CHA-LEE

If you are looking for a good .40 Minor powder try out the really fast burning powders like VV N310, Clays, and stuff like that. I have made .40 Minor loads with 200gr bullets using Clays and N310 and they were both Crazy soft shooting.

I don't want to sound like a whiny punk, but where is all of the information about the 2015 USPSA LTD/Open Nationals? When I check the USPSA website there isn't squat listed other than the match dates and the dedicated "Nationals" website does not have much more information either. If you go to the Universal Shooting Academy website the USPSA Nationals isn't even listed in their "Major Matches" listing. You have to dig into their calendar to even find the event then its "Info" simply lists a link back to the useless "Nationals" website. Why are the quantity of stages or total round count posted anywhere? The majority of shooters will be flying into this match so we need this information to know if we have to ship ammo in and if so how much. We are only three weeks away from the start of this match and there is still a significant amount of missing information about the match that the competitors need to know. Its pretty crappy when the "Most important match of the year" seems to have less proactive organization or notification than a local club match. You would think that at a $270 or $295 entry fee that this thing would be setting the bar when it comes to how its run.

This past weekend I attended and ROed the Colorado State Champs in Byers. My buddy Price was the MD for the match and when he asked me many months ago to help out with ROing I couldn’t turn him down. Since I was ROing the match I had to shoot all 12 stages on Friday. I headed out to the range on Thursday after work to check out the stages and was really glad I did. Several of the stages didn’t have the targets stapled up but the target stands were in place so you could get a basic understanding of how they would be positioned. There was a pretty evil memory stage that did have the targets up on it and I spent most of my time on it to figure out a solid plan. That was time well spent. I went home with as good of plans as I could iron out and was ready to rumble for Friday. Friday morning greeted us with heavy overcast skies and somewhat brisk temps. For the first time this year I had to wear a coat on the range to stay warm. With the heavy overcast skies I knew that I was going to have trouble seeing my sights. Through the first 6 stages of the match I battled seeing my sights and was forced to point shoot a lot of targets while shooting slower than normal to basically “Hope” hits into the targets. For the most part it worked out but I still racked up way too many C’s and D’s even when shooting slow. I also had one uncalled miss on a speed shoot stage which sunk a pretty solid run. After lunch the cloudy skies started to clear and I could see my sights again but then ran into other issues. I wasted about 2 seconds on one stage with a fumbled reload then racked up another miss on the memory stage with one of my shots going into a wall instead of a target. I wrapped up the match fairly solid but was pretty beat by the end. Shooting 12 stages on a small squad and having to RO ourselves as well was a long and tiring day at the range. I didn’t get any video footage of my stage runs as we were too short handed in simply trying to get each other through the stage much less video one another. I wasn’t happy with my performance overall as I knew I left at least 10% - 15% on the table due to not being able to see my sights or just stupid mistakes due to the hurried pace of churning through the stages and working all the way up to my turn to shoot. It was fun shooting with buddies, but it wasn’t the best environment for having a good match performance. Oh well, it happens that way some times. Over the weekend I ROed the two speed shoot stages with my buddy Sterling. We worked well together on the stage and got all of the squads churned through efficiently with very little drama. When there was down time between squads Sterling and I had fun reshooting our stages for fun and test firing our guns. I was able to do some accuracy testing on all three of my blasters at 7, 15, and 30 yards. The #1 blaster with the bushing barrel is hitting about 4 inches high at 15 yards so that thing needs some different sights or a different barrel bushing. The #2 and #3 blasters each needed a little sight tweaking to get them dead nuts on at 30 yards. It was surprising to me how much a “little” off at 7 or 15 translated into being a “Lot” off at 30 yards. But the good news is that now I have both #2 & #3 dialed in and ready to rumble for my final three major matches of the season. When reshooting our stages I was able to shoot stage 5 in 6.5 seconds which would have stomped the best run by over a second. It’s amazing what can happen when I can actually see my sights and call my shots. I hate being crippled by my poor vision in less than optimal lighting. The next major gun project being an Open gun is probably a really good plan. I am tired of getting beat by my eyes with iron sights. On Saturday and Sunday Ron Avery and Donovan Montros were my main competition in Limited and they both ended up beating me. Ron won Limited by a significant amount of match points (80+) then Donovan beat me by only 9 match points. I ended up 3rd in Limited at 94% of Ron. I wanted to give those guys a better run for their money, but I couldn’t get it done this time. This coming weekend I am heading down to Texas for the Oil Field Classic match and will enjoy the opportunity to shoot the match as a competitor so I can focus on what is needed. Hopefully the lighting works out in my favor as well.

