Lee King

[Lee King]

First, let me say the ninjer cocking technique from the previous post BLOWS!!! I could hardly move my arm the next day. I tried it again last night and sent a searing pain up my shoulder. Hurts like hell to lift it today. Worse, I can't even do it one time now.

9/21/2009 DRY FIRE

GOAL:

Just a few reps to knock the rust off. Getting ready to start hard core for GA State. My shoulder was hurting pretty bad so I kept it short.

DRILLS:

Draw:

222:

Step:

Reverse Step:

SUMMARY:

Pushing the sight to the right a lot. Slowed WAY down to get good sight pictures. I didn't really expect much since I took a break for a couple of weeks.

[Lee King]

9/22/2009 DRY FIRE

GOAL(s): Get back into training routine. More rust knocking. Test the DA Magnet pouch.

DRILLS:

Draw

222

Outside in

Inside out

Step

Reverse step

Table draw (with spare mag)

Reload (from mag on magnet)

SUMMARY:

Felt better than yesterday. Sights felt a little snappier. Still slow. I don't feel like I'm moving my eyes ahead of the gun. Seemed like a lot of scanning.

The magnet is interesting. I'm not sure of the best location. I have it just to the right of my first pouch. Because the STI mags taper in at the top you really have to pay attention to where you snap it to the magnet. If you hit the taper part, it flips if you bounce any. Since the basepad side of the magazine is sticking out it can clear the pouch next to it and spin upside down. It's best to stick the magazine in the middle.

[Lee King]

9/23/2009 DRY FIRE

GOAL: Movement

For a change of pace I took an idea from Dave Re (I think that's who it was) and took a bunch of old targets and set up a stage in my house. Ran it 7-8 times. Rearranged a few and ran it backwards. I caught myself breaking shots off target as I was looking away. Visual patience. I tried to end on what I felt was a solid run. I may try to set this up (or as close as I can) just to see how live fire would feel.

[Lee King]

9/24/2009 DRY FIRE

GOALS: Fundamentals. Going to try to alternate between "COF" and fundamentals. Work with "magnet" reloads.

Drills:

Draw

222

Inside out

Outside in

Step

Reverse Step

Table draw - pick up mags to magnet too

Table draw and reload.

SUMMARY:

Felt good about sight pictures. There was more snap and I didn't have to hunt the front sight. I was so preoccupied with the magnet I got pretty sloppy with sight focus at that point. Just need a little time working with it to get by that.

[Lee King]

9/25/2009 and 9/27/2009 DRY FIRE

GOALS: Basics. Keep the gun in my hand.

Drills:

Usual set. Draw. 222. Outside in. Inside out. Step. Reverse step.

SUMMARY:

Just a few quick sessions. Felt good about snapping the sight. Transitions had some overswinging. Need to buckle down soon.

edit - spelling

Edited September 28, 2009 by Lee King

[Lee King]

9/28/2009 DRY FIRE

GOALS: Movement

Drills:

I set up 2 COFs in the house using the Master BR, Dining Room, Family Room, Kitchen, and Breakfast Area

SUMMARY:

The first drill started with an "uprange start". Movement to the L. Then back to the R around an obstacle. Targets through a door at an angle with "fault line". Targets straight ahead. Movement at an angle to the L to finish with 2 targets around obstacle. Good gear change drill. Wide open targets mixed with NS A only targets. The R door was at an oblique so you only had a small angle to see 3 targets. Required a gear change. First few passes I was pretty sloppy with the sight picture. There would've been a lot of M if this were real. I had to slow down and glue my eyes to the sights. THEN I started scanning instead of snapping my eyes ahead. Experimented with different target orders.

2nd drill used same areas of the house. Rearranged a couple of targets. Required a little bit of uprange movement. Snuck 1 target in low with a NS. It was easy to see from the "natural" position of the array in the room. But if you let yourself flow through the position it disappeared quickly. Required close watch on body position not to overrun it. Sight pictures were a little better. I tried to focus on eye movement between targets.

All in all I really like these exercises because it adds a lot to think about. Body position. Eye movement. Trigger control. Oh yeah.. and don't forget the front sight. I think this will really help tighten my points back up on field courses.

[Lee King]

9/30/2009 LIVE FIRE

GOAL: Basic drills. Test cast bullets.

