Revolver? Die on the vine?

[-JCN-]

Setting up 24-06 but with steel

 

I set up 24-06 target stands to go along with the walls. 
 

But the one drawback for setup is having to put paper up each time. 

My theory is that if I’m just working footwork then rimfire might suffice. 
 

Then I can use steel and just leave them up. 
 

I didn’t get to finish setting up. I need a couple longer 2x4s to cut to appropriate size for the back wing targets. 
 

But you get the idea. 
 

 

I’ll paint hardcover on the wing targets and get them up to the proper height. 
 

V and I shot league and I was in a mood. I was doing some stuff at my range building and cutting things so I didn’t get to league until pretty late. 
 

I didn’t execute my plans as well as I’d like. Two stages, I changed my plan right before going and I didn’t have them locked in well enough. 
 

I also have to be better at absolutely anchoring in skipping targets to prevent engaging out of order and then losing my mind. 
 

V had a solid match. She is beating most of the B class people in league and one of the A class guys that is kind of plateaued out. She hasn’t ever beaten him before. 
 

She was faster than him (by being efficient). 
 

She’s performing like a B+ / A-.

 

Match execution and improving mechanics are related, but separate.

 

She was able to alert me to a better plan in one section that was really helpful. I really enjoy having a partner that can help me too. 
 

She also had her first 0.15 split in competition. It was a 6 yard target and she finished the stage thwre with two alphas. 
 

The improved mechanics now can be mated to her course execution to give match performance. 
 

It’s been a lot of development this year!

 

[-JCN-]

What’s your soul worth?

 

One of the local guys is a rising A class. But he’s a little stuck in his own head.
 

He always asks after league “How was your match? Any misses?” Not because he cares about me or if I’m making my goals, but because he wants to get closer to me and beat me. 
 

I don’t mind if he beats me, I only care about my performance and if I’m reducing errors and learning. 
 

But this is a guy who is chasing a league trophy and said to me accusingly that now he won’t get a first place trophy because I showed up. 
 

And also a guy who happily took a stage win with a time that missed 6 of his last shots because the RO didn’t pick up the time and the MD offered him an optional reshoot. He declined and took the impossibly low time. 
 

To me, this is a guy who cares more about the accolades than the pursuit of the skill. 
 

This is something I’ve noticed in some A class plateau shooters. 
 

They are trying to use finishing position and percent off the leader as primary data rather than secondary data.
 

But that data is very dirty and complex. What if the person had a malfunction on a stage? What if that person was trying something different with their pace or execution? What if that person was goofing around and just using their carry gun instead of their competition gun?

 

Judging my performance is based only on primary data. How many extra steps did I take? Did I overrun a position? Could I have entered harder or did I miss a chance to back out? Did I pick a fully efficient stage plan? Did I take a high risk strategy that did not pay off? How many extra shots did I have to take? Did my vision match my mechanics? 
 

Usually, the match results reflect the errors. And separately, I am continuing to work on my mechanics.

 

I prefer to judge myself on reproducible variables that I can control. I cannot control what other people do or if they have a good match or not, or if they are putting an extra work in training or not.
 

In learning theory, the thing that kills learning, the quickest is inconsistent feedback and rewards. Trying to judge finishing position as a simple variable has a wide margin of error and is not as useful as dissecting out your own run with errors.
 

This is part of my hypothesis of why these people have a difficult time getting out of A class. Because they pat themselves on the back for what they think is a good performance that actually might have just been a bad performance by the other person they are chasing.

 

V continues to improve because we keep focused on her efficiency. And she continues to work her mechanics. 
 

 

Her speed comes from efficiency and reducing errors, not from pure athleticism or explosiveness. 
 

 

.

Edited August 14 by -JCN-

[NoahBeretta]

Always good reads! Your bottomless motivation is inspiring. It is nice to have a training partner that matches your interest too. 

Edited August 14 by NoahBeretta

[-JCN-]

18 hours ago, NoahBeretta said:

Always good reads! Your bottomless motivation is inspiring. It is nice to have a training partner that matches your interest too. 

 

Thanks for the support, hope you're doing well!

[-JCN-]

Not thrilled with airsoft accuracy

 

I don't want my daughter learning poor shot calling if the gun is not accurate...

