markwilliston

Sleep is pretty important, I've been learning to juggle it when going to work or coming home from work includes a 5 hour plane ride over 3 time zones... I'm a morning person for hitting the gym, but I have been finding I enjoy doing dryfire later in the evening. When I am home in Vancouver it's a "day off" if there is such a thing. Today I learned that it takes 7000 grains to make one pound. I met up with Murray after the gym (heavy leg day) to pick up some of the bullets and primers that I ordered. He had 7000 200gr LSWC for me, and 5000 Federal large pistol primers, and 8 lbs of tumbler media. Loaded up the back of the corvette and brought it all home. Sometimes it's a pain in the ass living in an apartement grab two boxes of bullets (60 lbs) walk across the underground parking lot, lean against wall while getting keys out to get into the building, wait for elevator... lean against wall to press button for 18th floor Repeat 3 times... It's all good now, and my reloading bench is very well stocked for the next little bit. Dryfire was pretty awesome tonight. The speed has been coming up on all the excercises, I can look at any point, and draw the gun freestyle/strong or weak hand, and I know the front sight will be lined up with the point I was focused on. Doubling up on the burkett reloads has paid off in a couple tenths. Live fire tomorow, looking forward to it. Now it's time for a hot bath. Chapter 10: Learn From your Oponents Samurai Strategies

I've got a full length tungstein guide rod in mine and I skip the paperclip trick. This works as long as the guide rod does not stick out beyond the barrel bushing with the slide closed. Here is how I skin a cat: Now either use your thumb or bushing tool: To push down the Recoil Spring Plug and turn the barrel bushing. This is the part where you either pay attention or spend the next 2 hours looking for the g#%@mn recoil spring plug that has departed across the room. When you turn the barrel bushing all the way over and your thumb over the recoil spring plug slowly let it out. Then pull out the recoil spring. Move the slide back to the spot for taking out the slide stop. Pop it out, and the slide will come off the gun. That's on an STI Trojan .45 with a tungstein guide rod from EGW. Although with steel guide rod was the same length. With a 10 lbs recoil sping I don't need the barrel bushing wrench, and can have the gun apart in seconds. Edited for joke: If you are a glock guy, your tigger finger is probably tougher than your thumb, so you can use your trigger finger to push down the recoil spring bushing

Pick 3 or 4 objects, one close, one medium, and one farther away. Focus on the close object, then jump out to the far object. Move back to the medium object, then the far one, and the close one. Do it slowly at first, then speed it up, and keep alternating. Everything should get sharper after about 30 seconds of doing it. Helps a lot if you are focused on one object or distance for a while. Mark

Yesterday started in New York up at 8am. We flew out of LaGuardia back to Toronto, then did a turn down to Dallas and back. That was my work day, which finished at 9:15pm eastern. Next step, hop on the last flight back to Vancouver and get in the door at 2am. I got a few hours sleep on the flight home, but today I am worn out. Still did chest day at the gym, left shoulder isn't great but otherwise good workout. I put in an order for 10,000 bullets, and primers, and a few pounds of tumbling media. Was supposed to pick it up this afternoon, but inspecting the insides of my eyelids seemed like a much better idea. Dryfire was excellent tonight, weakhand and reloads are catching up to everything else. First qualifier of the year is this saturday, there is one on sunday as well, but I'll be flying in Toronto on sunday Live fire thursday, range setup for the match friday (hopefully some shooting as well) it's gonna be a busy week. Chapter 9: The Power of Emptiness Samurai Strategies

My other ride isn't a car. The car: 1987 Corvette with 270,000km on it The plane: 1966 Nanchang CJ-6A

Does the Tofu stick to the pan that bad???

