Moltke

Any news on the availability, self-import or otherwise?

I hope we will be shooting in the shoot houses and embracing the unique stuff this place has to offer. I've never been there but heard rumors of awesomeness.

How far out are you point shooting targets instead of taking sighted shots? Please discuss pistol as well as shotgun / rifle since there is no pistol subforum in multigun.

Bullseye in 3 gun? No thanks.

8 September So it’s been a month without practice and I showed up to one of my biggest matches of the year this past weekend literally without touching my guns since Aug 8. Usually I practice my butt off before an event like the FNH 3-Gun Championship however for the past month my dad has been hospitalized and I have spent all my free time at his bedside. The night before the match I was tired, worried, and stressed out; thinking that on top of my other problems I was going to shoot like crap too. So I made a decision let go of it all, to let my natural ability take over and see what happens. I am the shooter I am. Just program the stage, press play, and keep shooting. So what happened? It worked out pretty well. I had one stage win, was 1 sec behind on another, and ended up placing 3rd overall in the Irons division behind two Pro’s. Because of the distraction with my Dad, I was expecting to shoot like crap but instead did okay, won a plaque, won a gun, and left happy. My only mistakes were makeup shots on high accuracy targets (mostly long range rifle) but my times were still pretty good. I just shot when I had to shoot, loaded when I had to load, and moved when I had to move. I was on autopilot so much that after I finished a course of fire I would stand there awkwardly, thinking to myself "Those were all good shots but now what?" and then hear the RO say “If you’re done unload and show clear.” It was surreal.

That's true, but you could say the same thing about having an RO following you around and hitting you about the head and shoulders with a catfish during the course of fire. That would certainly be different... but I... uh... okay... I don't even know how to respond. I feel like I'm looking at a common core math problem. Catfish?

As hard as it was to make the shots because not many of us practice sporting clay shooting... having a bunch of rapid fire birds was really fun, cool, and challenging and something I haven't seen before.

I really like seeing courses of fire that offer multiple ways to shoot through, but don't like it when only one of those ways is really competitive - so it was nice to see the target layouts at FNH didn't make this the case. There were multiple stages at this match in which people were choosing different combinations of guns, and with different game plans, but still ending up with very similar times. Separately, as an irons division shooter I'd like to give a shout out to the staff for doing a great job with long range target presentations. The fact that long range targets were freshly painted blaze orange between every squad goes a long way to show that the match cares about the irons division. If you're on the fence about shooting irons at a major, then FNH is the match to try it! The targets will be far, but they'll be visible.

Things to do in Winchester in case you get bored - If you want to catch some live music & drinks http://www.brightboxwinchester.com/events/ Or just walk around the downtown pedestrian mall and pick a pub http://oldtownwinchesterva.com/events/ There's also a nice cigar shop in town http://www.hayestobacconist.com/

Bring your raingear! It's looking like tropical storm Erika might join us 3-5 September

FNH at Peacemaker in Glengary, WV Tarheel at Woody's in New Hill, NC 3 Man 3 Gun Team Event in Topton, PA (stick around an extra day and go see Gettysburg)

8 August No practice this weekend, whaaaaaaaaaaat? Well I had a good reason. Wedding on Friday for a Team Peacemaker shooter and then Farm BBQ Party Saturday. There was however a 3-Gun demo on site for a small crowd and we got some wives & kids shooting the various guns. Fun fun weekend!!

You can also get a higher mount to raise the optic line of sight a little if you want to see less thumb.

Aug 1-2 Instead of posting another long and drawn out analysis of the match, I’m going to link the stages. St 1 St 2 St 3 St 5 St 6 St 7 St 8 I placed 2nd in Factory at this match which is my highest 3GN finish ever. Stages 4 & 8 were actually stage wins for me even with the mistakes present which tells me I need to press harder and maybe eventually I'll come out on top. That being said, this was a time plus event overall 1st place was ahead of me by 116 seconds. That's a pretty commanding lead. When I look at the times and see the mistakes in the videos, I can see where I can catch up some but I'm not sure that even with perfect 1 for 1 shooting at my top speed I'll be able to close a 116 second gap. The things I see as my biggest time sucks are - shotgun loading, birdshot misses/makeups, pistol misses/makeups, couldn't see long range targets, long range misses/makeups. If anyone cares to add to that then please do so.

