KelsonAK

Did you ever have one of those shooting experiences where you just start giggling? Yea. Have been working on trigger control and grip in dry fire the last few weeks - finally got to the range for a live fire session and spent a little time shooting 'the dots.' First one out of the holster I screwed up - kinda forgot everything I'd been working on. Refocus - next three dots clean. Started giggling during the second clean dot, since it was starting to seem 'easy.' 4th dot and a 'pft' instead of a bang for shot 6 (was also clean up to that point) and spend a few minutes looking for a squib rod. 5th dot and a 'hard' primer or maybe it's time to clean the top end - but I'm still giggling because I'm just watching the sight up/down with no suprises as to where the holes are going to be on paper. Ah well... also set up smoke and hope and tested out some of the ruger work I did over the break. They seem to have an issue in the cold (it was about 3 deg f, maybe a bit lower) and I've been working on them to get them to run at temp. Seems that my efforts are paying off. No real difference in speed for me on S&H between my open rimfire and iron sight rimfire. Speed mode had me at a 1.5-1.6 (with a miss or two) - match mode had me at 1.9-2.1 - which is right about where I want to be. If you haven't ever just giggled because it's working - you should try it. It's kinda fun....

Played with the 170 a bit at the range Tuesday. Worked in my stock 3 just fine - 28 and seated easily on a closed slide. This is gonna be fun...

Has been a busy month and a half. Note to self - coming up with stage designs that don't require taping but are still interesting for rifle work is tough. Even harder when you can't run around much because of ice and snow. Have been hitting the dry fire hard the last few weeks and it is paying off. Had one of those 'aha' moments at the range tuesday night as I was doing dot drills and messing with grip pressure. You know - the 6 shots in a 2" circle from a holster at 5 yards in 5 seconds? I usually average 4 out of 6. Until tonight. I had several 6/6 and the sights were just bumping up and down. weak hand grip pressure and not just the pressure, but how I visioned the grip pressure being applied (tips to palm, not palm to tips.) So - will be ironing that in to dryfire this week and go for a repeat next week. This weekend is steel challenge, and the temps should be about the freezing mark (up from the last match) - so I'm looking forward to it. Will run the tanfo in limited guise and the Ruger 22/45 with a dot and see what can be done at a normalish temperature instead of that stupid single digit stuff we have had for a bit. Yea, pretty cool to see the impact of grip application so plainly. A bit gobsmacked actually.

just picked up a 170 as part of my upcoming open project. Yea, follower looks like a kid with playdoh made it but it works. And shiny...

Ah, life... Have been very light on the dry fire over the past couple months, have not shot a match, but have managed to keep on the gun at least weekly. Have spent the last couple weeks getting things sorted for the Zombie Pistol Party - managed to get the local TV station and two news papers out to the range to cover it! Have also spent some time lately putting together the training plan for the next 12 weeks. That puts me about the middle/endish of January. I signed up for the area 1 match at the end of march, so the end-ish of January puts me on track for a phase 1 of training, with Feb/March being some fine tuning. I'm trying to sucker a few others into my 12 week plan here locally - I think it will be a good thing for a small group of us. So... week 1 is about grip and trigger control. I've got the 'slow fire' white wall drill down cold. Hurray. Problem is, when I speed up my point of impact moves down about 3 inches at 5 yards. That translates into a foot low at 20 yards 'at speed.' No good. So for week 1 - I'll be working on a whitewall drill with a timer. The general idea is at the beep try to beat the end of the beep tone to drop the hammer, without having the sights move. Mostly it's about the sights - not about beating the beep. The beep is just encouragement to move swiftly - not a 'par time' to make. I suppose I could just 'go faster' - but the beep helps me with the sense of urgency without the beep being the focus of the drill. To prove it out I'll be using dot drills for live fire. Who knew that the more you do the whole run around shooting stuff thing the more you wind up working on shooting groups! I'm also about to take on running the local 3gun and steel challenge matches. The steel matches are easy. Pick 4 stages and then RO 'em. The 3gun matches are a bit more involved, in that I need to do some stage design. Good thing I've been coming up with stage designs for a while now AND pilfering good stage designs whenever I come across them!

