Lee King

[Lee King]

WELCOME TO BEE CLASS!

Classifiers finally posted and not only did I go up to B (knew I would), I shot straight to 65%!

And you will note that MCRC (August match) would like to take some credit for putting you over the top:

8/09/08 99-21 MID CAROLINA RIFLE CLUB 78.1578 %

Linda Chico (L-2035)

Columbia SC

[Lee King]

DRY FIRE 9/16/2008 5:30pm

GOAL: Prep for NC State. Little bit speed. Lot of fundamentals. Movement.

DRILLS:

Draw:

Surrender Draw:

222:

Movement:

Reload:

Reload Movement:

Prone:

SUMMARY:

Draw: Warmup and funamental focus. I caught myself letting the sights go fuzzy for the sake of speed. Made myself do a lot of reps to correct.

Surrender Draw: Working on consistent grip from this position.

222: Did from surrender just to keep working that. Started doing this one from right to left. I usually go L-R but it felt awkward and sloppy going backwards. I wonder if this was why I pulled one off over the weekend.. Making sure to mix it up from now on.

Movement: I feel like I can keep the sights steadier faster. It's weird I'm noticing an unusual body position now when I move. It's like I sit back on my heels and bow my back a little. Feels VERY steady. I made sure to add a bit of transitions on the move.

Reload: Bounced a couple and realized I was watching the target and not the magwell. Slowed down and focused on seeing the mag into the well before transitioning my eyes off.

Reload movement: Just to do some. Felt ok.

Prone: Not sure if I'm going to need this or not. There is a stage at NC with a barrel on the ground. Without seeing it I'm not sure, but I wanted to get some reps in since I've never had to do this. Doping the stage out it looks like it is fastest to fall over onto my right side. I practiced a drop to the right and a lunge forward. Feels really goofy with my rig on. This is one where I'm just aiming to be safe, not sweep, or ad. Going to do this a few more times in dry fire before the weekend.

MENTAL CONFIDENCE: 7. My goal with practice from now on is fundamentals. The speed will be what it will be. I want to go into the match thinking about nothing but each shot. My speed and finish will be what it will be. If I can carry that mental state with me, I'll feel pretty good.

[Lee King]

DRY FIRE 9/17/2008 5:00pm

Didn't have a lot of time yesterday. Just wanted to get in 10 minutes to get ready for NC.

GOAL: Fundamentals

DRILLS:

Draw:

Surrender Draw:

222:

Burkett Reload:

2 reload 2:

Moving:

SUMMARY:

Made sure to mix up l-r and r-l. Movement felt good but transitions from r-l felt awkward. Going to try to work on that tonight, but it's my little girl's birthday so I may not get any time in.

MENTAL CONFIDENCE: 5 - Don't like the r-l sloppiness.

[Lee King]

NC Sectional Championship 9/20/2008

What a rollercoaster. The highlight, Stage 1. I was so worried about going prone. I ended up with my best run on that stage. The ultimate low... (aside from a DQ which I didn't do)... 6 M on the very first stage of the day. Nothing like throwing away 100+ match points. In the middle were some solid runs and some I could've done without. The best words to describe are inconsistency and bad mindset.

Quick summaries in order I shot.

Stage 4 - Bank Robbery

Ugh.. what the hell was I thinking. My plan was to hit 3 poppers through the window. Take 2 on right right on the move. I should be in position to see the 3 on the left. Reload while moving across to the right. Hit the 3 while moving into the window. Finish with paper, poppers, and the last paper. What I SHOULD'VE done, was to forget movement and shoot it for the points. First stage of the day. Jittery. Nervous. I should've just gotten through it with good hits. The first 2 on the right were too far to hit on the move. I was too unsettled to hit anything else on the move. Forget ON THE MOVE. Finished DFL.

My mindset was even screwed. I told myself over and over... every target is the most important target. See the sights. Then I watched the first 2 shooters and thought "They stood in place. If I keep my feet moving I should shave a couple of seconds". BAD BAD BAD. Moving on.

Stage 5 - Just to Slow You Down

I was still reeling from the 6 M on this one. I told myself just focus on the front sights. This one had these planks you had to stand on. I pulled this one together. It felt horribly slow. I got my hits. Turns out it was a really decent run. 13th overall. I was 7 seconds off of 1st place, but 10 seconds faster than "the middle of the pack". This is what I SHOULD'VE been doing.

Stage 6 - Shooting Lanes

HUGE Mental mistake on this one. I got a tremendous gift on the scoring. 18th.

Stage 7 - Lt to Rt or Rt to Lt

I have to say I was still out of it on this one. The 6 M and the huge mistake from stage 6 were still in my head. I just wanted a clean run. Front sight focus. See perfect shots. Not my best run. But in my mind, this was where I started pulling it back together. To me it was a defining moment. 14th. I dropped 8 points. No huge mistakes.

Stage 8 - What Would Steven Seagal Do

You had to hold a dummy and shoot from under the arms. I was so worried about dropping my gun or getting hung up in the dummies clothes or sweeping myself I really had no idea how I shot. Close targets. 11th. I think I may have had the fastest time on my squad. 4.75. Dropped 6 points.

Stage 9 Big Barricade - Classifier

I saw the sights lift on the 2nd shot of the 3rd target on the left side. It didn't hit me until it was all over than it was a M. I should've called it on the spot. I was more worried about the 4th target on the right side because of the extreme lean. I looked it over hard before I ULASC. I should've been looking at the one next to it. 25th. 1M.

Stage 1 Barrels of Laughs

I was terrified of this one. Last barrel on the right required you to go prone. Never done it in live fire. Practiced it a few times in dry fire. I just wanted to get through this one without screwing up. Took my time. Made sure to see my sights. Safely hit the ground. I already saw 1 squad mate take a procedural for having his foot over the fault line. I made sure to lift my feet. Turned out it was my best stage of the day. 9th. Dropped 10 points but I ran it clean and in 25.xx seconds.

Stage 2 House Cleaning

This one was crazy. I'd actually like to run this one at a local sometime. Narrow hallway. Targets on L and R. There were these TINY little 4 inch holes you had to shoot through. The left holes had 1 target each about 4 inches from the hole. The final hole had a target about 5 ft away you had to shoot over the shoulder of one of the close targets. It actually turned out ot be a pretty fun stage. Fumbled a reload and was off of my angle coming into the last hole and had to adjust too much to see the target. But all in all a decent run. 17th. Dropped 10. No M.

Stage 3 Five Arrays

Ugh.. aside from DFL on stage 4, this one was my 2nd worst. It was getting kind of dark. I still had my sunglasses on. I should've changed lenses. They painted the steel navy blue. I really struggled with the steel on this one. THEN I got flustered and took 2 M. My plan could've been better. I ended up in position where you could see all of the targets to the right corner with 1 tiny step. Then 1 step forward and I could see the remaining targets and poppers. Everyone else would hit the 1 big popper in the right corner and run up to the last port and shoot everything else leaning way around to clear the remaining targets in the right corner. I didn't like the lean so I did it my way. Don't know if I would've run better the other way. I probably would've still struggled with the lean. Who knows. Not a great run at all though. 36th and 2M.

