My plan for sucking less

[JTMaddox]

Had an hour of pistol instruction again today, running some timed drills with him watching me shoot and correcting some of the things im doing wrong. I start off ok, but when i start pushing faster i start dipping the damned barrel as I pull the trigger, like I'm trying to push it at the target...not good. He mixed some snap caps into my mag to point out to me what I was doing. Then he kept mixing them in there. Just knowing that they were there made me concentrate on not doing it. Everything else went to hell because I was worried about that, but by the end I wasn't doing it nearly as much...need to do more dry firing to lock all this in to muscle memory. another Interesting thing I noticed today....Not sure why, but I've been doing all my practice from surrender start for some reason. So when we worked from a normal start I couldn't get my grip right going fast...so I need to work on that as well

9mm = 150

 

[JTMaddox]

Yesterday I got a couple of books I ordered:

Perfect Practice by Saul Kirsch and
Refinement and repetition by Steve Anderson

I figured that having a resource for dry fire and live fire drills would be beneficial and probably more productive than the crap I was making up on my own. I did the first 14 drills in Anderson's book as part of my dry fire this evening. I did all the suggested number of repititions, but i ran them all really slow without a timer so I could really concentrate on getting the movements down. I want to make sure that I'm practicing correct movement and not just reinforcing bad habits and poor technique. I'll start with some high par times at my next session and then start working my way down from there.

Noth sure if it makes any sense, but I'm going to see if some of the concepts translate to rifle and shotgun and figure out how to modify the drills for the other weapons so I have some structure there as well.

I finished up with shotgun loading again. I used the same setup with 6 targets on the left, load 8 while moving, 5 targets on the right for the first 10 sets. Then I set the par timer to 8.0 seconds and started moving and loading at the buzzer for the next 5 sets. No problems so I set it to 7.0 seconds for the next 5 sets moving and loading. No problems so I set it to 6.0 seconds for the next 10 sets of moving and loading 8. I beat the buzzer about half the time, and when I don't it's because I screw something up (bad grab, pulled thumb away from loading port, got too rushed and wasn't smooth, etc.). Did 5 sets from seated, then 5 sets of 8 shells from prone (what a disaster), then finished with 12 sets of loading 8 rounds while moving focusing on being as smooth and perfect as possible...

 

[KurtM]

"I used the same setup with 6 targets on the left, load 8 while moving, 5 targets on the right for the first 10 sets."

So am I understanding this right? You can shoot 6 rounds, load 8 rounds, and shoot 5 more rounds in under 6 seconds half the time you try it? HOLY SMOKES!! you won't be in the top 10 at your next shotgun match, you will win it hands down! good job!

 

[JTMaddox]

I wish, i think only Jesse could do that (too soon to jump on the giving Jesse a hard time bandwagon?)

Sorry if that was confusing. all of that was dryfire in my basement and I only engaged the dryfire targets the first 10 sets of loading 8 rounds. I didn't time those at all but focused on transitioning between targets and doing smooth reloads while moving.

Then the rest of it was done without engaging the dryfire targets and against the par timer while just moving from one side of my basement to the other. sometimes i move forwards, sometimes i move left to right, or right to left. after the runs against the 6 second par time i put the timer away and went back to working on getting them in there smoothly...i think it's good to end by reinforcing perfect technique (or as close to perfect as I can do anyway).

 

[JTMaddox]

would that even be possible? if so i now feel even further behind the curve than i did when i woke up this morning...

 

[JTMaddox]

Set up the "slats and bats" stage from the Nordic tactical shotgun championship and ran it as many times as I could with the 100 shells I had on hand. Best time was 16.4 seconds, I need to go back and look at my score from the match and see how it compares.

found score sheets today so I went back and looked and found out I screwed this up. at the match it was an empty gun start and i was running it starting with one in the chamber and one in the tube. i knew there was something about 2 rounds at the start, but it was load 2 after the buzzer, not start with 2 in the gun. I shot it in a blazing 37.87 at the match so I'll have to go back and try this again running it the correct way...

 

[KurtM]

It is never too early to jump on the give Jesse a hard time train. I think it could be done with a real good mag fed shotgun but I doubt anyone besides Jesse would ever be able to do it. Don't forget to check out his videos on worlds greatest gunsmithing, cartridge reloading, shooter....etc. I hear Nordic components is making a Jesse signature upper, in honor of his greatness!

All joking aside Jesse had about the best run on my stage at the Pro-Am and it was indeed world class, so some of it is true.

 

[JTMaddox]

Not sure pinning the holiday inn post-its to the wall to use as dry fire targets was exactly what they had in mind when they put them in the room, but what did they expect me to do with all that room when they put me in the upgraded "executive suite"... Had room to step off 30' and do an hour and a half of dry fire including the first 14 drills from Refinement & Repitition. then worked on transitioning from target (post-it) to target... Thought about doing some shotgun loading, but only have live ammo and accidentally cooking one off in the Holiday Inn express would probably be considered bad form...

