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rvb

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crashed and burned at VIR. 4 misses, 2 pe, 1 no shoot if I remember right. As I was shooting I had no clue what I was doing. that's what happens when you do 10 walkthrus at the beginning of the match, and you shoot the same stage twice but differently, and both times you shoot it the rounds on target is mixed w/in ea string.... do I shoot him 2x? 3? 2+1? hell. The couple of stages that were consistant both runs I did well on (2 ea kinda thing). oh well. put it out of mind. I sucked there last time I shot there in '05, too.

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Took the past week off practicing. Tonight was the first time strapping on the gear since VIR.

45 minutes dryfire w/ idpa gear. Lots of fundamentals. Set up a bianchi baricade to practice shooting from cover.

Worked on some idpa-specific stuff like "2 to the body plus 1 to the head" and retention reloads.

Last night went to the range w/ an old buddy who wanted to learn to shoot. He took my NRA basic class a year ago or so and wanted to test drive a glock 22 before buying so we rented one.

-rvb

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last night: 90 minutes of dryfire w/ production gear. First time using the CR pouches.

Went methodically through the first 18 drill in Anderson's book. Only skipped a couple. Only difference is instead of just getting a sight picture and not pulling the trigger on some of the index drills, I did dryfire. I'd been noticing that after shooting a single action gun I was getting lazy about getting on double action trigger. Really worked on getting the shot to break as soon as I saw a good a-zone sight picture.

W/ the CR pouches I felt I had to lift higher to get the mags out, but but about 50 reps of the burket reloads and a bunch draw/2/r/2's I didn't notice it any more and reloads seemed pretty natural again.

No exercise last night since I gave blood yesterday.

-rvb

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Mud bowl at Fredericksburg 3/6/08. Shot Production.

Things of note:

Since I didn't feel like buying new mags after they got sucked into the goo and lost forever and I wanted to get practice in for the upcoming MD state idpa match, I did all retention reloads with only a couple of exceptions. Cost me a second or two on each stage I'd bet, but was good practice.

Stayed Vertical in the goo. Almost landed on my ass on stage 5 . Foot landed on the fault line which was very slick. Recovered, got back in the box, and 'click.' Don't know if it was a high primer, wet primer, or a sign it's time to change the mainsping. So I lost a LOT of time getting started on that stage.

Good accuracy yesterday. 1 mike, but that was really a C just outside the A-zone, but it went through the edge of a wall first, so a hard-cover mike. I don't recall any D's, but they may have been there on targets I didn't see scored. A lot of 2As or ACs on targets shot on the move where I was really trying to push my foot speed so I feel I'm improving on that skill.

Classifier: 99-19 Payne's Pain. 6A/6C, 10.54s. classifiercalc.com has it at 73.2385% which REALLY suprised me. 1st, I almost did a retention reload on the 1st load (got into the habbit of it on the first several stages). Tossed it on the ground vs in my pocket when I realized what I was doing and kept going... so that cost me time. And I felt I was riding the FS vs snapping my eyes to the next target. I really expected my hf to be way too low to count. Either 1) the hhf is too low on that stage or 2) I'm improving to the point I can suck on a classifier and still get a valid percentage, although still under my class. My PD % will go down a hair.

New CR pouches worked well. I think I like them better than the speedcomps. I really snugged them down so I wouldn't loose mags in the goo and didn't even notice the extra tension.

I hope my shoes dry out before next weekend.

-rvb

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Short match at York today (was a shotgun match, I just shot the pistol portion). Shot Production. No classifier in today's match which disapointed me (I felt I was really shooting solid today). Some very fun and well thought out stages.

I was very happy with my shooting, but still came in 2nd at 85%.

of 5 stages I won 2 and 2nd in a 3rd.

The other two... steel !!!! wouldn't fall. didn't matter how many times I hit it when it's angled 15 degrees fwd. Two VERY poorly calibrated poppers cost me the match.