For the CO state match, go with what you already know and have confidence in doing. Save the deployment of the "New" stuff for practice after the state match. You don't want to be distracted by trying to deploy something new at a major match. This is no different than shooting a major match with an untested gun or ammo. Do you really want to risk issues by using unknown stuff?

Seeing the sights for ALL shots fired allows you to instantly KNOW where the bullets are going without needing to look at the targets to confirm your hits. If you instantly KNOW where the bullets are going this allows you to do the next thing immediately after calling the shot. Since you know where your hits are instantly and can do the next thing immediately then seeing your sights is really the key to doing things "Faster". Technically you are really not doing things "Faster". You are simply allowing yourself to do the next thing Sooner, which results in the whole process taking less time. If you are using the proper gun handling mechanics, then seeing the sights when the gun is in between your face and the target takes ZERO extra time to do. Knowing that fact, why on earth wouldn't you observe your sights at all times? Do you really want to sacrifice on target hit quality, and wasted time looking for holes to confirm your hits? If so, thank you for your donation in match points.

You have to tune the depth of the extractor so it is engaging the rim of the case properly. If you take the slide off the gun, then take the guide rod and barrel out so you have easy access to the breach face and extractor. Take a used piece of brass and slowly insert it into the normal "Chambered" position on the breach face. The extractor should deflect slightly as you push the brass up into the "Chambered" position and the case should be pinched between the extractor hook and the opposite side of the breach face. If you can slip the brass up into the "Chambered" position without deflecting the extractor then the extractor isn't tuned properly. Another thing to look at is the sharpness of the leading edge of the extractor hook. This is the tip of the hook that pushes into the side of the case rim. If that leading edge has been rounded off then there is a lot higher chance of it slipping off during extraction. When I was shooting the EAA/Tanfo guns, once I had the depth of the extractor tuned properly, I would put a wolff Extra Power extractor spring in it and it would last at least 25K - 30K before the spring would need to be replaced. If the extractor is tuned properly and not allowed to slip off the case (failure to extract errors) it will last a very very long time before wearing out.

This weekend I didn’t get any shooting done as I was in Steamboat Springs with the wife celebrating our 6 year wedding anniversary. We have been together for 10 years and she is awesome for putting up with me and my crazy practical shooting obsession. There is no way I could have achieved my practical shooting goals without her full support. She is a super star and I am eternally grateful for her being a part of my life. Our weekend trip up to the mountains was nice and relaxing. It was actually nice to totally get away from everything “normal” and spend some quality one on one time with my lady. On Monday I attended a Training class presented by Manny Bragg. I use to pull this class together in the past but passed the baton to my buddy Nick who pulled together the class this year. The class went from Saturday – Tuesday with several different individual classes through the days. I signed up for the one day Advanced class on Monday and was happy to attend as a “Customer” for the first time in a long while. Manny is a great trainer and I enjoy spending time with him on the range. We talked about shooting skills more than me actually shooting. Through the whole day I only shot about 200 rounds with almost half of that playing around with a double swinger stage trying different engagement orders to minimize the delay in waiting for each swinger to expose. I was able to pick up on a couple good “Nuggets” of information from the class and am looking forward to vetting them in my own practice sessions in the future. Manny said that he seen a marked improvement in my transitions from last years class and this year so that is a good confirmation of hard work being put into that skill. I still have a long ways to go in my shooting and movement skills but it will be fun to test out some new skills and ideas from the class. At the end of the class I was able to shoot one of the students Open guns through a short stage and that was fun and a lot easier than I expected. Put the dot on the target and pull the trigger. On the close blasting stuff I don’t think it was any “Faster” than my limited gun, but it was dramatically faster in engaging the further or more difficult shots. It will be fun to put some real shooting time behind an Open gun once mine is done and ready to rumble. This coming weekend is the Colorado State Match. I am shooting the whole match on Friday then serving as a Stage CRO for the weekend shooters. I still have a bunch of ammo to reload this week and get my blasters cleaned up and ready to rumble for the match. It’s going to be a busy week getting everything ready. From a Limited gun perspective, we put a bushing barrel in the #1 blaster and that thing is super accurate with that barrel setup. I was able to shoot a couple of all rounds touching groups off hand at 10 yards with that thing which is significantly better than my other blasters. I need to put a taller front sight on the bushing gun now due to the POI being about 1 inch high at 10 yards. But I will get that taller front sight installed this week. Hopefully I will have some down time while ROing this weekend to get it sighted in. Since the POI is off I really haven’t shot it much, but the little I have shot it the felt recoil seems a little more harsh due to the 2oz less in barrel weight. It’s not horrible, just feels a little different. Once I get the sights figured out I am looking forward to doing some back to back testing between the Bushing and Bull barrel guns to see if the reduced bushing barrel weight makes any difference while shooting and transitioning aggressively.

