d_striker

[d_striker]

We had a fun match at HPPS. Lot's of fun stages. I feel like my transitions are getting better but I'm still donating a lot of time on some of them. Especially when going from right to left and also on wide transitions. Hand speed to mag still needs a bit more speed. Especially on reloads where I'm not covering ground or taking a single step.

While practicing last week, I found a bunch of fired bullets on the berm that I typically practice on. I noticed that there barely is any rifling grooves in the bullet. I also noticed that the majority of the bullets I found had a burn on one side.

In the past when measuring pulled bullets, most came out to .355" to .3555" depending on the case wall thickness. The Xtreme's are very consistent at .356 out of the box which means that they are definitely getting undersized on the FCD. My suspicion is that the bullet is not sealing in the barrel and gas is blowing by causing the burn mark. CHA-LEE was also thinking the same thing when I told him about it.

I'm ditching the FCD and going to use a regular taper crimp die. I'm wondering if the inconsistent chrono readings in the past were due to this. I think I'm also going to switch to the .357" Xtreme's the next time I order bullets.

[d_striker]

I just slugged the barrel in my primary Shadow. I know calipers aren't precision instruments, but I got .356 on two sets of grooves and .3565 on one. The marks left from the lands were definitely deeper than what I was seeing on my fired bullets which tells me that my bullets are definitely undersized.

I think gas is definitely blowing by the bullet and leaving that burn I was seeing. Next order will be .357" 147's. Accuracy is still great with the .356" but I think it might be better with a bigger bullet. Not to mention that the combustion efficiency should improve as well.

[d_striker]

While chatting with CHA-LEE earlier in the week, he got me thinking about my goals for 2016. I hadn't really given it much thought before he asked me. What little I actually had thought about were really results oriented goals rather than process related goals. I'm so driven to win that I often get sucked back into thinking about results rather than process. I think this means it's time to read Lanny Basham's book again.

After reviewing match videos and really thinking about how I'm going to take it to the next level, I think I have some solid goals to work towards.

Shooting/Gun Handling Goals:

-See faster/move eyes faster

-Transition gun precisely to where my eyes are looking without wasted movement.

-Get short transitions down to same time as splits (ONLY A's)

-Medium transitions in mid to low .20's (ONLY A's)

-Wide to 180 transitions down to .5 seconds or better (ONLY A's)

-Standing reloads to 7 yard target under 1 second to A consistently in live fire.

-One step reloads to 7 yard target under 1.25 seconds to A consistently in live fire.

-Nail solid grip EVERY time.

-Increase speed and accuracy at 15+ yards.

-Shoot right to left as fast and as comfortably as left to right.

Movement Goals:

-Refine braking with trailing leg when entering position at speed. Have good sight picture by the time or before lead foot is set.

-Whenever possible, enter position with a wide enough stance so I can leave without a quick step.

-When I must leave with a quick step, make it a QUICK step...Not a big bounce and plant.

-Whiskey Throttle when leaving position....Not when I'm halfway to where I'm going.

-No wasted steps. Every step has a purpose. Extra steps are wasted time and effort.

-Every movement/action aggressive yet fluid and efficient.

Mental Goals:

-Figure out how to activate Jedi mode at the flip of a switch.

-Don't let minor issues distract you. There will always be something that isn't perfect. Accept, forget, and continue to execute as planned.

-Calling every shot is not slow.

-You can only control your own actions so don't worry about what others are doing.

Edited October 25, 2015 by d_striker

[d_striker]

I shot the CGC indoor match on Sunday. After being bed ridden for 3-4 days, I was still sort of out of it. I hadn't eaten much and definitely was not hydrated well enough and my body could definitely tell. My left quad, hamstring, and glute were cramping and spasming after just a few dry fire runs on the first stage where you had to squat down to a low port. It continued for the rest of the match which was annoying but it was a good lesson in how important proper nutrition and hydration is. It also made me realize I hadn't set any physical goals for 2016. I've got a few things that I'm really going to work on over the winter from an endurance and physical/neural pathway perspective.