Stage 2 was simply 8 poppers/minis in a row. After clearing the steel I went back and re-hit the one still standing, lowered my gun as it wobbled thinking it would go... but still standing. so I hit it a 3rd time up near the top and it fell (barely). I know that cost me at least 2 seconds, maybe 3. should have left it and called for calibration, I don't think it would have passed, it was leaning almost a foot past vertical

Stage 5 a popper was used to activate a swinger. I hit it... nothing. I hit it again... nothing. So I doubled it an it finally fell. of course now my reload plan was shot to hell. I didn't even see my scoring at the time I just didn't care since I was pissed but I got home to see 20 points in PE. Did I forget one? i dunno. Didn't call mikes, but there was painted on hardcover everywhere. Another shooter couldn't get it to fall with 4 or 5 solid hits w/ major 40. I definately should have left the popper standing and called for calibration. Came in at 47% on this one. Match Killer.

Reloads were a little off. I sliced my right thumb open last weekend and it's still taped up, that made me fumble hitting the mag release a couple times.

I was happy with my hits, speed, planning, and plan execution today. Even "really slowing up" and ensuring good hits on farther targets I had good times. Am I finally believing my own self-talk that good sight pictures don't really add time?

I cleaned steel arrays several times (discounting the calibration issue).

I felt I did much better at this match at snapping my eyes during transitions.

Several of the stages were fairly complicated and I felt very solid in my plans and executions. I've decided this is less of a problem for me in production than it is in open. I think the reloads give me good 'way points' in my plan.

Time to start preparing for the MD State IDPA match. I was VERY disapointed to learn I won't be able to shoot the steel challenge at fredericksburg due to working that match. Maybe I'll see just how badly the MD needs me to work Sunday.

-rvb

*Got a note from one of the guys who set the steel up. I wasn't trying to imply it was set up poorly. I can see that's how my post came across. As soft as the ground was, all it takes for the steel to get way out of calibration is for the bases to get stepped on a time or two. They truly were fun stages and a good setup.

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  • 3 weeks later...

This was my weekend to be the first looser!

2nd in SSP/MA at MD State match (and 2nd over all) and 2nd in Production division at Fredericksburg's Steel Challenge.

So according to my journal here it has been 3 weeks since I touched a gun and 5 weeks since I did any dryfire. Probably 2 months since any serious dryfire regiment. It showed, especially at the MD match.

MD:

I should have won the match. Sloppy execution an some goofy mistakes I've never done before. I did make the most accurate list which was a first (-22). I only lost by 8 seconds. 2.5 was a missed headshot just off the perf (I looked at the hole and thought it was good even though I called a miss on the sight. WTF didn't I make it up? WTF did I look for the hole for conformation?). About 3 seconds was lost due to doing a speed load... had to pick up the mag before I kept shooting, etc. Never done that before. Was way too slow in the dark stage (let the light get blocked by the cover). My head wasn't in it (but we did just get back the night before from house shopping in Ft. Wayne and with everything going on I couldn't shake the outside stresses).

Steel Challenge:

Damn that was fun. I had never done steel challenge before. Tonight I'll stick my scores in here so in the future I have a baseline reference for the stages. This match was the first time I ever felt disadvantaged with a DA first shot. 7 stages * 5 strings = 35 critical trigger preps and release timing. On my slower runs I felt myself pausing on the first steel waiting on the hammer to fall. Even 0.1 or 0.2 extra feels like forever and I think a handfull of first-shot hangups were in the 0.3-0.5 range (that really adds up over all the strings).

SC really shows how my shot calling has improved. I wasn't confident in my shot calling on the first stage or two and I was slower. By the third or fourth stage I was judging hits by nothing other than the sights and noticed an improvement in hits and speed.

Gripe: Why when I come in 2nd in an IDPA match do I get a first place trophy? You don't need a Division Champ AND a 1st place MA winner. Goofy.

-rvb

eta:

The Pendulum Accelerator Roundabout Speed Option 5 to Go Showdown Smoke & Hope

19.46 16.49 14.52 17.87 14.41 13.32 12.68

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  • 2 weeks later...

