Richard C.

[Glock26Toter]

GO OPEN!

[d_striker]

GO OPEN!

But he's under 60, can still see irons, and knows how to reload.

[Richc2048]

This weekend was great for shooting. I went to the USPSA match in Pueblo on Sunday. I was squadded with some great friends and the stages were fun. I couldn't ask for it to be better. The scores came out and was surprised to see the results. I squeezed pass some great shooters for a win. The heat was getting to my concentration and could not stay focused when I was not up to shoot. I've been getting into the habit of going over a proper grip, focusing on the front sight and and when I am in the hole or on deck I would go over every detail of the stage as far as foot placement/movement and key markers on walls/barrels to get me that advantage. I like to have a good plan in place before we are the squad getting ready to shoot and I like to refine it at every chance I get to run the course. Kind of like a layer of icing on a cake. I was not doing that so I was shocked to see I won production. I would be out of it and not realize the shooting order and was caught off guard on almost all of the stages. I had my plan already set but I didn't do my ritual while I was on deck getting ready to shoot.

Some of the shooters I know I am usually on par with and some of the ones I usually am behind were having gun/equipment issues. D-Striker is one I know I am usually about 5-10% behind usually and he had issues with his gun during this match. I know that from when I started tracking my results with his I was usually 15-20% behind him so I know I have to improve more than him to catch up to him. He has been getting real hard-core with it so I'm hoping if I can maintain the 5-10% less of him and occasionally squeek one by I am in good shape.

Being able to be friends with the people I shot with this weekend is definitely beneficial. It keeps me on my toes and makes me strive to improve. There are great people I can talk to in every class and division in my area and I am taking full advantage of this. One day I hope to make GM with all these people and I need to catch up quick to make that happen.

My movement and fundamentals are still what I see as keeping me from reaching A class territory. I finally had a classifier in the 72% range and that was very welcoming to see. When I shot "Fluffy's Revenge 2" I was able to have enough discipline to hit the steel on the first shot and get good points. I "unfocused" a little too early and had to take 3 shots on the last steel. If I could work on my transitions from target to target and get a little more confident on hitting steel I know I could have made that score about a second better. In the large courses my movement will help me settle in better in shooting positions and I could make the gun sights come up faster. I am still very slow and not confident with my shooting on the move so I need to work on getting lower with my stance to not bounce around so much.

All in all I do like the steady improvements I have seen and although I could try to reach A by doing hero or Zero stuff I think I can do this by working on fundamentals and not have to get lucky 6 times. I would rather know I can easily shoot 75%+ classifiers. I hope that makes sense. I'll save the hero or zero stuff for when I am Master and too impatient to do it the correct way for GM. haha. Making GM would be a great accomplishment for me.

[d_striker]

A win's a win.

If you shaved off a few seconds off your current runs while maintaining the consistency and accuracy that you have, you'd be beating me all the time.

[Richc2048]

The Mile High Showdown has came and went. Wow. It was a blast to shoot and ran very well. I had just as much fun at this one as any major match.I did not do as well as I planned on shooting but had more fun than I could have imagined. The courses were challenging and creative. I have a lot to learn from this match and reflect on.

First things first. I did not do as well as I had hoped to do and the reason for it was many. To get the negative out of the way here is a list of things I did completely wrong or did not execute properly.

1. I had many mental errors when running the stages. I either did not shoot it as intended or had a melt down due to overly complicated way of attacking the field course.

2. I was more involved in the speed of my shooting than accuracy. I had more stages with mikes than I did clean.

3. I was trying to keep pace with other people than shoot my own match.

4. I was having difficulty with the fundamentals in shooting. I was target focused on too many shots that required sight discipline.

5. I was aiming too far away on no-shoot covers and getting a lot of mikes and low scoring hits doing so.

On the positive note

1. I never gave up and had a positive attitude.

2. I learned from the mistakes I was making on the first day and applied them to the second day which made the second day perform better than the first day.

3. I regained my confidence and stopped aiming too far away from the no shoot covers and began getting alpha hits.

4. I may not have done well but what I lacked in performance I gained ten fold in experience.

5. I never got to the point where I took too many shots in a shooting array that I had a standing reload.

The first day was a train wreck for me. I had more stages with mikes than not. I was shooting way to fast trying to keep up with the big dogs. I learned that I am not losing my time on stages in split times. My transitions and getting in and out of positions are where I am losing seconds and I was trying to blast faster and that is not what I needed to do. I am losing seconds on movement and trying to make it up a tenth of a second at a time and the results were horrible. I lost way to many points doing it this way. I started to shoot my own match the second day and didn't have any mikes and although my times were a few seconds slower than who I was trying to compete with, we were close in hit factor this way due to not losing many points. There were only four stages left the second day but I pulled myself out of a hole the best I could.

