-JCN-

For my session, I think I like the rearward thumb rest position on the alien. I need a really light grip and avoid muscling and driving the gun. The gun doesn’t need my normal recoil mitigation “spring” setup. Was working 0.18 splits at 15 yards on a pair off the draw. It didn’t go that well, but I felt I needed extra shot calling work with the gun and 8MOA dot. But I feel doing a variety of drills with the gun to tune up my comfort with it is key. I also think the CLP chamber brushing is key to reliability. It blows CLP and carbon out the piston chamber and I think that helps keep things from gumming up as well. I then tried the new revolver sight. It didn’t fall out and it was easier to see. I ran strings of the 5x5 classifier. Freestyle went well. SHO was kind of a mess. Hits were sketchy but I started learning what trigger press deviations were leading to the poor hits thanks to the better visualization. With some work, was able to do this. But it’ll take additional work to prevent going down 1 (or more). I really focused on burning the sight in my eye and following through with my presses. The reload string wasn’t bad. It took a little time to get back on target after the reload. That might come down with a little more dry work with this sight. The 4 body and 1 head wasn’t bad. I still need more work with this sight to get the hold intuitive. Taking my best strings after working on improving things: Could go down 1 and still clear the time. But it’s not a given. It’ll still take a fair amount of work and I don’t have much time left. What it does tell me is: If I went to a 4” revolver, this would likely be a cake walk. The extra recoil dampening and the visual feedback would make a difference. I’m having to be really attentive and have really good trigger presses to not pull off target with the 2.5” barrel of the revolver I’m using. It’s essentially a snub. I’ll have to think about it. Whether I want to try and push and luck into it… or if I just go for the optimal equipment and clear it with margin. I’m a little short on time to give myself the margin I usually like going into something like this.

Shortish combined training session today with V. Her recoil control continues to improve. Index continues to improve. Reloads have atrophied. Which brings us to a discussion… Classification for USPSA has certain elements historically overrepresented compared to field course performance. Reloads. SHO/WHO. Sure, they can show up on real matches but if you were designing a curriculum from scratch for a new shooter… entry/exit/transitions would be a better use of training time than pounding reloads and SHO/WHO… especially if you wanted match performance over classifier performance. In my estimation, she could probably make A classification this year… but that might mean prioritizing the “wrong” things and that might actually take away training time for field course things. Her initial goal was B class for the year and I think that’s a good goal. B classification and able to be a bona fide B class performer at matches. If we hit the goal early, then good. We keep going, of course. It’s a little adjustment from chasing classifications and then fleshing it out on field courses. But that’s the approach she’d like to pursue and I think it’s totally valid. We have to work with our own tendencies and find our joy. To that end, she made IDPA SS this winter with a biffed reload but instead of giving it another crack to class up, she’d rather match bump at a major. She doesn’t want to be rated higher than she can perform on demand. I think that’s pretty admirable. If you can’t perform at your classification, it’s pretty clear to anyone watching. It’s not like people who compete are going to be impressed by a paper classification… the only people who care even remotely… don’t know much about the sport. ”Do you get a wizard hat when you make grandmaster?”

Diversifying the portfolio: I had this discussion with V this week. When we were in school / job training it was a grind. You had to have singular focus and compromise many things in pursuit of a goal that it was never guaranteed you’d achieve. We compromised sleep, health, happiness to get it done. It was extremely goal oriented. And ultimately it’s a selfish thing. For a hobby like shooting, we don’t have to and don’t want to do that. That’s why this journal is somewhat stream of consciousness and the projects skip around a lot. As I mentioned before, I like to pick short and medium term goals that are difficult, but achievable… and they’re always in the context of available time limitations. I also keep refining and updating my estimate of how much time and effort something is going to take and as the estimate changes, so do the plans. Looking forward to today’s range session. I think it’ll give me some data of whether I keep going with revolver side project or if I do irons on semi autos as the side project.

I did a better job of mounting the RDS and zeroed it. Used an ATE 1 degree shim to not run out of adjustment.