5/13/08: 60 minutes of dry fire w/ production gear and three 1/4 size targets. Basic dryfire routine going through first half of anderson's drills.

In the middle of moving and packing, so less lights in the living room. Hard to see the FS.

Been 10 days since touching a gun.

Basic drills went well. I was sure to start 0.2 to 0.5 above my baseline (depending on drill) due to the time away from the gun. Index, draws, draw-to-SHO/WHO all went well. Even w/ production gear I was hitting my open time baselines. I felt very relaxed. Burket reloads were good but I guess I'm still getting used to how high the new CR mag pouches hold the mags (seems I have to draw them up higher to clear the pouches) as I fumbled getting the mags out of the pouches some. I got the burket loads down to 0.8 but when I went to 222R222 I got tense "trying" to go fast [ack!] and kept getting hung up on the reload. Only able to consistantly get to 4.5. I stayed relaxed better doing 2R2's and got those in the 2.4 range. Bill-R-Bill drill was pathetic. For a drill designed to teach relaxation I was pure tension.

Spent some time on pure trigger control, especially the DA shot and transition.

-rvb

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  • 1 month later...

Wow, almost 2 months since posting in the range diary.

Shot my first match today after the move to Ft. Wayne at Angola Conservation Club, IN17. It's been over 2 months since pulling a trigger on a live round... and it showed. First stage went well (stage 4), only 3 C's on a 36-round cof. decent time although I felt overly cautious. 06-02 Big Barricade II was my second stage. Shot decent at 5.812 hf (81.74%), but not great (6 Cs wont get you to master on this stage). The transition from one side of the barricade to the other was too slow and I hesitated before hitting the reload. The good thing was I did it in 16 shots, no make-up on steel. It will improve my classification average but not much. Not bad for my first weekend out in months. The match went down hill from there... Stupid mistakes. no-shoots forced head shots on stage 2 and I had a M/NS. Then stage 1 required 6 shots per target and I decided to get tricky and reload in the middle of the 6-shot string on a target to save a reload and forgot two shots. doh.

The shot calling, recoil control, and -confidence- was coming back to me by the end of the match.

I did some dryfire the last two weeks, about 3 nights/week, 45 min each night. I have my old par times back on the basics (draws, 2R2s, bill-R-bills, el-prez, etc). I'm even noticing improvement on the el-prez and modified el-prezs.

Having a basement now gives me space to set up an actual ipsc target at 10 yds which I'm hoping will pay off.

I asked about joining IN17 and it's cheap and close and they let you practice ipsc shit, so I may join there soon.

Master in '08... the move set me back on that goal but maybe I can still do it.....

-rvb

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  • 2 weeks later...

Sunday 7/20. Shot for the first time at IN05, Ft Wayne. I shot production.

For such a small match (22 shooters) they know how to create good shooting challenges such as mini poppers in front of noshoots at 20 yds, plates partly hidden behind poppers at 20 yds, varying distances, etc. My actual trigger work was pretty good, good accuracy... when I wasn't too hurried. I was entirely too speed oriented. I felt like I was moving in slow motion and kept "trying to go faster." I was transitioning my eyes to the next target before I had truly called the shots. Bit me a couple times w/ tight hard cover. Classifier was fluffy's revenge 1, 06-04. I tanked it. Pure speed focus.... what front sight?? M/NS and 3 shots on the right steel. 3.64 sec. So at least I balanced my poor aim with a slow time. :wacko:

rvb

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  • 2 weeks later...

Tonight was a night for RE-learning.

I dryfired for 1 hr w/ production gear, but at a more leisurely pace than usual. I took a couple days off after my last match as I thought a couple days away might help me get away from the speed focus I experienced at the last match. I set my par times SLOW and made it my goal to hit the par, not my pace...... VERY eye opening. damn. I thought I had completely forgotten how to draw, reload, trigger control, etc. After a very frustrating initial 15 minutes I accepted that that is how I had been shooting this month, fast but barely in control and not seeing what needed seeing. The only difference is that I allowed myself to be aware of it tonight.

