TJ’s Range Diary

[scduckman03]

Been shooting uspsa on and off for couple years now. Switched guns way to many times to get really comfortable with one. Decided to buy a honcho last year and I am gonna stick with open for awhile. Just started doing some daily dry fire practice. Bought some of the target sets from Stogers shop. For those of you that do dry fire practice, how soon did you see results in matches/classification ranking? 

[TheChewycookie]

The results you draw in matches and classification is entirely dependent on what kind of concentrated efforts you are making between dry and live practice and how you translate that into the match. There are way too many variables to consider for each person.

 

MASSIVE SIDE STEP BUT STILL RELATED

Since we aren't sure of what you want, here's a somewhat general list but definitely some things to consider. You might be asked by some of us what you want so that we can publicly offer help.

1. What is your current classification and match results compared to the top guys in your local? 
2. Have you considered where you are in your current shooting journey? 
3. What is your currently desired classification and match result? What's next?
4. Is this goal attainable? How soon?
5. What are you doing in dry practice and how are you translating what you are learning there to live fire of any kind, and are you actively learning from both dry and live fire?
6. Are you doing any kind of experimenting in practice? What are you experimenting with? What errors are you inducing that can be resolved, and how?

Again, just a general list but most importantly: Why do you play this expensive game?

 

 

If you want something that much you will set aside time for it, right? If you know what kind of time commitment you have you should be able to easily balance this with the rest of your life.

 

Process of ideas: Establish what your big dream is, establish goals as markers that will help attain your dream, create the steps to make those goals.

Steps turn into quantitative goals that act as big steps to your dream. 

 

So, what are:

Your dream?

Goals to achieve that dream?

What smaller steps will help you achieve those goals?

Will I have quantitative data to statistically prove I am getting better (or worse for that matter)?

 

I encourage you to read some of the books on a couple of roads of shooting that they have been on. Ben Stoeger's book with Joel Park "Match Mentality" is a great resource of giving that view to someone who's just dipping their toe into the sport and needs to see what it will mentally take to get better at practical shooting. Their follow up book "Practical Shooting Training" is a really good book for the person who will be serious and understands the stepped approach to getting better.

• Red's Road to Nationals and additional playlist Red's Opinion are a great view into a person who plays this game seriously, but also balances it out with his day-to-day 9-5 job. He's also on here as @Reds_Dot.https://www.youtube.com/c/redsdot/featured
  • His range diary: https://forums.brianenos.com/topic/289977-skill-like-a-gm-confidence-like-a-b-class/
• If you want to get good in a very quick timeframe with observant brute force I encourage you to check this video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JG1JM_coeqE&t=320s
  • You can also check his now retired range diary here: https://forums.brianenos.com/topic/285432-the-gun-doesnt-matter/

 

[Reds_Dot]

On 7/26/2021 at 8:01 PM, scduckman03 said:

Been shooting uspsa on and off for couple years now. Switched guns way to many times to get really comfortable with one. Decided to buy a honcho last year and I am gonna stick with open for awhile. Just started doing some daily dry fire practice. Bought some of the target sets from Stogers shop. For those of you that do dry fire practice, how soon did you see results in matches/classification ranking? 

 

 

Depends on how effectively you train your dry fire. If you just draw a bunch and go through the motions then you won't see much improvement. If you put focus, visualization, and weight into dryfire you will find gains in dryfire and fix smaller issues. That work will show in livefire over time. 

 

I appreciate the endorsement from @TheChewycookie . I think he nailed the idea that finding a goal will help you focus your dryfire and become more effective in your training. So to ask the same question: what is your goal? 

 

"To get better" is an okay answer.

"To make B class" is better.

"To beat my buddy" is also good. 

"To make A-class by next June" is best. 

 

Pick a goal and a reasonable timeline for you. As TheChewycookie mentioned @CClassForLife went from C-class to GM in less than a year but he went HAM to get there. It's up to you how much effort you want to put in and for how long. 

Edited July 28, 2021 by Reds_Dot

[scduckman03]

Did some live fire yesterday. Before the dry fire training my average fist shot time was 1.3 seconds. Yesterday I was able to do multiple 1.12. So noticeable improvement there, very happy with that. Did a lot of pair shooting at 25 yards, very happy with the groups I was able to shoot with the honcho at a good rate of speed. Should have checked my splits to see what they were. My next match is in 2 weeks, hopefully with continued dry fire practice I will see an improvement. Most of the time I finish mid pack.  Still unclassified in open, c class in limited. 

[EEH]

Where you shooting TJ ?

[scduckman03]

Panning to got to MCRC On 2nd Saturday.

[scduckman03]

Shot mcrc in Columbia SC this Saturday. Finished 17 out of 50 shooters. Placed 7,10,13,23,27,28 overall on stages. Got to seriously work on Speed in training sessions. M class open shooter that won beat me by 35 seconds over 6 stages. I had 2 stages that I flopped bad, cost me more time for sure. Dropped my big stick mag on both stages (trying to keep from reloading) and it completely messed up my stage plan and had to regroup mentally and finish it.  Classifier was “madness” shot it in 8:57 with 1 NS , 8A,5C.. looks to be about 44% so not great. I videoed my match on hat cam and had buddy also film with phone. Watching it looked like I was in slow motion.    Definite a lot of room for improvement in the speed area. Also would like to be more consistent overall, would like to be within a couple spots on all stages.