Man - that was fun (and pretty darn cold this morning, I might add). I had the pleasure of meeting "Eeeleater", although I didn't get a chance to ask him about his screen name. He's a very knowledgeable, helpful and personable guy. A heck of a good shot, also. I'm pretty sure that his scores were 72 and 68 (80 shot matches) in Standared and Hunter classes (shooting the same rifle). A VERY fine shot under dubious conditions (very cold and a tad windy).

I had a great time, and I'm looking forward to the next match, and getting some practice in the meantime. I also shot both matches (Standard and Hunter), and I was pretty pleased with the scores for my first time out. I shot a 23 and a 22 (again, 80 shot matches.).

I'm hooked. The StLouis Benchrest club is a top-notch facility, and everybody at the matches was friendly and helpful.

I want to extend a "THANK YOU" to everyone here for the advice and assistance, especially Jeff "Eeleater".

Thanks again,

SteveM.

Glad you enjoyed it- despite the conditions. Cold it was!
There was not actually all that much wind. It seemed like more because every little puff felt like it was going to the bone.
Funny how it seems to cool you off more in the winter than the summer...

You should be pleased with how you shot. There is a lot to pick up on your first match other than when to pull the trigger- and it tends to bring the scores down. My belief is it does this more than people realize- and unfortunatly some get discouraged.

The name I use on the internet has no real significance. It took me a while to come up with it- but I wanted something easy to remember, easy to type (very improtant as I do not type well), and something which was not in common use. No I am not French, and no Special Forces background.

You are close on the scores- they were 72 in standard and 69 in Hunter.
I have been paying more attention to a number of things over the past 1.5 years and it is paying off . Exposure to different ideas on the internet has helped- as well as going to the Southern Nationals.

My impression is that new shooters need to focus on how to hit the targets- no suprise here- but a lot more is involved than many realise. After becoming experienced they will rise to the level of their untrained talent and then the scores level off. To progress to the next phase they need to realize and accept that ALL the targets can be hit. This means that when they miss there is a reason- and they need to find out what it is. After knowing what the reason(s) is you can work on trying to avoid it. This leads to working on form, trigger control, etc, and training the talent they have to maximize scores. This will lead to the scores going up again- and again tending to level off. At this point to advance the work needs to be between the ears . Again- it is a process of identifying the factors which lead to missing- but the mental aspect is a bit harder to work on as it is not as easily observed in others, and others cannot observe what is going on in your head.

Let me give an example. In Standard gun I need 10 turkeys in a row for a grand slam ( though I believe early on I got very lucky and hit 10 in a row- and then turned down the offer to do the papers as I had never heard of a Grand Slam ). I know that I will eventually get the 10 Turkeys in a row. I also know that my mind plays more games with me on Turkeys- especially if I am on the second bank and have not missed. I KNOW that the 10th one is no different than the others- but the significance of it tends to lead me to defocus (thats a polite term to cover a multitude of mental sins ). Same thing happened today- maybe. Had the first 5, got the 6th, then missed the next 3- though the shots looked good- as good as as the ones that were hits. I did get the last one. Since I have been working on my shooting I usually know why I missed- but not sure on those 3- leading me to suspect the mental aspect.

There is always that element of chance also. In addition to needing 10 in a row turkeys for the Hunter gun I need 10 Rams. So today I shot 10 Rams using the Hunter gun- but in the relay I was shooting it in Standard class .

Not sure if it is one of those mental things or not, but shooting the 1712 in standard class this year I have shot a 36 and a 36 on the same day in January, and then today a 37 and 35. In hunter class- with same gun/ ammo and same days have shot 31 and 33 and then today 36 and 33. the solution is obvious- shoot it in Standard class .

I can only hope I keep shooting like I have been. I am not as good as the above seems- but I am getting better. Last year in Standard class I shot twentyfour 40 round matches and had one 37 and two 35's- one of which was with the 1712. In Hunter I shot ninteen 40 round matches, and had one 36 and three 35's.

