I changed up my dry fire a little yesterday. I've been mostly in speed mode lately, since that's my current limiting factor. I started in speed mode yesterday, working on draws, reloads, and transitions. Then I switched to match mode and drew on tight or far targets, worked on transitioning from open to tight targets and vice versa, and I also worked on unloaded starts, turn and draws, etc.

My goal is to make my match mode practice harder than what I expect to see in actual matches.

I guess there is no such thing as a bad dry fire session, but mine last night was probably about as close as it gets.

My blood sugar decided to fall through the floor about 2 minutes into the session, which meant I had to take a break and go eat something. Once I started feeling better, I got back to it, but I just couldn't muster the same intensity as normal. Regardless, I did some work on unloaded starts, turn and draws, drawing to hard targets, and a few reloads.

The GA stages won't be published until they are approved by the NROI. Texas had a lot of unloaded starts and the AL State IDPA match had a lot of moving targets, so I'm anxious to see what kind of kinks GA will throw at us.

I've been sticking with the dry fire pretty consistently since the last update. My goal is to dry fire 5 days a week (live fire can count as one of those days), and I've kept that up for the last 2 weeks.

I decided to shoot the BPSA classifier match yesterday afternoon, mainly in order to get classified in Open so I can start shooting it after GA. I went ahead and shot the 3 classifier stages in Production as well, but things didn't go very well. I shot the following:

Production
CM 99-22 - 17.71%
CM 13-06 - 67.82%
CM 09-14 - 15.36%

The first stage, I pulled a No-Shoot/Mike, which killed the score. The second was pretty solid, I just dropped a couple C's that I shouldn't have. The third stage felt good, but I pulled a shot low into hard cover.

Open
CM 99-22 - 51.69%
CM 13-06 - 80.39%
CM 09-14 - 21.84%

I'm not terribly upset with my Open scores, considering I haven't taken the time to get used to the dot yet. The first stage was going well, then I got on the trigger a little early after the reload and sent a round right over the shoulder of one of the targets. The second stage was solid, my highest classifier to date. The third stage was pretty fast (except for hunting the dot after the draw), but I didn't let the dot settle enough on the second shot on the second target, pulling one low into the hard cover (almost the same spot as in Production). Being only a 6 round stage, that one dropped shot killed the score.

My plan is to do live fire practice this coming weekend, shoot ECPS on 8/20, then GA State on 8/28, with lots of dry fire in between.

I could tell you were hunting the dot a lot on the draw and after reloads. I had the same problem with the vertical mount on my open gun, as it changed the site plane and required a lower grip.

They say after a ton of practice it won't be a problem, but if you plan on switching back and forth frequently like I do you might want to consider a horizontal mount. When I changed to that it eliminated my problem without requiring a ton of practice reps, and I switch back and forth from open to limited each month for steel matches and USPSA.

mosher said:

I could tell you were hunting the dot a lot on the draw and after reloads. I had the same problem with the vertical mount on my open gun, as it changed the site plane and required a lower grip.

They say after a ton of practice it won't be a problem, but if you plan on switching back and forth frequently like I do you might want to consider a horizontal mount. When I changed to that it eliminated my problem without requiring a ton of practice reps, and I switch back and forth from open to limited each month for steel matches and USPSA.

Click to expand...

I was definitely searching for the dot. I'm planning on shooting Open full time after Georgia, I just wanted to get some classifiers in so I can hopefully be classified by the Gator match in October.

Hattiesburg is doing a classifier match in August, but I think it's same day as Georgia state.

I'm shooting Georgia on Friday I'll try get my videos up that night so y'all can peek the stages.

mosher said:

Hattiesburg is doing a classifier match in August, but I think it's same day as Georgia state.

I'm shooting Georgia on Friday I'll try get my videos up that night so y'all can peek the stages.

Click to expand...

Sweet. I'll keep my eyes peeled for them. I'm driving up Saturday morning and shooting Sunday morning, so hopefully I'll have a chance to walk them, or at least film others shooting them on Saturday afternoon.

I decided to forego dry fire yesterday in favor of going for a 3.25 mile run in the rain. It was the first time I've run in almost 2 months and the rain was about the only way it was bearable. If the sun had been shining, it probably wouldn't have been longer than 2 miles. I'm going to keep running a little, while mainly focusing on dry fire in the afternoons for the next few weeks.

I had a great training week.

I did 30-60 minutes of dry fire Tuesday-Friday, worked on tight shots, leans, reloads and lots of movement. My wonderful wife didn't mind me running from the dining room to the kitchen while practicing moving into and out of shooting positions while she was watching TV a few feet away.

It finally dried out enough to get to the range for some live fire training today, unfortunately everyone else had been waiting as well. I wasn't able to do everything I wanted because I had to work around all of the other people at the range. I still was able to do a little movement work, some 25 yard Bill drills, draws, transitions, reloads, and partial targets.

Today was most likely my last live fire practice before GA State. I'm going to shoot MPSA next weekend to get back into match mode, then it'll be dry fire only before GA. I feel so much more prepared than I did before the Texas Open. Hopefully that'll translate into better execution.

