Ben Stoeger

[Ben Stoeger]

Area 3 video:

I didn’t shoot very well at all… and nothing really seemed to go my way… but I did have lots of fun. Improvement is obvious from the video. I am going to keep crackin away at my practice.

[Ben Stoeger]

I am back at my training, hot and heavy. I learned so much about what I can do, if I focus a little bit. I remember watching a couple much better shooters shoot one of the stages at Area 3.Each of them needed to fire an extra shot at one of the plates on the stage. I thought… “they left plenty of room”. I shot the stage without any doubt that I would win it, and sure enough I did. The converse was true on the stages I didn’t win.

I any event.. I am shooting a lot, working out a lot, and drinking lots of milk. I plan to fire another 5-6 k rounds in practice before nationals. I have two more majors coming up before then. I am expecting some real big strides in the next month.

[Z32MadMan]

What is your Black bullet load? OAL?

I'm finally getting into reloading and I'm looking at running BBI 147's as well.

[JThompson]

That's nice work Ben.

[Ben Stoeger]

What is your Black bullet load? OAL?

I'm finally getting into reloading and I'm looking at running BBI 147's as well.

I am running 3.4 gr Solo 1000 with 147gr Black Bullets loaded to 1.140 OAL

[Ben Stoeger]

I am heading out to the Wisconsin Section tomorrow.

I have set up a 5 week program for myself. It includes 25 sessions totaling 6000 rounds. I should have a very well rounded program going for myself.

I added a low port to my movement drill…. Because I suck at them:

Today I shot “lazy man standards” yet again. I find it immensely challenging… and I like that. =)

[schmitz]

Ben,

in your movement drill at what distance are the targets set?

with kind regards,

Henny.

[MemphisMechanic]

Knowing him, they're at 25 yards and plastered with noshoots.

[Ben Stoeger]

Ben,

in your movement drill at what distance are the targets set?

with kind regards,

Henny.

Here is a link straight to the drill:

"hoof it"

The targets are partials at 7 and 15 yards. =)

[Ben Stoeger]

Knowing him, they're at 25 yards and plastered with noshoots.

You give me way too much credit man!

Edited August 10, 2009 by Ben Stoeger

[Ben Stoeger]

I had the Wisconsin Section Match yesterday.

The match was VERY prop driven. They had movers on all but two stages. They had lots of other props as well... including a big platform that was constructed just for the match. Most of the stages had lots of stuff to remember and stuff to do. The shots were no difficult, so a good run on a stage required careful planning and making sure everything came together the way you needed it to. Some shooters missed critical shots on activators or screwed up a timing sequence. I didn't want that to happen to me.

Overall, I shot decent at the match. Most stages seemed to work out for me. As far as accuracy.. I didn't drop too many points. I had a few extras on steel, and I had some C's.. but no other problems.

I am back into my training today.

[schmitz]

Thx Ben,

next time I'll check your site esp. the Drill section.

Thanks for sharing knowlegde!

With kind regards,

a senior with ambition to reach EU-top in Open.

(edit: Senior-category)

Edited August 10, 2009 by schmitz

[The Antichrome]

Here is a link straight to the drill:

"hoof it"

The targets are partials at 7 and 15 yards. =)

I've learned sooo much from that drill and it's variations.

Edited August 12, 2009 by The Antichrome

[Ben Stoeger]

Another day, more training.

I shot 500 rds yesterday. Today I did 200 rds plus dry fire. I am having a blast in my training right now.

The Illinois Section Match should be pretty fun, and then it is on to Nationals. I am expecting nats to be a crazy tough accuracy match, so 30-40 yard partial targets are going to be a big focus for me in practice up until then. =)

[Shawn Knight]

See you at the Sectional Ben!!

[Ben Stoeger]

I have taken a junior shooter under my wing. I hooked him up with a gun, belt rig, dvds, books, and dry fire targets. Before a few weeks ago, he had never fired a gun. I hope to get him up to speed. He is motivated as hell, putting in 2 hours a day of dry fire since I got him the gun. He handles the gun safely. He is more accurate each time he shoots. He will be good some day if he sticks with it.

[Shawn Knight]

Very cool! Wish I had the same opportunity as a kid! I hope he does well!

[Ben Stoeger]

Shooting is going pretty well lately. I am shooting or loading or dryfiring all the freakin time. I had a fairly specific training plan going into nationals, but I am starting to think I should change it up. Most of my focus lately has been on moving better to cut down stage times. I am thinking very distant or tight shots would better serve me at this point. You really can never be too accurate in this game.

[Jake Di Vita]

Keep it constantly varied. See the dry-fire wods are back up and running strong?

[Ben Stoeger]

Keep it constantly varied. See the dry-fire wods are back up and running strong?

Yes I like them very much. The par times can be a little nutz, but what the hell right?