Looks like a lot of fun once again!!!

Just an FYI............ A Match book can't generically state that all walls go from ground up to infinity for all stages. For Level 2 and above matches that verbiage MUST be located in the WSB for each stage if they want to apply it across the board. If that verbiage was not in the WSB read by the RO's then the walls are considered to go from the ground to the height constructed.

Brian> you are correct. I was talking about beating those dot gun cheaters on stage 13. Sorry if I caused any confusion.

Open GM? Nope. But I will be working on that soon enough.

I think the main difference in the recoil spring weights used in Open vs Limited comes down to muzzle flip potential and control. With a properly tuned Comp and Load on an Open gun the majority of the muzzle flip is eliminated by the gas exiting the comp. Since the gun isn't muzzle flipping its a lot less probable that the slide momentum coming back forward will be diminished so it will continue to feed reliably. A Limited gun on the other hand requires supreme Grip Pressure and Angles to properly manage the recoil and muzzle flip. If you grip the gun hard with the proper angles there will be very minimal muzzle flip due to the shear amount of mechanical leverage you have against the gun as the slide cycles. If you have a poor grip pressure or angles and allow the gun to muzzle flip excessively then you need a heavier recoil spring to overcome the absorbed energy and snap the slide back forward. This is why stock off the shelf guns come with very stiff recoil springs from the factory. The stiff recoil spring ensures proper feeding no matter how much the shooters poor grip allows the gun to muzzle flip. The general rule of thumb is this. The harder you grip the gun to reduce muzzle flip the softer recoil spring you can get away with using and still have reliable feeding. If you grip the gun like a wimp and allow it to muzzle flip excessively you will always be forced to use stiffer recoil springs to ensure reliable feeding. As for weaker recoil springs causing excessive frame or slide damage that is an urban myth. Regardless of recoil spring weight used, the slide is always coming back at a very high velocity and beating into the frame. Semi Auto pistols are designed to function properly for many thousands of rounds in this environment. Can someone hog out a slide to make it super light and then use really light springs to dramatically increase the slide velocity? Sure. Will this increased slide velocity have an increase chance of failing sooner? Sure. It all comes down to how you want the gun to feel while shooting to meet your goals. When I was shooting EAA Limited guns I liked how a lightened slide an 8lb recoil spring felt and functioned while shooting. A slide would last about 25K before cracking and need to be replaced. That failure mode was more due to the reduced slide weight than the reduced recoil spring weight. Today I shoot an STI Edge type of Limited gun with a lightened slide and a 10lb recoil spring. I grip it hard and it shoots as flat as a well tuned open gun. I am yet to crack a slide or damage a frame and have probably put 50K though it so far. Competition guns are like race cars. We are tweaking and tuning them for maximum performance and longevity is a secondary requirement. Show me a NASCAR, or NHRA Dragster with a 36,000 bumper to bumper warranty with only needing oil changes until 100K? It doesn't exist. The same can be said for a high performance competition gun. When you are running in the red line more often than not, stuff is going to fail sooner than later. That is the facts of competition equipment.

