CHA-LEE's Tale

[Dan Hefta]

I have seen Thomas shoot and he is far better than his B card says he is, so take his advise don't ignore it.

[CHA-LEE]

I agree with your stance that my current overall performance is not “On Par” with the top dogs due to the poor hits. But I do believe that my movement through, shooting speed and stage times on the COF’s is in the most part on par with them. I realize that right now I can step back the movement and shooting speed and get better hits but what does that gain me other than a slower stage time? I would much rather push the movement and shooting speed envelope so I can get use to shooting and moving at that speed even if I have worse hits right now. The more I expose myself to the GM speed of doing things the more I will get use to it and my accuracy will come back up to where it should be. Sure I can slow down and get solid hits and continue to produce stage runs that are 60% – 70% of a GM for a lack luster but consistent match performance. But that isn’t my goal. My goal is to run with the top dogs of this sport and if I am not pushing myself to learn while shooting at their movement or shooting speed level then all I am doing is wasting time and ammo. To quote local GM Glenn Hidgon, “If you are not crashing, then you are not racing”. Right now I am doing more crashing than I want to, but more importantly I am still giving it all I got and learning with every single crash that does happen. I know that I still need a lot more shooting experience before everything will start falling into place. But that is also a good point to make. How many shooters really know what they need to work on in order to get better?

When you go to your local matches, who do you REALLY see trying to earn it to get better? I am talking about the people that are willing to risk the crash and burn on a stage or have a hero run simply because they want to experience the shooting at a level that is far above their current shooting skill level? Verses the shooters that WANT to be better but never really want to shoot or think outside their comfort zone. These shooters think that one day they will wake up and be graced with the next level of skills in some magical way. This will not happen.

There is a reason why I have been able to go from “U” to “A” in Limited in less than a year of shooting experience. Its as simple as never believing that whatever my current skill level is “Good Enough”. You can always do something better, faster, or more efficient. The key is to never give up on striving for doing things better and not being afraid of failing during the learning process. Not being afraid to lose in the process of learning is a hard mindset for most people to adopt.

[eerw]

To quote local GM Glenn Hidgon, “If you are not crashing, then you are not racing”.

He also says something about a monkey....but I don't think I can say that in public.

Go fast..the hits will come!!

[EZ Bagger]

I agree with your stance that my current overall performance is not “On Par” with the top dogs due to the poor hits. But I do believe that my movement through, shooting speed and stage times on the COF’s is in the most part on par with them. I realize that right now I can step back the movement and shooting speed and get better hits but what does that gain me other than a slower stage time?

Moving, shooting and times on par? Huh? Here's some tough love.... Remember, this was a match that "counted for something", not just a throw away practice match.

Shooter A:

476 of 525 stage points in 55.12 seconds, HF of 8.64

Shooter Cha Lee:

323 of 525 stage points in 61.49 seconds, HF of 5.25 or about 61% of Shooter A

In other words, to feel like you were shooting on par, you were still 12% slower than Shooter A, had 90 penalties, and had terrible hits.

Here's an easy example of what slowing down just 10% (6.5 seconds for the match) could have "gain"ed you:

476 of 525 points in 68 seconds and the Hit Factor goes to 7.0000, that's 81% of Shooter A.

That's a 20% difference in percentage and a 33% "gain" over your original hit factor.

Now, none of this means I'm saying you should go slow or even care about your times in any way other than to figure out how to see and call every shot as absolutely fast as your eyes/brain can process it...all while moving like a giant Panda.

[eerw]

I agree with your stance that my current overall performance is not “On Par” with the top dogs due to the poor hits. But I do believe that my movement through, shooting speed and stage times on the COF’s is in the most part on par with them. I realize that right now I can step back the movement and shooting speed and get better hits but what does that gain me other than a slower stage time?

Moving, shooting and times on par? Huh? Here's some tough love.... Remember, this was a match that "counted for something", not just a throw away practice match.

Shooter A:

476 of 525 stage points in 55.12 seconds, HF of 8.64

Shooter Cha Lee:

323 of 525 stage points in 61.49 seconds, HF of 5.25 or about 61% of Shooter A

In other words, to feel like you were shooting on par, you were still 12% slower than Shooter A, had 90 penalties, and had terrible hits.

Here's an easy example of what slowing down just 10% (6.5 seconds for the match) could have "gain"ed you:

476 of 525 points in 68 seconds and the Hit Factor goes to 7.0000, that's 81% of Shooter A.

That's a 20% difference in percentage and a 33% "gain" over your original hit factor.

