baldrage's shooting log

[baldrage]

Another short match at the NRA range with three stages plus a 5X5 classifier.  I had two expert-level guys on my squad shooting carry optics who blazed through the match, and I unconsciously pressed, trying to match their speed.  This resulted in the ?rush, try, hurry fail? phenomenon all action pistol fans are familiar with -- I had two mikes on the second stage, and a lot of -1s and a -3 on the 5X5 classifier (good thing for me you can't be demoted in IDPA!) .  I came away disappointed with my failure to stay in ?match mode? and assumed I would finish middle of the pack, but when the scores were released this morning, I finished 9/35 overall, and 2/10 in SS.  Apparently my two good stages were good enough to balance out my two poor stages.

Take-aways from this match:

- Need to consciously practice keeping trigger finger high and clear during movement.  RO mentioned to me after the match that my finger was creeping down near the trigger guard.  Not enough for a penalty, but close enough to merit correction.

- Need to work on moving quickly/?bursting? between shooting positions.  A fellow shooter was kind enough to take video of me on two stages, and it looks like I am moving in slow-motion!  Draws and reloads were smooth and fast enough, but clearly lacking urgency on foot movement.  First time I have ever seen video of myself shooting, and there is a lot to take away from it.

- Need to change my practice schedule to emphasize ?match mode? shooting for a few days prior to a match.  I?ve really been going hard on ?speed mode? in my dry-fire practice, and this may have contributed to ?rush, try, hurry, fail? on a few stages.

- Need to continue working on mental game.  Don?t get caught up in how other shooters are performing and don?t think about match results during the match.  Easy to say, hard to follow-through on match day!

[baldrage]

Live Fire Training, May 30, 2018

Dot torture - 49/50, missed one on SHO, #5.  The misses on #1 were from me adjusting the rear sight.  Thought for sure I was going to clean the drill this time out!

05302018_DOT by baldrage, on Flickr

Walk-back.  Forgot to bring my pack of index cards, so I shot this with 5" circle targets:
10 yards - 5/5, 5/5
15 yards - 3/5, 5/5
20 yards - 4/5, 4/5
25 yards - 5/5, 4/5

05302018_WALKBACK by baldrage, on Flickr

Bullseye at 25 yards - 69/100.  Not fantastic, but I was getting a lot of light strikes by this time, so six of the 10 shots were in DA.
05302018_25BULLSEYE by baldrage, on Flickr

Switched over to 9mm.  Thought I would shoot the new IDPA 5X5 abbreviated classifier a few times:
05302018_IDPA by baldrage, on Flickr

SHO/WHO at 7 yards:  10/10 SHO, 17/20 WHO:

05302018_WHO-SHO by baldrage, on Flickr

Finished up shooting some FAST drills, trying to break 7 seconds.  Came close, but missed one head shot each time for -2 second penalty, so best I did was 8 seconds.

[baldrage]

Great match this weekend at Fairfax Rod and Gun Club (FXRGC).  Match Directors and SOs moved almost 100 shooters through registration/shooting safely and efficiently, under an omni-present threat of thunderstorms that fortunately held off until the match had ended.  As always, staff working the match and my fellow shooters were extremely pleasant and bent over backwards to help out those participating in their first match.

I had my best finish ever ? 5th out of 97 overall, 2/20 in SS and 3/20 in ESP.  I beat one M-class shooter and a half-dozen Experts, so extremely pleased with my performance!  I have to give a huge shout-out to Steve Anderson ? I?ve been listening to his pod-cast, and have 100% embraced his approach to dry-fire practice and Match-Mode, and it is really paying off for me.  I highly encourage anyone that participates in any type of shooting competition to check out his pod-casts for invaluable insight into how to approach practice and the mental game

My take-aways from my last match were: to not worry about results during the match, and to dry-fire in Match Mode rather than Speed Mode in the last few days prior to the match.  I succeeded in both, and had great results on match day.  So my take-away from this match is just to employ the exact same approach, and see if this formula continues to pay off.

