TargetTalk

Please indulge me as someone who has found a deep satisfaction recently. I had been flirting with ten meter ISSF for a while. I began by using a club pistol, did a few matches with them and then deciding to be cautious plonked some money down on an IZH Baikal 46M. It was a love hate story but after a year of grunting, shaping the stock, practicing, I began to hit 88%. After a bad decision not to go for the pre-nationals etc. I sold the pistol.

The wife says you will never really leave shooting, so why don't you really commit to it? Buy the best pistol and practice like you mean it. And so in December I do a painful bank transfer, nail biting wait, fight customs etc and get my LP10 with the ball bearing trigger etc. When I had the Baikal, I could shoot in the 90's with a borrowed LP 10 (CLUB PISTOL); so now it was the World Cup or bust right? Ah but not so easy. I pick up the LP 10 AND SHOOT WORSE than when I had my Baikal. I barely qualify for the pre-national tournament.

My mind attacks me (you are too old, you will never get it right, you spent too much on the wrong pistol etc...etc...) But I begin to carve the elephant. I go to the basics with the advice of the gurus on the forum. I practice regularly. I was shooting a match every weekend till I read how wrong my training was and understood what one gentleman had written here. The need to break the training down dawns on me...

I whittle away at the elephant, I adjust the trigger, add weights, remove weights, try incantations, talk to my pistol :-). Now slowly the elephant begins to take shape. I am beginning to shoot smaller groups (no scores at the moment), I squeeze a wad of paper towels all day at work.

And then the elephant begins to move like an elephant...my Steyr now feels light in my hand, it behaves like the pistol at the range that I used to borrow. It slowly speaks to me and tells me that it is the world's best air pistol for a reason, my chest puffs up every time I take it out of its box.

I think I can see the elephant clearly whittled out of the stone. Now I will go and challenge my friend to a match on the weekend...no more namby-pamby forty shot matches, lets go the whole deal...let's duel like men.

Apologies for taking your time, I have few I can share this joy with.

Regards,

Dev

I am really glad for you Dev!
Keep up the good work.

Very inspiring.
Thanks!
Vin

Don't stop a very good story now.....................

Please do tell us what's your score with the 'elephant' LP-10... :.)


Kevho
Airgun aficionado from Costa Rica, C.A.

As long as he is moving forward and enjoying himself,
the actual score is not as important :)
Sometimes its about the journey not just the destination.
(I am commenting on the current place Dev is at, not competitive shooting in general)

A bit of advice to all: do a search for posts by Dev. He has the most inspiring and enlightened exchanges about his training and development as a shooter with various people in this group. It's a real pleasure to read his posts.

My God, I am amazed by how nice all of you are. I thought that I was being self indulgent but I still went ahead and wrote in as I love this forum.
Okay I will tell you what happened this Sunday...it was still sweltering hot and my friend called and said that our match was to take place at 3 p.m.
Mind you it is somewhere in the 39-40 degree centigrade range in the morning and I feel like chickening out. But then I say I must do some range time and I will ache for the moment all of next week.
And so as they wrote in the Odyssey I girded up my loins and packed my pistol, some bottles of water and jumped into my trusty Mahindra Jeep.
It is really hot but the airconditioner works and I am fine.
I reach the range and there are some more people who will shoot the same match. In fact since the range is now run by our legendary pistol shooter Jaspal Rana, he has decided to play the range officer and coach. He has been giving free tips even when I just use the range. I exchange my normal Shaolin style greetings with him," Master of gunfu please enlighten me..." He smiles and says,"Dev I have seen Jackie Chan movies more often than your face at the range..."
So we take our lanes and next to me is another friend called Amit Gupta who became a renowned shot in the air pistol category last year. A few lanes away is my friend Anupam (he is the one who keeps challenging me).
I am all flashing my LP 10 and all surrounded by Morini's I make loud remarks about grown ups who use junior pistols etc. And then just to even the odds I offer Anupam a milky way bar...but he is very alert to my strategic moves and gives the candy to his son. (Curses foiled again! :-))
But just then the wind build up and a dust storm rages. This is quite common when it gets very hot and normally results in a light shower that lowers the temperature. And so it rages and we wait. After a while I ask Jaspal to start the match, let the wind be an obstacle for all I say.
So we begin...it is a forty shot duel as we don't have enough time. I shoot twenty sighters, most in the 8,9, 10 but not as tight as I would like it. So I focus a little more and shoot five more pellet. This time three hit the ten and two are in the nine. The match will be of ten shots per target. Four targets in all. Jaspal says there will be an honour system and he will look at the cards in the end. And so we begin. My first series of ten shots is good. I hit 91. Now I ponder should I rest or continue because with the sighters I have done a total of 35 shots already. I shot the first ten very carefully moving and inspecting the target for every shot. Now I decide to shoot the next ten without checking. Ahhhh not a wise move, six 8's, a 9 and three 10's. Damn...that's torn it. So I rest and refocus, I analyse and remember that I must follow my checklist. I commence with three 8's, five 9's and two 10's. Not too bad...another 90. I look around and Amit has finished, Anupam has another card to do...and so I am fine on time.
I begin the last card pumped up and sure that victory was close. The lephant was charging now and so it goes 10,10,9,9,9,9, acchhhh 8,8, 8 and a 7. Damn Had to shoot the seven out of pure habit.
The friend did not shoot a seven, neither did Amit and neither did that pretty young thing, in fact she whupped all of us. :-) Anyway I scored 352, just ten points lower that Anupam. Who in turn is a point or so behind Amit.
Yashpal screams finals, I'm like what's the point...anyway I feel that I will do better in a ten shot match. I shoot fine in fact doing better than my arch nemesis till the last shot till now I have been doing a string of 9's, a few 10 and I am on my last shot. I am tunnel visioned and focussed, I begin to lower the pistol into the black, suddenly my phone buzzes, for some weird reason the trigger breaks before time...I score a clean zero...ha ha ha ain't that funny. Anyway I come fifth overall, get a small prize of a pellet pouch. I then bribe Anupam's son to tell him that I scored 362. The kid is game and pulls his father's leg. But Anupam is a great sport he congratulates me on the new score. I fess up and yet he thumps me on the back and says next time. Yashpal catches me and makes me take an oath on the elephant,"One and a half hour practice three times a week, holding practice, you decide what you want to do but one and a half hour you must put in." Either he is beginning to sound like Yoda or I forgot to take off the foam inserts from my ear. I duly bow and bid adieu to all my friends. So my friends the journey continues, I shall practice this week and shoot another duel next week. I will prolly just shoot a hundred pellets into the back of a target, during training as I find just holding very boring. At least that is the feedback from my mind...now I'm off to scrounge some paper towels. :-)

Regards,

Dev

Thats very nice! Seems like you had a great time.
You shoot air pistol in an open range?
That should be really bad for your scores!

Keep writing, I love your stories!

Well, I am that friend that Dev has mentioned in his post Just registered here !

Both of us shoot and compete together and try and help each other to improve techniques to attain better scores. Same age nearly, and same school, we have much to share in common. Both are extremely passionate about guns and shooting.

Dev's scoring has improved considerably but there are some issues with sighting (Dev uses heavier spectacles) which needs to be corrected to improve scores further. Working on that...

So much for now...