johnsons1480 Posted April 1, 2015 Author Share Posted April 1, 2015 Got my holster back. I feel like Blade-Tech dragged their feet on this return; but at the end of the day, I am very pleased that they exchanged the broken holster for me. I couldn't figure out how I could have possibly broken the holster until today. When I got the replacement, it fit like a glove. The old holster WAS NOT for a CZ 75 SP-01. I had my suspicions, but I didn't have another holster to compare it to. The gun wiggled around in the old one like it was in a big bucket. It's so much easier to draw consistently when the gun isn't rocking back and forth! I guess the lesson to be learned here is to avoid Amazon when ordering holsters. I ordered my BOSS setup from Ben Stoeger Pro Shop for my Glock. I didn't want to order another BOSS setup for the CZ, so I opted to buy the pouch from Amazon and slap it on the BOSS hanger. The difference in price between BSPS and Amazon was just the shipping. That was one time consuming $6 savings! Did my dry fire today WITH my holster. It felt great to be back to doing drills. Going to dry fire tomorrow then range on Thursday for the Accelerator. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
johnsons1480 Posted April 1, 2015 Author Share Posted April 1, 2015 Registered and paid for the Oilfield Classic, so I'm signed up for my major this year. They aren't running the Space City Challenge, and I can't make Area 4 or the Texas Open, so this will be my only major this year. Looking forward to it! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
johnsons1480 Posted April 3, 2015 Author Share Posted April 3, 2015 Couldn't get a 25 yard bay where I could do the accelerator, so I did leans. Man that drill sucked. I shot 254 rounds (accidentally grabbed a partial box). I had the close targets at 12 and the rear targets at 17 yards. I felt like I couldn't make my hits to save my life. I focused on everything I could think of to focus on, and I wasn't getting the results I was hoping for. I feel like all I learned today is that shooting around barricades is hard. My wife is working on Easter, so I'm going to go early Sunday to get a bay so I can do the accelerator. Daily dry fire beatings will continue until morale improves. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
johnsons1480 Posted April 6, 2015 Author Share Posted April 6, 2015 Got rained out on Sunday. Going to try to go Thursday, but I'm on call this week. I may end up not able to make it, which is a bummer. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
johnsons1480 Posted April 10, 2015 Author Share Posted April 10, 2015 I don't know what time I have to leave work and get to the range to snag one of the bays with moveable targets that I can get 25 yards out of, but .... early, apparently. Couldn't do the accelerator as planned, so I did Hard Entry. I felt pretty good doing this drill. Started out at around 6.5 seconds with my setup, and moved down about a second through the drill. I felt like I wasn't pulling off the first target too early, and I felt like I was doing a decent job getting setup in the second shooting box. I noticed that, if I keep pretty low on entry and use my knees as shocks, I could get setup faster. I tried to stress that the rest of the practice. Shot 279 rounds (I keep grabbing those darn partial boxes!). I did an El Prez at the end, 5.85 seconds, 52 points. That's not so bad. Dry fire. I have not being doing it. I started a new workout routine 6 days a week, and by the time I'm done I'm too weak in my shoulders to effectively dry fire. I believe this will get better over time, but for right now I just don't have the energy or shoulder strength at the end of the workout to get it done. That's part of the reasoning behind the workout routine. I've had 3 shoulder surgeries over the years, and I feel like they're one of the weaker parts of my body. Hopefully I can get some strength back, which will help with my stamina on the range. We shall see. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
johnsons1480 Posted April 13, 2015 Author Share Posted April 13, 2015 New dry fire plan. Wake up at 5, get ready for work, get 20-30 minutes of dry fire in, then leave for work. I did it this morning, just have to continue to drag my butt out of bed every morning. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
johnsons1480 Posted April 16, 2015 Author Share Posted April 16, 2015 Here's my practice session from yesterday. I think I need to spend some serious time shooting at 25 yards. I didn't write down the points for every target, but it worked out to mostly As at 7, about even split of As and Cs at 15, and a whole bunch of Cs, Ds, and misses at 25. Also, my reloads are still atrocious. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Glock26Toter Posted April 17, 2015 Share Posted April 17, 2015 You have been very dedicated. Keep it up. Don't forget to journal the improvements here too. When you say "reloads are atrocious" what do you mean? Break that down. What goes well, what needs improvement? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
