Big giant question mark above my head

[AlexA]

Hi good fellows,

 

After less than a year of practice (precisely after a less than a year trying to resurrect from 5.5 years of absence from competition world), did lot of a dry/live fire and came to a certain point.

During training session (dry fire to be precise) I can do most of the drills from different established books in more than a timely and technically correct way. For example:

Cold state draw: 0.9

Warmed up draw: 0.6-0.7

Cold state reload: 0.9

Warmed up draw: 0.7-0.8

Cold state el press: 4.5

Warmed up draw: sub 4

......

Important to mention, no self faking with lousy grip, hooking, sight alignment, sight picture and so on .....

 

And when body hit the range (ex club match, practice session .....) all those times are going to ....extreme.....

 

DRAW: 1.4-1.8

RELOAD:not even worth to mention .....

 

Humbly asking for advice/ diagnosis .... overting, overthinking ....... mental issue, normal state in progress process....

 

TIA

 

[Hi-Power Jack]

Seems strange that you can do a 0.6 second draw dry fire and 1.6 second draw with live ammo ???

 

I'd suggest MORE live fire exercises, paying particular attention to What Is Different from Dry Fire ?

[AlexA]

Thx for reply Jack

 

Only thing that I noticed is level of "eagerness" before buzzer go on....... for example yesterday ...... I didn't made any , literary any single proper draw (reaction, acceptable grip, timing).... and 15 minutes after the range time (when I came home) I did a short 30 minutes dry fire practice .... everything was as it should be :(.

 

From my side looks like huge overtining mixed with adrenaline rush...... but I'm far from sure ..... 

 

In 10 days I'm traveling abroad for practice with good friend and GM. Possibly one of the big names (WS champs) will appear..... very intensive,  2k rnds a day for 7 days ..... maybe it will make a break...... 

Edited November 25, 2018 by AlexA

[GrumpyOne]

Let go of all expectations and just shoot. Your expectations are getting in your head. Stop watching other people shoot the stage, stop trying to find out their times, I would say stop worrying about anything but your own performance, but even stop worrying about that...just shoot. Stop trying to go fast and just let it happen.

[AlexA]

Sounds really good @GrumpyOne , but it seems much harder than I taught. Especially  self expectation.... I noticed that one of the best runs in less than a year was when I ended asking RO "Did I engaged all of them?"......unfortunately that happened once 

[GrumpyOne]

Some of the best (performance wise) matches I have ever shot, were after a somewhat long hiatus, and I was just shooting to have fun, had no expectations of doing well,  I was just there to shoot and BS with friends. 

[Furrly]

When you live fire, run a few mags without the timer.. Get comfortable with the recoil of the gun.. Warm up.. 

[stick]

What exactly are you doing on your dry fire draws that are different than live fire?  For example, Dry fire to a 5-7 yard target will ALWAYS be much faster than a live fire draw to a 15 yard target.  I'm thinking what you see in dry fire is not translating into live fire.  You're probably hesitant in live fire/matches.  Meaning your afraid to miss. so you take more time to ensure what you're doing.

[JoeSoop]

Good advice from others above. It sounds like something is definitely not translating (especially on the draws) from dry to live fire. It could be sight picture confidence. For instance, at home doing dry fire we can “cheat” a little since there is penalty if our sight picture was not perfect when we pulled the trigger. At a match, the result becomes clear right away and there are consequences (misses and lower points). So, are you really a .6-.8 draw with a good sight picture and a solid trigger squeeze? You might be, but the live fire says otherwise. Be realistic with your expectations.

 

Also, are you reloading empty mags at home during dry fire? This actually makes a difference versus full ones during live fire. DO NOT go using live rounds at home, but maybe load up dummy rounds/snap caps when practicing at home to simulate full weight mags.

 

I am a .75-.9 draw in dry fire and .75-1.1 in match fire (from 7-10yards). It just takes a lot of live practice as well as dry firing like you would live fire (good sight picture and trigger pull).

 

Good luck and keep at it! I am sure training with a GM will help a lot!

 

 

[Flatland Shooter]

Did you have any DQs or close calls in the past?

 

Reason I ask is I worked with a fellow shooter a while back that also had excellent dryfire times but not so excellent live fire times. In his case he had a lack of confidence  in handling a loaded firearm.  In his case it must have been pretty deep seated problem.

