RAP

I’ve have a DPP on my CO Pistol over a year now and it’s still going strong. My only issue is when the battery gets low it goes to sleep. At the make ready command I may have to “tap” the sight to wake it up. Other than this no problems and I have over 12,000 rounds through this set up. I am very confident in the DPP. Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

Arnold Gun Club has a match June 24th. Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

I shoot a CZ P09 for carry optics. I use Grams 11 coil for my 140 mm length magazines. Sent from my iPad using Tapatalk

Mine does that occasionally as well. It “seems” to only do this when the battery gets old. I just tap the side of the sight and it comes right on. I need to conduct a study on this. Sent from my iPad using Tapatalk

In my CZ P09 I use the "gold" 15 pound hammer spring and I use the 18 pound flat wire recoil spring with CGW stainless guide rod. I also have the extended firing pin. Mine will reliably set off Federals, Winchesters and S&B. It will not with 100% reliability set off CCI's with the 15 pound hammer spring. If I need to use CCI's I have a 16 & 17 pound Wolff hammer springs that will reliably ignite the CCI's. My P09 has just about every spring/competition part CGW makes. It's one of the most reliable handguns I have ever owned.

5.5.2018 I saw an Orthopedic Surgeon Thursday. It's not good. I have indeed disconnected my tendon from my knee cap. Surgery scheduled for Monday at noon. I am grateful to get into surgery this quickly. Unfortunately this is a long recovery. I will be in a leg brace for 6 weeks and cannot bend my leg during that time to give the tendon time to reattach itself. Then I will start Physical Therapy and who knows how long that will last. So no driving, flying, etc for who knows how long. I have withdrawn from all matches I was signed up for through July. I am hopeful that I will be able to make the Illinois Sectional in August.

5.2.2018 Well, it looks like I won't be posting any training reports or matches in the Range Diary for a while. Yesterday evening was an evening of joy in the emergency room for a severe knee injury. While running and doing agility exercises with my son I heard and felt a familiar "pop" in my knee. It was very familiar to the same pop and recoiling movement under the skin I had when I tore my tricep. The emergency room Doctor said I most likely disconnected my tendon from my knee cap. He also went on to say, "Looks like you have a surgery in the near future". He wasn't 100% positive about the disconnected tendon because all the emergency room could do is take an X-ray. But when your knee cap isn't in the normal place, well you know something not right. So tomorrow morning I will see the Orthopedic Surgeon and he will send me out for an MRI so we can see what is really going on. Right now I can't drive because I'm on crutches and besides bending my knee hits a 20 on a pain scale of 1-10 which means I'm home bound and no traveling for work. Ugh.

I cast and buy coated bullets. I shoot a CZ with a bore that measures .355. I use ACME 147 grain flat point HI TEK coated sized .356 and measure .356. I also, cast a similar bullet style and HI TEK coat them and size them .357. Neither bullet leads as long as I have a proper bell on the case mouth when seating the bullet and I don't over crimp. My round count through the CZ is now a tad over 12,000 rounds. All of them except maybe 500 are HI TEK coated bullets. The 500 that are not coated are plated and jacketed bullets when I was doing load development when the gun was new. Some food for thought. My own cast bullets are sized .357; they do shoot a tad better in accuracy then the ACME's. However, the ACME bullet shoot almost as good and I use ACME without hesitation if I Don't have time to cast when I am running low on my cast bullets.

I use the Shotmxx 2 timer for dry fire practice. It picks up my hammer drop on my CZ P09. So far it works great. I have been using it for 6 months without issues. I have not used it in my live fire practice yet. Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

4.20.2018 I was back in town and able to dry fire practice Friday night. I started off with the simulated dot drill. I then moved to 90 degree transitions working on not pulling off target on the second shot when pushing speed. I then moved to reloads working on keeping the gun higher. Keeping the gun higher seems to help a lot with consistency. I also incorporated a drill where I draw fire 2 shots, reload and fire on different target. Lastly I worked on exit and entry drills. 4.21.2018 I managed to get in a quick live fire practice in. I started off shooting a dot drill. Then moved to wide transition drill. I started off with 2 targets 15 feet apart. I started at 10 yards and worked my way back to 20 yards. Next I worked on long range Bill Drills. I started at 15 yards worked back to 20 yards. Although this was a short practice it was my first live fire in sometime; and it really showed. My accuracy was terrible. I found myself pulling off targets on my 2 shot and not gripping the gun like I should. By the end of practice things started coming around and I was getting more A's consistently.