 

[JTMaddox]

Shot the Ozark 3 Gun Championship over the weekend. Came in around the middle of the TacOptic pack. I made a few bonehead decisions, but overall I shot OK for me. I was really afraid my pistol game was going to fall apart on me again and i was going to just stand there going through mag after mag trying to knock down pistol targets, but I was pleasantly surprised that I was actually getting on them pretty good at times.

Things that this match showed me I need to work on:
- moving faster, both the gun from target to target and my fat ass from array to array
- not waiting to hear the RO call hits before moving to the next target
- taking follow up shots with rifle immediately if I didn't call shot as a hit when i pulled the trigger
- sticking to my plan, and if things go wrong trying to get back on my plan
- need to get good dope on rifle shots over 300
- need to build a rooftop barricade to practice from
- don't spend too much time on targets I can't hit quickly (just take the penalty and move on)
- Still need a lot of work on my pistol, need to be able to go 1 for 1 most of the time.
- don't need to set up as much for close in paper that can be shot while moving

12 ga = 156
9mm = 199
.223 = 146
slug = 12

 

[JTMaddox]

haven't had a whole lot of time for training lately between work, trying to figure out my reloader, attending matches, and planning/putting on a shotgun match.

 

[JTMaddox]

on September 15th I attended midwest 3-gun monthly match at CMMG. In August i came in 28th, this month I came in 8th and I feel like i could have done better on a few things. I also could have potentially picked up some time if i had taken a reshoot on stage 3 because it took 9 shots to knock over a plate on the plate rack due to a bent foot that was not letting it fall over.

I think the majority of the improvement has been in my pistol and i still have a long way to go.

9mm = 157
12 ga = 65
.223 = 118

 

[JTMaddox]

on september 20-21 I was setting up for the G3G shotgun match and shot a few parts of the stages to make sure everything worked correctly. It was cool to experience designing and setting up a stage. Lots of work but a good learning experience.

12ga = 50

 

[JTMaddox]

on september 22 we had the match. there were a lot of new shooters there and Aaron and I did a lot of answering questions on what/how to do things. I tried to let them know that I was by no means an expert, but if I was shooting it here is what i might do. It was also a valuable learning experience to have to break something down in your head to the point that you can explain it in a way that someone can understand. We had intended to shoot the match with the RO's before hand but there was still a lot to be done so Aaron and I didn't even get to shoot the match that day.

 

[JTMaddox]

On September 23 I figured since we went to all the trouble to organize this whole thing I was sure as hell going to get my money's worth before we tore it all down. Aaron, my 16 year old son Jacob, and I shot the match that morning. We recorded our first time through for score, but then re-shot the stages several times...just because we could. It was like twisting his arm to get Jacob to go shoot, but i was really proud of how well he did. He has probably only shot a few hundred rounds of 12 ga in his life and hasn't picked up his gun in at least 4 months.

We decided that since we designed everything to not count Aaron's or my scores in the overall match ranking so we just posted our first run times at the bottom without points.

It probably helped knowing the stage layouts so well, but I was really pleased with the way I shot it. Even my first run times would have given me one stage win and the overall win both by points and by adjusted time. Subsequent runs improved from there.

12ga = 250
.45 = 4

 

[JTMaddox]

last night i actually got some time to practice again. I loaded up 250 9mm on my new press and went out behind the house to try them out. I shot at the texas star for a while and then tried doing the spinner with pistol (unsuccessfully) then i shot steel plates and finished up with a round of dot torture from 5yds before it started raining.

I practiced shotgun reloading for an hour in the basement and noticed that i was not as smooth as I was the last time I practiced so i just slowed it down and worked on getting it perfect. I switched over to APCustom classic 4 shell caddies and need to work more with them.

9mm = 172

 

[JTMaddox]

Live fire today. Worked shotgun this morning, set up 3 poppers with pigeon flippers and practiced shooting all 3 poppers and then breaking all 3 clays. Then practiced on the Texas star working on cleaning it faster. Then tried different chokes at different distances on the spinner to try to figure out what works best.

This afternoon I worked on pistol shooting my new hand loads. They smoke like a sumbich...but are pretty low recoil and seem to be pretty accurate, at least with what I was doing. Every one went bang when I pulled the trigger, so they are a step up from the federal value pack from Walmart already.... Shot hanging plates for a while working on transitioning from target to target. Worked on cleaning the star from different distances. Worked on drawing and firing quickly. Finished with 2 rounds of dot torture.

12ga = 125
9mm = 340