d_striker

[d_striker]

So why are you looking for holes???

Old habits from your teenage years?

These aren't the holes you want to be looking for.

[d_striker]

I shot the Area 3 Championship which was my first Level 3 match. I had a lot of fun despite the hot & humid weather. It was cool shooting the same match as some of the best Production shooters in the country and I learned a lot.

My goal for the match was to be disciplined on the front sight but that sorta went out the window on the very first stage that had 4 swingers with 3 shots required on all targets. I felt like I got back on the sights here and there but I was still pushing it a little too hard on the trigger at times. I don't think there was a single partial target in the entire match which really sucked me into squirting bullets at brown here and there.

A lot of mikes were earned. About 7 uncalled "aiming at brown" mikes. Had a bad heat induced brain fart and forgot to engage a target. Also left a piece of brown painted steel standing in the evening light.

Aside from few mental errors I also had a mag pouch issue again like at Mile High. One of my mags inertia launched out of it's pouch while running which caused a train wreck later. Going to run ribbed clips in the Ghost pouches which will hopefully fix the issue. My gun itself ran flawlessly. Not a single issue.

I didn't realize I was doing a weird flick with my gun when dropping mags until I watched video. I think that I started doing it subconsciously in response to some mags not dropping freely. I'm going to order some +10% mag springs and polish up the mag brake.

I feel like I gave 100% effort while moving and in some cases, I was pushing a little too hard. Cha-Lee pointed out that aggressive movement without smooth entry is a waste. There is no point getting there .5 secs faster if you're wasting 1 second crash landing into a shooting position.

I just got a membership at BLGC which means that I'm finally able to practice practical pistol stuff. I'm pretty excited to have a place to shoot. It's great practicing with a group of people but I'm at the point where I really need to be able to go out and figure stuff on my own. I'm going to try to put in one solid live fire practice session a week.

I'm going to really focus on two major items in practice that Cha-Lee keeps telling me over and over.

1.) Using my legs and hips to transition. It seems the only way I can do it right now is when I'm set up really wide. So I'm going to just set up low and wide as much as possible.

2.) Shot calling. I going to really focus on letting the shooting happen at whatever pace the sights dictate it should happen at. Don't aim hard, don't aim at brown.

Edited August 4, 2015 by d_striker

[d_striker]

A good weekend of shooting. Had good practice sessions.

I'm all out of e3 and have been trying to work up loads with Clay Dot since I have 8lbs of it. It's not going too well though. I pushed the charge all the way up to 3.2-3.3gr and it's still not where it needs to be. It's very erratic at that high of a charge as well. In any case, I'm going to stow the Clay Dot away before I blow my face off and use it for 40 minor down the road.

I'm pretty bummed it didn't work as I've wasted time trying to develop a load and I'm back to square one. There's no sign of e3 anywhere so it's time to try something else. I've got a lb of n320 sitting around that should hold me over for a couple thousand rounds until I find a powder replacement. N320 is great but I'm not willing to pay those prices for it.

I'm going to roll the dice on some Euro powder called Vectan. Seems like it's about the only thing I can find that is in the burn rate range I like. I ordered the following Vectan powders to try:

-AS (4lb)

-Prima V (1lb)

-Prima SV (1lb)

-A24 (1lb)

I'm pretty certain that AS will work based on internet forum scouring. I want to try the other 3 out on a whim. A24 and Prima SV are supposed to be uber fast like N310 and Bullseye. Prima V and AS are supposedly similar in burn rate to Titegroup.

I hate load development.

Edited August 10, 2015 by d_striker

[d_striker]

I just had a revelation in dry fire moments ago.

One of my primary focuses has been to use my lower body to transition. Previously I was setting up really wide but with not much bend in my knees. My thought, when set up like this, was to apply pressure with my feet. When wanting to transition to the right, my left toe would drive down and right toe slightly up, sort of like torsionally flexing a snowboard. This felt really awkward and un-balanced and I knew this couldn't be the way to do it.

Tonight I was setting up wide but bending more at the knees. I noticed that if I "drove" my left knee out, my hips would rotate. The transition from target to target was happening smoother and faster. So fast that I was breaking the shot too far into the C zone in the direction of travel. Can this be my transition thought? Knees?

I'm going to keep keying in on this and try to refine the amount I need to use my knees so the gun stops in the A zone where I want it. I can't wait to try this in live fire.

