For the 2017 Carolina Classic, the NC Section match returned to the Rowan County Wildlife Club in Salisbury, NC. I had an inconsistent match but still managed to hang on for a 95% finish behind the very capable Tyler Turner.*

Despite taking two mikes on the match, my real downfall was being generally hesitant and shooting a lot of makeup shots on paper and steel. (If the two hard cover mikes were hits, it still would have only moved me up to 97.6%.)

2017 Carolina Classic Results

Stage 1
The first stage of the day was set up in a way that you could see all the targets from two positions, leading most folks to just shoot the stage from there. It would have been an decent-but-unremarkable finish for me without the hardcover mike. It was in the same left-low-left place that I took two mikes on tuxedos last week at Sir Walter. A frustrating trend, but I mostly managed to get it out of my head for the next few stages.

Stage 2
Nothing really went wrong on this stage, but nothing really went right. Generally sluggish, and after the last stage I was shooting very conservatively, especially on the back targets with the no-shoots. I still managed to pick up 7 charlies, from just being a too loose on the sights and sloppy with the trigger.

Stage 3
There wasn’t too much to this stage, just go one for one up front and get alphas. Took one charlie on the second paper target, but this one pretty much went okay.

Stage 4
This stage required by far the most thinking of any stage in the match, with many different ways to break up the first 18 shots of the stage. I had a decent plan, but didn’t keep the one-for-one discipline from the last stage going. I got sloppy on the trigger and went to slide lock only knocking down two of the four poppers I planned to get with my first magazine. At that point, I knew I had to shoot the next magazine one-for-one, and the one after that too, so I had to become very deliberate to avoid a standing reload. I managed to do it and the final damage to my score wasn’t terrible, but I threw away a genuine chance at a stage win with steel misses and paper makeups.

Stage 5
I knew this standards stage would not be a strength of mine, but my goal was to see my sights and shoot points, without worrying about how slow it felt. Frustratingly, I took a mike, but on the freestyle portion. I overswung the transition into the tuxedo hard cover in the middle and put my fifth shot of the first string in the black.

The rest of the stage went passably well, but having a second hardcover miss in exactly the same spot was frustrating.

Stage 6
Another stage with nothing terribly wrong, just slow because of makeups. The random light strike after two thousand rounds of reliable ignition was frustrating but turned out to be the first of three. In the first position, three makeup shots. In the second position, a makeup shot on the tuxedo hardcover (which amazingly turned out to be an unpasted hole from the previous shooter; I had three alphas on the target). And then again in the last position, a makeup. Knowing I had to go one-for-one for the rest of the stage slowed me down. A mix of impatience to start shooting and sloppy trigger pulling (yes, even with a 3 pound single action) slowed me down too much.

Stage 7
More sloppy trigger pulling. This stage went more or less according to plan, except for the makeup shots. The makeup shots on the steel at the end are particularly egregious because I had stable sight pictures despite the bridge, but I was just not gripping the gun and pulling the trigger right. You can see both misses go off just to the left in to the berm.

Stage 8
Nearly a stage win, despite the second light strike, on the draw. That rattled me and my first instinct was to reload so I didn’t go to slide lock. It didn’t enter my head at the time that my plan wasn’t anywhere near needing a reload and the light strike hadn’t put me behind any rounds. I just reacted.

Perhaps a highlight of this match for me was recognizing the second swinger timing and engaging other targets while it was obscured. If I had taken fewer poppers from the start position, I wouldn’t have been able to come back to the swinger in time for the next swing the way I did.

Stage 9
On the last stage of the day, despite having a light strike, managed to step up and pull out the stage win on this one. I can’t really explain why, especially given my recent lack of performance on classifiers, but this stage just came together for me.

I don’t mean this breakdown to be a list of excuses why I didn’t win. But I hope through specific examples you can see the places I see in my own performance for improvement. Two weeks from when I write this, I’ll be preparing to shoot Nationals in the morning and I need to do as much work as I can on these problems between now and then. (And even after Nationals, because, of course, no truly difficult problem is ever solved, just temporarily abated.)

* Interesting side note: I took 95% behind Tyler last year at this match too, but in that time we’ve both gone from M to GM and trained, although clearly him harder than me. It’s a rare snapshot of the two of us progressing almost in lock-step which I find interesting.