I got to shoot on CHA-LEE's squad which is always awesome as I learn a lot from shooting with him. Being able to shoot with a Super Squad level shooter that really gives back to the sport is something that most USPSA shooters are not fortunate enough to have.

I consider myself to be a very logical thinker and efficient individual, but when it comes to stage planning I often don't see the most efficient path....Both from an overall stage planning strategy and also target engagement order within an array. I'll come up with an order to shoot an array and even think I have a strong rationale behind it only to find out that it isn't optimal.

I think part of my problem is that I always want to shoot the first target that I can see when entering a position. A lot of times this will result in a net time deficit with higher penalty risk compared to shooting the array in an order that allows for easier, faster, and lower risk target transitions. I am going to really try to "spend" more of my match focus on prioritizing transition speed and risk within arrays.

Edited October 27, 2015 by d_striker

[d_striker]

I've been forgetting to aim in the center of the A Zone lately and have been breaking a lot of impatient shots.

I need to figure out how to keep the movement intensity up at 11 while keeping the shooting knob at 7-8.

Being able to consistently isolate and adjust the intensity of these two items independently is a big mental hurdle that I need to get over.

Edited November 5, 2015 by d_striker

[d_striker]

We had great weather for November at PPPS. I managed to make aiming at the A zone my number one priority at the match. I made good progress but still need to clean it up a bit. A lot of my A's were right on the perf and had a lot of C's close to the Delta perf.

I figured out a couple of big things about using my feet to transition last week based off of a tip from CHA-LEE. I think I managed to employ the movement in a couple of arrays but I didn't get video to verify. There were also a couple of arrays where I was using nothing but arms and I could feel myself getting tangled up.

I believe a big cause of it is that when I have significant ground to cover, I'm solely trying to hit my position. I need to hit my position but also get my feet in position to where they need to be to get my cone of fire appropriate for the array I'm arriving at.

Somewhere in the last couple of months I've let my fiber bulb get really big. I've also been shooting my fiber like a dot for as long as I can remember. After some other knowledge "nuggets" from CHA-LEE, I made my fiber much smaller and was trying to use the top of the sight post rather than the fiber to aim. It felt slow but I'm seeing why this method is more consistent. Especially on targets past 10 yards.

I was shooting my first run of ammo using a regular crimp die rather the the FCD. I had a pretty bad failure to feed malfunction on Stage 1. I believe that the cause of the stoppage was not enough crimp as all rounds were case gauged. The round made it partially into the chamber but got caught up at an angle. I believe the top portion of the case mouth was just a little too sharp and got hung up on the top of the chamber.

I adjusted the crimp die and put a little more crimp on to knock off the sharp edge of the case mouth last night. After pulling some bullets, there still was no significant mark from crimping so I think that the problem should be solved.

The trigger on my primary Shadow is awesome. I like exactly how it feels right now. The problem is that the trigger on my backup shadow feels at least twice as heavy in single action because it doesn't get any use. I need to get more rounds on my backup over the winter to try to get both triggers feeling exactly the same.

I've also been kicking around the idea of fitting the AUS shadow barrel in both guns over the winter after I found out how big the bore is on my primary Shadow.

[d_striker]

I didn't get to shoot a match today as I had to take care of a few things before the pub opened. I did manage to get out and do some load testing though. Having switched to the CZ's in the early part of the shooting season, I was just concerned about finding a reliable load that was accurate "enough." Now that the major season is over, I really want to chase after the most accurate load I can get.

I measured the leade length in both of my Shadows using a 147gr Xtreme. The length in my primary gun is 1.195" and my backup is 1.175". I loaded up 100 rounds at 1.150" and 100 at 1.160". The initial appearance from slow cycling the longer rounds, looks like the longer rounds feed better into the chamber. They go into the chamber in a "straighter" shot from the mag. They don't get angled upward and hit the top of the chamber like they do at 1.130"-1.140".

