Eric Gambill Shooting Log

[Airic]

I guess since I asked for this, I should be the one to start it out. I wanted a place where I could post my daily training/dryfire thoughts and progress and also talk about progress in matches this season. Hoping maybe it'll catch on and we can all keep track of our training progress and accomplishments.

Anyway, intro: My name is Eric Gambill. I'm 33 yoa and I've been a member of USPSA/IDPA since about 99. Due to College/Family/Army/LEO responsibilities I haven't been able to concentrate on shooting competition much until last year. Last year I had my best year, shooting 5 major matches (including my first nats). I wasn't satisfied though, I really didn't do as well as I thought I should.

On to this year. I'm thick into my training for the start of my next "season". I'm a month out from Space City Challenge. Right now I dryfire almost everyday and do physical training every other day. My plan was also to shoot at least 100 rounds a week in practice by now but that hasn't happened. Working on getting that started though.

Thats a good start, next post I'll detail out my training.

 

[Airic]

My dryfire training is a little bit theory based, and little bit experience based. I've read Enos, Seeklander, Andersons and Kirsch's books and have taken the things that I liked from all of them. I also almost never do full speed reps. I'm a big believer in the "perfect practice makes perfect" theory. I do slow motion or what I call "sub-conscience burn" reps. This does a couple things for me: Every rep is perfect and trains my mind to what it feels like to do a perfect action over and over and it helps me relax while completing those actions. One of the biggest problems I have had over the years is feeling relaxed or smooth while in a course of fire. The downfall to this type of practice is that I dont normally have times logged from using a par timer and also I'm not training those muscles that stop the pistol full speed when you draw or transition.

I have 4 1/3 scale targets set up on my garage door. I marked simulated 7, 10, 15 and 20 yards on the floor. Every time I start to dryfire I randomly pick a distance to work at on that day.

Weapon Manipulation

Draw - 1 x 10 reps each

1. Relaxed at side
2. Surrender
3. Turn and Draw (alternate with table draw)
4. Strong/Weak hand

Reloads - 3 x each pouch

1. Standing
2. Stepping (Forward/Left/Right/Back)

Transitions - 1 x 5 each

1. Left/Right
2. Up/Down
3. Wide
4. Far/Near
5. Strong/Weak hand

Movement - 1 x 5 each
On these I have an upside down target with the A zone cut out, on a target stand. It creates 4 shooting positions: A- left side of barricade, B- Through port, C- Right side of barricade and D- Below target or low port.

1. Move into A
2. Move into C
3. Move into B (both sides and forward)
4. Move into D
5. Off balance (fault line set away from the edge to simulate off balance shooting)

I do Weapon Manipulation every time and alternate between Transitions and Movement with it. It takes about 30-45 mins to complete. I do this every other day with my physical training (crossfit) conducted on the off days. This program is new for me this year as I had just followed what I had read in the books before. I decided that I needed to tailor my dryfire more to production division and some of my weak points.

For live fire practice I try to shoot 100 rounds a week. 50 of those will be either the Stoeger Test or Dot Torture. The other 50 are divided up into group shooting and drills that work on long and tight shots. My main weakness is accuracy and I devote almost all of my live fire time to it. I want to average shooting over 90% of the points available at every match this year.

Alright, tired of typing now. I shot the classifier match at ITPSC yesterday with some exciting results. I'll detail my thoughts on that match in the next post.

 

[drmitchgibson]

What is the Stoeger Test?

 

[The Antichrome]

What is the Stoeger Test?

http://www.boomershooter.com/forums/index.php?/topic/5404-skills-tests/

 

[Strokin04]

What is the Stoeger Test?

I think it is a test on writing book reviews.

 

[Airic]

I think it is a test on writing book reviews.

or the test to get on team doodie lol

 

[Airic]

Prior to the Sat classifier match at ITPSC, I have been sitting at 83.7% in production. Its always been a minor goal of mine to earn a Master card. I'm happy to report that pending the official numbers posted on USPSA, I believe I have accomplished it.

