I bought a timer (Pocket pro II) and set specific goals for each session so my practice sessions are more focused and not just putting holes in paper. Working on transitions and stage planning too. On top of that I did a couple of classifiers since I was still unclassified. As of now I am 'C' in limited (Minor) and 'D' in Production (Missed 'C' by 1.5%). Did this with my G19.4 too so the more focused practice is working.

I will admit I am changing pistols soon though. I got a G34.3 and sent it to Taran for his production performance package. Once it gets back I will be switching to it.

On top of practice and classifiers I also want to challenge myself to do more than local level 1 matches. While I am waitlisted for a couple I have now signed up for the following:

EGW 2017 USPSA Area 8 Championship
2017 Rudy Project Mid Atlantic Sectional
Dominion Defense 2017 DELMARVA USPSA Championship Match
2017 CZ USA Iron Sights Nationals

So...this year's goals are to get to at least 'B' class in Limited (Minor) and Production and shoot the matches above. Anyone else here set goals for themselves this year?

I most certainly have....

Main goal, stop shooting the hostages

Hahahaha

So my first shoot there was a large stage. 34 rounds I think and no shoots everywhere. I essentially hit every no shoot but one. Once scoring was done, as I and everyone else was laughing, they asked if I wanted to reshoot since I missed one. I told them it was the only truly innocent one.

A Glock 34 with the Taran production performance package, was my gift to myself for making Master in production.  

If you haven't already, but Steve Anderson's book, "Refinement & Repetition".  I went from B to M in less than a year using his book.

Get the Ben Stoeger books.

Start a religious dry fire program.

I can see why, tried out a buddy's and immediately got a G34 and sent it off.  

Picked it up after I had taken one of your courses last year. Good clas too BTW.

Picked them up too. I also got a good set of his dry fire targets. Got some blue poster tacky stuff to mount them around the basement.

Since I just started a few months ago, my goals are to improve a little every match.  So far I have.  

My next goal is to get classified in this weekends match as a 'C' shooter.  


I need to start doing some dry fire work.........and pick up Anderson's book(s).

Awesome man!

Add 2017 Iron Sight Nationals in Utah to the list. Just got a slot and signed up.

I'm on the fence.  I have a slot but damn, that's an expensive trip.  

I could shoot 3-4 state/section matches for what it's going to cost me.

I understand that. Only reason I moved forward was being on waitlist for the others.

I'll settle for not shooting myself.

OP- smooth is fast

Got my 'C' initial classification in Production and then bombed my next match.  

Had a good practice last night with a handful of other shooters and hoping to redeem myself this Sunday at Granby, MA.



Also, just got Ben's book 'Skills and Drills', Pocket Pro II and some dummy rounds.  

Time to get into a dry fire routine.

Nice, good job man!

Excellent.

Three plus years ago I decided to get serious (a little anyway) about USPSA.  I started doing practice draws and dry firing for 15-20 minutes a night.

That lasted about 3 days.


I think I've shot 5 matches since then. (in the past there were months I shot that many) So very serious.

Today did my third match in 3 weeks. I have another next Sunday. Starting to get hot though and those cart thingies with umbrellas starting to look like a good idea. I have to wait until Wed for sure but I believe based on checking I should not have a 'C' in Production to go with my 'C' in Limited. Now to begin work on getting to 'B' in both....

Got informed I am off wait list and in the Rudy Project sectional. So in two weeks I will shoot my first Level II match.

Rudy this Sunday. Just got word that I am off waitlist and shooting the EGW Area 8 Championship too. Good ting I have begun a dry fire routine and plan on increasing practice range time.

So Rudy went well overall. I had some good stages and some not so good ones. I think for matches my goal now is going to be doing it error-free. No misses or no-shoots. Had more than I liked at the Sectional.

I shot a match Tuesday night at the NRA range. I once again though had some errors except on Classifier. I shot  ~61% on it which is nice but I feel like I am shooting classifiers higher than my actual match performance. I am a bit concerned on moving up in Class without the commiserate increase in stage/match skills.

Dry fire program religiously started (only one week in). I am already seeing improvements like the above. I can now draw (Hands relaxed at sides) and fire 2 rounds consistently at 1.17-1.20 seconds at a 10 yard target. I get mostly A hits but the occasional C/D so for live fire practice I am working on getting that time with two A hits consistently. Then I will push to get faster again.

Dry firing also helped me spot a problem with my grip. I found that occasionally the first finger of my weak hand would wrap around the pistol and land against my trigger finger. I slowly worked on it to change that and my shooting is now more controlled in the center instead of going left.

I have thought about backing off so many matches a month (I average at least 3) but I go back and forth since they are also the times I get to practice movement etc. Indoor ranges are nice for some things (Especially using 2/3rd targets) but some of the other skills really need to be done outdoors with more freedom of movement. If I can get an outside range setup I would stop my weekly indoor range practice session and instead do less (But longer) outdoor session.

Side note: Guy next to us last night at our practice session had a Shadow2, a CZ75, and a STI. As we talked at the range near the end we let each other shoot the pistols we had. That Shadow2 is nice, very nice. I do not want to equipment chase and I have a G34 I need to continue to use until it "hold me back" but I can see the appeal. First thought was "I am buying one of these". More forgiving than the G34. I did better groups at speed with it than I can with mine.

I went from an M&P ( CORE and full size), to a Shadow 2. Buy once cry once.

I also wanted to go into Production, which I think is the hardest class.

So chasing gear is not that big of an issue if you have a goal, but thinking the pistol will make you a better shooter is not true.

