Practice, practice, practice

I have been doing a lot of practicing lately, sometimes I can't tell if it is helping. I have been shooting a bunch of local matches, both IDPA and USPSA trying to apply some of the stuff I have been working on during the practice sessions. I can see an improvement in certain areas like transitions since that is one area I knew I needed to work on. I have dropped about .2 off transitions by learning to snap the eyes and trust the shot instead of double checking the sights. I have found though that some other areas are now popping up that I need to work on. I guess that is the way it goes though, fix one thing and then find the next to work on. And now that I have a goal oriented practice routine I am noticing things more and critically analyzing my shooting to find those areas.

I have noticed that I am getting good hits and splits on closer targets, and targets that are easier. Where I am noticing issues is longer shots, maybe 20 yards, and tougher shots (like hard cover targets). I think I am applying the same thought to those as I am to all targets and getting to quick. I need to get a better sight picture on those and work the trigger better. I worked on that today.

I set up the IDPA classifier as good way to concentrate on some of the longer shots and to make sure I can get clean hits. I did some work on the infamous Stage 3 and ended up shooting it in 97.08 and 43 down. That is at least 13 seconds faster than my previous best time and the last stage wasn't really the killer. I just got a little sloppy up close. I ran it a second time to get a good baseline and shot it in 99.71 so it looks like my practicing is paying off a little.

I need to keep working on it so if/when I make Master I can actually compete with and challenge the current masters.

Video of my classifier run is linked below and it show many areas I need to work on.

Thunder Tactical Saturday Match

Well after rain and cancellations I finally shot the first IDPA Saturday match of the year yesterday. I have only been shooting wednesday practice matches and some other fun type matches so it felt good to shoot a full match for a change. It was pretty chilly for Houston, only around 40, and muddy but it was a good match. I have been practicing a few times a week working on splits, transitions, and reloads so it was good to apply some of the things I have been working on to a real match.

Match Recap

Stage 1 was the second stage I shot and it went pretty well. You started with the gun on the table unloaded, my hands were not wanting to work that fast so I had a litle fumble trying to get the gun loaded. I also was a little sloppy on hitting the 4 8" steel.

Stage 2 was a standards with 6 targets getting 1 each, a tac reload the 1 more each. I took all head shots since the targets all had different amounts of hard cover. I dropped the 1st shot on the last target by getting ahead of myself but that is what happens when you try to push the speed a little.

Stage 3 was a pretty good run. I did a tac reload while moving to a new position as to not have a standing reload, it wasn't the quickest but it was OK. I threw a 3 on one of the targets, again I pushing the transition speed and missed just a little.

Stage 4 was my best stage and I got the stage win.

Stage 5 was my last stage and of course my wosre one. You had to go to an opening, shoot some paper, then activate a swinger then go back to the direction you came to shoot the swinger. Well when I got back to shoot the swinger I didn't time it right and had to wait for it and then I stalled on teh trigger so I had to wait on it again for the second shot. The last group of targets included a No Shoot and of course the last shoot I fired in the match just grazed the perf on the No Shoot.

Stage 6 was the first of the day. You had 3 windows and 9 targets but could not see them all from any one spot. I had a good plan but lost my head halfway in and skipped 2 targets from one of the windows. Luckily I knew it as soon as I left that position so it only cost me time.

Lessons Learned:

Keeping your head in the stage. Being cold and the first real match in a long time I let my plans drift a little. If you do mess up your plan keep going and try to make the best of it.

When shotoing when it is cold make sure to keep your hands warm so you can get them to work as fast as you want them to.

VIDEO

GA State match

I just got home from Atlanta. We went out there to visit some good friends and shoot the GA State IDPA match. Luckily my friends live about 5 minutes from the range it was held at so it worked out perfect.

I will get a more in depth report later but I will say that it was a pretty good match. All their movers are pnuematic movers. That is good a bad, good because they are easier to shoot and there is less reset time. Bad because they are easier to shoot and 2 of the stages I tried to shoot had a few small problems but they got them fixed.