Made it through the work day. Had enough curiosity and energy to mess with the 986 front sight some more. Broke some carbide bits. The factory sight is really hard. Since I have the revolver supply front fiber coming it doesn’t really matter if I mess this one up. And it doesn’t cost anything to test what I have… So… As expected the front ramp didn’t have much material above to hold. Heat and E6000 and maybe it’ll stay in place… maybe it won’t. It’ll allow me to get a sense of the vision tomorrow… If it turns out to be the barrel length rather than the vision… Might do this… 9mm moon clip revolver in a 4” barrel…

I have converted irons to fibers in the past but the red ramp gets too close to the top after I cut it down so there’s not enough upper rim. Plus fibers indoors are hit or miss depending on ambient lighting. Gold beads work pretty well indoors with indirect and backlighting.

And in the meantime… could I drill the red ramp plastic and use a nail as a gold bead sight?

Okay. Ordered these to try. It’s for a V crown but approx dovetail measurements seem similar. And to replace the bubba’d rear sight lol.

Hmmm. I’m still chewing on the 986 revolver… IDPA rules apparently say no conversions (caliber must match what’s on firearm) so I’m stuck with the 986 unless I want to do the reload with 38 special (which wouldn’t be horrible). There’s a longer barrel 986 in production but the barrel is 5” and 4.25” is the maximum length. It’s pushing my borders of silliness to buy a revolver and cut off the nose to make length just for this one challenge. So I’m left with the nagging question of if it’s vision or mechanics. Could I make the hits at speed with a fiber front? Or is the short barrel too difficult to manage. Would I be better off just getting my 3” 686 cut for 38 special moons or getting a 4” 686. I don’t want to get too far off into the weeds on side projects though.

Ran some drills with V. Worked on entry doubles and she really did well. She had her first 0.15 split… then followed that up with a 0.14 and a 0.13 split… ON TARGET (A-zone at 7 yards). She’s FEELING it. I have thoughts about splits. Not everyone shares my opinions about them (and that’s okay). My personal opinion is that tracking timing at speed is a critical skill and single oscillation tracking with my favorite set up is around a 0.15 split. The gun V is using is my old CO gun with a magwell. It’s set up for 0.15 splits with 150 Syntech (which is what she’s using). Being able to feel and time and manage recoil at 0.15 splits at 7 yard alphas means tracking and managing recoil at 0.20 can extend out to 10+ yards. I personally feel that having that level of recoil control is the building block for so many additional shooting things. To be able to do it with flow and without tension. It was great to see and be a part of the development. When we started 6 months ago, her maximum split was 0.25. Today was a super rewarding benchmark of progress. That’s why today was a great day.

But that wasn’t why it was a great day. I did drills with the Alien and the takeaway is that I’m still not locked in on that gun. My hand placement is still a little floaty. Floaty is inconsistent. So I’m going to experiment with a further rear set thumb rest position to lock in the hands. But THAT wasn’t why it was a great day…

Whew. Just sitting down to decompress. Full day off today. Just got done dismantling the snowblower… turns out I bent a bunch of stuff when I hit some curbing when using it and long story short, angle grinder and waiting for another bearing puller to pull the impeller off the stumped shear bolts that are binding removal. Gearing up for a double work day tomorrow covering for a sick co-worker plus I said I’d still do my own work because the appointments on the books for me were people who had been waiting months and I didn’t want to penalize them for institutional shortcomings. But… today. Today was a great day. Tuned up my 25 yard A-zone rifle splits, zeroed a 22LR long gun for V to use in Steel Challenge and worked some revolver. Worked through each stage of the 5x5 with the 986 revolver and I don’t think I can realistically get it happening with those sights and that gun without significant improvement in my ability. I’m not attentive enough to notice and correct deviations with those irons and that short barrel length at speed. So it’s not going to happen for next month. I don’t have that kind of time to burn for that kind of a goal. My local IDPA club only runs classifiers yearly in the Winter/Spring so I’ll catch it on the next go-round. I do have BUG that I can pull in on short notice, though to try and make MA. I’ve vetted this setup over the Winter and it’s much more intuitive for me. A P365XL with home brew ported barrel / slide and WC grip with JCN stippling and cut off of the rear beavertail to fit in the box. Cutting off of the rear of a TLR7 to fit the light in the box to complete the super soft system. Just needs a mag floor plate nose trim and it’s all good. I’m kind of hoping for BUG-optics in the future. I would totally do that locally for the self-defense practice with equipment I otherwise don’t shoot. When I was setting up the equipment a couple of months ago, I ran it on the clock and it was fast enough to make up for some pulled shots.

