Airic

[Airic]

No practice today.

I did go out and buy some reloading stuff that I needed this morning. I set up my makeshift reloading bench last night. I'm glad I never sold my press or any of the accessories.

Between hitting up the stores to get stuff I needed today, I didnt get back in time to dryfire. Looks like I'm gonna have to do a double to make up tomm.

[Airic]

Dryfire #1, Core Drills

Smooth practice today. My grip is feeling really nice. I think I've finally done enough reps to get it back to where its the same everytime. Reloads were working out good today, almost felt like I was sitting the gun on top of the mag.

Thinking bout shooting a local match tomorrow. I have to work at 3pm, so I might have to rush away as soon as I'm done shooting. Takes me about 30 mins to get all my gear on and get the car ready for shift.

[Catfish]

Come play! If you need to bug out early and leave, I promise not to hold it over your head for bailing out on all the clean up work. Much.

[Airic]

Come play! If you need to bug out early and leave, I promise not to hold it over your head for bailing out on all the clean up work. Much.

What time you usually show up to set up?

[Catfish]

Usually between 8-8:30. If you got there by 9, that would be plenty early.

Hope to see you tomorrow - open gun ready yet??

[Airic]

Usually between 8-8:30. If you got there by 9, that would be plenty early.

Hope to see you tomorrow - open gun ready yet??

Nah, I was told it would take 10 weeks to build, so that puts it getting back to me at around mid march. Im hoping to get it in time to practice with it before the double tap

[Catfish]

I envy you, but then again I don't - I HATE waiting for a new gun. Crikey time seems to just slow down.

[Catfish]

It was good to see you at the range, Eric. Looked like you shot pretty well, even though you were magazine impaired.

First stage you were double tapping like crazy, but the other stages looked like you got into the groove and had some great transitions.

[Airic]

Match day yesterday

With most of my good stuff gone to SJC, I was a little bit equipment impaired for the match. Basically I had my G22, 2 15 round and 2 10 round mags, and my production gear. I didnt want to shoot production, because I wanted full points on the targets for this match. After looking at how the first two stages were set up, I decided to just shoot limited. I fashioned a makeshift race rig out of my production gear and went from there.

I had decided before the match that I was not going to "shoot to win" at this match. I just set two goals for myself:

1. Shoot 90% of the available match points.

2. See some improvement that I can attribute to my dryfire.

Goal #1 was achieved. I shot 448 of 490 available match points. That with a miss on one stage and 1 or 2 delta hits through the match. I was pretty impressed with that.

Goal #2 was achieved through my sight pictures during the match. I have corrected the problem I mentioned about the last match where I dont remember seeing anything.

Overall I felt Ok about this match. I did rush myself during a couple of the stages, losing my relaxed feeling. Also my movement was not as smooth as I would have liked.

**Side note: My C-More showed up at the front door today as I was writing this

[Airic]

It was good to see you at the range, Eric. Looked like you shot pretty well, even though you were magazine impaired.

First stage you were double tapping like crazy, but the other stages looked like you got into the groove and had some great transitions.

Good to see you too man. I can tell you have made great improvements refining your shooting. Good Match!

On that first stage, I saw every sight picture and felt more relaxed and smooth than any of the other 3 stages. Shot 117/120 points also. It felt really good to me. What is it that you saw? Did it look like I was just pulling the trigger twice?

[Catfish]

It was good to see you at the range, Eric. Looked like you shot pretty well, even though you were magazine impaired.

First stage you were double tapping like crazy, but the other stages looked like you got into the groove and had some great transitions.

Good to see you too man. I can tell you have made great improvements refining your shooting. Good Match!

On that first stage, I saw every sight picture and felt more relaxed and smooth than any of the other 3 stages. Shot 117/120 points also. It felt really good to me. What is it that you saw? Did it look like I was just pulling the trigger twice?

It was more how it sounded from where I was standing - wapwap wapwap wapwap rather than wapwapwapwapwapwap. Could have been your transitions were just a tad slow for how fast you were pulling the trigger.

