SUMMARY:

This report provides a comprehensive review of the recent training class from multiple sources of insight and performance data. Trainee feedback was actively collected and analyzed to understand their individual perspectives, challenges and takeaways. Additionally, I’ve incorporated my own instructor observations gathered throughout our time together, with particular focus on engagement, progression, and skill application during drills, exercises, and match conditions.

Performance in the match setting was critical to assess how effectively the trainee executed learned skills under pressure, and to identify any recurring gaps or strengths in real time. Taking this all into account, I’ve developed a personalized training plan for each individual. These plans are informed not only by the data collected during the course, but also by my own personal experience as a competitor and an instructor.

The goal moving forward is to ensure that each trainee continues to build on their strengths while systematically addressing areas for growth using methods that are practical and tangible. All training elements have been tested and yield a form of measurable results. Training means more than identifying problems but offering no solutions. This plan is a practical guide for the next steps in achieving your goals. It is a standalone tool by itself, but I have also integrated links to relevant training within my Virtual Instructor Program‍ ‍where it would help correlate and add direct context. If you don’t have a membership yet, it would help, but is not required. If you’re interested, everyone from class will receive a 50% off opportunity to get access to that program — your discreet code: 5VNTX71

If anything in this report is not clear or requires further explanation, please reach out.

OVERVIEW:

Thank you again for joining this class! It was very rewarding to watch you connect the dots and make progress throughout our time together. Each trainee comes to the event with varying levels of skills, abilities, strengths, weaknesses, and how much room they have to grow. In addition, everyone learns at their own pace. That said, you may have walked away with one little insight, several huge breakthroughs, or something in between. No matter what, this training was not an ultimate solution, but a place to better equip yourself as you continue on your journey. Everything you picked up, changed, validated, or completely rebuilt will need to be practiced and worked to get the results you’re striving for; the work is not done!

We reviewed basics, enhanced fundamentals with advanced techniques, refined sophisticated skills such as movers and tripod operation, as well as dissected deep cerebral topics such as spotting and wind reading. We exercised drills to lock in specific muscle memory, and also to expose you to new concepts. Topics the class asked for and were covered were:

1. Wind

2. Spotting

3. Positional Techniques

4. Tripod Techniques

5. Mental Planning & Stage Prep

6. Time Management

After each topic was covered in class setting, we took it to the firing line to hone in on the physical skill and techniques behind each topic. I was happy to see everyone participate even when the guidance didn’t necessarily make sense or seem significant at first. As an advanced shooter, there are some philosophies and simple concepts that are staples for progress, for ALL. A few of the mantras throughout the training were:

1. “Small changes can make large improvements” – lots of the teachings are subtle differences that can significantly clean up your execution, giving you better first round impacts, spotting, consistency, etc.

2. “Pause” – As simple as it is, this is often the critical missing piece to consistent performance. Rushing through the process may work for a while, but eventually you will face an issue and likely moved too fast to properly manage it. 

3. “Slow down and process what just happened” – Similarly to the one above, this focuses on the follow through in the shot process. Are we actually watching with an attentive brain as we make the shot? Or are we just waiting for the bullet to land so we can quickly cycle to the next shot?

We covered a LOT of material. As we discussed in class, not every insight needs to be incorporated into your process, but take as much as you can and see what yields the best results. No matter how our 2 days unfolded for you, the goal is to take what we covered, combine it with some pointed critique, and propel you on a guided path forward toward your next goals. Let’s get into your personal report!

SHOOTER GENERAL:

Good job getting to this point so far Cory! For you time in this sport you’ve already come a long way. I see you at a typical spot where with some solid experience and skill, we find ourselves getting stuck at the consistency game. It’s a good place to be since for the most part you’ve got a LOT ironed out already. For a guy your size I see how some engagements present some extra challenges, but spending 30+ years being you, you’ve got a good eye for it naturally. Building some hardline rules or scenario triggers to ensure you never get into a physical pinch will help prevent the occasional train wreck there. The rest will be slowing down here and there and locking things down where the wheels occasionally come off.

