CHA-LEE's Tale

[CHA-LEE]

I had LASIK back in April... Love it - where are you having it done! I was nervous too, but all went well.... And it is wierd not to wear glasses.. good luck!

Thanks for all of the good advice!!!

My back is doing much better today. I can now move around and do a little bit of bending for things without the feeling of an ice pick stabbing into my lower back. Even though it feels better I am going to take it easy for the rest of this week to keep from going overboard and making it worse. Back injuries SUCK!!!

On another note, I called and made my appointment for Lasik eye surgery for Jan 29th. I am a little worried about the process but the track record of this surgery is awesome. It will be odd to not need glasses to see.

I am having it done at Spivak. I did a lot of research and his place seems to be one of the best. There are cheaper places than Spivak but to me it seems strange to "Bargain Shop" when it comes to surgery on your eyes. They have the latest equipment for doing the surgery so that is a big plus as well. I am more than willing to pay a premium to have it done right the first time. Verses save a couple hundred dollars and not be 100% sure what you are getting.

[Spikagirl]

Yup, yup. I had it done and Hines Sight... I had 4 opinions from places of varying prices and "feel"... I did not go with the cheapest - but also did not go with the most expensive. I am sure you will like it... Just be sure to get plenty of drops before the surgery - and it has to be preservative free... I was very careful for 3 months after to be sure not to get any dirt in my eyes and to make sure that I did not rub them. Good luck and keep us posted!

LA

I am having it done at Spivak. I did a lot of research and his place seems to be one of the best. There are cheaper places than Spivak but to me it seems strange to "Bargain Shop" when it comes to surgery on your eyes. They have the latest equipment for doing the surgery so that is a big plus as well. I am more than willing to pay a premium to have it done right the first time. Verses save a couple hundred dollars and not be 100% sure what you are getting.

[CHA-LEE]

The winter months are upon us here in Colorado which is basically a forced break from shooting. This has given me a lot of time to think about my shooting and where I want to be in the future. First, I think that the proverbial training wheels are off and I am able to form my own presence in this game. This is a big mental step forward going from “This is all new and strange, what do I do?” to “You know the drill, get it done!!!”. This mental advancement forces me to start thinking about some real tangible goals for the 2010 shooting season. I have been somewhat aimless in my performance goals the last few months. I would explore whatever tangent my shooting took me and I can see that starting to take over some of my match performances. This kind of stuff should be explored in specific live fire practice sessions, not matches. With no defined goals its been hard to gauge where I am at, or where I want to be.

After a lot of thinking I have set my main 2010 goal to being able to shoot at a solid GM level by the end of 2010. This is a very lofty goal and will not be easy to obtain, but the way I see it performance goals shouldn’t be “easy”. They should force you to fight and claw for every ounce of improvement. The only issue I have with this goal is that it will be hard to quantify 100% achievement. For example, earning a GM card does not make you a solid GM shooter. The same could be said for winning local matches or comparing your performance to other shooters as anyone can have a “Good” or “Bad” day at a match. I think the only way to really validate it is to give myself an honest objective but critical evaluation of my skill level at the end of the year.

Now that my sights are set on this 2010 goal I feel ready for the challenge. I also realize that what I am currently doing for practice will not suffice. Many changes will have to be made to focus on my weaknesses and turn them into strengths. Even when they may be boring things to do, like dry fire or a structured live fire practice schedule that regularly exercises the fundamentals. I also need to get some one on one training from a top GM. The list goes on and on…….

What do you guys think? Am I nuts? Or do you think I have a fighting chance?

[CocoBolo]

CHA-LEE - I think that you have come a long way in a short time. The better you get the harder it is to improve so you are right you will need to work hard at it to move up. You seem to be a serious shooter so stick with it, there are some top guys in your area take the opportunity to get some training.

Motivation is sometimes hard to come by when that happens I sign up for a major match then I start serious practice for that match.

Double Tap isn't that far off maybe you should think about it, let me tell you I shot it last year and its a great match. It is a speed shoot with close open targets but lots of speed bumps.

[CHA-LEE]

CocoBolo> Thanks for the feedback, I appreciate it. It will be a long up hill battle, but it will be fun.

I shot the Double Tap match last year and will be there again this year. Its a great match and a lot of fun to shoot. We will have to meet up out there during the match!!!

[CHA-LEE]

I am going to get some live fire practice in tomorrow. Its still up in the air on weather we are going to have a USPSA match this weekend due to the snow we have been getting. So some shooting is better than none in my book. My back is almost back to normal so this practice will be a good test to make sure I am ready for match speed shooting and movements without being in pain. I am still going to take it easy on lifting stuff though, so if we do have a match this weekend I might be limited to doing the easy stuff. I will do my best to help with what I can. That’s all I really can do.

