CHA-LEE

This past weekend I headed up to Cody Wyoming to attend the Yellowstone Sectional match. I headed up there a couple of days early to do some training with my friend Rob Cook. We were able to get a lot of good training done on Friday and Saturday then had some fun riding ATV’s around his property and up in the mountains. It was a lot of fun to get away from the busy schedule of “Home” and take a leisure pace of doing things. This relaxing long weekend was exactly what I needed to disperse a lot of the “Burn Out” I have been feeling lately. We got a chance to check out the stages on Friday while they were still being setup. Most of the stages didn’t have any targets stapled up but the walls and shooting areas were done so you could get the general understanding of how the stages should be shot. There were two pretty difficult memory style stages in the match and lucky for me, one of them was almost all steel, which was setup on Friday. Stage 1 was a sea of steel targets blocked by a bunch of barrels and a wide shooting area that had several low “ports” needed to engage the targets from. I spent a solid 30 – 45 minutes on this stage breaking it down effectively. It was a very confusing stage where you could see the same steel from many different positions. I felt sorry for the shooters who showed up the morning of the match and had their “5 minutes” to figure it out because they were basically screwed. The other memory stage was an all paper stage with a bunch of walls setup in a fanning away from you fashion. This stage required you to shuffle step a bunch to see all of the targets and once again you could see the same targets from many different positions. I focused on that stage first thing in the morning on Sunday after the targets were setup and it took a while to get it figured out. The match had 8 total stages which were biased towards aiming hard and not blasting, so this was going to be a match of simply getting your hits. I was designated as one of the Squad RO’s since I am a certified CRO so I spent most of the day ROing shooters on my squad. I am glad that I put in the stage breakdown homework before the start of the match because I usually had to RO all the way up to my turn on most of the stages. Overall I shot the match with a “Fair” performance. ROing a ton did impact my performance, but I think my primary issue that day was due to arm fatigue from the ATVing the day before. We went on an ATV ride the day before that was a couple of hours long in some pretty bouncy terrain and my arms were pretty much wasted after the ride. That arm fatigue lingered into Sunday and it was an odd experience. While dry firing the stages before shooting them I literally was feeling like I had worn our arms to the point of not feeling comfortable with keeping them up and out while dry firing. This arm fatigue did negatively impact my recoil management so I ended up shooting several of the stages at a slower pace than normal because I had to wait for the sights to return and settle before breaking the next shot. It also lead to some poor hits or misses on a couple of stages where I tried pushing the shooting speed but the sights were all over the place while shooting. All told I racked up 4 misses 16 D’s!!! 16 D’s is absolutely retarded, but 11 of them were on the classifier that had some 50 yard targets and I was aiming too low and had nice groups right in the D zone. That was poor execution on my part as I know I have to aim higher on the far targets but simply forgot. Regardless of my worn out arms, ROing most of the time or bucket load of misses and D’s, I had a lot of fun at the match. My squad was fun to shoot with and the weather was awesome. Much to my surprise I was able to finish HOA for the whole match (Take that you Dot Gun Cheaters) so that was cool. Hopefully I will be able to go up there again some time to shoot and relax.

Iron sights need to be setup in a way that promotes the ability to call your shots at blistering shooting speeds. Tuning the sight configuration to what you need to see is a very important process that takes a crap ton of testing to figure out what works best for you. I have spent over $1000 in different sight setups over the years to figure out the setup that works for me. Try stuff out and see what does or does not work. But always keep in mind that the goal should be a sight configuration that allows you to process what you are seeing while shooting at chainsaw speeds. If the sight setup is too tight or small you will be forced to let the sights totally settle post shot before you can see them again before breaking the next shot.

So do you slow your splits as you go through rounds or do your hits get worse? I always grip the gun hard like I mean it and continue shredding as fast as my finger can go. Just because the felt recoil gets slightly more harsh in feeling does not change how I manage the recoil or speed of shooting.

Unsure because it maxes out my cheap-o scale. I will have to load up a mag and weigh it then add it to the 50oz paper shredding machine. It wouldn't surprise me if it added another pound to the gun though.

