Buckeye Blast May 24th (Part 1)

The Buckeye Blast (Part 1)

Huge kudos go out to the Pickaway County Sportsmen's Club who put on the Ohio Sectional this year, they did a fabulous job. The stages were fun, the R.O.'s were excellent, and I had a fabulous time. The drive may have been close to 7 hours each way, but it was absolutely worth it. This was Linda's first Level Two (Major) match that she was going to shoot, so I was equally excited to go and support her. She's come with me to one in the past, and she's shot the club matches, but she was excited for her first all day match.

Before I get to the actual shooting part of the match, despite saying on Thursday that I had no intention of strapping on the WIILSHOOT jersey on for the match, I thought about it long and hard, and on Friday night, I made the decision to jersey up. I made it not because I wanted to wear a jersey, but because of all the things that I said on Thursday night. I decided that even if WIILSHOOT was "disbanded", all the good that it did, and stood for, I'd stand for on Saturday. I know that probably sounds a little hokey, but it was my way of taking the community with me, and in a way, still standing for everything the name carried.  I admit I heard it from a couple of people with the "Hey, you just get on the team, and they close it down!" or "Hey, that's so last week, WIILSHOOT is gone." I get it, I do, but I still think it was the right thing to do.  Whether I put on the jersey again or not, I know it's in me, and that part of me will be at every match I shoot.

The Bad

I was not all that happy with the way I performed at the match, and suggested that in a Facebook post, and I had a wise friend tell me that I should be more positive. That I've come a long way, and I should not be comparing myself to Les and Kozy, because everyone who is better than me, has been where I am now. Nobody started out great, they earned it with practice and hard work. Sage advice.  I'm still not happy with how I shot, and I'll start with the bad stuff, and not because it's a horrible, but because it's done and over, and once it's out there it's done. There really was some good stuff, and I'd rather spend some time on those items.

I had an accuracy issue. I had 19 misses, say that slowly, 19 misses. Granted 7 of them were on the last stage where I had a complete meltdown, but that's an unacceptable number, and I'm better than that. Putting it in perspective, the last 2 big matches I shot (The WIIT & Bluegrass), I did not have that many total, heck, I did not have that many if you added 10 to my actual total. I never had my front sight the entire match. 17 Delta, 19 Mike, I'm more accurate than that. The good news? That's fixable. I need to get back to some fundamentals, grip, front sight, shooting groups, and dry fire. This is a short term blip, as long as I put in the work to fix it.

I had an ammo issue, too much crimp. Guess what? That's fixable as well. It's a fairly short list of things that I think were bad. Well, I almost went sub-minor, but that's tied, I think, to the crimp issue. Easy enough to fix. Sure, these were all day issues, but in the scheme of things, they really cost me, but I can fix them with just some work.

The Good?

Let's start with stage planning. Usually I have a Les or a Kozy around to help me with some stage planning, but here I did not have any help. I liked my stage plans, they were simple, efficient, and I was able to easily commit them to memory and execute them. At Bluegrass when something did not go my way, I let it get away from me, and I forgot my plan. Here, I was able to stay right on my game. The 2nd stage I blew by one target (2 Mike and FTE), and that's on my head, but overall, I'm happy with the plan I put in place. First time I had to do it, and because I had to focus, it worked.

I did have a couple of solid stages, one which as I write had me 13th of 64 scored Production shooters. I was one of the top B Shooters, and about 68% of the top score. That's the level I want to be shooting at, and where I think I can perform if I can make a few corrections. Another stage was Top 20, and I had a trigger freeze. Both of those stages I felt like I left just about everything I had on the table. I want the consistency to say that more often. Another goal which will take some time, but it's within reach.

My reloads were solid, I never missed one, or had to look back, I kept my eye on the reload every time, and while fundamentally I'd like to get them back out and higher, I won't complain too much. My draws were fine, my grip on the draw was better, and as a result I found my sights easily, rather than getting the gun up, and not being able to see my front sight.

Speed. I'm not going to compare myself to the GM's, who were a lot faster than me, but within my class I was solid, The top B shooter was in around 192 seconds, second place was at 213, I came in at 216 seconds. Obviously the difference was accuracy. I'm not saying I need to slow down and be more accurate, what I need to do is be more accurate at the speed I went. If you watch the video, there is time to be made up in movement, but speed in and of itself was fine. I won't say "dial it back a hair", but even if I did go that route, I'm okay.

Mental toughness. This has been the bane of my existence, and it failed me completely at Bluegrass. Here however, I'm going to give myself four stars. There were some very trying moments and stages, but I never once carried a low from one stage to the next. In my head I shot 10 matches, I brought my best each and every time, and I did not let it get me down. I was a battler all day long. The only time it came close was on the very last stage (7 mikes) and I got mad that I ended on such a sour note, but that's why I finally got mad. I actually was in the midst of an upswing in the afternoon. I kept it together, and I'm proud.

The other reason I kept my cool, was that without Les or Kozy, I assumed a little of that role. I kept my eye on my "charges", and I helped Emil and Dave make a couple of stage plan changes, I noticed that Linda was shooting low, and I helped her re-find her sight picture. I talked Dave into staying, twice, once when he got bumped to Open for having a non-factory mag release, and when he had to shoot last on the last stage, and was frustrated. I was the kind word, the motivator, I was what I had leaned on in other matches, but this time I found some of those things in myself. I came a long way, and I overcame some all-day issues to ring in my best stages near the end, I kept battling and fighting, and I hope I let a few other people borrow on some of that for themselves.

So sure, I'm not happy with the end results, but those are some little issues that are fixed with more hard work. There are so many more positive lessons from this experience than bad, so even if I did not shoot my best, I came away with a lot, and all things that I can apply going forward. I'd be a chump if all I did is focus on the bad. My disappointment is really just that I know I'm better than this, work will take me back there, and I'll be that much closer to putting it all together.