Triangle Tactical Podcast - Competitive Shooting, Mostly

Chris asked on the Facebook group about competitive equity at matches:

Ports - all ports being the same high or low height. Should they be mixed height?

I'm taller than most shooters. Not the tallest guy on the range, but above average. Personally I don't have a problem with MD's mixing up the height of ports, as long as they aren't going too crazy with it. Tall shooters can get low, but short shooters can't get higher.

I think there's a size and height of port that can work for every shooter, and then it's totally kosher to add in something like a low port here and there. I like low ports, mostly because I like to hear people grumble about them, and also because I like to see people really get tested on their prone handgun shooting skills, which is something that nobody practices, and a lot of people struggle with.

Walking stages - should stages be open the day before for people that can travel?

I had to ponder this one for a little bit, and while it's not completely fair that someone could walk the match the day before, and someone else couldn't, as long as the the range is open for everyone to have the opportunity to walk the match, I'm pretty much okay with it.

Because if we close the stages off completely to everyone until match day, do the match staff that helped setup the match not have an advantage over everyone else?

My thing is this: If the range is open to everyone to walk stages the day before, and you just can't get an early flight in to the match, that's not the concern of the match, that's your problem.

What about Match Directors who setup stages that will be used at a future major match, at a local match ahead of time?

Setting up exact stages seems shady. I haven't seen that before, at least that I can think of.

However when the Carolina Cup was still the big IDPA match in my area every June, if you were to shoot at that range in the few months leading up to the match, you could definitely tell that the match director was working on different things to get ready for the match. Things like tweaking the speed of moving targets, engagement orders, different props, etc, but I don't think he really ever setup entire stages for everyone to shoot ahead of the match.

Personally, the big competitive equity thing that I see is pepper poppers screwing people over. If I were king of the shooting sports, the first thing I would change would be to treat poppers the same as falling steel. If it's hit and doesn't fall, that should be a stage equipment malfunction, and the the shooter should get a re-shoot.

Watch this episode of This Week Tonight, and tell me what you think about the messaging that they're countering. Is this the sort of messaging the pro-gun people should be putting out there?

I mentioned a theory on the podcast a couple weeks ago about how I expected that higher class shooters would probably pull away from lower class shooters on the shorter stages moreso than the longer stages, but gthat it was just a theory because I didn't want to do the math.

Well, I got an email from Louis, and he pulled the data from the different stages at the 2017 Production Nationals and...

I was totally wrong. 

Louis broke down the stages from Nationals, then charted the median percentage by round count on a chart and it turns out that the median finish from each classification was about the same on all the different round count stages.

Louis has been pulling the numbers on some other things with classifications and whatnot and if you want to see them, look in the shownotes for this episode and I'll have a link to his github page with the deets:

https://lstange.github.io/uspsa/classification_vs_performance.html

(By the way, if you didn't know this, you *should* be able to access all the links and stuff from the podcast shownotes in whatever podcast app you're using. I always tell you to go to triangletactical.net/280 or whatever, that's unnecessary for most of you, all the links should be right in your podcast app in the shownotes for this episode).

Trying to think of people who I know who have actually just quit, vs those who have just not been to a match in a while for one reason or another, but have every intention to shoot again.

I've "quit" twice over the years.

- Ammo crunch after the 2012 Obama Election

- Hardcore burnout after ROing way too much

So, I emailed everyone on the Triangle Tactical email list and asked them if they've ever quit shooting, and why. I got a bunch of answers that are pretty wide ranging. (BTW, this is what I like to use the email list for, so if you're not on it, get on it!)

Interestingly, a bunch of people emailed me back and mentioned that cost probably makes some people quit, but nobody specifically emailed me back and said that they've quit because of cost.

Joe mentioned that he's in Michigan and the winters shut down most of the matches up there.

Jason and Khan mentioned time away from family. Some matches take a LONG time to get through, so I can see that. With a baby on the way, balancing matches and practice and family time is going to be something I need to put more emphasis on going forward.

