Mixed results

So no 2430 for me this weekend. I shot a 2386. I have mixed feelings about my performance. On the one hand, I'm disappointed that I didn't shoot better. For the most part, my shooting was pretty miserable. I didn't even break 800 for the .22 aggregate. I also had a miss on one of the center-fire slow-fire strings, just outside the 5 ring. (I'm not sure how that happened -- a twitch of the trigger finger at the wrong moment.)

On the other hand, I finished strongly, breaking 90 percent on the .45 aggregate for the first time (with an 811.) So apparently there's hope.

Sharpshooter

I got my sharpshooter card in the mail yesterday. I shot my second qualifying score about a month and a half ago, so it was just a matter of time.

I have two more outdoor matches scheduled this year. My hope is to shoot well enough in both to make it up to expert this year. It's not entirely infeasible, as I just need to get up to 2430, and I've already broken 2400. I just need to find an extra 10 points per gun. I really should be able to find an extra 10 points in the .22 aggregate. My 2400 included a mediocre 812 on .22. There's no reason (aside from the ones I come up with after the fact) that I shouldn't even be able to squeeze an extra 20 points out here. I've also broken 800 on .45 a few times, so if I can manage to do that again, that would put me over 2430. Of course, that all depend on the loose nut behind the trigger, so we'll see how things go.

100

One of those thrilling moments for a bullseye shooter is when you shoot your first 100 target. I only started shooting bullseye this year, and I hadn't yet shot a 100, either in practice or in competition, until this past weekend. I was practicing timed fire Saturday afternoon when I shot my first 100 target. I'd shot quite a few 99's and 98's, but no 100's. I was pretty excited. I'm holding on to that target until I shoot my first 100 in competition.

What's even more exciting, though, is that I shot two more 100's Sunday morning while practicing rapid fire. It's nice to see that I'm improving.

2400

I shot another 2700 this past weekend, this time down at Central Jersey. I shot another personal best grand aggregate and managed to break 2400 with a, well, um, 2400. (The results are posted here.)

I decided to shoot in the Sharpshooter class this time. I'm still classified as a Marksman, and I would have won the grand aggregate had I shot in that class. I wanted to go ahead and move up, though. Even though winning is fun, I'm mostly interested in improving, and I wanted to be challenged. (Well, okay, the challenge was purely internal, and I'm not sure that I shot any differently, but I wanted to do it, anyway.)

Now my goal will be to get that extra thirty points so I can move up into Expert. It's certainly feasible, although given that I have two more outdoor matches this year, I probably won't make that move this year. But the fall and winter will give me plenty of time to practice.

Speaking of improvement, I only started shooting bullseye this year. In my first 2700, I managed to break 1600 (with three guns, I should probably point out.) I'm now shooting in the mid-2300's. If this trend continues, I expect to break 3000 sometime early next year.[1]

[1] This was a poor attempt at a joke. They call it a 2700 because that's the maximum possible number of points you can score.

Match results -- almost a clean sweep

The match results (with details in PDF) are out for the 2700 I shot this past weekend. I almost managed a clean sweep in Marksman. I won every match but the center-fire rapid fire match, which I lost by either 1 point and 4 X's or two points.

Something else interesting to note from the match is that both the top Expert and the top Sharpshooter out-shot the top Master in the grand aggregate.

Good match/bad match

It was the best of matches, it was the worst of matches.

I shot the 2700 at my club this weekend. It was a good match in that I had personal bests in .22 National Match Course, timed fire, rapid fire, and aggregate; .45 slow fire; and the grand aggregate. OTOH, during the match, I felt like my shooting was absolute crap. Hell, I had a miss on one of the .45 slow fire stages (just outside the 5 ring at 12:00.)

But I think my perception was tainted by expectations. After shooting an 821 .22 aggregate, I thought to myself, "Hey, today might be the day I break 2400." I'd already shot an 800 .45 aggregate, so it wasn't unreasonable to think that. But my performance didn't match my expectations, thus the disappointment.

I haven't gotten the official results yet. It'll be interesting to see how I performed overall.

Good Bullseye match

I shot the bullseye match today at Central Jersey. It was a hot day, although we were fortunate to have a light breeze from time to time. The match finished pretty early, too. We were done shooting by 2:00 or so. We were pretty lucky -- we had all of one alibi.

