The Shooting Thomcat

Dryfire Practice...

2012-02-13T12:06:00.001-08:00

Lately I've been working on making sure that I dryfire consistently. I haven't been managing every night, but I have been doing at least 5 days every week.

Most of the time, I have worked on concealment draw to low percentage targets, and also slidelock reloads---practicing elements of the FAST drill, since the class is coming up next month. However, while part of that is due to wanting to achieve my goal of a FAST coin, the other part is that those particular skills are actually quite important.

Well, at least the concealment draw-to-low-percentage shot is important. (Slidelock reload, in my opinion, not as much, though it is a handy skill to have, and the new method I'm working for dropping the slide still needs practice, though my reload has speeded up nicely. That should help my USPSA scores, too, since every once in awhile I get stuck with a slidelock reload.)

The concealment draw-to-low-percentage shot combination really works getting eyes on the sights immediately, having a good grip, and working the trigger effectively---all things that I need to work on. My trigger control in particular has been very bad lately, plus I tend to "use the Force" on closer shots when it really wouldn't slow me down to use the sights IF I were to actually practice with them. So it is a good drill.

In the last classifier I shot (03-11 Strong and Weak El Pres) I also noticed that my SHO and WHO trigger control needed work. (This was not a surprise.) As such, lately I have also worked in some SHO and WHO practice on 2" and 3" dots from varying distances. The target I'm using (the P-T.com target) has a set of 6 dots on the lower half, so I'm working getting solid controlled clicks on each both SHO and WHO, then stepping back once, and doing it again, and so on. I'm starting around 3 yards, and working back to about 6 yards currently, which isn't that far---but since I'm going through each twice, it means I'm getting about 48-50 reps with each hand, and that seems good work to me right now. I'm not working on speed, but I'm not practicing bullseye shooting, either. (And I don't back up until I get 6 in a row without a called miss, after the first six. So, minimum of 12 reps per hand per distance, and perhaps more in sets of 6.)

Unsurprisingly, my WHO trigger control is better than my SHO---I still yank the trigger periodically, and it is annoying. So, this work should help my shooting overall, because that lack of trigger control is really hurting me everywhere.

In other good news, I think I know (and have fixed) what the problem was with the various stoppages in my last match. At least, I hope so, because this coming Sunday is a Steel Challenge match, and I certainly can't afford a 3 second pause during every string!

We'll see how it goes.

I'm hoping to get to the range on Friday or so to work the same drills live fire, along with benching my gun at 25 yards again, to see if my rear sight alignment has been fixed. Saturday I'm teaching a CQT class, and Sunday is the Steel Challenge match. So, lots of shooting stuff coming up.

And more dryfire every day, if I can.

2012-02-08T12:21:00.000-08:00

DotW 19: SHO and WHO

Before I discuss the DotW, one quick aside:
Someone posted about this: Iron Cross: Super Dave Harrington Style: http://www.eeul.com/mb/2010/07/iron-cross-eiserne-kreuz-super-dave-harrington-style/ ---looks like fun. May have to try that, just to see. I like the idea of forcing people to shoot from non-standard positions, with the feet locked into place. I'm not sure when I'll have a chance to get to this, since it is freezing outside and the DotW is 100 rounds, plus I need to work on my distance accuracy and three FAST drills...but I'm keeping it in mind for when the weather gets better. (Hmm, this just gave me an idea for a USPSA stage...)

The DotW is 25 strings (each) of single hand draw-and-two-shots-on-a-3x5-card. 25 strings of SHO, 25 strings of WHO. No time limit, but it isn't supposed to be draw, then set up for bullseye shooting. Not running fast, but working to get good hits in a reasonable time. I'm hoping I can get out today for this, though it is REALLY cold out. (I'll probably try to record my times, just for the sake of my curiosity.) A number of people shot the WHO part from the low ready, but I may try it from the draw---because I need practice on my WHO draw. (This is NOT the same as drawing with the strong hand and moving it to the weak hand---this is actually drawing with the weak hand only, which is significantly different.)

I adjusted the rear sight on my G17 last night, and part of today's work will be seeing if I did it right, so that'll take time, too.

I'm planning on starting the practice with 3 FAST drills, cold. I'll post results of that afterward.

[sigh] I really need work on my SHO and WHO, so this'll be good for me. Whether or not I'm going to like it is another story...

ETA: Went out and practiced. The 25 yards bench check was very bad (all off to the right, and like an idiot I didn't bring my sight tool), the FAST drills were plagued with light primer strikes, and the SHO and WHO stuff went all right, but I yanked several. NOT a good practice session. Hoping to get back out later to fix the sights.

ENPS February Pistol Match....

2012-02-08T06:28:00.001-08:00

[sigh] Good and bad.

Good: My draw, speed, and accuracy weren't too bad (other than one section of strong-hand-only shooting when I forgot that little detail of trigger control).

Bad: My freaking gun wouldn't run. This is a 6-month-old Gen 4 G17, and it kept having light primer strikes time and again. You'll see it in the video, and you'll understand why it is so frustrating.

I really had wanted this match to make up for the January debacle. (That one went badly ALSO due to gun problems, though those seemed to potentially be ammo-related.) The January match, in addition to firearms problems, also included some poor gun-handling skills on my part. So, I've been dry-firing significantly, plus getting to the range at least once a week (even in the cold) to work on accuracy, trigger control, and precision.

From a shooting standpoint, the extra practice has helped, as least for my freestyle shooting. In general, my accuracy, speed, and consistent trigger control there was significantly better than it has been previously. However, I haven't practiced much SHO (or WHO) and it showed. (This weeks Pistol-Forum.com Drill of the Week is all about SHO and WHO, and that should be a good motivator to do some work. And I really do need work there.)

Here's the video:

As you can see, several stages would have gone excellently well without the gun issues. I still won Production, but it wasn't anything like it should have been.

It just occurred to me to look at the points I got---and I guess I'm shouldn't be as happy about my accuracy as I thought....I only got 82.16% of the total points possible for the match, and never got more than 90% of the points on any individual stage. (Classifier was a whopping 69%.) So---apparently that wasn't great either. Hm. Well, it FELT better than that...just goes to show that "feelings" aren't reliable.

So---it was still better than my accuracy has been previously. (How scary is that?) That being said, more practice is still needed. Too many Cs!

Edited to Add: No, it WASN'T better. In my January match, I got 86% of the total available points, with a range of 79% to 97% of the points available from any particular stage. [sigh] Well, February had significantly more SHO and WHO sections, I suppose. It still felt better! Matter of fact, the classifier (of which half of the shots were either SHO or WHO) was by far the worst stage, accuracy-wise, and it did drag everything down significantly. Nonetheless----90% minimum is the goal.

Goal: never less than 90% of the total points in any given match, with a push for 95% of the available points at speed. (Getting the points while going glacially slow isn't the point.)

And a gun that runs.

2012-01-31T13:03:00.000-08:00

Have been doing my dryfire most evenings (average of 5 times a week thus far this year). Sometimes it helps, sometimes it doesn't...

In general, when I remember things like working the trigger and looking at the front sight, my shooting goes just fine within certain limits. As an example, here is some video of me shooting 3 FAST drills as part of the 2012 pistol-forum.com Performance Challenge:

As you can see, when I remember to work the trigger and see the sights, I do fairly well. When I don't---then I get significant penalties. And I'm hit and miss these days, unfortunately. It isn't that I'm just randomly shooting and sometimes I get lucky--it is that sometimes I just push the gun out there and blast away.

Like an idiot.

Overall, my control and work at close distances has gotten better, though.

Distance shooting, bullseye-style, though? Is ridiculously bad. Part of the Performance Challenge (see here for details) involves shooting a bullseye target at 25 yards freestyle, strong hand only, and weak hand only. No time limits, completely slow fire.

My scores are HORRIBLE. I first did this as part of a Drill of the Week awhile back, and got a decent-but-not-spectacular 252. Tried it this past week---got below 200 once, and a 214 once. (215? Something like that.) I am consistently shooting to the right (enough that I really DO think I need to adjust my sights a bit) freestyle, which is bad enough---but my single-hand shooting is just horrible.

I can keep my shots in a 3 inch circle at 7 yards single hand (WHO or SHO) but outside of that, I tend to just point the gun in the vaguely correct direction and smack the trigger, with expected results.

[sigh] I hate bullseye practice. (Which rather explains this problem.) But it'll help, so I'm going to add that to my standard practice regimen. For every live fire practice, I'll end with some basic, slowfire bullseye at 15, 20, and 25 yards. (Depending on which bay I'm in.) And in dryfire, I'll work on my single-hand trigger control.

In addition to everything else.

I haven't even worked on any USPSA-specific skills yet this year. On the other hand, my movement is generally pretty good, my tactics/plans are generally solid, and my reloads are all right (plus my current practice will help with that). I'm thinking that oddly enough, my current practice will probably make a significant difference to my USPSA shooting, simply because the accuracy part is the part I've always been bad at. :) So maybe this year I'll start hitting what I need to...

Live Fire vs Dry Fire...

2012-01-26T12:31:00.001-08:00

Went out yesterday to run a couple of drills for diagnostic purposes---and found that while my dryfire routine gets me solid sight pictures with good trigger work, live fire causes my brain to stop working.

The entire time was filled with instances of target-focused trigger-yanking, which is a combination of terms you never actually want to have as a descriptive of your shooting.

[sigh]

I was fast, all right---had two shots from concealment consistently off (when aiming at an index card at 7 yards) in 1.73 seconds. Too bad that my chances of HITTING the card with both shots were almost non-existent. Matter of fact, I often pulled both shots. (Inconsistently---both high, both low, one high/one low---all of the above happened. The hits were normally within a half inch of the card---but misses are still misses.)

Not good. Need to keep dryfire practice going (in which I really do make sure the sights/trigger work is solid) but add some live five doing one and two-shot drills starting from a timer, but with a par time of 3 seconds or so, with all hits necessary. That gives me a tremendous amount of time for good, aimed shots, and hopefully will reinforce the dryfire concepts of sights/trigger as opposed to draw!/shoot! which is currently happening.

I can do it---Steel Challenge match showed that. I just need to do it consistently.

Match Video: Jan 22nd Steel Challenge

2012-01-24T13:05:00.000-08:00

This year ENPS started having 6 stages for our Steel Challenge matches, so we get significantly more trigger time on steel this year, which is a good thing.

Pre-video comments:
1) No jams or gun problems this time with the G17 and the 124gr ammo. At all. Ran beautifully.

2) The match felt fairly strong throughout. Yes, there were some stages where I forgot about trigger control, but overall it was decent. Not back up to my prior level, but certainly better than the last few months.

3) My first stage felt like I was moving fairly slow and deliberately---and it looks that way on the video. However, each string was 5-for-5 until the 5th string---and was the fastest time on that stage out of all the centerfire divisions (including the Open guys).

4) At the start of most strings (and you can tell which ones I forgot) I told myself only one thing: Work the trigger. And mostly, I did.

Here's the video, after which I'll comment some more. (And next time I'll tell my video folks to stand a bit further back...)

Notes:

1) Inconsistent draw. Often fast, but occasionally very deliberate---which isn't necessary, because it isn't the _draw_ that is my aiming problem. Need to consistently get the gun out and on target quickly.

2) "Snatching" the trigger occasionally---and sometimes it works, and sometimes it doesn't. Later in the day, I started jerking the gun into position as I pulled the trigger, attempting to "Use The Force" to make sure that it went off just as the gun swept the target. And since I tried this on Pendulum, that was one of my worst stages of the match. I did fix it again by the next stage, but Pendulum did go really badly. (Roundabout did have a bit of it also.)

3) Relax my shoulders! Something I'm going to have to work on significantly--I was good at not being tense up until March of last year, but the Rogers school (and how it was pushing my speed limits) ingrained some tenseness that wasn't necessary, and that I haven't fixed. So now, after a year, my stance is too high and my shoulders too high and tense.

Good thing: Often, the trigger work was decent-to-good, with occasional glimpses of very good. Dry fire practice is apparently helping (not a surprise) and I plan to continue.

--------------

On two separate notes:
1) I need to get to the range and find my base times/scores so I can make realistic goals. I'm thinking the ones I have are either too easy or too hard.

2) I REALLY need to work on my distance bullseye shooting. I still need to check to see if part of that is a function of my sudden glasses need at long distance...no matter what, though, it needs work.

--------------

More to follow.

2012 Goals:

2012-01-19T08:39:00.001-08:00

Have been thinking about my shooting goals for 2012---in the main, these are going to be technical goals (about technique) as that is what really fell through last year. My tactics/strategy work last year was actually fine, particularly since I spent a considerable amount of time refining what exactly I was going to be teaching in various classes, so the extra research/practice I did to make sure what I was going to teach was realistic and effective made for good practice for myself.

Still always plenty to do on that topic, but for this year, it is all about the technical aspects of shooting.

Preliminary Goal-setting (requires evaluation trip to the range to get starting numbers to make sure these goals are realistic...)

All at 7 yards, 10 trials average:
USPSA rig to card: 1.4
CCW to card: 1.6

USPSA to half A zone: 1.0
CCW to 8": 1.20

CCW 2 to card: 1.9
CCW reload to 8": 1.9

USPSA 2 to card: 1.7
USPSA reload to half A: 1.5

At 15 yards on IPSC metric target:
Draw, 2 A hits on T1, 2 A hits on T2 (5 yards separation): ?
Draw, 2 A hits on T1, reload, 2 A hits on T2 (5 yards separation): ?

At 25 yards on B-8:
Freestyle: all 10 in black
SHO: ?
WHO: ?

Plenty more to work on, but this is a starting point. Need to get to the range to find starting information, and give myself a realistic goals for the 25 yard and 15 yard targets.

Pistol-Forum.com Drill of the Week 16

2012-01-19T04:31:00.000-08:00

I've been doing the p-f.com DotW for awhile, and it has been fun---and it keeps me making myself go to the range even if it is raining, freezing, I'm tired, etc. I still manage to get out there, which means I get live fire time doing a bunch of different drills that wouldn't normally occur to me.

It isn't often that I'm doing a drill or practice session based on someone else's ideas---so this is good.

So, I'll be trying to keep commenting on the various DotW that I do, along with commentary about my own practice drills.

P-F.com DotW 16: Acceleration
http://pistol-forum.com/showthread.php?2801-DotW-16-Acceleration

And here is how I shot it:

This drill doesn't really work on my specific weaknesses, I think---matter of fact, it may make them worse. To increase speed, one of the things that happened was that I stopped worrying about the sights so much, and relied on my (fairly good) body index to put the gun on target. As such, this trained me to do that MORE---and I have the opposite problem. I "use the force" enough as it is, and I need training to focus on those sights more.

That being said, it DID show up my wildly inconsistent split times---0.32 to 0.18? Granted, it was cold out, and my hands just freeze up---but nonetheless, my trigger control for splits needs work. Multi-shot drills needed.

Perhaps the most useful thing this drill showed me occurred when I was watching the video. When I shoot, of course the recoil changes my posture slightly. However, if you watch the 2-shot and 3-shot sections and watch my hip and shoulder level, you can see that as I push more shots, I hunch my shoulders and straighten my arms (which is unnecessary, and actually lowers the level of recoil control and thus aiming ability) and ALSO overall my stance raises upward.

Which is really bad, because not only does that make recoil control (and followup aiming) worse, it also means that any movement that may need to occur after will be slower due to the need to drop my weight again.

I'm a martial artist---I shouldn't be screwing up like that. Apparently, time for some 3-shot drills with movement to fix my aiming platform.

Glad I started doing this again---lots to fix.

Sloppy, lazy, poor shooter!

2012-01-17T08:34:00.000-08:00

Been quite awhile since I've posted---and indeed, my shooting shows that I haven't been putting in the thinking time that effective shooting has needed. So, back to actually tracking what has been going on...

Some background: Last year was full of gun problems---and I don't mean shooter-induced gun problems (though my shooting suffered significantly). I mean the gun itself had numerous problems that resulted in significant numbers of gun jams on stages. And during practice. And all the time.

As such, much of last year's practice time was spent trying to FIX said gun problems, which meant that I didn't actually get to spend much time practicing shooting skills. Much to the detriment of my shooting ability.

So---last year's matches went horribly badly. Including Nationals, in which I ranked 60th---compared to the 25th from the previous year.

I have since retired the G34s that I was using, and will be writing Glock to see if there is any way they can get them fixed and running. (Factory ammo of multiple types STILL resulted in multiple jams of the slide-over-base type.)

I've been using a Gen 4 G17 for the last couple of months, and the first local match of 2012 occurred last week. [sigh] 4 jams over 3 stages, plus one stage that I completely blew on my own. As such, I scored significantly worse that I should have.

NOT acceptable. I don't mind losing---but I DO mind shooting significantly below the level of which I am capable.

I've since switched ammo types, and between the gun change and ammo change, have not experienced any other problems. (Including shooting SHO and WHO.) We'll see if that continues....Steel Match this coming Sunday, which will be a good indicator of where I'm starting (skill-wise) this year.

I have a lot of work to do, to get myself back up to Master-level shooting. At the moment, I'm about mid-B, from what I can tell. Last year's degredation in skill level really hurt, and the Roger's Shooting School (while a good thing) ingrained a set of habits that I need to alter.

So: dryfire at minimum every other night (I've actually been doing 5-6 nights a week for the last couple of weeks) and range practice as often as I can, even in extremely cold weather. One thing that helps is that I'm part of pistol-forum.com, which has a Drill of the Week which is a lot of fun. Pulls me out of my normal zone, gets me out to the range on a weekly basis, and makes me think from different perspectives. It helps...

Short-term goals: In March, I'm taking the Aim Fast, Hit Fast class from Todd Louis Green in Pittsburg, Kansas. As part of that, my goal is to do well on the FAST drill---specifically to win a challenge coin.

Long-term goals: Significantly increase my accuracy at distance (25+ yards). Consistently hit (at speed) low-percentage targets at 10 yards or less.

Specifics to follow. (Measurable goals are always better.)

Time to get to work----because the current skill level is flat-out unacceptable.

End of the Year Commentary...

2010-12-19T12:02:00.000-08:00

So, time to look at my shooting goals from this past year and find out how I did.

On the defensive tactics side:

DT Goal: Attend other shooting classes. Observe DT, in additional to shooting techniques. See if anyone seems to really understand the "tactics" part of CQT. Use further information to refine the classes I intend to teach, particularly with regard to tactical thinking, and defensive thinking. Flush out curriculum guides with more depth and detail.

Class-wise, I only made it to one external class this past year. My goal was more, but after the first one, I decided against the higher-level courses from that particular instructor. Not necessarily because the class was bad (it wasn’t, though it was a little narrow in viewpoint and opinion) but because there wasn’t anything new in it, nor were the training drills and instructional correction any different or more effective than I’d seen in the past.

Again---this doesn’t make it bad. It just means (given a limited amount of time and training funds) I’d rather spend them both on something different that’ll help me grow more as a shooter/instructor.

I do note that when I run into an instructor, one useful thing to find out it not only how much training they’ve had, but where. More importantly, what the breadth of their training was like. For example, the training class I went to this past year had as its instructor someone who has indeed had a lot of training---almost all of which was either LEO-related, or from one singular organization. That organization may have been good, but it was certainly true that sometimes the instructor spoke the Gospel According to the Organization.

Doing that leads to a certain narrowness of perception, and occasionally a set of movements/techniques that aren’t necessarily optimum, along with the (seemingly obligatory) comments about how martial arts training isn’t effective versus firearms.

[sigh] That gets really old, particularly when it is spoken by someone who’s hand-to-hand movement versus a firearm is basic, at best. This isn’t meant to be a slam on the instructor, mind you. It is certainly true, however, that if your understanding of a particular topic is narrow, you shouldn’t make sweeping statements.

One of the things that has come to mind from a curriculum perspective is that many places really don’t teach a shooting class that goes between the “intro” class and the “defensive tactics” class. Seriously---DT classes assume a certain amount of knowledge and skill. Intro classes get you started safely. How do people manage to get from the intro level to the DT level?

Don’t just tell me “practice”---because if someone just goes to a weekend Intro class (even one of mine, which includes more hands-on shooting than most) they still don’t really know a lot of what they might need to effectively practice anything more than basic bullseye shooting. And DT classes assume you can do a lot more at the beginning of the class!

So one of the things I’ve done is create a “fundamentals” course. In many ways, this came about because of Manny Bragg’s influence on how I view instruction. His Level I course (for competition, true) really takes each person and works with them on the fundamentals of shooting. His focus is different than mine would be, but the fact remains that most people’s shooting fundamentals really aren’t that good! Even people who are very good shooters sometimes have aspects of their fundamentals that are shaky. They’ve learned to work around them, but the holes are still there.

And mostly, no one has classes to analyze and fix your fundamentals.

Well, now I do. ☺ People who have taken an intro class, and done a bit of range time practicing bullseye, or people who have been shooting for years but want an analysis of their fundamentals (which really are what separate decent shooters from very skilled shooters)---this new class will give you the knowledge and skill base needed to practice further, to get better at shooting, and to prepare you for DT classes.

DT Practice: From a DT perspective, work on shooting on the move, reactional draw/move/shoot, and force-on-force drills for CQT retention, and CQT space/acquisition/shoot practice.

I’ve spent some time working on my own skills for this. That’s just practice. Need more, but that’ll always be true. No matter how good I get, more practice will always be necessary. Shooting skills are perishable.

The main thing to review, however, is that we had a CQT course at the dojang. One of the best things that helped me prepare for this was a book on how to safely set up force-on-force drills and scenario training: Training at the Speed of Life, by Kenneth R. Murray. The book itself doesn’t give any specifics on scenarios and drills directly---what it DOES do is talk about the psychological background required for successful training, along with some serious discussions of how to maintain adequate safety while having people point real guns at each other. In general, I was very happy to find out that the procedures that I had planned actually covered almost all of the safety guidelines that Murray’s book suggested, though there were a few other things I added.

I’ve already written about how other people see CQT courses (apparently, if you’ve taken a DT course, that means you can teach CQT) so I won’t repeat it. The class seemed to go well, and many of the students want to meet again, perform more drills, and work with a resisting opponent more.

On the competition side:

Competition Technique Goal 1: Practice reloading such that in shooting videos, reloading no longer forces wait times between shooting episodes. A specific reloading speed is not the goal (so, no specific reloading time), but instead a consistent ability to reload within the time necessary while moving during stages.

Competition Technique Goal 2: Practice distance accuracy, such that consistently I can achieve 2 A hits at speed on a 30 yard target, and from 50 yards consistently hit steel plates during slow fire.

So, did I meet my goal? The answer here is-----somewhat. It is certainly true that my reloads are a bit better, and my distance accuracy is considerably better. It is also most certainly true that I have a long way to go on both of those issues.

The two Level I classes I took with Manny this past year showed me several things I can do to increase my accuracy, and as I made Master much earlier than expected, showed that it was working well. I’ve been working further, and as an example, my Bianchi scores (from the first match early in the year to the second match late in the year) increased significantly. In addition, while my shooting (according to some match videos) hasn’t increased in speed significantly, I am both getting more A-hits, and significantly reducing the number of follow-up shots necessary on steel.

Much practice is still required. Obviously. To that end, one of the things I’m doing this coming year is going out for a week of training at the Rogers Shooting School in Ellijay, GA. If you haven’t heard of it, let us suffice to say that it is----difficult. (This, by the way, is seriously understating the case.)

Overall Competition Goal:
In the long term, reaching Master class is the goal, but isn't the goal specifically this year--instead, the goal is to consistently shoot to my level of ability for all stages in a match. That, coupled with the technique goals given above, should be sufficient for the moment.

Then, after I made Master class in May:
I've been looking at some of the "skills tests" worksheets and lists that several shooting coaches (and GMs) make available, in terms of what they think are important. For my level I think I have a decent grasp of most of them, except for reloading (still fumble those, and I shouldn't!) and long-distance accuracy. (Distance meaning accuracy past 15 yards.) I'm certainly not perfect at the others, but I do all right. That distance thing, though---I'm just very, very inconsistent. I can make those hits, I just don't always have the discipline to do so.

…so you see that I kept those two main technique goals throughout the year. Too bad I didn’t work on them as much as I should have. I am better---but there is still a LONG way to go. Those two aspects of my shooting are significantly behind some of the rest of my skill sets.

Some good things happened this year---I won the Area 3 Championship in the Production division. Note: this doesn’t mean I won high overall, just that I had the highest score out of all of the competitors from Area 3. I was actually 3rd overall, behind two grandmasters. I can live with that, at the moment. (Next year, though….)

I also went to the Nationals in Las Vegas, and had a decent match, though I didn’t completely shoot up to my level. The first two days went well, until the last stage on the second day when I received 5 procedural penalties for something that I still think was a stage procedure description error. [sigh] My third day, after that, wasn’t quite as good. I still managed to get 25th overall in Production, so that is a respectable showing for a first time ever. Still debating on whether or not I’m going back this coming year…I’d like to go, but the dates are problematic.

So, overall—did I meet my goals last year? If one was feeling generous, one would probably say that yes, I performed work towards each of my goals last year, and progress was demonstrated. That being said, it is certainly true that more could have occurred. I was talking with our Sectional Coordinator for USPSA, and he made some comments about high-level USPSA shooters, mentioning that to shoot competitively at my level, I need to be dry-fire practicing multiple hours per week---and he’s right.

There is a large gap between GM and M in this sport---one much larger than you would expect from the classifier requirements. The question is, do I really want to spend that much of my rather-small free time into working towards GM? I’m not sure yet, and I think answering that question will be a part of determining my competition goals for the coming year.

DT-wise---I need to spend more time practicing. What I really need is a training partner, I think. Currently, the people I train with are all learning from me, and so when we train together, I spend most of the time working on their issues, instead of working on my own. I don’t begrudge that (most of the time) because I thoroughly enjoy teaching. But it is certainly true that if I had a training partner of similar skills, we could work together and push each other farther.

