Ben Stoeger

I spent about 10k last year. It got me about 10 major matches/ammo/travel/etc. I do things on the cheap though. If you just shoot like 10 club matches and don't practice a lot you may well spend less than 1k.

I have had another week of training with my gun, mostly dryfire. I think I am into it for about 20 hours for the last 7 days. I had one real quick range session with the gun Saturday morning. Transitioning the 44 ounce gun around is taking some getting used to, but I am getting there. The draws and reloads are coming along. I am thinking that I should be good to go for nationals later in the year. That having been said, I really miss the feeling of having my gun be the subconscious extension of my body. I have had a couple hints of that with the new gun, but nothing like things used to be. At this point, there is no doubt in my mind that ultimately I will come out way ahead in this deal, it is just going to take some time.

You arent taking walk ons?

It was ok. It dragged on a bit at the end and they could have cut down a lot of the action.

How so?

Thanks man! That is encouraging.

I was guessing you learned about accuracy on the road to becoming a 5 gun master. Was this not the case?

Area 5 is all done. I had some challenges before the match. I didn’t have long to get my guns, test the setup, figure out that setup wasn’t going to run, get new parts, set the gun up, and test the setup. I had a really choppy match. The first few stages I was slow and inconsistent. The new gun wasn’t tracking all that well and I couldn’t swing it around that fast. I crashed hard on a stage (stage 6) and got extremely pissed. I stopped trying to muscle the gun around and drive it aggressively and then just chilled out and shot things as they came to me. I finished the day out strong, winning 3 stages in a row. I also won both the stand and shoot short courses in the overall results, that is a first for me at an Area match. The second day I just tried not to push the gun around fast because I couldn’t get it to line up for me. I boned up a stage pretty hard, but didn’t have too bad a day otherwise. I only went absolutely crazy on one stage, and that was the darkhouse. I knew I needed to make some magic happen on that stage to make up for my mistakes.

15lbs is the factory spring weight right? (just so we are clear) Thank you for the information.

What Hammer spring is in it? Does it pop everything?

What weight hammer spring will consistently set stuff off? I don't want to be restricted to federal primers. Also, what sort of DA weight do you get on your guns if you have your gun set up to detonate anything?

My new gat is treating me well. It shoots REAAAAALY nice. I am sorting out some technical issues with the setup right now. I need for it to detonate every primer I put in it, and it just wants to set off federals right now. I have springs coming tomorrow that will solve this issue. Drawing, reloading, and transitioning the gun is coming along pretty well. It weighs like half a pound more than my old gun, so it does feel weird when I am rocking and rolling between targets. I am not precise with that stuff yet, and likely wont be before Area 5. I am anticipating a dogshit performance against the Minkers. The other thing with this gun, (other than the insane accuracy potential) is that it has a much faster rhythm than my beretta… if that makes sense. Instead of waiting on the gun to come down out of recoil, the thing is waiting on me to shoot it faster. I have 6 days of training with it so far and 5 days left to put it together.

The Tanfoglio frame fits my hand a lot better.

Smart man

Just wait till you are shooting a Beretta.

Do you think that this approach is faster than prepping the trigger during the draw? I switched from an M&P to a CZ 75 earlier this year and have been trying to get most of the DA trigger pull done prior to refining sight alignment. Now I read that someone much faster than me stays off the trigger until much later in the first shot process and am scratching my head! The whole "Trigger Prep" thing has never worked for me with a DA trigger. I just roll that bad boy through when I want to smoke a target.

Looked fine to me

So you're typically not starting to crank the trigger until you've aligned the sights on target? I need to see high speed footage to be sure... but I don't think so. If the target is tougher than a 7 yard metric target I don't start on the trigger pull nearly so soon.

Aside from doing a lot of reps at high speed (where I really focus on getting a good grip on the gun) I am shooting closer targets with a little bit less of a sight picture. I am often on the trigger now just before the fiber comes up into the A zone on the close range stuff.

I just returned from my CFS (Competition Focused Shooting) Instructor Conference. Yes… that name is a joke. It was a 5 day long shooting and training event with a few highly motivated shooters. We built stages, trained, learned, and so on. I got updates from people on how their dry fire training was going, how their live fire was going, and so on. The progress made by other shooters using my materials is an important tool for me to know, because when I update or release new stuff I want it to be better. My most recent podcast dealt with the subject a bit, if you are interested in giving it a listen. In terms of my own shooting, I feel like I have made some progress since last year. I make the training so tough that it is hard to feel good about it sometimes… but I think I am learning. I had some 55 yard classic targets (for example) shot during field courses. I didn’t have a single mike on them… unless I put a no shoot on them and made them partials. That is a first for me. Draw times dropped a hair since last year on most drills, reloads are a bit more consistent, and so forth. All around, my shooting has gotten a bit better. I learned a lot about stage breakdown and execution during my time, as I was focused on big stages and not so much on little drills. To consistently shoot a big stage to the level of perfection that I am looking for is nearly impossible. I really enjoy the challenge, but damn it is tough. Shooting all As and going one for one on steel is so much easier said than done. More to come. More to come.

Depending on the scenario, the extra leverage may be better than being able to pull the trigger perfectly straight back.

Moving your finger to the joint is a leverage issue. It may help you, it may not. It isn't very popular in competitive shooting circles because most people don't use heavy triggers. I don't think you can work the trigger quite as fast when you use the joint, but with more leverage it should be easier to pull it straght on back. Hope this helps.