Chris's World Shoot Blog

[Alaskan454]

2 hours ago, swordfish said:

awesome thanks

 

For big matches, I'm using the Blue Bullets 150gr .358 bullets, and dropping .3gr of powder and getting incredibly tight groups at 25 yards with almost identical velocity/point of impact as the .355. Like 4 in 1 hole. But for practice and smaller matches the .355 are still very adequate. But I think I might keep a few spare clips worth of .358 if I have to make any distance shots at an outdoor match.

My throats are .359 and after slugging the barrel, the groove diameter is .358 at the widest part.

 

On my M&P9 I'm running an Apex barrel and the .355 bullets are accurate out to 200yards on 12" steel. But the barrel is .355 too.

Not ALL charlies, but more than 5 a match. Shooting all As is just way too slow. No revolver guys to compare myself to, so I try to keep up with A/M/GM production guys for now, or at least use them as a benchmark of how I should be shooting.

 

Haha, I figured that's what you meant.  It's really hard to find that balance of how many Cs to give up in a match.  With 8 rounds in the cylinder you often have none left over in a given array.  I've had so many times where a single extra round would have been nice to put on target before moving on to another.

 

I also do the same thing when I'm the only revolver shooter at a match.  Depending on the stages, I've found Single Stack or Production to be the best comparisons.  If the stages are well designed you can almost always avoid a standing reload.

[swordfish]

Welp, classification system was run and the one match is still marked as unpaid, so I'm now a B class revo shooter. How disappointing.

 

Back to shooting 25yd partials and bill drills at 50 I guess.

[swordfish]

Slight update. Flew out to Arizona and shot the ICORE SW regional. Hell of a match, lots of fun. Got sick and missed the second day (shootoff, MWP class). Ended up taking 4th in Limited and 10th overall. Thankfully I got video of me and Mike shooting the same stages with effectively the same stage plans. One of the stages we both skipped over a round in the cylinder on the same target too. Sadly my primer didn't go off on the second time around, but I should be able to use both videos and see where I need to make my time up at.

 

Got a new DAA belt because the crappy Midway one kept bending and throwing my draw off. This one is much more stiff, like the old school Safariland one I use for 3gun.

 

Finally like 11 days later I'm feeling better, so it's back to the Ben Stoeger books and reviewing videos. Also might try a new way of reloading that seems to be a bit faster.

[swordfish]

Slowly getting better but also very little time to train. Maybe a couple 10 minute dryfire sessions at home, and once a week live fire. Need to step my game up.

Shot IPSC Nationals last weekend. Managed 74% of the current world champ. Not good enough, not going to make the US team that way. USPSA Nats is in a couple months, heading to the range tonight to work through more shooting drills.

Also been trying to focus on my movement lately. First day of IPSC Nats was a blur. My stage plans were weak, and I was so frazzled that I didn't get to spend any time fine tuning my movements through the stages. I ended that day with 69%. Second day was much better, I watched videos of other people shooting stages, looked at the stage diagrams back in my room, and spent most of the time choreographing my movements. I managed to score 10% better on day 2, and ended with 74% for the match. My hits weren't there though, but some of my stage times were. So it's back to live fire with recoil management and accuracy drills.

[swordfish]

Shot like garbage at the last Area 5 on a couple stages. Just stupid stuff, not shooting my sights and only shooting to some imaginary cadence in my head. Still managed 3 stage wins, but not enough to cinch an overall revo win.

 

One of the hardest things I've been having trouble with is getting my grip back on the gun after a reload. Pat Hogue sent me some new grips which are absolutely killer and are helping out a ton. Also I'm changing up my reload method to a faster version, mostly faster because it orients the pistol more vertical instead of slightly canted so the clip goes in, and also keeps my hand more out of the way so my strong hand can get a better grip coming back on.

