Scooter's Tale: Who needs talent if you work hard?

[scottrallye]

Scooters Tale: Who needs talent if you work hard?

Scott Meredith

A-87873

Open - Master

Limited - A Class

Shooting since October 2014

Instagram: @scooter.mcgrooter

I have been keeping a shooting log since I got serious about the sport (after purchasing my CZ 75 Tactical Sports) on April 10th, 2015. That log contains where I shot, round count, etc. I'm starting this journal with images of that log attached. I shot Limited through 2015, bought an Open gun on impulse in December (not really, I had been dying to shoot Open since I got involved in USPSA), and began competing in Open in 2015.

I have been doing a lot of reading recently to improve my mental game (if you haven't worked on this aspect of the game you are selling yourself short, it has done more for my shooting that 10k rounds in practice would have) and the book "With Winning in Mind" by Lanny Basham had a particularly strong impact on me. In his book, he talks about the importance of keeping a performance journal, and outlines what it should contain. Other shooters that have written books (Saul Kirsch for instance) discuss the same thing. This thread will be my new performance journal.

My old log is now becoming my gun-journal. I'll continue to track round count, etc. but the emphasis will be on tracking my gun maintenance and parts/problems, and not refer to my actual shooting performance.

Here is my current training "schedule" (routine might be a better word):

• 1 Hour of dry-fire a day. Usually from 5am-6am. I've been doing this since April 15th 2015. I've missed approximately 15 days over the last 1.5 years due to vacations, etc. Use Ben Stoegers dry fire book heavily. I'll get a pic of my "dojo" posted.
• Local indoor range, Sharp Shooting, has a fun match every Thursday and Friday. It's a single USPSA-like stage you can run repeatedly. Your first run is your "match" run. Usually do this every week, running the stage 3 times on average.
• From May-September, I shoot a Steel Fun match on the first and third Wednesday of the month. Usually about 100 rounds.
• I had been shooting a level one match every weekend, but I'm rolling that back to two a month, to be replaced with more live-fire training drills. Less travel, less burnout, more anticipation for matches and better progression from increased drills. That's the goal anyways.
• Shot Area 1 this year, the Inland Empire Sectional, will be shooting the Washington State Championships (level 2) and I'm competing at USPSA Open Nationals this year! Stoked about that. Getting a slot was my first goal, now I'm trying to decide on what my goal for Nationals should be. I mean, aside from trying to win obviously.

Hopefully keeping this journal this helps someone else out, not just myself!

Edited July 15, 2016 by scottrallye

[scottrallye]

Training Session: 7-15-16

• Spokane Valley Rifle Pistol Club
• Sunny and breezy
• Trained with Grant Brashears
• 190 rounds fired
• 4 hours total

Skills Trained:

• Unloaded Table Starts
• Transitions, wide to low and inside (and picking up dot when doing this)
• Swingers, trapping, headshots, tracking/hitting passing swinger through ports
• 30 yard bill drills

Unloaded table starts: Were decent (I thought) with a dry fire par time of around 1.8. Could barely achieve this in live fire (to first shot). Turned out that because my slide racker is on the right side (if you shoot a Czechmate you'll know why) the extra time I had to take to roll the gun over, and then bring it back on target, was really slowing me up. Reinstalled my sidewinder on the left side, and saw immediate improvement. Regularly achieved 1.7 seconds to first hit from unloaded table start. Best was 1.64 seconds to an alpha hit. Pleased with that, keeping that slide racker on my gun.

Low, inside transitions: I have lost time at several big matches recently leaning around barricades to hit low, inside targets. I'm totally comfortable point-shooting these obviously, but these were high-consequence no-shoot covered targets, so I wasted precious time looking for my dot to ensure my hits. We worked on this leaning around walls on both sides. We shot an open target about 10 yards out, wide of the wall, and then transitioned hard into the low target. Wasn't hard at all to point shoot these quickly, with or without the dot. So we started doing headshots only. Turned out these too were easy to point shoot without the dot, even though I was TRYING to shoot it with dot on the glass. Improved at lining the gun up quicker to find the dot if I need it, but the real lesson seemed to be that I don't really need the dot at that range, even on very tight shots.

