I was listening to Chris's @ChrisWay new podcast series "The Straight Dope" and reflected back on what I heard and my experience(lack of) with shooting the Kraft drill, and how it mapped to what I heard.
I am a decent shooter prone and can, like many, shoot small 3 shot groups that grow with the number of shots if we don't discount flyers and make excuses for ourselves. That is with all the Gucci gear and match factory ammo, because I refuse to reload.
I shot Chris's Kraft target drill, that asks the shooter to build 12 positions from four different heights, standing, kneeling, sitting, and prone. He asked to time yourself and video yourself through the process. At the time it was interesting and open for debate on what this would prove and created some discussion. Keep in mind this was still idealized, I shot standing with a schmedium game changer on top of a RRS tripod, but I picked the height, it was timed but not in a match setting so much lower clock jitters. Same choices for kneeling, sitting, prone. Human nature is to make these choices based on our preferences, consciously or unconsciously. Not shockingly, the groups were much larger
I am 4 MOA positional shooter.
Ok so what, listening to some of Chris's podcasts and previous descriptions it was clear it is a tool to measure yourself and improve. Not only did my precision 1MOA to 4MOA degrade but so did my accuracy, as you can see my expanded group moved down and right by multiple MOA. I have heard a couple different approaches in response to this, Chris highlighted his focus on building of positions to improve not only precision but accuracy, could he focus on the fundamentals to ensure in random positions he could maintain POA/POI while minimizing degradation of precision. The other perspective I heard was @lowlight on his podcast referring to the Kraft Challenge and his recognition of consistent shifts in accuracy based on his positions and adjusting his ZERO to compensate. For example if his prone is dead on, standing 0.1 left, kneeling 0.1 left, 0.1 high, sitting 0.2 left 0.1 high, and adjust his match gun zero to take this into account and improve his accuracy based on having the ideal positional zero for him.
The next thing Chris added was now map a PRS 2 MOA target, or animal vital zone over your Kraft data. Look at the misses based on what my data is telling me my hit percentage would be before you degrade for wind, positions that are dictated vs chosen, equipment limitations, and match jitters. I will miss more than 50% of my shots depending on the situations dictated to me. Before all of that I am a 4MOA shooter, and I should expect that I will miss 50% of my shots or more on a 2MOA target unless I train to reduce my accuracy and precision degradation based on positions.
So I have a choice, if I was interested in winning or placing high in matches it would be on me to reduce this error zone, chasing equipment, calibers, bullets, powders, etc. are not going to have the impact that focusing on these highlighted fundamentals of position building and the impact of inconsistency they induce. Folks that know me know that that is probably the last thing that's gonna happen, I enjoy this hobby, often my rifle doesn't make it out of the safe between matches, and that is ok for me. I am comfortable being a "bottom middle(trademark pending)" shooter, I enjoy the time at matches with friends and seeing top level shooters compete. It was a good click in my mind on mapping the targets we shoot to what the paper tells me my capabilities are, no sense in beating myself up if I finish a stage or match with a hit percentage that the paper told me was my skill level.
Sorry for the book but this is what has been rattling in my brain and was cathartic for me to write it down. Suck less, or embrace the suck and have fun....
I am a decent shooter prone and can, like many, shoot small 3 shot groups that grow with the number of shots if we don't discount flyers and make excuses for ourselves. That is with all the Gucci gear and match factory ammo, because I refuse to reload.
I shot Chris's Kraft target drill, that asks the shooter to build 12 positions from four different heights, standing, kneeling, sitting, and prone. He asked to time yourself and video yourself through the process. At the time it was interesting and open for debate on what this would prove and created some discussion. Keep in mind this was still idealized, I shot standing with a schmedium game changer on top of a RRS tripod, but I picked the height, it was timed but not in a match setting so much lower clock jitters. Same choices for kneeling, sitting, prone. Human nature is to make these choices based on our preferences, consciously or unconsciously. Not shockingly, the groups were much larger
I am 4 MOA positional shooter.Ok so what, listening to some of Chris's podcasts and previous descriptions it was clear it is a tool to measure yourself and improve. Not only did my precision 1MOA to 4MOA degrade but so did my accuracy, as you can see my expanded group moved down and right by multiple MOA. I have heard a couple different approaches in response to this, Chris highlighted his focus on building of positions to improve not only precision but accuracy, could he focus on the fundamentals to ensure in random positions he could maintain POA/POI while minimizing degradation of precision. The other perspective I heard was @lowlight on his podcast referring to the Kraft Challenge and his recognition of consistent shifts in accuracy based on his positions and adjusting his ZERO to compensate. For example if his prone is dead on, standing 0.1 left, kneeling 0.1 left, 0.1 high, sitting 0.2 left 0.1 high, and adjust his match gun zero to take this into account and improve his accuracy based on having the ideal positional zero for him.
The next thing Chris added was now map a PRS 2 MOA target, or animal vital zone over your Kraft data. Look at the misses based on what my data is telling me my hit percentage would be before you degrade for wind, positions that are dictated vs chosen, equipment limitations, and match jitters. I will miss more than 50% of my shots depending on the situations dictated to me. Before all of that I am a 4MOA shooter, and I should expect that I will miss 50% of my shots or more on a 2MOA target unless I train to reduce my accuracy and precision degradation based on positions.
So I have a choice, if I was interested in winning or placing high in matches it would be on me to reduce this error zone, chasing equipment, calibers, bullets, powders, etc. are not going to have the impact that focusing on these highlighted fundamentals of position building and the impact of inconsistency they induce. Folks that know me know that that is probably the last thing that's gonna happen, I enjoy this hobby, often my rifle doesn't make it out of the safe between matches, and that is ok for me. I am comfortable being a "bottom middle(trademark pending)" shooter, I enjoy the time at matches with friends and seeing top level shooters compete. It was a good click in my mind on mapping the targets we shoot to what the paper tells me my capabilities are, no sense in beating myself up if I finish a stage or match with a hit percentage that the paper told me was my skill level.
Sorry for the book but this is what has been rattling in my brain and was cathartic for me to write it down. Suck less, or embrace the suck and have fun....
