CHA-LEE's Tale

[eerw]

with the amount you are shooting..you will be rocking ... see ya sunday and monday

[CHA-LEE]

eerw> Thanks boss. I am giving it my best to get better and smooth out the rough edges. The only way that is going to happen is with more rounds and practice. Making “A” by December isn’t going to be easy, but I am up to the task.

[CHA-LEE]

I got ten static target stands and one swinger target stand put together. The static target stands were super easy to make and only cost me about $10 a piece to make in PVC pipe and fittings. I could have saved some more money on it if I got a really long tube of PVC but I didn’t have an easy way to haul it from the hardware store to home so I had to go with the smaller length pipes. The swinger target took a little more time and work to figure out. I made that out of PVC pipe as well and used sand inside the pipe as a weight bias for the target. It works pretty good but has a little bit of a lazy swing to it. I can add more weight to it later though if I want to make it swing faster. I want to give it a try as is first before I go changing it. I am going to give these bad boys a try on Saturday in practice to see how they hold up.

I am about ¾ the way though Brian Enos’s book and found some new nuggets of good information to try. The first is training myself to “Look off the shot”. He talks about building a correlation of mounting the gun and once you get the correct sight picture you finger automatically pulls the trigger. That makes total sense in shooting fast. Currently I see myself making two distinct steps in firing, first getting the sight picture and second thinking about and then pulling the trigger. These two operations would go a LOT faster if I was able to train myself to automatically pull the trigger as soon as I see an acceptable sight picture for a given shot. I will try automate this process in dry fire practice and see how it works out in live fire practice.

The other thing that I picked up is his reinforcement of just letting the shooting “Happen” after the buzzer goes off. Don’t try to do something, or force your actions, just let it happen. I have been able to let this happen more often than not lately but I would like to get to the point where it happens every time. I also like his points on going overboard with analyzing a stage. If you go way out of control with it you put yourself in the mode of forcing yourself to do something a certain way and when you are doing that, you are not just letting it “Happen”. Lately I have been breaking down stages a little differently. I have been thinking less about target engagement order and more about body placement. I know that if I place my body in the right place the targets will get shot in the correct order and speed. I think it’s a mind set difference between telling yourself “Do it this specific way” verses just saying “Do it”.

I have been watching some of Chris Tilley’s shooting video’s and I think he has a really good way of shooting on the move and keeping the gun high and up in his face when moving. I know that I have been lax on keeping the gun up close to my face while moving and will be working on that as well for Saturday’s practice. So my goals for Staturday’s practice is to try to “Look the shot off” and keep the gun up and close to my face while moving. That and try not to shoot up my new target stands

[CHA-LEE]

What a great weekend of shooting. I didn’t get a chance to do any practice on Friday as I had some other stuff come up. But on Saturday I was able to get some really good practice in with three other shooters. We put my new target stands to use and they worked great. The swinger target needs a little more weight on it as it swings a little too slow. But that is easily fixed. We setup a 24 rounds stage and ran though it a bunch of different ways. I focused on keeping my gun up while moving from one shooting position to another. I was able to execute on it pretty well. There were only a couple of times when the gun came down and those where with my mag changes, which need some more help too. I was able to hit my mag changes pretty smooth, but I was bringing the gun too far down to do them. I ran through 300 rounds and every round was well spent. Very productive practice session.

Sunday I attended a USPSA match and was able to setup one of the long field courses. It was a 32 round stage with mostly open targets and a lot of movement. There are about 15 of us going down to the Double Tap Championships in Texas at the end of the month so some “Hoser” practice was welcomed by all. I shot the match pretty good from a shooting pace and movement aspect. On one stage I had a complete brain fart and didn’t engage a target right next to a steel popper along with two other Mikes on the same stage. So four Mike’s on one stage pretty much sunk my chance for a decent finish overall. Then the Mike parade continued with three more on other stages, one here and there. Seven total Mikes for the day = craptacular performance from an accuracy standpoint. There was only one Mike that I called a Mike and sure enough, I didn’t make it up. It’s super frustrating doing that. All of the other Mikes were purely from accepting marginal sight pictures when calling my shots. They were all at the 10 – 15 yard distance where they take a little more patience for the sights to settle down and I just wasn’t taking the time to let myself see what I needed to see. Many lessons for me today but all good ones. I would rather have a hurting result in a club match and learn something verses do well and learn nothing. One really good aspect of the match is that I was able to shoot a 74% Classifier. Not an “A” classifier, but not chump change either. I had one “D” hit and a make up shot on a popper during the classifier and that really hurt my hit factor. Oh well, woulda coulda shoulda right? It would be nice to get a classifier where I am hitting on all cylinders though. I think I would be able to get a mid “A” result if I just put it all together. Sooner or later it will happen

