In the past, I'd started out most years by setting some shooting goals, and I did it with good intentions, and what I thought was real desire, but the reality is that my commitment was just not there, so I was really just setting myself up to fail. My heart was just never truly in it, because in fairly short order my passion waned, and I just stopped. This year, I'm doing something a little different. For the first time in almost three years, I'm excited again, I'm passionate. I spent time going back thru my blog, looking at the very first lessons that Les started to teach me, and how I needed to start there again today, if I really wanted to achieve my goals.
This year, I want to earn, and be competitive in "B" class, by my last two major matches in September. I'd like to be in a position to work towards earning my "A", and I want to start showing some real progress again. I'm going to run 3 or 4 dry fire sessions a week, I'm going to go back to fundamentals until I develop a consistent draw, reload, and shooting cadence. Once I can do those things again, and I think I did them in 2014 towards the end of my time in Illinois, then I can start working on improving some other parts of my game.
So what has me all passionate about shooting again? What has me more excited to go shoot than any time since the first time I ever picked up a gun? Shooting Open! Yes, for 2017, I'm going to shoot Open Division, and believe me when I say it wasn't an easy choice, nor was it a fast choice, I put a lot of time into the decision, and I also put time into thinking about everything that I needed to invest. Before I get into all that, I'll share how I came to the decision.
To begin with, I was struggling with my sights in 2016, turns out it was not my sights, but it was my vision. Shooting iron sights means you focus on your front sight, but when I focused on my front sight, I could not see targets beyond 8-10 yards, it was just a blob. I had to see sights, then look at a target, then re-focus on my sights, it was a legitimate struggle. I went to an eye doctor, and was given the "bad" news. People in their 40's start to see their sight deteriorate, my astigmatism was twice as bad in both eyes as it was a few years ago, and it was time to look at switching to progressive glasses. The issue with progressives, is that they are "blended", I look out the top to see at a distance, and the bottom for close things, it's a step in the right decision, but it's still not near as fast as someone with good vision, and I'd have to adapt. Ultimately, I believe that I'll get Lasik surgery, and that will be the best course of action. Originally though I was against the idea of Lasik, and considered that perhaps moving to a "dot" gun, PCC, Carry Optic's, or Open would be possibilities. A few friends suggested PCC quite a bit, and I'm definitely intrigued, but still, it's shooting a rifle, even if it's 9mm, and for USPSA, I wanted a pistol.
In early January, I borrowed an Open gun from Ryan Banks, took it to the range, and I ran the gun, hard, fast, and had great hits. Sure they were open targets, but I was pulling splits in the .16-.18 range, with transitions in the .25-.28 range. Those kinds of splits I hit on "hair on fire runs" in Production, and I know that I'll have to go faster in Open, but for the first time shooting the gun? I was blown away, and what made it even better, was that I was able to call shots at that speed. After a run, I knew where the hits would be when we went to paste. It wasn't perfect, but I'd say I called over 80% of my shots, and again, I'm not sure I ever had that level of confidence even when I shot production.
 |
| Look at the multiple pieces of brass in the air! |
What came as a bigger surprise, is that Linda was trying to figure out what she wanted to do, and the range trip was more about her than me. She ran some Carry Optics (Lauren's Glock 17 with DPP), she ran my Single Stack gun, she ran Ryan's Limited gun, she ran her Hayes Custom 5" 9mm 3-Gun gun, and she ran Ryan's Open Gun. One of her big issues has always pulling the trigger, and going fast. Going back to her old stats, her typical Production splits have been in the .40-.50, with transitions in the .60-.80 range, and it was probably about the same in Limited last year. No matter the drill, no matter what we did, she still had issues like that, and it was her nemesis. Once she picked up the Open Gun, her first few runs featured splits in the .18-.20 range, and transitions in the .30-.35 range. Think about it, she'd go target to target faster than she took a second shot on a single target with another gun. She had a hard time saying it, but it made it fun, and she wanted to shoot Open in short order.
While there are a ton of builders out there, I started to do some research. Personally, I'd never touch anything by Freedom Gunworks, and by default that means I'd have a hard time looking at anything from CK Arms either. I've spent an awful lot of money with Hayes Custom Guns over the past couple of years, and if I was looking for 3-Gun, I'd go back no hesitation, but for such a specialty item, I want to go with someone who specializes in that. Kozy has been one of the key guys in my progression as a shooter, and he and I have had a lot of talks about Akai Custom guns, and he was, of course, my first call. Without hesitation he told me that the only person he'd recommend was Shay, and I needed to get a gun from him. My hesitation is that Shay is in Florida, and I hate the idea of not working with a local builder. If I have a problem, or something goes wrong, the gun get's shipped to Florida, and I'm out of a gun.
