Glock26Toter

I think the common thread here is "Work." As most are saying, M class takes work. You need to begin identifying your areas of weakness and training to eliminate them. How you go about it is up to you, and full of recommendations on books, drills, and the like. You need to try them, see what works, and keep trying them until you find that either some, or a collection of them all eventually work for you. But all that is... well, work! What most GM's will tell you, is that for every live round fired many, many more were dry-fired. My dry/live fire ratio is very low and I spent a lot of time "just having fun" and not taking matches very seriously. I had been shooting USPSA for like 8 years (with about a 3 year hiatus) before I made A class and did that about 1 year after adopting a serious attitude. 4 years later, I've been a GM for almost a year now. Meanwhile, Big Panda made GM in a couple of years. (can't remember exactly, but it was fast). I'll bet his dry/live fire ratio puts mine to shame. I know the number of books he's read and classes he's attended does. As does he, when we compete. I'm OK with that because the work I was willing to put in has made me the shooter I am today. No more, no less. Either way. Work/experience is what it takes. And since everyone is different on how much time and at what level of work they can (or are willing to) put in this is not an easy answer.

Over the years I have figured out that I need 6-7 hours of sleep. I would think it's different for everyone so I recommend figuring out what your best amount of sleep is and trying to stick to that. Since quitting almost all alcohol intake many years ago I have not needed an alarm clock. It was not quitting drinking that made that happen. I started doing it anyways, but I found that alcohol disrupted that ability and it could not be relied upon until I quit drinking. Vary rarely when traveling in a time zone that's more than a 2 hour difference I wake up with an alarm, but at home I don't need one. And generally, at a hotel I still wake up and turn it off before it starts making noise. From that experience I can say that "I know, for me" that alcohol disrupts sleep. Anyways, I also agree that sleep is a waste of time and if I could just skip it altogether I would do that. I mean, really? I've got to spend hours on end with my eyes closed? Missing EVERYTHING! I've never been a person that enjoys "sleeping in." I have however enjoyed the hell out of some Tequila.

Stage planning is an advanced technique over all the safety considerations. What I mean by that is, don't worry about executing even the simplest of plans while dealing with a safety issue. Turn and draw for example. Turn after the buzzer. Then execute your stage plan. Eventually, like when you are classified D and ready to try for C you can start to worry about executing "stage plans." (btw, that "trying to execute stage plans" NEVER goes away!) Until then, if you have to do something backwards from most other shooters just ensure you don't DQ then so be it. If you rack up 3 FTE's then it's no big deal. It's what you had to do to ensure you finished, safely. When I first started I ended a few plans early because I had not gotten enough mags on my belt yet. I still had fun and called myself "the perpetual D classer" because I never really cared if I purchased enough mags and holders. I also never anticipated shooting a gun other than my sub-compact Glock 26. I was just having fun! Oh how things have changed over the last 14 years! Have fun, and don't put pressure on yourself. Stick to the safety plan over the strategy plan, and your 'first two' matches will be nothing but a distant memory.

