blownhemi

It is just fantastic. It's a pity you guys at the range can't see the commentary we've got going in the background on the message board. With my headphones on I can hear it all really good and some of the guys talking are quite funny. Todd Jarrett is a real clown. He's in front of the camera going "hi everyone in there" and we're typing back "Hi Todd", very cool stuff indeed. So obviously this camera is built into your laptop? I wonder if an external cam would work better. It works OK but under overcast skies it's very dark as you've seen unless someone stands near the edge of the camera view. What you need is a little stake with a black piece of card on it to stick into the ground just in front (to the side) of the camera view. That would probably fool the camera into making the right lighting corrections. The audio is just fantastic though. We hear EVERYTHING! I'd like to set something similar up next year at the Australian IPSC Nationals. That way you guys can watch the Aussies do their thing.

I can see them logged in or logged out. You might need the latest flash version.

Cool, I'll stay up for a while then. Not nagging or anything

It was great to see the Production and Limited super squads from yesterday on the recordings too. Sharyn really needs to put up a sign or something because people say all kinds of things behind and beside the laptop without them realising that it's going straight out to the web.

Must be sleeping in this morning.

I think you've got to ask yourself what is the sport about - besides having fun. Many times you'll hear some one describe the sport as shooting all your targets as quickly as possible. WRONG! Sorry, but that's the way I see it. The sport, especially in Production division where I shoot, is about shooting alpha's as quickly as possible. If you're accepting anything less then you're doing your scores a disservice. There are times when it might be possible to accept a few Charlie's and maybe a Delta but you've got to know your own capabilities. Where are you strengths? Do you have any strengths? If you come up against a stage that encompasses your strength then that's the stage to push it, especially if it's a larger stage. A high percentage will really help your point tally. My strengths seems to be prone stages and run & gun stages with only paper targets. It's hard to push a prone stage so I go for points there, but run & gun is where I push and it almost always serves me well. What are you weaknesses? Everyone has one of those. Train to make those weaknesses your strengths. My own weaknesses are many but they have changed in the short time I've been shooting. It used to be that I almost always zeroed a short course - now I shoot for points and it's been a long time since I've zeroed a stage and usually I finish very nicely in the points on short stages, and even winning them from time to time. As others have said, you can't win a match with short stages but you can certainly lose a match. Then it was strong hand - weak hand stages that were giving me grief. While I'm not all the way there yet I have improved dramatically by training for these types of stages. So when the competition falls away I still finish well. Nowadays it's plates and poppers that give me grief. Not a lot but just enough to know I'm chewing up valuable time on them, so I'll concentrate on them for a while. Shooting slower and making all your hits count has a speediness about it that people don't factor in. I watched a video of me shooting recently on a stage and my time was slow enough that the RO actually smirked as he read out my time. Now this RO is one of the better shooters in my region for Production (certainly much faster than me) but when the scores were calculated I finished something like 25-30% ahead of his score because of my hits. At my most recent match I was squdded with a higher graded shooter. He beat my times on just about every stage in the match but I outshot him considerably (by 11.5%) when the final scores where tabulated. Of my 223 scoring shots for the match 82% of them were Alpha's - that really helps at the end of the day. If you can't decide on whether a stage calls for accuracy or speed, go for accuracy and make every shot count. You can be too fast but it's hard to be too accurate (unless you're taking a stupid amount of time to make your shots).

I've never seen any shooter...ever...watch what the RO writes down. ??? I always verify the hits before I sign my score sheet, but I've just never seen a shooter look over the clipboard RO's shoulder while they write in the hits. Usually, with the shooter's that pay attention, they are following the timer RO and looking at the hits on the targets. What am I missing there? Yep, no one i know what's the scorer write the scores but they check it all adds up after the fact and if something doesn't feel right (ie: a Delta when none was called) then you question it. We've had plenty of screw up with paper. Last match I shot some idiot put all the scores in a B's and we only shoot Classic targets in Australia (no B zone). Paper isn't fool proof at all. I like Palm and it's easy to step back if the RO changes a call.

Cool, just remember this is supposed to be fun too. You're doing a great job.

Nice vids keep them coming.