 

Obey all the safety rules while you dryfire just like while you live fire.  Work to get comfortable handling a firearm (both loaded and unloaded) on a very regular basis.  In time things will improve.

 

 

 

 

[AlexA]

9 hours ago, stick said:

What exactly are you doing on your dry fire draws that are different than live fire?  For example, Dry fire to a 5-7 yard target will ALWAYS be much faster than a live fire draw to a 15 yard target.  I'm thinking what you see in dry fire is not translating into live fire.  You're probably hesitant in live fire/matches.  Meaning your afraid to miss. so you take more time to ensure what you're doing.

 

1/3 and 1/6 targets up to 5.5 yards

[AlexA]

4 hours ago, Flatland Shooter said:

Did you have any DQs or close calls in the past?

 

Reason I ask is I worked with a fellow shooter a while back that also had excellent dryfire times but not so excellent live fire times. In his case he had a lack of confidence  in handling a loaded firearm.  In his case it must have been pretty deep seated problem.

 

Obey all the safety rules while you dryfire just like while you live fire.  Work to get comfortable handling a firearm (both loaded and unloaded) on a very regular basis.  In time things will improve.

 

No, actually no DQ's at all whole my life (maybe I should do intentionally one .... safe one). Re loaded firearm, 11 years of service and 7 in combat zone (constant deployment if I don't count few days per 5-6 months). In 2011 member of national team at world military/police sniper cup.

 

But  what I noticed that every single time on the range/club match my lower body (from hip and below) get so stiff and led heavy. Maybe some lead....

 

 

[AlexA]

9 hours ago, JoeSoop said:

Good advice from others above. It sounds like something is definitely not translating (especially on the draws) from dry to live fire. It could be sight picture confidence. For instance, at home doing dry fire we can “cheat” a little since there is penalty if our sight picture was not perfect when we pulled the trigger. At a match, the result becomes clear right away and there are consequences (misses and lower points). So, are you really a .6-.8 draw with a good sight picture and a solid trigger squeeze? You might be, but the live fire says otherwise. Be realistic with your expectations.

 

Also, are you reloading empty mags at home during dry fire? This actually makes a difference versus full ones during live fire. DO NOT go using live rounds at home, but maybe load up dummy rounds/snap caps when practicing at home to simulate full weight mags.

 

Nope, no cheating at all (despite the fact that I "would" like to cheat. In that case diagnosis would be easy). Moreover sometimes I slow down to in last push phase to establish sp/sa. Also did occasional and random "freezes" in order to check stanace, grip sp/sa. All good.

 

Reloads, mag in pistol half full, mag in holster full. Sure that they are deprimed, no powder with seated bullet.

 

 

[Hi-Power Jack]

11 hours ago, AlexA said:

 

2k rnds a day for 7 days ..... maybe it will make a break...... 

 

I'm hoping that is a .22 or air soft gun …   I would never be able to fire 2K/day for a full week

with my 9mm or .45.    

 

When I took a class and fired 800 rounds / day for two days, I needed bandaids.

 

With live fire, have you ever tried The Dot Torture Test ?  That might be better than 

a 1/3 size target at 4-5 yards.

 

What gun are you shooting, BTW ?

 

 

[AlexA]

@Hi-Power Jack

 

2x Shadow 2 ('cause of cooling), morning and afternoon sessions schedule. Band aids, tennis elbow bandages and all  other bells and whistles are set in place .... yep those two guys are real extremists LoL. One of them maybe will shoot competitively revolver for the first time in his life .....

 

1 hour ago, Hi-Power Jack said:

With live fire, have you ever tried The Dot Torture Test ?  That might be better than 

a 1/3 size target at 4-5 yards.

 

1/3 is in for dry fire. Joke from the range ..... when local gunslinger saw my dot torture comment was something like "crap you are torturing that dot really  hard ...... put it on 25 please"

 

Main issue, dry fire practice don't reflect on the heat (same with precision, since that I feel and see that slowness I'm starting with rush, try hurry recipe for disaster)

 

[IVC]

I'll give you three reasons for the discrepancy in the draw.

