Cowtown Classic May 6th 2016

Cowtown Classic May 6th 2016



Mixed blessing, after 8 stages I was on the way to shooting perhaps my best ever major USPSA match. I had 2 mikes, both on the second stage that I shot. Sure there was a lot that I could be doing better, but I was stringing together some reasonable solid stages, and I was pretty proud of my overall performance considering where I'm at these days in terms of prep and practice level. Putting this in perspective, I've never had a major where I had less than double digit misses, so while I was not fast, I was at least getting something right.


The last two stages though ate me up to the tune of a combined 8 misses, four on weak hand shooting, and then 3 on swingers. I'm going to have to find a way to work on swingers, because I had one other miss on a swinger on that second stage. I'm not going to cry about the finish, but it would have been nice to finish as well as I started, and it also feels like I'm starting the crawl up again from bottoming out the end of last year. It's not a huge amount of progress, but it's some little things, and I'm satisfied with that for now, one thing at a time, definitely progressing!


A few little things so I don't have to comment on them in each individual stage. There were a few stages where after the first shot I had to tap/rack, but when I realized it was not the gun, it was me. I was not letting the trigger reset, so when I'd try to pull it a 2nd time nothing happened. It should have been evident on Stage 5, but I still made the mistake a few times.

Going back from Limited to a 10-shot gun in Single Stack was a little more challenging than I expected. Here I ran to slide lock a few times, and could not figure why the gun would not auto-forward like the CZ did quite often, and releasing the slide stop was quite a bit harder. Short version, some better planning fixes that, but I need to get more familiar with this gun. Putting it in perspective, this was the 2nd match I've shot with this gun, the first being the Classifier match a month ago. More trigger time will go a long way.

Stage 4:



Had all my hits, had a reasonable plan, and I was able to execute it. Could have run things quicker? Absolutely, but I needed a good stage early on with all my hits to build some confidence that has really been low. This stage was pretty much what I needed, and it was a great way to start the match.


Stage 5:




Here is where I should have caught my mistake in not letting go enough to reset the trigger. The truth is, that I AD'd that 2nd shot, I took my hand off to tap-rack, and the gun went off, fortunately I was facing the target, and had an Alpha hit....God takes take of idiots? I realized what I was doing at lunch time when I saw this video, but I should have picked it up sooner. The gun is good, I mean it's really good, but c'mon man, gotta get to reset.

On the two target array before moving into the port, I took my "non" weak hand or swinger miss. I put 3 hits into the bottom target, and one into the top target, it was close, but that was entirely on me. I took another mike on the swinger, trying to focus on hitting the target between the 2 steel hard cover plates. Again, poor choice to try to take it that way, should have done it on the side, at rest. Being honest, I could have gone one of two ways, in the past I would have carried that mistake and let my whole match go down hill, today I recovered immediately, put it behind me, and went back to work. Six straight stages without a miss after that, so mentally I think I'm starting to show a littler progress as well.


Stage 6:




Had the trigger issue to start, again, and then I had a problem after the first reload. Short version is the round did not chamber, and I could not release the mag, or tap and rack it. Not sure what caused it, but it was the only time that it happened. That issue cost me about 10 seconds or so.

Splits coming down the middle were good, they were what I would want to expect, but I did not see enough of that for the entire match. It's in me, but again, that's going to be all about building consistency as I start to get back to work.


Stage 7:



Whew, no sense of urgency, but the first 3 targets were at 30 yards, and I wanted to spend a little extra time insuring that I was getting good hits. I'll say this, in the past those targets would have intimidated  me a little bit, but since spending some time in 3-Gun, I see things like that a lot more often, so no fear. I got all my hits, in fact I had good hits, and probably could have run that faster with more confidence.

Slow to the tuxedo's, but again, got hits, because I had a make-up, I went to slide lock, and had to reload, and release the slide stop, minor error, and I need to practice that going forward, because it's still a bit unnatural.


Stage 8:




Again, forgot to release the trigger...seeing a theme here? That said, I had what I thought was a reasonable plan, I had no doubts on what I was doing, although I was leaning hard, and almost overran a target. I took a risk without the last reload because that was my last round on the long steel, but I felt confident, never thought twice about it. A plus? How about the solid reload going backward? You know.....there's a positive.....my reloads were fairly acceptable all day long, now to bring the rest up to that speed.

Lunch Break:

I'm about to drop so wisdom, so be prepared. At this point I admitted out loud to Linda that I really wanted to win Single Stack "C", and that I felt if I continued to not make mistakes, that was a legit possibility. Not that I was killing it, but no mikes goes a long way. The other part, and this is the wisdom, is that if you want to feel good about yourself, get in a squad of IDPA shooters, you'll feel like a rock star. Granted it's a placebo, you don't know how other squads are doing, you don't know any scores, but in that moment, it's easy to get some confidence.