Cha-lee: I agree with you completely ... so what do you think our leadership is up to when they claim that the weight restriction is to appease gun manufacturers who are going to walk if their guns can't be competitive again? I don't even want to speculate as to what our "Leadership" is up to with regards to this situation. Personally I don't think that the whole "Super Tanker Heavy" production gun argument / advantage is really even valid. Especially given that all Production guns are scored Minor and thus get to use "mouse fart" power factor loads. Then there are the historical match results that show MANY Club, State, Section, Area, and National level matches being won by feather weight plastic guns. If the light weight plastic guns were at a significant disadvantage to the heavy DA/SA guns then there wouldn't be any representation of them being used for match shooting. For example, when was the last time you seen a High Point being used on a regular basis at a match? That manufacture of guns are not competitive and unreliable thus not used for competition. More than anything, I think people simply like whining about disadvantages in their guns and gear verses looking in the mirror and fixing the real problem. Its easy to blame a poor performance on the Arrow because the Indian could never do anything wrong.

I usually can. The recoil gets slightly more harsh as the magazine is emptied because there is less mass in the grip portion of the gun.

If a Production shooter using a DA/SA pistol, makes ready, then manually lowers the hammer to Half Cock and does not apply the safety, then holsters the gun. Is this considered a DQable offense given rule 10.5.11.2? This rule basically says that if the hammer is cocked and the safety isn't applied before holstering, its a DQable offense. I tried looking for a definition of what a hammer being "Cocked" means in the rule book but couldn't find anything. Is a hammer resting at the half cock position considered "Cocked"? If so I would make a 10.5.11.2 DQ viable for a shooter doing something like that wouldn't it?

Registration list shows 29 GM's and 52 M's............ The competition is THICK at this Nationals!!!! Good luck to everyone attending!!!

50oz........... 5 Inch Bull Barrel, Long Dust Cover Wide frame, Phoenix Trinity Stainless Grip. Super Tanker Limited Blaster!!!

Rushing and trying to "Go Fast" is vastly different than aggressiveness deployed efficiently as the primary means of doing the next thing as soon as possible. Yes, some shooters need a swift kick in the ass to get them to put any amount of urgency in their movement or shooting. You need to perform shooting, gun handling and movement skills with aggressiveness. But that aggressiveness shouldn't come at the price of degrading the fundamentals, such as NOT seeing the sights lift on every single shot.

This past weekend was the Area 3 match in Grand Island Nebraska. I drove out to this match with my buddy Trung and we got there on Friday afternoon to check out the stages. There were 14 fun and challenging stages at this match with a lot of running around and contorted shooting positions. I am not a fan of stages setup in a way that are biased to measure competitors “Foot Race” or “Yoga” skills but it is what it is. Every match has its flavor and style of stages and doing a bunch of running and shooting from funky positions is part of this matches style. It was pretty hot and humid on Friday and much sweating was had while walking the stages to figure out the best stage plans. I was able to watch the Production super squad shoot a couple of stages and its always interesting to see them come up with unique stage plans to work around their 10 round mag limitations. With fairly solid stage plans for most of the stages we headed to the hotel to cool down and prepare for the start of the match on Saturday. We were shooting on the PM/PM schedule so that allowed us to sleep in a little bit on Saturday then get to the range around 11 and check out the timing of a few activated targets and general spectating of the AM squads. The Saturday AM squad had an hour rain delay in the morning which put the whole match an hour behind schedule. Luckily it wasn’t mega hot on Saturday. It was still hot and humid but it was bearable. I wasn’t feeling “Normal” that day at the range as I felt run down and pretty lethargic. I thought it was due to the heat and humidity so I ground through it. By the end of the day I was feeling pretty miserable. I figured that getting back to the hotel and getting cooled down and cleaned up would help me out, but I kept feeling worse and worse. By the time we sat down for dinner I had a pounding headache and felt nauseous. I took one bit of my dinner and felt like I was going to be sick right then and there. I had to bail out of dinner with my friends early and head back to the hotel to lay down and deal with whatever was going on. On my way back to the hotel it dawned on me that I had changed my diabetes medicine the prior week and that lead me to getting mega dehydrated while at the range, even though I drank over a gallon of water. I loaded up on some aspirin for my headache and switched back to my old diabetes medicine. Then I forced down as much water as I could without it coming back up. Then I hit the sack for the night and got up several times to drink more water. Luckily the next morning I was feeling “Normal” again. I was lucky that it wasn’t super hot on Saturday at the range or I might have been dehydrated enough to warrant an ER visit mid match or right after. Scary stuff for sure. Changing up my diabetes medicine right before this hot outdoor match was a really stupid idea. I am lucky that I didn’t get into a real health emergency with this screw up. From a shooting perspective, I had some pretty lack luster stage performances on Saturday due to feeling crappy and battling the “Shadow” targets of the PM shooting schedule. I racked up three misses on Saturday with two of them being uncalled because I couldn’t see my sights well enough to call the shots and tried to point shoot instead. Then another was an actual stage plan failure where I only shot at a target twice when it really needed 3 hits. This mixed in with slow and clunky movement through the stages sealed the deal on a pretty crappy day of shooting. On Sunday I was able to perform a lot better due to feeling “Normal” again, but still managed to rack up two more misses on the one shot per target stage. One miss was my last shot on the wobbly bridge that I called super marginal but was leaving already so I couldn’t make it up. Then the second miss was an uncalled mystery mike on the middle target right after the wobbly bridge. I shot the stage in a competitive time, but the two misses sunk the stage run. I was able to keep pace with Travis and Bob on most of the other stages on Saturday and even one the last stage of the match. I wish that I could have had this level of mental and physical awareness the day before but it is what it is. My buddy Trung was able to get all of my stage runs on video and did a great job of filming. I have uploaded all of my videos onto my YouTube channel if you want to check them out. When the results were posted I ended up 4th in Limited at 90% of Travis. Travis was able to generate a solid 100 point lead over second place Bob Krogh and anther 40 points back was Ron Avery. Given that I had 5 Misses I was surprised to finish that high up in the Overall results. Both Travis and Bob shot clean matches and Ron only had 1 miss. The majority of my Deltas and Misses were Uncalled due to shadow targets and me only being able to see a dim fiber in my front sight and nothing else. Battling seeing my sights is getting REALLY old. It sucks to have my shooting hobbled by not being able to see my sights in less than optimal lighting conditions.