Now, none of this means I'm saying you should go slow or even care about your times in any way other than to figure out how to see and call every shot as absolutely fast as your eyes/brain can process it...all while moving like a giant Panda.

you just got to love a CPA..

[EZ Bagger]

you just got to love a CPA..

Hey! He asked.

[eerw]

Yes..you're right..he asked.

it's never about slowing down..it's all about seeing faster..

[CHA-LEE]

I didn’t say that the Quality of my hits were on par with the top dogs, only the shooting speed (splits, transitions, etc). I can live with my combined raw stage times being 88% of a SOLID GM. To me, that is close enough to being “on par” with the average group of M’s and GM’s which are the “top dogs” that regularly compete in Limited. Yes, I want the quality of my hits to be up to snuff as well, but I feel that I need to first be able to simply move through and shoot the COF at a competitive pace from a time perspective. Sure I can slow down and get better hits, but to me that is not "Teaching" me anything. I know I can do that. I know the quality of my hits need work when shooting and moving faster so that is where I choose to set my stage pace. The value of a given match is different for everyone. Every club match to me is practice and a learning platform. I am willing to sacrifice a stage by trying something different just to gain the experience of trying it. A lot of shooters may look at a Sectional Qualifier as a "Special" or "Important" match, but to me its just another opportunity for practice and experimenting.

With all that being said, keep the tuff love coming!!! All suggestions are welcome. You know me, I am willing to try just about anything in my quest to get better. I can guarantee that it will at least be entertaining to watch

Edited July 1, 2009 by CHA-LEE

[CHA-LEE]

I got some good live fire practice in with some friends today. We did some box to box stuff, shooting on the move (mainly going from right to left which I usually suck at), mixing up near and far targets within the same string, and brain teaser type stage runs. My reloads were sucking when I did some 2 shot, reload, 2 shot drills so I decided to shoot Limited 10 most of the day to burn in some more reload practice during the stage runs. I also tried to focus on shooting all A’s most of the day, but it felt too “Commanded” and ended up with slower times. I just feel more comfortable with shooting at a subconscious level and opening myself up to see what is happening. Most of the time I can get decent hits in this mode but every once in a while there is a D or miss mixed in there. The thing that kills me is that I “SEE” the poor hit in the sight alignment when I call the shot but some times I don’t make it up. When I do make up a shot it is a commanded effort and I drops me out of the subconscious level of shooting. Trying to find this speed/accuracy balance is a very frustrating process. Good practice day though and it felt like I made some progress.

On the bad side, the hinge pin for my rear sight is starting to walk out. This is the third rear sight I have put on this gun and it really pisses me off that it is failing again. I am really thinking about making my own solid rear sight. Given all of these issues I have had with these stock sights, and there not being any upgrade path it seems like the only option. I am going to do some serious brain storming on this next week. I won’t continue to feed crappy $70 rear sights to this gun every 4000 – 5000 rounds. The good old saying goes “If you want something done right you have to do it yourself”.

USPSA Match tomorrow. I have to help put on the match so getting up early and working my tail off is in order tomorrow. Its all worth it though to give back to the sport when I can and see the match from the opposite perspective. The only thing that might suck is that there is rain in the forecast for tomorrow. I hope that we can dodge the rain. I am keeping my fingers crossed.

[SA Friday]

I agree with your stance that my current overall performance is not “On Par” with the top dogs due to the poor hits. But I do believe that my movement through, shooting speed and stage times on the COF’s is in the most part on par with them. I realize that right now I can step back the movement and shooting speed and get better hits but what does that gain me other than a slower stage time?

Moving, shooting and times on par? Huh? Here's some tough love.... Remember, this was a match that "counted for something", not just a throw away practice match.

Shooter A:

476 of 525 stage points in 55.12 seconds, HF of 8.64

Shooter Cha Lee:

323 of 525 stage points in 61.49 seconds, HF of 5.25 or about 61% of Shooter A

In other words, to feel like you were shooting on par, you were still 12% slower than Shooter A, had 90 penalties, and had terrible hits.

Here's an easy example of what slowing down just 10% (6.5 seconds for the match) could have "gain"ed you:

476 of 525 points in 68 seconds and the Hit Factor goes to 7.0000, that's 81% of Shooter A.

That's a 20% difference in percentage and a 33% "gain" over your original hit factor.

Now, none of this means I'm saying you should go slow or even care about your times in any way other than to figure out how to see and call every shot as absolutely fast as your eyes/brain can process it...all while moving like a giant Panda.

you just got to love a CPA..

ya, that's good stuff. That's why I keep a CPA on speed dial.