Live fire drill for the week was 5 to Go. By the end of the session my rimfire pistol times were in the 2.5-2.8 range for a 'match mode' pass. Centerfire was in the 3.5-3.8 second timeframe. Spent a bit of time explaining to folks the madness behind the method of speed mode/accuracy mode/match mode. People look at you funny when you zip through 5 to go in under 2 seconds - hitting 2 or 3 plates along the way - and are happy about it. It did, however - help one of the guys that came out for the practice session. He is fairly new to action shooting, and doing pretty well too. He was complaining that his draw to first shot times were slow - 1.5 to 2 seconds generally. I watched him for a couple of repetitions - gave him some feedback and a thing or two to think about. Then I told him to do a couple of draws in 'speed mode' and didn't care if he hit a damned thing. So... he does. And proceeds to hit 2 1 second draws in a row (hitting his intended target...) Called him a sand bagger....

has been a rough go the last few weeks. Granddaughter was born special needs. Missing her left eye and other neurological issues. Has triggered a few reprioritizations in life, including finances - and that precluded the travel to the state sectional. Will likely also cut back on match entries as well for a bit until we get things sorted out. So... matches are going to be few and far between. Practice will continue, however. Dryfire is free - so there is going to be a lot more of that. I'm good with ammo and components to get me through about 5 or 6 months - more at a conservative pace - so that will be fine as well. Prepaid, so to speak. one of my goals was to make 'A' class in something this year. Looks like that may be Steel Challenge - I think I'm able to pull that off with Rimfire pistol. The 'new' ruger 22/45 is running like a top. Picked it up as part of a trade/sale - and it fits me better than the Ruger hunter does. I've got about 10 magazines proofed out and the gun runs really well on ammo that I have a few thousand rounds of - so good to go there. the 9.89 aggregate in Smoke and hope is just under the 'M' bar - so that is pointing me at focusing there for a bit. Tuesday night practice was worthwhile. First shooting I've done for 3 weeks or so. Spent most of my time with rimfire working on first shot times and a 1/2/3 transition combination. From low ready - 'speed mode' is about .39 to first shot. 'Match mode' is a bit slower - about .45-.5. .6 if I'm asleep at the beep. Transitions at 10 yards are running about .28 in 'match' mode and about .21 in speed mode. Centerfire was affirming my dryfire draw from surrender and 2 target transitions. I'm getting a bit faster there - speed mode in the .85-.9 range and match mode in 1.1ish or slightly less. That 1.1 is about a half second faster than it was a year ago and is a solid match mode first shot. So, I'm happy with that. Big 'ah ha' was in transitions for either centerfire or rimfire. Two things really. I was seeing faster - mostly seeing transition faster - the eyes were getting to the next target quicker. And... putting a mental pause in the gun. More of a stop. On the clock - that translated into about a .01 difference in transition speed. On the target, it translated into ding every time instead of an air ball... It did make the first shot about .1 slower - not sure why there was a bigger impact there - but after the first shot it really turned into a .01ish difference in time. If the math holds - I think a sub 9 aggregate on a stage like smoke and hope is within my grasp. That would be cool... Next week - will spend some quality time on draws and white wall drills in dry fire - and next Tuesday will set up Showdown for a practice session I think - with the goal of shooting a match towards the end of august maybe.

So - that 9.89 aggregate for Smoke and Hope looks to be good for 85.9% in the new classification system - my first M scoring so far. VERY cool. Prepping for the Alaska state sectional match in a couple weeks. Stages look like they are going to be fun. Dry fire and live fire practice till then are going to be on entries and exits mostly.

The blued finish of the stock 3 does seem to wear a bit more quickly than the hard chrome of the 2. I was looking at the stock 3 this evening during my Tuesday night practice session and wondering about giving it a refinish after the regular season ends this summer - but I kind of like the worn look.

Yes, you may have to fit a new extractor. Same part for multiple case head sizes - the .40 and the 9mm are the same part number. Do a forum search - Nealio did a write up on it I think. Or maybe Atlas - don't remember now for sure who wrote it. That said - I'm a huge fan of minimum required dose - if a stronger/longer spring fixes your wagon - then woot! and carry on...

The stock 3 does not feel 'nose heavy' to me when aiming - the balance point is forward of where it is with the stock 2, but I wouldn't exactly call it 'nose heavy.' That said - now I want to go and measure where the center of balance actually is in the two...

you ever have one of those matches where you are thinking ... dang it, I'm slow. I suck. and then you look at the score and you are like... woah... cool. Shot steel challenge this weekend. My centerfire times were kind of 'meh.' A few strings that I was happy with - a few that I wasn't. Overall about the same place I was a month ago. Partly - if you don't seat the magazine it tends to not work so well. Just sayin. And... Had difficulties with my Ruger magazines.. still. However I isolated it to the one and pulled it out of the rotation and that helped a lot.... In any case - I finally pulled an under 10 aggregate smoke and hope time with the .22 - a bit of a milestone for me. Previously had been doing an 11.5-12 aggregate regularly. My show down times are moving in that direction also - magazine issue avoidance would possibly have gotten me to 10. Now - I just need to remember to use my front sight with the centerfire gun... Dry fire for the week: Entries and exits.