Some things I RE-learned tonight.....

-- It takes no longer to get a GOOD grip on the pistol before starting out of the holster than it does to get a crappy grip and struggle finding the sights on the first shot (or getting the finger in the right position).

-- TENSION KILLS. (ie. "trying" to be fast)

-- solid reloads for me center around 3 things.... 1) getting the left hand to the new mag and back as smoothly and quickly as possible [in that order of priority], 2) getting to the mag release as quickly as possible and 3) LOOKING THE DAMN MAG INTO THE WELL. Yea, I -knew- that, but I wasn't -doing- that lately. Reloads where those things happened were lightening quick... As in finish the drill and wait for 0.5s for the par beep. My draw-2-R-2 drills were solid at 2.5 by the end of the practice and I didn't feel I was hurrying nearly as much as the last couple weeks on that same par.

-- I need to practice with my MATCH gun before matches, not that junker I usually practice with. I pulled the match gun out at the end of the practice and started beating the evenings pars by at least a couple tenths. The sights are easier to pick up, mag release easier to hit, etc.

For grins I dryfired 06-04 Fluffy's Revenge 1 on 1/4-sized targets. Last match I shot this in 3.64s w/ one C and one Mike! Took 3 shots to hit the second steel. (I'm not sure it was scored correctly, I thought I had a NS?). Pure speed focus and the result sucked. In dryfire tonight I was focused on calling all As and came in easily under 3.3s every time.

rvb

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Shorter sessions the last two nights. about 20 minutes w/ production gear.

Some of my confidence is starting to come back after my many weeks away during the move.

Really slowed things up, broke drills down into their components and built on sequential steps.

Practiced 2-R-2s, el-prezs, and added reloading while changing sides of a barricade.

Last night I also spent quite a bit of time on trigger control and type 4/5 focus while watching the boob tube.

Draws are more confident, quicker, and I'm finding that FS and getting much more solid As on my "shots" at 10 yds. My par for 1st shot, 10 yds, w/ the DA Beretta is 1.0 s right now both relaxed and surrender. 7 yd index is 0.7.

I really focused on snapping my eyes and finding my point of aim on transitions tonight. Made a BIG difference. After breaking down the components of the el-prez and then putting them all back together I was consistently calling >50 points in <5 s. Would love to get to a range where I could try it cold and see what I'd do live fire.

Going to hit the indoor range tomorrow for a couple of hours. Taking a brick of .22 with me and a little match ammo for the production gun.

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Sunday, Production at Angola (IN17).

Shot so/so. Dropped too many points. I only shot ~83% of the available points. Too Many Cs/Ds. My only M was a M/NS on a drop turner where the NS moved w/ the target. Got 2 A, but one was through the D-zone of the NS. Was actually pretty happy w/ that stage. The only thing I'd like to have done differently was I hesitated coming off the activator steel before moving to the target I was going to shoot while waiting on the drop-turner. That's what caused me to be a hair to late getting that second shot into the turner.

The big field course I shot well. Some good shot calling. I called a M on a ~20 yd target and made it up w/ the same splits as my first two shots and went on like nothing happened. Good shot calling on 25-yd mini poppers, too... Made the good call, THEN started hauling to the 2nd position. Happy w. that stage except I rushed the steel a little from the second position and had to make 3 shots on another 25yd mini.

Classifier was Riverdale Standards, 03-07. 15 A, 5 C, 14.82s, 90 pts, HF = 6.0729 for ~ 82.64%. Should pull my ave over %80 for the first time.

Shot it ok except I almost forgot to reload during string 1. Took my 4 shots then stood there like an idiot for what felt like forever (0.5-1.0 second?) then went "oh shit!," reloaded, and took my next 4 shots.

Sooo.... the big lesson.... I need to work on better visualization of the entire stage, not just sections of the stages. I need to ingrain continuity. I'm pretty sure my couple of "hesitations" were places where I visualized intently up to and after those portions of the stages, but that they were convenient places to "pause" my mental practice which led to a pause in my shooting. For example, during my walk through on 03-07 I pictured my draw, and the first shots, then rather than vividly picturing hitting the reload, just said "then reload," then pictured the rest. mental lazyness. That kind of lazyness kept me from putting up a solid M percentage. Good lesson learned the tough way.