I'll break down the match:

09-13 Table Stakes: 33 points in 5.11 for a 6.45 HF (CMCALC says 100%)

03-09 On the move: 74 points in 8:15 for a 9.07 HF (CMCALC says 94.05%)

03-03 Take em down: 49 points in 7.04 for a 6.96 HF (CMCALC says 99.80%)

09-10 Lifes little problems: 54 points in 6.45 for a 8.37 HF (CMCALC says 86.58%)

Now im not sure how exact CMCALC is, but if you add those 4 scores to the 95 and 92 I already have....its a 94.74% average. I think I almost pulled a Chris Andersen.

The score for Take em down was a reshoot. First time I shot it I came into the second shooting position way too hot and ended up stepping out of the box to catch my balance. I wasnt going to reshoot any of them if I screwed up but I knew I could burn that one down and wanted another crack at it. Overall I only shot 88% of the available points for the match and I was kinda disappointed, but I felt that other than that I shot well

 

[Airic]

Dryfire today, Weapons manip and transitions. (Simulated 15yds)

Draws felt very smooth. I think they are starting to get out of that off season/winter funk. My reloads were a little choppy at first, felt like my fingers were getting in the way everywhere. I paused for a minute and re-focused then they were spot on. I've been working on really getting those reloads up into my workspace and staring the reload into the gun. Transitions felt great also today. I've been putting a lot of work into these trying to burn in my new concept. I snap my eyes to the A zone of the next target and allow the gun to follow. I'm trying to not force the gun into the next target but allow it to follow my eyes. I used to work a lot on "driving" the gun into the target but that always felt so tense and choppy to me. So far my transitions have been very smooth and the sights have had little or no wobble when I break the shot on the next target.

 

[Airic]

I should be writing a match report right now but....my truck decided it didn't want to go to Double Tap today. On the bright side I got back and went out to get some live fire practice. I shot yesterday also. It's a very rare occurrence for me to be able to shoot 2 days in a row.

Both days the focus was all accuracy. I shot groups to start out. I can tell that I'm winter rusty because my groups were terrible. 3.5 inches at 15 yards. Today I shot a NRA 25yd slow fire target and scored 82. Not good mojo.

The rest of my practice was focused on Dot Torture at 3 yards. Everything about this drill felt great yesterday and today. I lost a couple rounds outside the dots on Stronghand/Weakhand because i was pushing to shoot to fast. I will shoot it perfect before Space City.

At the end of my session, I shot a random drill of one paper target and two Range Master Rowdy 6 inch plates. I set it up with the paper to the left and the two steel 2 foot apart to the right, about 6 yard transition. I alternated drawing to the paper and steel. I was running it in about 2.5 sec average. Was pretty happy with how the drill was going until my trigger return spring broke and ended my practice session. I had about 10k rounds on that spring anyway so all it did is remind me that I needed to detail strip and polish/clean before Space City.

Todays DTR club match was the last match available to me before Space City. Gonna have to ramp up the practice.

 

[Airic]

Schedule has been choppy this week so I've only gotten in a couple dryfire sessions. I did make an improvement to my dryfire range last weekend that has really worked out well. Found a white foam board about 3' x 4' at Hobby Lobby while I was in OKC. Brought that home and cut a port in the middle of it, attached it to a couple target sticks and put her in a stand. Makes a lot better barricade than my upside down target with the A zone cut out.

The stages for Space City were posted last night. Things always look different when the stages are on the ground but there are a couple things I get from posted stages and I usually do a small scouting report on what I notice in the posted stages. I usually find a couple things that I can change up in my training to better prepare me for the challenges at a particular match.

Space City Challenge - April 19-21 2012
8 Stages - 200 rounds

First off, 200 rounds...so I'll be preparing about 400 rounds of match ammo to take with me. 8 stages in one day.

From my notes:

First thing I noticed about the stages....there are a lot of plates. Plate racks, a texas star and many single plates mixed into the stages. I know how to hook that up in dryfire but I also now have a way to practice this in live fire (instead of using paper plates) with my two 6 inch steel plates.