johnsons1480 Posted April 20, 2015 Author Share Posted April 20, 2015 You have been very dedicated. Keep it up. Don't forget to journal the improvements here too. When you say "reloads are atrocious" what do you mean? Break that down. What goes well, what needs improvement? Thank you sir. When I say atrocious, I mean that they are at least half a second slower than I think they should be. I would love to be able to consistently hit a 1 second reload, but I would be happy with a consistent 1.5 second reload. That seems to be something I could do in the past but I suppose I've lapsed on my reload dry fire and it shows in the reloads. None of it goes bad, it's just slow. My problem is likely that I'm not getting to the magazine fast enough once the shot is fired. I think the act of putting the new magazine in the gun hasn't changed much since I started this. Match got canceled on Sunday. I was really looking forward to shooting that match, but it's been raining here for weeks so I wasn't very surprised. With that being said, it's time for my 2 week break to start. I'm going on a cruise next week and obviously won't be able to bring my gun. This has become a two week break instead of a one week break because I fell in a parking lot on Friday and tore up my hand. It was raining, and I was running to get to the movie theater. Took a turn too fast and ate it. Ruined my boots, jeans, scraped my knees and busted the heel of my hand up. Just scrapes, nothing too serious, but it's bruised and I don't want to delay the healing any. P.S. Get Hard was hilarious. See you guys in May. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
johnsons1480 Posted May 4, 2015 Author Share Posted May 4, 2015 I am back! Went to the range today and ran about 200 rounds of "Port Setup." I learned a good bit about how to get set up in a port better, so I would call it a success. I wrote everything down, and I'll try to type that up tomorrow. Related question, is it relevant to write all of this down? Especially on drills that are essentially un-duplicatable. I feel like I could have shot at least another hundred rounds if I hadn't been writing everything down. I can see where it may be beneficial on repeatable drills, like the standard drills in Skills and Drills. Otherwise, I'm not sure what I'm gaining from recording this stuff. I feel like I'm limiting my time shooting and wasting my time writing. Input would be appreciated. I'm going to try to go to the range Thursday as well. If I can get the right bay open, I'll probably do "Fixed Time Standards A." If not, then I'll work on "Distance Transitions." Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Glock26Toter Posted May 4, 2015 Share Posted May 4, 2015 I write stuff down during my practice session to see what the times and scores feel like during the session. For example, I would like to see that it only took adding .5 to a drill time to get all A's. It's very hard to tell if I ran faster or slower or remember what I scored when I'm the one in the shooting. But as far as taking that from session to session I don't bother for same reasons you are saying. I never do the same thing twice. With the exception of ending almost every session with a few strong/weak only drills, what I want to practice changes from week to week based on what I wrote, here, in my journal. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
johnsons1480 Posted May 5, 2015 Author Share Posted May 5, 2015 Do you write down everything, or just total time? For instance, in this drill, I had 4 targets and a specific engagement order I was going for. I wrote down my draw, split, transition from box A to first shot from the port, split, transition to 15 yd rear target, split, transition to headbox and split. I wrote down what my hits were specifically on each target. Now I have all of this info, and I can't figure out how all of this data is useful. I see my best run was right around the average of my times. 6.90 seconds, 38 points, 5.51 HF. My average time was 6.81 for all 24 runs. It took me between 1.89 and 2.56 seconds to get setup in the port and start shooting. That seemed to drop as the practice session went on. I can see that transitioning between distances is still a struggle for me, so I need to keep working specifically at that. What I'm wondering is, would shooting 100 or 200 more rounds down range been more beneficial than me writing this stuff down? At this point, I'm thinking the trigger time would be more beneficial than logging. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
wmetzler01 Posted May 5, 2015 Share Posted May 5, 2015 (edited) Here's a few suggestions: 1). at the start of each month choose a few drills, record times/hits/observations on what went well/what to improve. Train for the month, and redo the drills at the end of the month and record results. Only post at the beginning and end of the month. 