jtipping

The scope mount is milled out of aluminium by Andy, the gunsmith who built the gun, AFAIK. As is the thumb rest and the racker

semi-auto rifles/shotguns, yes. But we still have our semi handguns. Albeit, only less than .38 calibre and mag capacity limit of 10.

Hi all, My gunsmith here in Australia just sent my photos of my newly complete open gun. It is the first new gun I have ordered, having been shooting a second-hand 15 year old para/caspian open gun with a pdp4 for the last 3 years since i started shooting. The old workhorse took me to Master, but I thought it was time for it to rest and get a new one built. It is built by Andy of JPP Imports in Queensland, Australia. He built it exactly to my specifications and is a top bloke to deal with. Now I just have to wait for it to be shipped to me and try it out! I have my VV 3n38 ready to go So, here you go guys!

I'm a 'scooper' more or less. I don't think its fair to say that its unsafe, full stop, like some have. If you are going to draw this way, it takes practice like anything else, and a good technique. I have never, EVER dropped my gun, loaded or unloaded, doing my draw. My draw is fast and pretty consistent. Having said this, a good scoop draw, IMHO, is not a complete 100% snatch of the gun (you don't just reef it out with your fingers), but rather, bring your hand straight up toward the grip, and as the fingers hit the front strap, you squeeze, bringing your palm/back of hand into contact with the mainspring housing, as you keep pulling upwards. Basically, i still get my hand in tight against the grip/beavertail, but without 'dipping' back onto the gun. I can reliably draw most guns this way, including revolvers out of a speed holster. Like anything, you do what works for you and what feel comfortable

I found exactly the same thing. When i started in open, i had my holster in the 'crotch-rocket' position! After a while, i shifted it back to around the hip, pretty much where i would wear a standard or production gun. And my draw these days is faster and cleaner than ever. For me, at the hip works best!

Been there done that! At a recent match, i followed my usual routine of used mags in pockets, straight back to the range bag to reload after the stage, then back on the belt. The procedure broke down when, a couple of shooters before i was up, i got taken away for a chrono spot check. Passed fine, and stupidly returned the chrono mag to my belt. Of course, luck would have it that i started the stage off well, smoking run, but as i stepped out to engage a swinger, *click*!!! ALWAYS CHECK THE MAGS!!!

That's an interesting thought pattern. Do you think that a 2011 open gun built in .40 will be inherently more reliable than a 9 or 38? Or that a tanfo is inherently more reliable than a 2011? Not arguing or saying this is wrong, but personally i feel that the quality of the individual gun has a LOT more to do with it than the calibre, or perhaps even brand. Obviously tanfo's can run fine, Eric manages But i know a shooter with a tanfo open gun that has the odd jam. I know people with 2011's that jam, ive seen glocks malfunction, CZ SP-01's, S&W M&P's and everything in between. I've also seen the same types of guns run 100%. Hell, my open gun is 13 years old, i bought it used a year ago, still has the original barrel, built on a para frame with a caspian slide, and it is a 38 super. I can throw supers or supercomps at it and it will feed both. The last jam i can remember was about 6 months ago, and was due to someone else's reloads. It was built well, i clean it and feed it good ammo, and it works 99.9999%. I know fellow shooters with newer 2011 based guns that run like clockwork too.

Thanks AlamoShooter, i didnt know about that calculator. I might have to start using some classifiers in my practice each weekend and then i can compare my HF. Neat trick! I realise that fast first shots arent THAT important to your overall time and performance. But i honestly feel so much better starting off on stages now than when i started out. Even though im grabbing the gun quickly, i always feel like im 'off to a good start' when i get that gun out of the holster and on target solidly and quickly. I DO understand though that a consistent grip out of my draw is more important, so im wary of that too. Ideally, i'd just like to be fast AND consistent...easy huh?

Thanks, i'll definately have to get some of Saul's DVD's soon, the 3GM one looks great, and the Master dvd's look useful too. As for match videos, i watch footage of every top shooter i can find!!

My splits on close stuff are pretty good. Out to 25 or so, my splits arent so good, thats my 'focus' at the moment, speeding up my shots on the further stuff (while focussing on A's). I can do .15-.18 in close stuff....if i go hard i can do draw + 2 each on 3 targets in about 1.6. I'm pretty young so i think i have a little bit of natural speed and reflex that helps my draw speed. If only i could get the rest of my game up to speed! I've been at this game for about 2 years now, having never touched a gun before that, and sort of teaching myself as I go. Forums like this have been pretty useful for tips though! Really going for consistency at matches now, as my mental game often lets me down. Oh, also, being an aussie shooter, we dont have or use USPSA classifiers here. I have to get my regrades at matches!

Just curious to see what you guys can pull off fairly reliably on the closer open targets, under 5y, from hands by sides. Also interested in peoples draw styles I spent a lot of dryfire time working on my draw over the last 12 months and have reached the point where I am happy with the speed. Draw time is not the most important part of a stage, but i like being at the point where i know that i can have the gun out of the holster and ready to go as quickly as possible, and its a little confidence booster for me. In match conditions i can do 0.65-0.75 on the closer targets pretty reliably. I did a 0.71 A from about 3m away on a funny angle, and in another match a 0.66 A on an open target about 3m straight in front. I can be a little faster in practice, but not a whole lot. My draw is basically a snatch, but dryfire has really helped to snatch the grip in the right spot. I've never dropped or 'juggled' my gun this way. I'm A grade Open BTW.

Can't say ive ever lost a front sight on a port, but i HAVE had the brightness dial on my pdp4 knock against the top edge of a port and switch my dot off for me mid course-of-fire

Got the thing in but the button is very very very hard to push in. Do I have to take off metal? Where? Does it feel like it is 'dragging' to push it, or does it feel like the spring pressure? You might want to check that the spring and the retaining cap/screw are inserted properly in the new mag release and not caught somewhere. If it is dragging, you may need to polish it a bit with some light sandpaper or a dremel or similar. The magazine release 'body' may be a tiny bit oversized. You could try and look at the new one against your old mag release and see if you can see an obvious areas that might need a small amount of metal removed, or you could put a bit of marker on the mag release, insert it and push it a few times, then remove and see where the marker is most removed. Don't remove any drastic amounts of metal straight away, but a bit of a polish might really help.

It's funny, i hear the reverse argument from people sometimes. I shoot Open myself, and sometimes people tell me "I might shoot Open one day, but i prefer to shoot production/standard etc and get good at a 'proper gun' first, when you shoot Open first you just learn to use the dot and can't go back and shoot with irons". Im a relative newb, first picked up a gun 18 months ago. Shot a H&K for a while when i trained in IPSC, after about 6 months i started using a second-hand para-framed open gun lent to me, and im still using it now. However, after shooting that gun exclusively for about 3-4 months, i shot a few stages one day with a friend's STI Edge, and couldn't believe how easily the sights were tracking for me. From the draw, those irons were right there and lined up, and kept falling right back into place. The improvement over my handling of the H&K was enormous. I'm sure simple trigger time accounts for some of the improvement, but even so. Shooting with a 'cheaters dot' hardly seems to make it difficult to go back to irons, and i do believe it can help too.

I use rem nickel brass in my .38 super open gun. On a new batch now, but the cases i was using before had survived plenty of loading cycles at 175+ power factor (124/125's at 1400+ fps). Never causes me any problems.