Production C - First Match of 2019

[DKorn]

Here’s video from my first “real” match of 2019, not counting a handful of indoor practice matches:

 

Any feedback on what I’m doing well and what I should work on would be greatly appreciated. This was one of my best matches yet, but I definitely still have lots of room to improve. 

 

[B585]

Looks good for your first outdoor match.  I am no expert and can’t say I am getting this from watching your video, but this is what I wish I knew when I started.  Make CALLING YOUR SHOTS your number 1 priority!!!   I heard it was important in the beginning, but really didn’t grasp how important.  As far as this match goes, work on getting your grip tension consistent. If you watch your video closely, sometimes the gun was really flopping around and other times you had good recoil control.  It’s hard to be consistently fast if you recall arc is changing.

[DKorn]

1 hour ago, B585 said:

Looks good for your first outdoor match.  I am no expert and can’t say I am getting this from watching your video, but this is what I wish I knew when I started.  Make CALLING YOUR SHOTS your number 1 priority!!!   I heard it was important in the beginning, but really didn’t grasp how important.  As far as this match goes, work on getting your grip tension consistent. If you watch your video closely, sometimes the gun was really flopping around and other times you had good recoil control.  It’s hard to be consistently fast if you recall arc is changing.

 

Not my first outdoor match, just my first one of the year. 

 

I was trying my best to shoot my plan and call my shots and felt pretty successful. Recoil control and grip consistency is probably number one on my list of improvements to make. 

[MemphisMechanic]

(1) Your recoil control needs huge work. Your weak hand sits still while the gun recoils into the strong hand only. GRIP HARD AS HELL with your left hand.

 

Squeeze till your forearm burns the entire time. If you’re comfortable, you’re leaving time and points on the table.

 

(2) Your reload angle hurts you hard. Both wrists should be straight as you insert the mag: muzzle in line with forearm, and weak hand pointer finger making a straight line down forearm, pointing the round right up into the magwell. This means you need to bring the gun back more and rotate it so that the magwell is pointing dieectly at your front mag pouch, speaking vaguely.

 

Right now you’re making an ergonomically awkward twist at the wrist to stuff the mag in the gun. Presumably because someone told you reloading out where you shoot is faster? It isn’t, particularly if you lack a giant magwell. Watch all the top production shooters on Youtube. Ben Stoeger. Hwansik Kim. Alex Gutt. Jacob Heartherington. Etc.

 

They load closer to chest, and there is a reason: consistency. 

 

Edited March 26, 2019 by MemphisMechanic

[wtturn]

You need to be getting your reloads done sooner.

 

As has been noted, that requires a mechanical change to your technique and a new sense of urgency.

 

It's costing you dearly.

 

You need to grip higher and probably harder with your support hand, the gun is shifting inside your grip which is no good.

 

 

 

 

 

 

[DKorn]

50 minutes ago, MemphisMechanic said:

(1) Your recoil control needs huge work. Your weak hand sits still while the gun recoils into the strong hand only. GRIP HARD AS HELL with your left hand.

 

Squeeze till your forearm burns the entire time. If you’re comfortable, you’re leaving time and points on the table.

 

(2) Your reload angle hurts you hard. Both wrists should be straight as you insert the mag: muzzle in line with forearm, and weak hand pointer finger making a straight line down forearm, pointing the round right up into the magwell. This means you need to bring the gun back more and rotate it so that the magwell is pointing dieectly at your front mag pouch, speaking vaguely.

 

Right now you’re making an ergonomically awkward twist at the wrist to stuff the mag in the gun. Presumably because someone told you reloading out where you shoot is faster? It isn’t, particularly if you lack a giant magwell. Watch all the top production shooters on Youtube. Ben Stoeger. Hwansik Kim. Alex Gutt. Jacob Heartherington. Etc.

 

They load closer to chest, and there is a reason: consistency. 

 

 

Agree 100%

 

Your first point is something I was already planning to work on. 

 

Keeping the wrists straight on reloads is something I’ve never heard and will absolutely have to try! I’ve heard the typical “finger high and straight on the mag, look at the magwell, etc.” but nobody’s ever made the specific point about the wrist angle. This might be why I’ve been struggling with reload consistency. I’ll try this tomorrow in dry fire. Thanks!

[elguapo]

1 hour ago, MemphisMechanic said:

(1) Your recoil control needs huge work. Your weak hand sits still while the gun recoils into the strong hand only. GRIP HARD AS HELL with your left hand.

 

Squeeze till your forearm burns the entire time. If you’re comfortable, you’re leaving time and points on the table.

 

 

Not only that, OP, but your grip needs a complete review.

 

I could easily see the black of the gun through a gap between the bases of your left and right thumbs.  The one thing that helped me there was following the tips from Ken Nelson and Ron Avery on the subject.  Look up some of the TPC videos on the tube.

