BassCliff
Professional
Ladies and gentlemen, boys and girls, friends and neighbors, in-laws and outlaws,
I had my weekly pilgrimage to the range today and tried to practice all the fundamentals. They almost came together a few times. Since I'm taking a training session there on Saturday, I went to the Lake Country location of Fletcher Arms. A couple of the guys there are starting to remember my name since I go at least once a week. Today I was assigned lane #12. It's my favorite lane!
The range got a little busier once I had all my magazines loaded. But I was able to get in one timed 10-10-10 drill to start my session. I like starting my session with a cold "Test". It wasn't horrible today with only two out of the black. Even with the two second penalty I managed a passing score under par time.
The next half dozen B-8 targets were not timed. I really thought #2 would be pretty but when I pulled it back from the lane I was horrified.
How can I get six in the 10 ring and let the rest trail off into low left loser land? I think I put three shots through the same hole there on top of the X. Seriously. Anyway, let's get on with #3. I have to try to regroup.
OK, that's better. Will you give me seven in the 10 ring? I still let one get out into the 8 ring, dag nab it. All right, #4 looks good. There's not as many in the 10 ring but they're all in the black. This doesn't happen to me too often, yet.
Now I'm feeling confident. I think I have a grasp of how to do this gun thing. Doh! I guess I spoke too soon. Here's #5.
Dang! I let two out on the 8 ring that time. Let me slow down a little more and make sure I've got a good sight picture and a trigger pull that goes straight back and doesn't upset the muzzle. Bring on #6...
Well, slap me silly. Still, there's one in the 8 ring. But I do believe there are five in the X ring. OK, Cliff. Settle down. Let's see what this old noob can do with #7, the last B-8 of the session.
Yay me! Not only are they all in the black, there are eight in the 10 ring and I think you can count five in the X ring. Hey! That's almost like real shooting! Then I took a suggestion from Mr. @HngnHunter to use a single dot on a white paper for a target. Sometimes a simple target is better. Instead of a single dot, I printed this one to try. (I think I'll try a single dot next time.) I stuck that red dot in the middle thinking it would help these old eyes to see better.
I ran it out to ten yards, put some holes in it, and it came back this way. It looks the same as most of my B-8 targets.
I know last time I said I'd do this earlier in the session, but I didn't. I ran a couple of smaller 12x18 silhouettes out to 25 yards and tried to put holes in them.
The first one came back like this, with only nine holes. At least that's better than last time.
I patched it up, sent it back out, and put some more holes in it.
I got nine hits on this one too, if you'll give me that graze at the bottom edge. One of these days I'm going to forego the B-8 targets and just shoot silhouettes at 25 yards the whole session. But for now I patched this one up again, sent it out to 5 yards so I could really see if the sights on my P22 are adjusted properly. At 5 yards I did pretty good on the upper left corner dot.
So I moved it out to 7 yards to see if it (me) was just as accurate. I used the head shot bullseye this time.
Drat. The first shot of that magazine was way high. I didn't keep the same sight alignment. The rest were in the zone. Then I tried the upper right dot at 10 yards for the next magazine.
Oh yeah, not so good. I've got a couple more magazines of .22 left. Let's see if I can refine that sight picture at 10 yards. We'll use the center mass bullseye this time.
OK, again, not horrible. Let me patch those and put my last magazine through it and see if I can improve with my little plinker.
Ah well, at least they're all on the target. I just need to take a little more time with this little gun. It's fun to shoot and you just want to rip through the mag dumps. Shame on me.
I took a lot of video this trip, all of the B-8 targets with my XD9 and one magazine with my P22. I gotta warn you, it's almost twelve minutes of me just pulling the trigger and looking at holes in paper. But if you've got nothing better to do, here it is. Feel free to tell the old noob what he's doing wrong. Seriously.
And that was my practice session. It was good practice. I'll get in more laser practice in my basement and hopefully get more holes nearer the center next week. I've got a real training session at this range on Saturday, their "Defensive Handgun Level 1" course. They're going to teach me how to draw from my holster. I need to take this course in order to draw from holster on their range. It should be fun and I hope to learn something new and refine the things I haven't practiced much lately, though I suspect a lot of it will be review for me. That's OK. I could use a good review now and then. I'm hoping I don't have to take a lot of expensive training sessions to learn the stuff I already know. I'd like to be taking their skills classes, which are more in line, training-wise and price-wise, to the regular Handgun Skill Builder Workshop sessions I was getting at Lytle Creek Firing Line before I moved. Gee, I hope I don't sound like a know-it-all. (I'm not!) I just don't want to spend a ton of money to show them what I already know. Ya know? Bah, I'm not going to worry about it. It's only money, right?
