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Thread: First shots in over 1 Year

  1. #1

    First shots in over 1 Year

    So between the Covid, travel, and other stuff, I hadn't shot in over a year. This is the longest I've ever gone without shooting. I'm sharing this because I don't think theres much out there in terms of data on the actual 'perishability' of shooting as a skill.

    I've done some 'shooting' with my SIRT pistol at home, some dryfire, and general pointing my gun at light switches in the house type work for practicing grip and presentation - but nothing in the last 2 months.

    Well, yesterday I went to the range with 50rds.

    Course of fire:
    7 yard
    1 shot from holster x 6
    6 shot rapid fire from holster
    3x Double Tap from holster strong hand only

    3 yard
    3x Double Tap from retention (gun pressed into hip and angled to allow slide clearance)
    6 shot rapid fire from retention

    3-10yd
    Starting at 3 yards, headshots while walking backward and firing rapidly till 10yd
    (16 shots)



    Overall, I was pleasantly surprised. Despite dozens of articles on 'shooting is a perishable skill,' a years absence was not much different then my shooting ability when I'm practicing regularly.

    No doubt I do shoot better when practicing regularly, but the difference is not nearly as much as with other skills; taking a year off shooting is much less dramatic then taking a year off exercising, for example. Likewise, I'm a hell of a lot worse playing darts with a few months absence, much less a year. But shooting was pretty forgiving of this years absence.

    That said, I hope not to ever go this long without shooting again. But I hope this little test provides some comfort to those who are shooting less these days due to Covid and high ammo prices.
    Last edited by spyderco monkey; 03-05-2021 at 06:22 AM.

  2. #2
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    My wife only shoots once a year and doesn’t practice.

    Her skills stay about the same year to year and don’t “perish” either...

    I think competency decrease below “acceptable minimum standard” probably depends quite a bit on what baseline competency and skills you’ve already built up.

    That you even own a SIRT and know what dryfire is already puts you probably in the top 5% of handgun owners.

  3. #3
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    QFT


    "That you even own a SIRT and know what dryfire is already puts you probably in the top 5% of handgun owners..."
    I am not your attorney. I am not giving legal advice. Any and all opinions expressed are personal and my own and are not those of any employer-past, present or future.

  4. #4
    Good shooting. Nothing to be ashamed of for sure.

    At 53 years of age, I've found that I've kinda plateaued, but in a good way. 35 years have built in a lot of muscle memory or automatic actions/reactions (some bad, I'm sure) but I can go to a match and not totally suck even when I haven't been to the range in a while.

    Mind you, I'm probably not gonna impress anyone but me, but that's okay too. I can hold my own, and with any luck I'll be better than the guy trying to put me on the ground.

  5. #5
    Site Supporter Totem Polar's Avatar
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    Since this thread has come up: when I decided to go all-in on my work, there was a 14-year period where I didn’t shoot a single round, while I scrambled to put together a reputation and career, such as it is. As fate would happen, some high-profile local events brought me back to shooting in a big way. The first weekend class that I took—a local level 1 “defensive handgun” course, I took the top shot at the class—which was based solely on number score at the final qual.

    I honestly don’t think that pure marksmanship is a perishable skill, or at the least, it comes back instantly (sight alignment, grip, trigger press).

    Now, manipulation skills, movement, speed, and tactics, on the other hand.... that stuff is absurdly perishable, IMO, as in mere weeks. The more cognitive the skill, and the more factors stacking up, the more perishable. I’ll probably be able to speed load a revolver with Alzheimer’s, but the decision making stuff I’ve learned at courses like ECQC and IAJJ is melting away as I type.

    Again, JMO, but I was astounded to find that I was almost back to 100 percent pure marksmanship at the end of an 8-hour course, after not pulling a trigger for almost a decade and a half. OMMV. Might be different if I was at the peak of performance, like the top technical shooters in the competition circuit.
    ”But in the end all of these ideas just manufacture new criminals when the problem isn't a lack of criminals.” -JRB

  6. #6
    Frequent DG Adventurer fatdog's Avatar
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    This may differ for different people...

    Late 2011 my arthritis (knee) had become so bad I could not even finish club matches, I would shoot 3-4 stages and have to retire from the field. I could not go on.

    So to stay in competitive shooting I picked back up on CAS. I had played it a bit late in the last century but never got that serious. All you have to do is stand there, in fact movement is not allowed, no targets to paste, no shooters to chase while you are holding the timer. It became my new thing and I have enjoyed every minute.

    So 2014 comes along and I decide to take a conventional pistol class again. I probably had not fired more than 500 rounds of smokeless ammunition of any sort in the intervening 3 years, thinking nah, it is not perishable for me, I have 30 years and well over 150K rounds down range, I am good enough.

    On top of that, I arrogantly picked up Mrs. Fatdog's Beretta M92FS to take the the class, a gun I have never liked but she was still in the military and that was always her gun. I kept my hand in it and ran one of those in production for a match or two every year for decades, it was the gun in the nightstand on her side of the bed after all.

    My performance in that class "blew dead bears". I absolutely could not do it. When I got home and picked up a Glock, M&P, or my 1911 and went to the range to run some drills my performance was almost as disappointing. It was certainly a wake up call for me. I got religion about practice (dryfire and 7-8K rounds of 9mm) and in a year's time my performance, at least shooting from static positions was back to my old "normal" with conventional modern guns.