[baldrage]

Live Fire Training, June 12, 2018

Started off with the Kadet Kit, doing some draw-and-shoot to work on first DA shot.  Results were pretty good:

06122018_PRESSOUT by baldrage, on Flickr

Walk-back -- really good out to 20 yards, 3/5 at 25 yards:

06122018_WALKBACK by baldrage, on Flickr

Bullseye at 25 yards -- 74/100 on first ten shots, then had a lot of light strikes on second ten shots, resulting in DA re-tries, only 52/100:
06122018_25BULLSEYE by baldrage, on Flickr

This was my second outing with a 17# hammer spring, which is supposed to be 100% with the Kadet Kit.  Still had a lot of light strikes in SA, which is surprising.  I will put the Fed Automatch on the shelf and try with CCI minimags next time out to see if the problem persists.

Switched over to 9mm and SHO/WHO at 7 yards.  SHO was OK, usual 8/10.  WHO started off really bad, 2/10, then got better as I remembered to just let the recoil happen -- 6/10, 7/10, 9/10.
06122018_WHO-SHO by baldrage, on Flickr

Finished with transition drill at 10 yards, and did terrible.  Definitely shooting in rhythm instead of getting a good sight picture, combined with flinching on first DA shot.

06122018_TRANSITION by baldrage, on Flickr

[baldrage]

Live Fire Training, June 19, 2018

Shot well tonight!

Dot torture: 48/50

06192018_DOT by baldrage, on Flickr

Press-out drill at 3 yards, only missed a handful of shots:
06192018_PRESSOUT by baldrage, on Flickr

Walk-back drill:  again, very solid out to 20 yards; 25 yards was either feast or famine:
06192018_WALKBACK by baldrage, on Flickr

Bullseye -- not so good, 59/100 and 57/100:
06192018_25BULLSEYE by baldrage, on Flickr

Switched over to 9mm, Draw and Shoot 1, hit 23/25, nice job with the heavy 17# hammer spring in DA:
06192018_DRAW1 by baldrage, on Flickr

SHO/WHO at 7 yards -- started off really bad with each hand, but last 10-shot strings were perfect 10/10 SHO and 8/10 WHO:
06192018_WHO-SHO by baldrage, on Flickr

Transition drill at 10 yards, much better this week.  I made sure to wait the extra .1 or .2 second to get a good sight picture:
06192018_TRANSITION by baldrage, on Flickr

Finished up shooting IDPA 5X5 classifer with 9mm and some .40.  All but a handful of the misses were with .40.  Shooting a bit left is a persistent problem with my .40 slide -- either sights are slightly off, or I am flinching a bit in anticipation of recoil.
06192018_CLASSIFIER by baldrage, on Flickr

[baldrage]

Gotta post the bad with the good, so ... after finishing a career-high 5th out of 97 at my previous IDPA match, I plummeted back to reality, finishing 22/45 at my last match at Anne Arundel Fish and Game Club on June 22.  Forecast was for heavy rain, so the MD designed an all-steel target match, and this was my first time shooting so much steel, including a Texas Star.  I did pretty well on four out of the five stages, enough to finish top-third in a field with lots of Expert and several Master-level shooters, but I had one disastrous stage with three mikes due to a stubborn piece of steel that wouldn't fall, and that one bad stage was enough to drop me from the 14-15-16 range down to 22nd.  Still had a great time and really enjoyed shooting a "Steel IDPA Challenge."  Hats off to the MD and SOs at AAFG for another fun match!

Some pics of a couple of the stages:

Bay 1, with first stage on the right (swinging target and one small target attached to a no-shoot), and second stage on the left (various small steel targets balanced on poles). 
IMG_0147 by baldrage, on Flickr

Bay 2, stage 3 (plate rack and Texas Star)
IMG_0149 by baldrage, on Flickr

Bay 3, stage 4 on the right (five steel IDPA targets, with four additional big steel rectangles behind them), and my nemesis, stage 5 on the left (two cascading rows of steel poppers, with several additional poppers in the middle).  It took me five or six hits on one of the big poppers on the right to get it to fall, which resulted in me running out of ammo with three targets left standing, for a whopping -15 on this stage alone.  I should have just skipped it and come back after addressing the other targets, but had brain-lock/tunnel vision in the heat of the moment.  Lesson learned.
IMG_0150 by baldrage, on Flickr

[baldrage]

Live Fire Training, July 7, 2018

My next IDPA match is going to be a "big bore" match in which shooters are encouraged to use .45 and .40.  I will be using the .40 slide with my SP01 Shadow, so wanted to get in extra .40 practice this week.

