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JesseM

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Posts posted by JesseM

    What division would a Lionheart LH9 fit in?

    in IDPA Rules

    Posted

    that is a crazy rule, you could have a gun that is legal for 9 years based on 2k a year production but in year 10 they drop it and now its illegal, and do you have to call the manufacturer and get a letter showing the production numbers ad keep it in your bag to show the SO if they challenge your gun?

    Also I wouldn't be too surprised if they have not made the 2k a year threshold, even at wholesale from Korea 2k guns is a pretty big investment

    Mike

    It is a crazy rule but I think it's designed so you can't go to like Springfield Custom shop or something and try to say, "yeah this $3000 gun is totally factory stock" but in practice it means if you have some weird odd ball gun that isn't made in high quantity for whatever reason you technically can't use it. Like this gun or the Vektor CP1.

    What division would a Lionheart LH9 fit in?

    in IDPA Rules

    Posted

    They would still have to sell 20000 if they went titsup or discontinued the model. Rule 8.2.1.1.1

    I just read it. It says "Have a minimum annual production of 2,000 units. Discontinued models must have had a total production of 20,000 units. "

    So they don't have to have sold them just have to have made them.

    What division would a Lionheart LH9 fit in?

    in IDPA Rules

    Posted

    I would say if they are selling 2000 a year then it would be Ok for SSP I doubt they are selling that many yet so it would have to be in ESP.

    Mike

    I guess it depends on if you consider sold as in sold to a dealer or sold as in in private hands. I can absolutely see them selling 2000 to FFLs at this point.

    Legal starting condition for CZ-75BD in Limited

    in USPSA/IPSC Rules

    Posted

    Thanks, I understand the scoring. But as I said I am really at this point only interested in competing against myself - I know I am not going to come close to winning anything. So, I will get scored minor be it in production or limited 10. The difference is as I understand it that I can start locked and cocked in limited 10 while in production I have to start hammer down. I also have a Beretta 92FS which has a decocker, I just don't particularly like (read - I am not very good yet) shooting in DA mode so I would like to avoid that. I have shot my .40 cal G22 in limited 10 as major, but I rather get some experience with the CZ. So, while I understand what everyone is saying, I think for me right now limited 10 is probably the best answer. I am open to hearing why I am wrong - just be nice :)

    If you're just shooting against yourself you might as well shoot limited, then you can load your mags all the way up.

    What division would a Lionheart LH9 fit in?

    in IDPA Rules

    Posted

    Watching the video on their sight it's very similar to that however the big difference is that on the LH9 the safety is not tied to the hammer, pushing the hammer forward does not engage the safety, you can choose to use or not use the safety once the hammer has been pushed foward. It is also not technically a trigger pull weight is almost the same in SA mode as it is when you've pushed the hammer forward.

    .22 Rimfire in IDPA?

    in IDPA Rules

    Posted

    With the new IDPA rules I don't know how it's any different form the not for competition divison, just let whoever want to shoot it in that divison.

    I don't think it has any place at a major match but for local matches I really don't see the harm. Especially with all of the quality 22 conversion kits for combat style guns.

    At our local matches someone brought their wife and she was really new to shooting so she was using a 22. No one gave her any crap about it, it's not like she was going to win the match and for her that was about as much gun as she was able to currently handle so the match was an excuse for her to practice shooting it while moving at defensive targets. If we didn't let her do it she wouild have had no where else to go to try something like this. She had fun, put holes in targets, and left with a smile on her face. Some of the hard ass serious competition people forget that's really what this is all about.

    What division would a Lionheart LH9 fit in?

    in IDPA Rules

    Posted

    For those not familiar with this gun it has a unique trigger mechanism. Once the gun is cocked you can push the hammer forward which causes it to disengage from the cocking mechanism. The gun now sits cocked and yet with the hammer down. It's designed to be carried in that fashion with the safety down.

    It seems like it could fit in either SSP or ESP depending on how you choose to carry it and it seems that depending on if lowering the hammer by pushing it is considered decocked there might be multiple ready conditions for each divison possible.

    It's an interesting thought exercise and I'm curious what people here think.

    The Thrill Is Gone. Struggling to find the fun.

    in Mental Conditioning

    Posted

    Lederhosen?

    Prost!

