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On begining again

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mikemyers
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On begining again Empty On begining again

Post by Guest 7/26/2018, 8:17 am

A recent post by speleogen about coming back to bullseye after 15 years away, really got my attention.
  I did not want to hijack his post by posting how my come back is working out, but I thought that it might be helpful to him or to others, if I told my story. 



   So you don't have to read the post all the way through, here is the lesson I learned...DON'T GIVE UP. YOU CAN DO THIS.



  When I stopped shooting 25+ years ago, I was averaging around 850/860 with my 22.



  When I took my neighbor to the range last year (because he wanted  to see if this hobby was for him),  I shot 800'ish scores in the bullseye league. His scores were lower, and bullseye just did not interest him.
  But I was re-smitten, and began to shoot the league, and train again because somehow, my scores seemed to be getting lower. I was shocked by my low scores because I know that I know how to shoot. After all, I was a high expert once.

  

  I'm trying to keep this short, so... eventually my scores bottomed out around 750. Now I am working on fundamentals, training exercises, retraining my subconscious, building strength/endurance. All the things I did 25+ years ago, I need to do again. Except now I am 77 years old.


  But it's not all bad. the good news is, that I've got nowhere to go but up. I am retired so I have plenty of time. Along with poor vision comes cataracts, so my surgery gave me perfect eyesight at the front sight/dot. And now my scores are getting higher. About the only thing I could ask for now, is a Great Grandson to carry my heavy a$$ shooting box.


So that is my advice. Work the fundamentals, shoot the best that YOU can shoot,but don't expect to make high master, and have fun...Jim





 

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Post by willnewton 7/26/2018, 10:44 am

Welcome back!

As for the heavy gun box, many folks carry ammo or the guns or both in separate bags or boxes.  The gun box only holds shooting accessories and it makes an unwieldy box easier to manage.

Distributing the weight of your gear to both sides of the body when toting it around helps a lot and can save a fair bit of wear and tear on your shoulder.
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Post by mikemyers 7/26/2018, 11:24 am

arnold jim wrote:..........I'm trying to keep this short, so... ......Except now I am 77 years old......
Welcome back!   By the way, my two cents worth - don't worry about keeping it short.  The more you write and describe, the better!  If you're now 77, I'm 2 1/2 years behind you.  Where does the time go!!!!!

You might enjoy reading one of the threads in the Fundamentals Forum, where several people are helping me.  

About the heavy box - if you're going to a local range to shoot, maybe you don't need to bring all that heavy stuff with you yet?
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Post by Left handed troglodyte 7/26/2018, 3:40 pm

mikemyers wrote:
arnold jim wrote:..........I'm trying to keep this short, so... ......Except now I am 77 years old......
Welcome back!   By the way, my two cents worth - don't worry about keeping it short.  The more you write and describe, the better!  If you're now 77, I'm 2 1/2 years behind you.  Where does the time go!!!!!

You might enjoy reading one of the threads in the Fundamentals Forum, where several people are helping me.  

About the heavy box - if you're going to a local range to shoot, maybe you don't need to bring all that heavy stuff with you yet?

I too carried the heavy box... using the only good arm I had. Had to re-evaluate what are the critical elements.

Now I carry just the gun, all my mags preloaded,  extra ammo with dummy rounds (22LR).

No scope to set up or ammo to prep... just the focus and process of one shot.

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Post by Mike38 7/26/2018, 4:44 pm

arnold jim wrote:...but don't expect to make high master...





 

Who would want to be a High Master anyhow? Anyone that can shoot 2600+ can't be of the human race. lol!
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Post by Magload 7/26/2018, 6:49 pm

I'm just a young guy at very close to 72.  I shot Expert in the Navy back in 82 using a issued 45 that the barrel rattled when in battery but can't do that anymore shooting my custom BE guns.  Sure is fun to to try.  Starting to think this BE stuff for me is now just a excuse to buy target pistols as I had enough SW M&P.  I still can shoot two handed and get very tight groups just need a gyro mounted to my right arm to shoot one handed.  Guess I went 35 years with out shooting I am glad to see people getting back into it.  BTW it is all I can do to life my box with 3 1911s in it.  Don
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Post by mikemyers 7/26/2018, 8:09 pm

Magload wrote:........just need a gyro mounted to my right arm to shoot one handed.......
Gosh, I wonder if I can squeeze a gyro into my red dot sight????    More seriously, I wrote up what I plan to do regarding weight training.  Maybe the training concept will be more effective than what I used to do.  I found a thread on The Highroad Forums which I can post here if anyone's interested - it had a lot of ideas on how to build up (or re-build up) one's shooting arm.  People have also given me advice in the Fundamentals Forum.  It took me a while to understand what they meant, which was different from what I first thought they meant.

Do you guys do better with lighter guns, or the same?
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Post by Guest 7/27/2018, 8:08 am

Mike, my arm muscle building process is just about perfect I think.
  When I started my come back tour, I had some soreness/stiffness, and of course my arm/wrist/shoulder wobbled all over the place.
  I also had trouble keeping the sights properly aligned. That danged front post kept bouncing around in the rear sight gap.

  So I quit dry firing and tried to build up some muscle by holding the gun, and a weight up while keeping the sights aligned for 30 seconds..


A week later, I tried it without the weight. Any muscle I built must have been jumpy muscle because I could not hold the gun still.
  OK, lesson learned, don't exercise your arm with extra weight. It is counter productive.


After a while, the front post would stay in the center when just holding the gun up. so I moved on to dry firing while trying to keep the gun motionless.


Now, I shoot two 900 point relays back to back at the bullseye league, once a week without soreness (one handed). So my system works for me
    Jim

 

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Post by dronning 7/27/2018, 10:07 am

If you need to strength train to hold the gun up for 15 seconds then do so until you can BUT from that point forward use dry fire to refine your hold.  Using weights to try and refine your hold as Jim points out can be counter productive because with dry firing you are working on fine motor control which is way different than strength training.
- Dave
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Post by mikemyers 7/27/2018, 1:17 pm

arnold jim wrote:......When I started my come back tour, I had some soreness/stiffness, and of course my arm/wrist/shoulder wobbled all over the place.
  I also had trouble keeping the sights properly aligned. That danged front post kept bouncing around in the rear sight gap.


  So I quit dry firing and tried to build up some muscle by holding the gun, and a weight up while keeping the sights aligned for 30 seconds..


A week later, I tried it without the weight. Any muscle I built must have been jumpy muscle because I could not hold the gun still........
The first thing. you wrote is a perfect description of what I felt.  Aligning the sights was meaningless, as my hand/arm were moving/shaking too much.  

The second thing you wrote is also what I did - with a 1.5 pound wrist weight around my right wrist.  That made controlling the gun even more difficult!

Regarding the third thing you wrote, I did it differently.  Basically, I would do the holding drill for 15 minutes (on/off in a cycle), then remove the wrist weight and continue without it.  Invariably, that made the gun feel like it was a plastic toy!  I kept getting better at holding it still.  Three or four times a day I would go through this process first with the weight, then without.

I guess the proper term for this is "training".  On a daily basis, I can see improvement.
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