ATLDave

What's "the Manny Bragg holster"?

I've been shooting USPSA with a Tanfo Match for about 2 years and using a bladetech holster for it. I finally decided that a gun with a magwell (and a little extra weight and a non-POS adjustable sight) would be cool to have, so now I've got a Limited that I'm setting up. My old holster won't work, so I'm in the market for a new one. And I'm inclined to try out a thumb rest, too, since the gun already has those little holes drilled in the side, which means a more open/race-style holster. So, what's your thinking about the best holster for square-guard Tanfos? And what, if any, thumb rest do you like?

I mainly wish that shooters would realize that the clock is no longer running and that they can re-holster slowly. That gives the shooter or RO time to notice anything amiss, such as a shirt tail getting in the trigger guard, or the trigger getting hung on a holster edge.

Several USPSA classifiers require a "standard" table, or a "standard height" table, or a "standard card table." Are there specified dimensions or specifications for these, or do they truly mean any folding card table of dimensions that are unremarkable and common? Thanks in advance!

I'm a flincher by nature. And I had a bad flinch a few years ago. The best advice came from this very forum, and is premised on the notion that the flinch begins (and ends) with the eyes. Go to the range with the softest-recoiling gun you've got - a .22lr is ideal. Don't put up a target. Just aim at the backstop and watch the gun go off as you pull the trigger. Don't worry about hitting anything in particular, so long as the bullets are going someplace safe. Just watch the gun go off. See how much you can see. Can you see the slide operate? Can you see the brass eject? Can you see the muzzle flash? If you can't, you're flinching with your eyes. Keep shooting and keep watching. You're not trying to do anything but observe. Once you start seeing things happening while the gun is going off and recoiling, direct your attention to the front sight. See if you can watch it jump/rise in recoil when the gun goes off. See if you can see the muzzle flash at the same time. Keep trying until you can watch the front sight jump up and settle back down. No goals except to see. Once you can see the front sight rise in recoil - and not before! - you can hang a target. Use a big one. Aim at the middle. If you hit it, great... as long as you see the front sight. Shoot a bit this way. If you start losing the front sight or stop seeing the gun go off, take the target down. Eventually, you'll notice that you're shooting fairly compact groups without that low-left trail that the flinch induces. When you get to that point, you can start aiming small, focusing on a careful trigger pull, etc. But as long as you aren't flinching with your eyes, you are unlikely to mechanically flinch. Just keep seeing and the flinch will go away. Eventually, move up in power if that's your goal. You may have to repeat the process as you move from .22lr to 9mm, or from 9mm to .40 major. Or from .38 special to .44 magnum. The key is to see. As long as you can see the gun going off, your brain will pretty quickly correct out the flinch. That's the advice I got. It has worked for me. If I don't shoot for several weeks, sometimes I have to repeat parts of this process, though it's faster every time. The first time through, you might spend 500 or 1,000 rounds of ammo.

I actually had a pretty good CS experience with them recently. The rear sight on my Match disassembled itself under recoil, throwing the compression spring into oblivion. After talking with the CS rep (<24 hour from my VM to return call; would prefer them to actually answer their phone, but a 1-day return call isn't too bad), they had me return the rear sight plate/notch and set screw. About a week and a half later, I got an entire new rear sight. No charge, and no return shipping costs required (despite my offer on the phone and in my letter to pay reasonable replacement costs). Pretty good, and a big relief given the horror stories I have heard.

The windage (L/R) screw on the rear sight of my match has started slipping under recoil. And I mean slipping a lot. It has twice, in the space of only a couple/three rounds slipped all the way, either letting the sight plate go all the way to the left or dropping it entirely! Has anyone else had this issue? Would it be OK to use some blue loctite (I note that it's a 1/8 diameter screw and loctite says it is for 1/4" and up)?

Thanks, Nealio. Sounds like it may just be a manufacturing tolerance thing. Get a sight at the high end of the size tolerance range, and a slide with the cut at the low end of the range, and you get a friction fit that would resist an ox.

Slight threadjack: I've gotten the Henning FO sight for my Match (10mm if that makes any difference), but I am having a devil of a time getting the factory-installed front sight out. I've seen the nice instructional page on Henning's site, but I cannot get the darn thing to budge. And, yes, I removed the set screw. I've gone at it with nylon- and rubber-headed mallets; those just got chewed up. I've tried using a wooden dowel as a punch/transfer; the sight just splintered the dowel. I tried using a blunted nail as a punch/transfer; the front sight got dinged, but didn't move. I tried loading the whole thing in a vise; I put as much pressure on as I could before getting scared of damaging the slide. I tried using a heat gun to see if either some differential metal expansion or breaking some epoxy would make a difference; I only burned my fingers (not really, but it did get quite warm to the touch). Anybody got any suggestions? Do I need to take a butane torch to it to break some high-temp epoxy? I mean, God forbid I just break down and take it to a competent gunsmith...