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A different kind of journey


drmweaver2

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Hey all. I thought I'd give this "range diary" idea a shot.

Where do I start? Well, I'm a relative beginner. I mean I shot when I was in the Army a few decades ago (does that hint at my age?). Mostly that was rifle shooting though I did qualify and plink with pistols a bit. So I have memories of sight pictures and shooting fundamentals... but no serious experience with pistols.

Recent events have led me to purchase a self defense weapon, an S&W SD9VE 9mm. In researching (after the purchase) how to shoot it, I stumbled across this "thing" called competitive shooting, then USPSA and IDPA matches and videos. I saw the link between fun competition and real-world self-defense skills so I began to look for local events. Went and saw my first match this past weekend. I'm hooked even before my first competition. It's a question of getting the basic skills and safety procedures down before I enter a match.

To lower my practice costs, I've also bought a full-sized S&W M&P 22LR semi-automatic. I can do lots of $.05/round 22LR practice as opposed to breaking my bank $.7 or more/round (9mm) training. I'll do some 9mm live fire practice, but much more .22LR live firing and lots of dry firing with the SD9VE.

My goal - pretty simple. To have fun with the competition itself. To shoot each match better than the last. I'm not setting a goal of making Master or Grand master. But the classifiers will end up ranking me inspite of myself. We'll see how that goes.

So, that's where I am - a beginner with a serious budget constraint. I'm probably one of very few herre who isn't ranking-driven.

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First training entry

Last week I shot the SD9VE. The recoil and noise were more than I remembered when I was shooting a 1911 in the service. I wound up putting about 200 rounds downrange in two sessions. I definitely had the beginner issues of grip inconsistency, flinching, and bad sight picture/indexing. After the fact, I added up the cost of the sessions and knew I had to come up with an alternative.

I found a deal on a full-sized S&W M&P 22LR and bought it.

Last Friday I went to the range and shot the 22. Immediate positive response to shooting it. Little to no flinching - okay, I can practice with this!

Goal - to get familiar with the piece

Analysis - found a grip that worked 90% of the time. Wound up slightly inconsistent with firmness - strong hand palm actually not in contact with the grip - duh, whut?!? Yeah, couldn't believe that myself. Also, found that I had to really concentrate to maintain my off-hand contact with the handle. Need to concentrate more on solid grip with both hands. Found that the M&P 22LR sight picture didn't seem to wander in circles as much as the 9mm had. Was able to bring the front sight back on target much faster than with the 9mm (go figure, little to no recoil in comparison, silly).

Shooting distance/target - mostly 15-20 feet/3 inch circles

Shooting results (visual where the rounds hit) - mostly left. As opposed to the results I saw with the SD9VE/9mm (low left), the M&P 22LR was hitting high left (85-90%) or left (10-15%).

Today

Goal - to continue familiarity with the M&P 22LR

How it went - out of about 200 rounds downrange, I had multiple failures to deal with. Failures to eject, double chambering, first round in the magazine ending up standing up and out of the ejection port instead of in the chamber(wtf?). So, a fair bit of emergency action practice that was not anticipated. But, still good practice and something I was going to have to practice anyway.

Still need to work on the consistency of my grip pressure. The positioning of it seems fine according to a range instructor.

Shooting distance - mostly 15-20 feet/3 inch circles

Shooting results - Rounds mostly went high left and left again/mostly in the circle. Grouping was in the 4 inch range, 5 inches when starting from a low ready position. Last 24 rounds(2 mags) moved the target out to 30 feet and slow shot at an 8" bull - all rounds were on target. No grouping. All left (both high and low) but 2.

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And the dry fire training begins...nothing amazing, just trying to put in "the work".

35 minutes of dry firing today. Started with basic stuff - draw from the holster then moved on to going from low ready to sighting on a 2 inch target at 15 feet. Definitely need to learn to control the wobble.

Did a few Bill drills, a couple El Presidentes and and then moved to Dot tortures. I like the dot torture drill a lot but it does get repetitive.

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Live fire day - indoor range

Distances - 15 and 20 feet

# rounds shot - ~150-170 (kinda lost track of magazine loads/reloads

Goal - smoothly controlling the trigger

Analysis - Started off mediocre to good. Sight picture began to wobble/became less steady as the shooting session went on. Still shooting noticeably left most of the time but some rounds are landing to the right of where I think I'm aiming. I guess that means I am anticipating the trigger break(?).