The whole "What the manufacturers what" argument is totally unfounded. The major gun manufactures business models require the selling and distribution of tens of thousands if not hundreds of thousands of "units" in the overall firearms market. USPSA shooters probably don't even make up 1% of the overall customer base, so why on earth would they give a crap about making guns for competition, much less USPSA rules that would make their gun more or less competitive than their competition. As much as the top brass at USPSA would like to think that our sport is a driving force in major gun manufactures gun sales, that couldn't be further from the truth. USPSA marketing value isn't even icing on the cake. Its more likely to be no more significant to their sales than a single speck of sugar in the batter. Its easy for us to lose perspective of this stuff when we are eyeballs deep in the sport. But the facts are the facts and we need to take a step back and look at the big picture to see what does or does not even makes sense before making changes to existing rules.

Most of the shooting and participation of USPSA matches happens at the Level 1 club matches. There is a HUGE chunk of "Local Club Match" shooters who will never attend a Level 2 or above major match within their own state, much less travel out of state to attend on. These are well known facts that nobody can really contest. These are important facts to know because the rule set needs to be viable for the "Bulk" of the participation level that happens. As stated before, we already have a Production Rule set that while viable and needed, is logistically unenforceable at the Level 1 club match level, especially the gun modification rules. Unless the illegal modifications are blatantly obvious, they go unchecked and unenforced. When was the last time you had a local club match where each production shooters gun was weighed, put in a measurement box, inspected for illegal external modifications, and chronoed like what happens at Level 2 or above matches? I go to 50+ club matches a year and I have NEVER seen that happen. As a match director myself, I don't have the match staff bandwidth or time on match day to support a tech inspection like this. Since we can't even enforce the Production rules we currently have at the local club match level, what is the point of trying to add even more restrictive and unenforceable rules? As a match director I wouldn't want to be in a position of enforcing a trigger pull weight rule. I also don't want to deal with the Wrath from my existing production competitors if this rule was deployed. How many times does a local match Production shooter get bumped to Open because their trigger pull is 4.1lbs instead of 4lbs before they simply quit USPSA all together out of frustration? I would stand to lose more existing production shooters due to this rule change verses the few that it "Might" gain by deploying a rule like this. As a Match Director and a Competitor, I think that deploying any type of trigger pull weight rule on a mature division like Production would be suicide for the division. Shouldn't the rules promote participating in the divisions? Adding a minimum trigger pull weight does the opposite of that from my perspective.

Its hard enough to police the existing Production gun modification/upgrade Rules and the majority of them are not even policed at the club match level. Adding a trigger pull weight rule will just add to the list of rules that still don't get enforced/checked at the local club match level. From a top level competition perspective the trigger pull weight would have minimal if any difference in the overall match results. The top shooters will continue to beat everyone by a significant margin. What will happen is the bulk of the lower classification shooters overall match performance would reduce because the light trigger they use to have was masking their poor trigger control/press skills. Why would we want to deploy a new trigger pull weight rule when it will pretty much be a kick in the nuts for the bulk of the shooters participating in the division? The whole "Ultra Expensive ARMS RACE" argument is moot as well given that basic competition shooting gear components cost more than a trigger job. That and making a trigger lighter and smoother makes for a more enjoyable gun to shoot. We are participating in these matches to have fun and enjoy the guns we are shooting. Not be forced to shoot a gun with a crappy trigger as a failed attempt to level the paying field, which it won't do.