Several folks mentioned jobs. Either job loss, or new jobs, or jobs taking up way too much time on the weekends. Aaron actually said that he quit a job because his days off were only during the week and he had to work every weekend so he changed it up to get his weekends off.

Quitting because the match near you isn't challenging. Aaron mentioned that quit because a local match jsut wasn't pushing him the way it needed to, took some time off and came back as a USPSA shooter where he's being challenged a lot more, and that's making things better for him.

Boring clubs. James mentioned a "looks the same every month" match that was near him years ago that drove him away.

A couple folks talked about physical injuries. Things that come from practice like tennis elbow, as well as other injuries that just keep them from shooting. Surgeries, etc.

So, with all this said, the reasons that people have quit shooting, lets talk for a minute about what's brought people back:

• Friends
• Needing a competitive outlet
• Something to do with kids as they've gotten older and need more man skills.
• Noticing that competition makes them want to be more athletic and get into better shape than they were previously.

"Why is there not a specific division for compact size firearms such as G19, CZ P01 or P07 etc?"

Here's the thing: we don't need carve outs for every size of firearm. If we were to do that we wind up with way too many divisions, and things just get silly after a while. 

In my opinion, the other reason for this is because most shooters don't want to shoot their little tiny guns in USPSA, at least not long term. 32rd stages with little guns that sometimes don't even hold 10 rounds doesn't really sound like a great time to me. I get that the guns mentioned all hold 10+ rounds, but if we're going to go down the tiny-gun rabbit hole, what about guns like the Shield, XDs, and others?

So, with all this said, I think the reasoning here is that USPSA isn't really interested in doing what IDPA does. IDPA has a place for these little guns, and they work really well in that game, because of round count, and because of the concealed carry sort of design of that game. 

All this isn't to day that USPSA doesn't have a place for the compact guns you mentioned though. All three guns you mentioned (Glock 19, CZ P01, and CZ P07) are specifically called out as legal on the USPSA Production list. There's nothing keeping these guns from being shot in Production, I see guys shoot Glock 19's in Production all the time. 

"Should competitors be allowed to shoot two divisions in the same match? I'm starting to see this a lot locally where people are shooting both handgun and PCC during the match (and paying two entry fees)."

No. We have a hard enough time getting shooters to help during the match, so letting someone shoot, then wander off to the safe area to bag a gun and un-bag another one, then come back to the stage, stuff mags full from the gun they just shot, check the gear for the gun that they're about to shoot, then shoot the second gun, then wander back to the safe area to switch back, stuff mags for the other gun, means that this person will NEVER run the timer or work the tablet. They'll NEVER paste target for more than a shooter or two per stage if we're lucky, and then they're taking up more time by shooting the second gun. 

With that said, if there's a multi-day match and shooters can shoot different divisions on different days, no problem.

There's also a local BUG match that allows multiple entries, and for that match it works really well. The stages are 5rds tops. No reloads, and no holster needed, so you can finish your first gun, bag it, and take your second gun out of it's bag when it's time to shoot. Easy peasy, and it works just fine because there isn't much pasting and resetting to do, so there is time for people to switch guns at that match. 

I had a very frustrating practice session at the range on Monday. I burned about 500 rounds just shooting a plate rack because it's been something that has been really killing me at matches recently.

Here's what happened:

I could kill the plate rack at 10 yards. Anywhere between 3.1 and 3.5 seconds, no misses, no problems.

At 15 yards, I was an absolute mess. I'd hit the first plate, then start missing all over the place with no obvious reason why.

Then, at 20 yards, I was actually shooting better than I was shooting at 15 yards.

I burned a bunch of ammo at the 15y plate rack and it was just a crap show. What I noticed though, was that I didn't really need much of a sight picture to shoot the plate rack at 10y. A flash of the red fiber optic inside the rear notch, and I was sending the shot and getting a hit.

At 15y, I obviously needed more than that, and I wasn't getting it.

At 20y, my brain was making my trigger finger wait for the sights before sending the round.

