ihatepickles' shooting log

[Flexmoney]

I shot the Indiana Prod/SS/Rev match this past weekend.

The worst part of this stage for me was realizing how lame my plan was prior to my run. I tried to work out something solid that would be more efficient but just couldn't settle on something that I knew... ... I didn't realize being a bit conservative would've hurt my overall so much though, I really felt playing safer would've benefited me but now I'm convinced otherwise.

In general, being conservative probably doesn't hurt near as much as not really being happy with the plan. If you aren't comfortable with it, it won't be executed with efficiency.

The downside was my points. They stunk. I shot 85% of the available points. Lots of extra shots. I lost count of the the Charlies I made up with new Charlies.

I've decided I need to put several weeks of practice and effort into reducing my extra shots. I took 293 shots on a 234 minimum match. That's 59 extra shots although I know I dropped at least 3 of my ULSC rounds so call it 56 rounds. I'd estimate 8 of those rounds went towards steel. I triple tapped 4 swingers. The rest of the extra shots went to sloppy work on my sights while on paper. If I didn't register the shot call, I took a makeup shot. I'm torn about this. I'm glad I took the make up for a unknown shot. I'm not glad about all the extra shots though.

I need to get more solid on my shot calling to reduce my extra rounds. I can call shots but I lack the discipline to do it every time. I'd call it fading focus on the job at hand. I'd estimate my shot calling is turned on 80% of the time, not sure where the 20% is going.

Brian calls it "visual patience"... But, I worry that some think of that as slowing down. (which is a speed focus). The key is the vision.

The discipline come from DECIDING to see more...and see more of the right stuff. I'd suggest making a much tighter "target spot" as your one and only priority.

Target Spot

Wanna-b-speedy (part 1)

Wanna-b-speedy (part 2)

Wanna-b-speedy (part 3)

[ihatepickles]

Brian calls it "visual patience"... But, I worry that some think of that as slowing down. (which is a speed focus). The key is the vision.

The discipline come from DECIDING to see more...and see more of the right stuff. I'd suggest making a much tighter "target spot" as your one and only priority.

Ouch. I'm reading the wanna-b-speedy threads for the first time and it's totally "me". It's a letdown to see the top of the mountain and know how long it's going to take to get there.

With that said, I do appreciate the links. Do you have any feedback on my mechanics? Gun handling, mags, movement, etc...

[Flexmoney]

Nothing in the mechanics jumped out at me.

You should be in a good place. You were making up shots because you saw what you saw (or didn't see). That is great.

I'd think that the mindset leading up to causing those make-up is a speed focus. So, I'd think it would be a mental shift.

I do it plenty too.

Have you seen those little 3 or 4 inch square stickers that Brian has in his store? I am going to make those my "target" for practice...placing them in the upper portion of the lower A-zone. (I have an image or two of that around here...let me know if you want to see it and can't find it).

[Flexmoney]

It's a letdown to see the top of the mountain and know how long it's going to take to get there.

It might not take as much as it may seem. It really is a mental switch. If you can make that switch, and then TRUST that getting the points is what matters...you can make quick progress.

[ihatepickles]

Have you seen those little 3 or 4 inch square stickers that Brian has in his store? I am going to make those my "target" for practice...placing them in the upper portion of the lower A-zone. (I have an image or two of that around here...let me know if you want to see it and can't find it).

This is what I use for an aiming point during load development: http://www.toolfetch.com/circle-labels-bx-dl614f.shtml At ~$20 per 500, they're a good deal. I have some 1" versions too, might be better for closer drills.

I'm going to put them to use in practice and see if I can find my visual skills. At this point, my live fire practice isn't what I need it to be. I don't have a range close to home. I've been knocking on some farm doors lately trying to find someone who doesn't mind a shooter banging away twice a week in the back forty.

Thanks for the feedback.

[ihatepickles]

I shot at Silver Creek with a whole bunch of Benosians, including meeting Jonathan and Monica Taliani. Not sure if Grant posts here but I met him too. Windy day but not too cold.

