Funny story from the match: I had a nice, ~13ish second reload on the first stage of the match yesterday. It was on my SECOND reshoot of that stage. First time through, the swinging no shoot target fell off. Second time, the activator steel popper for the swinger took a solid hit and failed to fall, so we stopped and had to reset. Every case extracted perfectly on both of those runs. But on the third run, when the stage equipment was all finally working right, one case got stuck under the star. And of course, I cut my fingernails yesterday. So I've got next to no nail to get under the damn rim and I'm sitting there for 10 or more seconds trying to first get the case out of the cylinder, then get it past the star before I can reload.
It couldn't have happened on either of the runs that didn't count, naturally. This is the kind of luck I tend to have.
Video time, so we can all analyze my failures together.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=taOk_UhwiTc
Some things I noticed:
1) On the very first cylinder through the gun, I short stroked the trigger and rotated the cylinder without moving the hammer. Trying to "ride the reset" on a revolver is a really bad idea. Thankfully, it's the only time I did that all day.
2) You need more "space" to reload revolvers than semis. On stage 5, I bonked the barrel wall when moving the gun from muzzle up to eject cases to muzzle down to reload it. This is not something I've had to worry about before shooting semis. It also showed up again on stage 6 when I got too close to a wall and had to bring the gun into my chest to get around it. I need to give myself more distance around barriers, mostly for reloads but also just to eliminate unnecessary movement when transitioning around them like on stage 6.
3) There were a couple of times I missed the ejector rod with my index finger during the reload and had to try again. Since I'd like to stick with the weak hand reload for now, I think I'm going to practice hitting the rod with two fingers on my weak hand instead of just one to give me a little more room for error. Inexperienced revolver shooter problems.
4) Round counts, round counts, round counts. How hard is it to count to 6? Pretty hard, apparently. Multiple times I pulled the trigger a 7th time for a click instead of a bang, wasting time. I need to continue working on my stage planning and my awareness of what I've already shot so I'm not surprised as often by an empty gun.
5) on a camera note, I like the new GoPro but I need to angle it down a bit more so I can hopefully get my reloads on film in the future as well. They're a big part of the revolver shooting game and if I can't see them I don't know what I need to improve on with them.
To give myself a few kudos as well so this isn't just a self stomp fest: Despite two reshoots and a 13 second reload when a case got stuck under the star on stage 1, I actually improved steadily throughout the rest of the match. Usually I shoot on a bit of a bell curve, with my first stage being slightly suboptimum, 2-3 or 4 being decent, and 5-6 and beyond going down hill as I become mentally fatigued. I've been working not just on dry fires and reloads but my mental game as well, and I think it is starting to show. My best stage of the day was the very last stage I shot. That's new, and I like it.
I'm also throwing up a quick comparison video of my first cylinder on stage 1 and my first cylinder on stage 6. I think there's a noticeable difference in my confidence with the DA trigger in matches in just a few stages. First cylinder had a lot of hesitation and trigger staging that was gone by the end of the match. Hoping to see that improvement continue.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Hga4MaPT-Lw