Been a little while since I did one of these - have been a bit busy. My grand daughter was born a week after I left Raleigh. It wasn't exactly what we all had hoped for - she was born with one eye and some other issues and my wife is still in Raleigh tending to family. It seems that she is doing ok, but it is a bit stressful for everyone to say the least. I did get to the range for the match that last Saturday of May. I got to shoot with the Blue Bullets team - was good to see shooters other than the same guys I see every month. I have been doing some processing -- mostly on the stage planning side of things. Came back home and started prepping for the Alaska State 3Gun match. I shoot 'production' division in 3 Gun - which here is 10 in the pistol, pump shot gun no more than 10 in the tube to start, and unmagnified optic or iron sights on the rifle with a 30 round limit on magazine capacity. I shoot that because it is a 'match' to my USPSA division, and also because it is the 'hardest' division to shoot and because - although it is a sparsely populated division - there is a lot of 'heat' there. Mostly worked on making sure I knew my zero on the rifle at 5-300 yards and how that matched the reticle and on movement - entries and exits. I have started listening to the Steve Anderson podcast lately and his 'call it and leave it' drill is what I did mostly in live fire. Dry fire was reloads, white wall and draws. Good news... for me - I won the division and then won the shoot off - just barely. It was a pretty brutal match for a lot of folks. Long, long days. I RO'd - so I was one of the folks that put in extra miles on each day - and a couple of really good shooters wound up DQ'ing near the end of the match because... well, they were fried. We all were - and I could have just as easily been one of those that biffed it on the last stage. I learned a bit in the match. 1) Diet and exercise is critical to a physical and long match. 2) Get enough damned sleep the night before. 3) Take a few shooters ahead of your turn at the bat to just find a quiet place and meditate your stage plan. I worked on visualizing my reticle on the targets for the long range rifle for hold over - I visualized my foot falls and shotgun reload movements - and it helped. 4) Game everything. I could have won the shoot off by seconds instead of a fraction of a second if I had gamed it. Going forward - my dry fire and live fire practice is gearing up for the USPSA sectional match in July. More call it and leave it. Will also do call it and leave it for charging a shooting position and retreating a shooting position. And some shooting on the move. I have a steel challenge match this weekend - so i'll get plenty of draw from surrender position practice then - but I need to continue to work on everything that is in between the shooting.

My 'go fast' draw on a smoke 'n hope kind of target is about .9 - sometimes a skosh faster but not very often. My match mode is about 1.1-1.2 ish. For a 12" round at the same distance it goes to 1.3 and for 10" it creeps up to 1.4ish generally. I'm a 'B' shooter currently. The draw is not where I'll make up the most time

I have a 2 and a 3. There is a little balance difference - the 2 sits 'back' in the hand a little more. The 3 feels a little bit heavier on the draw. The finish on the 3 is not as durable as the HC on the 2 - but I kinda like the war worn look. No noteable difference in accuracy between the guns. I find myself using the 3 more often. Probably because I have a COM holster for it and that is a nicer piece of gear than the locally made holster for the 2. Other than that... 'bout the same.

So - no range log, just a practice log. I am traveling to North Carolina this week and have not put a round down range for over a week and a half. May be two weeks before I pop a primer. I am wait listed for a local match here in the Raleigh area for Saturday, So I have been dry fire practicing draws, surrender draws and reloads, with a thumb tac on the wall. A week plus of getting away from the kids, the son in law's parents and some weird golden doodle dog have yielded a .4 second reduction in reloads (almost good now) and a much more consistent grip on the draw. If I get to the range on Saturday - great! Otherwise I might get to the range Monday evening before I have to go back to work on Tuesday.

it isn't that I shouldn't get tired.... It's that when I do, I need to take that mental moment to remember 'grip, sights, stance' and not just rip it.

Notes for the past week: Shot reasonably well at the USPSA match on Saturday. Kinda biffed it on the classifier stage that was at the end of the match. Sunday was 3 gun. I shot reasonably well there too - but - kinda biffed it at the end of a long day. See a pattern? I do. Get tired at the end of the day and the technique suffers and my concentration suffers and therefore I suffer.... Video review shows that my foot work continues to improve and my splits are still slower than they probably need to be for the difficulty of the shot. I think I'm just seeing more than I need to see and waiting for the sight picture has me waiting too damned long. Noticed the same thing in 3gtun on Sunday but mostly with the rifle. A lot of close up partials with no shoots all over the place and 1) I wasn't entirely sure of my scope over bore offset and 2) I was being to conservative with my sight picture. So... THis week for live fire I'm going to do some work on figuring out how fast I can shoot at varying distances and still keep A's. That will give the confidence going into a stage so I don't stand around waiting for too perfect a sight picture but can recognize 'good enough.' Will also spend some time with the AR at various short range distances to determine my offset and document it. Will tape it to the side of my rifle. Dry fire - grip. WHen I got tired and lost my mental edge I lost my grip and went back to the 'old way' that isn't the 'good way.' Dry fire will also work on transitions from right shoulder to left shoulder with the rifle - the 'big match' will have some of that and I am going to be ready for it.