LESSONS:

Attitude attitude attitude... Check it. Throw it out. I haev GOT to learn to just see the sights and shoot at these majors. I don't think I would've placed even if I threw out the DFL and took say.. 50% of the stage points. My best stages were the ones where I just gave up on winning and tried to shoot clean. How many times do I have to learn this lesson.

[Lee King]

DRY FIRE AND LIVE FIRE

DRY FIRE 9/25 and 9/26

I took a few days break from practice to refocus my mind and get over my dismal performance at NC. Dry fire was nothing fancy. Just some draws and transitions. I focused entirely on sight picture. for the upcoming GA Sectional, I want to get back to focusing on seeing the sights, KNOWING my hits are there, and consistency.

LIVE FIRE 9/28 12:00pm

Went to the range to run about 300 rounds. Turns out there was a Women on Target day. One of my buddies was there and let me do some practice before they got started IF I stayed to help. Got in as much as I could.

DRILLS:

Draw:

Surrender Draw:

Turn and Draw (surrender):

Slow fire for marksmanship:

Movement:

2 reload 2:

All drills on a 1/2 size ipsc shaped plate.

SUMMARY:

Draw: SOLID. A real confidence booster. I relaxed and focused on getting the hit. Relaxed is smooth. Smooth is fast. Out of 30+ reps I only missed 2.

Surrender Draw: Mixed in with above. Solid.

Turn and Draw: Struggled a bit with this one. I kept overswinging and breaking the shot before the sights settled. Did a lot of reps on this since GA has a lot of turn and draws. Settled down for one good magazine.

Slow Fire: Verify my zero and get back to basics. Shooting a little left. Made a 1 click adjustment. Started catching myself pushing left "at speed". Need to focus on trigger control.

Movement: The first pass forward was solid. 1 for 1 and fast. Backing up... not so good. 2nd pass solid 1 for 1 forward. Dropped 1 moving back. Last pass 1 for 1 both ways. I slowed down moving backward and it helped tremendously.

2 reload 2: Once again to my surprise I went 1 for 1 through most of the drill only dropping 2 out of about 40 reps.

Lastly, not really a drill but we had set up a little course of fire for the WoT. 2 paper about 45 degrees around 15 yards on both the right and the left. Big swing. Few barrels making a "port" with a single popper in the middle. Everything from a static position. After a few people went through, the guy running it asked me to do a demo "at speed". I was shooting his 5" XD in 9. Never picked it up before. Smoked it (for me). I really wish I had a timer. I think I ran it right around 3 and only dropped 1 point (well I guess 2 since it was 9 and minor).

MENTAL CONFIDENCE: 7-8. Hearing that plate ring consistently after such a bad weekend really snapped me back into the game. Sight picture and trigger control are my focus until GA Section. I need to stop pushing to the left with every trigger pull too. I could see it in the sights as they lifted (which was a cool moment by itself). So I know it's me.

[Lee King]

DRY FIRE 10/3/2008 8:30pm

Local match this weekend. Needed to pick up the gun and keep the rust away.

GOAL: Front sight focus. Trigger control. Stop the left pull.

DRILLS: the ususal

Draw:

Surrender Draw:

222 (left to right and vice versa):

Reload:

Empty Table Draw:

Strong hand/Weak Hand:

SUMMARY:

Draw: Slow and smooth. Focusing on picking up the sights as soon as possible.

Surrender Draw: Same thing. Laser on the sight. Started watching the sight break left as the trigger broke. Worked on the trigger press.

222: Went both ways (l to r and r to l). Good sight focus. But I caught myself forgetting to move my eyes first from target to target.

Burkett reload:

Reload: Started off with a steady pace. Then decided to ramp it up. I wanted to explode off of the gun to the magazine then go smooth to the magwell. Dropped 1 out of 30 reps.

Empty Table Draw: Mostly I just wanted to try out a "gamers" method of doing this for fun. I don't know if it would work with a loaded mag or not. Looks cool though.

Strong Hand/Weak Hand: There will be some in Ga. Need to practice this. I feel much more comfortable now. I don't know if I'll get any on paper or not. There will be a little bit at the local. It'll be a good test. I practiced a lot of freestyle reload strong and fs reload weak since this seems to be most of what will happen in matches. Last time I reloaded transfered to weak and hit the mag release.

MENTAL CONFIDENCE: 6 - I hate that I struggled to move my eyes. I was getting good at that. This is what happens when I take it easy for a few days.

[Lee King]

LOCAL MATCH - PALMETTO GUN CLUB 10/4/2008

I thought I shot well. My measures were consistency, clean, no major screw ups. By those measures, I shot well. 3rd combined out of 19. 2nd Limited out of 5. 70% of GM.

Stage 4: Thinking of Tim

Fast a furious stage. All targets close. Some movement. Barricade and 4 to the right. Move left around barricade. 1 in open on left. One hidden behind barrels on left. One straight ahead. Move right around barrels and 2 close.

I shot it pretty smooth. I started with the far left target of the array so I could take steps backing to the left as I worked through the array. Turned and hit the 1st target on the move. Continued downrange and took the straight ahead target. By that point I could see the target behind the barrels. Hit it backing up to the right. Hit the first one on the right and trigger locked. Tried to reset again and it still didn't go bang. quick rack and finish out. The trigger issue cost me a good second. 3rd. I was happy with the run though. 75% of GM.

I'm not entirely certain the trigger locked. I tried to reset and shoot again. It's possible I still didn't reset enough. It's also possible the hammer followed. I'm going to have to keep an eye on this.

Stage 5: Quad Standards

Originally this match was supposed to be shot right before nationals and this was one of the stages. But Ike screwed that up. LOOOOng shots. 40 yards. 4 classic targets. 3 strings. 1st string at 40 yards. Freestyle 1 each reload 1 each. 2nd string Freestyle 1 each reload Strong 1 each at about 25ish yards. 3rd string Freestyle 1 each reload weak hand 1 each. Par time of 7 seconds for each string.

Go for points. That was my only thought. 4 slow hits each string. 1st string the timer went off and I shot 4 slow then waited.. and waited... Ok not as slow as I wanted. 2nd string same thing. 4 slow. Much better. I timed the 7 seconds a little bit better. Last string. I ripped off 4, reload and got off 2 weak hand before the beep. This was my worst stage. Tied for 6th.

Stage 1: Not So Quick

Small shooting area. 3 arrays of 4 targets. 1 wall parallel to the berm. 1 array from each side and the last under.

Decent run. My plan was left side, right side, underneath. I decided to do the reload between the 1st and 2nd array because it was the longest movement and I didn't have to worry about reloading on the way to the ground for the last array. Worked pretty well. 3rd and 79% of GM. Best stage.

Stage 2: Classifier 99-02 Night Moves

Strong hand and weak hand strings. Felt STRONG. Probably the 1st time I felt comfortable shooting strong and weak hand. I need to continue to dry fire. But I can see good progress. 5 targets. 2 in the middle target then 1 each for the rest. 3 strings. 1st freestyle. 2nd strong hand. 3rd weak hand. Started loaded and holstered gun seated. Freestyle and strong hand I tried going Middle, 1st right, 2nd right, 1st left, 2nd left. The first target to the right was wide open, no no-shoots or hard cover. It felt better to make a fast transition to that target right after the close middle target. Weak hand I just wanted good clean hits so I went L,L,M,M,R,R. No mikes which is a first for me strong and weak hand. Strong hand I even felt comfortable enough to push the speak just a bit. 3rd 76% of GM. 2nd best stage of the day. According to classifier calc 63ish%.