I load Sport Pistol for my 40 and 9mm. I really like SP. It’s my go to powder for 9 minor and 40 Major. My load for 40 is 4.7 grains SP. My standard deviation is 10 with this load. When I have a chance I want to try 4.65 grains. SP is very accurate and clean. Meters very well through my RCBS Pro 2000. Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

4.10.2018 I continued to work on fundamentals of draw, reloads and transitions. I added 5 minutes of strong hand and weak hand practice. Tonight I set up a basic El Prez target array at 10 yards and I worked on draws with hands at side, surrender draw and turning while drawing the gun. I worked on these drills for the first 15 minutes. I was surprised how quickly I was able to draw and fire at the 3 targets. My best speed was 2.12 seconds with .25 splits. I thought my Shottmax timer malfunctioned and tried it again. This time I did it in 2.18 seconds. I was pushing myself but, I was surprised. I was getting these speeds weather I was surrender or hands relaxed at sides. For turn and draw my best time was 2.47 seconds. I just couldn't manage any faster while turning. I cannot wait to try this in live fire to see what I can really do. Getting these speeds on a smooth concrete floor in my basement is one thing. Doing this outside on gravel/dirt will really test me. Next I moved to transition drills. I started with 90 degree transitions. I wanted to focus on using my lower body. I decided to try a little experiment. I timed my transitions using only my upper body, I averaged .79 seconds. When I would incorporate my lower body I cut .20 seconds off my time. I knew using my lower body in the transitions was the proper technique. Seeing how much difference it made was pretty cool. Last I worked on strong and weak hand shooting. With the larger back strap it was critical to practice these. I did notice with the larger back strap when I would grab the gun on drawing it felt like my hand was forced to grip higher. I think the more pronounced hump forces my hand to grip higher and more consistent. So for I am really liking the changes I have made.

4.9.2018 Tonight was a work on reloads and tweak my shooting rig night. I wanted to spend some time getting everything in the right positions. I waited to do this after a couple practice sessions so I could make adjustments once (I hope). I am really liking the larger back strap on my CZ; it feels really good. I will need to practice strong and weak hand shooting with this set up soon. Once I made tweaks to my rig I proceeded to work on Burkett drill. I did this drill for about 15 minutes. Really wanting to get a good handle on grabbing the magazine consistently and get used to the new set up. After i tweaked the locations and angles on the mag pouches I was able to grab the magazines more consistent. I was amazed how little changes made such a difference. I also focused on looking at the mag well on the gun and getting the gun into position faster. I still feel like I have a timing issue. I am getting the magazine to "position" ahead of the gun causing misses. I maybe off on my assessment, I will need to video and do some slow motion evaluations.

4.8.2018 Dry fire practice tonight was a focus on transitions and reloads. Before I started practice I decided to change my back strap to the large. Since I purchased this gun I've kept the medium size back strap on. After the match at Arnold Gun Club, I was speaking to my friend who just came back from Florida taking a Manny Bragg class. Keith explained what he learned from Manny about the size of the grip allowing proper length for the correct finger placement. (I hope I am explaining this right.) Anyway, I started with the Dot Drill. At first the larger grip felt strange. But after a few draws my grip settled in and I felt like I had better grip. After Dot Drill I moved to transitions. I kept the transition drill simple. I had 2 targets at 7 yards about 7 1/2' apart. I wanted to also incorporate drawing the gun into the transition drill to help work through the change in back strap. I performed both hands at side and surrender draws in this drill. For transitions I really wanted to focus on using my lower body in the transition and speed really driving the gun to the next target. I was getting my transitions into the .3 second range consistently. I am happy with this progress. After about 15 minutes of this drill I moved to practicing reloads. I performed 4 Aces and Burkett drills. I struggled with consistency tonight and that could be contributed to a change in mag pouches and grip back strap. I managed only 30% of my reloads faster than 1.4 seconds. I will need to work this out over the next several days. Also, I really liked the larger back strap. I really felt like I was getting a more consistent grip. Time will tell if this is fact or I was just paying more attention because of the change. I have no big travel plans this week and this will allow many opportunities to dry fire practice and get ready for the match on Saturday.

4.6.2018 Today managed to get in a live fire practice session with my friend Nick. This session was a focus on entry and exit and a big focus on transition drills. We first started with 2 targets at 10 yards from box A. Box B was about 10 yards to the right of box A with a steel target about 15 yards. We ran this drill establishing base lines. We then broke the drills down with a big focus on transitions. We pushed ourselves beyond our "comfort zones" with an emphasis on snapping our eyes and driving the gun to the next target and ended up spending a majority of the time on this. We finished the session with bill drill at 20 yards. I had my best time for this drill tonight with 6 Alphas in 4.48 seconds. It was a great practice session even though the cold front moved through dropping the temperature from upper 40's to mid 30's in little over an hour.