2). Pick a different drill each week and post observations from each week For me, I do number one as I don't want this to turn into a writing exercise. Also I like this method as I can compare how I improve overtime. I have a strong engineering/finance background I can easily go overboard with data collection; however, that is too much work and I want this to be fun... Will Edited May 5, 2015 by wmetzler01 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Glock26Toter Posted May 6, 2015 Share Posted May 6, 2015 Sounds like Will is onto something. You are collecting too much data. Your base question of time VS rounds can only be answered by asking what you are looking for in a training session. I normally only shoot about 100-150 rounds in a training session. These days I'm pretty focused on accuracy and will dry run a stage several times before firing it. I write down how many charlies I got and the total time. (assuming the rest are A's since it's accuracy training.) I'm pretty much after "how slow do I need to go, to ensure all A's" for most drills. Other times I might be looking at draw times. If that's the case, I'll just look at the first shot time, but I find that unless I'm making more than one shot, the first shot drill is not valid. So, I'll shoot two targets but only note whether I got an A or a C on the first shot, and the time to the first shot. (I've found that I can pretty easily get .80 or so with a single shot, but have a very difficult time getting .90 or better if I'm continuing on to more shots. And how often do we do that?, hence the validity question about a single shot drill) Anyways, when I'm training for split times, I'll only write down split times and A/C hits. These are all separate sessions that I'm practicing these skills and as you can guess. Some drill will use a lot more ammo than others. Then there are movement drills, reload drills and all that stuff to add in, but when I'm practicing any movement, I usually don't write any hits down and rarely time. I'm only practicing the movement and getting it correctly. As fast as I can comfortably do it without screwing it up. Wow, I kind of dumped my entire routine here. I hope it helps. It kind of helped me to write it out. To get back to the point, I don't worry about how much time or ammo I'm using... I drill for the particular skill that I feel I need the most work on, and if something doesn't present itself, I usually default to accuracy/total time. If you feel your list is too long for a "default" than just rotate drills. I think it's a mistake to practice too many things at once. And to sum things up... If I'm just trashing everything I'll either switch or go home. It MUST be fun and productive. Frustrated training is ONLY training for frustration. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
johnsons1480 Posted May 13, 2015 Author Share Posted May 13, 2015 Since my last post, I've been to the range twice. The first time, I brought a friend who wants to shoot his first match. I ended up shooting 76 rounds total, so it wasn't much of a practice at all. Yesterday, I took Weatherunderground at it's word and got burned. Drove down to the range expecting to set up distance changeup. It was pouring. There is a 10 yd plate rack under a tent, so I opted to do some plate rack drills. I'm glad I ended up doing this, because it pointed out some big issues with my grip and trigger control. I need to go back to the basics and retrain from the top down. Hopefully that will just take a few weeks of dry fire and live fire. Goal time for 6 straight was 2.5 seconds. My best was 3 flat. If I got my grip right I was hovering around 3.3. That leads me to ... My grip and trigger control are bad. I'm ducking shots low consistently. Through a little experimenting, if I tighten down my weak hand grip, everything goes fine. I am going to work to make that grip consistent in dry fire. I want to do some blank wall drills too for trigger control. I feel like that could use some improvement. Transitions could have been sped up, which is the story of my life. I think I need to start making the transitions in my normal live fire and dry fire wider. This would force me to stop watching my sights to the next target and transitions with my eyes (or at least I think I'll notice when I'm doing it wrong). I bought Foundations on Vimeo today. I watched it once through, but I'm going to watch it again and take some notes. I think there are a lot of things I just never learned properly. So again, it's back to the fundamentals for a little while. I've been dealing with a little bit of discouragement lately. I haven't been doing great in practice. Dry fire has been less and less. It seemed like I was regressing as a shooter. I think I figured out a lot of what was going on yesterday. I'm going to work on those areas until I feel like I have them down, and then move back to more complicated things. If the weather holds out next week, I'm going to practice on Monday and Friday, and shoot a match on Saturday. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
b1gcountry Posted May 14, 2015 Share Posted May 14, 2015 3sec on a plate rack is not at all bad. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
johnsons1480 Posted May 14, 2015 Author Share Posted May 14, 2015 Thanks man. Last night and this morning I worked on the new grip technique and working on my draw with the new grip. I feel like it's my first day again. My draw is slower (still probably under 1.5 sec), but my grip is solid and my sights are showing up where I want them to. I can't do more than 15 minutes of dry fire in a session because I'm gripping so hard. It feels great to have that figured out; I just need to continue to burn it in. I also worked in reloads to make sure I'm getting my grip back on the gun correctly. Going to keep this up and hopefully the results will show up in live fire Monday. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
