Stage 5

This was an 18-round stage, so I made sure at Make Ready to get a feel for how much force I needed to seat the 23-round mag on a closed slide which I don’t do in matches much. That was helpful.

You had to start in the chair, but it was pretty top-heavy and likely to tip over or get in your way, so I visualized in taking a step off to the side so it was out of the way as I loaded the gun. Some folks chose to shoot from seated but that struck me as risky. It also made transitioning to the left side a regular 180 degree transition.

The headshot on the left was right at the 180, and so I planned a strong cue to shoot it standing still and not try to leave position on it. But I also visualized in that I needed to be aggressive moving to the last position because otherwise it would be a lot of dead time in the middle of the stage. The two came into conflict, and I ended up pulling off the headshot as soon as I saw the dot but before I finished pressing the trigger. That one shot was the largest mistake of the day.

Stage 6

This stage was apparently based on a stage at the VA State match last year (video from Beaker here). On principle, I approve of the the practice of borrowing good stage designs. Not everyone is a great stage designer, and even the best don’t always have 6 good ideas a month. You also always learn something new by setting up good designs from someone else–or even just stealing a section of a stage that has an interesting flow. To my eye, the version of the stage set up at this match was actually much more interesting than the original, with tighter shots and having to work more around the barrels in the middle of the stage. Also the array at the end with the targets at receding distances instead of shoulder to shoulder at close distance was more interesting.

This stage offered two basic options as a consequence of the two start positions. If you start on the left, you have to do a short run forward to be able to shoot all the targets from the box, but then the rest of the movement is left-to-right. If you started on the right start position, it was less overall movement, but all the movement was right-to-left.

As you can see, I chose to just move into position, do the reload moving across, and shoot the right box in two positions. It worked well.

Classifier: Can You Count

All the usual mistakes: didn’t take the classifier seriously because it’s so easy. Was sitting in the shade talking to squadmates while everyone else shot it. When it was time, I was just thinking about grabbing the gun and running the trigger as fast as possible, and rattled off 6 shots instead of the specified 5.

I also have a bad habit of letting the fact that I think a given stage or classifier is stupid give me an excuse for not giving it all my focus. Maybe on my blog I can talk about how this stage is dumb, but in the match, it’s worth points. And the classifier goes on my record, even if it’s low enough to not really matter. Whatever the challenge is in front of you, in order to denigrate it you should first conquer it. And I failed at that here. Biggest mistake of the match.

Stage 2

Another set of targets on the left where it would be very easy to break the 180 leaving. Visualized making sure to finish them before moving on.

The targets on the right were a pretty interesting array. Some folks shot them 1-3-2-4 starting with the ones visible from uprange and then shooting the ones behind the barrels as they could see them. I took the approach to just shoot rolling through, with a short burst of speed for the last target until I had A-zone to shoot at. I think it was a good choice.

Aside from the last two paper targets, all the paper shots were pretty close, but still, I was proud of shooting the whole stage without a Charlie. I made sure to pick a spot on each target, not just shoot near the middle of the cardboard.

Stage 3

Some folks on the squad took the two partials towards the back on the right side as they were moving forward, but I chose to shoot them solidly planted and just rack up Alphas. Various factors just added up to it not being worth it to shoot on the move: being almost 90 degrees off the path I would be moving, being at least 10 yards away, and being partials with about half the A-zone available. If they were closer, or more open, or more along the path of travel, I probably would have tried to roll through on them. But they weren’t, so I didn’t.

Other than that, pretty straightforward stage. 1 Charlie total, which again I was proud of. I definitely was shooting very controlled, perhaps too much so.

Stage 4

Pretty much just one stage plan here since most of the targets were only available from one spot. Four positions. Pretty high shot difficulty, so I took my time and shot extras when something look or felt weird. Everything went pretty well.

During the walkthrough I kept instinctively thinking I would drop the mag when I left the third position, and worked hard to visualize moving out of position, pumping my arm with the gun (to give it something to do instead of reloading), and looking hard at where the next target should be as it comes into view. That worked, which I was happy with. That would have been an awkward place to do an unnecessary reload.

Also, I had been using some Pro Grip throughout the day and wiping my hands at Make Ready as the weather got hotter and sweatier, but it was only kinda working. On this stage I just put on a ridiculous amount of Pro Grip and it definitely helped. You would think after 8 summers shooting in this heat I’d know, but when in doubt, put more on.

Summary

Overall a pretty good match. Movement is trending in the direction I want it to. Points were overall quite good.

Watching the video the gun is still flipping more than I would like, but subjectively at the time it seemed like the dot was coming back quickly and reliably, so I’m not sure how much stock to put in that. More Pro Grip and/or cooler temperatures will probably help.

And of course, the classifier there is just no reason to do poorly at it. Even if it’s a dumb challenge, I shouldn’t let my contempt for it boomerang on me and make me shoot it poorly. Set the ego aside, complain later, and shoot the stage in front of you.

