D_4_Ever

Anyone read 'The Power of Now' by Ekhart Tolle ? This week at work has been chaotic. Ever see what rats in a cage will do to eachother if you electrify the cage floor for a second? They turn on eachother - without thought, involuntarily... Books like Tolle's help me to step out of the cage and concentrate on fixing the actual problems, instead of reacting to the behavior. Cheers.

That sounds like good advice... Also - Check the label, read ingredients when you buy Gatoraide. I recently bought a bottle of GA 'Power' or 'Extreme' by mistake after a workout and felt absolutely lousy within minutes. Checked the ingredients: 2x the Sucrose and HF Corn Syrup (and calories) of normal Gatoraide. Those are empty calories and will send pancreas into fits for some people. 10 years ago or so, GA used to use only low amount of glucose the and a good balance of electolytes. Mixed w. water, GA was perfect for heavy cardio activity. It was great. Now they've mixed in other sweeteners which don't help you. Not sure why they've done this.

Hello Folks, I wanted to add my .02 $ on the AET barrel. I have one of the Ultimatch variety in .40. As others who have these will know, the chamber itself has internal fluting which is supposed to grip the shell casing during powder ignition/expansion and thereby improve accuracy. When you observe your spent shell casings you see ridges in the casing wall exterior as a result. Well, recently I was inspecting a batch of reloads & found a couple of reloaded shell casings had cracks (and one casing had a full split) along the side of one ridge. Observed cracking or splitting of shell casings may not be a fault of the internal chamber fluting, obviously, but it made me wonder if the brass gets thinned out along the peripheral edges of these ridges. For this reason, I tend to reload the .40 brass 1 or 2 times at most now, then discard it. Where before I'd go 4 or 5 reloads before discard. If you scratch for brass on your range and see these ridges in the casing walls, I would not suggest using them, esp. if .38 Super. As for accuracy. AET has been awesome. Mine's still grouping sub 1.5" @ 50yrd after 4,000 rounds. MG 180 JHP/N320 out to 1.119" OAL. Only wish I could drive the thing well enough to make use of such... Cheers.

This would be fun, so I hope you all won't give up on the idea. I think a mix of IPSC Field Course and Steel Challenge stages for kicks. Thow in some BBQ, a Zydeco band and liquid refreshments (after all the gear is stowed)... That would be like Christmas and the 4th of July on the same day. IMHO

My Para open project: Wow, Very nice work. May I ask who built that for you?

Thanks for the info. folks! I spoke w. g-smith about dust cover cracking and he agrees that Para frame's not a good platform for Open. The casting is thin and not designed to take both the drilling for scope mount holes and the added pressure of .38 Super. Besides, the cost of a brand new SVI or STI and that of making a custom top for P-14 are about the same. Oh well.

Well, I've been thinking about doing this for a long time. I have a P-14 which was customized by DVI (Dave Helton) several years back. I don't shoot it much any more as I've gone to .40 for Ltd. Got me thinking: Why not build up an open top end? The frame will need a new hammer and trigger-job, no doubt. It already has S&A Magwell, Ed Brown Extended Ambi Safety. For the top end I've been considering: Caspian SS Slide (lightened toward the muzzle), Schu AET barrel, AFTEC extractor, C-More, Brazos Ti Comp, Ti Firing Pin. Any other suggestions? What's the latest and greatest?

I don't know if this will work for others, but I have been working to manage my flinch reflex (admittedly, I still have work to do) by: Increasing support-hand pressure steadily w. Bill Drills, until I have the perception that recoil pulse is travelling laterally, rearward toward the triceps and shoulder joints. This perception is difficult to describe, but if you watch a GM shoot a field course, you can see them doing it... For me (and I'm a D-classer), there's a perception that the recoil is under my control vs. the more common perception I have, which is that of fighting to align the sights before calling the shot. Depending upon the gun, I might start out w. as much support-hand pressure as possible and then taper it off gradually until I find the balance. This is just experimenting w. the principles in BE's book, of course & is predicated on a consistant strong-hand grip position and trigger control. I'm now able to feel the correct/incorrect placement of strong hand from the feel of the tang & grip-safety's position in the webbing between thumb and trigger-finger. In my last match, the consistant/comfortable grip (or lack there-of) meant the difference between a clean stage (ie: better than personal average time & no Mikes) vs. a FUBAR'ed stage, (where I was sub-consciously regripping the gun between shots). [ Dang, how I hate it when I catch myself doing that...].

Dropping bullet weight from 180 to 150 for .40SW must also drop pressures a lot. I've been using 6.8gr PowerPistol w. MG TC CMJ and I'm right around 165 PF.

If you like Red Dot (Fast, Large flakes -> designed for shotgun & rifle rather than pistol loads), you might try the new (re-formulated) Alliant Unique. I used that for many years with both 1911 and SW 625 (gosh I miss that wheel-gun sometimes...). Unique is slower burning, but it is nice and clean burning now and cheaper - compared to Clays or N320. I've been using Alliant PowerPistol w. the .40 for a while. Not bad, but I'm going to N320 soon (for the .40). Good Luck w. finding your loads.

