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WJM

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Posts posted by WJM

    WJM's road to Master

    in Range Diary

    Posted

    Shot my last USPSA match before my first Major this upcoming weekend. Match overall went alright. There were a few stages that everything just clicked on. I had several stages with almost every hit being an Alpha, and only had 2-4 charlies. Then we had a really long distance one while moving on wooden planks in the rain, that I kinda screwed up. I am not one for excuses but damn it that is a hard thing to do. I dont really know how I am supposed to practice for sliperry pieces of wood that I am supposed to walk on and shoot on but hey it turned out alright. I zeroed the classifier Disaster Factor, because apparently that thing has a freakish hit factor for production and basically everyone else. The highest person at the match was around a 70% so basically once I saw I pulled a close delta/charlie I plugged two into the no shoot.

    One thing that my dad and I did differently at this match was at the end of the match or rather on the last stage we bet lunch and the bet was we had to stay in the box and shoot everything from one position. This was hardly optimal as the targets were around 30 yards away and they were angled so we could see maybe 20% of the alpha zone. Obviously neither of us were going for the stage win here but it was a good experience for both of us to practice on long distance shooting.

    I had two mikes that match, one was on a close target that I knew better than I just rushed it, the other was on a 35 yard partial with hardcover. I was pretty pissed about both of these just because I wanted to shoot the match clean. So what did I do? Next day I went out and in live fire had a box at 50, 30, and 15 and practiced partials. Start in 50 yard box, shoot 3 targets, reload and run up to 30 and shoot 3 targets, reload, run up to 15 and shoot those targets.

    A couple things I really practiced hard on in the match was having a lower center of gravity when shooting and moving, completing my reload for the most part before I run full speed, and having my gun aiming before I got into position. In the video I kind of look stupid slow to myself when entering a position, but this was the first real time I had tried this. Really wanted to get it right and not engrain bad habits if that makes sense.

    Here is the match video if anyone is reading this please critique it I have thick skin.

    Thanks,

    Wyatt

    Reload at 10 yards?

    in Skills

    Posted

    I dont think sub 1.0 reloads at 10 yds with A's is actually very realistic with most anybody...let alone GM's

    That's haulin for 10 yds. as well as, if you actually broke that down within a classifier run or even shot to shot, everything would have to be absolutely perfect to achieve sub 1.0.

    I think I can reload fairly quick. Some might even say "sporty" even. But a CONSISTENT reload at sub 1.0 or even at 1.0 isn't realistic.

    If you think you're losing time on El Prez due to a 1.2-1.3 reload, I'd ask you to look at the data again and convince yourself otherwise. Look at the draw and more importantly, the 4 transitions times. If your transitions aren't at least matching your splits, there's your "low hanging fruit"

    Well, let's break it down then. YouTube "3 second el presidente," and you win find a Ben stoeger video of a 3.76 run, and a Vogel run of 3.67. So, let's use that.

    3.67 raw time minus let's say .9 seconds for a draw gives us 2.77 seconds.

    2.77 seconds minus the 1.2 second reload you claim is perfectly adequate for very fast times leaves us 1.57 seconds.

    The first 10 remaining splits gives us an exceptionally sporty .157 average splits and transitions. I'm an A, and I've shot maybe one .16 split, ever. Doing 5 of them in a row, with transitions, seems inhuman to me at my current skull level.

    Same math but with a .9 second reload gives us .187 splits and transitions, which, while fast, is much more doable. I can shoot in the .19 range (though not with guaranteed alphas at 10 yards by any means haha), and I bet lots of shooters could.

    What does all this mean? I respectfully disagree that a fast reload isn't important for fast el prez times, and I would say the math agrees.

    BUT none of that is super applicable to regular stage shooting. Reloads are almost always masked by movement in this game.

    To be fair the original question was in regards to a GM run on El Pres, which to do that is around a 1.3 second reload as you have already stated.

    I agree though, to say that you get sub 1 second reloads on a 10 yard target is a little unrealistic. POSSIBLY with an open gun, massive magwell, and a dot. But I think for a production shooter the average would be around 1.2 or so seconds.

    But in regards to the videos you are referencing lets be fair here. The difference between a regular GM and Ben Stoeger or Bob Vogel is massive, and in all reality I don't know how you could compare a regular GM and those guys. I would have to believe they are probably pushing that drill to its absolute limits, and I would judge that they have a .85 draw and reload.

    Either way to me this is all about a drill, that as we discussed can be hundo'd with a 1.5 second draw and load.

