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CHA-LEE's Tale


CHA-LEE

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No matches for me this weekend. The match on Saturday was canceled due to rainy weather. I decided to head out to the BLGC range in the afternoon to do some live fire practice and test out the #3 blaster. I had Rick mill off a .75oz chunk from the back of the slide on the #3 gun. This made it feel a little closer to my #1 blaster but it still felt like there was too much weight snapping back forward when the slide would slam forward. I think that I need to take some weight out of the front of the slide to get the felt recoil similar to the #1 gun. I don’t think that taking any more weight out of the back of the slide is going to fix the slamming forward muzzle bounce that is currently happening. More slide weight hacking and testing is needed. The good news is that the #3 gun isn’t having any more feeding issues or trigger issues, so I believe I have those issues resolved.

 

On Sunday I presented another Competition Pistol training class. It was a long day of training but the weather was cooperating and a lot of learned by everyone. I have a couple more classes scheduled for the end of this month. Hopefully the weather continues to cooperate so we can get these classes done. The forecast is looking sketchy at this point, but we are still too far out to really know what the weather will be like next weekend. I am keeping my fingers crossed that it will work out because it’s no fun when you have to cancel a training class and then have to wrangle everyone up again for a different date.

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Rick was able to take half an ounce out of the front of the #3 slide. This brings the overall slide weight down to the same as the #1 slide. I got a chance to do some live fire testing at the indoor range today with the #3 and #1 blasters to compare them. With the exact same spring setup on both guns, the #3 still had a more harsh felt recoil. I did quite a bit of recoil and hammer spring testing on the #3 to try to get the felt recoil and sight tracking the same as the #1. I ended up switching from 17lb hammer and 10lb recoil spring over to a 24lb and 9lb. This spring setup made the recoil feel very close to the #1. I did some slow motion video on both guns to see how the slide velocity was affecting the recoil process and found that the #1 also needed a heavier hammer spring. I switch to a 21lb hammer spring in the #1 and it also improved the felt recoil and reduced the overall muzzle flip because of the reduced slide velocity. Shooting these two guns back to back produced very similar felt recoils with the #3 being only slightly more harsh feeling. I am not sure if the 9lb recoil spring will negatively impact the accuracy as it does in the #1 and #2 blasters. I tried shooting groups but the lighting was too dark in the range to keep the sights aimed in a specific location on the target. That is the bane of the indoor range for me. I will need to double check the accuracy on the #3 the next time I do some live fire practice outdoors.

 

Since the #3 blaster is running reliably and the spring testing is now complete I am going to strip the sights off of it so it can get Cerakoted black. This will force me to sight it in again anyway so I don’t want to waste much time double checking the accuracy now. Once the slide is coated and the final accuracy testing is done then I can do some real back to back testing during some practice stage runs to see how the #3 compares to the #1.

 

The weather forecast is looking pretty horrible this coming weekend so I am sure that all outdoor matches will be a bust. I had some training classes scheduled for this weekend but I think those are going to cancel as well due to the poor weather. I don’t mind going out to the range when the weather isn’t optimal, but it’s a totally different story when you try to present a training class in crappy weather. These classes will probably need to be pushed out to the next weekend.

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Rick did a super speedy Cerakote turn around on the slide so I was able to get it back and put it all back together.  I took a picture of the blaster and listed it below. The slide cuts are a lot different than what I have gotten in the past and I think it looks cool. One of my friends commented that it looked like a “Bone Saw” before it was coated and I think that is a good name for this style of slide lightening cuts.

 

We are still forecast to get hit with a bunch of snow this evening and into Saturday so I may not be able to give this bad boy a go this weekend. The forecast is calling for a high of 46 on Sunday without any Rain or Snow. So I might be able to venture out to do some live fire practice if the range isn’t too muddy. All I can do at this point is cross my fingers and hope that this storm does not end up being as bad as they are predicting.

 

 

Number 3 LTD Blaster.jpg

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1 hour ago, MemphisMechanic said:

Interesting front sight. Is that some method of making the dot from the fiber even smaller?

 

Yes. That is the Manny Mini Dot front sight that Brazos sells. The front post has a 0.040 hole drilled in it then you put the fiber through the back posts. This way than you look at thr front edge of the sight the fiber "dot" is always 0.040 in size regardless of how big the bulb is behind it. Its way more consistent than trying to melt a bulb to the exact same size every time you replace or switch the fiber rod. 