It was an awesome weekend shooting the Rocky Mountain 300. Always a fun match, this year I was lucky enough to be on a super squad with JJ Racaza, Bob Krogh, Paul Clark Jr, and Spencer Stein. I was a sponge this year watching JJ do his thing along with all the other top shooters on my squad. We learned from each other, and had a good time strategizing and giving each other crap. I hope that the other shooters on my squad got as much out of shooting with this group as I did. Reviewing my performance (Here's the Vid) I see PLENTY of areas for improvement. Then again, I wound up placing 3rd overall so it wasn't all bad. In Lanny Basham style, let's look at some of the good stuff. First on stage 1 (and the entire day) I never lost rhythm in my splits. Any slow splits were necessary because I was waiting for the proper sight picture. Especially on the stage 1 hosing. I was able to keep things moving along nicely when it came to the shooting and aiming necessary to make it through... for the most part anyways. On stage 3 I really liked my hit quality and despite making a huge strategic error the shooting went well. Especially on the steel array. I hammered it with authority and probably beat JJ for that single engagement. (OK, maybe not. It's still going in the + column) Stage 5, despite a slow start I picked things up on the 2nd star and finished with quite a decent time on that stage. (40 seconds, to JJ's 34 seconds ain't too shabby) Now, to look at the negative column. It's been a bit since I recorded an entire match. It's also been a while since I reviewed the entire video with the mindset of actually searching for what I'm not doing so well. I've also NEVER had the opportunity to watch as a world class champion performs the exact same stages showing me exactly what I missed. JJ is super cool as a squad mate and we talked a lot about strategy and why we made some of the decisions we made. First, something that has fairly recently really crept into my performance. Verbal outbursts. The problem with verbal outbursts is two-fold. One, is that it's a family sport and I enjoy posting my vids to Facebook and other places. They don't need to include me swearing or otherwise making "in the moment" colorful comments. Secondly, I believe this drags out the error into the next moments. To say something takes a hell of a lot longer than to think it. The mistake I made on the memory stage was minor. I had lost count in the port and leaned way over in the following port before I realized I was not seeing the views I had programmed for this stage. I yelled "shit!" and by the time I did that, I was reloading into the next port. While still dwelling on my previous mistake from verbalizing it I went into the next port and screwed that up worse. I wound up taking 2 mikes (due to an undetectable FTE) on that stage. The slowdown cost me additional points and I literally handed over the 2nd place position to my competition with that move. Secondly, I need to dry fire a LOT more and a LOT more seriously. The thing that's missing from my movements is that decisive, robotic like movement that comes from extreme confidence in motion. How do you get extreme confidence in motion? By repeating that motion a crazy number of times. Also, you get that confidence by never doing that motion differently. I noticed that when JJ pulls a magazine out of his mag pouch it's the same every time. The same way he does it in a match. There's never a lazy, slow grab and there's never a time when the magazine is in his hand with a different grip than the proper grip. EVERY draw of the magazine or gun, is a practice draw for the match. EVERY TIME. If it's to clean, or check it the proper grip is followed by this other action. But if you just zoomed in on his hand grabbing the magazine you would never know whether it was during a match, or to reload that mag. Also, the reverse of that motion is exactly the reverse of that motion. Putting a magazine in the pouch is not done with some different action. If you play a video of JJ putting a magazine in his pouch, in reverse, you would think it was a regular video of him pulling it out. While this is somewhat anecdotal I'll bet he would agree that this will help to build and maintain that "muscle memory" that makes the top GM's not have to do something fast, to be faster than everyone else at it. This is not just goal, this is a shift in my thinking and overall style that I'll work to integrate with urgency. It will take dry fire, and it will take discipline. Reviewing my video there are several instances of this lack of "muscle memory." First is the obvious jacked reload on stage one. That cost me a full second and while the reload fumble may have been caused by my looking back at a target I thought I missed, it was REALLY caused because that was only my 10,000th time reloading. It was probably JJ's 100,000th reload. There are many others, but most notably are the draws, and pushing off from a given position. Some are pretty decent, but again. Only having pushed off as hard as I possibly can say, 5000 times I often forget to make that ONE TIME the hardest I can push and to apply the proper "foot plant and spring out" technique to get my ass moving. I need to do it say, another 5000 times before it sinks in. Wow, this is getting long. Need to wrap it up by summarizing how I'll execute this moving forward. 1. Prioritize dry fire. With no gun (such as when traveling for work), practice movement. With a gun practice all the other stuff. Every night if possible. My awesome wife has vowed to help with this by prefacing anything she asks me to do after work with "After you dry-fire.... " (she's freaking bad ass.) This is also made better by the fact that tomorrow the basement get's carpeting. I can move better and mags won't get the shit kicked out of 'em by hitting concrete. The new house WILL have a space that's made for dry-fire. I never prioritized a space and made sure it was setup properly. It doesn't have to be dedicated, but does have to be properly setup and easily convertible. 2. Control my "retard valve." When that valve opens up, SHUT IT DOWN before it reaches my mouth. This is a good one for professional life also. Without realizing, I've been working on the same thing at work. When I want to say something like "you're late" to a contract tech, I just need to shut it down. It doesn't help anything. They know they are late and bitching only drives a wedge between them and me. They are ultimately my teammate and teams don't need that stress. This is the same with screwing up at a match. Move on, (silently) and continue operations as programmed. The next major match I'll get to try this at is the Mile High Showdown in 2 weeks. I'm excited for another major, and well run match!