I think at the moment, I’m going to set up a training schedule for myself that includes more alone training-time than has occurred in the past two years, so I can concentrate exclusively on my skill base. I’ll still go shooting with other people quite a bit, but I need to make certain I’m getting the work done that I need, also.

In other news:

We seem to have a line on a range area we can use for the classes I want to teach. It is extremely likely that one of the new things I’ll be discussing in this coming year is a schedule of training courses I’m presenting, and some discussions of how they went. More on that as events develop.

Level I and Level II Shooting Class with Manny Bragg...

2010-11-18T08:33:00.000-08:00

Awhile ago, I attended Manny Bragg’s Level I and Level II pistol courses, held at the Eastern Nebraska Gun Club. Each class had six students, and we all worked in the same large pistol bay. Each class was one-day, starting at 8am, breaking for lunch for about an hour, then going until about 6:30pm in each case.

Before I give a report on how the classes went, I should probably talk about Manny Bragg, in case you don’t know who he is. Here is an out-of-date bio, as he has added quite a number of championships to the list since it was originally written:

Emanuel (Manny) Bragg holds a USPSA Dual Grand Master classification, Open & Limited. Manny is a Chief Range officer and alumni of Universal Shooting Academy. Member of the World Champion USPSA Gold Team.

· High Overall 2006 Area 1 Championship

· High Overall 2006 Area 3 Championship

· High Overall 2006 Area 6 Championship

· High Overall 2006 Area 8 Championship

· 2005 USPSA Limited Point Series Champion

· 2nd Overall 2005 Limited Nationals

· 3rd Overall 2005 Limited-10 Nationals

· 4th Overall 2004 Limited Nationals

· 2nd Overall 2003 Factory Gun Nationals

· 2005 Texas State Limited Champion

· 7-Time USPSA Missouri State Champion

· 6-Time USPSA Area 3 Champion

· 3-time HOA Area 5 Championship

· 3-time HOA Iowa State Championship

· 3-time HOA Oklahoma State Championship

· 3-time HOA Arkansas Limited & Open Championship

· 2-Time HOA Kentucky State Championship

· 2004 HOA Indiana State Championship

In other words, he’s very, very good. One of the reasons he is very good is that he has actually taken the time to understand why certain techniques work. There are a number of shooters out there who shoot incredibly well---however, many don’t know why their technique works, just that it works for them. In Manny’s case, he and his shooting partners have taken the time to work several different versions of each technique, put them on the timer, and actually see what works best.

Not merely decide on a technique because they think it’ll work---but decide on it because they have range data that shows it is a superior technique.

Now, does this means their techniques will work for me? Not necessarily---Manny is a lot bigger than I am, and has much larger hands. However, his shooting partners are different sized (and at least one is smaller than I am) and all their data is put together. Even if that were not true, his analysis of techniques put him into a different category compared to many other instructors.

Matter of fact, let me just say this now: If you have a chance to take Manny’s Level I class (no matter what your classification—for example, I’m Master class and I’ve taken it twice, and will actively look to take it again in about a year) do so immediately. His analysis of your technique will enable you to shoot better. Period.

Day 1: Level I Pistol Class
6 students, 8am.

The class started with Manny discussed mental and physical aspects of shooting, and giving out several handouts that we were to use throughout the class to take notes, list his corrections and suggestions, and perhaps how we did on various challenges. We then moved into drills that incorporated different aspects of each of the fundamentals of shooting, whereupon he went down the line, and analyzed each student. This gave everyone a chance to work the drill multiple times, (he started each run with a timer) gave him a chance to check each student and make suggestions, and then each student had multiple runs to work on that strength. He then set up the next drill, working aspects of the next fundamental, and went down the line again, analyzing each shooter.

This analysis really is the difference between his class, and others I have seen. Most instructors tell the class in general “use the trigger reset” or “keep your stance low” or “you are heeling the gun a bit” and maybe make a comment or two for specific students. In this case, however, each student got specifics related to them, regarding each fundamental. By the time we had reached the third fundamental, the students in the course were shooting measurably better. (Literally, measurably better.) This includes me.

I’m not the best shooter in the world, by any means. But I do pretty well—yet like I said, I’d take Manny’s Level I class again next without a second thought. I took his Level I course back in March, after the DoubleTap Championships in Texas, and came away with several important things to work on with respect to my fundamentals. I had just made A-class a few months before---and two months after Manny’s class, participated in a special classifier and made Master. I had been working on the specifics that I got from Manny, and it made a difference. I took his Level I class this second time, and found that indeed, he agreed that those fundamentals had gotten better, so now here was a couple of other things for me to work on…which I plan to do in the upcoming months. Next year, we’ll see what happens, and what else I need to work on, under the assumption that I’ve fixed/improved this set of issues.

As shooters, we aren’t good at knowing what we are doing wrong. We can tell that things aren’t working (at least we can if we are being honest with ourselves) but we often don’t know why. Having a video camera and analyzing it honestly can certainly help---but nothing really beats having someone else with an eye for analysis critically look at what you do.

Manny is simply very, very good at analysis. It’ll make a difference.

The rest of the day was really more of the same—next fundamental, analysis, practice. Next fundamental, analysis, practice. Each time, each student got a specific, detailed analysis of the major differences they could make, a demonstration of how to do it, and commentary as they worked the new technique into practice. Again, as the class went on, the students got measurably better.

It would be interested to have shot a series of 5 classifiers or so before the class, and then shot them immediately afterward—and then shot them again 2 month later, after further practice with Manny’s corrections. (Not practicing the classifiers, but practicing his fundamentals, and being honest about the results.) I’ll bet (as a science teacher) that there would be a statistically significant difference not only from before the class to 2 months later, but from before the class to right afterward. (Not as large, but still significant.)

Yes, at higher levels there are more things to learn than the fundamentals. But I don’t know anyone who doesn’t need a review (and a critique) of their fundamentals from time to time, from someone who has an eye for analysis.

There was more we did (for example, he showed us a couple of simple things we could do to make moving targets easy to shoot accurately), but really, the class is worth it just for the fundamentals analysis.

We also laughed a lot, and had tons of fun.

Day 2: Level II Pistol
6 students, 8am

So, if your fundamentals are at least sufficient, where you do go from there?

Movement. Transitions, effective movement, effective shooting on the move, moving into shooting positions, moving out---and doing so both explosively, and in a controlled fashion.

We started out with Manny setting up a particular stage, which quite comprehensively required us to demonstrate almost all possible movement/shooting requirements: draw, transition widely, move, shoot while moving, transition while moving, be accurate (with quite a few zebra targets), effective stopping, and effective acceleration.

We each ran the stage, and recorded our points/time. Manny then ran it, and wrote down every shot/transition/split time for his run. We then took the stage apart, piece by piece, and worked on it. When (with perfect accuracy) we matched his time for that section repeatedly, we knew that we were doing it properly. (Handy to have an exact GM set of times to compare to.)

Throughout, he gave commentary on better technique, both showing examples, and critiquing our examples. (One of the things I learned was that my wide transitions can be snappier—I tend to be fluid, but not as fast as I could be.) Everything was put on the clock, so that we could actually see the difference in times and effectiveness.

One of the things he continually pushed and demonstrated was the fact that lowering your center of mass made everything work better. You moved more smoothly, your shooting was more controlled, your acceleration/deceleration was more in balance---everything was easier, and thus you could move faster and still shoot accurately.

It is harder to explain how this all worked, really. Let me just say that by the end of the time practicing the stage (and we didn’t practice the stage as a whole, we practiced minor 2-4 shot sections at a time, working on effective transitions, explosive movement, split times, accuracy requirements, etc) we ran it again at the end for score. My initial time was high-18 seconds to run the stage with good accuracy. At the end, my time was low-16 seconds to run the stage with all A-hits. Now, 2+ seconds may not seem like a lot---but Manny ran it in only 14 seconds, and for me, those 2 seconds raised my HF by 15%---which, if it had been a competition, would have made a significant difference. More importantly, I know why it was easier (and it was easier to shoot A-hits at speed using better technique) so I can use those techniques in my own practice, and thus transfer this knowledge to all stages I shoot.

If this class enables me to raise my hit factors by 15% on average----that is going to make a huge difference in how I do. Do I expect that? No, because this is just one stage, and that hit factor is merely one example. Do I expect there to be a measurable, appreciable difference if I can integrate this learning into my shooting?

Most certainly.

So, overall: if you have a chance to participate in one of Manny’s classes---do so. No matter what your class, or how good you think you are, his Level I class analysis is completely worth hearing for everyone. Level II----is completely worth it for people who have made it into B-class, and want to really push themselves. C and D shooters might wait a bit, and focus their learning on the fundamentals (Level I) as those need to be solid before worrying about complicated movement.

There is tons more I could say, but this is long enough already. Manny is a good guy, an outstanding shooter, and a very good instructor. If you have the chance, take his class. You’ll laugh a lot, and you’ll learn a lot also.

Idiots on the Range...

2010-09-09T15:24:00.000-07:00

Initial note: I'm militant about firearms safety. Seriously, I'm completely insane about it. I am NOT going to get shot because someone I'm teaching can't be bothered to follow extremely simple safety rules. So when I run a class or teach anyone, they do it right every time, or we are done.

Haven't been shot yet.

So that leads into...

Idiots at the Range:
A month or so ago, I was at the range with Ardi along with another person who wanted to learn how to shoot---or at least, get an introduction to firearms safety and handling.

The pistol section at our range contains 7 different pistol bays, four of which are about 20 yards wide, and 25 yards deep. The 5th and 6th bays are about 30 yards wide, and 50 yards deep, and the seventh bay is a little larger than the first four. The bays all have a table plus miscellaneous barrels and such, but bay 5 also has three shooting benches. (Bay 2, on this day, also had a shooting bench on it.) This is all relevant, by the way.

So, Ardi was taking up approximately 1/3 of the bay, teaching Anna the basics of safety and handling, and I took up the other 2/3, practicing some movement/reloading drills for USPSA competition shooting. We were spread out over two of the three shooting benches, but clearly taking up the entire bay, with our shooting line 10 feet or so forward or the shooting benches due to the fact that I was moving.

We had been shooting for not very long when a pair of older males (I’m not going to say “gentlemen”) drove up, parked in front of our bay, and watched for a little while, then got out of their car and started putting shooting materials on the third shooting bench.

When I noticed this, I told them that we were likely to be here for awhile. They replied “That’s okay, we don’t mind” which seemed an odd answer to me, but I had let them know so I went back to practicing, checking on Ardi and Anna periodically. (They were doing just fine without me.) Remember, there are 6 other bays available, none of which were in use.

After a bit, I noticed that the two men had put together a target stand, and had walked it off to the side of the bay, with the target about in line with where Anna, Ardi, and I were standing. Somewhere in there they had also taken out a small array of handguns (handling them on the shooting bench behind us as opposed to in the safety area) and placed them on the shooting bench.

Wondering what they thought they were doing, I stopped shooting and just watched them, while Ardi and Anna kept up their shooting practice, which was mostly in front of that third bench. Here’s the layout:

The little rectangles are the targets, and I was moving back and forth within the fault lines I had set down, and Ardi and Anna were shooting at their own respective targets. The red rectangle is approximately where the two guys had placed their target—slightly forward of Ardi and Anna, but not by much.

As I watched, the two guys picked up handguns from the table (behind Ardi and Anna) and walked towards their target. As they do this, one guy swings his gun from pointing downward, to pointing upward. Again---Ardi and Anna were in front of him. At this point I start yelling “Stop, hold it, hold it!”

The two guys stop, and the guy holding the gun pointing upward swings it BACK DOWNWARD, again, through the area where Ardi and Anna are standing. He then looks at me and says “What?!”

I tell him he needs to watch where he is pointing the gun, it isn’t safe, and he replies “It’s empty!” I tell him that he shouldn’t be pointing the gun at people downrange, whereupon he swings it upward AGAIN, saying “I angled it outward so it wasn’t pointing at anyone!”

Things go downhill from there.

I should say that our range has specific rules that no guns are to be handled unless on the firing line, or in the safety area, and that no guns should be handled when people are downrange.

Jumping over the sections where he argued with me that 1)the gun was unloaded, so it wasn’t dangerous, 2) he hadn’t pointed it up and down again, and 3) well, if he did, he angled it outward so it was safe, 4) I didn’t understand because he was there to practice COMBAT shooting, not COMPETITION shooting (his emphasis, not mine), and 5) that I was an asshole---after that particular sequence of brilliance, I asked him to shoot in a different bay.

Here is where it started to get beyond stupidly dangerous to flat out stupidly STUPID. (Note how I’m ignoring the Combat vs Competition thing he brought up? Big of me, don’t you think?)

He said “What, we can’t use this bay?” I replied that there were 6 other empty bays he could use. Apparently, though, he wanted THIS one, and the fact that it was already in use didn’t matter. He did some yelling, and called me an asshole (again) to the Range Officer who had come by and saw it all, complained about more things, said he was handicapped and needed the shooting benches (which, I’ll note, he hadn’t been using---and I’d seen him at the range before shooting a number of times) and that there was something wrong with me for asking him to move from the range he wanted.

It was---fairly unbelievable. Seriously. Through it all, the idiot didn’t believe that he had done anything unsafe! He apologized, in this fashion “I’m sorry for whatever you think I did” –and somehow expected me to both accept that, and let him shoot on the same bay with us. He didn’t see a single problem with any of his gun-handling on the bay, when he pointed a gun 3 times at Ardi and Anna.

You know what? I am NOT going to get shot because someone else doesn’t have the brains to realize they have no idea what they are doing. And once people demonstrate that they are not going to be reasonable, I see no reason to engage further in discussion with them.

You aren’t safe, you don’t understand the problem, and won’t listen to an explanation of the problem? Fine. Go away, and shoot someone else.

But not me. And not the people I’m shooting with.

(I’ll note that as he finally moved to a different bay, he told the Range Officer that he was going to report this at the next meeting of our club, and have disciplinary procedures started. I started laughing at that point, because that would have been great! ---Because the RO had already mentioned to me that several other people in the past had reported safety issues with this guy before. Unfortunately, the guy was all mouth and no follow-through, so he never brought it up.)

So--if you are at the range sharing a bay with someone, then obey the safety rules. If that is too much for you, go shoot somewhere else---because no one wants to get shot due to your stupidity.

New Goals....suddenly....

2010-05-29T07:41:00.000-07:00

I was looking over the goals I wrote at the beginning of the year, and came across this part:

"Overall Competition Goal: In the long term, reaching Master class is the goal, but isn't the goal specifically this year--instead, the goal is to consistently shoot to my level of ability for all stages in a match. That, coupled with the technique goals given above, should be sufficient for the moment."

[sigh]

Well, apparently I'm a little ahead of myelf, what with making Master-class in USPSA this past month. Occasioned some thinking, though--because I didn't really practice that much. (No matter what my wife says.) Yes, some dryfire periodically, and it is true that during the summertime I go shooting a couple of times a week. But in the last year, that summer shooting was mostly training someone else, instead of practicing on my own, and so I really haven't practiced that much.

But apparently it was enough to make Master. Granted, I'm barely Master, with several big competitions coming up--so this means I really DO have to practice now, so that my shooting supports that Master-class ranking. I've managed to go out and do some work on distance shooting, and at home on some reloading---but more is necessary.

I've been looking at some of the "skills tests" worksheets and lists that several shooting coaches (and GMs) make available, in terms of what they think are important. For my level I think I have a decent grasp of most of them, except for reloading (still fumble those, and I shouldn't!) and long-distance accuracy. (Distance meaning accuracy past 15 yards.) I'm certainly not perfect at the others, but I do all right. That distance thing, though---I'm just very, very inconsistent. I can make those hits, I just don't always have the discipline to do so.

So--those are what I'm going to work on. Manny Bragg has a great dot drill to use to start and end a practice session, I'll always work on some transitions and movement, (plus another one of his "practice everything in one drill" drills) but I think much of my practice time for the next month or so is going to be on distance shooting (particularly interspersed with close-range blasting) and reloads (standing, on the move, or table reloads).

Area 5 in a couple of weeks, Great Plains Sectional and Area 3 at the end of July, and Nationals in October. I don't mind not being the best (hey, I'm not done learning and getting better yet!) but I do mind looking incompetent, and like I don't deserve my classification. So, let's make sure my shooting is Master level by the next match.

Time to work.

The Press-Out...

2010-05-25T17:41:00.001-07:00

Todd Louis Green over at pistol-training.com has a good set of comments about the importance of the correct press-out with respect to shooting fast and accurately.

Read This one, then This one.

Go do it now.

Hoo boy.....

2010-05-13T09:19:00.001-07:00

The new classification update from USPSA just came in. Remember, this is the year I am going to the Nationals.

Oh boy. I'm not even consistently shooting A-class, much less Master! Lots of practice in store for me this summer...

From my NHA instructor's blog...

2010-04-29T15:15:00.001-07:00

“Martial art” is not the same as “self-defense.”

There seems to be a common belief among martial artists that martial arts training makes you “know self-defense.” And on the other side, many non-martial artists who specialize in other tools seem to think that you can learn effective self-defense without learning any bare-hand technique used in martial arts classes.

It is amazing how wrong both of these people are.

Awhile ago, the NHA held a Close Quarters Tactics – Firearms (CQT) course at the dojang, working on defensive tactics at close quarters with an emphasis on the use of a firearm as a self-defense tool.

Students worked under assumptions of lethal force situations, distances of 5 feet or less (in many cases, from the clinch), and often versus weapons at these close ranges. Partner drills included passive and active resistance techniques, and the class ended with force-on-force training with AirSoft weapons. (First time you get shot 3 times in the torso and twice in the face mask of your helmet wakes you right up, particularly since the torso shots hurt.)

As students progressed, they quickly learned that many CQT situations aren’t “gun-solvable”---quite the contrary. Under these close quarters, immediately going for a weapon consequently immediately gets you killed. Throughout, the concept was taught that self-defense for this case means giving yourself space to access a better self-defense tool safely—which for this meant causing your attacker to either give you space in distance, or space in time, so you could access your firearm and apply it without getting killed in the meantime. Mostly, this means that CQT tactics often start with a serious amount of bare-hand technique, because you must create that space to work in.

For most people, it takes easily over one second to access and engage a target with a firearm from concealment. If you are 3 feet from an attacker who is actively engaging you, one second is about 0.8 seconds too long. Trying it means that your attacker (or attackers) gets in their first several attacks relatively unopposed—and if this is a lethal force situation, that means you are dead.

At these close quarters, it is necessary for the defender to stop/stun/off-balance/turn/jam/move their opponent in some way. Either creating enough space through distance (so the attacker can’t reach you before you access your firearm) or creating enough space in time (you have stunned/turned your attacker, and are currently jamming their weapon hand so they are temporarily unable to attack you) gives you the ability to access a better tool for lethal-force levels of self-defense.

Trying to access it without that space—gets you killed.

So how does this all relate to the beginning of this post?

I was discussing my CQT class with a fellow shooter after a competition one day, and it was interesting. When I first mentioned to fellow shooters that I was going to teach a CQT class, a number of people volunteered to help teach it—and I wondered what experience made them qualified to help teach?

This fellow shooter was one of them, and when we discussed what had actually occurred in the class, he stopped then said, “Oh, well, I didn’t think it was going to be a martial arts class, I thought it was going to be a shooting class.”

I had no idea what to say.

The entire point of the course was defensive tactics at close quarters—and while we assumed that we would have access to a concealed firearm, that was merely one of the tools that we had available to use. The entire point was to learn how to stay alive in close quarters lethal force situations—and thus knowing when the gun wasn’t the right initial choice was important.

It wasn’t a “martial arts class,” nor was it a “shooting class” – because describing it in that fashion loses the point completely!

Self-defense means doing what is necessary to keep yourself safe. Having tools to better enable you to do this is handy—but you have to be careful that you don’t turn every situation into a “this is a hammer, so everything is a nail” reaction. Thinking that a self-defense class is a martial arts class OR a shooting class means that the student isn’t thinking about realistic self-defense tactics, they are thinking about drills for specific tools. There isn’t anything wrong with this, UNLESS thinking in this fashion makes you practice drills that are unrealistic. At close quarters, if you don’t stop the attacker and create space, you will get killed. In most cases you can’t do that by starting off with drawing the gun.

Our CQT class is about tactics to keep you alive in lethal force situations. You will learn plenty of drills to help you access your firearm quickly, and engage targets accurately. But that certainly isn’t what the class is about, and if you ignore the parts of training that keep you alive until you can access your firearm—then it doesn’t matter how much you drill the “shooting part”.

CQT Classes...

2010-04-13T15:25:00.000-07:00

Been awhile. And I’m not even going to talk about my shooting, other than to say the DoubleTap Championship WOULD have been fun had it been 30 degrees warmer. In other news, my shooting is better, but my reloading is much, much worse. Went to a class with Manny Bragg, and learned lots, which hopefully will start to show in increased shooting ability over the next several months.

On to the real topic---I’m teaching a CQT class this Saturday, and what has been interesting is that when I posted on my Facebook that I was doing so, more than one person (in various ways) offered to come and help me teach it.

While I appreciate the offers, I wonder why they think they are qualified? (Of course, some people probably are wondering why I think I’m qualified.) The class I’m going to teach is armed civilian self-defense at close quarters. This isn’t room-clearing, battle tactics, or teamwork training---this is arms-length defense tactics and practice versus single/multiple/armed attackers. So I wonder what kinds of training these other people have had?

I was also interested to find out that a local firearms trainer has gone to a training class of his own, and now that he is back, is going to teach a force-on-force class for students. I’ve been to one of his classes, and while I like the guy (and he is certainly a good shooter), his grasp of hand-to-hand defensive tactics is very similar to most of what I’ve seen from shooters---which is minimal, and slanted based on whatever training class they attended last. So force-on-force from him should be interesting—will it be good scenario-based self-defense training, or will it be law-enforcement distance shooting tactics? Two very different things…one of which will cause people to break the first rule of self-defense.

Anyway---several months back I told my shooter students we were going to do the non-range portion of a CQT course, to include both practice drills, and later force-on-force scenarios. Several of them got interested, so I put together a short, 3-hour curriculum to work on. (We will do the range portion later. Quite frankly, since most CQT shootings are at 3 feet or less, while it is important to get range time, practicing dry-fire is actually more useful, particularly when done safely with a partner.)

So what important things should my students get out of this? That’s the real question, isn’t it? At close range, what circumstances will result in a lethal force response? Large disparity of force, weapons, or multiple attackers. (Or combinations thereof.) So---CQT for civilian self-defense needs to deal with how to keep yourself safe under those conditions. Oddly enough, going for the gun is almost always NOT what you should do first. Matter of fact, sometimes going for the gun means you lose control of the situation, and you get dead.

First rule of self-defense: Don’t get dead. Don't break the first rule of self-defense.

So this is always what interests me when I see other firearms instructors teaching “CQT” courses. Often (granted, I’ve only seen a small sample of instructors) the response is movement and draw/engage. The problem is, force-on-force training that mimics reality will show you right away that for many SD cases, this doesn’t work. (Many other CQT courses are designed after military CQB, and close-quarter battle tactics is a completely different animal. Interesting stuff, but really not the same.)

We will do some movement/draw/engage practice. After all, given 10 feet and some awareness, as long as the person isn’t already on the run at you with a weapon, you can (given practice) move back and offline, draw, and engage your attacker in sufficient safety to make it a viable choice.

But really, civilian CQT isn’t about 10 feet---it is about 3-5 feet, and that is a whole ‘nother situation. Starting to move back and putting your hands down to draw (or even keeping one up to guard your head) as an initial reaction to an attack is just a good way to make sure you are beaten before your gun gets out. Worse yet, if you get the gun halfway out and then get dropped, they’ll know you have a gun—and they’ll have access to it.

This is a SD class, not a “gun” class. We use tools, sure. But the weapon is the mind, and the mind should be telling you that you need to create space (both in distance and in time) so you can access and use your tools. If that space isn’t there, you have to make it—so CQT courses should show how to stop attackers, how to redirect attacks, and how to jam movement to give you that time and space. Without it---you break the first rule of self-defense.

Don’t get dead.

2010, and the Shooting Continues...

2010-01-11T18:16:00.000-08:00

Additional shooting occurred here and there since last I wrote. Final pistol match of 2009 went badly---somehow dislocated my thumb (!) while shooting a classifier. (And got a whopping 16% nationally on that one!) I put it back in afterward, but the rest of the stages went extremely poorly as I had almost no grip. Somewhere in there was also the last 3-Gun match of the year, in which I found that the shotgun rounds I had didn't have enough "umph" to make the action cycle on my new semi-auto, so it screwed up both my shotgun stage and Ardi's shotgun stage.

[sigh] So the last matches of the year were certainly nothing to be proud of.

We just had the banquet last weekend, which is always fun---lots of laughter. I got Top A Production, and also High Overall in Production, Steel Production, and 3-Gun Limited. Ardi got a medal for 3rd D! Hop on over to the ENPS Facebook site for various pictures. (Which will end up being posted when we all have time.)

Ok---so last year is over. What happened, and what did I learn?

1) Classes from this year, plus the past:

Many people teaching defensive shooting classes are shooters who've learned defensive shooting techniques, and are teaching them. This is different from defensive tactics instructors who are teaching firearms as defensive tactics tools.

My perception of what fundamentals that people should know for basic shooting seems to be correct--all of the courses I have seen/participated in/viewed the syllabus for have included the material I deem important for the fundamentals of shooting.

My perception of what tactics people should practice diligently differs somewhat from others---not necessarily in technique, but mostly in direction and focus. Students in other classes learn defensive shooting. Shooters in my classes learn defensive tactics that include shooting, and the tactics are applicable to any given situation.

Close Quarter Tactics seems to be a largely non-understood area of defensive tactics. Actual high-percentage movement, both in defensive movement, weapon retention, and weapons acquisition, seem lacking.