Was shooting mostly at 3.5" black circles/bullseyes. With the exception of 2 magazines where I deliberately shot fast (for me), ~90% were in the black. That should make me feel fairly good, right? Well, I just feel tired and semi-dissatisfied. Dunno quite why.

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Dry Fire - 30 minutes today

Worked on low ready to pressed out/indexed (term?) sight-picture.

Worked on draw from holster to pressed out/indexed position.

Worked on magazine reloads, both emergency and retention.

Been working with a prohands.net GripMaster grip strengthener (heavy tension). Doing "sets" of 25 reps throughout the day, probably totalling ~300 reps each hand by the end of the day. I can definitely tell it's getting me somewhere as I can now fully grip and hold the gripmaster closed/fully compressed for 15 secs where I couldn't even fully compress it when I first started (about 10 days ago). Working both hands; weak/left hand is making good but slow(er) progress.

I anticipate the arrival of the SIRT laser pistol I ordered tomorrow. I've already downloaded & installed the LASR software as well as hooking up the necessary webcam (got a $6 'el cheapo' off eBay) to an old laptop that's going to be dedicated to the LASR/SIRT training. I hope to do my first LASR/SIRT indoor training tomorrow as the 2 indoor ranges I "usually" visit are both closed on Tuesdays.

Added: Will probably transition pretty quickly to following a modified training plan from Ben Stoeger's Dry Fire Training for the Practical Shooter book. I'll most likely modify the New Shooter plan. But I have to finish reading the book and consider how to best incorporate the LASR/SIRT combo with the Stoeger Dry-Fire Training Plan.... At first glance, seems like it should be fairly easy.

Edited by drmweaver2
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Received both the LAST and Sirt today. Had major trouble installing the software - I'm no computer illiterate. There are installation limitations they don't tell you about upfront. AND I had issues upgrading the laptop I'll be dedicating to the LASR/Sirt combo from XP to Windows 10 (probably overkill/definintely overkill but it was FREE so why not?). Anyway, it's all installed and tested, but it took much much longer than planned and that killed my buzz so I didn't do the dry firing/LASR-Sirt serious stuff I had hoped I'd get in.

Tomorrow....yeah, tomorrow.

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Well, I got it all set up..the LASR/Sirt "indoor range" that is.

First%20indoor%20setup.jpg

Couldn't get the LASR software to display clearly on this pic (due to the backlighting Iguess).

Nothing fancy for now.. just threw a bunch of targets from off the Net onto a wall. Will provide sufficient variety to start, I believe.

25 draws and extend sighting on the center of the big bullseye

5 dot torture drills - totally untimed at this point.

10 2xLeft silhouette then 2x Right silhouettes, reload mag, then

2x Right silhouette then 2x Left silhouette

5 "speed drills" on the 3 circles up top...

(L>R)1-1-1 - (R>L)2-2-2 - L_R_L)1-2-1-2-1

This is gonna be fun... if possibly tedious. But I hope it works as well as it initially feels.

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Probably the first of two entries today. First one is non-actual shooting stuff.

Been thinking - which is usually a dangerous thing for me to do. In a different thread, the question of my goals came up as they are not the usual "get to M or GM as quickly as possible" like many people here. Also, the first chapter of "Beyond Fundamentals" raised the question of shooting goals and how to achieve them (a kinda all touchy-feely mental chapter if you ask me, but.....). So I asked myself to be brutally honest about what my goals really are and how they should drive my "training and performance"?

Well, to be honest, I have no goal to be a GM/M. It simply isn't important to me. I do want to be able to practically and effectively shoot as a means of self-defense and as a lifestyle choice (I'm going to get a concealed carry permit soon). USPSA and similar competitions provide the only "moving live-fire shooting" that's available to me. So, by definition, I'll be competing because that's the structure forced on me.

How will that assist me with my self-defense/lifestyle goal? Simply put, I'll view it as a measure of improving and/or maintaining skills as and after they've been developed. I'm starting as pretty much a off-white slate. I have decades old knowledge and experience - meaning I shot decades ago for a couple years while in the military but seldom since.