This weekend had me at 2 matches. Aurora Gun Club on Sunday and Clear Creek County Sportsman's Club on Sunday. Both matches wound up with very nice weather and some decent blasting for me. On Friday night, I was cleaning my guns and found that the trigger return pressure on #1 was very light. I checked my trigger pull and it was sitting at 6 oz. This would explain some issues I've been having with rhythm when shooting very fast lately. I increased the pressure which also brought the pull weight up to about 1lb-2oz according to my scale. I figured I better give that a try and see what happens. #2 was not an option since it had it's old C-More on it, but not sighted in yet. Well, the new weight felt like I was pulling very hard during the match and evidence is shown in this video from Saturday. While the run was pretty decent, I just didn't seem to be able to pull a fast split due to a perceived delay in when I wanted to break the shot, and when it actually broke. Our squad finished super early. Since I'm on the board I took the extra time waiting for everyone else to finish and sighted in the #2 gun. It had not been sighted in since swapping back to the C-More on it. (they are both green now, so I can't call one the Hulk!) It only took like, 30 rounds to sight in the #2 (C-More's eh?), and I verified that the #1 gun had only drifted 1" low since last zeroed. So now I have 2 working guns again! Since I was all bent out of shape about the trigger situation I headed on down to Rick's so he could get the triggers setup the way I needed. A few minutes later I left with 2 triggers at 1lb 6oz (according to his scale) and a decent amount of return pressure. I went home and put them on my scale, only to find they measured 1lb 1oz. This confirms that my scale is way off... but now that I know that I can adjust accordingly. I'm not too worried about what the actual weight is... I just need to know if it's gone out of whack or not. I can't trust myself to just feel it and as this has happened before I find that when I lose fast shooting rhythm I want to blame myself, but often find it's a trigger issue. Now I'm a bit more educated about how to identify and confirm the issue. So the next day I had a chance to check things out at the Clear Creek match. I was relieved to find that all day, I didn't have a single rhythm issue. All my splits were nice and crisp and I shot a very solid match. I only had one fubar moment when I dropped my mag on the last target of the last stage. The match was way more rounds than usual and the only spare ammo I had was 9 rounds in one spare magazine on my belt. While I consciously knew that would finish things up, my unconscious mind read "NO MORE AMMO, YOU NEED THE ONE ON THE GROUND!" So I picked it up, very quickly determined it had not picked up enough dirt to cause a problem, loaded and completed the stage. However, my foot had not gotten the memo and had stepped out of the shooting area to retrieve the mag. So, no misses, but a considerable amount of time and penalty points were my final moments. Oh, and all the people on my squad laughing their asses off... there's always that! So, why I dropped the mag is something I'm going to write off. The last position was an awkward, upgrange run with a crazy spin into position. In all that twisting and changing grip I just didn't rebuild a solid grip on the gun. With extended releases like we run, we sometimes pay the price for poor grip. That was one of those moments. Anyways, I'm getting ready for the Rocky Mountain 300 this weekend and look forward to my first major match of the year. I really feel like I'm missing out this year with such a light schedule. But after the move, and some additional "time in grade" I think next year is really going to be a bang up year for me!

Even at the metal recycler brass gets $1.20/lb here in Denver. That's just over $100.00 for a 5 gallon bucket.

I love the 155mm mags. I use one 170mm and two 155mm's in my belt. (the 2nd 155 is the Oh shit mag) The best part is, for me anyways. I can't tell the difference between 155's and 170's when loading on a stage run.

Well, with the Colorado winter we've been having this spring there was only one match this weekend. Weld County had a "shotgun leftovers" match and both the weather and the match turned out great. By shotgun leftovers, I mean that the stages were all setup for a shotgun match on Saturday and then just converted to USPSA the next day. This means lots of movement, and big props like vehicles, staircases and I think 3 plate racks, a star, and various other steel. This was my second match since ditching the DPP sights. Back on the old C-More feels better than ever. I tanked one stage because I didn't give enough credit to what it takes to hit mini-poppers on the move and ran dry by the end. I wound up with 2 mikes and an FTE, but this certainly was not the equipment's fault. I was happy with dot tracking and grip all day long. The rest of the stages went well for me and on a few steel targets (one particular plate rack and then again on a popper through a 12" sonotube) I was reminded just how well I can handle that C-More rig on occasion. Watching the dot glide into position from the previous recoil and breaking the shot just as it lands on target is a hell of a good feeling after weeks of frustration. I'm not saying I'm suddenly elevated in any way. This was evidenced by my extremely mediocre classifier run, that was both slow and contained 2 deltas. But hey, at least it didn't contain any mikes like everything I had shot while the DPP's were mounted. I've ordered a Cheely mount for the other gun from a buddy in Alaska and will soon be back to C-More's on both guns. Experiment over for mission critical gear. I have enough data and ideas for a new experimental gun down the road. Back to some goals: Work on aggressive transitions. (away from "just engaged" targets mostly) Keep the grip work up. Now that I'm aware of thumb pressure on the C-More mount learn how it works and work on consistency with it. (this explains a lot about how I would perform differently with the two guns.... they had different mounts) Practice! Summer is almost here, another couple of months and the snow in Colorado MIGHT stop. Get to the range when you can!

