Tim Tucker and Brian have been working together for a couple months now. Tim is a great coach: knowledgeable, patient and helpful. Brian’s made great strides. How? Lots of dry fire and LOTS of live fire. Today we burned about 300 or 400 rounds in a simple stage that emphasized hits, good footwork. And of course some slow group fire and strong/weak hand work. The results have been showing – Brian finished 2nd in Vegas last week (beating me handily). And his fastest time today was a good 1.5 seconds faster than mine. In my defense… new gun, and I mainly load magazines at these practices. I may have to change that going forward…
Here is a video of both of them running today’s practice stage.
Super Squad – 2009 Limited 10 Nationals
The Super Squad were super hard workers
Dave Sevigny offers useful match day tips in this Tactical-Life.com article.
The performance tips are good ideas, but what I really noticed was the “good competitor” advice:
In conclusion, be a good competitor. Along with following the printed rules of competition, there are a number of unwritten rules in sport shooting such as:
• Listen to the range officials instructions during the stage briefing
• Turn in your competitor label and score sheet and help your squad sort out the shooting order
• Find a rear exit and do not impede walk through efforts
• Keep off the stage and leave it open for the competitor who is up next
• Keep the volume down when a competitor is on the line
• Be honest about what happens whether it is in your favor or not
• Help reset the stage if you are not up or on deck
• Thank the range officials for working the match
I found the article today. But yesterday, I watched Dave and the top shooters in the United States follow this advice as they shot the Limited 10 Nationals. He doesn’t just write it, he does it.
When they weren’t on deck or up, the top shooters in the world taped targets, reset moving targets and politely waited in line to do stage walk throughs. The only target I didn’t see them mess with was the Texas Star, which was done by range staff. Given how many times heavy star plates have wacked me, I think that wise when competing at their level.
The sports segment of an Oregon Fox network station did this awesome profile on our sport,
http://www.kptv.com/video/20128648/
A new Zogby poll shows major support for firearms ownership and also concealed carry.
An overwhelming majority of Americans (83 percent) support concealed-carry laws, while only 11 percent oppose them. A majority of Independent voters (86 percent), Democrats (80 percent), young voters age 18-29 (83 percent), Hispanic voters (80 percent), and those who voted for President Obama (80 percent) support the right to carry a firearm.
That’s right… 80% of those that VOTED FOR OBAMA support the right to carry a firearm.
H/T: Say Uncle
Brian & I have a few books that have helped us get started in IDPA and IPSC/USPSA shooting. We would be happy to lend them to you if are interested:
Practical Shooting– Beyond Fundamentals
Brian Enos
Practical Shooting Fundamentals
Matt Burkett
Thinking Practical Shooting
Saul Kirsch
Perfect Practice – A guide to quality IPSC training
Saul Kirsch
Refinement & Repetition: Dry Fire Drills for Dramatic Improvement
Steve Anderson
Just e-mail to arrange an exchange. I will also try to remember to bring them to the matches.
I have the complete set of Matt Burkett videos’. Brian & I have learned a lot from them.
The range from the basics (Practical Shooting Volumes 1-3), to How to Shoot Faster, and the most useful so far – How to Practice (Volume 7). Volume 7, the Practice one also includes training charts and dry fire drills in a PC readable PDF format.
If you want to borrow them, just e-mail Ken Nelson (kn@kennelson.com) and we can arrange a meet in town sometime.
I’ll also bring them to matches and make them available for return at the next match.
BTW:
http://www.mattburkett.com has tons of info and products for the practical shooter.
My son has been yakking at me non-stop about having a “single stack” option for IPSC and a CDP option for IDPA shooting. He did a ton of research and finally decided the Kimber Desert Warrior fit his desire for match quality performance + rugged “tactical” looks.
So we started hunting around on GunBroker.Com and in local shops. Sure enough Cedar Post Pawn in St. George had it an attractive price. And we walked home with the Kimber, a Kimber .22 conversion kit, and 1,000 rounds of Federal .45 ACP.
Initial Impressions: Very nice! It is quite accurate. It shot where I pointed it. And the crisp, light, trigger made tight groups a piece of cake at 10,15 and 25 yards. I’m talking “holes overlapping” at 10, and 2” freestyle at 25. No malfunctions.
We had no malfunctions in the first 100 rounds fired.
Continue reading “First Impression: Kimber Desert Warrior”
Dry Fire Exercises – the Kata of IPSC Shooting
Here is an easy daily regimen that will help build familiarity, repeatability and stamina into your shooting. Try to do your dryfire practice during the same general time of the day as you usually compete. Make sure that the gun is unloaded and there is no ammunition in your dryfire area!
Draws:
Hands At Sides
10 Solid warm-up
10 Fastest/Smoothest possible
10 Solid
Surrender (hands above shoulders)
10 Solid warm-up
10 Fastest/Smoothest possible
10 Solid
Misc. work
10 Draws to Kneeling
10 Draws to prone
5 Draws moving to a position
5 Draws off a table
5 Strong hand draws
5 Weak hand draws
Reloads off belt starting with gun out and on target:
10 Solid warm-up
10 Fastest/Smoothest possible
10 Solid
5 from standing to kneeling
5 from kneeling to prone
5 from standing to prone
50 Target Transitions on either miniature IPSC targets or the transition dots in the Practical Shooting Manual.
Find your weak areas (anything that you screw up often 
and increase repetitions until the problem is worked out. Make sure at the end of every draw and reload, you have a perfect sight picture. Do not "pop" the gun up and down, force a follow through of a couple of seconds on target everytime.
Until next time DVC!!
Matt Burkett
May be reproduced as long as a link to www.mattburkett.com is included.
Ken adds: Brian & I also practice our strong hand and weak hand holds. This is especially useful for the IDPA Classifier, which has a strong and weak hand component. Lacking any online or other information on this, we just hold for 20 second count, then squeeze a dry fire shot and call the shot. Repeat 10 good times. The goal is to build weak arm strength and to learn to isolate the weak hand trigger finger.
Matt Burkett, Grand Master, and IDPA and 3-gun Champion has an information packed website. But the coolest feature is a page of dry fire drills that you can do at your computer.
To try them visit http://www.mattburkett.com/flashfiles/dryfire.html
Draw and mag change drill, right on your computer.
Other drills include Target Transition Training, Swinger Training, and Mover Training.
Thanks Matt!