[Airic]

Ya I was really trying to dial in on that A box, so I might have been taking a little extra time to let the front sight settle.

BTW thanks a lot for letting me shoot through. I try to help out as much as I can before and during the match to make up for having to leave early every time. Sucks thats the way its gotta be until I get better days off, but I think that is on the horizon...I heard I'm going to sunday/monday days off soon.

Edited January 29, 2007 by Airic

[Airic]

Live fire, Police Pistol Qualification

After a couple scheduling issues, I finally got to go qualify with my duty weapon and gear today. Course of fire consisted of the following:

Coke bottle shaped target, approx. 10in wide by 18in tall.

25 yards:

6 rounds freestyle

6 rounds weak hand

6 rounds kneeling

60 sec par time

15 yards:

Start at 25, run to 15 yard line

6 rounds freestyle

6 round kneeling

35 secs

10 yards:

Start at 15, run to 10 yard line

10 rounds freestyle

20 secs

5 yards:

6 rounds freestyle

10 secs

3 yards:

4 rounds from close combat position

3 secs

The par times are pretty generous for anyone who shoots normally. During this course of fire I had a stovepipe jam with the remington golden saber ammo. I cleared it so quickly i didnt even realize I had done it until after the course of fire. Its good to know I have that automatic reaction from a combat standpoint. I was upset with the malfunction, thats the first time my G22 has malfunctioned in 150,000+ rounds. Might be a sign that I need to replace some stuff on the inside

Shot 243 out of a possible 250. Classifies me as Master at 97%. I saw some good sight pictures today. This was mainly a test of accuracy, and that has always been one of my weak points. I am glad to see I am improving that.

Edited January 30, 2007 by Airic

[Catfish]

Good job Eric, nice to know there's some PO-leece out there that shoot well.

[Airic]

Welp, just got back from a 4 day road trip. Once per month I have to drag the whole family four hours away because I have military duty.

I took all my gear with me though, including my new speedcomp mag pouches and my C-more that just came in the mail this week. I only got to practice 2 times over 4 days, and I mainly focused on reloads, transitions and movement.

I have to say, I am really impressed with these speedcomp mag pouches. They are fast! They feel really natural to me. Its almost like they fit the natural sweep of my hand. I couldnt resist myself and I ended up strapping the C-more to the top of my gun with a zip tie, just to see what the sight pictures were like (ive never shot a pistol with a red dot sight). I can already tell that its going to take a little bit to get used to this red dot thing. Target acquisition is extremely fast though. I bought a 6moa dot, and it is a lot smaller than I expected, I actually like it...I am just gonna have to train my eyes to it.

Glad to be back.....cant wait to dryfire tommorow.

[LittlePistol]

What branch of the NG are you in? I am NM Air National Guard. Currently on orders for drill...makes it hard to practice...outdoor range closes at 1700/indoor at 2000 an I work 0700-1900. Lots of dryfire I guess.

[Airic]

I'm in the Army NG. We just had a bunch of our guys go down your way for a border patrol mission, and a couple more have been training at your RTI in Santa Fe for truck driver school.

[LittlePistol]

Cool...what's your MOS?

[Airic]

Cool...what's your MOS?

13P, working with the MLRS rocket launcher system. About to switch to 13F though.

[LittlePistol]

That's cool...I worked for the Army down in Deming, NM on the Border Mission as the Motor Sgt for a couple of months...Needless to say, THAT was interesting!

[Airic]

Well, after a long break....I finally got to dryfire today. I did my #1 routine and then worked on some movement drills. I really tried to work on a smooth/quick type of shooting today, one were I felt like I didnt tense all my muscles up during the drills. Overall the practice felt good today.

My reloads are getting more and more consistent. The work I have done has transferred well to my moving reloads.

Edited February 9, 2007 by Airic

[Airic]

Dryfire #2 today

I'm extremely pleased with what I felt today. I was very relaxed. The gun just floated in front of me today. I did not feel any tension at all during the drills.

My grip felt awesome today, I really felt like I was part of the gun. Reloads were very smooth and pretty fast. At the end of my session I worked on some moving plates/poppers with reloads, it was almost as if I could hear the steel as I was transitioning to the next target.

