Does anyone keep a journal..?

[Merlin]

Just a thought... Does anyone keep a journal of their practices and matches..? Shooting a few practice shots this morning and have a little brief "moment of clarity" and wished I had a pad with me to write my thoughts down....

Of course I did not and by the time I rode the golf cart back to the house the thought somehow no longer made the same impression on the as it had when it first occurred....

If you do keep a journal - is there something commercially available that works well for a shooter?

Am I over thinking this....

[BCloninger]

It sounds like a great idea! In PMI (primary marksmanship instruction), we were required to maintain a dope book that included conditions and brief thoughts. Useful in figuring out the "ritual" that worked best for you.

[DavidABQ]

I keep track of my match scores so I can determine my average, standard deviation, ect. for both my total scores as well as each animal.

I do like the idea of a journal for those moments of insight.

[Merlin]

I have been practicing on steel (standard 1/5) targets but am now thinking that I really should go to paper animals and keep better track of where I am missing to.... I can now sometimes call my shot when it breaks but it is hard to know just how far off I was/am....

I "guess" that if I keep track of how I am missing the shots I can somehow use the knowledge to my advantage...

[topclass]

I keep a journal of conditions (temp, sun, wind, rain,ammo, etc.) and my scope settings when i shoot sighters so if I get into a situation where I can't shoot sighters I have some idea where my settings might be.

[chuckjordan2]

I keep a journal-lite. Light notes and self-coaching instructions (breath control, stance, cold vs hot tips,etc). Before I kept the journal it took 1/2 bank to settle down. Now I'm ready on the first shot. I call this a 'lite' journal as I don't always use it. Re: hot vs cold is the ammo and click differences in cold vs hot weather (I shoot aguila std val and it's cold sensitive). We shoot year round in VA.

I use a medium size spiral bound notebook. Same size as my medium sized clipboard (scorecard).

[cedestech]

I see alot of shooters with "dope" books in their bags. Most have sections for every discipline and or gun they have or have had.

If it works, use it. I did ALOT of watching high quality shooters my first year. Noticing what they did and DIDN'T do and tried to emulate them. Some sticks, some, not so much.... ;)

[Jerry G]

I keep one for my 1,000 yard shots. Temp, pressure, and humidity have verry little affect on anything under about 800 yards.

[Dee]

Dear Diary,

Today I shot silhouette. The end..

Actually I bought the nice little book Lapua has for recording info from each outing last year in Winnsboro. I have yet to write a thing in it except my name. I think for the regular local matches you can store all the data you need relevant to the range you are at in your head since you go there often to shoot. It might make sense to keep a book for ranges you don't shoot at but once a year or that you might not shoot at very often if you notice something noteworthy.

For example on the Winnsboro range there is a definite difference in how conditions affect POI from one side of the range to the other. I noticed a few years ago that on the longer targets with the wind blowing right to left that the wind flags remained the same in appearance directly in front of you but the amount of drift seemed to vary considerably from shot to shot. Then I started to pay attention to the little bushes on the edge of the range and noticed that they would move a bit more or less at times while the wind flags remained unchanged. So I started to make my spotting calls on hold area based on watching those bushes and not the flags. The bushes gave me a much better indication of the hold off needed than the flags did as they lied to you about the amount of drift. So something like that would be worthy of putting into a diary/log book for future reference.

In Houston at BRC I noticed while walking out to reset targets during practice that the wind was almost unable to be felt from the shooting line out to the pigs but the wind flags were blowing away at the longer distances. It seemed as though the amount of drift you would anticipate from the visual cues was actually less at the longer distances because the bullet wasn't getting into those winds until around the pig area. So it created a false indication as well.

Putting things down like windy and was blown around a lot physically will not help you any as those things are givens in the wind and nothing a note will help you on in the future.

.02

Dee

[Jerry G]

The wind acts different at PeEll than you would expect but that is a secret.