On the 2010 goal front I am making some planning progress. I have contacted Ron Avery from the Practical Shooting Academy and we are in the initial steps of hammering out a training plan that we can work through out the year. I am excited to work with Ron on achieving my goals. I have seen him shoot locally and he is a phenomenal shooter. I have not taken a class from him before but from what others have said he is a really good teacher. I think consistent evaluation and guidance by a trainer like Ron is the only way I can expect to achieve my goal by the end of the year. Right now we are tentatively planning on starting in early February. The only limitation I will have is my Lasik eye surgery as I am getting that done on the 29th of Jan and it will take at least a couple of weeks to heal up enough to be able to shoot. So a mid Feb start is probably more realistic. We will see how it goes. Either way I am excited about tackling this challenge.

[CHA-LEE]

Well….. I got a little too hammered on New Years eve so on Friday morning, when I was suppose to go do some live fire practice I was instead praying to the porcelain god in my bath room. It was a rugged morning for sure. I eventually got back to some semblance of normal so I headed out to do some live fire practice with friends. I was not able to shoot well but it was nice to get some rounds down range. It was interesting to shoot in a less than optimal physical state.

Today we went out again to do some more live fire practice. We decided to setup some stages and shoot the practice session like it was a match. We all agreed to shoot Limited 10 to force reloads during the stage runs as well. We would set the stage up, break it down, program the stage, and then shoot it once. Then we would take down the time and score the targets to figure out the hit factor. If a specific section of the stage gave us issues we would shoot that section again, but not for score. We were able to shoot 5 different stages and ran through about 150 rounds. I had a miss on one stage due to shooting too fast and not respecting the shots on a close fully open target. But the main battle for me today were reloads and draws. My reloads were horrible all day. I think I am suffering the bane of changing my method of reloading and am currently between both methods. A lot more dry fire practice on reloads is going to be needed for sure. On the draws, I didn’t feel confident with the draw so I would either be too conservative or “TRY” to go fast and botch the grip making it even worse. Both things were frustrating for sure. But overall my shooting and movement through the stages was pretty solid which is nice. My back also didn’t give me any issues so that was good as well.

The match tomorrow is canceled so no shooting tomorrow. Old man winter strikes again. I am planning on shooting the Monday night indoor USPSA match so that is when I will get my next match fix.

[CHA-LEE]

Indoor match last night. It was really nice to shoot a match as its been a while. The first stage was a 22 round box to box endeavor with three boxes and almost every target blocked up to the A-zone with no-shoots or hard cover. The few open targets were just far enough out to keep you from going hoser crazy as well. So this stage came down to who could be patient enough to get solid hits and not settle for no-shoots or poor points. More points based verses time based in my mind. I planned on shooting the whole stage without performing a reload as my gun can hold 21+1 but this ended up being a bad plan because I didn’t plan on doing a reload. At the start, on the first string of targets, I called and made up a D hit with an A, but then that blew my one for one 22 shot run. This had me panicking a little bit because I had not planned for doing a reload and then did one between the first and second box. This indecision and less than optimal reload/movement while doing it probably cost me at least half a second on the stage run. Since you never know when you are going to make up a called poor shot I should have just planned on doing a reload whether I needed it or not. I shot the stage well with one D hit and down 10 total points for the stage. My time wasn’t as good as I wanted but I would rather be a little slower and get solid points verses going a second faster and end up with misses, no-shoots, or a boat load of D’s.

The second stage of the night was Classifier 99-55 called Peek-A-Boo No-Shoots. The only way to get a high % run on this classifier is to shoot it at full speed with zero hesitation. Definitely a Hero or Zero type of classifier. I decided to shoot only as fast as I could call my shots and not worry about going fast. At the tone I botched my strong hand grip during the draw and tried to shoot the first string in this funky grip state which rewarded me with a SOLID no-shoot hit. After the reload I made up the miss and finished strong, but the damage was already done both in time and in points. This is an interesting stage to shoot in a match. It makes you want to go into Hero mode to get a good classifier run, but if you are off even a little bit it can turn in to a Zero run and sink your overall match performance. The risk verses reward balance on this an interesting dilemma. Do you want to go balls out and try to get a home run classifier but risk sacrificing your match if you crash and burn or take the conservative rout and get a solid run that you know will not make a difference to your classification? I chose the later rout as I have been trying to get more consistent overall match results verses trying to burn down stages.

Overall it was an “Ok” performance last night. I like that I was able to reign in the hoser monkey and get solid hits on the first stage. I also like that I chose to shoot the classifier within my abilities. The main thing that I didn’t like were the poor draws/grips. I am feeling the pain of switching holsters and need to relearn how to draw solidly with the new one. I am not going to give up on the blade tech holster as swapping it isn’t the real fix. I need to fix my mechanics to work with the holster. Not band aid my poor mechanics by using a holster that allows you to be more sloppy.