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The weekend snow storm canceled all of the outdoor matches but I was able to get out to the range for a little while to test and sight in my #3 Blaster. It was super windy so shooting groups off hand was difficult. With the wind pushing me or the target around I wasn’t able to shoot super stellar groups. I could shoot accurate enough to get the #3 sighted in. I also did a little bit of recoil spring testing by switching between the 9lb and 10lb springs. I like how the 9lb recoil spring makes the recoil feel, but the accuracy seemed like it was worse verses the 10lb spring. That being said, I was battling the wind while shooting for accuracy so I am not sure how much of the accuracy variance was actually due to wind or the springs. I will need to redo this accuracy testing using the 9lb spring when the weather conditions are better so I can get a good understanding of how the recoil spring weight is affecting the accuracy. I know that I can’t run below a 10lb spring in my #1 & #2 limited guns without negatively impacting the accuracy so I decided to leave the 10lb spring in the #3 gun until more accuracy testing can be done.

 

I am using a Bowmar style rear sight made by Wilson Combat. The rear blade has a .090 wide by .100 deep rear notch and that is why I went with it. We will see how long it takes me to break this adjustable rear sight. I decided to use the Bowmar style rear sight on this slide because the Manny Mini Dot front sight is only available in a .180 tall configuration and getting a fixed rear sight to work with the front for an exact POI was a huge pain in the butt. It was also expensive getting custom rear sights made at specific heights. I still think that the fixed rear sight setup is the best solution for practical shooting. This will be a good test to see how long a Bowmar adjustable style rear sight will lasts.

 

On Sunday evening I was able to attend the CGC indoor match. I brought my Open gun to this match because of the lighting issues but all of the stages were setup with up close fast blasting targets and I would have preferred to shoot my Limited gun on those stages. I was really close to running back home to get my Limited gun and gear, but there wouldn’t be enough time to get back in time before the match started. In hind sight, shooting Open at this match is best anyway because even though the targets were close, I know I would still battle seeing my sights in Limited.

 

I shot the match fairly well until the last stage where I made a totally novice mistake of not refilling the magazine on my belt. I got so wrapped up in ROing the prior stage that I completely forgot to reload the magazine I used on the second to last stage. In the middle of the last stage run, when I did my reload the magazine felt really light and it seated super easy and I knew something wasn’t right. I ran out of ammo about 6 rounds after the reload and had to eat 8 misses and 4 FTE’s. Of course this was a 34 round large field course that I almost zeroed and it completely sunk my overall match result. I only have one mag pouch on my Open gun belt so I didn’t have a secondary magazine to leverage either. After thinking about it for a while, I believe the real failure is that my make ready process isn’t consistent when shooting Open. I got distracted by fiddling with the Red Dot in turning it on and adjusting its brightness and forgot to do all of my normal make ready checks like verifying that the magazines on my belt are in fact full of bullets. I clearly remember NOT checking the magazine on my belt during the make ready process for this stage and I would have noticed that it wasn’t full if I would have checked it. Oh well, it happens and is a good lesson to keep my make ready process consistent regardless of shooting Open or Limited.

 

Tonight I am going to attend the Whistling Pines indoor match with the #3 Limited gun. The WP range is the only one that has good enough lighting to shoot iron sights and still be able to see them. I am looking forward to giving the #3 blaster a go in match conditions. We will see how it goes.

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I'm sure you probably already know this, but putting a partially filled mag back in the pouch after shooting can be a bad idea.  I learned the hard way to drop it into a pocket until after it's refilled.

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3 hours ago, CHA-LEE said:

 

I am using a Bowmar style rear sight made by Wilson Combat. The rear blade has a .090 wide by .100 deep rear notch and that is why I went with it. We will see how long it takes me to break this adjustable rear sight. I decided to use the Bowmar style rear sight on this slide because the Manny Mini Dot front sight is only available in a .180 tall configuration and getting a fixed rear sight to work with the front for an exact POI was a huge pain in the butt. It was also expensive getting custom rear sights made at specific heights. I still think that the fixed rear sight setup is the best solution for practical shooting. This will be a good test to see how long a Bowmar adjustable style rear sight will lasts.

 

 

 

I break at least one Bomar every year.  I just keep a spare around now, and swap them when one starts to crack.  I've tried Dawson, STI, Kensight, EGW, Champion, etc...  

The thin area around the pivot pin just won't hold up. 

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That isn't a Beaver Tail, its a Platypus Bill. Believe it or not that thing is just big enough to keep me from getting slide bite. Without it I would get chopped to pieces by the slide.  

 

What can I say, Big Panda's have big paws :o

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38 minutes ago, CrashDodson said:

what magwell is that?

It is a CAPE magwell. The only place I have seen selling them is Speed Shooters International. They are pretty hard to find actually.