Woke up sore and tired this morning, so I must be doing something right. Had a decent back workout today, I'm keeping the weight light for my right elbow and burning the back out with reps. Elbow is a little tender tonight, but nothing that Ibuprofen won't take care of. If it's still bugging me before my two week stint of flying at the end of april, I'll look at a cortizone shot before I leave. Let it work while I'm gone. Tomorow I have to go to Toronto for 4 days of flying the following afternoon. So no shooting or dry fire for a few days coming up. Tonight split dry fire up while doing laundry. I hit reloads first, then two more drills and a break. After the break 1 more drill and finished with reloads again with a lower par time. When I look at a point, the gun draws on the point, smooth and fast. More and more baby steps are coming together. It's going to be a great year. Chapter 8: Clear the Mind Samurai Strategies

Hey Chris, I do practice with the mags full of dummy rounds. It's a pretty significant change in weight of both the mag and the gun. Plus if the gun really jams up, you can throw a mag at the target, I bet it would score major Thanks for the input, Mark

Thanks Chuck, and Vlad now I know. Wasn't worried about the firing pin itself, the one in the gun has worked nicely for 10,000 rounds. Just wanna make sure I have the right spare. Anybody want a new STI .45 firing pin? Mark

Must have been a good leg workout yesterday, cause my butt hurts, have a hard time getting up or sitting down, and I'm walkin funny But it's a good kind of sore. Today was chest day, it's feeling good. I'm stickin with free weights, I want everything working together. The club match last weekend, and the qualifier coming up in april are upping the motivation for dry fire. Right now, short term goal is to make reloading a strength. I have no idea how Pharaoh Benders glock hasn't crumpled from reload drills. I've had a steel magwell in my gun for 2 months and it's allready dinged up! Chapter 7: Train the Mind Samurai Strategies

I just found out over the weekend, that my Trojan .45 has the .38, 9mm, .40 firing pin, and not the bigger .45 firing pin. The firing pin stop is the same, just the hole in the breach face is smaller so the .45 firing pin will not fit in the gun. Anybody else with the same gun notice this? Mark

I just found out on the weekend, that my trojan .45 has a 38super/.40 firing pin and not the bigger .45 firing pin. I was looking at the spare one that I picked up, and said to myself gee that look big compared to the one in the gun. Sure enough, it does not fit! Like you said, fit all your parts before putting them in the range bag. Great idea.

Heavy leg day in the gym this morning, it is amazing what eating properly (LOTS) does for lifts. Did live fire twice today. Was a beautiful day, so went and did my own thing on range 5 this afternoon. Started with some groups off the bench, I haven't been doing enough of this. Was doing 3 shots from 25 yards, tape and repeat. Still have lots to learn on fine tuning the trigger control, it was interesting. 3 groups in a row, my first shot went through the same hole, like exactly. Next did some drills for the next qualifier. From 25 and 15 yards. At 25 yards, 3 targets 1 yard apart. 2 shots each target in 5 seconds. My draw time was hovering around 2 seconds, and .45-.5 splits after, gotta work on those A's. Second string from 15 yards. 2 shots each target, reload, 2 shots each target strong hand only. My draw was around 1.5ish, my reload was up around 2.5ish and I was only getting maybe 2 stronghand shots after the reload. Gonna spend more time on the reload dry fires. In the evening, we did had the regular group out. It went pretty well, we did a lot of multi target strings. From 10 yards I was getting my splits down around .3 with good hits. It was a good day of shooting all the way around. Oh and my gun... After yesterday, I got it home and cleaned it all out. Lightweight oil all the way through and put the aftec extractor back in. With my practice this afternoon about every 10-12 shots one would fail to extract. Talked it over with Murray this evening, and changed my recoil spring. The one that i had been using I got from Murray when we were testing a bunch of them in my gun to see what it liked. It was around 10 lbs, but I have no idea on the history of the spring. Anyhow I guess it was about toast, cause I threw in a new 10 lbs recoil spring and the gun ran flawless Chapter 6: Absolute Integrity Samurai Strategies