    Wyatt

    Chic (Hwansik) Kim

    in Range Diary

    Posted

    Knowing you and your determination this small mistake won't slow you down at all, if anything it will only speed you up more and make you more difficult to beat ;)

    Either way it was good shooting.

    Wyatt

    FTF

    in Tanfoglio (EAA / IFG)

    Posted

    Well between Praetorian and I, I think we have solved this issue.

    I was getting close enough to selling this gun I was so frustrated but Praetorian told me to try out a new mag spring in the magazine just on the offhand that the new spring solved my issues.

    Low and behold it did. Luckily I had ordered a new magazine so that I have 6 of them, and I was able today to run a flawless practice session with this one unmolested magazine. Actually I did have issues when I ran bullets longer than 1.145 but I knew that would happen but I wanted to shoot them anyways.

    I ordered +5% magazine springs from Ben Stoeger, and I am hoping to be able to have those for this next saturdays match and I will update everyone how they are going. They have a chrono at my next match and I am hoping to have a load developed with 165 extremes at around 4.3 gr of Titegroup, at 1.135 I believe that will be around 133 pf.

    Thanks for all the help,

    WJM

    WJM's road to Master

    in Range Diary

    Posted

    Got my gun back to working today. Found out it was a mag spring issue, so I have ordered extra power springs from Ben Stoeger to hopefully help negate this problem in the future. Luckily I ordered another magazine (that way I could have 6 at any time), so I was able to practice today malfunction free with my gun.

    We mainly ran the classifier 09-02, which has a good set of skills I wanted to practice because I have been doing them in dry fire. Helped a lot confirm that my turn draw practice is going well, and also helped shoot at a cadence that fit in well with no shoots (around a .35 split). I was able to consistently get GM scores on this, and when I pushed it a little bit I ended up with around a 110% run or so. It felt good.

    Did around 2 hours of dry fire today. Mainly was practicing on ammo pickups and unloaded starts. I switched to bullets out finally and for good, and so it has been a little of a transition to figure out how to put the mags into the pouches efficiently and fast. I was able to get them going really fast and also able to learn to do reloads bullets out much faster and more consistent. Have the mags face out it allows me to get a more sure grip on the edge of the mags with my pointer finger, and it also allows an easier insertion into the magwell.

    Also did some wide transtions (90 degrees and 180 degrees) I did this drill with hardcover targets (because there are a ton of partials at Idaho) and I found that at least for 180 degree transitions it is fastest and more consistent for me to bring the gun in and then quickly push it out. If I drive it with my sights I am just too slow and inconsistent. With 90 degree transitions I found that simply moving the gun with my eyes is best and quickest, bringing the gun in takes too much time.

    Thanks for reading,

    WJM

    WJM's road to Master

    in Range Diary

    Posted

    Fun couple of days. Still trying to get my Tanfo running 100% but I think it is close now.

    Went to a match last night and it froze up on my but no big deal. Shot a glock and won a stage, so I was happy with that. I still have been doing regular dry fire of around an hour to 3 hours a day. Also have been getting live fire practice in.

    Classifier results are in and it shows I am sitting at 83.31%! Right on! Moving up one class at a time, so right now I am in A class, but very very close to Master. I should be able to bump up with this weekend classifier, and probably with Idaho sectionals classifier.

    Thanks,

    Wyatt

    WJM's road to Master

    in Range Diary

    Posted · Edited by WJM

    Shot a match this weekend, and with school finally out I have been able to commit to a much more goal oriented and strenuous dry fire plan from Stoegers dry fire Bible. I have been doing around 2-3 hours a day for the last week or so, and my results have shown. I am still working out slight issues with the gun that are costing me precious time and HF's but thats okay I know where my skills are and how they are growing.

    I have been using liquid grip (thanks Tom Nelson and Ben Stoeger) and that has helped a TON with my grip. Not so much holding the gun more, but getting a more consistent grip every single time with the gun. It could be placebo but whatever it is it is working so why question it.

    I have finally been able to do some more live fire (the weather and school have been making that difficult) and I am getting some pretty good results. Did a few bill drills, had an average of 1.9 seconds, with the fastest being a 1.88. Felt good, my draw was around a .97 or so, and the splits were getting around a .19 .18 ish, and so I am feeling good about that. Also did the 4 aces drill, and unfortunately it will be a while until I can beat Stoegers goal time for this drill by a lot. At 5 yards I am still around 2.3-2.4 but I feel like it should be faster. I have heard he takes it to like 2.1 and damn I just don't know how to cut on my reloads. I am much faster at reloading with the Glock (.95-1.05) but the tanfo has so many advantages to the Glock that I can accept a reload of 1.1-1.2.

