My 2017 Cowtown Classic Part 1

 My 2017 Cowtown Classic


2017 Cowtown Classic Scores

So where should I start with this match? I know early on I wanted to score 70% of the overall winner, but dry fire and live fire had me realistically thinking that 60% would be a reasonable finish, and I ended up at 59.47%, with a couple of issues that had me feeling reasonably good. It's funny, I always seem to find a ton of things that I'm doing wrong, and places I can improve, but it's been a long time since I've walked away from a match feeling like I did okay. This was my highest ever Major match finish. (82/187 and 29/44 in Open.)

I'm not going to kid myself and say it was "great", it wasn't, but it was not bad, especially since it's been 11 months since I've shot a USPSA match (okay, one classifier in there.) I knew I'd be rusty, I knew that there would be some struggles, and honestly, last time I walked away from the range feeling good about a match I shot was June of 2014, the last Oak Park match we shot before moving, that's a long time.

So let's begin:


Stage 1:

So keyed up that after the reload I forgot to go strong hand only, talk about a lousy way to start. The procedural hurt, but it also served as a reminder that I really needed to focus, so if it was going to happen, better to happen early, and on a low point stage.


Stage 9:

I finished 19th in Open on this stage, my second best finish for the match. My time was not outstanding, nor were my hits. I got stuck in the 2nd position longer than I wanted, and for some reason I kept looking left after the turn, and I knew the target was to my right, and that cost me having to post up in that spot. 16/9 Alpha to Charlie ratio was not too hot, but it felt good to get my first stage out of the way. 24 second time was 8 seconds slower than the top, and 2-3 seconds slower than I hoped to be.



Stage 10:

Multiple mistakes here. 41 second time was slow, and I was near the bottom of Open. Right off the bat, I screwed up my draw by not drawing straight out of the holster. My plan with the lean was a little risky, and I think I wasted more time by being slow in that first position. Then, for the first time, I lost the dot headed into the 2nd position, and while my hits were okay on the stage, I never got that sense of urgency back, and I took a lot of time making my way thru the stage.



Stage 11:

My time of just under 26 seconds was not bad, about 5 seconds off the top, but my 11/10 Alpha to Charlie hit ratio really cost me a ton of points. I also threw a mike, first target, 2nd position on the obstructed steel. It sure looks like I started to transition away from the target before I broke that second shot. I also felt fairly slow into, and out of my positions. I think I lost a few seconds, but the reality is my points, not speed are what hurt me here.


Stage 2:

Sub 25 second time on this stage was really not bad, it would have been in the Top 16 or so in Open, and I lost time by being slow off the first target, and taking the head shots on the following two targets probably slower than I needed. Much better ratio 19/4 Alpha to Charlie, so what got me? Two delta's, and one Mike. The mike was on the hardcover target in the last spot, I just buried my 2nd shot in the hard cover. Maybe a second or two I could have picked up here, but eliminate the Delta's, and the Mike, and I would have had a really solid stage.


Stage 3:

Uninspiring 27 second time, about 10 seconds off the top times hurt, and I had a  target with 2 Alpha and a Mike, since the shot broke the perf, and that was on my last position, as I came into the paper. Here is a stage where both got me, buy in general, by this time I was starting to pick up my dot better, and felt confident it was going to be where I expected it to be. Just listening to it, my cadence seems a lot slower than it was on earlier stages as well.

Stage 4:

I took 20 seconds, top times were just about 15 seconds, and I see a few places I could have picked up a second or two. Namely, I need to get moving as soon as I hear the beep start, and a slow reload, and when I posted up in the next to last position I lost maybe a second or so in there that I did not need, if you listen, it sounded far slower there. 20/6 Alpha to Charlie Split (toss in 2 Deltas) but by this time I felt like I was really starting to see the dot, and know where it was.


Stage 5:

25 second time put me about 6-7 seconds behind the top, but what got me was the mike/no-shoot coming into the obstructed target after the run down range. What's worse is that I thought about that in walk thru, and wanted to make sure I had the gun up high enough and dot up so that would not happen. It did though. In terms of time? Cadence slowed down on the 3rd target on the right hand side, I stopped downrange coming into the far target before jumping into the last 2 positions, and I think I could have moved faster in there. In all? I'm not talking a ton of time, maybe a couple of seconds tops, but it's there.