Pulled out a Ben Stoeger book and was gonna go to the range, but I need to up my dryfire game. I also upped the rebound spring weight in the gun so I need to get used to that first in dryfire before I go out and waste precious bullets. Also my movement sucks, so I'm hopefully gonna hit the gym again this week. I sorta dropped the ball after coming back from Vegas and having some weird mysterious stomach flu, then flying all over the place sorta took me off guard.

Right now life is still a mess with trying to find a new car after being hit and my car totaled, but today I made the right choice and didn't buy a newer car so I can continue shooting. I could afford the car, but not the car and ramping up shooting and traveling all over to shoot. Gotta have priorities I guess. Been a stressful day, so no dryfire, but definitely dryfire tomorrow and work on slow fundamentals, then speeding them up, and maybe a tiny bit of 10% stuff ala JJ Racaza.

[swordfish]

My hands hurt. Mostly from dryfire, but there was a 4 day spell earlier in the week that consisted of live fire every day.

I shot the IRC this year and totally bombed it. First 3 stages were shot for speed and not points, which then gave me penalties which racked up my time, negating any low times I scored. One stage I managed a blazing 15 second raw time and 11 seconds in penalties for inaccuracy.

Among other mistakes I made, one was poor stage planning. I thought "Hey these stages look visually similar from stages I've already shot, let's use the same stage plan" to which I did not pull very good times at all.

One mistake cost me a stage win. The stage had 3 boxes and 9 pieces of steel to engage from each box. First box was freestyle, second box was strong hand, third box was weak hand. I shot 2 targets from the strong hand box using 2 hands. Instead of dryfiring and visualizing my stage plan I zoned out and listened to the wind blow through my earbuds. Watched the dust move. Last stage of the day, just soaking it in. Not with it at all.

I also forgot my eyewear, to which two dudes let me borrow some. Thankfully on the last day I was wearing the shaded ones. Regardless of the fact that I hadn't been practicing really, my poor performance had hit me hard.

But it's a good thing. Had I done well at this match, I don't think anything would have changed. Kept screwing off, kept being "ok" with 70-75%. I think I might have waited too long, but I can't think about it. To hell with the World Shoot too. I need to be about the process, not about any potential results. I need to be about dryfire every day and live fire twice a week and stage planning and going to the gym. These are the only things I need to care about. So now my hands hurt.

[swordfish]

Shot a match twice Sunday in preparation for Nationals. 6 revolvers showed up, the most I've ever seen at a USPSA match. I ended up getting 100% in the morning and 97% of myself in the afternoon. I was the only revo to shoot twice. Got 100% on a classifier twice, with my afternoon time being .17 seconds faster. Didn't rush, just got my hits and it felt solid. But since I'm B class, those 100%s don't count. I could request they remove the flags, but why not sandbag a bit longer and be the only B class revolver at Nats?

Had 3 light strikes at the match, one of which cost me a mike into hard cover because I was jerking the trigger trying to get back around and hit it again. The only mike of the day. Took the gun apart and it's full of oil and carbon. Oil was from when I cleaned the outside, must have blown it in the gun. Everything seems to look ok, but the cylinder release bolt has a shiny part on it, and with my new release there is a lot of slop and I can push the release into the gun and make the bolt drag on the hammer. Not sure if that what is causing my problem or not. While taking the gun apart I discovered my sear spring is broken as well, so that'll be on order today. In the meantime I'll cannibalize my friend's gun for his spring, and borrow my friend's as a backup.

[swordfish]

Alright, so.

Nationals:

 

Lots of light strikes, which I think I've narrowed down to primers seated too deeply. Didn't even bother writing the match down, too much going on and too much to do. Nationals is like the exam I've been studying for, and while it's just another match I haven't really taken notes of things I need to work on, besides distance shooting.

I've changed the gun up a little bit to hopefully make it more accurate, and I plan on replacing some parts here soon.