My choice of handgun reflects that - a S&W SD9VE, a self-defense 9mm not a "competition quality" weapon like some Glocks or the S&W M&P Pro line. That will possibly limit my progression from at least B level to M/GM if I were serious about competing, but I can accept that easily. The progression from one level to another can still be used as a measure of my proficiency. So it's all good.

Still, there has to be more than that. Well, bullseye shooting gets tedious and repetitive on its own. The number of drills developed for competitive practical shooting directly attacks that possibility. By practicing those drills, I'll accomplish two things - providing variety so as to maintain interest and simultaneously gain SD and competition proficiency.

Hmm, okay, but the 9mm rounds are expensive (to me at least). Hmm, but ya gotta shoot a lot to get good right? Well, you guys and others have convinced me that dry-fire practice can translate to live-fire proficiency. Okay.. I've heard a 5:1 ratio would be effective... but that nasty tedium issue raises its head again for me. AND I have issues with wanting to see real results...paper in hand type graded results not just looking at a timer and comparing this run to the previous one time-wise. Hmmm, gotta be a solution..... Okay... get a 22 if the basic skills will transfer from 22 to 9mm shooting... Most people say the actual shooting skills will transfer... And it's cheaper than the 9mm... So, I got a S&W M&P 22LR pistol. Problem solved, right?

Hmm, still oughta be a different/possibly more-suited-to-me than just adding the .22 to "my arsenal", right? I mean, even .22 ammo costs... Okay, found another solution.. the LASR/SIRT training combo. Immediate feedback, infinitely changeable "ranges" and target setups, you can still do (nearly) all the dry fire drills with the SIRT pistol.... And those that can't be done with the SIRT can be done with the SD9VE or the M&P .22LR. Yeah.. seems to be the ticket - for me. Like I said, I'm different... I REALLY need something concrete, at least more concrete to me than the dry-fire timer drills.

Speaking of dry-fire timer drills... the attractiveness of beating a time (no offense to anyone else) eludes me. It has since I ran track in high school way back when just after dinosaurs disappeared from the Earth. On the other hand, combined with accuracy, speed is not an evil to be avoided. I can look at it as another measure... (Seems like I'm repeating myself here.)

So, that's my current state of thought... my goal with respect to USPSA/competitive shooting is what the goal experts advise against doing - it's been set as a generic, non-specific, almost immeasurable thing. It's to demonstrate increasing (or at least not decreasing) proficiency up to a certain somewhat undefined level and then maintain that as demonstrated through competition results.

As the thread title suggests.... I'm on a different journey than many of you....

We'll see how it goes.

Now.. off to live fire the .22......because I can.

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Well, it WASN'T all good.

I had major issues with my S&W M&P .22LR pistol. I wound up shooting only 60 rounds and that was like pulling teeth. The damn pistol misfed, failed to eject, stovepiped and otherwise malfunctioned literally 1/3 of those rounds. It's a brand new pistol! Frustrated beyond belief, I left. Just left.

On the way home, I decided to take it to a gunsmith, so I drove 60plus miles to the one I have confidence in. He took it in the back room for maybe 5 minutes and then declared "The gun works fine. I don't have any idea why you ran into problems with it."

5 different magazines. At least 30 malfunctions in one session.

I don't know what to do with this pistol now. Send it back to S&W? Academy Sports, where I bought it from, certainly won't take it back as I've shot too many rounds through it.

Worst day of "shooting" ever for me.

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Went "back" to the LASR/SIRT and dry-fire work.

All dry-fire drills done without a timer. Concentrating on technique and feel.

---press outs sighted on center mass of 8" ringed bullseye target at 12 feet

5 press outs from low ready to eye level on dominant eye(left) side (just warming up)

5 press outs from high ready to eye level on dominant eye(left) side (just warming up)

25 draw from holster drills. Focusing on technique.