Stage 6:

This is the stage that just went wrong. Top times were 15-16 seconds, and I was 39 seconds, and being honest, I thought I was going to finish around 24-25 seconds with my plan. What got me was that dot went out after the first array. I thought I lost it, spent time trying to get the dot on, to find it, and it was just out, so my remaining 24 rounds were shot with me just pointing the target in the general direction and hoping to hit something. That explains a 12/8 Alpha to Charlie Split, with 5 deltas and 2 mikes. I guess now I'm officially an open shooter!

Based on a suggestion from a squad mate, I put some electrical tape in the battery compartment and changed the battery, but that seemed to keep the contact, and I was fine the rest of the match. I'm not worried yet, but I will keep an eye on the RTS-2, because I've seen that as a common issue.


Stage 7:

Let's see...yes, I did go all gangster style on the last couple of targets, it was the fastest way for me to finish. I did throw a mike coming across the stage onto the first target, 2nd shot I did not commit to, and I pulled it. 26.46 second time, top times were around 18.5 seconds. I think that I could shave a couple seconds early on where I'm taking a long time on transitions, however the top C shooter on this stage was a half second slower than me, but had 30 Alpha, 1 Charlie, and 1 Delta, which tells me that, as always, if you get hits, you'll have a good finish.


Stage 8:

Smart call to not worry about the activator, and take the two no-penalty mikes. It saved me some movement, and I hoped to finish the stage in about 10 seconds. Instead I finished it in 12.5 seconds, and I ended up 16th in Open, and 26th Overall, which was my best finish on a stage for the match. 10 Alpha and 4 Charlie, I think I would have taken 8/6 and saved the 2.5 seconds, but I wanted a speed where I knew I would get good hits, this was just a little slower than I thought I would be, but no complaints. Top times were 8.5-9.25 for skipping the activator, and 11.31 while taking the activator. Good way to end the day, solid stage.


Summary


This really was the most fun I've had a match, any match, USPSA or 3-Gun in years. I came home excited, physically I was not worn out, tired, but not beat. Mentally I kept it together, I did not let my issues carry from stage to stage, and more than anything I woke up on Sunday morning wanting to dry fire and start to practice. I'm not going to say it was the greatest match ever, but it has me back in the game again, really wanting to get out there and compete.

My match got better thru the course of the day, and I know more dry fire, and trigger time will really help me feel confident that the dot is always going to be where I expect it to be. There is a ton of movement improvement that I can see helping me but the biggest, and fastest thing I think is going to come from getting more Alpha's.

It's not work anymore, it's fun, and while I know you can overdose on it if you push it too hard, I'm having no issue sticking with my schedule on dry fire. I finished here 4th in "C" class about 12% behind the winner. I finished 4 points behind the 3rd place guy, which is eliminating some of the 22 Delta's that I had. I honestly think if I did not have the 2 stages with dot issues, I probably could have picked up about 5%, which would have put me second place in "C". Double Tap is the first weekend in June, which means I've got plenty of practice time, and early goal is going to be single digit combined deltas and mikes. I do that, and it'll take care of the other stuff on it's own.

Really can't stress enough how good it felt to shoot this match, and how excited I am to get out and improve. Shooting is fun again, and I can't tell you how much I have missed that feeling.

Adnil827 Shoots Cowtown Classic 2017

Adnil827 Shoots Cowtown Classic 2017





Stage 1:

Stage 9:

Stage 10:

Stage 11:

Stage 2:

Stage 3:

Stage 4:

Stage 5:

Stage 6:

Stage 7:

Stage 8:

Adnil's New Blaster: Peine Custom

Adnil's New Blaster: Peine Custom



Got the pictures today for Linda's new gun, and I'll be headed to pick it up tomorrow. She is pretty excited to get her hands on it, and start practicing! The plan is to load up a ladder of loads tomorrow, and go chrono on Thursday, and then find the right load, and get her ammo for the match loaded up Thursday night.

So yes, tentatively, the plan for Cowtown is for her to run her new gun! We've got all our gear in hand, so no excuses, we can dry fire, live fire, and it's time to get going.

Now that's one great looking gun! Season opens!

Akai Live Fire Day 1

Akai Live Fire Day 1



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.

