wunbadweel

Here's one we've all been targeted by in real life: what's the PF of a scorned wife's eyes? You know, like when she opens her Valentine's Day gift to find vacuum bags. Or, if she catches you cleaning guns when the snow hasn't been plowed yet. Or, when she catches you doing the corner-of-the-eyes glance at another shape in the mall. In fact, isn't that PF in direct proportion to the proportion you're eyeing? I'm thinking my wife, in the proper state of dander, could check calibration on 300 yard .308 targets...

NICE ! How'd you wind up doing against the plastic "wonder guns". I call them "wonder guns" because with such manly weaponry available in the .45acp 1911 why anyone would choose a cheapo hunk of plastic truely makes me wonder. Hey what do you think of this one coming soon ( I hope). JK In true po-po shoots where limits accomodated all us old 1911 and wheelie-gun shooters, I fared pretty well. These tended to be more tactically oriented than your average IPSC or USPSA stuff, and the emphasis was on doing stuff right with limited opportunity to make up for bad shooting...or, bad tactics. And to answer Steve J....the wun bad wheel's on the support side. Thought having a badge meant I could fly, you see.

I was once forced to carry a silly, silly gun that would've qualified me for this club. Luckily, I got off the hook when they found out I couldn't afford the GENDER REASSIGNMENT SURGERY necessary for membership, and went back to my skinny gun....hoooooooooo haaaaaaaaaaa.

This might be better placed in another thread, but I'm confident my fellow skinny-gunners will appreciate it most...1990's and my dept.'s team was competing at a po-leece olympics: my three mates had silly Teutonic polymers and I had JMB's girl on my hip. This was noticed by our stage's R/O, who snidely suggested we were seeking sympathy by keeping a piece of Old Iron in the crew. No sense rising to the challenge of the guy who's scoring the shoot, right? So I said nothing, and R/O went through the motions of demonstrating the stage with his longslided polymer wunder-gun. At the second s/a where one needed to shoot through chainlink material, our intrepid R/O shoved his slide through a section and buh-BAM flew a second round in perfect concentricity through the head circle of a no-shoot....moved to the next S/A where a plate rack successfully evaded a whole magazine of .40, and he shot to slidelock, wasn't carrying enough to finish the demo. When the laughing stopped, R/O discovered chain-link material makes a great way to remove most of a plastic front sight from a steel slide under recoil, leaving a short lil pointy nubbin left with which one might try to aim. Way high and badly, I might add.

I've been married for over twenty-five years....but it's taken three women to get that done. Fortunately, neither of the first two could shoot worth a darn.

Back when I was a po-po, I searched for several weeks for a parolee-at-large named Harley Davison (no second 'd'). When I finally got him, I told him I just followed the trail of leaking oil. And, we searched a male probationer named Joyce Dillinger. I kinda thought this guy didn't have a chance from the cradle with a name like that.

Fellow SSEC skinny-gun devotees: I am thankful to carry a gun afforded the honor of membership in such an organization. I can only hope to keep my training acumen sharp enough to do the old girl justice; she still shoots much straighter than my eyes can see. What's really cool: folks who recognize the place for Mexican-style carry. Here's the reason why my girl stays so close.... Many moons ago, I busted my foot up something terrible. It was during a moment in which I mistakenly thought a badge conferred powers of flight upon the bearer. Anyway, several years and surgeries later, I now have a lovely electronic appurtenance, about the size of a stack of business cards, sewn into my left hip under the subcutaneous layer. It tells the nerve damage in my bad wheel (hence the moniker) to shut the hell up and does a fine job doing so. Unfortunately, it's in a location that makes wearing a belt damned near impossible for more than about an hour. The issue became proper holsters....I tried numerous IWB and pancakes but found none that were reliable enough for regular concealed carry. So, I tried the Mexican carry mode with a Clip Grip, and still train to this day with the 1911 so carried. Yes, I must religiously watch for cleanliness and fuzz-fouling, but I do that anyway. Not for everybody, but it works for me and my Colt. And to answer the obvious question: how many rounds can I fire before I have to clean the old 1911 ? ENOUGH TO GET THE JOB AT HAND DONE, or so my own experience has been.

