Yesterday’s shoot, at the Frontier range in Stilfontein, turned out to be one of the better leagues I had shot in the past year or so. And not because I won (I didn’t, far from it), but probably because I saw where I was falling short. By almost 100 seconds.
I normally don’t shoot with the “super squad”, as I find the top shooters to be an obnoxious bunch; loud, outspoken and with a silly sense of humour. Too much like myself in other words and I like to stand out in the group.
But yesterday our group was too big and I got moved to another, allowing me to shoot with the best shot of the day, it turned out. I picked up quite a lot from him, but most surprisingly, I don’t move that much slower than he does. My raw time was only around 20 seconds slower than his. So, as you might have guessed, the difference lay in the “points down”.
I had two PEs. He got a hit on a non-target on the last stage. With the HONT, he had eight points down for the eight stage match. Eight. That’s three hits outside of the zero-down zone in eight stages. More than 120 shots. Mine was close to 60 points down. It doesn’t take a genius to see where a lot more work is needed.
Take a step down in practice
So I need to work on my accuracy when in a COF. There’s no way around it. From Monday my dry-fire regime will have to change and I’ll cut down on the speed drills in my live fire practice as well. I fully expect this to be a long, drawn out process. But that is what improving on anything is about, I guess.
As for the shoot: What a good one. The stages were well planned and set up. Lots of movement, with sometimes two movers on the same COF. Shooting out of a (decent size) car, a drop target that was moving towards you and quite a bit of steel as well.
I had to spend five hours in the car yesterday, going there and back, but it was worth it. I’ll be back for the next one. And the burgers sold at the range were fantastic, too.
sadpablog 