They don't need to get in front of the camera, they can just sit behind it and introduce themselves and talk about how they did on the stage. We all know shooters love to talk about how well they did or didn't do. It's funny I watched a few stages go through (had to go to bed eventually though) and one shooter shot a reasonable time I thought but lots of Charlies (this was on the circular stage) when it came to the bridge stage I thought to myself I wonder if the guy is going to shoot alot of charlies again - low and behold he did. Maybe we should offer some online coaching as they shoot. J/K We hear the talking fine, and the if the RO calls the scores loud enough we hear the times and hits but it would be nice to hear which shooter is on the line, especially for those who have never shot in the US and don't know who's who. I heard you (Sharyn) talking to the Shooting USA guy about what you were doing. "There's even a guy watching from Australia" you said and the guy replied, "So they just saw me stick my face in front of the camera" Yes, we did! You also said "It was very cool" and yes it is. I was very tired before i started to watch because I'd had a huge day with my family but here I was at midnight watching the USPSA Nationals live from across the world. Sure the footage may not be hi-def, and people might stand in front of the camera but it was so cool that I was watching until 2.15AM in the morning. OK just a couple little hints or helpful advice to improve the experience. 1) Tell the people on the world wide web who the shooter is when they're about to start, you don't need to shout it out, just a quiet "OK guys this is Blake Miguez or whoever" because I've posted the streaming link around a few places and many people may not know who's who. I didn't but I enjoyed it anyway. 2) Before you pull the plug and move to another stage just say something "That's it for this stage guys, I'm moving to stage ?? now and we'll see you back in 10 mins or so." Sometime the screen would just go out and we'd be wondering if it dropped out or you were all finished. 3) If you can get a couple people to talk about how they shot and about the stage it would be great. Some guys would love to do it I'm sure. They don't need to be in front of the camera, like I said the audio is fantastic so we could even get someone to call the stage as another shooter shoots it. 4) Something that would be very cool is if you could have a wireless cam that you could carry up closer and switch on when the guys are about to shoot. I know I'm being picky now but how awesome would that be. We watch the wide view and then the view switches to up close and we watch an up close and personal view of the stage as it happens. Shooter finishes and it goes back to wide view. Maybe you can't do it this time but it's a cool idea to think about but more work on your part. You could charge for a service like that. Seriously it is freaking awesome. Sharyn you're going to have to tell me how to set something up like this so I can stream stuff from Australia. By the way, I love your accent. When I referred to the footage being sponsored by Millenium Custom I was actually referring to your hat not your fella's shirt. It was just good timing when he stood in front of the camera.

Awesome stuff, the sound is great. I'm wear headphones to not wake the family but the sound is very good. Picture is not bad considering but some way of forcing the picture brightness would be great.

I'm watching, it's almost midnight here in Oz.

Cool I look forward to seeing some of the action. I have a particular interest in USPSA Production because we in Australia also use 10rd mags as mandated by our government.

That exactly why I bought my bare frame. Why buy a complete gun and throw everything away why you can save alot of money by starting with a bare frame and working up from there.

If a world shoot is ever held in the US then it'll have to be shot to IPSC rules. That's going to mean that alot of USPSA Production shooters will need new guns or get bumped to other divisions. It would be nice to see a world shoot in the US. Maybe New Zealand should put in for a world shoot. I think everyone can agree it's a pretty safe place.

When this perfect double thing came up I watched the video, both versions (slow mo and normal speed) and initially I wasn't going to say anything, but my immediate thought was lack of follow through on that particular shot. While the barrel does initially return to the same point of aim when the shot breaks you can see the muzzle is already headed to the next target. I've got nothing against you Ben, I go to your website all the time (several times a week) to see what you're up to and I respect the dedication you put into your shooting, it's inspirational stuff. Having said that I honestly think you might have had a miss there. Don't beat yourself up about it, stuff happens, even to the best. You still won the match and if you take responsibility for the miss and move on you'll be better for it. Going to matches thinking that you're going to be penalised for being too good will just do your head in. It's been called a miss, analyse why and move on.

Depends on where you are. In Australia the frame is still the gun but in some states they also consider the barrel to be just as important. For example I just bought a LWD barrel and slide, the slide is fine I can pick that up from the dealer any time but the barrel needs a serial number and because I need two permits to pick up both the barrel and frame I'm just going to wait until the frame shows up at the dealer and then combine it all in the shop and walk out with it on one permit as a complete gun.

Just curious - why would I replace my Glock polymer with a replacement polymer one. And if it's broken and needs replacement, why wouldn't I send it back to Glock and get a replacement one from them? Then you could build up a custom glock from scratch. I know you can do the same with the CCF frame but I'm not sold on those yet. In australia we can actually buy new frames from the local glock distributor. I'm building one up now with a LWD slide and ported barrel.

I bought my production gun second hand so it already had straight eights on it. I wasn't that fond of them at first for competition but when I took them into a dark room for the first time I really discovered what all the fuss was about. However in Australia we can't own guns for self defense so it's kinda silly to set them up that was so more recently I've put a HiViz fibre up front and left the Heinie Slant Pro rear on the back. Now I'm happy with the gun for competition but the gun is useless in a dark room because the fibre is invisible in the dark. Personally I'd set up a second gun. Glocks are cheap over there. Buy one for home and self defense, set up another for competition work. Looking at some of those pictures of sights I don't see a point having a defense sight unless it's got tritium front and rear. You need both to accurately aim the gun in the dark. Having said that I would definitely set up a SD gun with a laser at least and possibly a light too if it wasn't going to be holster carried. Good luck with your decision.

OK, thanks guys. What I'm doing is building a IPSC Open gun in 357SIG. I don't want to run 9mm major and we don't have the option of 40S&W in Australia so 357SIG is my only major PF option in a Glock. I've got a LWD slide and LWD extended/ported barrel winging its way over here at the moment. The whole gun will be a ground up build because we can actually buy brand new bare Glock frames here in Australia. I'll post some build pics when all the parts gets here. Got some stuff already but not all. Typically I shoot IPSC Production with a Glock 17A but almost everyone else in my club shoots Open and so every once in a while I'd like to try and run with the big dogs. Also I was told that Glock Open guns don't work so that was enough incentive in itself. This will be more of a knockabout gun rather than a serious attempt at Open division glory.

I've been lurking for a little while and enjoying the wealth of experience here but I couldn't find and answer to this question. Are compensators better than ported barrels? or are they essentially the same when it comes to performance?