Just attended a Appleseed Pistol Clinic in Parma, ID. I really enjoyed it. I suck at pistol shooting, but I enjoyed it.
The instructors were terrific.
What I wished I knew before hand:
- Any pistol will work, but might have an advantage with something like a Ruger Mark IV because it is a 22lr and has little to no recoil. The ammo is cheaper, less noise, and I might be able to focus on the fundamentals more. Other 22 pistols might be good, too.
- The PQT is *hard*, especially if you are not very accurate. Flinching or anticipating the recoil is a bad habit that needs to be overcome. I've since learned of the "wall drill", so I need to start doing that. I also did not see anyone score anywhere close to a Pistolero. I think 191 was the highest score yesterday, and that was an orange hat trying to qualify. He was using a 22lr pistol. (hint hint hint)
- The "ball and dummy drills" were eye-opening, too. (again, flinching) We talked about how we might be able to practice that at our range by ourselves on the drive home. Get multiple magazines and a few snap caps. Put some snap caps in different places in the your mags, close your eyes, mix up the mags, then put one mag in at random and shoot at a target. If/when you hit a snap cap, you'll see if you flinched. Plus, you get the "what if the round malfunctions" practice, too.
- Focus on the front sight is always stressed as being important - but what I learned was I kept looking at the target after I pulled the trigger. That is a really bad habit that is hard to break.
- I cannot believe how sore I feel. I thought that since we were not doing the up/downs of the AQT that it would be less stress on the body. Boy, I was wrong! My back, shoulders and arm are really sore. I'm not sure what exercises I can do to strengthen them, but I'm going to try to figure it out.
- Dry fire, dry fire, and more dry fire. I pasted up the 2 PQTs on my wall and did lots of dry runs with my gun, timing myself before the event. Like the AQT, there are mistakes you'll make on the PQT. Be sure to hit those mistakes in prep before going to the Appleseed Pistol Clinic. (examples: wrong round count in the mag, wrong count on the stage (ex: ejecting mag at 4 instead of at 6), not knowing the course of fire for a PQT very well, forgetting that some timed stages you need to go fast and some stages you need to slow down, if you miss any one of the fundamentals, you will miss the shot, etc.) Finger discipline is important to practice, too, even during a dry-fire practice of the PQT.
- The laser training pistols (like the Sirt) are great for helping with sight alignment, sight picture and some trigger work. But, you need to send lots of lead downrange for pulling it all together.
There are lots of things to learn from a Appleseed Pistol Clinic. I recommend everyone attend at least one. Because, if you're like me, you're going to need more practice (great excuse to go to the range more), and will probably end up signing up for more Appleseed Pistol Clinics. :-)
I heard that it takes 2-3 Appleseeds to qualify as Rifleman. I didn't hear how many Appleseed Pistol Clinics it takes on average to get before qualifying as Pistolero. Does anyone know? I'm thinking it has to be *at least* 3. (unless you're already a competition pistol shooter)