[CHA-LEE]

Good match today. I worked my tail off in the morning setting up stages and didn’t get a chance to do any practice runs through the stages before the match started. This was different than most matches as I am usually able to get some decent time checking out the stages. So heading into each stage I had to pretty much scope it out from a match shooting perspective for the first time. This sounds strange as I helped build a couple of the stages so you would think I would have some inside knowledge on the best way to shoot it, but it didn’t work that way. I think I did a decent job of breaking down the stages and pretty much ran with the pack on how the stages were shot. The high lights from the match were a solid classifier run and a decent performance in stage execution. The classifier was Both Sides Now #2 (99-16) and I got a 96.9% run on it. I didn’t feel like I “Burned it down” but instead I just tried to be smooth and consistent, that should tell me something in its self. On the other stages I tried my best to shoot on the move consistently and I felt good about how I did and my hits were decent as well. I think that I only got 2 – 3 D hits the whole day which is a good thing. I did have two mikes though. One was on a speed shoot stage with head shots only and I dropped a hit about 2 inches to the side of the head. This was from pushing the limit on speed when shooting the stage. The second miss of the day was on the first target of the stage where I was pushing the speed again. I checked out the video in slow motion and the miss was my very first shot and I flinched pushing the shot below the target. Not too much of a surprise as I wanted to burn down the first to targets quickly and ended up being too tense. Its always the close “Easy” targets that bite you because you don’t give them the respect they deserve. More lessons. This is why I like shooting matches verses burning through a ton of ammo in live fire practice. Some lessons can only be learned in the heat of the moment during a match run. Overall I think I did pretty decent in the match. The results have not been sent out yet so I don’t know where I finished, but given the competition in Limited division (Two rock star GM’s and a couple of very solid Masters) that day I would venture to say that I ended up around 5th in Limited. I will just have to wait and see how it turns out when the results get posted.

[CHA-LEE]

The results from Sundays match have been posted and I ended up 4th out of 24 shooters in Limited. This was 83% of the match winner of Limited division. I am happy with my finishing results of the match. I have set a short term goal of getting in the 80% - 90% range of the match winner when solid GM’s are in attendance. So its nice to meet that goal for the first time. Now I just have to keep on that pace and continue to work on smoothing out the rough edges.

[CHA-LEE]

I shot a USPSA match yesterday up in Steamboat Springs. It was a section qualifier match and a good chance for a weekend getaway with the lady so it ended up being a double win for us. Shooting at a new range was fun. The local shooters were great people and put on a good match. I was able to squad with the match director and he worked tirelessly the whole day making sure that every squad had what they needed.

Some of the stages were straight forward and others were a little tricky. I shot the match pretty bad though. The first stage of the day was a box to box stage with a couple targets to engage between the shooting boxes. I started off the stage and chugged through the first two boxes good and then got to the shoot on the move targets and engaged them too fast. I called a miss on one of them, but it was the last shot in the string and I was already moving into the final box. So I finished the targets in the final box then came back to make up the called miss. This cost me at least an extra second to make up the shot. Then to make matters worse when I checked out the target after shooting the called miss was a top corner D hit on the perforation, so it was a valid hit just a crappy one. In the end, with the shot I called a miss being an actual hit but so close to the edge of the target I was fine with calling it a miss and making it up. I still was going too fast through there and that’s what caused the issue in the first place. More lessons in knowing when to slow down to ensure solid hits.

The second stage of the day was the Classifier (Fluffys Revenge) which I zeroed. Bye, Bye 40 Points. It was early in the day and the berm it was on had the backs of the targets facing the sun. So the front of the targets were the “Shadow” side and I couldn’t make out the scoring zones on the targets. They just look like dark brown pieces of cardboard. To make it even more evil from a seeing perspective the steel poppers were painted dark blue. I think this is where my solid front sight and dark sunglasses may have screwed me. Dark sunglasses, Dark targets, with Solid front sight makes it REALLY hard to call your shots quickly. I shot the string and when I was done I seen two no shoots tagged about an inch in from the edge in the direction I was shooting. Where it really hit home was that I had “Called” the shots good when I ran through the string. So seeing the no shoot hits was a surprise after I was done shooting. Looking back, I should have switched over to my regular untinted glasses to make everything brighter so I could actually SEE what was going on. Or switched over to the FO front sight, but that would have been a real pain in the ass to switch during the match. Oh well, not much you can do other than “Experience” the sucky stuff as well.

