Honey Jack says.....
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| A lot of jack shit on the part of my shooting. |
Time to re-think my attitude, and grind out what I need to do. I learned a lesson today, one that should have been obvious to me. Today I made a lot of mental mistakes, I went from in a hurry, to forgetting an array, to reloading too early, to just some general suck. The lesson was learned on the classifier, and actually applied on the last stage I shot.
Match Scores
Stage 1:
I'm not sure if I was keyed up or not, I went out to dry fire before shooting, and I went in and just did not see my sights, you can see I struggled with a slow forward falling steel, I was late to a clam shell, and had some mikes as a result. In my walk thru, I planned on going right first and then coming back left. Notice I did it backwards, again, that's poor execution. I know better. All I can say is that I just made some mistakes. 14th of 23 Production Shooters.
Stage 2:
A mental mistake went a long way towards me zeroing the stage. I started off okay on the long steel and targets, but I inexplicably forgot a shooting position, and did not shoot at the steel and paper, resulting in 2 FTE's, and 3 mikes. With that kind of error, no way to do well. I saw it when I started to run to the 3rd position, and I don't know why I did not come back to clean it, I just didn't. 23rd of 23 Production Shooters.
Stage 3:
This is Classifier CM 13-02 Down The Middle, I had run this back on 12/8, so I know it. High hit factor for production is around a 9.75, so I needed about a 5.95 Hit Factor to get my 60%. After struggling with my first two stages, I'm happy I was able to "drop" those out of my mind and get down to business. I was the first shooter, I ran out to the safe table, did a couple of draws, got my sight picture isolated, and came in ready to go. My draw was slow, wish I knew time to first shot, my time was 6.01. The first shot on the 3rd target was the only place I felt like I did not have a perfect sight picture, and that I may have broken the shot just a hair early. As we walked it, I had seven alphas, and one mike, likely that first shot on the 3rd target. If I had run it clean, I'd have had a Hit Factor of 6.65, and about a 68% or solid "B" run. Instead, I ended up with a 4.5 Hit Factor, and about a 48% run. Disappointing. The real positive, which took me a bit to understand, is that instead of racing trying to go faster, I had a good cadence, if I shoot at that cadence, which helps me focus on the center of a paper target, I can get better hits than I have been. I don't need to go faster, I need to hit more. 6th of 23 Production Shooters.
Side note? The fans were blowing snow into both bay's 2 and 3 (stages 3-6)!
Stage 4:
So, good plan, bad execution. I could have gone a hair slower for better hits early on, but for some reason after the 3rd target, I dropped my mag and had to reload take a target before moving onto the steel. I knew I was not supposed to reload until I was going to the steel, I guess I just forgot about the target. The plate rack? I made it my bitch, and it felt pretty good, it sucked having to reload, and if I had reloaded in the right place, I never would have had to eat the standing reload. I finished okay, but my hits on the paper that come up after the steel fall could have been better. 6th of 23 Production Shooters
Stage 5:
No video here, I just ran it uncomfortably. I did not get good hits on the hoser targets, they were passable, but from that distance, I should be shooting alphas. 19th of 23 Production Shooters.
Stage 6:
This was probably my best stage of the morning. One extra shot on each side, on the left I needed it, on the right I actually did not, I thought I was off on the paper, but I had 3 Alpha hits. It turns out that the far paper targets were both Alpha's. Take off the 2 extra shots, and improve my transitions in the middle, and I think I could have cut off at least a second or so. I was 4 seconds slower than Les, and he thought he could have cut a second off his time. I'm not a GM shooter, so I expect to be slower, and on the whole, this was pretty solid. (Thank you Jay Carillo for the commentary on that stage!) 4th of 23 Production Shooters
Summary:
So, match definitely had more negative than positive, I have to eat a classifier that does not help me, and I made a ton of mental mistakes. Those are inexcusable. These should not be ongoing issues. I had the 0 on a higher point stage, I got nailed on a couple of no shoots. The positive is that I found that if I slow down just a bit to "my" cadence, and focus on hits, I'm better off. For some reason, I'm very comfortable with steel, which I know throws a lot of people. It's a situation where it's a smaller target, so I aim small, and miss small, however paper is big, and I know that I'm getting onto the trigger before I'm getting sight set right in the middle of the A zone. When I shoot at the cadence I did on the last stage, and in the classifier, I have very little issue with that, so instead of pushing speed, I'm going to back off to the cadence I know I need, and get some hits next match.
Three solid stages, three incredibly poor stages for me. I finished 11th of 23 Production shooters and 35th of 50 Shooters overall. It's maddening to do shoot such extremes, and getting a complete, and solid match is something I'm just dying to do. Just an observation though, a lot of Production shooters must really stink. I thought I shot poorly on a few stages, and still managed to better among Production shooters than I felt I deserved. Stage 4 is a good example, I had a poorly executed plan, cost myself a few seconds with a a standing reload and I was still 6th. Maybe that's good for some folks, but I know I have a lot better in me than that.
Reality Check:
The reality is time is getting short to get my "B" card earned. I don't have a match for 10 days, and then I've got matches on the 15th and the 18th. I'm not saying that it's time to go out and start buying Les bullets, but it really is getting close. I need to get at least one mid level "B" in the next 2, and have one that is at least close to a B, if not another mid-level B. In talking with Les, I'm going to stay away from the steel plates in practice, and move to paper, that's my problem. I'm going to focus on getting A zone hits, I'm going to get the sight in the middle of the damn piece of cardboard before I break a shot, and I'm going to do it at what I know is a "B" cadence.
There is no time to screw around, it's do or die time, and I need to do this. I'm tired of saying that I feel like it's close, I need to grind off these rough edges, I have at least 2 live fire, 1 class, and dry fire to go. I need to really focus, re-commit, and if needed, up things a bit. I realize that I'm slow to build some muscle memory, so if I have to work a little harder, then I need to do it.
HTFU,
-Honey Jack
Full Match Video:
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