alucardus

I get 30 9mm rounds (29 re-loadable) in my MBX 170's with taran pads, springs and followers.

I shoot almost every weekend with one weekend a month being 2 matches back to back. I try to clean it after and or before every match, so that I start each match with a clean gun. On the back to back matches it almost never gets cleaned as I'm to lazy to clean it that night after a whole day at the range. As a bare minimum I always oil up the slide if I haven't had a chance to clean it. I'm sure a well made gun can run hundreds of rounds without cleaning no problem, but why not give yourself the best chance of your gun operating at 100%?

Nice.

As long as you haven't drawn or loaded your weapon yet it should be fine as long as the RO knows what you are doing. Don't just take off and start air gunning the course. If you have drawn and or loaded your weapon you definitely don't want to move from the start position until the beep.

I found that the more things I got comfortable with the more creative I could get with stage planning. For example I hated leaning out to shoot around a corner so I wouldn't even look for opportunities to do that once I became comfortable leaning more I started to see positions to do this in more and more. Also ask more experienced shooters how they are planning the stages after you have your plan. This can open your eyes to their thought process and how it differs from yours. If you see someone run a stage a certain way that you liked go ask them why they chose to run it that way instead of another way. If you hear enough of these reasons you will start to see the situations and advantages yourself it just takes time, and you need to actively try it won't happen by just shooting more you have to really examine stuff.

I started with a 9mm 2011 for steel and then moved to USPSA, now the 2011 just sits in my safe because I don't want to shoot minor. The only reason I haven't sold it is it could make a good 3 gun pistol when I eventually get into that. If I had it to do over again I would definitely not purchase a minor pistol and would probably go with a major limited 2011.

There are rare shooters that shoot accurately enough for minor to be a none issue but you have to be extremely accurate. If you want to be competitive you need to shoot major. That being said chances are you won't be competitive for a while unless you put in some serious range and dry fire time. I would still advice the 45 because you can grow into that gun with nothing holding you back vs eventually switching to major down the road.

You could try browsing the forum from tapatalk app if your on android. Or look for the font settings in your browser. in chrome mobile its under settings > Accessibility > Text scaling. This will change the default font sizes for all sites in your browser though.

Great idea. Definitely going to try this.

I 100% agree with everyone else its definitely worth the upgrade.

First match just have fun and don't get DQed. So use whichever gun you feel you know better. The only thing you might consider is if you have more mags for one gun use that. I see new shooters all the time that will run out of mags and not be able to finish a stage.

I have a couple friends that have switched over to the metal grips for USPSA and love them. There gone does seem to shoot flatter now, but I'm of the opinion the difference is small enough you wouldn't notice it under the clock. I would agree that the cost to fit one to an existing gun probably isn't worth the marginal improvement you'll get, but on a new build it could be worth it.

Welcome to the forums.

If its windy at your range glasses with wind shields like Wiley X may help. Dry air blowing on your eyes will dry them out really fast. Also I have pretty bad allergies and staying hydrated helps but doesn't solve my dry eyes.

Welcome the forums are definitely a great source for information.

The setup definitely fits the gauge the 170mm tubes from mbx are shorter than stock tubes. I've measured it. Thie setup wouldn't work with a stock STI or SV tube however.

I load at the match and store them unloaded to preserve my springs as long as possible. Plus I always have plenty of time waiting around at the range and it gives me something to after I walk the stages.

I wouldn't run stock STI mags without a spacer they aren't designed for it everyone I know thats tried it ran into constant problems even with longer rounds. However I did have that same issue with grams follower and spring in my MBX mags and I took the spring and stretched the angle of the spring so the follower was pointed up a little more and that fixed it for me.

I"m not aware of one. The largest extension I know of is the Taran 7g and that's still 2 or 3 rounds at best. My guess is that even if they do exist you are going to encounter all kinds of problems and for the price you would be better off investing in a 170mm. I run the MBX 170mm mags with Taran spring, follower and 7g base pad and get 30+1 starting or 29 reloadable. I haven't had a single mag issue since I switched to this setup. You have to very slightly file the mag rails to fit the Taran base pads on the MBX tubes.

I've been working on shooting sooner after a get in position lately and what has really helped me is picturing coming in and pulling the trigger on the first target during my walk through. I mime everything out down to where I'm going to position my feet. The less I have to think about what I'm going to do the quicker I can pull the trigger.

Welcome back.

The none-illuminated sight might have allowed you to focus on the targets better and train your eyes to see everything vs concentrating on the sights too much. When I shoot iron sights the targets are focused on and the sights sort of blurred this way you see everything. When I first started I would be slowed down by switching my focus between sights and target then fire. Once I trained my eyes to focus on the targets but still see the sights I got much faster.

I would definitely recommend moving up to a 2011, I would say if you have a good local gunsmith that specializes in 2011's and competition pistols get a stock STI and take it to the smith for a trigger job. This way you can get it tuned how you like it and have someone to go back to with questions. A stock STI with a trigger job is enough to keep you competitive for a long time with practice. The other advantage of upgrading to a 2011 now is all the gear and mags you buy for it will be compatible if/when you decide to upgrade to a custom pistol later on.

Practice movement during dry fire. Draw site picture, reload, move site picture, reload, and repeat. do this moving different directions, move to the left right, move forward if you can move around a corner, move back wards forward, basically any direction you can think of that you'll move in a match. For a long time my dryfire reloads were fast but under the clock they still felt slow and that was because I never dry fired reloads on the move.

That is the best argument for adding PCC I've seen yet.