    Well, yes, very good writeup Neomet!

    @JesseM:

    In my opinion you are not sick of shooting, you are sick of the pressure, that you and your surrounders built up.

    Change something.

    You're completely right. I need to stop trying to win and stop letting that pressure get to me.

    Yeah well it's either lederhosen or the kilt and Oktoberfest having just finished recently and the fact that it's looking like rain for this match leather pants seems to make sense to me.

    The Thrill Is Gone. Struggling to find the fun.

    in Mental Conditioning

    Posted · Edited by JesseM

    I am just a Joe Average shooter so take this for what it is worth. What you are suffering from is the destructive impact of ego. In this sense I mean ego as the expectations your inner voice puts on you. You have said that even as you struggle with your shooting now it is still clearly better than when you started, but you were having fun when you started. What has changed is your ego now tells you that you should be able to do this or that, shoot a higher percentage than you did last month, that THIS time you better not screw up on the steel, that you should be a "insert next higher class here" shooter, that you are too good a shooter to have 3 mikes and a NS on that stage.

    Not a single word of that is the truth. Ever. However you shoot on that day is exactly how good a shooter you are that day. You just now have an expectation of how well you should do. This means you are now not shooting because you like to shoot but rather to meet some artificial goal you have established, normally at the very best level you have ever shot or even better. In small doses this isn't bad but when it becomes the reason we shoot it is often the path to discontent.

    I've been where you are. I tried taking a break but when I came back i thought that I was refreshed so should do better. I switched divisions but then thought I should be doing better in the new division that the old one. I trained hard with the best in the sport thinking if I improved to the next level I would be happy. Didn't happen.

    What finally made the difference is when I realized if I just went out to shoot as well as I could without expectation or attachment I started having fun again. A lot more fun. I had come back to the mindset I had when I started this sport. Every time I stray from this approach my level of enjoyment starts to drop.

    This may not be a popular approach among the really great shooters as you might not reach your ultimate potential, whatever that is, but as you stated this is a hobby for me and I pursue hobbies for enjoyment. I am happy to say I really enjoy this one.

    Dude it's like you're inside my head. You just nailed it completely. I have this voice inside my head and some other shooters telling me how I should have done X different/better.

    I was talking with a friend that flys RC planes at a competitive level, won nationals last year. I was talking with him about it and he said I need to go away long enough that I enjoy doing it again and that he gets the same way. He takes the winter off from training, he just flys to fly not to work on anything specifically.

    I might say screw it, bust out the lederhosen for this weekend's match and just have a laugh.

    The Thrill Is Gone. Struggling to find the fun.

    in Mental Conditioning

    Posted

    I was talking with a friend about this and the way I describe it to him was I want to go back to IDPA and USPA being fun and being ok with loosing, back before I felt that desire to be competitive because I can't put in the time it would take for me to get good enough to win. Not without throwing a bunch of stuff to the way side and there was already a bunch of other hobbies I outright stopped doing 18 months ago.

    The Thrill Is Gone. Struggling to find the fun.

    in Mental Conditioning

    Posted

    I mean only in America can a 3 gun household be called "not a gun family". It's a beautiful thing!

    :roflol:

    Ok I laughed a lot. What I meant was my dad was never reall all tore up with them the way I current am or the way his two brother were/are. He had a side-by side 10 gauge shotgun and a Colt Mustang .380 pistol and they were just things he had he didn't really use them and I mostly forgot they were there growing. He took me shooting once when I was 8 and then again when I was 19 and I bought my first gun.

    The Thrill Is Gone. Struggling to find the fun.

    in Mental Conditioning

    Posted

    I'm not trying to scare you, I'm just giving you my perspective and relating to you how this year has gone for me. I've only shot 5 matches this year and the last one was in June. Fortunately, things are looking up for me. I hope you find the answers you are looking for!! Good luck :cheers:

    Sorry I didn't mean to imply you were but a few of the guys I know locally that have told me not to take a break seemed like they were trying to shake the boogy man at me.

    The Thrill Is Gone. Struggling to find the fun.

    in Mental Conditioning

    Posted · Edited by JesseM

    I'm going to try to address some of these as best as I can.

