Slim Pickens

Thanks, Jack! Out of curiosity, have you noticed an increase in the number of women in the past 20 years?

Hello all, Haven't written for a very long time, but I've finally gat a question worth asking: What is your experience with the atmosphere / numbers breakdown / attitude between men and women in your clubs and / or your events? I ask because a friend of mine was talking about how (in France) nobody thinks integrating women (or men) into events when there is no performance difference is a priority. I told her that shooting events were not even historically split by sex and that at the club level none of my clubs have ever treated women differently. I believe that this is because though some members might be macho or even misogynist, shooting clubs have a culture of judging people on their performance, and most importantly, a culture of the importance of respect for each other, respect for the equipment one uses and of self-discipline. In my mind, a culture with these values is one that is conducive to welcoming respectful, disciplined people of any sex (or creed, or colour or anything else that doesn't affect safety). My friend thinks my clubs are a fluke and I'd like to prove her wrong. Do you have any examples of how women and men are both welcome at your club? If so could you share them here? It would go a long way to helping me convince my friend that shooting is something she and all women can do. In my case I shoot with my eldest daughter. It never even crossed my mind that I shouldn't give her a chance to try, and this feeling goes a long way back in my family. A cherished family heirloom is a S&W safety hammerless that belonged to my great-great aunt, who passed it on to her daughter when she became one of the first women bush pilots in Canada (Ethel Currie), "because you never know when you might crash, keep that in the cockpit just in case. It was only fired once, when she and her husband flew down from Alberta, Canada to Arizona in their private airplane, the revolver legally carried with them, and Austin decided to take a potshot at a cactus to see if the damn thing worked. Austin died not long after that trip and since Ethel and he had no children, she held on to that revolver, waiting to give it to the next generation. So the revolver sat in the drawer in its Crown Royal velvet bag for years and years until Canada decided that all such hand guns needed to be registered. Ethel, a pillar of the community and an absolute straight talker and honest dealer, went down to the police station where they told her she'd have to join a club to keep it, but she could keep it without joining a club if they deactivated it. So like the person she was, she gave them hell for forcing a senior citizen with bad eyesight and arthritis (that they had known all their lives) to jump through hoops to keep her mother's revolver. So she paid 20 dollars and it was deactivated by welding the cylinder to the frame and filling the barrel with cast metal. Many, many years later, I'm visiting home and go to visit Ethel. We chat for a while and the conversation drifts to my love of shooting. She winks at me, goes to her bedroom and comes back with a little velvet Crown Royal bag. I look up at Ethel, whose eyes are shining. "This was my mother's..." That revolver is now in my safe and will remain there until I can pass it to the next generation. So, for me, women and shooting have never been mutually exclusive.

Not sure if it's easier in terms of paperwork but I know you can get Tanfoglios in Canada and I suspect it would be easier than getting one sent over from Italy. Here's a place that carries them : http://www.freedomventures.ca/home.htm Good luck!

I can certainly see your point in doing more dry fire rather than mucking about with another gun that feels different. "More dry fire!" is definitely a recurring theme on this forum! Quite rightly too. Well the recoil per se isn't a problem really (I shoot 9mm 124gr S&B FMJ). I can accurately fire 10 shots in 20 seconds for example (accurate for me meaning everything in the 7 ring of a C50 target at 25 meters, which wouldn't count as accurate for others I realize) , but when I try to go faster or try to do controlled pairs everything goes haywire. I figured this is a mental obstacle more than a physical one but I don't know how I can get over it in dry fire. Perhaps a better solution would be to use the 9mm exclusively for live fire, but practice by setting the target at 7 meters to start and not worrying about accuracy too much and then working my way up to a greater distance.

That's pretty much what I suspected so looks like I'll be saving up for a Kadet. Serves me right for being impulsive. Still, having an extra gun around the house never hurt anybody Thanks for the advice!

I need to work on quickly reacquiring my sights, so I figured I'd get a Kadet .22 kit for my CZ 75, the logic being that with negligeable recoil I'd be able to focus on my technique and then "work my way up" to 9mm. Thing is, a good deal for a Beretta 87 Target came my way and I nabbed it. I really like it but the "problem" is that since it's such a different gun (much lighter; smaller/narrower grip etc) is practicing on it rather than the CZ going to do more harm than good for me trying to improve with the CZ? Here's a side by side pic to show the difference in size. The Beretta feels WAY smaller in the hand. I'd be interested to hear any comments anyone might have, 'cause for the moment "buy the Kadet too" isn't an option.

Cool page! Thanks for the link.

I was dry firing my CZ 75B and I had a "Eureka!" moment (which of course might not apply to anybody else): When pulling the trigger in single action, if I think of the web of my hand coming forward to meet my trigger finger coming back, it helps me to keep the pull more parallel to the bore (if that makes sense) all the way through - rather than pulling the shot down which was a bad habit of mine. I don't know if anyone else uses a mental image like this, but it's certainly helped me tighten up my groups.

I came across this app while looking for a timer for my dry fire drills and I quite like it. It doesn't come with any pre-loaded drills unfortunately, but what's neat is that you can combine various drills into a regimen. I've been using it for sight acquisition drills; it's got a voice command and then a beep and a target pops up on the screen for X number of seconds. So I've been putting it at various places across the room and just been working on that. The developer has a blog with a list of suggested drills as well, but I haven't really tried any of those yet. Anyway just a heads up for anyone looking for something to help with their dry fire practice. Drills and video to be found here

This has been going around a few francophone forums but just in case there are any French shooters on this forum that haven't seen it yet I thought I'd take the liberty of posting it here. Petition au président de la république contre un durcissement de la législation From Slim Pickens;

Thanks for the warm welcome guys! @CocoBolo thanks for the tips. So far I've only put about 200 rounds through the gun, so I'd like to get to know it a bit better before making any modifications. I don't want to be the guy with the tricked-out gun who can't shoot worth a damn!

After shooting .22 lr pistol at 25M for a while I've recently picked up a CZ 75 in 9mm and am mulling whether to get into practical shooting, so I figured this would be a good place to start. I look forward to talking to you in the forums