CrashDodson

I started with the 550 and it was fine for a while. I owned it for 6 months before deciding I needed something different. The tipping point was needing to load 2k rounds for a class I was taking. Loading 2k rounds on a 550 is a lesson in patience and was a complete ass whipping. After reading ALOT and talking to others I chose to go with the 1050. Walking in my garage in cranking out 200 rounds in 10 mins is awesome. If you are only planning to load a few calibers and load a lot at one time, the 1050 is great. If you only like to load a little at a time and plan to change calibers often then the 650 is probably the better choice. I load .40 only so the 1050 is excellent.

I could hand my wife a taser, that might be some motivation

I agree. And most of the time I am running in balls to the wall mode in dry fire (speed wise but maybe not focus wise) which obviously does not translate to live fire when you are trying to call your shots. My draw and reload times have improved drastically, and those have carried over to live fire well. I think my dry fire transition speed and live fire transition performance are farther away from each other than they should be, and I should work to bring those two together. Granted dry fire is the place to push the limits I need to be more honest with myself. Like Jake stated I do want to be a GM yesterday...or more like last week. The dude knows what he is talking about and has helped me more then I can ever repay. He tries to keep my expectations realistic, which is not easy. Following his and others advice I have gone from a 50% to now Mid-B classification in less than a year. I would pay attention to anything he says. I guess like anything, big improvements come early and then the rate of diminishing returns starts, which is when I start getting frustrated but I am working through it. The tensions and anxiety, if thats what you would call it, that I feel in a match are rarely present in practice. I need to bring this mind set to dry fire and live fire practice...but not really sure how. It happens from time to time and I can tell/feel the difference. But repeating it doesn't seem to be that easy for me.

never noticed but that is pretty funny.

Thanks for that link. Even our "short" stages were high round count. Those will give us some ideas for sure. I bought a lot of 2x2's for fault lines and I pre-drilled holes in all of them. We used 6" 5/16 lag bolts to secure them to the ground. Our surface is caliche so it works well. It did take a long time to screw them all down. We are purchasing two new impact drivers for the club to use to hopefully speed that up. The walls and fault lines take the most time it seems. For our barrels we have single stands with a piece of square tubing. The barrels have 2" holes drilled in them and we set them over the tubing. How do you all secure your barrels? Our way isn't terrible but not super fast either.

This stuff is the best I have tried. And I have tried it all. I used to be pretty serious into rock climbing in my younger days and wish I knew about this stuff. https://www.amazon.com/Hands-All-Sport-Grip-Enhancing-Topical-Lotion/dp/B00476MDU8/ref=sr_1_2?ie=UTF8&qid=1476735993&sr=8-2&keywords=dry+hands

Do you have a link to the thread?

Ive been frustrated with the differences in live/dry for a while. This weekend we ran the "front sight" classifier. Which is half an el prez on the first string. Turn and draw 2 on 3. And then 2 on three facing the targets (blake drill). I knew I had to have a 4.45 second total with all A's for 100%. In dry fire I can do this all day. A 2 second blake drill dry is no problem. Doing a half el prez in 2.45 dry is no problem. Given multiple trys I know without a doubt that I can hit a 100% run on this classifier in live fire (as can many of us non gm's im sure). Doing it with only one try, your first try, is a whole different story. At the match I ran the first string in 2.92 seconds. The second string in 2.61 seconds. 8 A's and 4 Cs. This results in a 75.7259%. In dry fire I am using 1/3 scale targets that are about 3 feet apart. The classifier targets are 7.5 feet apart. Even when using the scaled targets the transition is still 7.5 feet either way. I dont have 15 feet of wall space to use but I should start dry firing with the targets as wide as I can I think. On my second string I did not hit my weak hand grip as solid as it should be, even though I do it 100's of times every morning in dry fire. I think a big thing is trying to get your semi-relaxed state of mind that we have in our living room or garage and perform in that state at the match. Calling two good trigger presses on a gun that doesn't move or go bang in dry fire is a lot different then calling two good shots with an explosion in front of your face. Maybe its all just mental. In dry fire running as fast as I can I know instantly if I shoot a C/D/M. In live fire I can call mikes (except on damn steel) and some D's but not C and close D's. I think in live fire I am not running my mental program every time like I should. I am not running the same routine every time. I do some draws and take my sight pictures, I run through the stage in my mind, but I need to come up with something that I finish with every time before being "ready". Perhaps that would help me clear my head and run my program a little better.

