rvb
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Posts posted by rvb
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All - I'm thinking about changing from the stock plastic grips on my 92 Brigadier. I did a search for both the Burner and Ergo grips, and found info for the 1911 versions but not for Berettas, and decided to pass on the Burner version since they seem to wear out. Does anyone have experience with the Ergo grips on a Beretta?
Thanks!
Had the same pair of Burners on my match gun for several yrs now. Lots of matches, lots of dryfire. Not worn out yet.
-rvb
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So have you been approached by any sponsors yet? Maybe you should talk to Beretta, without you they wouldn't even have a gun in the top ten. It's worth looking at.
Considering Beretta doesn't make Ben's gun any more, what would they be advertising?
Customer: "I want a gun like Ben's so I can kick ass, too"
Beretta: "Sorry, we are no longer making guns that kick ass."
Kidding asside, I'd think Ben could make a good billboard for SOMEONE!
-rvb
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Been a while since I've looked at oly stuff, but iirc (and that's a big *IF* I recall the way my memory is) they use a totally different ejection system and the regular RRA/Hahn/Colt mag block will not work with them.
-rvb
I have a Hahn mag block for my Oly - not sure if its the standard or specific to the Oly. It uses Sten mags which are cheap, plentiful and reliable. You just need to grind off the little tabs on the side.
I just checked brownells and the oly mag block is different.
Oly:
http://www.brownells.com/aspx/NS/store/Pro...ZINE%20ADAPTERS
Regular Colt-style:
http://www.brownells.com/aspx/NS/store/Pro...VERSION%20BLOCK
eta: found this while searching around (searching through brownells is usually dangerous!)
complete lower 9mm conversion:
http://www.brownells.com/aspx/ns/store/Pro...ONVERSION%20KIT
-rvb
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Thanks for all the replies. Debating on buying the Oly uppper... avoids the extra work....
Been a while since I've looked at oly stuff, but iirc (and that's a big *IF* I recall the way my memory is) they use a totally different ejection system and the regular RRA/Hahn/Colt mag block will not work with them. I know at least one manufacturer was not compatible with the standard Colt setup most use and I think Oly is that maker so a little research may be in order for you.
just fyi.
ETA: sounds like chp5 has some experience w/ the oly's and can either tell you I'm bonkers or give you the scoop on what you need.
-rvb
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RVB - what kind of can is on yours and how do you like it?
AAC "Phantom". Now discontinued. Love it. Very quiet. I always shoot it dry as it seems all the sound is from the action and don't see a need to shoot it wet. Works well on my Beretta 92, also.
-rvb
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rvb
in Range Diary
Last night, about 10 minutes of dryfire w/ the PD gear, just making the mental switch from my ssp year.
Decided to relocated the mag pouches back about 2". Made it easier to get out of the poucn and lined up for insertion.
Got up this morning to go to Angola for their match. Walked in to the bathroom to get ready and turned around and went back to bed. First time I've ever done that? Just decided I didn't feel like shooting....
-rvb
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Have a couple extra AR15 uppers. Want to build an upper in 9mm for some indoor range shooting for a carbine course.
What do i need ? Or am I biting off more than i can chew? Should I just buy an upper? (and mag conersion, etc?)
Is there a cheaper, reliable 'carbine' in 9mm that works really well instead?
Thanks!
Wayne
9mms are incredibly fun, imo. Not for serious use or 3-gun but just fun. I SBRd mine (5" barrel) and put a can on it (I guess that's what makes it so fun).
They're very easy to build. No gas system required, straight blow-back. [edit to add:] You just need basic AR tools such as barrel wrench, vice block.
In your lower you're lower will need a heavier buffer and a 9mm hammer (or M16 hammer w/ the auto-sear hook ground off or a dpms AR hammer.. just can't have the "safety catch" on the hammer face) and a mag block. Lots of mag blocks to choose from.