We italians???? Is there another "spaghetti" shooter on this board???? Well, I'm not blue-blooded Italian. My dad moved out here to the Western US from PG in '56 I think. I used to spend summers in Italy w. the cugini and I'm very fond of the the country. Will give the rice a try. Cheers

I was thinking of ordering some walnut media from this site: http://www.ecoshell.com/Media.htm Thing is, I have no idea which grind would be correct for 40SW. 12/20 or 14/30 perhaps?. Never tried the rice as media. Seems like a waste of potential food, (even if it is plentiful). One thing's for sure, if that was real Arborio rice (the kind we Italians use for Risotto) it would be frowned upon big time - kinda like using Porcini or Shitakes to wash dishes with.

Texas Star + Hard Cover = for me.

Hello Iron Chef, I'm kinda newbie to this site as well. Only wish I'd known about it a few years ago . Anyway, I think the P-16 is the way to go. I have a P-14, which was OK for about a month of club matches... Ended up having it heavily customized eventually. In fact, I was suprised at how easy it is to make a $900 gun out of $2000 in parts... Here's my experience w. the Para: if you buy a stock P-14 or P-16, it will come w. plastic trigger, mag release button, main spring housing. Also the hammer is big and clunky. Hammer/Sear engagement is often a solid 8lbs or more, (more for duty/safety, than for competition) due in part to the Series 80 style firing-bin blocker/safety. I believe there's a P-16 'Limited' available, which has some of the components we like for IPSC. It costs a bit more. The .40 is the way to go for several reasons, in my oppinion. You can use it for Ltd or Ltd-10. The recoil is slightly easier to manage, (I've found) but much depends upon how much time/effort you can put into finding the right combination of bullet components and recoil springs to match. You can find lots of .40 brass just lying around on the range. Granted some of it may be beyond usable life cycle. Whatever you decide on - Enjoy !

+1. This happened to me as RO, (yet again...) even after I had convinced myself that no matter what the situation, no matter what mitigating circumstances, I would ALWAYS stop the shooter, in cases of Safety infraction or suspected squib. ie:) Anything which could, or could have caused an unsafe situation. Well: First shooter, first stage, cold morning. Start from box, behind a Bianchi, left side of bay. Stage called for movement to the right after start. Well this first shooter happened to be a lefty. As soon as the buzzer went off he broke 180. The whole squad saw this and some of the other shooters even yelled '180 !...'. I stopped the guy immediately, as per Rule Book. Once the range was clear, I calmly brought shooter back to the box and explained that he'd broken 180 in transition to 1st shooting area. He didn't sweep anyone, but we have railroad ties, not dirt between bays, so this 180, combined w. an AD and someone in the next bay could have been affected... The other shooters agreed. But when I told him to take his paperwork to the shack for the DQ, everyone got on my case and said that wasn't necessary. 'Match DQ by Rule' I told them. But no, they kept saying that he shouldn't be DQ'ed for it... So eventually I caved and even gave the guy a re-shoot ! From that point forward, the day literally fell apart for me - like the whole squad of mostly baby-boomers (ie: grown men) were 3rd graders with a new substitute teacher. At least that's what it felt like in my gut... All order just melted away. People stopped taping targets as instructed, started jawing loudly even as a new shooter was @ LMR. They used any/every excuse to get a re-shoot... It was really bad and demoralizing for me because my not DQ'ing this guy was probably what started these problems in the first place. Not sure, but even if we are scoring and not the acting RO, we're supposed to notify the RO immediately in the case of a safety violation that may have gone unnoticed. It sounds to me like the shooter in your case wasn't all-together with it upstairs... If the tables were turned and I was the one who'd made a safety-related mistake, I would WANT others to point it out. I'd WANT to stow my gear for the day and reflect upon how/why the incident occurred. This isn't paintball, folks. We've got to take the safety aspects of this sport seriously. Doesn't matter how long we've been at it or how highly we are ranked.

Hey thanks all! This is a Ltd SVI, no compensator or dot. Based on what I've read here and discussed w. a couple local M-class shooters, this weekend I'm going to try some static line practice to rule out the human factor. Also going to switch to a N320/180gr TCJ-FP-MGold load. Only after adjusting to the new components will I begin to experiment w. recoil spring if this sight dipping doesn't stop. Good news is that there are at least 3 others I know who use the same equipment and loads. This should mean that we won't be talking apple and oranges. - Cheers.

I did a search on this topic and didn't see anything, so here 'goes: Got video of a stage I shot recently. When I slowed it down a bit, I noticed that the muzzle lifts as expected but as the slide transitions from battery to lock up, instead of returning to level sight picture, the muzzle appears to dip, then come back up to level. On video it looks like the entire pistol is over-rotating in my hands, rather than my hands pushing the muzzle down. On this stage I do recall feeling as though strong hand wasn't angled right on the grip safety. It wasn't so bad as to require me to re-grip the pistol between shots or anything like that. I'm also wondering if the recoil spring may be too strong and maybe this is causing the slide to snap into lock-up with too much force. Review of another stage showed that it was doing the same thing, but to a lesser degree with the same loads. Maybe its just poor grip technique which may be resolved w. practice?. Maybe I should let the local smith have a look at the recoil spring? Its a stock SVI.