I have my first Training meeting with Ron Avery tonight so I am eager to see where this goes. The way I see it, even if I am not able to achieve my main goal of shooting as a solid GM by the end of 2010 I will still be better off than I am now. All I can do is take it one step at a time.

[CHA-LEE]

Saturday I got some live fire practice in with some friends. We setup stages and shot each one once for score. I chose to shoot L-10 again to force reloads during the stage runs. These practice matches are good for exercising the breakdown and programming of the stages then forcing yourself to execute in top form only once. I had solid stage runs all day and only had a couple of minor issues. I shot 150 rounds and had a good time shooting with friends. Its days like this that make shooting so fun!!!

[CHA-LEE]

I a USPSA match this Sunday and it was a fun but long day. We didn’t get done shooting until about 3PM which is fairly late compared to other matches. This range is an hour and a half drive from home so it makes the day that much longer as well.

We ended up with a monster squad of 17 shooters but some how the lowest on the shooting order I ended up was 5th with most of the stages being 2 – 4 to shoot. This kind of screwed me on getting really solid stage plans, but this is just another piece of match experience gained. I should have told them to put me at the bottom of the list when I didn’t have a solid stage plan. I will do this the next time it happens to me. Listed below are the stages I shot and my thoughts while shooting them. I was able to video all of the stage runs and upload them to YouTube.

Stage 3 – 20 Round stage with Texas star and 5 mini poppers. I shot this stage differently than everyone else because I was tall enough to shoot over some blocking no-shoots that blocked the extreme right and left paper targets. Alternately I could have shot the star from the barrel position, three poppers and two paper from the left port and three paper and two poppers from the right port. The right side port was REALLY low and most everyone would have to take a knee and hunch down very low to see/shoot the targets. Since I am a big bastard it would have been a lot harder for me to get down in that really low position verses shoot over the no shoots. I shot the stage 1 second slower than another shooter that shot everything one for one and didn’t do a reload going to all three positions. To me, not doing a reload was too risky and I am glad I didn’t as I had more make up shots than I had rounds for a non-reload run. To me, the stage plan I chose wasn’t any “Better” than the other from a time perspective but for me a lot better in not having to scrunch down into the last shooting position. The strangeness in this run is after shooting the star and transitioning to the right, I started to drop my weak hand down for a mag change and then bring it back up because it wasnt time for it. Then my reload is funky/slow because I am jammed up in the shooting position. If I would have taken a more relaxed and patient approach to this stage I could have shot everything one for one and not done a reload saving at least 2 – 3 seconds on the run.

Stage 4 – 26 Round Stage with two lazy swingers activated by the step pad, with lots of static paper. I got to look at this stage before the match but didn’t settle on a solid plan. There were a bunch of different ways to shoot the stage so I was not sure which way was best. When we got to the berm I was the second shooter and only got to see the timing of the swingers once. The shooter before me had a terrible run that was like 5 times longer than a normal run so no good information could be gleaned from it either. I was forced to pull together a battle axe style stage plan that had me shooting all but 4 targets from one position with a standing reload. I had one miss on this stage and it was on the second target engaged (diagonal hard cover) where my hit was right in the middle of the A-zone but an 1/8th of an inch into the back. I can somewhat live with that miss as I called it a good hit and missed the mark only slightly in the A-zone. But getting a miss on this stage mixed with the hurting stage plan pretty much sunk this stage. Surprising to me through, my stage time was faster than most of the other Limited shooters on my squad. After watching the other shooters run this stage I think I could have shaved off at least 2 seconds on the run by shooting it slightly different and doing my reload as I moved forward to the step pad.

Stage 5 – Classifier 99-02 called Night moves. Three strings of fire, Free Style, SHO, then WHO. I felt like I shot this classifier OK, but still had some movement issues. On the Free style string I was driving the gun too hard to the next target and had a bounce at the end of the last few transitions. On the SHO run I don’t think I could have shot that any better. I wish that I had the same smooth transitions in my free style run. On the WHO run, I had a delay in flipping off my safety and that translated into fishing for my sights on the first target which wasted time. I can live with the rest of the string. The thing that didn’t even occur to me while shooting the WHO string was the extreme right side cant of the gun. Holly crap, it looks like I am a tug doing a drive by in Compton. I don’t know why I do that much of a cant when shooting WHO. Maybe bringing the sights to my right eye? Maybe trying to shoot from a more “Natural” wrist position? Either way I ended up with A’s and some C’s on this run which netted me an 89% classifier run nationally. I don’t think I could shoot the strings any faster, but I do know that I could shoot them more accurately which would really help the HF.