4.2.2018 Match at lefthanders was canceled on Saturday due to rainy weather. Sunday was a cold and snowy day. We had 2"-3" of snow Sunday so no live fire practice or shooting this weekend. I did spend time casting bullets, coating and sizing them. I did about 2500 over the weekend. Monday, April 2 was a dry fire evening that also turned into a mag pouch change.I started the evening with the dot drill. This drill is now my go to start up practice drill. I then set up 2 shooting positions A & B and worked on entry and exit skills. Next I worked on my reloads and this is where I got frustrated. My #1 mag pouch was again moving when I would grab the mag for a reload. I checked the main screw for tightness and I physically could not tighten it any more. I decided I've had enough. I was talking to my wife about my frustration and she prompted me to take my 3 Race Master mag pouches and set them up for my CZ magazines and put them on my CO belt. After all if they are good enough for my limited their good enough for my CO set up. Once I completed this task I worked on Burkett reloads and 4 Aces drill. I had no problems with movement and I seemed to be more consistent with my grip on the magazine which translated into more consistent reloads. 1 short practice session does not mean all my wows with my inconsistent reloads is cured. But, it sure seemed to go along way in helping. Now I need to buy 1 more Race Master mag pouch so I will have 4 on my belt. I will traveling out of town the next few days so I won't be able to practice until Friday for sure. Maybe Thursday, but it's not looking good. I am eager to work on my reloads to see if the mag pouches really are making a difference.

3.30.2018 Weather broke today and with a vacation day I was able to conduct a live fire practice session. It has been awhile because of bad weather and an insane busy period at work. The lack of live fire practice certainly showed up at the last couple matches. I wanted this live fire practice to focus on engaging targets while moving and shooting into and out of positions. I was smart enough to video some of the practice this go around. I started the session with dot drill. I was happy with my performance but, I still have a lot of work to do. This video is very short but shows me practicing engaging targets while moving part them and having to come to a stop and quickly transition to a target to my left. For the first 1/2 of the practice session I focused on this drill. Working on my foot work while watching my dot. I manage to call all my bad shots except 3 shots. I also added a fifth target black backer board you can see in the back ground. This gave me a long range target with another transition adding to the difficulty, which it did. Next I worked on entry and exits. I left the same stage set up only this time I would start in the same position engage T1 move to the second position to left engaging T1 & T3. I would move to T3 and engage T4 & T5. The challenge for me was the entry into these positions. They required to turn to engage the appropriate target array. This took some practice to get my foot work and turning my body quickly and driving the gun to the appropriate target. This practice session was very productive. I was able to work on some skills I have spent time conducting in dry fire practice but haven't been able to validate with live ammo. https://youtu.be/txCSNlS5xr0

3.29.2018 Dry fire tonight was a continuation of the 27th with a focus on refining my reloading and weak hand shooting. I again started the session with Dot Drill. Next I moved to Burkett Reload, worked on this drill for 5 minutes. A short workout with the Burkett drill seems to be a sweet spot for me in my training. It's focused and I feel like it's paying dividends for the short time I perform the drill. Tonight I changed this drill a little bit. I eliminated the par time and focused on aggressively grabbing my magazine and getting my gun into position faster. I learned that sometimes I get the magazine to the gun before I have the gun in the correct position for the magazine. This surprised me when I finally saw what was happening and one of the reasons I am not hitting the magwell correctly and hit the edge to the opening or flat-out just missing it. This isn't the only cause of flubbing a reload but it's one of them and something I will work on. Learning this was priceless to me. I next performed 4 Aces. I had a full size target at 10 yards cold I was at 3.53 seconds. After a couple runs I was able to consistently get below 3 seconds into the 2.9 range. I was able to go faster on a couple runs but my hits were horrible. Being able to crack the 3 second barrier felt really good. Things just came together on this drill tonight. Next I moved to CM 03-11 EL Strong & Weak Pres. I started out running this through the whole drill 6 times, both strong and weak hand. However, I wanted a continuation of focusing on the weak hand. Working on transferring the gun from strong hand to weak hand. I struggled tonight getting the gun transferred from strong to weak hand. I worked on technique trying to refine it. I still have a lot of work getting this one smoothed out. I am having problems with my first mag pouch moving on me again. I cannot tighten it anymore. When I aggressively grab my magazine during a reload it moves. I am out of ideas to solve this problem. I am considering taking one of my DAA racer master mag pouches off my limited belt and see how I do. I need to think about this; do I want to cannibalize my Limited belt? Maybe I should order a Double Alpha Racer pouch and see how it does. This way I am not cannibalizing my Limited belt and I will know if this is the right pouch without buying 4 of them and not liking them. Decisions to make.