That is either a barrel or locking block issue. The leading edge of the barrel hood getting beat up is due to an unlocking timing issue. When the slide comes back during recoil the lugs on the bottom of the barrel are suppose to pull the barrel down and out of the way so the slide can cycle back as it clears the barrel hood. Take the barrel out and inspect the lower locking lugs to see if there is any obvious damage. Also look at the locking block in the frame were the barrel lugs engage. If the locking block in the frame is cracked or damaged it would cause this same kind of issue. You could simply have a "Built on Friday" gun that got put together with substandard parts. That type of damage in less than 2K rounds is pretty bad. There is a significant Unlocking timing issue causing the problem. If I were you, I would send the pistol into S&W to warranty replace the slide, barrel and locking block. The pictures that you provided are not detailed enough and I can see how a Customer Service person would miss the damage you are trying to explain. Take some new pictures of the damage using something to point to the damage in question. Some times you have to point out the obvious like that for people to see it.

How do you clean the mag tubes? If you haven't scrubbed the inside out with soap and water recently that would be a good start. Burned powder does leave a residue film on the inside of the mag tubes that increases the friction between the follower and the side of the tube leading to the type of jams you are experiencing. Running a dry mag brush through the tube is good while at the range, but you need to do a deep soap & water cleaning at least once a month to remove the residue that a dry brush won't remove.

Thanks for all of the great feedback guys. My last major match of 2015 is in the middle of October. If I am not out of this funk by then, I will take some time off then. There is a possibility that i will get replacement disk surgery around the end of the year as well, so that will force some time off as well.

Having another shooter run a completely different load across the chrono isn't a valid test. These cheap chrono's are looking for the "Shadow" of the bullet as is streaks past. Differences in reflectiveness in the bullets themselves or size of bullets can make a dramatic difference in how well they are seen. For example, I have seen some chrono's have inconsistent results in "Seeing" the brass colored Montana Gold bullets verses Copper colored Zero bullets. Or Copper Jacketed bullets verses dull gray lead bullets. The distance between where you shoot from and to the chono can also cause trouble. If you are too close the muzzle blast of powder can cause some inconsistent readings. I always set the chrono at least 10 feet forward of my shooting position. Do a tandem chrono setup with two different brands of chrono's to validate that your chrono isn't screwing up.

I think your chrono might be inconsistent. Have you tried shooting through two completely different brands of chrono's at the same time. A buddy of mine wasn't sure if his load was off or if his CED chrono was messing up so he asked me to bring my Competition Electronics Chrono to the match this weekend and we set them up in tandem shooting through both at the same time. Sure enough his chrono was producing strange and inconsistent velocity results verses mine. Ask some fellow shooters to borrow their chrono and setup a tandem shoot through scenario to rule out the chrono its self as being the root cause of the wacky standard deviation. If you are using the same head stamp brass and the OAL is the same, then the standard deviation should only be 10 - 15 fps. This is obviously assuming that you are getting consistent powder drops within 0.1gr and using the same bullet, primer, powder lot, etc. Have you been measuring the powder drop weight to make sure that it isn't varying more than 0.1gr?

Ever since the Mile High Showdown I have been battling this unmotivated mental “Funk” associated with shooting. I think I am battling burnout along with not having clear performance goals to strive towards. Over the past several matches I have had the thought of “Why am I even here, this isn’t fun” at some point during the match. It’s hard to tell if this is due to the crappy heat/weather during the match or if I am second guessing my time invested verses return. I know I need to take some time off and regroup, but this is unfortunately a super busy Major Match time for me. I have two options right now. The first is to embrace the “Suck” and grind through it and hope that the funk subsides on its own eventually. Or second, cancel all of my local and major matches for the next month to force some time off and face throwing away a significant chunk of $$$ in travel expenses that are not refundable. Right now, neither of these options sound or feel very appealing. I need to put some more thought into this whole situation and make some changes if I expect to continue to enjoy this hobby/sport. I feel that it would be hard to diverge from the major match schedule I have already committed to for 2015. But 2016 may need a significant scale back in attending major matches and get back to enjoying the local shooting closer to home. I have learned the majority of “Major Match” lessons that need to be learned, so I don’t really need to push the envelope on attending a bunch of major matches every year. I just fear that my attitude about shooting is only going to get worse while in this mental burnout/funk. Not to mention battling these neck issues and physical strength loss resulting from it.