Stage 3: Load up and go

Unloaded table start. Barrels right in front. 4 to the right. 2 visible to the left. Last to visibile around left side of barrels. This is where I decided to try my "gamer" table draw. The trick where you lay the gun on the left side, mag pointing into the well about 1/2" away. At beep you hold the gun with your left and slap the mag into the well with the right. Practiced it about 100 times at home. For real, the mag bounced and the top 2 bullets bounced out. Fortunately, I had staged another mag just in case this eventuality happened. I was still laughing as I finished the 1st array. Good run though. Took the targets inside out on the right so I could back towards the 2nd array. Turned and hit those targets on the move. Couldn't call the shot on the 2nd shot, 2nd target so I hit it again (didn't need it.. 3 A hits). I finished out and only saw 1 hole in the 2nd to last target. I hit it again right before ULASC. Didn't need that one either. I saw the D hit as soon as the gun stopped moving from my "makeup" shot. But I did make up a D hit with an A in that case. I need to do the math on the 1 sec pause to see what the 4 point difference cost me though. It wasn't as bad as the last Mid-Carolina where I had already dropped the mag and paused for 4 sec. The fumble, and the pause cost me though. 5th overall 59% of GM. The fumble was probably the biggest loss. But I'm happy with the run because I knew I was taking a gamble on the load and wanted to try it out for real (but at a local). I have.. I learned.. I won't do it again. I think the learning experience was worth the fumble at this particular point though. And it didn't make a difference overall. 2nd place (combined) was still a good 45 points ahead of me.

SUMMARY: This match was a great confidence builder as it is the 1st match since NC. I ran clean and relatively fast. My mistakes were few and didn't cost me much. With the exception of Stage 5, the targets were close. I see opportunity to practice some long distance gear changes before Ga.

As an aside: We held a little shotgun/rifle side match. We just took stage 3 and put up a bunch of clay stands, 2 steel plates, a popper with a flipper for 13 total targets. You started with the shotgun on the table, tube loaded, empty chamber. We added fault lines around the back side of the barrels so you had to move to see around the paper. I don't know what a competitive time would be at a major. Took the right 6 targets. Reload 6 while walking to the middle for better angles on the rest. The plate didn't fall when I hit it at first before the reload. Took the left clays, popper, flipper, and nailed the steel to run dry. 29ish Sec. 1st out of the 5 or 6 who stuck around and played. Not overly official. for the rifle/shotgun combo, you shot the paper with the rifle (all headshots). Grounded it to the left, picked up the shotgun and took the same set up as before. I felt slow with the rifle. Head shots only really made you have to concentrate. I couldn't shoot on the move when moving left becuase of that. With the shotgun I was moving in the opposite direction as before. Same thing, smooth reload, had to take an extra shot on the steel plate. 50.xx sec overall. Again 1st of the people playing. I think to be competitive I would need to be a good 10-15 seconds faster on each run. But it was fun to see how I did against a few people and it gives me a good baseline. Opportunities are to work on rifle at small targets and shotgun reloads.

[Lee King]

DRY FIRE - 10/7/2008 5:30pm

DRILLS:

Draw:

Surrender Draw:

Turn and Draw:

Movement:

"Backing out" movement:

SUMMARY:

Draw: I was pretty sloppy. I really had to concentrate to get it in the A zone.

Surrender Draw: Started to focus on trigger press. I want to stop the left pull.

Turn and Draw: Sloppy sloppy sloppy. I'm trying too hard. Breaking the shot before the sights settle. Finally got a few good reps at the end.

Movement: Combined with the Turn and Draw drill. Turn, draw, move down the hall. I actually saw the sights in the A better on this one than any other.

"Backing out" movement: There were a few instances this weekend where you could shoot while backing out of a position. Sort of a reverse pie slice. It put me a step or two closer to the next array when I turned to engage it. I only took a baby step backwards and it felt awkward so I wanted to add some reps of this. I see opportunity to shave a second or so if I could do this better.

SLOPPY... horribly sloppy. I picked a room in the hallway. I would "shoot" through the door at 2 small picture frames while backing out of the door turning to the right 90 degrees to "shoot" the target on the end door in the hall. Almost every time I was pulling off the last shot before transitioning to the 90 degree. BAD BAD BAD. This is either going to need a lot of work, or dropped from the repetoire altogether.

MENTAL CONFIDENCE: About a 5. This was one of those days where I probably should've put the gun down. But I look at it as if I were at a match. You can't just walk away (no.. you can't). You have to fight through it. I saw this as as much of a mental exercise as "shooting".

[Lee King]

DRY FIRE 10/8/2008 8:30pm

Getting serious about GA State again. I am keeping it simple. Practice the basics. Sight focus. Trigger control. Eye movement.

DRILLS:

Draw:

Surrender Draw:

Transitions:

Turn and Draw:

Reload:

SUMMARY:

I don't know what my problem has been lately. I can NOT get the sights to settle.

Draw: Pushing left... then right... down... up... I was drawing to a 1/4 size target for this session. But I really notice how sloppy I have become at this size.

Surrender Draw: More of the same. I settled for the last few reps. But it took a lot of concentrations and was slow.

Transitions: Back to 1/2 size targets I normally use. I mixed up l-r and r-l. R-l was super sloppy. I HAVE to fix this. If I were to time l-r and r-l, I would say r-l would take twice as long to transition from target to target.

Turn and Draw: This was perhaps the worst drill of all. I lost the front sight almost every time. I was pushing down big time. I finally had a few good reps. But I am not feeling strong about this at all.

Reload: About the only drill I felt good about. I actually snapped the sights back on target pretty consistently. I wasn't pushing speed because I really needed to focus on the sights.

MENTAL CONFIDENCE: 3 - I don't know what has happened the last couple of days. The front sight is all over the place.

OPPORTUNITIES: I think I'm going to do a whole session in slow motion. Focus on the movement and possibly my grip for any changes that are causing my inconsistency.

[Lee King]

DRY FIRE 10/10/2008 5:00pm

GOAL: Slow motion. Focus on sight picture. Grip.

DRILLS:

Draw:

Surrender Draw:

222 (l-r, r-l):

Turn and Draw:

Reload:

SUMMARY:

Much better. I practiced each drill 5-10 times in slow motion. As slow as I could stand. The goal was perfect technique. From aquiring the grip, meeting weak hand, presenting, move eyes from target to front sight, press... press... snap. Follow through, pin trigger. Even reversing the process back to holster. I did this with each drill including the turn and draw. As slow as I could possibly go with each. After 5-10 reps I would do 3 or 4 at a "relaxed" pace. Then 3 or 4 as fast as I could go. It felt much better. Sights were snapping in place. I wasn't having to "hunt" the front sight or wiggle it until it was a perfect picture. Or worse, not ever get a perfect sight picture. Very productive session in general.

MENTAL CONFIDENCE: 6 - Planning to live fire this weekend. I'll feel better when I see results.

