John Kane

Great post! I too share your pain. Dave covered most of it but here's what I do and it seems to be working though if you ask the people I shoot with they may not agree. 1. Set expectations ahead of time. I always tell her I'll be home much later than I actually am for example. Much better to exceed her expecations! If I'm home early I get a kiss, if I'm late I get none for a week. 2. Dry fire, dry fire, dry fire. I very rarely get to shoot a single live round outside of a match. Maybe once a month I'll get to go actually practice. I wish I could do more but the time and money thing get in the way. I have been amazed at how effective dry fire is though. And my kid loves to chase me around the house in the stages I set up! She's very adament that she has to pick up the magazines. 3. And this is the hardest one for me. I've not been able to enjoy the social aspects of the sport. All the shooters usually break down the match and then go to lunch to talk and enjoy each other's company. I try to get there early to set up but then I have to head home just as soon as I possibly can. This has been tough as the people are wonderful and I would really like to get to know them and hang out but I've had to give up that part to make the whole thing work. I just hope they don't think less of me b/c I shoot and run. I'm still working on getting her into the sport but have little hopes of pulling that off. Hopefully my 2 year old daughter will one day join me. I really like the suggestion of taking dedicated time off and will probably implement that policy as well. It's probably time for a break for me now as I've been pushing it a bit. I do this because it's fun. I love to experience the "present tense" as Brian calls it and don't have any aspirations to be the best or really to even beat the guy next to me. I just want to do the best I can do that day. OK, I lied a little. There are a few people I'd like to beat but that's just to smooth out some egos and it's not something that fuels me but would just be fun to see someday. Thanks again for starting this thread! It's helped me as well! John

THANK YOU!! To all those that made such a great event possible! We had a great time! John

Finally something I can contribute to! I think this is what you're talking about. http://www.brazoscustom.com/Home.htm then go to tips and tricks on the left side. You'll find "how to modify your mag catch...." Good luck! John

I'm taking a business trip to India for three weeks and when I'm not working I'll be stuck in my hotel room. Lot's of opportunity to dry fire and practice! I obviously can't take my real pistol with me so I was considering buying a nice airsoft pistol for the trip and would like to have it to practice at home since I don't get to a range much anyway. Since I've never even held one of these things I was hoping for some advice from someone that has done this or opinions from those that have them. Can I just check the thing in my bag and get on the ariplane? Are they plastic or will this show up looking like a real gun in my bag? Are they considered toys or bb guns? Anyone know if the law distinguishes between them? They run on compressed air, right? Can you take that on an airplane? Thanks for any help or insight! John

I'm still working on this myself and have found Matt Burkett's online dry fire website to help a lot. http://www.burkettvideo.com/ then click on "online dryfire drills" on the left column. There's a swinger in there that you can set the speed on. It's not the real thing but better than seeing them only in matches.

Good luck with your recovery!

I sighted mine in at 25 yards but had targets at 50 yards for a match this weekend. I hit them so I was pretty happy about it! For me 25 ended up being long enough.

Dave's right. I practiced it a lot dry fire and never had a problem and then at the match this weekend I almost lost it. When I was done shooting one of my squad members came up to me and said, "nice catch!" I'm going back to something more secure.

Saw it last night and love it! I'm anxious to see it again to as I know there are several things that I didn't catch the first time around. Spoiler alert again! Don't go below

CR speed has been great. Though I haven't tried any of the others.

Thanks for the info! The pistol is essentially an STI Edge. I don't know, maybe my thumb was the culperit. That makes more sense than anything else but my thumb is far enough past the slide stop that I don't see how that could happen either. The detent seems to have fixed it though. I hope! Thanks again! John

Just wanted to publicly thank DougC for helping me out and being an honest person. I bought something from him in the classifieds that I couldn't figure out how to use. He offered to give my money back but ultimately helped me get it working. Thanks Doug! There sure are some good people 'round here! It's why I've really enjoyed getting back into competetive shooting. John

Frist off, this is an amazing forum and the amount of information here is just incredible. I already did the required search and I couldn't find anything on this topic so I'm boldly starting my first thread. Wish me luck... The short story is I needed to "dimple" my slide release to prevent it from engaging. I tried every drill bit I had and none of them even scratched it! So how do you drill hardened steel? I used that tiny metal ball thing in my dremel kit and it worked really well, maybe better than a drill but that still left me with the question of how do I drill hard steel in the future? The long story is my slide was engaging randomly so I started searching the forums. I trimmed all the material off the slide stop and magazine followers I could but still had the problem. Kept searching threads and turns out bullets can somehow engage the slide stop? I would never had believed it but the fix was to dimple the back of the slide stop and that seemed to have fixed it. Thanks for your help! John PS, I put this in the beginner forum as I felt that was the safest place. If I should be in the gunsmithing or somewhere else please let me know.

They don't at the store here. They do stack them up on peg board so they are sitting next to each other. A small price to pay for that kind of selection though. My Mom didn't have a Christmas present for my Dad and I was able to find the .22 pistol he wanted at the last second. I was impressed that they wipe the guns off when they put them back on the rack. I don't think I've seen any other store do that.

It's my favorite store and have found them to be very competitively priced. I can get reloading supplies cheaper but when I really need something it's nice to have them there.

Nice work Bulm! It looks great! Can you comment on the performance difference for us? Thanks! John

So what holster(s) were you using previously? Just to compare... Just remember to lock it. Sorry if this is off topic or not in the correct area but I had a recent experience this reminded me of. I have always held my arms very tense in preparation for the draw and found that when I relaxed them I was .25s faster. I finally did get that 1 second draw, as long as the target is close enough!

I'm facing the exact same problem. Add to that my wife doesn't support it since it's not a family activity since my kid is so young. What I keep coming back to is that it's just fun as can be weather I win or not. I get a great adrenalin rush before every stage and if I do well it feels just amazing. Add to that the people I get to shoot with are great folks that are a lot of fun. For me that's enough to warrant going once a month, without any practice (or even having sighted in my gun),and just having fun. I'm hoping I shoot better without the extra pressure! Now if I could just figure out how to get some practice time....

Sorry to ask the beginner question but what is the penalty for an FTE? I don't see that on our local score sheets. Do those count as procedurals? Thanks! John

Quick question... I noticed that both Jake and Travis move the pistol back and forth slightly to get ready before they initiate the reload. Is this just getting settled in or is there some other logic behind it? Thanks! John

Don't we get to hear the measurements? You know... height, weight... caliber.

I recently started off with a Dillon 550 and love it. Reloading is pretty overwhelming at first so I opted with the simpler machine. There are some great conversations in the archives on what machine to get and I found that they were about 50/50 on 650 vs 550. General concensus is that the 550 is easier to learn, faster to switch calibers, and easier work up loads where the 650 is faster and safer (self indexing). I've never used a 650 but everyone I know that has one loves them and woudln't do anything else so it doesn't sound like you can go wrong. I plan to add a 1050 someday if I shoot enough volume and then keep the 550 to work up loads and "other" calibers. Whatever you do get a progressive press. I used to have a rockchucker and this is ton's better! My other advice is to get the video and don't hesitate to call Dillon if you have a problem/question. They are GREAT and very helpful. Good luck! John

I've been using 3.8gr of VV320 under a 180g Zero JHP with an OAL of 1.185 and it's pretty soft, almost too soft so I went up to 4.0gr. But that's with a 13lb recoil spring. You could probably go lower with a lighter spring but I haven't tried that yet. I'd like to see other people's combination of light load and spring as well.