-rvb
my 9mm AR:
mix of parts, lots of RRA 9mm parts, Colt 1-pc mag well, barrel is RRA cut down to 5" by Randal at AR15barrels.com, DD handguards (only thing big enough to to mount the silencer back that far).
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I had a std deviation and extreme spread of ZERO at the '08 OH IDPA match.
Granted they only used 2 rounds since that's all that's required to pass, but both were 903 fps.
(147gr zero jhps, 3.35 Titegroup, mixed brass, Fed #100s).
-rvb
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edit: or maybe I mis-understood the question... ? Are you really asking about simply bleeding off less pressure vs trying to keep the bolt closed? I first read it that you thought the bolt was unlocking before the bullet was out of the barrel...
AFAIS the difference is that in a semi-auto 1) the breech opens up (with some of the gas expelled out of the breech area) and 2) gas is bled off the gas port to drive the bolt open. So instead of using as much energy to drive the bullet, some of the energy is instead being bled off to drive the bolt.
So if you delay the opening of the bolt (and therefore reduce some of the gas coming out of the breech) and if you reduce the gas being bled off to unlock and work the bolt (again increasing the gas driving the bullet)... shouldn't you get more velocity?
I'm not sure I agree that you're loosing pressure at the bolt end. The bullet should be well on its way downrange before the bolt opens. To loose pressure at that end means the brass is not sealed to the chamber or it has blown up. There is a sequence of events... the bolt or carrier don't do a thing until the bullet passes the gas port and the pressure impulse is great enough to start accelerating the carrier. Once the carrier has moved sufficient distance and the bolt cammed out of the lugs it can start opening up. If that all happened while the bullet was still in the barrel I'd think you'd see a lot of shrapnel instead of reloadable brass.
I'm no master AR builder, just built a few for me and friends, but my engineering intuition says a lighter-weight carrier would need less force to accelerate it rearward, ie need less gas.
As to the why is velocity less and the best powders, I really dunno. I'm just getting into loading for long guns. I'd listen to Pat though and other with lots of experience loading for ARs as guys like that know what powders hit that sweet spot to make the gun run well and for a long time. With an adjustable gas block, your method sounds like what I'd do though. Find a load you like and a gas port setting that lets the gun lock back on an empty mag and you should be good to go, I'd think?
-rvb
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Less BCG velocity... more lock up or dwell time... => more energy/gas is used pushing the bullet out and less in the extraction?
I'd think the bullet would be loooong gone before that bolt even comes close to un-locking. It's damn near the muzzle screaming past the gas port at 99% it's final velocity and the gas has to start accelerating the carrier and caming the bolt before the bolt can unlock. As Pat says there are lots of other considerations when loading for the autoloader but it's not like your pistol where the breach unlocks strictly based on newton's laws. The mass of the bolt/carrier effects recoil felt obviously but the breach should be locked snug as a bug until the bullet is well on it's way down range, imo.
As far as the gas systems effect on bullet velocity, pressure obviously bleeds off at the port. But how much that really effects velocity is left up to smarter folk's than I. I guess you could weld up or plug the port on a barrel to test and see...
edit: or maybe I mis-understood the question... ? Are you really asking about simply bleeding off less pressure vs trying to keep the bolt closed? I first read it that you thought the bolt was unlocking before the bullet was out of the barrel...
-rvb
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5 masters had procedures ... what stage did you get procedure on ,did it make sense and when was the last time you got one. MY point is that unlest you admit isomething is broken,it will never get fixed. Blaster
I had a PE on the BBQ stage, stage 6 iirc. My first in a looooong time. I don't recall how they explained it during the walk through but I was under the impression I was ok to reload crossing the "hallway" but couldn't reload advancing down it. But honestly doing so was not part of my plan and I was not properly prepared to deal with that situation (I hadn't given the idea of reloading there much thought). My poor execution put me in the situation where it mattered. It was one of those gray areas where everyone's interpretation is different so I just set back while the CSO debated and made his call and I signed my sheet. I avoid PEs by asking questions of the CSO and understanding [before the buzzer] how actions/rules will be interpreted. In this case I neither insured the action was ok nor executed on my shooting (man, how many times did I say -that- over the day?!).