Note to self.... replace fiber in front sight more often. This weekend was the first time EVER (in 2 yrs of shooting that gun) I had put new fiber in. Damn it was bright.

-rvb

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I haven't been good about tracking my practices so this post is mainly to keep me in the habit...

I did get dry fire in 3 nights last week. Working on real fundamentals and "cold" performance. Trying to not measure my pars after doing them many times but trying to hit my pars on the -first- run. So rather than doing a single drill 20x then on to the next I would run all the drill once, one after the other. Like a lame, boring little match, then repeat. Took longer w/ all the fartsing w/ the par times on the timer, but seemed beneficial.

No real practice this weekend since we were in OH, but took the 8" steel target to the in-laws' farm where we set up and plinked some rounds. Fun to just plink once in a while.

I got 100 rounds through my Caspian. Runs 100%, even sho, who, and w/ my father-in-law shooting it. Now that I have a couple hundred rounds through it I need to check 50yd accuracy on sandbags. We weren't painting the steel but I shot a "group" early and it looked like it was doing 2-3" at the 20-25 yds or so, not bad for standing and not being super focused, just playing. I took the S&A grip safety off the night before and fit an STI GS. I like it MUCH better but now I have to re-do all the cosmetics work to blend the GS. Going to order a S&A mag-well and then mechanically the gun will be done (unless I shoot idpa then I'll need to get the weight down a hair). Maybe in the next year or so I can finish getting it all pretty (or I won't bother and I'll just shoot the piss out of it).

No dryfire tonight... rebuilt a bathroom cabinet door, put a baby stroller together, and now the wife is sick on the couch and I'm afraid the beep/clickclickclick in the basement will keep her up.

Finally joined a club, a nice out-door range where I can set up stages and steel and shoot all I want... and it's only 30 minutes up the road (going to need to increase the ammo budget!)

-rvb

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tonight: 60 minute dry-fire w/ production gear.

focused on:

surrender draw grip and index

turn/draw movement

reloads

take aways:

I've been gripping too low on the grip when drawing from surrender. need to get the web of the hand up on that beavertail. When drawing from relaxed the hand naturally comes forward for me but from surrender it's going down and back. focused adding a "swoop" forward to mimic that part of the relaxed draw and drive the hand down/fwd into the beavertail. no noticable difference on the timer but a little "perception" gets the right motion in mind.

turn/draw: video'd a few nights ago and noticed my footwork sucks. I'm snapping my head/shoulders/hips around but the feet are staying planted several tenths after the upper body moves coiling me up. Focused on taking weight off the right leg (or turn into leg, but I only practiced clock-wise turns) and moving it at the same time I snapped my eyes. Seemed to make a big difference but felt "weird" and inconsistent. Will work on this over the next few weeks.

reloads Continuing to improve but caught myself getting a little lazy on the focus. I had been working on hitting the mag release faster and I'd be so happy w/ myself when I did it that I'd skip to getting back on target and not look the mag into the well.

I also dryfired fluffy's revenge just to re-enforce that smooth and AIMED is really fast. Was hitting good called A's at 3.00. (This is the classifier I tanked a couple weeks ago trying to burn it down)

I'm hoping to get to the range this friday and get some live fire times to compare to my dryfire pars.

-rvb

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  • 2 weeks later...

8/25 - 15 minutes dryfire with SSP rig.

just worked on draws/reloads/reloads-w/-retention to get re-acquainted w/ ssp gear. Will add the tacticool idpa vest tonight.

Even w/ everything going on (Reid) I'm going to the OH IDPA match this weekend (squadded w/ Bob V.). No practice and lots of distractions = shooting for fun but it'll be good to shoot again.

