Bunchies95

More like a pun....with a very long backstory.

Quit using logic and reason

Are you familiar with the layout of the range? I wouldn't guarantee a Stage 1 start would save you any amount of walking. Until there is a range map with where each stage is going, I would bet the actual walking distance is going to be pretty darn close. And I say that as someone who shot the Vegas Nats a couple years ago 3 months after a torn Achilles Tendon repair. I was about two weeks out of the boot and still managed to get around OK. Heck you may find out that squad 33 may save you walking. There's no sense in getting upset about something you, a. can't change, and b. may end up better. Here is the layout of the range for Nationals. http://www.boomershooter.com/forums/index.php/topic/13649-ussa-range-layout/?p=159782 A little bit more walking from 19-33, but not much.

You must not have paid very much attention to the squad schedule then. It's not if you started on stage 2 that you would shoot 2-7, 8-13, then 14-18,1. Shoot a block of six stages a day (1-6, 7-12, 13-18). That way if a backup occurs on one stage, it won't impact the rest of the match, just that group.

Try looking at the sqaud schedules to see what impact it makes before going off half cocked at the match management. I'm not sure what other changes were made, but by moving 19 to 33, it balances out the rotations for each group. Instead of group 4 having 6 squads, 5 - 5 squads and 6 - 2 squads, they are more balanced at 5-5-3. Also remember that the last 6 stages are the biggest, so having some space there will help mitigate some potential backups. You are still shooting on the PM-AM-PM schedule, just starting on a different stage. So what difference is this really going to make? When squadding was posted, nobody knew what the stages were going to look like, so you had no idea if you would start on a short or long stage. If you waited until the stages were posted, most people already had squaded so your choices were limited. So I ask again, what difference does it REALLY make?

Springfield XD Subcompact 9mm (3" barrel) Shot it in Limited - minor power factor of course Still remember my first match: I was fast and didn't hit S$!T Holster: What came with the gun Mag Pouch: The stupid V pouch that came with the gun Only bought 1 extra 16 round mag. The gun and rig only lasted a handful of matches before I stepped up to its bigger brother: XDm 5.25 with a proper rig.

Without really going through the math, more often than not, it is better to take the miss than do a standing reload for a single piece of steel. How many rounds did the stage require? What was your final time? What was your raw points shot? Generally, the lower the round count the stage, the more important getting all your points matters. Here is a quick example: 100 point stage shot in 20 seconds is a 5 Hit Factor Stage. If you didn't do the standing reload on the very last piece of steel, you shot 95 points (plus -10 penalty) in 16.75 seconds. That would make a 5.075 Hit Factor, slightly better.

Now that the 90 day comment period is up, when is the BoD expected to make the suggested changes and vote on the rulebook?

Is it a three day match or do we get the option of shooting all day Friday or Sat/Sun?

You might want to use spell check on the website and match app......

That's where they put the Junior Varsity guys, or the guys who can't seem to get along with other guys on the super squad. I thought it was a lot like the B squad in a strip club: Gotta dim the lights and flow the drinks to make them look good.

Anyone know what time self squadding opens tomorrow? Midnight? Or some arbitrary time?

Starting to see a lot more announcements for next years matches being made. I started compiling a list to keep them straight. Copy and paste to keep the links working properly.

Layout Die: http://www.grainger.com/Grainger/DYKEM-STEEL-RED-Layout-Fluid-2GKW2?cm_sp=IO-_-IDP-_-RR_VTV70300505&cm_vc=IDPRRZ1 They make it in various colors and in aerosol form as well. I like the red as it is easily visible. You can also mark your brass with it for easy pickup, but make sure your live rounds and dummy rounds are painted different colors. I also loaded my dummy rounds with jacketed bullets that I found on the range floor and pulled. I only shoot lead so that is another easy way to see besides the die.

Went to a class taught by Ben Stoeger last weekend. It was hot and humid, but I still managed to learn a lot. We didn't do as much shooting as I thought we would for a two day class, but I wasn't shooting as well as I thought I could so that may be a plus. One big lesson I learned, make sure your gun is properly sighted in before you go. I was shooting low, which was originall diagnosed as a push. But after some grouping, we found out that I was hitting low. I still had developed a push on targets that I thought were hard, but not as bad as it originally was thought to be. I'm not going to go into a whole bunch of detail about the class, but I will hit the highlights. My stage breakdown is decent, however I put too much emphasis on trying to eliminate a shooting position or reduce steps. This led to some complicated plans that I didn't execute well. All options being equal, go with the easier to execute plan, even if it takes a few extra steps. Pay more attention to my reloads. I tend to forcibly leave a position, then start the reload. It's better to get the reload finished before worrying about aggressive movement. This leads directly into...... Have the gun ready to shoot before getting into position. While not a hard and fast rule, start aiming at the target before you can shoot it. This requires any reload be done before this point. For tight positions after a hard run, start slowing down sooner. This will allow me to find the position and not over run it. Keep my eyes on the foot placement point until I can be sure I will hit it. Only keep your focus on one thing at a time. As soon as you finish the most pressing thing (reload, position, etc) then start aiming at the target while settling into position. Practice shooting on the move more. It is just horrendous. Get lower and stay low. Don't go back upright, its just wasting time. Grip hard on the gun. Especially with my left hand. Don't muscle the gun on transitions. It leads to overshooting the target. Work with par times a little more in live fire. I found I can actually shoot faster than I think I can.