Short dry fire session yesterday. I made the mistake of sitting down on the couch when I got home yesterday afternoon and it was difficult to make myself get up. I did, though, and ran through some basics in dry fire. Just some draws and reloads over about 20 minutes. I'm going to do some Burkett reloads and target transition work the rest of the week.

My goal has been to dry fire at least 4 times and live fire once a week. I've exceeded that over the last 2 weeks, which is a great feeling.

I shot the MPSA USPSA match this past Saturday and learned some things, as always.

One of the biggest things I learned is that I was still in speed mode from all the speed practice I've been doing lately. I out-shot my sights a lot over the course of the day, which isn't good. Besides a little of that in the Texas Open, I really haven't had that problem since I first started shooting competitions. I can't afford to do that in the GA match this weekend, so I'm going to dry fire in match mode all this week.



Besides dropping too many points, there were a couple other things I should have done differently.

My plan for Stage 4 went out of the window when the buzzer beeped. I have no idea what I was thinking, but it wasn't about my plan. I pulled either my third or forth shot into the barrel, resulting in a Mike. I skipped the first steel target (which I should have just shot from the port after I realized my mistake) and I shot the targets through the second port way out of my planned order.

On Stage 3, my foot position was all wrong when I went to the far right position (see photo below). It took a lot of time to get my balance before I could shoot.



So, match mode dry fire all week and I'm going to focus on seeing my sights/calling my shots at GA.

Time for an update.

Right now I'm sitting in my hotel room in Cumming, GA, eating supper. I'm going to do a little dry fire, take a shower, then try to get to sleep early. Tomorrow is going to be an early morning (shooting starts at 7:15am, Eastern time). I walked the stages this afternoon and I'm confident in my plan for most of them. I am going to be getting to the range extra early, because there are a few stages I wasn't able to walk and they look to have a couple different options to them. I shot some video, but I still want to walk them myself, before the 3 minute walk-through.

Although I'll never feel truly ready for a big match, I feel confident that I can shoot to my level of skill. I'm fully capable of seeing my sights on every shot and I plan to do that. I need to maintain my mental focus throughout the match, and I'll shoot as well as I'm capable. There is a chance of t-storms/rain tomorrow morning, but I'm not worried. Bring it on. We'll just get wet and keep shooting.

Since I haven't updated this week, here's what I've done:

Dry fired Monday, Wednesday and Thursday without using par times. I just used the buzzer to start and dry fired in "match mode," making up shots when I felt my sight picture wasn't what it should be. I'm going to start ending every dry fire session this way, as I think it will help me always be ready for matches. Friday, I was fortunate enough to get the day off work, so I ran to the range for about 2 hours of live fire. I wasn't pushing speed, I just shot as fast as my sights would allow. Practiced on some tight partials and even fired my G17 backup gun a few times. I'm feeling good and ready to start shooting!

(Oh, I had some guy stop me at the range and tell me "that competition sh*t will get you killed in the streets!" I try not to make a habit of arguing with idiots, so I just laughed as I walked away. I've always heard the saying, but I've never had anyone act offended that I choose to shoot and practice for competition rather than always practicing self defense.)

Good luck buddy!

Sent from my SM-N910V using Tapatalk

I've never shot competition but I want you to know that I follow and enjoy reading all of your updates and wish you luck. And as far as "competition shooting getting you killed in the streets" I sure as heck wouldn't want to try to rob you, and I feel very confident that even though I've been to a few self defense training classes, with several different instructors that you are much more likely to fair better than me in any type of deadly force encounter. Keep up the good work and I look forward to an update tomorrow.

good luck bro. have a blast! PS shooting fast and not missing will get "you killed in the streets"..........good to know. so glad you ran into a street commando, and passed the knowledge on to us.

Thanks, guys. I'll be done by around noon tomorrow. I'll probably stick around for a little while and watch some guys before I come back to the hotel for a shower and A/C before going back tomorrow evening for the awards ceremony. I'll try to give an update when I make it back to the hotel.

Edit: I'm still trying to figure out breakfast. As far as I can tell, the only place open when I leave the hotel will be the waffle house next door. I may just stick with some granola bars and trail mix...

About to leave the hotel. It's still pitch black outside.

Sent from my SM-G920V using Tapatalk

Good luck bro!

Update time.

Have you every walked stages by flashlight? I have! The gate opened up at 6am, I was the 3rd car through and it didn't start getting light enough to see without a flashlight until 6:30am.

I felt I shot a pretty solid match, overall. However, my placement isn't where I hoped it would be (of course, I can't control how others shoot). I know I dropped too many points on a few stages, but there were others where I lost a lot of time and don't know why. I've got to watch some other people's match videos to see how they were able to shoot so much quicker than me.

It was a fun match, not as technical as Texas. A lot of fast stages, but with a few difficult targets thrown in. There were several stages with more than one viable stage plan.

I finished 51/121 in Production and something like 12th out of 36 in B class. Video is rendering. I hope to stay awake long enough to start uploading it to youtube. Been a long day and I'm tired. Very glad I didn't try to drive home today.

Video is uploading. Should show up here in the next hour or so. I'm gonna crash.