Matches vs Practice

[Jim Watson]

On 11/10/2022 at 9:44 AM, mikeAZ said:

What if you could shoot a match every day/night of the week?... Is too much shooting possible?.

 

Col. Charles Askins, a big time bullseye shooter in his day, said to shoot every other day, that daily practice was overwork.

 

I agree with Barry, dry fire and live fire practice (Also load ammo, clean and adjust gun, etc.) is what I do to get ready to go to a match.  Improving match performance is the purpose.  Unless you are on one of the tactical boards where a good time on the Hokey Pokey Drill is the end result.  

[GOF]

A match, in itself, is actually pretty good practice. It will show you where, and on what evolution, you screwed up. Practice to correct those screw ups is good. But practice, by itself, won't identify them. 

[motosapiens]

4 hours ago, GOF said:

A match, in itself, is actually pretty good practice. It will show you where, and on what evolution, you screwed up. Practice to correct those screw ups is good. But practice, by itself, won't identify them. 

this is a very important point. most people spend too much time on stuff they are good at, and not nearly enough time on stuff they hate and suck at. matches are very helpful in identifying weaknesses and to spend more time on in practice.

[shred]

To get good you've gotta get the reps in. 

 

How you get those reps can be dry fire, live fire practice or matches.  Stoeger put in a crapload of reps dry-fire.  Others shot until they were knee deep in brass.

 

 

[waktasz]

23 hours ago, rowdyb said:

hahaha, and I don't have a Saturday uspsa match within 90 miles of my house..... You gotta be enjoying FLA.

 

That schedule above was actually in PA. I don't practice anymore and shoot a match once a month or less, and it's not even a sanctioned USPSA match. 

[Bakerjd]

For me I got really into getting better two seasons ago. I set the goal to go from low c class to mid pack b class in SS. Started doing dry fire right from stoegers books in January, plus added in a TON of reload practice. I would do his stuff every other day and the off days I spent doing reload practice. Then I found an indoor 24hr range at a local club I could live fire some stuff at. Mostly did doubles drills, and transitions. You can set up a stage of sorts and try to run around but the floor is very slick so I don't. Once I got access to that range I did once a week live fire. I found DTFS was something I worked on much better in live fire. Eventually I switched most of my dry fire to live fire and was going 3x a week. 150-200 rounds a session. I ended up placing pretty high for c class in a few majors and winning c class a few times including A5 in 2021 in limited. 

 

Fast forward to 2022 season and I was working a lot of OT, and got lazy. Also switched to CO. Didn't do a whole lot of practice at all. It showed in major match scores. It also kind of made me start to not enjoy the game anymore. At the end of the season I was ready to sell off everything and quit USPSA. I tried switching to open and it still didn't help. Then Mayne 2 or 3 weeks ago I decided to take my sorry self to the range with the open and CO guns and see which one I really enjoyed shooting more. I found I really enjoy the CO gun. So I went again with just the CO gun and after an hour or so was getting my rhythm back. It was fun again. So for 2023 my goal is A class in CO. 

 

TLDR: A lot of it depends on how you personally learn. How dedicated you are. And what you want out of it in the end.