Range Time 11/18 and 11/22

Two range days have passed since my last post with significant gains made in the speed department. The theme lately has been pushing the envelope and watching it bend, thanks primarily to the Drill of the Week at pistol-training.com.

Last weeks drill was a 3x5 speed push. The drill involved two strings of fire.
1: Draw and fire two shots on an index card at 7 yards at comfortable pace with 100% hits. Repeat 10 times. Record times.
2: Take the fastest clean run from string 1 and set that as the PAR time for string two. Repeat the drill 10 times and record the fastest clean time and the total number of hits from string 2.

Results:
Gun: HK USP9
Distance: 7yd
Position: Holstered, Concealed
Fastest Time String 1: 3.53
Fastest Clean Time String 2: 3.16
# Hits String 2: 13

Not too bad for a slow guy. Too many years of blues guitar not enough speed metal, and by not enough I mean none. Draw is still way too slow but my splits are getting better. By the end of the drill I was anticipating and flinching pretty bad and ended the session working on proper trigger control on some two inch circles.

This week's drill of the week was one of my favorites, 1 reload 2s. The short version... two weeks ago I was stuck in slow motion or hadn't had enough coffee.

The drill was a little different than how I was running it previously. I shot the first run at a comfortable pace, set that as the par time and kept ticking off tenths until I ran out of skill.

Start position: concealed, CCC shaggy, untucked flannel shirt
Type of reload: slide lock
Starting par: 5.8
Best par: 4.8 (4.79; 2.16, 2.40, .23)
Rounds fired: 48

That's a 2.16 draw, 2.40 reload and a .23 split. To put that in perspective my current goals are to get my draw and reload under 2 seconds and my splits under .2 for this sort of drill. The key was hard focus on the front sight and seeing just what I need to instead of a perfect bullseye alignment. Still have a lot of work to do, but results like these make me believe my goals are attainable. Also shot dot torture again and hit 49/50 again, dropping one strong hand shot.

I made one minor modification to the USP today, blacking out the white dots of the rear sight with a sharpie. I couldn't take them anymore, sitting there mocking me, cluttering up my sight picture and confusing my eyeballs. Not cool white dots. Not cool. One minor gear note, I'm in the market for a lower profile mag carrier, my tried and true blade-tech carrier is a bit bulky and prints more than the gun.

Two more great days on the range and another 200 rounds through the USP.

Range Time 11/11

Spent some more quality time with the HK this week, and the Need for Speed. The drill of the week was 1 Reload 2, shot on the center box of an SEB target. The drill is pretty simple, can be shot from almost any distance, and is a great way to work on the draw, reload, and fast follow up shots. Using the Surefire shot timer app I was even able to record some times after I adjusted the sensitivity 5 or 10 times. 

Distance: 7 yards (Paced it off afterwards, and it was really 8)

Round Count: 50 (Really 48, had to use two shots to calibrate the microphone for the shot timer)

I ran this drill 16 times. Why? Because about half the time I wasn't getting usable results on the shot timer. Despite this, I got in 8 clean-ish runs that break down as:

Draw: 2.63

Reload: 3.35

2nd shot: .63

Obviously I have some work to do, but within the data there are a couple of bright spots. These are the areas I have identified within the fundamental skills of this drill that need work:

The Draw: Clearing the cover garment was slowing me down a lot. I need to work on consistently grabbing a handful of shirttail and getting it high enough to get a good grip on the gun. Toward the end I found that if I left the bottom button undone it made things much easier, without sacrificing concealment. 

The Reload: A couple of flubbed handful of shirt and mag reloads skewed the times towards the slow end. Same as the draw, consistently clearing the shirt will speed things up. I was also slower than I needed to be on the press out after the reload. The bright spot here was using a pre-loaded thumb on the slide release to put the gun in battery. I like this technique a lot, and it is much faster than the overhand method I used to use. 

The Follow Up Shot: That split time should actually read .46, but some slow runs early on throw it off. 4 of the eight runs were a .46, which is slow, but consistent. Of the other 4, 2 were faster and 2 slower. I think the issue here is I'm waiting for too clean a sight picture. If I could just see a little faster. Maybe I should eat more carrots. 

After working on Speed Speed Speed, I ran dot torture and shot a 49/50 at about 11 feet. This was frustrating to no end since, for once, I didn't drop a single one hand only shot (barely). I anticipated recoil on one shot, and blew a perfect 50. This is why I like this drill so much, there's almost no margin for error, and if you don't make 50 good-very good trigger presses, you're not going to get that coveted 50/50. 

All in all a good range session. I shot pretty well, and nobody got Tex Grebnered.

Range Time

Finally got to the range Friday and put a hundred rounds through my carry gun, currently a HK USP 9. Started the range session with a one shot walk back drill fired from double action.

Target: 3x5 index card
Starting distance: 7 yards
Maximum distance: 18 yards

I dropped the first 20 yard shot, but repeated the drill 3 times and hit successfully.

Next drill was a slow fire 10 shot group on a sheet of printer paper resulting in about a six inch group despite a couple of less than spectacular trigger presses. Shrinking my groups at 25 yards has been a goal of mine, and it's working, thanks mostly to shooting very small targets from closer ranges. Two inch circles at 3 yards with a 100% accuracy standard are a great way to improve.

Speed work was disappointing, as was the shot timer app I was testing. When it worked my draw to first shot on a 3x5 card was averaging 3.5 seconds. This is unacceptable, but while my accuracy has improved to the point that I feel comfortable moving on to working on my speed, it is proving difficult to find a balance of speed and precision.

I haven't been shooting my USP lately, favoring my M&P and P226 testing their newly installed sights, and the trigger felt unfamiliar at speed. I was punished for this infidelity with molasses-slow times and the glaring need for more dry fire practice.

My equipment performed flawlessly and all drills were performed from concealment under an untucked flannel shirt. Appendix carry is proving comfortable and worry free thanks in part to my CCC Shaggy and a stiff belt. However, I'm still struggling with developing a fast, consistent draw stroke as I transition from conventional strong side carry. Dry fire practice and neglecting my other pistols is likely the answer.

The HK exhibited no malfunctions and is about 700 rounds deep in a 2000 round challenge. The only problem I have with the gun is the stock sights, a set of Heinie straight 8s are in its future.