HDGoose

Thought about it some more and maybe they prefer the mag in for consistent weight? Sent from my iPad using Tapatalk

I'm not sure why someone would want to do their dry trigger pulls after inserting the mag, and it seems like a great way to start an unwanted (and probably unnecessary) conversation with the RO, but it appears to be a gray area in the rule book. Might be a good question for someone from NROI. Sent from my iPad using Tapatalk

But Seriously. With exception of a few upcoming local matches my shooting season finished up last weekend. I feel good about this because between a very busy time at work and a lot of local and major matches to prepare for (reloading etc) and shoot I haven't had a lot of time to practice. No earth shattering occurrences at the local matches except for the previously mentioned lesson about mental and physical prepration for a match needing to start the night before (or sooner). Three weeks ago I was able to take a two day class from CHA-LEE and as a result I have a list of opportunities for improvement as long as my arm. I was going to post the entire list here but will instead put them in individual posts as I work on them. What I will do at this time is say that CHA-LEE is not only a damned good and very knowledgeable shooter - he is also a very good teacher. I'll try to do a thorough review of the class at a later time but for now I can without hesitation recommend his class to anyone. If you have any specific questions about my experience with the class please message me and I'll happily answer them. The following weekend was the Utah state match. My performance and results were less than I had hoped for (35th of 75 Limited, 67.3%) but still an improvement over A1 and A2 earlier in the year. My stage times for this match weren't horrible and I think I was able to use many lessons learned the previous weekend to build better stage plans than I previously would have been able to. The bigger problem throughout much of the match was lack of visual patience and a result far too many penalties and too many points dropped. The next weekend was the Idaho section match. This match was tough because I shot much of it with handicapped by a brutal head cold (see lessons 2 and 3 above). Even so I was able to come out with decent results (13th of 58 Limited, 70.9%). I had good stage plans throughout the match and was able to execute them fairly well but had a really hard time being aggressive with movement, shooting, or gun handling because of the cold. I don't dare speculate on where I'd have finished if I'd been healthy but I'm confident it would have been much better.

And now for the long awaited update.......... The last six weeks have been so busy that I don't really know where to start. Since my last update I've shot at least 6 local matches and two majors. Here are some of the lesson's I've learned recently: Lesson 1: If caffeine sensitive (as I am) it is a very bad idea to enjoy a Stompin' Grounds coffee stout from Uinta Brewing with friends the night before a local match. It 's a fantastic beer but one glass contains exactly enough caffeine to keep me awake a majority of the night which can make a six stage club the next morning very unpleasant. Probably the worst performance I've had at a local in at least two years. I think the real lesson here is that if I want to be competitive I need to be a lot more serious about getting my mind and body ready for the match and sleep is a big part of that. No more caving to peer pressure the night before a match! Lesson 2: If RO'ing a major match (just ran a stage at the Utah state match) it's a good idea to have a bottle of hand sanitizer and to use it very regularly. Most shooters are grateful to those working the match and are great about giving a handshake and a thank you to the match staff after shooting each stage. This is definitely appreciated by the match staff but can cause the RO to wake up the morning after the match with the beginnings of a cold. Maybe even a really bad cold. Ask me how I know. Lesson 3: It is very difficult to shoot a major match with a cold. It is also very annoying to know that the cold was likely caused by not having / using hand sanitizer while working another major the previous weekend (refer to lesson 2).

And I revived the zombie thread! Yes, we completely adjusted all of them before we setup the stages for UT state. They were brand new at A1 but our club has used the crap out of them since then and we're still really happy with them.

I don't know what it weighs and don't have a decent scale to weigh it but between the tungsten guide rod and Heavy Ice magwell it's definitely heavier than it looks.

Thank you! I bought it on the classifieds here a few weeks ago. It was beautiful when I got it and I believe it was still setup exactly as it left SV. I replaced the sights (prefer fully adjustable rear and Dawson FO front), put on a reduced and double undercut STI grip, STI gunsmith blank trigger, Brazos mag button, and Dawson Heavy Ice magwell. Now I'm completely in love with it.

Congratulations on the win at Utah state Charlie! Judging from the results my stage (4) wasn't the only one that you burned down - nice shooting!

I can 100% recommend forward fallers from North Salt Lake Welding and Fabrication http://nslwelding.com/. We just finished running the 2016 Utah state match and used nothing but these poppers and had zero problems. I was the CRO for a stage with three poppers and through the entire match never needed to call for calibration or make any adjustments. The reset on them is foot activated, easy to use, and very positive. There is no leaning over and fumbling with a little hook or anything like that. They are either reset correctly or they will not stay standing - it's almost impossible to reset them incorrectly. We had some very strong winds during the match and even then the poppers worked perfectly - and I know from previous experience that the poppers our club used to use would have been falling over in the wind unless they were set very heavy and then we'd have fought the calibration.

Any idea how to find out which chamber is in my TacSol X-ring?

Those sharp corners would definitely allow cracks to start. Also, a water jet can cut very hard material but can't pierce hard materials cleanly so each of the areas to be cut out would need a small access hole drilled to create a starting point for the jet. Scale that artwork down to fit on a slide and the access holes would have to be tiny.Sent from my iPad using Tapatalk

That's actually what I have used the last few times and it has ran great. Too bad I've got a huge surplus of Automatch and very little AR-Tactical.

They do make a very nice rifle. I'm using their X-Ring rifle with a C-More railway and apparently I've been able to make GM with it. I did have some problems with feeding and ejection initially but between a new bolt which TacSol sent me no questions asked and some ammo adjustments it runs like a sewing machine now. I'm still doing some ammo testing but most of my problems with this gun seem to be with Federal Automatch ammo.