[Jake Di Vita]

Yeah, I want them to be tough to hit.

Intensity is key.

[CHA-LEE]

Ben> I just noticed in your last video how you rack the slide by grabbing it from the bottom. That is pretty wicked and I see that it allows you to rebuild your grip instantly with very minimal hand movement.

Did you develop this method of racking the slide because of its efficiency or due to how the Beretta slide is pretty much wide open and barrel exposed on the top? Or maybe both?

I just don’t see many people racking the slide that way so I thought I would ask. It seems to work very well for you though.

[Al Capizzo]

Henning had something about that slide rack method on his site. Pinches the front of the slide from underneath, then the support hand is almost in position for freestyle grip through the whole sequence. It is slick as long as you have front serrations on the slide.

[Ben Stoeger]

Ben> I just noticed in your last video how you rack the slide by grabbing it from the bottom. That is pretty wicked and I see that it allows you to rebuild your grip instantly with very minimal hand movement.

Did you develop this method of racking the slide because of its efficiency or due to how the Beretta slide is pretty much wide open and barrel exposed on the top? Or maybe both?

I just don’t see many people racking the slide that way so I thought I would ask. It seems to work very well for you though.

I didn’t develop this method… I have seen other people do it.

I do like it for the reasons you mentioned. I feel like I can get my grip fast and consistently charging the gun up this way. I never liked coming over the top of the gun. Beretta slides have the de-cocking knob in the way a little bit. It is uncomfortable to try and grab onto it. Like you pointed out, there isn’t really much room anywhere else to grab the gun.

If you run a light recoil spring and can grab the slide up front like that, I say try it.

[Ben Stoeger]

The last few days I have really been looking over my training year. I am part trying to figure out what I need to do to improve my shooting, and part trying to gauge the progress I have made this year. There have been a few persistent issues that I have been working on the last couple years, and I will address them in turn.

Accuracy: I have always trained hard on being as accurate as I can be. Extremely long shots sometimes give me trouble, but I always got the impression that they were tough for everyone, so I didn’t pay them too much attention. The 2008 nationals contained a handful of shots that I simply could not make on a repeatable basis under match conditions. I remember that it really pissed me off that I couldn’t do it. I worked on it. I retooled my whole grip to get better trigger control.

I have encountered a few tough shots this year. There were some full sized poppers at perhaps 40 yards at Area 3. They were not a problem for me. There were a few 20ish yard hard covered targets at the Minnesota section match. I was a little worried about them but cruised through with no penalties. In Texas I ran across an 18 yard target with a no shoot over 2/3 of the A zone. It was just like a target that I got 2 penalties on at nationals (the one at nationals was at 22 yards or so). I barely slowed down on the one in Texas.

I can remember those few tight shots from this year off the top of my head. I think that demonstrates how few and far between these targets are. I expect MANY of them at nationals. It really is going to be telling of my practice. I feel pretty good about my accuracy level, but then again I can always do better.

Reloading: Production shooters everywhere know that fast reloads are very important to good stage times. Every sloppy reload I have irritates me. I felt I had quite a few of them last year that were not great. Due to a change in the rules I was able to remove material from my mag well. That, along with lots of practice, has really helped me smooth out the bad reloads. I have seen a marked improvement this year over last.

Movement: Getting from one spot to another is where I lose tons of time to the top competitors in the sport. I worked it hard last fall, with good results. I kind of let this slide for most of the spring, due to working on stand and shoot type stuff. This proved to be a mistake, and I have been working on my ten week movement project for 8 weeks now. I have indeed seen improvement since I started that, but not as much as I would like. At the Wisconsin Section match a couple weeks ago, I remember one instance where I started moving so aggressively off one position that my feet slid through the dirt a little, even though I was wearing cleats. Pushing off hard like that is what I need to do more of. There was another instance at the match where I needed to reload as I moved, and I didn’t really get cranking with my movement until the reload was done. I am not happy with that at all, it is a bad habit and I need to do something about it. I would say that moving from point A to point B is my big weakness right now, and that is what I intend to spend lots of my time on.

Equipment issues: I switched from red fiber to green fiber in my front sight. The green isn’t as harsh in bright sunlight but brighter in low light. I find it much better all around and I like the change.

My match gun (I shoot a different gun in practice) felt like a cannon a few weeks ago at Area 3. I traced the problem to the recoil spring. After fixing it my gun felt really soft at the Wisconsin Section match. I shot awesome points and my splits at distance were much better. I feel kind of dumb for not getting that fixed sooner. There is enough weird stuff going on in matches that having my gun have a screwed up recoil impulse is downright crazy.

My match gun jammed on me this year. It is a first and I really hate it. The gun is getting a bit old, and maybe it is tired. If I can’t fix it then it gets to become a practice gun. We will see how the Illinois Sectional goes.

Overall… Big strides this year… but still lots of room to grow.