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The Sir Walter USPSA match went pretty well for me. The stages were long (26 rounds or more, excluding the speed shoot) and technical and overall I executed my plans precisely and aggressively which was a good thing (I still ended up with the Production + Single Stack stage win on 3 despite my hard cover miss due to executing well otherwise and being 3-5 seconds faster than the closest competition).

The bad news was the mikes. Four of them. All four were off to the left, either because of transitioning off a target early or yanking the trigger carelessly. At the time, it was tough to keep anything resembling a good mental game going, but in hindsight it’s pretty clear that I was just focusing too much on technical execution (movement, footwork, positioning) and just took pulling the trigger for granted. That was a mistake and it bit me, repeatedly.

But as each hit came, I told myself there was nothing I could do to fix it and the best way to “salvage” the match was to focus up and calmly execute the rest of the stages, which I managed to do, with the stage win on my last two stages, during the part of the day when it would have been easiest to feel frustrated and defeated.

September 2017 Sir Walter USPSA Results

Stage 4

This stage was so constrained, there really wasn’t any room to make any magic happen through clever strategy or aggressive movement. The name of the game was maximizing points while minimizing errors: fumbles with the windows, fumbles with reloading, or makeup shots. The PVC windows are so light that it’s easy to lose grip on them or have them bounce around on you, so I am happy with that part of the stage going smoothly.

The bad part of this stage isn’t just the hard cover mike on the tuxedo target, but the consistently low and left, tight groups on the two tuxedo targets next to each other. I was just not taking a sliver of care with how I was pulling the trigger and just letting it happen, and it turned out consistently low left. Not good, but at least the cause and solution are relatively straightforward.

Stage 5

Executed this stage exactly according to plan: one for one on the steel while smoothly hitting both positions needed. Hit the second “magic spot” position where I could see all five targets. Moved through the rest of the stage smoothly while getting good points.

The only hiccup was the second reload which went bad. The way my torso was turned downrange while my lower body stayed facing the right side of the range to push out of position meant that the gun was way closer to the mag pouch than I’m used to, so the new mag got to the gun way faster than I expected, leading to me fumbling it. Something to keep in mind for stages shooting near the right 180 and then pushing out of position downrange.

Stage 6

Not my greatest performance. 3 charlies plus a makeup shot on steel was very sloppy. This stage had a lot of nuance on how to come in to the left side and how early to start shooting that made it a lot of fun to shoot. But I just plain didn’t really execute it very well.

CM 08-03 Six

I think I was just off to the left (lazy trigger technique again!) of the small popper, so I heard a ding from the big popper being hit near its base. The silver lining of this stage is how quickly I processed the miss on the mini-popper and snapped right back to it.

Stage 8

A 26-round memory-ish stage that had a couple interesting ways to shoot it without being a crazy hard memorization challenge. Had a solid plan executed aggressively that put me three seconds ahead of the closest competition but two mikes put me out of running for the stage. In both cases, some mixture of lazy trigger pulling and transitioning off the target too early added up to a miss.

Stage 1

A straightforward stage where you go to each position and just shoot the targets you can see from there. Not a lot of strategy so it all came down to execution. At the first position, I failed to set up solidly and grip the gun, so it felt too loose and I took makeup shots because I wasn’t sure. I hadn’t called bad shots but hadn’t called good ones either. And then at the end of the stage, I took the mike on the second to last position. And the pair of scaled metrics at the end of the stage were 2C and CD, low left of course. More just lazy trigger technique.

Stage 2

Another stage with a bunch of positions where you had to go to each one and shoot all the targets available from there, but with a little room to make up some time. The biggest place to save time was not committing too deep to each position that you had to then leave, being efficient with the uprange movement, and of course going one for one on steel. I had actually planned to do a reload if I had a miss on the first steel array, but batting one hundred there gave me a little confidence boost going in to the second steel array, as well as saving me the time doing a reload and giving me a reason to finish out the rest of the magazine one for one.

At the last two positions, I became cognizant of gripping the gun with my left hand and pulling the trigger straight back, which shows up in the speed I went through, especially the last three targets, confident I would stay away from the hard cover.

Had one delta coming in hard in to position which honestly I should have made up, but I was in such a hurry to not get tangled up in that position I didn’t take it.

Stage 3

A stage with a lot of options and a little room to make some magic. Went pretty much as planned, except for coming in to the last target with too much speed and having to “push off” in to the air to avoid falling on my face. I have never done that before in a match or practice, but somehow it all came together and this stage was a strong finish for me.