The main thing with regard to speed is that you should not run it faster. What I mean by that is, I see a lot of people giving about 1 second's worth of time in a position for a 4 second array. Likely you will never get a full speed run due to people in your way, but at least try to do the shooting rehearsals as close to speed as possible. The next part that I try to do at speed is exits. This helps reinforce the "explode out" method in my head. The last thing that I do at speed is some entrances. Like Focker said. Sometimes you need to see the view unfold at speed for decision making. Sometimes you don't get low enough if you are not coming in at speed and can give yourself some false information. For the most part, getting the exact speed isn't as necessary as getting the motions, views, and stances right. And for sure avoid rehearsing faster than you are capable of shooting.

I just shot my first match at Boulder Rifle Club with the C-More mounted back on the gun. I also put the extended mag release on so the unit is exactly back to before I started this grand experiment. The first two stages were the famous indoor stages. I guess it was quite a bit of a shock to be shooting the old C-More and I tanked the first stage with 2 deltas, 2 mikes and a noshoot. Oh well, onto the classifier. I performed the first string without issue, but upon picking my gun up for the 2nd time I hit it with my finger and it slid forward while rotating. I didn't want to just grab for it. I just kind of watched in horror as it slid to the far side of the table and stopped at about the 170 degree line. By the time I started shooting I really was only thinking about how lucky I was to still be in the game. I racked up another mike-noshoot combo for a spectacularly crappy start. With the attitude, of "hey, at least the dot is tracking well" I moved onto the remaining stages. I was able to shake off the crappiness and perform to my expectations the remainder of the match. I was very successful at keeping the dot working in a consistent pattern, and maintaining a firm grip on the gun. I could feel my thumb pretty firmly implanted on the C-More mount as I was crushing a couple of plate racks. It feels really good to be able to see the dot track in a predictable manner and keep the run running in full control during shooting. A couple more matches should really show me whether I fully understand my grip and the effect of the C-More as a part of the assembly. In case anyone cares, here's a link to the stages. (No, I didn't get the indoor on vid... luckily.)

I put one of my guns back today. C-More with Cheely forward mount. I went to the range to sight it in and got it all zeroed. Once I started firing very quickly, with a firm grip I was easily able to keep the dot tracking in a consistent vertical path. The entire thing feels like a different gun and with a good strong grip I could transition aggressively and call shots while watching a predictable vertical path in the glass. Only a quick practice session, but it sure feels better to be back on to familiar ground. I also decided to test the Eggleston bullets with the new load so I ran some "through" the Chrony with mixed results. The good news is, I missed it enough times to verify a 170 PF. The bad news is two fold. 1. My trusty Chrony has gone to that big shooting range in the sky. 2. The Egg's are still super inaccurate, with no noticeable improvement from the first time shooting them. I'm actually going to pack them away and just concentrate on making it through the next few major matches and life changes for now. At some point in the future I'll get back to testing with HS-6 to see if there's any hope of shooting cool green bullets. Hopefully tomorrow will be a good day with my old gun back.... and maybe I'll find a great deal on a brand new chronograph.

My personal experience, especially recently is that my grip force has more impact on sight tracking than any thumb rests or grip technique. (assuming the base grip is already a good one.) When I first started concentrating on increasing my grip strength I was battling tennis elbow and on a good day could almost close a COC .5 (120lb) without pain. Now I can close the COC 1 (140lb) 4 times. (I mean the handles touch solidly) Since increasing grip strength I've seen a dramatic increase in recoil control. I have no doubt about the correlation between top shooters and top grip strength. It's easy enough. Buy a COC that can't close. Buy a set of the Expander bands also. Keep them where you'll use them... car, work, TV... For every two sets of expander bands, do a set of COC grip as hard as you can. When you can close the gripper solidly about 6 times, buy the next one up. Keep going until you are a GM or look like Popeye! or both. What can it hurt? p.s. The expander bands is to keep from increasing one side of the muscle too much and causing tennis elbow.