There are 3 hills to climb, the basics, consistency, and lastly mastery. The basics and mastery are really the harder parts, but the skills needed to round out a high level consistent competitor SEEM tough — but if we approach it right it’s can be easy, and a fulfilling ride. Mastery will come from consistency over time, and is an ongoing journey for many including myself. My goal for you is to take what we covered this weekend, along with some further guidance in this report, and start splitting hairs slowly. This will help stitch things together and strengthen your execution to a level that is very consistent, reliable, and irons out the occasional mishap that takes the wind out of your sails in a match.

STRENGTHS AND SUCCESSES:

Self-diagnosed Pre-Training Survey:

• Efficient Position Building -

  I agree this is a natural action for you. I can tell you’ve put in some good time behind the rifle and have it pretty figured out. Reviewing your training footage and my observations, you quickly achieve a solid position will little to correct most times. Some of the small tweaks I would suggest are minor, and occasional, but still important aiming for heightened consistency. I’ll circle back to that later, but overall this is a nice part of your toolbelt that makes the rest easier.

• Spotting and Correcting First Shot -

  Also a good skill I would tend to agree with from what I saw. You were able to call and correct well for most shots, including multiple different scenarios and positions. This will be another area where some small adjustments will improve you further, although you’re far from being lost in this skill.

Instructor Observations:

• Fundamentals -

  Again another simple but crucial piece. I watched closely during the different drills, and overall you were setting up very nicely. I saw a lot of good body mechanics, smooth bolt and trigger indexing, and good follow through. Only thing I would add here is that the more you get pushed, the more slop shows up, and I did see the occasional trigger slap or snatch off, or worse in my opinion is a rushed/unsettled bag. Not unusual, but something that can always be improved. Otherwise keep it up, you have a natural comfort behind the rifle.

REFINEMENT OPPORTUNITIES:

Self-diagnosed Pre-Training Survey:

• Stability On Wobbly Props -

  Long story short here, from what I’ve seen of you, you can get steady when I can get steady. If you’re wobbling too much for a confident shot, you probably should’ve considered a tripod! More on that further below…

  I’m sure there are still situations that are tough, but still deserve a bag only approach, and just need a little more TLC. In this case, I revert to our “advanced fundamentals” exercise. Putting the 3 little techniques together, I will:

  1. Maximize bag settling, sawing hard, and fine-tune-shimmying the final point of aim.

  2. Start with medium shoulder pressure (would crush a grape, and maybe start deforming a plum), and relax if necessary to get negative body influence out of the equation until it feels settled but still supported

  3. IF it’s still wobbly, I will consider relaxing to almost free-recoil, but will then definitively reset NPA tendencies by settling above target and rolling down onto it for final shot.

  The best approach is to see it coming ahead of time, and either use a tripod, or rehearse and plan best techniques into the strategy. One final thought is to utilize the best position-target combo first if you can, saving the worst positions for either the easiest target, or the last shots after you’ve really solidified your wind call and secured all the points you can confidently first.

• Big Pans In Wind & Simplifying DOPE Card –

  I’m tying these together since they work so closely hand in hand…

  Big panning stages with complex wind is probably the ultimate challenge. There’s no easy button that I’ve found, but I like to approach it with a three-fold system:

  1. PLAN A - Call main wind angle and speed, apply to each target direction.

  2. PLAN B - Observe each target with calculated wind in mind, and scrutinize if it seems to hold — if it doesn’t look good, identify a new general wind angle if each target analysis points to something similar, such as a significant shift of let’s say 15-30°. Now you can make a Plan B based on that. Usually the wind has a main path that holds true 80% of the time, with the occasional cyclical shift. Depending on what you saw first, this new plan might be the occasional shift, or the main wind. Finish observation and try to figure out which one is the most consistent call for Plan A.

  3. PATTERNS - Follow and review your calculated dope card and see if there’s a pattern. It might be a consistent couple of tenths between targets, or even if it’s “I’m constantly turning into the wind so I’m shaving wind as I progress…” Find a simple means of remembering what to expect from one target to the next. Use this thought process and mentally walk through the stage on binos a few times practicing your on-the-fly thinking and adjusting

  This is not a fail safe, but covers most of the possibilities. Having enough time to manage this is the key, and if you’re the first shooter up you’ll need to get to work, and don’t overwhelm yourself - make a plan A, and plan B, review each target a few times to see how it feels, and review your jumps. When on the clock, get on target quick to save time, take a pause to verify mirage vs your planned hold, then make perfect shots, spot well, and believe the bullet. Make sure you stop and think when you miss and correct, BEFORE moving across the field to the next target. The wind can be dramatically different, and moving quickly is more likely to cause a mental purge of what just happened. Think about what your corrected shot means for a new wind plan, and how it might affect the next target, THEN move. It is time well spent.