DT Goal: Attend other shooting classes. Observe DT, in additional to shooting techniques. See if anyone seems to really understand the "tactics" part of CQT. Use further information to refine the classes I intend to teach, particularly with regard to tactical thinking, and defensive thinking. Flush out curriculum guides with more depth and detail.

DT Practice: From a DT perspective, work on shooting on the move, reactional draw/move/shoot, and force-on-force drills for CQT retention, and CQT space/acquisition/shoot practice.

Classes I'm thinking of taking:

USSA courses
Bullet Hole courses (local)
Signal 88 pistol and carbine courses (local)

2) Competition in the past year:

I made A class without actually trying hard. Yes, I practiced, but nothing like last year. This summer included more shooting competitions, but less (much!) shooting practice. Thus, if merely shooting occasionally produces increase in skill, then consistent, decent practice will produce correspondingly greater increase.

Looking at my videos from the year, plus adding comments from experienced and skilled shooters, the main things that seem to be holding me back currently are: slow reloads, and poor long-distance accuracy. Other problems exist, but those two are probably the largest current problems.

I am fairly good at letting a match go one stage at a time---the outcome of one stage does not affect my run on the following stage. I do still occasionally have days in which my shooting is just poor overall. Perhaps too much thinking, or not a good enough "set" before the buzzer sounds. Need an increase in focus. Not in concentration, but in focusing on just letting the shooting happen.

Competition Technique Goal 1: Practice reloading such that in shooting videos, reloading no longer forces wait times between shooting episodes. A specific reloading speed is not the goal (so, no specific reloading time), but instead a consistent ability to reload within the time necessary while moving during stages.

Competition Technique Goal 2: Practice distance accuracy, such that consistently I can achieve 2 A hits at speed on a 30 yard target, and from 50 yards consistently hit steel plates during slow fire.

For the above, practicing reloading/dryfire at least twice a week (minimum) is part of the requirements for the goal.

Overall Competition Goal: In the long term, reaching Master class is the goal, but isn't the goal specifically this year--instead, the goal is to consistently shoot to my level of ability for all stages in a match. That, coupled with the technique goals given above, should be sufficient for the moment.

Larger matches to shoot this year:

DoubleTap Championship in Texas
Great Plains Sectional at ENGC
Area 5 in Polo, IL
Area 3 in Grand Island, NE

(Less than last year!)

Also looking into the Appleseed project, shooting rifle. If it goes well, might try to see if they'll come to ENGC to run one. Other things to try, given time: lever action silhouette at ENGC, GSSF matches, and hopefully WWGC 3-Gun will work out this year.

Busy year for shooting---but that's good, since it is a lot of fun.

And learning more is a good thing.

October 3-Gun and November Pistol...

2009-11-11T17:04:00.000-08:00

Been two matches since I last wrote---so I'd better review my shooting. I'm not really doing this just to brag (I had better not be---my shooting isn't good enough!) and I'm not merely doing it so that my friends can see my hobby (most don't care enough :) to look)--mostly I'm doing it to force myself to really think about how I shoot, and what I need to work on.

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!

Sigh...

2009-10-17T09:15:00.000-07:00

So, now I'm A-class. Barely. (By 0.06%!) Time to actually go back to _practicing_ so that I get better. My current skills, in my opinion, are not consistent enough to support an A-class designation---so, time to work on them.

Granted, I should have been working on them throughout...

Good motivation, which apparently I needed. Since I read this on the USPSA site, I have practiced dryfire and reloading every other night, and I can already see improvements, particularly in reloading. I REALLY wish KyTac would send me my new mag pouches. These Fobus ones I'm currently using are adequate for the basics (and were nice and cheap) but better equipment now will make a difference--and my reloading is one of my weak points in the first place! I have a set of the CR Speed pouches, but they are really heavy compared to what I'm used to. I know plenty of people use them, but I'm hoping the KyTac ones will work better. Dave Sevigny certainly doesn't seem to have any problems with them!

Looking back at videos of my shooting, I see numerous examples of situations in which faster/more precise reloads would have made a huge difference in my overall time. Wouldn't have had to wait to shoot, would have started shooting on the move more quickly, and stand-and-shoot stages would have gone better.

Being as it is getting cold out, I won't be able to get to the range to practice much, in the next few months. As such, it is dryfire and AirSoft practice, for me. However, that means I can spend time working on sight focus, transitions, reloading (and reloading while moving), plus shooting on the move with an AirSoft gun.

Actually rather looking forward to what my skill level is going to do over the next couple of months with that sort of practice. :)

Still more to come regarding the CQT course we attended awhile back.

Lots of Shooting Stuff Lately...

2009-10-07T11:56:00.000-07:00

I'll be adding commentary later, but here's some of what has been going on...

We took Emily out shooting, this time with a real gun instead of an AirSoft gun. She started with a .22, then tried out a revolver and a 9mm. Did pretty well...

Middle of last month we had a Steel Challenge match at ENGC. I did pretty well---first place for the non-.22 shooters. That being said, however, I shot a lot of misses on steel that I had to make up, and could have done considerably better.

Thirdly, we just had our monthly USPSA action pistol match, which was a lot of fun. Overall, I won Production, but could have done much better. My reloads were poor, my brain shut off at one point, and I had a mike on my own stage. [sigh] More commentary to follow.

There is a good chance that this month's classifier stage may have bumped me into A-class. There are several "ifs" to that, though---it depends on IF the online classifier calculator is correct, IF I can do math correctly, and IF I understand the classifier rules for what is used or not. IF so---I'm going to be in A-class after next month's update. By 0.0395%. [sigh] I'm going to need to practice a lot more to sustain an A-class card for the major matches next year. Lots and lots and lots...

I wouldn't be unhappy if I wasn't quite A-class yet. I could handle it taking a bit more time before that happened...

And lastly, I still need to discuss the CQT class we attended, a month or so ago. It was highly disappointing, and there are a number of DT things I want to talk about. Forthcoming...

September 2009 Pistol Match...

2009-09-13T12:44:00.000-07:00

Finally getting around to writing about other shooting things. In this case, the last monthly pistol match.

The September match happened on a beautiful day, and 40 people showed up to shoot. The stages were varied, with close shots and far shots, lots of run-and-gun, and some tricky moving targets here and there. (One swinger, one bear-trap, and two Texas stars.) And lots of ports!

Overall, I was happy with my performance. It wasn't perfect by any means, and on my first stage I flubbed a number of things. (Including once flinging a perfectly good new magazine a couple of feet. Whoops.) But overall, I paid attention to the front sight, my movement was pretty good, and half my reloads went well. The other half---were sloppy. Still need to work on those...

Speaking of working on things---I haven't ~~had the time~~ taken the time to do any dryfire practice in the last month. Pretty sad. My mental game seems to be working all right---I'm still getting better. But the increase in skill would be much higher had I been practicing. So, back to the "I must dry fire each night before going to bed" mantra. My reloads (especially moving reloads) need plenty of work.

Things went well, most certainly---2nd out of 40 against a number of very good shooters (including beating an A-class Production shooter). I can do better, however, with more practice...

Shooting a lot lately...

2009-09-07T18:07:00.000-07:00

Actually, I'm about 4 shooting events behind on my commentary. Since the 3-Gun match, I've gone to the Illinois Sectional Match, went to the Close Quarters Tactics class in Kansas, and shot our monthly pistol match at ENGC. Plus just today I took a new person out shooting. So, lots to talk about.

But no time to write, thus far. :) So, as a placeholder, here is the video of the IL Sectional Match.

3rd B. Not too bad of a finish, but some really bad shooting on my part. Ben Stoeger mentioned that he hadn't ever seen me have quite so many shooting problems all in one day before. First stage: one miss, incredibly poor accuracy. Second stage: one miss, slow movement. Later stages: overall poor accuracy, and oddly enough all the speed in the world can't make up for that. Just---not good.

I'll post about the other stuff later, when I have time to write something worth reading.

2009 August 3-Gun Match

2009-08-19T19:20:00.001-07:00

When I have some free time, I'll add some commentary. In the meantime, here is the video from the match.

In addition, afterwards Ardi tried a couple of people's shotguns---a Remington 1100 semi-auto, and a pumpgun whose brand I don't recall. When you watch this video, remember that Ardi has shot a shotgun ONCE before. And it wasn't either one of these.

Get the idea that she's going to hope for a Remington 1100 for Christmas? She's got a pistol and an AR already, so she just needs a shotgun for 3-Gun matches...

I must admit, I'm thinking about buying one for myself--I am currently using an 18" 870 pump, which is a good house gun---but it certainly doesn't do for me what an 22" Remington 1100 with a 9-round tube would in competition!

New Shooter...

2009-08-15T15:08:00.000-07:00

I should perhaps be honest here---I don't always enjoy teaching new shooters. I like introducing people to shooting, I like seeing new shooters show up and get hooked, and I don't mind spending the time helping them learn proper safety and trigger control.

I don't, however, like teaching someone who "already knows how to shoot".

You know the type--have been out with a couple of similarly-clueless friends with a gun, blasted off 100 rounds at a jug of water (missing most times)--and automatically assume they already know the basics of safety, stance, grip, sighting, trigger control, follow-through, and breath control, and safety. (I know I said safety twice. That is because people like this tend to answer with "yeah, yeah, I know already" when you tell them to get their finger off the trigger when they are waving it around, and by the way, please quit waving it around!)

[sigh] I'll do it anyway, but the minute they stop being a student and start arguing with me over safety, I'm done. I'm not going to get shot because some person has an over-inflated view of their knowledge. Anything else, I'll stay around and help. But if they won't act safely, then I'll give them a couple of warnings--and after that, I'm gone. Or they are.

Why did this come to mind? Because a new student who listens and does what you ask them to is one of the best gifts in the world! Often, I find I prefer teaching people who have no experience whatsoever with firearms---they don't have any bad habits, and they listen when you tell them to do something.

For Christmas last year, I gave a gift certificate to my friend Emily saying that I'd teach her to use a handgun or a rifle this summer, her choice. A few weeks ago I was at her place, and brought my AirSoft gas gun with me, along with a 3-plate aluminum plate rack. We went out to her back yard, and she learned a little bit about handguns.
Her mother Megan shot a bit also, just to prove that she could. :) A good time was had by all (so I am told) and Emily did extremely well for a new shooter.

As this fall shows up, we'll get her out to a range with a .22, and get her hooked on shooting. In a year or so, maybe we'll have a new USPSA junior...

2009 Area 3 Match...

2009-08-04T13:19:00.001-07:00

I've got a lot more commentary and pictures to add, but for now:

Production: 2nd B-Class, 10th Overall (out of 48)

Rock Your Glock match, July 17th...

2009-07-18T16:16:00.000-07:00

No video.

So, today I had the best run I have EVER had at any Glock match. Ever.

When I started RYG in 2005, I got around 118 seconds as my score. By the next year, I broke 100 and ended the year with a 91 second total. In 2007, I had an amazing run and actually broke the 60 mark with a 59.34.

After that it went up and down, but stayed mostly in the low 60s in 2008 and 2009---until today. Today I broke 50 seconds, getting a total match time of 49.28 seconds.

That's three runs at the 5-to-25, three runs at the "M", and four runs at the plates. A total (minimum) of 81 rounds. I had personal bests at all three stages, in particular a 13.9 second total at the plates (dropped 24 plates in 13.9 seconds---average time per run of 3.475 seconds per 6-plate rack).

Absolute personal BEST.

[sigh]

Which was good enough for 3rd place in the Master/Open class. 3rd.

(Granted, it would have won Master class last time...) Several of us just had an amazingly good day. And in my defense, I was shooting with a Production gun, while the number 2 guy was shooting an Open gun...but Dennis got first place with a 45.82 (which is outstanding) shooting a stock Glock 17.

[sigh] Oh well.

Second place guy shot an Open Glock. (Which is amusing, since he got 4th place with his regular open gun---an STI.)

To add insult to injury, I didn't win the raffle for the gun. Ardi was the one drawing the name, and I told her it was a long walk home...so what does she do? She pulls Julie's name!

Well, at least one of us won the gun. Julie is all happy she gets another Springfield XD---she doesn't have an XDM yet, and plans on rectifying that omission.

Fun match and day. And my best time ever. Next year's goal: breaking 40 seconds. (It's possible!)

2009 Great Plains/Iowa Sectional Match...

2009-07-15T08:16:00.001-07:00

Tons o' Fun!

Commentary forthcoming. That being said, I won High Overall in Production, plus Great Plains Sectional Champion for Production division. Ardi won 1st D Class, and High Female Production.

Tons o' fun!

Commentary posted on 07/18:

Not a whole lot to say, but did want to mention a couple of things that went well. It occurred to me that if I consistently focused on what I did badly (in order to improve) I would tend to forget what I do well---and that is important to remember also, particularly since tactical plans for stages should play to one's strengths.

So, strengths:
As shown on stages 6 and 7 (the classic/metric identification stages) I really don't have a problem with target identification, and can snap to new targets quickly and easily. Matter of fact, I believe I could have run that quite a bit faster if on the first run-through I had trusted myself a bit more. (I also could have been faster on the second run had I continued my movement at each port instead of stopping.) So, strength 1: close target and quick snap shots work well for me---out of 44 rounds (both stages put together) at that speed, which was 5th out of 76 shooters, I only had 8 C hits. The rest were all A hits.

Stage 9 (Out For A Jog) was all about shooting on the move, and still running faster between shooting areas. I switched speeds well, and shot on the move without stopping while still getting A hits on both straight-ahead shooting, and diagonal shooting. Apparently the work on shooting on the move has paid off---my stage time was 11th out of 76, and that was with only 6 C hits out of 32---the rest were A. (My overall HF was 9th.) Strength 2: Fluid shooting on the move is working well.

In general, reloads look better. While I did flub up a couple (notably on stage 1, at the end of my day) most of them were quick and smooth, and I was ready to shoot by the time I made it to the next position--and better yet, most of the time I was done reloading by a step or two, so the rest of the time I could concentrate on the movement, not reload-and-movement.

Accuracy was not bad. With one notable exception (Stage 8, The Wall, where I had 16 A and 16 C!) most of the time I had a solid run of A-hits. There were a couple of D hits here and there, but at the speeds I was shooting I still had very good accuracy---for my level, at least.

This match wasn't exemplary in that I shot amazingly well, in my opinion. What makes me happy about this match is that I shot the majority of it (not quite all, but close) at my level of ability. It wasn't a match where I'd shoot well for awhile, then blunder something. For the most part, I consistently shot to my level of ability. (The first and last stages of the day didn't go as well as the others, and weren't what I would have wished. Nonetheless, they were acceptable.)

If I can consistently shoot to my level, I'll be happy.

Off to practice (and clean my magazines!) for Area 3 in two weeks.

Chief shoots his own officer...

2009-07-09T09:28:00.000-07:00

What part of "keep your finger off the trigger until your sights are on target" are people missing? Are the words too long? Perhaps the concept is too difficult?

Perhaps people who don't understand the concept shouldn't have guns. Especially if they are law enforcement officers.

From WOWT News:

A Carter Lake Police officer is recovering after being accidentally shot by the chief of police at police headquarters Wednesday afternoon.
Chief of Police Shawn Kannedy and two other officers were discussing firearms around 2:45 p.m. when Kannedy's weapon discharged, striking Sgt. Dan Driver in the torso.

Driver was taken to Creighton University Medical Center where he's in good condition.

The matter is under investigation by the Pottawattamie County Sheriff's Department to avoid any appearance of conflict of interest on the part of the Carter Lake Police Department.

Chief Kannedy has been placed on administrative leave.

I'm leaving out how the news media's story changed several times, starting from "officer shot himself in the thigh" to "officer was shot in the torso" to "chief shot officer" to "chief's GUN shot officer" (note how the emphasis changed from the person to the object?) because that is a discussion for a different blog.

Since this one is about guns, let's stick to that.

GUN LAWS:

The gun is loaded. Act that way.
Do not point the gun at anything you are not prepared to destroy
Keep your finger off the trigger until your sights are on the target
Know both your target and your backstop (what is behind the target)

If you can't follow the gun safety laws, then don't handle a firearm. Every single time a person gets shot "accidentally," it means the person with the gun broke at least two of the gun safety laws. You can get away with breaking just one--the gun may or may not go off, but at least you won't kill anyone. But if someone gets shot "accidentally," then at least two were broken. And probably all four.

If the chief and his officers were discussing guns, fine. But why did he have a loaded weapon outside of a holster, when not on a range or in a defensive situation? If they had to discuss his specific firearm, why didn't they unload and clear the weapon first? Failing absolutely everything else, why was the firearm pointed at a person? Why did the chief have his finger on the trigger?

Looking above, you can see that I put "accidentally" in quotes all the time---that is because an "accidental discharge" is an extremely rare thing. And that isn't what happened in this case. An accidental discharge (AD) occurs when the gun really does go off by itself---the firing pin block didn't work when the gun fell to the ground, or the sear was ground down such that when racking the sliding with the finger safely off the trigger the gun fired anyway. These sorts of things are so incredibly rare (particularly with modern handguns, such as what law enforcement uses) that they are almost nonexistant.

What happened in the chief's case (and in almost every single case of the media reporting an "accidental discharge") is actually called a Negligent Discharge. NDs occur when the person holding the gun is negligent. They aren't obeying the gun safety laws, and someone gets hurt due to their negligence.

If a normal citizen has an ND, and someone gets hurt, that citizen is normally charged in court for it. In the chief's case? We'll see. It is interesting to read the the chief's GUN shot the officer, though. Magically, all by itself.

I don't think so!

What really happened? I wasn't there, and I don't know. But I do know this: for the gun to go off and the bullet to strike the officer, if the gun was in decent condition (which it should have been--surely the chief of police has a working firearm) then someone had to be holding the gun and pointing it at the officer, and that someone had to pull the trigger.

ND.

Obey the friggin' gun safety rules.

ENPS July 2009 Pistol Match...

2009-07-06T09:30:00.000-07:00

Had our monthly match yesterday---five stages, with some pretty tricky movement and angles. Often, people had to choose to either shoot one-handed, or bend and torque themselves in a fairly extreme fashion to shoot the targets around walls and barricades.

Interesting stuff.

More commentary later.

Edited Later:

So, last time I said that I was going to focus on moving reloads, and keep track of how close to the edge (round-wise) I was running. For reloading:

In the first stage, they were all standing reloads. Not too slow, fairly smooth---but in each case, I brought the gun in (which is fine) and also lowered it (which isn't). I had been working on keeping the gun higher while reloading---apparently I need more work.

Second stage didn't have any reloads, but the third stage had several---including one at the end that I didn't need to make. I have no idea why I reloaded at the end between the two sides of the wall. In each case, the moving reloads weren't bad--but again, I'm lowering the gun, and when I do, I'm hunching my shoulders and altering my stance. That'll cause lost time due to lack of structure for the shooting stance, and for the movement. I think the start of the problem is that I look downward slightly when I reach downward for the reload (even though I'm not looking for a magazine), and I lower the gun in response.

The gun really needs to stay up high in the visual plane for moving reloads---not because the gun will be pointing at the next target (depending on my movement, that might not be safe) but because it means my body structure (posture and inclination) will therefore be upright and efficient. The second reload in the third stage, while low, isn't actually bad because the body is inclined forward for acceleration. However, the first reload (and possibly the third, though it is hard to tell due to the angle) cause me to probably lose time in movement.

On the fourth stage, the first reload is obviously low--and since it takes my eyes down, I end up moving into the wrong position. I'm not set for all the targets, so later I have to re-adjust, which burns time. The second reload isn't bad--doesn't seem to slow me down, gets done quickly and is finished early in the movement.

In the fifth stage, we see more of the same. Overall, I do think my moving reloads have improved---the reload is finished quicker, and my movement is less impaired by a slow reload. That being said, I need to keep the gun higher, and not hunch over as the reload is completed.

I've also noticed that even if I have to start my movement with a slower acceleration, the emphasis on finishing the reload quickly at the beginning of the movement (which is possible due to the increased concentration on the reload, as opposed to the acceleration) is overall causing better movement, as my attention is not divided. I'm not saying the reload should be done before the movement---but in this case, as the movement starts, the majority of the concentration is on the reload, as opposed to on the acceleration with the reload as an adjunct.

Seems to work better.

Continued focus needed on moving reloads, as improvement is still possible (and necessary). However, apparently current practice is having an effect. More emphasis on keeping the gun up during reloads needed.

2009 Minnesota Sectional Match...

2009-06-23T12:42:00.002-07:00

Went to Minnesota for their Sectional Match again this year--7 stages, only about 158 rounds. Fairly small, and the stages (by diagram) looked fairly simplistic. However, once I got there and took a look at how the stages actually turned out, I was pleased. I still would have liked one or two more stages (for a level II match) but there were some nicely tricky things in these stages, and they isolated a number of shooting skills for those who wanted to do well.

I had a lot of fun. Here is some video from the match...

..and more comments to follow.

Edited on June 28th to add:

Other than the massive screwup on the Random Hoser stage, it was a pretty good match for me. I could nitpick all of the small details, or just pick the two major things I should work on that will make the most difference. (Later for smaller details.)

As I shot it, I kept thinking that what was slowing me down (losing me time) was the fact that as I moved, I was often in a position where I could shoot, but I wasn't done with my reload yet. And several times after I was done moving and in the new shooting position, I still wasn't done with my reload. I had pretty much decided that I really needed to work on my moving reloads when Ben Stoeger (GM-Production Division) mentioned (we were all talking together after the match) that he thought I had gotten better since last year, and the only thing really holding me back was my moving reloads.

There you go. :)

He also suggested I get some competition-style magazine pouches, instead of these duty-type ones I currently have. I bought these as the cheapest thing I could find back when I started, and while they are handy for regular carry and such, they really aren't right for competition. Getting new ones won't be a magical fix, but it would help. So I'll probably do that, and work on my moving reloads. We'll see if I can get them faster by Area 3.

Second major thing, that has never been major before: What happened to my brain during the random hoser stage? Normally, I'm very good at changing my plan on the fly, and don't have any problems at quick critical thinking/problem solving even in the middle of a stage. That time, though---sheesh.

I think a major problem was that I hadn't solidly realized that I was running so close to the gun's capacity (magazine-wise). Every space was set for 10 rounds, and with one extra at the beginning, I never had an extra after--and I wasn't ready for that. As I get better, I don't give myself the "miss leeway" that I used to, and this time since I hadn't really thought about it, the consequences of the first additional shot didn't really occur to me--so I didn't try to get past the problem.

Something to remember---in most cases, I've got more than enough mags on my belt. If the count goes off, reload, and go back to the plan. Don't stop thinking--but often, that is the fastest fix available.

I dropped 60 points just on that stage because of that screwup. I ran the stats---if I had been shooting Limited-10 minor, I would have gotten second place with my current score. If I had run the Random Hoser stage like any normal stage, I would have gotten first in Limited-10 shooting minor, including beating a master-class person. (Granted, I wasn't in Limited-10, so it wouldn't have mattered. But as a comparison...)

I would still have lost solidly to Ben in Production, of course. He ended with 790 points. (Won every stage.) Even if I had gotten back 40 of those lost points, I still would have only had 662---nowhere close to his score. But it would have been a better-looking second place...

So:

1) Bear in mind how close I am running to the capacity of the magazine, and
2) Work on moving reloads, and eventually get better magazine pouches for competition.

That is what happening for drills now...

Advanced Defensive Shooting...

2009-06-23T12:42:00.001-07:00

So, Julie, Ardi, and I went down to the Advanced Defensive Shooting class a couple of weeks ago. "This course teaches advanced defensive shooting skills designed for students who have successfully completed the Introduction To Defensive Shooting Class, applying those skills in a vastly more complicated environment."

The "more complicated environment" was defined as shooting moving targets, multiple targets, shooting while moving, and a few other things.

It started with some classroom discussion, mostly reviewing material from the Intro class to make sure people hadn't forgotten anything. Our class only had four people--which was good, as we ended up running many more drills than normal. The fourth gentleman had taken the intro course almost a year prior, so he was a little rusty on some things.

Specifics we started with:

use of verbal commands
scanning for threats
carrying at low ready, not high ready
don't crowd cover
gun moves with you when you move past cover (don't look without the gun)

Also, there was some discussion about how to react when accosted on the street by someone whose intent is to get you to stop and interact. I thought the response taught was useful, but not in the form in which I would handle it. Ardi's response was that she though the reaction was too loud and confrontative, and likely to escalate the (currently non-violent) situation.

One mildly arg! point in the beginning of the class--the fourth student didn't remember what "reset point" on his trigger meant, so the teacher had him pull his gun out of the holster (facing the wall) and pull the trigger so she could show him. Now, this was before we had started the class, and we hadn't checked our guns, the teacher hadn't seen us clear/load/holster them---she had no idea what his gun's condition was. And she never checked, and just had him pull the trigger! I know that all students are supposed to be responsible for themselves, but *I* would have checked the gun first as the instructor.

It was also interesting--when he pulled the trigger on his Ruger P89, and then let it out for the reset, she (the teacher) was very surprised at how long the reset was. My comment was that it was a DA/SA, so since the slide didn't re-cock the hammer, the second pull was going to be DA again, so it wouldn't really be as long as the actual SA would be. She didn't seem to understand. (It is possible I didn't explain it well, but nonetheless, she should have known, I think.)

Again, there was an emphasis on the double-tap--the first shot aimed, but the second one let go as fast as possible just as soon as the reset could be engaged, and the trigger pressed again. And I still don't like that sort of thinking, even for defensive pistol shooting. I'm not saying doing double-taps for defensive shooting is bad, I just disagree with how it was taught, and whether it should be automatic in all cases of defensive shooting.

After discussing these things in the classroom, we went out to the range for a succession of drills. As before, we started with the stepback drill to warm up (measured it this time---started at 7 yards, only went back to 11 yards).

After that, we did some strong-hand-only drills, some transitioning-to-weakhand-only drills, and then worked some movement. (Simple draw-and-shoot-2 drills for the SHO/WHO ones.)

For the movement, we did a "box drill" where we moved in a square pattern around some barrels while shooting, then a "snake drill" where we moved around barrels placed in a line.

