Hey all! Earlier this year a few new friends I met at a wedding invited me to go to an outlaw USPSA style shooting competition. In my youth I shot guns through Boy Scouts and even bought a few long guns for plinking around, but I never really caught the gun bug and eventually moved halfway across the country and found a wonderful partner who is not too thrilled about guns in general. By the time I was invited to this event I hadn't picked up a gun, let alone fired one, in over a decade.

As it happens, I found the event a lot of fun. Even though I placed second to last at the event I had an absolute blast and enjoyed the friendly and inviting atmosphere at the range. I have been encouraged to come to more events and to keep shooting with them in the future.

My issue is that I am a pretty competitive person when given the opportunity. I don't need to be in first place, but I always like to strive for above average at anything I do, if only barely. Obviously, you don't get better at something without working at it, but there are a few roadblocks to me training regularly and I'm looking for some advice.

First, as mentioned earlier, my partner isn't thrilled at the prospect of having a gun in the house. She has said that she is fine with me owning a gun and shooting at these events and whatnot, but would prefer some kind of off-site storage so it isn't in the home. I'm totally fine with this but all the resources I can find that cater to this are more of a "temporary surrender due to mental instability" kind of deals and not really what I am looking for.
Second, shooting is really expensive and time consuming. From when I was trying to go to the gym I have learned that if I want to do something I need to reduce any friction between me and a task I want to accomplish in order for me to actually do it. When it came to going to the gym, I ultimately bought some weights and keep them in my home office so I see them all day long and am constantly reminded that I should exercise. Driving to a range, buying a box or two of 9mm, running drills, then coming home is honestly a bit of an ask. It's not that I can't afford to do that, just that I much prefer finding way to lower total cost of ownership in any of my hobbies whenever possible.

At this point I've bought a copy of acevr because it seemed like the path of least resistance to getting some semblance of range training in while also appeasing the "no guns in the house" requirement. However, now that I have it I find myself a bit overwhelmed with the options in front of me and I don't know what is actually going to help me improve vs build bad habits.

I've posted essentially this question on reddit already and I've gotten some decent advice there, but I figured the people in this community might be a bit more understanding of my situation instead of just telling me to go get 1-on-1 live fire training with the best shooter in town and calling me a shill/advertisement for the product.

Anyway, I'm in the Denver Metro area and shot with the NOCO 3gun at Pawnee group for that outlaw match earlier this year. If anyone else is in the area I'd love to expand my friend group when it comes to this hobby.

Cheers,
Nick

EDIT: forgot to mention I shot carry optics and will probably continue to do so. Also I'm left handed just to make everything 10% more difficult for me.

You can train at home with some specialized laser pistols that will not fire real ammunition.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0cC0J_swSww&t=1s

Maybe leave the real gun with a range buddy?

VooDoo

Well snap caps are one thing to use for just re-magging and getting the feel of your gun.

VodoundaVinci wrote: Thu Dec 12, 2024 6:29 pm You can train at home with some specialized laser pistols that will not fire real ammunition.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0cC0J_swSww&t=1s

Maybe leave the real gun with a range buddy?

VooDoo

Yeah, that's a good suggestion. Another piece of the pie is that all shooting precipitates from the trigger pull, so muscle memory easily can be trained with snap caps. You can train out the anticipation and thus a potential flinch.

CDF

If your desire is to be competitive, then the frequency of training you should be getting will make buying ammunition and driving to the range an expensive PITA. I have been using a laser system and electronic targets for most of 2024 training into my switch to RDO's on all my carry guns. The ability to shoot from concealment against the timer right in my own living room has been....frankly, phenomenal, for me. Then again, I'm using my pistols and not Airsoft or training guns.

Is the "no guns in the house" rule permanent or non negotiable? By locking the gun(s) and live ammunition up separately and adopting safe handling rules/practices, I'd think a compromise would save a lot of expense and present minimal opportunities for firearm problems in the home. Training into a competitive state without live ammunition is very possible but doing so without your preferred competition firearm is going to be very limiting without live fire.

Not trying to make the water muddy. This is a difficult thing to advise someone on who wants to train up/into a competitive state without a gun in the home.

