My WIIT Re-Cap

My WIIT Re-Cap


The Screaming Amateur squad started out shooting stages five, six, seven and eight on Sunday morning at 11am, with stages one thru four Sunday afternoon. I was extremely bummed that Lauren had strep throat and as a result Linda was not going to be able to shoot. She had been looking forward to this match for a long time, and she'd been practicing 30-40 minutes a day at home for the last few weeks, just to get herself ready to go. It was a "bigger" match, and really her first of that kind. There is a MISS match next Sunday (Wednesday as well) that she'll shoot, and it won't be quite the same, but she'll be back out there.

Final Scores

Production Scores By Class

Video's will go up in match order, 1-8 instead of the order that I shot them, so this means, last four stages first.


Stage 1 Kriss Kross:

Jumping into this stage (yeah...obligatory reference...) This is one we spent prep-time on Saturday while working the match, and originally I planned on starting off going the other direction and saving a reload. However, once we got out there, I decided to do it the way I did, and reload coming across. That was actually going backward, but the reload going right kept the gun downrange never near the 180, and it's more comfortable reloading moving right. It was almost a bobble, as I did not seat the mag, thankfully it was a long crossing, and I could tap and get my grip again before I hit the 3rd position. I was pleased with the up-range paper, headed into my first position downrange, I actually forgot the order I wanted to engage the targets, and my hesitation showed. It took me time to re-orient myself, and get thru the position, after the reload, I had the final position in the order that I wanted, and other than a misfire due to a high primer, I ran it the way I wanted. There was obviously some lost time here, and confidence in my end stage plan was lacking. I did however get good hits.


Stage 2 Double Barrel:

This was a stage that I RO'd all day on Saturday, so I knew the times I wanted, I knew how to run it, and guess what? I made a mistake. My plan was to take a step back, and shoot the 4 steel thru the first 2 barrels, I wanted to make sure I did not get sucked into the barrels. I had to take an extra shot or two thru the first barrels, so I dropped and reloaded as I was moving into the 3rd position, with just paper left, I knew I'd have enough for all 4 paper targets. It was a good decision since I did it on the move, even though I moved more than I had to, this is where I started to get sucked into the ports, and then when I ran to the last two positions I got stuck in the ports, exactly as I did not want to do. Probably my worst hits on any stage.

Stage 3  CM 13-5 Tick-Tock (Former Classifier)

Probably my best overall stage of the day. I bested all my practice times, and ran it in 9.19 seconds, and you see me have a trigger freeze after the 7th shot on the first string. In other words, I probably could have done it a hair faster. I also had excellent hits on this stage, and my hit factor was 7.84, which would have been 83% run if this was still a classifier, and assuming the high hit factor was 9.5. In other words, a high "A" run. Ran this the way I practiced it.


Stage 4 Massage Room:

Okay, I'll start by saying that the stage itself was just plain stupid, starting laying down, hands by your sides on a massage table? Really? This turned into my worst stage of the day, and I hated ending on it. I started off rolling to my left, and I tore up the left side, I was accurate, and fast, I went to the right position, with a good reload, and was again quick, but I did have what I believe was my only miss of the match on a paper that came up, it was Alpha, and Mike. Coming back to anchor down behind the table was tough, and a very uncomfortable position. I had a hard time with the steel, and you've seen lately, that's something I've eaten up. What could have been a great closing stage, ended up with a struggle on steel. I'm just not used to shooting from a crouch. Evidently something I will need to work on, shooting more around barriers, getting low, and so on.


Stage 5: Monopolized

This was the first stage of the day for me, and again required some pre-planning so I would not draw until I was safe from a 180 call, and then going backwards again. If you watch, you'll see I was hesitant and slow coming out of the first position to hit an angle target in the middle. After I was downrange at the 3rd position, I turned to run across the range, and realized that I'd missed 2 targets, and hesitated, had my support hand off the gun, and had to double clutch to hit the target. Never should have had my support hand off. I cruised into the last position and did what I had to do. Overall it came out okay, I was halfway decent even on my squad, and it had me thinking positive and confident going into the rest of the match. It's also a huge improvement from a shooter who has always struggled to get warm, and usually has had issues on my first stage.


Stage 6 Don't Open, Zombies!:

Again, a stage I had RO'd on Saturday, so I should have had my stuff together. I started on the door, popped it quick, and started shooting, but I missed the 2nd target twice, realized I could not even see my front sight, and had to re-acquire my sight picture, and start again. I did it, got my 2 Alpha's, and took off to the last position where I did what I had to do. This was not a very good stage for me, but if I had let the mistake get to me, I never would have re-focused, and I did have all Alpha's after that. One of those that in the past I'd have let spiral into the toilet, instead it was just not great.


