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CHA-LEE's Tale


CHA-LEE

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No matches for me this weekend but it was still chocked full of shooting fun. On Saturday I was able to do a bunch of blaster testing and also some drills. Since I got the #4 blaster back together I sighted it in and tested the Recoil/Hammer spring setup using slow motion video to confirm the best config. I tried several different recoil and hammer spring combos but ended up back at the 9lb Recoil, 20lb Hammer spring as the best overall setup. The cool thing about the #4 blaster is that I can use lighter recoil springs and still maintain solid accuracy. My other limited guns can’t go below 10lbs before the accuracy starts to suffer. I confirmed this again as well by trying the 9/20 spring setup on the #2 Limited blaster that day as well.

 

For the shooting drills portion of the range session we setup a couple of classifiers to see how to optimize our performance on them. It has been YEARS since I setup exact classifiers and practiced them so this was an interesting training effort. I only shot the first classifier once and laid down a 102% run cold. That was cool but I lost interest in reshooting the classifier after that as I was focused on helping my buddy figure out what to do to improve his performance. By the time we were done honing his performance he was able to lay down some solid 95% - 98% runs which was really cool to watch. Since I was focused on doing blaster spring testing I really didn’t care about shooting drills.  

 

I have also been testing different comps on my .223 AR and got a chance to try out the latest comp setup. This new comp wasn’t optimal as it was producing a slight down/right red dot tracking. I had my buddy shoot it as well to confirm the dot tracking was the same for them, so it’s not due to user error. The comp testing saga continues. Maybe I will find a comp that produces zero dot movement, maybe not. But it will be fun trying to find the optimal setup.

 

On Sunday I hosted a local pistol class. This was a long day with a lot of work but it’s totally worth it when I see students learn new stuff and make discoveries. We lucked out with the weather as it was a little cooler than normal but there was very little wind which made it tolerable. Hosting classes early in the year like this can be a gamble as you never know if the weather is going to wreck everything. We got it done though and much was learned by all. I got to shoot my #4 Limited gun at the end of the class on the training stage and it ran like champ. I need to get a lot more shooting on that blaster before I will consider it good to go. But so far its running just as it should. The only difference I can notice between my other Limited guns and the #4 is the additional abrasiveness of the Black Nitride in how the gun slides in and out of the holster. The #4 gun seems to be a little more "sticky" coming out of the holster due to the increased abrasiveness. We will see if this smooths out as I put a good quantity of draws on the gun to smooth out the rough spots. The one thing I noticed about the Black Nitride coating is that its not too difficult to wear through the coating. Its probably on the same wear resistance as Cerakote which really isn't that effective compared to Hard Chrome or IonBond. Right now the Black Nitride coating is serving its purpose of making the metal dull and not shiny. If I wanted a coating that was really wear resistant Black Nitride isn't the best solution. Everything is a process of trial and error, gun coating are no different.

Edited by CHA-LEE
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Last night I attended the indoor match at the Bristolcone range. I decided to shoot my #4 Limited gun so I could get some more run time on it even though I knew that seeing my sights in that place was going to be a challenge. The gun ran like a champ but I couldn’t overcome not being able to see my sights. I racked up 2 uncalled misses and several D zone hits because I couldn’t see my sights and had to point shoot in the general direction of the targets. This never turns out well for yielding good hits. But this is the price of wanting to get more rounds down range with the #4 Limited blaster. The good news is that the black nitride coating is starting to smooth out on the grip and where the kydex holster touches it. This is smoothing out the draw as it’s not sticking as much. Its still a little sticky compared to the Cerakote guns but it will probably get there with some more draws and gun handling. So far this blaster is running solid with no issues.

 

I still need a lot more rounds on it to consider it fully ready to go and hopefully I can do that before heading down to Houston for the Texas State Open match. If all goes well with this blaster I want to use it as the primary at that match. If not I will fall back to the trusty #2 Limited blaster.   

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1 hour ago, GrumpyOne said:

Cha-Lee, when you figure out the cure for those site issues, please post them, as I am very interested. I shoot an indoor match and have the same issues.

 

The solution is simple, ditch iron sights and use a Red Dot. I usually shoot Open at these indoor matches because seeing iron sights is a lost cause.

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3 hours ago, CHA-LEE said:

 

The solution is simple, ditch iron sights and use a Red Dot. I usually shoot Open at these indoor matches because seeing iron sights is a lost cause.

Lol. Actually, i shoot a dot at most of the indoor matches for the same reason...I was hoping that you had a way to shoot the irons.