3.27.2018 Dry fire tonight was a focus on refining my reloading and weak hand shooting. I feel like I am at 80% consistency with reloading and my weak hand is not consistent at all. I can do better and I am determined to do better. I started the session with Dot Drill. I believe this drill is helping me with my trigger press and grip. I moved to Burkett Reload, worked on this drill for 5 minutes. I had a Par time of 1 second and was very consistent hitting that time. I next moved to a modified Burkett drill (not sure if there is another name for this drill) with a magazine in the gun and at the beep I would perform a reload and fire 1 shot on target. I was able to hit 1.2-1.3 seconds about 90% of the time. Next I moved to CM 03-11 EL Strong & Weak Pres. I performed the strong hand part only a few times. I wanted to focus on the weak hand, specifically figure out why when going to weak hand after a reload I struggle so much finding the dot. Well, tonight I figured out what I was doing wrong. When I would transfer the gun from strong hand to weak hand my grip was too low. When I realized what I was doing I made an adjustment to my weak hand grip by gripping higher and I was finding the dot faster and consistently. This alone shaves a second off my time. Now I will need to practice this transfer and weak hand grip until it's second nature.

I ran into the same Odd looking Winchester SPP primers. I loaded 800 rounds last week and found 2-3 primers per 100 out on 1 box of a thousand. These look just like the pictures with a significant reduced amount of sealant on them. I segregated them while loading; loaded them up and they all went bang like the rest of them. Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

3.24.2018 Shot a USPSA match at Green Valley in Hallsville, MO. This is my first match at this club. I placed 8th overall and 3rd in Carry Optics. In may opinion not a very good showing for me. Stage 1 was a disaster. I was 6.45 seconds slower than the first place shooter. My problem was my reload. I When I performed my reload somehow a round came loose and would not let me insert the magazines fully into the gun. By the time I corrected this I lost considerable time. This has happened once before and the most likely cause is the lanyard loop. My reload was terrible. I missed the magwell hitting the edge and lanyard loop causing a round to come loose and jam up the reload. The good is I had 18 A's. Stage 2 was Down the Middle. I threw a mike on this stage and my time was less then stellar, 5.1 seconds for a solid C class performance. Stage 3 was an ok performance. I was 10 seconds slower than 1st place. Stage planning was terrible, I had to back up to engage a target I missed and I caused myself an unnecessary standing reload. Stage 4 was another less than stellar performance. I had to make a pit stop and got to the stage late and I had all of 1 minute to walk the stage and formulate a plan. I was the third shooter and should have asked to be bumped down. I just wasn't ready and threw a mike and cost my self time by winging my plan and not getting into the proper positions. I tried to make up bad planning with speed and is cost me. Stage 5 I had a solid stage plan, but less than stellar execution. I had my 3rd mike and 2 deltas on this stage. This stage had 3 targets at 90 degrees that allowed you to engage them while on the move. I have been practicing this in my dry fire so I felt comfortable doing this. However, my cadence with my footwork wasn't in step with my trigger finger or brain and thus my 2 deltas were on the right side which would makes since because I was moving left to right. Most likely my mike was the same. Stage 6 was another classifier 3 V, 03-04. I was actually top shooter in CO on this stage. Shot a nice 59% C classifier. Which pretty much sums up my performance for the day. It was cold and even rained on us. But I'm not using that as an excuse. My poor performance was all me and my poor mental game I had today. I view the weather conditions as training and condition. I did go into this match with the mission of putting my dry fire drills to use whenever the opportunity presented itself. I was happy with some of my skills are improving and it's a direct effect of the dry firing practice. I haven't been able to live fire practice because of crappy rainy weather and a very busy and stressful work schedule.

This is not a surprise to me at all. Remington spent a lot of money on big capital expenditures. And like many company's in the firearms industries they did not plan on a Trump win. My company supplies metals to the firearms industry and not one of them thought Trump would win and ramped up production in anticipation of Hillary winning. Not having a plan to manage cash flow for a downturn in sales is a recipe for disaster. Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

3.23.2018 Tonight I spent time working Burkett drill and reloading while moving into a position. It was a short dry fire session only about 20 minutes. I have a match tomorrow and spent the remainder of my time preparing for that. I focused on getting my gun into the right position for a reload while on the move. Closer and lower to my body as I discovered last night. I also came to the realization I have to look at the magwell when performing a reloading while moving, not just were I'm going. Easy to do in my basement: something I will need to take into account at the match if the opportunity presents itself.