DRILLS:

25 yard rest

Bill drill

Vice pres

SUMMARY:

25 yard rest was to confirm zero with new AND old bullets. It was also a good opportunity to practice trigger prep.. squeeze etc. The bill drill was to see how a dozen round that wouldn't case guage would feed. They wouldn't case guage but they felt weird in the guage. I wasn't sure if it was a "true" positive on the guage or not.

Vice Pres... you HAVE TO SEE THE SIGHTS. I didn't have any misses. But the first pass was by the skin of my teeth. Couple of partial but caught the perfs. I was trying way too hard. You can only go as fast as you can see. Which was a challenge in the setting sun in my face and lead bullets. Slowed down. Focused on fundamentals. I should've timed myself. But at that point I was just trying to tighten up. Last couple of runs were A zone passes. I also played with my grip some. Not sure what effect it had (should've timed it). But it was interesting how the different pressures felt.

[Lee King]

10/1/2009 DRY FIRE

GOAL: Accuracy. Prep for local match.

Drills:

Draw

222

Outside in

Inside out

Step

Reverse Step

Across the array

1 each reload 1 each

SUMMARY:

Visual patience. I'm catching myself getting really sloppy just for the sake of speed. I had to force myself to slow down. I'm not feeling confident between this and the sloppy live fire Wed.

[Lee King]

10/3/2009 LOCAL MATCH Palmetto Gun Club

Match win!! W00t! Good: Field courses were strong. SOTM was solid. Shot clean. Bad: Steel.. ate me up. Points. Still giving up a lot.

Started on Stage 4 so:

Stage 4: Not the Plate Racks Again

3 arrays. Started seated. Gun unloaded in box with 1st mag. Array right in front of the table had 2 plates and 2 turtles with HC. Move left to barricade. Shoot plate rack around L side. Paper on the L and one hidden behind barrels on the R. Same thing on the R side (reversed of course). Solid grab and load. Plate 2 paper and plate fast and smooth. Hit the first paper on the L right as I was coming into the box. Then the wheels fell off. I went through about 15 rounds before ever hitting a single plate. THEN I had a nose dive I couldn't clear. Finally got it cleared. Took at least 10 more at the plate before clearing it. Hit the paper target moving back from the 1st array. Ran. Hit the hidden paper OTM then the R paper right as I hit the box. Cleaned this rack just fine. I don't know what went wrong on the L rack. I was telling myself "reset.. squeeze.." and was still missing. 12th. 42.13 123 points.

Stage 5: Jail Break

Started outside of shooting area. Hallway with pressure pad just inside. Swinger and static directly ahead. Port 1/2 down the "hall" to the L with 8. Shooting lane moved R with 3 in the next "hall". Outside of the last wall on the R were 3 to the R and one hidden WAY across to the L. Solid run on this stage. Hit the pressure pad at a run to the first port while drawing. Shot the L array through the port. Hit the static back in the hall while moving R. I was hoping to have the swinger right there but of course it was disappearing. I waited.. and waited.. and waited before it came back out. 2 quick at it. Turned to the R and hit the far R, skipped the middle, then the L. Reload. Took the next 3 on the move coming around the wall. Swung back towards the hidden paper to the L and took the one I skipped earlier since it was right there and the far L. Only problem on this stage was waiting for the swinger. Wasted a good second. Stage win. 13.30 seconds. 119 points.

Stage 1: Nothing to It

Match management stage. 3 targets on the L and R in a V shape. No shoots covering so you had to move R to see the L array and L to see the R array. You only had about 1/2 of the targets in most cases. Virginia count. Mandatory reload 3 reload 3. I just focused on not hitting the NS and making sure I shot all of the targets. It was really tempting to shoot one of the targets in the middle of the V twice and skip on. Happened to a surprising number of shooters. I stepped left and and shot 6,5,3. Step right reloading and went 1,2,4. Dropped a lot of points but I was aiming for the A/C line on most targets to give myself some room with the NS. 3rd. 9.06 44 pts. Gave up a lot of pts here.

Stage 2: Six Chickens - (CM 03-02)

Not a whole lot to say about this one. Solid run. Dissapointed with my time. But ok points. Clean. 2nd place. 10.52 sec. 54 pts.

Stage 3: Lost in Space

Started in middle of wall toes to paint marks arms spread wide touching wall. 2 targets to L of wall. Move R in an oblique. Arrays to the L between barrels. Wall at the end with 2 targets to the L (hard lean). Came off the wall strong. 2 on the L quick enough. Hit my spot around the wall quickly and took 2. Ran hard reloading hit my spot. Took 5. 2 steps to R fault line and hit the last 2. Felt good about the run. Pulled away on 2 targets and lost points. The hits were there but D's. I might could've shot a couple of targets while moving and shaved a tiny bit of time. Gave up a lot of pts. But for the last stage of the day I was happy. Stage win. 101 pts. 14.32s.