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On 3/21/2018 at 11:41 AM, CHA-LEE said:

Last night I had the opportunity to participate in an interview on The Shooter's Mindset. We talk about myself and my new book Path of Focused Effort. Enjoy the show!!!

 

 

 CHA-LEE, got the opportunity to watch this and really enjoyed it. Look forward to reading your book!

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We got hit by a decent Rain/Snow storm this past weekend which canceled all of the local matches. I had to deliver 1000 cardboard targets to the HPPS club and I was planning on doing that on Saturday while running the match. But since the match was canceled I had to head out there on Sunday and hope that it wasn’t too muddy. I headed out to the BLGC range on Sunday to deliver the targets and also brought my shooting gear just in case it was dry enough to shoot. Lucky for me the range was only a little muddy and I was able to get some shooting done. I setup a simple two box drill with three targets to engage in each box. This is a stage that I have been thinking about deploying in a match and wanted to figure out what the Fixed Time would be for the array.

 

I shot this stage setup several times and couldn’t call my shots worth a crap. The targets were in a shadow condition and all I could see was the fiber rod in the front sight. I angled the targets so that they were facing the sun and I could call my shots properly. I had to shoot the “Shadow targets” way more conservative to ensure solid hits. I also kept botching the reload between positions which was super frustrating as I usually don’t have reloading issues. To be honest I wasn’t really into it during that practice session as I wasn’t feeling very well. I felt really exhausted for some strange reason and my gut was churning. I called it quits for the practice session as trying to push through the suck wasn’t yielding any better performance. Some times its not your day to perform and this was one of those days.

 

The good thing is that I got another 250 rounds shot through the #4 Limited blaster with zero issues. That thing is running like a champ. The only issue I had with it is that the beaver tail is slightly smaller than my other blasters and the slide was hitting the web of my hand slightly if I had a less than optimal grip. This created a nice blister by the end of the practice session.

 

I wish that I had brought my #2 Limited blaster and some different springs to do some more testing, but as I said before, I wasn’t feeling well and over it anyway. I am planning on going back out there today after work to do that additional testing. That and I don’t want to have my last shooting session before attending the Texas Open being a crappy one. I would rather have a successful practice session in the books before heading out to Texas.

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I was able to get a little bit of practice done yesterday after work. I brought my #2 and #4 Limited blasters and shot some drills back to back using both guns to compare. The timing of the #4 seemed off compared to the #2 and it was due to the 9lb recoil spring. I put a 10lb recoil spring in there and it made the timing of the muzzle flip feel the same as the #2. With both guns in the 10lb recoil 20lb hammer spring setup I noticed that if my grip wasn’t solid it had an excessive muzzle tip up right as the shot fired creating a more dramatic muzzle flip. I switch to a 17lb hammer spring and that solved the issue. The 17lb hammer spring makes the slide bash into the frame harder causing most of the muzzle flip to happen at that point, but that “Felt” a lot better than the tip up situation that was happening with the 20lb hammer spring. I switched both guns to the 10/17 spring setup and they both felt much better overall. I shot both guns back to back with the 10/17 spring setup and the timing and feel while shooting was identical which was great.

 

Even though this practice session wasn’t long it was very much needed. I was mentally into it and able to execute properly unlike what happened on Sunday when I wasn’t feeling well. I am super glad that I got the chance to tune both of these blasters to feel identical while shooting. I am also glad that I didn’t go to the Texas State Open match with the 10/20 spring setup. I will be using the #2 as the primary for the Texas match and bring along the #4 as the backup. The #4 has had ZERO functionality issues since getting it back together after coating so I trust it to be a reliable backup. But I don’t trust it enough to be the primary yet. The trust in the new blaster will happen after I get several thousand on it with zero issues.

 

On another note I was able to get into the Area 1 match happening in Montana. The main match is full so I got into the Staff shooting schedule happening on Wed/Thur. This actually works out great since I have already signed up to shoot the Northern AZ Classic that same weekend. That week is going to be travel and shooting crazy. I will fly up to Montana on Tuesday to check out the stages, then shoot the match on Wed/Thur. Then I fly straight down to Phoenix on Friday to check out the NAZC stages and shoot that match on the weekend. Since I can’t take enough ammo on the plane for both matches I have to ship my ammo down to a buddy in AZ to use for the NAZC match. That is going to be a long week of travel and shooting. Hopefully it’s worth the effort to cram both of those matches together like that.

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33 minutes ago, dmshozer1 said:

Question,

Have you ever tried different shaped firing pin stops?

 

 

Absolutely. Out of all the variations of Firing Pin Stop angles I have tried I like the standard STI Rounded shape the best. This rounded shape produces the most linear hammer cocking resistance. Most of the other FPS angles produce exponentially softer or harder hammer cocking resistance depending on the angle.