First up, IDPA 5X5 classifier at 10 yards, along with a mag or two of head shots.  As you can see, I have a tendency to flinch with the .40, pulling everything to the left.
07072018_IPSC by baldrage, on Flickr

Some draw-and-shoot-one drills at 7 yards, working on not flinching:
07072018_DRAW 1 by baldrage, on Flickr

Some right and left-hand only drills at 7 yards.  7/10 SHO and 19/20 WHO:
07072018_WHO-SHO by baldrage, on Flickr

Finished up the .40 work with some IDPA drills, 1/3 sized targets at 7 yards, two shots to each body, then 2 shots to each head, 8 second facing time.  Inconsistent -- had some really good strings, and couple of poor ones, finishing -3, -10, -1, -6, and 0:
07072018_IDPA by baldrage, on Flickr

Switched over to 9mm, and did the walk-back drill:  perfect at 25 yards, but only 3/5 at both 20 and 15 yards:
07072018_WALKBACK by baldrage, on Flickr

Finally found some Alliant Sport Pistol Powder while on vacation over 4th of July, so finished by testing out some loads:  124 gr PD JHP, 1.10 OAL, 3.8, 4.0, 4.2, and 4.4 gr of Sport Pistol, S&B primers, mixed brass.  Only tested at 7 yards, so looking mainly at recoil characteristics and smoke.  Think I will load to 4.1 gr for IDPA:
07072018_SP 9MM by baldrage, on Flickr

[baldrage]

I haven't posted anything about dry-fire for quite a while, as reading about someone else's dry-fire routine is normally pretty boring, but just in case anyone is still following along and maybe looking for dry-fire ideas ...

I've mentioned several times in the last month or so about how I've really bought into Steven Anderson's approach to dry-fire practice and match-mode, so I've used the first 12 drills in his "Refinement and Repetition" book as the core of my practice routine.  My dry-fire area in my basement is only about 18' long, roughly 6 yards, so I've had to adapt by using either FAST targets (printed on 8.5 X 11" paper, so slightly reduced size) or 1/3-scale IDPA targets. 

I have three basic routines, each takes about 30 minutes (including time to pull out gear and secure/clean-up when finished).  My goal is to dry-fire 4 times/week and live-fire 1/week.  I usually do the "Core Skills" twice, then "Movement" and "Plate Drills" once each during the course of a week.  This doesn't count dry-firing the Dot Torture target I have hanging near my work-bench, which I'll do anytime I have my pistol out for cleaning or maintenance.

Routine 1:  Core Skills (FAST Targets)
Fast Draw to sight picture
Turn & Draw to sight picture
Burkett Reloads
FAST
6 reload 6
SHO 6/WHO 6
 
Routine 2:  Movement Drills (FAST Targets)
Box to Box - Side
Box to Box - Forward
Upper 6 on the Move
Forward 6 on 3, 3 on 3
Entry to barricade (standing), 2 IDPA targets
Entry to barricade (kneeling), 2 IDPA targets
 
Routine 3:  Plate Drills (I use 6 4X6" index cards stapled to a 4' wooden rod as my plate rack facsimile)
Plate Index
Straight Plates
Plate Transitions
Plate Loads
Plates on the Move

All of my dry-fire is done in "speed mode" and I keep track of the PAR times, but the day or two before a match, I'll set up a mini-stage with five or six targets, and run through it a few times in "match mode" with no timer to try and reduce any tendency to rush/try/hurry/fail on match day.

[baldrage]

Monthly IDPA match at Fairfax Rod & Gun Club (FXRGC).  In honor of Independence Day and "'Merica!", shooters were encouraged, but not required, to use "Big Bore" guns, either .40 or .45 for this match.  I used a .40 slide I had bought from another forum member, my first time shooting .40 in a match setting.  I used SNS 180 gr RNFP, 4.1 gr Sport Pistol, S&B primers, 1.128 OAL for my ammo, so not full-on major power factor, but not a minimum power factor load, either.

