USPSA Lessons Learned

I learned six valuable things at my local USPSA club match yesterday:

1.  In USPSA, I can leave the "shooting area" all I want without penalty; it'll only cost me if I fire a shot while out of bounds.
2.  If a stage requires me to start with gun and "all magazines" on a barrel or table, it's probably worth it to put magazines into a pouch after the buzzer unless I want to hold 'em. I seriously considered firing the first two magazines strong - hand - only, and I did fire one that way, but I stuffed the third mag in my front left pocket as I went. Only afterward did I find out that retrieving that mag from a pocket forward of my centerline should bump me into Open with the raceguns. Oops.
3.  My ability to call shots has improved,  and I shot all alphas faster than I've shot alpha - charlies and alpha - mikes in the past.  Dry fire and working with a timer are paying off. This is no time to stop.
4.  Speaking of things that paid off, handguns are not magical. They have to be sighted in like any other missile launcher with sights. After I installed night sights from Warren Tactical, I continued to shoot Dot Torture at 5-7 yards like my life depended on it, but I didn't take the simple expedient of putting up a paper plate at 25 yards to figure out what sight picture I need to see to hit a plate at that distance. Of course, there was a classifier stage with plates at about 15 yards, and I shot over the top of several of them before I sort-of figured it out (I also shot into the morning sun without a hat, which is dumb.)*   To rectify the situation, I had to go back to my roots and shoot those paper plates. Sure enough, the Warren Tacticals hit precisely at the top of the front sight at 25 yards. If you try to center the front dot on the plate, and you accept a sight picture that puts it on the top half of the plate, you will miss high. If you use the sights as designed, this stock Glock 17 is pretty accurate at 25.
5.  I need to train myself to move with the gun. I discovered this very important lesson by disqualifying myself on the second stage of the day. I needed to draw and move left, shoot four targets, then sprint right and shoot four more before dashing back to the center to move forward and take seven more targets hidden from view. Unfortunately, I was focused on getting a reload accomplished during each if those sprints, and when I ran left and brought the gun up for a reload in my right hand, I broke the 180. I was, of course, immediately stopped and disqualified. I took a break to bag up my gun and gear, then took over the scorekeeping for the rest of the morning.
6.  DQ sucks (I don't even eat at Dairy Queen) but it's not the end of the world, particularly when you're trying to learn the sport. I picked up some ideas as I walked around watching everybody else shoot, and I still got to walk-through all the stages multiple times. It wasn't the way I would have chosen to spend my morning, but hey, at least I didn't throw a tantrum.

This actually didn't put me far off on my goals for the day. I wanted to call all my shots, and I did that until the disqualification. I wanted to look for alpha sight pictures and make up any shot worse than a charlie, and I did that (briefly.) I wanted to learn the sport and learn about this particular match, which I'd only shot once before. Done.

The failure was creating an unsafe condition. That's not acceptable, and tonight will be my first dry fire in the backyard where I'll run sprints from box to box keeping a SIRT safely downrange. Eventually I'll incorporate reloads into this kind of back-and-forth movement. I think being outdoors may create enough of a difference that I have to practice it that way at least some of the time; another shooter mentioned that training indoors with two big white walls makes it easy to miss the 180 when you go outside, and most of my USPSA experience is indoors in a single-bay range running one stage per week.

So, the real question: is this making me un-tactical and un-ready, as one weird knife maker used to say? Will I get killed on the streets? Well . . . maybe.

I think I know the basics of the differences between "tactical training" and "sporting competition." But I do think techniques you don't use under pressure are generally unlikely to be available under pressure. If you think you'll "just go crazy and gouge out his eyes" when some guy who fights every weekend decides to tie you up and smash your ribs, I'm skeptical. I feel the same way about my ability to run a pistol. When I can draw from concealment rapidly and securely and place accurate shots on demand, fix malfunctions on the go, reload quickly on demand and call shots under time and pride pressure, then it'll be time to worry about whether practicing the sport needs to take a back seat to practicing fighting. In the meantime, nothing I do for USPSA keeps me from practicing unarmed, learning more about OC spray, or working out how to be more aware and less likely to be caught behind the eight ball.

There really is a quantity of fun, simple enjoyment for enjoyment's sake, that makes it easier and better to train and practice. I predict that I'll get better at running a pistol by having fun in USPSA. If you don't need that, more power to you.

*Either practicing in hats and getting dependent on them will get you killed in the street, or failing to wear a hat in the street will get you killed in the street, but the hell of it is that I can never remember which one. It's a damned nuisance.

Possible USPSA Production Pistol Technique Breakthrough!?

I got off my butt and went to the weekly Springfield Tactical Shooters USPSA club shoot, which is one stage, indoors, every Thursday night. It was a simple run n' gun stage, with eight silhouettes, nothing blocked, nothing hidden, but arranged with two in the open, one through a port, then five more through two ports. In Production, there wasn't much to think about; there were no long or difficult shots, and there was a longer movement between shots after the sixth shot--the obvious place to reload.

I had fun running it and shot 15 alphas with one charlie in each run, but at my usual slow pace. First run was about sixteen seconds, the second run was about 15. This was my first attempt with the new Warren Tactical night sights on my Glock 17 in place of the stock plastic pieces. I may not be fast yet, but the sight picture was a revelation. I have actually not shot a dot torture with these sights yet, so that'll be the next thing to check out before I make the drive to Memphis to try out Rangemaster next month.

That wasn't the breakthrough. The breakthrough was getting lost in conversation with one of the regulars who invited me to join a practice group that sets up a stage and runs it repeatedly with coaching every week. There's no way I can do both every week after school starts, but lack of a place and time to practice shooting with movement and decision-making has held me back, not only in the sport but in developing as a shooter. I listen to podcasts and talk about improving, but I don't own a timer, nor do I practice live fire outside of these little one-stage club matches. That can't go on.

So! Things to look forward to because I should get better:

• As I learn these Warren sights, I expect them to make my job easier than the stock pieces ever did.
• Rangemaster's Level II handgun course on August 15th, to get the rust off and learn Rangemaster's way of doing the basics. If I like it as much as I think I will, Rangemaster Level III will follow.
• Practice outside USPSA matches, with coaching from A/Master/Grandmaster shooters.
• Beginning with August 3rd, competing in full-length club matches the first Sunday of every month locally.
• I haven't written about this, but my wife gave me Laserlyte's Laser Target for our anniversary. I've been drawing at it across the kitchen with the SIRT laser trainer for awhile, but now I think I'm going to find a place to set it up at 25 yards or so and practice at that distance daily. I need it.

This club looks like a tornado went through it.

Seriously, it looks . . . . oh, right.

This is Lefthanders Gun Club in Loami, IL (just outside Springfield.) I hadn't realized they got hit by the tornadoes last week until I got an email canceling the 3-Gun match this Sunday.
They're having a cleanup day instead . . . I wasn't planning to make it to the 3-gun match, but I think I might make it to the cleanup.
I'm not a member at Lefthanders, but I like the place and it's a good venue for Springfield Tactical Shooters events. I just never seem to get there!