit hung up. Now I've gone back to the original position by about half way... so the change from original is very marginal now. Without thinking about it I can draw very quickly and smoothly now and I think this is the golden spot for this holster. We are talking very slight so I think it will help rather than hurt me for the big match coming up.

2. At the suggestion of CHA-LEE I also did a LOT of pre-insertion reloads. This is a great drill that I've done before, but not in a long time and will put this back into my practice routine for sure. After doing them for about 30 minutes with all different engagements and movement into them I was able to execute a few full speed, full execution reloads with some darn nice precision. That little pause makes you LOOK hard at the magazine/well alignment and after you've done that a bunch the pause can be almost non-existent and everything runs smooth as silk.

I chose NOT to make a big deal about the no-shoots. They were high-risk targets and you can't win them all. I'm just going to chalk it up to not giving them enough visual importance just like all the other shots and move forward.

I feel good about the progress I made and the lessons I learned this weekend and look forward to not really working on anything specific except having fun at the Mile High Showdown!

[Glock26Toter]

I attended the 2016 Mile High Showdown this past weekend. I learned some lessons that I won't soon forget.

It was a tough match that brought back all the memories from 2015 Nationals. There were some long shots and many stages that almost nobody could get through without errors. While it may generate complaints I choose to look at matches like this as an opportunity to deal with the mental aspect of not feeling like we are all rock stars. Like Nationals last year I made significant errors in the first few stages. When I completely missed a target I let myself get very upset and threw my magazines at my cart from about 10' away. As soon as the mags left my hand I immediately realized how immature is was and how stupid I looked. Luckily, only 1 person (that I know of) saw it. It wasn't a super hard tantrum throw... more like a toss, but never the less I felt like crap. I went to the safety area for a self imposed time-out and reflected on all the books I've read that remind us we can't let that shit happen.

After returning to the match and taking my own advice (and many others) about shaking it off I was soon back to having a good time. YES, there were several errors later and I didn't feel good about my performance, but by the end of the match I had run a couple of mighty respectable stages and was hopeful of the results. (remembering that everyone else was shooting the SAME match.)

By the time all was said and done, I wound up with a HOA for Open and Top Master trophies. It was a tough match for all involved and when I told my toughest competitor about the FTE he just shook his head and said... "me too."

This was a good lesson in how to manage your mental game and that you never give up and absolutely must keep your cool. Always keep your attitude fresh and remember that it's all FUN.

That said, I also learned that if you want to do well and have time to absolutely optimize each engagement you must put the time in. I had failed to allot for a walk through day and that was a large portion of my errors in the beginning. The 5 minute walk though is NOT enough.

I was originally going to do a Sat/Sun match with Friday off for stage review. When Cha-Lee asked if I would RO, I happily agreed but failed to edit my schedule accordingly. Next year, YES I'll R.O., YES I'll have Thursday/Friday off to ensure I can give it my all AND help out.

[frunkenstein]

Well done GRAND MASTER in waiting

[Glock26Toter]

This weekend I was only able to shoot one match at Centennial Gun Club. I had to do some personal things and almost skipped this match too, but thought... screw that. I gotta shoot.

I'm really happy that I've got the green gun back and went in with confidence knowing that it's dead on all the way out to about 25 or 30 yards.

The classifier went very well for me. This was a true "hero or zero" moment and I sure as hell didn't want to score some 89% on the damn thing and wind up getting screwed out of making GM. If all goes well with pending scores July will be the month, but I'm NOT counting my chickens before they hatch. With that in mind, I just let it all hang out and things fell into place. It was 99-04 (Pucker Factor) so not exactly a difficult one but when it was all said and done I scored a 110.57% on it with 3 points down and 2.79 seconds.

The best part about it was that I knew right from the first shots that all was working well. I was in tune with the dot, watched it for every shot and called every hit with precision. There was a marginal head shot, but thanks to that green gun being exactly sighted in I knew it was there even though I called it on the far edge of the head. My shots on the far targets were maybe 1-2" apart and dead center of the A-Zone. This was more than just scoring a good run on that stage. It was a "show yourself what's possible" moment and I'm super excited about it.

The next stage, on the other hand was a reminder of how bad things can go in a hurry. I was running to the final position of a long box along the length of the stage and stepped on my magazine. On a concrete floor that meant I was lying flat on my back before I even had time to fully register that my foot had landed on something besides concrete for that last step. I hit hard and was pretty sure I had injured something while I was looking up at my gun and ensuring it was still pointing downrange. The RO asked me if I was OK and wanted to stop. After a brief pause to assess myself for possible injuries I yelled "NO" and jumped to my feet to finish the stage. As it turned out, other than a shattered DAA Magnetic mag pouch I was unscathed. Whew!