    I haven't really been shaving much time off in dry fire, as in I have been doing all the drills at now the goal times that Stoeger sets (some .2 seconds faster or so) but I have been focusing a lot more on a VERY firm grip and watching my sights not move at all along with a straight to the rear trigger press. This has helped a ton especially in a match where I know I have the ability to go faster than I am dry firing in.

    Here is my match video, I really screwed the pooch on this match. The second stage I had a mental error and just lost track of the sights and the trigger. Happened on stage 1 and stage 2. I was able to catch back up to the pack on the last 3 stages (one of which was a overall stage win) but still I am pissed that I lost my cool on one of the stages. It probably didn't help that the entire day it rained more in one day than it has in 3 months, and we were running through puddles and ponds of rainwater, but hey any condition right?

    WJM

    New grips!

    in Tanfoglio (EAA / IFG)

    Posted

    Someone clue me in, they have LESS surface area touching your skin, which will result in less friction which will result in less "grip" felt?

    Someone explain this to me?

    WJM

    Your skin goes in the holes and mechanically locks in place. That's pretty much how all high friction surfaces work: blacktop, grip tape, knurling, mud tires, etc.

    Would your hands get more traction on a sheet of ice or on a bed of nails?

    High surface area always results in more friction. Thats one of the primary functions of friction in the equation.

    I am just saying to me I would rather have a high surface area one that is grippy (skateboard tape, liquid grip on hands, Extreme grips)

    But thats just me.

    WJM

    FTF

    in Tanfoglio (EAA / IFG)

    Posted

    I have a new theory regarding this issue.

    My thoughts are this, in my .40 it seems to get very very dirty and hard carbon build up on the feed ramp that is very difficult to remove. If I shoot more than around 100 rounds the carbon build up starts to happen. After looking down the magwell of the gun during one of these issues I realized that the edge of the brass wasn't touching the extractor or anywhere near the breach face as I had had originally thought. I think now that the extra carbon build up on the area between the feed ramp and the barrel, (the edge of the feed ramp? Don't know the name) was getting just enough build up to causing the round to get pushed up at too much of an angle.

    Thoughts?

    WJM

    FTF

    in Tanfoglio (EAA / IFG)

    Posted

    Thought I had this issue solved. Took the gun to a match yesterday and it went through 4 stages clean no issues (that weren't my fault completely)

    Got to stage 5, had 4 malfunctions on the one stage. Took my mags apart, cleaned them, checked the gun for issues I thought all was well.

    Next stage I had 6 malfunctions, all with different mags, and one of them locked the gun up and almost wouldn't allow me to eject the bullet. I am past the point of sanity with this gun I just want to know what to do.

    I put in a new extractor thinking this would help, it ran a few rounds in dry fire without an issue then the same issue happened again. Then I decided to make some bullets shorter, so I made some rounds at 1.115 OAL and they still had an issue.

    I honestly don't know what the issue is, but if anyone knows a solution I would be forever in their debt.

    Thanks,

    WJM

    Match elite 9mm ftf problem.

    in Tanfoglio (EAA / IFG)

    Posted · Edited by WJM

    Read further down the post, I had the same issue as you. I had to remove my extractor and polish it out. Thought that the problem was solved, had it happen once more and now I am just going to buy a new extractor and hopefully that fixes it.

    WJM

    WJM's road to Master

    in Range Diary

    Posted · Edited by WJM

    Completed the first of my goals for this year! First was to take 1st place at one of the clubs around here. Finally did that for my division, and also finally took first over someone that I have been actively working my butt of trying to beat.

    We shot an all steel match which was nice but I had a alright day. The gun didn't malfunction once, so that was a good part, but I just could NOT hit what I was aiming at. I had 2 stage wins where everything came together, but on all the rest of them I just had a few too many misses on steel. And that eats up the time over the course of a match.

    Had a really good stage that involved a start position at around 35 yards from the targets, had to shoot 5 targets then move to a box at 30 yards, then 25, 20, 15, 10 and that was it. I ended up with a 3rd place time I believe and I had 2 make up shots. I was happy with how my trigger control was coming along and I know that I can still work on that some more.

    I ended up losing 1st overall by around 5 seconds (I hit a no shoot on one of the stages and that cost me it) but overall I really do think today was more of a grip problem. I just wasn't able to get my grip on a consistent basis, so I decided that it would be best to buy some pro grip from Ben Stoeger and see how that works. I have used some of my friends and that really helped so I think that will help me a little bit. Another thing that I think affected me was I SO'd for the day and that was a little more stressful and busy than I was used to when shooting.