CLUB MATCH! It was supposed to rain heavy all weekend, but yesterday afternoon the skies parted, and it looked like the sun was here to stay! Got up nice and early and drove out to TMSA to help with the final setup. The corvette stayed at the bottom of the range cause there was a river flowing over the road halfway up to the "clubhouse". It was a little chilly, and I left my gear in the clubhouse while we finished the setup. When I got suited up and took my gun out to put in the holster the slide was really stiff. If I had thought about Chapter 3: Be Prepared, I would have taken the slide off wipe the slide-glide medium off, and just hit it with some light weight oil. Naw, one or two shots and it'll warm up. When we got down to the first stage, I was having doubts about how fast the gun would warm up. Starting position was facing up range, I told Carl the RO this might take a while. BEEP, turn around put the book on the table gun out and engage the first target. Bang, good hit, crap didn't go into battery, re rack, for the next however long it was I worked my way through every concievable malfunction possible. Just keep going, and have fun and get through it. I got great hits all through the stage, came in second for points, but my time obviously didn't cut it Went over to the gunsafe area and oiled the hell out of my gun with some lightweight oil, and cycled the snot out of the slide. Also changed out the newer Aftec extractor that hasn't been in the gun that long for and STI extractor that I know better. Joking with the rest of the squad on the way to the next stage that today is my jam clearing practice. Next stage was a fun one, but the gun was still FTF and not extracting. Good hits, got the most points on the stage just a little too much time racking the gun. We had to climb half a mile up the hill and wade across the river (I kid you not, well maybe it was a stream) to the 3rd stage. Did I mention that most of the stages were mud bogs? Anyhow next step on the gun was bumping up the recoil spring, so I took out the 12, and put in an 18. That did it! This was a tougher stage, 30 targets from 5 shooting positions and lots of cover. Good hits, but one mental booboo caused two mikes and fail to engage. Doesn't matter how fast you go, can't shoot enough A's to make up 25 points. Last two stages went good, lit it up nicely on the second last one. Overall awesome day, had a great squad of guys, and some good stages. What did I learn: -When the gun is talking to you, pay attention. -On a complex stage, once the plan works and don't change it last minute. Make sure the plan is solid in mind when stepping to the line. -have some garbage bags in the range bag, my range bag got muddy. -saw an example of why you always wear a hat when shooting, one of the ladies in the squad ahead of us caught a hot brass in the rim of her glasses. OUCH! Chapter 5: The Illusion of Form Samurai Strategies

Jane, you put a big smile on my face reading your post today about reloading. You could be my best friends twin sister. I could see her saying those exact words It's gonna get better, honest. Here's some little things you can try. I know you have the mega schedule, but try doing just one primer load a day in the morning before breakfast, takes about 15 minutes. That's 600-700 rounds a week, without really spending "that" much time in front of the press. It goes by pretty quick. Not sure how your bench is setup, but if you get everything ready for the next time, it's that much easier. Primer tube is filled, bullets sitting on the left, brass sitting on the right, and enough powder. Just walk up and start making bullets. Keep having fun

I guess it wasn't that bad of a day. When I took my gun out of the box and the slide was tight cause of the cold. Maybe I should have taken it apart (not maybe) and oiled it instead of the grease that was in there. After stage one with about 24 racks of the gun, we ran a bunch of thing oil thought itt. I changed out the extractor too, just in case. That didn't help a whole lot. For stage 3 I swapped recoil springs from a 12 to 18, and that did it Anybody else?

Chet keep posting videos like that and I'm gonna end up with an Open gun... NICE! That sure looked like fun. Mark

STI Trojan .45 STI magwell Tungstein guide rod from EGW 10lbs recoilspring Aftec extractor STI stainless ambi safety Trigger job down to 2lbs Chip McCormick 10 round mags I think I'm done adding to this one.... maybe

Sometimes it hard to keep everything positive Day started off great, got a whole bunch done, including good shoulder workout +20 minute on the bike, got all my tax stuff organised (looking forward to the money), got the oil changed on the car and had it washed. The awards for next months flying came out today, I kept my bid really really simple. All I wanted was the two days off for the qualifier at PoCo on the 7th and the Qualifier on the 8th at TMSA for the two qualifier matches. All I got was a lump of coal On the saturday afternoon I have to fly back to Toronto for an early departure sunday morning The next local ones aren't until June. I'm sure it'll all workout, just been really looking forward to those two matches. On the plus side, I have 5 days off leading up to the matches... and after the 5 day pairing, I have 9 days off... Anybody wanna trade? Dry fire went well tonight, one thing I noticed last night. When I am transitioning through multiple targets my trigger pull is pushing a bit right. Glad I caught that, one more step to work on. Chapter 4: Be Prepared Samurai Strategies