 

I was hoping to make GM by the end of the year, but I haven't shot any classifiers since May, only majors. Now that majors season is over, I'm shooting locals again for something to do, and to shoot classifiers. But now I'm shooting 100% classifiers that don't count because I'm only B class. Well, I was B class until this morning when USPSA ran the algorithm. Apparently all the classifiers at Nationals count for something, and I've been bumped up to 84% A class, just shy of Master. There are still 5 A flags that don't count because they were too high for the B class I was when the system was run, so I've petitioned to have those A flags removed and counted. I shot 1 100%, 1 98% at Nats that didn't count, plus a local the other day that was 100% that will all be within my most recent 8. Those scores should put me at 95.1% GM, if the flags ever get removed. They might not, I've heard from some people that once an A always an A since they updated the max limit to 20% higher than your current class. But now it's not, so I've petitioned anyway.

Currently I'm working on polishing my reloads. Before I had problems with the moon being too close to the frame and resting on the top of the cylinder, so now I've just started throwing them a little to the left and it's worked out pretty well. Also I saw a video of someone practicing reloads blindfolded, although this was with an automatic. I plan on trying it, but maybe only on carpet because I can foresee my moons flying across the floor when I throw them and miss.

I thought about maybe shooting some Single Stack or Limited or something just to pass the time and because I felt I was stuck in B class with only shooting 100%, not enough revolvers at matches to get a match bump to a higher class, and that maybe I could climb out of another class and revolver would follow, being one class below my highest ranking. But now that I might make GM, I need to start shooting big matches like a GM, and beating all the other GMs. Back to work I guess.

[swordfish]

95.1% babby GM

[Flatland Shooter]

Congrats.  I'm not a revo shooter but have been following your thread for a while now.  You set  a goal of GM by the end of 2018 and you accomplished that.  Well done.

[swordfish]

On 11/29/2018 at 12:18 AM, Flatland Shooter said:

Congrats.  I'm not a revo shooter but have been following your thread for a while now.  You set  a goal of GM by the end of 2018 and you accomplished that.  Well done.

 

Hey thanks! I was kind of worried,  but it ended up working out.

You should try revo, it's definitely interesting. I want to try open but I'm worried about the disparity between a dot sight and irons, and I don't want anything to screw me up.

[swordfish]

Update.

Had to take about 2 weeks off because I took my front sight off to repaint (I color it white so more light is reflected into the fiber, and it seems to stand out more in most environments) , but ended up losing it at my friend's house. Two days later I ordered another from Protocall Design and went back over to my friend's to spray (decided to spray the whole thing and not just the back) and ended up finding my original sight. Sprayed them both with Duracoat and put them in the oven to cure a little faster and now I have 2. Kinda really like the look of the all white front sight but I know from experience it's just going to get really dirty.

Did a little bit of dryfire last night, and doing some more today at work. I'm not really in the mood, taking all that time off has given me some lazy habits.

I've been going over to my cousin's lately and doing the Insanity HIIT workout, trying for every other day, and then hitting the gym to lift weights on the days in between, with one or 2 days off per week depending on how sore I am. Trying to cook more too. But this is a ton of work. I've never been so busy before, and the responsibilities keep growing. I'm trying to find either a part time job to supplement my income, or a better full time job. The new car payment I have now is taking up all my extra shooting money, and bullets are expensive. I'm not sure if I want to shoot more this year than I did last year, or shoot about the same but do more specialized drills and practice. I don't know if I'm going to need to shoot more to get better, if refining my skills is going to need more ammo or just a different type of training.

Also the money situation is cramping my style, I had planned to head down to Texas in January to shoot and maybe train with my friend, and also head up to Washington state to do the same. Not to mention I enjoy heading out to the desert for ICORE matches in Mesquite. Right now I'm just getting by with whatever few bullets I can scrounge up and a pound of powder at a time.

I need to start dreaming up a match schedule for this coming year too. Obviously IPSC Nationals and USPSA Nationals, but also the IRC and hopefully a few ICORE regionals. Also maybe Area 5 and some sectional matches but who knows with the work schedule if I get a new job. At least I'll be able to shoot the local indoor matches in the winter for now.