 

So to that end, I'm not sure how much effort we should put into the G42. I should test the iron sight one to make sure that it's not my mounting of the RDS that's causing the wobble.

 

If the gun is not accurate (which I suspect will be a thing given the variable gas delivery from a Green Gas / magazine system) then it's an inherent flaw in the system.

 

It'd motivate me to move to 22LR sooner.

 

I'd prefer her to get used to pistol rather than long guns, but small gun handling and safety is a real thing.

 

I think having a suppressor on it would help with preventing accidents by lengthening the distance of the muzzle to human and reduce some of the blastiness of it.

[-JCN-]

Non shooting parts of the sport

 

There are so many important non-shooting parts to the sport that really are best ironed out in dry fire. 
 

Today was working some ergos for 24-01. 
 

It became clear to me that a narrower stance allows more transitional movement without restricting range of movement for the wing targets. 
 

For strong and weak hand, it affects the recoil control but that’s an acceptable trade off for the speed and distance requirements of the challenge. 
 

Nils had this video and it’s clear he is using more kinesthetics than vision for his SHO/WHO. 

 

 

 

.

Edited August 15 by -JCN-

[-JCN-]

Battery tray

 

This is the tray that cracked and caused dot flicker. 
 

 

 

The dot was originally included on the fixed rail optic mount so I’m not surprised it doesn’t hold up recoil on a slide ride. 
 

As extra insurance, I might change battery covers when I change batteries. 
 

The tray is only $1 which is a bargain in the shooting sports world. 
 

I used a little bit of E6000 on the gasket to reduce movement on recoil but it might be a mistake. I hope it comes off later, lol. 
 

I could always put an SRO or a 507 comp on it. But I like the no false dot and I like a 5-6 MOA dot. 
 

If the 507 comp comes with a single dot in the future, I’ll probably switch to that. 

[-JCN-]

Remounted the DPP micro

 

Trying to remove sources of error. 
 

I took the DPP micro off the Airsoft G42 and shaved the sides of the dovetail mount free of E6000 to get a cleaner mount. Then I added some E6000 to the top side of the slide and clamped down the optic. 
 

 

I would estimate I had a 20 MOA spread (1 inch at 5 yards) with the previous mount. I’m looking to do better than that. 
 

Maybe that’s not realistic but a wobbly mount won’t help anything. Will test today. 

[-JCN-]

I’m off work most of this week. 
 

Daughter is off daycare and school until end of the month so I have some time off to hang out. 
 

We are doing our usual RV to the range and ice cream afterwards. 
 

Bringing some Airsoft stuff and will see how feasible it is. 
 

Also brought my laptop to set her up with movies in the back. She’s currently on a Star Wars kick. She’s on Episode 7. 
 

I don’t have a lot to do at the range today. Going to finish up setting up 24-06 with steel and do some footwork. 
 

Might also get a baseline run on 24-01 in the books. 

[-JCN-]

Range session. Odds and ends. 
 

Turns out the Airsoft works a lot better with the sight more firmly anchored. 
 

My daughter also tried out the Glock. 
 

 

 

Was very happy with the trigger finger discipline. 
 

I have to think of other reactive targets to grab her interest. 
 

Maybe balloons? I think she’d like that. 
 

The Tactrainers reactive targets are too small for her mechanics and trigger press right now. 
 

I also did one mock run with the rimfire and I’m not sold on it as a trainer. 
 

 

I think I’d almost rather just use my real gun and dry run it. 
 

My normal home dry is scaled, but footwork doesn’t really scale….

[-JCN-]

Cooking half baked plans…

 

I really, really would like a rimfire suppressed training option. 
 

I have two really good CZ Kadet setups, but they’re only 10 round magazines. 
 

I might experiment with Jay Beal stage practice where I mix dry and live on a stage. He did it to save ammo, I could do it to work within magazine capacity. 

[Fimrire_RongLifle]

Hi I got a Glock 44 together but the ammo capacity bothered me also. I have to try the promag again which didn't seem great about feeding but the stock mags ran fine. 

I did wind up replacing nearly every single part ironically and haven't done the barrel yet which I need to for suppressed. 

I solved optics part with an alumn slide replacement. 