Thats a LOT of bike for trail riding but I bet its a blast.

Those stages are all massive

Our walls are very similar to yours Memphis. We have metal bases that are either singles or can accept 3 legs. Perhaps ours are not thinwall tubing. its 1/2 tubing but it takes two people to manage a section.

So there is some sort of yearly membership fee for your club?

A friend and I recently ran our first match this weekend. We had close to 40 register and ended up with 31 shooters that showed. We sent out a lot of communication via Facebook and email but only had 6 people total to help setup on Friday, which ended up being just the two of us a few hours in. We setup, with some help from the shooters, for almost two hours the morning of as well. While we were very appreciative of the help we received I was so worn out by time the match started that I almost didn't want to shoot the match myself. The match went well, ran smooth and everyone seemed to enjoy the stages. We got good feedback. We had 2 long course and 2 short course stages. Along with a classifier and a single shot popper/bill drill like at the last nationals. We tried to imitate some decent stages that you would see at bigger matches. We shot 3 squads from 9:30am to 1:30PM. What are you all doing to try and get more help at your matches? Do you do any setup the evening before or only the day of? Do you assign a person to a stage to oversee that stage construction rather then trying to do it all yourself? Do you have club/staff meetings prior to the match? We want to keep doing this but killing ourselves to make the match happen is going to quickly lead to burn out I think. Our walls are made of 1/2" steel tubing with netting. I notice that a lot of videos I see the walls are made of wood which is likely much lighter. Is there any benefit to one over the other?

I guess I'm not following. Any round that travels less than 1125 fps is sub sonic regardless of bullet weight. Since power factor is bullet speed divided by bullet weight you can make major with a heavy bullet traveling less than 1k fps. The lighter the bullet the faster it must be going to meet powerfactor. Please excuse me if you know all of this I just didn't completely understand your question. Sent from my SM-N920V using Tapatalk

The bullet profile just depends on what your gun likes and will feed well. Most 40 major is subsonic with a 180 or 200 grain bullet. I heavy slow bullet is less snappy then a light fast bullet.

I can get you some tonight

Give badman bullets a try. PM me if you have any questions, I can get you some samples if you want.

A few good things this week...Finally got my butt out of C class! When I started getting serious about getting serious I was still shooting an XDM and shooting IDPA. In Ben's dry fire book there was a drill called 6 reload 6 reload 6. Working that drill I at first thought the 5 second par time must be a typo. As I got a little faster I just always felt like that drill par time was unobtainable for me. Fast forward several months, shooting USPSA exclusively and dry firing almost every day. I took some time off from Bens books and ran through Andersons drills for about a month. Recently went back to Bens books and hit the 666 drill twice in a row last week in the 5 second par time. At first I thought I did something wrong or my phone timer messed up. Running it again proved that it was actually real and likely one of the most gratifying experiences I have had shooting so far. Granted the third attempt ended with a magazine flying across the room I now can see how the different fundamentals come together to produce results. "A" class here I come.

Im running the nitro fin on mine. If nothing else it gives you a consistent grip. My trigger finger shooting weak hand does rub on it a little but other than that its solid. Wouldn't want to go back now.

Look up hayes custom guns on youtube, they have a decent review of several grips including the PT EVO.

It hot and humid weather I use some stuff called dry hands. Some like pro grip but I prefer dry hands. No experience in really cold weather.

My biggest problem with some polymer grips on the 2011 is mags not dropping free. Some of us squeeze hard enough to deform the grip and the mags get stuck. This is resolved by going to the steel grip. I like the added weight too. If your mags are dropping free and it feels good to you then awesome. I have had custom stippled polymer grips that feel better in the hand than steel but always had mag issues. Sent from my SM-N920V using Tapatalk

Perhaps it doesn't matter since I can add any division I want on the registration form?

Just setting up the match online

I am setting up a USPSA match for the first time on practiscore. After choosing the affiliation as USPSA at the match type as USPSA pistol, there is no division option for carry optics or PCC but I see a "tactical" division? What am I doing wrong here?