Training - Prone - DURC - 25th January 2010

Okay, haven't updated since last week, but things are still decent. Today, I had a SCATT session, which I hadn't done before. Was struggling to get the target size right in my foresight, and to get comfortable and shoot well. The hold displayed by the machine was atrocious. It'd hold the ten ring nearly all the time, but only just. Definitely needs work though I'm not sure how reflective it is, since I was so uncomfortable, and since my current shooting is going well. Interesting also was the groups that were appearing on the SCATT were decent however, well capable of holding the ten, despite a pretty poor trace. I'll do more work with SCATT when I get a chance to figure out how to use it best, and a setup that gives me a representative sight picture to work with.

After the session with the SCATT, I needed to regain my confidence, so switched to a couple of live-fire cards, since there's another postal deadline creeping up. These were as I expected significantly better than the SCATT results. Groups in the sighter card were nice and tight, holding the inner ten comfortably. Shooting on the actual cards was only slightly less good. My biggest problem isn't technique anymore, not by a long shot. My technique means tens when my head is in it, but my concentration lets me down. It might be a slight lack of attention to sight picture or zero position, but that's what costs me points now. The first card was a 96. After dropping the first two shots, moving across the target from the sighter card, I didn't spend enough time re-orienting my zero and dropped the first shot ever so slightly out. The next followed it and both were called as bad shots. the next five went in before I dropped the eighth and last shots, due to lack of attention to sight picture and too much haste, respectively. The second card was better, as I corrected myself from my notes and dedicated my time to obsessively zeroing and paying rigorous attention to sight picture. Having dropped the first two right in the middle, I had a nasty moment on the third, where I dropped an 8, the trigger breaking while I was still breathing on having decided not to take the first attempt. This being the fly in the ointment on my planned perfect card, I determined not to miss anything else, and didn't, with another seven nice tight tens falling well in. It's not a shooting error, but as the only thing marring a card that really should have been perfect, it'll remind me to back off when aborting a shot attempt in future.

Currently, I haven't touched my rifle setup in quite some time, as I'm currently entirely satisfied with it - thought still need new sights. My position is good, tight and solid, my sight picture is good and I'm comfortable. My trigger control has improved again from the last update, and barring that one incident was without fault, sensitivity having greatly increased from before. The rest of the points will be gained in my head, which is unfortunately the hardest thing to work on. I'm on course for my targets at the moment, and happy that there's no technical reason I shouldn't achieve them, bar inexperience if conditions go sour on the day. Hopefully, we'll get a few training days in Sinclair this year and then I'll be comfortably on course for the 585 I want there.