I guess accuracy really doesn't matter in open! Haha. Sorry man, couldn't resist.

Good shooting at Area 6. Looks like you're getting faster and more accurate. Keep up the good work.

I've felt like crap the last few days, so I decided to take another week off to fully relax, since that didn't work out last week. Then I saw last night that MPSA is going to have a classifier match right after the normal match. Looks like I'm going to cancel my massage appointment for Saturday and update my classification in Limited.

I suppose I should swap the old parts back in the Edge to make sure it works correctly before Saturday. And I should probably get back to dry-firing.

Haha you're crazy man! Are you bored with Open already?

SCTaylor said:

Haha you're crazy man! Are you bored with Open already?

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Nah. My last real Limited classifier was a 38.5% from October of 2015. I want to shoot some matches in Limited later on this year and I just want a classification equal to my current skill. I'm really hoping it's higher than my current 44.2%.

I shot the MPSA classifier match on Saturday.



I'm definitely not used to the gun and I haven't shot an iron sighted gun in competition in over 8 months. All of my hits were high and left. I'm not sure if the sights aren't adjusted properly, if my trigger control was bad, or if I just didn't have the sights aligned like they should be.

I've been stressed lately and part of it has come from shooting. I've got the Jabs match coming up in a couple weeks, but I have no motivation to dry fire or practice. I also need to load a bunch of 40 ammo for the match and do some intensive testing, so that is nagging at me as well. I've been running around like crazy since A6 and haven't taken the time to just relax and recharge like I planned.

Let's take a look at the goals I stated on 1/9/17:

TennJeep1618 said:

I've been hearing a lot of people talk about goals for 2017, so I started thinking about what my goals should be. So far, I'm thinking:

* Shoot fewer major matches. I shot 7 or 8 majors in 2016. While I really enjoyed them, I feel like my time would be better spent shooting locals and practicing. Plus all of those majors took a toll on my vacation days (not to mention my wallet). I'm currently signed up for the AL Sectional, Area 6, and the Jabs Steel match in March, April, and May, respectively. I'll probably try to shoot another major or two later in the year, but I'm not sure which matches yet.

Part of the reason I've been stressed is the major matches I've been shooting. After Jabs, I'm signed up for the MS State Production match in June and Open match in July. I'll probably shoot the CQB rifle match in August and the Limited match in September as well. While these are major matches, they don't require the travel time and expense like others. Because I've been shooting Open so far this year, that's really the only one I really care about. The others are just for fun to break up some of the monotony. I'm skipping the GA state match and probably won't shoot the LA Gator match either.

* Keep practicing and get better. I'm not making a specific goal about making A or M class, but I want to be able to compete with the A's by the AL sectional in 2 months. I'm not terribly far from that, I just need to keep up the practice and let it work.

I wanted to make A by this time, but it hasn't happened yet. My match scores have been right in the middle of the A class Open shooters at both the AL Sectional and A6, so I feel good about that.

* Take some time off from shooting. I shot a lot in 2016 and didn't take a break. When I started to get burned out in Production, I switched to Open. While that's been a lot of fun and has reinvigorated my dedication, I'm going to need to take some time off this coming year. I may take a month or so off during the heat of the summer, as long as it doesn't interfere with any major matches.

I took a week or so off after A6, but life kept me crazy busy during that time so it wasn't relaxing. I've decided to take a month off after Jabs, but I can't decide if I'm going to shoot the MS Production match at the end of June with no practice or if I'm going to skip it and just start back practicing Open at the beginning of July. I need some time away from shooting to get excited about it again.

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I shot the MPSA USPSA match this past weekend.



I got off work at lunchtime on Friday and ran up to the range to build a couple stages. I was able to mostly finish 2 of them and I build another on Saturday morning. We were supposed to get a lot of rain, so the stages leaned toward quick and easy to shoot and reset. My stages were 1, 2, and 5.

As far as shooting, it went decently. I hadn't picked up my open gun since A6 and it showed. On stage 1, I lost the dot at the draw. That hasn't happened in quite a while and wouldn't have if I had been dry firing like I should have.

I dryfired a little with my Limited gun last night, trying to get familiar with drawing to an iron sight picture and reloading from all 5 mag pouches on my belt. I'm going to be using my Open gun for the rest of the week, since that's the division I care about.