Stage 6 – 20 round Run & Gun stage. You had to shoot all of the targets through a port on this stage and with there being all paper that was fairly close I loaded up to 22 in the gun and didn’t do a reload. My goal for this stage was to “Mosey” through the stage shooting everything on the move at a nice controlled pace but keep shooting the whole time. Almost everyone else was doing the “Run to a port, shoot fast, then run to another port and shoot fast” plan but to me that had too much dead time and would trap you into shooting too fast. I felt like I shot this stage pretty good and had the best time in Limited in my squad by about 1.5 seconds. I did end up with a miss on the first target going into the second port. I called the second shot on the target “Marginal” but was already moving past it being presented and hoped that the hit would be there. At the end of the run the hit wasn’t there which pretty much sunk this run. This could have been the home run stage for me of the match up to this point, but the miss ruined it. I had a couple of hits just inside the D-zone in the last shooting position and I know that was due to shooting too fast while on the move. Even though I had the miss, I am proud of this run and being able to have the confidence to shoot it this way when everyone else was taking the safer “Shoot, run, shoot, run” strategy.

Stage 1 – 22 round wall stage. You started with your unloaded gun and all loading devices on the barrels. Since the stage was 22 rounds you had to do a reload during the stage. Its hard to explain what happened on this stage. At this point in the day it was getting late and I felt like I was getting too serious about the match so I decided to just have fun on this stage and do some blasting. Lots of extra make up shots on this stage as I was shooting too fast and calling marginal shots that needed to be made up. Then when I shot SHO around the wall I experienced a vary strange situation where I couldn’t see my sights clearly due to the shadow of the wall so I slung 3 shots at each target and still ended up with a miss. Looking back at this it should have been a very important hint to change my glasses to clear lenses instead of using my dark sunglasses. It was getting late in the day and the sun was getting low on the horizon and it was slightly blocked by clouds. Even with all of the extra shots my stage time was good for this stage. If I didn’t have the miss I would have owned all of the other Limited guys on my squad. The miss made my run about even with the other guy’s clean runs.

Stage 2 – 26 round some what run and gun stage. This was the last stage of the day. From a physical standpoint I was pretty tired. The sun was a lot lower in the sky and almost all of the targets were shaded by the berm walls. I felt like I shot this stage very solidly and my stage time was 2+ seconds faster than everyone else shooting Limited on the squad. Then they started scoring it and I had two misses. I was HONESTLY shocked to hear that I had any misses much less two. The first miss was on the first target to the left after leaving the port. Then the second miss was on the target after the reload which I called a miss on and performed a make up shot. I do remember that my sights were not as crisp as before but didn’t realize that it would affect my hits that much. I also had 3 D hits on this stage inside the port. 90% of the time, if I call a D hit I will make it up. But all of these shots were called “good”. So I think that the main failure mode here was due to me wearing my dark sunglasses and most of the targets being in the shade. Dark Glasses + Dark lighting Conditions + Black Sights = can’t see so good. It really sucks that I screwed up this stage by wearing the wrong glasses. This would have been a rock star stage run if I was able to get all my hits.

Summery – Overall this was a strange match for me. I felt like my movement through the stages was good but with 5 misses for the day that is totally hurting. It does not matter what the stage times are if you are missing. Same lesson, different day. The scores for the match have not been sent out yet so I am not sure where I ended up overall. But with all the misses I am sure its not going to be good.

[eerw]

looks like everyone had a so-so day.. must be the layoff of Dec. and getting soft from the holidays.

keep chargin' hard. had did your first session with Ron go??

[CHA-LEE]

eerw> The first session with Ron went really well. Lots of mind expanding stuff to think about. He wants me to start with optimizing the draw which is good because mine currently sucks. I will be working on that this week in Dry Fire. LOTS of work to do, but it will all pay off in the end. I am excited to learn and get better so its a really cool experience.

[CHA-LEE]

I was able to do some dry fire practice last night. I mainly worked on the draw to first shot using a par timer. I focused on bringing the gun up and out in a consistent way that allowed me to build my weak hand grip earlier so the gun was solid and sights fully aligned by the time the gun was fully mounted. The thing I noticed is that if I took a little more time to get a solid strong hand grip on the gun before pulling it out of the holster the sights would be aligned better when the gun was fully mounted and the draw/shot was about the same time as trying to get the gun up and out ultra fast with a scoop type of draw then end up fishing for the sights to align when it was fully mounted. I have been doing the scoop type draw for a while now so its going to be hard to retrain myself to do it the other way. But that is the only way I am going to get better and more consistent with the draw.

I am planning on doing some more draw practice this Saturday after the match. It will be interesting to see if the par times vary from dry fire verses live fire.

