WYgunner

I learned from the best!

I shot an indoor match at CGC tonight. As with the prior indoor match, things went pretty rough. Before the match I realized that my front sight was loose. My sight is pinned into place, but it developed a reasonable amount of movement. I started the match on the classifier and struggled to find any type of sight picture as a result of the low lighting conditions. I decided to push through the blindness and ended up with 3+ mikes (scores are not posted yet). As far as I could see, my sight picture looked adequate for the shots required. The following stage was a close blaster stage and it went fairly well although I pretty much point shooted (shot?) the whole stage. After the quick stage, I shot a stage that I designed. It consisted of triangular shooting area with a lot of tight shots/no-shoots. I ended up with a mike and two no-shoots. Once again, I felt like I called my shots adequately, only to be surprised with penalties. The final stage had a plate rack and then a series of angled targets through multiple ports. Since the match was a wash, I decided to experiment with my front sight by removing the fiber tube all together. This was a terrible idea when it came to shooting plates because the sight almost completely disappeared. For paper, the idea partially worked as the ambient light shined through the front of the fiber hole. Overall, I still think the green fiber tube is the least worst for low light. I have realized that my indoor vision has deteriorated. I think this is a result of practicing outside. I shot indoor frequently over the winter and I was able to train my eyes to work in the low lighting conditions. Now I feel like I am completely blind when shooting. Bottom line, I think I am going to take a break from indoor shooting over the summer. I like the option of shooting indoor during the winter, but there isn't much incentive to struggle through the low lighting conditions when I can regularly shoot outdoors.

I shot a match yesterday at AGC; ended up taking first in limited and 2nd overall. My stage plans felt pretty solid and I ended up finding a different path on a particular stage which saved a considerable amount of time. My reloads are going better and I felt like they weren't a hindrance with the exception of one stage where I had to shake the mag out of the magwell. I am starting to realize that the timing on my gun is a little odd and I may need to take video footage of the gun in recoil as it seems like I am waiting for it to return on occasion. This may be a result of springs, 200gr bullets, or both. Steel shooting went particularly well and I ended up firing 9 shots on a total of 8 pieces of steel throughout the match. I felt like I was much more patient and it ended up paying off in terms of time. I shot the match clean and ended up with no mikes and zero no-shoots. Overall everything felt pretty solid although I could work on shooting more aggressively through splits and transitions. I can't post links yet, but the videos can be found on my YouTube page, WYgunner.

Any footage of the field courses?

I find it very hard to believe that the DVC will not accommodate longer OALs like the Edge. Maybe Dustin can clarify for us? There is no geometry change between the two pistol that I am aware. Thanks for clarifying.

I find it very hard to believe that the DVC will not accommodate longer OALs like the Edge. Maybe Dustin can clarify for us?

Practiced tonight; I set up three targets in a diamond pattern. If you imagine a baseball diamond, the targets were at 1st, 2nd and 3rd. I stood on what would be the pitcher's mound and practiced transitions from target to target. I forgot my timer at home, so actual times were not obtainable. My intent was to speed up my transitions between targets. I noticed that it was very difficult to not over-swing targets and the quickest transitions (at least they felt the fastest/smoothest) were achieved by anchoring my inside foot and using my outside foot to swing. I tried using my inside foot to transition (reverse pivot) and it was considerable less stable and slower. I utilized no-shoots on the 1st and 3rd base targets and I noticed that my groups were much tighter than those on the open target at the 2nd base position. I think this comes down to refining my aiming point and picking a specific spot on the target rather than just aiming at brown. I integrated reloads into the drill and focused on keeping the gun high and staring into the magwell. Keeping the gun high made a big difference on follow-up shots. There was much less movement of the gun and post load shots seemed to be faster. One thing I noticed is that I need to work on re-forming my grip after reloads. It seems somewhat slow and post-load shots can be difficult to keep on target at times; the sight tends to disappear. Finally, I worked on relaxing my face when I draw as it was pointed out that I have an immense amount of tension. This was very difficult and something that needs to be worked on. Keeping my face relaxed allowed for much smoother draws and less effort to get the gun on target.

