How much do you shoot/practice?

[massrog]

While I try to sort out my FAS 609 which I bought 4 months ago a couple of questions have occurred to me. The first is how often should I shoot and how many shots per session? I have a range set up at the house which was supposed to be a practice range for my daughter to practice for her comp team and I use it for 6-12 targets per evening. Is this too much? Another is should I seek out some instruction (is any available in MASS?). Lastly where should my novice average match score be to be respectable for club shoots? Thanks in advance!
Roger

[jerber]

I usually train at least.twice per week
When I do I just pretend that I am at a competition and shoot a match against myself
I keep track of all my scores and see how I progress
But I also shoot 22lr so sometimes it's only once a week for AR

[Chia]

I haven't had enough time to make it regular yet, but here's my basic outline:

3 1 HR AP Pistol per week. That time is broken up into several parts: one sighting, one reviewing a single piece of technique I felt I needed to work on from last time, and the rest scoring as per practice. At most I've fired 40 shots at a time. Assuming that was a woman's tournemant 40 without decimals, I'd have a 279. Honestly I feel I could do better, and part of that 40 was a series of 10 sighting shots, but I'll not whine and just put the score, since it was the first time I really had something I could correlate into an average. I fully plan to increase it as I work on learning to shoot more.

I've been at AP for about four months, and target handgun shooting for about a year. I'm probably below average, but I'm learning. I have no idea what a club score should be like since we don't have any clubs here.

[metman]

I train an average of 6 hours per week with the pistols (air, free, r.f.) of which 4 hours are dry-firing exercises. I try to focus more on technique and "the process", and less on the actual score, other than a verification while live-firing that I succeeded in following the procedure as intended. My goal is that the details meld into a quasi-intuitive process a bit like playing a passage on a musical instrument. ( I have a music + science background).
Additional hours during the week are devoted to physical training.

[Chia]

While I try to sort out my FAS 609 which I bought 4 months ago a couple of questions have occurred to me. The first is how often should I shoot and how many shots per session? I have a range set up at the house which was supposed to be a practice range for my daughter to practice for her comp team and I use it for 6-12 targets per evening. Is this too much? Another is should I seek out some instruction (is any available in MASS?). Lastly where should my novice average match score be to be respectable for club shoots? Thanks in advance!
Roger

One more thing. While I included my score, it was NOT to give you an idea of what you needed to reach. You'll note that no one else gave you a score. Not to put words in their mouth, but that's because it doesn't matter what score you're making right now. What matters is your goal and your progress towards it. Don't hold yourself to a standard just to hold a standard. If your goal is only to play at club shoots, heck, just go and have fun now. If your goal is to seriously compete at club shoots, then figure out what the high scores are from that club, and work out a training program to beat them. If your goal is bigger, plan for it etc....

[gwsb]

The bottom line on practice is summed up best by Bill Bradley. Played basketball for Princeton and the Knicks and a US Senator.

He said that when he was not practicing, someone, somewhere was and when they met in competition the other guy would win. In other words you can't practice too much. However, what do you mean by practice? Do you mean actually pulling the trigger? If so that is only a small part of shooting practice. As Yogi Berra would have said if he had been a shooter, "90% of shooting is 90% mental". You should be thinking about it, reading about it, talking about it as much as possible. Read everything you can find on shooting, sports psychology, other sports, the psychology of success. A good starting point is Zen and the Art of Archery", a book from the 30s or 40s by a German living in Japan. Don't stop until you have read about 30 - 50 books on the subject.

As for actually pulling the trigger, when they are going in the 10 ring don't stop. When you can't do anything right, are thinking about work, worried about your kids school, ect. stop. You are only practicing shooting bad and you need to practice shooting 10s.

[metman]

I cannot agree strongly enough that it is a mental game. It is more than just developing a good technique. During a match the biggest struggle I have is mental focus- ignoring distractions and all negative thoughts. How ought one react to an unexpected bad shot? Describing it as a "zen" activity is certainly one way to put it. Training has to include mental aspects as well.

[Rover]

" How ought one react to an unexpected bad shot?"

Well, since it's difficult to do it yourself, you could have someone give you a good kick in the ass. But I'm sure they'd be lining up to do that.

I personally dry-fire a few times to see what caused it, then move on.

[Gwhite]

I cannot agree strongly enough that it is a mental game. It is more than just developing a good technique. During a match the biggest struggle I have is mental focus- ignoring distractions and all negative thoughts. How ought one react to an unexpected bad shot? Describing it as a "zen" activity is certainly one way to put it. Training has to include mental aspects as well.

You don't want to dwell on a bad shot. That only tends to reinforce it.

However, you want to try to learn from it. Was it just a random wobble at the wrong time, or the result of a clear breakdown in your shot process? If the latter, you want to think about the positive corrective action. For example, if you were too aggressive with the trigger, think about how you execute a nice smooth trigger release. If you think about a negative solution ("Don't jerk the trigger"), the negative is an additional layer of abstraction, and your brain will be thinking about jerking the trigger.

The other thing you can check is if there was any sort of "indicator" that it wasn't going to be a good shot. That can allow you to abort the bad shots before they happen.

In a match, you mostly want to stay focused on a known good shot process. The better you have rehearsed & trust your shot process, the easier it will be to stick with it in a match, or recall it if you have a temporary lapse.

A lot of this is covered in the "On the Firing Line" articles by J.P. O'Connor, and in Basham's "With Winning in Mind"

[metman]

You don't want to dwell on a bad shot. That only tends to reinforce it.

However, you want to try to learn from it. Was it just a random wobble at the wrong time, or the result of a clear breakdown in your shot process? If the latter, you want to think about the positive corrective action. For example, if you were too aggressive with the trigger, think about how you execute a nice smooth trigger release. If you think about a negative solution ("Don't jerk the trigger"), the negative is an additional layer of abstraction, and your brain will be thinking about jerking the trigger.

