CHA-LEE's Tale

[CHA-LEE]

I shot the one off IDPAish indoor match tonight. They had two very interesting stages to shoot that were Easter biased. The first stage was a 25 rounds COF that had you shooting white no shoot targets instead of the brown shoot targets that were the “No Shoots” instead. Then the final target of the stage was a single plastic egg that you had one shot to engage and break it. If you broke the egg you got a 5 second deduction from your stage run, if you missed it there was no penalty but you only got one shot at it. Each shooting position had a mixture of shoot (white) and no shoot (brown) targets. Having the shoot and no shoot targets swapped was a real mental block for me. I literally had to force myself to shoot at the white targets and every time I entered a shooting position I brought the gun up on the brown targets so I had to force myself to not shoot the brown targets. This was a really interesting stage to shoot. I shot the paper targets clean and finished by hitting the egg dead center. It was a decent stage run for me but I lost some time on bringing the gun up on the wrong targets when entering the shooting positions then having to correct. But hitting the Egg saved me 5 seconds on the stage run and not too many people were able to hit it.

The second stage was a complete mental cluster. It was really two separate stages in one. They had two types of paper plates, one with eggs on it and another with rabbits. These plates were associated with their own color targets to shoot in each position. The rabbit plate was associated with the white no shoot targets, and the eggs plate was associated with the brown shoot targets. But you could only shoot one or the other based on a random plate you flipped over before shooting the stage. They also mandated that you had to shoot the appropriate plate type that you flipped over first then the shoot targets associated with that plate type as you entered each shooting position. So basically it was two different stages in one all depending on what plate you flipped over right before the start of the stage. The only way I was able to make any sense of it was to program the stage both ways as if they were two completely different stages. Coming up with two completely different stage plans and then programming them was a really challenging effort. I went through each plan at least 20 times in my head. Then it was my turn to shoot and I flipped over a rabbit plate and quickly ran through the no shoot target plan once more as I was making ready. Then I shot the stage quickly and accurately without any hesitations. This was a huge win for me. Being able to successfully program two different stages based off of the same physical stage and then execute the randomly chosen plan right before shooting it was awesome. This tells me that I need to put some more stage planning and programming effort into the normal USPSA stages. Its cool learning something new like this at a one off crazy match like this. Maybe this is why I keep coming back to them?

It was a fun match to shoot and learning something new was like Christmas come early. It really can’t get any better than that

[CHA-LEE]

USPSA match this Sunday. This is one of the matches I help put on so once again, lots of work in the morning. But we changed out match management strategy to have one match official dedicated to each berm during setup and it worked out a lot better than in the past. We got all of the stages setup and ready to go way ahead of time than we normally do. So that was a great. I actually got a chance to take a look at each of the stages a little before the match started so that was an added bonus. Listed below are my stage runs in the order that I shot the match.

Stage 3 – Classifier 06-05 called Fluffy’s Revenge 2. This is a pretty straight up classifier without any reloads or multiple strings. Since there is no funny business and all up to blasting the 100% hit factor for the stage is pretty high. Since this was the first stage of the day I shot a little reserved from a speed perspective. I had a decent hesitation before breaking the first shot and needed a make up shot to take down the last steel so that was at least half a second flushed down the drain. I was only down two points but on this time biased stage the hesitation and extra shot hurt more than anything. This ended up being an 80% run nationally so its going to throw a monkey wrench into my classification average. Maybe being stuck in Master class is a good thing right now.

Stage 4 – This was the speed shoot stage of the match. It was an entertaining self start stage that had a mixture of fast blasting and needing to see your sights while doing it. I came up with this stage and as Murphy’s Law dictates, if there is any stage that you are going to have a screw up on, it will be the one you setup. I shot the stage at a decent speed and took my time on the hardest shot of the stage (no shoot blocking all but the lower A-zone of the scoring target). But I still ended up with an Alpha, Mike, No Shoot on that target. The no shoot hit was also WAY into the no shoot like 3 – 4 inches. I have no clue how my hit was so bad as I called it a good shot while shooting the stage and took my time to engage the target. I think I simply mashed the shit out of the trigger on the second shot and when I do that I usually pull the gun up and right and that’s exactly where the no shoot hit was. This was the only penalty I had during the whole match but when you flush away 25 match points with this crowd of Limited shooters there is no mercy and you will be further down on the results list.

Stage 5 – This was one of the field courses with 22 rounds. Hot off my match blowing speed shoot disaster I figured that I would do some experimenting on this stage. I shot it differently than everyone else and also used my new 22 round magazine so I didn’t have to do a reload. Everyone was starting in the middle and drawing to the middle three targets then running to the left and then running to the right. It made more sense to me to start on the left because I could be drawing as I moved into the shooting position then shoot my way back to the middle and then finish on the right. This way I could keep shooting most of the time and have less stop and go position style shooting. I feel that I shot the stage decently, but a little slow in breaking the shots. I think that was due to not wanting to shoot too fast and then trigger make up shots and blow my plan of not doing a reload. It seemed to work out for me even though it was a little slow. The stage winner was 2 seconds faster doing it center, left, right. So I probably didn’t choose the right stage plan but it was fun and challenging to shoot it the way I did.

Stage 1 – This stage was a tricky double swinger stage with three poppers and two small plates. I didn’t have a lot of time to see the popper/swinger timing so I had to go with a more conservative plan where I would hit the activating popper then transition straight to the swinger. This killed some time and made the stage a little clunky to shoot but with the little time I had to observe the stage and program it this was the best plan I could come up with. This is one of those stages where you could watch 40 – 50 shooters run through it before you can find an very solid plan that keeps you shooting the whole time and also have the swingers in time with your plan. At least that is what I would need to figure out the timing. The only thing I didn’t like about this run was the loss of patience in shooting the steel the make up shots on the steel cost me at least a second during the run.

Stage 2 – This was the second field course of the match. It had a boat load of target engagement order options with a lot of left – right transitions. This is usually where I struggle with coming up with a plan that is best. Too many options on how to shoot a stage that are really close in time to one another usually throws me for a loop. I ended up picking a plan that eliminated one left to right transition and put my reload in the only dead zone of the stage. I feel that I shot the stage decently but watching the video it looks like I am a drunken sailor wondering all over the stage. One of the other shooters on the squad pointed out that it would have been better to basically walk in a diagonal line towards the door as I shot. This is true and probably one of my weaknesses. I have a hard time shooting on the move while my body is twisted up left or right, so I tend to advance forward as I shoot on the move and that takes me off the straight line path towards the end of the COF. This is something that I need to practice more for sure. The only major screw up that I had on this stage is a pretty significant hesitation after engaging the target right before opening the door. This target had diagonal hard cover on it and I called the second shot marginal but broke down my grip to grab for the door. Since I called the shot marginal I hesitated a second to ask myself if I should make up the shot but then decided that I had already wasted enough time and it would either be there or not and there was no more time to worry about it. Lucky for me the hit was there. It could have been a miss but I lucked out and had a C-zone hit. But the hesitation killed at least half a second of stage time.