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6 hours ago, CHA-LEE said:

 

Absolutely. Out of all the variations of Firing Pin Stop angles I have tried I like the standard STI Rounded shape the best. This rounded shape produces the most linear hammer cocking resistance. Most of the other FPS angles produce exponentially softer or harder hammer cocking resistance depending on the angle.

Thanks,

Is it true that a stronger recoil spring along with a squared fps might improve accuracy because the gun stays in battery longer?

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17 hours ago, dmshozer1 said:

Thanks,

Is it true that a stronger recoil spring along with a squared fps might improve accuracy because the gun stays in battery longer?

 

The basic answer to this is "Yes", but its more complex than that. In my testing the recoil spring weight has a bigger effect on accuracy than the firing pin stop angle or hammer spring. This is because the recoil spring is the primary thing that creates a consistent barrel lockup. If the recoil spring is too weak then the lockup position of the barrel verses the lower lugs will be inconsistent from one shot to the next. If the lockup is inconsistent then the accuracy is going to suffer.

 

From a firing pin stop angle and hammer spring weight perspective affecting the lockup timing, it absolutely does change that timing. But the fact is that the fired bullet has traveled down the barrel and out of the gun LONG before the slide starts its rearward movement to cycle the slide. Since the slide isn't moving rearward until after the bullet has left the barrel then the firing pin stop angle or hammer spring weight has ZERO effect on the accuracy.

 

This also assumes that the recoil spring is heavy enough to maintain a consistent lockup from shot to shot and the firing pin stop angle and hammer spring are heavy enough to do their job properly. For example, if you use a 7 - 8 lb recoil spring and its not locking up consistently then the hammer spring and firing pin stop angle could affect accuracy because it is changing the position of the lockup when the hammer drops and the slid starts to move rearward. If the firing pin stop angle is very shallow and the hammer spring is really light then the slide can start moving rearward as the bullet is still traveling down the barrel and this will also affect the accuracy.

 

Lastly the velocity of the bullet also come into effect as that dictates how long the bullet is traveling down the barrel. For example a .45 caliber 230gr bullet going 850fps is in the barrel almost twice as long as a 9mm 115gr bullet going 1500fps. The longer it takes the bullet to travel down the barrel the more opportunity early unlocking situations have to affect accuracy. 

Edited by CHA-LEE
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The Texas State Open Championship was a lot of fun this past weekend. This was a 12 stage Level 2 match shot all in one day by all competitors. You could shoot it all on Saturday or Sunday. I decided to shoot it all on Sunday since it would give me a chance to fly in on Saturday to check out the stages and also attend the awards on Sunday. The stages were a lot of fun and a good mixture of blasting and aiming. The one thing that was very different was the squad sizes as each squad had 6 shooters to keep it going fast through the match. We had a no show on our squad so that brought our head count to 5 which was a little hectic at times. With only 5 shooters on the squad there were only 2 of us at any given time that could help to reset the stage. Many times we had to help reset our own stage right before shooting it. The good news is that our squad worked hard all day and got through the stages as efficiently as we could.

 

My performance at this match wasn’t very solid. Our squad started on the berms facing into the rising sun, so all of the targets were in the shadows. We started on Stage 2 and I had an uncalled miss due to this shadow target situation. I also did an unplanned reload during the stage run which was strange. The extra reload didn’t hurt my stage time much as I did it between positions but it was a mild distraction. It always sucks to start off a match with a jacked up performance. But I buckled down and shot the next stage solidly. On Stage 4 I was tearing it up then I edge hit one of the steel plates and it spun on the stand leaving the straight edge side of the plate pointing my way. I hesitated a little bit then kept running through the stage. This ended up being a reshoot because the steel plate didn’t fall. My reshoot was a little slower due to make ups needed on the steel but I got my hits otherwise. I shot another stage pretty good then sucked it up pretty bad on stage 6. On Stage 6 I didn’t lean far enough around the left side wall and couldn’t hit the steel effectively. This triggered an unplanned reload before heading into the middle of the stage and I tried to make up some time by shooting that portion on the move faster. This lead to over running the final target in that array so I had to retreat back up range to keep from breaking the 180. All of this monkeying around wasted at least 3 seconds of stage time which was worth about 2 mikes worth of match points.