Ill see if I can get the promag or a second example of one running and report back. I haven't messed with it in a while anyway. 

 

 

[-JCN-]

I’m trying to recapitulate the weight, balance and index of the competition gun for the kind of training I’d like to do. 
 

Maybe Airsoft is a better option. 
 

I should get around to drilling and tapping the Airsoft S2 that I have for an optic. 
 

Will try this today. 
 

 

[-JCN-]

I tried it and really there’s no substitute for the actual gun. 
 

Had a great skills lab session with V.
 

We worked some footwork for 24-06 and experimented with some things. 
 

Did the Jay Beal mixed dry and live. 
 

This is what it looks like. 
 

 

We changed the live targets and worked different things. Picked the middle target as one of the live targets to keep the dry parts honest. 
 

Great drill for learning. 
 

We also did some index movement drills and V shot up one of my wall posts repeatedly… which was great learning that she needs more space and margin on those kinds of elements. 
 

We then did some of the Six in Six challenge and Can You Strong and Weak. 
 

Really good learning and skill building. 
 

I really love objective data of how good is good. 

What’s interesting is comparing me against V. The difference was all splits. And that constrained movement. 
 

The middle tux has to be shot with a one step double, it’s too slow for two one step singles. 
 

I experimented with different movement and entry / exits but ultimately it came down to good mechanics and the ability to hit small doubles so that with movement they’re still in the A zone. 

 

.

Edited August 16 by -JCN-

[-JCN-]

Shot an IDPA match today. 
 

Locally, it’s not a strong region but they put on a good match. 
 

I shot down 0 for the match. I had one stage I felt I executed well (the last stage). 
 

The first stage I didn’t program in dead space so I triggered a reload prematurely when my brain was trying to alter a stage plan. I had planned on dumping rounds on one target and reengaging later but wound up hitting both in the 0 and that ate up bandwidth because I was planning on making up shots. 
 

In my head, my real reload spot was supposed to be when I reengaged it up front down zero but my brain called it good and triggered a reload. 
 

I had failed to contingency plan for hitting what I thought I’d miss!

 

I was rusty in my IDPA math and also didn’t go through the extra step of programming in target numbers per position. I was counting on shooting what I saw but I didn’t go deep enough to expose myself to all 4 from P1. 
 

That would have been fine if I had noticed it and shot it from P2 but I was back to counting on my second position and just shot the three I had cataloged and didn’t notice the leftover steel standing there. 
 

So one stage I felt good on. One stage was okay. Two that were horse s#!t and the warmup was fine. 
 

Still crushed others, but that’s not the point. The point is for me to learn and keep reducing mental errors with systematic solutions. 
 

V came in second but also did not do great. 
 

She kept calling -1 as “Charlie’s” and I had to keep reminding her that IDPA -1s are more like USPSA Deltas. 
 

It’s a good exercise in vision / gear shifts to go from USPSA to IDPA scoring. 

.

 

Edited August 18 by -JCN-

[-JCN-]

My daughter hung out during the match

 

 

She watched videos and played in the RV while I shot. I parked right by the bays. 
 

I checked in on her after every stage and we have the communication signal that she honks the horn if there’s an issue. 
 

She also knows how to have Siri call me. 
 

 

 

[-JCN-]

You have to be a good friend to have good friends. 
 

It’s such a simple concept, but lost on so many people.

 

And being considerate versus being a good friend are related, but different.

 

This exchange with V encapsulates why she’s so important to me as a friend and (training) partner.

 

 

I’m actively working to help her achieve her goals and she’s actively helping me to achieve mine.

 

That’s different from someone who wants to support but doesn’t know how and / or is ineffective at doing so. 
 

Snobbily, it’s why I generally stay away from C class people and terminal Bs as close friends.  Because if they haven’t figured out how to help themselves, the chances they’ll be able to help me are slim. They may want to help and realize I need help (considerate) but if they’re ineffective at it, they’re not actually helpful. 

Then there are the people who actually impede you from getting to your goals because they judge good or bad by their own mediocre standards. I had one guy after every stage when I was trying to dissect my runs for improvement, would say “at least you did better than me.”

 

Every single time, he would make it about himself even when it had nothing to do with him. He couldn’t get out of his own head to have any bandwidth for others.