OPPORTUNITIES:

Accuracy. Plate work. Those really hurt me big time. I need to re-evaluate my zero. I think I need to move the POI about 2 inches high. On plates I have a tendency to hold low so I can see the plate. I was aiming to the top 1/2 on the R plate rack on stage 4 and shot much better which leads me to believe I'm hitting low for my comfort on plates.

[Lee King]

10/5/2009 AIRSOFT

GOAL: Try out the whole airsoft thing to augment dry/live fire. I don't want training to become stale so I'm trying different things to keep it interesting. I set up the Postal Match #1 from this thread.

DRILLS:

Airsoft Postal Match #1

SUMMARY:

I used my 1911 airsoft I bought when I was shooting L10. I have a CQB Master on order from Evike.com that is much closer to my limited gun. It's hard to say how the drill went. I can say the 1st run was sloppy and awkward. Somewhere around the 5th run I got more comfortable with the setup, the gun, the holster and had, what I think was, a best run. Unfortunately, I was trying to use my CED7000 timer. I set the sensistivity as high as it would go and placed it as close to the "finish" position as I could. It didn't pick up anything. Also, the gun was shooting about 3" high which is enough to pull shots off target on a reduced size target. I attempted to adjust the "hop up" but while taking the gun apart heard a snap. Broke the outer barrel hood at the threads. Soo... It was an interesting experiment but until the other gun comes in it's back to dry fire.

[Lee King]

10/7/2009 DRY FIRE

GOAL: Fundamentals. Draw.

Drills:

The usual...

SUMMARY:

I felt like the sights were snapping to target pretty well. I really wanted to focus on my draw. I saw a video of Rocket35 practicing with Airsoft. He had a .77-.8ish draw. I can barely crack 1 and average 1.2. Some of it was my distrust of the holster. I hadn't been able to get the angle right. Most times I smacked the beavertail and it would pop out. Since I changed out the mainspring housing the pop out isn't an issue. I think I have the angle finally where I want it. But I still don't feel comfortable with an aggressive draw. I watched the A8 videos again. In particular the "standards" like stages. I know I lost a couple of places on at least 2 of the stages on my draw alone. I spent a good 15 minutes doing draw over and over. I just can't seem to get that explosion of motion. Something to keep working on.

[Lee King]

10/8/2009 DRY FIRE

GOALS: SOTM. Stage Management.

DRILLS:

I set up a COF using my living room, family room, and breakfast area.

SUMMARY:

Changing things up a bit. Set up 4 targets in the living room with NS covering various portions. 4 more in family room. 1 in breakfast area and 1 in kitchen/breakfast area you could see from the beginning and end of the "COF". First few passes were pretty sloppy. The sights were all over the place. Next few passes I focused on only seeing the front sight. Last set I experimented with different target orders. Movement was from L to right. Pretty much just side to side. I tried taking the targets from R to L sort of slicing the pie as I moved. It felt slow to move the gun back across my body to the L as I was moving R. But it seemed a natural progression since the L most targets started off obscured by walls. Then I tried going L-R as I was moving. The 1st target was awkward but it felt like it was actually faster for the next 3. I need to set something similar up at the range to test.

[Lee King]

10/13/2009 DRY FIRE

GOALS: Knock off the rust. Hope to keep some kind of edge for GA State. Life has been kicking me a bit and I haven't dry fired like I should. Steel Challenge this weekend so I did all drills from surrender.

DRILLS:

Draw:

222:

Step:

Reverse Step:

SUMMARY:

I was surprised the sights snapped on target pretty well. The first 10 or so reps I had a solid draw. Then it fell apart. I guess I started thinking about the draw and I started hitting the beavertail or smacking the magwell. On one draw the whole thing went haywire and the muzzle got close to my magnet. SNAP.. stuck. And it was a real PITA to get it back off. It's true. The only way is to slide it. So much for my nice finish on my gun. Refocused on basic transitions, sight picture etc. and the draw came back.. hmmm...

[Lee King]

10/14/2009 DRY FIRE

GOAL: Work for GA State. Steel Challenge.