This past weekend I attended a local club match at AGC. It was pretty hot that day, but at least there wasn’t much humidity. I kept well hydrated and was mentally and physically alert for the whole match. I shot pretty poorly that day though which was a bummer. On the first stage of the day I got sucked into “Trying” to shoot fast and it rewarded me with a miss and a no shoot. The third stage of the match had a funky shoot under a wall portion with pretty difficult shots. I tried shooting the under the wall targets from a crouched/hunched over position and was rewarded with 2 more misses. I don’t know why I keep trying to shoot like that when I know it doesn’t work due to my jacked up neck and strength loss in my arms. I am pretty much screwed from a recoil management perspective any time I have to hunch over and point the gun up above my normal standing arm position. The forth stage of the match I was a good run for me which was a house clearing style run & gun stage. Then the last stage of the match was a port to port type of affair which I felt that I shot solidly and in control but ended up with a miss with a hit about 3 inches into the hard cover on a damn “Shadow” target. Uncalled misses on “Shadow” targets drive me crazy. After the match I was able to chrono some ammo since I recently switched from Flat Point to Round Nose 180gr bullets. This was the first match that I have shot with the 2011 and Round Nose 180gr bullets so it was a good test. They looked good on the chrono as well in the hot 95+ degree temp even after leaving the ammo out in the sun for a while. From an ammo perspective I should be good to go for the Area 3 match this coming weekend. On Sunday I presented a Group Training class with some local shooters and it was a lot of fun. The weather was great in the morning then around lunch time some vicious rain clouds rolled in and lightening strikes were happening all around us. We bagged the targets and then headed to the range club house to have some lunch and wait out the storm. Lucky for us the bulk of the rain storm missed us by about a mile. We got a little bit of rain but not much compared to what we could see not too far off in the distance. We were really lucky for sure. After the rain storm passed the sun came back out and it was nice the rest of the day. Everyone in the class had fun and learned a lot. It’s fun to see the student’s light bulb go on when they figure out something new. Cool Stuff!!!

Hulk Smash!!!

I only have two goals during a match. The First is to always strive to get the gun/sights on target as soon as possible. The Second is to be visually patient enough to call every single shot. If I do those two things the whole process will go as effective and efficient as it possibly can. This may seem super basic, but its really does not have to be more complex than that.

I don't think that anyone can give a shooter a hard time for not "Working" right after their stage run and they are actively cleaning their mags. Sure some low capacity divisions take more time to clean and refill their multiple mags, but that is to be expected as well. Its pretty obvious when shooters are "Milking" their post stage run mag clean up/reset process. If you are shooting Limited or Open and taking longer than a Single Stack shooter who needs to clean 3 - 5 mags to clean your ONE dropped mag then you are being a slacker. I have on occasion called out these "Milkers" by simply telling them "HOW LONG DOES IT TAKE TO CLEAN ONE MAGAZINE??? QUIT SCREWING AROUND AND GET TO WORK". More often than not, when people know they can't get away with slacking because they will be called out, they usually choose to not do it. The problems usually start to happen when shooters think that subtle hints or common sense should be obvious to these slackers and expect them to magically change their ways without a swift kick in the ass. Unfortunately these type of people usually need a regular swift kick in the ass to keep them in line. So don't beat around the bush and call them out on their bullshit openly, directly, and loudly when needed.

I ran into this earlier this year with a husband/wife team who didn't do squat at any of the matches they went to. I had the misfortune of squading with them at a couple of matches and witnessed first hand their laziness. I tried my best to give them the whole "This is a volunteer sport and everyone has to pitch in to make it happen" squad mate talk to prod them into working but it never stuck. Then they happened to show up at the club match I am the MD at and I happened to be doing registration that day. When they signed up I told them point blank that their entry fee does not entitle them to doing NOTHING other than shoot when its their turn. I told them that they are REQUIRED to help work the stage just like everyone else and if that is a problem, there is the door. They seemed shocked at being called out but agreed to work and paid their entry fee. I observed them during the match actually working in taping targets and resetting steel. But shortly after that match they both stopped shooting the local matches. I guess they finally got the message of "Shape up or Ship out".