afletcher1965

Have done some skeet shooting with over and unders but semi-automatics...I'm a TOTAL newbie. Sorry if these questions sound dumb. So you know what equipment we're talking about...I have a 1301 Comp 12 gauge with Nordic Tube (12+1 capacity). I was out at the range working on pistol and rifle stuff and took along my new shotgun (never been fired). Thought I would run a few rounds through it just to say I did. BTW: All they had there was 1650 fps slugs and man did they kick. Were really accurate but damn they about knocked my shoulder off. LOL When loading it would sometimes kick a shell underneath the lifter. Is it because I wasn't pushing the shell far enough into the tube and it wasn't getting caught by the shell stop? On an unrelated question...What is the fastest and easiest way to unload your tube? Thanks in advance for your help!

Last night I put a contact lens in my left eye for longer distance vision and no contact lens in my right eye to see the sights better. It did make a big difference. I was able to clearly focus on the front sight and it helped a lot with sight alignment. Only issue I had was double vision and a fuzzy target out to 20-25 yards. I noticed that as I held aim the two targets would start to come together. On 15 yard shots it wasn't as bad and was really pretty good at 7 yards. I think I'm just going to have to work on it and see if my brain gets to the point where it is ignoring the second target. It really won't be a big problem when trying to shoot in the A or B area of a target but if I'm trying to shoot for accuracy it still is going to be an issue. I guess on long shots I'm just going to have to close my left eye.

I'm going to start of with a lower division like production or tac ops. I was just thinking that having the red dot sight might help from a training standpoint. Once everything else was in order (grip, recoil management, proper muzzle rise and drop, trigger control, etc) then take off the sight and work more on sight picture and alignment with the iron sights. From what I'm reading it is best to break everything down to the simplest form and isolate each part of good shooting skills and work on them individually vs just going out and blasting away.

I have a quick question for the experienced shooters out there. I have been shooting for a while. Not a lot so really haven't developed too many bad habits. But I want to start from scratch and do it the right way...break each aspect of shooting down. I have an M&P CORE 5" 9mm. I went ahead and bought a Trijicon RMR pistol sight. My questions is... Do you think it would be to my advantage to use the red dot when I start to help with proper grip, recoil techniques, trigger pull, calling the shot, tracking the muzzle rise and fall back into the sight picture, etc? Would it make it easier to get those aspects right vs. iron sights? I can image that it would be easy to use the red dot as a crutch, which I don't want to do. Thoughts?

Thanks bountyhunter! I have from time to time worn just one contact but I've been wearing it in the wrong eye. I typically would wear the contact in my right eye to help with with seeing at a distance. My left eye would be more for close up vision. That is just the opposite of what I should be doing. Since I am a right handed shooter and right eye dominant I should have close vision in my right eye and far vision in my left eye. Duh! I guess I really should have thought of that. No wonder I'm having problem focusing on the front sight. I'm getting my vision cross wired. LOL

I'm sure there are a lot of people that deal with vision issues and how to address them. If you can't see then obviously you're not going to be a very good shooter. I personally have good close vision (near sighted) and wear contacts to over come my issue with seeing at a distance. Because of this I give up some of my close vision. Since shooting involves being able to focus on your front sight and line up with the target at a distance there is a definite conflict there. I've read and watched a lot of videos on proper sight picture and alignment, shooting with both eyes open, focusing on your front sight with blurred target, etc. I'm not having much of an issue with shotguns or rifles (no issue with shooting through a scope) but it is giving me all kinds of problems with my pistol shooting. Any advice on how to manage things properly to get the most out of your handgun shooting?

I'd read this article by Patrick E. Kelley...it is very good. The charts he has in the article show that you can only knock down steel effectively up to 25-35 yards (depending on what type of target it is) with an IM choke. http://www.multigunmedia.com/3gn-choke-and-loads.pdf He mentions, in reference to a Full Choke, that "This is one I have yet to use at any 3-Gun event and hope to never feel the need to. If the target is that far away or that tough to put down, somebody hand me a carbine!" I have read that you can shoot a slug through a full choke but have also read that it isn't safe. So there is a lot of mixed information out there. I'd be curious to hear everyone's opinion on it. I was there observing that match (Hi Tina, it's Alan) and honestly in my "less than expert" opinion (I'm open for input) the course was not set up right. There shouldn't be shotgun targets that are that far and also have slugs involved. To me if you have to push the boundaries of what is safe then it isn't a good set-up. Most of the guys that did well on that course shot the steel with a pistol but even that is a pretty long shot unless you're really good with a pistol.

^^^^^^^Same here...just put mine on last night on my M&P Pro CORE 5" 9mm and it fit perfect...snapped right on. Put it on in 5 minutes with zero hitches. I have the TTI extensions and they fit together perfect. I do have to say that it was a booger bear getting the extensions on my mags. Holding the spring and sliding them on was very difficult since the extensions are such a tight fit (which is good). So a bit of advice that worked for me...I used the old standard base pad to hold the spring down...then slowly pushed the TTI base pad on while sliding the standard base off. It worked like a champ. Hopefully that will help others that try to do this in the future.

You're welcome Magsz! Thanks for the clarification Gooldylocks.

Thanks Jayce! That really does help. Hearing from someone that has the exact same gun makes me feel better.