-rvb

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Just 15 minutes of dryfire the last two nights w/ the SSP rig (including the ultra-stealthy "what gun?" vest)

Need new mag pouches, the wilsons are getting too loose and the mags fall out too easy. wrapped them w/ electrical tape to add tension and keep the mags from falling out the front. Pretty wimpy practice sessions, but got re-used to the rig and practiced some retention reloads.

going to angola tomorrow morning for about 2 hours of live-fire practice.

rvb

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2 hours at angola with ssp gear and my .22 mkII.

Good practice today, although my shooting was not so good. Lots of learning. Set up a few idpa targets and some 8" dia steel plates.

Started off w/ the .22. Rear sight while tight kept drifting left over the course of the practice. Thought it was me for the longest time. Was hitting quite well once I figured out what was going on. averaged 9/10 on the 8" steel at 50 yds and averaged 7/10 at 75 yds. Could have been better but I kept having to figure out my windage to compensate for the screwy sight. Also shot some transition drills with the .22.

Switching to the 9mm... my timing was way off. A combination of a lack of practice lately and switching from the .22 and my timing sucked. I got tense on the gun which caused the FS to not return fully, the gun just wasn't tracking well. That caused me to manually push the FS down which added to the tension and I started getting worse and worse. Before I kept going I did some 10-round berm dumps just to work on the timing and getting a good neutral grip back. That seemed to help a fair amount. my transitions sucked... I was tracking the gun w/ my eyes and not snapping my eyes to the next target. Also I kept finding myself focusing on the target and not the FS, just shooting based on the fuzzy red glow of the fiber. Weird, I don't usually have that problem.

While my shooting kinda sucked today I felt it was a good practice, one where I learned a lot from each drill. After almost 6 months since I've had a good live-fire practice I found areas that have slipped and I need to work on.

I don't feel I'm on my game at all for the idpa match in OH this weekend.... wrong attitude, I know. but confidence is pretty low right now. Not been a good year for staying on top of my shooting.....

-rvb

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Well, the '08 OH IDPA match was the worst match I have ever shot (or maybe a tie w/ this yrs Norfolk match). I had exactly one stage that I finished and thought it went well, and even that I had a not-so-great draw which threw off my timing shooting around a non-threat swinger (stage 2).

Confidence required. I had none. I kept thinking about my lack of practice and my head was w/ things going on w/ Reid in the NICU. I felt guilty even being at the match and I wasn't all present at the match. I usually try to get in an idpa match or two before a major and dry and live practice getting into and out of cover positions. I felt like I was searching for my shooting positions and very static, ie settle in P1, then shoot, then move, then settle in P2, etc. Not fluid at all. Too many make up shots, settled back into my '07 routine of not calling my shots on steel, esp when I needed to transition off it to either a mover or another shooting position which led to a lot of missed steel and botched reload plans.

When I heard from my wife at lunch that Reid was better after his problems that she had told me about the night before in the hotel, I felt better about being there and shooting. In fact the next stage was stage 2 and I actually won that stage. Talk about proof the game is 100% mental. I attacked it. It had two mover-activator poppers that I called and nailed perfectly. I nailed my reload w/ no hesitation after the last shot, I was smooth and quick into/out of positions. Stage 1 I shot well but the gun hick-up'd. I think it didn't go into battery 100% and that cost me time, screwed up my reload plan and caused me to get to cover before I planned which affected shooting priority so the whole plan went to hell.... but I was happy w/ my shooting on that one, too. [correction: stage 1 was after lunch, stage 2 was 2nd after lunch. 1 went well but gun hickup'd]

I dropped way too many points on the whole match. 40 iirc. yuck. crapola.

I think I'm going to take the rest of the fall easy, shoot some quick local matches and get the reloader set back up and some ammo cranked out and then about the first of the year start back into the heavy dryfire and range practices. Maybe consider switching ssp/pd platforms??

-rvb

ps: extreme spread and std dev for my 2 rounds at the chrono? ZERO. 903 and 903 fps for pf = 132.741. (132.5 is my target)

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Last night, about 10 minutes of dryfire w/ the PD gear, just making the mental switch from my ssp year.