The other finalist was Peine Custom Firearms. Ryan's gun, the gun that hooked us, is a Peine Custom gun. Local Open GM Heath Parsons and his son run them, and they have a great rep as being reliable. Those guns run and run, and nothing seems to break. That was a huge, huge selling point to me, that and the fact that he is local. The other massive point in his favor, is that at the Area 4 match in 2014, he showed integrity and class. When MD Ken Cobb was pushing me to not file for arbitration on the stage that was shot one way on Friday, and a different way on Saturday. Greg is one of the guys who shot it legally the same way I did on Friday, and he saw other people do it. I asked him, and he came and told Ken how he shot it, knowing that it could and should have gotten the stage tossed. Ken said he could not believe it, because people could all be coming up "doing me a favor". Which being honest means he was saying that those people, Greg included was lying for me. That day Ken could have said a lot of things about me that I would have let go, but calling someone innocent a liar like that is one thing I'll never forget. Sounds like a lot in Peine's favor, no?
Well, Linda and I made a decision, I went and ordered an Akai custom gun that was getting built for someone else, and is about to go out for coating so I'll have it reasonably quickly. Linda ordered a Peine Custom gun and is looking for delivery in 7-9 weeks, again pretty quick. The method behind the madness, is we'll shoot the hell out of both of them this year, and come October or November, we'll make a decision on which we like better, and we will order a 2nd one of those, and then sell the other pistol. It may not be ideal, but it let's us buy from both builders where I do feel some obligation.
 |
| Mine will look roughly like this, but with a Hard Chrome coating |
So what else needs to happen to make this happen? I mean the reality is Open Guns are not cheap, just buying them isn't going to make me a better shooter, by doing this, I need to commit to everything that goes with it. To start with, that means shooting 9 major, not 38 Super Comp. Super Comp brass is expensive, and you really need to pick it up religiously. I'll have money using 9mm brass, and load it instead. I'm committing to live fire once a week, and even if it's around 200 rounds, that means I need to feed the beast. While I had a Dillon 650, in early February, I'm going to order a Dillon 1050, along with a Mark 7 1050X, which can load up to 1800 rounds per hour automated. Let's call it 1500, and I think in a 3 hour reloading weekend, I can load and case gauge about 3,000 rounds, which is a pretty solid number per month. It doesn't include case prep, and that's going to have to be taken to a new level of precision and detail, but again, this is a big investment to do this right.
I'm going to keep the 650, and I bought a new, sturdy, wood reloading bench. The 650 can stay set up for 9mm, or eventually be switched to .40 if I ever wanted to go shoot Limited, or I could sell it. Gut feeling is that it stays for the time being, or it could get used to run a 9 major load for Linda's gun if her gun is better off with a different load than mine, which is likely.
What else? Well, need to order 64 lbs of powder, 10,000 Precision Delta bullets to get going, and I've been pricing out some steel targets. I'm looking at a couple of mini-poppers, and 4-5 8" steel plates than I can set at different heights, and use kind of like a plate rack. Having a few extra props of my own is a good thing. I'm not a APSC Club Member, so I can't be using their props, with those, and some regular cardboard targets, I can do a few things to help improve my practice sessions going forward.
Finally, next week, I ordered the Shooting Sports USA arcade game. It's the same one that was up at Alpha Range, and Les says that he used it as part of his dry fire routine, and that it actually has some value in his practice program. Be it limited use, or more use, it'll be something fun at the bare minimum.
 |
| This one is on the way |
In some ways it was a dumb decision to switch to Open. Speed has never been my strong suit, and I'm going to move to a Division where it's imperative to embrace your inner Ricky Bobby, because you want to go fast. In reality, Linda moves quicker than I do, it should benefit her more than me if she can actually run the gun. Hell, I think this year she will earn and be competitive in C class, with a shot to earn her B card if she puts in her time. In fact I suspect her ultimate upside in Open is better than in any other division. She will do better than me in the end.
In terms of practice, if I look at my matches last year, and the first match this year, I see flashes of the old ability. I see areas or arrays where my cadence is great, where I keep the gun moving, and mow targets down, but I don't see it consistently, and that's the mark of a legitimate shooter. Anyone can put up good bits of a stage, or a solid stage, but doing it over the course of a whole match is how you compete in B class and above, and I'm not close. Post reload on Sunday, I accidentally flipped on the safety after a reload. Not only was embarrassing, but it shows that I have not practiced, if I dry fire, that's the kind of thing that just doesn't happen.
The thing is, I'm excited again, I don't see dry fire as work. I've done the math on where I need to be to earn my B card in Open, where my splits, transitions, draw's, and reloads need to be again. That's what I'm going to practice, and it's going to be fun. For the first time, I've found my own motivation, and I'm not borrowing on someone else. I'm not depending on having someone tell me to be at practice, I want to do it for myself.
 |
| Me Thinking About Shooting Open |
So I've said stuff like that before, I've committed and failed. So maybe you should take it with a grain of salt, but that's okay. I've got to prove it to myself again.. Either I'll do it, or I won't do it. I'm going to relearn the fundamentals, I like that with Open, my eyes focus on the target, and I just wait for the dot to get there, but that means I need to have my dot on my draw, and after a reload, and unless I practice, I'll always be losing and looking for the dot, and costing myself time.
End of each month, I'm going to post a picture of a calendar, I'm going to check off live fire days, I'm going to star off dry fire days, and I won't lie to myself. It'll be in plain sight. I'm going to make it happen, and I'm going to do it because I'm excited again. I can't wait to begin. One day at a time, one month at a time, we'll start with raw fundamentals, and go from there!