Stage 7 Margaritaville:

It's obvious to see a quick mistake that I had, at the sound of the buzzer, I looked up, and did not watch the gun into my hand, and I missed my grip. That's a focus issue, I know better. My hits were alphas on the paper, but I shot low on the elevated steel plates. Thanks to Jay Carillo for pointing that out, higher elevations have been an issue, and honestly I'm not sure what I need to do to hit them more effectively. It was only one make-up, but this is something that I can improve. Not a bad job at all on this stage, not quite as fast as I'd have liked, but I can live with my work here.


Stage 8 Surrounded:

I got lucky here. For the first time since I've been shooting, a re-shoot saved me, usually a re-shoot is the devil, and is even worse than the first time. My first run was slow, I hit a no-shoot and called it, but I lucked out that an activator was not set-up, and I could not shoot it, so I was granted a re-shoot, right at the bitter end. My second run thru things was actually very solid. I had a good cadence at my first position, with Alpha hits, the second position, the sound of falling steel is great, but I did slow down with an elevated cardboard target. The reload coming back to the door was not all that quick, I did not show urgency getting to the mag, or getting it back in the gun. I think I was preparing to open the door towards me. My third position went the way I wanted, paper, the activator, the small steel plate, and coming back to finish on the mover. You can see how the mover not working on my first run saved me...and on my last 2 shots.

Full Match:

Summary:

Third place in "C" class (10 Production C shooters were registered), 71st overall and 55% of the match winner. This is major league progress, and I can confidently say that this is the best match that I've ever shot, start to finish. I got hits, good hits for the most part, only 1 miss, I did not touch a no-shoot all day long (at least not that counted!). I had good reloads, good stage plans, I drew well, and I shot safe. I'm not underselling, I'm very happy with that sort of progress.

The video shows things that can be improved, focus, ports, cadence, and the best part is that those things are identifiable, and can be improved with practice. I'm proud of the improvement, but not content with where I'm at, there is still drive, hunger, and lot of desire to improve. This was the coming out party that I was hoping to have. Thank you to absolutely everyone who has helped and supported me in trying to reach my goal, thanks also to the phenomenal squad of shooters I spent the day with, Les, Terry, Kozy, Jay, Rob, both Tony's, Brad, Luis and Mikhail, Linda and Emil were definitely missed.

As a special treat, here is the match video from "C" class winner, and sandbagger extraordinaire Terry:

He gave a whole new meaning to "Make Ready" on the massage stage, costing Les and I a case of beer.

WIIT Review

The WIIT In Review

Match is over, time to reflect. Early word on the street (okay, from Kozy who downloaded scores before he left Pine Tree) is that I finished 3rd place in Production "C", behind Terry. Since I'm not competing against everyone in every class, and every division, that's a pretty good baseline to test myself. Terry of course is sandbagging a bit in "C" class since he's a much better shooter than his classification. I said that I wanted to win "C", and have this match be a coming out party for myself in terms of performance. I'll take the 2nd place finish, and it definitely was a coming out party, just over 30 days with a new gun, and probably the best performance I've had in a match to date. I scored about 55% of what the match winner did, and that's a high "C" place to be. I'm probably about that good of a shooter right now, but I do have improvement in me, and if I clean up some mistakes, I'll be even closer.

The big reason for my improvement is the fact that I got all of my hits, I had one miss on a target all day. I'm finally getting comfortable with sticking to my front sight like glue. To do that, I know I slow down, and that I'm capable of going faster, but getting hits is more important, and with work, I'll get faster. Not everything was sunshine, I knew I made some mistakes, got sucked into a few ports, forgot an order of targets to engage, and on the last stage struggled with the mini poppers shooting from my knees. Sure, I've got stuff to work on, I can do better, and with this little bit of success, I'm hungry to keep it up. I'm already planning my dry fire for tomorrow morning, and yes, there will be dry fire before I go to work, and again when I get home. Getting to where I am now, realizing that less than 90 days ago I was a "D" shooter, and that' I'm closer to "B" was the easy part, the only way I'm going to get this next 5% is by working harder to earn it.

Tomorrow I'll do an individual stage break down blog, but for today, I'll just post the complete match video, and go to bed happy that I had my coming out party, and even hungrier to work harder.

Oh, my "classifier" run today? The good news is that I shot it in 9.19 seconds, with a hit factor of 7.84. This was my best run, so my attention to practice made a real difference. USPSA made a ruling this classifier was no longer going to be valid, so while the Match Director will submit, it's likely my run will not count, and an 85% classifier is not going to help me. It's a shame that USPSA made the decision and announced it on Friday night, effective immediately. There are a lot of people who are going to lose out on this one. Crappy leadership folks, it either should have been announced sooner, or announced with a cut-off date.