Overall it was a fun match and everyone seemed to have a great time. The match seemed to run really smooth today without too many log jams of the squads. The weather was nice most of the day and its nice to not be freezing while shooting a match. The match results were posted and I ended up 3rd in limited at 94% of the winner about 25 points back. Without the Mike No Shoot on stage 4 I would have been in really good shape for the match, but it is what it is. That’s a good lesson to stop mashing the shit out of the trigger when shooting fast. I also have to work on shooting on the move while moving in odd directions. The complexity of this game is amazing. There always seems to be something monumental to improve or overcome.

Edited April 5, 2010 by CHA-LEE

[CHA-LEE]

USPSA indoor match last night. We shot two stages, one field course and a classifier. I think that I was too busy this past weekend as I wasn’t motivated to shoot and it really showed in my performance, or lack there of. The first stage was a three box to box stage with 4 paper targets to engage from each box. I started off ok, then reloaded going to the second box. Then I tried to shoot fast in the second box and that is when the train wreck began. I had trigger freeze because all I wanted to do was mash the trigger as fast as I could and that put my movement leaving the box ahead of schedule and I ended up with one shot out of the box. Then I had to come back into the box to finish the last shot in the middle box. This was ugly and wasted at least 2 seconds along with hurting hits on the paper because I was mashing the crap out of the trigger. This was a total conscious run with the only mental coaching of “GO FAST!!!”. What a train wreck that turned into, yikes.

The second stage was classifier 99-23 called Front Sight. This stage has two strings of fire. The first has you facing up range, then you turn and engage three targets with 2 shots each. The second string has you facing down range, then engage the same three targets with 2 shots each. The 100% HF is crazy high for this classifier. If you got all A’s you would have to average 2.25 seconds per string. Since I was already “Over” shooting for the day I just point shot the targets on both strings. This yielded decent times, 2.35 seconds, but crappy hits with a boat load of C’s and a couple of D’s. Needless to say, this classifier will not count against my average.

I was physically at the match but not mentally there. Like I said before, I think I was just too worn out from the super busy weekend and didn’t give a crap about shooting last night. I guess we all have days like that once in a while?

I am sending off my entries for the High Desert Classic in NM and the Area 1 Champs in ID today. These matches are filling up fast so its nice to get my entries in to secure a spot. I have quite a few big matches planned for this summer. I will be fun and challenging to see how I can do.

[CHA-LEE]

Busy weekend of shooting planned. Saturday I am going to get some live fire practice done. I am looking forward to this as I want to explore some idea's I have been thinking about lately. Sunday will be a USPSA match down in Pueblo. They always put on a great 6 stage match so that will be a lot of fun. My lady is also going to a Woman's Only pistol training class on Sunday. She is really looking forward to that class and its being taught by a really good local GM shooter so it should be a good class for her. I hope she has fun and learns during the training class. Who knows, maybe she will start shooting matches with me and start whipping my ass like most of the other games we play together Never underestimate the capabilities of a motivated woman!!!

On Monday I have a one on one training class scheduled with Ron Avery. This is another follow up training session to continue the skills honing process. These classes are usually a very humbling experience and I feel like an idiot while attending because what he usually beats into my head is pretty basic stuff that I keep screwing up. But its all worth the effort because the little that he has beat into my shooting skill set so far has made tremendous improvements in my shooting performance already. I just have to keep an open minded about learning and be willing to change. I think that is the hardest part of the whole process, undoing the bad and relearning how to do it the proper way.

My Range Diary just surpassed 10,000 views which is crazy to me. I never thought that my range diary would be so interesting for others to read. Maybe people just like watching a fat kid struggle? I am sure its like watching a train wreck, you just can't stop watching the carnage

[CHA-LEE]

I had a good practice session today. We setup stages that were challenging and fun to shoot. We had a little of everything on the stages as well. There was a good mixture of open, hard cover, steel, no shoots, and even a double target swinger. The double target swinger was an interesting challenge. We setup two shoot targets with a no shoot in the middle separating them which made it a tricky swinger to shoot. I have only shot a double target swinger a couple of times before in matches but never one with a no shot on it as well. So up it went and we all took turns figuring it out. I shot it pretty well going for the gusto every time engaging both targets on the same swing. I faired pretty well on it overall and it was nice to figure it out.

We shot about 5 different stages, some of them multiple times just for fun and it was a blast. Its nice to have some fun and just shoot for a change. I figured that I will have a boat load of “Serious” shooting on Monday during the one on one training with Ron. So why not cut loose today and have some fun?

USPSA match tomorrow, time to put the game face on

[CHA-LEE]

USPSA match today down in pueblo. The weather was awesome all day. This is the first real “T-Shirt” weather match of the year so it was really nice. We shot six total stages and each stage was a fun challenge. My only goal for the match was to NOT get sucked into shooting head shots as this is usually an option at least 2 or 3 times each match. Usually when I pick a stage plan that has me taking a head shot verses getting into another position to have access to a whole target I hose myself by taking way too much time to hit just the head. There were a couple of stages that had this option and I forced myself to pick a stage plan that had me engaging those targets later in the COF where they were more open. This seemed to work out well for me so that was a huge win in its self. Listed below are the stage runs.

Stage 2 – This was a pretty straight forward stage with a couple of options on how to shoot it. I chose a pretty simple plan that allowed me to engage the targets pretty fast in each shooting position. There were a couple of long targets which forced you to slow down a lot to ensure your hits. This was a solid stage run for me and I don’t think I could have shot it any better.

Stage 2 Video

Stage 3 - This was a real clunky stage without a lot of flow. Some times stages are setup so the target placement is there to totally disrupt the smooth flow through the stage and this was one of them. They also took a target out after the walk through due to there being an extra one and it totally changed my stage plan. I was second or third up to shoot the stage when my squad got to the berm so I had to figure out a different plan right away and it pretty much sucked. I shot the stage really cautious and slow at the back portion and my last shot put the hit about a quarter inch into the black hardcover so I made up the shot after seeing it which wasted another second. I feel that this was my worst stage of the match. It felt slow and forced the whole time. My results clearly reflect that as well with being three seconds off the pace.