For the Box Drill, the barrels were simply marker points--not people, not cover, merely placeholders to tell us where to move. This drill is for people who have never shot on the move before--it isn't a "move to the barrel then shoot, then move to the next barrel and shoot" drill, the student is supposed to shoot while moving throughout.

After that, we started on the snake drill. The first time we ran the snake drill the barrels were merely markers for movement. However, in later drills they were people, and that made movement a little different. (There was also an assumption that they were innocent people, which might be a stretch, but we acted that way anyway.)

You shouldn't point guns at people you aren't planning on shooting. As such, we worked on the "sole position," which is a handgun position used for movement through crowded areas. The point is to have the handgun safely pointed downward (and not outward) but in such a manner as to make it instantly accessible and ready to shoot. We practiced with rubber guns for awhile, then went back to the snake drill, and practiced movement and firing through the barrels using the sole position.

One of the things that was very difficult about this was the tendency to treat the barrels as "cover" as opposed to "people". You don't edge around a person and shoot past their ear. Chances are they will be moving, screaming, flailing, and in general doing all the things that will get them (and you!) killed. The one thing they probably WON'T be doing is staying out of the way. I'm thinking that in the future, putting pictures of people on the barrels will help somewhat--students would move further away from the barrels to shoot, as opposed to snaking their way around the edges.

People are not cover. (Technically, they might be, but they certainly aren't reliable cover.) The instructors only started commenting about this after I mentioned it once after a drill--and even after that, didn't really seem to get the idea about why you have to give people room if you are planning on shooting past them.

One of the things that I noticed for this part was a remarkable silence on proper target acquisition. After you, if you are pie-ing your way around a corner (I'll note that "slicing the pie" wasn't taught in this class at all) you should shoot the BadGuy who is a threat. You shouldn't move around, come face-to-face with two BadGuys, then shoot at them both in a random order. You should: as you pie-slice the cover, one BG comes into view--shoot him. Either duck back into cover and move to a different spot before sticking your head out, or immediately continue your pie-slicing, and as soon as you see another BG, drop him also.

For the entirety of the class, however, there wasn't any discussion of tactical thinking with respect to danger levels--which guy should be shot first? How should someone come out from behind cover? Even the "graduation exercise" had multiple BadGuys directly in sight from the beginning, and no movement was allowed on the part of the student--and there was no cover available!

Just like last time, I think a major point of effective self-defense with a handgun was missed---in the intro class, what was missed was the idea that if you are shooting, you should be moving to cover. Always! In this second class, it was the concept of target selection and acquisition--who should be engaged first? Those two things are incredibly important, and yet they weren't discussed at all.

We'll come back to those concepts, by the way.

Okay---so, students worked on the sole position which was taught pretty well, and I was able to differentiate between the way I did it, and the way they taught it--the method I know is about keeping the gun secure close to the body, but available for firing--their method was for keeping the gun pointed down and away from bystanders. It made a slight difference, and after some rather heavy-handed instruction from one of the assistant instructors (and after I fixed what I was doing to match their version) I realized why the difference. Mine was for quick movement and firearms retention, and theirs was for crowded-area movement. Good to know the difference, and their "sole position" was good.

More on the instruction method later, by the way.

Next up: car shooting. They had a mockup of a car (not really---but enough with the steering wheel and the seat-with-seatbelt to make it good) that we practicing drawing/shooting/moving out of the vehicle. Some good food for thought there. I didn't necessarily agree with everything they said, but my disagreements were mostly dealing with how *I* specifically would move out of my car and my wife's car, not with their general instruction. A good section, and very thought-provoking. Both Ardi and Julie said this really made them think. (Me too.)

After that, the instructors pulled out a number of moving targets, and just kept running drills of increasing complexity for us to practice. I'm thinking that here is where they ran out of actual drills, and just kept adding more targets because they didn't know what else to do. With only 4 of us in the class, it didn't take long for us to do each drill---so it went quickly. The moving targets included swingers, sliders (moving from left-to-right and right-to-left), a drop-turner, and a clamshell target.

The more they added, the more it seemed like a typical IPSC stage---so much so that it was hard not to attempt to "game" the stage. That, combined with the fact that there was no emphasis on being behind cover, no emphasis on moving to cover, and no emphasis on tactical target selection, made this last part merely an exercise in shooting, as opposed to an exercise in defensive shooting. It was a lot of fun, and probably helpful for Ardi and Julie (particularly since Julie doesn't do any IPSC shooting, so doesn't work with moving targets much), but for me, it was just another IPSC stage. Fun, but not what I was hoping for. The part that would have made it a defensive tactics situation was missing.

We then had a "graduation exercise" which I promised to not talk about. Suffice it to say that it was more of the same with a twist. (Part of the twist being that everyone else ran a different stage, but they made it worse for me. Humph!)

So, overall:

New Things We Learned/Drilled:

Strong-hand only
Weak-hand only
Transition to weak hand from strong hand
Shooting while moving
Sole Position and movement
Shooting from car
Shooting moving targets

Things That Didn't Happen:

Target Selection Instruction (shoot the threat, not just random order!)
Movement to cover
People are Not Cover! (and shooting right past their ear isn't going to end well)

While the "did happen" list looks nicely larger than the "didn't happen" list, I think that the first two things on the "didn't happen" list are perhaps some of the most important concepts that should be taught in a defensive pistol class. You should NOT be standing there shooting---the minute you start your draw you should be moving to safety/cover (this is under the assumption that for some reason you could not have started moving sooner) and your target selection should be based on who is the most immediate danger to you, and then the next dangerous, etc. Standing in one place and shooting is much more likely to end badly. And shooting at targets randomly generally means that someone is going to get to you before you stop them.

Instruction methods: Again, the instructors seemed to be shooters who had taken classes in gun-handling, and therefore taught gunhandling for self-defense, as opposed to people who taught defensive tactics using a handgun. It seemed to me that while the drills were good (even the later ones, though the priorities weren't taught well) they didn't understand the reason for the drills--they thought it was to get better at shooting, as opposed to being better at self-defense. I know I said that last time, and these were the same instructors---yet I had hoped that the first time things were omitted simply because it was an introductory class.

Apparently not.

At two points during the course, the two assistant instructors demonstrated how to handle a particular skill/drill. (One demonstration each.) In one "demonstration" case, the instructor had a number of misses, and in the other case the instructor mostly had "stopping" hits, but was extremely slow, and took the time to get into a classic shooting stance, square to the target, out in full view of multiple targets, and took his time aiming at each while in full view. (The reason for his occasional non-stopping hit was the fact that he double-tapped each target, and the second shot was not nearly as accurate as the first.)

In other words, the instructors were not high level shooters. Now, I certainly don't require that in a defensive tactics class. For example, I've shot in a competition with Ben Stoeger (an IPSC Production division Grandmaster) a couple of times, and while he could teach me a LOT about shooting, I'm pretty sure I could teach him a lot about defensive pistol tactics. The knowledge the teacher has is what is important in a DT class, not whether or not he/she is a grandmaster level shooter.

That being said, they should be able to get solid A hits on targets quickly at combat distance, while maintaining good awareness, position, and demonstrating movement and use of cover. That is the point, after all.

We didn't see that.

I still had fun in the class. I learned a couple of things (a different method of "sole position" used for a slightly different situation; had a good thought process going regarding car defense; found a couple of good new drills for practicing movement) and had a good time shooting moving targets.

The instructors again seemed like people who knew one way to do things, taught that one way, and wouldn't think about alternate methods. That's fine--I came there to learn what they had to teach. That being said, however, sometimes an alternate method is required for someone who can't do it the regular way--and there isn't always just one "best answer". One assistant instructor in particular was rather abrasive in his "you are doing it wrong---you have to do it this way!" method.

For example, one time after finishing a drill, I did my area scan, noted he was standing behind a barrel on my left just watching, the RO was behind me to my right, and the other instructor was sitting in a chair far uprange. No one else was close. So, I reloaded and holstered my weapon. He then said "Did you look" and I said "Yes" whereupon he stepped out from behind the barrel showing he was holding a rubber gun, and proceeded to chew me out for "assumptions."

He had a point, in that I saw him and didn't further check. In my opinion, I also had a point in that if I see an RO standing watching me and not doing anything else, it is reasonable to holster the firearm. The chewing out lasted for awhile, showing how much "in danger" I was for not paying attention, and how I can't afford to miss dangerous situations, etc.

Very non-productive, and not good teaching, I thought. Among other things, 1) it isn't reasonable to spend the first 4 hours with an RO watching you, and suddenly expect a student who sees an RO watching them to consider the RO a threat (when he is deliberately hiding the gun behind a barrel so it can't be seen), and 2) what did he want me to do, bring the gun around and shoot him? In previous situations, the ROs would hold up their hands, and the student would have to be able to later tell the RO how many fingers he was holding up. Not really what we want to look for, and yet more useful than what the RO did to me.

So, for the class: Just like last time, but more so, I wouldn't suggest this class for people who aren't already good shooters--and if they are, taking a class that actually teaches defensive tactics while using a handgun will keep them safer.

We've already signed up (and paid for) the third class in the series (CQT), so there is one more to go. That one won't happen until August, but I'll post about it when it happens.

For the record, when I start officially teaching pistol classes here (Basic Pistol, Intro/Intermediate/Advanced Defensive Pistol, and Basic IPSC instruction) my classes are going to run a little differently.

ENPS June 2009 USPSA Pistol Match...

2009-06-09T10:24:00.001-07:00

In my last post, one of the things I said was "when I tried to rush, it didn't work out." Well, I didn't rush this match. Matter of fact, I just relaxed and shot nice and consistently for the entire match. I had one or two extremely good stages, and the rest were all good solid runs---no bad stages in the match.

And not only did I win Production division, but I won 1st Overall, too!

Here's what it looked like:

So, watching this, what should I work on?

First stage I shot (stage 3), the draw was okay, the accuracy was good, and the shooting went smoothly. I did get lucky, however, because taking the time for that third shot on the swinger almost gave me a miss on the disappearing target. I managed the A-hit, but it was really close.

Stage 4 had me getting out of the chair--and my reaction was just slow. I've noticed that on stages where I start with movement (bodily movement, as opposed to a draw) I don't react until after the beep is finished---but when I draw, I normally start my draw at the beginning of the beep. It isn't much of a difference, but it is something to work on. I also should have drawn the minute I was upright, instead of waiting--moving with my hand on my hip isn't normal, and slows me down, plus then when I'm done moving I have to wait to get the gun up and on target.

* Note to self: practice bringing the gun up earlier so that at the end of the movement, it is on target, as opposed to bringing it up after the movement is finished.

I also am dropping the gun to my middle as I reload---this takes time, my reloads aren't as good as when the gun is higher, and it takes longer to get back on target. I wonder why I'm doing this? I don't practice it that way!

*2nd Note to self: practice reloading, keeping the gun in the plane of the eye/target. Also practice reloading during the first step of the move, instead of during the entire movement.

On stage 5, the whole thing went fairly smoothly---what lost me places was my accuracy on the move. Too many C hits for this stage. No misses, and no D hits---but too many C hits, and you can't afford that in Production.

*3rd note to self: practice shooting on the move

On stage one, we can see that bad reloading technique again---it wasn't incredibly slow, but it is certainly slower than I am consistently capable of, which in this short of a stage (and particularly on a classifier) has a large effect. (And too many C hits there, also.)

For stage two, it went decently well, other than occasional aiming problems (missed three times on steel plates, and once on a popper). Overall, though, not too bad.

So---practice for this month: In addition to normal practice (draw/first shot, box-to-box movement, accuracy) add drills for shooting on the move, having the firearm ready when I reach the next shooting position, and reloading correctly.

A good match, overall. This week I have the Advanced Defensive Pistol class, but next week I'll be in Minnesota for their Sectional Match. Hopefully I'll get in some good, effective practice before then to increase my skills, and decrease the time I'm losing due to these deficiencies.

Drazy Steel 500...

2009-06-09T05:33:00.001-07:00

Commentary to come later today (hopefully) but here is some video...

It was lots of fun---tiring, but fun.

Added Later:

And here's the commentary!

Let's get the "Cons" part of the "Pros/Cons" out of the way.

Cons:

1) This was a first-ever match, so there were all sorts of unforseen headaches and administrative/paperwork problems associated with it. Enough to almost move past the "oh, that'll happen in a first match" level of annoyance. Speaking truthfully, I think there were several things that prior preparation would have handled, that didn't have to have been a problem---among other things, getting the final results out at the end, and having them posted in a readable fashion relatively soon. For example, I knew that I placed decently enough in Production to get to go to the prize table---but I had no idea what my place actually was.

2) There was also one stage ("Speed Option") where the stage description didn't mention anything about the "option" and time bonus given. While it was mentioned in the morning meeting, the stage briefing didn't have it, so we operated according to the stage briefing. Well, some other people didn't, so the stage was later scored according to the "option" version. (NOT what was written in the stage briefing.) In my case, that didn't make a difference. However, in Ardi's case she would have shot it very differently, and had a much better time overall. Out of the whole match, this was probably the only thing that I really thought was a mistake on the part of the match officials. (If nothing else, people should have been given the chance to re-shoot the stage according to the new requirements, if they wished. Again, I wouldn't have done anything different, but Ardi definitely would have.)

3) Some of the steel, especially on a couple of the Steel Challenge stages, were very close. I'd prefer a slightly harder shot to getting hit with spatter repeatedly while trying to shoot at speed. (Got hit a couple of times in the face with lead spatter while I was in the middle of a string. NOT helpful for the concentration.)

4) Next year, everyone gets one entry. That's it. This time, there was a GM from Chicago (I believe Chicago) who participated in Limited and Production, with the same gun (only changing magazines), and won both. And high law enforcement. In both. Now, he certainly deserved his wins, because he thrashed the rest of everyone in both classes, especially Production. So this isn't against him in any way. I just think that everyone should get one shot at each stage, and that should be it.

4) There really isn't any four--no other large "con" for the match, though I do have a couple of suggestions for next year that I'm going to send to Drazy and Hirst.

Pros: It was a fun match to shoot!

1) We got to shoot a LOT. 24 stages total---12 steel challenge, and 12 USPSA. Matter of fact, in some ways it was almost a bit too much of a good thing. People who shoot with me already know that if I'm out there, I want to put some rounds downrange. I don't mind the occasional short stage, but I really like the long involved ones, and I like to shoot a lot of them. That being said, I really think that two days of 10 stages each would work better. People will get done a little quicker, and no one is going to feel short-changed after 20 stages total.

2) The USPSA stages were nicely tricky here and there. A good selection of running stages, with a good selection of standing stages. Decent angles, some nicely switching shots (short-range large popper to small plate at a distance, etc), and in general, some stages that really rewarded good stage planning and tactics. No really small stages---med and long stages only.

3) Steel Challenge was fun. I have only tried offical SC stages once before, so they were pretty much all new (and happily, I wasn't stomped too badly even by the experienced SC shooters) and that was a good time. I much prefer USPSA shooting, but SC is still enjoyable.

Commentary on MY shooting:

Unsurprisingly, when I tried to rush, it didn't work out. Big shock. Matter of fact, looking back at my set of runs, it irks me how incredibly much time I could have saved. Reloads were sloppy/slow, movement was sluggish periodically (mostly), draws were pretty slow on the USPSA stages (though decent on the SC stages except for Outer Limits), and I should have taken more time to aim. (Hmm, how many times have I said that before.) Watch the video and count how many times I have to do a slide-lock reload to get One Last Shot in to finish the stage. Arg!

I'd say something here like "if I could have fixed those things, I would have placed higher" but that only makes sense if everyone else gets a shot at fixing their problems also. So--I placed 5th, and had a lot of fun. And while the prize table was kind of pathetic (well, it was) I grabbed a Glock shirt for Ardi. So she got something out of it also.

It was a good time, and I didn't mind being an RO while shooting. I will say, however, that I really wish my squad had gotten off their rear ends and helped out more. When the RO who ran the stage timer has to go out and set all the steel for the next run, the shooters are NOT doing their jobs. Lazy @*%&#^!! There were a couple of people who helped almost every single time (even when they could have been getting ready for their own run---thanks Ed and Ardi!) but we had a couple who didn't do hardly anything--but complained when other people sat around and didn't help either.

[sigh] I've had pretty good luck up until now---most squads I've been on in larger matches really have mostly been good about pasting and setup. This---wasn't.

Anyway---overall, a fun match. And a good check on accurate shooting at speed. For next year, I might try the Pro-Am---but I might do this instead. The Pro-Am looks like a lot of fun, but this definitely was lots of fun.

Continuation of Intro Course Discussion...

2009-06-05T11:54:00.000-07:00

...and yes, it has been awhile. We went to the first ever Drazy Steel 500 match last weekend, and had a lot of fun. More on that (including video) once I get my new computer to replace the old one that died.

In the meantime---more on the IDS course from a few weeks ago. (The Advanced Defensive Shooting course is next week, so that should be interesting. This time I plan to keep a record of what drills we do all day.)

In general, the drills really were pretty good, in terms of isolating and practicing a useful skill for defensive tactics. They started out fairly simple, and grew in complexity under the assumption that the previous skill had been learned, internalized, and could be built upon.

Drills included multiple targets, moving forward/moving backward, turns and pivots (somewhat), shooting strong-hand only and weak-hand only, included verbalization and some commentary on reloading, and barricade work. (Plus some others I don't recall without my notes.)

I liked the drills, I really did. In the "debrief" (which really wasn't, but they wanted to call it that), one of the feedback items I gave the instructors was that the drills were not only good, but showed a good logical progression of skills from simple to more complex, with each one reinforcing the previous. A good system, really.

Next up---the "cons" part of the Pro/Con discussion. Before I continue, I should say that I enjoyed the course. I didn't learn anything new in this course, but I did enjoy it. And the two people who went with me both enjoyed it, and learned some new things about themselves. (Ardi said that they didn't do anything in the class that I hadn't already shown her, but she still learned things about her shooting abilities. And they both liked the class.) So, the class was worth it.

That being said, from a teaching standpoint just one single change in the class format would have made an incredible difference to the amount of learning on the part of the students.

Here's how each drill worked. There were 6 or 7 of us on the shooting line. We gathered around the instructor, she discussed exactly what we were to do for the drill, sometimes she demonstrated it, and then we moved to the line. Once on the line, an instructor gave the "draw" command and we performed the drill. If it was a 2-shot drill, we might perform it 6-8 times, if a multi-shot drill we might perform it a bit less. Then, once everyone was holstered again, we'd move up to the targets, tape them as the instructors made comments, then we moved off the line so that the other line of students could perform the drill. After both lines were done, the instructor gathered us around for the next drill.

See the problem? (Do you? You might not, if you aren't a teacher.) If the drills were good, and we got feedback, shouldn't learning occur?

From a teaching aspect, the answer is no. Unless the student performs the drill perfectly (and this is self-defense---there is no "perfect") there should always be feedback for every student, and then each student should get several more chances to take advantage of the feedback to adjust what they were doing. In other words, after the feedback the student needs to try the drill again!

There were a number of drills where all the feedback I got was "good!" Okay, I know I can shoot decently, but I want to get better. Telling me that I was adequate doesn't help. If I did something wrong, telling me at the end doesn't help--because I don't have a chance to fix the problem. I have a good memory, and took notes, and yet I certainly do not remember all the drills we did that day. As such, any problems I had on the drills that I don't remember--I can't fix!

And believe me, a number of students had problems on the drills. Yet in almost every case, the only feedback/correction the student received was at the end of the drill set--whereupon the student walked off the line, and didn't get a chance to work on fixing the problem.

The drill sequence (and skill set) really was good--but leaving out the feedback/response part means that most of the students didn't really get much better as time went on. They did get better--just not nearly as much as they could have if they had received mid-drill feedback.

Yes, each drill would have been longer, so the class either couldn't have contained as many drills, or the class overall would have had to be much longer. But the difference in learning! I would much have rather run each drill 4 times, gone up, had feedback, pasted targets, and run the drill 3 more times (and done half or 2/3 as many drills for the course) than the way we did it.

As it was, most of the feedback I received on my shooting came from myself. For example, I fixed a problem I had been having with within-arm-reach hipshooting. Or at least I think I did, because I never got feedback on it, and once I figured out the solution we were already done with the drill so I didn't get a chance to try it live. (I have since then, though, and my solution works. Or rather, stopping doing the wrong thing is working.)

Most of the people shooting in the class simply didn't have enough shooting experience to analyze and fix their own shooting problems--so for most of them, this was an Introduction to Shooting In Different Ways, as opposed to skill-building for defensive shooting.

Don't get me wrong---some learning still occurred, and most of the students did get better as the day went on. But I really doubt they know why, and could apply that to other shooting situations.

Some drills had no feedback at all. In one drill, we moved laterally while firing one-handed at a series of targets. (Strong-hand only and weak-hand only depending on which way we were moving.) I'm a pretty good shot, and yet because of the way the drill was done, I have no precise idea where my shots hit. We didn't paste any targets for this entire drill (the whole class), we were moving sideways quickly, and the instructors never gave any feedback to any shooter about their accuracy, or how to increase it.

I'm not really sure of the point of that drill. As it was, most students simply learned that 1) they can shoot one-handed, and 2) they have no idea if they can hit anything shooting one-handed.

Some other things:

In one drill, they had us turning 90 degrees either right or left, and engaging the target. (We also pivoted from facing the opposite direction, whereupon one of my classmates drew and swept the entire room as he turned. That was fun.) I simply pivoted my feet and turned my hips, drew, and put two into the A-zone. One instructor chided me for not stepping into the new position, saying that "without a good stance, you won't hit the target." I looked at my two A-zone hits (about 2 inches apart), thought about the fact that in a defensive situation I won't necessarily get to pick where my feet are, thought about the fact that a quick pivot is much faster than a step-and-turn, carefully didn't say that I was perfectly comfortable in my sideways stance---and just said "Ok."
One of the things that they wanted us to verbalize was the following sequence. "Please stop. Don't make me shoot you" ...and something else I don't remember. (Get the idea I wasn't impressed?) When the instructor first said it, right off the bat I didn't like it. Don't say "Please" when giving a command. Your voice is going to be in bad enough shape under stress, don't make it sound like you are pleading. Second, "don't make me shoot you" gives the attacker the impression that you really don't have it in you to effectively defend yourself with lethal force--again, not the impression you want to create. But lastly, the types of drills we were doing didn't lend themselves to verbalizing those things! Those are things you say when the situation gives you time to do so---the situation is such that you draw your weapon, and are moving to safety, but do not actively have to be engaging the criminal. Our drills for the class---were all about shooting. Verbalizing wasn't taught very effectively, particularly with regard to when verbalization is important.
The instructor also made a point of having the students note that forcefully saying "Please stop" somewhat sounds like "Police Stop," and that might deter criminals. She also made a point of saying that you should not actually say "Police! Stop!" because that is impersonating a police officer, and is illegal.

As far as I know, that isn't true. In a self-defense sitaution, I can say whatever I like in defense of myself. Saying I'm a police officer is certainly a less-than-lethal response, and if it works, why not use it? Lying for self-defense purposes is not illegal. Now, outside of a self-defense situation, it certainly IS illegal--but that is something else entirely. As a Federal Air Marshall said once to a class I was in, "You can say anything you need to save your life."
Lastly---when reloading, they wanted to make sure people didn't just stand there. This of course makes sense, because if you have to reload in the middle of a self-defense situation, you don't want to stand still and be a good target. However, to "fix" this problem, the instructors had everyone step back-and-forth (you know all the humorous parodies of white men dancing? that kind of stepping) while reloading. According to them, this made you a harder target to hit.

I kept my mouth shut. But what immediately jumped into my mind was 1) if you aren't going to have them move to cover, why aren't you having them at least move their center of mass instead of just moving their feet, and 2) why aren't we moving to cover? Perhaps the advanced course will involve moving to cover. I hope so, because this class didn't talk about movement away from the attacker, moving off-line, or taking cover hardly at all. From everything I know about defensive shooting, if you are shooting then you should be moving---preferably to complete safety, at worst to concealment but preferably cover.

We did do a tiny bit of shooting on the move---one drill with straight backward and straight forward movement. But that was it. This "dancing while reloading" bit was nonsense. Perhaps they thought it at least got people away from thinking about just standing there? If so, why didn't they have a drill that started to practice useful movement?

There was more, both good, and annoying. But I don't have my notes with me, and you already get the idea.

It really seemed to me that the class was taught by some people who shoot, shoot well, think that people should be able to defend themselves with firearms, and have taken classes in firearms defense. This, however, is different from a class taught by people who have studied self-defense and defensive tactics, and understand the use of tools such as firearms in defensive tactics. I may be wrong, because I don't know what the intructor's full knowledge base is--but it certainly felt that way. Plus, some of the things they were teaching (here and there) matched tactics I've read about that were state-of-the-art 8-10 years ago. (Which matches when they were taking classes, I believe.) Some things have changed since then, in my opinion. (In tool usage for self-defense, at least.)

The instructors for this course have fairly effectively (for the most part) created a sequence of drills that can help shooters interested in starting to learn the concepts of self-defense with a handgun.

That being said---it isn't how I'm going to run my defensive tactics classes.

Overall, would I recommend this class to people? Yes and no. For shooters who already know how to shoot, and know the basics of firearms self-defense, it is a pretty good time. You get to practice some skills, the sequence of drills is useful, and you can start spotting holes in your skills set. For new shooters---probably not what I would suggest. Not enough feedback for shooters who can't effectively self-monitor.

The Advanced Defensive Tactics class is next weekend. I'll post a commentary on that one after it happens.

May is a busy month for shooting...

2009-05-24T16:19:00.000-07:00

First off, there was the monthly pistol match held on May 3rd.

Next, there was the yearly Man-On-Man Steel match, where the competition wasn't timed or by points--merely were you faster than your opponent. Pistol and Shotgun for that one, plus the 6x6 wood shoot at the end. Two videos here---the first a general one showing a bit of everyone's shooting, and the second specific to me.

