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Put in range time with 2 AR's and 1 PCC.

Both AR's checked out fine for function and zero.\

The PCC has a first model Lucid Micro Red Dot and the controls are somehow on the blink as they will go completely loose when have to adjust in the counter clockwise direction.

Beats me...so far.
 
Shot my first USPSA match, didn't DQ! Managed a high "C" on the classifier, 2% under the cutoff for "B". Got a lot more stuff to work on, now... going to focus on unsupported strong/weak hand shooting for a bit. Strangely, I was very calm and low key for this match, I had intentionally set myself for "chill, it doesn't matter if you score low, just finish, and learn." Normally, I am dumping controlled amounts of adrenaline and operating in a pretty intense focus at matches, but there is just SO much more going on at USPSA that I felt the need to just get my feet wet before I start ramping up.

If the guy I accidentally bonked on the head resetting a swinger reads this, man, I am SO sorry. Felt like a compleat dumbarse. Was too focused on the pendulum end, didn't see where the target end was going.
 
So, today I set up this USPSA classifier as a drill: PDF.js viewer . It's a little bit evil, because you have to do half of it without your support hand... even mix of strong hand/weak hand. Definitely saw improvement over the course of expending ~ 350 rounds. Tried two different ways of doing unsupported; 1. stand just like you do for freestyle, isosceles stance. 2. Olympic style, where you blade your body towards the target, so the recoil pushes you straight back, instead of at an angle. Not sure if there's any reason not to do the blade style, as it seemed much more stable, other than that you need to practice going back to square before re-holstering, so you don't break 180. I should probably watch some vids of masters doing this, and see what they do. By the end of the session, I was doing pretty well with unsupported strong hand, but weak hand was getting pretty tired, and I played a few rounds of " where's the dot?"

Finished up on the plate rack to wind down for ~ 80 rounds.
 
Drilled on the plate rack tonight, just cycling through 1. draw, transfer to weak hand, strong hand fisted on chest, drop all the plates. 2. draw, drop plates with strong hand only, weak hand fisted on chest. 3. freestyle- draw, drop all plates with strong hand and support hand. Repeated for 300 rounds.

It's amazing how fast the skills slow down if you don't get to practice for a week. ( Trapshooting doesn't really count, very different skills) Noted my draw slowed down by like half a second, and the first time through freestyle was a trainwreck, something like 13 seconds. By the end, it was getting reasonably good, though, but I think I need to start doing small amounts of live fire after work a few nights a week. Maybe I could set up a stage out in the yard to drill with a co2 pistol on the non live fire nights...

Anyway, best times for the night were: Freestyle: 4.26, Strong hand only: 6.06 Weak hand only: 7.19

With training, this will improve greatly. Observations: slower is faster unsupported, at least for now. Tuck the shooting elbow more toward the center of the chest than is comfortable. It helps the recoil raise the gun up, instead of wherever. Canting the gun slightly so the top is more to your center seems to help me, some people prefer to just keep it vertical, though. Lastly, I am liking to use the smallest three fingers in a fairly strong grip, isolating the trigger finger mentally seems to mostly work. Some really great shooters don't recommend this, but I think a lot of it has to do with how well you are able to isolate the nerve impulses for " strong grip" from the one for " careful straight back pull with minimal force" when under time stress.

So, I wanted to throw this out there: if anyone wants to informally train with me Monday nights at ARPC, I'd be happy to share the work of setting up a stage to shoot, and running the timer, recording times, etc. I think it is helpful to have someone else's eyes on you to point stuff out that you might not notice, and it's fun to set up a more complicated stage to play on. Not trying to set myself up as " all that", I just figure whenever shooters get together, they learn from each other. :)
 
Set up the "Outer Limits" stage from Steel Challenge, and burned ~ 730 rounds on it. Modified a bit for short bays at ARPC; max distance in bay 10 is about 25 yards. Used smaller targets, though. Best time of the day was 5.85, typical times were more like high sixes.
So much going on to remember... eventually this should all become second nature, but I still find myself suddenly forgetting stuff like trigger control, grip, sight picture, snapping eyes to next target, checking that I have enough ammo to complete the stage....

One of the tricky parts on this stage for me is launching from the first box to the second. Too twitchy, and you miss the shot right before you move, and are already in motion, so you lose a lot of time with the penalty for the miss. Not twitchy enough, and you lose a lot of time waiting to move.