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I had 3 practice sessions to get used to the Glock and the dot, which honestly hasn’t been as much of an adjustment as I was expecting. The best comparison I can make right now is that the dot is like going from a DA/SA or striker trigger to a single action trigger: it doesn’t make you better, it just removes a skill from the test. Unless you have visual focus issues that make iron sights hard to use (I don’t, for now, thankfully), it’s not like a dot is better or worse than iron sights. Just different and easier.

That’s not to say I don’t appreciate the speed advantage it gives. I can’t deny I like that reloading less and fewer visual focus changes means shooting CO is more of a drag race. I’ve never said that reloading a lot is what makes Production interesting to me. It’s the low cost of ammo and gear, lack of tweaking and tuning required, and reward to accuracy of minor scoring. CO definitely preserves the last part, and over the course of the match I tightened up the points I was dropping significantly which helped my scores on the later stages quite a bit.

And, of course, the increased participation in CO is undeniable. Taking a data point at random, the August 2017 Sir Walter match, 22 of the 102 shooters were in Production, 6 in CO. At this match, of the 65 who didn’t bail due to the rain, 3 were in Production and 20 were in CO. That’s hard to argue with.

Anyway, on to the match video. As I hint at the beginning, it rained all morning and got more intense when the match was due to start, so we held off for an hour, during which time the waterproof targets got a thorough soaking and still turned out shockingly well. The only real casualty was the heads that flopped down and were folded out of the way to make things fair for each squad.

Stage 8

Wearing mud boots and the first shooter on the first stage (as usual), I distinctly did not come out swinging on this one. Pretty conservative, and not really gripping the gun enough. The movement was okay, but the shooting was just slower than it needs to be given that the targets weren’t that far away. Very cautious on the steel as well. Plan was to shoot 19 with 23 in the gun and distinctly did not want to go to war with poppers off the bat.

Stage 1

Didn’t quite hit the right spot in the middle, and picked up a Delta on one target and a Mike on the other from skipping rounds off the barrels. I had an idea of how I wanted to move through the stage, and executed it pretty much to a T, but didn’t adjust when I messed up the positioning and had bad target presentations. If I wasn’t going to move back to get a full presentation on each target, I should have at least paused my movement to get good A/C hits and move on. As it was, plowing ahead racked up some painful points. Had plenty of makeup shots, but just didn’t take them because they weren’t in the plan.

Stage 2

I was starting to settle in on this stage, but just made a similar mistake on stage 1: I was planning to roll out of the second position on an open target, but I was too impatient and tried to take the top partial rolling through as well, and netted a no-shoot just over the perf. Obviously shooting target focused made it easy to see and confirm it and shoot another makeup to not take the miss as well. Let it go, focused back up for the rest of the stage and got the double plate swinger on the first swing which was nifty.

Stage 3

Another stage where I was focused on movement and hitting the right spots and made two errors. First, not gripping and just double tapping targets, picking up a bunch of silly charlies on close targets. Second, basically point-shooting that big popper and losing count of the number of makeup rounds I had. Also, strategically, just running to each spot and shooting a bunch of targets flatfooted seemed simple, but the stage winner on this one shaved off two seconds somehow. I can only guess by rolling through and spending less time stationary (and shooting one target three times).

Stage 4

This is where things started clicking. All I was focusing on in this stage was gripping the gun, letting my legs carry me through, and shooting the A-zone, not the cardboard. Two of the four Charlies were on the swinger (shooting too early on each swing…) so fairly pleased with the improved hits for the rest of the stage. (We also had more folks on the squad taking the timer at this point, so I had more time to visualize in detail.)

Stage 5

This stage had a lot of targets available from multiple spots, and so I defaulted to a straightforward plan where I shot everything I could see at each position except the last, and through the port I only had to shoot two targets, both of which were right next to vision barriers on their left. I visualized this a lot and when the buzzer went, again it was time to just grip the gun and shoot the A-zone, not the cardboard. Similar results with pretty good points.

Stage 6

Pretty interesting speed shoot where the right-most big popper activated the clamshell. The safe run was to shoot it last in that position and be ready in the next position. My buddy Gerrit went ahead of me and laid down a stout run where he shot it first and took the other two big poppers and still had time to get two As on the clamshell, so I figured I had to keep up. In the first position, I let my grip and the dot settle just a smidge because I knew once I fired that first shot, I had no margin for error, and it worked out quite nicely.

CM 06-05 Fluffy’s Revenge II

I’m still a little sketchy on high speed draws and reloads with the new gun, so I just wanted a good grip out of the holster, which I got. But finding and confirming the dot, trigger freeze on the third paper, and a makeup on the last steel added up to too much lost time. Looks like a GM run on this one is about 3.2 all As, and I was 4.1 with two Cs. I’ll be a CO M after four classifiers regardless, but being able to shoot competitive times on classifiers is still a goal.