The gun and ammo ran well.

I shot well on 2 stages. I shot poorly on 2 stages. I shot meh on 2 stages.

I don't have the patience right now to describe the ups and down, perhaps later. All the things described in the wanna-b-speedy threads are still happening. I'm still making up Charlies on Virginia Count stages.

[ihatepickles]

Regarding the Silver Creek match. It was a bit of a frustrating day. I can't say what exactly I'm doing differently that separates the suck from the success. I practice, sure. I visualize things, sure. Really though, my head is kind of swimming with ideas prior to shooting a CoF rather than being focused on the task.

I don't consciously think of shooting classifiers differently, but I I'm psyching myself out sometimes. In yesterday's match, when I was about 2 shooters deep in the order, I started thinking "I need to shoot each string in about 4.5 seconds..." I think that's some speed focus creeping into my prestage mindset and I don't need that bit of trivia on the tip of my tongue when I'm stepping to the line.

By the activator stage (6th stage for me) I knew I'd placed poorly in the match, so I didn't have much passion in my shooting. I couldn't find a way to breakdown the moving mag changes so I'd have 4 rounds in the gun when I got to the first left side activator, I I just decided to take the max trap with my last 2 rounds and reload as I did a wide transition to the right and then followed it up with another wide transition to back to the left. The stage turned out well, I think I shot 148/160 points and my time was reasonable for Production. My mental state was pretty disinterested and the stage came together really well.

I remember a post from Jake Di Vita and he said he shot best without emotion. That guy might know something about this sport.

It's hard to care about the outcome and not care about the individual pieces though. In other words, I feel pretty lost at the moment. There's so many paths to take, I don't feel I have an overall approach to my shooting. The large number of options is confusing. I once thought about my training and practice as being acceptably complex as long as I simplified things on match day so that I only had single priorities. Now I'm wondering if that's not a fallacy, perhaps it better to practice and compete with a single mind.

That's a tough thing to work out and perhaps beyond my current skills. Focus on fundamental skills is going to be my default practice mode while I let these things compete for attention in my head. Hopefully with some time the path becomes more clear, it'd be easy to over-think this and end up worse.

[steel1212]

Regarding the Silver Creek match. It was a bit of a frustrating day. I can't say what exactly I'm doing differently that separates the suck from the success. I practice, sure. I visualize things, sure. Really though, my head is kind of swimming with ideas prior to shooting a CoF rather than being focused on the task.

I don't consciously think of shooting classifiers differently, but I I'm psyching myself out sometimes. In yesterday's match, when I was about 2 shooters deep in the order, I started thinking "I need to shoot each string in about 4.5 seconds..." I think that's some speed focus creeping into my prestage mindset and I don't need that bit of trivia on the tip of my tongue when I'm stepping to the line.

By the activator stage (6th stage for me) I knew I'd placed poorly in the match, so I didn't have much passion in my shooting. I couldn't find a way to breakdown the moving mag changes so I'd have 4 rounds in the gun when I got to the first left side activator, I I just decided to take the max trap with my last 2 rounds and reload as I did a wide transition to the right and then followed it up with another wide transition to back to the left. The stage turned out well, I think I shot 148/160 points and my time was reasonable for Production. My mental state was pretty disinterested and the stage came together really well.

I remember a post from Jake Di Vita and he said he shot best without emotion. That guy might know something about this sport.

It's hard to care about the outcome and not care about the individual pieces though. In other words, I feel pretty lost at the moment. There's so many paths to take, I don't feel I have an overall approach to my shooting. The large number of options is confusing. I once thought about my training and practice as being acceptably complex as long as I simplified things on match day so that I only had single priorities. Now I'm wondering if that's not a fallacy, perhaps it better to practice and compete with a single mind.

That's a tough thing to work out and perhaps beyond my current skills. Focus on fundamental skills is going to be my default practice mode while I let these things compete for attention in my head. Hopefully with some time the path becomes more clear, it'd be easy to over-think this and end up worse.

