ajm

As I shoot only lead bullets I clean the barrel with copper mesh on a dry brush after every shooting session or match. I wipe out the stuff that I can see at the same time. Detail strip and clean about 2x yr or about 10k rounds. I use no lubricant on a glock at all. I do wipe the sights with a silicone rag as they are not glock and will rust. ajm

Yes, John it was a great match, I particularly apprecaite having no weak hand shooting. (for obvious reasons). I too was on the quick squad #4 and had a great time with all the shooters and I too live in florida, seems that there were several of us on the squad. And, yes Cliff is very fast with the production gear. Daniel Keith who took first B production was shooting his first -bigger than a monthly- match with USPSA and I can tell you that he is hooked. This was a wonderful match for someone to see what USPSA can be, with FRIENDLY people everywhere you look and excellent organization, as well as cool stages. thanks, Execllent work.

Shrink / Prognosticator Daytime I run a drug treatment program for inmates who enter federal prison addicted. Also therapy, suicide prevention, confrontation avoidance, firearms instructor, etc. After dark I teach graduate psychology classes at troy university. (Research Methods, Statistics, Group Therapy, Tests and Measures, that sort of thing) ajm

I would just like to say thanks to all the folks that put the match on, from Mike and Mike on down. I too was cold, until I saw the iron man running the chrono in a shirt.... Then I felt shamed for whining. This was my first match in Production after the surgery last year and shooting limited for a while. I do appreciate the match director working with me on my disability and inability to shoot weak handed. There are matches that I do not attend because of the attitude I have felt when unable to complete a course requirement, it is nice to be welcomed inspite of those issues. Very good experience. ajm

For those of you who dont know me, I am reallllly left handed. My right hand was pretty much blown off when I was 18 by a 12 gauge and although they put the fingers back, they dont actually bend much (particularly the middle one, which is a good conversation starter). I have to do everything left handed so roll the shotgun upside down and maintain right palm under receiver, load from arm bands. I am not real fast but not real slow either, I like seeing the shell go fully into the tube. ajm

Folks, I do not often post and when I do it is probably not to point or timely, however, there is a book, The Evolution of Consciousness, which does the best job I have found of putting Zennish thinking into a western frame that is more easily comprehensible. (Digression, there are great similarities in the effects of meditation and "biofeedback' in the first the practicioner learns to be quiet enough to hear him/herself, in the second we amp the self enough to be heard over the noise of life). Similarly, Ornstein in Evolution is able to use brain mapping and developmental science to explain in more western terms, the issues associated with trying to get your consciousness to do something quick and important like pointing a gun when that is not the niche that it developed in response to. Etc. Anyway a good book, very simply written that bridges for me the satroi and neuroanatomy. To the point of this thread, by the time that you have practiced enough to not be dangerous in a match you have actually created multiple focused shooter groupings of neurons, the dominant one is the one that is "the Zone" and calling that grouping into play is more art than science, requiring for most folks, a ritual, either physical or mental/verbal to "bring on line" that set of programming (to mix about 5 anologies all at once). For each person, developing the ritual and using it in practice and in matches consistently is important in creating consistency and improvement. ajm

Thanks for the kind words, I teach some graduate psychology including statistics and research methods at a couple of local colleges and have found that everyone actually understands most of this stuff if you can find a good analogy. To me, Pretty much everything works the same way and what we see as differences seem to me to be more about our perspective and self imposed limitations than actual incongruencies. If you post any more questions like this I will try to answer and you can PM me if there is a hurry. ajm

