Dan Gutknecht

Name: Dan Gutknecht

Age: 43

How long have you been shooting bullseye pistol?

1) I shot my first sanctioned match in 2003, but I’d been competing in an informal bullseye league at Bass Pro shops since 1999.

How long have you been a Master/High Master?

1) Indoor: Master as of 4/22/2008. Outdoor: Master as of 12/27/2011

What are your current average NMC scores for...

RF) Indoor: 280. Outdoor: 286 (last 5 matches)

45) Indoor: 278. Outdoor: 280 (last 5 matches)

What is the highest NMC score you shot for...

RF) Indoor: 293 13x. Outdoor: 296 13x.

45) Indoor: 291 12x. Outdoor: 290 10x

What guns/accessories do you use for...

I haven’t gone through that many pistols over the course of my shooting career. I’ve been of the belief that once you’re able to call your shots with reasonable confidence, you can tell if it’s the gun or the shooter — and so far, it’s never been the gun. I tried going the anatomical grip route for a while, but when I wanted to work on getting my Distinguished Pistol badge, I changed everything to slab grips and I’ve never gone back.

RF) I started with a Ruger Mark II, stainless 6 7/8″ with a Tasco 30mm red dot. The pistol served me well, and I never felt like I was out-shooting it or it was holding me back. I switched to a 1911 with a Marvel conversion to simplify things and have one grip/trigger profile to work with.

CF) Initially, I was shooting a S&W M52-2 with a grip-mounted 1″ Ultradot for centerfire. Once my .45 scores began to exceed my CF scores, I simplified again by shooting only two pistols.

45) My first .45 was a stainless Springfield 1911 with a Wilson match barrel and a frame-mount Tasco 30mm red dot. My current .45 is a Les Baer with a slide-mount 30mm Ultradot.

Personally, I find I prefer the larger dot tube. I like the larger field of view, and I find it easier to reacquire after recoil. On the general subject of dot scopes, the conventional wisdom seems to be (or at least it was, at one time) that shooters should start out with iron sights until they reach Expert or so, then switch to dot scopes. I’m not sure I agree with that. I think the dot can provide important feedback to new shooters that iron sights can’t, especially when it comes to diagnosing trigger-pull problems.

What ammo/load do you use for...

RF) CCI SV

45) 200gr SWC w/ 3.9 grains of Universal Clays. I use the same load for the long and short line, indoors and out. Again, this is for simplicity. Find what works and stick with it.

What are the three most critical attributes for shooting high scores and why?

1) Mental management. Granted, you can’t make a good shot without proper sight alignment and smooth trigger operation, but it’s mental management that makes it possible to be consistent. Everyone has his or her own ways of managing what goes on behind their shooting glasses, and it’s not easy to explain (see With Winning In Mind by Lanny Bassham for a much better example), but there are a couple areas where it seems to make a big difference for me. They are: dealing with mistakes, overcoming the “fear of success,” and “letting go” of the conscious thought process.

a. Dealing with mistakes. What happens after you throw a shot into the white or fail to get a shot off in time during rapid fire? Or, and I hate to even type these words… crossfire on another target. Nothing. It’s gone, and you can’t take it back. It’s what happens next that matters. Let go of the mistake and realize that what just happened has absolutely no bearing on your ability to shoot an X with your next shot. Every shot is a unique event that cannot affect the future - unless you let it.

b. Fear of success. This happens when I start counting up my score before it’s time. It can be on a single target, for one section of a match, or the entire match. For me, all it does is add unnecessary pressure to the situation. As an example, for a long time, I had never put back-to-back 100s together in a timed-fire match. Every time I’d shoot a 100 for the first target, I’d think, “This could be it! Man, I’d love to see that 200 in my score on the match bulletin.” This would lead to classic negative reinforcement thinking like, “Better not screw this up.” Now, similarly to the way I work to forget mistakes, I work to forget the 100 I just shot and concentrate on making the next shot as good as possible. Along the same lines, I’ve never shot a 100 slow fire. When I’d start putting a string of 10s together, the pressure on each subsequent shot seemed greater and greater, almost to the point where, subconsciously, the thought of dropping an 8 in there just to take the pressure off didn’t seem so bad. Now, once I’ve confirmed with the spotting scope that my shots are hitting my point of call, I very seldom look until all 10 shots are downrange. One of these days, I’m going to be pleasantly surprised.

c. Letting go. Many people talk about being in “the zone” when performing a task – finding that transient state where the conscious mind turns off and everything happens automatically. Getting the higher brain functions out of the way is an ongoing challenge for me, but it’s great when it happens. The self-talking part of my brain goes quiet, and the whole world narrows down to what I see through the red dot. I don’t know how to get there on command, but when it does happen, I try hard to remember the experience so my subconscious remembers it as a good thing.