DRILLS:

Usual set from surrender

SUMMARY:

I really pushed the speed until the sights started to drift and backed off. I also experimented with hand position. I have been putting my hands on the bill of my hat because a long time ago a shooter busted my balls because they said my "wrists weren't above my shoulders". But I found that if I took my hand off the grip and rotated straight up it made for a much more consistent surrender draw. I guess coming from the bill it's down and out vs. straight down.

[Lee King]

10/17/2009 Steel Challenge Mid-Carolina Rifle Club

Shot rimfire pistol and my limited gun. I won both of those divisions (barely). I felt a lot more consistent with centerfire than I did with rimfire. 54 shooters overall (well.. shooters and guns). 4th overall with rimfire. 14th with Centerfire.

SUMMARY:

Stage 4: Roundabout

I shot this fast with every run EXCEPT the stop plate. I took 2 shots at the stop plate on most runs. Cost me a lot of time. Rimfire was smoother. I didn't feel fast. But I felt smooth. I had a misfire on one pass that cost me big time. But I was 2 seconds faster than the next competitor. Last time that happened. 2nd place centerfire 15.07. 1st place Rimfire 9.73.

Stage 5: Smoke and Hope

Again the stop plate was killing me. I was smoke the first 4 and take 2 on the stop plate. I was even trying to slow down, get the sights settled.. gear change. Still take 2. I took 1st by 100th of a second. Rimfire was all over the place. I had a couple of really crappy runs where I overswung the 2 plate. Took about 5 shots at the stop plate on one pass. 1st centerfire 12.57. 5th rimfire with 12.22

Stage 1: 5 to Go

I just went for slow and steady. See the sights. Go 1 for 1 whatever it takes. The number 3 plate gave me a little trouble with CF. But most runs were solid 1 for 1. Worked well with Cf. Rimfire on the other hand, I had solid runs but at the same pace as with CF. I did have another misfire on my first pass that threw me. The next pass I was all over the place because I was rattled. My times between CF and RF are 100th of a second apart. I was over 3s off the pace. 1st in CF with 17.57. 3rd RF with 17.56.

Stage 2: The Pendulum

Again, I just went for slow and steady. This stage was match management to me. I always come into this one cranking rounds and throwing away the 1st run. This time I tried to go 1 for 1 slow. I had solid runs in the 4's and I think even 1 in the 3's. Consistent. Stop plate still gave a little trouble. But I believe I only took 1 extra shot at the back plates. Same with rimfire. Steady. 1st CF 17.65. 2nd RF with 17.83.

Stage 3: Accelerator

I had good and bad moments on this one. I chose to draw on the small plate and take a fast transition back to the big #2 plate rather than go #2, #1, BACK to #4. I still don't like swinging back and forth. I took some misses on the #1 plate as result. Not my best on this one. I turned it up with RF and had some consistent runs. I don't think I took more than maybe 2 extra shots with RF. 3rd CF with 19.50. First with RF with 14.42.

CONCLUSION:

This was a good confidence builder before going to GA State. Steel ate me up at the last PGC match. I really didn't care how I did with RF so crappy stages didn't really bother me. I felt solid about CF except for the stop plates that seemed to give me a lot of trouble. I had a PB on The Pendulum with centerfire averaging 4.4575. More importantly, I felt like I finally made the gear change needed for that one.

Edited October 19, 2009 by Lee King

[Lee King]

10/19/2009 LIVE FIRE

GOALS: Double check zero. Slow fire fundamentals and accuracy. Draw.

SUMMARY:

I had a tiny reason to doubt my zero. When I tested the lead bullets I cast a few weeks ago I checked the zero (with my normal MG load not lead) and it was about 1.5-2" low and left. I made a 2 click adjustment and did a quick check adn it was better but still off. I was out of bullets so I just went with it since it was close. At the next PGC match, I threw at least 8 shots at the plate rack without touching it so I had some doubt. I took my 1/2 size IPSC plate, painted it and stuck a black paster in the center. First shot drilled the paster. All other shots offhand at about 15ish yards were within 2-3 inches so I feel good about the zero. While I was at it I checked the zero of my steel loads. Same thing. Drilled the paster 1st shot.

Did some drills with the dualing tree (6"plates). I set 3 on one side and 3 on the other and transitioned back and forth. I struggled a little when I tried to go fast. Slow and steady is the key.

Draw. I wanted to push it hard live fire. I didn't have my timer so I don't have good emprical data to go by. I missed a few grabs.

Reload. Did some live fire reloads using the magnet since there will be a stage for this at GA State.