The post Sir Walter USPSA September 2017 appeared first on Berry Shooting.

This was my first time back at the CGGR USPSA match near Asheboro, NC (halfway between Raleigh and Charlotte) since November and I knew it was going to be a tough match. Heat in the 90s, humidity, and a range that has notoriously little shade or wind. They did end up having coolers of water and a popup canopy on each bay which helped.

I ended up having a match I’m fairly happy with. It wasn’t perfect, but the big problems came towards the end of the day. I stayed hydrated and tried to pack as much as I could in to my stage plans and get all the details right.

CGGR USPSA August 2017 Results

Stage 3

This stage had a lot of tight, positional shooting but also lured you in to trying to hose the steel because you had plenty of extra rounds. I tried to shoot with high confidence on the steel and mostly succeeded. The one hiccup was the position in the middle where I could stay far back and work around the wall or go all the way in and commit. I ended up trying to split the difference and couldn’t see all the plates, so I had to adjust my position. That difference of twelve inches in foot placement made a big difference and cost time.

This was also the only non-classifier stage where I shot a delta. I didn’t call it and it was almost a miss so that’s pretty bad. Also, shooting the long paper target at 0:27 off balance was very strange and it felt like it took much longer than it did for my sights to settle. I had never shot with my body bladed like that and was surprised how little leverage I had to control the sights. It worked out though because I got the alphas, but it felt really bad at the time.

Stage 4

This was an 18 round stage, with arrays of 8 and 10, and an unloaded start, giving me 20 rounds to work with. I knew I wouldn’t have much ammo to spare. I aimed a lot because I wanted to avoid having to do a standing reload at all costs. I called the bad shot coming in to the last position and knew I had to go one for one on the last three plates and come back for it if I could. Ended up with second on the stage at 98.5%, which is fine. You can’t win the match with this stage, but there’s so much danger it’d be easy to lose it. I shot all alphas and got out alive with 98.5% of the stage points so that was okay.

Stage 5

This stage combined both the opportunity to shoot aggressively coming in on steel and also had small plates far away. In general I shot this one a little too loose, with two steel makeups and two paper makeups while still not being particularly fast. I’m not sure why I didn’t bring more energy to this one. Probably just because it was “only” 21 rounds across three positions, and the whole stage looked pretty straightforward.

Stage 6

Another stage that was just okay. The first target that I drew on was two charlie and I had those slow makeups on the plate rack. Not terrible, and given the heat in that frying pan of a bay, maybe this was a good stage.

Stage 7

Dropped way too many points (half the hits were not alphas), mostly on the 15 yard freestyle and stronghand strings. I haven’t been training strong and weak much because it doesn’t show up in matches a lot (just being honest) but it still hurts to shoot a 68% classifier like this.

Stage 1

Somehow had the stage win (even including Single Stack which had two skilled Ms shooting minor) on this one, despite having to backtrack after leaving a position early. In this case, I transitioned from the small hex steel to the closest plate of the star instead of the top one like I was planning. No real excuse, just laziness and not visualizing that particular detail enough. That got me off plan enough I forgot the 20 yard paper hiding downrange. Like I said, by all rights this should not have been a stage win, but I guess this stage just kinda worked it’s magic on everyone.

The one bright side is that after the mixup and recovering, I went right back to aggressively executing my plan and finished out one for one on the rest of the steel and all alphas for the stage. Even when it goes bad, just remind yourself to see your sights and call good hits. You’ll naturally want to speed up to make up for the lost time, as though that’s possible, so redoubling your efforts to aim will balance things out.

Stage 2

My worst stage of the day. Got trigger happy on the steel because I had rounds to burn and burn them I did. I realized after the miss on the plate rack I had to go one for one or do a standing reload, so I made sure to confirm every shot after that.

And once again, I left a position early. In my mind, I knew those targets were there, but I thought of them as being on that side of the range, so moving toward that side of the shooting area seemed natural. I should have visualized those targets from that position more, instead of just relying on the lazy workaround of “shoot all the plates you can see from here” which I did because it was the end of the day and I was tired. I need to burn this memory of me backtracking on the last two stages in a row in my memory as a warning to myself about coasting and getting complacent at the end of a match. It’s never too late in the day to wreck your match.

Luckily, in this case, the error was minimal and the rest of my match was good enough that it made these flubs stand out by contrast.