The other thing you can check is if there was any sort of "indicator" that it wasn't going to be a good shot. That can allow you to abort the bad shots before they happen.

In a match, you mostly want to stay focused on a known good shot process. The better you have rehearsed & trust your shot process, the easier it will be to stick with it in a match, or recall it if you have a temporary lapse.

A lot of this is covered in the "On the Firing Line" articles by J.P. O'Connor, and in Basham's "With Winning in Mind"

I totally agree that during the match one must trust in, and stay focussed on, the shot process. It is not the time for too deep an analysis of why a bad shot happened. Even if it was due to an obvious departure from the rehearsed process, chastising oneself is not recommended, as explained in chapter 6 of the U.S. Army Markmanship Unit, Pistol Military Rapid Fire Guide.

[Dan Ide]

Practice as much as you can, but not to the point where it is no longer fun. As to respectable scores, compete as soon as you can, no matter what your scores are. There are plenty of postal events, all on the honor system. Competing in them makes practice more like a real match. Heck, my rifle scores for the CMP matches are usually the very bottom, although one time I actually was second from the bottom. It is still fun!!

[massrog]

Thanks for all the responses everyone! I think the most important things that I need to work on is the mental negativity and trigger control/grip in that order. Those random "flyers" tend to multiply if I let them as has been said and the mental factor is big. I have worked myself into a 440-450 average after starting around 390 but seem to have plateaued the last couple of weeks. What is the consensus among you all as to compensators? Can one hurt? Rover none of yours (that I've seen listed in posts) came with one did you ever consider adding one?

[Rover]

Get the mechanics down right; don't get too "mental". You can save that for later, when you're hangin' with the mental cases. There are only two things you have to do: align the sights and then squeeze the trigger without disturbing the alignment. Anything else you do/think is just bringing crap to the table, to your detriment.

Actually, I have posted a couple of times on the subject of compensators, but I don't consider them worthy of much interest. My feelings (having owned them and used them)? They just don't matter. If you're seeing movement, it's YOU! (Frequently a too feeble grip.)

I currently use a Steyr LP1 (stock compensator) and a Walther LPM1 ssp (no compensator), and see no difference in the scores. I've also used a couple of guns with Nygord comps and would not buy one.

Don't be one of those hopeless chumps trying to "buy points." Spend your time getting a good trigger and grip fit.

[TenMetrePeter]

Surely getting your repeatable routine in your head and cutting out all other thoughts and distractions is an essential mental process?

[massrog]

Get the mechanics down right; don't get too "mental". You can save that for later, when you're hangin' with the mental cases. There are only two things you have to do: align the sights and then squeeze the trigger without disturbing the alignment. Anything else you do/think is just bringing crap to the table, to your detriment.

Actually, I have posted a couple of times on the subject of compensators, but I don't consider them worthy of much interest. My feelings (having owned them and used them)? They just don't matter. If you're seeing movement, it's YOU! (Frequently a too feeble grip.)

I currently use a Steyr LP1 (stock compensator) and a Walther LPM1 ssp (no compensator), and see no difference in the scores. I've also used a couple of guns with Nygord comps and would not buy one.

Don't be one of those hopeless chumps trying to "buy points." Spend your time getting a good trigger and grip fit.

Thanks for the advice on the grip. I was just beginning to make that connection and am working to make it muscle memory (not easy)' As for the Nygords I wish I'd asked a couple of days ago as I have one on the way but like Larry and others have said "can't hurt" I just noticed that all the "modern" pistols seem to incorporate them.
One thing I just read which goes against the advice of a friend (VERY good shot) is to use a 6 o'clock hold rather than a center hold. Which do you all think?
Thanks as always,
Roger

[Gwhite]

For precision shooting, a SUB-six hold is better than 6:00. You want it to look like:



You want the front sight close to the width of the black, and an equal gap between the front sight & the black and the two sides of the front sight. This forms a visual pattern the eye & brain can easily recognize & strive for.

Center hold puts a black sight against a black target, and will allow you to hit the black OK, but it's not as precise as what is shown above. The six o'clock hold also has a contrast problem where it's hard to tell if your front sight is drifting into the black. Both also make it very easy for the visual focus to drift off of the front sight & to the black, which will REALLY mess up your scores.

[massrog]

For precision shooting, a SUB-six hold is better than 6:00. You want it to look like:



You want the front sight close to the width of the black, and an equal gap between the front sight & the black and the two sides of the front sight. This forms a visual pattern the eye & brain can easily recognize & strive for.

Center hold puts a black sight against a black target, and will allow you to hit the black OK, but it's not as precise as what is shown above. The six o'clock hold also has a contrast problem where it's hard to tell if your front sight is drifting into the black. Both also make it very easy for the visual focus to drift off of the front sight & to the black, which will REALLY mess up your scores.

Thank you! I'll try that today in my session.

[Rover]

Pretty much all you'll need to know:

http://www.australiancynic.com/NYGORD.htm#training

[massrog]

Pretty much all you'll need to know:

http://www.australiancynic.com/NYGORD.htm#training

GREAT info. Thanks Rover

[Pheyden]

Massrog and ABBY1996 - If you need a good place to practice your shooting under "quasi-match" pressure, I would invite you to enter the 10M Pistol Competition League (PCL), which I host on Facebook. Year round matches, one per month. It is all on the honor system. You send in a group photo of your target cards before shooting, and the each completed target. You can score them yourself (I double check them). We have people from all around the globe competing (including several on this forum), and new people are always welcome. If you do not use Facebook, just email me at pheyden1448@yahoo.com, and I can get you the details.