Decided to relocated the mag pouches back about 2". Made it easier to get out of the poucn and lined up for insertion.

Got up this morning to go to Angola for their match. Walked in to the bathroom to get ready and turned around and went back to bed. First time I've ever done that? Just decided I didn't feel like shooting....

-rvb

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  • 2 weeks later...

Due to living at the hospital, dryfire has been limited this week... but a break was needed I think.

I've got BE's book at the hospital and have been reading through it. It's amazing how I learn so many new things each time I read it.

Anyway, I decided to work on trigger pull this week with the beretta. What time we had at home I spent looking each "shot" off or just working the trigger w/o even looking at the gun to really pay attention to how the shots break. Working on perfect sight focus and 'looking the shot off' in both DA and SA. A new demonstration in awareness... while totally focusing on the FS I was able to consistently see the hammer fall. I've noticed I'm not changing my focus from the FS, but I am now almost always aware of it falling. I've never "seen" that before. Neat.

I did about 5 minutes worth of timed dryfire tonight, my first w/ the timer in a couple weeks. I did 5 ElPrez and 5 draw-2-R-2. I think the timer had been hurting my practice as of late as I was "trying" to beat the timer and getting all tense on the gun. So tonight I just set my par at a reasonable 5.50 for the El prez and shot it nice and relaxed and was well under the buzzer every time. I set the par at 2.5 for the D2R2 which is pretty aggressive for me, shot it relaxed and made the par 4 of the 5 times.

I quite while I was ahead as I want to train myself to practice and shoot relaxed and didn't want to give the "timer tension" time to set in. I think this is how I'll dryfire for the next few weeks... work on trigger control and a few relaxed drills w/ no timer.

-rvb

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Shot production at the Fort Wayne club today, IN05.

Had a mixed match. Due to forgetting to stop for breakfast/coffee when I was near the house I had neither when I got to the range and was STARVING and shaking from lack of cafine (I thought I'd see SOMETHING along the way like McDs or gas station or something that'd have some coffee at least, but NO!). RO even commented on my shakiness. And the sun was at just the wrong angle low in the sky on the first two stages I couldn't see my sights worth shit. All I could see was the red fiber. Now that I've made up my excuses... 2 mikes on both of the first two stages and one was 99-08, so there's another tanked classifier. By the 3rd stage the sun was higher and my body had come to terms w/ the lack of energy/cafine, the shakes went away, and I shot much better.

Lesson for the day:

Dryfire is good, but live fire is important, too.

In addition to all my excuses on the first two stages I shot, my timing sucked. I felt like the gun was all over the place and the sight wouldn't track correctly for me at all. It seemed like it took forever for the sight to get back on target and was very inconsistent in how it tracked and where it settled. By the 3rd stage I think I had enough 'practice' from the first two stages that I had my timing back. I think a couple afternoons and a couple thousand rounds of ammo for timing drills would do me a world of good... ha!... like I have time for that...

-rvb

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30 minutes dryfiring PD gear.

worked on trigger control SHO/WHO.

worked on shooting on the move, experimenting with different levels of bent knees and gun extension. Don't know if I have solid conclusions after tonight except I need more practice. My initial impression is that what feels "natural" must be what's right as that's what kept the sight on target the best. Used my 1/4 scale targets to simulate trying to move laterally engaging 15-25 yd targets.

then for kicks I worked on sho/who on the move. that's fun! (seriously, challenging!)

I made a new drill, El Rvb. Decided to mix up the el prez a bit and put some hard cover on the targets. T1 was painted black across the bottom exposing about the top 1/3 of the A, T2 was painted black on both sides leaving the Azone stripe down the middle, and T3 diagonal from the top angle of the right shoulder to the top angle of the lower left. Really made me focus on the FS and call the shots. Ran the drill clean and smooth consistantly in about 6.50.

Did a couple 2-R-2 drills, a couple bill drills, and a few bill-R-bill drills.

Then I went back and did them all off the timer. Trying to work on being relaxed and getting the tension out.