I shot the 2017 Precision Tactical Jabs Extreme Steel Target Challenge this past weekend.

I had little to no motivation for shooting going into the match, so my expectations weren't high. I especially had very limited practice with an iron sighted gun in the last 9 months, so I shot that division just for fun.

Irons POV Video:



Irons 3rd Person Video:



It was obvious I hadn't had much practice with iron sights before this match. I caught myself burying the front sight in the rear notch, but I struggled to make myself correct it during the stages. I've never done that before, so I'm not sure what caused me to perceive that as "normal." I finished 2nd place in B class, only 2 plates behind the winner.

Open POV Video:



Open 3rd Person Video:



I shot a little better in Open, especially once I made myself be a little more deliberate when aiming than I was in the first few stages. I finished 2nd place in B class in this division as well, but the winner beat me by 28 plates, shooting a Carry Optics gun. His score was right up there with the GM's and M's, so I'm guessing his true classification hasn't caught up with him yet.

Shoot-Off Video:



I finished 23rd overall, but because a couple people weren't there on Sunday and several folks were in the top 16 twice (once in each division), I snuck in the shoot-off. I wasn't expecting to be in the shoot-off, much less do well, but I pulled off a couple wins and finished in 4th place. Everyone I shot against was a Master, so I'm pretty pleased with my performance.

Now I'm taking a month off from shooting. I planned on doing some fishing with my dad this weekend, but it looks like the weather isn't going to cooperate. I'm going on vacation in a couple weeks and I may do a little dry fire if I get bored, but I don't feel the pressure of having to do any training. I'm going to shoot the MS State Production match at the end of the month, with no expectations whatsoever. It feels really weird having a weekend with no plans revolving around shooting. For the past few months, I've been either shooting a match, testing guns/ammo, reloading, or something else that revolved around USPSA. I'm going to do a whole lot of nothing this weekend and I'm really excited about it.

I shot the MS State Open Championship last weekend. The weather went blazing sun/downpour/blazing sun/downpour/blazing sun, which made the day fairly miserable for shooting a gun with an optic.

Even through the weather issues, I was able to maintain good focus and shoot my most consistent major match to date, by far. I didn't have any great stages, but I didn't have any especially bad stages either. I had 3 no-shoots, but no mikes because I either made up the shots or got points for the hit by breaking the perf.

I finished 9th out of 87 overall at 71.55% of Max Michel and won B class by 7.5%.

3rd Person video:




POV video:

Finally made it out of B class in Open with the most recent classifier update.



I've been waiting to post the Classifier match video from a couple weeks ago until the update went through, so I could post the actual percentages. That will be up sometime soon.

Sent from my SM-G920V using Tapatalk

TennJeep1618 said:

Finally made it out of B class in Open with the most recent classifier update.

I've been waiting to post the Classifier match video from a couple weeks ago until the update went through, so I could post the actual percentages. That will be up sometime soon.

Sent from my SM-G920V using Tapatalk

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Congrats!

pcolagunner said:

Congrats!

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Thanks!

Here is the video:

POV Video:


3rd Person Video:


I shot the MPSA match on Saturday and it was definitely a learning experience. Looking back now, my mind was so fried by the time the match started, I shouldn't have competed. I came dangerously close to breaking the 180 during "make ready" on our second stage and didn't even realize it. I had several mental errors and add to that gun problems that I thought were fixed. It was a very rough match, but I was so exhausted that I didn't even care.

I was supposed to go up to the range on Friday and build some stages, but I got stuck and work and couldn't get away. So I woke up really early on Saturday morning and got to the range before 7am. I worked my tail off between 7 and 9:30 and several people who were supposed to get there early to help didn't show up until way late. I had just put my belt on when I was called to shoot first on our first stage (stage 3). Luckily it was simple, because I wasn't prepared. I should have told them to drop me down a few spots and given myself a few minutes to sit down and get my mind in the game, but I didn't want to throw things out of whack.

During the match, I felt like everything was going 1000 miles per hour, but the video makes it look like I was running in quicksand. The trigger on my new open gun isn't resetting consistently and I can't seem to figure out why. I made a couple changes and tested it last week (shot ~200 rounds, including several Bill Drills) and everything worked well. The malfunctions cost me probably 15 seconds or more in the match and definitely dropped me down a couple spots in the overall standings. I've got a few parts on the way that will hopefully fix the issue once and for all.

