Clean Match

[Blastmaster]

Maybe I can learn something. I know what a follow through in a golf swing is, but never heard it used for a shooting. Please help me understand follow through.

 

 

Think of when you put your pistol away before finishing the last shot. You typically miss. You didn't follow through with the shot but instead was on the reholstering routine.

[Bart Solo]

I try to shoot fast (for me) so I almost always have a miss. I have noticed that the really top shooters not only shoot fast, they shoot straight. Around here if you want to win you need to shoot clean.

 

This year I had one clean match. Hope to have more next year.

[Shooting Bull]

If you have ever watched Philly from behind.......

 

You know what not to do!

 

 

At least now I know for sure you're watching my guns when you're standing behind me.

[Shooting Bull]

With the guns we shoot, and the ammo we use, follow through is still important. It's not so hard to pull a gun off target after pulling in the trigger and before the bullet leaves the barrel. Once saw someone hit a different target doing it, high speed film and couldn't tell for sure until watching the video. Trigger squeeze while lined up on one target, bullet hit a different target.

 

Slow lock time, low velocities.

 

 

Exactly. One of the things I was/STILL AM learning to deal with since switching to CAS. I could get away with being a tiny bit sloppy when shooting 1911s, not so with our guns.

[Bart Solo]

Maybe I can learn something. I know what a follow through in a golf swing is, but never heard it used for a shooting. Please help me understand follow through.

 

If you see the barrel start to rise when you pull the trigger you have followed through. Most people don't see the barrel rise. Some have moved their attention to the next shot, and others have closed their eyes. There is a real debate among experts about the importance of follow through in a speed game like cowboy shooting, but if you listen carefully you soon realize that they aren't disagreeing at all. They just think they are. Like I said in the previous post if you want to win you have to shoot clean. If you want to shoot clean you have to stay focused on each shot until it is away.

 

As somebody once said about shooting fast you have be deliberate in a hurry.

[Chuckaroo #13080 Regulator]

Simple philosophy, if you miss a lot - slow down, if your shooting clean all the time - speed up.

 

It ain't rocket science.

[Gold Canyon Kid #43974]

I did two things that dramatically reduced my misses. First Rugers set up with minimum take up slack-i.e. doesn't reset forward hardly at all. Second had triggers break at no more than two pounds pull. Lastly went to adjustable sighted pistols with widened rear sights. Never had issues missing rifle targets. Adjustable sights allow me to adjust at stage if heavier knock down loads are needed so sights still perfect on point of aim. Now misses are only when I do not have a good sight picture before breaking the shot. Notice I did not say perfect sight picture.

[Arcadia Outlaw, SASS 71385]

Who wants to miss ? nobody I'm sure

 

I want to shoot as fast as possible and of course not miss.

 

 

 

Congratulations on your clean match AO

 

 

In my opinion the only way one will get faster is push the limits

[Creeker, SASS #43022]

Accuracy is a function of measurable and repeatable items i.e. Sight alignment, trigger control, etc.

Factual things that you are either doing correctly or you are not.

 

Speed is (often) a function of less tangible items i.e. mindset, determination, and willingness to crash.

 

IMO Speed is much harder to learn or teach than accuracy.

 

As Arcadia alluded to, to get faster, you have to push the limits.

And to find those limits, you have to be willing to step over the edge sometimes.

After all how can you push the edges if you don't where those edges are?

 

But many folks are too "scared" to go off the cliff and so never they push themselves or their equipment.

Locking themselves into a safe speed that may stack up clean matches, but will rarely take home the top prize.

[Arcadia Outlaw, SASS 71385]

Accuracy is a function of measurable and repeatable items i.e. Sight alignment, trigger control, etc.

Factual things that you are either doing correctly or you are not.

 

Speed is (often) a function of less tangible items i.e. mindset, determination, and willingness to crash.

 

IMO Speed is much harder to learn or teach than accuracy.

 

As Arcadia alluded to, to get faster, you have to push the limits.

And to find those limits, you have to be willing to step over the edge sometimes.

After all how can you push the edges if you don't where those edges are?

 

But many folks are too "scared" to go off the cliff and so never they push themselves or their equipment.

Locking themselves into a safe speed that may stack up clean matches, but will rarely take home the top prize.

 

 

If you dont have at least one miss you probaly did not go fast enuff unless you won .