One thing I noticed on targets with no-shoots covering half of the lower a zone is that I would be scared of hitting them and aim for the charlie zone/ head box and would at best get a charlie delta. Mostly I was getting a charlie Mike. When I started slowing down for those targets, aiming and being confident that I would not hit the white guys I immediately started to get 2 alpha hits consistently. This may have added 2 tenths of a second on each target or shot but the math showed that this was better.

Confidence played a big role in my performance. Saturday I was overly confident, kept shooting faster than I am able to and it showed. Sunday I shot a cleaner match, had risky stage plans but executed them because I slowed down enough and was able to make every round count. On day two I was able to get 5th, 6th positions in production. Saturday was anywhere from 15th all the way to the bottom of the barrel. I need to know that I can shoot a clean match efficiently and the time is made up in movement not split times. There's no way I will catch someone by shooting crazy splits on targets that need more attention. I'm going back to my way of shooting clean and working on efficient movement. Being a few seconds slower is going to work better for me in the long run.

I'll post the video on my youtube a little later today. I must warn you, it is very difficult to watch. You'll either cringe or laugh with me. You have been warned!

[d_striker]

Don't slow down. Be more patient.

[Richc2048]

It seems like forever when I try and shoot A's. I wonder if I'm finally able to see sights and the light guide rod spring in combination with 147's are too slow now. I'll have to try my old 124's. Maybe try the 13# guide rod too. Maybe it'll snap back better?

[d_striker]

I know the feeling. I think it feels slow purely because you're being impatient.

I just don't like telling myself to slow down and would rather tell myself to be patient. I suppose it's an argument in semantics, but I think it's an important one.

I think you're placing too much stock in different loads/bullet weights. Just pick something and go with it.

Edited June 23, 2015 by d_striker

[Richc2048]

Yea. That's true. I guess it's not "slowing down" but rather being patient for a good sight picture. Not rushing it. It's suppose to take that long I guess and I'm breaking shots early. Man did my scores show it too.

[d_striker]

You're preaching to the choir. My focus at the club matches leading up to Area 3 is going to be 1.) Actually using my sights, 2.) Patience, and 3.) Discipline

[Richc2048]

I need to add movement to that list.

[Glock26Toter]

You absolutely cannot move on until you see what you have to see in order to make the shot. The one thing that helped me a lot was to stop practicing movement. I move every day and don't need a whole hell of a lot of practice. What I don't do every day, is shoot accurately. Sometimes I would go to the range and just setup old-school, with a single target and shoot real live groups... keep moving farther back and map out the rise and fall of the bullet as the distance changes.

Other times, I'll practice kind of a bill drill... but with no timer. Just see how quickly I feel I can get 6 alphas. What I mean by "how quickly I feel" is just shoot them without extra stuff like breathing or conscious trigger squeeze. Shoot the instant you see the sight picture and move on... but don't speed up or convince yourself a charlie sight picture is "good enough." You are showing yourself what an Alpha looks like so you'll know it when your whole body is yelling "Hey eyes, stop screwing around. We gotta go!"

Your eyes have be like "Hey dumbass, hang on a sec.... almost... there.... GO!". What your eyes can't do is be like "Uh, what was I doing?... brown what now? Aw, just go!"

Not to say I haven't practiced movement or concentrated on it at times. Just save it for when you feel you are doing fine on accuracy. Its... like pounding a target stand into a berm. If you pound on one side too much it's all crooked. You have to go back and forth to get it in straight.

[Richc2048]

I shot an outdoor match Saturday and a indoor match Sunday night. I was relieved to see that my suck performance the first day at the Mile High Showdown did not carry over. I ended up 7% behind D-Striker which is an awesome finish for me. I was reviewing the scores and it seems like all I am missing is speed in movement, transitions, and getting into a position. I do feel I did a lot better this week in some of those areas because I am usually 10-15% of his scores and my times were just a little slower than his. I think I've closed the gap on the large field courses by a second or two without sacrificing any points to do so.