[Lee King]

DRY FIRE: 10/14/2008 8:00pm

GOAL: Eye movement. Barricade. General prep for GA State.

DRILLS:

Draw:

Surrender Draw:

222 (r-l and l-r and surrender):

Turn and Draw:

Barricade drills:

Movement:

Burkett Reload:

222 reload 222:

6 reload 6:

SUMMARY:

Draw: warmup. Good thing. Needed the reps to settle down.

Surrender Draw: More of the same.

222: Boy r-l still feels so awkward. Just need to practice more.

Turn and Draw: Off balance and awkward. Couldn't find the sights. Went back to slo-mo and settled down.

Barricade Drills: I wanted to work on finding the targets faster after coming around a barricade. I worked on eye movement. Picking my spot to look at as I approach and have the gun up and on that spot so I could snap to the target as I clear the barricade. I used doorways. Drills both as a static start (I.e. hands on spot on wall) and moving (i.e. moving into position at a wall). This is a weird thing to focus on. I've been just hitting the spot and shooting for so long when I focus on having the gun up I realize how much time I have wasted in the past. I see room for improvement and gains to be made. I also practiced backing out of positions. The last time I did this I was so focused on the movement I lost the sights. I'd say I was about 30% on losing the sights this time. Just need more practice and comfort.

Burkett Reload: Just a few quick reps. Focusing on seeing the magwell.

Reload Drills: Mixed up 222 and 6 reload 6 just to work on eye movement after the reload. It's amazing... you watch the magwell and you smoke it... don't watch.. bobble it. Simple formula. Maybe I'll get it through my head. Bobbled 2 out of about 30 reps. I also mixed in some turn and draws to start the drill.

MENTAL CONFIDENCE: 5 - Still want some live fire. The weather sucked this past weekend and I was on-call. Didn't get to go to mid-carolina or get out to the range.

[Lee King]

DRY FIRE 10/14/2008 5:00pm

Spent a few minutes going through the basics for GA State

DRILLS: I stuck to basics. draw, surrender draw, 222, reloads

SUMMARY: I felt like I could push the speed. But I was on the verge of too sloppy. I should repeat the slo-mo drills.

[Lee King]

DRY FIRE 10/16/2008 - 5:00pm

Prep for GA State Match next weekend and Steel Challenge this weekend.

DRILLS:

Draw:

Surrender Draw:

Turn and Draw:

Transitions:

Strong Hand:

Weak Hand:

Backing from position:

Barricade Drill:

Reloads:

2 reload 2 strong:

2 reload 2 weak:

SUMMARY:

Draw: relaxed.. warmup. A few reps of slo-mo

Surrender Draw: just working on relaxing and sight focus

Turn and Draw: This felt really awkward even though I've worked on this and reached a comfort level. Need to do more reps.

Transitions: r - l is finally starting to get as comfortable as l-r. I was able to really push the speed without getting too sloppy. I did a couple of reps slo-mo to reinforce eye movement and sight picture.

Strong Hand: Ok. Need a lot more reps. I would like to see the sights settle faster.

Weak Hand: Same as SH.

Backing from position: I was doing barricade drills in reverse. 2 "targets" in a room. The door was the port. My goal was to take 1 target and start moving. Take the 2nd as I was leaving the position. It take a lot of concentration not to lose the sights. I just need more reps and focus. It's too easy to accept crappy fundamentals on this one.

Barricade Drill: I did static barricade work as if you were drawing while behind a wall. Then I moved into a "position" around a barricade. Again using a door in the hallway as a "port" the wall itself was the barricade. Focused on keeping my gun up and visualizing where the target would be "through" the wall. I see improvement over the last time I tried this. I see a lot of room to improve still. But I think that any improvement on this skill will have big gains in a match AS LONG AS I REMEMBER TO HAVE A GOOD SIGHT PICTURE. It is easy to "break" the shot too early just because you are looking so hard for the first target.

Reload Drills: WATCH THE DAMNED MAGWELL. Fumbled when I didnt. Blistered it when I did. Simple formula.

MENTAL CONFIDENCE: 5 - Still need live-fire. Would feel a little better if I were consistently watching the magwell on changes. Planning live fire Monday after work.

[Lee King]

STEEL CHALLENGE - 10/18/2008

FIRST PLACE OVERALL!!!! That's about the most bragging I can do. I won it with rimfire irons. 2nd place overall was a Centerfire Irons shooter. With CF I placed 18th overall and 4th in the CFI division.

We started on stage 4 so...

SUMMARY:

Stage 4: 5 to go

My only goal was to see the sights... squeeze the trigger... ring the plate. I wasn't really worried about speed or anything. With CF, I had a clean run. Didn't need too many make up shots. In fact, maybe only 2. RF was a totally different story. The first run, I just KNEW I missed the plate with the first 2 shots. My sight picture was, at best, fuzzy. I remember calling the misses because I pushed the sight to the left. Much to my surprise, the plate rang both times. The next run, I just half assed threw the sight on the plate and squeezed. Hit it. I did push left on the stop plate a few times but I knew it and took a super fast split to make it up. CF - 2nd place with 18.35. RF 1st place with 12.88. The biggest thing I noticed was how I thought I shot SO slow. It felt horrible. Just goes to show 1. this game totally screws with your head as far as time is concerned and 2. relaxed is smooth, smooth is fast. I just didn't care how I did. I was just shooting for the sake of shooting.

Stage 5: Roundabout

Still relaxed. CF was ok. Smooth runs. Not overly fast but fast enough. Had a mental error on RF. I missed the 2nd to last plate. Without thinking I hit the stop plate, fast transition back to the missed plate and hit it FAST. Soo... 1 penalty for the miss since I made it up after the stop plate. THEN a certain someone... ahem... made a comment right at "are you ready" to screw with me. It worked. Took 3 shots on the 1st plate. She thought I was clean and the last run was my throw away CF - 3rd with 16.16 RF - 1st with 12.07

Stage 1: Smoke and Hope

We were joking about how this one made you feel like a rock star. BIG honking plates in front of you. Yeah famous last words My first two runs were horrible. Then I kinda had this Jedi moment. I just forgot about shooting fast and thought "shoot clean". My last 3 runs were MUCH better. I was steady on rimfire with consistent numbers. Just a tic off the pace though. CF - 3rd with 14.54. RF - 2nd with 11.26

Stage 2: Accelerator

Starting to get sloppy here. I think I took an extra shot on 3 of the 5 runs. I don't honestly remember RF. I think I was nice and steady. But again just a tic off the pace. CF - 5th with 17.64 RF 2nd with 14.54

Stage 3: Showdown

I could not get my act together on this one. I was overswinging and hesitating. This one has 2 big plates all the way out on the outsides. 2 smaller plates up close inside. And the stop plate in the middle about 5 yards farther from the close inner plates. 2 positions. 2 from each position. 1 your choice of position. From each position, the far outside large plate appears between the close plate and teh stop plate. My plan was draw on large, small, far small, far large, stop. I kept swinging to the far large... hesitating, swinging to the outside small, hit it, outside large then stop. I was confused on almost every run swinging to that large instead of the small. Threw a lot of misses I had to make up. RF was only slightly better. My last run on RF was a joke. I couldn't hit anything. I was a good 1.5+ seconds off my own pace on the last run. CF -6th with 21.81. RF - 3rd with 14.64.

