tambarika

I load 9, 40, 45 and 223 from the same 650. I have caliber conversions with powder measures for each type. Moderate investment = great flexibility.

Get the surgery. I have had both hands done. If you let it go too long, the nerve will become bruised and the numbness will never go away. You will probably not shoot a gun for about a year after surgery -- it takes about that long to rebuild the thumb-pinkie grip strength. Once you have been diagnosed with CT, you eventually must have the surgery. All other treatments are bandaids. I did have a very good chiropractor work on my arms 2-3 times a week. It delayed the surgery for a year.

For me, Diclofenac (generic for Voltaren) has been a miracle drug. Actually, I need to call the ortho and cancel my apt for the cortisone injection. My knee hasn't felt this good in years and it only took about 2 days for it to really kick in. I had my right knee replaced 5 years ago. While it is better now than prior to the replacement, don't let anyone fool you into believing that a replacement will leave you with a 'new' knee. It will not. I compete weekly (am 63) and as long as I do my PT exercises 3 times a week, I can do anything but run. Basically, losing weight is one of the best things you can do -- gravity, etc. Instead of a compression sleeve, I suggest a compression stocking -- it breathes better in warm weather -- and you can sleep in it if the pain is severe. I also take Diclofenac. It is a great drug for arthritis pain. If it stops working and you can make it to Canada, pick up some Bextra. While it is no longer available in the U.S. due to liability issues, it is available anywhere outside the U.S. It was a real life save for me, since I have arthritis in multiple areas of my body. Staying fit, eating right, losing weight all work. Swimming is excellent. Stretch every day and find a really good PT person to show you how to exercise. Stay away from weight machines. They will only make the problem worse. A good PT person can show you simple exercises to strengthen your joints at home without machines.

five yards lets me do WHO and SHO as a warmup. if i am sloppy here, i need to stop and re-assess before moving back further. Steel at five yards can leave you bloody with frag. He could have been hinting at the safety implications of shooting steel that close. I've got nailed a few times shooting and watching stages with steel around ten yards away excellent point and suggestion. i have been hit by fragments at 20 yards, so i'm not sure how to be safe from that at all.

This brings up another interesting point. The last time I made such a monumental move forward in my shooting ability was when I replaced my corrective lenses with simple shooting glasses. I am near sighted and could not see the front sight with my glasses. as soon as i removed them, everything became a lot clearer -- so to speak.

we have one match at our club called Speeding Zone II each month. it is an all steel match shot out to 42 yards (Virginia Count). At that distance we are shooting at a 4 inch steel plate. Draw and Fire 1 round six times. Another string is 4 shots at the same plate. My personal best is 5 out of 6 and 3 out of 4. it is a brutal match because there are no hoser stages -- it is all accuracy. Timed but accurate. 5 point penalty for every plate missed. It really separates the men from the boys quickly, especially at 110 degrees in the desert heat. a lot of our local GMs refuse to shoot it because they are embarrassed by their performance. I routinely engage 8 inch steel at 55 yards -- the longest we can safely do on one of our bays. However, shooting at 20-25 yards has taught me how to get the most from the draw stroke, especially insuring a hit on that critical first shot.

five yards lets me do WHO and SHO as a warmup. if i am sloppy here, i need to stop and re-assess before moving back further.

two things: 1. When you are training in 100+ temperatures and 20+ mph wind, it is easier to work with steel than paper. 2. Sight alignment doesn't care what you shoot at, and you need that *before* you can call your shots. I'm not listening for anything. It's draw and shoot one shot. if my sight alignment is perfect, the plate falls, if not...

Something happened at the range yesterday. I have been trying diligently for well over 18 months to learn to call my shots with nominal success. To practice, I shoot a plate rack, draw and fire at each plate, starting at 5 yards, working my way back to 35 yards in 5 yard increments. Usually, if I miss a shot, it is high -- almost never low. Midway through the first 6 plates, a flash occurred (literally, something flashed quite brightly in my brain when the sights aligned), and the proper relationship between the front and rear sight seared itself into my memory. This was an amazing event. After that, every time I pressed out, my sight alignment was there and the plates fell, regardless of distance. Having spent some time trying to analyze what obstacle I had overcome, I hit upon this: I was trying to force my grip and stance to align my sights for me. I was not actually looking at the sight picture, but trying to mechanically compensate -- and in the process create correct sight alignment -- this does work sometimes, but not reliably. Now that I have that image (of front sight / rear sight alignment) seared into my brain, I do not break the shot until my eyes have confirmed that the sight picture matches that image. Definitely looking forward to applying this at the next match.

i drill all my locator buttons and solder in a length of wire that i then bend into a loop. that makes it very eay to remove the buttons.