It's quite upsetting to be the guy that has fallen TWICE at that range and I need to remember that you CAN NOT push to 100% at that match. There are things you need to watch and that match should be about helping new shooters, having fun, and not worrying about a 100% performance. I'm going to wind up hurt if I do that shit again. I have hopefully reached the maximum number of times that I'll fall in my shooting career!

So, overall I was very happy with my shooting, stage planning, and all but ONE of my movements. There were a couple of mikes and no-shoots so improvement is certainly still on the agenda.

Goals to get this done;

Work on confidence of instantly breaking the shot when sight is correct... but not an instant before!

More dry fire.

More documentation and information building.

[Glock26Toter]

I had a good time shooting this weekend and was able to attend matches at both Colorado Rifle Club, and Pueblo West Sportsman's Club.

On Saturday I felt really good about my shooting overall. I wasn't working on anything in particular and just had a good time trying get one over on old Panda. We were on the same squad so we gave each other crap when one would make a mistake.

The only stage that stood out in my mind at the end was an all steel one where I just flowed nicely and dispite having to make a huge transition to pick up a standing steel at the end I had a stage winning run by a decent margin. Looking back there were two things that were notable about the run.

One was a mistake that really didn't cost anything but it underscored the importance of a stable shooting platform. it was a shot I took while moving into position and started aiming even though my feet were backwards from how I'm most stable. (left foot forward by a lot since I was still moving forward.) This resulted in a mike and I had to move that platform into full position before I took the next shot. Since I had been reminded of this and took the time to fully stabilize the subsequent steel in that and the next array fell in a hurry.

In the final position there was a full 180 degrees of spread out steel with a plate rack in the center. When I hit that plate rack it was one of those "hook up" moments and I cleared it so damn fast that I'll be remembering that for a while. This is the second time recently that I hooked up like that on a plate rack. I'm hoping more are going to follow!

I was looking forward to posting a few vids from the match, but alas.. the computer gods were not smiling on me that night and through a series of assumptions about my editing software I deleted them all prior to being sure I was ready to post. Oh well.

On Sunday I shot at Pueblo and I cannot say the same thing about my performance as the day before. I lost my visual patience on several stages. From the first stage I felt like my dot was dim and just didn't see it on several shots but kept going anyways resulting in 2 mikes.

I went to the safety area and changed my batteries.... the dot looked the same.

There were several other times when I just flat didn't see the dot and didn't really start properly watching the dot through the entire shooting cycle until the last two stages. I did well on them, but by then the damage was done and I had racked up 5 mikes and 1 no-shoot. Yikes! Panda gave me my due ration of shit.

Here's a video that made of the whole thing. I also see a lot of movement errors that I need to work on.

I think it goes back to that "consistency" thing that I lack right now. It's definitely preventing me from shooting a GM performance that lasts throughout a match. It's actually the opposite of consistency and rather the ability to judge each stage, position, and target for it's needed skill set and employing those skills on demand.

I see some times when I do it, but other times I can see that those adjustments in skills are clearly not happening.

For instance there may be a run-and-gun stage, but with like 2-3 high risk targets that require extra care to ensure success. Since I'm still in run and gun mode I'll blow through them and take a penalty. Or, the opposite is probably more often the case. I start out with high risk, careful shooting and then when I get to close, wide open arrays I'm still shooting super deliberate.

Anyways, that's what I need to work on. I feel like I have the skills... just don't quite know how to use them now.

On a side note, I'm SUPER CLOSE to making Grandmaster. I would already be there, but last month 2 clubs didn't turn in classifier scores. They contained 2 100% runs and a 96% that would have put my 93% over the top. This month I'm very hopeful and I've been checking every morning for the update!

Goals;

Work on confidence of instantly breaking the shot when sight picture is correct.

More dry fire.

More documentation and information building.

Vary the shooting for EACH engagement.

Edited July 11, 2016 by Glock26Toter

[Glock26Toter]

What a weekend it was. I flew up to Alaska to shoot the FAS & Furious match/Alaska Sectional. Here's a video of a few stages.

I had a few rough stages and had to work at keeping my attitude fresh and move forward throughout the match. It was a very challenging match and while only 8 stages I thought it did a great job at meeting an "all around" match that had enough variety that we were able to hose a few, and had to work on accuracy for a few. The staff was super friendly and I'll hopefully make it again next year.

So, I found out Friday night that I made GRANDMASTER! All my waiting scores made it in as expected and I've landed in GM-Ville with a 98.45%. As a recent Baby-GM I'm fully aware at just how much work there is ahead of me to become a legit-GM. I mean.. not to remove the achievement altogether as making it this far has not been a cake walk.

Having said that, as mentioned, I still have a lot to work on. This weekend's match did a good job to underscored that point to me.