- 12 micro drills - draw from holster (right hip) to low ready

- 13 micro drills - low ready to press out at eye level on dominant eye(left) side

10 draw from holster - full draw from holster(right hip) to

............................press out at eye level on dominant eye(left) side

Drills below - distance to target 12 feet

25 single trigger pulls concentrating on smoothness

...........(blank wall, no target sighting involved)

25 single trigger pulls concentrating on holding LASR dot inside 3 inch circle

..........(medium difficulty holding dot on target for more than 3 secs for me)

25 single trigger pulls concentrating on holding LASR dot inside 2 inch circle

..........(difficult holding dot on target for more than 3 secs for me)

25 single trigger pulls concentrating on holding LASR dot inside 1 inch circle

..........(very difficult holding dot on target for more than 3 secs for me)

Plan on 300 GripMaster(black/heavy tension) squeezes with each hand throughout out day.

----done in sets of 25 each per hand

Edited by drmweaver2
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Duplicated the work/drills from yesterday (only got 250 Gripmaster squeezes in on each hand though.

Issues I had are failure to be absolutely in the moment, concentrating on ALL movements, muscle twitches, etc. I get distracted even in the short period of time between going from low ready to being fully pressed out. I never realized I have a concentration and focus problem. Hmmm. Maybe that first chapter of Beyond Fundamentals actually is on point for me.

Spent about an hour doing "crafts" - printing out and gluing together some additional targets for the training area. Getting more familiar with the truly awesome LASR/Sirt combo. I've got the lasers adjusted for POA/POI for the distance I'm "shooting" (in the room I'm using). A little bit more adjustment, clearing the extraneous things so I can shoot and move or shoot from a different angle and the room should pretty much be set for practicing for a while.

I'm considering going out to watch another USPSA match tomorrow. No, not actually shoot - for various reasons. Just watch. I'm interested in finding out if the same people who shot at the match I watched a couple weeks ago participate in this match - the distance is far enough apart there should be a fair bunch of different people and I'd like to compare the two groups as well as the range setups. This may affect how much training I get in tomorrow..

Edited by drmweaver2
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Well, I mistakenly allowed myself to be convinced to shoot at the match today - to my complete embarrassment.

Below - "Stage 1 and 2" are the order we shot the stages in, not the Stage number set by the match organizer.

Shot Stage 1 slowly...literally felt like sighting and movement was due to molasses streaming through my veins and making my feet/shoes stick to the ground. Mediocre shooting accuracy for me. Time.. well, as I said, slooooooooooow. Despite having practiced my draw from holster, it just didn't want to come out of the holster today. Dunno why.

Stage 2 was the @#(&@(#$)@(#.

It was a Start facing uprange, Turn and face downrange, shoot T1 4x, reload, shoot T2 4x, reload, shoot T3 4x stage. (FWIW, T1, 2 and 3 were all partially "covered" with no shoot areas.)

The embarrassing thing -> I stood in the starting box facing downrange, then (almost immediately) - "Command - "Load and make ready".... HALT!!!.....um, you don't "load and make ready" facing uprange dude. Well duh. DQ...End of day. Do not pass go. Do not continue shooting. May as well go home - so I did.

No excuses. Totally my fault. I own my mistake. I just brain-farted for a second. (Otoh, a mentor/buddy might have reminded me to start off facing downrange, then after loading and making ready on command, turn back uprange to wait for the beep. The RO could have told me to turn around and face downrange before tell me to "load and make ready". He didn't - I don't blame him. As the last shooter, I HAD watched and seen other people do it correctly...thought I was "ready" to do it when they called my name and I just didn't execute.

Worst part of it - some squadmate &@#*$@ decided to make a really nice comment - "well, you won't do THAT again, will you?"

Definitely a friendly, understanding and supportive attitude there. Thanks fella.

Other than being embarrassed by doing something so silly, part of my reason for beating feet home was I didn't feel part of the crowd. Everyone talks about more experienced people being welcoming/taking care of/mentoring new shooters. Didn't seem like too much of that to me. Oh, people in general were friendly. But no one guided the new shooters I noticed (except for 2 parents with their teen age sons....)