Lessons learned:

- On days when the heat index is over 100, don't exhaust yourself before the match even starts. It doesn't matter how good the stages are if you shoot them poorly because your brain is fried and your body doesn't want to cooperate.
- If you've been working on setup before a match starts, give yourself 10-15 minutes to sit down, rest, and refresh before the shooters meeting.
- It's hard to know in the moment, but if you feel like your mind isn't right, quit shooting. Shooting when you're physically and/or mentally exhausted can potentially be a safety hazard and just isn't worth it.

I'm back to just not feeling it about shooting, or at least about USPSA. I've got the MS State CQB (rifle) match this weekend and the MS State Limited match later in September, and I would skip both of those matches if they weren't using several of my stage designs. I'm currently frustrated with my new open gun not working correctly, but hopefully the replacement parts will fix those issues. I may get motivated again once I get my limited gun back from the gunsmith, but I'm not counting on it. They've had it for 4 weeks now and I left a message with them yesterday asking about the current status. I would really like to have it back by this weekend so I can chrono the new major PF test loads and start loading ammo for upcoming matches.

I think my current plan is to take a couple months off after the MS Limited match, at least from USPSA. I may still practice a little, especially with my carry guns. And I may even shoot the GSSF match in Mobile in mid October. While GSSF is pretty boring to me, they're liberal with their prizes and it can be a little interesting to shoot something radically different from my normal game. Most of all, I'm looking forward to watching some college football with my wife and throwing a cast net with my dad during that time.

Ben Stoeger is going to be in in Biloxi in early December, but I don't want to commit to the class because I don't know if I'll be ready to start shooting again by then and I don't want to go into his class right after taking a couple months off. Ideally, I'd like to take a class from someone in Feb/March/April of next year. I may look into flying up to Ohio to take a class from Steve Anderson.

I shot Carry Optics for the first time at the Emerald Coast Practical Shooters match at CORE Shooting Solutions this past Saturday.





I realized on the way to the match that I never truly zeroed the gun. I got it close enough to shoot a plate at 15yds, but never shot it any further than that. After shooting it at paper yesterday, I found that it was printing 3 inches low and 2 inches right at 25yds. I'm pretty sure two of my mikes were a result of the bad zero. The others are all my fault.

This match is one I don't go to very often and I remembered some of the reasons during the match. Stages 1, 2, and 4 were fairly interesting and had some viable options, at least for low cap shooters. About 2/3 of my squad were diligent about helping paste and reset, but the other 1/3 just sat around most of the time. Unfortunately I didn't realize it was happening until the match was almost over. Another problem is the heat on the range. I love the gravel/crushed asphalt in the bays, but the awnings are way back from the shooting area and the ground reflects a lot of light and heat.

As far a my match, I learned a lot. I need to get more familiar with this platform (or whatever platform I decide to stick with in CO), and get used to how the gun/dot behaves during recoil. I started on Stage 3 and tried to shoot this gun like I do my open gun. I learned that I need a lot more visual patience in order to shoot more A's. My A/C ratio was fine for Major PF, but I need more A's when shooting Minor.

Overall, I had a lot of fun shooting a new gun with no expectations and I look forward to learning this new division.

You know it's time to end the dry fire session when both your hand and your face is bloody.

TennJeep1618 said:

You know it's time to end the dry fire session when both your hand and your face is bloody.

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Lucy, you got some 'splaining to do.....

bohica793 said:

Lucy, you got some 'splaining to do.....

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About 30 minutes in, I was pushing the speed pretty hard, doing some 6 reload 6 drills. I missed a reload and smashed my pinky finger. Then about 5 minutes later, I missed another reload and the mag bounced off the gun and hit the bridge of my nose.

TennJeep1618 said:

About 30 minutes in, I was pushing the speed pretty hard, doing some 6 reload 6 drills. I missed a reload and smashed my pinky finger. Then about 5 minutes later, I missed another reload and the mag bounced off the gun and hit the bridge of my nose.

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Impressive. That takes talent.

bohica793 said:

Impressive. That takes talent.

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Indeed.