  The big ticket items on a simple DOPE card are as follows:

  • Make a plan, and make it mentally simple to compute, for example, a wind plan should have a pattern to recall more than a need to read your 5-column dope card.

  • Rehearse the execution so it’s natural and not conscious thought - know where you’re going and how you’ll set up there, each step of the way.

  • Acquisition needs to be confident and cold - know where your target is, a fast way to find it, and work yourself onto it subconsciously as you are settling into rifle.

  • Know what your minimum corrections and blind corrections should be - in case you miss, you will immediately know what to do.

  • Even if you make a complicated DOPE card, that’s ok, but before you step up to shoot try to notate or circle the column you feel best about. I’ll review that once more before I put my mag in, and then give it hell!

  If you work these things into your planning phase more and more, you will be able to spend more time spotting, finding mirage, adapting to wind changes, and moving swiftly through a stage without wasting energy fighting those other thoughts.

  VIP VIDEO SUGGESTIONS: Each one of these targets the areas I mention above. Becoming more efficient in the methods described in the videos will save you critical energy on the clock and allow you to spend more time locking in on a confident call on the rifle.

  • • https://www.carusoprecision.com/vip-core-skills/v/wind-pt-1- building a good, natural feeling of wind conditions through glass - confidence = efficiency

    • https://www.carusoprecision.com/vip-core-skills/v/wind-pt-2- quick wind math, gun number study, verifying mirage, all natural and verifying plan = confidence

    • https://www.carusoprecision.com/vip-core-skills/v/dopedata-cards- smart planning, recognizing patterns = quicker decisions on clock

    • https://www.carusoprecision.com/vip-core-skills/v/target-acquisition - slow target acquisition is tied with no-spot-misses for worst time suck - efficiency = critical!

Instructor Observations:

• Equipment -

  Here are a few little things that caught my eye throughout the weekend.

  • Center Of Gravity - I think you already adjusted this, but there was an obvious forward center of gravity on the rifle that was a bit too much. You won’t see this cause issues on most solid and wide prop surfaces. Where it’ll show up is on the narrow spots like fence rails, pipe fences, or even a 2×4 like the skill stage. You’ll need to passively hold the rifle slightly on target, and it will have potential to do worse things under recoil. Even though you already figured it out, I’d take it as an opportunity to look over everything else with this philosophy - “is there anything else in my set up that is fighting me, even if it’s subtle and manageable?” I like to think a little harder about it at your skill level, since we are trying to squeeze every bit of juice out of the system.

  • Dovetailing off that last point, I want to look closer at your bolt and magazine. It wasn’t bad, but I definitely saw frequent hang ups on running the bolt/round forward. Again, it’s manageable and didn’t seem to hurt you, but if there’s something going on there, it’s worth looking at it. By my best guess, I believe it might just be the tight top round in the mag, but if it’s more than that, it could be the bolt hitting the mag lips, or a lip angle/height issue. It may not be a big deal but I wanted to at least point it out. Again, trying to remove all opportunities to have problems on the clock like feeding issues.

• Trusting DOPE -

  This is a big one historically — having to decide if your misses are wind and/or elevation. You did well on this most of the time, but there were a few misses and tendencies that makes this worth touching on. When a miss sends a splash and dust up high, I really encourage you to make a windage correction only, unless you already know that you have verified elevation issues. With as much time as we spend on DOPE checking, we should be well established and trusting of that data. I didn’t see much trouble here for you over the weekend but Thomas mentioned it (either he saw it this weekend or previously, or you’ve probably spoken about it, not sure). With the following prep really solid, I would feel confident resisting the urge to move elevation for corrections even when it seems legitimate:

  • Good zero

  • verified POI at multiple distance on DOPE check (500 & 800 is typically enough for me)

  • No weird crutches in the ballistic solver - if you have crazy BC adjustments or numbers that don’t make sense, I would be more likely to believe elevation issues as those crutches tend to only work to “fix” the original issue in certain conditions.