I would have to defer to Char-ree on that.

Your link doesn't work.

I wish; no one can keep up with the great white ninja.

Practiced yesterday: Set up a drill with two different ports. One port had a double stack target with a no-shoot and another port had a long piece of steel. I practiced drawing to the low port, shooting two shots and reloading to the other port. The best time I could accomplish was around 3.5 secs. It was very apparent that looking into the magwell is essential to a proper reload while moving. I experienced my common reload error where my hand is on the bottom of the mag and the angle is completely wrong in relation to the gun. If I delayed the insertion of the magazine just a fraction, this problem went away. I did fairly well keeping the gun high. I also worked on this drill from right to left doing a backwards/left reload. Surprisingly, these loads felt smoothly then my left to right reloads. Unfortunately, I can't remember my time. I finished by shooting strong and weak handed.

Welcome to Colorado. Make sure you check out ecouspsa.com for match information. Also, he didn't mention anything, but MarkCO is a great CO resource for 3G.

Paramajik, I highly recommend CHA-LEE. You can find him on the forum and PM him. I have taken multiple classes from him and he has a deep understanding of the sport. If you want to verify his track record, just look at every match shot in the EcoUSPSA section and you will start to notice a trend.

Did some quick dry-fire tonight. Worked on reloads while moving forward; I noticed that I am trying to smash the magazine in the magwell rather than guiding it in. I few times I found myself with my hand on the bottom of the mag and the mag at a non-loadable angle in the magwell. Staring at the magwell and keeping my upper body still seems to help mitigate missed loads while moving. It is going to take a while getting used to staring into the magwell while moving and loading. I am focusing on going more half-speed until I can expedite this motion while staying under control.

I shot a match yesterday at PPPS and took 2nd in limited. I ended up finishing roughly 88% of the winner who is a legitimate GM. My percentage of points shot including penalties was approximately 94%. Overall, the match went pretty well and I felt like I was accurately calling shots although I made up a couple of shots that didn't need to be. This was one of the first matches where my brain was in third person processing my shooting and I was able to focus on shooting A's rather than just going blank and shooting at targets. The amount of effort required to shoot A's, especially on closer targets, is minimal in comparison to willy-nilly blasting. The only difference is it requires a little more awareness. I picked up some misses on steel as a result of using a vague focus and not defining my front sight. The majority of my reloads felt like a hindrance to my stage performance as I was waiting a few times to commence blasting. In contrast, there was once stage that required one-handed blasting and I wasn't concerned with it at all as I have been practicing one-handed shooting on a regular basis. Shooting at least one magazine strong and weak hand has gradually increased my confidence when required to shoot one-handed in matches. We had a particularly awesome squad with a lot of experienced shooters, so that resulted in a fairly quick tempo and good conversation. It is always nice to have people to bounce ideas off of and get input in regards to various strategies. It also creates an atmosphere were you expect to perform well. I have found that it is highly beneficial for me to squad with higher class shooters as I tend to shoot at the level of my competition. It has become readily apparent that I need to resolve my reloading issues. I think this is a combination of the pouches I am using, their position on my body and my posture. My goal is to become a reloading boss as I find the act of reloading quickly to be particularly fun. More to come on the solution...