 

Those are also people I try and avoid. They can be really nice people, but when I’m at a competition I have things I’m trying to accomplish too. 
 

 

[-JCN-]

Learning Club and Match workflow

 

Spending a little time poking around PractiScore figuring out how things work now that I have club management ability. 
 

Some of the stuff isn’t intuitive to me so doing a lot of clicking and navigating. But making progress. 
 

I like learning what goes on behind the scenes. 

[-JCN-]

Six in six is a great drill

 

I love it because it has clearly defined accuracy standards.

 

Unlike some of the other classifiers where the aggregate hit factor counts, this is a fixed time stage so it’s an accuracy drill within the time parameters. 
 

Currently, I find the 10 yard WHO the easiest string because my draw to weak hand transfer and ergos are pretty good. 
 

Strong hand tends to be my weakest stage, I think for a couple of reasons. Partially because I’m used to weak hand support and partially because I want to go too fast with my dominant hand.

 

I tend to drop a Charlie or two on the SHO string if I’m not really focused. 
 

This is the prime string where I can make improvement. 
 

The 25 yard six-reload-six string in 6s is comfortable at about a 6-8 Charlie pace. 

 

 

I used scaled 1/3 A zone size at 1/3 distance so I could get adequate transitions logged. 

[-JCN-]

Science experiments

 

[-JCN-]

Figured out why my Instago3 wasn’t charging…

 

I was getting intermittent failure to charge in the dock. No red light. 
 

Charging prongs looked good. 
 

I was kind of stumped. 
 

But then today I put my fingers on and in the cradle and found a little black piece of metal stuck to the magnet that was preventing it from seating properly to trigger the charging. 
 

[-JCN-]

Can You Count

 

I haven’t run this one in a while and not in the current configuration. 
 

I’m out of shape for sustained max split ergos. I’ve been soft. 
 

I’m going to run this during the training course to have students demonstrate max index split and max reload return to index with sustained recoil control trigger timing. 
 

I better get my s#!t together. 
 

I am NOT very consistent. 
 

I cannot do this on demand currently. 
 

 

[-JCN-]

Adjusting expectations 

 

I’ve gotten spoiled working with V.
 

I’m constantly reminded of that when I help others. I’m moderately annoyed at one of the training group students, but it’s my own fault for having expectations of attitude. 
 

It is extremely rare for a student to consider and elevate what they can bring to the relationship. 
 

Students don’t realize what opportunities they close off when they don’t add value. 
 

Which is why I don’t charge for coaching. Because I don’t want people to think they paid for my time or I have any obligation to provide services. 
 

They can be thankful and are often amazed at their improvement with directed help… but they don’t do anything to develop the relationship. 
 

So it’s a charity donation that usually winds up being a one time or limited time thing. 
 

On a happier note, when I was dry firing this morning my daughter came up and asked if she could practice too and even though it was the nerf gun, she still tried to do the proper thumbs forward proper grip!

[-JCN-]

Cold check

 

Ran scaled indoor Six in Six and Can You Count cold today without warm ups or mulligans. 
 

Got what I would have needed to cross GM so that’s promising. 
 

Then worked on some CYC a little more, getting used to the grip pressure (or lack thereof) needed to keep the gun cycling and moving on time. 
 

 

Ended on what I think are my fastest pistol strings, definitely with the Alien. 
 

Nice, clean sub-second reloads and even splits. 
 

I think outdoors I could draw a little faster, but this is pretty much my max speed without hoping and luck. 
 

 

 

[-JCN-]

Future options for my daughter:

 

Ergos are more important to me in her training than caliber. 
 

I would be fine with her staying Airsoft forever but the range and accuracy at distance will eventually be limiting. 
 

If I can transition her to 380 or subminor 9mm, that would work well. 
 

But if we go through 22LR along the way, that would be okay. 
 

I have one of these conversions with extra mags. 

 

 

And I would probably drill and tap the frame to mount an optic for her. 
 

This might be a better option but the trigger reach might be a little long depending on how old she is at the time. 
 

 

Threaded barrel is a bonus. 
 

Before the prices went up, I bought my daughter a life USPSA membership. Figured it was worth the gamble. 
 

 

.

Edited August 20 by -JCN-