    I have been right where you are like 5 times. :goof:

    Here is some "advice". First, put your shooting into perspective within your life. Is this your hobby, your escape from the rigors of the daily grind, where you place your self worth, a competitive outlet, the most important thing you do, your camaraderie fix...? Why are the scores important to you? Once you have your shooting "boxed" it might be easier to set goals and decide what you need for yourself.

    I have had a few GMs tell me I could be a GM if only... well, with life, family, business, kids, career...that "if only" in terms of time and money was never attainable. So I had to ask myself how good is good enough? Do I want to specialize or generalize? Is there a combination of factors that will end up killing the fun or competitive drive in my shooting?

    So, no, I have not answered your question. I would not be so presumptive as to believe that I know you or your personality enough to give the answer you seek. But I hope if you will sit down with a piece of paper, a pen and a close friend who knows you, you can prioritize and figure out what shooting is to you and then take a path that is better for you that where you currently are.

    I took a big step back and looked at my shooting earlier this year. I had to be honest with myself and realize I do this for several reasons, and none of them have to do with ever winning a major. That sacrifice is not worth it to me at this point in my life. Then I had to asses my skillset. I paid for a class with Manny Bragg and spent time writing down my priorities, goals and the paths that had to be followed to get there. I missed one of my 3 short term goals, so I retooled and pressed on. But I am generally shooting better, enjoying it more, caring less about placement and getting out of my shooting exactly what I want.

    I just filled of my shooting goals last Saturday, but it is on a topic banned on Enos.

    Anyway, Best wishes!

    I didn't really grow up in a gun family. My father had 2 or 3 but that was about it. We didn't hunt we didn't really go shooting. When I was 19 I bought a Mauser and started shooting like once a year. I discovered that shooting accurately was not at all as easy as every video game and movie had made it seem. I turned 21 bought a pistol and got a CCW. I tried to learn how to shoot a pistol. Learned a few thigns from a neighbor. Moved to Maryland after college for a job. Joined a private club a few years after that around the age of 25. (I'm 30 now) At that point I really started to work on shooting better. No classes I just kept putting rounds down range until I was able to hit what I was aiming at. I was never great but I got to a point where I was ok. Then some of the guys at the range told me to try IDPA. Through all of this shooting was a hobby that I had fun doing. IDPA and USPSA were just neat things I did in my free time. I wouldn't necessarily identify myself as a competetive shooter at that point.

    I have never felt the competitive urge in my life. I never played team sports or I did but never seriously because I just couldn't really be bothered to care if I won or if I lost I just enjoyed the act of playing. This put me at odds with most folk. I played tennis for a bit towards the end of high school but I found I couldn't stand the attitude of most people I played with because they were so tied up in whether they won or lost that I couldn't enjoy the game with them. But last July I had something in my brain click and suddendly it wasn't enough to just go to a match to have fun I wanted to do better and I wanted to win... I started to really really care about my scores, where previously they were just a sort of casual interest. I'd never felt that way about anything before.

    And there hasn't been anything else that I felt like I had the chance to really be good at. I played guiar and turmpet, tried my hand at art and some other things but shooting was the first thing where I felt like maybe I could actually be good at this. But I thnk you're right I'm not willing to dedicate enough of my life and free time to get there. I have M class shooters teling me to spend X amount of time every night doing Y and then in Z months I can be a A shooter but as much as I want to win and as much as I feel the competetive urge I can't bring myself to dedicate that amount of time to it. Not yet. I have no idea how some of the guys I know that are married with kids pull it off unless they just have some natural amount of talent.

    Worrying, on every topic, is not only debilitating, it is mentally and physically crippling.

    I don't know how to stop. I am inheriently a worrier. My mother is a worrier, my father is a worrier. I have tried very hard not to be and I have succeeded to the extent that when compared to them I am Jackie Chan to their Chris Tucker but I'm still a worier and I don't know how to turn it off. It makes me good at my job but it definintely stresses me out a lot more than I ought to.

    Life happens. For the vast majority of us, this is just a game/hobby. If you can fit it into the schedule and you're having fun, keep going. If not, take the break. Just be aware that it may be harder to start back up after the break. Or at least it has been for me.

    I've had people tell me that. Most of them sounded like they were trying to scare me off taking a break saying I'll have to start over or I'll never be as good as I could hve been if I didn't take a break but in my head my options currently seem to be push myself until all of the joy of USPSA and IDPA are dead and then never shoot them again, or take a few months off and come back refreshed... well I like that option better.

