Monday, June 21, 2010

Giving yourself excuses to fail...

I've been thinking a lot about this lately, especially as I gear more and more of my training to winning at the game of IDPA.

When I first started shooting IDPA, my sole focus was on "tactical training" with my home defense pistol.  I liked that the stages were set up to simulate CCW situations or home defense situations.  I thought that the guys shooting their Glock 26's and other compact pistols really "got it," and that the guys with their Glock 34's, and other race guns with mag wells and kydex holsters were just gamers who weren't in the spirit of the sport.

However, now I have a totally different perspective.  The guys with the gear that's optimized for winning are simply better shooters.  It's true 99% of the time, and I think there is a reason for it.  By choosing the very best gear that allows you to shoot the course in the lowest possible time, you eliminate variables that cloud the true benefit of competition:  To measure yourself.  Let's put it this way:  if I have a Glock 34 with fiber optic sights, a tuned trigger pull, and a blade tech holster and magazines - and I lose - it's clearly because I've got a personal deficiency that limits how well I can do.  Either I'm not as fast as I could be, or I'm not as accurate, or I don't problem solve while shooting (i.e. I don't "manage" a course) as well as I could.  By stripping away all of the extraneous hindrances that come with using a subcompact in an IWB holster in competition, I see exactly where my own improvement areas lie.  The gamers then go fix those areas and continue to get better and better.  The problem is that it's so easy to ignore those improvement areas.

And that brings us to the other side of the argument.  There are plenty of people who prefer to shoot the competition in their regular carry gear.  Of course the reasoning is that they're training with their carry gear in case they ever have to use it.  If that's the real reason, then I applaud them.  However, more often than not I suspect it's a different reason entirely:  Most people don't like to lose, so they compete in their carry gear in order to give themselves a built-in excuse for losing.  I'm pretty new to this sport, but in just a few months I've seen plenty of people ignore their sights, and then blame their short sight radius for poor accuracy.  I've also seen plenty of people do a full Cagney and Lacey presentation from concealment, and of course blame their poor time on their slow draw from their concealment holster.

I will say that, to the extent that really good shooters choose to use IDPA for training in their carry gear, then I applaud their choice.  However, people who aren't good shooters would be well-served by becoming "gamers" at least until they can see exactly what needs to be improved in their actual shooting technique.

I think most people could benefit from becoming gamers for a couple of reasons.  The first of course has already been mentioned, and that is the fact that using the best, fastest equipment forces you to figure out why you're not as fast or as accurate as others using the same equipment.  Once you figure out where your deficiencies lie and how to correct them, you will be a better shooter once you transition back to your carry gear.  The other potential benefit is that some people will find that they're top competitors with gamer gear, and they will be forced to realize that the problem lies with their carry set up.  At that point they can either adjust their carry gear, or figure out a way to carry something closer to a full size pistol.  Either way it's win-win to cross the chasm into the realm of the gamers at least once in a while.

Of course, this doesn't mean that everyone should adopt the ugly side of "gaming" IDPA, such as round dumping, screaming at SO's, using extremely reduced-power ammunition, etc.  Those things are clearly illegal and the people who do them would do well to practice their integrity the way the rest of us would do well to practice our trigger pull.  But by refusing to give ourselves an excuse to fail, and by stripping away the things that distract us from the problem areas with our shooting, we open the door to rapid and meaningful improvement - and that's what the "training" that comes with participating in shooting sports is all about.

More El Pres Practice

Here's another video I made of me running the El Presidente drill, this time on steel. This time you can see that my shots are evenly spaced, all coming in at a split time of around .30 seconds. I fumbled the slidelock reload a bit because I'm still not quite used to not having the extended slide stop on my Glocks, which pushed the time to 6.6 seconds for the drill (with one miss on shot number 8).


Time and again you hear the old adage "slow is smooth and smooth is fast." I think with these kinds of drills it's really true. Try this experiment: shoot this drill while trying to make your body move as fast as possible. Then take a deep breath, and shoot this drill while trying to be as smooth and economical as possible. I can almost guarantee your time will be better being smoother. And if it's not better, it will be very close, and then all you have to do is allow the speed to come without losing the smooth, economical motions, and you'll have something really fast.


