R.Elliott

Does Tanfoglio even offer an over sized barrel? I was thinking of give Rich a call but man, sending a gun from Canada to a U.S. smith is such a huge PIA! Anyway, maybe he can retro-fit a new top end.

I have two large frame V-8's. I have been using one (for the most part) and putting minimal rounds through the other since it was considered a back-up. At something less than 30K rounds, the top end of the primary gun is now completely mangled. Barrel and slide lugs are basically gone and the gun is now blow-back only. Not under warranty since I bought the gun second hand (very low round count though). Secondary gun is now in service and I'm keeping my eye on it. After the provincials I'm thinking I'll get a little tig put on the back of the hood and see if I can eliminate any small amount of end lash there. Maybe it will help; maybe it won't. I've ordered a new top end, but if Eric has a trick for fitting these things, I'd sure like to know what it is. I won't be able to afford a new top end every year.

Hey Mo: If the lips are splitting they are probably also spreading, and this will make the top round in the mag present too high. This could impede, alter or interrupt the rearward path of the extracting case and alter its contact with the ejector. It could definitely cause a stove pipe malf.

Now that sounds intriguing....

Depending on how you have your take-up screw set it may be possible to do this. If your trigger resets far enough forward, you can get inside there with a dental pick or some such and while holding the trigger stirrup up out of contact with the plunger, push the plunger down a little and turn it around 180 degrees so the long side is facing out. Then you can lift it straight out without having to remove the trigger. Be careful to hold your finger over the mag release button when you do this, or the little plunger and spring that is in there is going to shoot across the room. Alternately, put a piece of duct tape on it so you don't forget...or slip.

That would depend on how they're made. Swaged cores don't stand up well to major velocities, and tend to deform or separate from their plating material. But here in Ontario I have been working with a local lead products fabrication company that has started producing hard-cast, copper plated bullets. These bullets very well indeed at 1400 fps out of my guns...all the way out to 50 yards...and in fact MOST IPSC guns seem to handle them quite well. The only guns I've seen have trouble with them are the occasional SVI with their razor sharp, coated barrels. But even some of those are fine. For us, they are a hell of a lot cheaper than jacketed, and easily available.

I played with them quite a bit (maybe a century ago) and found them very fast to acquire but extremely poor for calling shots. Full targets out to ten yards or so, no problem. But throw in a partial or some distance and you start dropping points big-time. I think Todd Jarrett played with them for a while also. Save your money.

Do you have a video camera? If you have access to one, set it up on a tripod on a front 3/4 angle framing only your upper body while you shoot a couple of drills. Look for blinking, trigger mashing, clutching etc. Once you figure out exactly what you are doing you can isolate it and and fix it. But you have to know what it is to proceed.

The cage is in fact what I was referring to; not the sear. In many if not most guns, a very nice trigger can be had without tightening them up at all, but like anything else in the world, tighter tolerances just means a better fit and function in a racing gun, so long as the tolerances are correct for that gun. One problem with the slop in the sear cage that I've noted is that some (a very few) guns have had their frames actually cracked on the left side, from the safety hole back along the frame rail. This is due to the impact of the round against the ejector being transmitted back through the cage into the frame rail. Taking out the slop can help prevent this.

For a soft start, just begin moving like you would when you start walking normally; get your head moving first out past your body, and once you lean out far enough you will start to fall, at which point your LEAD foot will step forward to stop you. Walking is just a controlled fall. So just keep doing that and push off harder with the back leg if it helps in the specific situation. If you need a hard start; just do everything the same but additionally drop your hips quickly as you shift your strong side foot back a couple of inches while driving your head forward. This gives you harder linear thrust when your object is to get from A to B fast and then shoot. Moving the lead foot first also lets you draw before the holster is displaced by the weak side hip as it rolls forward.