My shooting performance was the same as it's been recently. Some GM moments interspersed with... well, NON-GM moments. As per my current level, I went into a few challenges and didn't bring the right tools. I made some significant errors and racked up several deltas, a mike-noshoot combo and one stage performance that can only be overlaid with circus music to do it justice. I actually thought I broke the 180 when I whipped my head around to look for the rope that I let go to perform a spontaneous reload. The spontaneous reload was caused by a bitterly failed attempt at accuracy through volume. It was soon followed up on the next stage by a makeup delta hit on a Virgina count stage netting me 20 MORE penalty points. I was quickly setting the stage for a disaster. I reminded myself that I need to just stay calm, and shake it off. I just started talking with some shooters and spectators and tried to reset my attitude.

On the remaining stages I was able to minimize the mistakes and have a few moments of peak performance that led to 2 stage wins on some decent sized stages. The rest were pretty mediocre and by the end my new friend John Simmons and I were reviewing scores trying to figure out who, if either of us would take home the 1st place prize. We seriously couldn't tell because he had won a couple stages, I had won a couple and several other open shooters had won a couple. It was a mathematical jungle that neither one of us wanted to tackle... so we just went and ate some fries.

In the end, I was rewarded with the HOA and 1st Open spot, and John Simmons came in .52% behind me for a very close 2nd place.

So to sum it up, it was a great time meeting some new people, and learning some new lessons that I need to work on. And I would say the coolest trophies to date.

[Glock26Toter]

This weekend I was able to shoot two matches. One at Aurora Gun Club, and another at Clear Creek County Sportsman's Club.

It was hot and sunny the entire time and much sweat was lost. I have no vids. The first day I just didn't feel like it, and the second day I realized my SD card was still in my computer at home. ooops.

My initial feeling was that my shooting was on par. Despite a couple of mistakes I felt that everything had gone well. I was very confident in all my stage plans and just enjoyed shooting and taking large rations of shit from all my friends about the recent GM title. In the end when looking at time and alphas I was really not very happy. Many stages that I thought I had done well on, I didn't. Mostly I was also surprised at how many charlies and deltas I had taken.

Once again, I just wasn't "inconsistent" enough. There was movement that could have been done much faster, and shooting that could have been done much more deliberately.

I don't really have anything in particular that I can find about the performance as examples, but throughout both matches there are just little areas of improvement that pop up everywhere.

From an accuracy standpoint, the only thing I can think of is that I was shooting the Shiny gun. This is the one with the rearward mount and is verified as slightly less accurate.

I "feel" like I get these matches with noticeably lower alphas when I'm shooting that gun. I don't know for sure, but I think some more work is needed in comparing the two.

I can't see a difference in the dot tracking when I shoot them a week apart. Today I'm going to compare the two side by side to see what information I can gain. Meantime, I do know the shiny gun works, but the Hulk will take me through Area 3 this weekend to see what we can do.

My new goal list:

When it's time to Move, MOVE!

Engage the dot. ONLY SHOOT.

[Glock26Toter]

I ran out to the range yesterday for some technical work.

I shot both guns at 18 yards and found...

The black gun was 4" high and 4" left with about a 3" group. The Green gun was about 1" high and 3/4" right with about a 1/2" group. Obviously more accurate and that 4" off issue could explain a few of the charlies/deltas I took over the weekend.

Then I stood up and shot some rapid drills. (2 per, for 3 targets)

At first it was VERY obvious to me that the black gun's dot does a LOT more traveling around and will leave the glass at the top during shooting. The green dot is just a straight up and down track and stays within the glass. The more I shot and compared them, the less pronounced the difference got. At the end I was barely able to tell them apart. However the black gun always has a slight oval to it's track whereas the green one is straight up and down. The reason I saw less difference is because I started gripping them both significantly tighter.

The conclusion... although obviously I need to work on my grip the green gun is way more forgiving when it comes to that issue and overall has a more consistent track and is also more accurate.

Is this ALL due to the forward mount of the C-More on the green gun? I think this is contrary to what those mounts should accomplish. I'm going to swap that rear mount for a forward one on the black one and find out soon enough.

OH, and now they are both spot on for POI as I obviously adjusted the sights. (both guns are exact at 10 yards, about 1/2" high at 18 and maybe 2" high at 25 with the Hulk still shooting tighter groups)

THEN, I took them home to clean them both up and as per standard Murphy's law found a nice crack in the Hulk's slide. With any luck I'll have a new slide by Area 3, but I believe I'll have to shoot the backup gun this weekend. DAMN IT!

Goals repeated...

Firm grip.

When it's time to Move, MOVE!

Engage the dot. ONLY SHOOT.

Edited July 27, 2016 by Glock26Toter

[CHA-LEE]

And that is why you need three guns..... I have been there, done that and learned the lessons. Plus, you are a GM now. Doesn't that require having at least 3 open guns?