Whenever I use barrels to obscure a target, I paint hard cover in the area where a bullet through the barrel will impact. Sure it takes more work, but no scoring issues of does it or does it not count for score.

Stage 5 149/155 points 28.77 seconds There was really only one way to shoot this stage. Go to the star, then door then everything else. I had some trouble on the star. 8 shots for 5 plates. Granted, I'm pretty sure I hit a couple of the plates and they didn't fall, but the RO didn't see it. You can hear steel being struck, but no hits were visible on the arms, so I must have hit the plates. After the star, the door had to be manipulated. It was a hanging cloth that had to be pushed out of the way. I could have made that movement more aggressive. The reload backing up and avoiding the wall while finding a tight position was very difficult. I tried to drive the steel down at the end to get to the swingers faster, but ended up missing a couple of times, managing to hit the second one twice. Hits on the swingers were 2A and AC. Moving Forward: I only have 2 weeks left until the Stoeger class, so I will focus on just plain shooting ability until then. My dryfire is going to work on building a solid grip every time out of the new holster and finding my deeper mags while moving.

Stage 4 74/80 points 22.03 seconds Here is where the wheels came off. I had a loose primer pocket that allowed a primer to fall out. This caused a mis-fire and a jam. The primer jammed the next round in the mag so it wouldn't chamber. After racking the slide didn't work, I just changed magazines. This laziness in inspecting brass cost me ~ 10 seconds on the stage. Ouch. The run on the steel was decent. I decided that it wasn't worth it to try and blaze all the steel to get the DT and clam shell last, so I split the arrays. However, I think I should have tried it, just to see what I was capable of. The hardcover targets behind the steel were tight! I knew the only way to do well on this stage was to get the hits. So I focused on just that. The one make-up shot i had, I just didn't like the sight picture when the shot broke. It ended up breaking the perf, but I didn't know that at the time. Just that it was a possible miss. I had 2 C hits on the clam shell . I indexed too low on it when it appeared. A/C on the DT by not aiming the second shot. I saw brown and pulled the trigger. Stage 5 67/90 points This was a fixed time standards. there were 6 head shots with no-shoots and hard cover. Par time was 6 seconds, one shot per target. First string was at 15 yards, seconds 9, third 3. I had one miss a vast majority of my B hits on the first string. I decided that I couldn't guarentee an A hit so I just got as many points as I could. The miss was off the draw (low left). The rest of the stage was pretty easy. I used the par time very well.

Since I'm not feeling very productive at work today...let's get right into last weekend's Bullet Hole Match. I decided to shoot Production this time and easily won. No one that I would normally compete against showed up. So I tried to beat my shooting buddy who was shooting Limited. Were it not for a loose primer, I would have http://www.bullethole.com/scores/bpsc/2013/aug_13.htm Stage 1 98/120 points 20.36 seconds A vast majority of my points dropped were on the Drop Turners. I cannot remember exactly, but I think I had 3 misses on them, with only 1 being a shot not taken. I figured if I didn't get them all in the first pass, it wasn't worth waiting till they showed up again. During the walkthrough, the second pass was not timed very well. Some of them were faster and others were slower. But watching the video, they were pretty similar. The hardest part of this stage was the start. All mags for the stage had to be on the table with an unloaded gun. I had never practiced this before. I decided to load one extra mag on my belt, just in case. The initial shooting seemed a little choppy. I think I could have been more aggressive in both the shooting and movement. The issue was that the targets would appear then quickly dissappear. By shooting faster, I could move faster. Hitting that metal pole on a shot through the port distracted me a bit, hence the look right. Wasn't expecting a steel hit on a stage with no steel. Stage 2: Triple Choice Classifer 69/75 points 13.52 seconds This was a solid run on the classifier. Didn't drop too many points, but the ones I did wer close to hard cover. Missed the grip on the freestyle draw trying to push the pace a bit and had to readjust, losing time. The strong/weak hand strings was just shooting for points. I figured if I pushed the pace here a miss would surely be the result. All in all, a 85% run. Some minor improvements would help a bit here (draw, sh/wh shooting) Stage 3 174/180 points This was a good run. I took a risk on my plan by shooting the plate rack and two more targets with one magazine. If I screwed it up, a standing reload would have been the result, but that would have happened anyways. I tried to miss that second plate twice, I think I was looking at that piece of steel instead of my sight. I'm not happy with how slowly I shot the two paper targets right after the plate rack. They were close enough and the hard cover wasn't that bad that my splits should have been half that. The right to left reload needs a bit more work. I was really focused on the 180. Movement up the alley was decent, could be more aggressive. Need to work on aiming where the target is going to be rather than looking for the target. I'm not sure on my decision to shoot that third position like I did. My logic was I had to lean in a bit to see the hardcover, so I might as well shoot there. Then leave on the open target by the no-shoot target. This resulted in some wide transtions. It might have been better to just settle in on the no shoot and shoot right to left and not worry about the lean out on the last target. Going into the final position, I decided that the hardcover target was too dangerous to enter on, despite its close proximity. So I left that till last. Might not have been the fastest choice, but definately the most comfortable one. That third mag pouch looked hard to get to. Will have to work on that in dry fire (still trying to feel out the ghost mag pouches and their locations/angles).