The 2nd place RF shooter beat me solidly on 3 of 5 stages. My only saving grace was, if I remember correctly, he had some malfunctions on stage 5. His run was 22s to my 12. That's the only thing really that pushed me over him. He made up 1/2 that deficit over the course of those 3 stages alone. When I compare RF to CF, it doesn't seem an equal skill level. On a couple of stages I literally never saw the rear sight. Fiber on the plate squeeze. Fuzzy sight picture. I can't get away with that on my CF. All in all, it was an good day. I feel good about my finish. 18th overall mixed in with open and open RF isn't too bad.

I plan a long live fire session tomorrow to focus on GA state. It will be my last before the match. My plan is to do a lot of fundamental work. A little bit of movement, though I don't really see too much opportunity to shoot on the move (learning that lesson from NC). I am going to do some barricade work. Practice backing from a position. Gun up while entering a position (wall). Try to pick my spot on the barricade to look to try to find the first target as soon as possible. Turn and draw work. There is a ton of that in GA.

Edited October 20, 2008 by Lee King

[Lee King]

LIVE FIRE - 10/21/2008 4:00pm

I feel like I'm so close to learning something. My goal was to relax. Focus on fundamentals. All drills were on 1/2 size IPSC plates and 10" square plates.

DRILLS:

Draw:

Turn and Draw:

Surrender Draw:

Transistions:

Movement:

Leaving barricade:

Entering Barricade:

Static Barricade:

Plate Rack:

2 reload 2 (from turn and draw):

Bill Drill:

5 fast splits (non-bill drill):

SUMMARY:

Draw, Turn and Draw, Surrender Draw: 1 mag each. Warm up. Focus on smooth and relaxed. 18 rounds in the mags.. 72 rounds. I was drawing to a plate at about 15 yards. Had 3 misses. When I relaxed... I hit. My misses were when I tried to push the speed and tensed.

Transitions: 1 mag. I just went from l - r and r - l 1 shot each. Focusing on eye movement. I had a couple of misses. The last run I really focused on FINISHING the shot, then moving my eyes, gun etc..

Movement: I didn't dwell on this drill. I did a few passes across the array on obliques. I struggled a bit on the 2nd and 3rd pass. I went back to basics and shot 1 1/2 size IPSC forward and backward. I really concentrated on arm position, timing the shot, seeing the sights... oh yeah and RELAXING.. Ran the last drill clean with about 15 shots total.

Leaving barricade: I set 2 sets of stacked barrels side by side for my barricade. I started on the L side. Shoot the first far left plate, back away and hit the outside L plate. Move to the other side and hit the first plate. It took a few reps for me to get over the "movement". I caught myself lowering the gun as I moved to the other side of the barricade. Switched sides. Tried to keep it up and point where the last target WOULD appear. Last few reps were better. Still need to dry fire this more.

Entering barricade: Here's where I really started discovering the dilemna of this sport. I started about 10 yards to the right and about 5 yards up range of the barricade (I copied this on the other side too). I would draw and move to the barricades gun up looking where the target SHOULD appear. As I came around the barricade I tried to break the shot the second I saw the target. Here's the dilemna, I worked on exploding from the start position. Between 5-10 steps to the barricade, gun up, brake, look at my spot, see the target, bang miss. I did 2 reps of this before I decided to change my focus. I know the gun is up. I know the target will be there. I realized the diametrically opposed notion of exploding from the start and hauling ass to the barricade, then taking a shot. I tried breaking it down into "MOVE RUN!! relax shoot" I have no idea if this is the best way to approach this. It felt slow. But I hit it every time once I did this.

Static Barricade: This was a chance to really focus on the skill I am trying to improve. Simple drill. Hands on barrels. Draw and shoot the far L target then keep the gun up moving to the other side of the barricade (lean really) and shoot the R target. At draw get the gun up where the target SHOULD appear. When moving to the other side keep the gun up to where it SHOULD appear as well. I missed the first 2 reps. But I really concentrated on seeing the sights on target. No misses after that. This is what I was worried about in dry fire. It's too easy to see the target and snap a shot without really getting your sights on. I felt good about the patience to get the picture. I would like to get to THAT point faster. More practice.

Plate Rack: After the last drill, I decided to experiment with something. I went over to the plate racks. I decided to 1. pretend my gun was my rimfire (see last post on Steel Challenge) and 2. relax as much as possible while I shoot. It's hard to describe but it feels like my rimfire is almost floating in my hands. Lastly, we have 2 plate racks on opposite sides of the bay. I wanted to break it down into tense "speed" time and gear change shoot time. Still using good footwork to enter the position. Stay low. Come in with the gun up looking for the first target. But try to make myself lose all tension as I see the target coming into focus. I went 1 for 1 on the first rack. I got sloppy on the 2nd rack but called the miss each time. I only dedicated 1 mag to this experiment. I reset the plate rack, refocused on relaxation, and went one for one until empty. I made a little game out of it to see, with 1 mag, how many plates would be standing with 3 passes at the racks. I.e. 18 shots.. 18 plates. I left 3. I'm going to work on this in the future.

2 reload 2: I did this from turn and draw. When I tried to go fast I'd miss the plate. I went through a mag doing this drill. Last couple of reps were solid once I settled myself back down.

Bill Drill: Getting towards the end of my ammo. I had about 20 rounds left. I wanted to experiment more with relaxing. Doing a bill drill as relaxed as possible. I learned you DO have to drive the gun with this. I think I might've only hit the plate 3 times. 50%.

5 fast splits: Last 5 rounds. I had been using lead the whole time. These were the only jacketed bullets I had left. Really I just wanted to shoot the lead out. But I felt like I was learning something so I wanted to end on a positive note reaffirming what I think I learned. 5 shots. As fast as I could shoot relaxed. I wish I had timed myself. I hit all 5.

CONCLUSION: What I think I am learning is, there is a fine line between relaxation and aggression. The bill drill showed me I can't just totally relax. But the plate rack affirmed the whole "relaxed is smooth, smooth is fast" mantra. Most times a stage is a mix of movement and marksmanship. After this session, the game seems to be forcing yourself into opposing "modes" if you will. The "Haul Ass" mode and the "relax and shoot" mode with just enough aggression to shoot fast. It's something I really want to focus on at GA state and in future live fire sessions. I need to try to figure out how to practice that at home. Without the "bang" it's hard to reaffirm you are really changing gears appropriately.

MENTAL CONFIDENCE: 7 - because I think I learned something important.

[Lee King]

DRY FIRE - 10/21/2008 - 5:00pm

Won't be able to pick up a gun for a couple of days. Wanted to get a few drills in.

DRILLS:

Draw:

Surrender Draw:

Turn and Draw:

Transitions:

Barricade Drills:

SUMMARY:

I just did a few reps of each drill just to try to keep what little edge I have there. 4-5 reps each. A few as slo-mo as I can stand to do them to reinforce fundamentals and eye focus. Good eye snap on transitions. Good snap to sight pictures in general Still not seeing the sights on the barricade drills. I won't do anymore of those before GA State. I want to focus on the sights and relaxing while shooting until the match is over.

