We have the Flagler Cup this weekend and Bianchi Cup next week, so I have been practicing lately with that in mind. I shot my first 1907 yesterday and am excited to see how it goes in competition. I have never felt match pressure as I do in Action Pistol, which is partly why it is such a valuable sport. I have now cleaned the plates, barricade, and mover in practice, so if I put it all together, I will be very happy with my score.
The picture above was representative of my plate run. Instead of shooting them like a steel match, I stopped my dot on each plate and was rewarded with a clean run. People who have never shot it think Action Pistol is slow, and it is in some ways. The difficulty lies in trying to shoot a perfect score. Just over 30 people have ever shot a 1920 in competition at Bianchi. No one has ever done so in Carry Optics, which is what I am shooting.
On top of that, it is a very practical competition, as it gives you reasonable times for real-world shooting of vital zones. As a handgun hunter, it is excellent practice. Most other sports have scoring zones that are just too generous to be of much use. As I mentioned in my post about No Fail Pistol, very serious combat shooters have long recognized the benefits of shooting Action pistol.
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Good luck. I am shooting in the Sunset Coast Regional Action pistol today. My plan is to do better than last year.
That’s awesome, good luck to you! What division are you shooting? Is that a pretty active club?
Production Optics. Used to be a real big match, a lot of the big names shot this one in the past. It has really trailed off though recently.
I always call it carry optics by mistake, I’d better work on correcting that! What gun and optic? How accurate is it with your ammo? Things have trailed off here as well, though the big matches still get a good turnout – not like in years past though.
Walther Q5 SF. It is the most accurate suitable gun I own. It has had some reliability issues recently which I though I had fixed but apparently not as it bit me hard in the plates
I have not tried that model, but have heard good things. Hopefully the reliability is better going forward for you.
good luck, beautiful weather, hope you will be enjoying family time also
Thank you!
For you these days, what tends to go off the rails when shooting under stress? Appreciate your candor and constant growth that always characterize your posts…
Stress manifests itself in different ways for my shooting. Action Pistol makes me kind of jittery, much like steel challenge but worse. In steel challange I can mitigate much of it as I always have two hands on the gun. In action pistol, the jitteriness really shows up in the support hand only stage of the Practical. Easy place to lose points.
If my stress is because of fatigue, then I can fail to follow the course protocol and will sometimes shoot fewer shots than required, or even more shots than required in some instances. I’ve done this on the mover, where the 10 and 15 are 6 shots and the 20 and 25 are 3 shots. I’ve also done it on qual type courses, which is really silly and somewhat embarrassing.
I’m actually working on a post about shooting under pressure, so I don’t want to say much more than that right now. I think I’ve come up with a good way for people to train to shoot under stress better, but we will just have to see how it works out.
Well, I will look forward to the “pressure” post. Regarding Action Pistol, it has been a number of years since I’ve shot the course, but I remember it as requiring as much focus as I could muster due to the accuracy demands. Good stuff, and worth the effort. And, in a sense, I put the pressure on myself by worrying about the score or whatever. I like what you did with the plates: shoot each plate as a separate target- looks like a good group which indicates your attention.
I still shoot some GSSF matches which have a plate rack stage at 11 yards. One Division I’ve enjoyed due to the challenge is “Pocket Glocks” where the G42/43 slimline pistols are used. 6 plates and 7 rounds in the gun makes me concentrate on the fundamentals. Shoot each plate to hit it-not a lot of room for error. I think that discipline carries over(when I let it). If I remember correctly in Action matches one has six rounds for six plates. So one has to hit the plate-lot of reality in that!
Best of luck at the matches…
Thanks very much. Shot a 1910 in practice tonight, my best ever. I enjoyed GSSF the one time I shot it – I’ll have to find a match near me and try it again,