  • Good fundamentals, solid bag, and nice follow through on the shot - eliminate yourself as a variable

  With all those things confident in my mind during the engagement, when I think I see high, I will lean toward a lateral correction first unless it’s undeniably off vertically!

• Bag Settle Technique -

  Not largely consequential to you, but it’s certainly something most can tighten up on. Your rifle is heavy, you are a solid support behind it, and your bag is a nice bag. All that together allows for a nice position with little extra work. BUT - if you mash into it further, you will have that even higher confidence in the stability, ever better recoil, and more relaxed spotting conditions. It’s something that’s easy to dismiss, but I promise while it will not hurt you, it has potential to make every shot a little better. It will make a difference over time as those weird shots or flyers start to trickle away, and you don’t walk away from a stage shaming yourself for not seeing what was happening. It’s not unusual to miss a spotting opportunity, and feel terrible because you know you could’ve set up better — if we make it second nature muscle memory to work it a little further every time, I think you’ll appreciate the difference.

  • VIDEO SUGGESTIONS:

    • https://www.carusoprecision.com/vip-core-skills/v/positional-shooting- Around 20:00 mark, some specific reminders about maximizing bag benefits

    • https://www.carusoprecision.com/vip-core-skills/v/positional-shooting-options- Pretty common knowledge for you, but some insights on different shooting heights

• Tripod–

  Overall you look pretty solid with your tripod ability. Regardless it’s easy to get behind one casually, and get a false sense of confidence when there’s little improvements that can make it EVEN better. For you, the bigger concern is just knowing confidently when to bust it out! As you said, there are times you are having trouble getting stable on a wobbly prop, and that is probably a miss on a tripod opportunity. There will usually be one or two stages per match that will challenge the shooter to make that tough decision to bag or tripod It can usually be done either way, but the better tripod shooter will prevail statistically more often than not. Once you get rock solid with the execution, and the discernment of when to use it — there are VERY few times I regret deciding to use it.

  I think you know enough to make good choices with the equipment most of the time, but either way I’ll stick my list here. The big considerations are:

  • REAR LEG SUPPORT

  • Pros/When To Use It:

    • Unstable prop or very small shooting surface

    • Unknown stability - first shooter up, or AG style engagement where you’re not allowed to see/touch/watch the prop — tripod for cheap insurance, even just set up on a bag only, but bring the tripod to the first position just in case its needed. If not, leave it behind and continue…

    • Smooth floor surface (wood, cement, fine gravel, grass, dirt…)

    • Targets reasonable close in direction

    • Multiple and/or small window positions where it takes meticulous care to thread rifle all the way in and out of position

  • Cons/When To SKIP It:

    • Prop is maybe a small surface, but super stable and potential for a vertical brace to smash bag position up against for more stability

    • Chunky gravel or awkward surface, possibly too much stuff in the way of a casual placement of tripod feet

    • Large awkward pan between targets

    • Even if lots of positions, if they’re big and open for a chop-down drop of your equipment, plus any of the other factors above, bag will probably be easier.

  • Considerations:

    • Sturdy tripod

    • Good tension on leg hinges

    • Height set to avoid knuckle tensioners

    • Height set to promote stability - tall enough to get in, but not maxed out unnecessarily

    • If able shoot in direction that promotes pulling equipment

    • Line up strong side of target and make final fine-tune point of aim via pushing support leg into tripod base

    • DON’T pull against support leg - tripod WILL tip causing floating feet!

  • TAC TABLE SUPPORT

  • Pros/When To Use It:

    • Unstable prop or very small shooting surface.

    • Few positions, and/or all the same height.

    • Demand for high level precision off small surface/unstable position - such as a KYL.

  • Cons/When To SKIP It:

    • Unstable tripod with skinny legs that will twist and torque under pressure - will induce nonstop lateral wobble.

    • Lots of movement - tendency to drop bag and have to pick it up several times costing too much time.

    • Too much height variation in ground or prop positions that a confident tac table height can’t be guaranteed.

  • Considerations:

    • Make sure everything is tight on tripod and ball head

    • Leave a 20-30° tilt on table to allow for flexibility in height - don’t leave yourself not outs

    • Safer to use a light fill bag for easier flexibility if you didn’t get height perfect

    • Know your drop from prop to table with a bag, 5-7” usually, 1 ½ fists stacked, or grab a tape measure like nerdy Thomas!