Edited August 13, 2015 by d_striker

[CHA-LEE]

"Don't think.....Feel" - Bruce Lee

Simple yet very effective strategy in finding the most efficient way of doing things.

[d_striker]

"Don't think.....Feel" - Bruce Lee

Simple yet very effective strategy in finding the most efficient way of doing things.

Absolutely. Unfortunately I'm at the point where I am consciously incompetent at this skill. The goal is definitely to be unconsciously competent.

BTW-It only took two years of you telling me to do this that it finally clicked.

Edited August 13, 2015 by d_striker

[CHA-LEE]

Some people like to ride the short bus to the range

[d_striker]

Lol. Yeah that's me.

[d_striker]

HPPS was yesterday. It got really hot out starting pretty early. I recently joined the BOD at this club and am excited to be on it. Getting there early and setting stages up definitely increased the amount of fluids that I should have taken in. I really started crashing towards the end of the day.

The match was a lot of fun. My match mantra lately has been "call every shot." Had 6 misses, 3 of which were on swingers. 2 misses were on a 40 round head shot stage where I really got sucked into looking for holes on targets. 1 miss was on a hard lean around a wall. All of the misses were earned from not calling them as such.

I engaged the safety on a reload on Stage 1. Looking at the time in Shot Coach, it took me 6.5 seconds to figure out what the hell was going on with my gun. I was surprised that I engaged the safety even with the thin RAMI safeties. The lever was barely moved up but it was enough to prevent the sear from moving. I installed an extra power detent spring so hopefully that solved it. I might tune the safety a little more so it doesn't engage until it's all the way up. I'd prefer not to mess with it though.

I've been using my knees in dry fire to transition but after reviewing video, I'm still using all arms. I need to get out and do some live fire practice while working on this.

[Glock26Toter]

I took the old dremel to my safties a while back. I can barely get them on with my thumb pushing up and it gets sore after a few times. I've never had a problem since and can't figure out a real reason why it needs to be easy to turn on.

When my wife Heather shoots my guns she has to use her left hand to turn the safety on. This is only a good thing (for both of us) as it creates a deliberate motion that we don't forget.

And in case you are wondering, they turn off like butter!

[d_striker]

As I've never seen the inside of a 1911/2011, I'm wondering if the safeties share any similarities with cz safeties.

If so, you might have to show me where you dremeled.

[Glock26Toter]

yeah, look me up next match and we'll compare safeties.

[d_striker]

I had the chance to chrono some loads using the four Vectan powders. Out of the four, I've narrowed it down to two. AS and Prima SV.

After initial testing, AS seems to be a little more accurate at 10 yards but I'm not sure if if was me or the load. I plan to do more testing outside at 20 yards and see what happens.

Both make minor PF without obvious pressure, though they seem to be running at the higher end. It's sort of hard to determine with Federal primers as even published loads near the low end will make Federal primers look flat.

Both powders meter extremely consistent in the Dillon powder measure. It was surprising that AS metered so well as the powder is a square flake. Prima SV is very small irregular spheres and is very dense. It fills a little less than half of the 9mm case which I like as powder spillage is kept to a minimum while the plate cycles. AS is a little fluffy and fills a little more than half of the case. I noticed that powder likes to fly out even when cycling the press diligently.

I'm going to load a couple hundred of each and do some more testing. Testing to include group shooting at 20yds, additional chrono, Bill Drills, and multiple target engagement with transitions.

Edited August 21, 2015 by d_striker

[d_striker]

I shot a few groups at 15 yards with AS and SV. I think that AS is a little more accurate. I also loaded up some of the same powder charges of each powder using some old Tula primers I had lying around. Pressure with these loads is a non issue. Edges are still completely rounded.

My initial review of AS's metering performance was off. I loaded up a couple hundred more rounds and it actually doesn't meter that great. The total variance is around .15gr (-.5gr to +.1gr).

Prima SV may not have the accuracy I'm looking for.

I may give Prima V another shot as it's a dense spherical powder as well but about the same rate as the AS.

