ScottieShootz Posted March 28, 2016 Share Posted March 28, 2016 (Prequel) I took a 3 year hiatus from USPSA / 3gun while I pursued some of life's little adventures and traveled the world. Prior, I shot Limited and SS, usually every other week, but never took it for more than my other expensive partial hobby. Now that I'm back in the states and work in the related firearms industry, I decided to give USPSA/3gun a hard run. I shot my first match with my 2011 Open gun this weekend. I've had a 2 live fire sessions and I'd say 5 solid dryfire sessions over the last month in prep for this. I finished 12 of 67 overall. Not my best finish, but I quickly noticed some things that I need to handle better in the Open division than in Limited. I have probably 4 more weeks of work craziness before I'm able to start my daily dryfire and more range time practice. This weekend gave me some good insight. 1) Loosening your 2 cmore screws to loctite them the night before doesn't bode well. The first stage I bombed, every shot was left 6 inches. and the first 3 6in plates on the rack, were a joy to knock down. I then spent the next classifier stage shooting 4in left after I turned my windage knob a tad. Stage 3 I turned the knob another 1/2 and seemed to be roughly on and started hitting alphas. They were not all that tight when I backed them out a bit, and I snugged them up but could not find an actual torque value from cmore. 2) 170 mags are fun, 1 reload for a 32 round stage the entire day, and it made sense to start with the 140 and finish with the 170. Finishing on an empty chamber when I had to take a make up shot on another stage, is a weird feeling. 3) I move quickly between arrays, however, I'm not on the trigger fast enough when I enter the shooting box. Finding the dot is not the problem, I'm not bringing the gun up in a timely manner before my feet stop. This just needs repetition practice at the end of the day. I hit my mark with my feet each time except once, which made me shuffle to shoot the hidden target. Placing my feet properly was a goal of mine for the match. 4) Shoot faster to pace with the better Open shooters- I'll put this one on gun confidence with my sighting issue and just plain gripping the gun harder. I can see the dot the whole way, but my splits were pacing an average B shooter. I need to work on my grip strength as well, my weakhand starts to get the shakes as the day goes on. I know this plays a bit of a role in my follow up shots. Otherwise, I wish I switched to Open years ago, but then I may not have taken my break! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Hi-Power Jack Posted March 28, 2016 Share Posted March 28, 2016 1. Yeah, you can't sight your gun in during a match. Learned that the hard way. 2. I always start the match with a 170 and reload with a 140 - less likely to fumble the reload with the shorter tube. Where, in Florida, are you? I'm in Central Florida and shoot at the Central Florida R &P near the Orlando airport. Welcome to OPEN - good luck with the next match. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ScottieShootz Posted March 28, 2016 Author Share Posted March 28, 2016 1. Yeah, you can't sight your gun in during a match. Learned that the hard way. 2. I always start the match with a 170 and reload with a 140 - less likely to fumble the reload with the shorter tube. Where, in Florida, are you? I'm in Central Florida and shoot at the Central Florida R &P near the Orlando airport. Welcome to OPEN - good luck with the next match. I've practice for both reloads on the 170 and 140. The stage was set up with 12 shots in the first section and 18 in the second. It was basically a T, where the lane was the 12 and the top was 19 with some steel in there. I'm in Tampa, so if anyone is looking to have a training partner, let me know. I've shot in Volusia and frostproof before, but nothing in Orlando. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ano Posted March 28, 2016 Share Posted March 28, 2016 Welcome to open division, we have cookies. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ultimo-Hombre Posted March 30, 2016 Share Posted March 30, 2016 Welcome to open. Fun ain't it? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Punished Posted March 30, 2016 Share Posted March 30, 2016 (edited) Definitely is a fun division, wish I jumped to it a long time ago. Edited March 30, 2016 by Punished Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ScottieShootz Posted March 30, 2016 Author Share Posted March 30, 2016 Welcome to open. Fun ain't it? Definitely is a fun division, wish I jumped to it a long time ago. I can see how it will improve my skills in SS and Lim when I shoot those divisions again. For now, I'm not touching any other guns until I make Master in open. Even then, I'll probably order a new 9 major and see where this takes me. My first Open classifier was shot while not knowing my dot was so far off. So that 59% score, if we play the show up with your gear correct game "could have been" a 72% with the same hits on paper but the steel would have gone down on point of aim and not taken 2 follow ups to figure out how far I'm pulling. If I had hit an Alpha and knocked the steel I'd have been 77% which is about where I left off in Limited. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
LilBunniFuFu Posted March 30, 2016 Share Posted March 30, 2016 Tampa has the WAC, a fantastic place to shoot and train. The guys over there are so helpful its not even funny. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ultimo-Hombre Posted March 30, 2016 Share Posted March 30, 2016 Welcome to open. Fun ain't it? Definitely is a fun division, wish I jumped to it a long time ago. I can see how it will improve my skills in SS and Lim when I shoot those divisions again. For now, I'm not touching any other guns until I make Master in open. Even then, I'll probably order a new 9 major and see where this takes me. My first Open classifier was shot while not knowing my dot was so far off. So that 59% score, if we play the show up with your gear correct game "could have been" a 72% with the same hits on paper but the steel would have gone down on point of aim and not taken 2 follow ups to figure out how far I'm pulling. If I had hit an Alpha and knocked the steel I'd have been 77% which is about where I left off in Limited. Making M in open is a bit tougher than limited. I lost track of how many times it seemed I crushed a classifier and it's like 80%!? but hey, it all pays the same so go for it Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ano Posted March 30, 2016 Share Posted March 30, 2016 I cant get the classifiers right for shiiiiit, I shoot L3 matches 30-40% above my classifiers.. somebody must have gamed this shit out of them, (ipsc) Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Underwood Posted March 30, 2016 Share Posted March 30, 2016 Congrats... shooting with a dot is alot of fun Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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