Complex/challenging/long stages in IDPA often become PE traps. That's just the nature of the reloading behind cover rules and the different interpretations regarding what is cover (esp after targets are engaged). The shooter needs to know before shooting if their plan will earn them any PEs. I, for one, thought things ran very well and thought they put on a good match from the shooting perspective. Now... that said, can I get a reshoot??
On all the stages? I was embarrassed by just about every thing I did that day!-rvb
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SHTR RDY
When I moved and had to get new plates I was thinking about plate ideas and thought of this...
then I decided to non uspsa/idpa folks it would look like plumber's plates (replace the implied "oo" w. "i").
Then I though of MAKE RDY.
I ended up going cheap and took the random plate they gave me.
-rvb
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rvb
in Range Diary
Well, the '08 OH IDPA match was the worst match I have ever shot (or maybe a tie w/ this yrs Norfolk match). I had exactly one stage that I finished and thought it went well, and even that I had a not-so-great draw which threw off my timing shooting around a non-threat swinger (stage 2).
Confidence required. I had none. I kept thinking about my lack of practice and my head was w/ things going on w/ Reid in the NICU. I felt guilty even being at the match and I wasn't all present at the match. I usually try to get in an idpa match or two before a major and dry and live practice getting into and out of cover positions. I felt like I was searching for my shooting positions and very static, ie settle in P1, then shoot, then move, then settle in P2, etc. Not fluid at all. Too many make up shots, settled back into my '07 routine of not calling my shots on steel, esp when I needed to transition off it to either a mover or another shooting position which led to a lot of missed steel and botched reload plans.
When I heard from my wife at lunch that Reid was better after his problems that she had told me about the night before in the hotel, I felt better about being there and shooting. In fact the next stage was stage 2 and I actually won that stage. Talk about proof the game is 100% mental. I attacked it. It had two mover-activator poppers that I called and nailed perfectly. I nailed my reload w/ no hesitation after the last shot, I was smooth and quick into/out of positions. Stage 1 I shot well but the gun hick-up'd. I think it didn't go into battery 100% and that cost me time, screwed up my reload plan and caused me to get to cover before I planned which affected shooting priority so the whole plan went to hell.... but I was happy w/ my shooting on that one, too. [correction: stage 1 was after lunch, stage 2 was 2nd after lunch. 1 went well but gun hickup'd]
I dropped way too many points on the whole match. 40 iirc. yuck. crapola.
I think I'm going to take the rest of the fall easy, shoot some quick local matches and get the reloader set back up and some ammo cranked out and then about the first of the year start back into the heavy dryfire and range practices. Maybe consider switching ssp/pd platforms??
-rvb
ps: extreme spread and std dev for my 2 rounds at the chrono? ZERO. 903 and 903 fps for pf = 132.741. (132.5 is my target)
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rvb
in Range Diary
2 hours at angola with ssp gear and my .22 mkII.
Good practice today, although my shooting was not so good. Lots of learning. Set up a few idpa targets and some 8" dia steel plates.
Started off w/ the .22. Rear sight while tight kept drifting left over the course of the practice. Thought it was me for the longest time. Was hitting quite well once I figured out what was going on. averaged 9/10 on the 8" steel at 50 yds and averaged 7/10 at 75 yds. Could have been better but I kept having to figure out my windage to compensate for the screwy sight. Also shot some transition drills with the .22.