The third stage of the day was a little bit of a brain teaser as the COF called out for 3 hits on each target instead of just 2. The actual COF was a pretty easy and straight forward layout, but I had a hell of a time programming the stage with 3 hits on each target. The stage also had a Texas star in it which I planned to take last after all of the paper targets. I run through the stage faster than I thought I would from a foot speed perspective and it put me at the end of the COF before I expected and forced me to do a standing reload. I don’t think the standing reload cost me too much time as I had to do the reload anyway and I was shooting the whole time up to the final position. I was a little too fast with the shots which gained me some craptacular hits. Then I got to the Texas star and “Here We Go Again” performance comes into play. I pick off the first and second plates without issue and I think in my mind “Sweet, this is going to be a piece of cake”. Right after that pops into my head I have a miss on the third plate, then make it up, and then miss on the 4th plate and have to make it up with a couple more shots, then I miss on the 5th plate and have to make it up as well. I wasted at least 2 – 3 seconds screwing around with hitting the plates on that Texas star. I tried shooting it from the top right down and then let the plates come around to hit. But I seem to have a real problem with being patient enough for the next plate to swing up so I start searching for it then over shoot it as it is coming up. I think I may need to go back to the top, back and forth, then bottom way of shooting the star. At least that way I can pick up the next plate to engage in my peripheral vision, verses this other way where I am waiting for the next plate to come up from under my gun and just “appear”. I need to wrangle up some practice time with a star and shoot it like 20 times a bunch of different ways to get the best way to engage it down pat.

The fourth stage of the day was a fairly quick run around some walls type of stage. I ran through it pretty good but ended up with a miss about 3 inches into the hard cover on the last target I engaged in the second shooting position. I simply shot it too fast as I think my split on it was somewhere in the .10 - .12 sec range. I figured I could point shoot it as I exited the position and we can see how that worked. Both hits were in the A zone, but one was in the hard cover portion of the target. This should show me that I should never take any shot for granted that it will be “Easy”. I need to have enough patience to ensure my hits will be quality ones.

The last stage of the day was a true run and gun stage. The club used one of their 100 Yard rifle berms for this stage and used almost all of it. There were three groups of 4 targets then a plate rack and a really fast drop out/return target at the end of the COF. All of that and you had to HAUL ASS the whole way through the COF which was about 75 yards. I literally had to run full out as hard as I could for at least 8 – 10 strides before starting to put on the breaks to engage the targets in the next shooting position. Repeat this stop and go three times and 33 seconds later and you have a thoroughly winded shooter. This was the worst stage of the day for me. I racked up two misses and two no shoots in this run simply because I was trying to shoot on the move through the shooting positions. I should have planted to shoot the strings of targets then hauled ass to the next position. But in my quest to improve my shooting on the move skills, I decided otherwise. I think that my movement was good, but my heart rate and breath were so amped up from the running the gun was bobbing around a lot more than normal when trying to shoot on the move. It was a cool stage to shoot through and I think that everyone liked shooting it. Now ROing it and running the same COF with the shooters over and over again became a challenge. This big panda got a work out on that stage.

The shooting was over for the day and even though my match results were pretty bad, I still had fun and for me, that counts for a lot. After the match we had a good dinner with friends then headed up to the hot springs for a good relaxing soak. What an awesome ending to a fun day of shooting.

[CHA-LEE]

The latest USPSA Classification report has been run and my average has bumped up to 81%. I still have a couple of 60 something percent runs lingering in my top 6 average so that is dragging my average down. All I need are a couple of 75%+ classifiers and my average should bump above 85%. I think its funny how the last month or so I have treated the classifiers as just another stage to shoot I have been able to do pretty well with them. I am not trying to Hero or Zero the classifiers, but instead just shoot them to the best of my ability. Some times my shooting ability sucks and I Zero the classifier and other times it’s solid and a very good classifier result is achieved. I am going to continue on this path of just shooting them with no more or less importance than any other stage in the match. Where my classification average ends up is where it ends up. But I think at this point, due to how the math works on the classification system, a Master level classification is probably not far off in the future. Even though I don’t think I am really shooting at a Master level in the matches. Much more practice and experience is going to be needed to shoot at a solid Master level in the matches.

This weekend I am foregoing the local matches to attend a class from well known GM Manny Bragg. This is going to be a two day training class with a lot of rounds being ear marked as “Needed” for the class. I am eager to see what I can learn from Manny. I am going into the training with an expectation of getting at least a couple of good nuggets of information to work on after the class. I would rather latch onto a few good points and really burn them in verses try and flood my head with all kinds of new stuff and it all goes in one ear and out the other. Training overload is an easy trap to fall into and then it becomes ineffective.