Summary

I really did not want to miss this match because I knew it would be a good all-around test and give me things to work on. It definitely did that, but especially as the day went on, showed me what generally good runs look like. I feel like the switch to the new division is pretty much complete, and now it’s time to get back to fundamentals and finally maybe make my movement start to suck less.

The other thing that appears somewhat new is that I’m hunching my shoulders pretty much all the time. I can’t think why this would be caused by switching guns, so maybe it’s just old habits creeping back in. Either way, something to watch for and work on in live fire and dry fire.

The post Sir Walter August 2021 Wrapup appeared first on Berry Shooting.

It’s tempting to blame having a kid in January for lack of dry fire, or the ongoing primer shortages for lack of live fire. But if I’m honest with myself, neither of those things really are at play.

I have the best setup I’ve ever had in terms of dry fire: a two car garage, with concrete floors and plenty of space to move around. No more slippery hardwood floors or carpet. 20 feet of space to put up targets, more if I go diagonal. But I haven’t done it.

I also haven’t done any live fire. I’m pretty scarce on primers, but I still could spare 200 to go do a rounds-efficient live fire practice. But in two months of good weather, I’ve only gone once.

Why is that? Well, that’s the real riddle I suppose.

Anyway, the result was a day full of under-performance followed by over-performance. Sir Walter is the one match I shoot every month I can, and yet this month once again it seemed like it snuck up on me. I loaded my ammo the night before (which mercifully did run without a hitch) and packed up to go shoot.

Stage 8, the first of the day, and I was–as usual–the first shooter. Made the classic mistake of focusing too much on the movers, and failed to thoroughly visualize to reload one target after the poppers and floppers, meaning I had to do the standing reload at the end. To compound the error, thinking about it took me out of the moment, and you can see I relax, particularly my grip, and the gun jumps around quite a bit more, which still matters even on close targets. Also, the GoPro mysteriously failed to record, which is becoming a frustration every time it happens.

Stage 1 started off with two misses on steel, low and right, due to something screwy with the way I was pulling the trigger. That pattern would continue throughout the day. Those two whiffs took me out of it, and I shot the rest of the stage more hesitantly, and again had a makeup on the second array of plates. Something about the way I’m transitioning to steel is not right, but honestly I’m not tuned up enough to really notice the fine details when things go wrong. I’m just shooting on instinct and trying to keep it together.

Stage 2 turned out to be a truly great stage. Everything went well. From the first shots, I could tell I had the right grip and trigger press, and the gun just tracked perfectly for me. My raw time was competitive with the Open guys, and I had a better hit factor than all the Limited and PCC guys. I crushed this one stage. But I can’t really say what went different or well, and so I struggled to reproduce it.

Stage 3, I took a risky stage plan, going to fewer places and shooting more static from further away. This is something that’s always tempting to me, but it never seems to work out. Even moving through an array you can still shoot quite a bit faster than standing and sniping from twice as far. I also didn’t look through the plan well enough, and I didn’t have a full presentation on the zebra all the way on the right size of the stage, because I stood back. Picked up a hard cover mike on that target which I didn’t call, which was particularly frustrating. And you can see I hunt around for the targets at the last position because I hadn’t really visualized what to do once I got there.

Stage 4 was basically point shooting. At this point in the day I was frustrated and just trying to shoot on luck. Obviously it didn’t work out, but I was so out of it that I even come back at the end of the stage to look again at a target I knew didn’t have good hits. And despite looking right at it, I didn’t shoot again, and took Delta Mike on that target.

Stage 5, the trigger control issues came back. I tried to make an effort to aim more and really rack up alphas, but all the charlies and deltas were right or low right. Something about the way I was gripping the gun, maybe steering with my left thumb, something was pushing the shots pretty significantly out of the A zone, which is certainly easy at those distances. Again the steel makeups with the shots going low and right as well.

Stage 6, again I refocused on points, and tried to make an effort to call my shots and keep shooting until I had good hits, so I took a second pass on the first swinger just to make sure I got it. I did, but the time was so slow the score was terrible.

And finally, the classifier. I was calling good shots, but walking downrange, I saw I was pushing them low and low right. The time was bang on the GM pace with half As and Cs, but all Cs with a miss just won’t cut it.

This match is definitely a wakeup call for me, that if I’m not going to practice and then try to show up on match day and lay down GM scores, it’s not going to go well. In retrospect, I probably should not have even gone, with my minimal practice. But on the other hand, failing so badly relative to the standards I hold for myself has fired me up in a way to actually get back to practicing regularly, and given me some specific things to work on in dry fire. That’s a big deal, because trying to work on everything in practice obviously means you end up working on nothing, and despite putting in time, not making any progress.

At least for now, I have things to work on, and the fire is lit to make progress. If for no other reason than so a match this bad never happens again.

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