July 31 Recently I was invited to shoot the 3GN Nationals which could result in a spot in the 2016 3GN Pro Series. I’ve been eagerly awaiting this particular Friday practice to start training specifically for this event and I wrote a very Steve Anderson-esque plan to pursue it. Steve has taught me a lot of things and one of those things is – “Speed and Accuracy need to be trained separately”. By doing so I have made big gains in the past couple years, so that is one of the things I plan to embrace here too. The problem I’ve always had training 3 Gun is there is SO MUCH to do, to train, to measure, keep track of and work on. So… I decided to put down the timer and just shoot. When you look at Steve’s first book, he breaks down classifiers into a dozen shooting drills designed to master the skills used in classifiers. That’s what I tried to do with the 3GN Pro Series - how do I need to break down the training plan in order to master the stuff I'm going to be asked to do? After doing an accuracy warmup with each gun, I got into Speed Mode for the rest of the day and this is what I did. The 3GN Pro Series seems to be a lot of 1) pick it up 2) shoot it 3) put it down 4) run. Targets are generally 50 yard rifle plate racks, 8-9 clays or falling steel for the shotgun, and 10-12 falling steel pistol targets, with positions separated by about 10 yards. Pick it up, shoot it, put it down, run. Very simple, very fast, and no room for error. So that’s how I structured this practice session. I placed 6 colt speed plate autopoppers along the berm pretty close together to resemble a plate rack at 50yd, then stood behind a table at 50 yards with my rifle staged and 1) picked it up 2) shot it 3) put it down 4) thought about running. (I didn't actually run anywhere because the next table was 40 yards downrange). After finishing a couple hundred rounds with the rifle I moved on to the 10 yard table. Now the autopoppers were kinda like a 10yd plate rack and I had both the pistol and shotgun staged. Pick it up, shoot it, put it down, grab the next one. 6rds for each run, as fast as possible, with analysis after each run. I was shooting without a timer and judged my runs by the following criteria. Was there wasted time? Was there wasted motion? Was I getting 1st round hits on all the targets? If there was a mistake, why was there a mistake? I found myself very inconsistent from run to run, sometimes crushing it and sometimes f*#king it up royally. After countless brass from rifle and pistol was on the ground along with 600rds of shotgun hulls, I decided that it was time to go. This was a very ammo intensive but productive day, exhausting and I learned some things. I'm better at some things than others, my consistency blows, and I miss more with the pistol than anything else - which is surprising because most people (including myself) would say its my strongest skill.

July 24, 25, 26 Friday’s practice at Echo Valley consisted of mostly rifle shooting in preparation for the weekend’s DMR (Designated Marksman Rifle) Championship sponsored by Nightforce and Knight’s Armament, being held at Peacemaker. Since I had no DMR setup rifle I was borrowing a Colt 18 Pro from a friend, and a Vortex 4-16x Viper from another friend. A borrowed gun with a borrowed optic, and two days of prep before a major championship – what could go wrong right? Since I use a 300 yard zero in my irons rifle for 3 Gun, I decided to go with the same 300 yard zero using this setup. Identical gun, shooting the same ammo, ballistics matched, so why not? The bullet drop and accuracy from this setup was exactly what I expected all weekend and I know that dope inside and out. That was the best thing about this setup gun, ammo, optic combo - it was very predictable and I knew where to hold to hit. Close, range, point blank, or 600 yards. The worst thing about the setup was using a 16x scope. Now I’m certainly not saying that the scope is bad, or that the reticle is bad, because the scope is fine, and the MOA hashmarks allow for very precise holds with a smart reticle. However coming from many years of experience shooting iron sights, various red dots, and a 1x prismatic has made me a pretty good 1x shooter. That’s what I know and understand. My first course of fire was a VTAC barricade in an open field, shooting over natural terrain against 7 targets each marked with a number. Everything was easy to spot and the targets were on the small side of what I would expect to see in 3-Gun. I shot this course of fire in 94 seconds and had some preventable mistakes that cost me huge amounts of time. These little problems plagued me throughout the day – 1) First I should have selected a different position on the barricade. The targets were all visible from y positions on through the barricade and along the steps outside however I didn’t scope out every option (pun intended). Instead I picked on that I thought would be comfortable and checked out the first 2-3 targets. Can I see them? Yes. Can I brace well against the barricade? Yes. Can I brace my shooting arm on my knee well? Yes. Okay good enough. - Wrong. Not good enough. I should have scoped the other positions because the center hole through the barricade was a better bracing position and to shoot all the targets all you had to do was swivel the gun instead of reposition to a 2nd step. A planning mistake that cost me significant time repositioning when I could have been shooting. 2) Second, I saw something that I was not used to seeing. The target. Yes, the target. What I mean is I usually shoot irons division and I can barely see the target, sometimes I can’t really see the target but I know where it is and where to aim. It’s certainly not an ideal situation but I have gotten used to it, adapted to it, and do it pretty well. But now, now I could see the target. It was HUGE in my scope because I had it on 16x! So my immediate response being on the clock and knowing that this is a timed course of fire was to get on the trigger. And boy did I! OMG THERE IS THE TARGET!! BANG BANG BANG BANG BANG BANG BANG BANG BANG BANG HIT! Then onto the next with the same result. That’s pretty much how that course of fire went until it was over 94 seconds and six more targets later. In the words of Steve Anderson, I was “more interested in pulling the trigger than hitting the target”. 3) Thinking back on what happened after the course of fire I also realized that even though I have been shooting a 2-stage Geissele trigger for a few years now, I got used to the 1-stage Timney trigger in my newest rifle very quick. In fact, I was so used to it from a month of heavy use that I wasn’t taking the slack out of these shots with the 2-stage trigger and just pressing through. So not only did I have a complete mental meltdown because I could SEE the target for once, I also executed very bad trigger control and just slapped through most shots. Thank god for a such a solid shooting position on the barricade or I would have never hit anything. The second course of fire was a Wobbly Chained Platform with half a dozen targets between 300 and 550 yards, generous targets and we all knew it was going to be the platform movement that was going to make this difficult. Because of the movement and I had such a ridiculous performance on the last stage I decided that my shooting position needed to be even better. So I decided the way I was going to do this was to press out and lock my arm against the forward support to stop the sway, then have to for the wobble induced by every recoil to stop before taking the next shot. Of course I picked reverse kneeling for this too and left the scope on high. 1) I shouldn’t have left the scope on high. Holy crap. The lesson sunk in this time. I thought shooting irons on this wobbly bridge in the past induced some wobble and movement… now lets intensify that 16 times. I spent a lot of time lost in the scope, trying to get stable, trying to find the targets, and after every shot it was gone again. Finally I dialed it down to the lowest it would go which was 4x and used Kentucky Windage to sling the bullets on target mostly by the grace of God at this point. I ended up shooting this disaster in 132 seconds. The 3rd course of fire was out the top window of the Peacemaker house shooting targets between 300-400 yards, some of which were pretty small. This is where I changed the way I was doing things regarding my scope and dope. First regarding the scope, I turned it down to 8x because I knew that 16x was going to be too much again. However with small targets in a high power scoped game I thought I should still be utilizing that “advantage”, even though I don’t consider it an advantage in 3-Gun…. Anyway, regarding the dope changes, up until this point I was lasing, scoping, and memorizing the holds I needed for each target in order. I was using the mental terms of 3.3 MOA, 5.1 MOA, etc. However this time what I did was round the actual 3.3 or 5.1 to 3 and 5 respectively. Then I rounded even further. What was my most efficient hash mark to use as a reference point? Well, I have even numbered hash marks so I could use a 4 MOA hold for both… hold high on one and low on the other…. So that’s what I did. The actual holds for this course of fire was 3.3, 4.1, 2.4, 0, 0.2, and 1.5. This quickly became 3, 4, 2, 0, 0, 1. That quickly became 4 low, 4, 2, 0, 0, 0 high. Look at how simple those holds are! No decimals, no guesswork, actual holds based on the reticle references, and simple = quick. I shot this course of fire in 63 seconds and realized that I was on to something. I shot the rest of the match with my scope between 4-8x instead of 16x, and rounding holds. This might be a precision game but once you’re precise “enough” then it becomes about speed again. If the smallest targets were 2 MOA, and my hash marks were also 2 MOA, then rounding to the nearest 2 MOA and holding high or low would get my hits. Unfortunately for me, I just couldn’t get into good stable shooting positions and was pressing through the trigger instead of taking the slack out for every shot. Shooting on day 2 was at the Frontier range and wind calls were hell, along with awkward shooting positions, and most shots were between 500-600 yards. It really paid off to have the extra gear like bags and pods. I have several things to say about this match – 1) I came to learn, and boy did I learn 2) reasonable shots made very hard due to course design 3) rarely do I get my ass handed to me by a competition anymore and 4) this was fun. I’ll be back again next year.