[Smithy]

Congratulations!! On your clean match tallies. In my very short run in SASS (due to health) I wanted a clean match more than anything. In all my years of shooting skeet, I have to show a single trophy. First in class. D class, which is not saying much at all. Likewise in SASS I might have weaseled an award (if I was the only one in that classification attending), but that would have been much like my skeet D class award. Big whoop! But a clean match, that's something that only you produced and something worth cherishing. I came one shot shy of a clean match and I think that I talked myself out of it. I kept saying to myself "I'm clean so far", "I'm clean so far". That was all it took in the final stage for a big fat miss to occur. Smithy.

[Griff]

Nice to see so many replies to my question. As usual, Doc Shapiro being the excellent student of this game he is, is right on target. I once had the benefit of a multiple World Champion tell me the following about his practice workouts; and how that then developed into his match strategy. This didn't happen overnight, and thinkin' it will is foolish; he'd practice with each gun separately for a whole session, then combine for a session. and repeat. He'd shoot as fast as he could, until he started missing. then slow incrementally till he didn't miss; then pick up the pace till he missed again. Repeat. As always with different targets so gun movement between shots was always a factor. His goal: smooth. He was the very first shooter who I heard say, "slow is smooth, smooth is fast." Smooth requires never jerking the trigger, hammer, lever or barrel. Practice days with all 3 (nowadays it's 4) guns should always include transitions, Even on solo gun practice days; each string should include moving the gun from and to holster or prop. As they say, it's really perfect practice that makes perfect. If a practice session starts to go south, call it quits for the day; good habits take forever to develop; bad ones... about 5 minutes!

 

Now, about that 2nd comment; are there REALLY as many questionable calls, or as much uncertainty about calls as the "WTC" posts indicate? If so then far, far more folks need to take the RO courses. Don't think for an instant that you'll have to, or even expected to be the TO. Oh sure, you'll probably be invited to join the ranks of the other inept, incompetent, heartless, morally bankrupt, serious social buffoons ever to grace a firing line. Not to worry, that only lasts for a shooter or two... or until someone like a Phantom or T-Bone runs over you like you were a TE between a Free-Safety and the Quarterback on a defensive blitz. "RO interference" becomes eminently clear; "Reshoot!" No questions, no quibbling, no argument. Other calls become second nature, also. But, even if you never hold the timer, and only spot occasionally, it will make you a better spotter. Take the instance where a shooter starts the stage with his six-guns... the very last shot from the 1st gun was clearly (if only to me) a squib. RO instructed the shooter to ground the gun as it was clearly a malfunction... shooter did and completed the stage. RO handed the shooter the offending pistol, directed the shooter to clear and inspect for a stuck bullet, then turned and polled the spotters. Two relatively new shooters and one old fossil. "Clean!" said the two, whereas the fossil said "one miss for the bullet stuck in the barrel." "No, it exited," said the two, adding they clearly heard lead on steel. "Ok, let's wait & see what's found @ the unloading table," said the out-voted spotter. I can tell you, there was no evidence of either a hit or a miss on or near that target. Who asked the question about how to prove a negative... it's done so on the totality of evidence. Did attending an RO class or two help that spotter? Unlikely, but it didn't hurt knowing what the TO's duties and responsibilities were when a seemingly simple call is disputed. Even if the shooter didn't receive the benefit of the doubt (both the other spotters were sure that target had been hit, while the one was sure it hadn't… so where's the doubt?) This was one of the cases where the correct call wasn't the right call. According to my read on the rules, the correct call would have for the RO to say "clean"… but the right call was to await the results for the possible stuck bullet.

 

BTW, there was a bullet stuck in the barrel.

 

Sign up for those RO classes at your earliest convenience. They will answer more questions on "what's the call" than reading anything here on the Wire, or watchin' a video. For those of you that feel the 170º rule is the most violated rule in all of SASSdom... make sure you bring that up to your RO instructor... ask for some practical demonstrations on the various draws, equipment and how to really watch for that muzzle. The instructors I've had were all open to answering your questions, fully and to the best of their ability... which is what you want. I firmly believe that attending an RO1 and/or RO2 class condenses years of watching other ROs into a couple of partial days. Will you still have questions, more'n likely... but get that instructors phone number or email... and follow up with your questions. Seek out that instructor at a match, get on his/her posse, watch them carefully, they'll continue to teach by example.

