CHA-LEE

Henning is the best!!! He hands down provides the best customer service of any firearm/supply dealer I have done business with so far. He will be getting my business for many years to come.

Thanks for the feed back from all!!! It is much appreciated!!!

rupie> I think for me, its not so much about rebuilding the grip that takes time, but more so having lowered the gun in my strong hand to use it for running then having to bring the gun back up as I get my grip rebuilt. I know I am probably just waiting too long before I start bringing the gun back up to rebuild the grip and that is why my times were slower with it. That is why I am going to focus on initiating the rebuilding of the grip a few steps sooner to see how that works out compared to keeping the grip locked in and pulling it back to my chest. Testing and Practice, Testing and Practice, over and over and over. This is what I really like about this sport, striving to always do it better.

Anyone have any thoughts as to why my shooting index ends up pointing towards the right hand target on the last three targets even though I engage the left most target first? I am baffled as to why that keeps happening.

HoMiE> Yeah, lowering the gun while moving is a hard habit to break for me. I think that if I didn't look down I would have been able to keep the gun up and on target. Like I said before, those make shift boxes made by using broom stick handles always had me concerned. We also had them setup at uneven distances. For example, box 1 was about 1.5 times wider than box 2. So it was really hard to know how many steps you need to take to get out of box 1 and into box 2. This part of the stage setup was very un-USPSA stage like. Most of the time at a USPSA match the shooting boxes are a consistent size and not right next to one another like that. We have to do this at this indoor range to force the shooter to engage the targets for very specific locations in order to keep the rounds going into the back stop.

Rocket35> Thanks for the feedback!!! I did try both keeping my grip intact and breaking my grip apart then rebuilding it before the next shooting box but my times were usually about a second slower when I broke my grip down to run. Maybe I was waiting to rebuild my grip after I got into the shooting box? I can see that taking more time if I was doing that. What I found with this stage is if I kept my grip intact and just pulled the gun back to my chest, I could then just punch the gun out at the target and engage it right away when I got to the shooting box. Thus a better time for me. I also want to add that the floor at this range was not to grippy and traction was low. There is very little regular foot traffic in the middle of this range so it is fairly dusty and slick. I really couldn’t dig in and run as fast as I wanted because there wasn’t enough traction. What I think I will try though is breaking my grip for the initial part of the sprint to get going as fast as possible then start rebuilding it as I get close to the shooting box so its up an on target, grip established, and ready to engage right as I enter the shooting box. It sounds easy on paper but I am sure it will be a lot harder to do in person. I worry about grip consistency on doing this though.

I would like some feed back on the below Indoor Practice Video. This is a simple stage that my shooting buddy and I put together at a local indoor range. We can’t draw from the holster at this range so we start the stage with a loaded pistol on one of the shooting benches and go pick it up after the buzzer goes off. We also have to keep the rounds down range at all times so we setup shooting boxes to keep the lead going where it should when engaging the targets. The break down of the stage is this. Start sitting in a surrender position with gun loaded on the bench. At start signal retrieve pistol and engage targets from shooting boxes. Targets 1 & 2 can be engaged from box 1. Target 3 can be engaged from box 2. Targets 4 & 5 can be engaged from box 3. Targets 6, 7 & 8 can be engaged from box 4. Targets 1, 2, and 3 had their bottom half covered with a no shoot and targets 6 & 8 had a diagonal hard cover line through them. When I first ran through this stage had a time of 16.5 seconds. I was stopping in the shooting boxes and breaking my grip apart when I moved from each shooting box. These two things cost quite a bit of time. I focused on moving through the boxes as I engaged the targets and kept my grip locked in between boxes and was able to end up with a consistent 11.75 stage time with no “D” hits. I tried hard to get through the stage with a sub 11 sec run but the more I pushed it the worse my hits would get (misses, no-shoots, and “D” hits) and my time would only be slightly faster. The 11.75 time was the limit of my ability while still feeling in control of every shot and maintaining a smooth flow. For me, I feel that I shot the stage pretty well and the only time loss that I can find are in two areas. First. the transition from box 1 and 2 I kept looking down for the shooting box edge to make sure I was stepping into it. We were using broom handles as box boarders so I was really leery of tripping on one and could never get over looking for it. I guess that is the price to pay for using such a ghetto stage setup. Second, entering the last shooting box I was waiting for both feet to become planted in the box before I started to engage the targets. I didn’t even realize that I was doing that until I was reviewing the video footage afterwards. I also don’t know why my shooting index was facing the last target. I ended up with that strange shooting index almost every time, for some unknown reason. Even if I optimized those two things I don’t think I could have shaved off another .75 second to get into the sub 11 second runs. Is a 10 second run asking too much for this stage? Here is the video Please let me know what you think I can do differently or better to maintain accuracy but speed up the stage time.