Stage 3 138/160 points 21.55 seconds Points on this were horrible for some reason. I had my only D on a field course on this stage. I planned two extra shots on this stage: one on the horizontal hard cover through the door and one on the zebra through the port. I had a lot of C's on the final array of paper just trying to blitz through that. I called my miss on that final steel and made it up very quickly. I saw that it went straight into the barrel. If the barrel wasn't there, it would have hit the mini popper. So the good news is that at times, my shot calling can be relly good. Just need it to happen all the time now. Room for improvement on this stage would be to not take so many make up shots. Stage 4 114/120 points 23.23 seconds This stage proves once again: DO NOT CHANGEYOUR PLAN AT THE LAST MINUTE! I originaly planned to reload going across the stage, but then last minute decided that it would be better to reload moving forward which would give me the ability to haul ass across the stage. Ended up reload in both positions as the plans were equally strong. I also decided that shooting the middle two paper from the start position was the best idea so I wouldn't have to accel/dece/accel through the middle portion of the stage in order to shoot those. WAtching other people who did that, I am sure that I made the right call. Had a few too many misses on steel. It was hot, I had run a bunch of people as RO and just plain stopped watching my sights. I might have won the stage with just a bit of patience on steel. The final paper target I shot, the first shot broke while I was still transitioning to it. I was prepping the trigger and ended up over prepping it. The shot was still on papper, but I had no idea at the time. This tells me that I need to work on wide transition some more while keeping the sights aligned. Watching the video, most of the transition came from my shoulders, not my legs.

I'm finally starting to get some solid match performances again. For a while there I seemed to be making stupid rookie mistakes. Let's start with a review of the River City match. This was a 5 stage club match that I decided to shoot Limited Minor. The first stage was the classifier (not on video) "Lightening and Thunder". It is a fixed time course of fire. I didn't use the par time effectively on this stage, especially on the first string. I drew too fast which resulted in a mike and the poor grip cause some points down. Next string I fumbled the reload and ended up with one NPM by not getting the shot off. Final string went very well though. The points were pretty good SH. https://www.practiscore.com/match-results/uuid?uuid=556272A0-79F2-4D2A-AF68-143ADF142012 Stage 1: 135/145 points (0D's) 21.02 seconds This stage went pretty well. The first two targets had hardcover in the middle of the A zone running vertically. This caused me to shy away into the C zone a bit, dropping most of my points on these two targets (3C). The backing up into the low-ish port seemed kinda awkward though. There was a open target at 27 yards hidden behind a barrel. I saw more than a few members of my squad throw one into the barrel, so I decided I would be better off taking three shots at it instead of risking a mike. I think that was the right decision even though I had 3 A's on target. The only thing that pisses me off about this stage is the hiccup with the gun. Watching the video, it doesn't look like a round got chambered. I racked the slide and moved on pretty good. Just lost my momentum and almost broke the 180 going back to the target I had the malfunction on.I only lost about a second and a half from shot to shot (so maybe two full seconds on the clock), but that was the difference between 4th on the stage and winning it. I don't remember where my other 2 charlies came from, but it wasn't the swinger. I got a beautiful 2Alpha on it. I was happy. Stage 2 129/145 points - 18.26 seconds I told Steve Cline right before I ran this stage to watch for lightning. I just felt like I was going to burn it down. I was right, in a way. The time was 2 seconds faster than anyone else in Limited and with decent points. The stage started up with a retreating load. You could see two of the targets from the start position, but I decided it was better to be moving to the steel while loading since I had to get there anyways. The load and two steel was very smooth. The next movement portion, not so much. Had to take a few extra shots to make up D hits as my front sight was bouncing all over the place. I'm not sure that my decision on shooting the popper right before the reload was the right one. It was kinda tucked in tight, but I had to do two hard transitions to get to it. I took one step while engaging the two paper on the right. Time might have been saved by just getting into position for the popper first, then shooting the paper while leaving. Reload was good. That run on those plates was awesome! It's kinda weird how I can go one for one on all the steel on that stage, but have make up shots on paper at 5 yards. The last target had a bit of trigger freeze. I just tensed up too much trying to shoot it quick.

+1000

because all of a popper is a valid target.Plates are supposed to be round and that round part is the target. To me it's the same as hanging a plate in a rope. If you hit the rope a foot above the plate and the plate falls that is not a hit Hmmm....How can I make a stage utilizing these dangling plates?

Here is the question and response that JAFO brought up: Amidon's Response: Rules:

Did you Loctite everything? It's not the bolts that are coming loose. I cannot tighten up he bottom bolt enough to get the cant to stop changing. It feels like if I tighten that bolt up any more, it's going to break. I could locktite or super glue the spacer, but that seems to defeat the purpose of the holster design.