[Old Scatterbrain]

... the very last shot from the 1st gun was clearly (if only to me) a squib. RO instructed the shooter to ground the gun as it was clearly a malfunction... shooter did and completed the stage. RO handed the shooter the offending pistol, directed the shooter to clear and inspect for a stuck bullet, then turned and polled the spotters. Two relatively new shooters and one old fossil. "Clean!" said the two, whereas the fossil said "one miss for the bullet stuck in the barrel." "No, it exited," said the two, adding they clearly heard lead on steel. "Ok, let's wait & see what's found @ the unloading table," said the out-voted spotter. I can tell you, there was no evidence of either a hit or a miss on or near that target. Who asked the question about how to prove a negative... it's done so on the totality of evidence. Did attending an RO class or two help that spotter? Unlikely, but it didn't hurt knowing what the TO's duties and responsibilities were when a seemingly simple call is disputed. Even if the shooter didn't receive the benefit of the doubt (both the other spotters were sure that target had been hit, while the one was sure it hadn't… so where's the doubt?) This was one of the cases where the correct call wasn't the right call. According to my read on the rules, the correct call would have for the RO to say "clean"… but the right call was to await the results for the possible stuck bullet.

 

BTW, there was a bullet stuck in the barrel.

I disagree with the statement in red.

 

"Benefit of the doubt" comes into play when there is no clear evidence what the proper call should be. If two said clean and one said one miss, then BOD to the shooter. If there is proof to the contrary, as a bullet stuck in the bore, then as you said, there is NO DOUBT. A bullet cannot simultaneously stick in the bore AND strike the target.

 

As to proving a negative: there is a difference between lack of evidence of event A, and proof of event 2 occuring instead. If nobody heard the ding, saw the impact, whatever, then there is no indication it struck, but also no proof it didn't. If it was seen to hit another target or the berm, is known to be stuck in the bore, whatever, then that is evidence that the bullet didn't strike the correct target.

[Gunner Gatlin, SASS 10274L]

If I take my time I can shoot clean - but I am working at lowering my times considerably so at the monthly matches I am trying more for speed...which means I WILL have some misses and need to be good with that. Last year I shot 'clean' at our state shoot which really surprised me as I felt I was shooting a little faster than normal. So, for me, it is a trying to find the perfect combination of the two as I would suspect from any 'competitive' shooter.

 

 

GG ~

[Tanga Loca]

I always strive to get a clean match. I have been assured that with more experience it will happen.

Tanga Loca

[Widder, SASS #59054]

Accuracy is a function of measurable and repeatable items i.e. Sight alignment, trigger control, etc.

Factual things that you are either doing correctly or you are not.

 

Speed is (often) a function of less tangible items i.e. mindset, determination, and willingness to crash.

 

IMO Speed is much harder to learn or teach than accuracy.

 

As Arcadia alluded to, to get faster, you have to push the limits.

And to find those limits, you have to be willing to step over the edge sometimes.

After all how can you push the edges if you don't where those edges are?

 

But many folks are too "scared" to go off the cliff and so never they push themselves or their equipment.

Locking themselves into a safe speed that may stack up clean matches, but will rarely take home the top prize.

 

 

Creeker: I ain't saying your right, but I will say that I agree with ya on this. (maybe we're both wrong.... )

 

Anyhow, for some reason, I've witnessed where some folks are scared to go off the cliff and never push themselves. To me, the sound of a simple 'ding' is less important that having fun 'my way'. Which is exactly what I try to do during a match. Sure, I could slow down alittle and 'play it safe' to achieve a clean match. But where is the challenge?

Shucks, I like to hear those dings at full speed. Let er rip!

 

This is an entertainment sport and I like to entertain myself.

 

Best regards to all.

 

..........Widder

[Olen Rugged]

I can shoot accurately only as fast as I can see my sights...

 

Many folks don't know (and quite a few never learn) that launching bullets is the smallest component of your total stage time. Staging, presentation, transitions, movement and reloads account for the bulk of your time on the stage. When someone says that they "don't practice" they are usually talking about range time, launching bullets. There are a host of things you can do in the privacy of your own bedroom or garage that will improve your match standing and none of them involve shooting. All of them involve thinking and planning.

 

Long Hunter, Doc Shapiro, Deuce and others GIVE AWAY videos, books and other free advice here on the web.

 

The best piece of advice I have tried to act on is "always have BOTH hands working". That caused quite a bit of change in the way I stage guns.

 

The take away message is that you can really improve your "speed" without firing a shot.

 

Olen

[Chickamauga Charlie, SASS #47963]

According to my read on the rules, the correct call would have for the RO to say "clean"… but the right call was to await the results for the possible stuck bullet.

 

BTW, there was a bullet stuck in the barrel.

 

size]

 

i would have to disagree. the way i read the rules, the call would either be one or interference if in fact there was not a bullet in the barrel and the RO made the shooter ground the pistol.

personally i believe with 1000's of matches taking places on any giving weekend, the occasional WTC makes sense to me, although most could be avoided with a copy of the books in hand.

just my view from the saddle on an old mare with navicular. i could be wrong.