Jake hit the nail on the head with all the reload vs movement stuff. Summed up nicely with the "just get it done ASAP" that Ssanders brought up. I mean it's not a concrete, zero tolerance thing. I think the initial portion of the reload is the most important to get done quickly. That's the act of releasing the mag, while simultaneously snatching the new mag up into position. If you can get that done during the initial leave, then the rest can suffer a bit if the leave was very strong and you have a ways to go. That motion is the most important to practice and get right. And the way to do that is try to keep it as consistent as possible. And it's most consistent while in the initial step out of a position. (or standing still, but don't do that.) The main point is, while running things get pretty shaky if you're still reaching down for a mag. So even if the reload isn't complete in the first step the top shooters will almost certainly have the first part done before step 2. That said, I personally have gained a bunch by performing "partial insertion" drills. That's the act of just doing that first portion of the reload. You can do it with the same "shrinking par time" that was laid out by an earlier post. But just do the mag drop, grab new mag, and align it to just past the mag well rim. Don't do the full insertion or grip rebuild. This does a good job at practicing the part of the reload that's the most time costly and has the highest risk. It also reinforces the act of looking the mag in and watching the alignment. Kind of like "get ready - pause to make sure it's all good - GO!" Trust me, the pause will go away at match time. Or if it stays there, it will very brief and ensure a more consistent reload.

Thank you for the suggestion. I may investigate that down the road, but it's not the dot leaving the glass or view that's troubling me. It's tracking and grip change due to the different mount or index... I think.

I was able to shoot one match at Aurora Gun Club this weekend. The weather turned out great as it was overcast and not too hot almost all day. From a shooting perspective it was the usual disappointment in the DPP performance with the dot tracking. I only had one decent run where I had a death grip on the gun and was able to call all my shots and move through the stage with good shooting. I still missed the reload. I missed almost all the reloads that day. I'm now I'm starting to pay the price for removing my mag release extension on a pretty consistent basis. After more dry fire, and more disappointment at my match performance I've decided to go back on my DPP installation on at least one gun. I've lined up a purchase of a C-More mount from a buddy, and have managed to get my C-More sights back without losing any money. I'll mount the C-More and mag release extension back on one of the guns and begin at least comparing the two on a better test basis than I started with. This will help me determine if the C-More is just the best setup for my particular equipment and ability or if I'm just plain in a slump currently. I suspect that the balance of the gun and built in thumb rest are something that I was way more reliant on than I realized. Sticking with my "old" setup until I'm ready for a "new gun" might be the wise path. Maybe it will be a whole new gun in the future? I don't know. What I do know, is that my enjoyment of the sport has been tainted by the level of frustration I feel now, and that's a spot that I don't wish to be in. I need to figure out whether it's me, or the equipment and the only way to do that, is to go back and see.

Not sure what press you have, but if it's a Dillon 1050, the primer depth adjustment will change over time. I keep an allen wrench stuck in mine and just move it back every few hundred rounds when it drifts. Of course, there's Loctite too! If you chamber check (YES you should) then you can just turn the round(s) over and lift the chamber checker off of the round on your bench top. Providing it's like formica or something flat and hard, a wobbly round will tell you the primer is high. Then you knock the round off the counter top into your bin. That makes it pretty non-labor intensive. Anyways, all that will ensure you don't have a high primer. If you still have issues you can move onto other troubleshooting but in my experience the only problems I've ever had with "light strikes" was that darn 1050 backin out and leaving high primers. On the mag thing... polish the inside of your magwell. I don't mean it needs to it be all super shiny, but make darn sure you don't have a loose or otherwise jacked grip screw. The grip screw "nut" can get out of whack and cause problems. Also make sure there's not some burr, rough spot or something inside there causing extra friction. And make sure it's super clean. Gunk, dirt, and stuff can make that sticky in there. Use your mag brush to scrub it out. Anyways... good luck. And have fun!