    Go shoot a match, and literally walk through every stage making certain that you score 100% of points. Make it a bullseye run and just try to enjoy the feel of the gun and the joy of precision marksmanship. You know you can hit the targets, go prove it to yourself.

    Or buy a new gun.

    I started off shooting a CZ-75BD but then in Feb 2011 I started shooting a Glock 17. I have a match I signed up for this sunday and I am thinking about busting out the CZ and either shooting production and walking through the stages or saying screw it, shoot limited load my 16 round mags up and still just walking the stage and not finishing until I have all alphas. If after that I can't find the joy then I think I need to take a break.

    The Thrill Is Gone. Struggling to find the fun.

    in Mental Conditioning

    Posted · Edited by JesseM

    I wanted to clarify two things, the trouble on that home front was just an argument between me and the woman that happened the day before my first major match so it was distracting me during that match and only that match; everything is fine on that front now. It was just that argument being in my head along with my nerves about it being my first major match got to me and I did so poorly there I might as well not shown up. I didn't even get a damn match shirt, they were all out. (Seriously why did you ask me what size shirt I took if you were going to give it away anyway?")

    And as far as the money thing I'm doing fine I was just saying that I can't afford to shoot as much as these A, M and GM guys do and tell me that I "need" to shoot in order to get better.

    As far as shoot all As... I have been trying to do that and failing miserably. At my match yesterday I told myself to go as slow as I need to in order to get hits and I still had one of the shittier scores in recent memory. I seemed to be better when I just shot as fast as I could.

    There was a time when I could keep all of my shots inside a 3" circle at 15 yards, not exactly great but for me that was good. Last week I put some new sights on my Glock house gun and was sighting them in to make sure they were adjusted properly and I was struggling to even make a group at 10 yards. My accuracy seems to be degrading the more I shoot matches.

    I used to not give a crap about the scores of a match but now I can't help but feel shitty if I don't do as well as I think I should or as well as everyone tells me they think should.

    The Thrill Is Gone. Struggling to find the fun.

    in Mental Conditioning

    Posted

    I started shooting competitions about 3 years or so ago. I went to a local IDPA match and then tried a local USPSA match and I thought it was fun so I kept going to them casually. Casually in the sense that I didn't go to every match; I let other social functions take priority ususally.

    Then it reached a point where I started going to most of them and then I started going to all of them and sometime around the start or middle of last summer something clicked and I went from just showing up and having fun to actively working to improve, I got competetive, I wanted to win. I went from 15% up to 53% at my peak.

    I think part of it was people were noticing my improvement.... there isn't a lot of competiton at my local IDPA club and I started consistently placing near the top of the scores and I would overhear people asking how I shot a stage and people would come up and ask me what my time was on a stage and I started thinking "Maybe I don't suck." And some shooters much better then me told me "You could be winning matches if you'd do blah" and so it went from "fun" to "This shit is serious business."

    And whle I kept making progress and advancing in scores it kept being fun. But something happened the last few months. I went to my first major USPSA match in May, got a bit psyched out by all of the much better shooters surrounding me and I had some personal drama going on the home front that distracted me so I shot the worst match I've shot since I started shooting.

    And since then I've had the yips. It's like I forgot how to shoot accurately, any target past a certain distance all I'm doing is making noise when I pull the trigger. I have a few A & Master shooters giving me advice, some of it conflicting. One told me "Give me an afternoon and 200 rounds and I can fix you." One of them telling me I need to dry fire and shoot more. I can't afford the ammo to shoot more.

    It's a hobby, it used to relax me but now it stresses me out, I worry about what's the quickest way to shoot a stage, I worry if my sight alignment is right, if I'm shooting too quick, if I'm not shooting quick enough, etc. This thing I started to do for fun is getting very very close to becoming a chore... and if it starts to be too much work I'm going to eventually reach a point where I say "screw this" and stop doing it. I'm not there yet but I'm close, very close.

    I've told a few friends that I think I need to take a few months off so I can find the fun again and they all make the threats of "If you do that you'll never get better." but I think they're missing the point.

    So what do you all do? Should I take a break?

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