The front sight Dawson ships with the sight package is way too tall -- forcing you to jack the rear sight up so much. Lower front sights are available from Dawson. I use a 0.240 on both my XDs.

i generally have my wife lay on the floor to catch my mags. she is getting pretty good at it.

if you are right handed and your shots are at 9 o'clock, it is possible you are 'fingering' the trigger -- pushing it to the right instead of *pressing* it straight back. Generally, if you're "pulling" the trigger to the right, (as a right hander would), it generally means you have too much finger on the trigger and the shots would go right, not left. Shots going left can sometimes mean too little trigger finger (resulting in a "pushing" motion on the trigger towards the left when firing) or perhaps poor trigger follow-through. Also make sure that your right hand is very relaxed, just strong enough to support the gun one-handed, but do not squeeze while you're just gripping it or during the shot. Any additional pressure you wish to exert to control the firearm should come from your support (left) hand. Gripping too tightly with your right, particularly when pulling the trigger, can also cause shots to go left. i meant left, not right, sorry.

if you are right handed and your shots are at 9 o'clock, it is possible you are 'fingering' the trigger -- pushing it to the right instead of *pressing* it straight back.

you should never lube the striker. that is the primary cause of light strikes once springs have been ruled out of the equation.

i'm on my second one. they did a redesign since the first version cracked and broke at the joints after 100 rounds. second version is working well, although it needs to be retightened once per match. can't use locktite since i dissolve it during cleaning with brake cleaner. real poor customer service on this product.

I learned my lesson. Now, whenever i buy a gun, i have the dealer mark the charge as 'Porn'. My wife doesn't suspect a thing.

i have small hands and do not like the fact that i must alter my grip twice to change mags (before and after depressing the mag release). this makes it slower to get back on target, especially during static changes. i struggled with index finger changes for years before retraining to an 'all thumbs' approach. i use my thumb on my strong hand for mag changes on the move, and the thumb on my weak hand for static changes. i know this may sound counter-productive -- to have two ways to accomplish the same thing -- but it has resulted in much smoother transitions for me. i shoot 4 Springfield XD's in competition, so there is no muscle memory to overcome when switching guns. might be different if i were to throw a 1911 into the mix.

good parallel : kata. i studied martial arts for nearly 15 years. breathe i do, no problem there. the adrenalin is a major disturbance though. it seems to come and go in waves. it's real intense for the first 2 stages, and then i settle into my rhthym for the next 2. it sneaks back up on me for the last 2.

How do you control the sheer energy that competing seems to impose on a person? after 5 years of slugging it out at our local matches, i found a simple solution to my inability to see my front sight, and all of the problems that are generated from that basic premise. about 5 weeks ago i took my prescription glasses off, (mildly nearsighted, 62 years old, wear tri-focals) and like magic, i could see my front sight and began to call my shots for the first time. in the past 5 competitions i have managed 1 first place, 2 2nd, and 2 3rd. the problem is this. i lost two competitions by a single poorly placed shot brought on by an adrenalin surge on either the next to last, or last stage. i was unable to control the energy and blew it both times -- what would have been two first place finishes were relegated to a 2nd and 3rd. i seem to do my best when i forget about competing, and just focus on shooting cleanly. however, this competitive urge has replaced all sense of reason and control in me. any ideas on how to wrestle this monster into submission, or at least into compliance?

you must have real big ankles! I like to wear my XD sub-compact around my neck on a big gold break-a-way chain. it's the only bling i have. the only problem -- the muzzle is always pointing at my chin and several police officers thought it was a cry for help. i was just trying to show everyone how safe a striker fired pistol can be without an external safety. i switched to 155g bullets to keep the weight down. loaded with 180's required weekly visits to my chiropractor for an adjustment. do you wear a toe ring with your new ankle bracelet? i have been told by some that it is a bit garish...