After one of my slow-fire strings, John Gemmill, who was running the match (and who's one of the people responsible for reviving bullseye shooting in New Jersey), gave me some unsolicited advice. He'd noticed my pistol trembling a bit, and he advised me to try relaxing my grip on the pistol. I gave that a try on the next few strings, and, although I wasn't immediately successful at shooting better, I managed to shoot a 96 slow-fire stage on the .45 National Match course. To put this into perspective, the High Masters have been shooting 94-95 on average for .45 slow-fire stages for the past few months at Central Jersey. And to give some more perspective, my other .45 slow-fire stages were pretty pitiful, including a 66. It may have been a fluke, but I'm at least on track to improving my slow-fire scores.

The other remarkable event from the match (at least for me) was my slider. For timed- and rapid-fire stages, we use turning targets. If you manage to get a shot off while the target is turning, you'll get a hole that's stretched out a bit. In my case, the hole started about 11:00 in the 9 ring and stretched to the edge of the cardboard. The aforementioned John Gemmill commented on the target and told me that it showed good control, that I hadn't panicked when the targets started turning but had gotten the shot off calmly.

My grand aggregate for the match was 2329, which gives me my second consecutive Sharpshooter score. So, depending on how long it takes the NRA to process things and update my status, I've got a few weeks to be a sandbagger and win some Marksman matches (or get ahead of myself and start shooting poorly.) At least I've met one of my goals for the year, to make it up into Sharpshooter.

Les Baer wadcutter

Back in February, I ordered a Les Baer wadcutter for bullseye shooting, and it came in Tuesday. I managed to get caught by the bathtub curve -- someone else at the club ordered one about two weeks before I did and had it in 12 weeks. My order took 18 weeks, so I got mine a full two months after he did. I guess they're doing a pretty good business right now.

The one add-on I ordered with the gun was their one-and-a-half inch guarantee (1.5" at 50 yards.) What this means is that the gun is really tight. I took the gun out of the box and tried to rack the slide -- no go, even after cocking the hammer. Doing it from the rear is a bit complicated by the scope mount, so I tried to push it back using the serrations on the front of the slide. It still took a bit just to get it out of battery, but once it was out of battery, it slid pretty well.

I took it to the range Wednesday night before our monthly meeting. The first thing to do was zero it. I put up a 25-yard slowfire target and fired from a sandbag. Okay, up and to the right. I fire another round to see how the accuracy is and look through the scope. Hmm, I only see one hole -- oh, wait, that's two holes. The third hole was definitely distinct, but still close enough to make me happy. (And given that I wasn't using a vice, that very well could have been shooter error.)

I put about 100 rounds through it between zeroing it and shooting a practice 900. I shot an 800 with it, which is certainly not the best I've shot in practice, but for one, I need to get used to the trigger, and for two, I wasn't expecting this gun to make me a master-class shooter. There's a lot of work that needs to happen behind the trigger. And with this gun, it will be painfully obvious where the fault for any failure lies.

One of the things I like about this gun so far is the scope mount. The loaner gun I've been shooting so far has a barrel-mounted red-dot. Because the scope is mounted forward of my wrist, I noticed a lot of wobble. This mount gets the scope a lot farther back, so it's closer to that pivot point. I'm noticing a lot less wobble with this one.

Clean sweep!

Well, okay, not really a clean sweep, but I managed to win the marksman class (grand aggregate) this past weekend. I'd been hoping that I would but I was waiting for the match results to see how things fell out. I'd also been wondering if I'd have a clean sweep (winning every match and aggregate.) I certainly wasn't expecting it, but man, would that have made my day. I did manage a clean sweep on center-fire, though, and I won both the CF and .45 aggregates and a smattering of other first and second place scores.

While its nice to win, though, I'm mostly focused on improvement. I'm currently in marksman class, and I want to make it up into sharpshooter. This was a sharpshooter score (2360, with a 2295 cutoff), and if I shoot as well in my next match, I'll be there.

WOOHOO!

No, this isn't actually about the Supreme Court decision that was just handed down. This actually has to so with the 2700 I shot this past weekend.