Big thanks to Screaming Amateur Productions who sponsored the entire squad in the match today. It was fun shooting with Rob, Terry, Les, Kozy, Mikhail, Tony A, Anthony A., Luis, Jay, and Brad, kick ass squad, it's tough being the worst shooter in the squad. Next year, I hope to be a lot more competitive.

Production Scores By Class

Final Combined Standings

MISS Man vs Man Steel

MISS Man vs Man Steel 

Before I get into the match update, I got my note back, I passed the Range Officer test that I sent in the other day with a 93%, and as soon as it get's to HQ, I'll have my certification sent out, my profile updated, and I'll be a certified range officer. I'd say that's good news, but I'm already hearing the new R.O.'s will be doing some work tonight, and I was asked, and accepted the invite to go work The WIIT on Saturday and spend the day as an R.O. One member of a 3 person, 1-stage crew is unable to make it, and I'm going to take his place. I know this goes against what I said before, that I did not want to have to run shooters, and here I am going to immediately R.O. from 7am until 6:30pm, and work the first day of what is scheduled to be a 150 shooter event. I figure if I'm going to do this, I'm going to do it the best that I can, and this will get me some experience right off the bat, plus it does not interfere with my scheduled shooting day of Sunday.

Yeah, I'm not entirely how sure that will work it, it could burn me out, and it is a second straight weekend away from home, although at least Sunday the family will be with me while we shoot the match. At the very least, I'm going to watch some excellent R.O.'s, I'll be able to get a little experience, and hopefully that will be something extra I can contribute to the club.

On to the match:

I had a pretty good night, went 7-4 or something like that, and one of the losses was because I shot a target out of order, I had the other guy beat hands down, so I can live with that. I don't want this to sound arrogant, or cocky, but I have such extreme confidence with steel that I felt that in every match, I was going to win. It did not matter who I was shooting against, I would own them. I was not really shooting against another person, I was shooting my course, the other shooter was irrelevant. For the better part of the night, I did just that. Of the 4 head to head losses, I got out and out beat twice, the other shooters ran their strings cleanly, and I did not. Once I lost in a dog fight on the dueling tree, where a failure to hit the top plate got me, and the other one I had all my steel down and my opponent had 3 pieces still up, but not following stage directions got me.

I can live with that kind of a night, and know that I still have better performances in me. Most of the night I ran fast, I ran clean, and I took minimal rounds to clear the steel. I kind of laugh a bit because Tony Amici tries to start a rivalry between Steve Hickman and myself, they practice together, and I know Tony helps Steve, and I constantly hear that "Steve is coming for me". Frankly, if he is, he should aim higher, and I don't think Steve takes it all that seriously. Steve has spent years bow hunting and competing in archery events, and he just started shooting last summer. He's one of the nicest people I've ever met in my life, I like him a lot. He's capable of beating me on any given day, but he's also probably where I was a four or five months ago. He's committed, he works hard, and when he get's it, he's going to be a damn good shooter. I mention this because I had to run against him twice tonight, and Tony took video of the two of us, he felt the first stage was close, but I think it was pretty clear I had it, the second stage as well.

I can't embed the video, so here are those two links:

Luke and Steve on Dueling Tree

Luke and Steve Steel Side

Look, I'm not the best shooter in the world, but I have supreme confidence in my ability to hit steel, and do it quickly and accurately. If I could bottle that confidence and ability when I'm shooting cardboard, I'd be a lot closer to my goal than I am today. I'm convinced that I focus more, and harder on steel, aim small and miss small, and when I see cardboard, I see the edge of it, and pull the trigger. I need mentally to maintain my focus on the front sight like I did tonight, and good things are going to happen.

Also, a big shout out to Amici, dude is a talented shooter, but as long as I've known him, he runs into steel and it's his kryptonite. Tonight though he got to the final 4, shot a great match, and as happy as I was with my own shooting, I was even more happy for him. Guy should be an A level shooter, and I hope that tonight builds some rockin' good confidence for himself, and he beats his steel allergy. Good dude, nobody works harder, contributes to the club or deserves it more.

Dry fire update, I think the height of the table is what helps or hurts me, and I need to remember to bend my knees for the reload. I had no trouble in dry fire today hitting a 1.7 split on my reload, but I had the gun on a towel, on top of my pool table, that's about a perfect height for me, lower....I gotta practice.

My table start draw is a matter of showing urgency in getting to the gun, if I do that, the only hang-up I feel I have is in my racking the slide, but I had the par timer at 2.8, and my sight picture at that speed was spotty, when I was fast to the gun it was okay, when it was slow, nope. I'll definitely keep practicing this.