Bianchi Cup Training Plan

Yesterday, I mailed my entry for the 2014 Bianchi Cup, which I’ll be shooting in Metallic Division this year using a 6 inch revolver. This year, I actually want to spend some serious time training for the match, so I’ve already selected my match ammo, my gun, and I’m waiting on my holster. But I need a plan, a way to train for the match. The nice thing about training for the Cup is that the actual match doesn’t involve movement or anything silly like that, just shooting. Lots and lots of shooting, so the training part is basically just that: shoot lots of bullets.

Humpback Security Six

Champion Bianchi shooters recommend a lot of group therapy as a training plan. Shooting 2, 4, and 6 shot strings for group size and accuracy, both with and without par times are an excellent way to train for the match. Dry fire will be important to work on trigger control, since shooting a revolver means trigger management will actually matter quite a bit. Roughly, here’s what the training plan looks like.

  • Monday: Dry fire, 30 minutes wall drill freestyle
  • Tuesday: Live fire, 192 rounds, shoot 2-4-6 groups, no par. Change targets every 24 rounds.
  • Wednesday: Dry fire, draw, switch to weak hand, six trigger pulls WHO. Trigger management! Use par time.
  • Thursday (winter): Live fire, 192 rounds, 2-4-6 groups with par. Thursday (nice weather): shoot simulated Practical and Barricades.
  • Friday: Mental toughness!
  • Saturday: Dry fire – going to the prone position. Or live fire if time/budget permits.
  • Sunday: rest

All of this is also supplemented by fitness, because working out is good and fun. The idea behind this plan if I stick to it is to tighten up the accuracy component of my shooting through shooting lots of bullets. 400 rounds a week is a lot, that’s 1600 rounds a month and would put me on a pace to shoot 10,000 rounds in practice before the World Action Pistol championships. It’s likely that I won’t be able to perfectly stick with this training plan, since .38 isn’t cheap, but even if I halved it and shot just 5,000 rounds before the WAPC in May I’d be in a much better training position than I was at this year’s match.

This is going to be a really big year for Action Pistol, and I’m excited to start my training for the best match in the country.

3 Comments

  1. Ammo is pretty spensive….but perhaps you ought to consider massive scale handloading? It would be much cheaper. I’m sure you have your reasons, but it is quite economical….

  2. My humble advice would be to make sure you have a backup revolver, I’ve seen many cracked forcing cones from shooting the amount of ammo needed to get ready for the cup. Most of which showed up just days if not hours before match time. Reloading or buying custom reloads is practically a necessity, 125 hp at 1000fps or so is the ticket.

    In at least the upper classes the match is usually decided on the mover. Because you spend so much time prone or rested on the barricades practicing the other stages you must make sure you do plenty of off hand shooting. The mover is shot off hand and if you can’t shoot x’s off hand on a stationary target you shouldn’t realistically expect to shoot them on the mover. If you spend some of your practice shooting the entire match off hand and throw in some off hand 50 yd plates you will find yourself better prepared. At least it helped me YMMV as they say.

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