Take Your Choice

Take Your Choice


So, getting down to the wire, Dave and I decided tonight to work exclusively on the classifier tomorrow, CM 99-12 Take Your Choice. The good news, is we had a bigger barricade, about 4' instead of 2', so tomorrow things should go better, and that's good because we did not have the night we needed to have. A classifier at 40' is not your standard classifier, but I'm glad, I've done well on the classifiers up close, but if I am going to say I earned my B card, then I want to prove that I can put up a score from a distance as well as on the up close classifiers. The plan tonight was to run it nine times, this was a Kozy suggestion for El Presidente that made sense. We were going to run it three times for accuracy, slow as we wanted, three times as fast as we could go, and three times as if it was for real. Here are my results:


CM 99-12

Slow Run

15.13 Total Time
1.97 1st Shot
2.69 Reload
8 Alpha
3 Charlie
1 Delta
3.30 Hit Factor
40.68% (C Run)

14.52 Total Time
1.91 1st shot
3.11 Reload
3 Alpha
9 Charlie
2.89 Hit Factor
35.63% (D Run)

11.87 Total Time
1.62 1st Shot
2.77 Reload
6 Alpha
3 Charlie
2 Delta
1 Mike
3.03 Hit Factor
37.35 (D Run)

Hair on Fire

8.66 Total Time
2.57 1st Shot
2.28 Reload
2 Alpha
5 Charlie
4 Delta
1 Mike
1 No Shoot
1.62 Hit Factor
19.9% (D Run)

7.91 Total Time
1.67 1st Shot
1.97 Reload
2 Alpha
4 Charlie
5 Delta
1 Mike
2.78 Hit Factor
34.37% (D Run)

8.51 Total Time
1.99 1st Shot
2.43 Reload
2 Alpha
4 Charlie
5 Delta
1 Mike
1 No Shoot
1.41 Hit Factor
17.38% (D Run)

Money Round

10.76 Total Time
2.10 1st Shot
2.70 Reload
5 Alpha
4 Charlie
2 Delta
1 Mike
3.16 Hit Factor
38.96% (D Run)

9.41 Total Time
5 Alpha
6 Charlie
1 Delta
4.68 Hit Factor
57.69 (C Run)

9.44 Total Time
7 Alpha
3 Charlie
2 Delta
4.66 Hit Factor
57.45 (C Run)


Review Time

Okay, a correctly sized barricade is going to do wonders for making this easier, but my concern is I need to flat out eliminate Delta's, and cut way back on the Charlies. Near the end, I realized that most of my shots were low, and my point of aim was the center or lower half of the target, that just won't work. The last 2 runs I made a conscious effort to get my point of aim up higher, and that was an improvement, not where it needs to be, but better. I've always had a problem breaking a shot when I saw cardboard, not the middle of the target, and at 40' if I aim at the bottom of the "A" zone, then I'm going to not have good hits. I also need to tighten up my sight picture, in this case, go a little slower, and get closer to a "perfect" sight picture, opposed to an "acceptable" sight picture. Acceptable plays better at close range.

Putting this classifier in perspective, if I shoot 50 of the 60 possible points, which means 7 Alpha and 5 Charlie, and do it in 10 seconds, for a hit factor of 5.0, I'll have a hit factor of 61.6. This means that Accuracy matters, quite a bit. My last couple of times are fast enough, I just need to tighten up my hits just a little bit, and honestly, I think the correct size barricade will help a ton, less lean, easier on my sights.  Doing the math even more, you'll notice that on my "hair on fire" runs, two of my three reloads were sub three seconds, on the money round, I was in the 2.7 range twice. I really think if I can keep it at a 2.20 reload, I'll be better off, and I did have that on my second run, so it's not just possible, it's a reality.

My shooting cadence is fine, my draw to first shot is acceptable, and even hair on fire it was excellent. I know where I need to be for this, and even though I did not get it tonight, I'm going to do my dry fire tomorrow, insure that my reload and draw are where they need to be, and practice for 20 minutes on the proper sight picture, using the shoulders as my point of aim. Frankly, if I just get my hits I should be absolutely fine tomorrow, and I'll be extremely disappointed if I don't earn a good enough classifier. I'm looking essentially for a Hit Factor of above 5.0.