The only thing that sucks is that right after the end of the training class on Sunday I have to fly out of the country for a couple of weeks for work. So I can’t run through the stuff in live fire practice right after the training. I will have to do my best with dry fire practice while I am on the road to try and burn in the skills learned in the training. We will just have to wait and see how that turns out.

[JThompson]

The latest USPSA Classification report has been run and my average has bumped up to 81%. I still have a couple of 60 something percent runs lingering in my top 6 average so that is dragging my average down. All I need are a couple of 75%+ classifiers and my average should bump above 85%. I think its funny how the last month or so I have treated the classifiers as just another stage to shoot I have been able to do pretty well with them. I am not trying to Hero or Zero the classifiers, but instead just shoot them to the best of my ability. Some times my shooting ability sucks and I Zero the classifier and other times it’s solid and a very good classifier result is achieved. I am going to continue on this path of just shooting them with no more or less importance than any other stage in the match. Where my classification average ends up is where it ends up. But I think at this point, due to how the math works on the classification system, a Master level classification is probably not far off in the future. Even though I don’t think I am really shooting at a Master level in the matches. Much more practice and experience is going to be needed to shoot at a solid Master level in the matches.

This weekend I am foregoing the local matches to attend a class from well known GM Manny Bragg. This is going to be a two day training class with a lot of rounds being ear marked as “Needed” for the class. I am eager to see what I can learn from Manny. I am going into the training with an expectation of getting at least a couple of good nuggets of information to work on after the class. I would rather latch onto a few good points and really burn them in verses try and flood my head with all kinds of new stuff and it all goes in one ear and out the other. Training overload is an easy trap to fall into and then it becomes ineffective.

The only thing that sucks is that right after the end of the training class on Sunday I have to fly out of the country for a couple of weeks for work. So I can’t run through the stuff in live fire practice right after the training. I will have to do my best with dry fire practice while I am on the road to try and burn in the skills learned in the training. We will just have to wait and see how that turns out.

You will learn a ton from Manny... I bet you jump 10% in matches right off the bat. It also sounds as though you are progressing very well.

Congrats

JT

[eerw]

81%..

nice work..

see ya this weekend!!

[CHA-LEE]

I took the Manny Bragg Class this past weekend. I can’t go into extensive detail right now as I have to jump on a plane to Malaysia in a couple of hours. BUT, I can say that this class was absolutely AWESOME!!!

He opened my eyes to so many new things and different ways of doing things better and more efficient. It’s honestly kind of overwhelming and will take a lot of work to “Undo” some of what I have been doing in the past. But it will all be 100% worth it in the end. I really look forward to exploring these new ways of shooting, moving, and thinking. I know that once I get these things refined I will be a much better overall shooter. The only thing I have to do is put in the effort to champion these new methodologies.

More to come later……

[eerw]

look forward to hear your views on what we learned..seeing you apply the information was phenomenal..glad I am not a limited shooter..you're going to rock.

safe trip.

[CHA-LEE]

I just completed the second flight (16 Hours ) for my trip down to Malaysia. I was able to kill some time by compiling the notes I took during the Manny Bragg Class. I plan on focusing on these things in my live and dry fire practice. LOTS of stuff to work on!!! But as I said before, its all good stuff and I look forward to optimizing these things.

Manny Bragg Class Notes

Shooting Tips

(1) Do enough live fire testing to know what your shot split times are for solid A’s on all target types and distances.

(2) Shoot on the move when you can for 13 yard or closer targets that are fully open. For further out or tighter “Danger” shots get into a planted shooting position.

(3) You don’t need to see all targets in a string before starting to engage them if you can shoot them on the move.

(4) Drive the gun to the next target aggressively as soon as the last shot breaks on the current target.

(5) Strive to shoot more controlled but transition faster between targets.

(6) Time of draw & first shot really only counts to a plate/head shot at 10 yards. Too many flaws in the draw & breaking the shot can be hidden when the targets are closer.

(7) Prep trigger take up before breaking the shot for medium to long distance shots to greatly increase accuracy.

(8) Trigger slap is acceptable for close open targets as gun should be sufficiently aligned on the A zone by a proper shooting index and Grip.

(9) Swingers, No-Shoot Blocked, tight, or 13+ yard distance targets are considered “Dangerous” and should not be engaged on the move. Trigger prep and .20+ splits are a must to ensure solid hits. Since you will be planted for these shots maximize the “Danger” targets you can engage while stationary.

(10) Start and finish every practice session with high precision group shooting. Such as one shot draws at 10 Yards within a 3 inch circle.