And just yesterday Julie, Ardi, and I were in another state getting some defensive shooting training. Specifically, an Introduction to Defensive Shooting course held in [someplace] by [some people]. I'm going to critique the class, and so at the moment, I'm keeping its actual name/place/instructor anonymous. We'll just call the class IDS, and the instructor "AA". (You'll get used to it.)

And this weekend, Ardi and I are going Illinois for the first every Drazy 500 Steel match, which should be a good time. Two days, 12 stages each day. One day is all Steel Challenge style, 12 stages. The other day is 12 stages of USPSA courses, with only steel targets. Targets left standing incur time penalties, and your final score is your total time from both days. Should be a blast! More to come on that one after we shoot it.

In the meantime, the IDS course from yesterday...

Details:

1 head instructor/2 assistant instructors
11 students (initially would have been 12, but one didn't show)
Indoor range facility, but open bay, not shooting lanes
Additional classroom area
Other shooting bays/lanes were open to general public (and were very loud)
Class lasted 6 hours, with only 3-4 small (5-10 minutes) breaks
Most time was spent on the range performing exercises and drills. Probably less than 30 minutes was spent in the classroom.

The class started with an introduction to the instructors, some details on the type of course, and how it differs from bullseye shooting, and its reason for existence. Then, with a cleared firearm, students put on their gear, and practiced the draw as demonstrated by the teacher. (To be called "AA" from now on.) Then AA talked about trigger pull, and had the instructors go to each student and show them when the trigger on their firearm reset for the next pull, with the idea that the trigger didn't need to be let out all of the way between each shot.

Throughout the course, there was a continual emphasis on the "doubletap" for every situation. In every drill but one, no matter what the target, students were to always shoot twice, and the instructors repeatedly pushed the concept of "doubletap," even specifically saying that the second shot was not an aimed shot made while using the sights.

We then worked on their style of tactical reload, and the instructors came around to talk with various students with small hands who were having trouble holding a magazine, grabbing a second one, and pressing the magazine release. Ardi, for example, has to press the mag release with her weak hand, because her hands are too small to manage any other way. (For those who immediately thought of the "solution" to this: no, she can't adjust the gun to the side so she gets a better angle with her thumb. Her hands are too small.) Their generalized solution was that each student should get an extended magazine release to fix the problem. In all truth, I don't think that will help Ardi, because her thumb doesn't have sufficient strength to push it in from that angle. Hand strengthening exercises won't help, either, because it is a mechanical advantage problem--her hands are so small, even if she could reach the release, she won't be able to get a sufficient angle to apply pressure.

Anyway---so we worked on that.

The class was run "hot," most likely to get the students used to the idea of this as a defensive pistol course, not a competition or "range bullseye" class. For some students, this REALLY made them start thinking. Note: it was very obvious that a number of our fellow students had a definite lack of shooting experience. Matter of fact, in my opinion several of them were NOT ready for this class, even though it was fairly basic and was listed as an introductory class.

After the draw and trigger reset drills, we went out to the shooting bay and started with a basic "step-back" drill that is common in many shooting courses. It is a good warmup for the students, plus it gives the instructors a chance to see the relative levels of shooting basics for the students. The students started about 10 feet away from a FBI "milk bottle" target, and on command, shot twice (again, the instructors wanted a double-tap) on target. The line then moved back three steps, and did it again. We continued the "shoot 2, step back" sequence until we ended up somewhere between 10-15 yards. (It was really hard to tell distances in that bay, for some reason. I will say that we never took any shots past 15 yards, and almost never took any beyond 10 yards. Most were about 15 feet.)

Unsurprisingly, Ardi (as is normal for Miss Accurate) had a tiny little grouping in the middle of the target. The instructors did tell her they wanted doubletaps, include of two aimed shots, though.

More to come as soon as I have time. For the moment, though, I'll post this so the videos are up and available.

Draw/Fire and Reloading Practice...

2009-04-28T18:58:00.000-07:00

After reading the Brian Enos forum for awhile, I saw that they have a place where people can post videos of themselves practicing, and get feedback from others. Of course, it is important to be the type of person who can actually appreciate and use feedback, because when you post a video, that is exactly what you get---from many, many sources, picking apart tiny little details, and critiquing everything you do. If you are the type of person who takes everything personally, it isn't for you. :)

Anyway---in this case, I thought it would be handy for me to record myself doing various draw/fire sequences, and also some reloading, so that I can carefully take a look at exactly what I'm doing. I know what I think I'm doing, but that doesn't mean that is what is actually happening.

I don't think I'll post this one on the forum, but I will probably in the future, after I've had awhile to work on what I see as wrong. If I can fix those things, then I'll post another video on the forum site to let the experts comment. I realize that it would be smarter to get the expert's views first, and then practice it right from the start, but I really want to see what I can do on my own.

After all, I've gotten this far on my own. We'll see how far I can take myself.

So---the video. At the end, you can see the sorts of things I believe that I need to work on fixing immediately. Smaller details will come later.

...so that's what it looks like. Feel free to comment about things I should be fixing that weren't on the list.

April 2009 3-Gun Match...

2009-04-20T17:52:00.001-07:00

I mentioned that I am the 3-Gun Coordinator for ENPS this year, right? So it is my responsibility to make sure that we have all three stages covered for each 3-Gun match.

For this match, Ron had a pistol stage, Doug had a rifle stage (and he thinks up good ones---always something a little tricky in them) and James was going to set up a shotgun stage. I'd verified this with each of them, everything was fine---until it was past 8am and our shotgun stage person hadn't shown up...

[sigh] So Rob grabbed a bunch of steel and two stars, and I grabbed some walls, and we set up a stage. James showed up later, and apparently there had been a miscommunication between him and Terry, so he thought it wasn't his month for a stage. Well, at least this way I know I have a shotgun stage for next time.

I started on the rifle stage, and I'll note that I haven't practiced rifle at all since the last time (which did NOT go well). That would have been the time when I clipped no-shoot targets all over the place, had to add extra shots, etc...

This time, however, I actually did some aiming, and it went well. I did still clip one no-shoot, but it also broke the perf into the A zone, so it counted for points also. Other than that, had all my hits in a really good time. (Matter of fact, the second fastest time.) I ended up with 3rd place overall. Taking an addition full second on my run for more precise aim would easily have put me into 2nd place, though probably not first. (Would have had to shoot many less C hits for first place, even with my fast time.)

But went well.

Pistol stage---was interesting. Had entirely too many C hits, plus one D (which is effectively a no-penalty miss, in my opinion) and there was one steel that wasn't too far away that it took me 5 shots to knock down. Yanking the trigger, I believe.

Even so, I was fast and accurate enough to get 3rd place overall again. So the results were good, even if my shooting was occasionally poor. Not how I'd like to run things, but in this case, it sufficed.

And then there was shotgun. Before I talk about shotgun, I'd like to mention for the record here that I was extremely sick during this match---sinus problems, coughing, couldn't breath or talk--and I'm sure that was why my shotgun stage went so badly.

Or maybe I still reload like an arthritic sloth.

Actually, my reloading IS still slow, because I haven't ~~had~~ made time to practice it. However, my aim is normally surprisingly good with the shotgun--I don't tend to miss very much.

This time, however, apparently was an anomaly. I certainly put plenty of misses out there. Had to reload much more than I should have, due to the many, many misses. It took me 73 seconds to run the shotgun stage---which was only 23 targets. That's over 3 seconds per hit!

Yeesh.

Well, I've got two months until the next 3-gun. And the next middle-month match is the Steel Man-vs-Man match, so I'd better also work on quick precision---which is what I need to work on anyway.

Precision trigger work, and shotgun reloading. Sounds like a good focus for the next month.

Here's the match:

Oh---I also rented Matt Burkett's Shotgun Mastery DVDs. After I watch them, I'll let you know how it helps.

3 Matches in One Week...

2009-04-05T18:00:00.000-07:00

It has been a busy shooting week! Last Sunday was a Special Classifier at ENGC--5 classifier stages, wherein I shot both Production and Limited-10 divisions. Yesterday was the first Rock-Your-Glock match of the year. And today was the April Pistol match for ENPS.

Lots of shooting! (Perhaps a bit more than I should have done--quite a few times, I threw a bunch of extra shots downrange that I shouldn't have had to do.)

Starting off last week:

Special Classifier:
I always want to shoot everything in Production, because more practice at matches will always help. In addition, I decided to also shoot the classifiers in Limited-10 division, since I don't have a classification there, and I have a competition rig for my Glock 21 (in .45acp) that parallels my Production rig, but allows me to make Major for score.

We shot the classifiers completely through in one division, switched our gear, then shot it through in the other division. Many, MANY people showed up for the classifier, so we were extremely busy--it ended up being a very long day. Fun, but long. I ended up finishing the first division's worth of classifiers at about 12:30, so we didn't get started on the second run until after that---we didn't have the range clear and all the props put away until 3:30pm or so.

Tiring!

So, how did I shoot Production? High C, low B. Not what I'm capable of---more along the lines of what happens when someone of my skill level shoots badly. (GMs shoot "badly" at M/A class, I shoot badly at C class. [sigh]) The first stage was smooth movement, and decent aiming---but consistently low on all targets, so the points were not high. The second stage I just blasted shots out there, and missed VERY FAST. Matter of fact, to drop 6 poppers it took me 10 shots. Sad. Yet I still managed a low B score on that one---so what would have happened had I actually paid attention to what I was doing?

That seemed to be the theme for the day---80% of attention paid to what I was doing. I have noticed lately that when shooting, I tend to be thinking about what I will be doing next, instead of what I am doing NOW. Not a good plan.

As you can see here:

See? Not great. Fun, but not great.

Rock Your Glock Match:
Then, the following weekend was the first Rock-Your-Glock match of the year. Ardi, Julie, and I all went and worked the match. It was a fun day, though extremely windy. (That got old fast, since the target stands and the steel would blow over.) I shot master division (ug), subcompact, and revolver. (Quit laughing at the idea of me shooting revolver!)

As usual, the revolver went badly---this time even worse than normal. Hint: when you have 90 seconds worth of penalty time just from the plates, it isn't going well. For some reason, the cylinder was locking up periodically---and once it did, even though you could shoot the other rounds, you couldn't shoot the one where it locked up. No idea why. (I'm aware that isn't a good description of the problem, but I haven't had a chance to check over my revolver to figure out exactly what happened.)

As such, I'm not even going to bother posting video of the revolver. Not worth watching. Really.

Shooting the master division with my Glock 34 both went well, and was really annoying at the same time. I shot the whole match in slightly over 63 seconds, which is really good. I can do better, and will by the end of this summer's matches, but 63 seconds is almost my current best ever time.

That being said, it put me in 4th place. First two places were shot by a guy using an open gun (44 seconds!) and third place was Dennis, who beat me by about 5 seconds. He just keeps getting better and better. His average time on the plate rack was under 3 seconds. Not his best time, his average. [sigh] Well, maybe next time.

However, I did manage to get first place in the subcompact division! (That's a new one!) Matter of fact, my plates time using my G26 was 1.35 seconds FASTER than when I used my Glock 34. Think I need to slow down and aim a bit when shooting my regular gun? Perhaps?!

ENPS April Monthly Match:
And lastly, today we had the April monthly pistol match. Ended up being an "all-steel" day, due to wind, rain, and snow. (Quite a bit of snow, actually.) We ran a stage four times (under slightly different rules each time) and while I did decently (won Production, and took 4th overall, being beaten by 3 Open shooters--1 B and 2 A-class--the B won the day) two out of the four stages were NOT up to my skill level. On two I did fine, but two times I just let the gun go and thought about the next target, etc...so I missed a lot. But I missed really fast!

[sigh] I'm working on it.

I've got two weeks to work on my trigger control, focus, and relaxing. Plus reloading the shotgun practice---3-Gun match in two weeks.

Time to go drill!

March 2009 3-Gun Match...

2009-03-16T19:00:00.000-07:00

So, the first 3-Gun match of the year occurred this past Sunday. An interesting rifle stage, that started with knocking over a steel plate at a distance, then moving to short-range targets with no-shoots in the way. A pistol stage (of my design) that required lateral and reverse movement with some kneeling and prone shooting. And a combined shotgun/pistol stage that included few shotgun reloads, but LOTS of movement.

I did pretty well on the pistol and shotgun stages, other than having my pistol jam two times on live rounds--0nce per stage. (Grrr...) Not sure why, either. Different magazine each time, jammed on live rounds---I'm thinking that in my reloading, there may have been a batch that had 0.1 or so less powder than normal, and just not enough umph to make the slide work properly. Not sure...need to take the gun out and function-check it a few times, including one-handed shooting. We'll see.

The rifle stage, on the other hand----was HORRIBLE. Hit three different no-shoot targets, and actually hit one of those no-shoots TWICE. The second shot didn't count, because it didn't quite cross the perf. Yes, we were shooting at close targets, so the rifle was going to shoot low. But I KNEW that, since I had gone out the previous day and checked my targeting for various distances. While it is true that I didn't hold as high as I should have for the close distance, the main problem was lack of trigger control. On everything past the first shot I just felt like I was jerking the trigger---and of course, I didn't fix the problem, I just noticed I was shooting horribly.

For the shotgun stage, I used my new method of reloading, and it seemed to go well. That being said, however, I only had to reload 8 rounds, so it wasn't much of a test for reloading speed. I did manage to miss one of the distant paper targets (when shooting slugs) which was completely my fault for lack of aim--but the rest went pretty well (except that one of the pistol jams occurred right at the end, and added several seconds to my time).

Just not really an auspicious shooting day. Fun, yes. Good, no.

So, I'll be going back out to the range for some more practice. Of course, I should do that no matter what. :) But in this case, I need to function-check my pistol, and definitely practice my rifle.

I also need to revamp that pistol stage I designed, and submit it for possible inclusion in the Area 3 match later this year. We'll see---it was well-received in this match. Lots of grumbles beforehand, and several compliments afterward.

In related news, my firearms student got herself an AR-15. A little practice with that, some shotgun work, and we'll have her doing 3-Gun next month along with the rest of us. :)

ENPS March Pistol Match...

2009-03-01T19:48:00.000-08:00

Ardi skipped the match today. (Kidding! She had other commitments.)

It was COLD. The strange thing was it was completely clear, sunny, with almost no wind at all---perfect day for shooting. Oddly enough, once we got started, you didn't notice the cold at all.

Which is good, because when my hands get cold (which is almost immediately) I don't shoot well---even worse than normal.

Today's match was interesting. Since there was snow on the ground, and it was so cold, we had table starts for each stage, and not a whole lot of movement. Nonetheless, we still had some interesting stages. I designed one, then threw together a second one so that we would have 5 stages overall. I ended up getting the top score on both of the stages I put together---which is the opposite of normal. Most of the time, I do fine everywhere BUT my stage.

I kept forgetting to ask someone to film for me, so I only have video of three stages. And of course, the two stages where I did best are the two that are missing. [sigh] Ah well---I learn more from the stages where I screwed up anyway.

What did I learn this time? Quit taking late late late shots! And trust where I've called the shot. I didn't, and so took an extra shot on my first stage, costing me 1.76 more seconds, plus an extra no-shoot hit--when it wasn't necessary. Arg. This isn't the first time I've taken an extra late shot, but I do think this is the worst outcome.

At least until the next "worst outcome."

SO---need to stop that.

Second thing--some weird pauses in my reloading. As much as I mentioned reloading practice in the last couple of posts, I haven't had a chance to actually do it. And I think it really shows. Watch the reloads in the video---while they aren't horrible, it is very obvious that they could be faster.

On the good side, my trigger control (mostly) seems to be getting more consistent, with better attention to the front sight, even when shooting faster. More dry fire practice needed, of course, but improvement seems to be occurring.

I ended up not only getting first production, but first overall! Rather surprising, actually. Rob normally beats me, but this time I won, though only by the tiniest margin (0.8%).

First 3-Gun match of the year coming up in two weeks---should be interesting. I watched a video on shotgun reloading from the US Army Marksmanship Unit, and it really gave me some things to think about.

I've been reloading the shotgun based on my own ideas and some things I've seen--but since my shotgun experience is minor, it really wasn't working well. (That is a kind way of saying that I reload like an arthritic sloth.) We'll see if the new method helps at all. Gotta admit, it certainly works for SSG Johnson.

For rifle---well, we'll see. I bought that Nordic Components mag extension, so as long as prone is not required, having that for longer stages is going to save me a reload. It seems to feed perfectly in my rifle, and it is based on a PMag, so I'm not worried about it failing.

Being 3-Gun coordinator, I wonder what else I should be doing? Doug is doing the shotgun stage this month, and Rob said he'd come up with another stage. I wonder which weapon? I can throw together a pistol and a rifle stage, and just set up whichever one he doesn't, I suppose. I can't wait for it to get warmer and drier--I have a fun (read: deviously nasty) rifle stage design I'd like to try.

Back to practicing!

ENPS February 2009 Steel Match...

2009-02-21T10:01:00.000-08:00

Shot another steel match the other day. Weirdly enough, did very well (competitively) even though for the most part, I thought I shot really badly.

There were runs here and there that went pretty well, and stage 5 was good---but for many runs, I had many misses, jerked shots, and so on. I ended up with good times (again, competitively speaking) but I could have done much better--I am capable of doing much better.

On the good side, my draws were generally smooth and fast, hitting the first shot. (Except for stage 2, where I apparently couldn't hit anything at all.)

In the future, I AM going to be smart enough to wear tinted shooting glasses when it is incredibly bright out---for those first 2-3 stages, I really was having trouble seeing anything.

Here's the video:

...as you can see, fast shooting. And fairly fast overall times. But you've got to wonder what my times would have been had I slowed down just slightly enough so that all of my shots had been on target? So that I would not have had to repeat shots?

Everyone says it, but I'll say it again (hoping it'll stick in my brain): Slow is smooth. Smooth is fast.

Move quickly, shoot carefully. (The normal phrasing is "shoot slowly" but I don't like thinking "slow,"--I much prefer thinking "carefully." If I'm careful, the speed will take care of itself.)

Back to practicing. Regular USPSA action pistol match in a couple of weeks---have to make sure that I 1) have fun, and 2) don't give as poor of a showing as I did last month!

AirSoft Practice...

2009-02-15T15:25:00.000-08:00

For our anniversary last year, Julie gave me an airsoft gas gun modeled on a Glock 17. (Note: our anniversary occurred while I was at the Area 3 shooting competition, and Julie didn't shoot me for being busy on our anniversary---which tells you a lot about the tolerance of my wife.) I have a holster and rig for it just like I use for my Glock 34 in competition, and since it is a blowback style, it actually recoils. The sights are a little bit different, but not enough to really make a difference.

So I've been practicing with it. It isn't the real thing, but with winter around here, the "real thing" is also a "really cold thing" if your range is an outdoor one.

At that same Area 3 last year, I noticed that Tom Drazy of Drazy Metal Works had some plate racks and poppers for sale for use with AirSoft guns---smaller versions of the ones we use for USPSA. After some thinking about it, I ordered 10 plates and 4 poppers about a month ago. Cost about $120. I then went to Menards, and about $35 later, had what I needed to create some stands for individual plates, poppers, and two 3-plate racks.

Here is what the individual plates look like:

Next time I'll probably make the wooden attachment to the plate a little bigger, so I can use a larger hinge. However, I think this will work pretty well for quite awhile. When I shoot them with the gas gun, there isn't much strain on the hinge---more occurs when the plate fall over and hits the back of the stand.

Here is a stand for one of the poppers:

You can see that I've put some thick sponge on the back of the stands to absorb some of the bounce of the plate/popper when it falls---I'm hoping this minimizes the torque on the hinge caused by the falling/bounce of the metal.

Here are the 3-plate racks I made:

Ended up working out pretty well, I think. Those small plates and poppers really take some aiming, particularly at 10 yards---so it'll be good practice for me. Here's the whole set:

...and here is a short video on the same thing.

What with the reset trigger on the real gun, and this practice with the gas gun, I hopefully should be able to get in some good practice.

I also note that a major part of the decision to buy these plates/poppers is that I can use them for firearms training classes---people can start with the electric ones that we have, for practice on paper, then work a bit with the gas gun (being much louder and actually having a tiny bit of recoil) before we take them out to the range to shoot a real firearm.

Good way to install safety discipline, I think. And for people who aren't ready for the real thing, some "steel challenge"-type stages will be fun. I can take these targets to my dojang and set them up for a fun diversion on some Saturday---matter of fact, I may do that at the end of this month during open practice. Hmm...

February 2009 Pistol Match...

2009-02-01T16:05:00.001-08:00

...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.

First Steel Match of the Year...

2009-01-23T16:49:00.000-08:00

...and apparently (and unsurprisingly) dry-fire practice with that reset trigger really helps.

Actually, one of the biggest things that it helps is that I seem to be more likely to do dry-fire practice with that reset trigger in it. Yes, the trigger is lighter. But still, I practice a lot more, and I get to work on keeping the gun exactly on target through the trigger pull, the reset, and the next trigger pull.

Seemed to work for me---I placed 2nd overall at the steel match, and actually took first place on two of the five stages.

..so it went well. Had some aiming problems here and there, but overall it was better than previous matches. I do note that after "Smoke and Hope" my accuracy level went down---was concentrating on speed instead of accuracy, and it was a problem. More practice!

In other news, I've been a taking a look at what shooting competitions will be available around here this summer---I may end up going to quite a few this year! (Probably more than what will end up being "normal" for me.) Currently, I'm thinking about shooting at the following matches:

Drazy Steel 500 (I'm actually working this match)
Minnesota Sectional
Great Plains Sectional (Iowa also?)
Area 3
Illinois Sectional
COPS Fall Classic

This is in addition to the normal monthly matches here. Plus, Julie and I (and perhaps some of my Hapkido students) are thinking about going to some Defensive Shooting training courses that are offered down in Kansas.

In other words, it is going to be a busy shooting year. But lots of fun!

Shooter Responsibility and Attitudes...

2009-01-11T13:35:00.000-08:00

Shooters are some of the most law-abiding and trustworthy people on the planet, at least here in the U.S.

This is not hyperbole, nor is it merely personal opinion (though it is also my personal opinion). As an example, criminal statistics through all of the 1900s (and into the 2000s) have consistently shown that legal concealed carry permit holders commit less crime than almost ANY other possible demographic---including police officers. If we were being precise, "less crime" should more accurately be stated as "far less crime."

Yes, there are idiots out there who own guns. And crazy people who own guns. And...you get the idea. However, the percentage of gun owners (and shooters) who fit into those idiot/crazy categories is demonstrably less than occurs in the general population. (Again, as evidenced by the percentage of gun owners involved in crime.)

So what happens when you get a bunch of shooters together and have them start competing? You have people being human, with normal human emotional reactions. And yet, for the most part, overall these shooters exhibit a level of responsibility and maturity far above the normal population.

Example:

Awhile back, in a large sectional match, one individual was beginning his first stage of the match. It was an expensive match, and not only had he paid to participate, he had volunteered his time to both set up a stage, and to be a Range Officer for the entirety of the match once he was done shooting.

And on his first stage, the first thing he had to do was open a door, and move through the doorway---and the doorjamb caught his firearm, pulled it out of the holster, and it fell to the ground.

Instant disqualificiation from the match. Never got to shoot a single shot.

What did he do? He accepted the DQ, walked off and spent 15 minutes calming down, then came back and worked the rest of the match as an RO. Didn't complain, just did what he said he'd do. He certainly wasn't happy about it---but he didn't argue the DQ.

The ENPS shooters have DQ'ed several people over the course of the past year---and you know what? Almost none of them argued. They didn't try to fight the rules, they didn't try to complain that they should be a special case "just this once" --they accepted it and moved on.

Let's contrast that with parents during Little League baseball. Or high school sports. Or pretty much any other competition you'll ever see currently. The spectators often wildly overreact, causing problems for the officials and sportsmen (and women) of the game. And some sports-people create spectacles of themselves, gaining attention by their bad behavior. In the last Olympics, there were several demonstrations of Olympic athletes who demonstrated a complete lack of good sportsmanship---the TKD athlete who deliberately kicked a referee in the head immediately comes to mind.

We hear about numerous examples of this. And yet, in a case where people have loaded weapons available to them---we don't see it happening.

Yes, of course there is the occasional idiot who yells or spouts off. In any human endeavor, there is always going to be an idiot. But still---among the shooting sports, that just isn't going to happen very often. And it never involves a violent confrontation.

So let's give a contrasting example from a shooting sport: A shooter zooms through a stage, with good accuracy and quick shooting, ends up at the final position, takes 3 targets through a port, then turns and shoots one last target to his right. However, that last target was past the 180 degree line.

DQ.

Shooter argues the point, calls the match director (as is his perogative) for a judgment. MD sees the situation, hears the description and judgment from the RO, and upholds the DQ. Shooter grumbles and walks off, later talking loudly about "I know why they did that" and "it wasn't anything dangerous," meaning that a DQ should be for doing something stupid (which tends to equate to dangerous) ---and that he had simply turned and shot a target, which was backed by a berm, with no spectators nearby or even remotely in the line of fire.

I'll note that 3 weeks later, he is still unhappy about it, and doesn't really think he should have been DQ'ed. And yet, if he had been the RO for the stage (and he is an RO) I'll bet he would have DQ'ed the shooter also.

I was the secondary RO for the stage, so this is firsthand. The shooter broke the 180, and not merely with the muzzle, but took 2 shots past the 180 line. That is a DQ by the rules, plain and simple.

Breaking the 180 is a serious infraction---not merely because the rulebook says so, but because of WHY it was put in the rulebook in the first place. Shooting past the 180 means that you are shooting backwards, so if someone is behind you and to the side, you might be aiming at them. Even if no one is on the sides, and there are berms there to catch the bullet, rocks do exist, and bullets may ricochet from the berm and continue backward through the middle of the watching crowd. We DQ people for merely having their muzzle past the 180 line---much less for shooting past it.