Thanks for all of the compliments guys!!! Hopefully I didn't use up all of my practical shooting luck on the Utah State match since I still have several major matches to attend including the Nationals over the next couple of months. The keep it simple match performance plan of simply "Get your hits" seemed to work pretty good. I will keep using that over the next couple of matches to see how it turns out. Its really easy to get sucked into looking at others stage times, points, or hit factors then letting that get you distracted from what really matters which is simply to get your hits after the buzzer goes off.

This past weekend I headed out to Salt Lake City for the Utah State Champs. I drove out there Friday morning with my buddy Nick and we got to the range at around 3PM to check out the stages. We were able to walk all of the stages and it was looking like most of the stages were going to be a lot of up close and personal blasting mixed in with some tricky sections and movers. We were on Squad 1 which pretty much ended up being the Limited Super Squad for the match with myself, Bob Krogh, Ron Avery, and Donovan Montross. It was a lot of fun shooting with those guys over the weekend and it was packed with really close competition on each stage. Nick and I set a performance goal of simply getting our hits so we could have a clean match. With all of the up close and personal super fast blasting this usually sucks you into going a little too crazy and ending up with misses on really easy targets. So I forced myself to simply shoot only as fast as I could see the sights and not try to burn anything down. The only thing I allowed myself to “push” was my transition aggressiveness and that actually worked out really well. On Saturday I shot really consistent with only a few minor mistakes here or there. My consistency put me in a slight 11 point lead over Ron Avery after day 1 with Bob and Donovan not too far behind. Bob and Donovan were both having some difficulty mixed with really good runs so it was pretty difficult to know who would end up winning. The four of us were all contending for the win and in striking distance for the win. Since the stages were very biased to close blasting there really wasn’t much to segregate performances between us. On Sunday, the dog fight continued until Bob racked up two misses on one stage which took him out of contention for the win. Then Donovan ended up getting bumped to Open due to having a mag that was slightly too long and didn’t fit in the 140mm gauge. That was a bummer for him but he took it in stride. On the second stage to shoot on Sunday (Stage 10) I nicked a mini popper but it didn’t go down so I ended up with a miss. This took away all of my cushion and left Ron and I to duke it out on the final three stages of the match. One was a speed shoot that we both finished within 0.1 HF on then the classifier and stage 13 which was a large field course stage. I proceeded to tank the classifier by missing the small steel 4 times before taking them down when Ron shot the stage one for one. This left Stage 13 as the final opportunity to make it happen. Ron shot the stage in an opposite direction than me so we had opposite stage plans but the shooting was pretty much the same going either way. So it came down to execution. I forced myself to NOT PUSH on the final stage as I knew that would not yield a better performance than simply letting it happen at whatever pace it wants to go. The buzzer went off and I let the shooting happen and it ended up being a very solid stage run winning overall out of even the Open guys (Take that you dot gun cheaters). At this point I really didn’t know if my final stage performance would be enough to make up for the steel miss I had or not. I figured that he would be about 10 – 15 match points ahead of me and I would end up Second in Limited. We would have to wait for the match results to come out to see how it all panned out. When the results were posted, very much to my surprise, I ended up winning over Ron by just 1 match point!!!! One match point defined the winner out of over 1,450 match points. That is insane!!! It was a fun and close battle the whole match. Our squad was great and we all worked hard to keep the squad churning through the stages in an efficient manner. The stages were challenging and fun, and the weather cooperated. I also got most of my stage runs on video and uploaded to my YouTube channel if you want to check them out. When I attended this match last year it was right after my neck blew out and my left arm was pretty much useless. I struggled through that match trying to force my left arm and neck to cooperate but came up way short. It was nice to come back this year and get the job done.

That was one of my thoughts as well. I typically use all Winchester brass when I do load development and chrono. Then I'll chrono mixed brass once I settle on a load to see if there is any weird deviation. Even when chrono'ing all Win brass prior to A3, I was getting really low velocity rounds here and there. When I submitted my 8 rounds for chrono, I picked all Win brass. ETA-Do you think longer brass would contribute to lower or higher velocity, generally speaking? Longer brass would create more crimp. More crimp usually creates more case pressure before the bullet is pushed out and down the barrel. So more crimp = more velocity most of the time. The opposite is true of less crimp.