    • Tether your bag if you can so that if it falls under movement, its still close to the table - avoid having to grab it from the ground

      VIDEO SUGGESTION - Coming soon, a full suite of tripod videos in the advanced program when available…

MISCELLANEOUS:

1. Mental Errors - You mentioned this in the pre-training survey. The big antidotes here are rehearsal, thinking through your plans, studying wind jumps for quick reference, and talking out loud to yourself when working through live corrections. Get the thoughts out of your brain, and you’re more likely to follow through correctly.

2. Initial Wind Calls - this was mentioned via text post class. This is a great problem to have if you’re locking down 9/10 impacts after a first shot miss. That means you’re stable, you spotted and corrected, and then were consistent for another 9 shots! I think the biggest issue people have is that they come up with a wind plan very quickly, and don’t really challenge it. I will spend a lot of time watching on glass. Unless it’s a guaranteed first hit because the winds are so favorable, I will make a plan, and then spend several more minutes trying to shave off the high and low side where I can, narrowing down on a final call. You actually beat me here during our team wind exercise, so you’re not broken! It probably comes down to paying more attention to how much conditions are changing, really challenging how confident you are in a “guaranteed” impact, and then thinking how likely you are to fit on target with your final call and the spectrum of conditions you’ve watched over that time period. If you’ve ever seen a roulette board showing the past 20 spins, that’s how my brain sees it. If every time I look it’s 1 o’clock, 1 o’clock, 1 o’clock, 1 o’clock, and then occasionally 1:30 or 2:00, I will take the 1:00 call pretty hard but lean toward a stronger angle condition for the chance it starts changing on me. With both fit on target? If yes, blend the calls and roll… If no, then I am prepared for both, and I will STOP AND PAUSE on target before sending my shot. Let that moment or so help you decide. Either way, roulette boards and statistics are telling, but never a guarantee, and the same is true with calling wind. See training plan for a drill to help lock this down better as you hit the range in the future…

VIDEO REVIEW:

Honestly not a lot of negative feedback looking at this video, but rather a lot of great things to reinforce.

Starting from the initial position, I really like what I see - nice bag placement, body position stable, pretty

square, and compressed enough to ground an elbow naturally (it doesn’t look forced). Watching your recoil

here, it looks very tame and flat, suggesting good pressure and position behind the rifle, and a pretty settled

bag. Lastly, your bolt and trigger manipulations are relaxed, smooth, and defined with good follow through.

Overall a very nicely executed drill. The key takeaways here: you could saw down a little harder into the bag to

get the most out of it, even though it’s not too bad here; you do give it a nice little shimmy originally. After

moving to the other targets, you roll onto it and don’t readjust the NPA with that re-shimmy. Every time you

pan, roll, or move, you can shimmy again to resettle and fill any voids in the bag. If you did that little bit of

extra bag work here, I would pretty much have nothing to say — very nice job!

TRAINING PLAN:

Overall the goal will be to hit the range when you can, and target specific items - then beat them up until they become more fluid and natural. This will be one thing at a time, not 5 topics in one range day. It will take some discipline to stay focused even if it gets mundane, but I know you can stay on track if you want to improve!

The following section is a combination of range-day timeline AND items to work on. Take these things and try to incorporate them in a compounding way that will stack benefit on top of benefit. This is designed to give you maximum results in the areas of improvement you need.

RANGE DAY ITINERARY:

This is a general timeline of how I’d organize the range visit. Items 1-3 are all done within first 30 minutes, and then progress to the drills, targeting that day’s main focus area…

1.      Review forecast before going – come up with a guess of min-max wind hold you’ll need at say 800 yds.

2.      At Range - Check zero/chrono/adjust kestrel.

3.      Drills – start with the cold wind call at distance.

4.      Work through other drills in this plan, and don’t be afraid to add/substitute what you need.

5.      Mid day, when the wind has the most potential, stop your other drills and repeat a full wind analysis, ending in another semi-cold call at a farther target.

6. Then, back to drill main focus area with remaining time.

7. Take notes!

DRILLS:

• Cold Wind Call:

1. EVERY TRIP OUT, make this your first plan after checking zero. The hard part of this drill is that everyone loves the satisfying feeling of hitting every hundred or so, validating data. But you can do that later! The other challenge is that there’s nothing on the line, it’s not a match, so it’s easy to jump the gun and get impatient.