Switching to the 9mm... my timing was way off. A combination of a lack of practice lately and switching from the .22 and my timing sucked. I got tense on the gun which caused the FS to not return fully, the gun just wasn't tracking well. That caused me to manually push the FS down which added to the tension and I started getting worse and worse. Before I kept going I did some 10-round berm dumps just to work on the timing and getting a good neutral grip back. That seemed to help a fair amount. my transitions sucked... I was tracking the gun w/ my eyes and not snapping my eyes to the next target. Also I kept finding myself focusing on the target and not the FS, just shooting based on the fuzzy red glow of the fiber. Weird, I don't usually have that problem.
While my shooting kinda sucked today I felt it was a good practice, one where I learned a lot from each drill. After almost 6 months since I've had a good live-fire practice I found areas that have slipped and I need to work on.
I don't feel I'm on my game at all for the idpa match in OH this weekend.... wrong attitude, I know. but confidence is pretty low right now. Not been a good year for staying on top of my shooting.....
-rvb
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rvb
in Range Diary
Just 15 minutes of dryfire the last two nights w/ the SSP rig (including the ultra-stealthy "what gun?" vest)
Need new mag pouches, the wilsons are getting too loose and the mags fall out too easy. wrapped them w/ electrical tape to add tension and keep the mags from falling out the front. Pretty wimpy practice sessions, but got re-used to the rig and practiced some retention reloads.
going to angola tomorrow morning for about 2 hours of live-fire practice.
rvb
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LPGA
in What I Like
A good example is motorsports. Look at Formula 1 or FIM MotoGP (I'm a big fan of GP motorcycle racing).
These have competitors and teams from all over the world and the big dogs can hold solid interviews in the major languages. "The Dr." V. Rossi can hold his victory interviews in English although he is Italian. Don't know that FIM requires it but I bet Yamaha does. $$$ talks and the sponsors want customers to hear those whom they are sponsoring....
-rvb
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rvb
in Range Diary
8/25 - 15 minutes dryfire with SSP rig.
just worked on draws/reloads/reloads-w/-retention to get re-acquainted w/ ssp gear. Will add the tacticool idpa vest tonight.
Even w/ everything going on (Reid) I'm going to the OH IDPA match this weekend (squadded w/ Bob V.). No practice and lots of distractions = shooting for fun but it'll be good to shoot again.
-rvb
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Thank you everyone for your well-wishes and prayers.
Mom came home from the hospital on 8/20 and is recoverring, although slowly.
Reid is doing well but still on resporator (probably will be for a while yet). Poor little dude. I got a picture of him 'holding' a new piece of 38-super brass I'll have to put up later... I don't know if he could quite wrap his hand around it or not!
It's going to be a long 3 months till he comes home.....
Thanks again!
-rvb
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Ford owns Lincoln, I have a Ford, I should get a Lincoln for free.
Does Ford have something similar on their webpage to what USPSA has on theirs?
"USPSA is a non-profit membership association. "
ie can Ford say "Ford is a non-profit membership association."
That makes a BIG difference in people's perception of the "product" they are buying and how the company uses "their" money (ie just takes it for profit vs using it FOR them). When as a Ford owner I can vote for Ford's president and set the direction of the company, the analogy will be more similar.
While I understand your point and personally agree WITH you, I think the analogy is very far from apples to apples. I guess that's my only point in this post.
-rvb
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I have problems w/ the heat, as does my dad...
things that have helped me....
drink water. from the time you get in the car to drive to the range (ok, I cheat and maybe have a cup of coffee first which is bad). But if I know it's going to be hell, I want a head start on the hydration. I pack a cooler to keep water COLD. It tastes better and helps cool you down. Keep drinking, if you wait until you are thirsty it's too late.
be careful of too much water. people have died from sweating out all their minerals. My wife who is an RN makes me put a pinch of salt in for about every liter of water. You can NOT taste it but it's better for you. The last couple years I've had a bottle of propel or similar sport drink for every bottle of water.