Akai V6: The Open Journey Has Begun

Akai V6: The Open Journey Has Begun



Today is the day that I've been waiting for, my new Akai V6 has arrived, and now I'm firmly on the path of shooting Open, and making good on what I want to accomplish. It's been a few months since I've done a blog, but my time has not been "wasted", nor have I forgotten about what I wanted to do. Up until now, all I've really been able to accomplish is the prequel type of work, but it's things that I needed to do in order to be prepared to work, and fortunately, those things are done, and I have my ducks in a row.

Early on I identified ammo as something that "could" hold me back. Running Open, I have to reload, I can't buy any factory ammo, and frankly reloading is something I considered a chore in the past. Buying a 1050 was supposed to make things easier, but so far what I've found is that it's not just made things easier, it's also reduced my "error" rate substantially. In the past it would not be uncommon for me to have 1-2 rounds per 100 that would not case gauge for a variety of reasons. In the last 500 rounds I've put thru the 1050, I had one round that did not case gauge, that's it. I need to go Chrono the the gun, but looking at 8.3 grains of HS-6 with an OAL of 1.140-1.149. Kozy says this should put me around a 170-173 Power Factor, which gives me enough room to safely make major. While Les was in town this past week he made a few relatively small adjustments for me, and I'll run another few thousand rounds by hand before I install the Mark 7, and go fully automated. Both Les and Kozy impressed upon me that I need to know and have the 1050 running at tip top form before I go automated. Since Kozy learned it the hard way, I've committed to learn from his mistake, and wait just a little bit longer. In the picture? That's 20,000 Precision Delta 124 grain JHP bullets ready to be loaded. There are 64 lbs of HS-6 Powder, and 30k CCI Primers as well, so I've done all the basic things that I need to in order to be prepared to start. The good news is that there isn't anything standing between myself and my goals than me. Now it's up to me to put the work in, and get it done.

Early impression is that Shay put together a real shooter for me. The gun shipped first to Kozy so he could run it for 750-1k rounds and make sure that it was in perfect condition, and his report to me early on was that it was astoundingly good. He did some little things, like add some blue loctite to the grip screws. Below is a slow motion video of Kozy shooting the gun.

As you'd expect, the gun looks amazing, but when I picked it up we put it on the trigger gauge and the pull is a mere 1 lb. 3 oz. which is by far the lightest trigger that I've ever had, combine that with a nice reset, and short take-up, and I'm pretty impressed. This is an open gun among open guns!

A good looking gun, and lot of conveniences though don't make me a better shooter, as I said earlier, it's all up to me. As soon as I got home I started my dry fire routine. In addition to basic things like draw's and reloads, I wanted to spend time working transitions and movement, because I expect the hardest thing for me to do is to not lose the dot. Early on I think losing the dot will be the most likely thing to cost me time in a match, and that's something that I can work on in dry fire.

Admitting that my times were better three years ago in Production, you need a starting point, and that's what I got today. I was consistently hitting a draw to first shot on an open target in 1.5 seconds, I was hitting 75% of the time at 1.4 seconds, and at 1.3 seconds I was about 50-60% successful. My issue was more getting a good grip. Grip is an adjustment on this gun for me, I have to adjust my support hand a little forward to hit the thumb rest, but it's a better feeling grip. Going forward I'm going to set my par at 1.3 and work to push at that level.

My reloads started out at about 1.8 seconds, and I got them down to 1.5 seconds on a consistent basis. I did not spend as much time on reloads as I did on the draw, simply because in Open I'm just not reloading as much as I did in Production or Single Stack, and I think reloading on the move will be a bigger deal for me. Don't get me wrong, I'll spend time on reloads before Cowtown, but had to make some choices today, and keeping my eye on the dot was a big deal.

Last thing I did was more about movement, and I did not put a part time on it. Draw to an obstructed target, break grip and run, turning to an open target, breaking grip and running to another position and shooting a piece of steel, and finally breaking grip and going back to a final spot and coming in hard on a final cardboard target. My goal was to get the gun up, and have the dot right where I expected it to be so I could get on the trigger as soon as possible, and get moving again. Mission accomplished here, at first the dot was higher than expected, but the last half dozen runs were absolutely perfect, and I felt comfortable getting the dot on the steel quickly. 