Apparently I made GM in RFRO. Does that qualify as fishy? This would be nice. I'd like to at least be able to see how many GM's there are in RFRO.

Oh! On a positive note - apparently I made Steel Challenge GM with my rimfire rifle. So I've got that going for me. Which is nice.

I hope to be able to answer that within the next week or so. Just put the check in the mail today for used SVI I found in the classifieds here. It;s going to be a tough week waiting for it to get here.

So, latest update: Purposeful dry fire training continues and the progress is slow but steady. Shot local matches the last two weekends. At the first match I shot two stages really well then completely imploded on the classifier with 5 make up shots on an array of 4 poppers. Struggles with steel continued on 2 of the remaining stages with too many shots on a relatively close easy plate rack and then needed 18 rounds to clean a texas star (yep - 18). In fairness to myself I should say that I may have greatly over estimated my skills on the texas star. It could be engaged either of two positions, one approximately 20 yards or the other at about half that distance but if shot closer the stage would require either a long retreat or a more roundabout stage plan. I decided to shorten movement and engage from the further position which proved a very poor decision. Of the 6 stages I had 2 really good ones, 2 average, and 2 disasters.On the positive side I was aggressive with movement and my hits on paper were as good or better than usual. Match results were 20th of 59 overall, 8th of 27 in limited at 65%. Midway through the next week I burned up about 250 rounds in live fire practice - mostly on steel. During this practice session I learned that my success or failure on an array of steel seems to depend on how well I shoot the first plate or popper in the array - proper sight focus and aiming at the center of the plate or popper calibration zone and things seem to go smoothly. Poor fundamentals and rushing the first plate and things don't go so well. At the second match results were similar except that I shot steel much better. This match had 2 relatively challenging plate racks, an easy texas star, and a tough polish plate rack and combined I think I had a total of four make up shots and shot them pretty quickly. During walk through and visualization I was very deliberate about focusing on good technique for the first plate and that seemed to help a lot. I made a few mental mistakes in the last stage of the day but I'm comfortable blaming that on the fact that it was a long hot day. Finished the match 12th of 45 overall and 6th of 23 limited at 73%. For the next few weeks I plan to continue regular dry fire mainly focusing on transitions and movement. All dry fire sessions will start with dry fire draws focusing on proper grip and then white wall drills for grip and trigger control and will end with dry fire group shooting. I also plan on some live fire time focusing on group shooting only.

I started out with CR Speed pouches then switched to the Ghost pouches with bullets out because the seemed to be the hotness with everyone else. After 3 months switched to bullets forward with the Ghost pouches because I just couldn't get used to the bullets out.

Not to be a jerk or anything but those podcasts are not easy to listen to. It seems like great information but I'm not sure it's worth enduring the chopped up Van Halen songs. And to use a terrible Journey song to convey a message? Brutal.

Thanks tha1000, I'll do that. Sent from my iPad using Tapatalk

Progress update: Local match last weekend went relatively well. Dry fire work on transitions seems to be paying off as evidenced by much better transitions throughout the match. Finished 2nd (80% match points) in limited, penalty free except for two mikes. Both mikes were second shots on partial targets and I'm confident were caused be the dreaded DTS (Double-Tap Syndrome) that I occasionally struggle with. Dry fire transition work as previously described continued throughout the week and during live practice yesterday my first Blake drill (cold) was 2.52 with .22-.25 splits and transitions and only 2 points down, both from close charlies. Subsequent runs of the same drill were not as good. Either too many points dropped from trying go fast, or slower from trying to get better hits. Two theories/observations from this: 1. Things tend to go better when I trust my training and just let myself shoot; worse when I "try". 2. Maybe live fire is not the time to improve a technique like transitions? New plan is to use live fire to diagnose problems and figure out the correct technique, use dry fire for improvement, then use live fire as a test to measure improvement. Positive results from dry fire training and live fire testing should result in greater confidence in my abilities and less temptation to "try".

What's this "might" stuff? "Might" has changed to "will". My priorities were a little off but I've got them straightened out now.

So, just got home from a 200 round live fire session and I feel like progress was made. First 50 rounds were spent shooting slow fire groups. Best group was 10 shots in 2.5 inches at 15 yards. The more I was able to force myself to see the sights lift the better the groups were. Next time more focus on breathing and isolating my trigger finger. Short term goal is a good 2" group and then I'll push out to 20 yards. Long term goal is consistent A zone hits at 50. Next was 150 rounds on Blake drills at 7 yards. First few runs were in the 3.5 second range with splits averaging .35 and transitions averaging .55. After a few runs the splits were down around .25 average and I was able to get my transitions to around .33-.35. Most of the transition improvement came from my shooting buddy pointing out that after the second shot on each target I was waiting for the sights to settle before moving my eyes to the next target. Another observation from these drills was that there was virtually no time difference between dropping points with C and D hits by getting sloppy with the sights and trigger and other runs where I forced a little more visual patience and worked the trigger more carefully for solid hits. I feel like the time spent getting better hits actually forced some small measure of relaxation that then helped to make the transitions a little smoother and got the first shot on the next target off sooner. The plan for the next week of dry fire will be draws and white wall drills to continue grip and trigger improvement and then transition drills. Transition drills need to emphasize good grip and stance, transitioning with the hips, realistic dry fire splits based on today's live fire times, and leading the transitions with my eyes (moving eyes quickly to next target as soon as sights lift). Might shoot a local match Saturday morning. Have to keep it fun right?

Thanks Toter! That's good advice and I'll take it.