The NC Section match is coming up in about three weeks, so my takeaways from this match are

1. Bring the energy and aggressiveness even to “simple”/”short” stages like Stage 5.
2. Visualize complex engagement sequences like Stage 1 and 2 repeatedly, especially when a mover is involved.
3. Keep up the shot calling. Keep shooting lots of alphas and making up anything that looks or feels bad. Keep up the high hit rate on steel

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This match was a tough one for me. Despite not having any scored penalties, I couldn’t find my groove all day and ended up having a few stages with more time on the clock than I really should have taken. It was a very up and down day, with a confident performance on the field course (stage 5) followed by a botched speed shoot and classifier. I can’t put my finger on quite what was wrong. One thing that definitely had an impact was taking the timer before I had shot the stage, which I generally try to avoid. Every extra visualization is a chance to smooth out a wrinkle or prevent a hiccup, and this was a match full of wrinkles and hiccups.

Of course, it’s hard to complain since I still managed to win the match against some stiff competition.

My focus in practice recently has been getting a clean grip out of the holster, establishing a strong weak hand grip, and staying low when entering positions, which I failed to put in to practice on most of the stages. I think that’s the source of much of my frustration: I spent time practicing particular things and have it seem like it didn’t make a difference.

Stage 2

I was second to shoot this stage (thanks to a Mr. Beal on my squad coming alphabetically before me), but for some reason stepped up to the line without any sense of urgency. Having to shoot three makeups at the mini-popped is a far cry from my confident start to this match last month. This stage was just truly unimpressive. Not terrible, but sluggish and unenthusiastic. Between the hard cover miss in the middle on the low targets that I made up and the last shot being very close to a miss on the mini target by rushing the last split, I guess I should be grateful nothing worse happened. I should have been more focused despite being early in the order early in the morning.

Stage 3

Another stage where nothing really went wrong, but it was careless with the aiming, leading to too many makeups and forcing a standing reload. There was a rules dispute about the stage during the 5-minute walkthrough and then I took the timer since I was late in the order, and both of those got me out of my head. I just never really got my concentration back. I should have taken the distractions more seriously and been more deliberate about making sure my plan was airtight before starting.

Stage 4

The last stage where I took the timer to start. I was actually pretty happy with how the stage went except for the two surprise no-penalty mikes at the end of the stage. I wish I knew what happened, but I think I was just too target focused and didn’t even see the gun on two of the four shots on the drop turners. No penalty, but giving up the alphas hurt. Those ten lost points are the equivalent of a hit on a no-shoot. I should have visualized those targets more and not taken them for granted since they were so close.

Stage 5

I was pretty happy with this one. I ended up with a plan that meant taking the paper arrays from as close as possible to each and not doing any standing reloads. I did have one close call rounding the corner there, in part because the packed dirt and lack of gravel had been pounded flat by the three squads before us. I should have been more cognizant of the tight turn and looked for footing problems during the squad walkthrough when we got to the bay.

Stage 6

Pulling off steel, my old nemesis. I got fooled by the simplicity of the stage and how big the poppers were, as well as focusing too much on trying to shoot the fourth popper before the clamshell and got ahead of myself. I should have visualized the rest of the stage aside from the one “tricky” part more.

Stage 7

This classifier is deceptively tricky, requiring you to move more than it seems to see the targets on each side, and I didn’t fully appreciate that during my walkthrough. Since the design of the stage is so open, I didn’t give the sides a second look and spent all my time thinking about shooting through the low port. I don’t shoot a lot of low ports and didn’t think about how the recoil of trying to shoot and transition fast would fight my attempt to balance. I should have put a knee down for extra stability since I wasn’t planning to get up from the low position on the clock.

Stage 8

This stage went pretty much according to plan. This one and the next one were my attempts to “get serious” after the frustration of the last two stages, and it mostly worked. There was one spot where I hesitated because I doubted my shot calling on a hard-cover partial, but it all worked out. I “stood up” in position more than I would have liked, especially at the end which meant taking time to get low again to start moving. But overall, one of the my better stages for the day.

Stage 1

Tried an interesting stage plan that let me take one step to the first shooting position and do a few medium-sized movements but put the big movement for the stage in the middle when I could haul ass across the bay and I think it mostly worked. I was very conscious as I was slowing down of just how much I had to decelerate and it felt like it took a very long time for my sights to stabilize at the last position. But watching the video it seems like that may have just been impatience. Took charlie delta on a target that was in the shade and diagonally across the range just because I got lazy and aimed for center of cardboard. I should have called those and made them up, especially since I had plenty of rounds left in the magazine.

