-JCN-

How many projects… L frame gear for IDPA Revo. Including the front sight that finally came for the 986 and a conversion cylinder from 7 to 6 shot for the 686+. Apex hammer and springs for the new 696-4 and the Speed Beez speed loader to compare to the Comp 3. Also some Cajun CZ parts including 8.5# hammer springs for CO/LO and IDPA SSP depending on if I can get it to function. Also an IPDA legal kit for the decocker SP01 tactical that I’d use for SSP. Combined with the light spring if it works, it’d be great with half notch decocker.

I don’t watch TV or movies or sports. I’d rather dry fire instead. Just like I’d rather be at a match than sit on a beach. Mentally, it serves the same purpose… it helps me decompress after the emotional and intellectual demands of work with something completely different. Having a bunch of goals also lets me tailor the practice to the mood I’m in that day. Maybe I just want to stare at a front sight and press the trigger without it moving. Maybe I want to try and hit a fixed time goal. Maybe I want to sprint around the hallways popping in and out of doorways. To me, I feel better getting better than watching TV or movies. That was my conscious opportunity cost when I started training in 2019. Something had to give and I gave up TV and movies. Efficiency is the name of the game (for me). Some videos that I made with V regarding training. Her movement is improving, her recoil control is pretty good, reloads are subconscious, transitions are pretty good. Overall, it looks like a B class level shooter. Doesn’t matter what the paper classification is, you can tell (or at least I can tell) by the quality of movement what classification level someone is by watching them shoot. Even without seeing the hits, you can see the crispness (or lack thereof) in their muzzle and call shots off their gun movement. Same match, me shooting the alien without a thumb rest for the first time with transitions and at speed. I would put myself at an M level. This was an IDPA match so the hit speed is going to be a little different than USPSA. Retention reload so that’s why it’s slow. My transitions could be a little crisper and the exit / entry wasn’t that efficient but that’s where I’m at with this gun for now. It’ll get better as I get more time on the gun and in this configuration. You can tell a lot of someone’s level by watching their videos. Even without knowing what their paper classification is and despite what they claim to be (and what their ego tells them they are). This is a video I made for V when I noticed her “slow” practice videos looked uncrisp and lazy. You can tell by the quality of movement in the two examples the difference. They’re both slow, but only one is “good.” That’s like the expression: Slow is smooth, smooth is fast. Which isn’t the whole story. Because slow can be lazy and… just slow. Which doesn’t translate into fast. Slow (IMO) should be smooth but still crisp when it needs to be. Also because bundled goals… When I decided that I was going to do some Steel Challenge a year ago I put up the GFDS stickers up in my basement and I use them as general dry fire targets to get used to the vision and spacing of SCSA. But I use them for my USPSA practice too. Moving, from across the room, etc. Multipurpose and bundled goal, dontcha know.

Steel Challenge and bundled goals. I have a newer style Kadet that I’ve used for RFPO after I drilled and tapped the frame for a mount and dot. But for irons… maybe I should experiment with the older style kit. I bought it for a local match where they allow 22 pistol because the mags are weighted like a real one. The benefit for irons is that neither iron reciprocates. The newer kit has a front sight block but the rear of slide reciprocates. So I might swap the front sight for a fiber and black out the rear dots and experiment. It might be similar to the non-reciprocating sights of the Alien with irons… .