[Lee King]

10/24/2009 2009 GA State Championship

Awesome match! Great mix of run n gun and technical. Could've done without stage 8 though

For me it was only a slightly better performance than last year. 65% as opposed to 63% last year. I shot ok. Only a few misses. I made some real mental errors and steel was, once again, a killer for me.

SUMMARY:

Stage 3: .40 Caliber

This stage had an empty belt start. Gun on any 1 of 2 shelves loaded. Mags on any of 3 shelves. The stage was basically 3 L and 3 R Hardcover and 1 open on each array.. Some up the middle on the L and R. A few through a window at the end including 2 low upside down targets.. Reminded me of a variation of an Alabama State stage.

I opted to start with the gun on the R side for 2 reasons. 1) because it was a more natural move R - L and 2 because one of the targets was wide open in the middle on the L side. Made the magazine change a little better. I picked up the gun and magazine slapping the mag to the magnet. 2 at the zebra 2 at the open and 2 at the zebra. Started to move away and a M into hard cover caught my eye. So I jumped BACK, hit it again, then went back to the open target, moved L to the 2nd array. Came back to the middle took the 2 on the R. Reload 1 on the L. To the window and went in a circle from close R around to close L. Took at least 3 shots at a popper. I knew I pulled one into the D on the close targets since they were upside down but I was just ready to end it at this point.

So I made up the 1 M in hardcover on the R target, but I didn't see ANOTHER one on the L target. So 1 M 23.23 s. 133 pts. 27th at 53%

Stage 4 cron... 170pf...

Stage 5 Zag Field Follies

Walls zig-zagging L R L. Tricky targets were 2 hidden behind each side of the back wall so you had to go R and L. Although, you could see the L target between some barrels towards the beginning but I opted to run it straight up.

Took the 2 to the R. Zigged to the L hit the low Z (almost took a M there) and the one hidden behind the barrel. Zagged back L and took the paper by the NS (you could see it from the beginning but I didn't see a point in hitting it there. Took the middle wide open target moving to the corner. Reload. Far R target, hidden back to the L. Swung back R as I was backing away to take the low Z target that was partially hidden by a barrel (I held it 'til last because you didn't see all of it until you were in the corner). Jam. Stop. Rack. Take the shots. Turn hit the Z to the left. Worked around the far paper and popper finally hitting the close hidden behind a barrel. Took at least 2 at the popper.

The jam cost me. 21.28 132 pts. 19th 63%. 19s with same points would've put me at 70%.

Stage 6 Celeritas II = Speed II

Simple stage. Wall in front of you. 4 targets to L and 4 angled outside in, low to high. Targets to R mirror image.

Nothing to this one. Drew hit the first L target moving to the corner of the box. Next 3 no problems. Turned to the R. The 1st target was wide open. Hit it moving to the corner. Took the next 3 as I hit the corner.

Best stage of the match. 6.57s 74 pts. 8th. 77%.

Stage 7 - 24 Rounds of Swinging Death

Fun stage. Wall to the L with a window. 4 targets there. Wall across the middle with window. Back array had 6 poppers and a swinger. Wall to the R was just to block targets back to the M. 4 targets on the R side of it.

At the beep drew moving to the window. I hugged the wall to see the 1st inside target without getting IN the window. Hit it and the next even though you could see it in the middle. The index was just too good not to. Hit the next two backing away to the R. Turned took 3 of those. You could see the last R target from the middle so I held it. Reload driving to the popper in the middle window. I think I activated the swinger first then hit the two poppers. I'm sure I took at least 1 extra shot at those. Came back to the swinger. Had to wait for it to arc out. 2 at it. Then I couldn't hit the first popper to the R. I threw at least 3 at it. Moved on to the next 2. Hit the far paper. Came back for the popper.

Solid run. Even with all the shots at the poppers. However, those shots did cost me. 15.26s 106pts. 10th. 70%. If I had gone 1 for 1 I would've been in the top 5.

Stage 8 - Diligentia II = Accuracy II

WOW what a HARD stage. The only easy way to describe it was a bunch of paper and steel plates. The paper were a mix of head only and zebra A only targets. This used the wall with the long low middle window. You had to squat for most of the middle targets.

Not a whole lot to say about this one. I drew to the 1st Z just to settle the sights. Took the 1st Z, 2nd Z and plate. Reload and moved to the middle. Worked slowly around. I think I took 3 and most of the head shots except 1. Moved to the R and hit the last Z target.