[Glock26Toter]

Cha-lee, your comment has been forward to the wife. I'll let you know how that goes! I'll refer her to you for any questions. HAHA.

[Glock26Toter]

Well, I went up to Grand Island NE and shot the Area 3 match. It was my first match as a GM (FAS doesn't count because there weren't any other GM's in Open) and I didn't have any expectations of making it very far into the GM group. The most important thing is to consider what I felt and how I performed and at this point I can't get tied up in "results" or "placement." I've enjoyed several top M runs as I was merging into GM, but now there are plenty of people out there working just as hard for those top spots.

What can I do to be one of them?

Here's a video of some of my runs. What I see here, is something that I've been picking on for a while. Mostly just slow splits and a few moments of movement errors. I honestly think that my shooting errors are the main thing I need to work on. I was forced to use my "backup" gun as my main slide cracked on Tuesday as previously discussed. The problem is, that backup is not a backup. The dot, just doesn't track as consistently as the green gun. Funny how I shot that for a while and didn't even know how bad it was until I put a steel grip on that green one.

Anyways, the dot has a side-to-side wobble (creating an oval pattern) and although extreme concentration and very firm grip can minimize it I found myself unable to accomplish that consistently under match conditions. What I did find is a shit load of makeup shots and deltas. This was made worse by that damn C-More sight. I had sighted it in to be exact at 25 yards since there were some far and very tight shots and that gun was hitting too high. Well, I think it either resulted in low out at 35 yards OR it drifted there by the time I got to the 35 yard stage. Either way, I took 4 deltas on that stage. Not bad with the sun glare causing me to shoot though a milky haze, but it still cost me a few spots on that stage. All the shots were grouped very consistently, low on the far targets so I took several extra charlies as well.

OK, let's wrap this up. At this time I'm not super worried about a bunch of performance issues. I think I can move fast enough, I think I can shoot fast enough. I need to worry about things preventing me from doing both during a run. That's both equipment and strategy.

Strategy: I'm still making movement errors with respect to forgetting to give a particular movement my 100% push, or hesitating somewhere, shooting before I'm stable, engagement of hoser arrays in aiming mode and vise-versa, etc. I think I just need more "time in grade" to get that smoothed out. Just like trigger time helps with shooting, movement time will help with movement.

Shooting: My equipment needs to continue improving. I'm changing my backup's sight mount to a forward mount, but Rick thinks the comp difference (RHF comp on the Hulk, Cheely on the black one) or some other issue is responsible for the dot track and accuracy issues. Much more careful technical comparisons and modifications will be done down the road to get these guns running at the level they need to ensure I can get the results I need no matter which gun I'm shooting.

I also can't help but notice that most, if not all of the top GM finishers are now using Deltapoint sights. Feedback from friends that are using them is that the dot is bright and sharp and they KEEP THEIR ZERO. I mean, can I really argue with a 2.5 MOA dot that's as bright as a 6 MOA, but stays where you put it????

Goals moving forward:

Get equipment ironed out! (start saving for some Deltapoints!)

Firm grip.

When it's time to Move, MOVE!

Engage the dot. ONLY SHOOT.

[Glock26Toter]

I made it out to the range today for some work on the black gun.

Testing it with the forward scope mount I think I can see that the rear mount is probably a tad better. The dot seemed to have more up and down motion but still lacks the consistency that the green gun has. I think I'm seeing affects of both the mount and comp. This leads me to believe that best combo will actually be the RHF Comp and the Rear mount.

However, I feel that the most important aspect to get fixed now is to make sure the comp's are the same. On Sunday I should get the Hulk back all painted and ready to go. The black gun will get left with Rick for an accuracy checkup after getting the comp swapped out. That may be the only reason for the accuracy difference but once the configurations are the SAME I'll be able to continue troubleshooting from there.

I sighted the black gun in and confirmed several things. The grouping is still not quite what I can accomplish with the Hulk. Here are the groups at various distances that I was able to obtain while reaching my "max screw with" point of the C-More of 4 times. (that means that I never adjust it more than 4 times in a single adjustment period)

After sighting it in, I shot a bunch of rapid drills to get an idea of dot travel and what split times I could accomplish. I shot 2 each, at about 10 yards with 3 targets spread out by about 6' each.

I was able to reliably hit 4 Alphas and 2 charlies and maintain .18 splits with .26 transitions. Any faster than that and I was hitting a few deltas and really felt rushed. I just can't get down to a .15 split without seriously sacrificing hit quality. Out at 15 yards my best reliable times were .20 splits and .30 transitions.

I feel like I can do this with better consistency with the green gun, but more testing will need to be done to see.

Toward the end I let loose with a single "can you count" drill of 5 each on 2 targets at 6-7 yards. I nailed a .97 first shot and consistent .13 splits with a .20 transition. There were no deltas and I can't remember how many charlies.

That was a good positive note to leave on. :-)