Yep.

Why not just repurpose the steyr subforum since they haven't had a post there since March 2014. I'm sure we could generate much more activity even if it is multiple petty arguments about caliber, barrel length, which sights and who's grip tape to use.

Over the weekend I placed 2nd in Factory division at 3GN Eastern Regional at Peacemaker and got some good videos while there. Today I finished reviewing those videos and made my training to do list so I know what to focus on before my next major (which is FNH in September)

No it can all be discussed in a 3 Gun pistol subforum, like the rifle and shotgun technical subforums that are here which aren't broken into sub-divisions of the multigun flavors

Depends what ruleset you look at I guess, however they define it based on whats allowed and not allowed

Looks like there's already some topics to be discussed in a 3 gun pistol subforum... Hmmm....

You are a not the norm Kurt, the statement is accurate. I know a couple others but most 3 gunners are shooting 9 minor. But there's also Open and Heavy too for consideration. If the idea of a subforum for 3 gun pistols is a bust then oh well, just wanted to raise it.

1 & 3. Recoil is irrelevant to the bullet, it only matters to the shooter. And FF rails take the torque out instead of barrels. By the time the gun recoils the bullet has left the barrel and no amount of muzzle jump is going to affect a bullet already in flight. If a FF rail is resting on or even pinned against a barricade, then as long as the barrel is not taking the stress then the bullet will go where your zero tells you it will go. Assuming perfect sight alignment and trigger control of course. The reason hard surfaces are not ideal for precision isn't because of recoil jumping rifle after the shot, its because its harder to get the rifle perfectly steady before the shot. If the rifle jumps more during recoil it can upset the shooter's followthrough more than if the gun was pressed into bags, over the course of several shots this can even lead to anticipation of recoil which will certainly affect accuracy. If you are going to test this then make sure to get the rifle into a corner of the barricade so it truly doesn't move, and use a rear bag setup to take as much of the shooter out of the equation as possible.

I set up 6 MGM colt speed plate autopoppers and hose them at 10, 15, 20 yards trying to run the gun ever faster but no matter how fast I get the shells out of the gun, it still takes a while to get them back into the gun