 

The next few stages went well until I got to stage 9 where the mega train wreck happened. This was another stage where I worked all the way up until my turn to shoot. I failed to wipe the sweat off my face right before my stage run and it totally screwed me. Right after the start signal, when I ran to the first shooting position, a huge drop of sweat dripped on the right lens of my glasses right where I would be seeing the sights. The sight picture was a blurry mess and I had to turn my head slightly to look through a different part of the lens to see the sights. Turning my head to see the sights became a significant challenge as every time I transitioned the gun to another target my head would move back its normal position putting the sights right back in front of the sweat drop. This lead to shooting way too many make up shots and needing to do an extra reload at the end which I fumbled and dropped the mag on the ground. I had to pick it back up and reload it to finish the stage as I didn’t have any more mags on my belt. It’s been a long time since I have screwed up a stage that bad or had to reload off the ground. The only saving grace is that I got all of my hits. After the match was over I reshot this stage for fun and did it 7 seconds faster so the train wreck run donated at least 30 match points to the competition.

 

Luckily I was able to finish out the final few stages without any major incidents. Amazingly I was able to still pull out a win in Limited. Luckily my competition had a more difficult time than me. Listed below is my video from the match. Hopefully I can perform better at the next major which is the Area 1 match in a couple of weeks. I can’t afford to leave any performance on the table for the competition at that match.

 

 

 

Edited by CHA-LEE
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Sir, thank you for all of your very informative posts! I’m glad you wrote a book! It seems that sharing your experience comes quite naturally. I for one am thankful for the time you put in. 

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Congrats on the win Charlie, I shot it on Friday and I agree with you having a squad size of 6 didn't help when one of mine thought it was ok to move onto next stage to look while the rest of us were shooting/resetting

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Well, I read part of it before my recent surgery, unfortunately I obviously left it somewhere during the "excitement" of the past 6 weeks, I'm giving it another week to see if it shows up (I put my name and number inside the cover), then I'll order another one. Oh well, at least I survived to be able to still read. ?

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5 hours ago, Bkreutz said:

Well, I read part of it before my recent surgery, unfortunately I obviously left it somewhere during the "excitement" of the past 6 weeks, I'm giving it another week to see if it shows up (I put my name and number inside the cover), then I'll order another one. Oh well, at least I survived to be able to still read. ?

 

Glad to hear that you are on the road to recovery. Take it easy and allow the healing process to do its thing.

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On 4/24/2018 at 12:20 PM, CHA-LEE said:

I was able to get a little bit of practice done yesterday after work. I brought my #2 and #4 Limited blasters and shot some drills back to back using both guns to compare. The timing of the #4 seemed off compared to the #2 and it was due to the 9lb recoil spring. I put a 10lb recoil spring in there and it made the timing of the muzzle flip feel the same as the #2. With both guns in the 10lb recoil 20lb hammer spring setup I noticed that if my grip wasn’t solid it had an excessive muzzle tip up right as the shot fired creating a more dramatic muzzle flip. I switch to a 17lb hammer spring and that solved the issue. The 17lb hammer spring makes the slide bash into the frame harder causing most of the muzzle flip to happen at that point, but that “Felt” a lot better than the tip up situation that was happening with the 20lb hammer spring. I switched both guns to the 10/17 spring setup and they both felt much better overall. I shot both guns back to back with the 10/17 spring setup and the timing and feel while shooting was identical which was great.

 

Even though this practice session wasn’t long it was very much needed. I was mentally into it and able to execute properly unlike what happened on Sunday when I wasn’t feeling well. I am super glad that I got the chance to tune both of these blasters to feel identical while shooting. I am also glad that I didn’t go to the Texas State Open match with the 10/20 spring setup. I will be using the #2 as the primary for the Texas match and bring along the #4 as the backup. The #4 has had ZERO functionality issues since getting it back together after coating so I trust it to be a reliable backup. But I don’t trust it enough to be the primary yet. The trust in the new blaster will happen after I get several thousand on it with zero issues.

 

On another note I was able to get into the Area 1 match happening in Montana. The main match is full so I got into the Staff shooting schedule happening on Wed/Thur. This actually works out great since I have already signed up to shoot the Northern AZ Classic that same weekend. That week is going to be travel and shooting crazy. I will fly up to Montana on Tuesday to check out the stages, then shoot the match on Wed/Thur. Then I fly straight down to Phoenix on Friday to check out the NAZC stages and shoot that match on the weekend. Since I can’t take enough ammo on the plane for both matches I have to ship my ammo down to a buddy in AZ to use for the NAZC match. That is going to be a long week of travel and shooting. Hopefully it’s worth the effort to cram both of those matches together like that.

 

I shoot exclusively indoors at a modern range where the lighting is very good. However this post and others like it make me wonder if I could be better at seeing arc of recoil / shot calling if I were outdoors. And of course I have no outdoor experience to compare to. 

 

Is the problem brightness / lumens or is natural light just intangiblly better? 

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