I want to remember how I felt today, it is how I want to feel during a match.

[Airic]

Dryfire #3

Walked into my "office" this morning and I saw a piece of paper on the floor. It was one of those little slips out of a fortune cookie. It read: Step by step you will ascend the staircase to success. I'm pretty sure that paper wasn't on the floor before I went to bed last night, and we haven't eaten Asian food in weeks....odd.

Dryfire went well today, smooth and consistant. I focused on visual patience and eye movement today. Making sure that I looked everywhere I needed to look and saw everything I needed to see.

I did a lot of thinking between reps on my drills today, about my improvement and the measurement of it. I just wanted to share a couple things that went through my mind:

1. What exactly am I trying to accomplish here?

Am I trying to become a master? a GM? What good are those titles if you cant consistently be competitive? I have a lot of fun in this sport, and I love going to the range and hanging out with people who love the same thing I do. On the other hand, I'm not going to lie to you, I'm here to win. I am a very competitive person, I want to win, I desire to win. I am not satisfied with anything less.

That motivation has driven me to do things that my wife and other people I know think is crazy. I wake up every day and point a gun at small paper targets on the wall for an hour. I get home at 11:30pm (on a good night) stay up with the wife and baby until 2 or 3 am and then get up at 6 am, drive to a shooting match.....leave the shooting match and drive straight back to work, not arriving back home again until 11:30pm at the earliest.

The point is...I just want to be the best at the skill level I am currently at. Once I am there, I want to move up and become the best at the next skill level. I think thats the meaning of "step by step". If that eventually leads me to Grandmaster, then some day I'm gonna have some big shoes to fill.

off to the next tangent..

2. The saying is: "Smooth is fast"

I spend a lot of time working on making my movements smooth and quick. You hear it all the time...."smooth is fast". But really shouldn't the goal be making fast...smooth? I can do a drill under a certain par time, with all the hits, and it is fast. But I can't consistently do it. I can do the smooth runs consistently, but they are slightly slower. In some cases only .3 or .4 secs, other cases they can be as slow as 1sec to 1.2 sec slower. The question is, do I want to keep working on smooth until it becomes faster? Or do I want to work on a time goal until it becomes smooth? Food for thought....

[Catfish]

I have always figured you can't make fast smooth, but you can make smooth fast.

I'd say also that there are times when going faster is more important than being smooth.

Watch a video of TT hauling ass through a stage with a bunch of moderate distance (from each other), like say 3-5 yards. That boy is not smooth at all, very choppy - but he is like greased lightning. I asked him about it and he said it was like equating driving a car - and those short little movements are like staying in 1st or maybe 2nd gear, where moving smoothly would be like 3rd gear.

So, strive for smoothness, but know when to put the hammer down.

[Airic]

Dryfire #1

I was actually scheduled to do my movement work today, but my CR Speed showed up on the front door this morning. I decided to go with the more basic draw,reload,transition practice today to work the new holster in.

First off, Fedex dropped the box off at 8:41am....it took me until 10:00 am to get the dam holster set up for a lefty. As soon as I saw the words "drill" and "tap" I knew it was gonna be a minute before I got this thing set up. Eventually everything turned out ok and I was ready to dryfire.

Its been a while since I've drawn out of a race holster. My last one was a ghost, and I always had problems with the trigger guard of the Glock dragging on the holster. Sometimes it would just flat stick when I tryed to draw. I'm pretty sure it was a flaw in my draw stroke though.

The dryfire went well. It didnt take long to work the new holster in. Its fast, but at this point I dont think the holster is going to make a huge difference. If it is any faster, it may be .10 or .15 sec faster to the target. Fast draws are not really a product of the holster anyway, more about preloading so you can get the shot off as soon as your sights are on the target.....and being relaxed as the sights come into the A zone.

My reloads are really becoming more consistent. When I blow a reload, its always the top feed lip barely catching on the top of Glock grip opening. I cant wait until my SJC gun gets here, that huge magwell will suck those mistakes right up.

Anyways, time to eat...