In my squad, 1 guy DQ'd on Stage 1 nearly as quickly as I did on Stage 2 because no one really emphasized to him that he (a lefty) should pay VERY strict attention to his muzzle direction when moving left to right. Shot 4 rounds shot downrange, started to move to his right (2 steps) - "HALT!" -> DQ. End of story. End of his shooting day. Not the people running the match's fault. of course, but no one mentored the guy or walked through the stage with him at all. I know, because he and I mentioned it to each other in passing. Somehow, he had missed "the new shooter briefing" despite coming with another guy (who'd only been to one match himself prior to this). Again, I don't really blame the match organizer for the guy's DQ... But his friend was put into another squad, so he was "alone", like me.

Another squadmate shot multiple times through the plastic "netting" simulating a wall on Stage 1 - hey, if you can see the target, you can shoot it, right? (No arguments or comments about "common sense" please. He was a new guy and made a beginner's mistake.) Again, no one "mentored" him though he was identified as a new shooter on the squad list.

Not sure I like throwing away $25 like I did today. I didn't have fun and I certainly don't think the "lesson" I learned was worth $25.

I did see some nice shooting from experienced (and even mediocre) shooters. Shrug. Would have enjoyed that more if I had just been watching, not competing. Anyone want to re-imburse my $25? I'll buy lottery tickets and you can share the winnings.

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Mondays, Mondays, Mondays... new dedication, new inspiration, but same old stuff....

Yep, back at it.

I continued my training room development, tracing and cutting out 1/2 and 1/4 scale cardboard targets. I've got more than enough now to "decorate" my training area. Well, decorate is obviously the wrong word, but I can definitely alter the "range/target setup" in the room with the 36-plus paper and cardboard targets I now have. Who says you stop doing "crafts when you leave kindergarten?

But that doesn't mean I didn't do my dry-fire and LASR/SIRT training.

Warmed up with some micro-draw drills... concentrated on the "muscle feel" and loosening up

15 draws from holster to low-ready

15 press outs from low ready to point on blank white wall

15 full draws from holster to fully pressed out to point on blank white wall

15 sighting drills on 4" bullseye - from high ready

15 sighting drills on 3" bullseye - from high ready

15 sighting drills on 2" bullseye - from high ready

15 sighting drills on 1" bullseye - from high ready

25 draw from holster, sighting on 3" bullseye, then pulling trigger

15 magazine reloads from press out - using SIRT pistol and magazine in belt pouch/holder

15 from pressed out position emergency reload return to press out, pull trigger, reload, return to press out, pull trigger - using SIRT pistol and magazine in belt pouch/holder

3 Dot Torture drills from 15 feet

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Up relatively early for me... already did half of what I've planned for the day.

Holster drill realization

I am definitely having issues with the initial grab and grip AT the holster. My middle and ring fingers are "Catching" on the belt and holster side rather than curling around the pistol grip itself. This is requiring an adjustment after my initial contact with the pistol. It's definitely slowing down the draw and is certainly not smooth in any sense.

I went back to micro-drilling this for much of the early morning practice - just standing with arms hanging down and then drawing to the low ready. Even that didn't seem smooth so I micro'd it even more, just moving from hanging arms to gripping the pistol in the holster. Slow, deliberate muscle-memory building movement. Maybe it would be different at speed? Dunno. Fumbling around in the dark here. Shrug....

Got sorta frustrated with the lack of consistency and progress so I went to low ready-to-press out drills.

Eye dominance issues arose big time today - related to the frustration from the draw/grip drills? Dunno again.

I'm right handed but left eye dominant and couldn't get good front sight focus with both eyes open today. Closing right eye did allow for correct sighting/sight picture, but this was the worst sight picture practice thus far.

I'm sore... upper chest muscles and right bicep feel like they're bruised or lactic acid filled. But it's not like when I was younger and "more of a stud". This is just general soreness that persists. Damn - the pistol is only ~2.5 pounds... I can't be that out of shape, can I?

On a more positive note, I now have a Kydex holster supposedly shaped for a Glock for the SIRT pistol. I've been using the one I have which fits my S&W SD9VE which is much more difficult to draw from. I definitely need to get used to both, especially normalizing exactly where it rides/sits on my belt forward to back. I know when it's too far back for sure, but too far forward is a bit more problematic. Analyze, analyze, analyze... isn't that what BE preaches?