[CHA-LEE]

Lots of fun shooting this weekend. I shot two USPSA matches this weekend and also did some live fire practice after the match on Saturday. Here is the breakdown of my matches…

Saturday Match

Stage 1 – This was the first stage of the day and was the long field course for the match. There was only one good way to shoot the stage so there wasn’t much decision making needed. But you had to hit some precise locations entering and exiting the middle section of the stage so that took a good amount of planning to burn in the plan. I shot the stage pretty good but was shooting a little too fast and needed three make up shots to get good hits. All of the shots I made up were D hits so it was good to make them up. Most everyone else ended up with at least one miss on this stage and a slower time so this was a home run stage for me. Nice way to start off the match.

Stage 2 – This was a medium length stage with quite a bit of different options on how to shoot it. I picked a plan that kept me advancing through the COF as best as possible as I was shooting. The front section was 8 paper targets and then the back section was 5 poppers and four more paper. I shot the front section great then went to reload while advancing to the back section and completely botched the reload dropping the magazine. So I had to go for my backup magazine and by then I was in the “HURRY UP, YOU ARE BEHIND SCHEDULE!!” mode of shooting and it was a disaster. I had at least 5 misses on the steel because I was shooting too fast trying to make up lost time. The only saving grace here is that I didn’t have any penalties but that combined with a hurting stage time (about 5 seconds off the pace) didn’t do me any favors.

Stage 3 – This is where I sunk my match. This stage was a “U” shape of fully open targets with two at the far back that were laying down and half covered with hard cover. You started with the gun unloaded on a barrel in front of you so you had to load, rack, then start shooting. You could shoot all of the targets from the back of the COF, or you could advance forward and shoot them closer and faster. I assumed that the best way to shoot the stage was to shoot it all from the back and didn’t really think about any better ways of shooting it. That combined with being the second person to shoot the stage didn’t open my eyes to a better way of shooting it. I shot it all from the back and ended up with three misses. One miss on a far back open target, shooting too fast, then one miss on each hard cover target with the miss about a quarter inch in the black. Shooting it all from the back also gave me a slower stage time by a second. Three misses and a slow time for a 28 round stage = hurting overall match result.

Stage 4 – This was a fun standards style stage that had two strings of fire. First string was 6 rounds on a close target freestyle, reload, then 6 rounds on a far target strong hand only. Second string was 6 rounds on a close target freestyle, reload, then 6 rounds on a far target weak hand only. A lot of people where screwing up this stage royally with either shooting too many or not enough rounds at the targets or getting misses when shooting SHO/WHO. So a solid execution while getting your hits would net you a decent stage run. I shot the first string well. Then on the second string after the reload I went to SHO instead of WHO, but I caught myself before I shot and switched hands. But that cost me at least a second and a stage win.

Stage 5 – Last stage of the match which was also the classifier 99-33 called Raw Deal. At this point in the match I knew my overall match results were going to suck so I would give it my all for the classifier. I wasn’t putting myself in a “Hero or Zero” mode of thinking, but I was allowing myself to shoot as fast as I wanted. I shot the stage ok, one D-zone hit, but absolutely rocked my reload with gave me a rocking stage time. I ended up with a 92% national run on this classifier. If I didn’t have the D zone hit it would have been a GM run. Oh well…

I asked the club to leave stage 2 up so I could do some live fire practice with it after the match. I shot this stage again for fun and shot it 5 seconds faster than I did in the match. That confirmed my stage plan was solid but my failure to execute the plan is what killed the run. I then worked on some one shot draws to a 10 yard target where A-zone only shots counted. I have been trying to change up my draw to get a solid grip on the gun before pulling it from the holster. This does result in a more solid and stable sight picture once the gun is fully mounted so I can break the shot right at the end of the mount of the gun. But my hand speed getting the gun up and out of the holster is pretty hurting. I could do 1.2 – 1.3 sec one shot draws as a repeatable A-zone hit shot. I could go faster but then I would revert to slinging shots on target instead of seeing a solid sight picture. I need to work on perfecting the mechanics of this new draw method, then worry about speeding it up.

The cool thing of the day was that my lady came out to do some shooting with the gun I built up for her. I had her shoot the steel and paper back section of the stage and she did awesome. She was shooting really accurate and was not flinching, pushing the gun, or any of that kind of bad stuff. He was also following the range commands well and getting use to the make ready and unload process. She went through about 200 rounds and had a great time doing it. Can’t ask much more than that. We plan on doing some more practice sessions like that as the weather permits over the winter and then I will get her to do a match some time in the spring. Of course, if she is still into it by then.

[CHA-LEE]

The Sunday USPSA match was also a great time and the weather was nice. This is one of the few matches that I don’t actually help with setting up so I was able to check out all of the stages well before the match started. This was really nice and gave me a chance to take a close look at all the shooting options for each stage.