Why did you know what your times needed to be on the classifier? Don't look that stuff up before you shoot it, just shoot it and let them fall where they may! Also treat every stage like its a one stage match. So you screwed up on the previous stage, move one. Shoot the next stage like its another match entirely and keep learning!

[ihatepickles]

Why did you know what your times needed to be on the classifier? Don't look that stuff up before you shoot it, just shoot it and let them fall where they may! Also treat every stage like its a one stage match. So you screwed up on the previous stage, move one. Shoot the next stage like its another match entirely and keep learning!

Yes, exactly.

When I'm doing my stage prep (not much to do on a classifier, really) I break down when I need mag changes and where the shooting positions are. I also try and estimate how much time a good run will take. I make decisions about whether to push speed or points based on those things.

Here's the thing, on a classifier the answer 99% of the time is push points. They're generally 40-60 point stages. Yet I seem to be thinking about the time more than the points. I think it comes back to the critiques Flex posted. I want to be fast more than I want to be accurate. I fight that urge all day long.

Knowing the path vs. taking the path.

Like you say, hitting the reset button and running each stage as it's own match could really help me.

[ihatepickles]

Shot the Gun Warehouse match today in Production and L10. Had a pretty good day, didn't push too hard and saw a lot of my front sight. The gun and ammo ran great. My mag changes were good, probably my best match to date in regard to mag changes. Mag change practice is paying dividends.

The 30 round field course had a couple of tunnel-vision ports that messed with me a lot. My position setup and finding the sights was really slow, I easily gave up a second at these two positions just not being able to locate my front sight and drive it to the A zone. I don't really have a plan for these kids of shooting positions. I don't want to ignore this aspect of my game, but really it's not a common shooting problem I face and I think my training time is better spent elsewhere. It's just one of those things on my list to tackle once the fundamentals feel better.

Had some strong hand weak hand shooting today on IPSC Classics. I don't have a really strong feel for exactly how narrow these A zones are so I put extra effort into having a really good centered shot before breaking the shot. I did decently on this stage, not strong but not a disaster. The weak hand transfer was tricky with all of the grip tape I run. I need to put weak hand transfers into my variety dry fire exercises. My weak hand shooting was reasonable, the transfer was awkward.

I thought I'd done really well on the classifiers, turns out I had the wrong available points in mind though and the results were less impressive than I initially thought. That's fine though and I grabbed appropriate points in a so-so timeframe. The classifier was CM 09-04 Pucker Factor. I think this will knock the last of the old 06-07 classifiers on my Production classification off the current averages, so I should get bumped up soon.

The match was fun, I was really worn out after the second run though. My elbow and shoulder aren't in the best shape between the reloading press and shooting 230+ rounds in 10 stages.

I'm guessing I shot 90% of the available points. I was aiming for something around 95% of the points, I had some lapses though and let my mind wander. It's a learning process and I'm feeling better about today's shooting after nearly a month of feeling like crap about my shooting.

The big news, the part I'm really excited about is I found out Bob Vogel is teaching a class at Gun Warehouse on December 10. I signed up as soon as I got home, hopefully I got the slot. An 8 hour class with Vogel should be really awesome and wear me out, can't wait.

[want2race]

Pucker factor is an 11.1HF for 100%, which is 3.6 clean. Since it's only 40 points the hit factor falls rapidly.

Stage one placed a LARGE emphisis on getting into and out of the shooting positions. If there is a large distance to cover, sprint as hard as you can up to about 3 steps before the next shooting positions. I watched many shooters run about 70% from posisitons. The positions that had the small circle ports, I shot the first one from about 6 feet back from the port. The shot difficulty didn't change and all I had to do was get the bullets through the port and I knew they would be in the A zone. It saves about 2 seconds of movement time since you don't go all the way up to it. Don't know your time but low 30's was a fast time. Classic MOVE fast, SHOOT slow stage.

[ihatepickles]

The positions that had the small circle ports, I shot the first one from about 6 feet back from the port. The shot difficulty didn't change and all I had to do was get the bullets through the port and I knew they would be in the A zone.