(11) You should see the sights lift on every single shot. If you don’t see the sights lift you really have not been able to call the shot.

(12) When shooting swinging targets find the closest exposed point of the A zone when compared to the center line of the swinging arc of the target. This will be the slowest portion of the highest scoring area of the target that you can track with the sights. Track the movement of the A zone on the target as it becomes exposed. For left or right side exposed swingers break the first shot a little before it reaches the downward movement pause, then break the second shot as it comes back up from the pause. Shooting it before and after the bottom swing pause, instead of at the pause allows for you to break two accurate A zone shots. Verses one good shot at the pause and a “Hoper” follow up shot as you try and engage it again before it comes up from the paused position. For swingers that are only exposed at the top when they are only seen during full motion, again find the lowest A zone hit position. Then look for visual markers on the barriers that are blocking the rest of the swingers motion to know where the A zone will appear and disappear during each sweep of the target. Align the sights at these “Marker” positions and track the target in the A zone and only engage it once per swing. Wait for it to come back the other direction for the second shot. One shot per swing or two really depends on how quickly the target is swinging and how blocked its travel is.

(13) C/D zone vertical hard cover “zebra” targets set horizontally are very hard shots to make.

(14) When your shots fail to go where you want them to they usually end up going low, rarely high. So bias your sight alignment slightly high on extremely tight shots for insurance.

Movement Tips

(1) Fast stage movement is not foot speed as much as it is the sharpness and aggressiveness of the transitions between targets.

(2) Do not crown shooting positions where you need to pull the gun back to clear the wall/barrel/port so you can engage the next target in the following shooting position right away. Every time you pull the gun in and push it back out is at least a half a second loss.

(3) Transition from target to target with legs not waist or arms. Move eyes first them move upper body as whole unit at knees. More solid and aggressive movement and less chance of overshooting the destination by doing this.

(4) Stay low while shooting through to the end of the COF and follow through on final target.

(5) Foot nearest the direction you are going to travel should be biased forward in that direction. Launch out of position by lifting forward foot and pushing off with back foot.

(6) When shooting on the move to not initiate movement by crossing legs over. The leg closest to the target should initiate the first step and lead the way.

(7) Keep gun up and out as you start moving out of a planted shooting position if there are targets to engage on the move immediately after exiting the previous shooting position.

(8) Falling out of a shooting position while shooting should only be done when engaging medium to easy targets to ensure solid hits.

General Tips

(1) The shot timer is the judge of success/failure only when 90% - 95% of the points are achieved during the drill/stage. Slinging hoper shots at targets by shooting or moving too fast just to achieve a fast stage time will usually result in poor hits that bring the hit factor down below a slower but better points run.

(2) Support hand index finger presses up against the bottom of the trigger guard as soon as hands come together close to belly/chest during the draw. Once support hand index finger is position build the grip as you push the gun up and out. This allows the grip to be fully completed way before the gun is fully extended in its final position.

(3) The same draw motion should be easily performed both up and out, then down and back into the holster.

(4) Explode the draw up and out of the holster.

(5) Explosive support hand movement to magazine during initiation of the reload. New mag should be up and ready to insert as the old mag is just starting to fall away.

(6) 5% less shooting speed usually equals 15% better points on your hits.

(7) Stage points are a premium

[CHA-LEE]

Did some dry fire today. Tried to get use to the new method of building the grip right out of the holster. It feels odd but I can see the benefit already. Before I was finishing my grip by the end of the gun movement up and out. This would end up in a little bit of “wobble” at the end of the gun presentation because I was still finishing my grip. Building the grip lower down in the process allows for a more secure sight picture when the gun is up and out. I think I will only need about 10,000 more draws before I get this new draw baked in.

I also worked on some movement drills for exiting and entering shooting positions as well as shooting on the move. These skills are feeling more and more solid with every practice session. A lot more work is needed on transitioning between targets with my knees verses my arms.

I am still trying to get use to the trigger prep process before breaking the shot. I am practicing with a super cheap airsoft gun and the trigger is complete crap so its hard to build up a repeatable “Process” for doing the trigger prep. The trigger pull weight and take up keeps varying from 3lb – 10lb depending on how hard I grip the gun so I am somewhat forced to just “row” the trigger instead of prepping it. I think I am going to wait until I am back home to dry fire with my normal pistol for the trigger prep stuff.

It sucks that I am out of town as I can’t practice this stuff in live fire or local matches. I will just have to wait until I get back into town.