2) Trigger control. Before I started shooting bullseye, pulling the trigger seemed like the simplest thing in the world. Line up the sights, click, bang. Now I know how truly complex it is. No matter how many times I say to myself “smooth, steadily increasing pressure until it goes off,” my brain wants to wait until the dot is perfectly still and centered on the bullseye, which is never going to happen. This goes back to “letting go” above – when the sight picture is as good as it’s going to get, you have to commit to the shot an make it happen. Trust in the fact that you’ve checked your grip and trigger finger placement when you dry fired before the string and the dot didn’t jump. Accept the area of movement and put every effort into moving that trigger as smoothly as possible. It’s amazing how steady and consistent I can be why dry-firing. That dot doesn’t move a millimeter, and the trigger breaks cleanly and consistently, every time. Put rounds in the gun to make holes in paper, and some days it feels like the trigger magically goes from 3.5 pounds to 35 pounds.

3) Following a consistent shot process. This came from attending a clinic put on by Brian Zins. The idea is to do exactly the same thing every time you fire a shot. It’s about building a routine and sticking to it. I have a loose sequence of events in my head that begins with the three-minute preparation period (checking the dot, making sure magazines are loaded and on the bench, double checking that my spotting scope is pointed at my target, etc.), but the real sequence, for me, starts with the command to load. I try to keep that sequence of moving and breathing exactly the same from string to string.

What is the one thing you struggle with the most?

1) Slow fire. Always have, and it’s frustrating. But it’s getting better. I know I’m over thinking things, trying to dress-up the shot at the last minute. In sustained fire, there’s no time to over-analyze. Training takes over and, usually, the self-talking part of the brain gets out of the way. In slow fire, it’s just you and your inner voice, standing there arguing. I used to put the gun down and start over after a few seconds of “wait… I can fix this… almost there… nope… hold it… right… about… there…” Now I’m coming to realize that by the time that conversation even starts, it’s too late. Put it down now and start over.

What training exercise do you feel is the most productive?

1) Train like you compete, whatever it is you’re doing. When I dry fire, I’ll set up a reduced-scale target, wear my shooting glasses, and go through the entire pre-shot process each time (breathing, lock the arm, bring the gun up, find the trigger finger placement, move the trigger, etc.). For live fire training, if I’m at my home indoor range, I’ll use the turning targets and automated range commands. If not, I use an MP3 player with range commands.

What "gizmo" (blinders, polarizing filter for scope, shield for weak eye, etc.) do you feel is the most helpful to you?

1) I use a flip-down occluder on my weak eye, but that’s about it. I’ve thought about trying blinders to eliminate peripheral distractions, but haven’t gotten around to trying them.

What are the 3 most common problems you observe with new shooters?

1) Far and away the most common problem, I think, is trigger control – jerking shots down and to the left (for right-handed shooters).

2) Failure to have wrist/elbow/shoulder/eye alignment – when the shooter brings up the gun to eye level and has to adjust the gun’s position at the wrist to alight the sights.

3) Spending more time and effort tweaking the gun/load combination to achieve maximum accuracy when the fundamentals need more work.

What part of your shooting routine do you feel is unique to you?

1) I don’t know if it’s unique to me, but I’ve found there’s a two-way cause/effect connection between having a good time while shooting and doing well. Clearly, when you’re doing well it’s more enjoyable. That’s a given. But, during those times when things aren’t going well, I found it helps to force myself to smile (just slightly, don’t want to look like some kind of lunatic standing at the line,) even when I really don’t feel like it. By forcing my face into an agreeable position, it seems to help my overall mood. Telemarketers say, “smile when you dial,” as the positive energy from forcing yourself to smile will carry through your voice. Being in a better mood seems to help focus my thoughts on the shots ahead, rather than the shots already made. And, we’re all doing this because we enjoy it.

What was the one "thing" that helped to propel you into the Master class?

1) I don’t know if there’s one thing I can point to that propelled me into Master class. It’s a journey. I got to Expert fairly quickly, both indoors and out, and I spent a lot of time there. There were quite a few times where I’d have a 95+% match behind me and knew the next one could be “the one that gets me into Master class” (see fear of success above). I’d say simplicity and consistency are two things that were definitely important on the journey.