New shooter (finally)

[Aiden]

Well, I'd been itching to get started shooting competition of some sort for the last three and a half years now, and a variety of factors have just kept getting in the way (life, school, work, grad school). I ended up selling almost all the guns I had picked up in anticipation of the variety of shooting sports, and slimmed down the collection to just the essentials.

Finally on a regular schedule, with both the budget and a bit of time to get out and shoot the local USPSA matches half an hour away. Shot 4 matches with my G17 and active retention holster, managed to take a first and a third in Production and placing "not horribly" overall. Just grabbed a G34 from the Classifieds. I'm hooked.

I've yet to shoot a classifier, but very excited for whatever it may be!

So I guess my question is: How does one practice with very little actual range time (or indeed, in general)? I've managed to fit one club shoot every week or two, but aside from that I don't have a lot of spare time for getting out to the range, and even less once the semester starts again. Give up a club night and work on establishing point of impact?

And since every thread is worthless without pics... my G17

[FULLMETAL]

Lots of Dry fire practice

[LilBunniFuFu]

Lots and lots of dry fire.

[Smitty79]

Given your places, it sounds like you have the basics. For practice, I'd do several things. First, you need a practice schedule. There are lots of ways to build this. Take this with a grain of salt. I'm a better internet commando than USPSA shooter. I write it off to talent. Practical shooting is like touch typing or playing a musical instrument. I'm not good at either of those either.

1. If there is someone local who teaches USPSA basics, take the class. This should help with foundations and make sure you're not missing anything big.

2. In matches, try to shoot with people who are better than you are.

3. Have a regular practice schedule, based on your goals and weaknesses. Weaknesses can be analyzed from matches and from practice with a timer.

• Probably the best, overall, practice book is Ben Stoeger's "Skills and Drills". Not only does he lay out drills, he gives goal times to help analyze weaknesses.
• I would add Ben's Practical Pistol and "Dry Fire Training: For the Practical Pistol Shooter". (You can get all of these as a combo from the Ben Stoeger Pro Shop)
• To get an alternate perspective, I'd also get Steve Anderson's "Refinement and Repetition".

My personal practice schedule is focused on classifier skills. I'm usually top one or two Production Seniors at my monthly club match. I typically shoot about 65% of the local grand master on field courses and tank the classifiers. So my focus is on classifier type skills. M-F, I dry fire 20 to 30 min on Classifier supporting drills. Saturdays and Sundays, I back the cars out of the garage and work on stage skills and movement. I get to the range for a match or a practice once a week. Range practice is classifier focused.

4. My weakness is my mental game. Part of my problem with classifiers is that I go zero or hero and get zero. I shot one the other day that would have been about 70% if the one no shoot had been an A instead. Books that help this are:

• "With Winning in Mind", by Lanny Basham. I've read this once and it didn't sink in. I usually read stuff on a Kindle. I just bought one hard copy to make marking it up and finding things easier.
• "Practical Shooting: Beyond Fundamentals" by Brian Enos. I've read this one 3 times. Some of it I get, some I don't. Some people recommend this as a first book on practical shooting. Some people think it's the path from A class to Master. I will read it again soon.
• Keep going on Steve Anderson's books and listen to his pod casts, especially the old ones.. His concepts of Training mode and Match mode speak to me, though I haven't been successful in developing the proper match mode.

One last comment supporting dry fire. Everywhere I look, the top shooters talk about dry fire. I think most of them get in the vicinity of 4 to 5 trigger pulls of dry fire for every round fired at the range. For us weekend warriors, trying to improve, I think the number is more like 6 times. I can find 20 min a day to do the drills. Finding 3 hours to drive to the range, set up targets, tape targets after each run, clean up the brass... is harder.

[Aiden]

Dry fire sounds like the way to go! Aside from being free, which is always helpful.

I've taped up a variety of scaled targets in my room for practicing transitions and dry fire. I also have a timer to work on draws and reloads.

Now if only I could figure out a way to stop looking for the holes and call my shots instead... soon as that buzzer goes off half the time I completely forget I have a front sight.

[Hi-Power Jack]

soon as that buzzer goes off I forget I have a front sight.

Perfect place to start ... You'll be amazed how often you

can miss the target, completely, even at close range, if

you forget your front sight.

Might want to get a book on dry firing - Steve Andersen , etc.

[g mac]

Yup, dry fire, magazine changes, quick draw and sight picture dry practices.