Just an observation, not saying it was me at all, just a random observation, and that friends, is why lunch is important.


Stage 9:




Bridge stages! This actually was one of my better stages, There were a couple of make-up's, but I was not making up misses, I made up 2 Charlies, with 2 Alpha's, no idea why, but I felt good about this stage, felt like I was going to own it. I almost tripped over the fault like, the ground beneath it was washed out, so the fault line was up in the air, it's something that should have been fixed.

I hate the moving bridges in general, but damn, again, for where I'm at today, I was very happy with this stage.


Stage 10:




Trigger finger? Twice? C'mon man! Okay, not sure about my stage plan, nobody else ran it the way I did, most folks ran straight to the corner, and activated the swinger, before coming back to the opening in the wall and taking the swinger. I ate the standing reload, which is what made me think that my plan was not all that hot, but I did not want to change it up and go with something else.

For me, I did not want to go back into the opening, and take the paper, and swinger, it was steps wasted to go back in, and then come back out, I was able to come straight across and save those steps. Were those steps worth the standing reload? I don't know.

Coming straight across did however allow me to take all 3 paper targets from standing, rather than going to the port and taking the 2 paper to the right, which is what every other shooter in my group did. (Okay, so maybe some of 'em were IDPA shooters, and on other stages had some very "interesting"  stage plans.)

Three hits on the obstructed target, so I did not need the last shot, and this swinger I actually had both my hits on, with some patience I can do it, I just need to work it.



Stage 1:




30 targets, one shot each, no worries. Being honest, I was suffering a little from the heat by this time. Unfortunately there were only 4 RO's on the squad, and Linda and I actually did most of the RO'ing and scoring during the morning, and to start the afternoon. I'd estimate we ran about 70% of all the shooters in our squad. Most of the time right after I shot, I'd be handed the timer and had to run the next shooter, which was Linda.

In any case, fairly simple stage, I broke it up into groups of 8, so I knew right where I wanted to go, and where I had to take each target, no hunting and pecking needed. Weirdly enough in Single Stack this was one of the better runs, which probably says more about the competition level in the division than it does about how I shot it.

Wide open targets, good hits, just need to inject more confidence and faster transitions and we'll be getting back to business.



Stage 2:




Here is where the wheels pretty much fell off the bus. I had 5 misses in 8 weak hand shots, if I'm honest with myself, I could have called 3 of them because I broke the shot when the sights were moving, or I did not have the sights properly aligned. This was the stage that match finish pretty much broke my back. Slow with little to no misses could have been okay, but all of a sudden slow with misses, that will end your day.


Stage 3:






Whew, last stage, and 3 more misses, one on each swinger. My plan was fine, I just did not execute. I thought I had hits on the swingers, the three I did have were all Alpha's, so it's evident to me that I understand what sight picture I need to have to get a hit, and that I should have taken a little extra time, and made sure of the 2nd hits.

I'm not making excuses, lack of practice on swingers and weak hand are what cost me, and that's a bummer. I was definitely over heated, I fought some nausea earlier, so there is some conditioning that is readily needed too. I had total control over the stuff that I battled, so no matter what, I know that I can get better, and can eliminate these things.

Just a few weeks until Texas Open, and we're going to knock a few of these things down by then.



Summary:

80% of a good match? Hey, considering it's still probably my best ever performance at a major in terms of "mikes", and the fact that I'm just getting back to this, and getting back at a much slower pace than I set at the end of 2013 and first half of 2014, I'm okay with it. Honestly, I was very happy with what I had done before the last two stages.

Stuff to fix? Hell yes, If you are reading, or watched, you saw what I saw, I'm not running the gun near as hard as I can, I need to pick up the pace, get on the trigger, and get my splits and transitions back down to a place I can be competitive. I think mentally, I've gone to a place where I'm so focused on just getting hits, that I'm taking too much in doing that. Long targets? Tuxedos? No-Shoots? Sure, there are times you have to respect a shot and give it an extra tenth of a second or so, but I'm not discriminating, I'm taking that attitude all the time, and it's hurting.

Like I said earlier this year, it's going to be baby steps. I want to get a little bit better every match that I shoot, and I want to have my best performances come September and October, that's the real target date to get everything back, and start moving forward. This was just a step, and with that in mind, sure I'm disappointed in the last couple of stages, but I'm fairly happy that I'm showing some mental improvement, some stage plan confidence, and hell, there was never a gripe with a reload in this match.

Onward!