I have served as the MD and RM at several Level 2 matches and shot them as well. Most of the time the MD/RM will shoot the match along with the rest of the match staff on their designated day of shooting. There were a few times where MD or RM duties kept me from shooting all of the stages on the match staff shooting day and I would simply wait until there was a lull in the MD/RM duties on other days and shoot through the remaining stages as needed. I don't know about the other MD's or RM's out there, but when I am tasked with serving in that capacity shooting the actual stages is one of the lowest priorities on the list. That being said, I have never had a "Good" match shooting performance when tasked with MD or RM duties. But I realistically don't care because ensuring the match happens properly and smoothly is my top priority. As for the Prize table situation, I fully agree that as an MD its best to remove yourself from the high $$$ awards drawings. It sucks to lose out on an opportunity to win a nice prize, but that is cheap compared to others thinking some kind of unethical shenanigans are going on if you did get your name pulled in a random drawing. If the prizes are awarded based on match performance, then I am all for match staff accepting what they have earned. Good luck with your match!!!

To answer the question if the slot system is a waste of time & effort? I would say YES. The majority of the Top Contenders in each division usually earn their Nationals Slot from their prior nationals performance or Area match performance. For example, I have been contacted by USPSA directly and issued a Nationals Slot based on my prior major match results. All of my participation in local section qualifier series matches that are used to determine the distribution of our sections nationals slots is a waste of time for me to attend. The matches are fun and worth attending to shoot, but I don't attend to "Earn" a nationals slot because I usually get one anyway from my major match results. I think they should ditch the whole nationals slot/wait list system and instead do it just like any other Level 3 Area match does it. Set a start date for registration to begin and let it fill up in a first come first serve basis. Then maintain a wait list from there. I don't even want to know how much money and man hours are wasted with the current printed paper slot allocation process.

But how will USPSA justify the mission count fee assessed to every single competitor for every single sanctioned match if you do away with the Nationals Slot system????.................

It still makes me sad watching you shoot open with 10 round mags. All of those reloads do not look like much fun.

That is pretty sweet optimization of the limited quantity of bays you had to work with.

Hard chroming those parts is a total waste since you have to cut, grind, and polish on them to make them function properly. Spending extra money on untuned hard chromed parts is a total waste of money.

That looked like a pretty interesting use of berms vs stages. How many berms did you have to work with and how many total stages where there?

I really don't get the continual marketing push for Ladies and Juniors. The vast majority of Ladies and Juniors participating in USPSA matches are doing so because their significant other, or family is participating in the sport already. There are not many Ladies or Juniors that will independently jump into the practical shooting sports 100% on their own without the involvement or support of their significant other or family. Sure there are a few that will or have, but that is more the exception than the rule. Every hobby has its associated expenses and if those expenses exceed the budget of Lady or Junior shooters then why would we try to augment or support this unsustainable situation? The practical shooting sports are based on the volunteer efforts from the general membership which can comfortably afford to participate, which is easily quantified as middle aged men. Why we would focus so much marketing effort on "Bringing In" Ladies and Juniors to the sport who evidently need continual financial assistance to participate in the sport seems counter productive to me. I would rather USPSA or IPSC reward/support the average volunteer member that continually busts their hump to make the practical shooting matches happen at the local club level. The local club match MD's, RM's, RO's, and CRO's that endlessly and thanklessly support their local practical shooting sports are the ones who actually make this sport viable. Why are we not "Supporting" these members for their proven dedicated to the sport? You need a cake to put icing on, but we continually market to the "Icing" demographic. If you have a big pile of Icing without a cake under it then you really don't have a "Cake" any more.

From what I have read and been told the overall length of 9mm brass from one brand to the next can vary quite a bit. If the length of the case is different from one brand to the next the amount of crimp will vary as well. Changing the crimp even a little bit will dramatically affect the velocity of the ammo. The next time you do load testing try using the same head stamp brass vs random mixed head stamp and observe the ES and SD differences between them. When I do .40 load development I make sure to use brass with the same head stamp/brand to eliminate that as a variable.

Get a cheap Dremel Engraver tool from a local hardware store. Use that to engrave numbering on each magazine. I engrave a small number on each magazine tube, follower, and base pad so that I know which components belong to which magazine. Doing this helps me isolate and fix bad magazines or mag components effectively because I know exactly which magazine they are associated with.