jamautry

Make sure when you relax your strong hand grip you keep your strong side wrist firm. An unlocking wrist will cause shoots to be high. Sent from my Pixel 4 XL using Tapatalk

I am left handed and also use a Springfield Xdm for my production and IDPA ESP gun. I have found that for slide lock reloads the fastest way to release the slide is to use your right index finger. Lets see if I can explain. You grab the spare mag of your belt with your right hand with the your index finger riding on the mag guiding the mag in. while seating the mag with the heel of your right hand allow your right index finger to ride over your left fingers and make a slight outward roll with your right hand. This should place your right finger on or very near the slide lock. Then simply depress the slide lock with your index finger, for added leverage you can squeeze with your right thumb on the right side of the frame at the same time. Your left index finger safely rides along the frame of the gun and also protects the trigger against accidentally getting your right index finger close to the trigger guard. I hope this makes sense. I will try to post pictures later when my wife is here to take some.

My wife reminded me we had some washers lying around from a previous project I did for her, and sure enough they worked great. Thanks everyone.

I am taking a two day class with Manny Bragg this weekend. Looking forward to the class and learning new things. I haven't taken a class since 2006 and am just now getting back into shooting regularly. Hopefully this will push my shooting to the next level.

Thanks all, looks like I am going washer shopping.

I posted this in another topic but thought I would get more responses by making it a topic of its own. For for those of you running CR speed mag pouches, what inserts are you using? Mine came with three inserts but none seem to hold the mags correctly, 1 is really tight and the other two seem really loose. Thanks, James

Slightly off topic, but for those of you running CR speed mag pouches, what inserts are you using? Mine came with three inserts but non seem to hold the mags correctly, 1 is really tight and the other two seem really loose.

I would like to join in the production race. I shot my first match a couple of weeks ago; my first since May of last year. I am still shaking off the rust. My number is A58097 and I am currently at 52.55%. Thanks, James

Yes, Jason was the guy Owen beat up in his last pit fight.

Just finished Monster Hunter Alpha and I truly enjoyed it. It had great action but I thought the back story and how characters from the previous novels were weaved into the story was great.

It has been awhile since my last post. During this time I have been able to make a number of local matches plus last weekend's Space City Challenge and my shooting has begun to improve. This past month's classifiers have been in the high C-low B range and could have easily been higher if not for a bumble here or there. I am also shooting some of the field courses in the high B to low A range. During the Space City Challenge I shot some stages well and on others I did poorly mainly due to gun problems and on one stage a complete mental meltdown where I left three mini poppers standing because I didn't even know they were there. A GM on my squad did give me some helpful advice "you can't outrun the 22 year olds so master shooting while moving". That comment plus a comment I read on another range diary discussing shooters who move fast and shoot slower vs those that shoot fast that move slower relatively speaking; got me to thinking. I fall into the shoot fast and move slower biased crowd. I have excellent spilt times (low teens) and have worked my transition times down; I also am a very accurate shooter generally. So while I will not give up on trying to move faster I will focus on my shooting speed and accuracy, shooting on the move,reloads and strong and weak hand shooting. I think this will be the most efficient way to move up.

I ran into a bit of a snag last week. I had intentions of shooting my 1911 this year in IDPA and use my SV for limited in USPSA. After a week of dry firing getting ready for the IDPA classifier I just could not get used to the 1911 plus I was getting a few jams with my reloads, as a result of the OAL being a tad long for my Kart barrel. So the afternoon before the match I abandoned the 1911 in favor of my M&P that has a thin black front sight I really like. I got a 100 rounds of live fire practice in with the M&P that day and another hundred before the classifier plus some dry fire. Stage 1 and Stage 2 went as planned averaging 29 seconds per stage which meant I had 40 seconds for stage 3 and still make Master. Well I had a train wreck on stage 3 and needless to say I didn't make Master, for that matter I shot it soooooo poorly a missed Expert by 0.17 seconds. So the post-mortem clearly showed that by not practicing shooting kneeling around barrels for so long (4 years) I killed my score. Positives from the match: 1. Shot my best time for Stage 1 and 2 ever 2. The thin black sight works great 3. Splits and transitions were very good Things to work on: 1. Draw - incredibly slow, averaging 2 seconds (my lack of dry-fire really showed) 2. Reload - see above 3. Shooting around barrel 4. Stay visually patient throughout the whole match 5. Don't let desire for a score creep in your head In conclusion I need to spend a lot of time dry firing and handling the gun. So to help out, I have decided to follow the experts advice and stick with one gun all season. I have never done this before, but it is something I need to do to get the results I am after. So as much as it pains me I will but the 6" SV in the safe and shoot with the M&P exclusively so I can keep the same platform in both USPSA and IDPA for this year and help with my gun handling issues. P.S. I plan to order a IDPA legal SV ASAP so next year I can shoot the SV platform

Just got back from my first match since June. I got a chance to finally use my new SV I picked up back in June also. I really haven't done any practice going into the match other than rereading BE's books for the third time. I really do feel that I finally got what he was saying this time through. The thing that finally jumped out at me was to relax and let your eyes do the shooting and just stay in the moment. Reflecting back on the match I think I was relaxed throughout the match and stayed in the present while shooting. I wasn't worried about going fast or results or anything like that. For the most part I felt I shot a good match. I made my share of stages errors just from being out of practice but the shooting and moving was good. I lost focus on some of the shots in the match but I was in the present just shooting and observing on the vast majority. A few things I noticed while shooting: 1. By staying in the present and using my eyes to observe I was able to shoot the moment I saw an acceptable sight picture. 2. I was able to successfully use a Type 2 focus by just trusting myself on the wide open shots < 7 yards. 3. The red dot fiber must go. It is completely distracting. I feel the few poor shots I had were a direct result of seeing the red dot instead of the top of the front sight on the precision shots and pulling the trigger which resulted in high shots that cost me points especially on the classifier stage. 4. Always, always read the stage description and then find all targets during the walk through. The shooter order got moved on one stage which resulted in me being the first shooter. I was not prepared but rushed to get ready. The shooting part of the stage was great but when I got done I had not engaged one piece of steel because I didn't even now it was there. 5. I experienced moments of truly driving the gun with my eyes. On the last stage there were two plate racks and as I worked my way through the racks, especially the first one, I would just look at the plate the sights would snap into focus, the gun would shoot, the sights would rise and then I would snap my eyes to the next plate and repeat. Overall it was good to get back into this and I was happy that for the majority of the match I accomplished my goal, which was to just stay relaxed and observe the shooting and drive the gun with my eyes. Tomorrow I will try out some new reloads and do some group shooting while working on calling my shots

M&P Long with Warren Tactical Sights. Blade Tech DOH holster with Safariland mag holders CR Speed belt Atlanta Arms 147 gr ammo

You might want to look really hard at the Springfield XD/XDm. For the most versatility you could get a XDm in 40 and use it in USPSA Production, Limited 10, Limited (mags from Canyon Creek hold 21 rounds) and in IDPA ESP. If you send it to Canyon Creek Custom for a trigger job you can get a 1911 like trigger pull in both overall movement and weight and stay inside your budget. If you want to splurge you can get a production ready model direct from Canyon Creek for around $1300 and it will have all of the bells and whistles.