The bad news this weekend was that both of the matches on Saturday and Sunday got canceled due to the weather. The Good news is that we were able to scare up enough people to go out to the range on Saturday and setup a stage to run through it a bunch of times for practice. It was cold for sure, but well worth it for the extra practice. The stage we setup was cool because you could shoot it a couple of different ways. You could do the standard run and gun by running around the shooting area engaging the targets close and fast. Or you could engage half the targets from one shooting position then move to another for the rest of the targets but the shots were quite a ways away. I ran though the stage a couple of times each way and much to my surprise the run and gun method was a couple seconds slower than just standing in a couple of places and taking your time on the far away shots. I still don’t have a really good strategic gauge of which way would be best/fastest for a given stage. But practice sessions like this one are helping me get better at it. After we all shot the stage as much as we wanted we tore it down and cleaned everything up. Given that the high temp was like 21deg while we were there everyone was eager to wrap it up sooner than later. My shooting buddy and I were able to take the used targets with us as we planned on doing some more practice later that day at an indoor range. This outdoor practice also gave me a chance to give my new Reebok Vince Young NFL Cleats a test run. I have been looking for a good pair of cleats for the USPSA matches as most of the stages are setup on loose gravel and most of the top shooters are using some kind of cleat or another. Most of the cleats that I found had the traction lugs located just inside the edge of the sides of the sole. When I test fit these shoes it felt like there wasn’t enough side to side support because the traction lugs were not all the way out to the edge of the sole, so it was easy for my ankle to roll over when transitioning from side to side quickly. After a LOT of looking I finally found the Reebok Vince Young NFL Cleats and their traction lugs go all the way to the outside of the sole. I have wider feet as well and these shoes fit nicely. They worked great at the range. They had awesome traction in the loose dirt and I was able to move around as fast as I wanted without feeling like I would lose traction or roll my ankle. They are WAY better than the $100 New Balance hiking shoes I had been using before. I am not a fan of the white styling on the Vince Young Cleats, as I think they would look a lot better if they were all black. But I will take function over fashion any day, especially at a shooting match. I have listed a link to these cleats below, maybe someone else is looking for the same thing I was and these might just be the ticket. http://www.nflshop.com/product/index.jsp?productId=2915542 On Saturday evening my shooting buddy and I headed to the indoor range and setup cool stage with eight targets and four shooting boxes. Since this indoor range has strict rules about keeping the shots to only hitting the back stop we setup shooting boxes to engage the targets in a fashion that kept the lead going where it should. This was really good practice for moving through shooting boxes while engaging targets. When I first ran though the stage I ended up with a 16.5 sec run. During that run I was pretty much coming to a stop in every shooting box before I started shooting. I was also breaking down my grip while moving between shooting boxes and that was costing me time because I would have to rebuild my grip once I got into the shooting box. After testing a couple of methods of moving through the shooting boxes and keeping my grip together while I was running in between boxes I was able to get my stage time down to a consistent 11.75 seconds. To be honest I was surprised that I was able to shave that much time off the stage by simply keeping in motion while in the shooting boxes and not breaking my grip as I moved from one shooting location to another. I found that if I kept my grip together but just pulled the pistol back to my chest, I could engage the targets very quickly by punching the gun out when it was time to shoot. This was a very cool experience for me and it didn’t hinder my running speed at all. I am also getting better and better with the cadence shooting while on target and transitioning between targets. My splits are staying between .20 - .30 most of the time and its starting to feel more “normal” to keep my shot cadence going when transitioning from one target to another. I know it is going to take a while to get the “Double Tap” out of my system, but it is progressing nicely and the more I shoot the more confident I feel in my ability to execute on the basics without needing to focus on them. Much more practice is needed, but I can already see an improvement in my performance which is a great moral booster.