I did some thinking, and decided I'd take a full magazine and shoot it into the berm, only pulling the trigger when the sight picture was acceptable. Then I immediately reloaded with another magazine and I was able to shoot the plate rack well at 15y for a few runs, and then my problem would come back.

So, I burned a ton of ammo, and I didn't totally solve my problem, but I think I at least have it sort of figured out. I've been dryfiring since leaving the range on Monday without pulling the trigger at all. All my dryfire this week has consisted of just acceptable sight pictures, and no trigger pulls, and things feel pretty good.

I'm certain this is something I'll have to practice for a while, but I'm determined to not suck at shooting steel going forward...

SERPA

There was a post on the r/competitionshooting subreddit this last week from someone talking about how they were an IDPA match last weekend and a new shooter was drawing from his SERPA holster at the match and plugged himself with a round at the hip, which then travelled down to around his knee.

I don't really want to beat the SERPA horse anymore, but I'll tell you that in my years of competition, I've seen 4 people AD while drawing their pistol, and all 4 were using a SERPA.

Here's what happens:

Buzzer goes off. Shooter attempts to draw the gun, but doesn't get the button pushed in all the way and the gun doesn't come out of the holster as expected.

Shooter then jams the gun down into the holster, mashes the button super hard, and then rips it up out of the holster.

Because the shooter is mashing the button super hard while ripping the gun upwards, the finger slips off the edge of the holster and hits the trigger.

Sometimes the round discharges into the dirt, sometimes it hits the shooter.

Cross draw

Should be self explanatory, but maybe it's not. You can't really draw a cross draw holster without breaking the 180. Simple as that.

Pocket holsters

I've never heard of a match that would allow them. 

Years ago actually, there was a "pocket carry" shooting league in my part of the country, and even in the pocket carry league, you couldn't shoot from a pocket holster. I think it comes down to someone being able to put their hand on the gun where the RO can't see it. 

Every BUG match I've ever been to, you start either holstered or at low ready, no pocket stuff.

Gimmicky sights

This is a frequent question from people who are interested in competition but don't know anything about it. I had a guy ask me what type of ghost ring sights he should get for his pistol before his first match...

You really want to have precision sights. I hear people talk about wanting to have a hig honking front sight that's as bright as the sun so they can acquire it on the draw nice and fast, but… what about the rest of the shots in the stage?

I get that it's cool to hammer that fast draw, but it really is meaningless if you're then hurting your performance on the rest of the shots that you have to take on the stage.

The holster that came with your gun (generally)

They're usually super tight, and basically unusable.

They get new shooters into trouble because when the holster is so tight, they end up reaching across their body, grabbing the holster with their weak hand to keep from giving themselves a wedgie, and then when they draw the gun they sweep their weak hand that's holding the holster.

Random Magazine pouches from the gun store.

Don't just go buy random mag pouches from the local gun store. They probably carry some selections from different brands that are probably more suited towards concealed carry or tacticoolness than actual competition use.

I tore open my Pocket Pro 2 shot timer this weekend because the screen was acting up, and I wanted to see if I could figure out where to get a new screen for it (turns out you can buy them straight from Competition Electronics), and I used my little screwdriver set to do it.

If you don't have a little set like this for tearing into random things around the house from time to time, it's really handy.

And it's like $8.

The USPSA Board of Directors announced some changes to several divisions in the BoD meeting notes from earlier this month, and in this episode I discuss the highlights and lowlights.

I'd encourage you to go to the USPSA website, log-in, and actually read all of the changes. Far too many people have just been asking for the Cliffs Notes version of the new rules, instead of just reading the rules.

Read. The. Rules.

Bryan What is a good age to start a junior shooter? A lot of it probably has to do with maturity/responsibility. Start them with a pellet gun, BB gun, .22?

Bryan My practice range is an indoor range, and can be rather loud at times; what is great practice drill to do that does not require a shot timer?