MENTAL CONFIDENCE: 7 Still feeling good about the live fire session

Edited October 22, 2008 by Lee King

[Lee King]

GA Sectional Championship 2008

AKA ... "How I Shot GA State Like a Dumb@55!"

SUMMARY:

Day 1

Stage 3: 8 poppers. 2 center in line. The rest in a "V".

I was relaxed. I told myself just have fun and let it fall where it may. Timer went off.. relaxed... draw.. nailed the 1st 2 plates then jam. Gun was locked. I looked down and the rounds were stuck down in the tube, gun somehow stuck on the mag. I slammed it with my palm. Slide dropped. I thought maybe it stripped around.. click. rack.. hit the next 3 plates. Then the time thing started in. I started thinking "make up time".. bad idea. 20 sec. I think this one was my worst stage of the day. I identified the mag and moved it to last position. I was really dissapointed with my first stage. This was not the way I wanted to start at all. My goal was to just get through it without any major mistakes and even though the jam cost me huge, I still started off just like NC.

Stage 4: X Factor - 10 target arranged in X. 2 strings - 1st any 5 freestyle 1 shot, reload any OTHER 5 strong hand 1 shot. 2nd string same thing but weak hand.

Told myself to let the 1st stage go. Relaxed. 1st string went ok. 2nd string had to reload to that magazine. JAM. Cleared it fast this time. Threw 3 M though. I was happy because I didn't hear but 1 M. Then I got the sheet and thought WTF?!? I don't doubt the misses. I just saw the M on the far target, the two middle with hardcover on both sides of the A had 2 and figured I should be good. I was happy with that. I kinda wish I knew where the others were now.

Stage 5: Mini-Mart - Classifer 99-21

I smoked this one a month or 2 ago at Mid-Carolina. In fact, this one launched me straight to 65%. Again. Relaxed. Here's my chance to shoot my game. I have done this before. Timer... draw... blister it... reload from the table (without the pause at the belt) and hammer again. Pulled one into the NS perf. Got the A.. but also the NS. Day is seriously sucking here.

I should say at this point I probably did the worst thing I could do. I grabbed my scoresheets and did a quick calc on hit factors. Then on the way to the next stage I took a quick look at the RO scores that were posted and saw that I was very close to DFL on pretty much every stage. I seriously got in a funk at this point. EXCEPT... I obviously can't do high math and forgot C's counted for 4 points. I will not do this again because it really affected my mindset to be one of despair and I know it had an impact on the way I shot the rest of the day.

Stage 6: Focus Now - Kind of a T. 4 on the L and R. 3 in the middle.

There was no real reason to go down the middle for limited. You could see all but the very middle target in the back from each side. I hated the notion of stopping in the middle for just 1 target. So I took 5 on the left.. Moved a couple of steps right and took the far R and the middle.. 4 shots on the middle because I couldn't get the sights to settle (with HC so only the middle was visible). Run right and take the R 4.

Finally had my head out of my ass. Was shooting with a GM. He ran it in 14.xx with a light strike on a primer. I ran it in 15.54. Wasn't the best.. but considering.. it was a step in the right direction.

Stage 7: Barrel Barrel Ding - 3 windows. Kind of a memory stage. 4 plates. You couldn't see everything from any 1 window AND you had to shoot across the whole bay from each.

I had a good plan. Popper, L paper, 2nd Popper work across what you could see, far R popper (1st). Reload step to middle hit far R paper 2 middle paper. Step right hit R paper, last popper, FAR L 2 paper. I worked the plan without hesitation. I programmed the stage well. The only problem was my fiber came out in the middle of the 1st port. The sun was going down. I shot the far middle paper left one of the 2 thinking "WTH just happened to my fiber... it got pretty dark" and threw a M on it. I was pretty pissed but it turned out to be my best run of the day. Still not spectacular, but another good step in the right direction.

Stage 8: Reminded me of What Would Steven Seagal Do from NC Section. 8 targets in a "V". Wall down the middle. 2 NS on the wall so you had to step in each direction to be able to see the last 2 far targets on each side.

I worked L outside in because 1) I transition best L-R as I have learned in dry fire and 2) it was a more natural draw stepping to the L. Outside in felt more comfortable because of the barricade work. The gun was up and pointing at the 1st R target as I was making the step to see the R array. I focused on good technique. Forget speed. Again, not spectacular, but no screw ups and I felt good about it. Average finish for me. Good solid way to finish the day. 3 decent stages.

Day 2

Stage 9: 3 arrays. L 2 targets with HC head only on 1, LR HC on the other. Same on the R except the places were reversed. I.e. head was far and the A zone was close. 3 poppers and Texas Star in the middle. There was a wall with a window all the way across so that you had to bend down to see. Turn and draw.

1st stage of the day. It was FA-reezing. The sun was coming up over the L berm. When we started walking it, we doped it out to shoot the L 2 targets, then the steel from the L. Move right and take the R 2. But when it was my time to walk it, the sun was blinding on the L. The wall blocked it on the R. So I flipped the plan. Draw to the L and take those 2. But then move R and shoot everything else from there. AWESOME plan. I ran the steel close to 1 for 1. I did run dry so I know I took a couple of extra shots but I don't remember where. All in all it was a fast run. Only 2 sec behind the GM on our squad. Best finish of the match at 9th.

Stage 10: Run and gun. Turn and draw. "Hall" down the middle. Targets in openings on the L and R. 3 steel on the far L only vis from about 1/2 way. Some targets at the end partially obscured by barrels.

Ultimately I ran down the hall shooting L-R. Reloaded before the steel while taking a couple of steps to be close. 1 extra on those. Ran up to my spot and took the remaining including 1 head shot rather than move around a barrel to see the full target. Clean run. No hesitation. I did take an extra shot on the 1st target because I thought I pulled it. Turns out I hit the A with the 1st and pulled the makeup. 2nd best finish of the match at 18th.

Stage 1: Field course. Started holding tape. Unloaded gun. Shooting area in an "L" shape to the right. few L and R with NS so you have to move to see them. 4 steel on L activating a swinger. 4 poppers and 3 paper forward and in the middle of the "L". 3 ports on the R with 1 paper, 1 popper with NS behind it and a star.

1st run I hit the swinger cable and activated it. Reshoot. 2nd run. I stepped into the area loaded. Hit the R then L. Started moving hit the next L on the move which got me to where I could see the R after the NSs. Took 1 extra on the poppers. Hit the swinger. Ran up to the Middle while reloading and worked from R to left. You could shift stance and see almost all of the targets except for 1 popper. You could see the "head" of that one over a barrel. I shot those clean including the "head" shot on the popper. Reload while moving to the far port. Hit the paper. Missed the popper on the 1st shot (NS). Went 1 for 1 on the star. I though it was great UNTIL... 1 M on the 2nd L target at the beginning... the one I hit on the move. AND completely missed the swinger. When I look back I know my sights were on the right of the static target while I was moving so I know how I missed that one. The swinger, I saw brown and snapped 2 at it. And the NS, well I saw that one. 4 penalties. Ugh..

Stage 2. Clear the room Phew - Another memory stage. 2 mid high ports, 3 doors. there was at least 1 target you could only see from the doors so you had to open them all. Middle door activated a swinger and a clamshell.