Day 7 in a row of working (like day job working). Three more until my next day off…. Feeling pretty great. Pretty good balance of family, work, hobby, personal growth. In a really good head space right now. I like balance. So… to the BUG gun. A buddy who was using one for competition has also been chewing through mag releases and when it happened to me with just a few days of aggressive reload practice… something had to be done to keep the gun viable. It hasn’t happened in many, many rounds prior and since it’s not a commonly discussed failure point (saw a couple posts on Reddit and such) but no good solutions (that I found on a quick Google). Basically it’s a design flaw, but only comes up under hard use. There are three pieces in this OEM Macro catch. 1. The mag release (metal). 2. The spring that rides on one side of the frame and is separated by an internal lip in the frame from 3. The wedge, in this case with an extended covering plate. The Macro catch is way easier to remove than the standard non-covering plate wedge. After pushing the tab through the hole with a small Allen, you can lift the wedge out with a fingernail instead of having to do a razor or some other tool to pry out the traditional wedge. With friction and aggression the metal mag catch and the soft foot of the plastic wedge rub against each other and the plastic loses. The wedge is there to keep tension on the mag release and every time a mag snaps in, the wedge and catch snap against each other. Like a little impact hammer. And the mag catch wants to slip out. So this is the experiment. A little bit of wax on the innards of the frame to prevent glue from sticking. I used E6000 on a small screwdriver to pack it in behind the lip of the tab and on the underside of the extension cover. Q tips to wipe off excess on the mag catch. I like E6000 because it rubs off with a finger like rubber cement if there’s excess and it releases with heat (so don’t try it with muzzle devices… ask me how I know!). Mag to hold the mag catch in place. Slip the glued wedge into place… One more round of Q-tip to wipe off excess and I’ll do it again after everything is dry. Fixing the wedge to the mag catch should go a long way to preventing the problem. I have no problem drilling through the wedge if need be in the future. I’ve got a bunch of the WC grip modules around and my trusty Stippletec iron is always ready to bubba up some polymer! I tell my daughter, “find solutions.” I’m not one to bitch and moan that “the design sucks! Sig sucks!!!” I’m not too pretty to roll up my sleeves. If something isn’t working for me, I try and make it work if I can. If I can’t, then I move on. But it takes less time to figure something out and fix it than to rant on the internet (IMO). It’s part personality and part training, but I like solving problems and I like learning. We shall see how it holds up! I think IDPA BUG is an interesting endeavor because it’s a quantifiable performance drop from a full size gun. If they ever make IDPA BUG-optics, I would totally do that if there was a reasonable mag capacity… as it’s about as close to my real world carry as you can get.

P365 mag release: I think the failure is probably in relation to aggressively slamming reloads home (because no failures with normal person reloading). Was talking with a friend and was talking about gluing the two parts together. My favorite glue is E6000 which is like strong rubber cement. I’m wondering if I could prevent the rubbing by sticking them together. The other option is space filling the tab with epoxy. I have no issue drilling it out later if need be. But I might try the E6000 to prevent the tab from sliding and rubbing. E6000 loosens up with moderate heat so it’s still pretty removable if needed.

V continues to improve. Her comparative finishing position compared to people at plateau keeps rising. Match finishes are indirect indications of the primary objective work and improvements we are doing. Her reloads look good again, so we are entertaining the idea of having her bundle goals and also dry practicing CO. Will get some data on what’s feasible. It could come into play for USPSA classifier goal and Steel Challenge where as of now there is not an LO division.

Bundled goals and time to develop and consolidate learning. For learning a new skill, there is a temporal limit to how fast you can develop. Putting more work in past a certain point doesn't really help you as much as having some time to digest and process at a subconscious level. Going back to moon clip reloads today, they went amazingly well. It's like my hands knew where they were supposed to be and the rounds dropped in with no rattling. Some of the vision and attention from speed loaders and IDPA revolver work helped my USPSA moon reloads... without spending time doing USPSA reloads. Similarly, the DA trigger press attention and vision... When I took out a Production CZ Shadow 2, the DA first shot was smooth and stable... a direct benefit of working revolver trigger presses with iron sights. Bundled goals help me stay engaged, entertained and efficient. For the next month or two: Tentative plan is USPSA revolver classifier skills and USPSA LO alien field course skills. Other plans may include (but not putting much work into them), maintaining my PCC skills and seeing how much incidental skill I can pick up in USPSA Production. As I said before, my IDPA classification and Steel Challenge classification goals will happen, if I give it enough years and tries. So I'm not too concerned about making them happen in short order. I'm bundling goals to make things more efficient and training in blocks and modules. But I don't have a particular time frame in which they have to happen.

I like working with irons. The timing and mechanics are a little different for me than shooting with a dot. It’s hard to explain and I don’t shoot irons at a very high level so I’m still trying to figure out what’s what. It seems like I need even more attention to trigger press fidelity with irons than dots. It’s a fascinating training endeavor.

So what happens if you don’t hit a classifier goal? Nothing really. The world doesn’t end, your friends don’t sell you out, your kids don’t really give a rip. For me, if you hit a goal it means the preparation and the execution were well matched. But there’s always an opportunity cost. How much can you overprepare for something and what else gets short changed in that quest for the goal? It’s a balance about what else you have going on and what your time frame is. Side goals for me, I try and put in the minimum amount of practice in order to achieve that goal. It usually winds up being around that 75% sweet spot. If I change nothing, then by running it enough times I’ll hit the goal. Steel Challenge is like that for me. I’m not going to sit there and practice a lot for that specific discipline. If I practice more and bring it up to 95% then I’ll hit the goal sooner. But it comes at that opportunity cost. If I get a favorable run and make it on a 75% probability… a favorable line break, a lucky edge hit etc, then it’s checked off the list and I can move onto another side challenge. Everything in context and ultimately, nobody cares anyway lol. It’s for your own enjoyment and entertainment. My secondary goals all have an effort and time context. I know I could hit them if I spent enough time and effort on them. But the challenge is to do it with a limited time parameter. My primary goals usually don’t have an effort and time context. I’ll keep working and training until they happen.