Went out and ran some drills with a friend yesterday. We set up a drill that consisted of a close paper w/no shoot, long steel shot, and another close paper. The objective of the drill was to draw and blast two alphas, transition to the long steel, move to the next position, shoot two alphas immediately upon entering and then finish on the long steel. This drill proved to be fairly challenging as it was somewhat difficult to to go from ultra blast mode to hitting a tough steel shot. The best sequence (2 paper shots/1 steel) I achieved at the first position was 1.80. with a a 1.06 draw. The best overall time was around 4.80 if I recall correctly. I noticed that stepping into the second position and immediately shooting could be very choppy at times. The spread of alphas was very large and random. I was able to mitigate the choppiness by entering the position lower and bearing down on my grip. It also helped to soften my steps while shooting. I noticed one thing that was difficult to prevent was standing up to shoot the last steel shot. This definitely added around .30 to the overall time. This is definitely something to work on. I worked on picking up my sight sooner as Panda recommended and it worked well at times. It is definitely worth experimenting with looking at the ground/midpoint during the draw to aid in the focal transition from far to near. Reloads from the first position to the next were rough in the beginning. Once I deliberately starting "looking" them into the gun, my times improved. I have come to the realization that I never actually "look" my loads into the gun during matches. I thought I did, but I am pretty sure I am starting at targets/white space during the process. It was interesting because staring at the gun felt incredibly slow, but it ended up being much faster in the long run. As I promised, I finished the session by shooting with my strong and weak hands. I am correctly anchoring my unused hand and blading my stance. One thing that I noticed is that I have been doing fairly well with using my hips to transition while shooting freestyle, but as soon as I start shooting one handed, it turns into an arm movement. I worked on using my hips and found that this can be especially helpful during one handed shooting as the transitions are much smoother and purposeful.

I definitely think that the my lost time is coming from acquiring the sight once the gun is on target. I have watched videos of myself and the gun is out fairly quickly, but the shot occurs about 0.3 secs later as Panda mentioned. I switched to the "scoop" draw two different times and found that while it was slightly quicker out of the holster, the shots were not breaking any sooner as I was always trying to adjust my grip. Occasionally, if I missed the draw, I ended up with the patented side grip. The answer may be to eliminate any additional motion over the top and minimize it to just enough to form my grip like Toter was mentioning. I am going to try and force myself to look for the sight sooner rather than staring at the target. I also need to clean up my weak hand as I form my grip because I miss the proper grip on occasion. I need to focus on ninji chopping the trigger guard immediately when the gun comes out of the holster. Yesterday I practiced again and worked on steel transitions. i set up three steel targets and focused on using my legs to accelerate from target to target. With steel I notice that I still have to pause for just a moment longer to call a hit. I started the drill by drawing to a 12" piece of steel at 13 yards, then transitioning 10 feet to an 8" plate on the left, then back to the center plate and finishing with a transition to another 8" plate on the right. The fastest I could accomplish this drill was 3.06 secs. I ran the drill with both strong and week hand and noticed that I really tend to swing my arms when shooting one handed. Consciously using my legs will take some practice to make it feel natural with strong and weak hand.

Practiced yesterday; worked on the following: 1) Set-up transitions from easy blaster targets to 8 inch steel swingers. Worked on aggressively blasting paper and then smoothly transitioning to the small steel. Visual patience is key as it was tough to stop on the plate and hit it with one shot will transitioning aggressively. The best draw was around 1.06; I am considering going back to the scoop draw as I am losing at least .10 from the additional downward motion. 2) Worked on turn and draws. The best I could get was 1.16 sec to the first shot. I noticed that if I pre-load my pivot foot it makes the turn much easier and faster. Focused on snapping my head to acquire the target sooner. This is one area I noticed that the blade-tech holster provides more resistance than the race master. I have to focus on pulling the gun straight up, otherwise it results in a binding/dragging type of draw/ 3) Shot all arrays strong and weak hand. This is going to be a regular occurrence; every time I shoot, I will at least shoot one mag with both strong and weak hand.