[CHA-LEE]

The results from yesterdays performance have been posted. I finished 11th out of 22 Limited shooters. All of the Mikes really hammered my overall finish. I was still 71% of the person who won Limited, and that really surprised me. I figured my overall percentage would be a lot lower than that. There are a bunch of Master and “A” shooters that are really close in skill level at this match so the finishing results are tight. One screw up at the top and you drop down a couple of positions in finishing order. I was able to get some good footage of my shooting though and uploaded my best stage into YouTube. I finished 3rd overall on this stage which was really good for me given the competition. Now if I can only polish up those few hesitations while shooting…..

[CHA-LEE]

I got some good practice in today. We setup a USPSA style stage with two ports. Starting sitting down holding a hammer pointed at one of the ports with your weak hand you had to engage 4 targets though one port at close range and then engage 3 targets on the move to the second port then engage 4 more targets through it. My main goal in the practice was to break down the stage well enough to have my first run though it no slower than 1 second than the fastest time though it after doing it about 5 times. The first time though I had a time of 10.88 with mostly A hits with a couple of C’s. After running though it 5 times my time was consistently in the 10.5 or 10.6 range with a best time of 10.2 but that run had a couple of D hits from pushing the speed too fast. Overall I was really pleased with being able to run though the stage cold in about the same time as going though it multiple times. After that we ran it a couple of different ways, switching up the target engagement order and every other way produced a slower stage time. So it’s a double win for me to have picked the fastest way to shoot the stage the first time. By then a snow storm started rolling in and we packed up and left.

There is a USPSA match tomorrow that I am going to be attending. I look forward to shooting the match and will keep my focus on keeping the gun up and having more patience for the sight picture to eliminate the mikes. We will see…..

[CHA-LEE]

The match on Sunday was going really well up until the point where I had an AD during a mag change on the fifth of six stages. CRAP!!! The stage I had the AD on was a complete failure of me being able to have faith in my stage plan and stick with it. I programmed the stage the initial way I wanted to shoot it which had me start off taking a tight head shot blocked by a no shoot. Then churn through four open targets and then initiate my mag change as I move forward to the end of the stage to finish up the remainder of the targets. Doing it this way would have saved me one shooting position on the stage but at the cost of taking the slower/harder head shot. I watched a couple of the other shooters take the stage and they chose to engage the same head shot target further down in the course where it was opened up more to take a body shot, but was still blocked by the no shoot. It was an easier shot to take it later in the course but you had to pause half way though the course to take it, which takes time. Overall the time to take either shot was a wash in my mind so I was having a hell of a time flip flopping between both of the strategies. I tried to reprogram the mag change after going forward in the middle of the course but after the buzzer went off I blew past both mag change location and found myself standing at the next shooting location still not ready to go with the mag change. Big time panic mode set in as I was way behind schedule on the mag change. I went to push the mag release button aggressively and felt my trigger finger curling in and touching the trigger, even before the gun went off I knew I was in trouble because my finger was on the trigger during the mag change and what seems like a second later in my head, which was probably only a tenth or two in reality, the gun went off accidently. It went off down range in a safe direction so no one was even close to being in danger, which I am very happy for that. But it still sucks that I pushed myself into that situation. As soon as the gun went off during the mag release process I stopped and unloaded to show clear for the RO before he could even tell me to stop. I knew I had screwed up big time and was really frustrated with the situation and my actions. I couldn’t stop thinking of how and why my finger was in the trigger guard during the mag change. I know that when I went to push the mag release button the gun was way lower than normal and I was in a super hurry. I am going to do some mag change practice this week to try and recreate the failure mode to see where I am putting myself in this condition. I have to fix this as it is completely unacceptable to happen at any time or under any conditions. I know that I have been slacking off on my dry fire practice and tend to avoid doing mag changes during practice because I don’t like cleaning up the magazines after dumping them in the dirt. So I can see how my mag change skills have not gotten the proper attention they should. Time to go back to the drawing board on my dry fire and live fire practice, as with this AD it is obvious that what I am currently doing isn’t enough and allows unsafe situations to occur. I am really sorry for putting my fellow shooters in a dangerous situation due to my lack of training and attention. I feel more bad about that than anything else.

[eerw]

Charlie..