I had a brief issue with stove pipes - I removed the extractor and cleaned everything (had quite a bit of gunk on both the slide and the extractor that was VERY gritty) - lubed things up lightly and 'poof' no more stove pipes. So far.

Just a few notes: Dots (6 in 5 at 5) - shot 3 out of 4 clean on Tuesday. Working on grip is really, really helping. Also spent some quality time with ending flat on the trigger. Kinda psyched to see the work paying off - will see if it is replicable now

Drove down to Kenai for the Snowshoe gun club match this weekend. 3 hour drive south - very very lovely - where they had 4 stages set up for a bit of fun. First stage was the carnival stage - 2 texas stars, a couple mini poppers and a polish plate rack. I think it took longer to set up than to shoot... The other stages were fairly normal - well set up and a fun shoot. The classifier was ironsides - which I had done some practice for this past week. Overall - I got video of all the stages - I'm ok with how I did. I still am not moving fast enough between target arrays. I'm not set up for leaving. My splits were very conservative - I was maybe a bit overly alpha hunting. Now that summer is here - time to work on sprints! My grip was improved - I'm continuing to work into my shooting what I learned from the folks at the NSSF fantasy camp. Had some issues with ammo - seems that S&B primers and Winchester cases are the ones that are prone to not go bangity bangity for me. Classifier - my movement was good - could have been more aggressive on splits - overall, looks like a 78% production time - which is my new high water mark. I feel that it is fairly representative of my skill set as they are expressed now. In practice, just banging at a b/c steel I could get a 1.7 first shot off the beep. In the match with an A zone focus - that slowed down to about 2.5ish. So - grip and movement the next week or so!

I'm curious as to what happens when you wiggle your trigger finger without a gun in your hand? Does your thumb or other fingers move also?

I've used a few different ones. Currently I run the Hornady FL die without the sizing button in it, then run it through a sizing mandrel.

Wound up with a bit of gout the past week or so - seems that eating that many shrimp doesn't agree with me. Match on the weekend was slower as a partial result - but I'm seeing results from the grip change in my points. Classifier was 'disaster factor' - and that's appropriately named. All about trigger control it seems - and it also seems my trigger control runs about 90% when there are no shoots Practice this week was all about movement. Since my toe is feeling better.... Set up something similar to 03-12 Iron sides - 8 foot barricade, two targets on the left, two targets on the right, and one little steel in the middle with something forcing me to get into a squat. Started with 2.4 second times to first shot. Meh. Transitions with reload to the other side of the barricade were about the same. Just going 'faster' shaved a little off - .2ish each direction. Changing from a 'lunge' or a 'lunge and run' to a sidestep and getting the gun out of the holster faster got me to 1.7ish first shot and 1.8ish transition. Very repeatable results, and a faster 'to stable' process. Dry fire this week is all about grip.

I've shot my Stock 3 a bit in cold-ish weather, using S&B primers. I have not noticed any difference in performance (of the gun and ammo) even into the sub zero range. I tend to shoot a little slower in sub z... My lube method is a little gun grease (tetra usually) followed with a bit of very light oil on the rails. Lightly applied grease to the sear, disco, etc last time I took it all down to the frame, with light oil added occasionally. Light oil applied to the other friction points. I do change over to some CLP that is a little heavier later in the year, but mostly because it goes with me to 3gun not because it's planned out that way. I tend to run a bit wet. I did have an issue with my firing pin channel getting gunked up - tightgroup fouling and oil - in the flutes of a Henning firing pin. Went back to factory and no issues. 14# spring, Titan hammer, one piece sear - nothing exotic. Stock 2? Can't say the same. I got it this winter, so it hasn't seen a warm weather firing day yet. I've been working on it to get it 100% on S&B primers - but have only used it well below freezing. Things have been a bit busy, and I haven't messed with it in a while. Perhaps I'll take it out on one of these warming days and see if there is a difference. 14# spring, titan hammer, 2 piece sear. Same lube job.