Well the Colorado winter weather strikes again. The shooting class that was scheduled for this Saturday has been canceled due to the weather. A high of 21 degrees and chance of show is not a good forecast for being outside all day. The regular USPSA matches will probably be canceled as well as this cold front isn’t going anywhere until some time next week. If the USPSA matches get canceled my shooting buddy and I are planning on doing some more practice at the indoor range. The way I see it any shooting is better than no shooting. I hope that the matches don't get canceled though because I am really looking forward to seeing how my cadence shooting works out in competition.

They don't call it a "Limited" for nothing. They are hard to find and when a batch of them are available they are snatched up super quick. I got mine off of Gunbroker.com but you never know when someone will post one up for sale. A buddy of mine got one off of Gundealeronline.com but even that took a couple of weeks for him to get. You would think that EAA would be knocking some skulls around at Tangfolio to get guns to them faster. Seems like a big loss of $$$ on their end to always have them on back order. Good luck on your search for one!!!

There will never be a PERFECT way to run the classification system on an nationally participated activity such as Practical Shooting. There will always be many variables and "one off" situations that cause loop holes in the system. Given how the classification system is currently setup I would venture to say that it accurately ranks the vast majority of us correctly based upon our skill level compared to others. Can things be done differently or better to make the classification system even better? Sure. But that would be more of an effort to stave off edge cases verses needing to rewrite the basis of the classification system because it is broken. The thing I think that many people forget is that the USPSA classification system will always be a work in progress. There will always be group of shooters that can shoot certain classifier stages XX% better than 100%. There will always be a group of shooters that sandbag on classifier stages to keep their classification low. There will always be a group of shooters that grandbag classifier stages to artificially pump up their classification. Do we really want to make the classification system biased to focus on these exceptions verses focusing on the masses? I don't know about you, but I think that the overall USPSA membership is better served by focusing on a classification system that works best for the masses. Sure we all want to compare our shooting skills to others. Hell that’s a main reason why we participate in USPSA matches right? For the competition. You can't have competition and no rating system to segregate the different skill levels. But things need to be put into perspective. Competitors in general are notorious for having an “If I can’t win, I don’t want to play” attitude. Then that transforms into “let’s change some rules so I segregate myself into a different class so I can win”. This is why we have 6 different gun divisions and then 6 more classifications within each of those divisions. Not to mention Senior, Super Senior, Law Enforcement, Military, Lady classes stacked even further on top of that. It’s all about being spoiled with a life of easily gained wins or bragging rights. It is rare to see someone pick a sport/class/division and choose to compete in the hardest level and take the lumps of getting their ass handed to them and receive no recognition for years on end until they actually earn the ability and experience to win against the best of the best. People want the easy win. They want to brag to their buddies saying that they finished first at the match last weekend. Even though they leave out the fact that they are coming up with that “win” by seeing that they were the top “C” class shooter in their division which had 10 shooters total and he really finished 7th overall. Whatever floats your boat I guess, but I have seen it happen. I am new to practical shooting and from what I have seen so far both in person and what I have researched, the current Classification System works. Will it work in its current configuration forever? No. But that is why the people at USPSA revisit the validity of the system regularly. I have faith in USPSA to make the right decisions on making changes to the classification system for the good of the masses. Why is it so hard for other people to have faith in letting USPSA do what they are paid to do?

I will be attending this match as well. Hopefully my suckyness will be less sucky by then

It’s easy for us to draw conclusions as to how the stage could have been shot better or differently without knowing the rules dictated in the stage description. For example, if you didn't "Have to" shoot the targets in the back of the COF from the box you could shoot that whole stage from the starting position and save a ton of time. We all tackle stages differently and bias how we do them to suit our strengths and minimize the weaknesses we have. If the stage description mandated that the last targets had to be shot from the box at the end, I would have run right up on the first two sets of targets and point shot them as fast as I could knowing that at such a close distance misses, no shoots, or "D" hits would be easy to avoid. This would allow me to run through the stage as fast as possible. I am not saying that I would have produced a better HF than the original poster, I am just saying how I would have done it to suit my strengths. I also agree with the other comments on the starting position. I see it a lot where people will crowd the starting position to get 1/4inch closer than the next guy all the while they totally screw up their foot and body position. Then when the buzzer goes off they are reeling as they try to get going. I have started stages almost a foot back from the "normal" starting position because I could get a better launching stance to enter the stage. Being a few inches closer to entering the shooting area should not circumvent your ability to effectively get your body launched and in motion when the buzzer goes off.