Stage 4 – This stage only had one good way of shooting it. You had to start in a box and engage two targets, one on each side. Then move around the wall to get back into the shooting area. My run was ok but I had a decent hesitation on the first string after getting back into the shooting area. This hesitation messed with my head and made me shoot the right hand targets really tentative. I think I wasted at least half a second with the hesitation in the middle of the COF. I at least finished the stage strong and got all of my hits. I think the swinger on this stage ate some peoples lunch because the two shooters that ran it faster both had a miss.

Stage 5 – This was the Classifier stage called Fluffy’s Revenge 1. Super simple stage and with that comes a super fast 100% time. The 100% time for this stage is 3 seconds with all of the points. You have to unleash some fury to get a time like that. Once again I draw and have a decent hesitation before breaking the first shot and then need a make up shot to take down the second steel. This put my stage time at 3.56 down three points, which ends up being 78% nationally. I am just glad that the run didn’t break 80% to further wreck my classifier average. Since this was a really short stage our squad got log jammed waiting for the next stage so a buddy and I reshot the classifier again just for fun. This time I forced myself to draw and break the first shot fast and ended up with a time of 2.78 but also had a miss on my very first shot. If I can’t hit shit when I go fast then no wonder I have such a bad hesitation at the end of the draw to validate that my sights are aligned. I really need to work on my final shooting index during the draw. I guess there is no substitute for dry firing, which I have not been doing.

Stage 6 – This was the long 32 round field course of the match. It was an absolutely crazy run and gun stage. You could shoot the targets over or around the sides of the walls, pretty much anything goes as long as you are not breaking the 180 or sweeping yourself. Lots of running and fast blasting. This was an super fun stage to shoot but really hard to reign yourself in. I shot the front and middle sections well but was still in “Hoser Crazy” mode for the back section and ended up with a miss on one of the right side targets. I could tell that my sights were all over the place and I did make up one bad shot on the right side but not the other. That’s what I get for being in a hurry. My stage time was really good but the miss sunk the run. I was still down too many points overall though and even without the miss I would have .5 HF behind the stage winner. This is a good lesson in being patient enough to get solid hits, even when you are in hoser mode. Either way it was a really fun stage to shoot.

Stage 1 – Last stage of the day. This was a 22 round COF that had a few different options on how to shoot it. I loaded up my 22 round mag so I could start with 23 rounds and didn’t plan on doing a reload. Then I proceeded to take two makeup shots on the first string of targets. That blew the no reload stage plan by taking the extra shots. I tried not to panic and simply let myself do a reload when it felt right and what do you know, it worked out great. When the stage run was over I was surprised to see that I had a miss on the fourth target in on the right side. After watching the video I can see what I did wrong though. I called a bad shot on the third target in but was already moving over to the fourth target and tried shooting the fourth target too fast so I could get back to the third to make up the bad shot. Resulting in a miss on the fourth target. I hate it when I don’t understand at the match, but its nice to have a video of the run to figure it out afterwards. The miss on this stage sunk the stage run which otherwise would have won the stage overall. To me this stage was a win because I let myself do a reload where it felt right and it went great. Its nice to have the confidence to be able to do that and know that it will work out. Cool stuff!!!

Overall it was a great day of shooting. It sucks to have the two misses and botched stage 3 but I achieved my match goal of not taking head shots. Today’s performance put me second in Limited at 94% of the winner. Even without the misses I would have still been second so my average match performance wasn’t the best. But compared to my track record at this particular match it was a lot better than usual. It was a long day of shooting but we all had fun and the weather was great. It can’t get much better than that.

[rtr]

Stage 4 I think the swinger on this stage ate some peoples lunch because the two shooters that ran it faster both had a miss.

Embarassingly enough my mike was on the very first low target on the right, I actually had 3 hits on the swinger (lots of help that was). Always enjoy your video seeing how I could have shot the match better.

Your height on Stage 6 gained you some time as I had to tippy toe over the no shoot for the last two targets.

For giggles here is my match video

Edited April 12, 2010 by rtr

[CHA-LEE]

Rtr> Thanks for posting up your video. It looks like you had fun yesterday as well. I will gladly take my height advantage the few times I can. There are far more low port situations that I have to cram my big ass into so I don’t feel bad about getting an advantage for being tall every once in a while

[CHA-LEE]

No one on one training yesterday. Ron had another pressing matter to take care of so we have rescheduled to do the training next week. This is actually a good thing because I was pretty wiped out from all of the shooting on the weekend and I don’t think that I would have been all there on Monday to really take advantage of the class.

I think I am only going to shoot the Saturday match this coming weekend to avoid the burn out factor so I can be fresh for the training class next week.

I really need to get my backup gun finished so I can send it off to get it coated. The crack in the slide of my primary gun keeps growing more and more and I know I am running on borrowed time. I am going to focus on getting the frame done this week so I can get it sent off next week for coating. The current log jam is smoothing out the weld bead on the mag well. That is taking a lot more elbow grease to smooth out than I expected. Time to buckle down and get it done.

Edited April 13, 2010 by CHA-LEE

[CocoBolo]

I think I would just shoot my backup gun in the white if I had a broken primary gun. My #1 gun is down waiting on a barrel so #2 is getting run in the half white till #1 is back on line.

[CHA-LEE]

CocoBolo> That is a good suggestion. Technically I already have a totally completed "Backup Gun" ready to rumble if my primary gun has a catastrophic failure. Its my ladies .40 Minor gun with the lightened slide. But it shoots so different with Major rounds that I am leery of using it too much. The other challenge is that I am still a couple of months out with being able to get the parts to even fix my primary gun due to EAA having the Limited .40 top ends on back order. The new gun that I am building up has extensive frame and slide rounding and polish work on it so a lot of the protective corrosion resistant coating is removed. If I used it for any amount of time it would start to rust pretty easy, especially during the sweaty palm summer months coming up. So I am kind of stuck between a rock and a hard place until I get the new gun all built up and ready to go. Realistically I am probably a month away from getting this new gun up and running. A lot of that time will really depend on how long it takes to get it coated. The sooner I get it off for coating the better.

Either way, if my primary gun totally fails I will still be able to shoot with my ladies gun so I am not worried about being stuck and not able to shoot at all. Maybe it will be a good thing because it will give me a chance to see how bad Minor scoring affects my match performance. That is what is so fun about shooting, there is always something new to try

[CHA-LEE]

I was talking with a shooting buddy over the phone the other day about calling shots and he had a question that I couldn’t fully explain over the phone. His question was “How do I get better at calling my shots”. After thinking about it for a while I was able to attempt to explain my understanding of calling shots in an e-mail and send it to him. Most of the time shooters don’t even understand what calling a shot is so that’s where I started. Listed below is what I sent to him. I figured that I would post it here as well because taking the time to go though it in my head and explain it in text also helped me think more about it and better understand it myself. Maybe this can help others better understand the shot calling process as well?

