And occasionally, celebrate doing some things right. Unfortunately, those sorts of celebrations are few and far between. Take last month's 3-Gun match, for example. Yes, I won the Stock division. However, I had equipment problems on all three of the stages, reloaded even SLOWER than usual on the shotgun stage, and screwed up royally on activating a moving target on the rifle stage. NOT a stellar performance.
Now, I don't feel bad about the rifle malfunction---I had cleaned it, it was in good shape, it just didn't fire one dud round. However, the shotgun malfunctions were probably my fault. I hadn't cleaned it in awhile, and during the match, it just didn't want to cycle. In the video, you can see me fighting the action. My fault, and I'm certain it cost me a lot of time. It was stupid of me---you always take care of your weapons. Good thing I'm better about that with respect to my SD weapons. That being said, I'm too used to a Glock, which needs to be cleaned "oh, whenever". Most guns aren't like that.
On the rifle stage, I could have sworn that I activated the swinging target properly---which just goes to show that you shouldn't swear. I remember grabbing the activator rope and giving it a huge yank. In the video, you can even see me doing that. However, I yanked downward, not out/backward, and so it didn't activate. LOTS of lost time there.
And then on the pistol stage, I had one round stovepipe. I cleared it pretty well, but I have so little experience with pistol malfunctions (I shoot a Glock---they hardly ever happen!) that it took me a moment to rack the slide and continue. I managed to place first on the pistol stage, but nonetheless, it could have been better. I'm thinking cartridge reloading error on that one--just a little less powder than it should have been. No other feeding problems.
Then came November's pistol match. 5 stages, with some interesting things to do. I set up two stages, one a standards-type, and the other a run-and-gun with some ports and angles to keep things interesting. Here's the video:
Need to work on my left hand / right hand accuracy. I'm much better than I used to be--but I'm not at my best with either yet. More practice needed.
The biggest thing is still my poor reloading technique, though. While there are many other things for me to work on (yanking the trigger on close shots, not relaxing enough and aiming on long shots, slow draw, slow first target acquisition, etc) I think if only one thing improves significantly in the next couple of months, the one that would make the most difference to my scores would be better reloads. Slow, fumbled---just overall bad for my level. Needs work!
So, off to work on them!