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48 minutes ago, CHA-LEE said:

That isn't a Beaver Tail, its a Platypus Bill. Believe it or not that thing is just big enough to keep me from getting slide bite. Without it I would get chopped to pieces by the slide.  

 

What can I say, Big Panda's have big paws :o

 

Oh Believe me, I know what you mean.  My thumb, and the web of my hand is a mess of callus and scar tissue.  Just never seen a "platypus" before :P

I've pretty much solved mine with shielded safties and and chamfer on the back bottom edge of the slide.... but I still get a sore/bloody spot after long practice sessions.

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Last night I was able to attend the Whistling Pines indoor match. I shot my #3 blaster and it worked great. I didn’t notice any obvious difference in how it shot verses the #1 blaster. This is good as the primary goal was to get the #3 blaster to feel the same as my #1 with the new slide. I still need to put at least 2K – 3K on the #3 to fully trust that its ready to rumble but so far its running like a champ.

 

The match was fun and I shot fairly decent. I ended up with two no shoots for the match. One was just a nick due to mashing the trigger and pulling the shot low. The second one was trying to shoot from a really unbalanced stance while the gun was wobbling around on the target. It sucks to have two no shoots but I called both so that was good. We used the Partial People Eater classifier which is a 4 string fixed time stage. I can’t remember the last time I shot this classifier but it was a real butt kicker. The strong and weak hand strings were pretty difficult given the 4 second par time. This was a good test of gun handling and one handed shooting skills though.

 

No matches for me this coming weekend. I am presenting two training classes over the weekend so I will be super busy with that. Hopefully I will get a chance to double check my sight in on the #3 and do a little more blasting with it. But my top priority will be on the class. These two classes will be the final two for a while as the end of May is when my super busy major match schedule starts. I am looking forward to this summer’s major match schedule and I feel like all of my gear is ready to rumble as well.

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22 hours ago, Ssanders224 said:

 

I break at least one Bomar every year.  I just keep a spare around now, and swap them when one starts to crack.  I've tried Dawson, STI, Kensight, EGW, Champion, etc...  

The thin area around the pivot pin just won't hold up. 

have you tried the SV ones?  they are lot more tougher 

 

https://infinity.mysparkpay.com/sights.aspx

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This past weekend I presented two different competition pistol training classes. These were two very long days of training but it was worth the effort. I didn’t get a chance to do much shooting myself. I was basically limited to a little bit of sighting in / group shooting Sunday morning to verify that my #3 blaster was sighted in properly. It only needed a very small amount of elevation adjustment to get it dialed in. Other than that I got to shoot the training field course stage once at the end of the class as a demo for the students. My turn to shoot the stage is always intended as a demo for the students to show how the stage should be shot at a GM level from a “Cold” state. There is some self-induced performance pressure generated when doing this demo stage run as I want to perform well for my students. I am leery about doing well after having worked hard all day long to present the class while not firing any rounds all day. I basically set myself up where I have to produce a BOSS stage run at the end of the day when I am worn out and haven’t been shooting all day. This is good though because it represents what we are tasked with doing at matches. I have to step up to the line and make it happen effectively on my one and only run.

 

The really interesting thing about these two stage run performances from one day to the next is how close they were to one another. On Saturday I shot the stage in 12.68 seconds down 14 points (11.11 HF). On Sunday I shot it in 12.70 down 9 points (11.49 HF). It’s really cool to be able to produce two solid stage runs on separate days within 3% of one another. I also used the #1 Limited blaster on Saturday and the #3 Limited blaster on Sunday and couldn’t feel or observe any difference between them while shooting the stage.

 

Now that my Spring training classes are over I can start to focus on my own shooting. I only have one more open weekend to do some live fire practice and attend a club match before I start a whirl wind major match schedule that will take me well into June.  The next month and a half is going to be crazy busy with four major matches including the Mile High Showdown which I am running and a Todd Jarrett class in the middle of all that. This week need to focus on reloading a bunch of ammo to get my reserves stocked back up so I can tackle this marathon month of shooting craziness.  

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This past weekend was a busy one. On Saturday I went out to the BLGC range to do some work on the HPPS Props so we can get prepared for the Mile High Showdown. We got some new tube steel walls and they needed to be painted and snow fence covered. I painted all of the walls with normal spray paint cans and was covered in overspray from head to toe. That wasn’t fun, but it needed to get done.

