Well, that was something of a disaster. Could not group or get decent scores, whatever I tried. Even reverting to my older routines, still just could not pattern tighter than the eight ring, and there were a pile of seven's, and what should have been tens just weren't. So, I'm going to leave the rifle alone for a while. I'll try wind down and keep a clear head until the DURC Open, then see how that goes.

Hopefully I'll be heading for the range this afternoon. I want to bear in mind my position, but pay particular attention to my head position and eye alignment and centering, and my trigger control. Should achieve a respectable score if that comes off. Also, what I'm going to try when zeroed and sighted in, is get up, relax, stretch and have a drink every five shots in the match, whether I feel I need it or not, and no matter how good the last shot was. I have a feeling that will cut out fliers dramatically. So today's focus is:

Head and eye position
Trigger control
Extremely regular breaks.

I'll update later with a report. Hopefully the electronics are playing ball today.

Okay, time to report on yesterday I feel. Couple of things to note.

Trigger break is brilliant. It requires loads more dry-firing training to adapt to properly, but it's extremely crisp and smooth now, quite pleased with this. Didn't use it to its full potential, but that'll come with time.

Position was bad. I was stiff and sore from having worked for the morning, so couldn't get comfortable for longer than a couple of shots, so it wasn't a good day for positional analysis. My neck was sore in position and I was overall, far too restless and couldn't find my balance properly. Was dry-firing today and position was absolutely rock solid, so was just out of sorts yesterday I suppose.

Didn't get to shoot a match like I wanted. I couldn't get the electronics to co-operate (insisted it was a pistol target whatever I did) so I was forced to use paper. While this was a pain in the ass, it did tell me some things: I suspect it was largely to do with how uncomfortable and out of sorts I was, but I could not get proper scores on the paper targets, my position just wasn't steady enough and I was very uncomfortable indeed. On the other hand, when I focus on shooting groups on a single target, I'm definitely at an advantage. Shot a ten shot group, with two fliers, but the eight shot main group would have fit in the ten ring. As is, it was slightly high and left, so a couple of the shots broke the nine, but it was still small enough.

The fliers are bothering me though. Even on the electronic targets, I find it'd be a rare ten shot string where I didn't drop an eight. It's getting that the eights are getting better, as are the nines for that matter, and there are a lot more tens, but I'll be very pleased to see the eights get thinned out altogether.

So, on the whole, I didn't learn as much as I would like to have learned yesterday. My trigger adjustments have paid off I think, though I wasn't in the position to really find out yesterday, so maybe next week will tell better. I also learned just how big a difference the single bull targets can make, which is something I haven't really appreciated properly before. I'm somewhat more apprehensive about the next match now, as it'll be outdoors on paper targets, but if I just keep my wits about me, it shouldn't be too bad. I'm going to be fairly conservative with it and, as it's outdoors, if I break 510 I'll be satisfied. I'll be aiming for 525 if it's a good day for me though.

Okay, I'm going to head for a training session now, so I want to lay out some objectives for the day, and I can come back afterwards, see how well I realised them and what effect they had. So, for today:

- Analyse my consistency of position. When I zero, I will take note of my mat position and my body position in relation to this. Hereafter, I will note this when positioning myself.
- Take long breaks between firing a shot. Establish rigorous check routine. Refer to notes for details of this routine for each shot.
- Watch breathing control. Focus on breath for every shot.
- Trigger control. Be careful and analyse new trigger settings.

Before each shot, I want to run through my list of checks and ask myself "Is there any reason why this shouldn't be a ten?" I then want to focus on taking the shot immaculately carefully.

I'm going to shoot a match. My target for today, assuming I take proper care, is 545. I will post again later with details of how I got on.

Aims and Ambitions

I'm David Franklin, from Dublin, Ireland, and this is ostensibly my training diary for shooting. It will inevitably become more than that though, and entries are quite likely to relate to college, events in my personal life, and assorted other bitching. It's important, however, for me to keep a good training diary. I shoot smallbore target rifle. I have shot air rifle and want to get back into that in the autumn and train competitively at it. My averages are fairly paltry, but rising, and the only way I'm going to do that is to document my problems and their solutions in order to create a troubleshooting database and make sure such problems don't recur. And there we have an explanation of this journal. Articles of interest may also be added, shooting-related or otherwise, and I'll almost inevitably have things to complain about with regard to shooting beurocracy or media misrepresentation.