[Flatland Shooter]

49 minutes ago, swordfish said:

You should try revo, it's definitely interesting.

 

I did shoot revolver first starting out.  Lots of fun but got tired of measuring my times with a sun dial.

[UpYoursPal]

This a very feelgood thread.

 

"Yo, I'm gonna make GM"

*makes GM*

"Alright that was cool*

[swordfish]

7 hours ago, UpYoursPal said:

This a very feelgood thread.

 

"Yo, I'm gonna make GM"

*makes GM*

"Alright that was cool*

Ha. Right on man

[jcc7x7]

Congrats on making GM!

Saw you shoot at the NE ICORE, keep up the good (hard) work!

Well Done

[swordfish]

7 hours ago, jcc7x7 said:

Congrats on making GM!

Saw you shoot at the NE ICORE, keep up the good (hard) work!

Well Done

Thank you! Hoping to make my way up that way next year too.

[jcc7x7]

3 hours ago, swordfish said:

Thank you! Hoping to make my way up that way next year too.

Also working on an end of June Match , we call the "Firecracker"

Usually a 3 day USPSA match.  The guys that ran the NE regional ICORE match are working with the guys

who put the USPSA match to shift Sunday into a REVO only ICORE match.

I'll keep y'all informed as they firm up the dates and actuality of it.

[jabavalk]

Congratulations!
see u in ws2020 thailand.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

[swordfish]

On 1/14/2019 at 11:12 PM, jabavalk said:

Congratulations!
see u in ws2020 thailand.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

Thank you! I hope so. We shall see

[swordfish]

Took a bit off, then got back into it, then got sick. Now back into it.

 

Went out tonight and did Ben's Doubles Drill because it's supposed to be good.

 

Learned that I don't need to hold on as hard as I thought I did. I never really noticed, it just kind of takes over on auto pilot when I shoot, but now that I don't have particular goal except shooting 2 shots in a smallish spot I can sit back and watch and see what's happening. Blew through 300 rounds pretty quick tonight, might have to bring double the next time. Kind of a weird drill, but if you get to the point where you can sit back and watch, it's incredibly telling. There's no rush to do anything, it's not timed, you're not trying to beat a time or do a thing super quick. Just pulling the trigger twice as fast as you can and just paying attention to everything but the hits. Although the hits matter, but tonight I was less worried about however many Cs I had and where the group was, and more worried about grip, sights, what the gun was doing right before it went off, etc. I might have to run this one again in a day or two.

[J_Allen]

Just found this thread and am inspired. Really impressive work, it would have been entertaining to see it unfold in real time.

[swordfish]

On 3/8/2019 at 7:27 AM, J_Allen said:

Just found this thread and am inspired. Really impressive work, it would have been entertaining to see it unfold in real time.

Ha! It was mostly discouraging and disappointing. But still chugging along.

 

[swordfish]

LONG OVERDUE UPDATE

 

Didn't shoot much this year. Didn't even practice much. Been super broke, but I still managed to make a couple matches.

Missed out on a JJ Racaza class but did make it out to St. George to shoot the Magnus Cup. Still waiting on my prize from that one though, but I did manage to bring home a super rad crystal eagle trophy. No one else showed up. Didn't matter, I got the trophy. I'll take it.

Been collecting some hardware this year. They're really hard to come by when you shoot revolver, usually only a few sign up for majors so trophies don't get made. The MD at the Ohio sectional hooks me up though, and I try to bring at least 1 or 2 other revo guys with me.

Shot a couple ICORE matches, a regional and then the International Revolver Championship where I managed to take 3rd in Limited. Still waiting on a trophy from that one, but I've been assured it's in the works.

Came REEAALLLYYY close to beating the guy who took first in Limited at a local match this year, but on the last stage he got me by a couple seconds.