2. Don’t rush, take in every detail, study the area, and average your wind across the field of fire.

3. Finalize your call, and take a poke.

4. Hit or miss, reverse out of the shot and analyze what you could have seen better.

   • See if there is a single indicator you could’ve used during the shot sequence that would’ve been the best source of information.

   • DON’T SKIP THIS STEP - This is where the learning happens!

5. It’s a long term gain, sow progression drill. Things won’t necessarily change overnight, but it’ll take the already solid wind calling you have, and help you start to hone in on more specific details. 

   *LEVEL TWO*

6. Later in the day when winds are up, come back to this drawing board, but try to do everything in the rifle scope

   • A second level drill would be to switch to only doing this on the rifle

   • Give yourself a few minutes tops, then one minute, then make your first shot within 20 seconds.

   • 800+ yards is fine, does not have to be 1000…

• Efficiency Drill 1:

  Using this standard drill mainly to iron out your bag stability improvements and check for complete equipment control throughout…

1. Think of the build and break drill from the class

2. 15 seconds, then 12 seconds, then 10 seconds…

3. Pick a standard target - .4 wide, non-painted steel preferred

4. Sturdy prop, different positions available. Pipe fence was a great example

5. On the clock, build a swift and complete position, and shoot 2 shots on target

   • Bag down, rifle down

   • Drive it forward while lining up barrel to target

   • Settle QUICK AND FIRM into the bag as you acquire target in scope

     • Mag well buried into bag for rudder support

     • Forcefully and abruptly sawed/shimmied into position in target area

     • Finish building connection behind rifle

     • Make final shimmy onto exact POA

   • Push out a breath as you close the bolt

   • Hyper focus on target, make the shot!

   • Spot, RESET in the bag, cycle another round, make second shot!

6. Evaluate your progress on building an effective position quicker without compromising fundamentals.

• Strive to have a solid grip, saddle the rifle against your body when making big movements, and be aggressive with your strength in managing the rifle – You are in charge, not the rifle!

7. Choose another time limit, and repeat

• Spotting Drill 1:

Do this for the first several shots, until you have lost the element of surprise on your wind call. Once you know confidently know where your shots are landing and where the next ones are GOING to land, you move to drill 2. Next phase will allow you to re-introduce the element of surprise to make your brain have to analyze the point of impact again from a fresh perspective… But for now:

1. Start on completely sturdy props and use un-painted steel

2. Use a big/small array, maybe a KYL Largest and then Smallest (or one of the smallest)

3. Make perfectly stable and bag-settled position

4. Take several seconds before the shot to study the target and backdrop

5. Prepare for expectations of what you’ll see with a hit or a miss

   • Depending on your vision, consider more emphasis on plate movement and statistics (how likely you expect to be over or under on your windage).

6. Take a shot, and freeze to see everything you can, and take a few seconds to process.

7. Make a measured call, not “a little left,” but “0.2 left of center…”

8. Take that call to a small plate and test your call.

9. If it hits – SUCCESS… If it misses, repeat the drill on the big plate and see if you see it better;

   • You will likely have a better expectation the second time because you just saw a miss in the dirt. That’s ok!

   • Let that guide your brain to better interpret the information down range this next shot

10. To reset the level of challenge, take the drill to a significantly different distance and repeat the drill.

• Spotting Drill 2:

Taped Turret, with a buddy or alone, re-introduce the element of surprise and get yourself working hard to spot again once you’ve pretty much figured it out for the current conditions…

1. Have a buddy spin your windage off by up to double what the actual wind conditions call for, and down to zero wind. For example, if it’s roughly 1.0L of wind, allow for anything within 2.0L-0.0.

   • This simulates a big gust or a big lull in wind; a bit much, but still reasonable and good for this drill

2. If you’re alone, it’s less calculated

   • Without looking, spin your own windage a little one way, reset your grip and go the other way. A few clicks this way, that way, this way, etc… Once you feel lost, you’re set!