Also again to be clear because sometimes people just read/hear what they want to hear: I’m trying to improve my iron shooting and gain revolver competence that can translate over to other platforms while strengthening my trigger finger and learning some equipment things. The paper classification goals are just surrogates for that and a way for me to benchmark my progress and achievement.

Oh haaaaaayyyy! Safariland stuff came in. It’s a no brainer. It is soooo much faster than trying to load the 627 with Speed Beez. It should give me a lot of margin to complete the 5x5 revolver in adequate time. But since bundled goals, just working to get as much margin and reproducibility on the mechanics as I can. Updated plan is that I train revolvers for USPSA classification GM goal, SCSA M goal and IDPA MA goal. Hitting those goals will be affected by how many matches I attend / how many tries I get at it. I would like to have M level iron competency. That then I can transfer to other guns. Note that this is not my primary goal for the year. It’s a side goal. But most of the work on my primary goal (USPSA LO field course) has less objective benchmarks and more about flow and efficiency that’s hard to quantify. So I’m practicing it, but it’s hard to set concrete goals on that.

I was kind of making fun of that scenario but I want to clarify about visualization. I do it. A lot. Rehearse in my head and review the mental video of how the vision and the mechanics go together. I’m not making fun of visualization, because it’s extremely effective and important for training. What I’m teasing about in that scenario is someone who skips all the steps in between, doesn’t have the real life mechanics and just visualizes the end result as a fantasy. I don’t play basketball. I don’t know what it feels like and looks like to make a 3 point shot. Me visualizing making 3 pointers isn’t helpful until I can make 3 pointers… .

Hmmm. Now that the Alien is jiving better with my shooting ergos and I won't need to dedicate as much time to getting used to the gun after removing the thumb rest... It's making me want to divert more attention and energy to side goals....

There’s a famous racing anecdote about Ayrton Senna when he was told to slow down by his crew because he had a healthy margin but then crashed because he was out of his rhythm trying to go at a speed that was unnatural to him. I’m reminded of that today when I tried to shoot at a pace that wasn’t comfortable. I ran the 5x5 with a BUG and I was trying to use all the time. It made the mechanics stiff, tight and artificial trying to force it. Was also working the hold over. Even though I have the shortest front fiber Dawson makes, it’s still kind of a combat hold. So a few of the hits were just a little low. But it didn’t feel comfortable. So I went at my normal vision pace and repeated it. At that pace (16-17 seconds raw) it allows for a few pulled shots and still has margin for some flubbage. So I would say that I have a >75% chance of making the goal. The percent is probably higher than that but I like to be conservative. I have some left over margin so I feel comfortable with that. Also confirmed that the Alien feels great and is easier to track without the thumb rest. Did some slower 10 yard doubles and transitions to 3” circles. And picked up the L frame 6 shot that I’ll eventually use for IDPA revolver goals. I really like that gun. I haven’t come across that grip before, but I like it. I’m not a fan of rubber grips on a competition gun… too vague and spongy to get precise, rapid feedback on draw and index for me. So I’m feeling pretty comfortable going into a BUG mini goal.

I don’t tell my daughter to “do her best.” I think “do your best” has done more emotional harm to people than many other phrases. The implication being that if you fall short, your best isn’t good enough. And by extrapolation, you’re a failure. Which can lead to all kinds of emotional baggage in preparation and in execution. So instead of “do your best” I tell her to do a reasonable job or to do a pretty good job within the time allotted. Because I can always do better. If I had unlimited time and resources. I’m not going to be able to do my best all day, every day. I can only do a reasonable job and if it’s important enough, I’ll try to build in some performance margin. If I didn’t hit the mark, I didn’t allocate enough time or resources… or it wasn’t a reasonable mark. That’s one reason most if not all of my hobby goals have a time limitation or parameter built in. A lot of my goals aren’t a big performance deal if given unlimited time and resources (and motivation), but that’s just not realistic with my work and family commitments.