My definition of “Calling your shot” is having your vision and attention turned up to a point where you can see the sights and their relative alignment at the same time as the gun fires. People like to call this taking a mental picture or snapshot of the sights during this process. You then process that mental picture and give it an approval or disapproval rating based on the sight alignment and sights on target alignment (sight picture). The approval or disapproval is what you base your “Calling” the shot good or bad on. The key here is that you are taking and processing the sight picture AS the gun fires. Not before or after the gun fires. I think that a lot of shooters think they are “Calling” their shots because they see the sights aligned BEFORE the shot breaks but they really don’t see the sight alignment AS the shot breaks. They are validating sight alignment before the shot breaks but NOT calling the shot because they don’t actually see the sights as the gun fires so there is nothing to call.

When shooting fast shots in repetitive sequence there is no time to manipulate the sight alignment between shots. The quality of the sight alignment is totally dependent upon your grip, stance, arms, etc and how well the gun is balanced to your biophysical mechanics. The only thing you do have time for is seeing the sight alignment within the sight picture as the shot breaks, and thus calling the shot good or bad depending on the sight alignment you observed the instant the gun fired. The quality of your grip, stance, arms and balance of the gun determines the quality of the sight alignment post shot for the follow up shot. The quality of the post shot sight alignment is what really determines the speed at which you can shoot accurate shots. If your grip, stance, arms or gun balance isn’t optimized then you have to wait for the sights to settle in their final place or drive them to alignment before deeming the sights aligned enough to break the next shot. For example, I can shoot .15 - .17 splits and still maintain consistent sight tracking post shot. If I shoot with splits in the .10 - .14 range my biophysical mechanics start to break down and the sights do not track consistently any more (usually due to me mashing the trigger trying to go fast). In both cases I can still call my shots, but I know that if I push the splits down in the .10 - .14 range the sight alignment will be horrible and most of the shots I make will be called bad shots needing to be made up anyway. So it’s a waste to shoot that fast unless the targets are close enough to allow me to get away with the poor post shot sight alignment and still get good hits on target. Please understand that accuracy and the biomechanics of managing the recoil to ensure consistent sight tracking while shooting fast really has nothing to do with calling your shots. Calling your shots is a visual process. Consistent tracking of the sights while shooting fast is a biomechanics process.

The only thing that links these two processes is the speed at which you can observe the sight picture and mentally process what was observed, then make a decision based on the data. The challenge here is that the seeing, processing, and decision event needs to be faster than your shooting speed or it all breaks down. If you can only call your shots at a .20 sec speed then once you start shooting faster than that you stop calling your shots because you simply can’t observe, process, and decide fast enough to make a solid decision on whether the shot was good or bad. The solution to this is to always push yourself in practice to shoot faster than your current visual comfort zone. You may not be able to hit squat because your biomechanics are not up to the task of managing the recoil at that shooting speed, but you should still be able to visually process what is going on and call the shots good/bad as they break.

The end goal is to get to a point where the shot calling process is done subconsciously. Getting this down to a subconscious level requires a LOT of conscious focused practice doing it correctly. Once you can call your shots subconsciously then you can start working on subconsciously making up shots that you called “bad”. Once you can call your shots the overall speed and accuracy at which you can shoot will always be limited to your peak biomechanics capability of managing the recoil and breaking the next shot without disturbing the sight alignment. This is where a boat load of dry and live fire come into play.

People tend to think the main key to being good is to shoot fast, when its really about “Seeing” fast so you can call your shots while shooting fast. Speed does not matter if you can’t see anything and have no clue as to where your hits are going.

[CHA-LEE]

I worked my tail off last night and finally got the welded on mag well blended in, smoothed out, and polished up. Holly cow that was a lot of work!!! If I build up another gun I think I will just epoxy the mag well on like I have done in the past instead of having it welded on. I am sure the welded on Mag well will never come off but I don’t think its worth all of the extra effort to get it blended in. That and there are a few pits that can not be removed due to the welding process. These pits will not affect its functionality, but it does look a little cheesy. All I have left is some rework to the safety levers and then it will be ready to send off for coating.

After talking to Henning about his experience with different gun coatings, I am going to have it IonBonded. That seems to be the thinnest and toughest coating out there and it will produce a dull black finish which is exactly what I am looking for.

On another note, the match shooting for this weekend isn’t looking too good. We have a weather system rolling in this weekend which is calling for rain on both Saturday and Sunday. The Saturday match is at a range where the dirt turns into a thick peanut butter consistency when it gets wet. Your shoes get a build up of mud and before long you have 5 – 10 lbs of extra mud on your shoes that does not want to come off. So if there is any amount of moisture out there the match will probably be canceled. Sundays match is up north in and the weather is looking a little better but its still showing a 40% chance of rain. That range can turn into a mud bog but the berms have a good amount of sand in them making it not too bad. We will just have to wait and see what the weather brings for the weekend.

[CHA-LEE]

I shot the USPSA match on Saturday. Holly Cow was the weather crazy. When we showed up in the morning to help setup it was foggy with lots of wind and a slight mist of rain. I don’t think it ever officially “Rained” but the constant water vapor mist associated with the fog got everything wet. I think the temperature was around 40 deg all day but the wind and mist made it feel well below freezing. This was really strange weather to shoot in. It was like shooting while you are in the clouds if that makes any sense. The chilly wet shooting conditions made for frozen numb fingers and water spattered glasses which made it challenging for all. We only shot four stages due to the weather, which was fine because I don’t think many of the shooters would have lasted for 5 or 6 stages that we usually do. There were even some shooters that showed up and then left due to the rugged weather conditions. You know its rugged when a person will drive 50+ miles one way out to a match and then just turn around and go home because of the weather conditions. The only saving grace was that it wasn’t muddy. If it was muddy along with everything else I don’t think that I would have stuck around myself. That would have been way too much for me. I didn’t get any video of my stage runs due to the bad weather. I didn’t want to expose my camera to the strange fog/mist conditions. Anyway here are my stage runs.

Stage 1 – This was a 28 round medium size field course that had a couple of choices on how to shoot it. You started with your gun loaded on a barrel then had the choice of shooting more from a couple of positions with longer shots, or you could do some more running around with closer shots. I chose the plan where I would shoot closer with more running around. But after the stage run and seeing other people shoot it I found that it was the slower way of shooting the stage. I was first up on the squad so I didn’t get a chance to see anyone else shoot the stage the other way. Very poor planning on my part. My stage run turned into a complete train wreck anyway. At the start I picked up my gun from the barrel and then went to engage the first target. Right after my first shot the mag drops unexpectedly due to me pushing the mag release in slightly as I picked up the gun from the barrel. I had to scrabble around in the dirt picking up the mag to load and rack the slide so I could get going. That whole thing cost me at least 4 – 5 seconds. Why I didn’t reload from my belt, I have no idea. This accidental dropped mag situation has never happened to me in a match before, only in practice. So I wasn’t prepared for it at all. After recovering from that I felt behind schedule and didn’t give myself any patience to shoot the steel which left me taking 5 extra shots and then I ran out of rounds at the end of the stage needing an extra reload, yet another couple of seconds lost. The only saving grace to this run was that I didn’t have any misses or penalties, but the super hurting stage time killed my chances for a decent overall match result. With only 4 stages to shoot in the match, if you screw up a quarter of your match points its usually over with.