I am not an expert by any means but I have shot quite a few matches and more importantly watched a few GM's run through many stages the way they should be shot. With that caveat, I think the places where you are losing time is by slowing down way too early for the first two sets of targets before getting to the end. If a GM or M was shooting that stage I could totally see them running all the way up to the first two target sets and shooting them as they are moving around the corner. Key word there being "Moving" as they would still be moving around the corner as they shot. When you are that close to the targets you could shoot them all my simply "Point shooting" and not even use the sights at a very fast pace with .15 - .20 splits on the shots. Slowing down before you get to the targets/turns just slows down the whole time it takes to navigate the course of fire before you can get to the end. Both in slower shot cadence because you have to aim for the shots (being further away) and slower physical movement through the course. This is my humble assessment of your performance. I am sure there are some far more knowledgeable shooters that could give you some more advise on what could have been done better.

LeoHallak> True, you could buy an 11lb spring from Wolff. But in my case I already had a couple of 12lb springs to play with so I figured it would be easier and cheaper to just make an 11lb spring out of a 12lb one. Plus I am a fiddler and couldn’t resist the temptation of making something I needed out of stuff I already had.

I also wanted to add that everyone has a unique grip pressure/magnitude and bullet load they are shooting. These two things make the management of recoil during fire unique for each person. So just because an 11lb recoil spring is perfect for my grip and bullet load does not mean that it will be perfect for you. All you can do is try each recoil spring out one at a time and subjectively rate the performance of each one. Then go with the one that suites your needs the best. If it ends up being a 10lb or even a 14lb spring then that is what it is. Your goal should be to tune your pistols performance to match your specific needs, not copy what someone else might be using.

Jim Norman> It’s nothing special really. It is just a fairly accurate digital scale that can measure in grams and ounces. I use a controlled compression jig to compress the springs the exact same amount/distance then record the weight measurement on the digital scale. The springs are only compressed about 2 inches so the scale does not "see" all 10lb's of the 10lb recoil springs rated force. But it does give a good control number to work with. For example, when I tested the 10lb spring I got a weight rating of 5lb 9oz. Then I tested the 12lb spring and got a weight rating of 6lb 11oz. If you take the middle point between these two springs you would need a weight rating of 6lb 2oz to come up with an 11lb spring. This is obviously not an exact science as the spring weight rating changes progressively different as the spring is compressed based on the gauge of the wire used for the spring. But it is close enough for what we are doing. The true middle point between the 10lb and 12lb spring isn't the exact calculated 6lb 2oz middle point I was looking for but its probably not off more than an oz or two either way. I could get super anal about it and figure it out but given what we are using this for and that most shooters probably couldn’t feel the difference of 1lb in recoil spring anyway much less a couple of ounces of spring difference, it seems a little overboard to take it to that level. I can feel a marked difference between all three recoil springs both on the bench and when I fire the pistol. But then again I am probably more tuned into observing and feeling the differences than most. I think this is part of the fiddler gene I have had my whole life