3.19.2018 Worked on transitions, moving from position to position. I worked on speed from position to position. I haven't been working on actual speed. Reviewing some old videos from matches I noticed I was not really moving that quickly. I wanted to work on speed. Admittedly it was train wreck at first. My footwork coming into a position was not very good. I found myself overshooting the position and or slowing down to early. It took some practice, hard practice with more failures than wins to start getting comfortable running into the position and getting my timing and footwork in concert with each other for success. The good from this practice session is knowing what its like to actually "run" to a position and starting to understand the footwork that is required. 3.22.2018 Tonight I started the practice session with the dot drill. Than I worked on same speed drill I did Monday, March 19. I again focused on speed. I was amazed how much more comfortable I felt moving hard and fast tonight considering I was out of town and couldn't practice for a couple days. I worked on this for my first 15 minutes of practice. Next I worked on reloading while moving, at speed. I used my timer to track my time to position. First I timed the drill with no reload and used that as my bench mark. Than I added a reload to this drill. My goal was to keep the same time I had without a reload. I learned in order for me to have a smooth and fast reload while moving I needed to bring the gun in closer and lower. By doing this I also had to be careful to keep the magwell tilted at the correct angle and where I could see into the magwell opening. I was able to get very close to keeping the same time of 4.8 seconds. I average 5.1 with reloading. Very happy with progress tonight.

3.17.2018 WSRC Sparta, IL Match Came in 15th overall out of 87 shooters. Overall I am happy with my performance. I had a goal to work on my entry and exits, shooting quicker as I enter positions and "shoot" my way out of positions were appropriate. I also wanted to shoot while moving when opportunities presented themselves. Stage 1. Came in 15th time 21.27, 20 A's, 11 C's, 1D. This stage was not a smooth run for me. My stage plan changed just before I shot because I forgot to count a target hidden on the backside of a barrel. Also, I had way to many C's. My grip was not very good so I didn't have good control. Stage 2. Came in 15th with a time of 19.14, 12 A's, 1 B, 5 C's. This stage I had a slip exiting out of the first position. I managed to keep control of my gun and keep it pointed in a safe direction. It did cost me some time, probably 3-5 seconds. I had a solid and aggressive stage plan I just slipped in the mud and ate some wall. Stage 3. Came in 26th. Time was 11.66 had 10 A's, 4 C's. I didn't relieve I had injured my left knee on stage 2. It was swelling up by the time I shot this stage. This stage required you sit in a chair and your gun was loaded and placed on a table about 2 steps from the table. I was hurting and just couldn't move as quickly as I wanted and I wasn't very stable. I would love to reshoot this stage when I'm healed up. Overall my stage plan was solid execution was hampered. This was my last stage of the match. Stage 4. My first stage of the match. I came in 23rd. Time 20.50 19 A's, 12 C's, 1 D. I was not very smooth on this stage. It was a large field course not all that complicated. I had a good stage plan I just didn't execute very well. I didn't have a very good grip. It was a light grip and I realized this early on and adjusted when I made my less than stellar reload. But, I had better hits after the reload. Stage 5. My worst stage. I came in 32nd overall. And I had my only miss. Time 26.22, 19 A's, 4 C's, 1 M. This stage had only 4 metric targets rest was steel. I had a miss on 1 steel plate. I tried a risky plan where I should shoot 3 poppers from a less than ideal position that if I pulled it off would save me from going into the 4th position. Well I hit all steel 1 for 1 except the last popper and I hit to hit it 3 times I thought it was falling and I moved to clean up the last 5 plates leaving up that last popper. I asked for a calibration and I lost that. Oh well it was worth a try. Stage 6 was the classifier Bookouts Boogie 99-57. I came in 9th overall. HF 5.1081.Time 10.18, 52 points 9 A's, 2 C's and 1 D. The D I didn't call and my reaction from box A to box B was horrible. I found myself standing for a brief second before I realized I needed to move up to box B. I'm sure it cost me 1-2 seconds but I am happy I didn't try rushing my shots to try to make up time. I need to continue working on my movement skills. I am happy with my dry fire practice and the improvements that are coming from it. I need to live fire more. The weather hasn't been the most cooperative and work is pretty crazy right now. However, with dry firing helping I'm not "freaking out" because I can't live fire as much as I want right now.