    My handgun skills were clearly perishable. I think a factor in my case was "platform". While I was shooting during that period, it was only with a SAA clone or a cap and ball pistol. I was improving on that front without question. But all the while my skills with a conventional modern semi-auto were absolutely going to hell in a handbag.

    I think Doc GCR and many others have cited the folly of trying to be your best with multiple platforms at the same time. Me shooting single action revolvers exclusively, and not doing skills maintenance on my defensive firearms or modern firearms proved the basic truth of this as it applies to me at least.

    While I have a new knee, fully rehabed, and I am looking forward to coming back to some club level USPSA and IDPA matches this year, I won't make the mistake again of thinking "I am good" on this subject again.

    It is reassuring to hear that the dryfire and laser practice apparently had such a positive impact on maintaining the OP's skills.
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  7. #7
    Abducted by Aliens Borderland's Avatar
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    Went to the range last week after 2 months. I'm going to say it makes a difference for me after shooting every week. Not a big difference, but a noticeable difference. Not sure how often I will be able to shoot this spring but I'm hoping at least every few weeks. There's still a bullet drought that I'm dealing with and until that ends I need to conserve.

    I have a case of 22LR so I might be using that instead of CF ammo.
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  8. #8
    Site Supporter Totem Polar's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by fatdog View Post

    My performance in that class "blew dead bears". I absolutely could not do it. When I got home and picked up a Glock, M&P, or my 1911 and went to the range to run some drills my performance was almost as disappointing. It was certainly a wake up call for me.
    I’m curious, and want to pry into this a bit deeper: did all the things that sucked fall into the category of the overall complexity of the tasks required for competition, or do you feel like even your basic marksmanship (sight alignment, trigger control, grip, stance) were negatively affected? I’d think that the SAA shooting would at least maintain the sight alignment skills—which, again, are pretty rudimentary and robust.

    Thoughts?
    ”But in the end all of these ideas just manufacture new criminals when the problem isn't a lack of criminals.” -JRB

  9. #9
    Frequent DG Adventurer fatdog's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by Totem Polar View Post
    I’m curious, and want to pry into this a bit deeper: did all the things that sucked fall into the category of the overall complexity of the tasks required for competition, or do you feel like even your basic marksmanship (sight alignment, trigger control, grip, stance) were negatively affected? I’d think that the SAA shooting would at least maintain the sight alignment skills—which, again, are pretty rudimentary and robust.

    Thoughts?
    1. Grip and Drawstroke, one hand and cocking a SA as part of the drawstroke (I only shoot CAS "duelist" style, strong hand only on the gun) is so different from the normal drawstroke and presentation, all of it became awkward from the rust. As I approached extension to fire, nothing was in the right place, the support hand was not meeting the gun at the correct point, the position of the sights always was requiring adjustment at the point of presentation, thumbs were not even going where they needed to be...very bad aspect I lost. It just all went to hell for some reason.

    2. Sight alignment, it was not happening as fast as it should, but the brain gave me the green light of "good enough for this shot" when it happened, so that was probably the least disrupted thing. The whole problem there was the micro mechanics type fiddling going on with my wrist and grip and shoulders to correct sight alignment problems both on the drawstroke to first shot and then shot to shot recovery.

    3. Trigger control, worst of all of it. I was making every single trigger management mistake possible. I was squeezing shots peripherally and dipping the gun bad in spite of the lower recoil (I shoot full power .45LC black powder loads in CAS). The other thing is with a SA revolver trigger you have this really long lock time compared to a striker fired semi-auto, aside from breaking the shot, that was putting things in the wrong loop on follow through which made no sense to me at the time. To heal myself on trigger management required at least 6 months of ball and dummy work to fix.

    Dry fire could not fix this because where it manifested the worst was multiple shot strings, shot to shot recovery and follow through was just gone and awkward.

    4. Follow through. My ability to manage trigger reset had disappeared completely, which in turn threw off the process of re-acquiring and keeping the sights aligned while firing. I was breaking a lot of shots with a good sight picture that never got out the end of the barrel before I disturbed that sight picture.

    I should add that I sought out the Tactical Professor to diagnose what I was doing wrong. In a couple of private sessions at his home range, Claude saw it all and prescribed a set of drills specific to all my ills and I still engage in those today.
    Last edited by fatdog; 03-06-2021 at 01:26 PM.
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  10. #10
    Frequent DG Adventurer fatdog's Avatar
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    One more thing. SASS breeds slop.

    It certainly bred it in me.

    I was shooting both SASS and NCOWS branches of CAS at that time. The SASS matches are all big steel at 7 yards and it is simply a game of how fast you can run the gun. Getting misses means you are REALLY sloppy on the marksmanship side. I no longer shoot the sport, but it was fun.

    NCOWS, at least locally is the same game, with the emphasis flipped from speed to marksmanship. If a pistol target is at 7 yards, you actually have a 4" target area, and pistol targets are reactive steel between 7 yards and 20 yards at our matches. Even at 20 yards the target is only 12" steel (what SASS might consider for a difficult rifle target)so your slop factor better be thin.
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