The 2700 was at my home club (and it was actually the first time I'd shot at our outdoors pistol range.) The "WOOHOO!" is because I shot my best score yet, a 2365. Even though I'd managed to get my trigger control on the .45 up-to-snuff in practice, I hadn't yet demonstrated this in competition. I shot a 2148 the previous weekend, which was my best score at the time, but not quite what I'd been hoping for.

I shot a 797 .22 aggregate, an 800 centerfire aggregate (using the 1911, and including a 97 rapid fire), and a 768 .45 aggregate. I was surprised to have shot better with the .45 that the .22, but certainly pleasantly surprised.

Now I await the official results to see how I did compared to other people.

The most recent 2700

I went to another 2700 this past weekend, again at Central Jersey.

I had a frustrating alibi on one of the .22 timed-fire stages. I had a failure-to-eject on the first round of the first string, which was all well and good, as these things happen, and you get to reshoot. But then I had another FTE on the first round of the second string. You only get the one alibi per stage, so my only other option was clearing the gun and continuing the string. I didn't manage to get any other shots off in the string, so I ended up with four misses on that stage. Which was pretty annoying, as I ended up eight points short of a sharpshooter score on the .22 aggregate. And had I scored at least a 33 for those four shots (which is well within the realm of possibility), I would have ended up third in the Marksman grand aggregate.

The other interesting item from this 2700 was that I demonstrated my newfound trigger control on the .45 -- well, at least for one match. I managed to shoot a 181-6x on the .45 timed-fire match (a 90 and a 91), narrowly squeaking out a victory over the 181-4x fired by the second-place shooter.

I'm definitely making progress.

Trigger control

It looks like I've managed to work through my trigger control problems on the .45. It was really just a matter of focus and practice. Previously, I'd spent most of my time working on slow fire, my reasoning being that, if you can't do something slow, you'll never be able to do it fast. (This being something I picked up some 20 years ago while learning to play guitar.) It seemed about time for me to start working on timed and rapid fire, so I did, and it seems to have paid off. I shot three 900's this weekend as practice, and shot a 777, a 753, and a 788. Considerably better than my last match scores, which were 645, 559, and 671.

Now I just need lots more practice to cement the good habits in my brain.

Bullseye match this weekend

I shot another 2700 this past weekend at Central Jersey. I learned a couple of
things during the match:

- If the safety on your gun happens to move up just enough to prevent the gun fr
om firing, that doesn't count as an alibi. (An alibi is some sort of mechanical failure that prevents you from finishing a stage, or at least prevents you from having adequate time to shoot your timed- or rapid-fire stage.) I lost three s
hots as a result. Oh, well, live and learn.

- I need a lot more work on my trigger control. I have no problem with the trig
ger on my .22, but I continue to shoot low and to the left on the .45. I was ac
tually able to correct this a bit during the match and ended up shooting a bette
r .45 aggregate than my center-fire aggregate. But my score still wasn't what i
t really should be.

The results just came out this morning. I was a bit surprised to see that I won
the .22 slow-fire match for marksmen. I was even more surprised to see that I
came in second for the .45 slow-fire match.

Better bullseye shooting

So I've gotten into this whole bullseye shooting thing, where a full match is called a 2700 (because there's a theoretical maximum 2700 points.) A 2700 is broken up into three 900's. Each 900 consists of 30 rounds fired slow-fire, 30 rounds timed-fire (four seconds per shot, on average), and 30 rounds rapid-fire (two seconds per shot.) The best I'd done so far for a .22 900 was 781. Yesterday, I was at the range and fired a 900 for practice and shot an 822. That's 91.3%, which is an Expert score (85% being the boundary for Sharpshooter and 90% for Expert.) And that included a 98-4x timed-fire target. I have yet to clean a target (i.e., all 10's and X's), but I won't be surprised if I clean one this year.

It had actually been a few weeks since I'd shot .22. I've been working exclusively with the .45, which is currently a borrowed .45 until the one I have on order comes in. My trigger control needs a lot of work on the .45, so that's what I've been working on. I'm getting a bit better, but I do need a lot of work, as my scores have been hovering in the low 80's there.

First outdoor 2700

I shot a conventional pistol match (a 2700) down at Central Jersey this weekend. This was my first outdoor 2700, so it was an interesting experience. I was also overly optimistic in estimating when we'd be done. I was thinking we'd be done by 2:00 (with a 9:00 start), and I'd be home by 3:00. We were actually done by 3:30, I was out of the parking lot about 3:50, and home by 4:30.