    Finals week is this week and next, which means 10 days and I can dry fire and live fire about as much as I want. I plan on meal prepping every day and I should be able to lose a few pounds between then and my first sectional match. I am hoping to be around 225-235 (right now I am round 247) and I am hoping to put on more muscle mass. Also hoping to get back to dry firing an hour a day, (I have done this this week and last but before that I stopped for a bit).

    Thanks for reading,

    WJM

    WJM's road to Master

    in Range Diary

    Posted · Edited by WJM

    182 rounds without a malfunction, didn't clean it and then ran 200 more out of the gun that night. Not a single malfunction so I think that I have finally figured this out. (Just in time after a classifier match right?)

    Did some live fire with my dad and a friend of ours who shot single stack. We made a small stage that involved some ~17 yard no shoot partials along with a ~22 yard open target. It involved a lot of shooting while into and out of positions, tight reloads, and fast transitions. I felt like I was doing pretty good, and I kept up with a Limited Master Class shooter that joined us.

    After doing this drill we used the same targets and did a shooting and moving (forward and back) drill at targets at 17 and 20 yards. I found out my limit to accurately shoot alphas while moving is around 17 yards, any further than that and they really open up to the charlie and delta zone. We also compared times when we would run up to a spot and just shoot them. Its about sixers for me (actually moving and shooting is around .3 seconds faster) but I was more accurate while not moving. However I know that if the targets were closer than that 17 yard distance it would be a completely different story and it would be much faster to just move and shoot.

    Did some dry fire and made a couple mock stages. Consistently I am pulling a .6-.7 draw with this gun, and still around a 1.0 second reload. I tried and tried and tried to bring it down some more, but in the end I decided if I can do a reload that fast why would I ever need to go faster? I may come back to this and try some more but for right now I am happy with that.

    Still using the extreme bullets in this gun and I like them a lot more. They have just enough of a snap to the gun to cause it to feel fast enough but not a massive rise in the gun sights. I am starting to get .16 splits with this gun and trigger, and thats about as fast as I can accurately shoot alphas at ~5 yards or so.

    I have the Idaho Sectional coming up and I am hoping to do good at that match, also have sign ups for the Utah State Championships which will be a fun match!

    WJM

    WJM's road to Master

    in Range Diary

    Posted

    Went out and shot some rounds in live fire last night. Ended up shooting 182 rounds and didn't have a single malfunction which is good news for the gun! Turns out when the gun runs I can sometimes shoot fast!

    My dad and I primarily shot a drill to teach us setting up in a position. I learned a few things from running this drill several times. The first thing I learned was that if the movement out of a position into a position is more than 3-4 steps it is better to drop the gun to a "chest 1" position (I know I laughed as well at that reference) and then push the gun back out when I get to position, than trying to keep the gun up. However if it is less than a 3-4 step position to position it ends up being better to transition directly and then have the gun up and ready as I am in position. I also learned that my shooting as I am leaving a position as well as shooting on the move is really improving. While shooting and moving or exiting a position all my hits were alphas, with most of them being grouped in 1-3 inches.

    We ran the accelerator a few times but by then my hand was starting to hurt so no new real strides in that department. I had an average run of 6.05 seconds so that was good for me but my draw was suffering bad because of my hand.

    I am going to practice tonight, and hopefully get some dry fire in tomorrow if I have time. If not I will get it done Thursday. I have a steel match that I am RO'ng and shooting on Saturday so that will be the real test to see if my gun will function properly for a lot of rounds in one day.

    WJM

    FTF

    in Tanfoglio (EAA / IFG)

    Posted

    The weird thing with 180 gr's is I couldn't for the life of me get faster than a .23 split out of it. It was almost like the slide was slower than my trigger finger. (I know how crazy this sounds but thats how it felt). Anyways when I would do Bill Drills or blake drills or anything like that I would end up being slower than I was with my Glock before I switched guns.

    When I switched to 165's they helped with snap, and once I added that pressure (I assume thats what caused this) it gave it just enough kick to have the slide go as fast as I can pull the trigger. Now I can consistently get into the .18's and even a few .16's.

    Overall very happy with Nealio's advice to move to Extremes. Even happier that a few of my friends in Utah who are sponsored by Extreme have 5% off discounts that make those bullets that much cheaper.

    WJM

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