Stage 2 – This was a 32 round large field course that I brought to the match and setup. It had many different ways of shooting it and you could see the same targets from many different shooting positions. I planned on using a couple of swingers on the stage but the windy conditions would have made it a nightmare to keep running correctly so I swapped them for a couple of static paper targets. You had to go to the extreme left and right ends of the COF to engage one popper at the ends. This stage also had a great mixture of close, medium and long shots so you had to change up your shooting speed and sight picture quality to shoot it well. I picked a plan that had me starting on the left and then shooting most of the time as I was moving to the right. I shot the stage really well. I was keeping the gun running most of the time and giving myself enough time to call my shots solidly. I had a pretty good stage time but awesome points. I was only down 3 points for the whole stage. This was my rock star stage run of the match.

Stage 3 – This was a short 18 round COF that had a few longer shots and then a serious hose fest as you advanced down the stage. I shot the stage in a fast time but decided to look at the targets instead of my sights which resulted in absolute crap hits along with a miss. I think I had 4 D’s on this stage and way more C’s than A’s. After the stage run I was just shaking my head in disbelief. Why would I think that looking at the targets instead of seeing my sights would work. This was a mega rookie mistake.

Stage 4 – This was classifier 99-10 called “Times Two”. I have rocked this classifier in the past as it seems to suit my skill sets. You start in one box, draw and engage three open targets, then move to the other box and engage three more open targets. I started the stage good but then had trigger freeze after the third shot. This was not a surprise due to the cold numb finger shooting conditions, but it took a good half second to recover from it and continue shooting. The trigger freeze really disrupted my flow through the stage and I ended up wasting about a second total. This run was good enough for 85% nationally but since I already have a 91% on this classifier that is currently counting against my average it wont count. This was a bummer because this is one of the classifiers that I know I can churn out a 100% on without too much effort. Oh well, I am sure I will see this classifier again some time in the summer.

After the match was over we all worked hard to get the stages tore down and all put away. We had 24 hardcore shooters that went the distance that day in spite of the poor weather. One dude was even in shorts which makes him an official bad ass in my book. I finished 2nd in Limited to a very solid GM at 81%. This was about where I expected to finish given my stage one train wreck and stage three miss. My huge accomplishment for the match was my stage 2 run. I ended up at 94% of the GM on his stage and felt really good about this result. Due to the poor shooting conditions I felt like I had to shoot a match on Sunday to get some real match trigger time in.

[CHA-LEE]

The USPSA match on Sunday was up north in Weld county. This match is pretty far away being about an hour and a half drive so we usually don’t get there early enough to help setup. When we left my house in the morning it was a little cold being about 45 deg but it was clear and the sun was shining. By the time we were half way there a very dense fog rolled in and cut visibility to about 25 – 50 yards. This was looking like the same weather conditions as the day before and we were not looking forward to shooting in the same situation as yesterday. The fog was thick and unrelenting all the way to the range. We got some time to check out the stages which was nice and the fog was starting to lift at a steady pace. The really good thing was that there wasn’t any wind. This made it really nice actually. By the time we were done with the first stage the fog was totally gone and it was warming up nicely. I think we finished the day at a little over 70 degrees and totally sunny which was nice. There was a lot of shooters in attendance, 77 total, which made the squads large with about 20 shooters per squad. This made for a long day of shooting. Listed below are my stage runs, along with some video this time. A huge thanks needs to go out to Laura A for doing the video work for this match. Its much appreciated!!!

Stage 2 – We started on the Classifier stage for the match. This was 99-28 called “Hillbillton Drill”. I have shot this classifier really well before but this time they had the poppers painted dark blue. Dark blue poppers on black sights usually does not work out well for me especially when you have one popper in front of another. I started off the stage strong but then botched my reload. Then I shot the steel at an ok pace but just nicked one of the right side ones which left it still standing. This got me mad so I reengaged the popper with four rounds to make sure it would go down. This left me with a pretty craptacular stage run but it wasn’t a total disaster.

Stage 3 – This was a very tricky speed shoot style stage. You had a mixture of steel poppers and plates with no shoots behind them so if you missed you were severely punished. Then you had to reload and engage four partial paper targets blocked by no shoots. All of this was about 20 yards away as well. This stage was absolutely KILLING people on my squad. Out of the 20 people on my squad I think there was only 2 – 3 that didn’t have any penalties. I told myself to take how ever long it would take to get my hits one for one so I could have a penalty free stage run. When I shot the stage I did just that. I got all my hits, without any penalties and was only down 1 point. The extra time it took to shoot the stage put me back about 2 – 3 seconds from the stage winner. But to me that was way too risky to shoot faster. I would rather take a little bit slower run with solid points verses trying to burn it down and end up zeroing the stage. With only 70 points at stake, it wasn’t worth it to risk.

No video for this stage run

Stage 4 – This was a 32 round field course where you shot from three different boxes. All of the targets were at 20 – 25 yards with more partial no shoot blocked paper targets, steel plates and poppers, then two swingers to top it off. In the last box they had a crazy set of 8 different steel plates with odd sizes and shapes. There was a skinny mini popper shaped plate that was about the size of a full size popper set out to probably 50 - 75 yards. That one was giving most shooters a real challenge to take down. I shot the stage pretty solid but had to wait for the swinger to come back in the first box. This killed at least two seconds on the stage run. Then for whatever reason I felt like I had to do a reload between the first and second boxes so I started to reach down for a reload but then stopped myself. This killed some of my aggressiveness in moving from the first box to the second. In the last box, I tried to shoot too fast and needed quite a few make up shots. Overall it was a fair run and I got all of my hits with no penalties which in its self was better than most. I seen a lot of 40 – 60 second runs on this stage with a boat load of misses and no shoots. Sights? We have to use sights?