Another positive note, I did 25 low ready to press out to shooting a 2" target from 12 feet drills. The LASR software showed I wasn't "pushing" the trigger as much as on previous days. I was "pulling" as indicated by no "dashes", just "dots" from the trigger-pull indicator laser on the target. (I've disabled the trigger pressure laser, the lower laser which shows you have pressure on the trigger but doesn't indicate a trigger break).

More practice planned for when my attitude normals back up later today.

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"Well, I mistakenly allowed myself to be convinced to shoot at the match today - to my complete embarrassment."


Don't ever feel like it was a mistake or worry about embarrassment. ALL OF US have done "dumb" things on the rang and ALL OF US started out at the same level. Some progress faster than others but we've all been there. The saying really is true about two types of shooters. Those that have DQ'd, and those that will.


Also. On not feeling part of the crowd and I would like to say (not sure if we are talking IDPA or USPSA) that all groups of people have a hard time accepting new people. We all want to welcome new people and try to avoid doing things to piss new people off, but the people in the group are just as nervous about new members as new members are about them.

The guy that said that comment was probably trying to funny or sarcastic and upon asking him about it, I'm sure would apologize and say he didn't mean to piss you off with the comment. I personally never know what to say to new people, especially when they DQ and I only hope I've never said anything to piss them off, but I'm sure I have... I'm only human.


Of course, all groups have some assholes and we all must find the group that fits our personality and more-so we need to find a clique within that larger group that really like to hang round. (if you're an a_-hole, find some assholes to hang around! That's what I did. haha!) This takes time. Keep going, keep shooting, and keep moving around in your chosen discipline until you find some people you like. Also, if you are trying IDPA and can't find a fit, try USPSA and vise-versa. There's a fit for everyone.


Keep practicing!

Show up to all the matches.

Find the positive aspect in EVERYTHING.

Edited by Glock26Toter
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Glock26Toter... I appreciate the comments. I'm not totally discouraged, but I've had much "better days", period. My personality is such that, as things go from semi-positive to reasonable to not-so-good, my attitude tends to go right along with it - and then magnify the negative. Kinda sucks to be me at times, but I've learned to live with it. Wait 2 hours (or sometimes 2 days) and it's mostly "forgotten" (not really, but I wind up "being more in the now" than "being in the past").

As far as shooting that match being a mistake... I gotta say I still feel that it was. I wasn't ready to speed draw and don't draw from the holster with any consistency as detailed in my previous post. That threw me off on my first stage and I was "mentally behind" and never caught back up with my shooting from that point on. Dry fire practice holster draws may help overcome that, but I definitely need to find some consistency with my initial hand placement and grip. I've videoed my movement with my smartphone and it's telling me just how inconsistent my hand and arm movements are.... Maybe I'm over-thinking it. But I don't think so. (Hey, I was not joking there....!!!)

One almost positive take-away from the one stage I completed is that I felt (and still feel) good about my reloads. I didn't muff/fumble the magazine insertion (though it wasn't the quickest). Despite one guy later saying I needed to watch my muzzle direction when reloading, upon reviewing a video taken by someone else, his angle was poor and his comment reflected that fact. I was nowhere near the 180 line with my muzzle.

Anyway, I've moved on now... new temporary obstacles to discover, face and deal with.

Edited by drmweaver2
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Cool. On the draw.. speed will come later, but the most important thing is to obtain a consistent, accurate grip before coming out of the holster. To hell with how long that takes. Once you know how it feels and can perform it during a match (when your brain is on other things and only subconscious is doing it) then you can figure out how to get there faster. I'm saying, show yourself what the proper grip looks and feels like before worrying about how to speed it up.

If that takes coming up, and then down in a drastic manner, that's fine. If it takes a pause at the grip step that's fine too. A 2-3 second draw sounds like the end of the world to some of us, but if it means safety and consistency I see nothing wrong with it. Later you can work on speeding it up.

Having said that some things that may help.

1. With no gun on. Relax your hands at your side. Lift straight up until your hands are higher than your belt and then push them out in front of your face. (an air draw without a gun)

2. Now put the gun on and adjust it until it's in the way of where your hand travels to get above your belt. Now you are just moving your hand up, and your grip is in the path. No hunting for it by having to move your hand a bit forward or rearward.

3. Adjust the cant and angle until your hand doesn't have to do any strange contortions to get on the grip. Same idea as #2. Trying to get the hand to comfortably come down on the grip without having to remember to angle it in some way.