Someone got to it first but here is my english version. Nominal scale - football jerseys. They are numbers but have no meaning beyond naming the thing. No math possible. Ordinal scale - place of finish in a match. 1 is better than 2 and 2 better than 3 but no idea how much better. No math possible. Interval - Farenheight or Celcius temperature scales. Now add equal intervals to order and you know not only which is better but also by how much. Weakness here is that there is an arbitrary Zero point so you can add and subtract (or just subtract as addition is simply a form of subtraction) but you cannot multiply or divide. Ratio scale - the top has a set zero point and equal intervals so you can do all mathmatical functions. Time on a Stage. Height in inches. Standard Deviations, Z scores. Qualitative - things that are different from each other in a basic quality. If you are male, you cannot be female (I know etc.) Point is that with qualitative variables you cannot score one as more than the other(s) as they are really different such as apples vs oranges. Quantative - things which have the same basic properties but which vary in amount such as size of apples or size of eggs. The point is that a scale can be developed and any member of this variable can then be placed on the scale and can be compared to any other member. With qualitative variables the quality of the thing changes with quantative variables the amount (quantity) of the thing changes. Measures of central tendency: Mean - the mathematical center of a group of scores also called a distribution. Median - the physical middle of the group. The point at which one half of the group falls below that point. Mode - the most frequent score in the group. Mode very unstable, no math possible. Median very stable and useful if extreme scores can influence the math. No math possible. Mean, Math is done to get it - add all scores and divide by the number of scores in the group. Math is possible and all derivative scores are based on the Mean. Not good if very extreme scores are involved. Income in US is reported as Median due to very extreme scores on the top end that would make the mean unrepresentative of the actual distribution. (We use the mean to indicate the average of our ammo velocity.) you shoot 10 rounds and then get average that is the mean. Standard Deviation - how much do the scores vary around the mean. In shooting we use the standard deviation to measure how consistent our ammo is. Two batches of ammo have same mean but one has a SD of 4 and one an SD of 10 the batch with lower SD is more consistent, that is it varies less from the mean than the other. Hope this helps. ajm

I do not post much, but this one gets to me too. As a one handed lefty, my shooting experience varies much from the norm. I stopped shooting three times. First at age 18, I blew my right hand pretty much off in an accident with a 12 gauge, pretty much missed guns, shooting, competence and friends. Second time was in Graduate school, missed money to shoot (or eat for that matter) and friends. Third time was actually in this decade and I tore the tendon from my left bicep to my forearm off of the forearm moving a heavy popper. That layout finally convinced me, while I get confidence, competition, focus, and accomplishment from shooting, it is the folks that I miss. There is nothing in the world that I have found that feels the same as being at the range, in competition with people who can understand me, who have similar values, who (for all their faults) are SHOOTERS.

As for the list of examples, I remember reading as a kid in field and stream that the author tried to make a series of still pictures or an internal movie when ever he shot a covey rise or group of ducks. I thought that was way cool and started working on it and now I can often accurately count how many quail were in the flight or the shooter's hits that I was running by replaying the iconic memory of the event. Sometimes, I can get it to work when I am shooting but it sure is easier when I am recalling someone else's performance. ajm

Hello, I just sort of lurked into this thread and would like to add two things, first on mindset, clearly defining your goal and reminding yourself of that goal immediately prior to the commencement of every string of fire, might be helpful in getting your (not conscious) self to seek out and wait for the visual information that you want. Secondly, in the neuropsych literature there is an author, last name Ornstein, who has written "The Evolution of Consciousness" a book, in which he proposes that we are not "one mind" but a collection of functional associations of neurons which are each created and maintained to deal with a specific type or problem or stressor. This is a really neat theory that has some interesting (to me, but I am a shrink) tie-ins to shooting or any go directly with the thrust of much of this thread, if any one is interested let me know and I can synopsize the theory in a couple of pages. ajm

Matthew, I will be there in production as well. good luck, ajm

Itallion Stallion, I disagree... I was in David Sevigny's squad and watching him shoot was very very cool. The man can make that 34 go. I was a little closer, (not much) until, on Sunday, I decided I could shoot as fast as him. I was wrong..... and not only that, I could not hit anything trying to go that fast either, imagine that?. He is also one of the nicest people that I have met in a long time and has his head on straight, I was real impressed and real out classed, but it was cool. ajm

I was there for the DQ and did actually see it. That stage did have several 180 traps and also if I were an RO it would have made me nervous to start with as the shooter went into an area I could not access and then had to come back out. Anyway, as he was moving from right to left slightly down range he missed a reload badly and the magazine appeared to be backwards in his left hand. The gun was rolled around in his right hand (which was downrange) from the distance where I was, he appeared to use the bottom of the palm of his right hand to control the magazine as he was rotating it in his hand and swept the front of the gun up parallel to the 180. The officer that called it was much much closer so he must have felt that the muzzle was past parallel. Very uncomfortable ..... ajm

I will be there shooting production. Should be a good match. Looking forward to seeing old friends and meeting new ones. ajm