I tried to go slow and make sure I could call each and every shot. Wasn't slow enough and I should've taken at least 2 extras. 2M. 23.94s. 93 points. 18th. 51%.

Stage 9 - Partial People Eaters - Classifer

Par time 4s. 6 targets. 4 positions. 1 shot each. Free. Move up. Strong. Move up. Weak. Move up. Free.

This stage had clusterf#@& written all over it. First, we ran it 1st thing in the am. It was cold. REALLY cold. 2nd, the sun was coming up directly in front of the targets. 3rd, it was the first stage of the day. Long shots. PAR time.

I got lucky in that the sun was just behind the berm. Others had it full in the face for a whiteout. But it didn't matter. I couldn't hit anything. I need to do some par time work. I only had 12 on paper of the 24. 48pts of the 97 available. 34th. 49%.

Stage 10 - Vis II = Power II

All steel. 2 arrays. 3 big popers and 3 small. Overlapping. Wall down the middle.

I started to the R and hit the 3 big poppers 1 for 1. You could see the little poppers across in the back without overlap. So I shot the L minis. Took 1 extra. Felt good at that point. Ran to the L. Took 1 extra on the big poppers. Then the wheels fell off. I winged 1 off the wall and hit the 2nd mini. Should've been a reshoot at that point for REF. I didn't realize it until later though. I went through my entire magazine before I finally dropped the steel. Horrible time. Next time run it straight up. 23.71s 34th at 40%.

Stage 1 - Marks Menagerie

UNLOADED gun on barrel with magazine beside gun. Star to the R. 1 target hidden behind wall with NS to the R. 1 wide open by a wall to the L. Corridor with 2 windows on the R. 2 targets in the 1st. 4 in the next. Corridor took a 90 to the R. 2 low targets with NS in the middle. Wall in the back with 1 target hidden to the R. 3 around the L that must be shot WEAK hand.

I started on the star and took 3 shots before I got settled and started hitting plates. 1 extra shot after that. Hit my mark to take the R target. Turned to the L and hit the paper on the move going into the corridor. Mag change. Hit 2. MAG CHANGE (WTF!!). Hit 4. Moved right and waited to take the 2 until I was right on top. Around the wall to the R to hit the hidden. Moved to the end transferring the gun to the L hand for the weak hand shots on the last three. bang bang, bang bang, bang CLICK (I reloaded to an 18 round and I needed 20). Reload. Hit it again wasting about 3 seconds. Horrible time.

I meant to do 1 reload moving into the hall. Take the 2 windows and do another moving to the R since it was a long run doing nothing. But I forgot and screwed the pooch royally on that one. The click cost me HUGE because to do a reload you had to transfer the gun back to strong hand, reload, then back to weak hand. 34s with same points would've put me at about 68%. Instead, I was 24th 37.41s 148pts 60%.

Stage 2 - Jimmy's Jaunt

Simple stage. 3 close targets to R 1 hidden behind NS. 2 long targets. Move from R to L at an angle. 2 ports with 3 close targets. 1 open target before a small hall with window. 2 paper (1 Z 1 open), 2 poppers, 1 close paper.

I drew to the 2 close. Took 1 big step hit the close behind the NS. Settled and took the 2 long. Moved to the L to the 1st port. Good index on the 1st target. Swung back to the R and hit the next 2 backing. Reload. 1st target on L in next port. Slow for Z target. Hit the R backing again. Turned, hit the open target on the L. I had the bright idea to throw a shot at a popper while moving to the window. Hero or zero thing since my match was sucking at this point. IT WORKED. Hit the R popper on the way in. 2 paper on the R. Popper. Slowed for the Z target. Then 2 fast at the close. AWESOME run to end the day.

13th. 20.07s. 133 pts. 80%.

Mental mistakes and accuracy killed me on this one. I only had 3 M for the whole match. 2 of them on the really tough accuracy stage. Which is a huge improvement over last year (9M and 2NS). But hitting steel is still plaguing me. AND my points were way off again. Dry fire is ok. But it's time to ramp up the live fire for accuracy. I need to practice par times too. That classifier really rattled me and other similar stages with par time have done the same thing.

Edited October 26, 2009 by Lee King

[CHA-LEE]

From what you experienced/learned from this match what is your list of skills to practice the next time you hit the range?

[Lee King]

From what you experienced/learned from this match what is your list of skills to practice the next time you hit the range?

Excellent question. I like this...