My low in standard was a 19 and in hunter was a 21.
Like I said above- you should be proud of those first match scores!

My apologies for getting so far off the topic
Having typed it all in - I'm going to post it anyway!!!

Eeleater:
Let that good information keep flowing.

SteveM

Sharing information and theories about shooting is good for everybody. Keep it coming.
When I miss shots that seemed to break well, it's almost always failure to follow through which is, indeed, a concentration lapse. Did those three shots go low?
Sounds as if both of you shot very well! It's great for Steve to have a shooting buddy who can show him that 72/80 is a "normal" score!
Eeleater, get him signed up for Winnsboro!

You'll always remember your first match, and you will have some good memories. Congratulations and welcome to the addiction, I mean sport. Keep on having fun and watching and listening. The animals will fall. Pretty soon you'll begin to look for matches that are held in conjuction with you vacation, and wondering just how long it would take to get to......You're hooked. Again, welcome

Congrats to Jetmugg.

Thanks to Eeleter for writing about focus. I've been trying to deal with that for six months or so.

Crackers (those who know know who that is) told me to focus on a spot on the target. That helped improve my scores noticeably but there is more there than meets the eye. I've notice that it's very difficult for me to focus on a spot for more than about two seconds. When I do the results are fantastic.

If you can remain focused, keeping your eye on a particular spot on the target, the dot in your scope, and therefore your gun, will ouiji to that spot. I find it works best if I stare at the spot, empty my mind and only remain aware of the my finger contacting the trigger. The dot begins to slow down and drift to the spot I'm string at.

Of course, you all want to take this with the cow-lick sized grain of salt as I'm only a 25 - 28 shooter. But I've been trying to teach this to a few of our beginners and we're seeing noticeable improvements in their shooting. They're picking up 3 to 5 points a match from focusing better.

A confirmantion of the focus effect is something we see on the paper targets we shoot here in the winter; doubles. I'm sure you have seen the NRA 50 ft targets with five of each animal in four rows. That's twenty targets so we shoot each row twice. It is quite common to score the targets and see recurrent doubles, two shots on the same target near each other. It might be two shots at a foot, two shots high and left, two shots in the head or butt of a ram or pig. But these two shots in the double are actually five shots apart since we shoot a row of five at a time!

It occurred to me that the two shots are a result of looking at the target and seeing the prior shot. As a trial, each time I made a second shot on an animal, if the prior shot was good center of body hit, I stared intnetly at the prior hole. Wow, about four of the second shots were doubles into the prior hole, a few more were overlaps and more still were close!

I spoke with Crackers last week end and he showed me an experiment he made. He put a spot of whiteout onto each black target so he had something to focus on. He shot a 39 and a 40! Focusing is very effective.

Hey that gives my another idea, if focusing quijis the gun to the target, what if we get two three or four shooters to all stare at the target and touch put their fingers on the gun?

dwl

Have we now reduced ourselves to the level of Black Magic on our quest for a better score?

Chicken..

PS> is that 4 or 5 fellow shoorets touching it???

I think that focusing on a bullet spot helped to hold my concentration on the target. I don't think the target setters were re-painting the targets after each relay, so there were visible spots on some of the targets.

I intend to work more on the holding drills for now. The biggest challenge I faced in my debut was holding the rifle steady, much more so than focusing on the target. The diameter of my "holding circle" was much larger than the targets I was shooting at.

I'm on the verge of buying a new air rifle and scope combo to practice some 10M shooting in my basement, as well as some holding drills.

Yahoo, I get to spend some more money.

SteveM.

Chick,

"Wrong, He's just wrong" Al "Bill's buddy" Gore

Jetmugg.
They were not repainting the targets after every round, and so there were visible hit marks. They can be useful -or distracting- depending on where they are. An air rifle is an excellent way to practice. This is especially true with the spring piston design. With the long lock and barrel time you have to be consistent in you hold and maintain position after you have pulled the trigger- as the shot is not over yet!