Ok, I want to start this off my confessing that I am an extreme fiddler and like to try pretty much anything and everything just because it is fun to see how things work or turn out. Knowing this sets the stage for what you are about to read. Onto the "How to"..... When I first got my EAA Witness Limited I took it up to Hennings shop and he hooked me up with all the goodies I needed to match how his gun is setup. If you guys don't already know, Henning is awesome and deserves all of our support, so order up and do it frequently After shooting my pistol with his setup I noticed that post shot the front sight was high and I would have to push it back down for the next shot to be aligned. I was using the recommended 10lb recoil spring when it was doing this so I switched it over to a 12lb recoil spring so the slide snapping back forward harder would bring the front sight back down where it should be post shot. The 12lb coil spring did just that. It would bring the sight back down post shot like it was suppose to but it also increased the felt recoil during the shot. So here I am faced with two non optimal choices since no one makes an 11lb recoil spring. Choice Number 1, keep the 10lb recoil spring because it has a nice soft felt recoil but then I would have to drive the front sight back down post shot. Or Choice Number 2, use the 12lb recoil spring to keep the front sight returning where it should post shot and just deal with the extra recoil. I actually have been shooting with Choice number 2 (12lb recoil spring) for about a month now because it yielded the best overall consistent shooting results for me, but I kept having this nagging feeling that I was compromising when I shouldn’t be So off to my dungeon of fiddling I went in a quest to make an 11lb recoil spring. It was pretty simple actually. I setup a spring weight testing rig to test the compressed weight of both the 10lb and 12lb recoil springs. Then I took a 12lb recoil spring and started cutting coils off of it until its compressed weight measured right in the middle of the two making an 11lb recoil spring. After bench testing each recoil spring in the pistol I could feel a stepped increase in slide spring tensions between all three springs as I racked the slide back manually. Next I took it to the range for some live fire testing. I again tested each spring, 10lb, 11lb, and 12lb back to back to feel and see the difference between each. Much to my delight the newly created 11lb recoil spring performed exactly how I wanted it to. It kept the front sight down where it should be post shot and it reduced the extra felt recoil that the 12lb recoil spring was making during the shot. I shot the rest of the day with the 11lb recoil spring and am really happy with how the sights track and how the recoil feels with no compromises on either side If you want to make your own 11lb recoil spring its super easy. Take a 12lb recoil spring and cut one and a half coils off of the end of it. I have included a picture below as a reference with a pen pointing at the cut point. I used a dremel with a cut off wheel to cut the spring as that yields the cleanest cut, verses using wire cutters. I would also suggest putting the cut end towards the back of the guide rod (Where it hooks onto the base of the barrel) when you reinstall the spring. The guide rod on the EAA Witness Limited is tapered and skinnier in the middle verses the ends and I think that the newly cut end might have a chance of getting stuck between the skinny portion of the guide rod and the front guide rod bushing during a shot. If the cut end is facing back, butted up against the base of the guide rod, then it cant cause that kind of problem. I am just assuming that this failure mode can happen, as I have not tried it with the cut end facing forward. Maybe it would work fine being forward? I just don't want to try it out to give it a chance to fail. It's as easy as that. If you are into optimizing your gun to your grip and shooting style give this a try. Maybe you will be just like me and find that it is exactly what you are looking for?

I couldn’t stand being cooped up in the house today. Even though the "High" temp today was like 10 degrees, I called up my shooting buddy and asked if he wanted to go do some shooting at a private indoor range. There was no surprise when he said sure and that he was tired of being stuck in the house as well. So off we headed to the range and much to our surprise, ok maybe not so surprising given the extremely cold weather, the place was empty and we had it all to ourselves. This indoor range does not allow drawing from a holster, but does allow you to do just about anything else as long as the rounds are not hitting anything but the back stop. Keeping this in mind we setup some targets staggered near and far then setup some make shift shooting boxes that the targets had to be engaged from to keep the rounds going where they needed to go. We were able to get some really good USPSA style stage practice using this setup. We rearranged the starting position, gun ready condition, and target engagement strategy to keep it interesting. After about two hours and 250 rounds each some other shooters showed up so we had to break down our "Stage" to make some room for them. By then we were about done anyway so we called it a day and packed up our stuff and left the range to the other shooters. My main focus today was to keep a consistent shooting cadence across all targets from the same shooting position. I am feeling very comfortable now with maintaining a .20 - .25 second split shooting cadence and my stage times were way better and more accurate when I kept that cadence. Just for a test I shot the stages both double tap style (only seeing one sight picture for both shots) and cadence style (Seeing a sight picture on every shot) and the cadence style always yielded the best time and the most accuracy. Once I start shooting it goes pretty good, but I can tell that I am losing at least half a second on engaging the first target when entering a shooting position. I keep trying to enter the shooting area with my gun up and on target but I get too focused on my foot work and end up trying to get my gun on target after I am in the shooting position. Leaving the shooting position I am pretty good at continuing to engaging the targets as I am getting out. But getting into the shooting position is still a big challenge for me. If I try to push the speed on the first target when I get into a shooting position my accuracy is crap and I end up with misses or outer edge "D" hits. How I am currently entering the shooting area and engaging the first target does not feel like it flows. It feels clunky and forced. This week I am going to practice entering a shooting area and engaging targets from many different foot positions and gun ready conditions. I think I will try to find a way to do it that feels smooth and flowing first then worry about speed later. The way I see it, even if I do it in a way that is fast but it feels clunky or rushed it isn't going to yield good consistent results in match conditions. I am going to be attending a training class presented by a Grand Master and a Master shooter next weekend, weather permitting, and it will be interesting to hear their perspective on the best way to enter a shooting position and engage the targets. We will see....