Shade... people in the va/md section may not recognize me, but they'll recognize my cart... and the 7' beach umbrella hooked to it. Lots of ribbing for it at 9am, but I find many of those same people standing under it at 3pm. And due to a recent bout w/ skin cancer I've started wearing a boony-style hat to keep the sun off better. I've been impressed with how much it helps with the heat as an added bonus.
cold wet towel on your head/neck...
cools that blood as it goes to your brain. If I feel a headache coming on or like you said where you can't think straight, this usually helps.
rvb
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I have a beretta that I practice with that currently has 20k+ since it was last cleaned. I put a drop of lube on each wing of the locking block from time to time and that's it.
The beretta I shoot in matches gets cleaned <2k and a drop of lube about every other time it goes out.
open gun gets cleaned <1k.
I have an AR I built that I put ~2k through before cleaning for the first time. First failure was at a match when the gas tube pin fell out of the front sight base (didn't have any spares on hand when I built it and got lazy and re-used an old pin) I cleaned it then while I had it apart.
Guns that I only shoot once or twice per year get cleaned when they get put away.
So I didn't know how to vote in the poll since about all the answers were right... depending...
-rvb
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Reid Carrol B. was born on Friday 8/15 !!
He gets his name from both his Grandpa's middle names.
It's been a LONG week.... Mom B had been hurting for the last week or so and finally went to the Dr. (thought it was bad heartburn). Dr. admits her to the hospital and after a roller-coaster 3 days they had to do an emergency c-section Friday evening. Reid was 14 weeks early and weighs just 1 lb 14 oz. He'll be in Newborn-ICU for the next 3 months. He seems to be a fighter and is doing quite well. He's not out of the woods yet so we'll take all the prayers we can get.
Mom's doing better but still has a ways to go for recovery. I'm hoping getting home soon will speed her recovery (you can't get good rest in a hospital).
Thanks!
-rvb
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That the hand (and more certainly the gun) is faster than the eye.
These things may arguably be faster than the eye itself, but they are not faster than the MIND.
You can SEE a lot w/o your eyes having to move. How -aware- are you of how much you can actually see w/o moving your eyes?
Revelations such as that have always been followed by a leap forward in my shooting ability... Sometimes I forget these lessons which is why we practice with drills such as those Flex mentioned. It's why I'm reading Brian's book right now for about the 6th time.....
-rvb
edit:
I believe our brain lets us think we see much more than we can.I'm pretty sure my brain gets in the way of me "seeing" all the data my eyes give it... I'm pretty sure my brain gets in the way of a lot of things, actually.
stupid brain.
-rvb
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couple of 'bikers'
Does Caspian make complete motorcycles or just parts you have to fit together yourself?
-rvb
On all the stages? 
rvb
in Range Diary
Posted
Due to living at the hospital, dryfire has been limited this week... but a break was needed I think.
I've got BE's book at the hospital and have been reading through it. It's amazing how I learn so many new things each time I read it.
Anyway, I decided to work on trigger pull this week with the beretta. What time we had at home I spent looking each "shot" off or just working the trigger w/o even looking at the gun to really pay attention to how the shots break. Working on perfect sight focus and 'looking the shot off' in both DA and SA. A new demonstration in awareness... while totally focusing on the FS I was able to consistently see the hammer fall. I've noticed I'm not changing my focus from the FS, but I am now almost always aware of it falling. I've never "seen" that before. Neat.
I did about 5 minutes worth of timed dryfire tonight, my first w/ the timer in a couple weeks. I did 5 ElPrez and 5 draw-2-R-2. I think the timer had been hurting my practice as of late as I was "trying" to beat the timer and getting all tense on the gun. So tonight I just set my par at a reasonable 5.50 for the El prez and shot it nice and relaxed and was well under the buzzer every time. I set the par at 2.5 for the D2R2 which is pretty aggressive for me, shot it relaxed and made the par 4 of the 5 times.
I quite while I was ahead as I want to train myself to practice and shoot relaxed and didn't want to give the "timer tension" time to set in. I think this is how I'll dryfire for the next few weeks... work on trigger control and a few relaxed drills w/ no timer.
-rvb