i suggest you take a closer look at the two parts. the differences are quite obvious. i no longer work on XDs that have powder river parts in them unless the owner permits me to substitute a stock safety lever. If you would, add a photo of the modified safety lever out of the gun. If I understand your fix you now have an elongated hole in the lever for the new pin to go through. I also wonder if a pin like a 1911 sear pin with the larger head on it would work the same with less work. That said this looks like a nice clean fix for the problem and probably isn't a bad standard treatment. the 1911 sear pin is a great idea -- but the main diameter is too large. it would take more work to install it than it takes me to blind pin the XD currently. i have a lot of .760 pin stock, and it takes about 50 minutes, start to finish to modify a stock XD for the new pin. so far, every XD i have examined show some signs of pin migration. for the judicious shooter, it's simply a matter of making the pin flush every trip to the range. Since i CCW 2 of my XDs, the mod was a no brainer. i compete with all 4 of mine, and have several thousand rounds down the pipes since the mod, and there have been no problems.

i suggest you take a closer look at the two parts. the differences are quite obvious. i no longer work on XDs that have powder river parts in them unless the owner permits me to substitute a stock safety lever.

i have not seen the new trigger kits or worked on an XDM (they are not legal here in Ca). the two i have seen were older XD's whose parts were placed by another well known after market parts manufacturer. this one i do not want to name, but they did less than stellar work on the XDs i have repaired (i have fixed 3 of their botched trigger jobs so far). it is quite possible that they were using first gen parts (of PR) and the design has changed since then. in any case, the initial problem is Springfields as far as i'm concerned, since the non-trapped pin has no where to go except in the wrong direction. any part that 'travels' inside a gun can cause a number of problems. while i'm sure that most serious shooters completely field strip their guns, this pin can wander during the course of a single day at the range. whether it causes a nominal gritty trigger pull from contacting a stock part, or a complete jam by contacting a PR part, neither is accepatable as far as i'm concerned.

I am a gunsmith who specializes in working on the Springfield XD. I have modified quite a few with both Powder River and Springer Precision trigger kits. A customer just brought me a .40 that had the Powder River kit in it, and had an ND in a motel room. the problem and solution were fairly obvious. I do not like to bad mouth anyone's after market parts --especially a company as successful as PR, but since i have observed the same situation now with at least 3 other XD's, and it is a major safety issue, i need to bring it to your attention. the primary issue revolves around the sear spring pin. this is a non-captured pin sitting directly in front of the sear pin in the frame. what i have begun to see is this pin has a tendency to move inwards about .020-.030 (or more) during usage -- sometimes in as little as 25-30 rounds. as the pin moves inward, it will eventually contact the striker safety release lever. on a stock XD, or one with a Springer Precision trigger, this is not an issue. while it may contact the release lever, it should not adversely affect usage -- although it will create a bit of friction at the point of contact. however, with the Powder River replacement part, the pin can (and will) jam the release lever in the upward position, making it virtually impossible to remove the slide normally. the customer who brought this to me had an ND in a hotel room when he attempted to seat a full mag and release the slide. the pin had jammed the release lever up, he had the grip safety depressed, and when he released the slide the gun discharged into the bed. fortunately, no one was injured. after seeing his pistol, i checked all 4 of my XD's and found two had pins that had started to migrate inward. after some thought, i obtained some hardened drill bit stock of the same diameter as the stock pin and manufactured a longer replacement pin. I drilled a blind hole in the other frame rail to trap the pin, and then milled a small slot into the stock striker safety release lever to allow free movement around the pin. the amount of metal removed from the release lever is nominal and does not impact the structural integrity of the part. i am not fishing for business here. i believe this is a major safety concern. i have since used all of my modified XD's, two in competition, and the modification is working fine -- and provides me with the peace of mind that the pin is no longer free to migrate. i urge everyone with a Powder River trigger kit to closely examine their sear spring pin for movement. while there may be other solutions to this problem, i am satisifed that the modification i have designed is both safe and effective. unfortuantely, the Powder River release lever is contoured in such a manner that it is not possible to perform this fix on one without adversely affecting the integrity of the safety release lever. the neck of their lever is contoured so much that removing material for a captured pin would render the part too thin for safe usage. attached are photos showing a stock XD and the modification i have made.