Shake it off and move on. Use the experience to learn and train from. you are advancing at an incredible rate and its fun to watch.

[CHA-LEE]

eerw> Thanks for the encouragement. I still feel like a jackass for allowing the situation to happen. I am not going to give up though. Lessons are best learned with failure I guess. I don’t know why I resist dry fire practice so much when I know it is probably my number one limiting factor is not producing “A” classifier results. One of the users here has a signature that states “Dry fire practice sucks. Embrace the suck”. That is such a true statement. I have to bear down and stick to a dry fire and live fire schedule that improves these basics. Once I am shooting I am good, but my draw and reloads are not so good and the only way to get better is to burn it in with dry fire practice. No one said it was going to be easy right?

[eerw]

nothing worthwhile is easy..

tell ya..my livefire practice is non-existent..which really needs to change a little..but I do a bunch more dryfire..

for me..that usually ends up walking down to my room, putting my belt on and doing draws, reloads and transitions..sometimes its 10 minutes, sometimes its 20-30. but I do usually get to do it at least once a day. So I guess bottom line..I do have a gun in my hand everyday..

[CHA-LEE]

I got some good dry fire practice in yesterday after work. My goal was to work on my reloads and draws. I have been using a couple of snap caps in each of my magazines for the dry fire practice but it seems “off” to me due to the light weight mags. Lots of fumbled reloads, missing the mag well and stuff like that when I was trying to do them at "match speed". Since I didn’t have any full weight dummy rounds built up I instead worked on doing the reloads in slow motion to watch the mechanics of the whole process. I was surprised to find that the best and smoothest mag change would happen when getting the mag from the second mag pouch. Going down to any of the mags is fine. But the swivel of my elbow down and pointing the mag up and into the mag well of the gun worked naturally the best from the second mag pouch position. Thinking that maybe my mag pouches were too far to the right I readjusted them to move them back to the left about an inch and a half. After doing that, the reloads from the first mag pouch were better, but still a little clunky. The second mag pouch position was still good though. Since everything felt a little strange with using empty mags I chose not to go crazy with readjusting the mag pouches on my belt. I am going to build up some dummy rounds tonight and use those for the reload practice as it will make the magazines the right weight and seat pressure in the gun.

I also tried to recreate the finger in trigger guard during the reload situation while doing the dry fire practice and I couldn’t repeat it. My finger seems to come out of the trigger guard automatically as soon as I break my grip apart and start pulling the gun back for the reload. I will continue to keep an eye on this though as I am curious to see what conditions are needed to recreate the situation that caused me to have an AD the weekend before.

Its interesting to observe the difference between doing draws and reloads with and without a timer though. When using a timer and waiting for the buzzer I can really feel the tension start to mount. Verses just doing it free style and telling yourself to “Go” in order to initiate a draw or mag change. I don’t know if this is a control thing or what. When I just do it on my own and tell myself to “Go” I know when that is going to happen, I know what my intentions are before they happen. With a timer its unknown when the buzzer is going to trip so there is really no way to anticipate when its going to start. This is strange because I don’t have the same tense feeling before I start a stage at a match. During a match I feel like I am staging myself to go but easily restraining my worry about when the buzzer is going to go off. I am not sure what to make of this situation in dry fire practice.

[CHA-LEE]

Lots of shooting this weekend. IDPA match tomorrow. USPSA match on Sunday and then another USPSA match on Monday. Should be a lot of fun

[CHA-LEE]

I shot an IDPA match today. I shot the “Outlaw” class because I used my normal USPSA Limited Division stuff. I shot the match as much as I could like a USPSA match, I just can’t force myself to retain my mags so I just took the penalties. I also got some no cover penalties while engaging series of targets but I really didn’t care. I also couldn’t force myself to turn one shooting position into 3 or 4 just to stay behind cover. The match was more restricting than a USPSA match so your shooting strategy was pretty much dictated by the stage description. Less creativity in the shooting for sure, but hay some people like that. My whole goal this match was to get my friend through his first match and new shooter training. He did great and seems hooked on practical shooting now that he has had a taste of it. Mission accomplished.