DWL

I currenlty have a different opinion than many on what to focus on and why.

I like a dot, not crosshairs. I think crosshairs are great off of the bench, and I do like to have them visible (along with the dot) as they allow me to check my form. I want them vertical in the standing position as well as sighting in off the bench. I find it easier to judge a vertical crosshair to be truly vertical than the horizontal one to be horizontal. I have not had a scope with a true floating dot with no crosshair visible so I may be off on this part.

I find for offhand crosshairs are a disadvantage when compared to a dot. The problem is that the crosshairs span an area many MOA long and tall. You can focus on a part of the crosshair- but only a part. With a dot you can focus on the dot without your brain being distracted by the lines. I believe the latter occurs whether you are aware of it or not.

I believe that after you have checked to make sure you are on the right bank, target, etc it is better to focus on the dot, NOT the animal.
Have you tried to shoot at dusk when the light is fading? The white animals still show up- but they become much harder to hit - though the wind has usually died and it is for me a peaceful time to be out (assuming the mosquitos are not). What I find is that my vision is drawn to the white animal as they are easy to see- but the dot appears on the animal and then zooms off into the dark. What happens is that you loose the ability to steady the gun because you loose the visual reference of where it is pointing. You cannot guide it to the target as you cannot tell where it is. You do not cannot slow down the gun fast enough when it is visible on the target because you cannot anticpate when it will be there. We need to use our vision to provide the feedback to out brain about where the gun is pointed, and this allows our brain to process that information to allow us to move the gun so it points at the target. The bottom line is that we control and move the gun, not the target.

Another factor in this is that the dot is much smaller than the target. It is much easier to watch the larger target in the peripheral vision than the smaller dot. Because of this it is easier to be focused on the dot and track the target in the peripheral vision than it is to be focusing on that large animal and and follow the small dot in the periphery. If you are going to focus on the animal it is clearly best to focus on a particular spot.

It is time for me to head to bed, despite knowing there is more to what I want to say than I have found the words for.

There is a saying about more than one way to skin a cat. I do not believe there is just one way to go about shooting silhouette. I also know that what is best for one person will not be best for all. I also know how easy it is for people to end up taking a "position" about something and then seeing what fits that, and not noticing what does not fit.

I want to shoot better, but for me it is very important to know the "why" someting works. This sport is challening enough that something which makes a 2.5 % difference will show up as one animal in a 40 round match. If one approach increases your odds by only 5% over the alternative it is 2 animals in a 40 round match, and 4 animals over 80 rounds . The small things do make a difference!

I will part with an observation from when I was about 10 years old and made my first "planned it out and earned and saved the money" purchase. This was for a fiberglass recurve bow and some arrows. Probably had about 15 lb pull weight. Nothing fancy-and bows did not have sights then. It was what the store had and I could afford. It was not long before we had two haybales in the back yard as backstops, and I was practicing regularly. I got better and was putting up smaller and smaller targets to aim for. One evening someone was visiting with my parents and I was unexpectdly asked to show my shooting skills. I got my bow and arrows- but not a target. Much to my astonishment and embarrasment I could not hit the haybales . I did not know what was wrong - but my father did ( though I am not sure how or why, other than being very "sharp"). He simply said the problem was that the backstop was too big a target, and put up a paper plate. I then was hitting the plate about half the time and the backstop all the time. Dad then indicated he had watched me shoot things smaller than that -and drew a small circle on the plate. At that point I started hitting the plate all the time, and the arrows clustered near or in the circle. What you can focus on does make a difference.

I could have said that by focusing on the target, the subconscious mind would provide the fine adjustment to the body that the conscious mind was too coarse to do.

However what I really meant was that when I empty my mind I open it to the evil forces of the universe in order to gain unfair advantage. It is they who aim the gun and pull the trigger because they wish to display their power over the mere mortals of the Silhouette world. They don