Sunday was an indoor match with less than average lighting so I decided to shoot L-10 Minor and just have fun blasting. I am glad I did because the classifier was a disaster. I ended up having a light strike on 13-05 "tick tock" after my third shot so once I cleared it I decided to see if I could just index my shots. I hosed through it and only ended with 1 mike! The time was already lost on a fumbled reload and the malfunction so I was not able to save my HF. It was fun to shoot that fast and not hit a no shoot.

I had 3 light strikes at the indoor match and 1 at the outdoor match. so 4 in about 300 rounds. Totally not acceptable. I'm thinking it's this batch of ammo but I will have to see what is going on. I will make a new batch of ammo and take my time getting the primer in. I have about 4 matches before area 3 so hopefully there will be no malfunctions between now and Area 3 with the new ammo.

I am also going to switch from an 11# guide rod spring to a 13#. I'm feeling that I can handle a little more snap now to get the sights on track faster.

[Richc2048]

So I made a new batch of ammo tonight. It took me a little over an hour to make 300 rounds. But I know the primers are seated as deep as possible. I'm hoping the issue is going to be resolved. I've never had issues with light primer strikes...like ever. I had quite a few this weekend at the local matches.

One thing I found is that some primers went in really easy. I took them off the plate to make sure there was even a primer. It was that light of a press.

Is this what's called a loose primer pocket? Any way to check these visually or do you guys chuck these once you fell the primer go in. I'd hate to waste primers but I hate wasting time on the clock even more. I've never counted how many times I've loaded the casings. I've never thrown any away unless it's cracked. Should I throw these away once primed?

Any comments or experience is welcome.

[d_striker]

What kind of brass had the loose pockets?

[Richc2048]

Hmm. I didn't check. It was all range brass. Are some brands looser?

[d_striker]

Hmm. I didn't check. It was all range brass. Are some brands looser?

In my experience, yes. I find that Win is the tightest and Fed is among the loosest. Winchester in 9mm and 40 seems to have shallower pocket depth than others. I really have to seat those firmly.

I can always tell what kind of brass is in station 2 by how the primer seats.

Most of the light strikes I was having was with Win brass.

[Richc2048]

So would these loose primers cause the light primer strikes?

[d_striker]

As you know I've battled light strikes for awhile. It seemed like the root cause of my issues was that the primer cup wasn't sub-flush enough to the case head. Brass with tighter and shallower primer pockets seemed to give me the most issues. The looser, and deeper pockets never caused me any issues.

I had that weird fail to fire at MHS where the primer was REALLY deep. I think it may have been too deep. That case was Federal. I meant to save that round so I could measure the depth when I got home but I lost it.

Again, this was my own personal issue. You have to figure out the root cause of yours.

ETA-Now, I case gauge every round and feel the primer before it goes into the CG. Believe it or not, my fingertip is pretty well calibrated. Anything that I "feel" is less than .007" deep gets measured. If it's under, it goes into the practice pile. The repeat offender for high primers is of course, Winchester brass.

Edited July 1, 2015 by d_striker

[Richc2048]

It's funny how everything I had ran flawless until I decided to go to major matches. Weird how that all worked out for me.

[d_striker]

At least your figuring it out now before A3.

I would rather lose an hour of my life case gauging and checking for high primers than lose seconds on the clock.

[Richc2048]

Amen to that. These rounds I made are as good as they're going to be so I'm hoping I just got lazy on the last batch. If not, then it's gun related and I'll just replace all the springs real quick.

[Richc2048]

I decided to take dry-fire a little more seriously and make it more frequent and with meaning. I am fortunate enough to work from my basement so I decided I am going to wear my uspsa belt down there when I am working. I can work on stuff 5 minutes at a time all day. I've been lacking the motivation to dedicate time to this at night and it gets a little busy with the kids so this is the best option for me.

When I was trying to do my draw I found it very inconsistent in both time and grip placement. I now have the Boss Hanger with a Long Shadow holster and started to play around with the angle and positioning. I have for the longest time been wearing it so the slide is straight up and down. I couldn't change much with my old holster without modifying it. I found that the best draw for me was when I changed the angle of the holster to where the grip is completely horizontal to my belt. When I had it before my hand would make contact with the grip starting from right underneath the trigger guard and if I didn't have the angle of my hand perfect the meat of my hand by the thumb would not be in the same position. Now that I have the grip angle straight it seems to guide my meaty portion right where it needs to be and found my draw to be repeatable and consistent in the quality of the grip. I always struggled with this and when I dry-fired would become frustrated and quit.

I am very excited that the first second of the stage is where I want it now. Now to concentrate on the remaining seconds! I feel when I switch to the CZ when it comes in that it won't be like starting with a new gun. If I get the grip angle completely horizontal it should feel the same regardless of the platform. I hope I am on the right path.

