Jeremy Tye

[A62335]

I want to start a log of things that I've learned during matches or during practice, so that I can review them later on down the road. I will try not to discuss my match or practice performance unless it is relevant to the things I learned that day. So, here goes post 1.

Oct. 4th Western Nevada Pistol League USPSA Match, 7 Stages. Learned two things today, both cost me big time match points.

1st. I need to ride the weak side safety with my thumb when shooting weak hand. One stage required that I lean around a barrier and shoot a 4 target array. The barrier was set up so that it pretty much forced you to shoot weak hand. No big deal, except that after my first weak hand shot the gun would not fire. It took me 6 seconds, (I counted while watching the video) to realize that the flippin thumb safety was on. I have a wide EB safety with the weak side filed down, but the strong side is not modified. Turns out my hand will activate the safety during recoil if I don't ride it with my thumb. Lesson learned.

2nd. Don't ask for a reshoot due to REF just because you think you might be able to shoot it faster the second time. There was a stage with a swinger and a clamshell activated by some small poppers. The poppers, when hit, would fall backwards onto a wire that was perpendicular to the steel, which would activate the target. So, I start the stage, and everything is going good. Shoot the paper and steel clean on the left side of the stage, and get 2 A's on the clamshell. Go to the right side of the stage, and engage the popper that activates the swinger. I missed the steel with my first shot, but the swinger activates anyway. I freeze for about 1 second, thinking to myself WTF, before I decide to just finish the stage. Turns out that when I missed the popper I hit the wire behind it, which activated the swinger prematurely. After ULSC I stupidly decide that I want a reshoot because I paused for 1 second on the swinger, and then had to wait to engage the swinger after I engaged the other steel and paper. BIG MISTAKE. On the reshoot, I racked up a Mike, and took about 5 extra shots on the steel. My time was significantly slower, and I was down a ton of points. I should have been content with my first run, which would have been one of the best runs of the day, but I wanted those 2 seconds back. Lesson learned.

Stay tuned for more....

Edited October 6, 2009 by A62335

[A62335]

Videos of the match now posted on my YouTube account.

[CHA-LEE]

Stop looking for holes in the targets as you shoot. Call you shots good and move onto the next target.

[A62335]

Nov. 1st Western Nevada Pistol League USPSA Match, 7 Stages.

No videos from this match, the guy I asked to video forgot on all the stages but one, and the video is SHAKY. Oh well. This was probably my best match so far, I shot 70% of the GM match winner. After thinking back on the stages, I think I refine my sight picture too much when shooting steel. I want to center the sights in the middle of the popper before pressing the trigger. I that technique is important when shooting smaller poppers, or larger poppers at distance. The poppers at this match though were close, and some of them were huge. I could have shot them a lot faster than I did. Lesson learned.

Other than that, I feel like I shot as good as I possibly could have. The stages were not very friendly to SS shooters. Quite a few empty gun starts, and coupled with the 8 round target arrays, there was no place to top the gun off and run 9 rounds. So, I had to shoot clean everywhere. I tried to slow down my sight picture and call every shot, and my scores went up accordingly. I did mike one swinger, and I knew that it was close, but I decided to risk it. My though process was I had run the gun dry, so I would have had to reload, re-index, and wait for the swinger to reappear. I took the chance, and it didn't work out, but I don't think I made a bad call.

All in all, very happy with the match.

Stage descriptions, scores, and limited videos shot by someone else can be seen on the club website at www.wnpl.org

[A62335]

My videos of the match now up on my YouTube page.

[A62335]

Nov. 15th Richmond Rod & Gun Club USPSA Match, 5 stages.

Shot this match pretty well. I didn't make any big mistakes, but I did have a few unexpected mikes. On one stage, after making my final reload, I launched five consecutive shots into harcover on the left of a target. Either my grip was bad after the reload, or I was jerking the trigger. The shots all printed a nice 2 inch group from 15 yards, so I don't think I was flinching. Either way, I need to pay attention to rebuilding my grip after my reloads. Lesson learned.

That's about all I can think of, videos from the match are on my YouTube page. Feel free to offer advise and suggestions.

[A62335]

Dec. 6th Western Nevada Pistol League USPSA Match, 7 Stages

God damn was it cold!! Weather was below 20 degrees, and it was snowing and windy. What a miserable day. I still shot well, and my firearm was 100%, which I was happy to see. The only bonehead mistake I made was on a unloaded table start, 8 round stage. Stage had 2 poppers, 2 swingers activated by the poppers, and 1 wide open target. I wanted to take both poppers, then the swingers, and the static last. Problem was, I missed the first popper, which caused me to have to reload before engaging the static target. The extra 1/4 second it would have taken me to ensure a proper sight picture instead cost me like 1.5-2 seconds on my reload (IT WAS COLD!!!) Lesson learned.

Other than that I shot a pretty clean match. No mikes or no-shoots, and I ended up shooting 95% of the resident Limited GM, good enough for a 2nd place finish overall. But damn was it cold.

[A62335]

February 7th Western Nevada Pistol League USPSA Match, 5 stages

Nice to finally shoot a USPSA match. I wasn't able to make it to any CA matches with school wrapping up and starting a new job, and the local January match was canceled.

The match was short and sweet, with no real field courses, due to the Super Bowl being on later in the afternoon. I didn't have any major mental mistakes, but I got my ass handed to me on the classifier. Can't remember what it was called, but it was 3 strings of timed fire. 6 rounds at 50 yards (or something like that) freestyle in 6 seconds, then 6 rounds strong hand at 30, and 6 rounds weak hand at 15. I hadn't been doing any short of shooting practice, and it really showed on this stage. Other than that one stage I shot pretty well. Was very happy with myself on the 8 round, unloaded gun table start stage. I was 2nd on the stage, got beat by an Open GM by .5 of a second. Usually, on a stage where I have to shoot clean or make a reload, the pressure gets to me and I make a mistake. Not this match though.

I'm looking forward to posting a lot more in this thread of mine. Now that I've graduated college, and have a nice job, I should have a little more time to practice and shoot matches.