From my own personal data gathering, I know I can perform a reload in about 1.6 to 1.7 seconds if I'm hauling ass and really trying to get the magazine into the gun in a hurry. However, if I focus on being smooth and economical with my movements my reload times drop to 1.4 to 1.5 seconds. Also, when I'm smooth I don't have major reloading flubs as often, meaning I take a lot of the 2.5 second reloads out of the equation.


Anyway, I welcome all critiques and criticism - and I'm not saying that this video is a great example of a smooth El Presidente run - it's simply smoother than the last one I posted. In fact, you can see my head bob down a bit on the reload - that's something I intend to fix during dry fire practice this week.

1 Reload 1 Reload 1

This is a drill that I saw Jason Falla run as part of the 10-8 5 second standards drill. The goal is to shoot three accurate shots while reloading between shots. Typically you would shoot at 7 yards, and try to get all your hits on in an 8" circle. I was shooting rectangular steel plates at 10 yards this day, which is a nice way to train because you don't have to tape targets, and you get a satisfying "ding!" with every hit.

This is a great drill to practice reloads because you can see exactly where you can make up speed. For example, after you pull the trigger you don't need to take another sight picture, so you focus on moving the weak hand directly to your magazine pouch as soon as the shot is broken. It's crazy how much time this saves. Also, you realize just how important a good press out is. The better the press out, the faster and more accurate your shots are after each reload.

You can see in the background I had a target set up to practice the F.A.S.T. drill from www.pistol-training.com. For the first time ever I broke 5 seconds with a clean run. After that I got very excited (tense and rushing, in other words), and couldn't get a sub-5 second run without missing on at least one of the head shots. If I slowed down I could shoot clean runs at around 5.5 to 6 seconds. Of course, as soon as I was off the range I figured out what I was doing wrong: I was really overgripping with my right hand on the head shots, thus sending shots below and slightly to the left of the 3X5 card. I think if I can relax my right hand for those two head shots my accuracy at speed should be much, much better. I can't wait to try it again! I want two sub-5 second runs in a row!

I invite you guys to come along with me as we all progress in our shooting abilities and techniques. Post a comment if you have suggestions or have any experience with this or a similar drill!

Saturday, June 19, 2010

El Presidente Warm Up

This is my first youtube video ever, and I shot it this afternoon at the range while warming up with the El Presidente drill. I wasn't on the timer yet (just a warm up run), but on my stopwatch I think it comes out to about 6 seconds. I was about 7 yards out, and one shot missed the A zone of the second IPSC target.

This is a great drill to work on target transitions. Ideally each string would sound like 6 shot in rhythm with equal split times between each shot, but this sounds a little more like double tap, pause, double tap, etc. Hey, I'm still working on it - and I never claimed to be the world's best shooter!


Tuesday, June 15, 2010

2010 Texas IDPA State Championship

Saturday, June 12 the 2010 Texas IDPA Championship was held in Greenville, Texas at the Jacob's Plain Gun Club, and I'm excited to report I had my first taste of success in the sport.

I started competing in IDPA back in October of 2009, and between then and now I've competed in club matches probably a dozen times.  In November I shot my first qualifier stage and qualified as a Marksman with my Glock 17 in the SSP division.  Since then I've been focused on getting better at the sport, with the goal of being promoted to expert by the end of 2010.  In addition to occasional club matches, my training has focused on relevant range time at TDSA in Dallas, TX, dry fire at home, and of course the Advanced Pistol I course taught by Len Baxley at TDSA.  The class with Len Baxley was the most impactful aspect of my training, by far.

Sometime mid-May I decided to compete in the Texas State Championship, and began gearing up my training in preparation.  The increase in training consisted of more and better focused dry fire practice using an iPhone app called "dry fire trainer," and shooting a few hundred rounds per week at the range. 