Stage 5 – This was a 33 round field course with lots of crazy blasting at the start and then a boat load of steel at the end. At the start you had four open paper targets on the right, then four more on the left. Then you advance forward and have two plate racks then a Texas star in the middle. I feel that I executed on this stage pretty well. I had some extra shots on the plate racks and one plate got stuck half way down so I had to shoot it three times for it to go down. But I absolutely rocked the Texas star and shot the rest of the stage pretty good so I didn’t want to reshoot it. I probably left a couple of seconds on the table with the misses on the steel, but I felt like it was a pretty solid run. This was my best stage run of the match and I am really happy with how I shot the Texas star. I shot the star the “old way” that I use to when I first started shooting where I would start at the top and then go back and forth. This seems to work the best for me because I can easily see the next plate to engage. I use to try starting at the top then shoot down the right side as the star rotated the plates coming up to the gun, but I never got use to not seeing the next plate come up from under my gun. I have seen people shoot stars wicked fast using that method though.

Stage 1 – Last stage of the day. This was really the only run and gun stage of the match. You had to start by engaging two poppers from inside the box then the rest of the paper from area A. The steel also had no shoots behind it so if you missed you paid dearly. I watched a people kill a lot of time waiting to see if the steel went down and tried my best to not do that. I shot the front section well shooting on the move then I felt like I shot the back section good. There was one target in the back that was a head shot only blocked by an no shoot up to the neck. This was at about 15 – 17 yards so it demanded some respect. I thought I did respect it enough as I did slow down and get solid sight pictures for the shots. I even called one shot marginal and made it up. But when the stage was over I had one A and two no shoot hits on that target. Both no shoot hits were about an inch down into the no shoot. I believe that both of these were due to aiming too low on the target and also thumping the trigger too much. So a miss and two no shoot penalties pretty much sunk this otherwise good stage run. This was at the end of the day and I was in the “I am over shooting for the day” mode. So it really wasn’t a surprise as I had lost some of my competitive edge and diligence.

It was a great day of shooting and a real test of your visual patience. This for sure was an accuracy match with all of the steel with no shoots behind it and long tight shots. Not much shooting on the move for this match so that was a bummer. I have noticed that when there is more shooting on the move that really separates the skill classes. You couldn’t do much of that at this match so it was a pretty fair stand and shoot competition. I ended up third in Limited at 81% of the winner who was the same GM that handed us our asses the day before. It would have been nice to not have the miss and two no shoots on the last stage but that would have still only put me at about 85% of the GM’s performance. It’s a good gauge to see how much more work I need to put in to achieve my performance goals by the end of the year

[CHA-LEE]

My lady wants to shoot a match so we are going to the indoor match down in Colorado Springs tonight. She seems really excited about it so it should be fun for her. I figure that this match will be a good start for her because its indoors and really only half a match so its not a full day of shooting. This will be a good gauge for her to see if she likes match shooting or not. It should be fun for us all!!!

[CHA-LEE]

My lady and I shot the indoor ICORE style match down in Colorado Springs last night. This was her first match and she did great. We shot two stages both of which were 24 rounds so a reload was needed during the stage runs. Some of the shots were pretty challenging being a little long distance, blocked by hard cover or no shoots or simply odd targets. They used paper plates to simulate a steel plate rack and for me this was the hardest thing to shoot. I think its because they didn’t fall or “Ding” when you hit them. It was a strange thing to shoot them but not have the expected reaction. Either way, the stages were fun to shoot and challenging. My lady did great for her first match. She was able to hit the targets and only ran into accuracy issues when she tried to shoot faster than her comfort zone. This happens to us all though so that’s no surprise. She was really safe while shooting and had fun while doing it. You can’t ask for much more than that on your first match. After the match she was asking me when the next one is, so that is really cool. I will bring her to an outdoor USPSA match in a couple of weeks for her next match experience. Its cool to see my lady giving matches a try.

[Tom Freeman]

She did great. Far better than I did my first match... I still twitch when I think back.

[CHA-LEE]

I called EAA today to check up on the back order status of the Limited top ends and they said that they got them in stock recently. This is great news. I will be ordering a new top end tomorrow and should have it by the end of this week or early next week. Its looking like the old battle axe is getting a new lease on life sooner than expected.

I was talking to another shooter this weekend about getting my new gun IonBonded and he showed me his gun that he got hard chromed locally for a quarter of the cost of IonBond, not to mention the shipping costs. I can have them bead blast the outside of the frame and slide then hard chrome them to give it a dull finish so the sun does not reflect off of it. That is my main goal in getting it coated anyway so if I can get it done locally for way cheaper and way less time why not?

Both of these things are great news on the equipment front. I have been running on borrowed time shooting my main blaster with a cracked slide. It will be nice to get it fixed once and for all

[CHA-LEE]

Both USPSA matches this weekend were cancelled due to poor weather. We got pounded by rain and snow late in the week and it continued into the weekend. Sunday was nice most of the day but the USPSA match on Sunday was up in the mountains where it was still pretty crappy weather. Since there wasn’t a match we decided to get some live fire practice done instead on Sunday. There were five of us so we setup stages and shot each of them a couple of times in different ways. Three of the guys practicing are going to the Single Stack nationals at the end of the week so we focused on setting up challenging Single Stack stages for them.

I wasn’t really motivated to shoot but this was a good situation to be in as that is a huge hole in my skill set. Being able to pull my attention level and motivation up when I am not too into it is something I need to be able to overcome. Yesterday was a great opportunity to work with and improve that skill. I feel that I shot pretty good most of the day. We always had a good mixture of hard and easy shots with some steel mixed in along with a generous dose of movement. My best stage runs were on the stages where there was a good amount of shooting on the move. That was a huge confidence builder for me. I struggled a little bit with being patent for the steel but that has always been a challenge for me. The only bad thing of the day was that I shot full capacity mags and didn’t have to do a reload during any of the stage runs. I should have brought my dedicated 10 round mags so I could fit some reload work into the mix as well. But I forgot them and since I lube up my high capacity mags every time I would dump one in the dirt it would be taken out of commission due to being filled up with sand and dirt. It’s a lazy excuse to not do reloads, but as I said before I wasn’t really that motivated to shoot anyway.

We each burned through about 300 rounds so lots of blasting was had by all. I leaned how to dig deep and bring my mental game up before shooting. This mainly consisted of making my stage plans less complex or detailed so I could digest and program the stage runs. I think that before I would try to program a fairly complex or detailed stage plan and try to force it into my mind but it was just too much for me to focus on and successfully program. That and I had to tell myself a couple of times to “STFU and figure out the stage!!!” when my mind was filled with negative and unfocused thoughts. Kind of like a mental slap upside the head to stop day dreaming and focus on the task at hand. This seemed to work pretty good so its nice to be able to add that tool to the box of experience.

I hope this practice session helped the others get ready for the Single Stack nats. I wish them the best of luck out there. I know that the practice session helped me work on quite a bit of the stuff I currently suck at.