Stage 1 – This was actually the second stage of the match for me and it was pretty straight forward. Somewhat a slight memory stage as you could see the same targets from multiple shooting positions. You basically had to pick one side to start on then shoot on the move as your engaged half the targets through the middle and then finish on the other side of the COF. The key to this stage was to keep moving as you shot to make available the next target to shoot. I felt like I shot this stage a little too conservatively from a shooting speed standpoint but I would rather error on the side of calling all of my shots verses going banzai crazy and ending up with misses or no shoot penalties. I did end up with two D-zone hits with both being on the targets with the no shoots. This performance gave me a close second place finish for the stage. The stage winner shot the stage a couple of seconds faster but had a miss and a lot worse points so the faster time was a wash.

Stage 2 – Super fun hoser stage. I had a somewhat elaborate plan on how to shoot it to avoid a couple of left to right transitions but after the buzzer went off I shot it as fast as I could see the targets. You had the choice of starting inside or outside the shooting area and I chose to start outside as I thought that less feet shuffling at the start would be better. But what I noticed is that I felt like I had to delay my first shot until my back foot lifted off the ground. On a stage like this where a few tenths of a second can make a big difference this was a bad decision on my part. The self imposed delay on the first shot also had be hesitate on my second shot a little bit which cost me more time. But once I got going it was on like donkey kong. Fun stage to shoot!!!

Stage 3 – This was my only huge blunder of the day and of course it happens on the Classifier. When I made ready for the stage I loaded the mag, racked my slide then when I was suppose to flip my safety on I instead pushed the mag release and dropped the mag. Luckily I was able to catch the mag before it dropped to the ground but this whole thing really screwed with my head. After I reinserted the mag and holstered the gun I subconsciously locked my holster!!! So at the buzzer the wrestling match was on trying to get my gun out when it was locked. After wasting at least 2 seconds wrestling the gun out of the holster I was pretty much over the stage and shot with zero motivation. I knew the stage was blown from a time perspective and all I could do was get as many points as I could. Thankfully since this was the classifier and only had 30 stage points it didn’t affect my overall match results much. I figure I only lost about 10 match points with this screw up. Its fun to watch on video though!!!

Stage 4 – Last stage of the match for me. This was a long field course with many different options on how to shoot it. In the morning I came up with a stage plan that I felt was “OK” but not optimal. It left a little too much dead time in the middle of the stage. Luckily I was second to last on my squad to shoot the stage so I had a lot of time to rethink and watch others shoot the stage. I ended up changing my stage plan to where it had me shooting on the move for almost the whole stage. Not the easiest task but I would rather keep moving and be shooting the whole time verses trying to run around shoot fast and run around some more. I shot the stage well and to my plan and at the very end you engage four poppers and finish on a close paper. I called solid shots on all of the steel and finish on the paper only to see that the last popper is still standing. This is one of the few times that I call “bullshit” and ask for a calibration of the popper. Sure enough, a 9mm Production guy shoots the popper and it does not go down. So I get to reshoot the stage. On my second run I shot more deliberately making my splits slower but I felt that my hits were better. My second run was two tenths of a second slower than my first run but I know the points were better on the second so it was a better run for me. I was still a couple of seconds slower than the stage winner though so this beat me up from an overall match points perspective.

Stage 5 – This was the first stage of the day. I was feeling quite tired before shooting and a little foggy in the mind so I decided to do some running, jumping, and stretching before my stage run. This really helped me get my body and mind up into the zone of where it should be. I am sure that some people on my squad were looking at me like I had lost my mind while I was warming up, but I didn’t care. I had to do whatever I need to in order to get myself to where I needed to be. The stage was a shoot everything through ports stage with most of the ports being low. A lot of people where whining about the low ports but it is what it is and we all have to shoot it. I felt that I shot the stage well. My main focus was to hit my foot positions at the ports so I wouldn’t have to shuffle my feet while working the ports. I was able to do just that and shot it at an even controlled pace. The only screw up that I had was entering the last port and engaging the first two targets. I shot both of those looking at the target instead of at my sights and ended up with a D-zone hit on the first target. Other than that it was a solid run for me and my best stage run of the match. I ended up winning this stage by over a second with the same points as the second place shooter.

After all of the shooting was over I felt that this was my best overall local match performance to date. I shot every stage in control and obtained 95%+ of the points on every stage but one, where I had 90% of the points. I ended up finishing second in Limited at 96% of the winner which is a GM so it is also nice to finish close to him. I hope that I can keep shooting at this level all the time. Its nice to not feel like I have to burn down stages to do well. Simply shoot as fast as I can call my shots, no more, no less.

[CHA-LEE]

I just got back from the SHOT Show in Las Vegas. Holly COW that is a huge show. Two solid days of walking got me through the whole thing. I am glad that I wore some comfortable hiking shoes otherwise I am sure that my feet would have been bloody stumps by the end of the second day. There was so much stuff to look at it was overwhelming. I didn’t stop at many vendors as most of them were not competition shooting oriented. But even at that, each day I had a backpack full of fliers, brochures, and other stuff. The coolest thing I found out there was an automated bullet feeder for the Dillion 650 press made by a company called GSI. That thing looks super cool and I see one in my not to distant future.