Match is cancelled tomorrow. I knew that the Colorado Winter Weather would catch up with us one of these weekends. We have really had some great luck with the weather on the weekends up until now, so I can't complain too much. I think I will do some cadance shooting training at an indoor range tomorrow since there won't be a match. The way I see it, no matter what or where I shoot, a chance to shoot is better than not shooting. I am happy with whatever shooting I can get during the winter months.

I attended a local indoor bowling pin match on Tuesday with my shooting buddy and it was fun but really not my cup of tea. They have rim fire and center fire classes and you can shoot both. The only rim fire pistol I have is my ladies Walther P22 which my hands engulf when I try to get a normal grip on it. Shooting that little thing after shooting my EAA Witness Limited exclusively for a while was entertaining to say the least. You start with the pistol in your grip but pointed down in a low ready position. This was hard for me to get use to since I really have never started on the clock like that. It was a fun little match to take part in but probably not something I will do again. I could think of more useful things to train on than this match. After the match my shooting buddy and I chronographed some rounds that we have been working on. I am loading the rounds for both of us and we are trying to find a common ground load setup that will work in both of our guns and still feed reliably as well as make Major PF. We are both shooting the same type of gun but there is always a little difference from one gun to the next which makes using a common round setup between them a little bit of a challenge. The EAA pistols are super finicky about the straightness of the brass case. If there is any amount of belly or ramp at the base of the case it causes the rounds to randomly nose dive and jam up on the base of the barrel feed ramp. Knowing that a nose dive could happen we are using a really long OAL (1.225). This really long round helps with keeping the head of the bullet on the barrel feed ramp when it tries to nose dive. With a shorter OAL the round will dip below the start of the barrel feed ramp when it nose dives and get stuck. Using an unusually long OAL requires a little bit of testing to get the right amount of powder to make major. Right now we are using Clays powder with a 4.6gr load using a 180gr Zero FMJ bullet. This gets us an average of 925 fps between both of our guns. This is fine for making major (166.5 PF) here in Colorado but we will probably have to bump up the powder to 4.7 - 4.8gr if we go to an out of state match that is at a lower altitude with more humidity. I don't think there is ever an end to fiddling around with the load setups of the rounds. We then did some reaction time to buzzer live fire testing. We also worked on our shooting cadence while transitioning between targets. We basically shot multiple targets as fast as we felt comfortable while keeping our splits the same between all of the shots. Then we started pushing the envelope on the shot cadence speed until we could see a difference between our double shots on target and the transitions between targets. I was surprised at how fast I could actually shoot and keep the splits and transitions the same. The fastest I could go while still maintain an acceptable sight picture on every shot was .20 - .25 second splits/transitions. If I slowed down a little I could get a great sight picture for each shot with .30 - .35 second splits/transitions. I am still blown away by now being able to get a sight picture on every shot. I know that is probably a super novice thing to achieve but I am happy to figuring it now verses years from now. I can't wait to put this into practice at the next match. Hopefully the next match does not get snowed out. The weather forecast isn't looking so good for the next match so far, but I am keeping my fingers crossed.