Happiness is a warm cat purring on your lap on a cold day. Too bad I happened to be wearing black sweatpants.

Projects in partial implementation: In anticipation of my daughter perhaps getting into shooting, I got her a life membership to USPSA before the price increase. I also have an Airsoft G42 from years ago when I was doing carry gun index drills. And since I think red dots are better training / feedback… I tested the lightest RDS system I could. The DPP Micro was on fire sale for ~$150 or something like that. Added benefit of using dovetail mount (because Airsoft have aluminum slides that don’t take kindly to milling). Airsoft on left, real G42 on right. I initially vetted the DPP Micro on a 45 ACP Shield. That video is here: G42 testing video here: I have a full set of Tactrainers Airsoft targets so if she gets into it a little bit, I can set up courses of fire for her. It’s a good way to also help train muzzle awareness and safety. .

Daughter took to the NERF training pistol… so broke out some 5 shot single action NERF revolvers. Then put an MLOK rail and a Bushnell dot on it… intro to red dots….

Step 6: Ran it in live today. Hits weren’t great so broke it down to sub-strings and worked some vision. I’m not confident in the performance, I’m not that strong at irons. Will take some work and likely a little bit of luck. But that’s why I like these challenges. If it were easy (for me), then I’d pick a different challenge. Every time I try and break down a challenge, I learn something about shooting or about a gun system. It’s fun for me. I’ll put in some more work tomorrow.

Step 5: Next is to test in live. I can go down 2 at that pace.

IDPA 5x5 classifier. It is what it is. It’s just a skill snapshot. But it’s a test and a benchmark. I did a one week train up / tune up with PCC before a Winter classifier and was able to shoot a 9.20 s time clean. I usually plan for a pace where I can drop one or two shots. In preparing for that one, it was same low ready start as Steel Challenge. No strong hand so it was just a few strings of the same thing plus a head shot. The only different thing was spending a little time with the bolt lock reloads. I put a little riser on the JP5 bolt drop lever so I could hit it without shifting my strong hand much. It was actually a little bead sticker I took off my phone back that my daughter had put on. You can see it in this video, it’s the little pearl dot on the bolt release. Did the ergo testing and the time deconstruction and then took it to the classifier and performed as expected. That’s basically the process that I’m using for revolver now. 1. Baseline run with proposed equipment. FAIL. 2. Vet potential alternate equipment (625). FAIL. 3. Vet potential alternate equipment (327). FAIL. 4. Optimize sights. Promising on freestyle to 8” high vis target. I picked a high visibility IDPA paper target knowing that if I couldn’t hit that, I’d have no chance on a brown cardboard… but then at least I’d know if it was my mechanics or my lack of target discrimination. 5. Dry fire at representative “down 1” time. To see what strings need more help. And to break it down into areas where I can and cannot make up time. 6. Test in live on high vis target. 7. Work more in dry to get ergos. 8. Test in live on low vis IDPA target. When we talk about vision and pace, the reproducibility often gets underemphasized. But it’s so critically important. Take an example with some made up numbers: 10 yards, 8” circle single shot from a draw: 3 seconds: 10/10 times 2 seconds: 10/10 times 1.8 seconds: 10/10 times 1.5 seconds: 9/10 times 1.0 seconds: 5/10 times 0.8 seconds: 3/10 times. At what point would you say my usable 10 yard draw speed is? Well, that depends on the penalty for missing and the penalty for time. And what you’re requiring for reproducibility. That’s where classification performance can differ. Because people have different definitions of ability and what that means. My definition of B/A/M/GM or SS/EX/MA level skill might not be yours, nor does it have to be. There’s a large grey area between “able to do it…. Occasionally” versus “able to do it on demand.” And they all might all qualify as making the grade. Classifications mean different things to different people and I think that’s just fine. .