The days leading up to the competition I checked the official website several times and made my plan for the morning of the match.  This is where I made a huge, huge error.  For some reason I wrote the official start time down incorrectly in my little calendar thing - 8:30 instead of 8:15.  I thought the registration tent opened at 8:15.  I planned to arrive right at 8:15 so I could get signed in and have a few minutes to get ready before the match began.  This was mistake number one.  Mistake number two was trusting Google maps to plot my route to the match.  Google estimated the trip time to be 50 minutes, so I gave myself an extra few minutes, but that's it.  As it turned out, Google's route stopped where the road to the competition began, instead of stopping 10 miles down that road where the range was located. 

So I was going to be late due to my stupid error, and Google made me even more late by giving me an unexpected 10 miles to drive.  I ended up pulling into the parking area at 8:20 or so, and could hear gunshots going off as I pulled my gear from my car.  Uh oh.

I sprinted to the registration table where I received my name tag and my information packet and was told what stage to shoot first.  I ran over to the stage, handed the safety officer my late score sheet, and asked how much time I had before I had to shoot.  "You're next." He said.  So I ran (there was a lot of running, apparently) to the safe area and strapped my gun on, and ran back just in time to get a few pieces of instruction from the Safety Officers of the stage.  I didn't, however, get to see a stage walkthrough, and I didn't get to see anyone else shoot the stage.  The buzzer went off and I did the best I could, but there was one disappearing target that was activated by a popper that I completely missed.  10 points down already, and this was just the first stage.

This was my first ever major match, and I wasn't really sure how the stages were supposed to run.  I thought that I had to be constantly shooting a stage or I would miss one and run out of time before the day was over.  I later learned that I had more time between stages than I thought, and I could have taken a moment to collect myself.  Oh well - lesson learned.  But after the first stage I was very rattled and desperate to get my scoresheet in for the next stage so I could keep up with the groups.  Again, I didn't get to see a walkthrough, though I did get to see a few people shoot the stage.  I finished the 2nd stage two points down, and was pretty slow. 

After that I figured that my chance at placing well in my division was all but destroyed.  I considered just "shooting for fun" and not worrying about scores for the rest of the day.  But I also considered that out of 12 stages and over 200 rounds, other people were bound to mess up as bad or worse than I did.  I figured that as long as I shot as well as I could for the rest of the day I would at least have a chance. 

So I began to speed up and make better hits.  At the same time, I began to notice some of the other shooters in my division.  Some of them I swore were way faster than me, and probably just as accurate.  My hope of finishing at the top was continuing to diminish.  But hey, I was having fun.  And I figured the guys who looked so much faster than me were probably sandbaggers, and that I would at least have a moral victory when they beat me. 

Toward the end of the day they posted the preliminary match scores, and I was excited to see that I was at the top of my division.  And I was at the top by a very big margin.  I looked for the names of the people I saw that I thought were beating me, and was shocked to see them finish 8th and 9th, respectively. 

So I was happy to accept my trophy, and happy that I had achieved my goal.  I was also happy to be bumped into the next higher class - I'm now a sharpshooter - as it means I'm well on my way to the Expert class by year's end.  However, after analyzing the numbers a bit, I didn't just barely squeek into the Sharpshooter class.  In fact, if I had shot the match as a Sharpshooter I would have finished near the top and would have still won a trophy, though I wouldn't have come in first place.  Furthermore, my score was near the low end of average for the experts. 

While I'm thrilled with how my performance turned out, I know exactly what I need to work on to really start taking time off my overall score:  stage breakdown and management.  I think those things will come with more experience competing in club matches and more mental preparation before each stage.  If I can start to make significant progress in this area, I don't see why I can't revise my year-end goal a bit:  Forget expert.  I want to make Master class by the end of the year.

Thursday, June 10, 2010

Brand Loyalty - You are Being Conned

When you think about it, brand loyalty makes no sense, yet it's rampant in the gun world. Almost everyone you meet identifies himself as a "Glock guy" or a "Kimber guy" or an "Sig guy" or whatever.  And for what?  Just to belong to a club that doesn't exist?  The only time being this brand loyal makes sense is if you're taking advantage of interchangable components between differnent models, or to gain a slight training time efficiency.  For example, the trigger assembly from my Glock 17 will drop right into a Glock 26.  That's a decent reason to start with the hypothesis that a G26 is the best subcompact for someone who already owns a G17.  But that's not why people are brand loyal.  You're more likely to hear, "Sigs are the best, Glocks are trash." than "I'm just used to the ergos of a Sig and don't want to devote the training time to become proficient with the Glock."