I attended a local USPSA match this past Sunday. My main focus was on keeping a steady shooting cadence and to keep moving while shooting. To be totally honest the cadence shooting made me feel like I was going really slow but my stage times were good. The cadence shooting paid off big time in accuracy. I didn’t have any misses or no-shoots and only 3 – 4 “D” hits the entire day. That to me was the biggest surprise. I guess seeing a sight picture on both shots per target makes the rounds go where they should. Before, I would try to squeeze off two shots as fast as I could on the target. While doing this I would really only getting a sight picture for the first shot and hope that the second shot would be in the right place as well. I can manage the recoil and muzzle flip pretty good so this would work out a lot of times, but I would still end up with some “D” and Mikes here or there. I now have to work on speeding up my shooting cadence to balance it with my target to target transition speed. It’s cool to see a new method of shooting work out so well on my first outing with it. It can only get better as I practice more. I was happy with my match results. This was the biggest local match that I have been to so far with 80 shooters in attendance, with 20 in limited class. I finished 7th overall in Limited which is really good for me given that there were two Grand Masters and six Masters in attendance. Ron Avery was shooting Limited on my squad and it was great to see him break down the stages before hand and then run through them like a well oiled machine when it was his turn to shoot. Zero wasted movement, awesome target to target transitions, very fast pace and very accurate = devastating stage times and hit factors. Its great to see how the stages should be shot, verses the clunky mistake ridden performance I can currently muster. At least for now

I shot a Steel match today. It was a cold one today. At the start of shooting it was a brisk 21 degrees, but there was no breeze and the sun was out so it wasn’t too bad. My new challenge is to get a consistent shooting cadence and this was my focus for this match. While everyone else was trying their best to win the match, I wasn’t worried about my times. I focused on shooting the steel in a smooth and consistent cadence and it worked great. We did three rounds of the stages. The first round I shot it as a normal steel match would, free style grip and one shot on each target. The second round I shot the stages strong hand only and focused on a consistent cadence, still only engaging each target with one shot only. I was able to shoot the targets will and keep a decent pace. The third round I shot the targets free style with two shots each while still keeping a consistent shot cadence. I was surprised at how accurate I was able to shoot while greatly speeding up my target to target transitions. Shooting in a consistent cadence does pay dividends, much more than I thought it would. I guess those suggestions by the top shooters to develop a consistent shooting cadence is as important as they say it is. I still need a lot of practice to get this new shooting style down, but it will be well worth the hard work to get it right.

Why not just take the measurements of a stock guide rod and take it to a local machine shop and have them make a copy out of tungsten? Its not like this would be a difficult part to machine. You could do the whole thing on a lathe. It just seems excessive to order them from over seas and take a hit on the shipping and exchange rate when you can get them made locally for a lot less $$$. What the purpose is of having a removable tip like the ones have in the picture? Also, the stock Guide Rod on the Limited has a smaller diameter middle section. These ones are the same diameter along the full length. Will that difference change how the gun shoots? I don't understand why the stock guide rod would have a smaller diameter middle section in the first place, other than weigh savings, anyway. $150 for a Guide Rod is a steep price, at least it is to me.

I was able to attend another USPSA match this past Sunday. Here in Colorado it’s starting to get cold. The “High” temp for Sunday was 38 deg and most of the morning while shooting it was colder than that. Needless to say a common comment from my fellow shooters was “BBBBRRRRRRRR…. ITS COLD!!!!”. The only saving grace was that there was very little wind so that made it at least bearable. Cold weather shooting was interesting. Not being able to fully feel the firearm due to cold hands was a new experience for me. That and noticing that my trigger finger felt like it was in slow motion. We were all in the same boat though and it was interesting to see the other competitors deal with the cold. I had a decent match, not error free but good for me given the conditions. I still have the first stage donkey performance as usual that feels super clunky and filled with errors. I don’t know how to overcome this. My first stage of the day is always my worst. I either try to go too fast and have a bunch of mistakes or I go too slow and mosey through the stage ending up with a hurting hit factor. After the first stage I am fine and shoot the rest of the stages without the same problems. I think I need to come up with a pre-stage warm up plan that gets me into the “Zone” for the first stage. I was able to do a bunch of Clip Board RO work this weekend as well and that was a fun learning experience. It was nice to help out even more and get a chance to see a different perspective to working with the squad. I think I am going to take an RO course so I can help with running the clock as well. My major lesson learned for this match was with my magazines. Since I was running the Clip Board I had to stay close to the shooters during the stage. This required a lot of running around and I had my loaded mags on my belt. Well the first round on the mags got biased forward to the point where on one stage when I tried to do a reload the first round was biased so far forward that the mag wouldn’t even go into the mag well of my pistol. Needless to say, this wasn’t fun to encounter during my turn though the stages. Its no big deal though as it gives me another thing to double check before I start a stage. It was a good lesson to learn and I am glad that I learned it. One lesson at a time, I just have to keep chipping away at them.