johnsons1480 Posted May 19, 2015 Author Share Posted May 19, 2015 Had the best day of practice in quite some time. I did about 200 bullets of distance changeup, and focused on accuracy at first. After I was comfortable with my hits, I started pushing the speed a little. I shaved about a second off of my run with comparable hits. Then I did 15 yard bill drills. I started out just pushing for A's, and I was hovering around 3.5 seconds with all A's. I started pushing the speed, and my best run was 2.51 with 3As and 3 very close Cs. I'll keep working on my draw speed in dry fire, but it wasn't as bad as I thought it was going to be. I was around 1.5 seconds on the draw to 15 yard popper, and I don't think I missed it a single time. A couple of things have changed since my last discouraging practice. I focused solely on grip in my dry fire sessions the last few days. I think I can move back to doing regular drills, but I need to continue to emphasize grip in dry fire. I changed from an SP01 slide stop to a regular CZ 75 slide stop. It's just out of my way now. It was messing up my grip and my gun wouldn't lock back when empty. Switching that out removed an obstacle to me being able to place my thumbs correctly. And lastly, I switched to VZ Diamondback grips. I have tactile feedback now when I'm not gripping hard enough. I can feel the difference in dry fire when I'm griping properly. They are a little less thick than the rubber grips, and I feel like they fit my hand better. All in all, I feel like they were a good purchase. Glad to have a great day at the range finally. Hoping to get out for another practice on Friday, and then a match on Saturday. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
johnsons1480 Posted May 24, 2015 Author Share Posted May 24, 2015 Dry fired all week, and shot Fixed Time Standards A on Friday. That drill was tough. Here are the results. The goal was 80 points The first run, 28/90 available points Second run, 51/90 I then started shooting the strings individually 13 times 10 yards WHO, High 19/30, Average 13/30. Average Draw 2.18 sec 20 yards SHO, High 24/30, Average 13/30. Average Draw 1.83 sec 30 yards Freestyle, High 22/30, Average 19/30. Average Draw 1.98 sec Then I shot it a third time, 40/90 points. I feel like I could pour a whole lot of effort into this and shoot the goal points. I don't think mastering these skills would be the best use of my time though. It got me more comfortable shooting at 30 yards, SHO, and WHO shooting and draws. That's what I'm taking away from it. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
johnsons1480 Posted May 25, 2015 Author Share Posted May 25, 2015 Shot the best match I've probably ever shot Saturday. It was a 7 stage club match. Third place in Production, shot 69% of a legitimate GM. No classifier stage at this match, which was kind of a bummer. Here are the results Match https://practiscore.com/results.php?uuid=f9e05810-765e-49fd-bc71-53a464a9d47f Individual Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
johnsons1480 Posted May 25, 2015 Author Share Posted May 25, 2015 Forgot to add my takeaways. I would say my transitions are the lowest hanging fruit. I am going to look at my training plan today and try to figure out where I want to go with things. I'll report back when I have that figured out. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
johnsons1480 Posted May 25, 2015 Author Share Posted May 25, 2015 I went to the range and did Criss Cross today. What an interesting drill. Definitely showed me that I'm following the gun when I'm transitioning. I was able to start transitioning with my eyes and shaved off some time by the end of it. Got about 280 rounds in, and I was going to run the drill 2 more times. Then, while shooting the second to last string, my rear sight broke in half and flew off. These are fixed sights so I'm pretty surprised by this. Not happy this happened, but at least it didn't happen in the match Saturday. Going to call the MFG tomorrow and see if there was a bad run or something. I'm not throwing the gun around or anything, and I rarely even touch the rear sight. Seems like every time I get back in the groove of dry fire, live fire, and shooting matches, something breaks down. First the holster, now this. Hopefully I can get it taken care of soon. Until then, I'll be practicing my very slow reloads in dry fire I suppose! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
wmetzler01 Posted May 26, 2015 Share Posted May 26, 2015 That sucks! Do you have a back up gun? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
johnsons1480 Posted May 26, 2015 Author Share Posted May 26, 2015 Not one that would be any good to me. I have my Glock 34, but that seems counter productive to train with in the interim. I'd love to get a backup gun, but it's not in the budget at the moment. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
johnsons1480 Posted May 26, 2015 Author Share Posted May 26, 2015 Got in touch with the manufacturer, and he's sending me a brand new rear sight free of charge. They were already aware of the issue, and had previously redesigned the sight so this doesn't happen anymore. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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