Mark Hello Lucas. Thank you for your show. You've helped me get started in competitive shooting. As a middle-aged guy, my biggest challenge is my eye sight. I only use glasses for reading and computer work. I don't wear prescription glasses otherwise which includes shooting. This means the front sight is always fuzzy. I shoot fairly accurately, but I know this is holding me back. I've tried some of my own junk science by shooting with my reading glasses. This brings the front sight into focus, but it makes the target fuzzier than before. I've only done this on a limited basis since my reading glasses aren't safety glasses. My results have been mixed. What do other shooters do to overcome this?

Chris Are there any benefits to shooting 40 Minor for production or Carry Optics?

Edd When shooting competition, where/how do the different bullet weights come into play? 9mm/.40

Steve what movement drills do you practice most in dry fire?

Mike I've been reviewing my match and practice videos and I've noticed something in common, I can get the gun on target fast, but then it looks like I just leave the gun hanging there forever or at least a good second before actually pulling the trigger all the way through, I assume that I'm letting the sights settle. I am using a revolver so every shot is double action and am currently trying to improve my accuracy so I don't just want to push myself to go faster and blaze my way through. Any drills you would suggest for improving accuracy while maintaining speed beyond 10 yards. Thanks

Trey What do you use to keep up with your reloads a journal or software?

Marty On a recent episode I heard you briefly mention your head position when doing turn and drawers. I am assuming you have your head turned to the Direction that your body will be moving when you have made ready. I hadn't put much thought into it before, I usually just look straight forward and then turn my head and body on the beep. Do you have any evidence that having your head pre-turned makes a difference? Maybe A future junk science episode? Thanks! Marty in Massachusetts.

Sarah I just wanted to let you know I enjoyed hearing you briefly talk about 'Stage Design' this week on the podcast. Anytime you could give pointers on this topic would be great. For instance, when you have limited room to move within a bay, how to you create options? Is there a place where you can find LOTS of stages already designed (I have found random websites with a few stages listed).

Also, any information you can give on creating a stage plan before shooting would be helpful too. I know in the past you have mentioned this, but for new shooters like myself, I find it very difficult to walk up to the bay and figure out how to attack a large round count stage. What are the basics newbies like myself need to know?

Thanks!

Matthew How bad is the Glock 19 hurting me in USPSA? I know you are not big on gear but I have to ask if there are measurable advantages to having a larger gun?

James Hi Lucas! Heard any rumors on what changes to Production are going to be discussed? Anything that has you particularly nervous??- thanks!

Mike I have been shooting for about 5 years, but my have yet to shoot my first match. I have been doing a lot of the Stoeger dry fire drills and things seem to be going really well. I plan on shooting my first IDPA match in a month or so. My question is this: My offhand has a pretty significant tremor. When shooting offhand supported, everything is great, but when I shoot offhand only, unsupported, I won't be able to hit the broadside of a barn; My hand shakes way too much. In fact, I'm concerned that under the pressure of being in a match my shots could go all over. Is there any kind of Accommodation that can be made for something like this? Could I just shoot with my strong hand and take a procedural or would that be totally devastating to my score? Take the MICs and move on? Thoughts?

Most folks out there can't afford to take a shooting class more than about once a year or so, and most people don't get instruction that much.

Previous podcast episode on coaching here.

I hear a lot of people talk about how they struggled for years doing things incorrectly. How they then changed something in their practice and saw improvement.

People talk about how boring dryfire is because they're doing the same crap over and over and over, day after day, month after month and they're not really seeing improvement either.

I was listening to a small business podcast today where a lady was being interviewed about the small business that she runs where she brings together these women who run businesses into these Mastermind groups. They pay her to be part of a group, and as part of the group they all counsel and support each other in their businesses with regular conference calls, etc.

This got me thinking about the shooting sports.

Why couldn't there be some sort of group coaching for shooters looking to improve their game?

Check this out:

It's 2018. There's a lot of technology out there today that allows for small groups of people to fire up a web cam, share files, and conference with each other that we simply couldn't do a few years ago.

I'd like to see shooters get together with 3 or 4 other shooters that are like minded and similarly motivated and jump on Skype or Hangouts once a month or every other week and talk to each other about what's going on in there shooting. What's going well? What sucks? What feels like it sucks?