I didn't get right up on the port, probably 3 feet back. Backing off a slight bit and using the port as a aiming guide is a nice trick though, I'll keep that in mind. Thanks.

I saw Tony run it in 32+ seconds with 7 Cs. My time was 42+ I think... I ran hard on the first layer but I'm sure I slowed down on the second layer of movement. My position setup was poor at the small ports and also at the left/right sides after the door. I probably wasted a second at each of the blind position setups locating the targets. Lack of aggression while moving was probably another 4+ seconds.

I think the issue with my setups was not picking a point to run 100% toward. I eased into a position and had to lean and creep around until I had a good look at the target. With the snow fences, I look at the targets as I'm coming into the ports. With the real sight breaks, I can't do that. Kudos to the match setup though, it's easy to get into a comfort zone so a variety of props is a good thing.

[ihatepickles]

Scores were posted. I finished 3rd in Production and 2nd in L10. In Production I shot 93% of the points and in L10 it was 85% of the points.

I shot Production focused on my points. I shot L10 pushing hard. Both runs with the same gear and DA/SA in L10.

My Production hit factor for all stages was 3.73 and the L10 overall HF was 3.85. I guessed it would turn out that way actually, I thought I saw a lot more in my L10 run than Prd. The L10 run had a higher crash factor though for sure, the 2 Mikes are proof of that. I'm more satisfied with my lower HF Prd runs as a whole though. I'd have to give the edge to the L10 run for fun. That thought explains a lot of my mental lapses, it is more fun in the moment to be flying along hammering targets. It's more satisfying to have a solid run though with good hits once the adrenalin wears off.

One of my L10 Mikes was called and one was not. I said I saw a lot more on the L10 run, but the called Mike wasn't called until I was 2 steps out of the firing position. That's kind of curious to me. I knew I had the Mike in hardcover, but it didn't click into my mind for at least a second afterwards. Why did it take so long for the shot call to get to my conscious mind? What other information am I filtering out when I'm shooting?

Practiced with some livefire today at an indoor range. Worked on shooting at a black dot in the lower A zone at 20 yards. I realized I have been slightly off on my visualization of the A zone at distance. I'd estimate I've been aiming 3 inches lower than the center of the A zone. Hopefully today's lesson sticks with me, I've already put dots on my reduces size dryfire targets as well. I want to improve my ability to aim at a single point of the target rather than middle of the brown blur.

[ihatepickles]

I've been practicing. My mag changes are great most days. I'm still working hard on them though. Every time I put on the rig, I work them for 15 minutes at 80% speed and then crank it to 100% for 5-10 minutes. I can feel the improvement in the funniest way, when I'm doing really well everything feels like slow motion and I notice extra details about the motion.

I shot a mini match tonight and for whatever reason had an especially fun time. I crashed hard on a stage and laughed it off. This is a better place to be than I was a few months ago.

I earned my Production B classification this month.

[ihatepickles]

I skipped a match today to work on some live fire. I got going early and burned up 1000 rounds in about 4 hours. I took a thermos of veggie soup and it was really awesome on this cold morning. The handwarmers helped a lot too.

I warmed up with some 25 yard freestyle and found I could see my sights a lot better than I have been at the indoor match. I held all of my hits in the A zone. I backed up to 50 yards and shot prone as well. My accuracy was worse, I was hitting about 60% Alphas.

I setup 4 paper targets and a barricade with some forced movement. I shot the stage at 10 yards and 20 yards working primarily on prepping the gun as I came into the new firing position. I hope I've really made a stride in this part of my game. I found I could position the pistol into my high mag-change position as I entered the new shooting area and get back on the targets quicker. That makes a lot of sense, I work on mag changes a fair bit in dry fire and reusing the position when entering a box/barricade etc... is something I've been drilling with so it's fluid.

My timer died after 2 hours and I didn't have a spare battery.