Oh I get it. I had my Taran G34 show up last Friday. I do not mind paying for quality gear.

If I shoot slow with the G34 I get the same groupings I did with the Shadow fast. To me this means there is a problem with the shooter (Me) that the heavier Shadow can cover up. I have seen people go faster than me and shoot a lot better with a G34 so the G34 is not holding me back at this point. Selling it to get a Shadow then, for me, seems like gear chasing right now. In the long run if I get better and fix those deficiencies then if I move to a Shadow later it will be just that much better.

I hate shooting indoors, so take this with a grain of salt.

But I'd say keep shooting matches because match experience is important.  But if you can practice outdoors, then I would definitely trade an indoor match for an outdoor practice session.  Every single time.

Probably grip.  

You are not gripping hard enough or there might be some technical error in your grip.  But it's more likely that you're just gripping too weakly.

Agreed. One of the things I am working on. Tight enough to hold but not so tight it starts shaking.

Small sample size, but if you shoot a particular gun better, doesn't seem crazy to go to that gun.     I get not just hopping from gun to gun thinking that's the answer.

Keep grinding.




Shot my best match last Sunday.   I'd like 2 shots back over the whole match.  Of course 1 of those was on the classifier.       Had 2 separate FTE that cost me some time on 2 different stages, but I keep kept my mistakes down, shot well and had fun.    Broke my streak of 8 matches in a row of totally bombing on 2 stages of the match, so that was nice.


Looking forward to Sunday and hopes of improving a little more.

You were right. I did some practice and a local class by Clay Klemm/Robert King. They took some time to do a 1:1 to check my grip/stance. Problem was three fold: Not enough pressure from support hand, strong hand grip just slightly off (Not covering as much as back of pistol grip as I should be), arms too tense. made those changes and shot groups tightened up nicely. I am also not turtle-ing either after draw. We did draw and fire 1 round at 5yards and I got it done to 0.6s with consistent A hits. Before I would get A/C/D hits.

Now to get this new combo set in my head with hundreds of reps in dry fire.

We did move back to 10 and 15yds. The pattern continued (A hits) with time getting slightly slower at 15yds for sure.

Is there something else that bothers you?

.6 is smoking fast even for 5 yards.  Like top tier GM smoking fast.

Honestly we did not know we were doing that. He started us on the line with a random start and 1s Par time. We drew and fired to beat Par. Every iteration he lowered it but did not tell us. I was surprised honestly. Doing Anderson dry fire drills my Par is usually .9s. however, we had already been shooting awhile and warmed up and just concentrating on it we got faster. helped we did not know what speed we were going, mentally we were just beating the timer.

Now could I do that consistently over a whole day? Probably not. This was also only one shot not two. When we moved out to 15yd and he moved us to the A box on the head my time went to 1.05s or so for a first round hit.

He did this drill to prove that it is achievable and we were probably blocking ourselves mentally. We just have to train our minds to accept we can go fast. This is just a speed component though. Accuracy also comes into play and you need to marry the two. As well as multiple shots, transitions, splits, etc.

Sounds like I need to take that class.

It was first time they ran it. Clay Klemm and Robert King (Red Hill tactical) were the instructors. It was given through RHT.

Practice night last night. We decided to see if we could hit the same times without all the warm up. Did 5 dry fire draws at first. Then we set a 2/3rds target at 10 yards and started live fire. Par timer was set to 0.8s. I was able to draw and fire a round on an average of 0.95-0.99s. So after the par timer beeped not making the 0.8s. I am still working on new grip/stance elements but my hits are already improving: 2 'A' and 2 'C' hits. before I would get maybe one 'A' and then a cascading C/D/M (and this was doing it at 1.17-1.3s too). So i am seeing improvement for sure.

We noticed a few things. You definitely need as much warm up as we were getting in class to push times down if not consistently doing them normally. Shooting inside makes it slightly harder to pick up front FO sight. We had an easier time outside during the class picking it up.

After speed, we moved on to accuracy and kept doing a drill where we draw and fire 2 rounds for 15 rounds. 2/3rds target distance varied every magazine from 10-15-20 yards. We then competed for number of A hits. This time my count was substantially better than before. Fixing my grip is helping a LOT. As is relaxing my shoulders/upper arms. If I tense up I am weirdly shooting worse then if I leave them relaxed.

I spent a couple of magazines just trying different finger positions on trigger itself too. We tried Vogel's weird way of squeezing the trigger that works but feels weird so not sure about it.

Whew. Ok most majors done since I am not going to Nats this year (Next year for sure). Last major will be DelMarVA in Nov but I am treating it as a fun match.

After spending the morning trying out a Shadow 2 (With CGW trigger work making the trigger in SA mind-blowingly smooth and light) and SIG P320 X-5 I have come to the realization that each of those have a better natural point of aim for me than my G34. I am making shots at longer ranges more consistently. In addition the S2 is heavy as hell and almost feels like no recoil at all with the 147gr I use. So since the season is over I think I am going back on what I said earlier in this thread and am going to CZ route for Production. Talking with CZ Custom now about a S2 with their trigger work done and will have pricing by tomorrow. Figure I will shoot limited while new prod gun is "purty'd up" (Or possibly SS depending on answers in other thread). Then I will start dry firing to adjust to the new pistol.

Between this change and the idea of SS I joked with my buddy that this was an expensive morning. Going to clean and prep the G34 to flip it.

What's your all in on that G34?  Just curious.  I don't have the funds any way.   (Not that I wouldn't like to get one)

Edit: I have had a few people on other boards hit me up advising me not to switch. Some really good arguments made. So I might step up my dry firing/practice and remain on the G34.