Something occurred to me tonight as I botched a reload (the only one I botched tonight, iirc). I botched the RL on 99-08 this weekend, too, with the same problem. I missed the mag well by running the mag right up beside the gun along the grip! Tells me two things... I didn't get the gun to my "natural" reload point and (most importantly!) I wasn't looking the mag into the well! I decided to really focus on the reload, even drastically slowing things up if need be.... and I beat my par by a decent margin each time... hmmm... duh. Sometimes it's a matter of DOing what we KNOW to be true instead of trying to FORCE a solution.

Relax. Look. These are my key goals for the next couple of months.

-rvb

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  • 2 weeks later...

Shot production this weekend at IN17.

VERY happy with my shooting. Only stage I lost was due to non-shooting stupidity... they had two stages in one bay, shot you on the first stage and kept you hot to walk over and shoot the second stage. Put a partial mag in my first mag pouch. Doh. First time I think I've done that. Probably cost me 4 seconds with the "click, Tap/rack, 'oh shit!' reload." Rode the slide lock so it didn't lock back.

First stage I shot was a 32-round field course (carry $bag in WH, drop in bucket 1/2way down course). Engaged 8 targets on the move, and moving pretty aggressively. Practice there has pd off. Did have 14Cs though...

Next stage was a real hose fest. Table draw, 4 targets at 3 yds, reload, and again on the same 4 targets. 4.57 sec. That's fun!

Last stage was 24 rounds through ports. All As!

Classifier was 08-02, Steeler Stds. 15A, 3C, 2D, 14.78 = 5.8185hf... should be ~85.9%.

shot 88.6% of the points. too many Cs on the field course (and 2 Ds on 08-02 :ph34r: )

-rvb

Edited by rvb
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  • 2 weeks later...

Ok, so I've been bad about logging my practice, but I have been dryfiring around 45 min 4-5 times per week. honest.

Shot at Ft Wayne today, IN05. Production.

Had a VERY good match. I was very happy with my shooting.

Reloads are much improved. Had a stage that had you shooting from multiple boxes. Was much better at hitting the reload in that first step out of the box. Only one open shooter had a better time than I did (0.3 seconds at that), but I had two reloads!

on stage 4 made a plan change right before I shot (I was first up). I know it cost me a good 2 seconds as a couple times I felt like I was standing there thinking "now what?!" Last stage was a 27 rnd field course. Started w/ a TX star. I usualy kick ass on stars but it took me 8 rounds. Rest of the paper on the course all required head shots (zombies for halloween, ya know) so they had hard cover painted on the bodies and were at decent distances (15-20 yds for several of them). Really took my time and made sure not to mike the heads.

Ended the match winning all the stages. Shot ~91% of the points. No Mikes, only 1 D.

The classifier was "3-V," 03-04. I shot it in 7.76 w/ 10 As, 4Cs. HF=7.9897.

Classifiercalc.com puts it at a ~96% which should earn me my M card.

I'm done shooting matches until spring now (most clubs shut down around here). I think I'm putting away the production gear and I'm going to come out and play in open next year. By then it'll have been a year since I shot open. The winter will give me time to get re-familiar w/ the open rig and hopefully come out strong.

-rvb

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  • 1 month later...

Forgot to update w/ official new class info from last post,

Got my Prod-M in the Nov update.

PRODUCTION Class: M Pct: 85.99 High Pct: 85.99

Opened the gun safe for the first time in 6 weeks last night.

Did a little dryfire w/ the open gun. very very light practice. Worked on trigger control and re-learning my grip on the gun. Did a few reloads and a couple el-prezs basically just to see if my index is on at all w/ the gun.... well, it's going to need some work.

Between not doing ANY practice at all for so long and 9 months since I've handled the open gun, I felt like a total newb. everything felt off. Guess I'll have some work cut out for me...

maybe if the weather is decent I can swing a day off work to go verify zero and run some timing drills....

loaded 1k of .38 super a couple weeks ago, so I have about 2.5k ready to go. the new batch is w/ starline brass, so I need to make sure they run, too....

-rvb

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