But now, onto the meat and potatoes....

Nationals is soon. This is it. No one else showed up to IPSC Nationals to get points for the World Shoot. I'll need a minimum of 48 points to beat anyone else who didn't shoot a 3rd match, and then as long as I don't DQ I should have a spot.

But that's not good enough for me. I'm tired of sucking. I'm tired of being tired.

Starting from 5 weeks leading up to Nationals, I had a goal to shoot 1,000 rounds a week and consistently go to the gym. I'm slightly ahead of schedule on the round count, and I've been to the gym 3-4 days a week since. I'm down almost 10lbs. I've got more stamina. But I'm having knee and feet problems. The next Dr. appt is this coming Wednesday, so I'm hopeful they'll be able to help me out. I had to stop doing leg workouts 3 weeks ago and it's really bumming me out, it's such a huge muscle group and a really important one in this sport for being athletic.

 

I've been eating a lot better too. I don't want my gains in the gym to go to waste, so I'm eating way more protein and healthier meals too. I'm constantly cooking, which can be a hassle, but I think I like the results more than I dislike the inconvenience. Also been watching videos on YouTube by a physical therapist/strength coach, a dude named Jeff Cavaliere. The videos are from his workout program called Athlean X and pull from his experience as the former physical therapist for the NY Mets, so it's very applicable for athletes, as well as just for anyone who wants to get in better shape. Definitely recommended.

Now for the shooting: Because I haven't shot a ton of matches this year, I don't really have a lot of experience on what I need to work on, nor do I have many videos to look at to critique. But I've been keeping a written shooting/practice journal, mostly just daily notes on whether or not I practiced, what I practiced, worked out, or what I need to work on. Also I've been utilizing my wall calendar a lot to set weekly goals on what I want to work on in dryfire/livefire.

I'm probably making the targets a lot harder than I'll typically see at matches, but it's really paying off. I'm working on all the tough stuff that I think a lot of people neglect, like partial movers, tiny steel at distance, and just partials in general when working on transitions. I think it's paid off because I just got 10th overall at a local match yesterday, only dropping 1D. Time wasn't so far off the leader who shot open, but then again no one above A class showed up so the results are probably skewed. Still! It feels like I'm kicking ass, and I just need to keep up the momentum for another two weeks.

Some of the things I've worked on include: 20yard group shooting

3yd bill drills to work on the sweet spot between gripping the gun as hard as I can with my left and gripping it soft enough with the right to get barely legal splits,

45+ yard A zone steel

Tons and tons of doubles drills to work on grip/recoil control, at every distance
Distance changeup with an open target, a partial, and then something stupid far away
Partials and partial movers
Lots of steel to work on one-shot hits and increase my speed
Lots of steel like above, but weak hand only/strong hand only, probably farther than I'll ever see at a match

Reloads on the move in every direction, slow and fast moving, using both strong-hand and weak-hand reloading techniques for revo, depending on the direction

Dryfire draws, usually trying to draw to a tiny dot on a far wall, as well as incorporating draws into one-shot on distant steel at the range

Unloaded starts and table starts

 

Now for the things that I feel I've neglected:

Shooting on the move

Shooting while moving into/out of a position

Transitional positions, which is kinda like shooting on the move but more of a pause and usually less targets at a time

Probably way more stuff that I don't know that I don't know, or don't know that I need to be practicing

Up this week: all or some of the things I've neglected, hopefully a leg workout if I'm not in immense pain, and loading more ammo. Lots of ammo.

Next update will be after Nats, so we'll see if I DQ or completely s#!t the bed, and then another update from USPSA to see if I've made the team.

[Alaskan454]

Sounds like you've been busy!  Based upon what you've been practicing and what's left I would focus primarily on getting into and out of positions.  So much time can be saved by reducing your setup and exit time, same goes for the "pause and shoot" targets like you said.  You have come a long way since we first shot together and I look forward to seeing the results from this weekend.