I shot OK, not my best shooting though. I shot well enough to win SSP SS so I am pretty happy about that and I got my bump to Expert. Like I said I will put up some more thoughts and the video a little later.

Shooting Something Different

Yesterday my wife and I shot a Steel Challenge match. We both used .22's since we wanted to shoot something different than we have been shooting in IDPA. I gotta say it is a lot of fun, it is different than IDPA since it was static but it really makes you concentrate on sights and trigger. We will definitely be going back next month but hopefully I will do a little better. It was a little frustrating the way I shot some of the stages, trying to thorw down a fast time doesn't do any good if you are not hitting the steel.

Video from TX Match

Here is the video from the Sate match. The times for the stage is the raw time and doesn't include points down. The order I shot the stages are 8, 10, 7, 6, 4, 3, 5, 1, 9, 2. Stage 6 I had a problem with a shoote induced double feed and that cost me about 8 seconds. Stage 1 was after an hour or so of sitting so I felt really sluggish and it shows on the video.

Texas State IDPA Match Recap

The State match came and went and it was a pretty good match. There were 10 stages and a minimum of 143 rounds, no standards stage which is fine with me. There were 170 + shooters that signed up to shoot so it was a pretty big turnout with about 130 shooting sunday. They broke it into 10 squads for the first stae then it was open squading after that. I really like open squading but the fact that they filled every stage to start meant that from the begining there was a back up on a few stages, the ones that were a little more involved and had more props to set. Also I didn't walk through the stages before I showed up at that bay so I ended up leaving the hardest stage as my last one, it had 2 fast swingers, one of them at 20 yards. All in all though it was pretty good and I shot well.

I could go through all the stages but I am sure that would bore some people so I will just touch on the hilights of my match. I didn't shoot blindingly fast but I was quick and with that I was also pretty accurate. I was 16 down total going into the last stage and ended up 25 down total. I was able to keep focused and never earned any PE, NT's, FTN's, I think that was the other contributing factor to me winning.

Everything seemed to work out well, I never had a complete meltdown on any particular stage. I had 4 really good stages (2 of those were pretty good), 3 just OK stages, and 3 stages that were not good but didn't completely kill me. The good thing is that I was able to no dwell on the stages that were bad. I shot them, realized what happened and moved on.

One of the problems was a problem with gun, I did a reload and when the slide dropped it didn't strip a round so when I got to the next position it went "click". I racked it but then it tried to double feed so I had to reload again, looking at the video and timing it this cost me atleast 8 seconds. The other bad stages were just not shot well. One of them had some 8" steel plates at about 10 yeards or so and missed them on the first shots so I had to go back and that costs time. I just got into too much of a hurry and it cost me a little. The last stage that was not all that good was after about an hour wait without shooting, it was stage 1 and after sitting that long I just didn't move or react as fast as I wanted. It was towards the end of the day and I was starting to get tired.

The first stage I shot was a freestyle, sronghand, weakhand stage, stage 8. Gee what a great place to start. I shot it well but had an issue again with no round stripped on the reload soooooooo...."click". That is 3 times I have had this problem now so I really need to find the cause, I am thinking it the way I am reloading rather than a gun problem.

Lessons Learned:

All the other stages went pretty good though, I just tried to stay focused and shot my own match. I went into it with the mindset that I didn't care what others were doing, how they were shooting a stage and that I was going to shoot the stages based what I know my strengths are. If I was given room to make choices on reloads or where to move etc... I made sure I chose what suited my style the best not what I thought the "fast" guys were doing. It is amazing how if you keep your head into it and plan the stage out and follow that plan you will shoot well. I minimized the mental mistakes which meant I didn't have any penalty time added, and I never was surprised by an empty gun. I knew where I would be when I went empty, I knew which targets I was going to engage after the reload. Keeping focused on the stage and planning it out was a huge benefit.

Match Particulars:

1St ESP SS
14th overall
10th most accurate

Texas State IDPA Match

Here is a link to the scores to the match and I will get a video of me shooting up. I had a pretty good day, I won ESP SS and finished 14th overall. I will write a recap later but overall it was a good match.

Link to scores