[CHA-LEE]

It’s great to be back home!!! I hate traveling to other countries for an extended amount of time. I planned on attending an indoor USPSA match last night so I figured I should get a little bit of trigger time before heading to the match. I am super glad that I was able to get some practice before hand as I had to shake some cob webs off my skills. The first 5 – 10 shots out of the gun felt odd to say the least. Its crazy how being away from shooting for only two weeks can reset your impression of shooting. The practice session went good. I mainly focused on accuracy stuff with some movement and a little bit of high speed blasting. I only shot about 100 rounds but it was more than enough to get back into the saddle.

The match in the evening consisted of two stages. The first stage was the normal box to box type of stage. 20 rounds and some further distance shots. The middle box was a barricade/box and you had to engage three targets from each side of the barricade which made for some awkward shooting. I shot the stage “ok” on time but was doing a little bit of fishing for the sights when I came into the middle shooting position. I don’t know if it was the awkward shooting position or just being a little rusty but my index was not right when engaging the first targets on either side. I had to wait to align the sights before shooting which is pretty abnormal for me. I think I gave away at least half a second fishing for the sights in the middle box. But it was time well spent as I got my hits. My movement from box to box was nice and aggressive as well so that helped. I got all my hits on the stage but also collected 3 D hits and they were all on leaving the shooting positions so I must have been moving my head before breaking the last shot in the string.

The second stage was a classifier called “Take Your Choice” (99-12). Pretty basic classifier but the targets were at 13 yards which is just outside my super fast blasting comfort zone. So I instead took the strategy of just shooting “A’s” and who cares what the time is. For this classifier you basically start behind a barricade and engage three targets on the right side reload as you move to the left side and engage three more targets. When shooting it I focused on calling every shot and then during the reload I caught my pinky finger between the magazine and the magwell of the gun “OUCH!!!” and had to double seat the mag which cost me some time. I cleaned up the left side targets fairly well and ended up with 4 points down with an ok time. This netted me a 76% run which wasn’t great but at least an A class run.

Overall I was happy with getting all my hits and no penalties for my first match back and had fun as well so it really can’t get much better than that. I need to do some more work on integrating Manny’s suggestions. I think this will always be a work in progress though.

[CHA-LEE]

Well this weekend is shaping up to be chocked full of shooting. Horrible situation right

Friday night I am going to attend an IDPA style match. It’s a home grown match with its own special rules but it mostly caters to IDPA style shooters. I have shot this match in the past and the shooting isn’t too challenging, but its shooting none the less.

Saturday is going to be an official IDPA match. The only reason I am shooting this one is due to needing to be on that side of town in the afternoon. But still a chance to do some shooting so why not?

Sunday is a USPSA match down in Pueblo. I am really looking forward to this match as the USPSA matches are the most fun and the Pueblo club always puts on a great match. They also usually do 6 stages instead of 5 so that is an extra bonus. One of my friends that I got into USPSA shooting is also thinking about going to this match so I am excited about that. He is trying to get his wife into match shooting as well so this might be her first match. I hope she does shoot this weekend as its always good to get new shooters into the sport. We will see what happens.

[CHA-LEE]

I shot the indoor IDPA style match today. The rules are pretty much IDPA where you have to shoot from behind cover but you don’t have to retain your magazines if they are not empty. They had two stages with a mandated shooting order so you couldn’t get too creative with the stage. They also discouraged walking the stage before shooting it with a mandate of “if we catch you walking the stage you are instantly DQed from the match”. So this was a real test of planning the stage run from far away. I went with a basic plan of putting myself in a shooting position and engaging the targets that I can see. The first stage went well as I was able to flow through the stage pretty efficiently. I got all my hits and was able to speed up and slow down my shooting speed as needed for the open and tight shots. The second stage was a pretty simple memory style stage. I got a little mixed up on the third shooting position and lost about a second recovering but the rest of the stage went well. Got all of my hits and a good stage time even with the mix up. It was fun to shoot but with the mandated shooting positions it took the “Figure it out on your own” factor that you get at USPSA style matches. Oh well, I got to shoot and had fun while doing it so it’s a win in my book.

IDPA match tomorrow. It will be interesting to see how many times I get “COVER” yelled at me during the match. We will see how it goes.

[CHA-LEE]

I shot the IDPA match today and entered in “Outlaw” class since I was running my normal USPSA Limited setup. There were a boat load of new shooters. I think there was like 30 new shooters at this match and probably 60 – 70 total shooters. That is really cool to see so many new shooters introduced to practical shooting. Now we just have to get them a taste of USPSA and they will be hooked for life.