Murphy's Law struck, as the RNFP failed to feed properly and caused jams on two out of the five stages of the match.  I have shoot over a thousand of these bullets in practice, and never had a jam, but the shooting gods mandate these type of things happen on match day, so I tapped-racked-banged and got on with it, but those jams easily caused me 5-10 seconds.  I finished 23rd out of 96 overall, 4/13 in ESP, and 5/22 SS-class shooters.  I also finished 10th out of the 43 participants who elected to shoot "Big Bore."  Not bad for my first match shooting .40, and if it weren't for the two jams, I would have been even more pleased with my performance.

I had a great time, even with the gun malfunctions, and appreciate the hard work the MD and all of the SOs put into setting up and running the match.  Not an easy task to move 100 people through safely and efficiently, but they did a great job!


Quick review of the stages:
After a quick warm-up stage of five shots at five yards, the first stage involved punching a target, then drawing and moving to cover to engage three targets on the left, and three targets on the right.  Pretty straightforward and I finished down only 3 points, and fast enough to rank 10th on this stage.
IMG_0260 by baldrage, on Flickr

Next stage involved some longer-range shooting, 5 shots at 25, 20, and 15 yards.  Easy to tell who practiced at longer ranges and who didn't on this stage.  The lighting and ground slope make shooting in this particular bay always tricky, so I was happy to finish down 8, good enough for 13th overall on this stage.
IMG_0261 by baldrage, on Flickr

Next stage, "pew pew in the pews," represented a defensive situation in a church scenario, with the shooter beginning seated, then moving to low cover to engage one target with a head shot, and two other targets on one side of the cover, then the same type of target array on the other side of cover, with two steel targets that could be engaged from either side.  This is one of the stages where my gun jammed, and although I recovered quickly, it blew my stage plan, and I was flustered and shot poorly, finishing -17 (two missed head shots).
IMG_0258 by baldrage, on Flickr

IMG_0259 by baldrage, on Flickr

Last stage mimicked shooting at some angry bears in a camping scenario, and required six shots on a close-in standing target, before moving to cover and engaging a target array on the left and on the right.  Pretty easy stage, but my gun jammed, and a round stove-piped, which took me several attempts to clear.  I finished down only 2 points, but my time was poor due to the malfunction.
IMG_0263 by baldrage, on Flickr

[baldrage]

Live Fire Training, July 17, 2017

Changed things up a bit by doing my normal routine in reverse -- first shooting some .40, then 9 mm, then ending with .22.

First up, draw-and-shoot-one/two (one shot on the top circle, two shots on the bottom circle) with .40:

07172018_DRAW 1 by baldrage, on Flickr

After that warm-up, switched over to 9mm and some one-handed practice:
07172018_WHO-SHO by baldrage, on Flickr

Two runs on the IDPA 5X5 classifier at 10 yards.  First run was very good, finished only down 3.  Rushed it on the second run-through and missed the head shot low, so -8.  Finished up with 10 shots at the head, and hit 8/10.
07172018_CLASSIFIER by baldrage, on Flickr

Tried out a new shot-calling drill inspired by a fellow forum member, as described here: http://www.czfirearms.us/index.php?topic=98418.0.  Fun little drill, and I will incorporate this into my routine.

07172018_CALLIT by baldrage, on Flickr

Finished up with Kadet kit.  Just missed cleaning dot torture:
07172018_DOT by baldrage, on Flickr

Walk-back drill was OK, started getting a lot of light strikes, requiring me to shoot much of this in DA:
07172018_WALKBACK by baldrage, on Flickr

Finished with 25 yard bullseye.  100% light strikes in SA, so I had to shoot this completely in DA, and results were not great:
07172018_25BULLSEYE by baldrage, on Flickr

[baldrage]

Live Fire Training, July 24, 2018

Main focus of tonight's session was shooting with both eyes open.  I've really been working on this in dry-fire, and even though I still see two sets of sights and two targets, I think I'm starting to get the hang of it, and wanted to see how I did in live fire.