4. Gun angle toward the targets. Something else that may help is making the top of the gun point straight forward. Not way inward like I see a lot. I've attached a pic of what a I mean. I've seen some pretty ingenious ways with washers and spacers to get this accomplished. This is the reason I have a DAA Holster. It has a rotation adjustment.

Also, I see a lot of people with the gun way away from the belt (lots of times more than 2") but I personally think that moving it very close to you is more conducive to what I'm talking about. My natural hand path to putting my hands together in front of my stomach is very close to my body. I put my gun there too. It's like maybe 1" from the belt.

I hope I've said something that might help and that I'm not just confusing you.

post-38059-0-95141100-1469646010_thumb.j

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Cool. On the draw.. speed will come later, but the most important thing is to obtain a consistent, accurate grip before coming out of the holster. To hell with how long that takes. Once you know how it feels and can perform it during a match (when your brain is on other things and only subconscious is doing it) then you can figure out how to get there faster. I'm saying, show yourself what the proper grip looks and feels like before worrying about how to speed it up.

If that takes coming up, and then down in a drastic manner, that's fine. If it takes a pause at the grip step that's fine too. A 2-3 second draw sounds like the end of the world to some of us, but if it means safety and consistency I see nothing wrong with it. Later you can work on speeding it up.

Having said that some things that may help.

1. With no gun on. Relax your hands at your side. Lift straight up until your hands are higher than your belt and then push them out in front of your face. (an air draw without a gun)

2. Now put the gun on and adjust it until it's in the way of where your hand travels to get above your belt. Now you are just moving your hand up, and your grip is in the path. No hunting for it by having to move your hand a bit forward or rearward.

3. Adjust the cant and angle until your hand doesn't have to do any strange contortions to get on the grip. Same idea as #2. Trying to get the hand to comfortably come down on the grip without having to remember to angle it in some way.

4. Gun angle toward the targets. Something else that may help is making the top of the gun point straight forward. Not way inward like I see a lot. I've attached a pic of what a I mean. I've seen some pretty ingenious ways with washers and spacers to get this accomplished. This is the reason I have a DAA Holster. It has a rotation adjustment.

Also, I see a lot of people with the gun way away from the belt (lots of times more than 2") but I personally think that moving it very close to you is more conducive to what I'm talking about. My natural hand path to putting my hands together in front of my stomach is very close to my body. I put my gun there too. It's like maybe 1" from the belt.

I hope I've said something that might help and that I'm not just confusing you.

I appreciate the detailed comments.. seriously. I'll definitely give your advice in 1, 2 & 3 a try. As you say, experimentation is the order of the day for now, but deliberate experimentation not just fiddling around aimlessly.

I think part of my discomfort and inconsistency with the holster and draw right now is they seem to sit really high on the belt, way too high for easy gripping without interference at the tips of my fingers. The angle of the pistol as it hangs is grip inward and muzzle outward rather than pointing straight down. Yeah, I'm a bit bell shaped at the waist.

I'm considering one of those drop holsters, but I need to check the rules for Production holsters because that's the only division I'll shoot in since I;m not planning on buying another pistol.

The other thing that is sorta surprising to me is the difference in feel between the two different kydex holsters I already have - an Uncle Mike's Tactical Reflex and generic kydex that fits the SIRT (Glock 17). (Both were eBay buys and moving away from either has little financial impact as together I've only paid about $25 (yeah, I am a denison of eBay auctions looking for overlooked items to save money!).) The Uncle Mike's requires an unusual twist (to me) before drawing upward while the other one is a straight up draw. So for now, the SIRT pistol/generic holster draws much easier than the SD9VE/Uncle Mike's combo. But both sit too high for a comfortable draw. We'll see.

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Today's practice

25x - Low ready to press out

25x - high ready to press out

LASR software used for following drills

5x Variation of Dot torture - rather than drawing from holster at any point, I used the low ready as my starting position

10x low ready to press out, single shot, maintain sight picture for 3 secs, return to low ready

10x low ready to press out, single shot, reload, double shot against a 2" bull from 12 feet

10x low ready to press out, double shot @ center mass of a silhouette, reload, single shot to the head from 12 feet

300x Gripmaster compressions with each hand (200 each hand completed already, rest will be completed before I sleep)

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Received my new inner/outer belt setup today. Really stiff and almost makes the Glock-style paddle holster usable for fast draw. It rotates as I pull the pistol out, so it's far from perfect.