Swingers: I've never had a chance to really practice these. At my current level, trapping it on the end of the swing for 2 alpha is relatively easy. Did a little bit of practice on that, then moved on to head shots. Took some work. The second shot always seemed to pull into the C zone just beneath the B zone. Which is weird, because when swinging, a low hit should be off the target, so really it's like the pulled left. Odd. Anyways, the trick seems to be just calling solid shots, and tracking it slightly because of the longer split. Hitting it twice as it passed through the port was really tough. We discovered you needed a sub .20 split to have any hope of a double hit on one pass, and they will likely end up wide. Going one and one is relatively easy, but we discovered you are saving almost a second by getting two hits on one pass, which is probably worth dropping a point or two. My best was a .16 split for an Alpha Charlie. Would depend on the circumstances at a match for me to determine if I'd try it in competition rather than play it safe (which is my normal MO).

30 Yard Bill Drill: Fairly easy. Had one or two mikes, only when trying to go stupid fast. At a .30 - .40 split pace, I got all my hits in A-C zone. This exercise was more about videoing our guns in recoil in our constant search for the flattest shooting load for our guns.

Video posted here: http://www.instagram.com/scooter.mcgrooter/

[scottrallye]

"Wednesday Night Steel" Match: 7-20-16

•Spokane Valley Rifle Pistol Club
•Sunny and hot
•115 rounds fired
•4 hours total

Shot the 3 stage steel match at Mica. Ran the first two USPSA style stages before the steel-challenge stage. Shot them okay, but was not patient with my dot, and did not immediately recognize that the entire match was at greater distance with smaller targets than usual, so I should have slowed down my actual shooting speed slightly on the shots themselves. Had 4 total make up shots on steel on the first two stages, which felt much worse at the time but in retrospect, wasn't too bad. Should have been more patient though. My reloads were much improved. I hit smooth, relatively fast reloads (for me) on the move, and kept the gun up in front of my face (finally!) and executed much better reloads as a result. The steel challenge stage ate my shorts big time. Again, didn't realize it was a MUCH tougher course than usual, with small rounds at distance. Had make up shots on almost every run, and didn't finish on the stop plate on one run. My first steel match penalty ever. I've been working hard on my surrender draws, and while improved, I was so sore from the gym I didn't hit them as well tonight. I think I still won the match, but I had some good stuff and some things to work on.

[scottrallye]

Training Session: 7-23-16

• Spokane Valley Rifle Pistol Club
• Sunny and warm
• 196 rounds fired
• 1.5 hours

Note: First session out with new brass grips that alter weight of gun to be more palm-heavy

Started off with some draw-to-first shot work. Went well. Can now start a session cold and get alpha hits on a one-second draw with no warm up. As I warmed up it improved, with most being in the low .90's.

Worked on shot to shot reloads. This isn't necessarily a match-applicable skill (except for classifiers maybe) but my reloads have needed some work and this seems to be good practice. Started off hitting okay reloads, also blew a few. After warmup they improved. Then, I noticed as the mag got lighter, they improved markedly. With a half full mag, I started hitting them in a second flat, then into the .90's, the best being a .93. Stoked about that! Never thought about using anything but a full mag during a classifier, but I think for classifiers requiring reloads I will only load what's necessary (with a slight cushion if Comstock).

Worked on transitions across three targets. Seemed okay, had them spaced about 8 yards apart and averaged .17 splits and .20-.30 transitions.

Practiced the classifier "Can you Count" with steel targets at greater distance. This required 5 shots, a reload, and 5 shots on another target. Splits were good, had a few .13's which were a personal best. Recoil control was good, new grip balance is a little different though. Not bad, just different. Best strings were 3.5 and 3.49.

Practiced shooting under a wall at 4 KO targets at 10 yards. Experimented with different position entry and positions, when going fully prone wasn't necessary. The best seemed to be running into the position and tucking my left foot behind me, sliding in on that knee, while my right foot slides out in a straight line until fully extended. I end up in what's basically a hurdler's stretch, but with my left foot under my butt. Threw some shots over the top of the KO's, which is VERY odd. I normally miss either a little low, or a little low and left. I am guessing that the change in gun balance is resulting in a change in how the dot re-centers, because it was make up shots that went high. Like I'm used to having to bring the dot back up onto target, but with the heavier end of the gun, it's exaggerated and the dot is continuing to travel up on the glass. I've have to work through it.