Can someone that has some experience with sights for the M&P CORE add some input on front and rear sights and some of the considerations when choosing the proper ones? There are a lot of different options: Rear Sights .245 tall rear sight (requires a .180 tall front sight) .265 tall rear sight (requires a .200 tall front sight) .295 tall rear sight (requires a .230 tall front sight) .115, .125, .135, .145, .145 Notch options Front Sights .125-.360 tall .080-.140 wide options There are so many options that it is making my head spin! LOL So...a little about me. I am probably going to shoot my CORE with only iron sights to begin with in production but I did get the Trijicon RMR optic that I will use at some point when I'm ready to move to open. My thoughts were that I would get the lowest front and rear sights I can for shooting iron sights only. I guess if I add my optic then that would work well if I don't want my iron sights interfering with the red dot when I add it. On the flip side there might be some advantage to having the irons sight co-witness with the dot and have it sit right on top of the front iron sight. I'm leaning towards the .245 tall rear (have no idea what notch option) with the .180 tall rear (no idea of how wide I would need). I've seen the Dawson Precision front sight chooser PDF that talks about how to calculate the required height of your front sight to adjust for shooting too high or too low. I guess if I go with a .118 front sight it would give some room to go up or down with the front height slightly if I need to fine tune the elevation of my shots. http://www.dawsonprecision.com/images/Instructions/FrontSightHeight.pdf Thoughts? Ideas? Concerns? Pluses and minuses? HELP?

I have an EOtech on my SBR/AR Pistol. I added a Vortex VMX‑3T 3X Magnifier with Flip Mount. It is only $250 vs EOtech's version that is $550. It co-witnesses perfectly and I think the quality is pretty good. Only issue I've had is that it is a little bit uncomfortable to flip it to the right. You have to place your right thumb on top of the magnifier, push the button on the front of the hinge with your right pointer finger and cock it off to the side. That might take up some time switching hands during a competition but with a little work it would be manageable. I opted to get a 1x4 scope with 45 degree iron sights for competition so I don't have to mess with it. The trend, if not the new norm, is to go with 18" barrels, scopes (1x4, 1x6, now 1.5x8) and 45 degree iron sights for close stuff. Almost every pro I see and all the new competition ready ARs are configured this way.

Thanks taktasz and trgt. I agree. It's not about the equipment but having great equipment will at least help you make sure you know you are the one messing things up.

Thanks mjohn! I think sometimes we just get into this mode of adding everything we can to a gun that seams to be "cool" and forget it is really about making it more functional. I think I'm just going to stick to the factory mag release button.

Has anyone had problem with accidentally hitting the extended mag release with the palm of their weak hand? I'm using a pretty firm off hand grip (left palm on grip, thumb on slide and fingers around the front of the trigger guard) to reduce muzzle rise. I place my palm right about where the release is. I would like the extended mag release but would hate to dump a mag accidentally during a stage. Thoughts?

I just put on the Dawson Precision grip pack (doesn't cover the back strap) from shootersconnection.com and it fits perfect...amazingly perfect. It looks great and feels good. Comes in a pack of 3 for $15. They are laser cut out of a square so you can use the extra material to put a piece on the slide where your thumb rests (weak hand) and on the front of the trigger if you want. Very impressed. 036-515 BLK Dawson Grip Tape for S&W M&P, Set of 3 (Black) $14.99

I'm not sure where they are getting their weights for the M&P 5" guns. Everything I find (straight from the S&W website and Cabellas) says that the Pro and Pro CORE 5" 9mm is 26 oz..same weight...the Pro and Pro CORE 40's are 24 oz. Where does that extra weight they have added on there for the regular Pro 5" come from?

Total newbie here...don't have 1200 posts and haven't shot in a competition yet...so please be nice. As someone new getting into this I can see where jumping right into an Open Division match would be a little scary. Especially with some of the $3000-5000 guns I've seen. Every other sport I've seen bases their divisions on skill level more than equipment. I used to play racquetball in tournaments and they had Novice, D, C, B, A and Open divisions. You could have the best equipment made but if you were new you probably weren't that skilled so it didn't make a difference. I had a friend on the US National Team that could beat me with a ping pong paddle. Some people would "sandbag" and play a lower level than they should be once they won a couple of tournaments they would be guilted into moving up. I just bought an M&P Pro CORE 5" pistol and added the Trijicon RMR on it...mostly because I thought it was cool. I can see the point of Production is Production and in my mind if you're going to be calling it Production then really there shouldn't be any mods allowed. If you don't like the M&P trigger then buy another gun with a trigger you like, etc. By the same token I can't see the harm in allowing people to "tune" their guns with better parts like triggers, internals, barrels, etc. without going as far as porting barrels and slides, comps, mag wells, optics, etc. My personal suggestion would be to have something between "Novice" or "Production" and "Open" or "Do whatever the heck you want and can afford". So a "light modified/production optics" division would make sense. To me the divisions need to be competitive but not to the point where someone can't see themselves competing to win. I'm not looking to be a Pro but wouldn't mind the idea of being able to win a match without dumping my entire 401k on equipment. So, I'd be in favor of any changes (if necessary) to give the little guy a chance.

Chuck, Just to confirm...the Dawson sights you mentioned were for a CORE? Needed to clarify since there were some mixed 9 Pro comments. I just bought a CORE 9mm 5" with the Trijicon RMR. I'm thinking I really need to get my shooting down without the Trijicon on there but don't really like the standard CORE sights. Also, don't know if you can shoot all 3 gun matches with an optic? Thanks in advance for your help!

Thanks pmt and Jadeslade for the info on the front sight and rib width. This is a great forum and stocked with incredible information. I'm sure my 1301 is going to be kick ass with all of your help!!!

I'm trying to find the specs on the Front sight and rib width for a 1301 Comp. I'd like to see if there are other options for sights. Any ideas where I'd find this info?