 

First, the second beep is 0.2 - 0.3 long. It's easy to feel that you "beat the buzzer" when in reality your sights are settling in as the buzzer goes off. Because of that, I monitor my dry fire times only for improvement, not so much for the actual value. I go down by 0.1 when I can get the same combination of "visual (sights) + audible (buzzer)" at 0.1 lower par time. Whether that's the actual time of the draw doesn't matter, it's a 0.1 improvement.

 

Second, the "acceptable sight picture" is the event you're trying to match to the leading edge of the second buzzer signal. The sights are settling down into the acceptable sight picture as a continuous, not binary event. The sights "flow" into position. Because of this, not only do you have to detect the leading edge of the buzzer, but you also have to be brutally honest about where the sights were and whether they were stable enough and in good enough position. Much like in the first example above, as long as you use the same standard while lowering your par times, you are measuring improvement. 

 

Third, you're not pulling the trigger in dry fire. It's not so much that the trigger pull of a fully preped trigger adds much time, it's that you have to time it with acquiring the minimal acceptable sight picture. You have to mentally commit to pressing the trigger a moment before it is actually pressed. If you see acceptable sight picture, then you press the trigger, you've added a bit of time. The only way to avoid this in live fire is to "time it" - you know where the sights will be in the next moment when the gun goes off. 

 

For reference, my working par time for dry fire draw is 0.6. My actual draw time at 7 yards A zone is around 0.9 (0.85 - 0.95), which is about the same for A+C silhouette at 10 yards. At 15 yards A zone steel it's about 1.1, with a higher spread  (1.0 - 1.2). Nothing spectacular, but good enough to the point where my limitations are elsewhere. 

Edited December 11, 2018 by IVC

[tanks]

Doesn't make sense to me. My dry fire draw time index is 0.9 (simulated 15 yards), I can't even imagine doing 0.6. Live fire is 1.1 - 1.2 comfortably though I have hit 1.0 occasionally when warmed up at 10 yards.

 

Now, in the past I used to "make sure" of my sights in live fire rather than trusting myself. So, I'd draw and then there would be a pause of several tenths of seconds prior to sending the shot. Maybe that is what you are doing.

[CHA-LEE]

Troubleshooting this dry vs live fire time discrepancy starts by capturing video of each then comparing what is different between the two. Has that been done yet? If not start there. 

[motosapiens]

step 1. go to the range. do several dryfire reps and then several live fire reps. keep switching back and forth. It should be obvious pretty quickly what you are doing differently. If possible, get a friend to watch you and heckle.

Edited December 19, 2018 by motosapiens

[CHA-LEE]

"get a friend to watch you and heckle"

 

That is one of the best performance motivators I have used myself many times in the past!!!!

[j1b]

It's difficult to explain the discrepancy in times. I suspect most advice given above gets to most of it.

 

Everyone has different goals and objectives with dry fire. Some dry fire to their LOHF to see how fast they can go. Generally speaking, I don't do this. 

 

Granted my experience is 144 years old but I suspect some component of it still holds true. We practice and dry fire to get better. Getting better, I assume (or at least for me) means doing better at matches. 

 

Matches test consistency. Most people can burn a stage down. And most can flame out on a stage. Few people perform to their expected level with that inconsistency.

 

The trick for me was always running as close to the edge as I could while still maintaining the ability to execute. Seeing draw inconsistencies like from your dry fire to live fire would be bothersome to me. For me that consistency is critical. So I personally dry fire exactly as I (believe) I live fire. Executing shots. Executing reloads and draws. Doing it all as fast as I can but still being able to do what I need (read into that hitting the targets). I've found that many people dry fire at speeds faster than they can actually shoot because there is no accountability. There is no shot/target to be held accountable to. That's precisely why I dry fire with such intent on accuracy. 

I've said it several times. I think 90% of what is needed can be learned and executed via dry fire. There is no denying though that live fire is a critical component to training. For me to the extent that my dry fire drill marry up to my live fire drills is a key indicator to the quality of my dry fire practice. And then the obvious goal is this all comes together on match day.

 

Of note (and again, things are way different today than when I was really shooting) I'd take 100 .90 second draws at a match any day of the week and twice on Sunday versus pushing hard to get a .6 second draw and sometimes hitting .6 and other times hitting 1.10.