Spent a couple of hours this morning on live fire, so I was extra excited to get out and do some live fire this afternoon, and go get a feel for the gun. I continued to work on draw during dry fire, but live fire showed me that I need to focus on a few other items while in dry fire.
Draw/Grip: So I tend to not put a ton of focus on my draw in dry fire. I figure that if I get it into a "competent" area, like a consistent 1.5 second draw, then I'm not going to hurt myself too badly. I was hitting that mark in dry fire, but evidently I was getting an inconsistent grip. Short version, to utilize the thumb rest I had to move turn my hand a bit further forward than I normally have done. In live fire, if I got a good grip, the dot moved a lot less, and I had far better control over the gun, if I got a bad grip, dot bounced all over, and my hits or my time suffered. While I may only draw once a stage, if I don't get a good grip, it impacts everything that I do. Can't cheat myself, need to do this right, and focus on it.
Reloads: Same thing here as in the draw. Sure I need to go faster, I was hitting a 1.3-1.5 in dry fire, but I was 1.9-2.1 in live fire. Sure, I don't have to reload often in Open, but I will have to reload on Standards stages, and it's a basic skill. I need to look at the video, but I suspect I'm slow off the gun to get moving. In addition, getting that grip is going to be key. Foundation type of fundamental, and if it's not right, I'll struggle with everything else.
So what did I do? Well, I spent time just shooting at a few black pasters from different distances, so I could learn what to expect from the dot, and how I need to adjust my aiming point based on distance. It was a learning process, but a good one. I'll improve because of it. We went back and ran a few El Pres drills, and I just wanted to benchmark myself. I was running consistently in the 6.5 seconds to 7.0 second area, with solid hits. Huge room to improve the turn and draw and reload, (2.1 seconds on turn and draw, and the 2-2.1 range on reloads). I see an easy 1 second improvement just on those two things possible. Splits were in the .21-.23 area, and transitions in the .31-.33 area. Again, I'm sure that in time I'll be able to run the gun faster, but I felt comfortable at that speed, and I called my shots effectively.
 |
| Oh, it was a sub 1 lb trigger! |
Lastly, based on a suggestion from Les, we set up a "mini-stage". We started about 18 yards to a card board target, then to a mini-popper, break and run to three open targets at 10 yards, followed by a finish on steel. The goal was to run it for the highest Hit Factor possible, so it wasn't just about running it fast, you needed to get hits as well. This was fun, because it made practice a little competitive for Linda and I, and in order to "win" we realized there was a lot going into it, draw, transitions, and how you left the first position, and entered the second position, not to mention getting hits.
Damn, I'm excited to shoot, my hands feel torn up from gripping the gun so hard, but I want to get back out there. I'm anxious to clean up my mistakes. I realize that I may have set my goals too high for next weekend, and I'll like "downgrade" it during the week. This is not going to be an easy transition, it'll all start with grip. The other part is that I just need to put rounds thru the gun, the more I shoot the better I'll get. Sure, in some ways I was frustrated because I wanted to drill Alpha's all day long, but I'm so excited to be out there, and I appreciate that if I invest the time I'll get there.
No comments:
Post a Comment