Here's the thing:  If a company provides a valuable product or service at a fair price, I will reward them with my business. However, if they fail to do so, or are inconsistent, or I hear reports of them providing a sub-standard level of service I don't have to act like I'm happy about it simply because I may have purchased something from them in the past.  Neither do you.  Go read a Kimber message board, or go to the range with some Kimber owners, and watch what happens when one of them has a problem.  The people who say, "You know, maybe these things aren't worth the money..." will get shouted down by others who bring up nonsensical arguments like, "You should have read the manual - it specifies a 500 round break-in," and "That's funny, my barrels never rusted..."  As if ready-made excuses or the instances that a problem didn't occur make up for poor execution.
Contrary to what the marketers of the current world would like for you to believe, you don't join a club when you buy something. You don't owe the company that made your pistol anything other than what you already paid them for the pistol. It makes sense to praise them for a job well done, sure, but to criticize others who have had a different experience is just lunacy.
 
Finally, don't eschew the opportunity to shoot all kinds of pistols.  That doesn't mean you have to buy all of them (don't we wish we could, though), and it especially doesn't mean you have to love everything you shoot.  I look at it this way:  I've been getting into some amateur race car driving with my father.  Some day I would like to own a really nice trackable car like a Porsche or a BMW M3.  However, does that mean I would ever turn down the opportunity to drive someone's Ferarri?  Hell no!  It also doesn't mean that I need to come to Porsche's rescue if people are hammering them with legitimate criticisms.  To do so would be to engage in cultish behavior, and when it comes to cars and guns, cults are bad, m'kay?

Wednesday, June 9, 2010

Heinie Sights Update

I ended up replacing my Heinie Straight 8 sights the other day.  On my G17, the point of impact with these sights was approximately 3" above the point of aim at about 25 yards.  People refer to this point of aim/point of impact relationship as a "six o'clock hold."  Meaning, you aim at the bottom of the black area of the target, and your round impacts in the middle of the black area, hopefully in the middle of the X. 

Below is what a six o'clock hold looks like.  It was popular with bullseye shooters because it allows them to have a crisp point of aim without obstructing the black area with the front sight at all.  I understand that it is also popular with steel shooters because they can place the front sight on the bottom of a steel plate and impact the center.  So it goes.

For me, for a self-defense/competition (IDPA) gun this was unacceptable.  With the height of the Heinie's, my POI would be very close to "on" at 10 yards and under, and of course would start getting higher and higher the farther I moved back toward the 25 yard line.  That meant that during longer-distance courses of fire I had to do some mental math and estimation to adjust my sight picture on the target.  You can see how this would be slow for someone who is already slow at mental math (they don't allow pencils, paper, or a calculator on the playing field).

I did quite a bit of research on what sights would be right for me.  I originally wanted something from Ameriglo, as their list of available options is pretty impressive.  However, their sights mostly mimic the width of the stock Glock sights, and I find those to be way too wide for the precision that is sometimes needed for competition. 

I finally settled on the Dawson Precision fiber optic front sight (height .205) with the matching Dawson Precision plain black serrated rear sight.  The sights installed easily without any fitting or modification (I have this sight pusher - it's great), and I'm happy to report that POA = POI at 25 yards or so. 

Here is the front sight:


In the two IDPA events that I shot with the new sights, I missed a grand total of two -0 zones, and both of those shots I took with my weak hand. 

Finally, since my G17 doubles as both my competition gun and my home defense gun, I feel it's important to talk about why I'm not overly concerned about ditching my tritium sights.  It's simple:  When the G17 is on home defense duty it's wearing a Streamlight TLR3 light, and in the dark, behind the flashlight, I couldn't see the tritium anyway.  They just looked like black target sights.  So I feel like the increase in accuracy and sight tracking potential negates the advantages of tritium, given that the gun wears a reliable weapon light when it's at home.