It was cold. Okay? I hate being cold, so I wore layers, and a coverall, and yes, I looked twice as wide as normal plus I moved slowly (kinda like the kid in Christmas Story).
But I wasn't frozen. So I don't care. And I don't want to hear it!
The moral of December's match is simple: dry fire practice builds accuracy. You know why? Because I haven't been doing it, and my accuracy was very bad. Earlier in the year, my ability to drop plates and take the star was pretty good. However, lately I haven't been working on my trigger control (using dry fire practice) and my skills have dropped.
[sigh] But I've known that---I just haven't fixed it. I just need to get back on my schedule of dry fire practice every night for 10 minutes. It made a huge difference the first time. As a matter of fact, since we don't have a match for a couple of weeks, I need to pull the trigger group from my 34, and put in the practice trigger---won't drive the firing pin, but it has a reset and you can keep pulling the trigger even without the slide moving.
Hm. I think I'll do that tonight. That way I can hopefully get in some decent dry fire practice before the January match.
Here's the December match:
Oh---we have shot all of the 2008 matches, now. Next time we shoot will be the start of 2009. Year went fast, hmm? According to the statistics, I think I'll end up with 1st B and 1st Overall in Production, 1st Limited in 3-Gun, 2nd in Production Steel Challenge, and 3rd in Ironman.
We'll see if that is how it actually happens.
Oh---I'll be adding another post on shooting-related actions at a match. We had to DQ someone at this December match, and it didn't go over well. I'll talk about that when I have time.
Well, at least this 3-Gun match went better than last time! Matter of fact, the rifle stage went extremely well---so much so that I got second out of all the people there. Yes, there were only 14 of us shooting that day, but the fast shooters were pretty much all there.
I'm getting more comfortable with the rifle. In particular with my movement and "seating" of the rifle into position to shoot. I need to practice more, of course, but it is getting smoother.
Pistol went fine, though when I watch the video, it just seems choppy to me. The movements don't seem smooth, and the shooting seems jerky. And I had to take two shots at the plate---again, more precision aiming, and much better trigger control is needed. The pistol stage still went well, but it could have been better.
And then, of course, was the shotgun stage. Actually, this time it was a shotgun/pistol stage (I don't really like multi-gun stages, I've decided. Originally, I though they were fun, but having to stage each gun takes a lot of time, and having to clear each weapon before grabbing the next just takes away from the meaning of the stage, for me at least.) Oddly enough, the shotgun part wasn't the problem. My reloading is still set on "arthritic sloth" speed, but my shooting went well. Fairly smooth, and no misses at all.
Then I had to clear the shotgun, put it down, pick up the pistol, and put two shots each on four paper targets. Should be easy, hmm? Apparently not for me! For some reason, I could NOT see the front sight when I turned to shoot the two targets on the left! You'll see it in the video, particularly the two very late shots I have to add in to make certain I don't have misses (and I would have, without those last two shots.)
I was thinking about it later, and I believe it was a combination of things--I really could NOT see the sights, or my alignment with the targets.
I'm cross-dominant, so while I'm left-handed, I shoot pistol aiming with my right eye. But I shoot long gun using my left. So with shotgun, I'd been using my left eye the entire time. When I picked up the pistol, I first turned to the right to shoot, which took my left eye out of the line of sight, so it wasn't a problem. But when I turned to the left, suddenly my left eye actually had a better picture of the targets, and it was used to being the aiming eye. That, coupled with the fact that it was cold and there was obscuring fog after each of my shots, made it really hard for me to see at all!
Am I going to have to train myself to shoot left-eye/left-hand for pistol shooting? I suppose I could (my right eye may be dominant, but it isn't strongly dominant, and both eyes work fine---when shooting strong-hand only, I use my left eye) but I don't really want to re-train all that. Do I need to, though?
And yes, for those saying "you should left-eye when shooting one-handed? you switch eyes?!" the answer is yes. It isn't brilliant, but after a considerable amount of practice, I figured out that my strong-handed shooting is much more accurate, and quicker to handle recoil, when I don't have to cant the gun over single-handedly to align it with my right eye.
So---do I need to train myself to shoot left-eye all of the time? [sigh] I don't know...
Anyway---here's the match. You'll see what I mean about the shotgun stage.