Thanks for putting up with me.
Thank you for your indulgence,
BassCliff
I had my weekly pilgrimage to the range today and tried to practice all the fundamentals. They almost came together a few times. Since I'm taking a training session there on Saturday, I went to the Lake Country location of Fletcher Arms. A couple of the guys there are starting to remember my name since I go at least once a week. Today I was assigned lane #12. It's my favorite lane!
The range got a little busier once I had all my magazines loaded. But I was able to get in one timed 10-10-10 drill to start my session. I like starting my session with a cold "Test". It wasn't horrible today with only two out of the black. Even with the two second penalty I managed a passing score under par time.
The next half dozen B-8 targets were not timed. I really thought #2 would be pretty but when I pulled it back from the lane I was horrified.
How can I get six in the 10 ring and let the rest trail off into low left loser land? I think I put three shots through the same hole there on top of the X. Seriously. Anyway, let's get on with #3. I have to try to regroup.
OK, that's better. Will you give me seven in the 10 ring? I still let one get out into the 8 ring, dag nab it. All right, #4 looks good. There's not as many in the 10 ring but they're all in the black. This doesn't happen to me too often, yet.
Now I'm feeling confident. I think I have a grasp of how to do this gun thing. Doh! I guess I spoke too soon. Here's #5.
Dang! I let two out on the 8 ring that time. Let me slow down a little more and make sure I've got a good sight picture and a trigger pull that goes straight back and doesn't upset the muzzle. Bring on #6...
Well, slap me silly. Still, there's one in the 8 ring. But I do believe there are five in the X ring. OK, Cliff. Settle down. Let's see what this old noob can do with #7, the last B-8 of the session.
Yay me! Not only are they all in the black, there are eight in the 10 ring and I think you can count five in the X ring. Hey! That's almost like real shooting! Then I took a suggestion from Mr. @HngnHunter to use a single dot on a white paper for a target. Sometimes a simple target is better. Instead of a single dot, I printed this one to try. (I think I'll try a single dot next time.) I stuck that red dot in the middle thinking it would help these old eyes to see better.
I ran it out to ten yards, put some holes in it, and it came back this way. It looks the same as most of my B-8 targets.
I know last time I said I'd do this earlier in the session, but I didn't. I ran a couple of smaller 12x18 silhouettes out to 25 yards and tried to put holes in them.
The first one came back like this, with only nine holes. At least that's better than last time.
I patched it up, sent it back out, and put some more holes in it.
I got nine hits on this one too, if you'll give me that graze at the bottom edge. One of these days I'm going to forego the B-8 targets and just shoot silhouettes at 25 yards the whole session. But for now I patched this one up again, sent it out to 5 yards so I could really see if the sights on my P22 are adjusted properly. At 5 yards I did pretty good on the upper left corner dot.
So I moved it out to 7 yards to see if it (me) was just as accurate. I used the head shot bullseye this time.
Drat. The first shot of that magazine was way high. I didn't keep the same sight alignment. The rest were in the zone. Then I tried the upper right dot at 10 yards for the next magazine.
Oh yeah, not so good. I've got a couple more magazines of .22 left. Let's see if I can refine that sight picture at 10 yards. We'll use the center mass bullseye this time.
OK, again, not horrible. Let me patch those and put my last magazine through it and see if I can improve with my little plinker.
Ah well, at least they're all on the target. I just need to take a little more time with this little gun. It's fun to shoot and you just want to rip through the mag dumps. Shame on me.
I took a lot of video this trip, all of the B-8 targets with my XD9 and one magazine with my P22. I gotta warn you, it's almost twelve minutes of me just pulling the trigger and looking at holes in paper. But if you've got nothing better to do, here it is. Feel free to tell the old noob what he's doing wrong. Seriously.
And that was my practice session. It was good practice. I'll get in more laser practice in my basement and hopefully get more holes nearer the center next week. I've got a real training session at this range on Saturday, their "Defensive Handgun Level 1" course. They're going to teach me how to draw from my holster. I need to take this course in order to draw from holster on their range. It should be fun and I hope to learn something new and refine the things I haven't practiced much lately, though I suspect a lot of it will be review for me. That's OK. I could use a good review now and then. I'm hoping I don't have to take a lot of expensive training sessions to learn the stuff I already know. I'd like to be taking their skills classes, which are more in line, training-wise and price-wise, to the regular Handgun Skill Builder Workshop sessions I was getting at Lytle Creek Firing Line before I moved. Gee, I hope I don't sound like a know-it-all. (I'm not!) I just don't want to spend a ton of money to show them what I already know. Ya know? Bah, I'm not going to worry about it. It's only money, right?
Thanks for putting up with me.Thank you for your indulgence,
BassCliff