 

This guy describes what I saw you doing at about 0:58

 

 

Also, while he doesn't go into reloads, there is really good video of him reloading the way Memphis Mechanic is describing

Edited March 26, 2019 by elguapo

[MemphisMechanic]

13 hours ago, DKorn said:

This might be why I’ve been struggling with reload consistency. I’ll try this tomorrow in dry fire. Thanks!

 

Watch a few videos on loads on youtube. A quick snap from Max Michel’s:

 

 

No one really mentions it verbally, true. But the goal is to get the mag into the gun as quickly as possible. The shortest path between pouch and insertion is a straight line. Keep your gunhand forearm roughly straight and roll the gun in and back until the magwell points at whatever direction *your* straight maghand forearm wants to naturally present a magazine at.

 

Ben Stoeger loads at “clap your hands position” and wins matches. Hwansik Kim loads really low and almost horizontal, and wins matches. Lots of guys load up higher. And win.

 

Same with the grip, Eric Grauffel wraps trigger guard with index finger the way all other GMs will tell you not to, and wins everything. Vogel has his ultra high robot claw inward death grip. Seeklander focuses on getting your hands behind the gun. Ron Avery wanted to focus on hand gap and weak wrist cammed down. There are lots of ways that work with this stuff. (All those guys are National Champions.)

 

Grip higher and harder with weakhand in whatever way works for your body.

 

Load straighter and faster.

[GorillaTactical]

One of the things that I'd work on, as mentioned above, is driving your support hand higher, and slightly less forward, putting the base of the metacarpal directly into where your thumb joint and meat of the palm intersect on the firing hand grip.  From there, torquing down hard with the meaty part of the support hand should be both easier and have more impact on recoil control.

 

Eliminating this gap was very important for me when I was first starting out and looking to improve recoil control. 

Edited March 26, 2019 by GorillaTactical

[DKorn]

@MemphisMechanic I’m struggling a bit with the reload angle since it’s a big change to my technique and a different way of thinking about it. It feels smoother but it’s hard to tell if my wrists are straight once I start going faster. 

 

I probably need to just video some dry fire and see what I’m actually doing. 

[MemphisMechanic]

 

You should always be filming yourself on any technique change, doubly so if there’s no mirror around.

 

Your old reloads were an ergonomic disaster and this is some serious low hanging fruit.

 

You’ve stumbled on the hazards of dryfire: You’ve learned to reload really oddly, and you have burned in the habit of holding the gun like there’s no recoil to manage. (I did that too, and fixing my grip got me out of B class.)

 

Your forearms should burn for a while from gripping hard after doing 5-10 minutes of dryfire.

 

Edited March 28, 2019 by MemphisMechanic

[DKorn]

19 hours ago, MemphisMechanic said:

 

You should always be filming yourself on any technique change, doubly so if there’s no mirror around.

 

Your old reloads were an ergonomic disaster and this is some serious low hanging fruit.

 

You’ve stumbled on the hazards of dryfire: You’ve learned to reload really oddly, and you have burned in the habit of holding the gun like there’s no recoil to manage. (I did that too, and fixing my grip got me out of B class.)

 

Your forearms should burn for a while from gripping hard after doing 5-10 minutes of dryfire.

 

 

For the grip, I’m focusing on 2 things in dry fire: giving 100% grip effort on every rep of every drill to train myself to do so subconsciously, and checking at the end of drills for the “gap” between my hands that GorillaTactical pointed out. 

 

I’ve also made a few discoveries about my reloads. If I naturally bring the magazine up with my wrist straight and a correct grip on the mag, and then find the angle the gun needs to be at to meet the mag, it becomes easier for me to visualize what the magwell needs to look like for the gun to be in that position than it does to go by the feel of the angle of my wrists. Bringing it in a little closer and at more of an angle also helps keep it more stable when moving. I’ll have to be a little more conscious of the 180 with the gun at a greater angle, but it’s totally worth it for smoother reloads. 

 

I also learned that my thumb hits the mounts on my mag pouches when I grab the mag, and that after enough reps it starts to hurt a bit. It takes a few dozen reps before I even start to feel it, so it’s not too big of an issue at matches. Still, I know what my next gear upgrade will be, it’s just not in the budget for now. 

[elguapo]

Make sure you experiment with how close the gun needs to be to your mag pouches for the easiest, fastest, insertion.  All the tacticool dudes rant about reloading in the "workspace", and I'm not sure sure that's the most efficient way.

 

You can lower the pistol closer to the mag pouches and angle the magwell towards the mag pouches while your left hand goes for the reload, so you've lost no time compared to keeping the gun up high.

 

On the other side, it should take the same amount of total time to insert the mag in the pistol down low and then bring the loaded gun up to the target as it would to bringing your reload all the way up to the gun in the "workspace", inserting it, then pushing out to the target.  Why?  Because the hands travel the same distance either way.

 

The difference, at least for me, is that by lowering the gun closer to the magazines I can hit the magwell without fumbling more times in a row than I can by keeping the gun up high and bringing the ammo to it.

 

Never be hesitant to question dogma and try crazy things.  You never know what you might find.

Edited March 29, 2019 by elguapo