The match consisted of 4 stages. The first stage had you laying down in a bed and then you had to pickup your gun off of a bucket and start engaging targets. It was really hard for me to adhere to the “Cover” rules since I have been shooting so much USPSA. But I think I did pretty good on the first stage for following the rules. The only thing that sucked is that when I was laying down in the bed right before the start of the stage I looked right into the sun and it blasted my eyes and I was seeing spots. Not a good thing when the buzzer goes off a couple seconds later.

The second stage had you start holding a brief case in your weak hand and you were an arms length away from the first target to engage. On the start signal you had to draw and engage the first target from “Retention” strong hand only, which basically means shooting it from the hip strong hand only. I had never done that before so it was an experience in its self. Some real point shooting there. The rest of the stage was pretty easy and I ended up with one target that had a -3 hit along with a 0 so I was -3 for the stage.

The third stage was more of the same. You started with a rope in your strong hand that when you pull it activates the first swinger. You also started an arms length away from the first two targets that were right next to one another and had to engage them from “Retention” strong hand only. So at the buzzer you pull the rope to activate the swinger then draw and engage the first two targets from retention. After that you engage the swinger you just activated and then a row of 4 targets. This is where my USPSA brain kicked in and just couldn’t shoot them from cover or so to say “Slicing the Pie”. I got a procedural for not being behind cover even though I was engage the targets on the move. This is where the IDPA rules or at least the interpretation of them gets sketchy. The rule book does say that you can expose yourself to targets as long as you are shooting on the move towards your next cover position. Which is what I was doing, but I got a failure to shoot from cover procedural penalty. Oh well, I really didn’t care as I was just out to have some fun anyway. The final shooting position had you engage a lone popper that activated the second swinger that was pretty fast. I had really good hits up until that swinger where I picked up two -3 hits. I think I got too over confident in shooting swingers from that Manny Bragg training class and it nipped me in the butt. You can’t “Hope” the hits onto the target, you have to earn them as always. Below is a video of my stage run.

The fourth stage of the day was a little odd. You started seated on a 5 Gallon bucket with a fishing pole in your strong hand and you gun is loaded in a tackle box next to you. The targets are in a left to right line laying sideways with the bottom half covered with hard cover. At the buzzer you drop the fishing pole, get your pistol out of the tackle box and engage the targets but you have to stay seated on the bucket. The targets were a good distance away and the hard cover on them made it an even harder shot. I took my time on this one and collected as many zero’s as I could but still ended up with a -1 when the dust had settled. My time was lack luster but given how much the other shooters were racking up negative points and misses I don’t think I strategy was bad.

Overall I had fun and got to shoot, so I really can’t bitch much at all. Tomorrow is where the fun really begins though as that is going to be a USPSA match down in Pueblo. They always put on a great match and I am looking forward to shooting it. Hopefully all this shooting this week has me fully back in the saddle from my couple of weeks away from pulling the trigger. I feel like I am back to normal, but we will see how it goes tomorrow.

[CHA-LEE]

USPSA match today. It was filled with highs and lows. To me, this match was a pretty tuff one. Every single stage had some level of hard cover and no shoots blocking most of the targets. Then the targets that were not blocked were at least 15 yards away but usually further away. A great match for forcing you to restrain yourself and get your hits. Unfortunately this didn’t sink in on the first stage and I racked up a couple of missed because I was shooting too fast and aggressive. Then the second stage was the classifier which I shot fairly well but completely missed my reload and the magazine went flying so I grabbed my next magazine and that one went flying as well. So I had to bend down and pick one of them up, load and finish the stage. Ultra ugly to say the least. But I did my best to put those stages behind me and tackle the rest of the stages the best I could. I had some good stages after that with a couple of mistakes but not too bad overall. The best stage of the day for me was a 22 round stage that I loaded up 21 in the mag and one in the hole and gave it hell with no looking back. I ended up winning the stage but more importantly I shot it well and not over my head which seems to be my enemy lately. I can already see and feel some of the Manny Bragg class tips showing up in my shooting. First, shooting slower and getting hits. That’s always a challenge for me but its starting to seep in. I have also been doing a lot better on keeping the gun extended and aggressively transitioning between targets. Its really hard for me to not pull the gun back while making large transitions but when I don’t do it I can see a real time savings. So the immediate reward of time savings helps promote doing it more.

In the end the crappy first two stages put a big dent in my overall match results. Way too many stage points lost on those first two stages of the day. I ended up 4th in Limited at 85% of the winner. We had some very solid shooters in attendance so my overall finish given my performance is good enough for me. If I clean up some of these rough edges I will be in the hunt.