[CHA-LEE]

Since the weather was predicted to get crappy over the next few days I went out and got some live fire practice done yesterday. We setup some stage based practice with a couple of swingers and quite a bit of steel. I shot L-10 during practice which forced me to do at least one reload per run. It was nice to get some reloads burned in during practice. I only had one screwed up reload and that was due to a mag failure where it wouldn’t drop free. This magazine has given me problems in the past so it was kind of expected. I like having a screwed up mag in the mix as it forces me to figure out the problems real time during the practice stage runs. These are practice mags only so I don’t worry about it failing in a match.

For this practice I worked on my current “I suck at this stuff” list of things which consisted of shooting strings of targets in my unflavored direction (left to right), strong hand only, and unloaded gun starts. We also setup the swinging targets so that they were only exposed from 2 – 10 O’clock during their full speed swing. This forced you to time and track the swinger through its movement to get two solid hits on one pass of the swinger. Then we tacked a no-shoot about half way up on the scoring target on the swinger to raise the bar of difficulty even more. This ate our lunch most of the time but it was a good learning experience. Getting two solid hits on one swing without tagging the no-shoot eluded all of us. The only way I could get my hits was to wait for two separate swings of the target taking one shot on each swing. I think I will set this up again in future practice sessions to see if I can succeed at the challenge. This time it whipped my ass.

Overall it was a good practice session and it allowed me to make a little head way against championing some items on my “I suck at this stuff” list. The practice session wasn’t as fun others where I leverage my strengths, but you have to practice the sucky things if you want to get any better at them.

There is a USPSA match planned for this Sunday but the weather forecast is not looking too good. Currently they are calling for a high of 50deg and a 40% chance of rain. I hope that our fairly unpredictable weather errors on the nice side so we can have a match. Only time will tell.

[CHA-LEE]

I attended a USPSA match this past Sunday. This is the match that I help put on so once again there was a lot of work needed before and after the match. We have changed up our stage setup process in the morning to have one match board of director dedicated to each berm during setup. This makes the setup process go a lot faster than before and all of the stages usually end up getting completed around the same time. We had all of the stages setup and ready to go well before the official start time of the match, which is a good thing. It also helps out a lot that we have a great group of shooters that are willing to come out early and help setup as well. We have a great group of shooters here and these matches couldn’t get done without them. The match ran smooth and all of the stages were fun and challenging. I videoed my stage runs but for some reason the audio is out of sync with the video. I have had this issue in the past but I can usually fix it by downloading the video from the camera again and then editing again. But for whatever reason its not working correctly this time. I am using QuickTime Pro to edit the video’s, basically only using it to trim down the movie size to right before and after the stage run. Then I upload them into YouTube. The funky thing is that when I play the video’s using QuickTime the audio and video is in sync. But after I upload them to YouTube the A/V gets out of sync. This is pretty frustrating. If anyone knows a solution for fixing this please let me know. Either way here are my stage breakdowns.

Stage 5 – This was the first stage of the day and also the stage I brought to the match. This was an interesting stage with some steel, some hoser paper and to cap it off a swinger with two scoring targets on it separated by a no shoot. Due to the limitations at our range we can only shoot the steel from a straight on vantage point so the stage mandated that all steel be engaged through a port. The only port available was in the short wall on the left side of the COF. The main log jam on this stage was the double swinger. To shoot the stage fast you had to engage both targets on a single swing. This meant that you had to track the target through its arc of motion to successfully engage at least one of targets on the swinger. I was able to get both targets on one swing and ended up with all alpha hits on it which was awesome for me. The reset of the stage was pretty easy. I caught myself looking at the targets instead of my sights on the first right hand string of close targets and then forced myself to switch over to calling my shots mid string. I think this is what caused my hesitation and make up shot before I exited the shooting position. I felt that I shot this stage decently but I could have probably shaved a second off the run by polishing up the rough edges. On the positive side I was only down 5 points on the stage so that was a good offset to a slower time.

Stage 1 – This was a tricky movement stage which forced you to all four corners of the COF. You had to keep moving through the whole stage or end up wasting a boat load of time. The key point on this stage was to shoot the left hand side forward targets as you backed up to engage the extreme back left target. I missed my mark a little bit on this but I was only about a step behind schedule which didn’t cause too much of a delay in the stage run. You really had to reign in the speed of your shooting on this stage because of the fairly fast foot movement through the stage. I seen a lot of shooters pull off target trying to move and shoot too fast. So my main goal was to keep moving and shoot only as fast as I could call my shots. This worked out pretty good but I still ended up with one D zone hit. Two other limited shooters had faster times by about a second but also had misses which killed their runs.

Stage 2 – This was a crazy 40 round COF with lots of hard cover and targets placed in a way that made you earn your hits or do two reloads. I used my special 22 round mag so I could start with 23 rounds and picked a plan that had me shooting 22 rounds in the first mag and then finish the stage with only one reload. The middle section of the stage had me doing a standing reload but it was either that or do a couple of reloads. Since I had to shoot all 22 rounds in the first mag without any make up shots it forced me to shoot slower than I liked to ensure my hits. So I don’t think that the single reload was any more of an advantage than doing two reloads and letting loose on the paper more. Since this was a 200 point stage it was a third of the match points so a solid performance here was a must if you wanted a good overall finish in the match. With this known I think it was probably better to go the conservative rout on the shooting to ensure my hits even if it was probably slower. I ended up with the second fastest time by about a half a second but was down 11 points which was too much to have it a really solid run. I would have really liked to shoot this stage a couple of different ways to see which plan is really better than another.

Stage 3 – This was the classifier stage of the match called Bookout’s Boogie (99-57). This classifier was a lot harder than I figured it would be. You could shoot the steel or the paper from the back box and then engage the opposite targets from the forward box. I figured that there would be a lot better opportunity to get better points on the paper from the front box so I shot the steel from the back box. I shot the stage ok but needed a couple of make up shots which killed at least a second. My time was pretty lack luster but I was only down 1 point on the paper which gave me a 75% nationally. Much to my surprise this was enough to win the stage in the match. People either took a lot longer to shoot or were a little faster with a miss. There was a lot of hard cover on the paper so I can see how this can happen.

Stage 4 – Last stage of the day. This was a speed shoot stage where you could engage the paper or steel first then reload and engage the opposite targets. I shot the paper first then did the steel second. I shot the paper well down only one point but then got a little greedy on the steel and needed a bunch of make up shots to complete the last plate in each string. All of these extra shots killed at least 2 seconds and wrecked a really good run.

Overall the match was a lot of fun and challenging to shoot. I think I was only down 2 or 3 D’s for the whole match and no other penalties so that was a really good match for me from an accuracy standpoint. I gave up some time on a couple of stages but that’s how it goes some times. This performance netted me the win in Limited and also HOA for the whole match. This was really cool to earn with some solid shooting. A no penalty match with a lot of points on each stage go a long ways I guess. Now I just have to make this my normal level of performance and I will have really achieved something.