[d_striker]

Load development is finally done. I think I found a really good load. I settled on Prima V. 3.3gr at 1.040" is making 133PF with an ES of 36 and a SD of 9 for 20 shots. Slide velocity and muzzle rise feel very similar to E3 but bullet velocity is much better. It's a little early to tell but it seems to burn cleaner. Definitely meters much better. Accuracy is good as far as I can tell shooting off hand. I think I found the best possible powder for 9mm minor. 3.3gr fills less than half of the case which makes powder spillage almost non-existent. I almost don't want to post it as I don't want others to find out and run it out of stock like every other powder.

While at the range chrono'ing, I set up four targets at 5, 10, 15, and 20 yards. I was trying to kill 2 birds with one stone in that I was seeing how each powder felt and practicing transitioning with my knees. I was blasting as fast as I could barely see the sights which wasn't very accurate past 5 yards. Times were around 3.6 to 3.8 seconds with mikes, C's, and D's. Then I was just letting the shooting happen and letting the front sight dictate shooting speed. Times were still pretty quick which was surprising. I could score 8 alphas in 3.8 to 4 seconds although it felt much slower than that. It was surprising that it only took .2 to .4 seconds longer to score all alphas compared to mikes, C's, and D's.

I'm shooting the Utah State match this weekend with some buddies which should be a lot of fun. I'm really looking forward to it.

Edited August 26, 2015 by d_striker

[d_striker]

After looking at my chrono log for the past year, I noticed something was weird. I've noticed that my e3 load had been getting slower since it was first developed. When initially developed, I only needed 3.1gr to reach 130PF. I was progressively bumping up the load throughout the summer and was loading about 3.35gr to reach 130PF. It was initially very consistent with very low spreads. Prior to Area 3, I noticed that I would get weird outliers that were right at 125PF or sub-minor. I passed chrono at A3 with 127PF using only 3 shots. Two were about 130PF and one was low.

I loaded up a bunch of n320 loads using 3.4gr which should have been plenty. I chrono'd some after the Aurora match and they were all sub minor. Like 121 low.

At first, I thought it had to be something that changed in my process or maybe powder spillage. I recently got a new lot of mixed brass from Joey and used it to load up my last round of chrono testing. I had only bumped up each powder by .1gr and I got significant velocity increase yielding a 7PF increase across the board. Typically, with most powders in a similar burn range that I've tried in 9 minor, a .1 increase would typically increase PF by about 3.

I also thought something might have been up with my barrel but I shot Richard's load over the chrono and I got nearly identical results as his Shadow.

I know there is no data for this powder but I don't think that the increase was purely from the powder. It's just a hunch, but I think that the previous lot of brass I've been using is pretty worn out. I'm wondering if either looser neck tension or primer pockets are causing the slower velocity. The old lot of brass has been reloaded at least 7-8 times if not more.

Edited August 26, 2015 by d_striker

[Richc2048]

I noticed the same thing with my brass. The nickel case once fired a make for large matches only were consistent but my normal range brass was having spreads of 60fps. I did notice the primers were waaay easier to seat on my normal brass. It's also been loaded at least 8 times. If not more.

The case walls were the same dimensions though.

[CHA-LEE]

From what I have read and been told the overall length of 9mm brass from one brand to the next can vary quite a bit. If the length of the case is different from one brand to the next the amount of crimp will vary as well. Changing the crimp even a little bit will dramatically affect the velocity of the ammo. The next time you do load testing try using the same head stamp brass vs random mixed head stamp and observe the ES and SD differences between them.

When I do .40 load development I make sure to use brass with the same head stamp/brand to eliminate that as a variable.

[d_striker]

From what I have read and been told the overall length of 9mm brass from one brand to the next can vary quite a bit. If the length of the case is different from one brand to the next the amount of crimp will vary as well. Changing the crimp even a little bit will dramatically affect the velocity of the ammo. The next time you do load testing try using the same head stamp brass vs random mixed head stamp and observe the ES and SD differences between them.

When I do .40 load development I make sure to use brass with the same head stamp/brand to eliminate that as a variable.

That was one of my thoughts as well. I typically use all Winchester brass when I do load development and chrono. Then I'll chrono mixed brass once I settle on a load to see if there is any weird deviation.

Even when chrono'ing all Win brass prior to A3, I was getting really low velocity rounds here and there. When I submitted my 8 rounds for chrono, I picked all Win brass.

ETA-Do you think longer brass would contribute to lower or higher velocity, generally speaking?

Edited August 26, 2015 by d_striker

[Glock26Toter]

I've seen the same thing with respect to different brands being different lengths. I think that the longer the brass, the more crimp and therefore higher velocity?