I guess the skills that stood out the most (in order of their.. use? since I think in terms of stages)

Goofy starts. Threw off my first shot(s). Practice table starts. Empty starts.

Accuracy (and steel go hand in hand). Work plate racks. Even poppers. If I can, set up the star.

Par Time COFs - Set up partial people eaters again and work to get hits.. then A's.. then large par.. then smaller par.

When I think back, my best stages of the match were those where I just worked the plan. Forgot about time. My worst stages, I didn't let "time" creep into my thought per se. But I remember breaking shots as fast as I possibly could which cost me 1 miss and probably tons of points. I'm not sure how to practice relaxed/aggression. Something to work on though.

[CHA-LEE]

I look at every match as an opportunity to learn. Everyone has at least one thing in their match performance that they feel could have done better. The more we consciously pin point these “Issues” the more probable we will be to practice them and in turn perfect them.

I have not seen you shoot in person so I can’t say for sure what your shooting challenges are but from what you are saying in your posts there is a repeated theme of issues that you can work on today.

One example is when you say something like “I had trouble shooting the steel, again”. This tells me that going into the match you are expecting to have issues with shooting the steel. Your confidence level in shooting steel is probably lower than it should be with a comment like that. You need to practice shooting steel until you have your confidence built back up to where it should be. You can only shoot as solid as your confidence level. Earn the confidence in practice and rely on that confidence in the match.

Another example is when you said “I remember breaking shots as fast as I possibly could which cost me 1 miss and probably tons of points”. This tells me that you realize that you are failing in the basic fundamentals of shooting quickly. You are reverting to pointing the gun in the general location of close targets and rowing the trigger as fast as you can. That isn’t shooting, that is hoping. All of us can see WAY faster than we can even imagine to mechanically pull the trigger in repeated shots. So why regress your shooting fundamentals to a point where you are not seeing anything and ending up with misses? You can see super fast, faster than you can shoot, so why not just see what you are shooting at to KNOW you have your hits when they break?

Instead of picking a “Target” to shoot at, pick a place on the target to shoot at, and I am not talking about the huge A-zone box in the middle of the target. Aim for the letter “A” in the A-zone. If you make that your aiming goal, even if you “Miss” your goal your shots will still probably be in the A-zone. Think about it, if you aim for the letter “A” on the target how fubared is your shot going to have to be to actually Miss the whole target??? You are not aiming at “Brown”, you are aiming at the letter “A” in the A-zone. That in its self is a HUGE mental change in target engagement that a lot of shooters don’t want to make.

[Lee King]

This is good stuff. Thanks for the input. I think I'm hitting a point where dry fire is becoming less effective and I need to hit the range. And yes, shoot steel until I can't stand to see another plate in front of me again.

The thing about steel that's killin me is I just shot the Steel Challenge last weekend and won my divisions with each gun (rimfire irons and limited). So I know I CAN shoot steel. It's something about fundamental's breaking down when I hit a stage. I see the sights on target. I see them when the shot breaks. And it's a miss. Which tells me I'm doing something at the last microsecond of the shot breaking. I'm pretty sure I'm milking the grip.

[bkeeler]

....... It's something about fundamental's breaking down when I hit a stage. I see the sights on target. I see them when the shot breaks. And it's a miss. Which tells me I'm doing something at the last microsecond of the shot breaking. I'm pretty sure I'm milking the grip.

FWIW

Your not staying with the shot (following through) you are probably shifting your attention else where and not calling your shots. If your milking the grip you should be able to tell from your sights if you stay with them and follow through.

BK

Edited October 27, 2009 by bkeeler

[Lee King]

....... It's something about fundamental's breaking down when I hit a stage. I see the sights on target. I see them when the shot breaks. And it's a miss. Which tells me I'm doing something at the last microsecond of the shot breaking. I'm pretty sure I'm milking the grip.

FWIW

Your not staying with the shot (following through) you are probably shifting your attention else where and not calling your shots. If your milking the grip you should be able to tell from your sights if you stay with them and follow through.

BK

I vividly recall staring at the green fiber on the steel before the shot broke as well as after and its still standing thinking WTF? It's entirely possible I'm letting the fiber drift a hair L or R in the notch. But I know I see it. I'm thinking the follow through is in technique. Not pinning the trigger. Yanking it or milking the grip. My next live fire session will be nothing but steel.

