How & where to git gud during COVID?

[dfranke]

I went to my first IDPA match yesterday, held by MetroWest Tactical at Harvard Sportsmen's Club. Had a lot of fun. Placed 14/17 in Carry Optic and 55/69 overall. The previous evening I timed myself at a 5x5 classifier and did it in 31.37s (Marksman-level) with no points down. With a little more solo practice I can probably cut that down under 28.8s and make Sharpshooter.

I think that's about as far I'm going to get without help, though. This seems like tough time to be getting into the sport. Sanctioned matches are all cancelled due to COVID, and MWT isn't running practices either. Even if I were to pay for private instruction (e.g. at Granite State Indoor Range where I usually shoot), there's only so much I expect to be able to learn standing at a traditional firing line and missing the whole "run" part of "run and gun". What training resources are still available?

 

[Happy feet]

I think Mason Lane is running some classes at pioneer in nh that might be worth looking into or classes at the sig academy also in NH

Also the more you do it you,ll start to see improvement as you learn the rules and strategies of the game.

 

[dfranke]

I've already exhausted the curriculum at Sig. Pioneer is a long drive but I'll check them out.

 

[Deleted member 12999]

I've already exhausted the curriculum at Sig. Pioneer is a long drive but I'll check them out.

Mason is worth the drive

 

[chris_1001]

Harvard does an IDPA practice every second Monday. Have not gone in a while. But worthwhile.

Several drills to start with then they make two idpa stages to practice on.

 

[rep308]

YouTube has on line English classes to help you with you with titles for you next post

miss you Scriv.

 

[Happy feet]

I wouldn't,t get to caught up in a classifier that is basically standing in a box shooting at a piece of cardboard. IDPA has a lot of movement, transitions and other things going on (Disclaimers.I have not done the 5x5 classifier just looked it up to see what was involved) A better way of judging your performance might be to see how far behind or ahead of the people in your division your time and points are. Then look at your score and see what can be improved or what seems to work. I.E.: are your raw times in line with others near your skill level, are you loosing points because of misses, or are you grabbing all the points but it takes to long, did penilties or procedural mistakes hurt your score. Did your stage plan give you the results you were hoping for why/why not. Pay attention to what others in your division are doing. Some one shooting a bug or CCP will have a different stage plan than you. Be realistic about your performance and have fun it takes time to improve

 

[dfranke]

I wouldn't,t get to caught up in a classifier that is basically standing in a box shooting at a piece of cardboard. IDPA has a lot of movement, transitions and other things going on (Disclaimers.I have not done the 5x5 classifier just looked it up to see what was involved)

Yeah I agree, and hence the purpose of this post. Still, I want to get better at it. It may not be a complete sets of skills but it's still a set of skills that'll be important in every stage.

A better way of judging your performance might be to see how far behind or ahead of the people in your division your time and points are. Then look at your score and see what can be improved or what seems to work. I.E.: are your raw times in line with others near your skill level, are you loosing points because of misses, or are you grabbing all the points but it takes to long, did penilties or procedural mistakes hurt your score. Did your stage plan give you the results you were hoping for why/why not. Pay attention to what others in your division are doing. Some one shooting a bug or CCP will have a different stage plan than you. Be realistic about your performance and have fun it takes time to improve

My marksmanship is solid; give me four seconds to take the shot and I'll reliably hit the -0 ring at 40 yards. I need to work on my speed and on making smaller, more efficient movements. I probably also need to "just shoot" in more situations — I think there were a lot of shots where I spent an extra half second getting a clean sight picture, where if I'd just taken a point shot I probably would have hit the -0 ring 75% of the time and the -1 zone the other 25%, so on average the point shot would've saved me a quarter second. Also, I took some PEs but those were just an issue of inexperience and I'm not worried about them: I'll stop those after I've shot a few more matches.

 

[Supermoto]

Get a video camera and a timer and post some video. people here can critique and give suggestions.

If you can take a class from Mason. I would say go for that. If you want to get good at IDPA or USPSA, You need to take a class on movement. You shoot for points but move for time.

 

[Knuckle Dragger]

Get a video camera and a timer and post some video. people here can critique and give suggestions.

If you can take a class from Mason. I would say go for that. If you want to get good at IDPA or USPSA, You need to take a class on movement. You should for points but move for time.

^truth

 

[Supermoto]

My marksmanship is solid; give me four seconds to take the shot and I'll reliably hit the -0 ring at 40 yards. I need to work on my speed and on making smaller, more efficient movements. I probably also need to "just shoot" in more situations — I think there were a lot of shots where I spent an extra half second getting a clean sight picture, where if I'd just taken a point shot I probably would have hit the -0 ring 75% of the time and the -1 zone the other 25%, so on average the point shot would've saved me a quarter second.

There is always time to see your sights, its no faster to not use them. Break your shots when you see your sights on the target, if you wait to confirm they are on, you waste a lot of time. Shoot at the speed of sight....someone smart said that once

 

[45collector]

If you’re comfortable using snap caps or dummy rounds: Practice your draw, presentation, dry firing, transition to weak hand, reloads, etc...
It won’t be the same as live fire drills but you can shave a lot of time by gaining speed and efficiency on the fine motor skill stuff. Snap caps aren’t necessary for dry firing on most guns but when it comes to practicing reloads they come in handy.

Do you belong to a club that doesn’t restrict the type of shooting required to practice the action sports? I know a lot of places don’t allow drawing/ firing from a holster and such.

 

[dfranke]

If you’re comfortable using snap caps or dummy rounds: Practice your draw, presentation, dry firing, transition to weak hand, reloads, etc...
It won’t be the same as live fire drills but you can shave a lot of time by gaining speed and efficiency on the fine motor skill stuff. Snap caps aren’t necessary for dry firing on most guns but when it comes to practicing reloads they come in handy.