Outer Limits Stage Diagram
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Yesterday I took Keith Tyler's Handgun 3 class, which is concerned about movement. How to speed up and be more efficient. Boy am I sore today.
 
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I'm probably feeling similar pain. Not as bad as the first heavy movement stage I practiced, but the knees get pretty beat from the direction changes. I was at the range while Keith Tyler's class was on, bay 12, right? Need to look that up, it looked like a lot of fun, and good training!
 
I'm probably feeling similar pain. Not as bad as the first heavy movement stage I practiced, but the knees get pretty beat from the direction changes. I was at the range while Keith Tyler's class was on, bay 12, right? Need to look that up, it looked like a lot of fun, and good training!
Yes, bay 12. Learned a lot, definitely good training.
 
I've been reading three books, two of which are mostly focused on the mental aspects of competition, and Steve Anderson's "Get to Work, the practice of more points per second", which covers the mental game and some methods of practice. Lanny Bassham's " With Winning in Mind", and Bob Palmer's " Mind vs Target" are the other two. All three of these are superb, I seem to be benefiting greatly from reading them.

I have USPSA on the 8th, and a pin match the following week, so my training has been focused towards those styles. Per Steve Anderson, I started out with "Accuracy mode" today, seeing where my hits were on the freshly painted steel, and getting better acquainted with where to aim for the "A" box on USPSA targets where you can't actually SEE the "A" box from 13 yards. Taped out a "Bowling pin kill zone" on a couple of them 3" wide, 5" high, and practiced hitting that with major loads. Switched to "Speed mode" and tested how fast I can run the Sig, going flat out. Did my last two runs on that with a 1.11 draw to first shot, and 2.22 total for 6 rounds.( USPSA target at 6 yards, not much concern about accuracy. Just getting a feel for what it feels like to go that fast. ) Interesting that it was that consistent, and I will keep working on that draw!

I have noticed a weird thing, which is that I am consistently faster in matches than I am in practice, for the same sort of distance and setup. I think the adrenaline helps, and I just go into this sort of calm zen state. Probably why I'm so addicted to the shooting sports. :D
 
Saturday's USPSA match went really well. I shot a "B" on the classifier, which turned out to be almost exactly the one I had trained for, with the addition of an " El Presidente" style turn and draw to start, and then rotating through strong hand/ weak hand unsupported. I smiled when I saw what stage it was...
Still at the place in my training where things require a lot of conscious processing, there is a LOT going on on a big USPSA stage, and that slows me down. I'm glad I started with Speed Steel to learn a lot of basics without the added complication of movement. There was one stage, where I just had a hard time getting it all in memory, like when your browser gives you ram errors; having to stop and think and make decisions while doing a run is not ideal. Still, for a second match, I think I did really well. Added plus of getting to meet and shoot with Keith Tyler. Getting to watch a GM work a stage was pretty cool!
 
Good on ya for getting out and into another match! I did so much better after the first one, getting past the "just don't get DQ'ed" jitters and figuring out how it all works.

What kind of HF did you score per stage? Feel free to PM if you don't want to publish here.

One of my regular trainers is a GM (Mark Bradley). He ruled the match at my range last month. It's an awesome treat to watch him...
 
2.7 overall for the match, I was 9th of 22 in my class. ( Carry Optics) with 62% Edit: I read that wrong, that was just the classifier. Best HF was 4.3, worst was the classifier. I guess most people have a hard time with unsupported strong/weak hands, so I did pretty well there by comparison. Overall for my class, I was 17th, with 51.8 % 56th of 79 for the entire match, all classes. I remember when I had numbers like this in Speed Steel, and they rapidly increased, so I'm actually pretty happy with this for a 2nd match. Once I get this revolver, I'll have a lot of training to do to get good at reloads and DA, but I think I'll be good in revo class after some time goes by. I'm not terribly shy about scores, they're a matter of public record, and hiding weakness doesn't fix it. better to embrace what needs work, and get creative about figuring out drills to improve what you're not good at ( yet) :D
 
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I noticed that even after a few days of no practice, my skills start to slip. Games of " where's the dot?" are not my favorite, so I figured I'd best get serious about doing regular dry fire. It's easy to make excuses not to, so my plan at present is just to do 5 minutes, at least once a day. Set 5 minutes on the kitchen timer, go in the living room, and draw/acquire sight picture on one of the marks there, fire to my baseline as a par time. The 5 minute limit makes it hard to say I don't have time... so this has been working well, been doing it about a week so far and already seeing gains.
 

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