Having said that, my 1st miss was DEFINITELY because I was looking away to the next target and cranking rounds trying to "make up" for the table start. Not a conscious thought to "make it up". But when I think back I felt like I was trying to go fast. Not relaxing and let it happen. The other two I had that ? in the back of my brain when the shot broke it may have been high and rather than make them up I moved on. I knew it was a M deep down.

[bkeeler]

....... It's something about fundamental's breaking down when I hit a stage. I see the sights on target. I see them when the shot breaks. And it's a miss. Which tells me I'm doing something at the last microsecond of the shot breaking. I'm pretty sure I'm milking the grip.

FWIW

Your not staying with the shot (following through) you are probably shifting your attention else where and not calling your shots. If your milking the grip you should be able to tell from your sights if you stay with them and follow through.

BK

I vividly recall staring at the green fiber on the steel before the shot broke as well as after and its still standing thinking WTF? It's entirely possible I'm letting the fiber drift a hair L or R in the notch. But I know I see it. I'm thinking the follow through is in technique. Not pinning the trigger. Yanking it or milking the grip. My next live fire session will be nothing but steel.

Having said that, my 1st miss was DEFINITELY because I was looking away to the next target and cranking rounds trying to "make up" for the table start. Not a conscious thought to "make it up". But when I think back I felt like I was trying to go fast. Not relaxing and let it happen. The other two I had that ? in the back of my brain when the shot broke it may have been high and rather than make them up I moved on. I knew it was a M deep down.

If you have BE's book read over page 92 I believe this is what is happening to you. Basically your vision lost the front sight the instant the gun fired you did not stay with the sight. He explains it much better than I can.

BK

[CHA-LEE]

I feel that its not right when people preach “FRONT SIGHT, FRONT SIGHT, FRONT SIGHT!!!” and then that’s ALL they end up looking at. You have two sights, a front and a rear. If they are not aligned to one another then who knows where your shots are going? If you are ultra focused on the front sight or the fiber optic in the front sight you lose track of the correlating notch in the rear sight and that is a bad thing.

I think that Fiber Optic front sights are a crutch. They help pull your attention to the front sight but that does not mean that it does not drown out the other things you need to see as the gun fires or recovers from the recoil. I had a hell of a time shooting consistently in the accuracy department when using a fiber optic front sight because my brain would regress into thinking that if the Fiber Optic was on the target then I could fire the gun because the sights were “Aligned” when they really weren’t. Only the front sight was on target and the rear sight was wondering around somewhere unknown because I wasn’t paying attention to it.

I have switched over to using a solid black on black sights, and my accuracy and shot calling has become exceptionally better. I think its mainly that now my brain “Sees” both front and rear sights on the same plane of alignment when the shot is called. I don’t really see an individual front or rear sight, I simply see them together in varying alignment when I shoot. Then my brain processes the alignment of the sights and determines if the “Called Shot” is good or not. Unlike when I had the fiber optic front sight and it always pulled my attention to just the front sight and I would neglect the alignment of the front sight in the rear sight notch. Thus inconsistent hits on the targets.

On the steel side of the street, I think that comparing Steel Challenge shooting to shooting poppers and plates in a USPSA environment are quite different. In steel challenge the plates do not fall and that lulls you into confirming your hits with hearing the “Ding” of the hit. On a USPSA stage all of the poppers/plates fall, some fast, some slow and at all kinds of different distances angles and conditions. You are forced to call your shot good and move on verses wait around to receive the confirmation “Ding” when you did hit the steel or worse yet wait to see the steel move after being hit. Then there is the whole movement factor. Most of the time when you are engaging steel on a USPSA stage you have just entered or are about to exit a shooting position. The movement into and out of the shooting position while engaging steel targets is vastly more complex that simply standing in one place and blasting at plates like what is done in a steel challenge scenario.

The number one thing that kills people on steel in a USPSA stage is missing the steel as you enter or exit a shooting position and it forces you to reengage the target. Or you waste time confirming your hits by listening for the “Ding” or watch for it to fall. It comes down to respect of the shot. Just like when shooting paper. If you are aiming for “Brown” then who knows where your hits are going to land if anywhere. If you are aiming for the whole popper or plate then who knows where your hits are going to land? Pick a specific place on the Plate or Popper where you want to hit. Such as the exact center of the plate. Then even if you miss the exact center, you will still hit the plate/popper. Make sense? You will find that after practicing shooting specific places on the targets it does not take any more time to shoot at the specific location verses your old method of aiming for “Brown” or the whole plate/popper.