I think that if people are honest with each other, that type of group coaching could prove to be really valuable for a lot of folks who are highly motivated, but aren't able to get instruction more than once a year or so.

Connecting over the internet, watching each other's match video, or maybe even just the highlight and lowlight stages from each other's video and discussing it could prove valuable.

I could be wrong, but I think having similar skill levels, and similar motivations would be really important. You don't want a situation where there's 3 C and B class shooters and a GM, because the GM probably isn't going to get a lot from the group, but will end up probably giving most of the advice.

Plug of the week:

Firearms Nation with USPSA President Mike Foley

For a long time I've wondered if the expensive race holsters that hold the gun just by the trigger guard are really worth the money, so that's what I've decided to find out for this episode.

I setup a 10" steel plate at 10y. I tested both holsters with 50 draws in the following ways:

Kydex - Stand and shoot 50 rounds.

DAA Alpha X - Stand and shoot 50 rounds.

Kydex - Step into the shooting area and shoot 50 rounds.

DAA Alpha X - Step into the shooting area and shoot 50 rounds.

The results were surprising, even to me.

Eric

Lucas,

I have a question for your Q&A if you would like. I know this touches on a subject you have talked about in the past.

The closest USPSA club to me is an hour away. They shut down fairly early in the season. Last summer I still wanted to do some more matches and the next closest match is a 3 hour drive one way. Their website said that set up was at 3pm, shooting started at 6pm and should be done by 9pm. It seemed to imply that being present for set up was mandatory.

I called them and explained that it was going to be 6 hours of driving for me and asked if set up was mandatory. This resulted in a fairly insulting lecture on how important volunteering is in this sport but the guy never gave me a definitive answer to my question. Now I get how important volunteering is but I'm not sue I want to make a 12 hour day out of this.

My response was to skip it and spend the time and money practicing. I'll spend my money going to some lvl 2 matches next year.

I don't know what kind of stress the guy was dealing with but I wouldn't feel welcome if I wasn't there 3 hours early. What's your take, should I reconsider or drive past to the next one 4 hours away?

Also, I am working on a first match type voice mail that I hope to send soon.

T. C.

TC from Ft. Mill, SC here, with a question for the Q&A Show. How do you see competition shooting benefitting those who carry for self-defense purposes?

We have all long heard the arguments from the "tactical" community about how competition shooting will get you killed on the street. How the competition "spray and pray" model of running about, disregarding cover and flinging bullets all over hell to breakfast is a sure fire formula for death and disaster on the mean streets of Anytown, USA. My own experience of being a 20 year veteran of federal law enforcement and competitive shooting, as well as infantry combat in both Iraq and Afghanistan, has underscored just how valuable competition shooting is, for me, when things get loud. I have never understood the perspective of those who believe that being able to operate your firearms efficiently, to be able to shoot fast and accurately, as one must to be successful in competition, is not tactically desirable.

I am, however, very curious as to your take on the topic. Do you see competitive shooting as helpful for those who carry for self-defense, as you do? If so, what are those advantages? Do you see any disadvantages, and if so, what are they?

Thanks for what you do. Carry on.

Austin

I know you have talked about this before, but when you bring a new to competition shooter to a match how much should you focus on them verse trying to shoot well, do you just write the match off and make sure they are doing what they are supposed to do? What are your thoughts?

Brett

I just started shooting USPSA in April. My wife and I both shoot and absolutely love the sport! My question is that I am now a high C with 58%. My last few classifiers had been in the mid 60% range. I would really like to end my first year as a B. I am shooting next week at Pitt County. The classifier is 99-22. Should I try to burn it down as fast as I can to try to get that high hit factor? Or play it conservatively to keep my high C? Of coarse when the buzzer goes off all plans go out the window!

Anthony

I was at a local USPSA club match a while back and a fellow shooter noticed I was dropping my head as I would address my sights. I didn't think much of it at the time when I was shooting my limited gun with iron sights. Now that I have decided to run carry optics it has became more obvious that I have been dropping my head to get a good sight picture. Is there any benefit to address sights without bringing your head down during the draw stroke and bringing sights up to your target focus area? Other than possible unproductive movement? Thanks.