Back to normal for tomorrow, USPSA Match

[CHA-LEE]

I shot a USPSA match today. I was feeling pretty “ho hum” today and just couldn’t get into it. I was able to shoot the whole match with no scoring penalties (Misses, Noshoots, or stuff like that) so that tells me I was just going too slow and felt like I was in a fog most of the day. I had a couple bone head moments during the match which cost me about 6 seconds total in stage times, but I was able to call and make up a couple of misses which was nice. Even if I didn’t have the bone head moments my stage times wouldn’t have been up to par anyway given my lack of “Zest” during the stages. For such a lack luster performance on the regular stages I expected the classifier stage to be the same, not so. I was able to crank out an 81.5% performance on classifier 08-03 “Six” which was a simple turn and blast stage with two paper targets and two steel. That was super surprising to me, but I guess every dog has his day. We used the Palm Pilot scoring which is cool and make the show go by quickly. It is also nice because the results get posted on USPSA really fast. When I checked the results I wasn’t surprised to see that I finished 8th out of 15. Granted there were two GM’s and eight M’s shooting Limited that day, so I guess being a lowly “B” class shooter 8th isn’t too bad for a “shooting in the fog” performance. I only got about 4 hours of sleep the night before the match and I am sure that is what kept me in a fog during the match. Maybe it just wasn’t happening for me today? I don’t know. All I know, is that some days you are on and some days you are off. This was one of my off days.

The results from the Saturday IDPA match have been posted and I was really surprised to see that I finished high overall out of 56 shooters even with all of the donkey punch penalties I got assessed for shooting it “USPSA Style”. Given the lower skill level of the shooters I saw at the match, I wasn’t surprised that my stage times were a lot faster. But I thought for sure that all of the penalties would add up and blow my score out of the water. Interesting for sure, but I don’t think I will be back any time soon. Its just not my cup of tea. Some people really enjoy shooting IDPA and I can understand how different matches attract different shooters. To each their own though. I will stick to USPSA matches as that is what I have the most fun with.

I have been shooting the 171 PF load I put together for the Double Tap Championship later this month and am pleased to see that it really does not shoot any different than the 166 PF stuff I had been shooting. The 171 PF stuff shoots fine and I am not seeing any evidence of overpressure issues or accuracy issues so that makes me feel pretty comfortable with shooting it down in Texas at the Double Tap. I am really looking forward to that match. Wide open hoser targets sounds like so much fun, I can’t wait.

Well, I am going to attend an indoor USPSA match tomorrow evening after work. This match is cool because they almost always have some box to box movement stuff which I always need more practice with. I am trying to get as much practice as I can get before heading down to the Double Tap. Hopefully all of this pays off when I get down there. I just need to make sure I get some good rest or the “Foggy shooting” mode, might set in again.

[eerw]

that is a good limited field...

great to learn from...

how was the match..always trying to drag myself up that way..

see ya tomorrow night.

[CHA-LEE]

eerw> The match was great. The stages were challenging and had a good mixture of fast close targets and far away hard targets. You had to earn it to shoot all of the stages clean. The crew at Weld put on a great show and its fun shooting up there. Its a long way for me to make it up there and at least another hour on top of that for you guys in the springs. Its not a surprise that there are rarely any "south" shooters making it to the Weld matches because of the distance. I guess I am lucky to live pretty much in the middle of all the ranges that host USPSA matches. Its pretty much the same distance to all of the ranges for me.

[CHA-LEE]

The USPSA match last night went well. Two stages both 20 rounds each. Three shooting boxes and a mixture of open and no shoot blocked targets. The first stage was full light and execution on moving in and out of the boxes as you are engaging the first/last target in the string were key. I was a little slow getting out of the first and second boxes but I shot the stage clean with no “D” hits. On the last shooting box I had one called miss that I made up fairly quickly. I think I only lost maybe .2 - .3 tenths of a second making it up. Lingering in the shooting boxes a little too long added about a second to my time. I finished third on the stage being 91% of the stage winner. The second stage was essentially the same stage but with the lights turned way down. They pulled a few of the targets up closer but overall the stage was pretty much the same thing. You could barely see your sights against the targets so a heavy reliance on your shooting index and point shooting was needed. I shot this stage clean with one “D” hit but a lot more “A” hits than the previous stage. On the last string I called a miss on the same target as last time because I thought I pulled the shot into the hard cover so I made up the shot, but also did it quickly not losing much time. When I looked at the target which I made up my called miss on the “Miss” was half in the black and half in the brown in the “A” box and the make up round was right in the center of the “A” box. Given how dark it was I was just glad to get all of my hits as seeing a clear sight picture on each shot was out of the question. Much to my surprise I ended up winning the stage overall. Many shooters had misses or pulled shots into no shoots or hard cover on the low light stage so I knew that if I could slow down a notch and get my hits I could get a decent result. Patience pays off I guess. I ended up winning Limited division that night and regardless of my finishing placement against other shooters I was really happy with putting together some solid stage runs. It’s a good moral booster to know that it can all come together at least once in a while.

