February 2009 Pistol Match...

...and the results show that dry-firing isn't necessarily enough if you don't dry-fire in the correct manner.

NOT a good shooting day. A good day shooting, but that doesn't mean the same thing, unfortunately. In other words, I had a lot of fun, but shot really badly for the most part.

So---note to self: Just because I'm dry-firing doesn't mean I'm instilling the right motions, mental focus, and visual cues. Practice does not make perfect. Practice merely makes habit. Only perfect practice makes perfect.

I realize that is really pompous sounding, but it is important--and I'm an idiot. I just got done telling that to my students (elsewhere) for very good reasons, but apparently I forgot it myself. I was working so hard on good trigger control when dry-firing in the last two weeks that I ignored completely all of the other things that I should have been practicing also, at the same time.

And it showed. Two no-shoot hits, lots and lots of C hits, and some pretty dismal shooting. Not really bad, exactly, just not up to the level I should be shooting. You can see some of it here:



So---putting the reset trigger back in the gun tonight, and doing some good dry-fire practice in the next two weeks.

Looking back over the video (and taking a couple of stills from it) we see the following:



...so what does this say about my reloading? On the good side, I'm looking at the right things. On the bad side, 1) I'm lowering my gun too much, and 2) it is taking me WAAAYYYY too long to get the new magazine ready to put into the weapon. My hands should be faster than that.

I noticed it on the classifier---I shot faster and drew faster than Dennis did, but my overall times were slower. Looking at these pictures--it was obviously my reload. I knew my reload wasn't fast, but I didn't know it was this bad. It generally goes fairly smoothly, and because it occurs normally during movement, I didn't really notice how slow it was--it was done by the time I got to the next shooting part, so I didn't think about it.

Apparently, I need to think about it. And work on it more.

In other news, I got the 10 plates and 4 poppers from Drazy Metal Works for AirSoft practice. Drilled the mounting holes on Friday, and bought the wood and fixtures for the stands yesterday. Hopefully this week I'll get them finished: two 3-plate racks, four 1-plate stands, and four popper stands. Should be lots of fun to shoot! Pictures forthcoming when they are completed.