Its nice to be back home though. I missed the match today due to flying in this morning and the match tomorrow is canceled so no matches this weekend for me. I am doing some training with Ron Avery during the week through so I need to load up a bunch of ammo for that class and that is probably what I will do tomorrow. Hopefully the weather cooperates with the class this week. I am really looking forward to the training.

[CHA-LEE]

I just completed the three day training class with Ron Avery. Holly crap I have a lot of work to do!!! There was a lot of learning and failing involved and best of all each component we went over he took the time to explain not only how to do it but why its done that way. This helps me out a lot as I like to chew on this stuff in my head on the why’s and how’s.

Today things started coming together as I was finally letting myself change a little to accept the new way of doing things. When it clicked and started to happen while shooting it was like jumping into a Super Mario Brothers Level Warp Tube and coming out at a different level you have never seen before. I never realized that this level of shooting was possible much less me doing it first hand. The training wheels are still on and a ton of practice is going to be needed to shed my old way of shooting, which is going to suck, but that little taste of the next level in shooting is intoxicating and a huge motivator!!! Now its all up to me to put in the effort to change my ways. The grind begins but it will be worth every ounce of effort.

On another front, I go in for Lasik this Friday. I am still nervous about it but I think that is normal. Who isn’t nervous when people are messing with your eyes??? I am not going to be able to shoot for a couple of weeks after the procedure but I think this is actually a blessing in disguise as it will force me to put more effort into dry fire practice. Ton’s of dry fire is going to be needed to make the change from where I am currently to where I want to be, so this live fire down time is a good thing. It will be interesting to see if/how my shooting has changed after the down time.

[CHA-LEE]

I went in for LASIK eye surgery yesterday morning. Needless to say I was super nervous but everything went fine during the procedure. After the procedure I was worn out and slept most of the day and through the night.

This morning I woke up and could see without my glasses!!! Super Cool!!! My vision was foggy but in focus. I went in for my post-op checkup and they said everything looks fine and that I have 20/15 in my left eye and 20/20 in my right. They said the foggyness will go away after a day or so and my vision will probably get better as it heals as well. Where it’s at now from a focus stand point is way better than before so I can’t complain.

Now its all about keeping the eye drops flowing and taking it easy for the next few weeks. Its strange to be able to see without my glasses but I am sure it won’t take too long go get use to it. No regrets so far.

[CHA-LEE]

My eyes are getting better every day. The scratchiness is gone and I keep the eye drops flowing so I am yet to have any dry eye issues.

It’s a whole new world of vision for me. I feel like a kid seeing things for the first time. When wearing glasses you have a focused “world” when you look through the lens’s but look outside the lenses and it’s a blurry world. Now that I don’t have the mechanical limitation of seeing through a small window of focus its strange to get use to it. Currently both of my eyes are at a solid 20/15 in focus, but they still have a little bit of fogginess. I talked to the Dr about the fogginess and he said that is mainly due to the steroid eye drop that I am on right now and once I am done with it that will clear up. My night vision is still not the best as most things have halo’s and every light has a star burst effect. But they said that the night vision is the last thing to become clear so I am not worried about it yet. No regrets so far. I still look like someone punched me in the eye balls from the procedure and I am sure it will take a couple of weeks for that to go away as well.

I think the hardest part of it all is not being able to shoot for a couple of weeks

I offset my itch to shoot by loading up some ammo on Sunday. I figure if I can’t shoot I can at least stock up on rounds for when I can shoot again. That and I am going to do some dry fire this week as well. I can’t wait to get back to the range to do some live fire practice to further burn in what I learned from Ron.

[BritinUSA]

If you're looking for things to do, you can start with updating your avatar. The glasses are 'so last year'

[CHA-LEE]

How about this Avitar. Its seems more fitting

[CHA-LEE]

I am attending an RO class this weekend. It will be good to get an official RO certification. Knowing the rules of the game is a good thing. They say to bring your shooting gear on Sunday so I might get a chance to do some shooting. I am itching to do some blasting.

The eyes are doing good and they seem to get a little better every day. My night vision isn't the best right now but they say that is normal and it can take a few months for that to clear up. I can't wait to see what these new eyes do for me while shooting.

In the mean time I have been giving my reloading press a run for its money as I have gotten a bunch of ammo loaded up during this shooting down time. Its nice to have a stock of rounds built up and just waiting on the shelf to be used.

Hopefully I can get some lead sent down range soon. I feel like a smoker gone cold turkey with this break in shooting.