It isn't safe. The shooter was DQ'ed.

And he wasn't happy about it, and still isn't. And yet, as an RO, I'm fairly certain that underneath all of the complaints, he knows it was justified. That stage (and that DQ) happened to mean a lot to him, for a number of reasons. That doesn't change the fact that what he did was dangerous, and against the rules.

Interesting note: this was the same shooter from the first example, who was DQ'ed in the big match without shooting at all, and who handled it so well.

You'll note here that even with the loud talking and the arguing, none of it was confrontational, nor aggressive, nor potentially violent. People were unhappy---yet there was no signs of impending problems.

Because people who own guns, in general, and more particularly, people who shoot regularly, are better than that. On average, the self-control and responsibility that shooters demonstrate on a day-to-day basis is simply highly than the rest of the population.

Don't take my opinion for it---watch some shooting matches. If you are waiting for the kind of bad sportsmanship you see in other sports, you'll be waiting a long time.

Don't take my opinion for it---look at the statistics on who commit crimes. Police Officers have a higher rate than concealed carry permit holders when it comes to committing crimes.

You still have people being human---grumbling, arguing, and occasional bad feelings. People will be people, so pettiness occurs, as does anger and bad judgment. And yet, overall, there is a limit on how much occurs---a limit that is common to shooters, and unfortunately uncommon to the general population.

I don't like everyone I shoot with. And I don't think that everyone I shoot with adheres to the safety standards of gun handling that I require of myself and my students. Yet none of that changes the fact that I have no problem shooting with them. They are human, and occasionally have bad days--and yet, I know they will act with maturity and responsibility when we shoot.

ENPS 2008 Banquet...

2009-01-10T20:58:00.000-08:00

Today was the Eastern Nebraska Practical Shooters banquet celebrating the 2008 shooting year. We all sit around, tell a lot of stories, eat a lot of food, and end up laughing quite a bit.

We also award medals and plaques to shooters based on their standings for the year, and at the end, some extra "awards" are given to people for their antics during the past year. For example, two people received the "Pistol Retention Deficit Award" for dropping their guns (sometimes in a spectacular fashion). Doug received a roll of duct tape...

...to help his gloves last another year. Other people received the infamous red "DQ" shirt for being disqualified during a match this past year. (They go to Dairy Queen and buy red shirts with the DQ logo for that.) A good time was had by all.

As for me---well, it was a good year for shooting. I got pulled up several times for awards, luckily just for the ones you WANTED to get. (No DQ shirt thus far.)

I ended up getting three medals---you get medals for places other than High Overall for your division.

I did also manage to get two plaques---one for High Overall in Standard 3-Gun, and one for High Overall in Production Pistol.

It is just a lot of fun to shoot with these people. This year should be interesting---we've had some people fade in and out, several are out on active duty, and some new shooters are beginning. The Steel Challenge matches that we will be holding this year include a .22 division, and I think that if we talk it up correctly, we'll end up with a number of new shooters. More people interested in shooting sports is a good thing! Even kids can shoot .22s with no problem---perhaps Emily can shoot steel after training this summer...? We'll see.

In the meantime, I need to put my reset trigger back into my Glock 34, and get to dry-fire practicing! (Have to see if I can beat Dennis and Chris this year in Steel Challenge...) Probably should also work on my draw from the new holster before the Steel match next Sunday...

First Match of 2009!

2009-01-06T15:10:00.000-08:00

(and Chris, you missed it! Where the heck were you?!)

Anyway--remember how last time I said it was cold out? I was wrong.

THIS TIME, it was cold out. When the match started, it was about 7 degrees out, not including the wind chill. We actually re-designed stages so they all had table starts, so people wouldn't have to continually shrug into and out of coverings keeping themselves warm. :)

We ended up with five stages, with actually quite a bit of movement. Granted, many of us looked like the Michelin Man bumbling around out there, but it was worth it to be warm. We had a stand-and-shoot stage, and move-and-burn stage, a long-distance stage, an open-movement stage, and a quick sight-shoot-shift stage. Good fun stuff.

I had to make my stage slightly less cruel than I originally meant---the original version forced single strong and weak hand shooting from different positions. Not to worry, though---the nasty version will appear sometime when it is warmer out.

That reset trigger kit seemed to really help! (Or it may have simply been the fact that I did quite a bit of dry-fire practice over the last two weeks.) The distance stage had some pretty far shots, plus steel--and not only did I have no misses, I only had four C hits compared to the 17 A hits. And a decent time, too.

So---more of the same type of practice. Plus lots of draw-from-the-holster practice with my new Blade-Tech, since the next match is a steel match in two weeks.

Here the stages from the match:

Cold, but fun.

Oh---apparently I'm now the 3-Gun coordinator for our group this year. We didn't have one--and I hadn't volunteered since I can never make the meetings. However, since I don't mind keeping track of everything and getting volunteers for stages and such, and since they don't mind me missing the meetings, I went ahead and said I'll do it. First 3-Gun match: March. So, during the February pistol match I'll start getting nagging volunteers for stages. FAR in advance. If people don't volunteer, I'll create horrible, horrible rifle stages so people will be begging to plan stages so that I won't anymore. :)

On a non-related note, having heard commentary from a couple of people, yes, I will also post (later on) about shooter maturity, actions, and responsibility levels. Probably within the week.

It's a New Year...

2009-01-01T17:10:00.000-08:00

Happy New Year, everyone!

So what does the new year hold, shooting-wise? New things, of course...

New Thing The First: Got a new holster---finally broke down and bought a Blade-Tech Drop/Offset holster for my Glock 34. Been practicing with it, and while I really don't think my draw/fire times are going to decrease much in the near future, I do agree with people that when undergoing awkward movements (standing, sitting, bending, etc) the draw from a lower position is going to be easier due to not having to pull my elbow up quite so high to clear the holster. We'll see what happens overall, but I haven't had any problems practicing with it, and will be trying it out in our monthly match this Sunday.

New Thing the Second: I've had the Deep 6 Comp Reset Trigger Kit for several months now, but only in the last week have I had the time to put it in my Glock 34 and practice dry-firing with it. It replaces the entire trigger assembly in the gun, and basically makes dry-firing a lot simpler---the trigger resets itself (similar to if the gun had actually fired) so you don't have to re-rack the slide each time. The trigger pull isn't the same (drat!) but the reset position is, and so dry-fire practice is made much easier. It allows multiple-shot trigger work during dry-fire, and I think it is really going to help my trigger control. Again, we'll see how this Sunday goes. But I'm thinking that after every match, when I clean my gun, I'll automatically put the reset trigger back in so I can dryfire practice with it before the next match. Again--under the assumption that it is going to work.

I will say that after 1.5 weeks of practice with it, I can (mostly) keep my sights rock-steady on distant targets when pulling the trigger multiple times, directly from a draw. Now, obviously the gun's recoil is going to make a difference, but I'm thinking this type of practice is going to help my accuracy considerably. More details to come on if this worked after Sunday's match, which is likely to be aimed at my weaknesses---the ground is muddy and/or frozen, so their won't be much movement. Lots of stand-and-fire, which is what I'm worst at. Movement and tactical plans are my strengths, so I normally really like the long, complicated field courses. This Sunday will be the opposite--but it really will test whether or not the practice I've been doing is going to help.

If it doesn't, I'm probably going to suggest to Ardi that she get herself one for her Glock, too, to practice with.

New Thing the Third: I really have been thinking about holding formal firearms classes through the NHA---a Basic Pistol class, and Tactical 1 and 2 classes. (Though I hate calling them "Tactical." Perhaps Protection 1 and 2? There has to be a better name for them.) I would NOT call myself a firearms master by any means (nope!!!!) but I am good at teaching basics, plus intro levels of shooting. To really advertise effectively, though, I probably need to pick up the NRA Pistol Shooting Instructor certification. I don't know if I'd teach the NRA basic pistol course (though I would probably offer it also), but having that on your firearms resume is a good idea. Plus, they may have educational suggestions there that might be helpful. So, currently I'm looking around for people/places that teach the instructor courses for the NRA. It would be nice to do that sometime this year. Looking at the NRA site, I'm a little worried---I don't see any courses for Nebraska, Iowa, Kansas, or South Dakota for instructor training. I'll have to give them a call and find out who nearby does this sort of thing.

New Thing the Fourth: One of my new yearly goals is to get at least one new person to start (and continue) shooting, whether for sport, fun, or self-defense purposes. (Though it often seems to be all three.) Last year I got Ardi started---this year perhaps Megan and Todd? Who knows. Emily seems really enthused about learning how to shoot---wouldn't that be fun to get her started on USPSA? I've got gear she can use...

I was going to write some about competition attitudes and such regarding who I shoot with---then I decided not to do so. Mostly, the people I shoot with are good folks. Rule One still always applies, but these folks really do tend to be above average in maturity and responsibility---which does not surprise me. Things aren't always perfect, and occasionally people are disappointing in their actions--but mostly, these are good people. So I'm not really going to write about it.

Happy New Year, folks. Have a good, safe, fun year of shooting!

December 2008 Pistol Match...

2008-12-11T03:49:00.000-08:00

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.

December 2008 3-Gun Match...

2008-12-04T03:52:00.001-08:00

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.

November Monthly Pistol Match...

2008-11-02T17:54:00.000-08:00

What is it about classifiers? I never shoot them up to my level!

Okay, now that I've let that out---today went okay, for the most part, but I certainly did blow the classifier. And the plate rack. And hit a no-shoot. And had a miss. And yet, overall, I did pretty well. (Other than that classifier.)

Guess what? I still need to work on the same things--trigger control, smooth reloads, and seeing the front sight. Big surprise!

The classifier and the plate rack both came from the same problem set---not looking at the front sight and not squeezing the trigger smoothly. More dry fire practice needed. Reloading---well, watch the video. I drop the mags quickly, I pull the mags quickly, and then 3 seconds later at the end of the movement I'm done with the reload.

Yeesh.

So--I know what to do. I just need to do it.

Five good stages, lots to do. Was a good time. Stage 3 was my design, and I like it---I think I'll tweak it a little, and submit it as an Area 3 stage this year.

In bad news---unless both Julie and I get our deer on Saturday in two weeks, we are going to miss the Steel Challenge match this month. [sigh] If I don't go, I have no chance to win first place this year. If we can make it, I need to win it AND beat Dennis by at least 7 percent to take first place for Steel Challenge for the year. :) Not that I am a stats geek or anything.

(I also know how I'm going to do for Production, 3-Gun, and Ironman this year, but I'm not going to say---because if my math isn't right, it'll be embarrassing.)

October 2008 3-Gun Match...

2008-10-19T17:05:00.000-07:00

Okay, before you watch the video, take a look at this picture, and fix its meaning firmly in your mind:

Ok, got that? A magazine blithely falling out of my weapon whilst I attempt to keep shooting, happily oblivious to what is going on.

This will of course come as no surprise after that picture, but I did not win 3-gun today. [sigh]

On the good side, I know why my magazines weren't sticking, and it won't happen again. Also on the good side, it was still a lot of fun.

On the bad side---it was REALLY annoying at the time. And like the video says, my run took 50.29 seconds---24 of which was taken up attempting to make the magazine work. With the accuracy level that I managed on that stage, I probably would have gotten first in my division in 3-gun today had I not had that problem. [sigh]

Ah well. Two weeks until the next pistol match, I and need to really work on some dry fire practice. Same as always---dry fire accuracy, trigger control, reloading, and reloading on the move.

October 2008 Monthly Pistol Match...

2008-10-07T03:19:00.000-07:00

Comments forthcoming. But for now, here's some video:

September Steel Challenge Match...

2008-09-21T18:34:00.000-07:00

[sigh] I lost this match right on the first stage.

And you know why? I forgot to smile.

Seriously. One of the things I've started to do before the start signal---is smile. I remind myself how much I enjoy shooting, and how much fun this is going to be---and naturally, I smile. I relax, I stay in balance, my shoulders drop, and when the signal happens I move and shoot. And when I start relaxed and happy, I shoot better.

Big surprise, hmm?

My pre-shooting ritual for the first stage was messed up today due to various things, so I just didn't relax--and so my shooting was too fast, too tense, and I didn't spend a whole lot of time aiming. As such, I shot the stage in ~36 seconds, instead of the 25-28 seconds that I really could have. And that extra 10 seconds took care of any possibility of me winning for the day.

The rest of the stages actually went pretty well---I had the best times of the Production Division for three of the other four stages, and was less than half a second behind on the other stage. However, all of those good times couldn't make up for the 10 seconds I was behind from my first stage.

On every other stage, I smiled, relaxed, and shot just fine---not always up to my level, but consistently well.

See how that first stage was messed up? My magazine stuck on the first reload, I didn't reload during movement but instead when I was just standing there burning time, and that last star...!

Other things for me to work on: my draw is smooth--but it really could be faster. I have quick hands, and really could flash it out of there faster, but when I do I tend to rush my shots badly. So, just like my last post said, I need to dry fire practice---fast draw, slow shot.

Matter of fact, the drills from my last post really haven't changed. I just need to do them more often.

Oh---the ENPS year-to-date standings are available here. I'm currently 1st in Production (with Dennis a close second), 1st in 3-Gun Limited (with Rich about 40 points down), 2nd in Steel Production (second to Dennis, by 4 points), and 3rd in Iron Man Aggregate.

Big difference from where I was when I first started!

I can be better, though.

Just remembered--this next month's match contains a classifier. Need to remember to smile for that one!

USPSA September Pistol Match...

2008-09-07T16:21:00.000-07:00

Comments forthcoming. In the meantime...

Won. Shot fairly well. Specifics later.

[edited to add comments...]

And now that it's later...

Looking at it stage by stage:

Stage 3: Not too bad overall---accuracy pretty good, speed pretty good. Specifics that can be improved: Faster reaction to start signal, step on draw, not step after draw, faster reloads, better trigger control for aim. Most aiming was fine, mind you--but there were several situations of misses that just shouldn't have happened (even on small plates) at this range.

Stage 4: What was I thinking?! That last shot cost me two seconds (at least!) and even the makeup of 3 points (one D hit turning into an A hit) wasn't even close to making up for what the lost time cost me. Arg! Other accuracy and speed was pretty good--I'm glad to see that after my draw, I took the time to make sure I was on target before the first hit--and it showed in the way the plate rack fell.

Stage 5: Brief design comment first--that clamshell was WAAAY too far away--I may have been the only person to bother trying to hit it before the no-shoot went in front of it. Most people just activated it, then ignored it until they went by down the aisle. Less chance for A hits, for them, but most thought it was too far and didn't bother trying it.

I did, obviously, and the stage went well, so it could be done---but most people wouldn't try it. Next time on a stage, I'll somehow make it so that everyone HAS to try it. Some evil thoughts come to mind...

Back to things I could do better on stage 5...what was with the slow shooting in the first sections? Ports don't normally bother me, but I took a long time between the shots on the poppers, especially on the second side. I think I wasn't sure if I hit the first popper on the right side, so I waited to find out--and I know better! No matter what, I should have moved on to the other popper, and by the time I had shot it, I would know how the first one went. As it was, I wasted close to a second just waiting for something to happen.

I also should have fired while moving in the middle of the stage--instead, I stopped, shot all three targets, then ran to the end. Probably would have been faster to shoot while moving. The question is, am I accurate enough to get good hits that way? Need to practice so that I know for future reference...

Looking at the video, I also see that I need to work on starting my movement faster. At the end, when I am reloading while moving from one side of the wall to the other, I just stand there while I get the magazine out---then I move to the other side as I replace it. Could have saved time doing it all simultaneously. So, drills for reloading while moving. (It occurs to me that up until now, I've only been reloading while standing. My reloads certainly aren't perfect, but I supposed they are decent enough so that I should also start adding moving reload practice.)

Stage 1: I didn't follow my plan for this stage at ALL. After I screwed up the start (with the step back and the trigger freeze), I just kept shooting and reloading whenever I felt I needed to do so, as opposed to when I had planned to. It worked out---but next time it might not. Need to keep my plan in mind, even when I screw up. The shooting itself, and the reloading, was fine. (Other than the beginning.)

Stage 2: Do ya think I shoulda aimed somewhere in there? Sheesh! I run full plate racks 2 seconds faster than that! Let myself shoot faster than I was aiming---then when I had to go back, I took the time to aim. Which meant my second time was slow, AFTER I had already wasted time. [sigh] More small steel target practice for accuracy.

So, drills for the next couple of weeks:
Dry fire practice, of course -- single shots, and transition shots
Reloading practice, both static and moving

Those two, scarily enough, will handle most of the physical problems I saw in the last match. And I can do both at home, which is good since free time is something I don't have much of. Now that school has started, definitely not getting to the range as much.

Steel match in a little over a week. Julie and Ardi both are going to shoot with me, and we'll be (hopefully) wearing our new NHA Firearms shirts. :)

Makeup Steel Challenge Match...

2008-08-31T18:51:00.000-07:00

Today was the makeup date for the rescheduled July Steel Challenge match at ENGC. We had 25 shooters (Well, 26 initially, but one quit two stages in---I must admit, I don't understand that. If you aren't shooting well, stopping isn't going to make you better. Since you've already paid the fee, why not stay, not worry about placing, and work on better accuracy/timing/speed?) covering pretty much every division.

In Production, Dennis, Zeeb, Shawn, and I were all shooting, and we were squadded together---so (not trying to be immodest) it was fun to watch everyone check each other's score to see who was going to win Production.

Today went GREAT. Let me say that again---it was FANTASTIC. Pretty much all day, I shot to my level. Watching the videos, I don't think I shot better than I normally do, nor faster---I just consistently shot like I am able to. On all stages.

I wish I could have shot like that at Area 3!

Here's a video of my shooting today:

I won! High Overall! Beating three high-level Open division shooters! Two A-level and one Master class! (Enough exclamation points there, do you think?) Even better, they all said that it wasn't that they had a bad day---they had thought their day went pretty well.

Excellent!

Of course, we have a regular pistol match in one week, and another steel match in 3 weeks---so we'll see if I can do it again. :)

Looking at the video a couple more times, I see some things I can work on. (Not surprising---there are actually a LOT of things I need to work on.) First off, more dryfire practice--basic trigger control, don't-move-the-gun, stand there and click again and again, dryfire practice. I haven't been doing that, and it shows.

I was out shooting the other day (for once), and after shooting a string, dry fired once, and the pistol dipped about 3 inches. Ug! My trigger control is slipping badly. So, dryfire practice.

The other thing I'm probably going to practice (because I will probably only be able to get to the range once before the next steel match) is my draw/first shot speed. I seem to have two gears---either I do both slowly, or both quickly. What I'd like to get solid on is drawing quickly, then carefully taking that first shot. In the video, I'd draw fast and take a fast first shot--often missing, or draw slowly and take a slow first show, often hitting--but having the whole process be S L O W.

I need to smooth my draw and make it faster, then make sure I take the time to aim before the first shot. So, more dryfire practice of a different style. Mostly, once that first shot is done, I do all right. But if that first shot is bad, I tend to keep making bad shots until I settle down. Rather not do that...

So, dryfire practice it is...

Julie was out shooting today, and she had fun. She might even come and shoot the pistol match next Sunday. Both she and Ardi are currently planning on coming to the next steel match in three weeks---I'm going to make everyone buy NHA Firearms shirts/hats and wear them to the match. Team NHA! :)

What do you think?

Rock Your Glock and the RO Class...

2008-08-31T18:31:00.000-07:00

Been rather behind on my blogging---have been running around getting all the details ready for my students at the beginning of the school year. As such, I've also NOT had time to do much in the way of pistol practice, even though my Area 3 showing demonstrated strongly that I need LOTS more.

That being said, I shot the Rock Your Glock match last month, and as always, it was fun. Ardi came with me, and we worked the match all day, and she shot in a competition for the first time. I shot about normal, perhaps a little slower (not much---but I didn't get first, either). Ardi did a very good job, particularly for her first time. No misses. I put up video of her shooting on the NHA blog page, so go there to take a look.

Today, at a makeup steel match at ENGC, one of the ROs from the RYG match came up to me to specifically congratulate me on how well she did---but most particularly, to let me know that he was impressed at her handgun handling ability, with regard to safety and procedures. She did everything right, all the time.

So I was happy to hear that, both for her, and because it means I'm teaching her correctly. :)

In other news, I went to a Level I Range Officer class in Jefferson City, MO a few weeks ago. I'd been wanting to get my RO certification for quite some time, but there just haven't been any classes nearby. This one (6 hours away) was the closest I'da seen.

One full day of class time, and about half a day on the range. The class itself wasn't difficult, and it was interesting with all the examples. To be certified, a shooter has to take the class, then complete the open book exam by answering all of the questions and citing the specific rule for each question. I finished my exam, checked it two or three times, and emailed it to the instructor yesterday--so we'll see how it went...

With any luck, he'll be able to grade it in time to send it to USPSA headquarters before the 10th of September. If he does (and I passed), it should be in the computer and I'll officially be an RO on the 10th. (I'll get my offical RO stuff later, but I'll count as an RO from that point in time.)

Amusing thing from the class---on the second day, we were on the range, with an "RO stage" set up for us to shoot. The stage itself was straightforward, but not easy---the layout gave shooters many many chances to mess up royally. The point wasn't to have a competition, but to give potential ROs a chance to run shooters, and learn to score targets in potentially confusing situations.

But none-the-less, the shooters were still competitive. We couldn't help it. :)

There were 19 shooters, with some in every division. The stage was only 12 rounds, with a mandatory reload in the middle. And like I said, it gave shooters many chances to screw up---which many did. Six people (out of 19) zeroed the stage, due to misses and no-shoot hits.

Here's the fun part: I took first place, with 100%. 2nd place---had 66.35% of my score! Third was another shooter from ENGC at 60.62%, so the two ENGC people got two out of the top three places. But boy, was there a gap between first and second.

Made me feel better about shooting. :) And evil, too---because the stage I'm designing for next week's regular pistol match is based on the RO stage. Should be nice and straightfoward...but not easy.

Area 3 Commentary...

2008-08-06T13:35:00.000-07:00

So, Area 3 this year was indeed fun---a whole day of shooting are varied targets, presented in interesting and difficult-to-handle fashion.

That all being said, I apparently could NOT aim to save my life. Throughout the entire day, I was plagued by bad luck on every single stage, except for one. Except you can't really call it "bad luck" when it was just poor shooting.

In this one match, I had more misses/no-shoot hits/procedural penalties than in the last 12 months of matches combined. It went that badly.

I just couldn't aim correctly, for some reason---and yet, oddly enough, my aim was just fine (good enough for my normal shooting) about 80% of the time. The other 20% of the time, it was just bad. And that 20% didn't occur in only one type of shooting (for example, it didn't happen only in long-distance shooting) --on one stage my distance shooting might be fine, but I would clip a no-shoot on a near target. On another stage, I couldn't hit a plate at a distance with anything less than 4-5 shots.

Erratic and strange. And very poor shooting, for me. I'm supposed to at the very least, shoot mid B-class level. For this match, it was pretty much barely B class at all---and seriously, these days on a large match I tend to sometimes beat M and A class shooters. Sometimes.

This time, I placed 10th out of 32, and 7th in B class. Among other things, three of the people who beat me, have been beaten by me in the past fairly solidly.

[sigh]

Here is some video of the match:

Not good. I'll add more commentary about the Weeping Water 3-Gun Match I attended the day after, in a day or so. It went similarly. [double sigh]

Rock-Your-Glock last match of the year this coming Saturday. Hopefully, it'll go better.

Quick Comment on Area 3 and the latest WWGC 3-Gun match...

2008-08-03T19:06:00.000-07:00

...I suck.

More to follow. But really--I shot like a mid C-class shooter. While there isn't anything wrong with that if I was a C-class shooter, the fact that I'm a B-class who has shot considerably better than B-class fairly frequently means that at least for the last two competitions I've been in---I suck.

For those people who were expecting more adult, reasoned, and appropriately selected language, I'm afraid that nothing else quite covers exactly how badly I shot.

[sigh]

Details in a later post.

(And it is all Ardi's fault.)

Great Plains and Iowa Sectional 2008, and Rock-Your-Glock July 2008...

2008-07-16T05:50:00.001-07:00

Starting with the Great Plains and Iowa Sectional, some commentary:

Basic statistics:

Shooting started at 9am.
We finished up at about 7pm.
The total time I spent shooting (during that 10 hours) was: 3 minutes, 27 seconds. In other words, I was actually shooting for 0.576% of the time during my shooting day. Another way of putting it is that I drove 7 hours (round trip), spent the night in a hotel, and was at the range boiling in the sun for 10 hours---to shoot for 207.29 seconds.
In those 207.29 seconds, I shot at least 242 rounds. (Probably more, since I missed a few times. However, it is known that I shot at least 242 rounds.) This gives a minimum rate of 1.17 rounds per second. Included were 7 draws, numerous transitions, and lots and lots and lots of movement. (Including one time where we had to run to the gun in the first place.) Did I mention lots of movement? Thus, we can safely assume that my actual rate of fire was rather faster.
In the end, I shot 73.14% A-zone hits, no B (no head shots at all!), 23.97% C, 2.48% D, and 0.41% M. (One miss out of the whole thing. And only 6 Ds. WAAAAAY too many C shots, though.)
Out of the eight stages, I had the highest hit factor in Production division in 5 of them. For the other three, I had one 2nd and two 3rd place finishes.

Overall, I was happy with how I shot, other than one stage. Certain stages I could have done better on—shot faster or more accurately—but in general, I was satisfied with how I did. Too many C hits, and some things a little slow—but overall, I was happy with my performance in the match.

Except on stage 8—the one with the teeter-totter platform we had to stand on. Oddly enough, the balance part wasn't the problem. (Julie was watching and said my movement looked smooth and balanced. In the video, my movement looks slow to me, but I don't ever sm tentative.) The problem was, in the middle of the stage I added an extra reload for some reason. And then almost immediately after, I had to reload again, because the next view (before further movement) had quite a few targets. The extra reload cost me time, of course, but it also messed up my thinking (apparently) because my accuracy dropped sharply right after, and I managed my one miss of the match. And right after that, a D hit. (I had two D hits for that stage---fully one third of the total D hits for the entire match.)