Yesterday was my last day working in flightplanning till I have to be in Toronto on the 30th. Today was supposed to be live fire in the afternoon, and then setup the RO boxes for our april qualifier. Had a pretty good back workout this morning, I've just toned the weight way down and my elbow seems to be happy with that. We are having the monsoon season this spring in Vancouver. Normally we train rain or shine, but today was just unbelievable. I packed up all the stuff for a soggy practice, but Murray was nice enough to call and see how crazy I was feeling. We decided it might be a better dry fire than live fire day I like the feeling of pushing up the speed on dryfire, finding ways to get it together just a little quicker. I also really like the feeling when you slow it up one or two tenths and it flows smoooooth. Now if I can just get smoooooth and fast Turn and draw was going really well tonight, eyes on target and everything follows. Chapter 3: Train to win Samurai Strategies

Really didn't wanna get out of bed this morning when the alarm went off. Had to get up early to get a workout in before work. Awesome leg workout, although at the time I would rather have been somewhere else... Didn't have a whole lot of energy this evening for dryfire but did a good half hour. Working on keeping the shoulders back when I am "relaxed". I have also noticed the last coupe live fire pratices that I am crowding the left side A/C line. Spent some time tonight just on trigger pull. Chapter 2: Life-or-death disipline Samurai Strategies

Busy couple days, picked up a new book the other night "Samurai Strategies" 42 strategies from Mushashi's Book of Five Rings. This one looks like something I can learn from. Live fire today, went down early and did some more chrono work. Even though I said I wasn't gonna let it happen, I am 4 days away from a club match and still working on match load... think I have it sorted out, one more test thursday to confirm everything. Did some organizing of score cards, and just some cleanup in the clubhouse before practice. Lots of little things to take care of before our club qualifier next month. By the time we got organized for shooting, it was raining pretty good and getting kinda dusky. Range 1 is well lit and covered so we setup down there. Nothing fancy tonight, just setup at 15 yards and did a bit of everything. Surrender draw feels better, gonna work more on hands at sides draw. My hits were good, but the draws seemed to be more in the 1.6-1.7 range. Overall good practice. Chapter 1: Set Goals

About a year and a half ago I did a booboo on my elbows lifting heavy in the gym. It seems to be flairing up on my right elbow this last week. Seated cable rows and or 1 arm dumbell rows it really doesn't like, no matter how light. I'm kinda wondering if the action of pulling the handle on the press is agravating it to? Gonna go see the doc this week, and see just what is wrong and if physio or cortizon shot or whatever I have to do to make it good. Because today was such a rainy day, seemed like a good idea to do some inside stuff. I've had a digital video camera for just over a year, and made a fair number of tapes from trips and neat stuff. Never actually don't any editing, just made tapes up till now. Today I sorted out how to get it on the computer. Todays dryfire wasn't my regular training session. I wanted to get video of most of Steve's basic drills. I learned a couple things immeadiately from looking at the video. First, my desk is a Disaster ZONE! After seeing it on video, I spent about an hour sorting out what was on it, what needed shredding, sorting etc... Another thing I learned, I make faces sometimes on the draw. Usually it happens when I struggle getting the grip on the gun. Lets see how this works out. Yes the camera is mounted on a tripod... First clip on youtube hands at sides draw, followed by surrender draw: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nT692ROKVsMdryfire More coming once I figure out how to post photobucket videos... Comments appreciated

It's all relative, 1.2 seconds is not a very long period of time. After finishing a dry fire excerise with a .8 par time, bumping back to 1.2 seconds seems loooong. Yesterday was another pretty awesome day, although when it started off with me thinking I lost my wallet it wasn't soo cool for a little bit. Relatively quick leg workout, but good enough for me to be walking a stiff today. After lunch we had an early practice, warmed up with some freestyle then strong hand, and then weakhand from 7 yards. Then we moved back to 15 yards for some more stronghand/weakhand. Next we had 3 targets 1 yard apart, from 15 yards. 6 shots freestyle, then 4 shots strong hand. Next string 6 shots freestyle 4 shots weak hand. I was struggling a bit with the holster, so I took it off and tighened everything down more which seemed to fix it. I had one string near that end that went just awesome. Murray somehow got a bunch of us from the club tickets to the premier of the movie "Shooter" which we saw last night. Fun movie with some good bang bang shoot'em up. Today, did a chest workout in the morning. Dryfire this evening, very happy with where my par times are this early in the year. Need to cut out some more mini targets for the patio window.

Load 100, go outside for a bit, refill the primer tube, load 100 go outside Repeat till out of bullets or sunburned