From my first post: What confuses me though is why the support hand is used in the manner that it is. Why do we rely on a side-to-side pinching action of the hand to generate enough friction to try and snap the muzzle back down to target (and to keep the hands from coming apart)? I know that personally, if I don't grip with enough force to hang onto the gun, my hands will start to separate during rapid fire (assuming everything else is neutral and I'm not pushing and pulling). That's fine but to me this puts a requisite on grip strength. A G19 with ball ammo may not be a problem but what about shooting guns that are lighter and more powerful? Also, what happens if my hands are greasy and sweaty? I'm definitely not trying to argue - just learn. What happens when you combine slick hands with stout recoiling loads? It's just a question of degree. If the gun isn't friction-welded to your hands it will displace in recoil. This will happen even with lighter recoiling guns, even though it may be a very small amount which you aren't aware of. AND it won't matter how hard you squeeze or what grip technique you use, carry gun or competition. I think you'll probably find that taking the grip tape off will make you subconsciously squeeze harder to keep the gun from twisting in your hand. This will induce tension, which will guarantee inconsistency. My suggestion; the technique being described here is valid, so use the grip tape in competition because it gives you an advantage over the gun. You want to have maximum skin contact all the way around the gun, and whatever pressure is being applied by the hands will tend to be evenly distributed in this way...front to back and side to side. If the pressure is uneven, recoil will try to go to the path of least resistance. Don't think of it as "pinching" with the weak hand so much as just "holding." That's all you're doing with either hand actually. Done correctly, the gun and hands should move together in recoil without any displacement, and the other the thing to remember is that the offset pivot points in your wrists gives you mechanical advantage over the recoil impulse, without the penalty of excess tension. By the way: I NEVER think about how much pressure I'm applying with which hand. I have never been able to think about that sort of thing and shoot at the same time, so I just let my subconscious drive and apply whatever pressure is necessary for the type of shot I'm making at the time. If I'm paying attention, I do notice the pressures change automatically according to demand. kind of like what happens when you swing a hammer at a nail. Hope this helps...

Hey Henning, what do you think about a "fitable" sear cage? Rather than welding or brazing to take out the slop you could just gently tune say, four contact points...? Put me down for grip some grip screws. I'm pretty sure those stock slotted screws are trying to kill me.

Not too cold or you might get condensation. This stuff does set up pretty quickly though.

Red Locktite will never hold Jody. As you know I'm shooting the same gun/s and I've had this happen also. The retaining compound works very well (I have 648).

It's actually more about leverage advantage than it is about friction. The higher the hand rests on the gun, the lower the bore axis relative the the wrist. You're just trying to move pivots points closer together, and this changes the recoil pulse from rotational (flip) to linear (straight back). The weak hand wrist is slightly in front of the strong hand wrist and cammed out against the joint with the thumb pointing towards your target, so you have an eccentric pivot point off-set which again gives you a mechanical leverage advantage without adding the punitive measure of unnecessary tension. This is what makes the gun return so quickly, and done correctly the gun shouldn't displace in your hand during recoil (light clamshell pressure is usually enough). Instead, the gun and hands should both recoil as one solid unit through a predictable and repeatable arc. If you find yourself crushing the gun to keep it from sliding, something's wrong with the grip mechanics, and until you isolate what it is you will never be able to "shoot in the moment" You'll just be fighting the gun too much. When building your grip, take note if there are any spots where your hands are either not in contact with each other or not in contact with the grip surface. If you have any of these "air pockets" the gun will try to recoil into them, so what you are looking for is a maximum possible skin-weld. A way to check this is to see if the base knuckle (pivot point) of the weak hand thumb is fitting into the space created by the joint of the SECOND knuckle of the strong hand when the thumb is on the safety. Thumb should rest on top of thumb. This will weld the hands together and ensure the wrist is properly cammed out, and ensure that the weak hand pad has good contact with the grip surface. Also don't forget; the job of the beaver tail is to spread recoil over a larger area, and it acts like a cast on a broken bone by essentially locking two parts together so they can move as one unit. For this to work though, you have to have your hand wedged into it pretty solidly.

Best thing is to set up an experiment and test it for yourself. That's what I way back when the Weaver stance was still being taught as the method du-jour. Try both methods on some simple, repeatable multiple target drills and measure the hit factors. Keep it to just shooting; no fancy stuff like draws, reloads, etc., and make sure there is some variation in the target distances so you can't just close your eyes and spray. Do the same drills multiple times and on different days to get a wide enough data sample, and just see what method nets you out with the most consistent hit factors. I have a sneaky suspicion I already know how this experiment will turn out..... Good luck!

Without the gun, let your arms hang naturally at your sides. Notice the slight bend that occurs at the elbow when the muscles are relaxed and the arm is just hanging loosely. Now keeping this elbow position, raise both arms in front of you as if you would be holding your pistol and notice the axis angles of the elbow joints (specifically, look for an imaginary line drawn perpendicularly through the elbow joint to get the Y axis...). I've found that if the neutral elbow position can be preserved, for most people the angles of both elbows will tend to intersect around the master eye...which is a nice little alignment checking device if you ever feel something in your mount has drifted off. You can check this in front of a mirror easily. It also tends to place the elbows in (more or less depending on the individual) the best compromise position for recoil management. Raise the elbows too much and the shoulders/neck get over-tensioned; lower them too much and the gun bobs up and down in recoil. Natural and neutral is key.

