TargetTalk

Here's a great quote by writer Ross Seyfried (look him up):

Perhaps my most succinct quote is, “you cannot buy skill.” I firmly believe that. I began to form the opinion in my competitive pistol shooting days. At the time, and for quite a while I lived on top of the hill. I watched others, who were actually more technically skilled than I, begin to approach the level that could possibly beat me. They were close, very close but one by one I watched them get to the top of their game and never be able to beat me. The reason was that they thought that as they reached that upper echelon, they had to buy the new widget, holster or fashion-pistol, and that it would be this, and not pure practiced skill, that would best me. When I saw them go for the gear, I knew I still had them. They gave up their thinking that they could beat me by practicing harder and learning their game better, and vested their faith in what they thought was superior equipment. They failed because they gave up on their own ability to keep doing the next thing right. Gear was not the answer.

Hey, Rog, talk like that is bad for business.

A knave and peasant slave am I. I beg thy forgiveness.

Don't beg my forgiveness. I've got nothing for sale.

C'mon Rover!
We both know, that's the best way to buy new and cheap second hand equipment!
Why spoil it!?

Rover wrote: ↑Mon Jan 22, 2024 9:34 am .... Gear was not the answer.

The other side of the coin is that you need good quality gear, buy once and use well.
From another post an example is someone trying to buy a Sako Triace, why would you
but a 40 yr old pistol that didn't perform back in the 80's and was never fixed ?
Buy the best you can afford to buy to do the job and learn how to shoot it.
Sometimes it might be a old gun, sometimes a new one.

Buy as many points as you can... then you have to earn the rest.

You don’t buy points. You lose the points you shoot by buying unsuitable equipment.

You cannot improve with gear that does not shoot on call. If the war calls for F35s, showing up with a biplane doesn’t give you the moral high ground.

Which pellets will buy the most points? (please be specific, manufacturer, diameter and weight)
Asking for a friend.

Who says you can’t buy points??

JRV wrote: ↑Mon Jan 22, 2024 10:41 pm You don’t buy points. You lose the points you shoot by buying unsuitable equipment.

You cannot improve with gear that does not shoot on call. If the war calls for F35s, showing up with a biplane doesn’t give you the moral high ground.

Dang! You nailed it!

JRV wrote: ↑Mon Jan 22, 2024 10:41 pm You don’t buy points. You lose the points you shoot by buying unsuitable equipment.

You cannot improve with gear that does not shoot on call. If the war calls for F35s, showing up with a biplane doesn’t give you the moral high ground.

Nice first post. Could not agree more.

JRV wrote: ↑Mon Jan 22, 2024 10:41 pm You don’t buy points. You lose the points you shoot by buying unsuitable equipment.

You cannot improve with gear that does not shoot on call. If the war calls for F35s, showing up with a biplane doesn’t give you the moral high ground.

It's a crappy analogy, but I'll play along. Equipment suitable for top-flight pistol competition is very much closer in level of sophistication to a DeHavilland Tiger Moth than to an F35.

Over time I've learned to "buy once / cry once". Given how difficult precision pistol is, learning is much easier knowing the errors are not equipment related ;)

william wrote: ↑Tue Jan 23, 2024 2:03 pm
It's a crappy analogy, but I'll play along. Equipment suitable for top-flight pistol competition is very much closer in level of sophistication to a DeHavilland Tiger Moth than to an F35.

You’re absolutely right about the analogy. It’s shallow, but I’m not an aviation guy. Gear that was Olympic quality 10 years ago (and even 15 or 20 years ago) will still put good quality pellets through the same hole over and again. It’s not like there have big technical leaps since compressed air and reliable electronic triggers showed up.

My point was, and this is coming from a bullseye pistol background, shooters love to recite platitudes about “not buying skill,” “it’s the Indian, not the arrow,” et cetera, as though suitable—and often somewhat expensive—equipment is not the bare minimum for competitive success.

You cannot shoot precision pistol with a pistol that is not a precision tool. A called 10 must be a 10 every time, or else your brain cannot be trained to recognize the shooting processes, images, and feelings that create success. A better pistol with better ergonomics and a better trigger only helps. There are diminishing returns at a certain point, sure, but as a rule, buy high quality and do not be held back by gear. There are no rewards in life for overcoming self-imposed handicaps. Usain Bolt didn’t sprint in cowboy boots.

There is no reason to compete with a less precise pistol or a more tiring pistol (e.g. a SSP for 10m or a full-power .45 ballgun for BE) unless it’s for fun alone.

Ross Seyfried was not a bullseye or air pistol guy. He was a leather slapper from the early days of IPSC, which is a sport that does not require precision tools. It requires reliable pistols that shoot near to POA and the athleticism to shoot big A-zones quickly. Nevertheless, he was outpaced by shooters of equal skill who “bought the points”—i.e., those who bought or modified guns that better exploited the IPSC rules than a basic .45 1911.

Leatham, Enos, et al. shot compensated .38 Supers while Seyfried stayed with the .45. He insisted on competing with full-power .45 loads in lower capacity guns. Those point-buyers became champions that swapped titles for decades. Seyfried became a gunwriter.

There's a big difference between buying new equipment because you have recognized a specific limitation of your existing equipment that is holding you back, and buying new equipment in the hopes that it will improve your score.

For example, the grip of my pistol is not adequate for top-level shooting for me. That is because of the specific way I grip the pistol and the angle my arm makes. However, I am not going to spend the money to get a custom grip made yet, because right now my technique is a bigger cause of my bad shots than my grip is. I will buy a new grip when and only when this ceases to be so.

On the other side of the coin, I've seen people whose scores are mediocre at best get into long discussions about what pellets to use or what shoes to wear.

william wrote: ↑Tue Jan 23, 2024 2:03 pm

JRV wrote: ↑Mon Jan 22, 2024 10:41 pm You don’t buy points. You lose the points you shoot by buying unsuitable equipment.

You cannot improve with gear that does not shoot on call. If the war calls for F35s, showing up with a biplane doesn’t give you the moral high ground.

It's a crappy analogy, but I'll play along. Equipment suitable for top-flight pistol competition is very much closer in level of sophistication to a DeHavilland Tiger Moth than to an F35.

True...and I spent 40 years flight testing top-end military aircraft.

Are you Russian?

Mike M. wrote: ↑Thu Jan 25, 2024 9:05 pm

True...and I spent 40 years flight testing top-end military aircraft.
[/quote]
Yes, but do you still enjoy flying a Tiger.....wind in the hair etc.

My preference would be a Pitts Special.