So the stage was slow, and included poor accuracy. Definitely my worst stage of the match. In all other stages I was in the top 20 (or less) out of everyone (75 shooters) but on this stage---33 out of 75. Yeek.

However, overall the match went very well. I won Production division. :) Overall, I placed 23rd out of 75---this includes 1 grandmaster, 8 masters, 5 A-class, and 20 B-class people. (Most of whom are shooting in divisions that have equipment built more for speed than the equipment in my division.)

In Production division, second place had 96.17% of my score, and third place had 93.73%. Fourth had 76.83%, and it went down from there. :) I actually scored higher than a master-class shooter in this match!

Glock match:

I tried something different this time---in addition to shooting my Glock 34 in the regular division and my Glock 26 in Subcompact, I also shot in the revolver division.

I'll wait a moment until you stop laughing.

No, seriously. I thought I'd try revolver also. After all, I have a Taurus .357magnum that I can shoot .38spl out of, and it is ported—very easy revolver to shoot. So, I packed my revolver this time also, and tried it out. And yes, the results were funny.

The problem is that I (as of last match) have now won the amateur/stock division three times---which means I got kicked to the master/open division. So now I'm shooting against the master class people, and the people who are shooting open-class guns.

So don't expect me to win anytime soon, ok?

So, I shot my Glock 34 in the regular division, and the M and 5-to-25 went pretty well---not my best ever, but about normal. And then I went to the plates, and racked up my best times ever. My worst run was 4.33 seconds, and my best run was all the way down to 3.05 seconds! My total time for four runs were 14.29 s, so things went really well. I was thrilled!

Then Dennis went and ran a time of less than 12 seconds for his four run total. Sheesh.

I was still happy, though—my times are going down nicely. Ended up third behind Dennis---who took both first and second with almost equivalent times (about 5 seconds faster than my times) using both a Glock 17L and a Glock 26 (using 17-size magazines).

For the subcompact, I again left one plate. Drat! If I had taken less than half a second to AIM and drop that plate, I would have won subcompact. As it was, I lost to Dennis (again) and took second.

Revolver---well. Hmm. I haven't shot revolver in a LONG time, and I've never shot revolver in a competition before. That being said, the M and the 5-to-25 went pretty well for a first time. And then came the plates, and I just started laughing. One thing to note here is that my revolver has adjustable sights, but I don't believe I've ever actually sighted it in at any distance. I should probably do that before the next match, because I left 7 plates standing---70 seconds worth of penalty points. Needless to say, I was NOT in the running for 1st place for revolver.

Maybe next time.

Next up---AREA 3. Practicing reloading, slow aimed dry fire, and my draw. Won't probably have time to get to the range for live fire practice more than once or twice—so mostly at-home dry fire practice. Slow, careful movement, plus occasional speed work.

We'll see how it goes.

My Sights WERE off!

2008-07-07T11:47:00.000-07:00

Unfortunately, not by more than about 4 inches when shot from a rest. Considering I was shooting a good 18 inches off, I'd say that it was my fault after all, not the firearm.

Drat. It would have been so much easier to simply move the rear sight, instead of actually having to practice shooting more accurately. [sigh]

So, that's what I did today. Practiced some accuracy at 25 and 40 yards, then practiced shooting one-handed, both strong and weak hand.

This is probably the last range time I'm going to get before the RYG match on Saturday and the Great Plains Sectional match on Sunday. I'll try to get some careful dryfire and reloading practice done, but I won't have time to get to the range for the rest of the week.

Matter of fact, I hope I have enough time to reload all the ammo I'm going to need for the weekend. Speaking of which, I'd better get to work on that.

July Pistol Match, and preparing for the Great Plains Sectional...

2008-07-06T14:23:00.000-07:00

Well, today was the July pistol match, and I should say right off the bat that I didn't win today. [sigh] I was second, with a score of 97.32%, so I was close---but I made stupid mistakes on two of the four stages, and had I simply only made one set of mistakes I would have won.

But two was too much.

Here's the video:

...and you can see the obvious mistakes on stage one. My paper targets were fine. Could have used a couple more A-zone hits, but overall just fine. But I didn't let myself settle down and AIM for the plate rack. Incredibly annoying since I've been practicing the plate rack lately, and my average time is now down to a little less than four seconds. Had I even relaxed and shot it in 5, I still would have had more than enough points to win.

I do think I have a sights problem, though---again on the long shots, they went left. That was that one miss on the distance targets in stage 4. Not only a little. Quite a bit. The miss was on the right target--and the left target had all of the extra shots I put out there--so my extras on the right target went all the way over to the left target! And I really did slow down and aim this time. This week I'm going to the range and trying some distance shots to see what is going on. I'm thinking that my sights are indeed off to the left, but not very much---just enough so that at longer distances, it gives me problems. At near distances, it isn't mattering enough to make a difference.

Or maybe my distance shooting is just bad. Always a possibility! I'll let you know after some range time this week.

Speaking of---the Great Plains Sectional Match is this coming Sunday, so that should be interesting. Don't know how many Production class folks are going to be there, but it should be interesting. The stages look pretty interesting--a couple are downright devious.

Still working on my reloading, and that distance aiming. We'll see how it goes.

Oh--and I'm shooting/working the Rock-Your-Glock match this Saturday, too. So more videos and commentary will be forthcoming after the weekend. (And hopefully some good results from practice this week!)

Minnesota Sectional and ENPS 3-Gun match...

2008-06-29T15:50:00.000-07:00

Last Friday (06/27/08) I left home around 6am to drive to Minnesota to attend the MN Sectional Match---7 stages, and lots of people I didn't know. I ended up getting to the range at about 2pm or so, whereupon I wandered around and looked at the stages, and got to know the range a little bit.

I hate going into a match blind. The MN match didn't have any stage diagrams online, so I had no idea what the stages were like. When I got there, I sketched out stage diagrams for each stage, and tried to make up some preliminary plans. I didn't go out on the stages themselves---so no walk-throughs or anything. I just wanted to have ideas in mind of how I would run the stage.

Mostly, this was a good thing. I was shooting the following day, so taking the diagrams back to the hotel with me later that night gave me some time to think of alternate plans for each stage, depending on what I saw during the real walk-through--because the view from the shooting area is always different.

Saturday I got up bright and early, got ready, and went to the match. I had gotten into a squad with 6 other Production shooters, a couple of Limited folks, and a few Single Stack people. In other words, no Open guys. It was interesting to watch other people's stage solutions. Many were similar, but some of the things I thought useful no one else did--which could mean that I'm brilliant and they didn't think of it, or it was so silly that no one else thought it would be useful.

Who knows?

I had squadded myself with the one Production grandmaster, so I could watch how he shot and what he did. It was interesting. I got his stages all videotaped, and he was the one who volunteered to film my shooting when I asked if anyone would. Here is the video of me shooting, and a couple of his stages:

In the end--out of 33 Production shooters, I got 4th. The only ones who beat me were a GM, one M, and one A-class shooter. (I beat the other A-class guy.) Won 1st place in B-class, so I got a new plaque.

Scarily enough, I actually beat the GM on two stages! Of course, more precisely put, he flubbed two stages and I squeaked by and barely beat him---and he smoked me on the rest. I ended up with 79% of his score. :)

Watching the video, I can see two things I really need to work on:

1) Faster Reloads! Most aren't bad, but they certainly aren't fast. And a couple of flubs definitely cost me time on a few stages.
2) Distance shooting. Need to get more accurate. I had only three misses in the entire match (and no No-Shoots or any other penalties) ---but they were all in the same stage! Arg! 2 distant targets, and they just didn't happen. And I had thought I was getting better about distance accuracy! Apparently not.

As a side note: Had I even gotten "D" hits for those three shots, I would have placed 3rd in the match instead of 4th, and gotten another plaque---by beating another A-class shooter. Double-arg.

Overall---the match was fun, I have apparently gotten better, and I have another plaque for my wall. And I now have two specific things to work on before the Area 3 match at the end of July.

(Or the Great Plains Sectional Match in two weeks.)

After the match, I got some food and made it back to my hotel at around 8:30pm. I got some packing and such done, and went to bed around 9:30pm---because I then got up at 1:15am, showered, checked out of the hotel, and drove back home to participate in the ENPS 3-Gun match today. :) It is now 6:15pm, and I haven't had my nap yet. Oddly enough, I'm betting that I have no trouble sleeping tonight.

Regarding the 3-gun match: I won my division. Not much to say about my shooting in it today---the stages were pretty straightforward. I shot them decently, enough for the win. My shotgun reloading needs work.

Nothing particularly new there in terms of what I need to work on to get better.

Of course, it is always nice to win. :)

Oh---back to the sectional match. Running statistics on how I did (yeah, I'm a geek, but it gives me information) ---75% A hits. Need to do better! Especially in Production, those C hits really take away from the score. On the good side---only 3.3% D hits. (6 out of the entire match.)

Amusingly enough, out of the entire day I spent at the range for the match, I only spent 2.654 minutes (159.23 seconds) actually shooting. 2 minutes, 39.24 seconds. I would drive (round-trip) almost 14 hours and pay money to shoot for only 2 minutes, 39.24 seconds?

Apparently, the answer is yes. :)

Additional note regarding the MN Sectional, added 07/05/08: I just ran the numbers (because I can't help but look at statistics) and if I had been shooting in the Limited-10 division, with my exact same setup shooting Minor---I would have won the entire division.

I think I can feel good about that. :)

More Competitions...

2008-06-26T11:53:00.000-07:00

Apparently, this is my summer to stretch myself, competition-wise, and try a couple more higher-level competitions.

Tomorrow I'm driving to Minnesota for the MN Sectional Match (after which I'm getting up earlearlyearly to drive back for the re-scheduled 3-Gun match at ENGC), mid-July I'm going to Sioux Falls for the Great Plain Sectional (the day after I work the Rock-Your-Glock match again), and at the end of July we have the Area 3 match (in the middle of which I'm also shooting a WWGC 3-Gun match).

Busy times! (Because the rest of my life is not being put on hold while I also do all these competitions.)

As an aside, hopefully in August we can get Ardi to come shoot the Rock-Your-Glock match. It'll be good to see how she does.

The match this weekend will be interesting--I have no idea what the stages are going to be like. All of the other larger matches have posted stages online, so I have some idea--but not Minnesota. Granted, stage diagrams don't really give you exact knowledge of how to deal with them, but the general gist of the stage comes through and it gives you an idea of what strategic plans you want to keep in mind. (Tactical plans have to wait until you see the exact stage layout.) But for the MN match, I've got nothing.

So I'm driving out starting early tomorrow morning so that I can get there early afternoon, and wander around the range, watching other people shoot. That way I can draw myself some stage diagrams, and do some planning. Julie can't go with me, so I'll be on my own. Hopefully I'll be able to get someone to film me, but no guarantees there.

Somewhat nervous about this---every other major match I've been to (all two of them :) ) have either been at my home club, or I had someone with me. This time, I'm on my own.

I'll let you know how it went....

Oh---just remembered: I managed to get my registration in on time, so I'm going to Missouri in August for a NROI Level I seminar. Finally, I get to take the basic RO class. I've been wanting to for quite some time, so it'll be nice to get my RO ticket.

3-Gun match today....

2008-06-15T14:45:00.000-07:00

...was canceled due to excessive rain and mud.

Drat.

I was looking forward to it---it is such a completely different type of shooting/thinking than a normal pistol match.

It had just started raining when I got to the range at around 8am, and then it POURED. Hail, lightning, buckets of rain---just terrible. The canopies blew over (of course) and the range turned into a connection of rivers as the water pooled and then ran across the ground.

The rain actually stopped by about 9am---but the pools of water were so huge, and the mud was so deep everywhere that it would have been a huge, muddy, dangerous mess to try to shoot in. We are working on upgrading the range for the Area 3 match later this year, so the ground is torn up in spots, and the gravel isn't down covering the dirt---so we get mud.

Thus, we tore down the stages we had made, and went home.

And now, it is sunny, 79 degrees, and perfectly calm out---perfect for shooting. Of course.

Grrr. Well, I'm going to the range tomorrow to work on my distance shooting with my varmint rifle again--have to practice for the Weeping Water 3-Gun match in a month. On Tuesday, I'll go pistol shooting again, and work on that.

I was going to post pictures/video of the storm this morning, but decided it wasn't worth the bandwidth. Take my word for it---it was quite a storm.

June Rock-Your-Glock match, plus general practice...

2008-06-14T18:34:00.000-07:00

So today was the first Rock-Your-Glock match this year, and Julie and I said we'd help Zeeb out with it. So we showed up at around 7am (ug---early!), helped set up, then ROed pretty much all day. Julie shot her XD-9, and I shot my Glock 34 and my Glock 26. (Stock division and subcompact division). As usual, it was a lot of fun. I managed to get an all-time low score (low is good, by the way) on the plates today with my G34. 15.21 seconds---that was the total time for four strings of shooting, each string knocking down 6 plates. In other words, from a bell-tone start, firing at least 24 shots in 15.21 seconds.

I'm pretty happy about that. :)

Julie had problems on her first plate run---and then for the other three runs, just mowed down the plates. Never took her more than 8 shots to drop them all, and mostly it just took 7. Her last run dropped them all in 10 seconds, which is EXCELLENT.

I didn't get my all-time lowest score overall today, but it was pretty close. I managed to win the Amateur/Stock division today (out of 34 people), so that made me happy. If I had been in the Master/Unlimited class, I'd have gotten second by only a couple of seconds. I got third in the SingleStack/Subcompact division, which I can live with since I got beat by Les and Dennis, both of whom were shooting single stack firearms. Here's a link to the results.

That is the third time I've won my division---won it twice last year, and now once this year. I think that means I have to be in the Master's division from now on. [sigh] Great. I liked winning my division. Maybe Zeeb will let me stay in Stock class since I haven't won three times this year... (Additional note: talked to him today---[sigh]. Master division from now on.)

Here is video from the match today. We forgot to film the 5-to-25 stage, but we got the rest of mine. I got Julie's Glock 'M stage, but she didn't want me to film her plates stage---which is too bad. Her last three runs were outstanding.

In other news, I took my AR out the other day and practiced a bit with it. We have a 3-Gun match tomorrow, and in our last match I won my division because my rifle stage went so well---and I'd like to keep that going. :) I really should have also practiced my shotgun reloading, but that hasn't happened yet. Rifle shooting went pretty well---I've figured out how to be stable while holding the rifle, and moving, and transitioning, so it is working fairly well. (We'll see if I still say that after tomorrow.) For me, for this type of match, I hold my AR-15 in an entry/assault-style manner, instead of a more typical rifle manner--and it works much better for me. The aperture sight is easier to see through, the rifle doesn't move much when I shoot it, and overall I transition better from one target to the next. My ability to hit center-mass consistently at all ranges just goes up when I hold the rifle in a more frontal fashion--near and far targets. I tried going back to standard rifle pose, and the recoil change made it difficult to stay on target.

Pistol will be okay. Shotgun? Well, we'll see. Haven't practiced, so I don't think it'll have gotten any better. On the upside, it shouldn't be any WORSE than normal.

We'll find out tomorrow...

Took my new varmint rifle out to the range today...

2008-06-02T12:59:00.000-07:00

...and boy did I have fun!

Initial firearm: Fulton Armory custom shop .223 varmint with a 20" stainless threaded barrel, 1 in 9 twist, Rock River 2-stage trigger
Modifications: ERGO grip, Miculek compensator, Harris Bipod, 4-14x scope, stock weight insert (because, you know, the gun wasn't heavy enough already)
Now, I'd previously taken it to one of the pistol bays and sighted it in at 25 yards to get an initial zero, but that was it. And I was pretty worried, because this is the first time I've ever mounted a scope on a rifle---and I need this rifle to be accurate. Primarily because I'm not.

Well, that's not quite true---I do all right. But I don't have nearly the practice with long guns that I do with handguns. And while the equipment can't make up for a bad shooter, bad equipment will manage to make me even worse. So I headed to the 600 yard range today hoping that I could sight it in and be consistent with it at 200 yards, enough to hit bowling pins. (See the earlier post about the Weeping Water 3-Gun matches for why...)

Went out, took a couple shots at a target at 100 yards to make sure I was fairly close, and found that I was right on for windage, and about 6 inches high at 100 yards. So I then put targets out at 200 yards, and took some shots----and didn't hit the targets at all. Well, great.

Oh wait---I was just shooting high. [whew] When looking at the target holders, I could see that my shots were again still just fine for windage, but about 10 inches high. (Apparently, Zeeb's ammo has significant velocity in my rifle. Next time out I'm going to have to chrono it.)

So I dialed down the scope, shot some more, did some small adjustments here and there, and shot some more...and this rifle is fantastic. Using just a bipod, (no sandbag for the back or anything, just me shooting) I can keep 5 shots within a 2-inch diameter circle firing fairly rapidly. Not slow fire---rapid! Here is an example of one of my targets. Each square is 1 inch in size. (The holding high bit is my fault, because I have a target that looks similar with the group just below the center.)
And then, at the end of the day, I took some shots at a metal gong at 200 yards. There is a large metal gong out there, but next to it is a much, much smaller metal star. I wanted to see how I could do with that---and here is a picture of the star, with my hand showing the group size of 5 rapid shots.
That is about a 4-inch group. Now, benchrest shooters will think that is horrible. (2 MOA for a varmint rifle? Yuck!) However, this wasn't exactly shooting slow-fire from a bench with sandbags. As such, I'm HAPPY! When I shoot slower, I easily get 1 MOA from this rifle, and that is without sandbags. With them---well, I'll let you know when I go out next time. But it'll be even better than that.

I'll note that with the Miculek compensator, this rifle is LOUD. However, with how heavy it is (it weighs a ton) it hardly moves at all when shot---I can keep the sights on a 4-inch circle at 14x at 200 yards through the recoil. Pretty cool, hmm?

Here's a video of some of my last shots of the day:

I love this rifle! Can't wait to try it in the WWGC 3-Gun match in a couple of months...

June USPSA Pistol Match...

2008-06-01T12:57:00.000-07:00

And a beautiful warm day it was for the match today! Four stages---three regular (one of which I designed) and one classifier.

And of course, the one bad stage I had was my own. Arg. This is the third time in a row when I have messed up my own stage! (Today I couldn't hit a large popper. Normally, I plug one of the no-shoot targets.) I have to stop doing this to myself. Here is the video from today:

The classifier went pretty well today---according to a USPSA calculator, I might end with with around 70% for my national percentage. (Currently, my average is 68.11%, and if this new one IS a 70%, it'll be replacing a 58%, which should raise my percentage nicely--running the numbers, I may end up with a 70% overall average. Halfway to A class!) Watching the video, I moved pretty smoothly, and the reloads aren't bad (could be faster, but for the moment, they are all right) but my draw is pretty slow, for some reason. Matter of fact, any time I go from anything else to shooting (for example, from a reload to firing, or from a draw to firing) my initial target acquisition is just not very fast. Guess those are the drills I'm going to be working on this month.

Those and long-range accuracy. Plus, the specific setups for the classifier in the Area 3 match. :)

I won today's match, but it was very close. I got 100%, Joel got a 98%, and Dennis got a 95%. I beat Joel on three out of the four stages, then did badly on the last (my own). However, Dennis beat ME on those first three stages, but then blew my stage badly enough to fall to third place.

So in other words, we three are very close. This is good, though---having close competition to push yourself is a good thing.

This past week I took a couple of my Hapkido students out shooting---hopefully they'll be interested enough to keep it up, and try the USPSA stuff. Ardi has been shooting twice, and Josh once---we'll probably go again next week. I have belt/holster/gear for each of them, so next week we'll have them trying some draws from a holster. I should be able to get some video/pictures of that, and I'll add them in when I have time.

Tomorrow, I'll be heading out to the range to see if I can sight in my varmint rifle at 200 yards so that I can use it for the Weeping Water 3-gun shoots. I'm hoping that my scope mounting was good enough, so that it works out. We'll see. Zeeb got one of those stock weights for me, and I put it in my rifle---it weighs 800 pounds now. (Okay, not really, but it certainly feels that way!)

I'll write more with a range report on the varmint rifle tomorrow. Hopefully, including pictures.

Man-on-Man Steel Challenge Match, May 18th 2008

2008-05-18T13:41:00.000-07:00

Today was the Man-on-Man Steel Challenge, where each person directly competed against someone else. In the morning was the pistol section, and after lunch was the shotgun section. There were also shotgun and .22LR pistol side matches.

Pistol Division Rules: Competitors shot against each other on identical arrays of steel. First one completed wins. To advance to the next round, you have to beat your opponent 2 out of 3 times. The array had 2 plates (one large, one small), two small poppers, two large poppers, and one stop plate. The stop plates were arranged at angles so that at each competitor shot theirs, they feel at an angle such that whichever stop plate ended up on the bottom denoted the winner.

The pistol divisions were Production/Revolver, Limited, and Open. The pistol competitions were double-elimination.

Shotgun rules: Almost the same, except that we dropped the two plates, and merely shot the four poppers and the stop plates. The divisions were separated by action type---pump-action and semi-auto shotgun.

The day wasn't particularly conducive to video, but I managed to get a couple of short clips that were decent. Here is the video of a few runs. Remember, for someone to actually win against their opponent, they had to win two out of three runs.

I won the Production/Revolver Division! Of course, that would be a bit more impressive had there been more than two people in it. :) Terry and I ran against each other once to determine the "Production Winner", then I unilaterally stuck us ALSO into the Limited Division.

Whereupon, to my shock, I managed to place second! Lost to Dennis (of course) --- matter of fact, I lost to him twice. He was the one who knocked me out to the loser's bracket a couple of matches in, then I won back to the winner's bracket for the first/second place match---and he won again. [sigh] Amusingly enough, both of us were shooting weapons/equipment that qualified for Production division---neither of us had firearms and gear customized like the Limited folks.

In shotgun, I won the pump-action division again! (I won it last year.) After which I went up against the winner of the semi-auto division and got thoroughly spanked.

There were also two side matches---shotgun on a plate rack (fastest run wins) and a .22LR match where the targets had a whole deck of playing cards on it---reversed so that you could only see the backs of the cards. For the .22 match, you get twelve shots on the target, after which you turn it around and pick out the best poker hand you could. Best poker hand overall wins. I may end up winning that one, as I ended up with a full house, aces over fives. (I don't know yet--I left before everyone was done shooting the side matches.)

Overall---a fun day. My shooting was decently quick, my accuracy good enough, though I had moments of random trigger-pulling. The shotgun went rather well. Again, I can shoot the darn thing nice and fast (and accurately) I just can't reload it quickly.

Two weeks to the next pistol match. Time for some dry-fire practice.

WWGC 3-Gun and May Monthly Pistol Match...

2008-05-04T18:53:00.000-07:00

So, yesterday I went to the Weeping Water Gun Club to participate in their 3-Gun match. It is very different from the ones here at ENGC---the WWGC matches are man-on-man, which means you have to beat an opponent each time, and each time it gets harder. (They run a bracket system with double-elimination rules.)

For each run, you start with all of your weapons on various tables, each slide-locked and unloaded, with all ammo on the table with them. You begin with the pistol, and on the command load and drop 6 plates, mandatory reload, then drop 6 more plates. You immediately clear your weapon, lock the slide back, and leave it there, running to your shotgun table. Once at the shotgun table, you load and drop 4 full-size steel poppers, slide your weapon and again leave it behind with the slide open.

You run at full speed to your rifle, and now that your adrenaline is going, your heart is racing, and you are short of breath--you have to knock down 5 bowling pins set 200 yards away.

And if you manage to do all that faster than your opponent, you will then have to do it again later.

I'd never done this before, and my precision rifle (it arrived! Yay!) hadn't been sighted in yet--so I had to borrow someone else's. Chris Zeeb was kind enough to let me use his, and it ended up working really well. The first time I was shooting, I lost, which immediately put me into the loser's bracket. This didn't surprise me---the only things I've ever shot at 200 yards are deer (twice) and human silhouette targets (once). Not really good training for hitting bowling pins with someone else's rifle.

That being said---I got better. As a matter of fact, out of the 19 people that were there competing, I actually ended up in 2nd place! After being sent to the loser's bracket, I won five more matches (I think 5--may have been six) then lost to the winner of the competition. The last three of my matches were all in a row with no breaks. That was tiring! (But a lot of fun.)

Here is a video of some other people running through parts of the match (I kept forgetting to ask someone to record my runs):

...and either Zeeb's gun is outstandingly accurate so that anyone could win with it, or my distance rifle shooting is pretty good, because I didn't have much trouble knocking down the pins at 200 yards. Fairly quickly, too.

___________________________________________

Today we had our monthly pistol match at ENGC---it went pretty well. There weren't a whole lot of shooters in Production, but Dennis was shooting, and Joel Park came back from a fairly long hiatus, so there was some good competition. Here is the video of the stages from today:

Again, I shot a no-shoot target ON MY OWN STAGE. Maybe next time I just won't put any no-shoots up? Perhaps instead I'll learn to aim. (Hmm. That's a lot to ask.)

Very annoying.

The first stage was pretty slow, but other than the no-shoot, not too bad. I think I was second in Production on that one. The second stage (the distance one) went pretty darn well, but it was the third one that really rocked. The standards stage (for once) went exceedingly well. I was fast, very accurate (except for the farthest target, and I still got all of my hits) and my reloads were smooth and quick. I was pleased---particularly when I saw that I placed third out of everyone on that stage. Not bad for Production compared to Open!

The last stage, though---[sigh]. Something about Texas Stars gets to everyone, and I was no exception. It was BAD---and scarily enough, some other people still did worse than I did. It took me over 20 shots to clear 10 plates. NOT good. I need to pull out the stars this summer and just practice knocking them down. Same with the plate rack. Unlike last year, this year I have a key to the equipment shed, so I can do just that.