So overall, I feel like my performance was fine, and it’s hard to argue with a division win against significant competition. But it’s also frustrating to not see my practice manifest on match day, and to feel myself shooting with such a lack of focus and energy. It’s a sharp contrast to IPSC Nationals three weeks ago where it was very easy to focus and really thoroughly visualize a stage plan (when you weren’t first on the stage after seeing it for the first time five minutes ago!).

The main things for me to work on before the NC Section match in five weeks is really focusing and making sure to visualize with enough detail and repetition that shooting the stage happens without hesitation. I know what it feels like to visualize to that level, and it didn’t happen once at this match, and that’s a problem.

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GoShoot USPSA was a fun indoor match with mostly half-scale IPSC targets, the third time Chris Tilley has hosted a match at his indoor range in Raleigh. I had one crazy dud round, and a 90% classifier even with less than optimal lighting. Sorry for the awkward angle that sometimes features my forearms too prominently. I’m still trying to figure out exactly how to mount my new Tachyon camera.

Stage 1
I have no explanation for the round that just wouldn’t go off. It was a Winchester primer in a batch of ammo that was all CCIs, so my best guess is that it was sitting on my bench from a previous practice where it had failed to ignite, and got in to my box of ammo. I kept expecting it to go off and it never did.

Stage 2
Starting with mags on the barrel added an interesting wrinkle to this stage, with three targets removed (so the Open guys didn’t have to reload?).

Stage 3
A tight, technical stage. Took two deltas on the second to last target because I didn’t aim at the right spot after getting in to that awkward lean.

Stage 4
Another good stage that used the space well. Put the camera on a tripod because our 11 man squad was busy running the two stages back to back.

Stage 5
90% run on Diamond Cutter with the two outside targets in a bit of shadow. (No third person camera for this because I messed up hitting record.)

Stage 6
The same target array as Diamond Cutter but as a freestyle/strong/weak standards stage. My reloads were terrible here for no good reason that I can find. (No hat cam video on this one because I’m still not 100% used to the new camera, but so far I like it a lot.)

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Stages from the 2017 US IPSC Nationals, in the order I shot them.

2017 US IPSC Nationals results

Stage 5
First stage of the day. Called the steel misses before I left them, but two makeups on a six round stage hurts. I had my hat pulled down low so the sun wasn’t right in my eyes, but it definitely didn’t help.

Stage 4
Was first on both of these stages and waffled on whether or not to reload when transitioning the gun. As I walked over to get handcuffed, I decided not to, but that meant after my first miss on the DA shot I had 15 rounds left for a 14 round stage. I became very deliberate, which turned in to decent points, but was very slow. I was very aware of shooting in to the sun on this one. But that was a known thing going in to the match at Universal Shooting Academy in Frostproof, Florida.

Stage 6
The first of three light strikes in the match, each one on the second shot of a target, as I was transitioning away. I had a batch of ammo loaded that I was very confident in for making power factor and figured the slightly heavier springs in my IPSC setup (vs the slightly lighter USPSA setup) would pop the primers reliably. That turned out to not be the case. Lesson: don’t rely on guessing. Test the exact match ammo with the exact match gun and setup.

Otherwise, pretty good. That second reload definitely cost me as much as the light strike.

Stage 7
Committed the classic blunder of relaxing on the easy target and missed my second shot on the first target. Brutal penalty on such a short stage.

Stage 8
Drew right out of the holster and started shooting without confirming my sights, and put charlie delta in to the right hand target. It was a nice group, just in the wrong spot because I didn’t take the extra tenth to correct in to the alpha.

Stage 1
This stage had an option: shoot some extreme leans on 15 yard swingers or go prone and shoot them. I haven’t practiced prone very much, so I over-estimated how stable it would be compared to the very hard lean. Lesson: don’t try to do stuff in matches you don’t practice if you have a choice. It’s probably not as appealing of a choice as you think (if you practiced it, you would know that).

Ended up taking a mike on my second shot on the left swinger. I called it iffy at the time, but I didn’t have a lot of confidence in being able to make it up (even prone, 15 yards is a hard shot) so I left it and hoped. No dice.

Also had my second light strike here, as the swinger was swinging away, so I had to wait for another presentation. Pretty much the worst place it could happen.