Do you belong to a club that doesn’t restrict the type of shooting required to practice the action sports? I know a lot of places don’t allow drawing/ firing from a holster and such.

Yes, I practice dry-fire regularly, and GSIR allows drawing from a holster once you've passed a (surprisingly rigorous) qualifier, which I've done. So as far as standing, draw-and-fire-on-a-static-target drills go, I have a good practice environment. My question for this thread is mainly about how to move beyond that and practice the rest of the game. Happy feet's suggestion to study under Mason Lane looks like a promising lead.

 

[Supermoto]

You need to find a range that has individual pits that allow you to set up a stage or drills to practice

 

[SJan]

The previous evening I timed myself at a 5x5 classifier and did it in 31.37s (Marksman-level) with no points down. With a little more solo practice I can probably cut that down under 28.8s and make Sharpshooter.

I think that's about as far I'm going to get without help, though.

I've already exhausted the curriculum at Sig.

There is some conclusion to draw from these statements.

Its definitely not that the 5x5 classifier is too hard.

It may be that the Sig curriculum doesn't apply to shooting games, but the 5x5 is basically a shooting drill with one static target, a few draws and a few reloads, with a modest time constraint - Its a test of basic fundamentals.
My bet is you are not applying what you have been taught, or you have not been practicing properly.

Get Ben stoegers books and put in some serious self guided work, i bet you can make expert. once you reach that level, you will get more benefit from some paid personal training

 

[DarthRevan]

Woburn runs idpa practice on I think 2nd Sundays of each month, if youre on the buttbook look for their group page and they post dates. Next one is 9/13

 

[dfranke]

SJan, thanks for the recommendation of Stoeger. I've been looking for a book like "Practical Pistol Reloaded" for a long time.

 

[The Edge Lab]

Not sure if it’s been mentioned yet but dry firing drills can be very helpful. Stoeger has a program for that also.

 

[Broc]

Attend USPSA and IDPA training. A few clubs have them.

I practice this a lot for USPSA so I can practice draw, follow up shot and reloading. I am assuming it applies to IDPA as well.

1. Draw
2. Take 2 shots
3. Reload
4. Take 2 shots at a different target
5. Holster
***repeat*** (or keep going doing steps 2-4)

 

[dfranke]

Thanks all, I think I've got enough advice here to get me going:

• Woburn is still running practices; I'll come to those. (thanks DarthRevan)
• I'm registered for two classes with Mason Lane — one on movement, one on gun handling. (thanks Happy Feet)
• I've bought all of Ben Stoeger's books and I'm now structuring my dry-fire practice around his recommended drills. (thanks SJan)
• My splits are way slower than they should be (on follow-up shots — my draws are fine and my reloads are decent) for someone who's trained as much as I already have. Debugging this needs to be a priority. (thanks SJan again)

 

[uwaeve]

Home | Anderson Shooting

Steve Anderson USPSA GM will teach you how to practice, compete and become the shooter you want to be!

www.andersonshooting.com

Listen to this guy's podcast (called That Shooting Show, wherever you get your podcasts), and his books may be worth a read. Some are going to just muddy the waters with the Stoeger stuff with tons of drills, but I think he has some good takeaways. If nothing else you will get your recommended weekly allowance of Van Halen.

 

[SJan]

My splits are way slower than they should be (on follow-up shots — my draws are fine and my reloads are decent) for someone who's trained as much as I already have. Debugging this needs to be a priority.
[/LIST]

What are your splits , what target distance?

You can only shoot follow up shots as quickly as you can see an acceptable sight picture for the given distance. You should have different splits for 3 yard, 7 yard, 15 yard targets. If your grip or stance are not great, the sights will not return naturally and you will not improve your splits until the root problem is addressed.

 

[dfranke]

On an IDPA target at 10 yards, most of my splits are 0.75s ±0.03s, with a few longer outliers.

 

[Supermoto]

On an IDPA target at 10 yards, most of my splits are 0.75s ±0.03s, with a few longer outliers.

What is keeping you from breaking the shot sooner?

 

[dfranke]

What is keeping you from breaking the shot sooner?

If I try to speed it up, I start missing — usually low. My problem is some combination of:

1. I'm allowing too much muzzle flip, so I have to spend too much time getting back on target.
2. When I push myself too hard to back on target quickly, I get jerky and overcompensate.

#1 is definitely the main issue. I'm not clear whether #2 is really an area for improvement at all, or if the answer is just "don't do that" and that 0.75s is just going to be my "correct" split time until I make progress on #1.

 

[SJan]

OP, can you make it to Hopkinton sportsman today. I'll be there shortly, until about 7

 

[Supermoto]

Its usually not a cause of too much recoil, its that the gun doesn't come back to where it started. Work on your grip, pressure and elbow position to get the gun to return to point of aim.

 

[dfranke]

Its usually not a cause of too much recoil, its that the gun doesn't come back to where it started. Work on your grip, pressure and elbow position to get the gun to return to point of aim.

I've never given much thought to my elbow position beyond "extended". What adjustments are there to consider?

 

[Supermoto]

Elbows out, elbows down. One more bent than the other. Play around with it until the gun tracks straight.

 

[dfranke]

Just returned from Hopkinton. Thanks again, SJan, for the lesson.

Supermoto, the things SJan showed me are pretty much the things you described. Add a slight bend to my elbows and even though muzzle flip increases a bit, it becomes more predictable and returns more naturally to the point of aim. Getting used to applying a markedly firmer grip with my support hand than with my dominant hand. And we diagnosed why I start hitting low when I push for more speed: it's not that (as I thought) I'm overcompensating for recoil, it's that I'm anticipating it and beginning my compensation a few milliseconds before I've gotten the shot off.