I had forgotten how much of this game is mental. How easy it is to let other people's words, tone of voice, body language, etc. get into my thoughts. Unfortunately, much of the time the negative stuff is the stuff that gets through so easily. Some people I've met just seem to have a Mental 'Positivity' Shield around them. Case in Point: Two of the most positive shooters I ever had the opportunity to be around were Travis Tomasie and his dad (sorry, I forgot his first name). Was a long time ago, but they always seemed to bring a smile to the range; were cool under pressure & always friendly with others. Gave you the impression that they were just happy to be there. To compete at their level and still maintain that positive attitude at all times... For me that was a lesson in how to live life, not just shoot IPSC.

At the last club match I shot: 1st Stage/ 1st 4 Shots: 4 USP's @ about 15yrds through a port. I'm 6'3" and somehow the ports always mean that I'm having to crouch for a good sight picture. I know that this is going to be required, but somehow I don't set up for that mentally before L&MR. Then the buzzer goes off and already there's doubt, unsteadiness as I start to align the sights on the steel. Turns out that I accidentally put a few Major (+) rounds in that first mag. Had been doing some chrono work the day before and must have accidentally placed the test rounds back in w. my match ammo. The change in recoil pulse on those first few (Type 3, I'd say) shots was enough to make me realize what I had done, I lost my plan after missing the steel w. 2 shots and then I fumbled a mag change while moving to the next array. I know that there are IPSC 'basics' that must be right before you can successfully shoot a stage, but it never ceases to amaze me how I can get some dumb thing wrong, time and time again, and then things just unravel. Part of the thing that keeps me coming back though, is the idea that someday, I'll recover without loosing all that stage time, or maybe I'll get it right on all 5 stages, & not just one or two.

I love java. Consume way too much. Only recently have I stopped drinking it the night before or the day of an IPSC match. The huge difference I've noticed is that I flinch much less as a reaction to recoil without caffeine, and I'm better able to adjust if/when something goes south during the COF.

Not sure guilty is the right word, but I do feel as though that situation changed from a common malfunction event to an unsafe situation which I had the chance to prevent. Also I think I may have let the attitude of the other shooters in my squad affect my judgement. Sometimes there was this unspoken pressure to keep things moving... this is not to say that I didn't enjoy the matches or the people at that venue.

Yes, this is where I feel that I failed as the RO. To clairify, I recall that the shot didn't sound right. Couldn't decide whether it was a squib or an under-charged round. I should have stopped the shooter irregardless for safety. Would have prevented the subsequent events... Sharing this so hopefully the newer RO's won't have the same experience. Cheers.

I told this one to a few shooters @ my club who are active on here, so sorry if this repeats: Was RO on a stage in a club match. It was a hot, muggy day and there wasn't much shade available. I call a shooter up to the line. Normal procedures. 1/2 way through the stage his gun jams w. that familiar 'squib' sound, and his 1911/Commander locks up somewhere between ejecting and battery. The shooter starts to struggle w. the jam. Maybe 10 seconds have passed, but its a club match, so I let him continue. I thought it would be good practice for him... Didn't think much beyond that and watching his movements. He finally clears the jam, magazine out, racks the slide, then he briskly swings the muzzle around about 270 deg. (sweeping my face in the process), pulls back on the slide to open breech and proceeds to look down the barrel from the muzzle end to be sure he didn't have a squib in there. Mind you this all happened pretty fast. After I collected my thoughts, I calmly stopped the guy and told him he was done shooting for the day. What happened next was a surprise. The guy got really upset. Said he'd been shooting IPSC for 20+ years... blah blah blah, and had NEVER been DQ'ed. Told him 'Hey, nothing personal. Its hot out here...' A couple of the people in my squad agreed, but most felt that since it was a club match, there was no need to 'embarass the guy' w. the DQ. Looking back, I think the proper thing to do would have been to stop him right away, let him show clear without the timer running and then give him a re-shoot. Hind sight is 20/20, but that experience will stay with me for a while, mostly due to the strange feeling which washed over me as that muzzle went by my face.

My one and only AD to date (knock on wood) was the result of just such an experience. I was flying through a really open field course. Paper, in close. Zig, Zag, turret-shooting kind of stage. Was feeling jazzed because I was seeing the hits and I didn't fumble the mag changes. Got to the end and during Unload/Show Clear, I just hadn't come back to earth yet. So I f#$%$%'ed up the order of things and racked the slide before removing the mag. [ I know, I'm an idiot...]. Talk about waking up from 'unconscious mode'. Went to drop the hammer on empty chamber and 'Bang!'. That was a miserable moment, but thinking back on it, part of the problem was that I was not 100% conscious of what I was doing, I had also been moving and shooting faster that normal because I squadded up w. much better shooters, and was trying to keep up w. them. That was prob. my biggest mistake.