CC

[Stump Water]

As a yonker I shot what amounted to NRA small bore (.22LR @ 50 & 100 ft, peep sights). In competition we had what amounted to an eternity to shoot each round. Maybe it was a minute, I don't remember, the following will explain why I don't. Once you made the competition squad, during practice, the instructor would make us run the course of fire allowing ten seconds for each shot (we were single loading from a shooting block).

 

Introducing the pressure of time into the scenario made us focus. It made us better shooters.

 

Ten seconds sounds like a long time... in this game. Try it at 50 ft. with a target the size of a half-dollar and a bull the size of the bullet itself.

[Kid Doubleday]

+1

 

I try to shoot as fast as possible and if I manage to miss, it is typically not because I have failed to aim properly, but instead have failed to follow through properly. I've had a bunch of clean matches and almost without fail, they are my best matches. I try to shoot to a level where I can see the ragged edge, but am not riding it.

 

At least for now, at the beginning of my 4th year of CAS, most of the time when I see the "ragged edge" it is in the rearview mirror...I am beginning to reduce my misses, but my biggest concern is to see where I can push my raw times to, with a minimum of trainwrecks. Eventually, when I stop reducing my raw times then I will try to get the "ragged edge" back out in front of me. You have to practice at "game speed" to be able to perform at game speed, but you have to know what your game speed is first.

 

When I first started I thought I was flying when I broke the 30 sec mark on any stage. At Comin At Cha in Nov I shot stage 5 and them dang Chickens in 31.08 sec to be clean and felt like I was moving in painfully slow motion. With practice we can teach ourselves to perform tasks faster and our bodies/eyes/reflexes/timing will adjust to however fast we push it...to a limit, with each person having different limits.

 

When I started I gave myself 4 years to try to figure out how to play this game and not put too much pressure on myself for mistakes/misses. I may have already reached my personal limit, but will keep trying to reduce for another year. So for now, I will keep looking in the rearview mirror for that "ragged edge" with a big smile on my face regardless of a clean stage or not.

 

Kid Doubleday

[Buck D. Law, SASS #62183]

 

 

At least for now, at the beginning of my 4th year of CAS, most of the time when I see the "ragged edge" it is in the rearview mirror...I am beginning to reduce my misses, but my biggest concern is to see where I can push my raw times to, with a minimum of trainwrecks. Eventually, when I stop reducing my raw times then I will try to get the "ragged edge" back out in front of me. You have to practice at "game speed" to be able to perform at game speed, but you have to know what your game speed is first.

 

When I first started I thought I was flying when I broke the 30 sec mark on any stage. At Comin At Cha in Nov I shot stage 5 and them dang Chickens in 31.08 sec to be clean and felt like I was moving in painfully slow motion. With practice we can teach ourselves to perform tasks faster and our bodies/eyes/reflexes/timing will adjust to however fast we push it...to a limit, with each person having different limits.

 

When I started I gave myself 4 years to try to figure out how to play this game and not put too much pressure on myself for mistakes/misses. I may have already reached my personal limit, but will keep trying to reduce for another year. So for now, I will keep looking in the rearview mirror for that "ragged edge" with a big smile on my face regardless of a clean stage or not.

 

Kid Doubleday

 

In some monthly matches, I WILL push the ragged edge and even go beyond it. I DO treat monthly matches differently than I do a big match...where I throttle back a bit.

[Charlie Whiskers]

I try to shoot clean at any match I attend;local or away from home.I have bum knees and shoulders which means I don't move fast between positions.They sometimes have to put a stick where I start from to see if I move at all.Using an egg timer or sundial has been known to happen as well.My award is that poker chip from the Eldorado Cowboys,the Bullet from the Rocky Mtn Rangers and the other 9 or 10 certificates from my club and a couple of others for clean shoots.I've been playing this game for 10+ years;joined SASS late.That being said my point is I try to shoot as fast as I'm comfortable with,but being clean means more to me.

[Kid Doubleday]

In some monthly matches, I WILL push the ragged edge and even go beyond it. I DO treat monthly matches differently than I do a big match...where I throttle back a bit.