I have a production printer in my basement so now I am going to make some targets to full size, half, and one third scale and put them everywhere. There's plenty of tables and wire racks that I think I can simulate mini stages down here and work on everything. I'm hoping to join an outdoor range that is also affordable and try to make it there at least once a month to practice the real deal. I think the closest one that allows the practice I need is the Ben Lomond Gun Club. It's almost an hour away from where I live. If I can make it there once a month and make a day of it I think it will be worth it.

[Richc2048]

Sunday's local match was cancelled so I was fortunate enough to have a practice session with some friends. I took it more seriously than the last time I practiced out there and concentrated on some of the things I've been working in dry-fire. I was happy with my draw speed and magazine reloads. Those are becoming way more consistent in the last week due to the amount of dryfire.

I was really happy that I am finally able to move around the course and keep up with the times of some of the shooters there. I learned that I need to find a balance of shooting on the move. I really do need to time and see when it's faster to just stay planted and shoot or on the move and slow my shots down a little. I remember doing a stage once at CGC where you could take tight shots around no shoots or just boogie to a port and clear everything fast. It worked out that running all the way was faster.

I got some Gold Nuggets from a GM that was there and he helped me by commenting on some of the things i was doing and let me know some things I should work on. It's like he was handing me an "A" card by speaking. He knew exactly what I was doing and my thought process behind them but offered up different things to try. It will take a while to break habits but I am eager to get them to work.

I dry-fired some last night and found out that I have seen more consistency in everything I do because of it. I wish I would have listened to everyone sooner. I have a bowling pin match tonight and I'm hoping between my new tighter grip that equals a more consistent sight picture, along with transitioning more with my legs and hips and keeping my posture, I will have a good night. I know my confidence is higher than it has ever been before.

[Richc2048]

This weekend I was fortunate enough to be at two matches. We had a super classifier on Saturday and and six stage match on Sunday. I had done a lot of dry fire practice in the last two weeks and was eager to see how much more confident I was going to be at the matches. The dry fire really helped solidify some of the fundamentals I was trying to improve.

Saturday's super classifier was a very hot day will no shade and there was not a cloud in the sky to filter the sun. This in combination with zero wind made the heat feel hotter than it was. This was great practice for the Area 3 match coming up. I got into a good routine of drinking plenty of water between my runs and did not feel like a butthole at the end of the match. I decided to shoot the classifiers as I would shoot it in a stage. I did not Hero anything or try to beat a certain time. My goal was to just aim/shoot. I did have some issues with tight shots in the beginning by clipping no shoots but I did make sure I was not aiming so far away from them that I would net a C or a Mike. I was going for the points. In the end I had two classifiers in the 60%-75%, one in the 55% range, two that were so low they don't count and one in the 80% range. I thought it was going to be much worse but in the end it did not hurt me to go to this match.

Sunday was a six stage match that was pretty good. There was one stage that was an issue with regards to the 180 rule but it only cost us lefties a couple seconds due to unfair stage design. When we saw the squad ahead of us shooting it we saw more people break the 180 at that section that not. It is what it is right? Over all I had an incredible match for my skill level. I won two stages, took second in 3 stages, and tanked one and got 8th. I ended 2nd overall in production and 5% of first place.

My confidence level with my gun is getting good and it is actually shooting where I point it. Through out the weekend there were a few times where my grip from the draw was perfect and this netted me faster splits without hesitation. My sights were tracking back quickly. I had a few moments of that when I did what I was supposed to do. I moved a wide transition with my legs and kept my upper body in line which allowed to shot to break really fast. I am really impressed with how easy the shooting is when you do everything you are taught. Once I am able to do this consistently I know I will be able to shoot much smoother and faster netting me more stage wins. The classifier for this match was one we did Saturday so I knew how to execute it. I ended up doing it about .7 seconds faster and I got an 87% on the classifier. This is the first time I have shot a classifier in the Master range. My first A percentage classifier came to me yesterday so I know that the dry fire is the key.

I do not feel like I am burning out the more I shoot. It seems that I am getting more excited about this sport and my goal of being in the upper ranks is definitely attainable. I remember writing a few months back about how hard it is going to be getting into B and if I reach B that would probably be it. (Stupid Past Richard) I know feel with more dry fire practice and being surrounded by some of the most friendly and greatest shooters here in Colorado I can reach it without hesitation. Thank you all for reading this.