Started off with draw-and-shoot one/two at 5 yards, emphasis on getting an adequate sight picture and breaking the shot just prior to pistol reaching full extension:

07242018_DRAW 1 by baldrage, on Flickr

IDPA 5X5 classifier.  First two runs were in "speed mode", not too worried about accuracy, just trying to see what it feels like to push this really fast in live fire.  Third run was in "match mode", still fast, but not pushing for a specific time and ensuring adequate sight picture/trying to call the shot:

07242018_CLASSIFIER by baldrage, on Flickr

Single-handed shooting.  Closed one eye for this drill, as shooting one handed with two sets of sights and targets floating in my vision is too hard for me at this point.
07242018_WHO-SHO by baldrage, on Flickr

Switched back to both eyes open for "call it" drill.  This worked much better at 7 yards, than the 5 yards I did last week:
07242018_CALLIT by baldrage, on Flickr

Switched over to Kadet kit for one run at Dot Torture to finish things out.  On a whim, did it at four yards and just missed cleaning it!
07242018_DOT by baldrage, on Flickr

[baldrage]

Shot another fun IDPA match at the Anne Arundel Fish and Game Club (AAFG) near Annapolis, Maryland, last saturday.  The pucker factor involved in driving into maryland with a handgun, high-capacity magazines, and several hundred rounds of ammunition is worth it for the great matches that AAFG puts on.  The MD prides himself on pushing shooters out of their comfort zone, and their matches usually draw a pretty skilled group.  In addition, several fellow competitors shoot CZs, and my SP01 Shadow Custom always gets some jealous/good-natured remarks, so they have great taste in firearms!

The match consisted of one short warm-up stage, the 5X5 classifier, and five regular stages.  With one exception, I shot to the best of my ability and ended up finishing 10th out 35 shooters, 4th of 10 in ESP, and 3rd out 13 SS-class competitors.  However, with the exception of that one stage, I did well on all of the other stages, finishing from 5th to 14th, so overall pretty pleased with my performance.

Thanks to the MD and SOs at AAFG for another safe, fun, and challenging match!

A mini-summary of the 4 regular stages:

Stage 1 - started with shooter seated in "car"; engage a steel popper, then stand, stomp on a plate to activate an up/down target, then move to the barrels and engage another steel popper and two paper targets, before moving into a "house" to engage additional paper targets and a swinger.  A lot going on in this stage, but I moved well and shot well, finishing only -2, good enough for 10th.
07282018_AAFG_Bay 1 Right by baldrage, on Flickr

Stage 2 - Began with hands on the "bank teller window", then engaging several paper targets from low cover/through the slats, before dropping even further -- under the counter -- to engage the steel "leg" on a target at the back of the array, causing it to fall, where the entire target became visible and was dispatched with additional rounds on paper.  I did just OK, good enough for 14th.
07282018_AAFG Bay 1 Left by baldrage, on Flickr

Stage 3 - Began with both hands on the left-most wall/barrier.  At buzzer, engage several far targets around the left side of the wall, before moving right to the stomp-plate, engaging a paper target hidden behind a swinging no-shoot, then continuing to the next wall an engage a steel popper and additional paper targets around the far right end.  Not a great photo, but this was my best run of the day, good enough for 5th place on this stage.
07282018_AAFG_Bay 2 by baldrage, on Flickr

Stage 4 - Began by engaging two paper targets on the left while retreating, then shooting several paper targets and one swinger from the right side of the wall, before moving to the next wall to engage several paper targets, and finally moving to another wall and engaging a close-up paper target through a window.  I had a heck of a time hitting the swinger on this one, but still finished -7, good enough for 12th on this stage.
07282018_AAFG_Bay3 Left by baldrage, on Flickr

Stage 5 - Looking at the picture above, began at the wall on the far right, facing up-range.  On the buzzer, shooter could move either left or right to engage a paper target and steel popper, which activated a no-shoot that swung back-and-forth in front of two paper targets.  The swinging no-shoot/targets were at a severe angle and very difficult to engage while staying behind cover -- I had a miss, finishing -9 and only 25th on this stage.

[baldrage]

Delaware State IDPA Championship, Bridgeville, DE, August 4, 2018

My first Tier III match.  I went into this match with no expectations other than getting experience shooting a major sanctioned match and trying out a new venue.