 

After we worked on the props we setup a practice stage with some of the new walls to give them a try. They worked out good and were pretty wind resistant. I was pretty worn out by the time we started shooting so I focused on doing some back to back blaster testing with my #1 and #3 guns. We shot a large field course stage several times and I alternated between blasters on each run. While shooting the stage I wasn’t able to feel any difference between the two blasters. The rear sight notch is 0.010 narrower on the #3 so I could see that difference while shooting but it wasn’t too distracting. I shot about 150 rounds through each gun that day and they both were working flawlessly. It’s great to get the #3 back in fully functional and tested order so I can put it back into action when needed.

 

On Sunday I attended the Pueblo USPSA match and decided to ride my KTM 1190 Adventure R motorcycle down there. I had to haul about 40lbs of extra stuff down there in the Panniers for other shooters and that extra weight caused a high speed steering wobble at about 75mph. So I had to drive most of the way down there between 70 – 75mph which made me late to the match. I got to the match early enough to sign up before registration closed, but I didn’t have a chance to walk the stages before the start of the match. I hate it when I don’t have an opportunity to walk the stages before the start of the match as it doesn’t give me enough time to program the stages. I treated it like a match I was working and figured out the stages as I got to the berms while shooting the match. Luckily the stages were not that complex and had fairly straight forward stage plans.

 

I didn’t program the stage 4 where we started on enough and had a “Where’s Waldo” moment in the middle of it. I was also missing the plates on the plate rack like crazy which cost me several seconds in make up shots to take them all down.  Then on stage 6 I had a hard cover miss on a zebra target that was close. This was a one shot per target stage and I started off making up a lot of marginally called shots then on the second array I was worried about running out of ammo and didn’t make up the marginal shots and one of them ended up being that miss. Other than that I was shooting fairy solid and it was a fun day on the range with buddies. I used the #1 blaster for this match as it’s going to be my Primary for this season. Or at least until I break it which I am good at doing.

 

After the match I had an early dinner with my Mom in Pueblo for Mothers Day. Then I made the long trek back up north on the Motorcycle. The traffic was really jammed up on the way back home and it took two and a half hours to get home verses the hour and 15 minutes it should have taken. The good news is that with the lighter load on the bike the high speed wobble didn’t happen until I got up past 85mph so it’s good to understand the gear hauling limits of my bike. I am planning on riding to more club matches this summer so this was a good test run for using it.

 

Now I need to get my shooting gear cleaned and packed up for the Northern Arizona Classic this coming weekend. I also need to reload some more ammo for the match. This is going to be a busy week getting ready for this match. I have wanted to attend this match for several years now but it was always sold out by the time I tried to sign up. Being able to get into it this year is awesome and I am looking forward to shooting at a new range and making some new friends!!!     

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59 minutes ago, thermobollocks said:

Complexity and difficulty do not necessarily coincide :devil:

 

You are totally correct. There were some difficult shooting challenges in the match that made it a good test of marksmanship skills. I was simply commenting that the stage plans needed to shoot the stages were fairly straight forward. That isn't a bad thing. It simply is what it is.

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This past weekend I attended the 2017 Northern Arizona Classic. I have wanted to attend this match for the past 3 – 4 years but every time I heard about the registration being open it was already sold out. Lucky for me I was able to get in this year due to the Single Stack nationals being on the same weekend. It was cool to attend a match that I have never been to before. The facility at the Prescott range was nice and the weather was awesome. The stages had a good mixture of shooting and moving tests along with several different options in how to tackle the challenges. These stages did a good job of testing your stage breakdown strategy skills which is awesome. There were many stages where the best strategy in Limited was to perform two reloads due to the varied options in target availability. You could risk using a plan that had you shooting 19 – 20 rounds out of a magazine or break it up and do another reload somewhere else on the stage. I thought this strategy aspect of the stage designs were awesome.

 

I shot on the weekend schedule and was on a squad with a bunch of my Arizona buddies. We had a great time shooting together and all worked as a team to figure out the best plans for the stages. We started the match on Stage 2 which was a field course full of hard cover turtle targets. There is nothing like testing your aiming abilities right out of the gate. This stage also had a big tree in the middle of the shooting area which put you in a shaded lighting condition for half of the run. I called a miss in the hard cover on a close target while moving through a position and my makeup shot ended up in the hard cover as well. I seen the miss out of the corner of my eye as I was leaving the position but I was already gone and coming back to make it up would have been a waste of time. Starting out any match with a miss isn’t a good moral booster but it is what it is.

 

The second stage of the day was a standards stage with more turtle targets, hard cover, and no shoots. This was a Virginia Count stage with one shot per target followed by a reload then one more shot per target. You did this twice in two different strings. I racked up another hard cover miss on this stage and knew it was a miss right as the shot broke. Two stages in a row with a miss.