 

Buck,

 

After a long conversation with Fast Eddie at the TN State shoot (Thanks Fast Eddie), and a MISERABLE 1st day for me, he talked to me about how many shooters get to the firing line and get all tensed up and "RELEASE THE DRAGON" when the timer goes off...I stood up present and accounted for...and for a 28+ year high school coach I felt pretty stupid as I always worked with my pitchers to scale back off 100% velocity as they can't consistently control it so I knew this but didn't put it to work...it was a DUH moment and I too have looked at the big shoots differently and DO NOT RELEASE THE DRAGON! I have done some better keeping him from rearing his ugly head...but not at local shoots where I push trying to get use to handling my guns and transitions as quickly as I safely can...

 

Hope to shoot with you soon.

 

Kid Doubleday

[Anvil Al #59168]

In some monthly matches, I WILL push the ragged edge and even go beyond it. I DO treat monthly matches differently than I do a big match...where I throttle back a bit.

 

 

+1

Only I have not found that throttle yet.

I tend to run it off the road, down in the ditch and crash.

But have a good time doing it.

[Rooster Ron Wayne]

I am not a fast shooter and with some of the guys around hear I never will be.

I take all the advice I can git, and apply it the best I can .

I shoot clean often ,but I also don't practice.

This is a sport I love, but I only can afford to shoot locally.

And I only can afford to do it two times a month .

I have fun every time I go out and if I shoot clean that's a bonus.

For me the main thing is to be safe and have fun .

I shoot as fast as I can safely.

[Jack Houston # 35508]

Every "Clean Match" I've had I didn't finish as good as usual

[Blastmaster]

Every "Clean Match" I've had I didn't finish as good as usual

 

 

You mean you can shoot fast enough to make up misses, P's and S's? Good job.

[J-BAR #18287]

I have NOT read all the posts, and I don't care..

 

Good on you, Griff. A clean match at any speed is a fine accomplishment. Congratulations and enjoy your perfection!!

[Grouchy Greg, SASS#71981]

I've never won my category and shot a clean match at the same time. It's one or the other with me.

[Sage Creek Gus SASS #64320]

My biggest encumberance to shooting a clean match is poor target placement.

 

Those setting up the stages don't put the targets where my bullets go.

 

SCG

[Quick Draw Granpaw #48525]

I've come to conclusion that fastest ain't the bestus!

This year I'm planning to slow down and concentrate on sight picture!

I want to shoot as many clean matches as I can!

Wish me luck.

 

Happy trails

Quick Draw Grandpaw 48525

[Smithy]

IMO Speed is much harder to learn or teach than accuracy.

 

I remember reading, or hearing (maybe here on the Wire) that in this sport the first thing to learn is speed. Get the speed down pat and then accuracy can always be taught. When I started I was pretty much the minute man (ie. no stage in under 60 seconds). A few things went into that. Poor, uncorrectable vision since childhood. One good eye and one not so good. I can easily shoot with both eyes open, but getting a sight picture on the rifle targets was a bit of a challenge for me. Wider rear sight and a large beaded front helped a lot! Prior to SASS I shot handgun (also in employment) and shotgun (life member of the NSSA) so the handgun targets seemed to me a gimme so all my time was eaten up by the rifle. If shooting against a wooded background or when striking a target I cannot see good enough to know where my bullets are landing. Too high, low, left, right, I couldn't tell you so that slowed me down even further. If I had at anytime tried to speed up, I would have ended up with 10 misses. All of them rifle.

 

In fact, I came very close to a clean match once. But in the last stage and shooting off a faux horse, I missed a single rifle target. Bummer to say the least. I knew that I neither had the time nor money to practice enough to be fast/accurate and win anything, but the clean match token/award was something that I very well might be able to obtain some day.

 

My health produced, short run in SASS did not afford me the opportunity to land a clean match prize. What I treasure now for my short run of SASS is my memories, my badge, a Dammit Gang chip/pin (my first shoot was a night black powder event) and I would have dearly loved to have a "clean match" award to add to those memento's I keep and treasure.

 

Say you have a shoot of 200 shooters. Now sure there are different classifications and awards for each, but the shoots I've attended had only a few classifications represented. So out of your 200 there may only be one top dog. Classification wise that might increase to half a dozen out of 200. But now toss in the ability for each and every shooter being able to win an award for shooting clean? I like those odds a lot better, competing against yourself and the range, not 199 other shooters which have been doing it a whole lot longer than yourself and using spiffed out expensive gear to do it with.

 

I remember a guy in skeet that had a grand idea one day. Our shoots usually had class purses for the winners of each class. (I won one of those once). He suggested that rather than splitting up purses between classes, reducing the amount of available purse monies, that all the purses should be pooled together for one grand prize, worth winning big pay out. Of course he was just about the best skeet shot anyone had seen in our area. Again one winner for 200 shooters. No thank you. Smithy.