Bad news first:  I was DQ'd due to my ammo not making Power Factor.  The load was  PD 124 JHP, 4.1 gr (I thought) Alliant Sport Pistol, 1.08 OAL, FC brass, Win primers.   Just missed it, as my top 3 fastest rounds were 124 PF, 124 PF, and 125 PG.  I was chronoed 2/3 of the way through the match, and allowed to finish shooting the match for no score, but still disappointing.  On the drive home, I went over and over the load in my mind.  Our resident CZ forum reloading experts, Wobbly and IDescribe, chronoed this exact load at 130-135 PF, so what went wrong?  Were they mistaken?  I knew that couldn't be, so I went back to square one on every aspect of my reloading procedure, and it dawned on me -- I had not zeroed my beam scale in quite a long time.  Got out the check-weights and sure enough, the scale was measuring .4 gr too light!  Lesson learned -- zero the scale every time before loading match ammo!!!!

With the bad news out of the way, the good news is that I shot the match to the best of my current level of skill.  If I hadn't DQ'd, I would have finished 63 out of 175 shooters, so I'll take a (unofficial) top-third finish at my first major match.  I did a great job staying in "match mode" and avoided trying either go too fast, or trying to be too accurate and slow.  I finished down 40 points for the match, with over half of those 40 points coming on two very difficult swinging targets.

A great job by the folks at Bridgeville Rifle and Pistol Club -- match was extremely well-run, hospitality was great, and as you'll see below, the stages were fun and challenging.  I highly recommend that anyone in the mid-Atlantic region come out and shoot this match next year.

Some pics of the various stages below.

IMG_0298 by baldrage, on Flickr

Fun "wild west" stage that started standing at a bar, punching over a target, engaging steel to release two moving targets, then running to the horse trough to go prone and engage the remaining targets.

IMG_0299 by baldrage, on Flickr

IMG_0300 by baldrage, on Flickr

A couple of pics of the "mannequin factory" stage -- no difficult shots, but required close attention to make sure all of the targets holding "weapons" were engaged.

IMG_0303 by baldrage, on Flickr

"Wood you save us" -- had one dropping target and several "surprise" targets that could be engaged on the move.  This was one of my better stages.

IMG_0301 by baldrage, on Flickr

"Barbecue" stage that started holding barbecue utensils with back to the targets. 

IMG_0302 by baldrage, on Flickr

This stage had the shooter engaging targets from a window while seated inside the "truck".

IMG_0304 by baldrage, on Flickr

Standards stage -- engage all three targets with strong hand from one side of the barrier, then switch hands and engage all three targets weak hand from the other side of the barrier.

IMG_0306 by baldrage, on Flickr

This stage featured only two targets, but was perhaps the most difficult stage of the entire match.  One small steel target between the barrels released an incredibly fast swinger, which required 5 hits.  I only got 3 on paper, so I was -11 on this stage alone.

IMG_0307 by baldrage, on Flickr

"Officer down" was a fun stage that started with gun and reloads on the officer, and shooter on their knees performing CPR on the mannequin.

IMG_0308 by baldrage, on Flickr

"Teller window" had the shooter engaging targets through a barred window while seated on a moving platform (to mimic the "jitters" you would have during a real bank hold-up).

IMG_0309 by baldrage, on Flickr

"Not so amusing" was a complicated stage that involved shooting through a curtain and two swinging targets.  I did well, down only 5 on this stage.

IMG_0310 by baldrage, on Flickr

"Supermarket Shootout" was a difficult stage for many, including me.  Starting with both hands on the shopping cart, shooter engaged targets on the left and right while moving to the barrier to engage several additional targets and a swinger at 12-15 yards (not pictured), before ducking inside the supermarket to engage some additional targets and a dropping target.  That swinger at 15 yards got the better of me (and a lot of other shooters) and I finished down 14 on this stage.

[Jiva]

Looks like a LOT of fun with interesting stages.

[baldrage]

I shot the IDPA match at NRA HQ last night.  Kind of went in cold, as I've been on vacation and then had family in town, therefore no live-fire and only limited dry-fire since my last match three weeks ago.  I could see from the registration that there were a couple of very high-speed shooters on my squad, so I just focused on doing my own thing and trying to call every shot -- i.e., "match mode."   Worked well, I finished 11th out 38 overall, and 4/11 in SS class.  Had one foot fault and one missed head shot that combined to cost me a couple of places, but overall I felt I performed at my current level of skill.