Sorry for the delay. The first load I tried was a 255g Extreme flat point over 3.6gns of WST loaded at 1.265" OAL with a crimp of 0.470." Brass was mixed, primers were Federal LP and the temperature was approximately 60 degrees. This load produced the following velocities: 509, 549, 560, 558, 524. The average was 540fps. There was an outlier of 59 which was removed because it was obviously an error. For the second load, I decided to shorten the OAL because it seemed fairly close to the end of the chamber. I shortened the load to 1.230" with all other factors unchanged besides temperature which was approximately 50 degrees. This load produced velocities of 562, 604, 600, 614, 568 and 513fps. The average velocity was 576fps. Both loads were fairly light and the primers didn't look flat although we all know primers may not give us a true understanding of pressure. I think these loads are very dependent on powder position using such small charges as shown in the variances above. I am hoping that going with the shorter OAL will assist in reducing variances.

Thanks, I will post results for future reference.

This weekend I shot two matches. The first match was at CRC and was a bit of a "knock the rust off" type of event. I did fairly well, but I noticed that my tempo was a bit slower as I have not shot a match in over a month. Even so, I managed to take second to a well established GM at around 87% Things I learned: 1) Carefully choose how to enter into positions when running in beast mode. I planned to stand on the fault line on one stage but this quickly turned to shooting out of bounds. Entering positions lower may also help slow down my momentum 2) Keep practicing one-handed shooting/transitions. I have worked to integrate this into my dry fire and it didn't feel quite as foreign during the classifier which required one-handed shooting. 3) My steel shooting tempo needs to slow down just a fraction to ensure one shot, one hit. The second match went quite well and I ended up winning limited. All of the stages felt fairly solid with the exception of an all steel stage. I think my performance on this stage could have been improved with a better stage plan (less risk) and a more controlled tempo. I felt like I wanted to beast mode the stage and it didn't work out in my favor. One of the biggest things I learned during the match was that when I am running, I tend to inhibit reloads by obscuring my magazine. During one stage I intentionally kept my torso up and the mag change was much easier. Also, I noticed that I am hesitant to run quickly in fear that I might drop a mag. This has to be resolved asap because I think my running speed is one of my competitive advantages. I am thinking that Safariland mag pouches might be the ticket. Finally, I think it is time to replace my current shoes because I slipped, yet again, while running. This seems to be happening frequently and I believe it is because the nubs on my Solomons are very worn. I really like the shoes, but I think the longevity is somewhat poor. Stages are as follows: https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLzsV6J91tS7MKoT25F91sDMTjL7QEksdC

I did a search on the forum and found a little bit of information, but it was sparse. Does anyone have a 255g FP 45acp load using WST? I will be loading Xtreme plated bullets for use in a 625JM. I was going to start with 4.0gns loaded at 1.265." Thanks in advance.

That is close; It looks like the sight is deeper, but I don't see that it is any wider. Also, I noticed in the tech specs that they report that the notch dimensions are 0.112 W x 0.100 D which is the same dimensions as their standard sight. I am assuming it is 0.120 deep instead of 0.100. Even so, this may be a good starting point if the actual blade is taller and fits in an STI sight base. I could just have the blade cut and buy a taller front sight. My current sight is 0.145 W x 0.130 D and it seems to be fairly effective. Also, I don't see just the blade for sale; I am sure I could call them and make that happen.

Like I said, this may just be hearsay, but after going through the PDF, I think head separation claims may be related to to the fluting and/or the chamber chamfer. The specific instance I heard about is related to using Clays, but we all know that powder is prone to separations as is. Again, I can't confirm that the barrel has any type of issue; just trying to get everyone's two cents.

A friend recommended that I experiment with different sight set-ups and I have moved towards a wider/deeper rear notch. I have found that calling shots is much easier. The problem is, the notch on a traditional Bomar style sight can be widened, but it is very difficult to make deeper as a result of running into the top of the sight assembly. The sight I currently have has been milled to allow for a deeper notch. Generally, it seems that most people purchase tall fixed rear sights and then start cutting from there. Maybe I am missing something, but why doesn't someone just make a taller rear sight blade? This would allow for a bigger rear notch without modifying the Bomar style sight assembly. The front sight would obviously have to be taller to accommodate the height of the rear sight blade.