3. Cover the turret with some painter’s tape - if alone and it’s on the support side, just don’t look!

4. Shoot, spot, measure, correct – analyze results

5. Reverse dissect what you thought you saw versus what actually happened

6. Contrary to the fun speed stage in class, take your time. Accuracy over speed here!

7. Repeat this drill until you can’t miss your second shot, or you’re completely sick of it! At a minimum, do this for 5 cycles.

• Miscellaneous:

  After seeing you cram into tight spaces all weekend, I see this as a specific challenge for you. You may not need a push to do it, but this MAY be your “leg day.” If I were you I would find every prop that looks like it’s not friendly to a bigger guy, and get all up in it! Figure it out, look for any common positional hacks that you can use universally from one tight situation to another

  For me, I can’t sit Indian style, especially if I have to bend forward and down as well. Attacking this struggle led me to become confident in a side-saddle-hip-sit, and also using tripod in very low heights. Find the weakness or toughest challenges, and rip the band aid off. This would just be a good filler when you’re taking a break from sending actual rounds in your training day.

• Free Time:

1. HIGHLY recommend reverting back to more scope based wind work in second half of day

   • Mirage is up, changes more frequent, challenge accepted!

   • Build a tough panning long distance stage, and put in the time to get a specific plan

   • Make sure you have a plan A, and a simplified plan B using simple additives per target.

   • Test it out and reverse engineer what you needed, vs what you saw or could improve

2. Obviously feel free to do anything else that needs work – don’t skip the tough stuff!

3. For EVERY SHOT, prep yourself with minimum correction and blind correction mentality, and IF you miss, try to make a 4-5 second correction (1st splash through 2nd shot)

CONCLUSION:

             There are always more drills and beneficial methods you can use depending how you want to attack your focus areas. These are my observations and best ideas for you, but certainly not the end-all-be-all; don’t be afraid to try other things. You’re in a great spot with a great mentality, and I truly believe your future is very promising in this sport! If you definitively approach each of these little ideas, I know you’ll be able to pick up several points every day you’re out there. That could be a big chunk in a 2-day match or even a 1-day. For a relatively new shooter, you are doing really well. If you stick with it and become more efficient, you’ll be crushing it.

Regarding your goals, I like them, and think they’re very much in reach. Peoples learning curves and timelines have shortened so much nowadays, it’s hard to guess at it — but I think this next year will be pretty awesome with some ambitious effort.

             I’m open for a follow up if you have any questions. See below for a bonus list of highlighted items from the curriculum that I want to emphasize before your next trip out. I’m really happy you came in last minute, and I’m glad I got to work with you. This is just the beginning, and as an alumni of my training, I make extra efforts to help out where I can. If you have any questions along the way, want to squad together, or discuss anything, just reach out. Please stay in touch, share your victories big or small, and let’s shoot together again down the road. Thank you and God bless,

Matt Caruso

Caruso Precision

CLASS HIGHLIGHTS AND RECOMMENDATIONS

1.      Get out and train sooner than later, lock in what you learned

2.      Keep your attention within your thirds, G.O.D.

3.      Stick to your processes, in every phase of the day/match/stage/shot sequence; don’t cut corners

4.      Drill your weaknesses even if it’s less fun – “don’t skip leg day!”

5.      First shot = most important shot… make it perfect!

6.      Don’t settle for bad wind angles, use an azimuth or good compass for exact numbers

7.      After a stage, reverse math the wind to derive true wind conditions to carry forward

8.      Other than checking DOPE, don’t shoot clean steal because it makes you weak

9.      IMO spotting is the most important skill beyond having good fundamentals

10.  Prepare spotting expectations based on target environment BEFORE you’re on the clock

11.  Know your min. correction for edge miss (½ target) and blind miss (¾ target) BEFORE on the clock

12.  Plan your toughest target, toughest position as a primary driver of your plan development

13.  Review EVERYTHING on your rifle end to end before saying you’re ready for the clock

14.  Make mental snapshot of last shot before stepping off. Finish process before chatting with buddies

15.  Pause, process, plan, then execute… Do NOT rush downrange analysis

16.  Corrections should have a number, not just a direction… “I was left,” vs “I was 0.4 left”

17.  Move the bag and rifle separately from position to position

18.  Saw into bag before every shot, it becomes muscle memory, costs no time, yields good benefit

19.  Confidence = efficient time management. Take the time before the shot, or you’ll struggle afterward

20.  Move quick, shoot slow