February 2022

Unfortunately the range was shut during January, so I had to wait until February to go shooting again.

6th of February

The long break since the last shoot clearly took its toll on my skills, and I struggled to push my score up again. Bench rest was still easy, so it may have been returning lack of arm strength on top of skill rust.

I shot everything with AR10 at 10m.

Stance	Card ID	Card Type	Score	Notes	Scanned Image
AR Unsupported	10m-ar10_u_test-1	10m AR	46		SCAN
"	10m-ar10_u-1	"	49	1 miss	SCAN
"	" 3	"	50	Error in numbering, there is no 2.	SCAN
"	" 4	"	"		SCAN
"	" 6yd	6yd	52		SCAN
AR Bench-rest	10m-ar10_b-6yd	6yd	68		SCAN
"	" -1	10m	81		SCAN

13th of February

This was a bad day. Unfortunately, I turned up about an hour after the range opened andmy usual air rifle, AR10, was in use, so I took out AR3 instead. It doesn't seem like it should make much difference; they're the same model air rifle, so after zeroing they should be fine, right?

Not so. This one had some kind of adjustable stock on it, which I had no idea how to use. It made shooting incredibly uncomfortable and unsteady.

I would have considered today's shoot worthless if it weren't for the Bald Wizard (I don't know his name, but he appears randomly like Merlin and solves people's problems before disappearing again. And he's bald.) He gave me some advice which helped despite the adjustable stock thing.

Stance	Card ID	Card Type	Score	Notes	Scanned Image
Bench-rest AR	10m-ar3_b	10m	60	This is why I say the adjustable stock is the issue; when in bench rest, the structure of the rifle is irrelevant, since it's rested on something. Not bad.	SCAN
Unsupported AR	10m-ar3_u-prac1	10m	13	5 misses. The moment I came off bench rest and started holding it unsupported, I couldn't aim for shit. Holding it felt awkward.	SCAN
"	" 2	"	32	1 miss. I sort of manhandled it into a better direction, but it felt all wrong.	SCAN
"	" 3	"	33	3 misses. By this point I was determined never to turn up late again.	SCAN
"	" 6yd	6yd	51	2 misses. In utter frustration I decided to just shoot for fun, and got a 6yd card to shoot at 10m. Whilst the score is better, this isn't skill, it's randomness. Or like that saying, "a broken clock is right twice per day".	SCAN
"	10m-ar3_u-BaldWizard	10m	43	A Bald Wizard gave me some advice on positioning and maintaining the centreline to the target. It was very helpful and I saw immediate improvement, even with the adjustable stock thing.	SCAN

At some point in future I'll have to learn how to use that adjustable air rifle's mechanism properly, but I'm going to hold off on that for a bit. I really didn't enjoy today. Hail to the Bald Wizard for salvaging it even a little.

20th of February

This time I got to the range early, and was rewarded with AR10. It might seem odd that I'm so insistent on AR10; after all, the number implies that there are at least 9 others.

It's more that, at least for me, it's a "known good" rifle; I know its capabilities, I'm used to it, therefore any failures are mine alone (well, except if there's a lack of air in it).

Today everything was shot with AR10, at 10m, unsupported AR.

Card ID	Score	Notes	Scanned Image
10m-ar10_u-posprac	N/a	I just threw 5 pellets down range, to ensure I was implementing the positioning spell that Bald Wizard taught me.	SCAN
10m-ar10_u-prac1	54		SCAN
10m-ar10_u-prac2	54	I was apparently still taunting myself at this stage. The runic writing says "Do not shoot bad, cunt"	SCAN
10m-ar10_u-prac3	60	And the runes on this card say "Shoot Well". I wasn't happy by this stage, but I wasn't unhappy with my performance either.	SCAN
10m-ar10_backingcard First	56	The club asked me to submit 4 cards so that they could take an average, so they could get an idea of how I was doing. Since I had to submit those cards, I used a backing card to capture a broad picture of how I did. I recorded the scores and misses for each card onto the backing card.	SCAN
10m-ar10_backingcard Second	63	As regards the backing card, this was the best shoot.	"
10m-ar10_backingcard Third	55		"
10m-ar10_backingcard Fourth	56	1 miss	"

I wasn't unhappy with my performance, but I also felt like I had still clearly become rusty over Yuletide.

27th of February

I shot AR10 unsupported on the 10m range. I didn't have much time, so I may have rushed a little at times. I know I was definitely snatching the trigger.

Card ID	Score	Notes	Scanned Image
Prac1	51	In runes I wrote "Utter shit"	SCAN
Prac2	51	1 miss. Here I wrote "just shoot better you cunt"	SCAN
Prac3	47	Here I just wrote "Shit."	SCAN
Prac4	54	By this point I'd given up on neatly writing and just scrawled "PRACTICE" over it.	SCAN

As you can probably tell, I was exceptionally unhappy with my shooting. I think at this point I'd started getting angry with myself, which was preventing me from doing what you need to do to shoot well.

You know, things like keeping calm, breathing, holding the weapon steady, concentrating...

February 2022 roundup

A bad month. But that's okay, just have to improve next month.

I only shot the air rifle this month, at 10m. I shot primarily unsupported, but a little from bench-rest.

Here's a chart logging my average scores and number of misses, with lines of best fit. The scatter chart uses data from October through to the end of February.

What all this tells me is that my consistency has dropped significantly, but my general ability hasn't dissipated entirely; my bests are equal to or better than my previous bests, yet my worsts are significantly worse than my previous worsts.

I can't say for certain why this is. Anything I do say will sound like excuses, so let me start with, I'm just bad. But looking deeper, why am I worse than I was before Yule?

Several reasons:

• About 1 month and 25 days passed since my last shoot of 2021 and the first of 2022. In that time, I sat around doing nothing, barely moving my arms. I'm naturally weak, and this is probably enough time to return to that natural weakness. Without arm strength it's hard to hold an object steadily in front of you
• There's something off with my stance. How I'm holding it is naturally unsteady. When I look at some of the more experienced shooters, they're taking very steady stances with specific arm placement.
• Impatience, leading to issues like trigger snatching and not properly sighting the target. This happens because I know how to shoot, broadly, but as it goes wrong I get impatient and frustrated, which cyclically ruins the session

Still, I'm enjoying the hobby. Just because it's going badly right now doesn't mean I should give up, it means I should redouble my efforts.