Dear SSers - mea culpa for taking so long to display my lifemate's backside, but we've been busy plowing snow up here in Ideeho. And rest assured: for every moment of the two-hunnert-thirty-eleven hours of overtime I've earned in the last couple weeks on a 924G loader, my 1911's been on my hip the whole time. Such severe duty woulda broke a merely mortal man or pistol, sez me. PS - click on the pic for a larger image, and again sorry for the poor photo quality. My meager skills are focused elsewhere. Yes, that's a ClipGrip, and it works just fine.

How about a recoil plug launching into an overhead 48" fluorescent tube? Sounded just like a negligent discharge and ten guys cleaning guns hit the floor with jillions of glass frags all over them...classic.

uhhhh...

Maybe I CAN be taught after all...and did I mention how, after a bazillion rounds, an open slide falls into battery as soon as a magazine is smartly inserted? Maybe a new plunger spring....NAW. She just gets better and better.....

As soon as my kids can show me how...

I want to nominate my gun...not me. I simply cannot qualify and thus must forever yearn to seek out the company of such astute brethren. But my 1911 damned sure deserves it. I met my Colt in 1987 when we were both shiny new rookies. We learned to love each other despite our obvious differences - I was weak and mortal, while the 1911 chose to speak only as directed and then, speak well. While over the years I had dallied with 'other' guns ("really, honey, that Mustang's just a backup piece - means nothing to me!") the Colt remained true and ready to forgive, always at my side. We started shooting police matches after a couple years, and I learned I could be pretty good but never as good as my gun. My Colt only burped if I took it out to try new foods, like the time we ate some free silly Silvertips. All I had to do was reach down it's throat and remove the offending matter it was choking on, and all was right - ready to eat some more. The Colt was with me when the going got tough. Together, we were one for two on bad guys and two for two on midsized pickup trucks. And it never rubbed my nose in the fact that any mistakes were mine alone....like, shooting pickup trucks, for example. It readily accepted magazines I hurriedly thrust upon it without ever saying it was tired or had a headache. We could both work just fine even if we were a little grimy. My 1911 might end up in the gutter, but I'd be wearing it at the time. We shot more matches, and soon I became a range instructor for my department. My Colt was now fully mature and still a beauty after 7500 rounds; still, it said it felt a little saggy so I surprised with a new 13 lb spring. That's the only surgery my 1911 has ever had, and it still makes heads turn in a bikini. (The gun, not me. I'd put you off your food.) We taught police and we taught at a stupid place in Pahrump NV for a few years, where we saw many other guns choke on the grit and not want to play any more. The Colt didn't care if the wind was blowing rocks horizontally or snow. While others had to get out of the weather, my gun was ready. The forbidding volcanic waste of the SOF matches didn't give my baby so much as a hiccup. We shot every pistol stage of every match from 1994 to 2002 (okay, it was during stage testing but still...) without so much as a single malfunction. We quietly giggled while we saw polymers and DA autos being beaten into function by their shooters, knowing we'd never have those worries. Our only domestic violence was what we had visited upon others when the situation demanded. Then, we had a relationship crisis. My department wanted us to start seeing other guns - soulless polymer ones. "It'll be good for the both of you" they told us. The Colt had to spend two days all by itself while I danced with a new partner. I gotta admit the polymer did everything right, except I just couldn't hold it without thinking of the clean lines of JMB's daughter in my hands...we were both lost without one another. There was simply no way I could ever give my heart to some mandrel-rifled floozie. And what's worse, that polymer could be ANYbody's gun, just like all the rest, but not just ANYbody could live with a 1911. Finally I got permission to stay with the Colt even though I had to officially marry the polymer. It was a forced marriage, one without concern for the betrothed and only to make the parents happy, but I never held my Colt as a concubine or mistress - instead as my one and only. The cold polymer trophy-wife could stay in the bag, except for public appearances to keep the department happy. I got hurt and retired, and my Colt went with me. The harsh, unloving polymer stayed behind to be with another officer - you hear about some women like that, too. You could say the gun's in the golden years now with over 19K rounds, and a lot of gray showing (grip and holster wear). My 1911's been 'melted' and 'dehorned' by dirt, leather and kydex; the trigger's still like breaking a glass rod. I can't bring myself to get the gun re-blued.....notice how good Sophia Loren still looked after all those years ? In summation, the old Colt was, is and forever shall be my gun. Wife's got a Kimber (sexy, but just not the same for me). I have no reason to own any other pistol. Where I go, the 1911 goes. I will post a photo should your club see fit to accept my 1911's application, as I hate to display it in a gratuitous fashion like some tarted-up starlet looking for a photo op with her silly extended magwell hanging out for everone to ogle.