I shot my first full 2700 a month ago, but that was an indoor one, so the slow-fire stages were at 25 yards and not 50 yards. So this time, I got the full effect, shooting at 50 yards for slow-fire. Not that it's significantly different, it's still just a black circle off in the distance.

The other major difference between indoor and outdoor is the wind, and I certainly got the full experience there, too. Luckily, it didn't rain on us, which had been forecast, but it was a very windy day. More than once we had to go chase down targets that had blown off the backer. I didn't lose a target myself, but I started locking mine down with twelve staples rather than the usual four.

Once again, I borrowed a .45 to shoot with. This time, though, I made sure to test my ammo in the gun. I borrowed it from a fellow club member, and I shot it during our informal Wednesday night "700" league (a 900 minus the slow-fire stage.) My ammo failed to fully seat on the first round, and again on the second round, so I finished the 700 with borrowed ammo, too. The owner of the gun suggested I run the rounds through the press again to get the bullets seated just a little deeper. I reseated them all an extra .02" and ended up having no problems whatsoever.

Of course, what I didn't think to check was the zero on the scope. I certainly wasn't shooting 10's and X's in the 700, but I assumed that was just me. And during the 2700 Saturday, I shot worse in the slow-fire stage of the .22 (with my gun) than I did in the timed- and rapid-fire stages, so when I shot crappy slow-fire stages with the .45, I didn't think much of it, especially because it was during the transition from slow-fire to center-fire. Same with the timed- and rapid-fire stages, I just assumed I was jerking the trigger, especially since my shots were grouping so nicely, albeit low and to the left. During the slow-fire stage of the .45 match, though, I concentrated carefully on getting good shots off, and they were still grouping low and to the left. I adjusted the scope a few clicks in the up direction but didn't try moving it to the right any. Not sure why not, really. Lack of experience, I guess.

I actually shot pretty well, all things considered. I shot a 781 for the .22 match, which is a sharpshooter score. I then shot 654 and 649 for the center-fire and .45 matches, for an aggregate 2084. (This assumes my scorer added things up correctly -- I didn't verify the math.) That's much better than my indoor 2700, where I scored in the 1600's. And it's a 77%, which is spitting distance from sharpshooter. If it really was the scope and not me shooting poorly, I expect I'll shoot closer to sharpshooter next time.

First 2700 results

The match results are out for my first 2700. Woohoo! I made the 1600 Club!

In bullseye competition, there's actually something called the 2600 Club. This is that select group of people who've managed to shoot a 2600 or better. I don't see myself ever making that group.

Unexpected result

So, the match results for the conventional pistol sectional I shot last weekend have been published. Even though my aggregate score was pretty poor (537/900), as it turns out, I was actually the number one shooter for the .22 slow fire stage for the tyros (i.e., those who'd never competed before.) I shot a 146 to beat out the 143 for the second-place shooter.

So there's something I can be happy about.

First bullseye match

I shot my first bullseye match this past weekend. This was actually an NRA conventional pistol sectional, so as soon as the results are in from all the sectionals, I'll actually have a national ranking. Given that I'm currently unclassified, I was officially competing in the master class. Which is pretty funny considering how I did.

My performance was piss-poor. My aggregate was a 538 (out of a possible 900.) I knew I was unlikely to be scoring an 850, but I thought I had a reasonable chance to score in the 600's, and it wasn't unreasonable for me to think that I would break 700. The scores I've been getting in the USRA postal match I've been shooting range from 225 to 241 and have mostly been in the 230's. The bullseye match was effectively just three times as much shooting, so it's reasonable to assume I could just scale these scores up and shoot somewhere between 675 and 720.

I did notice that I was grouping low on my timed and rapid-fire targets, to the point of scoring a number of misses. (One of my rapid-fire targets actually scored a 33, as embarassed as I might be to admit that.) This in spite of the fact that I thought I had a good sight picture for all of those shots. It's unlikely that my sights suddenly broke in the middle of the match, so it's probably something I'm consistently doing wrong. At least, for being misses, they were consistent misses, so I can figure out what to pay attention to.