Back when mammals were still the latest thing and I was in college (animation), we had a saying; "Kill your babies!" Basically, it meant that you had to be willing to destroy your work in order to progress the next level. In the world of animation you can't be precious about anything, because the bottom line is always about what works in this specific instance....and in production it probably won't even be your decision so it's good to get the ego component out of the equation early also. Of course, knowing what works and what doesn't can only be achieved by going down a lot of different roads to gain experience; many of them dead ends. Lateral thinking and on-the-fly adaptability. It was a good lesson to have hammered into to my brain over the years, and I now believe this sort of mind-set helps in any sort of skills development; especially IPSC/USPSA shooting techniques. So get out there and KILL YOUR BABIES EVERYONE!!!

Ditto. I just HAVE to experiment with things in order to truly understand how to do something both correctly and incoprrectly......no matter what anyone tells me is the "right" way. Step by step tutorials aren't really about learning anyway; they are about memorizing.

Some great observations there! I had a Sensei once who gave me a great bit of advice; "breathe like a baby!" Most adults tend to breathe from the chest, which creates tension in the body. I guess they are unconsciously trying to look slimmer or something so they suck in the gut and force the chest to try and expand with the lungs...NOT what the system is designed to do. Breathing from the abdomen as we are meant to do lets you exhale correctly when executing sudden explosive movements, and lets the muscles stay primed for activity without being over-tensed. As well, beginning a slow exhale on "stand-by" helps ensure that the muscles of the trunk are flexing in the right direction when the timer goes off. I tend to think of all skeletal muscles like springs. A spring reacts properly when it starts out slightly loaded, whereas if it is completely unloaded or compressed, it really can't do anything. An over-simplification, I know. But the mental picture works pretty well for me.

If I have any caffeine it has to be at least two hours before I shoot or I'll crush my grips flat (and they're steel) or grind my teeth to nubs. I have a metabolism like a race horse so the best thing for me is to keep my blood sugar stable. I bonk in a big way and really suddenly, seemingly without warning, if I don't do that. I like to get up early, have a small breakfast and then a steady intake of high protein/fiber snacks and plenty of water all day long. The object it to not get full; just....not hungry, so I'll just graze all day long. The ultimate Excalibur vittles so far has been egg salad or tuna sandwiches on multigrain bread + apples eaten with cheese. Fact is, I can't go anywhere without food or a plan to get some.

I have the muzzle peg version of the Ghost (preference). Unlike some of the other designs out there, when the trigger lock is applied you cannot pull the gun out of the holster no matter how hard you yank on it. For running starts or holster tests, setting the lock at the 3 o'clock position provides a very fast draw, as you just wipe it off on the up-stroke with your middle finger with no time lost. For general range carry just lock it at 12 o'clock and forget about it. Even if you bump it with your range bag the gun is staying put. With the lock off the gun lifts out of the holster with very little resistance, though this can be adjusted with a heavier spring. It's a very good design.

The Velcro helped but didn't lock it down well enough for my tastes so now I have Velcro AND set screws. Works great.

Yup, it's nasty. With the combination of middle aged eyes and freezing cold winter temperatures 6 months of the year here, I finally had to admit I had explored all of my options with no satisfactory result, and would just have to go back to Open Division if I wanted to have any fun. It just got too frustrating shooting iron sights indoors, and it was starting to reinforce bad habits. Mind you; even dot scopes have their challenges with indoor lighting, but they are definitely better. Having way more fun now.

You can probably isolate it if you take recoil and noise out of the equation. Try this: Next time you practice at that range, try moving around with the gun held in front of you as you would when shooting (but do this as dry-fire) and just watch how the light hitting your front sight continuously changes. You'll probably see glints on the sides and top edges at different times as you move that you weren't aware of before because of the distraction of the gun firing. In other cases the sight may also either be in near total darkness or back-lit if the targets are illuminated. Any way you slice it; reading iron sights quickly is all about contrast, and there usually isn't much of that indoors. Your range sounds tougher than most.... I fiber optic may help a little, or it may not. It didn't really help me.