Edited February 5, 2010 by CHA-LEE

[CHA-LEE]

I took the level 1 RO class over the weekend and it was great. I learned a lot and got to do some blasting on the second day. The class was pretty easy since I had read through the rule book before and have been ROing for a while. It was different shooting without my prescription glasses though. Since things seem closer than before it’s a little strange. That and I was using some cheap-o protection glasses that would distort what you could see a little. I have ordered some Rudy Project sunglasses and should get them some time this week. I am planning on doing some live fire practice this coming Saturday and that should help me get use to shooting with these new eyes. In the mean time I am going to focus on doing some serious dry fire this week. The more I get use to seeing the sights with my new eyes the better. Time to put the nose to the grind stone…..

[CHA-LEE]

I got some good dry fire practice in last night. It was half holster fiddling and half dry fire. In my quest to leave no stone unturned I fiddled with the angles of the CR Speed holster to get the gun angled in a more natural hand/wrist position. I got the gun angled to where my hand meets the butt of the grip in a very natural hand position but then the funky angle of the gun had the holster digging into my leg and limited my range of movement. If I was doing steel challenge style drawing from a stationary standing position all the time, it would rock. But with all of the funky start positions we have in USPSA matches it would be more of a disadvantage to have it at the different angle.

Out of partial disgust and frustration I took off the CR Speed holster and put the Blade-Tech holster back on to see how that felt. It felt “OK” but where the holster sits on my belt the mag well of the gun points excessively to the right. Since I was in ultra fiddle mode I started thinking of ways to reduce the excessive mag well out angle. I put some washers in between the drop offset and the paddle portion of the holster to bias the mag well angle back towards my body. I kept adding more and more washers until my hand would rest evenly on the butt of the pistol during the draw. It looks a little funky being shimmed out but it seems to work a lot better as far as consistently gripping the gun while drawing. I dry fired with this modified Blade-Tech holster setup for about 30 minutes from all kinds of funky start positions and I think its going to work really well. I also like having the ability to quickly and easily move the holster front to back position on the belt. Being able to move it a little bit on the fly helps a bunch on the super awkward start positions where you can move the gun out on your hip more to make it more accessible.

When I wasn’t fiddling with the holsters I tried to focus my dry fire on mounting the gun smoothly and keeping my arms extended a little more when its fully mounted. I also worked on pulling the trigger lightly while doing transitions and shooting on the move. I didn’t do any work with the timer as I still felt like a fish out of the water with the different holster setup. Once I get a decent amount of repetitions built up with the new holster configuration I will work in some timer stuff. Its hard for me to not get sucked into the “BEAT THE CLOCK” style practice where your fundamentals completely erode in a futile effort to beat some magical par time. I want to instead focus on solid execution and then worry about bumping up the speed later.

I am planning on doing some live fire practice on Saturday and then a USPSA match on Sunday. The weather forecast for Sunday is looking grim though so I doubt that a match will happen. If we do shoot on Sunday it will be some very cold shooting conditions. That’s fine with me, blasting is blasting regardless of the weather.

[CHA-LEE]

I was able to get some live fire practice in on Saturday. We setup stages and shot it like a match. We would shoot the stage once for score and then shoot it again for fun if we wanted to. My only focus for the practice was to keep my arms further out in the new position and to experience the shooting with my new eyes. When I shot with the further out arm position I could tell a marked improvement in accuracy and shooting speed. But it was hard to keep doing it all the time as I had to literally think about doing it during the stage runs to execute it. Any time you are consciously thinking about doing something during a stage run instantly makes the run more clunky and forced so my overall stage runs were not as good. It was also challenging to call my shots with my new eyes. Without my glasses everything that is fairly close looks larger and the larger sights seen in my sight picture is a little odd to process. I was able to call my shots somewhat OK at the end of the day, but I clearly have a lot of relearning to do. I am sure that all I need is fair amount of range time to burn in the new sight picture to get back to where I was before. But it doesn’t keep me from feeling frustrated about taking a few steps back due to getting my eyes done and changing my arm position. When I shoot it feels clunky and forced. But really, what doesn’t fell that way when you try it for the first time?

The cool thing about the practice session is that my modified Blade-Tech holster worked out great. I wasn’t trying to go full speed on the draw with it so I was a little slower with it but I was able to get a rock solid strong hand grip on every draw. My hand just seemed to go right where it needed to in order to build a good grip every time. That and there was never a time where it felt like it was going to jam up during the draw. Very cool!!!

When I got home from the practice session I found that my Rudy Project sunglasses came in. The Rydon sunglasses are awesome. I can’t wait to put them into use at the next range visit. I got the Photochromatic Clear and Photochromatic Grey lenses for the Rydon’s so that should cover pretty much all of the lighting conditions I will run into at the various ranges I go to.

Some snow has rolled in this Sunday so there is no match today. I am planning on going to the indoor evening match on Monday though so that will give me some more trigger time to get use to things.