Without a timer, a decided to work on some draw fundamentals at a reduced speed. I started with my grip and tracking the sight better on some static steel. I worked on the Bob Vogel grip tips from my class, I think I've found that pinching technique that Bob describes. My elbows are rotated a bit more outward (not behind the gun as much) and the sights stay straighter in recoil. From that grip, I reversed things going back into the holster. I can now work on getting into that grip from the draw during dry fire drills.

I finished by working on a some wider transitions. I made the transitions two 15 yard targets at 90 degrees the other two at 25 yards an 45 degrees apart. I focused on matching my splits and transition times going near to far. Honestly, it was tough to do without a timer. When I felt I had my splits and transitions were even I sped things up a bit. On my purposefully slower attempts, I found I could easily snap my eyes to the next target. As I sped up, I tended to not do this though and instead I would ride the front sight onto the next target. This is something I will carry over to my next session, I really need a timer for this drill.

I want to reach a .25 split and transition goal while shooting all Alphas.

[ihatepickles]

I'm pretty lax with my range diary. I know it could be a better tool for me if I used it more often.

I've been floundering a bit on my shooting goals. I've decided to refresh my efforts and get myself back on track.

My 2012 season goals:

• Shoot at least two Level 3 three Level 2 matches in Production
• Stick with the XDM 5.25 CZ SP01 platform the entire season
• Put 10 hours of practice in per week, dry and live fire
• Drop 50 lbs of dead weight
• Earn my USPSA M card in Production

I'm on track for the 3 level 2 matches, having shot the Battle in the Bluegrass last weekend. I was very mediocre in my shooting. I made up 29 shots. No misses, no penalties, but slow... I need more training time and I'm going to promise myself 7 hours of dryfire a week. I'll find the time somewhere. I'm also a member of a club now, so livefire is much easier, that will be the other 3 hours of training per week.

I switched from the XDM to the CZ. The elbow pain was a showstopper and the heavier gun was the answer. I'm beginning to understand I may always be a Production shooter, due to the elbow pain issues that my job has caused. Production is awesome though, so no worries.

The weight issue is going great. I'm down 35 lbs. Good eating, albeit a bit boring, is really helping. The hours a week spent in cardio is helping me as well.

The USPSA Master classification is still realistic, but that's going to be the hardest thing to obtain. Possibly the most rewarding though. I'm resisting the kind of stand and shoot training though that it takes to earn better classifiers. I'd rather be winning stages than anything else. The M card is just a goal. Winning is why I want to compete.

In personal news, I've got a new puppy coming home in few weeks. A little female yellow Lab to warm my heart and eat my shoes. I can't wait.

Edited April 11, 2012 by ihatepickles

[kiloindiatango]

Seems to make sense to swap guns if it's causing you pain! I wouldn't sweat that one. And 5 pounds is FANTASTIC!

As for the puppy..... uh, I'd tell you what the first six months of owning our puppy was like (he's nearly two now) but the sleep deprivation blocked it all out.

[ihatepickles]

Oh, and one thing I forgot to mention. Just made a bullet and primer order. I should be good on Federal primers for a good long while and at least most of the way through the summer with bullets.

I'll use up all my Solo 1000 on the local club matches and use Titegroup for my major matches. I prefer the Solo 1000, but it's really touchy on temperature spikes. I don't want to mess with possibly going sub-minor at major matches. Titegroup is solid and is just a touch flippier and it's actually a bit more accurate for me. My current loads are a MG 124-JHP or a Zero 125-JHPC over 4.2 grains of Solo 1000 at 1.111" OAL or the same bullets and OAL with 4.0 grains of Titegroup. Both loads put me at 130 PF, it's just that the Solo 1000 load slows down as the Summer heat sets in, while the Titegroup load stays the same.

If N320 was ever easily available, I'd probably just go that route. I'm just not willing to beg, borrow, or steal to find the latest cache of the stuff.

[ihatepickles]

As for the puppy..... uh, I'd tell you what the first six months of owning our puppy was like (he's nearly two now) but the sleep deprivation blocked it all out.

Yeah, I'm sufficiently scared of the first few months. I can sleep a bit more when I'm dead.