 

The third stage of the day was a high speed blaster type of stage with a potential of a 10 – 11 Hit Factor. I was really looking forward to this stage because it was right up my alley. I started the stage solid and all was going well until my gun stopped shooting close to the end of the run. It was super hard to rack the slide and I could not pull the trigger back at all to make it drop the hammer. It was like the trigger was pinned in the full forward position. I couldn’t rectify this issue on the clock to finish the stage so I had to eat 6 misses and three FTE’s. I ended up with a total of 25 match points on this stage out of the 145 available points. This was my #1 Limited blaster which I had to take over to the safe area to figure out what happened. I had to pull the gun totally apart to see what happened and once I got it apart I noticed that the hammer strut was broken in half like a twig. I have never seen a hammer strut fail like this before and didn’t see anything abnormal when I did a detailed cleaning on it just before this match. Since the #1 Limited blaster was down for the count I had to switch over to my #3 Limited blaster. I am SUPER GLAD that I put in all of that effort before this match into getting the #3 Limited blaster ironed out and functioning reliably.  I had 100% confidence in it performing and it did just that with no issues or even noticeable shooting difference from the #1 blaster.

 

59237070b481a_BrokenHammerStrut.thumb.jpg.06b52f85b70727ed68b4848f0deaaa91.jpg

 

At this point in the match I had donated at least 150 match points in misses plus the gun failure. This was absolutely not how I wanted to start this match. I could feel the “Quitter Mentality” starting to creep into my thoughts and get me down. It only lasted for a few minutes while I was jacking around with my #1 blaster in the safe area trying to figure out what failed. But I told myself to let it go and move on. What was done, was done and worrying about it or letting it get me down wasn’t going to do me any good. When I holstered up my #3 Limited blaster I told myself to let go of all that negative mental baggage and get on with the match so I can enjoy my match experience.  This worked and I shot the rest of the day solidly with no penalties.

 

When the results were tallied after shooting 8 stages on Saturday I was 65 match points back from James Nortz who was currently leading the weekend schedule shooters. James was also shooting on my squad so I could see how he was performing as we were progressing through the match. I had successfully climbed half way out of the hole that I had dug myself, but with only four stages to go on Sunday I wasn’t sure if I would be able to make up the gap. On Sunday I was shooting pretty solid until the second to last stage. I had a total off target miss on a fully open target which I called marginal and it ended up being a miss. I shot the stage fast enough to still win in in Limited, but I still donated 15 match points to my competition with the miss. I wrapped up the match with another fairly solid stage run and could only hope that my solid work effort after the gun failure was enough to pull out the win.

 

When the final scores were tallied I ended up just missing high overall by only 12 match points to finish second overall at 99%. That one miss on Sunday is what kept me from winning. Being able to come back from a 150 point deficit to win would have been an awesome achievement to accomplish for this match, but I couldn’t get it done. Placing second by an inch or a mile is still second place. I am happy with how I was able to shake off the really crappy start to this match and put in a solid effort afterwards. I know this situation would have crushed the overall moral for most other shooters making them throw in the towel after the failure.

 

Since there was some extra time after the match waiting for the scores and awards I was able to reshoot the stage 4 where my gun broke. I only reshot it for fun as it wouldn’t count for score. I wanted to see how my run would have compared if my gun had not failed. I was able to shoot it in 13.72 seconds only down 3 points which would have been a stage win in Limited. It was really cool of the RO’s to let me reshoot it for fun after the match. This confirms that I would have had at least a 110 point lead over second place if my gun had not broken and I could have finished this stage. Oh well, its water under the bridge at this point.   

 

The real lesson from this match is that my equipment needs to function 100% reliably all the time. This is the second catastrophic failure on the #1 Blaster in less than 2500 rounds. This is what I get for using one of my oldest blasters as my “Primary” for majors. The #1 blaster is now going to be reassigned to practice/club match/practice duty. The #3 will now be put into Primary duty for majors since it’s the “Freshest” vintage blaster I have. The repair for the #1 Blaster should be a simple one to replace the hammer strut and function check it, but I am not going to have an opportunity to shoot it before next weekend. I am flying out to Bend Oregon on Friday to attend the Oregon State Championships. So the #3 and will go as the Primary and the #2 will go as the backup. I don’t feel comfortable with taking the #1 as a backup without being able to shoot it to prove functionality.

 

 

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I noticed you take a lot of make up shots on paper, particularly hard cover partials. Is that just your style of game, something that is normal for your shooting? I am wondering if you plan extras in your stage breakdowns.

(Take it as curiosity on my part, not in any way a criticism).

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