I was talking with a hawk the other day. He was telling me that he knew he could catch that mouse because he had done it once before. But for some reason when it came to getting them in the field he wasn’t that successful. I told him he just had to have confidence and believe in himself and he would catch those mice. Because his belief in himself is super important and the lack of confidence is what was holding him back. So I told him to do visualization exercises imagining him catching those mice and he’d be successful. Just believe and be confident! Nah…. I didn’t have that conversation because hawks just train, learn and prepare. Just like other efficient predators. They assess and execute. As humans, we let our brains and self concept (ego) get in the way sometimes. I like the term “bomb proof.” I’d love to have enough margin to crush goals with extra preparation, but sometimes lack of motivation, energy and time are limiting. But then I can’t really be disappointed if I fall on the wrong side of the probability, can I? My best estimation is that I have a 30% chance of IDPA Revo MA on a 5x5 without upgrading reloading equipment. My best estimation is that I have a 70% chance of IDPA BUG MA but I would love to increase that to 95%+. A little more tuning of my mind’s eye and mechanics plus making sure the equipment works well might get me there. Will get some more data today hopefully.

Tangent alert. I like this guy. The reason for the tangent is this. Specifically when he says this: This to me is the attitude of someone successful (as you can see from his prowess). Prepare and execute. Add margin to add relaxation.

Oh also, one of the P365 mags was dirty enough that it wasn’t locking back so I cleaned mag bodies and stretched springs. Have to vet the equipment!

Okay. I’m stoked. Shooting the Alien without the thumb rest felt like home again. Felt awesome and like the CZs again. No wandering. No driving. No imbalance. I loved it. Was back to good sub-20 ten yard splits without working hard. Super stoked. That’s why I like experimenting with equipment. I knew something was off and I wasn’t willing to just keep pounding with poor ergos. The P365 BUG worked well. It’s still a little bit of a combat hold, even with a really short front. Did run into an issue with the plastic part of the mag catch eating itself. It started jamming the mags. No bueno. Found this on one of my other frames. EDIT: I thought it was metal but it's still a polymer wedge. Looks like the macro catch. Looks like it's going to be a consumable.

Alien: I think on a gun that doesn’t rise much to begin with… the thumb rest is hurting me more than helping me. It’s causing issues with me splitting my grip to get to the thumb rest and having variable engagement of the rest. Plus with the way the thumb rest sits, it blocks me from forward slide racking on unloaded starts. Which then requires a slide racker. Which then affects my draw ergos… So I think I’m going to try going without it and seeing what that does to recoil management and dot tracking at speed. The benefits of doing without is that it’d be more similar ergos to what I have muscle memory on for CZs and it’d also make using it for IDPA CO more seamless.

At one of our previous recent sessions, V's reloads took a backslide. With any new muscle memory, there's a risk of atrophy until it's burned in. That takes reps and often careful attention to a couple key points. We identified a couple things that were falling off and she's been working on them again. One of the things I really like about this video is the smoothness of the insertion without pause and hesitation. It's efficient without hitches and I can tell it's getting burned into unconscious competence. It's fun to watch her progress and cut time off the learning curve with some directed coaching and drill design. But ultimately, it's her attention, intelligence and work ethic that governs the success and that's fun to be a part of. .

So after optimizing ergos, this is my reproducible pace without train up time. I like to have universal mechanics and I find that they translate over to different gear and setups. I don’t practice with my carry gun, but whenever I do break it out to do some testing… it usually turns out fine. This was a video I made years ago when I was training USPSA CO with a Shadow 2. It’s harder to learn on small carry guns. Recoil management and dot tracking is way harder than a competition gun. Training on a small gun is like training with a 2 iron as a beginner. You can do it, but you’ll learn faster and more efficiently if you start with a more forgiving 7 iron. Competition guns are 7 irons if you didn’t get the analogy, haha. With good mechanics, you can adapt that swing to other clubs with little modification.

Freaking IDPA rules lol. Before 2022 there were a bunch of restrictions on mag pouch adjustment, orientation and retention. Looks like all of that went away. 2024 rules… this is all they say about mag carriers. So in testing ergos, I prefer these for the reload. I can get my hand on the mag more positively. I made sure the mag lips got trimmed down to be legal. Checked each mag for compliance and fitment in the box. No ASSuming. It seems like I have a little space on the mag on the heel of the box… and flush magazines often take a little extra care to seat… Little bit of Vicious grip tape on the rear to help mag seating… Mags load more positively and less chance of a fumble when the pressure’s on. It’s all about probability and I love nerding out on this stuff.

Going to spend a few days with P365s. IDPA BUG IDPA CO The P365 platform has been great for me. IMO, all the changes are iterative and there is no “best” or “magic” performing grip module or version. It’s all a continuum of physics. Little stippling here, a little grip contouring there can help you get the most out of your configuration… but ultimately physics is physics and larger and heavier (when tuned appropriately) is easier to shoot at speed. IMO.

Also decided to do another Apex hammer kit on the new 686 instead of moving L frame parts around.