Well, a few more days of the crud and I'm getting back into the swing of things. I managed to dry fire twice last week, and although very brief due to the crud I did manage to confirm that I'm still fighting that dot situation. On Sunday I received my new Eggleston Munitions bullets. I loaded a few up and headed out to the range with Cha-Lee to get them tested. Yikes... for that particular load and my gun, the results were not pretty. I was only able to get about an 6" group at around 10 yards, on a rest. Back to my old load with PD's for a contrast and I easily kept all the rounds inside a paster. The loads were only about 163 PF, and a small sample of some hotter loads of Cha-Lee's resulted in accuracy of about 3" groups free-hand. I'm hoping that once I kick these loads into high-gear I'll have something I can shoot. Also, I was using Autocomp and will test again with 172PF and contrast AC and HS6 next time. Later that night I made the match at Centennial. I try not to get too excited about that match and still call it the "80% match." Last night was no different. I had some moments of very reasonable dot tracking which means I'm making progress on that goal. I like that. I also had to dot hunt for maybe 1/2 of the draws. Not good, but they were fairly brief as I now know it's consistently below the glass. I think I'm making progress on that. I almost fell twice, but managed to stay on my feet.. so there's that too. All and all, it was full of the usual mistakes for me and a reminder that I have a long way to go in both dry fire and practice before I can start smoothing things out. Goals: Continue increased grip pressure.. straighten that dot out! Include at least 2 nights per week dry fire.. work out the forward cant issue. In California all week... so won't make this :-(

So, I was able to cut out of work early and get to the range today. I had some Chrono work to do as well as some more work on the old dot track issue I've been having. I was sick as hell since Wednesday of last week so not only did I miss my practice day, I boned out on matches this weekend as well as any practice. It sucked and I still have some lingering affects, but I'm finally better. At some point, maybe Tuesday night I did a bunch of dry fire and found that I have developed a habit of canting the gun forward when coming into a draw from an awkward position or aggressively into a position. This causes the dot to drop below the glass... something that probably was not an issue with the lower indexed C-More. A bit of an aha moment and something worth working on for sure. I noticed that this was only when I have a very firm support hand grip. Another thing I've been working on, so I believe I've introduced this with my recent goal of increasing that grip. Anyways, when I headed out to the range today, after the technical work I did a few drills where I came into a draw while leaning aggressively as well as from several movement positions. Sure enough, when I had a noticeably increased grip on my support hand the dot would have to be brought UP into the glass before I could get going. The good news is that when I maintain that firm weak hand grip the dot travels in an almost straight up and down path. While it has a distinct "forward slash" angle... maybe slightly less, but about that much angle ' / ' While it will be necessary to straighten that out, at least I was happy with making it predictable. I'm hoping that with more practice I can learn to control this dot through simply increasing my grip pressure. Meanwhile, if that's the case I also better get to more dry fire to work out that damn forward tilt issue. Pretty much exactly what my friends said... thanks guys. Well, except for the one idea about my cowboy hat holding my head down. HAHA! For my final note, I tested this with slight pressure on the gun that still has the hacked up thumb rest on it. I saw no difference. Knowing that a lot of pressure on the thumb rest only makes things worse, I'm going to remove it tonight and move forward with no thumb rest, and two goals. Goals: Continue increased grip pressure.. straighten that dot out! Include at least 2 nights per week dry fire.. work out the forward cant issue.