VooDoo

VodoundaVinci wrote: Fri Dec 13, 2024 11:20 am If your desire is to be competitive, then the frequency of training you should be getting will make buying ammunition and driving to the range an expensive PITA. I have been using a laser system and electronic targets for most of 2024 training into my switch to RDO's on all my carry guns. The ability to shoot from concealment against the timer right in my own living room has been....frankly, phenomenal, for me. Then again, I'm using my pistols and not Airsoft or training guns.

Is the "no guns in the house" rule permanent or non negotiable? By locking the gun(s) and live ammunition up separately and adopting safe handling rules/practices, I'd think a compromise would save a lot of expense and present minimal opportunities for firearm problems in the home. Training into a competitive state without live ammunition is very possible but doing so without your preferred competition firearm is going to be very limiting without live fire.

Not trying to make the water muddy. This is a difficult thing to advise someone on who wants to train up/into a competitive state without a gun in the home.

VooDoo

Thanks for all the great responses.

I think the "no guns" rule is likely something that can be softened over time. At the moment, there is a lot of other chaos going on in our lives and she just does not have the mental energy to deal with that kind of a question. When I initially broached this topic I brought up the idea of storing it completely disassembled as an option as well. The issue mostly stems from a close friend who had a genuine psychotic break last year where they were a danger to themselves and the thought of that happening to either of us is still something she is worried about even though neither of us have any history of mental health problems.

I've thought of figuring out the gun I would use, then 3D printing a model to use for Ace so I am getting a close 1:1 comparison when using that tool. I could add weights to give it a more realistic feel and I've even toyed with printing simulateed magazines to actually drop and reload with when training, unlike the system that exists in the game where you simply tap the controller. When I signed up for the program I ordered their Arctus Handset which is modeled off the Sig P320, but idk if that's the gun I will shoot with. In fact, I feel that if I were to purchase a firearm for this it would probably be in the CZ family simply because that's what the guys I shoot with shoot so having parts interchangeability would be really helpful if anything went wrong with any of our pistols.

Ultimately I know I don't have the time/dedication/money/desire to be a top competitor even at my local level, I'm just looking to do better than 50% of the field next time I show up. Finishing 19th out of 40 would be a win in my book.

I am not a competitive person - I enjoy competing against a clock and my past performance but "winning" is not something that influences me or motivates me. With firearms, my greatest motivator is making things smoother, faster, and more accurate than I was yesterday, last week, last month especially since I moved to having RDO's on all of my carry/personal defense firearms. This motivation has prompted me to upgrade all my holsters and pistols and concentrate on making drawing from concealment, presentation, accuracy, and magazine changes, I have overhauled my grip and presentation doing sometimes 200+ draws and dry fire/laser training shots to a target and timing the results.

So, we are kind of on a similar journey. I think the first thing you might do is to narrow your firearm choices down the your preferred competition pieces and do some serious soul searching about what you intend to shoot with and why - I have settled on DA/SA hammer fired pistols with decockers and safeties and sold everything else except for a very few pistols and revolvers that hold sentimental value - I don't train with anything I'm not going to carry or use for personal defense. Loved Glocks, striker fired, and SA pistols but sold them all (well, most of them) to fund purchases that are hammer fired, DA/SA pistols with RDO's


My goal is to maximise my self defense potential in drawing from concealment and placing multiple rounds as accurately and quickly as I can at varying self defense distances using the guns I carry. My biggest suggestion to you is to narrow down/decide which firearms you want to become super tuned to and become competitive with. I think step one is to decide what platform you intend to compete with and then develop a training regimen that utilizes that pistol or platform.

I spent years of time and too much lost training effort experimenting with various makes, models, and configurations of handguns until I decided to narrow the field. Now I have limited myself to a specific type of platform and upgraded all those pistols to RDO's, trigger and action enhancements, training aids, and holsters, grips, etc. I think step one for anyone trying to maximise performance and be competitive/improve their skills is to decide on what platform one is going to specialize in the takes advantage of that type/platforms advantages towards the desired goal.

VooDoo