Lots of match shooting this past weekend. I will focus on doing some more solid dry fire practice this week and get ready to do it all over again next weekend. The one thing I did notice this weekend is that my sunglasses dull the green front sight fiber optic quite a bit. I didn’t notice this until there was a little bit of cloud cover on Sunday and I switched back to my normal glasses and shot a stage. After I was done with the stage I was like “WOW, I was able to see the front sight a lot easier for some reason”. I am going to try swapping to a red fiber optic to see if that looks more pronounced with my sunglasses on. I like chipping away at the subtle details of my setup trying to perfect it one match at a time.

[CHA-LEE]

I did some dry fire practice yesterday with my sunglasses and the red fiber optic front site. The red FO does bring my eyes to it faster and easier than the green FO. It will be interesting to see how it works at the match this weekend. Hopefully my dry fire practice this week will get me use to it. Without my sunglasses it seems too bright and overwhelming, but I think that is a trade off I may have to live with as most of the time when I am shooting I have my sunglasses on.

[CHA-LEE]

I got some good practice in today with my shooting buddy. We did some point shooting testing to see how far away we could point shoot the targets before the accuracy started way down hill. We setup three USPSA targets about a foot apart then setup four shooting positions. The first shooting position was 5 yards, then 10, 15, and 20 yards. The goal was to log a shooting speed time standard at the 5 yard line and then keep the shooting time the same at all of the other shooting positions. We shot each position at least three times to get a good average for results in both time and scored hits. At the 5 yard line I was able to get all “A” hits in 2.3 seconds. So the time standard of 2.3 seconds was set and used on all of the other shooting positions. I was able to get mostly “A” hits with a “C” hit here or there at the 10 yard line. Moving back to the 15 yard line is where the hits started to go down hill. I was able to get most of my hits on the targets, not so stellar hits, but I would get one miss about 50% of the time. If I slowed down a little and called my shots I was able to bring my accuracy back, but that wasn’t the point of this test. My testing showed me that I can successfully point shoot up to 10 yards away from a standing position. I would have never realized this if I had not tired it. So that was a huge win for me. I look forward to putting this to use in the match tomorrow where I can.

After the point shooting training/testing we setup a 26 round stage with some movement, a port and a bunch of blocking no shoot targets. My goal was once again to shoot the stage in the same time cold as I do the second or third time through. My first run through was a 10.95 second run with all of my hits. The second time through I engaged the final three targets in a different order which saved me a couple of tenths of a second. Other than that I couldn’t pick up any more time on the stage. This was good for me to be able to pick close to the best shooting order of the targets and run though it cold in the same time as I did on multiple runs.

After the stage practice we pulled down the port wall and one other blocking no shoot target so we could shoot all of the targets form one shooting position. It was fun running through the targets super fast all in one string. I will be attending a match next month that has 60+ round stages and I have never shot more than 35 – 40 rounds in one stage run in practice or a match so I figured that I would go all out and run through a bunch of rounds all at once. Armed with 80 rounds on my belt, my goal was to run through all 13 targets with 2 rounds each multiple times until all of my rounds have found their new home in the back stop. My shooting buddy video taped this run of 78 rounds and the YouTube video link is listed below. I think I did pretty good at keeping my shooting pace steady and I did notice that on the final string of targets my trigger finger was starting to get a little tired. All told it took me 24 seconds to saw through all of the rounds and out 78 shots I had 4 no shoots and 2 misses. All of the other rounds made it on the targets, with the vast majority of them in the “A” or “C” scoring zones. It was awesome to blast through all of those rounds and I will have to do it again some time soon. I think I am up to the task on the 60+ round stages next month.

78 Rounds of Fury

[CHA-LEE]

USPSA Match today. The start of the match was rocky for me as I had a case separate half way through the first stage. It was unexpected and jammed the gun pretty good so I just stopped on the stage and took the hit on FTE’s, Mikes and what not for the rest of the stage. The extractor got wiped out by this case separation so I had to replace it. I was able to get the extractor replaced and it was back in action for the rest of the stages. The rest of the stages went pretty good for me, we had six total stages and I only had one mike and one no shoot out of all the stages. Almost all of the long stages required a lot of shooting on the move and for some reason it just clicked for me today. I felt really confident in my shooting on the move skills and it showed in my stage times and hits. I am sure that with the critical malfunction on the first stage took me out of contention for a decent overall finish in Limited, but as they say “Shit Happens”. I was able to put my new point shooting strategy into play today as well and that was nice to see some good results and much saved time on the stages. Its nice to see a new skill be executed well at a match.