It's been quite a couple of weeks. I had jury duty on Wednesday (April 5th) and was not picked. They were kind to me and just dismissed me since I was scheduled to go to Florida the following day. With the day already done from a work perspective I took off to the practice range. I fiddled with different spring combinations and watched many slow-mo videos of each spring. I could not tell any difference in recoil springs with what I tried, but thought I could see subtle differences in the hammer springs. I tried 7,8 lb standard springs and 7, 9 lb variable springs. I watched the videos over and over again and just can't see a difference between variable and standard springs. This probably has to due with both the reduced weight and frame length of my gun. I thought I could see slight difference between the 7 and 8 lbs and it was only a slight dip upon closing with the 8. So, back to the 7 lb for me. Regarding hammer springs I felt that I could see a difference on those and although very slight for what I was testing I settled on the 22lb spring. After watching a ton of slow-mo vids, the largest difference in recoil control I could see was grip. If I shot more than two rounds consecutively the muzzle flip became very consistent and hard to see any difference between any of the springs. During single shots, I saw more muzzle flip and more difference between the springs. This leads me to think that the slow-mo video test is not as reliable as I would like... at least not with me holding the gun. I think some way to put the gun in a vise, or something to remove the human element would really be a great way to test springs. Of course there's also the "what feels right" factor. The conclusion: I found a spring combo to run with for a bit. I need to get more rounds down range and just give it time. So, the following day I jetted off to Florida for 6 days days of neighborhood shopping. Eventually we were led to a little place called Warm Springs. It's basically a suburb of Port Charlotte and puts my wife 30 minutes from Sarasota where the art scene is just what she needs. It also puts me 30 minutes from the Hansen range outside of Fort Myers, and about 1 hour (and change) from 4 additional USPSA hosting ranges. This includes Universal Shootings Academy. There a tons of other ranges within a reasonable distance so I think this location will meet all of our goals. To boot, my wife was asked to be in an art gallery in Naples. This led to some good feelings about the move.... it's a very rare situation for such a high-end gallery to approach an artist. This might be equivalent to the day a movie star gets asked to do a role rather than having to audition. This is awesome for her career and is one step closer to my becoming the "full time shooter husband of a world famous artist!" HAHA! So back home for one night's stay and I was in Seattle WA for the remainder of the week. I got back at 12:30AM Saturday morning and packed up for a local match at Ben Lomond gun club. The match was a lesson in frustration. I don't know if it was because I was pretty wiped from an aggressive travel schedule or if I'm reaching critical mass with these sights. I felt constant frustration with an unpredictable dot track and on several occasions spent what seemed like an eternity hunting for the dot. I did OK as far as accuracy with only 1 mike and a couple of deltas for the match, but some of those hits were at a considerable time cost. I mean, on the classifier I hunted for the dot for over 2 seconds. A friend of mine had to pull me out of the ditch and remind me that I'm the one always teaching to find the positive and forget about the mistakes. In an effort to do just that, I'll review my 2 good runs(one for score). It was a stage with lots of movement and some steel that kind of needed to be shot on the move. This led to a port about 30 feet downrange with 4 poppers and some paper. I shot it the first time and had 1 make up on the back steel, but felt very good about the movement and on the front 4 poppers mowed them down 1 for 1. It was a run that felt good for sure. The nook freaked out during scoring so it required a reshoot. I was almost out of ammo and went in with only 2 mags on my belt. This time I went one for one on the back two steels and obtained much more movement during the engagement so I was ahead of my first time heading out of that position. I then missed twice on the front steel so the net was maybe .2 slower than the first run, but I was able to call it "2 good runs" for the mach. Overall it felt good to get a couple right after a rough match AND to blow through the "reshoot curse" unscathed. So now. What to do about these DPP sights. I'm allowing myself to get very frustrated with them and find myself at a crossroads. Do I continue to power through or do I go back to C-Mores? Maybe I'm being too hard on myself and the tracking issues I'm experiencing are no worse than the C-More but I'm putting an expectation that it should be better. Maybe I'm just not allowing myself enough trigger time with the new sights. The gun is considerably different with the two setups, but is it worse? Here's what I'm thinking for moving forward. Now that spring has sprung... well maybe only 4 more freaking blizzards left this year... I'll commit to a practice session every Wednesday. Give myself a break and allow another 6 matches, coupled with practice sessions to see if this get's any better. If I continue to be frustrated, I'll switch to that modified thumb rest and give it another 3-4 matches with practice and see if that helps. This should put me in the Mid May time frame. If I'm still bent out of shape by then it will be time to switch back. Meantime I'm going to stop putting a negative spin on this setup and on my performance. I'll find the positives and note when the dot does track well rather than when it doesn't. I've never changed my setup this drastically and this may be just a lesson in how to hone my skills enough that an equipment change doesn't throw me off so bad. The really good shooters can pick up any gun handed to them and commence to hand our assess to us on a regular basis.

I must be the only guy that has purchased the Arredondo comp cleaner tool. I use it occasionally to scrape the comp out and it works great. I did change the profile of it a bit to make it look more like a screwdriver (it comes with a weird curve on one side that I didn't like). I think It works better than a screwdriver because the steel is harder? Or maybe I just think it does because I paid money for it. But I did use a small screwdriver for a while and whether its the angle or the steel I think the tool works better.

This is excellent information. I have always just taken their word for it.... I've never gone minor but will remember this next time I see someone go minor. You have an excellent success story here, and I think applies to all situations. We are all human and tend to "memorize" things differently. As a person that documents technical procedures and then has to watch as others try to follow them it's staggering how differently people interpret "simple instructions." This happens all the time, and that's why a competitor is NEVER in the wrong for asking to have any issue spelled out for them until they have a complete understanding. I think the most important parts I'll take away are: First and foremost, PAY ATTENTION and run those numbers on your own simultaneously. I'll be watching closely now. Secondly is the part about being nice. Anyone will instantly put a wall up if they are attacked. If you can prevent that, even with their own work being called into question most people will help rather than hinder. Thanks for sharing.

