Squad Training, UCD, 5-12-2009

For the first of it's kind in some time, this ended up going incredibly well. The attendance was a bit poor, but that could have as much to do with the RO dinner being on the night before as anything else :P

The day was split into two parts, lectures in the morning and practical in the afternoon. It was coordinated by Ray Kane, of the Defense Forces Shooting Team, who is currently probably the best male air rifle shooter in the country, and focussed a lot on balance and relaxation. These are two things that I have been working on quite a bit lately, so it tied in well, and gave a bit more structure to the whole thing than I would have been able to on my own.

One of the most interesting things on the subject of balance was canting the head. This has always been a subject of much debate with myself, as I prefer a bit of a cant on my head and less on the rifle. Due to having a long neck and high cheekbones (exquisite, I know...) I have trouble getting down to the sights without tilting my head and being told, and shown, that this is OK, in moderation at least, was nice.

What I have found out in my own experimentation was that the major problem with canting the head is the manner in which it is done by many people. The instinct is just to shove the head forward and to the side in one movement, which pushes the rifle away and so changes the zero point and balance, resulting in an 8. My preference at the moment is to tilt the rifle and head together and then carefully drop the head forward. I find it gives a very relaxed head position, which doesn't strain my neck and is very stable.

So, for the results; not amazing, due to a lightened trigger (it got messed up during the week somehow and I've been trying to fix it since) so I kept snapping off 6s and 7s. Once it was fixed, towards the end, I stepped away and reset my zero twice, took one shot of each zero. 10.7 and 10.2. That's about all I need to know :)

Training, UCD/DURC

Well, despite the training last week the weekend didn't go so well so it's clearly time to ramp it up a little. Went to UCD on Tuesday evening for an hour or two there, followed up by a 40 shot match yesterday in DURC with Iain. Both left a bit to be desired, though when I felt right in DURC it went well. Also, I think that what I was doing when it felt right was pretty decent. Also, remembering what I did is a big step up...

Followed that up with some prone then yesterday afternoon. Shot two ten shot groups and one ten bull card. The first group was almost certainly 100/100, but a bit hairy at points, which won't do. The 10 bull followed and was a very disappointing 97/98 with a terrible 9 in there. The final group was shot over two targets with a gap in the middle and came to probably a 99 with some nice tight shots. Hopefully the higher targets in Rathdrum will leave me a little less pained at the end...

I'll crack into some more for today and call it a week at that, what with my trip down South for Friday and Saturday. Back late that night for the DURC open on Sunday morning. Fun times :)

UCD Air Open, 15-11-09

The UCD open i generally the first match that DURC sends novices to, and today was no exception. Also, it tends to be a match that sees most of the senior air rifles squad back in action. Though it wasn't my first of the season it was the first I had put some training into so I was looking forward to it.

During the week I spent a lot of time relearning how to shoot, which ended up going quite well, getting in some mid 90s strings, which was nice. I still haven't quite gotten back to my former comfort and consistency, but I feel more comfortable and stable than ever at the moment. Which, as usual, still isn't translating into a better match performance for me :(

My performance in DURC is going well, but, as I have discovered in the past, the targets in DURC are on the, shall we say, higher end of the requirements, not to mention the lighting... Anyway, UCDs targets are lower, which has zero problems that I wouldn't really notice as I tend to fall quite high in general. I'm heading out there on Tuesday to go for a training session then so we'll see how it goes then with a slightly lower position.

For a gratuitous photo of me on the line we have the one below;

If nothing else, the new jacket looks damn amazing :D We'll have a quick review of everything on Tuesday out in UCD and go from there.

Oh, and on the score side of things, I shot 540, which is getting better, but more importantly it was one of the best 540s I've ever shot. It did contain an 87 to start and an 84 to finish (crazy 5 out to the side...) but we shall ignore that for the moment. Yeah. I'm actually really happy with today, the groups were good, just in the wrong place. Until later!