Saturday Practice & Linda's Progress
Friday night we had dinner at Jameson's Charhouse to
celebrate Emil's 70th Birthday, and I think a good time was had by all. Kozy
was going up to Alpha the
next morning to get some practice in, and he suggested that Emil, Linda and I
all go up there with him, and he would do some coaching and practicing. First
of all, I'll say how much I appreciate that he did that. Kozy is working hard
to earn his GM card, and when he takes three entry level shooters up to
practice, he loses a session of practice of his own, and ends up teaching his
dad, Linda, and I. It's a sacrifice, and I eat up the coaching, anything helps.
We started working the same classifier
that we ran on Wednesday night, and I started off with a nice run, 4.98 down 4
points (had steel issues), with a 2.17 turn and draw. We cycled thru a few
times, and my biggest issue is still the turn and draw, I'd been working at 1.9
in practice, but the long shot to the small steel is not easy. I felt better
about my ability to get hits when I just slowed down a hair and focused on the
center of the target, not just when I saw cardboard.
Linda started off around 5.62, and then
got down to a 5.32, with a 1.84 turn and draw. Kozy hit the nail on the head,
and told her that it won't be long before she is beating me, she's quick. We
focused on her hands on her grip, and came to the conclusion that there is
nothing wrong with her gun, the double feeds are just a result of her riding
the slide of the gun. It's good to know the gun is fine, and her riding the
slide is something she can fix, it's a dry fire and practice issue. The other
part where it showed was her inconsistent hits, she was dragging across a
target, and making some of the same mistakes I was making a few months ago.
She's really showing major progress though, she shoots less, practices less,
and is where I was just a few months ago? Good for her.
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| Go Linda! |
After practice, Linda and I took Lauren to
a Birthday party, and then ran up to On
Target so Linda could try a couple of things. So here's the deal with
her. When we started, (and how naive does this sound?) we thought we would get
just one gun, and we could share it to shoot matches! I don't know if that was
innocence, or me just trying to get the foot in the door to the sport. It was
obvious quite early she needed to get something of her own, and she ended up
with a Walther P99. She picked it because it was there, and last February guns
were hard to find, and we could keep some cost down simply by being able to
share magazines. She actually controlled that gun really well, but it was not
the most “friendly” trigger for her to learn on. Terry and Les shot her
straight, and told her to “get rid of it”. She borrowed a Glock 17 this summer,
and liked it, and I had a “free” gun coming from winning a raffle at the IL
State IDPA Match. She got a lot of well intentioned advice that she should skip
that, and get a Glock 34 instead. So, without shooting one, she agreed, and I
went thru a process to get that “free”. She shot it for a match, and, well
there were a few issues there. With the money from selling the P99, I had
bought, and got some work done on a Springfield
When we started shooting, Linda had rented an XDM, but a 4.5”, and
really liked the gun, so she more or less “assumed” the XDM from me. So come to today, and the truth is, she’s
never had something that she really picked, something that was what she wanted.
When she did try to pick the Glock 17, she got “overruled” by all of us who
wanted to help get her something really built for competition. Being completely
honest, she could have earned her A card, hell, gone beyond that with any of
the guns I mentioned, what’s stopping her is her own self-confidence, and faith
to put the pedal to the floor and really go. That’s something that Terry said,
that I happen to agree with. It’s not offensive in the least, I was in that
spot myself this summer, I was afraid to get up and go, I was so conscious of
being “safe” that I was afraid to run, to shoot fast, all that stuff. Her gun
is not holding her back, she is holding herself back.
The best wisdom is for her to HTFU and keep her gun, and get
better with it, I know it, she knows it, but I also understand her wanting to
try a few things, and for once pick and own something that she really wants. Way
back when, I wanted to try a steel gun, but since we were “sharing” (that’s
laughable isn’t it now?) and she hated it, I had to give up on the idea. So,
she’s been hearing me sing the praises of the CZ, so the idea of going to On Target
was for her to try a few stock CZ’s, and compare them with her gun. She started
with a stock 75B, and was not very impressed. It’s heavier than the XDM, and
lighter than my gun, and she rode the slide, and did not feel that much better
than her gun. At this point she was a little disappointed.
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| CZ 75B |
She took out her XDM, and put 15 rounds thru it, and had some okay
groups, and some that went high and left. She was trying to focus on not riding
the slide, and on keeping her front sight in place.
While she did that, I exchanged the 75B for a stock SP-01 (my gun,
but with a firing pin block, and no custom work.) She put 30 rounds thru it,
and she really liked it. She had no problem keeping the hits in the “A” zone,
and she was able to do it fairly rapidly. She was not a fan of the long double
action pull, but she was amazed how the gun handled recoil, and how easy it was
for her to keep her eye on the sight and shoot rapidly.
Then I had her take her XDM out again, and try to repeat what she accomplished with the SP-01. Same issue, it was harder to shoot quickly, and her hits were inconsistent.
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| CZ SP-01 |
Then I had her take her XDM out again, and try to repeat what she accomplished with the SP-01. Same issue, it was harder to shoot quickly, and her hits were inconsistent.
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| Springfield XDM |
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| CZ Shadow |
There is a local shop that has an SP-01 at a very reasonable
price, but to get it, she’d have to sell her XDM, and she’d want work done on
that SP-01. It would be an excellent gun, not as good as the Shadow, but
reasonably close for several hundred dollars less than what I paid. (Hey, worst case, it ends up a back-up gun for me, and we all know that's coming soon anyhow.) She’s got
some choices to make, changing guns can be an excuse or a cop out for lack of
success, especially since her gun now is more than capable of being a GM
caliber gun. The reason I see an exception, is simply that she’s never gotten
anything that she really wanted, or picked on her own, and that’s wrong too.
She should have gotten what she wanted, so she could own her progress. Get an
SP-01 and work on it? Get on the list and order her own Shadow? Stick with the
XDM, grind it out, and get better before making a change? I’m not sure what she’ll
do, but those are three legitimate possibilities, and I’ll support whichever
choice she makes. 100% up to her. Does she just say "this is it" with any of them? We'll see.
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| Jessie Duff |
IPSC also had it's first ever woman match winner of a level 4 match, the Far East Asia Championships, Maria Gushchina
I'm pretty proud of her, and I hope she sticks with the work, and can accomplish her own goals.
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