Cheryl richly deserves any blinky trinkets she may receive (including for shooting). Kathy loved rooting for her and the other ladies at SOF; for six years, that was our "Nevada vacation". And while Kurt is ugly, stinky and socially inadept, I'm not one to question the boy's visual acuity....

Cheryl - you were da Queen at SOF, and put many a hairy-legged boy in his place with your scores. And Kathy hopes that twinkling bracelet still brings good luck. (I was about a .23 BAC the night we gave those gifts out, lucky I could even speak.) SOF was the closest thing Kathy and I had to a "vacation" every year, and difficult though it was, she truly enjoyed cheering on the ladies. Here's one I forgot: the guy with the open-sighted MAK90 on my rifle stage...made three hits, one at 310 yards, on the 'flash' targets by skipping rounds off the rocks into them. Must've gamed it by implanting his own rocks before the match.....

When I was still teaching at a certain Pahrump NV school we were doing the free subgun courses and a guy was obviously having issues with his M-11, especially getting the stick mag in and out and a terrific trigger jerk. I worked with him a little before we changed squads, he was getting VERY frustrated and nervous. I went over to talk with him on break and noticed his pupils were the size of quarters, and he stated he felt his problems were due to "doing too much crank" that morning at the motel. He got sent packing but said he'd love to shoot some subgun again in the future if we'd have him back.....mmm hmmm.

Early 1990's cop shoot in central CA - duty-only guns, ammo and rigs. Guy shows up with nickel-plated Series 70 1911 in .45 and a way-bitchin' Don Johnson-model custom shoulder rig; he's a detective at a department that has about six total sworn officers. He has to borrow a hip holster to actually shoot, along with a stock mag pouch for his TWENTY-ROUND spare mag (also nickel-plated). Starts the stage with a second-round squib that tumbles out about 15 feet past the muzzle to the ground; ammo check shows he brought his 'special' reloads, now needs to borrow some factory ammo. Some really evil person fixes him up with 185 grain Silvertips (no ramp work in his gun, never seen anything but ball ammo). He starts again, has to smack the back of his slide to go into battery after each round, 4 rounds total. With left hand now bleeding, has to holster and run to next SA; extended mag falls out of pouch into dirt. Retreives mag, carries to SA and sticks it back into pouch. Shoots to slidelock, "speed"loads with 20 rounder (gun now feeding Silvertips okay - must've been that lucky mag or especially lubricative dirt), holsters to move to next SA. Upon arrival, draws pistol from holster, 20 rd mag floor plate catches on holster as he presents to target and comes off, ejecting rest of ammo from magazine (along with spring and follower) into dirt while pistol does several front flips in midair, landing in dirt with muzzle (Series 70 gun now in Condition Zero with loaded chamber) pointing directly at shooter. RO has to physically restrain shooter with tackle-into-full-Nelson from retrieving gun. Dude got his gun back but left all huffy about being DQ'd for unsafe gunhandling. I woulda thumbed him for the shoulder rig, but that's just me....

Yeah, and I wasn't running a stage for that one (just had surgery) but got enlisted to haul shooters back and forth in my spankin' new F350....took about a year to get that Laughlin dust outta the thing. Made the best gag trophy that year, though...."rifle" made from stuff laying around my shop. Gave it to the woman who Mozambiqued the no-shoot with slugs.