My Mobius Mini started crapping out on this stage, so no first person video of the targets.

Stage 2
A stage with a lot of options on which targets to engage through which port. I picked a simple plan that minimized total distance moved, but having to shift to multiple positions and take targets from far away cost me a lot of time. I had the most points, but was about 3 seconds off the pace (13.XX vs my 16.23). The winning plan involved moving more but put you a lot closer to the targets.

Stage 3
Was first on this stage, and it had a ton of options because most of the targets were available from multiple places. I kept trying to come up with a plan to avoid stopping for one target in the middle, but I couldn’t get it to work in the 5 minute walkthrough. Happy with the finish, and my only regret is the number of makeup shots it took to get good hits, but even that I can’t complain too much about. Each of them was better than taking the delta or mike.

Once again, no hat video. Mobius Mini going in the trash.

Stage 13
The first stage of day 2, this time facing away from the sun with amazing target lighting. Another terrible time for a light strike, but at least the DA second strike was an alpha.

Paid attention to the activator sequence but not the timing, so I shot both activators as quickly as I could. That ended up exposing the second and third max traps at almost the same time, resulting in having to run to the end of the stage to pick up the last two hits (the one shot I got off was a called miss). I shot a risky stage plan and got burned by not paying attention to the precise timing, but that’s a lesson for next time.

Stage 14
Another stage with no complaints aside from the number of makeup shots. A little more patience before breaking each shot would have saved a lot of raw time.

Stage 15
Generally mediocre. Not fast and not great points. Felt myself speeding up toward the end of the stage, resulting in charlie delta on the last paper and the steel miss. Something about the targets being wide open made me lose discipline and get lazy.

Stage 16
Got a bad grip out of the holster, which was literally the most important part of the stage. I just took it for granted and was thinking about working the trigger smoothly. Missed the second shot on the second target for no good reason. Couldn’t have been any worse if I took the time to fix my grip, but was in the wrong mindset.

Also, didn’t think ahead of time whether I could take makeups, even though I knew at the time that IPSC doesn’t even have Virginia Count (limited) stages anymore! I erred on the side of caution and took the miss, but that was a failure to prepare properly and know the rules.

Stage 9
This is shooting on the move way faster than I usually practice and the points weren’t great. But ultimately that makeup on steel is what hurt me on this one. No real excuse except it was another Frostproof stage with the sun in my eyes.

Stage 10
Another case of just aiming at the wrong spot. Took two charlies both right next to each other on the last target because I didn’t finish transitioning all the way to the middle of the target.

The start position meant being a little off balance too, so I think I pushed off too hard which made my first setup very rough.

Stage 11
Another very unusual challenge. Got bit by focusing too much on gripping the gun and didn’t get a good hold on the magazine, so it went sideways in my hand.

Stage 12
Ended up going first on this stage again, which manifested mostly by being a little sluggish and not as decisive as if I’d had a few more shooters to really solidify my plan. (IPSC 5 minute walkthroughs are no joke.) Was very hesitant because I knew both of the second two magazines didn’t leave a lot of extra rounds for makeups.

Nearly center-punched the no-shoot moving in to the second position because I was moving so aggressively, but just made it up and moved on. That rattled me but the rest of the stage went okay. That first position was very nerve-wracking so I was glad to get out of there alive.

Overall thoughts

I knew this match would be lightly attended for a few reasons. Registration for the match opened less than 90 days before it started, and it was scheduled for the middle of July in Florida. Not to mention the fact that since the World Shoot is this year, it wasn’t a requirement to shoot this match in order to qualify to be on the US World Shoot team.

I’m pretty happy with how my actual trigger pulling went, including making up most of my bad shots (outside of short courses which me default to shooting them like classifiers without makeup shots). The two main issues were 1) not having the ammo and gun setup 100% squared away well before the match and 2) stage planning. On stage 1 I shot prone despite not having practiced it at all, which was a mistake. On stage 2, I took a very conservative plan because I placed too much of a premium on time spent moving and didn’t think about how much time it takes to aim.

Not to mention managing to perform reasonably well in the challenging Florida heat.

So, the to do list starts with fully debugging the gear before going to a Nationals (duh!) and then on to really being comfortable with the tradeoffs between things like moving vs aiming and leaning vs shooting prone.

As I write this, it’s about 70 days until USPSA Nationals.

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