In the meantime, more dryfire practice. The first Rock-Your-Glock match of the year is this Saturday in Lincoln, so Julie and I are going down to both shoot it, and help run it. (Zeeb needs the help.) So we'll be there all day. We'll see how my times are compared to last year...

Man-on-man Steel Challenge match on two weeks---should be fun!

(And I need to officially attach my scope to my new precision rifle. And then get to the range to practice 200 yard shots!)

3-Gun Match on Apr 20th...

2008-04-27T06:21:00.000-07:00

So we had the three-gun match last Sunday--I showed up early to set up the pistol stage for it, then took a look at the other stages. The shotgun stage was pretty straightforward---walk sideways and hit the rows of plates and poppers. Unfortunately, my pistol stage wasn't a whole lot better. It required movement, some angles, and a few careful spots with no-shoot targets. However, when I set it up, I forgot one target (so that messed up scoring) and the layout was such that it was pretty obvious how it should be shot--so not a whole lot of creativity on the shooter's part was necessary.

I've done better in my stage designs. It was still fun to shoot--but it could have been better.

Zeeb came up with the rifle stage, and it was interesting--if you weren't paying attention, you forgot about targets, and unfortunately many people did exactly that. Several people (who normally shoot very well) had several missed targets. (And that is a -30 points for each---2 misses, and one failure-to-engage. Ouch!) Luckily, I wasn't one of them.

I (of course) forgot to have one of the stages filmed for me this time, but it was the shotgun stage, which wasn't very interesting to watch anyway---since I still reload shotgun at a rate of one round every 20 minutes, it just takes awhile.

Actually, my reloading, while not good, has at least gotten better, so I'm around the middle of the pack now instead of clear at the bottom. It helps that I shoot really fast and am pretty accurate. The reloading needs work (lots!) but at least it isn't as horrible as when I started.

Here is a video with two of the other stages:

My squad started with the shotgun stage, then rifle, then pistol. Shotgun was fine, but when I tried the rifle stage for the first time, I couldn't get my rifle's safety off! How stupid of a malfunction is that?! I'm up there, the rifle cycles, a round is loaded, a magazine is in---but I can't get the safety off so I can't shoot!

Luckily for me, since I hadn't shot any rounds, they let me attempt to fix the problem and come back for another chance. (And yes, the problem was fixable.) Scarily enough, I rocked on the rifle stage this time. I don't know what happened (though I do note that I have installed new trigger springs and fixed the sights on my rifle since last time) but I scored third out of 24 on the rifle stage---and the only two people who beat me had optical sights (red dots, I think) on their rifles. I'm using just ordinary iron sights. Hmm. Maybe that practicing I did made a difference. Ya think?

The pistol stage went okay---right up until I went back to the beginning and realized that I clipped a no-shoot target. [sigh] Overall, though, it went well. Matter of fact, I even won the Limited Division, beating Chris Zeeb and Rob Thorne. THAT doesn't happen much, if at all. As usual, a fun day--but that rifle stage went really well.

John had his FN2000 out again--there is a gun that looks strange.

Alex was there shooting again, and did really well (as usual). I had to include a picture of him shooting an AR.

Speaking of ARs----I got mine yesterday! I got a call from my FFL dealer last Thursday, and I finally got a chance to pick it up yesterday. It is beautiful! (Well, at least I think so.) I put the scope and bipod on it yesterday, and today I'll add the extended cocking lever handle. I may not get a chance to shoot it until this coming weekend, though. [sigh]

I put the scope on in a temporary fashion--having never done it before, I didn't want to lock it down (with Loc-Tite) completely until I was sure this was how I wanted it. I might want a higher set of bases, and I may want it moved forward or backwards. I think I have it set where I want it--but I want to shoot it a few times first to make certain. Anyway, here it what it looks like right now:

Isn't it just beautiful? :)

Of course, here is what I look like when I want to shoot it...

In other news, I'm going to try the Weeping Water 3-Gun shoot this coming Saturday. Pistol on plate racks, shotgun on poppers, and ARs on 200-yard distant bowling pins. I wonder if I can hit anything at 200 yards? I don't believe I've ever tried on anything smaller than a human silhouette target. And I'm not even shooting my own rifle! I didn't know if my rifle would be here yet, so Chris said I could use his--and mine won't be sighted in time, even though I have it. So I'll try it with his. I'm sure that the rifle will be accurate enough. I wonder how I'll be?

The Weeping Water match is a man-on-man style--so I'll get at least two tries before I'm out. It should be interesting, though--you go directly from pistol to shotgun to rifle with no pauses, and can only move when the current targets have fallen. Those bowling pins, though, apparently are the main things to worry about. We'll see how I do...

April Pistol Match...

2008-04-11T16:25:00.000-07:00

It's a little later than I normally post--but hey, my computer is disassembled and strewn about, so that isn't surprising. That is why it is taking awhile for the video to show up, too.

Anyway---this month's pistol match went pretty well! No, I didn't get first. However, I did get 99.907% of the top score. :) Overall, it went well. Smooth shooting (for the most part), decent accuracy, not top speed but decently quick.

One of the things I think I need to work on has to do with how much I trust myself at various distances. I know people always say "shoot only A hits, and the speed will come" but there comes a point when the "A" is going to happen, but you still slow down, check, make sure it is perfect, then squeeze the trigger---and you didn't need to take that long.

My shooting was nice and smooth--but the downside of that is that sometimes when the targets were closer, I could have sped up my shooting and still easily gotten "A" hits. However, I had a "smooth cadence" in my head from the prior sequence of shots, so that speed and cadence is what happened the entire stage. That isn't a bad thing necessarily--but I'll do better if I match my shooting speed to my accuracy level for that target--and maybe it'll be different for the next. "Smooth cadence" sounds good---but the cadence isn't the point. Human minds like repetitive timing, though, so I need to shoot, not time myself.

It was a good match, and I thoroughly enjoyed it---two longer complicated stages, and two short-but-technical stages. I am capable of doing better---but I am not unhappy with how it went.

Three-Gun match in a couple of weeks (well, one week now) and I'm designing the pistol stage. It is probably going to look something like this:

...but not necessarily. I'm probably going to try to alter it so that people have more choices with regard to how they decide to shoot it. (This version---it is pretty straightforward as to what happens. Good stages, though, I think, give some other openings occasionally. So, we'll see what happens.

Still waiting to hear about my new AR-15 from Fulton Armory. [sigh] I hate waiting.

Makeup Steel Match...

2008-03-30T11:26:00.000-07:00

Ok, today's steel match was MUCH better. [whew] Fixing my sights made a huge difference.

Dennis, Zeeb, and I were on the same squad today, and we shot the three non-field stages first. (In other words, the ones where you attempt it five times, and then throw out the slowest time.) After three stages, Chris and Dennis were tied (and we measure to one-hundredth of a second) and I was only .04 seconds behind them. This is after the best 12 of 15 strings of fire. That's close! Made for a fun match.

On the field stage, Dennis got first, I got second, and Zeeb got third---so in production class today, I got second place. I can live with that---particularly compared to the steel match earlier this month! In the last couple of months, I've been REALLY disappointed in my shooting, so this makes me feel much better.

Video of some of the stage runs plus the field stage:

Still have things I need to work on, of course. In the field stage, I could have gotten a better time but I rushed one sequence of shots for a number of misses that just wasted time. And as always, I need to work on my draw-to-shoot times and reload times.

However, my accuracy was back up to almost my normal. I'm hoping that having my sights off didn't cause me to develop more bad habits---I have enough of those! We'll see if this accuracy thing continues with the regular pistol match next week.

I'll be shooting it with different ammunition---I'm out of Rainier bullets, so I'll be trying Montana Gold this time around. I hope I get a chance to try them out before the match---if they aren't going to work, I need to know soon!

With my computers non-functional since the basement flooded, I'm going to have to practice regular dryfire without a signal/tone. Ah well--I needed smooth precision work anyway.

Tomorrow is the next steel match...

2008-03-29T18:28:00.001-07:00

...but I had to write a quick update regarding my handgun sights.

In good news, the distance misses don't seem to be my fault. Not exactly. Close misses are still my problem, though. (But I haven't had many of those---which explains why "stand-and-shoot" stages haven't gone well, but "freestyle-movement" stages have been good---I can move to where I need to, and with good movement I get closer shots in good time.)

Checking my sights today at 20 feet, 40 feet, and 60 feet, I find that my Glock 34 shoots to the right. Only slightly at 20 feet. (Hence the lack of problems at close ranges.) However, at 40 feet and up, it shoots several inches to the right---which is enough to take my shots off steel targets if I'm not aiming exactly perfectly at the center of the target. (Which, at speed, I'm certainly NOT.)

So, I adjusted my sights. We'll see how much of an effect that has on the match tomorrow. (Steel match again---makeup for the canceled January match.)

That being said---I'm fairly certain that some of it is my fault in terms of how I'm shooting. I'm not inconsistent--I'm shooting nice small groups. They are just consistently to the right with the old sight settings. The problem is that when I adjust the sights and I'm consistently shooting center, the rear sights themselves seem FAR to the left. As in noticeably to the left when looking at the gun.

The annoying thing is that I was doing this sometimes from a braced position (no arm movement, just a slow, careful trigger squeeze) and sometimes from standing unbraced--and I was shooting to the same place. So left/right -wise, my trigger pull doesn't seem to be the problem. It just seems odd that the sight needs to be so far to the left...

The sight itself is centered in the middle of the slide like it is supposed to be. (The Glock 34 has an adjustable rear sight.) The adjustable part is just far to the left.

I'm wonder if I should spring for a better set of sights?

Well---anyway, the gun is now shooting where it is supposed to. So tomorrow we'll find out if I can shoot where I'm supposed to.

Steel Match Today...

2008-03-16T15:49:00.001-07:00

So today was the first Steel Challenge match of the year. (The January one was postponed due to extreme cold and bad weather--matter of fact, the new date for it is in two weeks.)

And it was horrible! My accuracy was bad, which meant my times were very bad. In a steel match, you go until you hit the targets (all of them) which means that if you are inaccurate, you keep shooting and keep shooting and keep shooting until you do hit the target---which of course takes longer.

My speed isn't what it was by the end of last year (I really do think that the cold has something to do with it) but what has really been hurting me lately is my lack of accuracy. I placed third today---out of three. :(

My ending score was 77.47%, and it really shouldn't have been. I'm not saying I should have won today, but my accuracy just was not up to my normal standards. Of course, that has been true for the last several matches.

I need to go out to the range, and do some long-range accuracy practice. Then some near-and-far targets (not fast, just working on sighting transitions). Most of all, however, I need to figure out if my sights are on! I know, I know---99.9% of all people who say "my sights are off" don't have sight problems, they have sighting problems--but in my case, I haven't sighted in my Glock 34 since I put a new front sight on it, and adjusted the position of the rear sight a few months ago. (Something hit the rear sight, and knocked it to the side, so I had to quickly slide it back in the middle of a match.) So maybe not all of the accuracy problem is my fault.

But I've got to get to the range to find out.

Here is a recording of the field stage we had today--two plate racks, four poppers, one small circle, and two Texas Stars that were obscured by a wall. I started out okay, but the distance stuff didn't go well.

In other news---I'm buying a new AR. :) Some of the people at the action pistol matches have talked me into trying the 3-gun matches down at the Weeping Water gun range, but to do it, I need a rifle that is capable of hitting bowling pins at 200 yards. My bolt-action .308 could do it (matter of fact, my 30-06 probably could too) but to do well, you really need a semi-auto, like an AR-15.

I have one, but---well, it is a Bushmaster Shorty AK that has had no work done on it. Iron sights, though I do have a little 4-power scope I could put on it. While it may be capable of hitting several bowling pins in a row at 200 yards, I couldn't hit bowling pins at 200 yards with it. Not without an inordinate amount of luck.

I've been meaning to get a varmint-type AR for several years now---this seems like a good excuse to do it. I'm going to be buying it through Fulton Armory, and getting a variation on one of their Predator models. Should be fun to have! When I get it, I'll post pictures.

March Pistol Match...

2008-03-02T13:23:00.000-08:00

Well, I didn't get nearly as much dry fire practice in February as I wanted---matter of fact, I probably managed practice less than twice a week, and sometimes only for a few minutes each time. While that is better than nothing, it isn't extremely useful.

So, this month I'll try to do better. With the RUReady software, I have a shot timer with par times, and I have taken recordings from my pistol matches so that the "RO commands" given by the program are actual recordings of the ROs from my matches--and so is the "beep" sound. Pretty cool!

Nonetheless, apparently the practice I got in did help---either that, or I've somewhat gotten over my "slump" of the last couple of months. Today's pistol match, while not stellar, was at least decent overall, with me shooting to my normal level for two solid stages, and me doing mostly decently for the other two. I meant to have all of the stages recorded, but I managed to get distracted and forgot one---so the video this month only includes 3 of the four stages.

Unfortunately, the one stage I didn't get recorded was the one where I finally shot a Texas Star perfectly--and I didn't get it on tape! Arg! Ah well.

Here is this month's match:

Faster than last month, better accuracy--but I need to start "snapping" my hands down for the draw and especially the reloads. I am moving smoothly (other than that last reload on the classifier stage) but just not very fast. I even know what I need to do differently ("snap" the hand down for the initial grab for the magazine--it will speed everything up) I just need to find the time to practice it until it is unconscious.

I can't wait until it is warmer and I have some free time---I have a non-timed accuracy drill that I want to work on, but it requires actual live fire. And while I love shooting, at the moment I don't love it enough to brave the cold weather!

Maybe next week?

In two weeks: Steel Challenge match. Should be fun...

Today's 3-Gun match...

2008-02-17T13:41:00.001-08:00

No video today, folks. Forgot the camera. (I'm sure you are heartbroken.)

So, in a typical 3-gun match---3 stages, one each for pistol, rifle, and shotgun. I shoot the Limited division, which means iron sights on everything, and no speed-loaders for shotguns. It does mean I get to load my pistol magazines all the way, so that is nice---not limited to 10 rounds per magazine for this type of match.

Here's how it normally goes for me:
Rifle stage: decent, around lowest of top third of everyone
Pistol: pretty good, middle of top third of everyone
Shotgun: horrible, top of lowest third, if that high

I'm not too bad with a rifle, just haven't practiced a lot---so I am decently accurate and decently quick, just not incredibly special with either. Pistol--I do pretty well with pistol. Shotgun, however---I can shoot quickly, I can move quickly, I transition well---but I can't reload quickly to save my life. Like I said in my last post, I reload like an arthritic sloth. And no, I didn't get a chance to practice before today's match.

Today was cold and extremely windy in gusts, so we set up all three stages on the big bay, and shot the exact same targets for pistol and for rifle. This meant the rifle stage was fairly close-in, and the pistol stage was fairly far out, as targets go for those respective firearms. This was actually a bad thing, since I'm no faster on close targets for a rifle than I am on longer-range targets--without practice, I pretty much have to go through the extra same aiming process on each. People in practice will shoot closer targets faster. Not me, though.

And long-range pistol? Well, lately I have been having accuracy troubles (apparently, the concept of "trigger control" is escaping me, though I am working on it) so long-range targets, lots of them, doesn't really help.

And since shotgun is almost always really bad, you see where this is going, right?

Oddly enough, today really didn't go that badly. My rifle was consistently A/C on each target, with a fairly fast speed. (I think I ended up fourth out of the 12 people there today---us hardcore types who would brave today's weather.) It was strange---the sights just made sense today, and I had no trouble finding them, and keeping them aligned. I need to practice some more on rifle, because that felt really good today, and it wasn't as if I had been practicing! Probably going to take my rifle out and just do some dryfire transition-and-aim/squeeze drills to see if I can make that keep happening in the future.

Then we shot pistol. We were shooting in random order, and I think I shot 7th or so--and had three clean misses. Ow! Of course, at the time that was the lowest number of misses anyone had shot yet, so I didn't feel too incredibly bad about it--though I really should have. There was no reason for me to miss any of those targets. My time was good, but had I slowed down and taken five extra seconds but hit those targets, my scores would have been much higher.

Points ARE time. [sigh] I need to bear that in mind.

Overall, though, the pistol stage went ok. Not great, but not too bad.

Then the shotgun stage came up. As usual, from the beep I came right up to target, from start to finish never missed a target (knocked down every single steel on the first shot each), shot quickly and transitioned quickly---and reloaded like an OLD arthritic sloth.

I'm getting really tired of that. Actually, I suppose I shouldn't be too unhappy--my times are getting better, and I'm nowhere near as horribly slow as I used to be. I just need to reload reload reload reload reload reload reload so that my hands know what to do.

I know what I have to do to get better---I just need to do it. I even have the drills already worked out to practice. That time thing, though----not good.

This past week, what with teaching Hapkido Monday through Thursday, the Janich seminar on Friday, open practice at the dojang on Saturday, and the competition today, I just feel like I've been running all week. I know I've actually had time to practice every day, but running this much makes me feel tired, even though I'm not actually. So---up for this week: scheduling time better to both give me breaks, and to allow me to practice. I've been doing some of the dryfire practice I want to---but not what I had originally scheduled.

This week, then: try for at least 5 minutes of dry fire practice per day. With the new software I have (the RUReady software that simulates a start timer, including voice sounds for ready and standby) being able to do par times, I can really work on good dryfire practice now.

So that's the plan---good pistol dryfire, some comfortable dryfire with the rifle including transitions, and reload reload reload reload reload reload with the shotgun.

Because I don't have enough going on in my life.

February ENPS Match...

2008-02-03T14:54:00.000-08:00

Well, February has started, and it is CERTAINLY true that my practice thus far has not helped.

Well, maybe---but you certainly couldn't tell from the match today. Don't get me wrong, I still had as much fun as I always do. However, the first stage was one of the types where I normally do exceedingly well--except apparently this time I decided to not aim until the second stage. Ug.

The rest of the stages were okay. Not spectacular, but okay. My accuracy was acceptable (but not great) and my speed was mediocre. Well, actually, a little slower than mediocre.

Apparently, concentration was just lacking. Here are the videos:

However, being February, this is The Great Dry Fire Practice Month, so we'll see how that goes. I've started some practice, but this week the full schedule kicks in that I've planned. Today: 5 minute practice, tomorrow, 25 minutes, and so on. Have the schedule all written out with specific drills and foci, so we'll see if it makes a difference for next month's match.

Oh--one last thing. Kirk brought the most fun little go-cart I've seen. Julie and I have to get two of these things...

Excellent!

Next match in two weeks: 3-Gun. (The only thing I'm really working on for that is my shotgun reloading. My pistol is fine, and my rifle is average---but my shotgun scores SUCK. Most likely because I reload like an arthritic sloth.)

Training Plan for February...

2008-01-25T17:34:00.000-08:00

Okay, so I've been putting together some thoughts for my training plan for the next month---current idea is every other evening I work on one specific drill only for a solid, focused 5 minutes. The other evenings I will work 20 minutes (approximately) on a set of drills, which will change per week.

Areas I plan on covering for February:

Draw to first sight picture (from both hands-at-sides, and surrender position)
Turn and draw to first sight picture (from both hand positions)
Reloading
Reloading to first sight picture
Reloading while moving
Transition sight focus

In March, I have some movement-and-sight-pictures drills I want to add in, but for February, I think having 8 major fundamental topics should be enough. I realize that other people would work in many many more drill types---but I want slow, fluid practice, speed drills, staggered movement practice, sectioned practice---each drill type will incorporate several different movement (and focus) versions.

Hoping that as we continue into spring, I will be able to get out and do some distance accuracy practice---I realize that I could go whenever I want, but it is really cold, and I don't practice well when I'm cold and doing it on my own.

Last year, I did dry fire practice all winter, and live fire practice all summer, and it showed---my accuracy went up a LOT over the winter, and my speed increased significantly over the summer. I'm hoping that this year I can increase both again, and in addition, increase reloading/draw/transition speed. My reload isn't bad, and my draw isn't either---but neither is nearly as smooth as it could be, and certainly neither are master-level.

In my opinion, will I get an A-card this year? Oddly enough, don't really care. I don't want an A-card until I can consistently shoot A-level. Right now---on most long stages I shoot consistently B-class (where I am rated) but on short stages, I am more erratic than I like. Often I'm B--but just as often, I'm shooting solid C-class on short stages.

Not good! I don't want an A-class card, when I can be beaten by C-class shooters! So, this year the drill is to increase the basics to the point that they are smooth, quick, and most of all precise.

Sometime this weekend I'll finish the actual schedule for my Feb training (let's hear it for spreadsheets) and at the end of February, we'll see if my shooting has improved at all.

Oh---and it seems that indeed, there is a very good chance that I will go to the Chapman Academy this September. I'll be going by myself, but it will be fun even if Julie can't make it this time. Starting to put together the money/ammo/lodging/application and such, and will talk to Mr. Wiles about the day off for next year in the upcoming months...(probably should wait until the school board has signed off on re-hiring me for next year, I suppose, before I ask for time off next year :) ) ...but should be a good time!

Well, drat...

2008-01-20T16:03:00.001-08:00

Today's steel challenge match got canceled. Drat. Just because there is snow on the ground, a temperature of 5 degrees F, and a wind chill that brings the apparent temperature into the negative degrees doesn't mean we couldn't have shot!

Of course, i'd have done really really badly (cold is BAD) -- but I would have liked to have gone shooting today.

[sigh]

Ah well---back to dry fire practice.

I really need to create a program of practice for myself. Lately, I've been doing a decent job of practicing basics (reloading, drawing, trigger control, transitions) but it has been fairly haphazard--what I'm doing on any given day depends on how I feel.

While that isn't a bad thing, that doesn't mean that it couldn't be better. As a teacher, I _know_ better. One day of this and one day of that isn't the best way to instill good habits, particularly if "good habits" include increased ability and speed. Yes, I'll get better this way---but not as much as if I organized it a bit better.

So---homework for myself for this week: Create a month-long program of dry fire practice, with at least 5 minutes of practice per day, but in general, at least 20 minutes of practice every other day. I realize this doesn't seem like much, but with a good focus of practice, and an intelligent progression of practice, I should see results. At the end of the month, I'll evaluate, and see what comes next.

Relevant references: Anderson's book (Refinement and Repetition), Brian Enos's site and book, and Matt Burkett's videos.

Hopefully, sometime in my next post I'll make some commentary about what I came up with.

Shooting is fun, and I enjoy it thoroughly---but I also want to get better at it. (Master class--still going for that goal of Master class in Production. That won't be the end, of course---but it is the goal for now. I should also say that merely having a Master class card isn't the goal---being a consistent Master-class shooter is the goal. There are plenty of people who have high-class cards, but lose consistently to lower class shooters. I don't want to be one of those.)

Speaking of training to get better, I really may end up going to the Chapman Academy in September. We'll see---still have plans to make and such---but I may go out there for their 3 day class. It seems more likely now that I've talked to Julie about it, and written them and learned more, and checked on hotel costs and such...

ENPS 2007 Banquet...

2008-01-13T11:21:00.000-08:00

Last night we had the Eastern Nebraska Practical Shooters yearly banquet. Each year we keep track of the statistics from our shooting matches, and give awards at the end of the year for placing in the various divisions. In general, the awards are divided by type (USPSA Pistol, Steel Challenge, 3-Gun, and Ironman) and then within each type, by division (Open, Limited, Limited-10, Production, etc) and class (U, D, C, B, A, and so on).

Things applicable to me:

USPSA Pistol Production Division, B class
Steel Challenge Production Division
3-Gun Standard Division
...and everyone is in the Ironman competition, where we total all points earned throughout the year in all matches.

Julie participated in the Steel Challenge also, in the Production Division. She was only able to make it to three matches out of the 5, however.

How did it go?

Pretty well! 5th in 3-Gun, 2nd in Steel Challenge, and 1st place in B-class Production for USPSA. (Note: the medals are actually all the same, the lighting just makes them look like different colors.)

But even better:

I won my entire Division in USPSA for the year! (On the local level, that is--we aren't talking any higher than local.)

Plus, when we added up all of the points attained by everyone for the entire year---23 matches worth of USPSA Pistol, Steel Challenge, and 3-Gun...

I won the Ironman, too!

Julie won 5th place in the Steel Challenge (she should be putting a picture of her medal up on her blog at some point in time) --which is excellent for someone who has never done it before, and only made it to three matches out of five!

I also received one of the many gag awards for the evening---remember back at Area 3 when I got booted from Production division to the Open division? I received this welcome mat from the other shooters to "Welcome" me to Open division. [sigh]

It was a lot of fun. I'm looking forward to more shooting this year, and hopefully some improvement also.

One of the things that Julie and I have been talking about it attending a pistol class at the Chapman Academy. I really like that it is extremely live-fire oriented, and I have heard from some other shooters around here that it is an excellent class---so perhaps this summer...

I thought I'd separate this...

2008-01-09T19:33:00.000-08:00

Shooting has really become one of my favorite hobbies over the last year and a half--and it occurs to me that on my regular pages, continual updates about my shooting matches might get old. Thus, I decided to start a different blog specifically with regard to shooting sports---rather along the lines of a continual training diary/commentary as I work on getting better and better at it.

So here we go. :)

I joined the USPSA (United States Practical Shooting Association) about 1.5 years ago, and was initially classified as "B" class in the Production division of USPSA, which I achieved somewhen about this past July. My goal is to reach Master class sometime within the next 5-8 years. (Perhaps Grandmaster, but that really depends on how much time it takes for Master.) We'll see.

I'll probably move from Production to Limited class after I reach Master in Production, and stay there in Limited for some time. (And when my eyesight starts to go, I'll get into Open division, and use those handy red dot sites.) For an explanation of all of this stuff, go to the USPSA site and take a look around.

Currently, I shoot at the Eastern Nebraska Gun Club as part of the Eastern Nebraska Practical Shooters group. We have USPSA pistol, 3-Gun, and Steel Challenge matches (to the tune of about 23 matches per year) so there is always something to shoot at!

Anyway--more later. But this is where I'm starting!