You seem like you know your way around a physics book. I only remember general concepts. Can you help me? I was trying to reconcile power factor versus kinetic energy where velocity is more of a factor. And springs and angular momentum. I guess what I’m asking is: Is power factor a gaming convention or is it more meaningful than kinetic energy of a load?

Always looking for notagun training tools. Target for $3… Surprisingly usable “optic” window.

I’m happy that I was able to get the sights on the 986 so that I’m able to get hits at speed. Sometimes it IS the equipment and something as simple as a more stringent visual feedback window can make a large difference in performance. Wide, sloppy irons with poor horizontal and vertical constraints was as difficult for me to shoot as a dimly lit red dot. It took more processing power to get clear refinement at speed. That’s where my thoughts differ a little bit from “The gun doesn’t matter…” I’m old enough to remember Tiger Woods at his peak. They had a television special where he played against celebrities and for every hole he won, they could take away one of his clubs. He had to drive with his putter and other such shenanigans. Could he overcome it with skill? Sure. Did the equipment matter? Not in the final outcome of the match. But did the equipment matter…. Yes. And more importantly… to a golfer like me… would it matter… Yes. I’m happy to call Cclassforlife a friend and we joke that we are brothers from another mother. We are two sides to the same coin and kind of like convergent evolution came at the problem from two different angles. I like his deemphasize the equipment to focus on the skill approach. For me, it’s standardizing the equipment so that I’m comparing apples to apples, skill to skill. It’s also fun for me to learn how equipment influences performance. I nerd out on the interface between human and machine. So I think the IDPA Revo MA goal is possible next month without distracting too much from USPSA LO. I’ll have to get some data with the new sight arrangement to see what my chances are to make it. Right now I’m thinking >75% chance. I’m not putting in much work for the USPSA Revo GM goal as I think that’ll have to be a longer term project. Behind the scenes I’m going to continue to work my trigger finger strength and do some casual Revo reloading practice. It’s probably going to be a background multi-year plan.

That sounds right… but no Creator magwells available (which is what I was saying about limited parts availability). The interchangeable backstraps and side palm swells are nice… but also not available without the kits at this point. If you don’t mind, I’d like to keep the journal kind of on track and not devolve into an Alien FAQ. Feel free to DM me, though.

Since the revolver has very specific application… wanted to tune it at that range. I have a bunch of snowblower batteries and an adapter to run AC items… like a Dremel… Ground the rear sight to a hold that I like (I switch equipment so often that I like to keep the visuals and grip similar so I don’t have to train specific applications). Comfortable with the vision at 10 yards. I think it’s viable now for IDPA MA level with modest train up time. With the other sights, no go. So it was worth it for me to cut sights to make it similar vision to my longer radius guns and competition revolvers. Shot the Alien to try and work out some of the bugs from the match. Tested my trigger control and grip and it wasn’t well tuned. Going to have to spend some time developing the muscle memory for the trigger presses. I have to get more live rounds down range. Set up a “go kit” I can hang off my mag dump pouch in the cart to remind myself to oil and brush. And getting the Subaru ready for plowable snow later tonight.

@UpYoursPal Here you go. LO Alien with regular creator magwell and original mag. Would have to shave or remove thumb rest. Regular 17 round creator mag doesn’t fit. LO longer mag definitely doesn’t fit. Unfortunately, Laugo USA isn’t stocked well at all with small parts so it’s a limiting factor.

To the best of my knowledge the modular grip system is held in place by the magwell, so it can’t be run without the magwell. You’d need to put a regular creator magwell on it for IDPA (LO magwell is too wide). Or cut an LO magwell down. You’d also have to get the original Alien mags because the base pads on the Creator series stick down too far. I can take some photos if you need them, but I did test those combinations previously.