[rtr]

Congrats on your 10.1498HF on 3V tonight that's over 100%.

[eerw]

Congrats on your 10.1498HF on 3V tonight that's over 100%.

Nice job Big Panda!!

[Sean Gaines]

The USPSA match on Sunday was up north in Weld county. This match is pretty far away being about an hour and a half drive so we usually don’t get there early enough to help setup. When we left my house in the morning it was a little cold being about 45 deg but it was clear and the sun was shining. By the time we were half way there a very dense fog rolled in and cut visibility to about 25 – 50 yards. This was looking like the same weather conditions as the day before and we were not looking forward to shooting in the same situation as yesterday. The fog was thick and unrelenting all the way to the range. We got some time to check out the stages which was nice and the fog was starting to lift at a steady pace. The really good thing was that there wasn’t any wind. This made it really nice actually. By the time we were done with the first stage the fog was totally gone and it was warming up nicely. I think we finished the day at a little over 70 degrees and totally sunny which was nice. There was a lot of shooters in attendance, 77 total, which made the squads large with about 20 shooters per squad. This made for a long day of shooting. Listed below are my stage runs, along with some video this time. A huge thanks needs to go out to Laura A for doing the video work for this match. Its much appreciated!!!

Stage 2 – We started on the Classifier stage for the match. This was 99-28 called “Hillbillton Drill”. I have shot this classifier really well before but this time they had the poppers painted dark blue. Dark blue poppers on black sights usually does not work out well for me especially when you have one popper in front of another. I started off the stage strong but then botched my reload. Then I shot the steel at an ok pace but just nicked one of the right side ones which left it still standing. This got me mad so I reengaged the popper with four rounds to make sure it would go down. This left me with a pretty craptacular stage run but it wasn’t a total disaster.

Stage 3 – This was a very tricky speed shoot style stage. You had a mixture of steel poppers and plates with no shoots behind them so if you missed you were severely punished. Then you had to reload and engage four partial paper targets blocked by no shoots. All of this was about 20 yards away as well. This stage was absolutely KILLING people on my squad. Out of the 20 people on my squad I think there was only 2 – 3 that didn’t have any penalties. I told myself to take how ever long it would take to get my hits one for one so I could have a penalty free stage run. When I shot the stage I did just that. I got all my hits, without any penalties and was only down 1 point. The extra time it took to shoot the stage put me back about 2 – 3 seconds from the stage winner. But to me that was way too risky to shoot faster. I would rather take a little bit slower run with solid points verses trying to burn it down and end up zeroing the stage. With only 70 points at stake, it wasn’t worth it to risk.

No video for this stage run

Stage 4 – This was a 32 round field course where you shot from three different boxes. All of the targets were at 20 – 25 yards with more partial no shoot blocked paper targets, steel plates and poppers, then two swingers to top it off. In the last box they had a crazy set of 8 different steel plates with odd sizes and shapes. There was a skinny mini popper shaped plate that was about the size of a full size popper set out to probably 50 - 75 yards. That one was giving most shooters a real challenge to take down. I shot the stage pretty solid but had to wait for the swinger to come back in the first box. This killed at least two seconds on the stage run. Then for whatever reason I felt like I had to do a reload between the first and second boxes so I started to reach down for a reload but then stopped myself. This killed some of my aggressiveness in moving from the first box to the second. In the last box, I tried to shoot too fast and needed quite a few make up shots. Overall it was a fair run and I got all of my hits with no penalties which in its self was better than most. I seen a lot of 40 – 60 second runs on this stage with a boat load of misses and no shoots. Sights? We have to use sights?

Stage 5 – This was a 33 round field course with lots of crazy blasting at the start and then a boat load of steel at the end. At the start you had four open paper targets on the right, then four more on the left. Then you advance forward and have two plate racks then a Texas star in the middle. I feel that I executed on this stage pretty well. I had some extra shots on the plate racks and one plate got stuck half way down so I had to shoot it three times for it to go down. But I absolutely rocked the Texas star and shot the rest of the stage pretty good so I didn’t want to reshoot it. I probably left a couple of seconds on the table with the misses on the steel, but I felt like it was a pretty solid run. This was my best stage run of the match and I am really happy with how I shot the Texas star. I shot the star the “old way” that I use to when I first started shooting where I would start at the top and then go back and forth. This seems to work the best for me because I can easily see the next plate to engage. I use to try starting at the top then shoot down the right side as the star rotated the plates coming up to the gun, but I never got use to not seeing the next plate come up from under my gun. I have seen people shoot stars wicked fast using that method though.

Stage 1 – Last stage of the day. This was really the only run and gun stage of the match. You had to start by engaging two poppers from inside the box then the rest of the paper from area A. The steel also had no shoots behind it so if you missed you paid dearly. I watched a people kill a lot of time waiting to see if the steel went down and tried my best to not do that. I shot the front section well shooting on the move then I felt like I shot the back section good. There was one target in the back that was a head shot only blocked by an no shoot up to the neck. This was at about 15 – 17 yards so it demanded some respect. I thought I did respect it enough as I did slow down and get solid sight pictures for the shots. I even called one shot marginal and made it up. But when the stage was over I had one A and two no shoot hits on that target. Both no shoot hits were about an inch down into the no shoot. I believe that both of these were due to aiming too low on the target and also thumping the trigger too much. So a miss and two no shoot penalties pretty much sunk this otherwise good stage run. This was at the end of the day and I was in the “I am over shooting for the day” mode. So it really wasn’t a surprise as I had lost some of my competitive edge and diligence.

It was a great day of shooting and a real test of your visual patience. This for sure was an accuracy match with all of the steel with no shoots behind it and long tight shots. Not much shooting on the move for this match so that was a bummer. I have noticed that when there is more shooting on the move that really separates the skill classes. You couldn’t do much of that at this match so it was a pretty fair stand and shoot competition. I ended up third in Limited at 81% of the winner who was the same GM that handed us our asses the day before. It would have been nice to not have the miss and two no shoots on the last stage but that would have still only put me at about 85% of the GM’s performance. It’s a good gauge to see how much more work I need to put in to achieve my performance goals by the end of the year

Just a few things I noticed:

Stage 4: you are taking to long to get the first shot off, when entering the box. I have practiced shooting with my right foot up in the air, and then transfer with my left foot in the air. you should be firing with one foot in the box.

Stage 1: you have a 100yd draw, you should grip it and rip it, even if its a long shot, the initial draw should be quick and then adjusting the gun for accuracy should be the slower part.

Just a couple of things I saw.