Ronald

Should carry optic shooters be required to wear their underwear on their head?

Ray

What caliber and division would you start a new Jr shooter in, and what's the best way to get my daughter started?

Drew

Lucas, I went cheap to begin with on holsters and mag carriers to make sure I liked action pistol shooting. Now it's been about half a year and I'm more excited than ever. I'm shooting IDPA mostly, can you tell me what I should look for in better mag carriers? I'm using a double pouch now and have trouble indexing on the 2nd magazine.

Kevin

At what point on the draw do you put your finger on the trigger? Normally when I draw and shoot I have my trigger finger indexed on the side of the gun outside the trigger guard until I get close to on target and then I move my finger to the trigger. While dry firing I noticed I could speed up my shot time by getting my finger on the trigger sooner, prepping the trigger while still extending and getting a sight picture and then pressing the trigger the rest of the way once I had a good sight picture. I was worried I could DQ doing this for having my finger in the trigger guard on the draw if I put my finger in too soon, but 10.5.5.1 seems to say as long as I'm not sweeping myself with the finger in the trigger guard then it's not a rule infraction.

[powerpress]

I'd like to see ALL of the major shooting sports stop fudging around with the rules all the time. We've been playing around with provisional divisions in USPSA for a couple years now, just make them official divisions. The USPSA part isn't really a big deal, so lets talk about IDPA for a second. OMG. I literally can't keep up. It's like every couple months there's either another rulebook, or another update, or something posted on a random blog at idpa.tech (that I'm still not sure is an official IDPA website, or if it's just someone who's a big fan that started a website?) but seriously, the rules have changed just too much in the last year. It was right around January 1, 2017 when the "new rulebook" came out, and it's been a steady flow of new rules, and changes and clarifications since then. Then there's 3-Gun. As someone who takes a LOT of questions from people who are interested in getting in all sorts of competitive shooting, not just IDPA and USPSA. The trouble in my opinion with the 3-gun world is the lack of a central governing body. Now, some folks will say that there are some matches that couldn't happen under the rules of a central body, and that's fine, we have specialty matches in the pistol world too, but the issue here is that it's hard to give new shooters good advice about what to expect at a local 3-gun match in their part of the world.

In 2018 I'd like to see more ranges make the procedures for new shooters VERY obvious on their websites. This is one of those things that I run into from time to time that annoys the absolute crap out of me. I talk to a lot of people about getting started in competitive shooting. I get a lot of emails and messages with questions about getting started, and one thing that never really makes sense to me is that a certain range will have a specific procedure for new shooters (like, requiring a class that's not at the time of the match, or having the buddy system where they pair up new shooters with someone experienced, etc) but THERE'S NOTHING ON THEIR WEBSITE ABOUT IT! It's 2018. If it's not on your website, it doesn't exist. Put the millennial's in your club to work, make them write it up for the website if you don't know how.

Was your website made in 1998, and doesn't have the capability to add this sort of stuff easily? Get one of the millennial's to toss together a Wordpress site for next to nothing, and bam, you're in business.

I want to see ALL the shooting sports make it easier to become a range officer. I really think asking people to pay for the class with their own money, stay in a hotel out of town, etc, etc just for the opportunity to volunteer MORE is the wrong model. I think this is an issue within all of the major shooting sports, not just one in particular. I've got more thoughts on it, but I'm not ready to talk about them just yet. Basically though, the system for getting people to become an RO just seems broken.

#GUNGOSSIP

https://youtu.be/MecoIijsvVE

Fantastic YouTube channel. I'm a fan.

Now's the time to lay out your competitive shooting goals for 2018 if you haven't already. I screwed up (or rather, setup a goal for 2017 that was a copout) and I have no idea if I was successful or not.

Here in 2018 I have a very measurable goal: Make USPSA Production Master.

I found this blog post about effective goal setting really good. Check it out.