Most people started on the L, took 4, opened the L door and took 1. Opened the middle door and took everything you could see including the far R and L. Opened the R door took 1 and finished with the far right 3. I didn't like taking only 1 in the L (EDIT to fix R) door. And I thought I'd be more comfortable taking the far targets standing up instead of bending down in the port. And I couldn't figure out a good reload point. So I opted to take 3, step R, open the door take the 3 I could see including the R target you could see. Reload. (EDIT to add reload) Move to the middle, open the door, clamshell, Far R back to the L minus the 2 I hit earlier. Open the next door hit 1. The door should be bouncing closed for me to take the last 3.

I hit the middle port, got 1 off on the clamshell. Hit the far target, clamshell head.. couldn't call it so I took at extra on the head. Took 3 on the swinger. Im my mind I was thinking "I started with 19 in the mag and 1 in the pipe so I should be good". Opened the door hit it. Door bounced just like it should. bang,bang... bang,bang... bang,click... fast reload... I was thinking "how much time am I taking for this"... racked... then thought better of it, stood up, dropped the mag, and showed clear. I still took a M on the clamshell even though I threw another at it. 2 Mikes. I discovered later there was a raging argument with the RO who wanted to call coaching on ME and on my friends for muttering under their breath "let it go" on the click. For the record... I never heard them... I didn't even hear the argument. I found out about it after we dropped everything off at my truck. I wear plugs... the RO electronic muffs... I was too busy debating the shot with myself while reloading to hear anyone else.

I felt pretty pissed about this stage until today. I realized I only had 2M (well... that's 2 too many). I initially thought I had 3. In my mind I ended the day with 70 consecutive points in penalties between stage 1 and 2. But actually, I took 1 M on stage 2 and deliberately left 1. Now it WAS a bonehead move to run dry. And I shouldn't have taken the miss on the clamshell. But the head shot WAS a tougher shot than others and I knew it was close on the roundcount. When I look at it today, it wasn't so bad as I made it out in my mind.

CONCLUSION:

I'm consistent if nothing else. I know how to tank a major. Actually, I was looking at my scores for the last 3 majors and I am consistent. Right around 63%. I guess that says it all. I'm a B shooter. I shot some B, a lot of C's, 1 D, and 1 A scores. It didn't help when the top 3 shooters were in the mid-high 70's. By that measure, I'm probably right where I should be. I was at the bottom of the B list, but when I look at C class I would've been 2nd C. I could bemoan the fact that I'm a B shooter now. But really, this is where I've been all along. The difference is, with my B card, my expectations changed. I don't know if I learned anything about shooting as it directly relates to pulling the trigger. I guess really it all does relate. What I did learn, is that if you read the summary above, at least half of the match was shot "pissed", or "disappointed", or in "despair". This is supposed to be fun even if I am throwing M all over the place. I'm out playing a game. I have fun playing this game at all other times than a major.

My goal for the next 6 months (arbitrary since I can only forsee 1 major ipsc match in that timeframe I can attend), is to take myself less seriously when it comes to shooting. This range diary often helps me to identify weaknesses and tackle them from a technique perspective. But I realize now perhaps I'm coloring it with how I WANT to shoot and I'm setting my expectations as such. Then I get pissed when I don't meet them. So I'm gonna lay off for a while and try to "Lighten up Francis". The measure of my next major will be if I had fun or not.

Edited October 29, 2008 by Lee King

[Lee King]

REGROUP....

New Year... New attitude... IT'S ALL ABOUT FUN!

Since my last post a few things have happened. 1) I shot the Ft. Benning 3 Gun Challenge (AWESOME MATCH!!!!) 2) Shot the Tim Daugherty Memorial Toys for Tots Charity Match 3) Had a little practice time and coaching from a GM 4) Shot the first local match of the year.

Ft. Benning - Reaffirmed why I shoot. Was an absolute blast!! I sucked.. but didn't care. Where else do you get to ride a stryker, run through a smoke filled trench, shoot an AK on full auto, and shoot a m203 grenade launcher as a computer geek commando wanabee?! I even pulled a bonehead move and blew by 2 poppers but didn't care.

Toys for Tots - Should've shot this one much better than I did. I relaxed and had a decent day. Finished in the 75% range. Middle of the pack in B. Again, shot very relaxed.

Live Fire with GM - Not naming names but if you read this Thank You very much for the pointers. The biggest thing I took away from the session was an improved draw. I see opportunity to continue to adjust this skill during dry fire. Most importantly, 1) hand DOWN on the grip to establish the index 2) meet the weak hand at the chest.. I thought I was doing this but somewhere along the line I lost it. FOCUS on the hands coming together 3) push to target. We dropped my draw to sub 1 sec doing this. REMEMBER THESE STEPS!

Local Match - 2nd overall.. 1st Limited... Won a stage. In an odd twist, I actually won the first stage I shot. I went into the stage with 2 goals 1) relax and 2) play the game with borderline reckless abandon. Usually I go slow on the first stage to just try to get it behind me. This time I decided to just have fun with it. Seemed to work. Other highlight, I won the shotgun sidematch. We used Stage 4 from the pistol match (all steel). I ran it in 54s the first time (the one that counted). But I had some screw ups. Took a couple of extra shots on steel and didn't count a reload correctly and ran dry in the middle of the plate rack. 2nd run was awesome. 40s. No extra shots. 14s improvement over 1st run.

Opportunites -

- Work on steel - I have a bad habit of squeezing my whole hand instead of just the trigger. On steel it really throws me off. I need to work the plate racks a lot.

- Timer - I have been dry firing without a timer. I think I've settled into a groove where I'm not pushing myself to see faster. Re-stablish par times and try to beat them.

- Video - I'm going to try to post some vids. I think the little quirks in my draw could've been corrected earlier if I had been taking vids.

2009 GOALS

1) FUN FUN FUN

2) FASTER FASTER FASTER - I'm just not seeing fast enough. I also waste a lot of motion. If my draw is an example, there is a lot of room in many other aspects to be more efficient.

3) Crack 70% in a major.

[Lee King]

DRY FIRE 1/5/09

GOAL: Re-establish par times

Draw: 1.0

6 reload 6: 4.0

El Pres: 4.5

6 Reload Strong 6: 5.3

6 Reload Weak 6: 6.0

[Lee King]

DRY FIRE 1/6/2009

Added a few more par times:

Draw - warm up and re-affirm draw technique

Surrender Draw: 1.1s

Turn and Draw: 1.3

Strong Hand Draw: 1.3

Weak Hand: Practiced but didn't time.

Surrender 6 Reload 6: 4.2

6 (transition): 2.2

Found that if I pushed really hard I got sloppy. But when I relaxed and focused on good technique I tightened up and made par. I can tell when I get sloppy on the draw (my weak hand doesn't meet the gun at my chest) because I struggle to "snap" on target. Initial "grab" still needs work. JC showed me to almost slam my hand down onto the backstrap so that the V (or webbing of my thumb) is forced up against the beavertail making for a consistent grip (and it's actually way faster than the snatch). I still catch the beavertail or hit too low on the grip more than I'd like.