At any rate, I began sorting all my brass and even with that was never able to achieve the trouble free results from only using once-fired brass.

If you are going to re-use your brass make sure it gets sorted.

But I've had the same thing happen where I had to creep up loads... maybe it's the barrel breaking in or some damn thing? Of course, I've had a replacement barrel since then and it didn't happen this time. Maybe it's something happening with some barrels? When it happened to me it leveled out and while some people thought it sounded high (if memory serves it was 7.9gr of AC) others were like, "that's what I shoot."

When I got a new barrel it was a different twist and I made 170pf with 7.3 grains and it never changed. I don't know man... I just shoot 'em.

Also, you freakin' cheater! Picking out particular rounds for chrono is the very reason we have to chrono in the first place. I'm thinking you need to buy me a D.P. Burrito for me to maintain my silence! HAHAHA!

[d_striker]

Also, you freakin' cheater! Picking out particular rounds for chrono is the very reason we have to chrono in the first place. I'm thinking you need to buy me a D.P. Burrito for me to maintain my silence! HAHAHA!

Oops. Didn't know that.

They were put in the ammo boxes randomly. And I picked the 8 from the first 2 rows. I didn't load up a secret sauce chrono load and submit those or anything like that.

[CHA-LEE]

From what I have read and been told the overall length of 9mm brass from one brand to the next can vary quite a bit. If the length of the case is different from one brand to the next the amount of crimp will vary as well. Changing the crimp even a little bit will dramatically affect the velocity of the ammo. The next time you do load testing try using the same head stamp brass vs random mixed head stamp and observe the ES and SD differences between them.

When I do .40 load development I make sure to use brass with the same head stamp/brand to eliminate that as a variable.

That was one of my thoughts as well. I typically use all Winchester brass when I do load development and chrono. Then I'll chrono mixed brass once I settle on a load to see if there is any weird deviation.

Even when chrono'ing all Win brass prior to A3, I was getting really low velocity rounds here and there. When I submitted my 8 rounds for chrono, I picked all Win brass.

ETA-Do you think longer brass would contribute to lower or higher velocity, generally speaking?

Longer brass would create more crimp. More crimp usually creates more case pressure before the bullet is pushed out and down the barrel. So more crimp = more velocity most of the time. The opposite is true of less crimp.

[Glock26Toter]

Also, you freakin' cheater! Picking out particular rounds for chrono is the very reason we have to chrono in the first place. I'm thinking you need to buy me a D.P. Burrito for me to maintain my silence! HAHAHA!

Oops. Didn't know that.

They were put in the ammo boxes randomly. And I picked the 8 from the first 2 rows. I didn't load up a secret sauce chrono load and submit those or anything like that.

Yeah, I wouldn't say you were actually cheating. I just wanted to bust your chops! And there's a bit of a warning that the chrono should be a "random sample" so anything you do to make is less random could be problematic if a range official saw.

[d_striker]

I just got back from the Utah State Match. It was one of the most fun matches I've shot from a stage design standpoint. It was a lot of close blasting with a few 20 yard shots thrown in. There were also 2 cool activated targets that I never shot before.

I went into the match feeling really good from a stage plan perspective. I also felt very solid mentally and physically. My plan was to really let my sights dictate my shooting speed. After having a few really bad malfunctions, I got snapped out of that focus. I managed to get back into that focus here and there but I felt behind most of the match and tried to push. All in all, I had 17.88 seconds worth of malfunctions.

I spent a few hours tuning the feed lips on my mags in my hotel room after the first day. They ran without incident on Day 2 but I think that they need more tweaking if I want to keep this malfunction away. Luckily I had a diamond stone with me to tune the feed lips up. The match was a good learning experience all around, from gear tuning to the actual shooting.

The match stages were so much fun that I think I'll shoot this match again next year. If I do shoot it, I'll definitely fly rather than drive. We had a great squad. I had a blast shooting with good friends and made some new ones as well.

ETA-Prima SV load made 135PF. 135PF is going to be my PF target from now on with 9 minor. I'm getting better at calling shots on steel. I know when I miss left or right but I'm not calling low shots adequately. I think 135PF will give me a little cushion not only at chrono but on poppers as well.

Edited September 1, 2015 by d_striker

[thermobollocks]

The video's set to private.