I know, things will change with live rounds, but to me this is a simple exercise I need just to get comfortable with basic gun handling with the Open gun. Where does this leave me? Well, live fire practice with Linda on Thursday afternoon, and I'll dry fire Thursday morning. I'll be dry firing every day thru next Saturday's match, as long as I've got the time, I'm aiming for at least one hour every day, but if something comes up, I'll take 30 minutes. There is a match at ARC on Sunday, which I'll shoot, it's due to storm on Saturday, so we'll see, if it's too messy I won't go, but we will play that by ear. Live fire and chrono on Tuesday, and then get the gun cleaned and ready, and get my ammo loaded for the weekend. In live fire, going to spend some time checking my hold over's, that'll be fairly big for me as well.

So, what's my goal for Cowtown? There are 41 Open shooters, and 11 in "C" class, plain and simple, I want to win "C" in open, but I'd settle for a Top 2 finish. There are 5 Open GM's, so I'm hoping to finish at 70% of the top score in open, which would mean a consistent match, and really a mid-upper "B" level performance. Is that setting the bar high? Yes, it probably is, and maybe that would be a better goal for Double Tap in just over a month, but I want to set a goal that is worth achieving. 

So here we go, now I'll have to start updating the blog more frequently, and I absolutely will be on dry fire, looking forward to a class mid-summer with Les to get me going. It's not just that I'm out of excuses, but that I'm actually excited as hell again to do all of this. Reloading might be work, but the rest of it is something I'm passionate about again. Time to let it rip!

The Myth of the One Second Draw, For Me

The Myth of the One Second Draw, For Me



No, I'm not saying it's impossible, and I'm not saying it's not worth doing, it definitely is. What I'm seeing in so many places is people focusing on having a one second draw when they can become better shooters by focusing their attention in other places. Let's look at the example of a major match, you shoot 12 stages, and if you have a one second draw, versus having a 1.3. Over 12 stages, assuming it's all a draw from holster, you are talking about saving 3.6 seconds, and don't get me wrong, that's extremely valuable.

Let's say that your split and transition are .28 and .40. If you get those numbers down to .20 and .30, again, both very reasonable, you have say 12 transitions and 11 splits. Those two numbers would save you about 2.2 seconds a stage, or 26.4 seconds over the course of the match. That's 22.8 seconds greater savings by getting splits and transitions down, and that's why the "cool, one second draw" isn't worth the same investment at those levels.

Excellent shooters are going to have that one second draw, and get their splits in the .12-.18 area, with transitions not much slower. That's the well rounded shooter who has all of his skills at a very high level. For me? I understand why Les started us at a 2 second draw, and as we practiced I got that number down to a fairly comfortable 1.3 second draw. At the "B" level, that was more than enough to be competitive, and it was time for me to start putting more time into all the other skills that would help me improve my overall score.

With that in mind, I'm going to get my draw into that comfortable 1.3 second draw range, but I'm going to invest more time in dry fire once that happens to keeping the dot on transitions, and running the gun faster and harder. Those have to be the skills that I work on first, because I'll see the most gain, and this is nothing new, this is really just a summary of what Les had me do before. Since Open is a game where speed really matters, the next step is going to be movement, it will be key to start shooting on the move, go point to point quicker, and handle ports even better. Gun needs to be up, and in position so I don't waste time once I hit a spot.

There has to be a level of competence in all those skills, before having that one second draw really even matters. I associate it to the same process it would take going from a D shooter to a GM. The gains you can make from D to B/A you can probably do reasonably quickly. As long as you invest consistent time you can make some fairly quick (relatively) progress. Going from a 2 second draw to a 1.3 second draw is something that I did in somewhat fairly short order. I'd expect going to from a 1.3 second draw to a 1 second draw would take me quite a bit longer, and would require a great investment of practice time. The effort to go from M to GM is immense, I mean as long as you don't re-shoot classifiers non-stop to get the score that you want.

Maybe I knew this before, but I'm not sure that I understood it. Whole point of this blog, for me, is that I'm going to need to focus my time where I'm going to get the best return, at least for now. When I'm at the point where a one second draw will matter to me, the rest of my skills should be at a close to equal level. That's an issue with Brian Enos Forums, you've got a lot of "C Class" advice being given out and taken as gospel. People are regurgitating things that they have heard, but really don't have the same application for every level. For a C or B level shooter, they don't need to be practicing to have a one second draw, those are the people who I suspect end up floundering in a class and wondering why they cannot reach the next level. The lesson at least I got out of this, is that I need to tailor my practice properly, and in stages to best achieve the level of progress that I expect.

Right or wrong, that'll be the methodology for practicing the way I'm going to set-up my practice.

2017 Is Upon Us

2017 Is Upon Us



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!