Haven't tried the other belt-style holster with the double belt yet. Just being lazy, I guess.

Only did the Gripmaster work today. Like I said, being lazy. (Actually, my elderly father and I had to babysit my sister's 16year old incontinent dog for the last 24 hours and I was mopping and picking up poop semi-constantly for hours - not much sleep either as the dog's nails hadn't been clipped for months and it was up & down most of the night on our wooden floors...click click click all night long). Excuses excuses, I know.

I may be able to sneak in about 30 minutes of work tonight before bed (instead of typing here, I should be doing the dry fire work, right? I know, I know... like I said, feeling AND being lazy.)

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Sigh. Yesterday's blase` feeling extended into today....

Wound up doing Wall drills for 20 minutes and 15 minutes of basic draw from holster stuff.

I'm still not getting the initial pistol grip grab consistently. My fingertips often catch on my pants or belt when starting from relaxed hands at sides position. When starting from "surrender"/hands above shoulders position, they land way back at the end of the grip rather than farther up near the slide. Micro-drilling the draw, reaching for the grip and actually grasping it hasn't seemed to show any improvement - very frustrating. Still working on it, but it taints any further practice during a session. So, I have to split-session drills into 1 strictly for draw/holster work and 1(or more) for sight picture, LASR/SIRT on target stuff. Maybe later today, I'll go back and do more of the latter. Right now, little to no interest as I'm kinda down on myself about the troubles with the pistol grip/draw.

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Are you doing these drills at full speed? If so then you need to drop down to about 65% and work at perfecting the skill first. Whenever I'm training and have a 'fundamentals' issue on a rep or 2 (grip, trigger control, etc) I stop & execute the next couple of reps at a much slower speed until I fix whatever was wrong so that I keep my subconscious focused on the correct technique then go back to full speed. Any monkey can whip the gun out of the holster fast, but until you can execute the fundamentals correctly the speed doesn't matter...

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In regards to the match you shot: when you are signing up, don't be shy about the fact that this is your first (few) match(es). They will squad you up with some guys that can help guide you. Some people are more helpful than others, like in any group. As others have said, get the fundamentals down. Once you've got it and feel comfortable, work on speed later. To the point of your dq: dont ever be in a rush to load and make ready or unload and show clear. Take a second to gather your thoughts and take a breath. This can stop you from making a crucial error. The RO may not have told you to turn around because a lot of guys will do a practice turn and draw before they load. So he probably wasnt expecting it. The comment about not doing it again was probably just to get you to crack a smile. Dont let it discourage you. Most people are slow on their first couple matches. But it probably feels slower to you than it really is. Keep dryfiring and follow Stoegers book, it's a good one. You'll get there in due time

Daniel K

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Today was a bit of a bust... Went to the indoor range to shoot and not only were all the bays occupied, there was a waiting list/line that was probably going to take an hour to "clear".

So I came home and did some more work with the SIRT pistol and new drop/offset holster. Definitely easier to grab the grip without my fingertips grabbing the belt or shirt.

I picked up a used competition inner/outer belt combo off eBay and a second one (different make) off Amazon cheaply. One is quite a bit stiffer than the other and holds the holster in a much more stable manner. I'll play with both for a week and then resell the one I like less on eBay. If I only lose a coupla bucks, it'll be okay. I have to double-check the legality -> no more than 2" from the inside of the inner belt to the inside of the pistol grip handle, right? It's gonna be close.

I'm getting a more positive grip now and the pistol is actually coming out of the holster with much greater ease. I haven't even considered timing myself but it's noticeably faster when neither your hand nor the pistol catches on anything. Probably got in 25 micro-draws before I became self-conscious and moved on to doing "wall drills". I went back to micro-draws afterwards and then repeated low-ready to press-outs until my focus began to wander. Small break and then did 10 "50% speed" full draw to press out to finish out the practice session.

I gotta quit spending money to save money. Lol.

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