The weather this weekend was a major score. On Sunday I was able make the Aurora Gun Club match, and by the time we started shooting the coat was off! I didn't have a lot of focus on anything but watching the dot. None of my gun parts had come in yet, so the gun was exactly the same as the previous week. Probably a good thing so I could get some real, outdoor action with the current setup. While shooting, I found that dot seemed to be easier to follow and didn't have much in the way of random side-side wobble. I would hesitate to say it approached the level of consistency that the old C-More had, but I was able to aim and made a considerable increase in my overall accuracy. The only mike I had was on the classifier. I was in a super aggressive transition mode, and just let myself put the transition before the shot and drifted it off to the right side. In a confused state, two targets later, I thought I pulled another mike and made it up instantly. This caused an additional extra shot/extra hit combo that drove my score into something like a .2 HF. Ooops. Back to the main goal, I was one for one on all steel that day, and only a single delta. There were definitely two highlights that spell out some progress on dot tracking. One, was on a stage where you had to shoot some close-up stuff, and then run into some squat level ports for quite a bit of aiming. While in the port I was aware of having to break my arm extension considerably. Especially for a tilted zebra target that was way over to the left. My left arm was bent at what seemed 45 degrees at the elbow. I became aware that was gripping very hard with my support hand to keep the dot tracking consistently. This is a good thing as I was finally able to "remember" to grip hard to keep the gun moving the way I wanted. This, changing up the shooting, or handling during an engagement is something I've struggled with for a long time and I'm happy to finally report a bit of progress on this goal. The other stage was from our famous "city builder" stage design guy. There was some decently awkward shooting before running down a 16' hallway into an open area of super wide transitioning. This spread out array has very low on risk (no, no shoots) and definitely called for shooting on the move. However, I missed my reload button while launching out of the previous awkward position. This led to a delayed reload and by the time I got ready to shoot I was at the end of the hall. I entered loose shooting mode and just mowed down the array. The bad news is, I allowed myself to get in make up mode, and just shoot brown causing almost all charlies (and one delta). The good news is, while in that mode I was able to watch the dot enough that all those shots were called and the gun was handled with a very strong grip from both hands. I felt like I hadn't seen the dot, but upon reflection it was like "I was seeing the dot, just not much of it." Allowing C shots as "good enough" is not something I look at as the victory here. Considering the trouble I've been having, controlling the gun and seeing the dot track well during that crazy engagement is the victory. So, I should have my springs and be able to get some more testing in within the next couple of days. I'm going to miss all matches this coming weekend as I'm off to Florida through the weekend. This time, no shooting... only house hunting! Yes, I'm planning on moving to the Fort Myers area and this next trip down will be to look around the Pine Island, Cape Coral, and Fort Myers areas. I've lived in Colorado my whole life and always wanted to live in a climate without winter. It was never something I viewed as possible until I realized that my job can be done from anywhere and with the CEO's blessing I'm heading to Fort Myers for a new chapter in my life.

I've often called myself "slow" in the this area. I don't feel qualified to start messing with equipment unless I can identify exactly why I feel like it's not living up to it's promise and what modification or part would help. For me, this takes time to understand how I'm using, reacting to, or otherwise interfacing with said equipment. Once I'm sure it's not something I'm doing then I feel I can try a new piece of equipment and fully see the change. Then I can analyze the change and decide if it's helping, which takes time for me. I'm not sure if that makes me slow, careful, wise, or stupid. But it at least puts me on the "Practice" side of this thread.

Work harder at trying to present the magazine to a consistent spot rather than the gun. For most, I think we have a tendency to make the gun go where the magazine is. By reversing our thought process and worrying more about consistency with where we put the magazine, the gun hand more naturally follows. Left arm straight - snag the mag - back up to where it started. It's a very repeatable/robotic motion. The gun will just go to where that hand completes it's magazine presentation. For these drills, only bring the mag and the gun together and don't insert the mag all the way. This "partial insertion drill" helps to reinforce the alignment and "looking the mag in." Keep up the good work!

I just moved both of my guns from a C-More setup to a DPP. I previously used the 6MOA on the C-Mores and think that the 2.5MOA DPP is easier to see than the C-More. I think it's better.