Opportunity: practice the "grab"

[Lee King]

DRY FIRE 1/8/2009

Worked with par times. Focused on the "grab". Spent some time before I used the timer breaking the draw down. Grab... then grab/meet. slow mo then worked up to speed. Finally putting it together with the timer.

Drills:

Draw

Surrender Draw

Turn and Draw

Strong Hand Draw

Session was cut short for familial obligations...

Planning live fire Sunday afternoon.

[Lee King]

DRY FIRE and LIVE FIRE 1/11/2009

Worked with Sandra on dry fire drills with the timer. I wanted to gear dry fire and live fire towards working on "explosion". I also helped her set up some dry fire targets and showed her some of the drills I do to work transitions, eye movement, etc.

Drills:

Draw

2-2-2

Outside in

Used the timer to work on par times for her.

LIVE FIRE

SUMMARY: Frustration. In dry fire I can get my draw down to .98-1.10 calling an A hit. I worked on the draw with live fire and couldn't hit a damned thing. When I focused on getting a hit I was in the 1.25-1.30 range. Further, I struggled a little bit with accuracy. I focused on trigger pull with a plate rack and finally cleaned it in about 4.8ish two times in a row. Tried to relax and focus on trigger squeeze on the movement drill I was struggling with and I couldn't hit a damned thing. I felt like I just couldn't apply what I'm trying to learn. Did have a cool moment though... I tried zooming in on the front sight and forgetting everything else. I could see the fiber make a little tracer up and down as the gun fired. Kinda mesmerizing.

Drills:

Draw - see previous

Movement - 2 1/2 size IPSC plates. 2 boxes in front of each. 1 about 7 yards, 1 about 15 yards. The whole arrangement was in a square. The drill is to start at the far left box. Shoot 2, move up to close left, shoot 2, move right to close right, shoot 2, move back to far right, shoot 2, back to first box and shoot 2. Basically move in a square clockwise. Rotate to the next position and use it as a starting point. Best time 14.54. Worst was in the 20s. Things I noticed, my best draw for ANY of this drill was 1.3. My best split was .45. I KNOW I have better times with both.

Splits - I was getting frustrated with my split times so I spent some time focusing on the sights to speed up the 2nd shot. This was where I started watching the sight lift and come back down.

Plate rack - Started off horrible. Worst times were around 10s. Finally focused on sight picture, relaxing my trigger hand, and went 4.78 and 4.54. I catch myself squeezing the whole hand to break the trigger instead of just my trigger finger. Need to work on this.

Movement - went back to the first drill again and tried to concentrate on trigger pull and relaxing my strong hand (what I just learned from the plate rack). Horrible. This was my 20s run. Took MANY extra shots. Finally had two decent runs in 14.54ish range. Did have another cool moment on the first run where I was running forward, gun up, essentially sighting as if I were shooting on the move and broke the shot the second I hit the position. Moving to the right I did the same thing, gun up, on target, broke the trigger as soon as I stepped in.

All in all I was pretty frustrated. I feel like I'm making progress until I have a session like this and actually SEE the numbers on the timer.

Edited January 12, 2009 by Lee King

[Lee King]

DRY FIRE 1/15/2008

Goals: Preparing for Steel Challenge this weekend. As such my goals were

1 - Front sight focus

2 - Surrender Draw

3 - Transitions

Also, I started doing Crossfit. My forearms and the lower part of my bicep are KILLING me today. I wanted to go slow and stretch them out. I didn't use the timer at all.

Opportunity. I caught myself sighting with the front post a smidge above the notch. I think this is the root of all the misses I had during live fire. I need to do more front sight focus drills live fire.

[Lee King]

STEEL CHALLENGE MID-CAROLINA RIFLE CLUB 1/17/2008

SUMMARY: ABSOLUTE BLAST!! I have no clue how I placed. I think I made a solid run at Centerfire Irons. I think I probably took rimfire irons but I'd have to see the scores there too. It was pretty cold so only about 14 people and maybe 18-20 guns showed up. We went with only 1 squad. I think it took much longer, but in all honesty, I had so much more fun because I got to shoot with some people I don't think I've squadded with before. I learned a lot watching them. In my mind I was competing against them but in a completely fun way. Sort of a "Dude you ran it in what?! Aight let me see what I can do" kind of way.

I'll have to edit when results are posted. I don't even remember which ones we shot except for a couple.

Stage 1 Accelerator (I think):

I had a few problems on this one. It probably cost me Centerfire. First, I had the strangest sounding and feeling shot. It wasn't a squib but I paused to look the gun over before continuing. Then I forgot to change mags and ran dry on a pass. THEN the gun wouldn't go into battery. It was very.. .sluggish. But the temps were right about 20 degrees when we started so I'm pretty sure the gun was too cold. Finally got it into battery and it ran like a champ the rest of the day. I know I took a 25s and a 9s run. I think the rest were in the 3s.

Stage 2 Pendulum: Usually the bane of my existence. I tried to relax and take my time. I know I was 1 for 1 on at least one maybe 2 runs. Seems like I averaged 4s and was pretty consistent. I felt like it was a major improvement over the last.

Stage 3 Showdown: I lost focus a little bit here. I had a couple of good runs but had to take extra shots on the first 2 or 3. The last couple felt good but I think this was probably my second worst stage (worst if you throw out equip probs on stage 1).

Stage 4 5 to go (I think): I picked up the speed on this one. I'm pretty sure I had some solid runs in the 3's on this.

Stage 5 Smoke and Hope: I love this one. Very consistent. My best run was 2.79 CF and 2.11 RF. The first run with CF I have no idea how I hit the plates. I honestly never saw the fiber until the stop plate. I called a miss on each plate and was shocked to hear it ring. Weird thing was I drilled the big plates dead center. But when I finally found the sight for the stop plate I hit it high and right almost missing it. The rest of the run I think I only took 1 extra on the stop plate with CF. I remember not even waiting for the sound of the plate after the 1st pass. If I saw green on the plate I moved on. RF was AWESOME!! I'm pretty sure I had 4 2s runs. The last run I tried to go fast. I know the 1st 4 plates were at a blistering speed. BUT I took 3 or 4 shots to hit the stop plate making it my worst run.

I'm kinda anxious to see the scores so I can compare to previous SC. Especially pendulum. I felt strong and consistent on that stage. I'm pretty sure this one was my personal best.

[Lee King]

STEEL CHALLENGE 1/17/2009 UPDATE

Scores are in but the "edit" time passed on the orig post.

OVERALL: 12 shooters 17 guns. 1st Centerfire Irons (of 6). 1st Rimfire Irons (of 3). 6th overall Centerfire Irons. 2nd overall Rimfire Irons.

Stage 1 Accelerator:

Centerfire Irons: 23.14 - 11th overall

Rimfire Irons: 17.30 - 7th overall

Stage 2 The Pendulum

Centerfire Irons: 20.79 - 6th overall

Rimfire Irons: 16.86 - 3rd overall

Stage 3 Showdown

Centerfire Irons: 17.36 - 6th overall

Rimfire Irons: 16.97 - 5th overall

Stage 4 5 to Go

Centerfire Irons: 18.39 - 6th overall

Rimfire Irons: 13.86 - 1st overall

Stage 5 Smoke and Hope

Centerfire Irons: 12.00 - 5th overall

Rimfire Irons: 9.08 - 1st overall