Next, theres some strong and weak hand shooting mixed into the match. Right now that makes up about 5% of my dryfire and livefire, probably bump that up to about 10-15%

There are a couple wierd start positions and some table draws. One is an unloaded start, which kinda sucks in production. Hell you're even shooting a little with a bowling ball. I'll modify dryfire a little for that. I'm not worried about practicing for shooting while holding a bowling ball because it looks like it will only be about 4 shots.

Theres a lot of what I call "port to port" shooting. 8 shots, reload, move to next port stuff. I already do this in dryfire in my movement section.

Last, Classic targets on some of the stages. I will definatley have to print some classic dryfire targets to practice on because I had problems with these last year. The A zone thins out at the top and my normal aimpoint on an open target is above the "A" in the lower A zone. I'll need to remember to adjust on those stages to snap my vision to the lower part of the A zone (the thick part).

That would be about all I took from the posted stages other than some notes to myself about some stage strategy involving cutting some time on movement. Other than that, I'm looking forward to the weekend because I'm thinking I might get a couple hundred rounds down range.

 

[Airic]

Had some good dryfire sessions this week. Heres a couple things that I either learned or re-learned during my sessions:

1. Barricade starts: Where are you normally looking when starting with a barricade/Wall in front of you? At your hands? At the wall? This week I noticed a large improvement in target aquisition when I stared "Through" the wall to where my first intended target is. When I would draw and lean out the barricade would just move aside and my sights would appear on the target that I was already looking at. When movement was involved, I shot my eyes to the fault line or place where I intended to set up and then brought them back up to stare through the wall at where my first target was.

2. Low Center of Gravity....it helps almost everything. Helps me shoot on the move, helps explode out of a position to the next one, helps settle my movement and sights when coming into a position, helps with strong/weak hand shooting.....ect

3. Distractions: Dont let your 1 yr old Choc. Lab hang out in your dryfire room with you. He might think its fun to trip you during a movement drill.

Looking forward to some live fire time this weekend.

 

[Airic]

Got about 200 rounds of livefire this weekend. Shot Stoeger drill, dot torture and alot of smaller drills. I focused on shooting alphas and I had some good results. I was really seeing the front sight inside the A zone well. I made the decision to never practice closer than 15i yards. Enos called 15 yards the "ultimate" distance because something like 95% + of the targets you see in USPSA are under 15.

Think Im going to try to make the SCRAP match next weekend, get one more match before SCC.

 

[Airic]

Got a couple hundred rounds downrange this weekend. Everything felt really good. Planning on getting a couple more live fire sessions before Space City. I'm also participating in a LEO shooting match this week for police week. Im the defending champ of this match so I plan on repeating.

Got my M card in production today also, I think its gonna be a good week.

 

[Wall]

Got my M card in production today also

Congrats man, nice work!!!!
I'd like to think that BoomerShooter Steel Prize Package had a little something to do with it :wink:

 

[Airic]

It has. I shoot those 6 inch plates in every practice. Now the popper, I keep that in my reloading room with my trophies because the BS.com logo painted on it looked too good.

 

[Airic]

I'm also participating in a LEO shooting match this week for police week.

Ok, the person who was putting out info on this was wrong. I thought it was a little early for police week but with how busy I've been I didnt check. Police week and this match are in May.

 

[Airic]

Well everything is pretty much ready for Space City. One more live fire practice before we leave just for some fine tuning. Going to try to work mainly on points and transitions.

I heard a rumor that Im paying for drinks Sat night due to my new classification. As usual the rumors are false, I happen to know for a fact that Seth is paying. lol

 

[akendall]

Good luck!! and take lots of vid

 

[bsdubois00]

Well everything is pretty much ready for Space City. One more live fire practice before we leave just for some fine tuning. Going to try to work mainly on points and transitions.

I heard a rumor that Im paying for drinks Sat night due to my new classification. As usual the rumors are false, I happen to know for a fact that Seth is paying. lol

Hey. Were going to Hooters sat night. Seth has my number. Drinks on whoever is classified highest!!!!

 

[Airic]

If thats the case I'm inviting Ben to the party