Next week is the Double Tap Championships and I believe that I am ready for it. My goal is simply to get all of my hits and to not do anything super retarded. I really don’t care how I finish in the match, I just want to have fun and experience it.

[CHA-LEE]

This past weekend I shot practice and a match with a red fiber optic in the front sight. I was able to see it better with my sunglasses on but I think that it was still a little too distracting. My shots were going a little high on almost all of the stages and I think this was due to me lining up the center of the fiber optic against top plane of the rear sight. I had done this before when I tried using the standard red fiber optic sight that came with the EAA pistol and it looks like I am doing the same thing with this. For whatever reason, my brain processes the sight picture strange and calls it a good shot when the FO is on the top plane of the rear sight instead of the top of the front sight being aligned with the top of the rear sight. So back to the Green FO to dull it back down to keep me from processing the sight picture wrong.

I would really like to try a front and rear sight that has FO as I think it would be easier for me to process that and align them quickly. There are no FO rear sights available for my EAA pistol yet so I will just have to wait on that.

I am going to put the Green FO back in and test fire it some time this week to make sure everything is ready to go for the Double Tap this coming weekend.

[shooterbenedetto]

Charlie,

Sounds like your are going too "fast" Either in your mental or physical, if you are getting misses on stages.

We need to crawl and walk first before we can run.

Get all your hits and fast will come in time with more PROPER practice.

Execute all your teqnique at local matches then review your shooting.

SB

Edited March 23, 2009 by shooterbenedetto

[CHA-LEE]

shooterbenedetto> I was getting all of my hits using the red FO this past weekend. I only had one Mike on a swinger that I should have given more patience on and then I nicked a No shoot. With the red FO I was noticing that all of my hits were on average about 4 - 6 inches above where they should have been, where I called them. When I shot the gun after the match slow fire, focusing on the sight alignment, it was hitting exactly where I wanted it to, so the physical sight alignment wasnt off. I know it sounds strange, but for some reason when the FO is very pronounced I start aligning the center of the FO on the level plane of the rear sight. Its still centered the way it should be, its just higher than it should be so my hits were going high.

I don't know what causes this either as I can shoot it correctly when I shoot slow. But when I shoot at stage speed I start lining up the FO dot on the level plane of the rear sight. I don't want to monkey rig it and change the height of the rear sight to make this new sight alignment "work" as it seems like a bandaid. I would rather use a more dull FO that still brings my attention to the front sight quickly but allows me to use the outter edges of the sight for alignment.

[eerw]

same thing happens to me.

at speed..my eye aligns the FO with the top of the rear sight.. you know..shiny things..

when you slow fire..your attention is placed at aligning the top of the front sight with the top of the rear..

what works for me..

black on black..no loss of speed in my practices between the two.

gunsmith the FO closer to the top of the front sight..so alignment of the FO with the top of the rear works.

this was pretty cool..but I saw no gain in my practice times..so let the black on black continue.

what I have seen lately..and want to give this a try.

FO front, FO rear...line up shiny things.. have seen several shooters now with this arrangement..and would like to try it.

[shooterbenedetto]

shooterbenedetto> I was getting all of my hits using the red FO this past weekend. I only had one Mike on a swinger that I should have given more patience on and then I nicked a No shoot. With the red FO I was noticing that all of my hits were on average about 4 - 6 inches above where they should have been, where I called them. When I shot the gun after the match slow fire, focusing on the sight alignment, it was hitting exactly where I wanted it to, so the physical sight alignment wasnt off. I know it sounds strange, but for some reason when the FO is very pronounced I start aligning the center of the FO on the level plane of the rear sight. Its still centered the way it should be, its just higher than it should be so my hits were going high.

I don't know what causes this either as I can shoot it correctly when I shoot slow. But when I shoot at stage speed I start lining up the FO dot on the level plane of the rear sight. I don't want to monkey rig it and change the height of the rear sight to make this new sight alignment "work" as it seems like a bandaid. I would rather use a more dull FO that still brings my attention to the front sight quickly but allows me to use the outter edges of the sight for alignment.

You should get 95% to 98% of the hits..no more no less. Its hard but its the correct way.

Otherwise you are in the same band wagon as the rest of us. I know I went speed first before

hits. Now I went from Master class back to B class..slowly creeping back up the correct way.

It sucks becuase I now have to overcome bad habits.