There's the reason I even suggested someone like Waidelich; because he WAS "way back when." One thing modern shooters often overlook is the very foundation upon which current skills are based. Is it possible someone else would've figured out a modified Weaver? Or beveling a mag well, or shooting with high or low thumb? Very much so, but these are the guys that paved the way - they had the ingenuity and insight to challenge the old ways of pistol shooting and incorporate DVC as the hallmarks of pistolcraft, not just Camp Perry-style bullseye. And at the time they did it, many considered their ideas of "combat pistol" as heresy. These same epiphanies were eventually adopted by military and law enforcement doctrine, not just competitive pistol shooters in the public domain. We practice many of them today, too - some tweaked a little, some changed drastically. But they remain the same in principle because they were good ideas "way back when", and still apply today. Any skill created by the marriage of human and machine reveres the forebearers who first mastered it, recognizes the contributions they made that remain timeless. Ask a GP motorcycle racer if he ever heard of Mike Hailwood or fighter pilot about Joe Foss.

Okay, you REALLY want ancient history: Mike Waidelich. This is going waaaay back to the animal from which descended USPSA and others - the Southwest Pistol League. Mike was there; Mike was one of the earliest instructors back when Gunsite was Gunsite; and he's credited by many as one of the founders of the Modern Pistol Technique alongside Jeff Cooper. Yes, I am prejudiced in this respect - Mike is primarily responsible for nothing I've done wrong and almost everything I've done right - but it was guys like him that struck the dies from which modern pistol shooting events have been cast. By the way, I'm only 48; SWPL was doing stuff when I was in grade school. And yes, my poor old original duty weapon 1911 from 1987 still rides upon my hip, too. Old stuff that stands the test of time never gets old.

Yeah, after about 2001 things started going downhill for the match quickly: the range club decided they wanted a WHOLE lot more money for the match, they provided fewer and fewer ROs to help and their guys would show up and start shooting while we were building stages. At the same time, the magazine seemed like they didn't want the match anymore at all, and they showed it at the prize table, too. Mike, Mike and Lyle absolutely poured their hearts and souls into keeping it together but it just proved to be all effort with no reward. And, none of us were getting any younger, either. I personally had one helluva good time from 1994-2003 even with the bad times in the balance; I saw more good from our shooters than I ever saw bad. Maybe we had some rules that flew in the face of common match practices, but we stayed true to the tactical concept and you could see clearly which shooters were the tactical animals apart from the 'gamesmen'. Someday when I'm rich and famous and own a few hundred acres instead of five, I'll do a funhouse match like the one we used to shoot in police matches in Visalia...no timer except the two-second horn to engage targets as they're exposed. Only three minutes needed to do it right, and much less to do it wrong; any 'mikes' and you get the Death Horn for everyone to hear. Some day...

Good ones: Miculek shooting an 1100 faster than a Vulcan....Parmalee acing a rifle stage only to have his AR go single-shot before the last target and staying in the fight anyway...watching Ladies of Fortune improve skills over the years....laughing over the "who came up with THIS stage" comments....rigging Junkyard II to fail catastrophically for a shooter who entered under a fake name....a shooter asking if the same bush was in the way for everybody else, too....Jimmy Clark in an uncontrollable giggling fit just before the Team Shoot was starting....watching Kurt Miller stuff loose .45 rounds into a single-stack mag like he was eating m&ms....giving gag trophies to victims at the Shooter's Awards....meeting people who did it for the fun and usually did well doing just that. Bad ones: bad heat/road/stages/facilities at the last one in Laughlin....DQ'ing a guy with a great time after I saw his loads were low-base #8s....finding out just how nice a place the Continental hotel was, and almost shooting a pimp that got on our elevator there....watching a shooter throw his 870 about a hundred feet after he bombed my stage....finding out my stage couldn't work the afternoon before the match started....having a drunk volunteer RO as my check-in guy one year....seeing a mag base plate fall off a 1911 and the shooter try to ram a new mag into the body still inside the magwell....explaining why shooting the moving paper target stand counterweight didn't count as a hit to three consecutive shooters....being muzzled with an AR by a shooter who had "borrowed one" for the match and had never even held one before the stage....