[CanonSterVA]

Given your places, it sounds like you have the basics. For practice, I'd do several things. First, you need a practice schedule. There are lots of ways to build this. Take this with a grain of salt. I'm a better internet commando than USPSA shooter. I write it off to talent. Practical shooting is like touch typing or playing a musical instrument. I'm not good at either of those either.

1. If there is someone local who teaches USPSA basics, take the class. This should help with foundations and make sure you're not missing anything big.

2. In matches, try to shoot with people who are better than you are.

3. Have a regular practice schedule, based on your goals and weaknesses. Weaknesses can be analyzed from matches and from practice with a timer.

• Probably the best, overall, practice book is Ben Stoeger's "Skills and Drills". Not only does he lay out drills, he gives goal times to help analyze weaknesses.
• I would add Ben's Practical Pistol and "Dry Fire Training: For the Practical Pistol Shooter". (You can get all of these as a combo from the Ben Stoeger Pro Shop)
• To get an alternate perspective, I'd also get Steve Anderson's "Refinement and Repetition".

My personal practice schedule is focused on classifier skills. I'm usually top one or two Production Seniors at my monthly club match. I typically shoot about 65% of the local grand master on field courses and tank the classifiers. So my focus is on classifier type skills. M-F, I dry fire 20 to 30 min on Classifier supporting drills. Saturdays and Sundays, I back the cars out of the garage and work on stage skills and movement. I get to the range for a match or a practice once a week. Range practice is classifier focused.

4. My weakness is my mental game. Part of my problem with classifiers is that I go zero or hero and get zero. I shot one the other day that would have been about 70% if the one no shoot had been an A instead. Books that help this are:

• "With Winning in Mind", by Lanny Basham. I've read this once and it didn't sink in. I usually read stuff on a Kindle. I just bought one hard copy to make marking it up and finding things easier.
• "Practical Shooting: Beyond Fundamentals" by Brian Enos. I've read this one 3 times. Some of it I get, some I don't. Some people recommend this as a first book on practical shooting. Some people think it's the path from A class to Master. I will read it again soon.
• Keep going on Steve Anderson's books and listen to his pod casts, especially the old ones.. His concepts of Training mode and Match mode speak to me, though I haven't been successful in developing the proper match mode.

One last comment supporting dry fire. Everywhere I look, the top shooters talk about dry fire. I think most of them get in the vicinity of 4 to 5 trigger pulls of dry fire for every round fired at the range. For us weekend warriors, trying to improve, I think the number is more like 6 times. I can find 20 min a day to do the drills. Finding 3 hours to drive to the range, set up targets, tape targets after each run, clean up the brass... is harder.

Quoting this to come back for a list of things to do as well.

Thank you.

Myron

[bradsteimel]

Sounds redundant, but dry fire:

- draw from surrender, draw from hands relaxed, draw from table starts

- make sure to get a good grip every time, and then immediately get a good sight picture.

- practice target transitions with close targets, and targets further apart.

- lots of mag changes

[turbopower18]

If your catching matches twice weekly your doing better than most! But dryfire dryfire dryfire!

[AzShooter]

Welcome to the fold and to the forum. Looks like you have a great plan.

Keep reading the forum. There is loads of help here for beginners and Master Class shooters.

Everyone so far has given you good advice. All I can say is keep it up and try to go to as many matches as you can.

[Aiden]

Picked up a G34 off the classifieds, swapped out some springs and ran it at a local match last Tuesday. The dryfire seems to have helped, and I managed to get out to the range to see where it goes on paper. Shot 94.53% of the Production points with 13 A 1 C, trailing a couple seconds behind the first two shooters (though I did lose a second or so by almost falling over). Successfully upped the speed and threw a mike with some Cs and Ds for 72%, of which I have a video.

Reloads are getting better and stage planning is getting better. Still working on keeping my focus when the buzzer goes off or when I mess up, I'm guessing my inexperience shows when I can't salvage a bad run and get flustered (unnecessary reloads, shooting 3 when I already had 2 As). Still occasionally losing that front sight and pulling the trigger anyway, mostly when I'm trying to speed up.

Second round video

Currently looking at shoes that grip the semi-slick concrete better. Using my trail running shoes/whatever I was wearing from work but I've slipped and slid too much for my liking.

Edited January 23, 2016 by Aiden

[Grant]

I dry fire like crazy! Almost every night and practice draws.