I'm not the best group shooter (even supported) with a pistol but I'm getting better. I shot about ten 5-shot groups at 20 yards with each pistol with each group of ammo. I tested my current OAL load at 1.140" in addition to the ones at 1.150" and 1.160". I pretty much instantly noticed that my backup gun was much more accurate than my primary. I'm not certain if it's due to the shorter leade or if there is something else going on. I haven't slugged this gun's barrel yet but it's next on my list of things to do. My initial suspicion is that my bullets are still a little undersized for the primary gun's barrel and I'm not getting consistent bullet seal leading to varying chamber pressures. I think the longer jump to the rifling is also allowing more gas to blow by the bullet before it engages the rifling.

The best group I shot with my backup gun using the 1.140" length ammo was about 3"-4" with most bigger than that.

The best group with my backup gun using the 1.150" length ammo was about 2.5"-3" with most bigger than that.

The best group with my backup gun using the 1.160" length ammo was 1.1"!!! Maybe it was an unrepeatable fluke but several other groups were also under 2". Of course I still shot a few 4-5" groups with this combo but, like I said, I'm not the best group shooter with a pistol.

My suspicion is that my chamber pressure is more consistent with the bullet .015" off of the rifling. I think I may get a new factory barrel for my primary gun even though it only has about 11k rounds through it. I thought about getting the CZC match barrel but then I would have to get one for each gun. Though, I would hate to order a new factory barrel and have it be .356+ and have a leade length longer than 1.175". I guess it's a roll of the dice.

Here is the 1.1" group. .355" has already been backed out of the calipers.

Edited November 15, 2015 by d_striker

[d_striker]

Perfect double....Speaking of which, I shot multiple perfect doubles while group shooting. Had that happened in a match, there's no way the RO would have called it a double. The only noticeable difference was the grease ring was a bit darker than the surrounding ones.

Edited November 15, 2015 by d_striker

[Richc2048]

I've thankfully only had to challenge one call at a Major. Luckily I won it. The next target had a Mike. I said no need to check that. I missed that shit by mile.

I'll need to do some testing too. I just loaded to freedom munition specs.

[d_striker]

I've thankfully only had to challenge one call at a Major. Luckily I won it. The next target had a Mike. I said no need to check that. I missed that shit by mile.

I'll need to do some testing too. I just loaded to freedom munition specs.

You need to work on your bullying skills over the winter.

[Richc2048]

Haha.

[thermobollocks]

That just brought on flashbacks to having to pull a target and call the RM at the state match. Hooray for hard cover.

[d_striker]

I got into Area 2 which means it's time to get back into the swing of things. The match is less than 3 months away which will be here before I know it.

After the High Desert Classic, I wasn't really burned out on shooting but I felt like I didn't have anything to look forward to as that was my last major match of 2015. I haven't been practicing or dry firing since that match and was just going through the motions hitting up club matches here and there. I got some great advice from CHA-LEE a couple of months back regarding this. He told me that you should treat EVERY stage with the same level of focus and intensity regardless of what type of match it is. I've been focusing on that but it's been proving to be harder than it sounds.

I've been using Shadow #1 which was my backup gun as I've been trying to get it to where everything feels and performs the same as Shadow #2/Primary. The trigger is already starting to get closer to #2 and I'm slowly starting to tune out the ambiguous "kinks." The type of kinks that only reveal themselves during a stage run.

I also got a new barrel for Shadow #2/Primary hoping that a new barrel would have a shorter throat like #1. The throat is a little shorter than the original but not as short as #1's. This was the first barrel that I've ever fit and it wasn't too hard. Lockup seems good but I haven't done any 20yard testing with it yet. Seems very accurate at 10 yards offhand but 10 yards doesn't show a whole lot.

I managed to get out and practice today with it. Everything seemed to be running fine. I set up a small 24 round stage as I wanted to work on 1-3 step reloads. Watching match video recently has shown me that my hand speed to my mag is often very slow when I'm covering a short distance. It was also good to get back into the swing of purely shooting and calling shots without consequence as I feel like I've been aiming hard at a lot of targets in matches lately. I also realized that I'm still having trouble separating moving aggressively and letting the shooting happen at the pace it needs to happen. When consciously focusing on moving aggressively, I tend to force the shooting. My last two runs, I focused purely on moving aggressively WHILE letting the shooting happen. I'm starting to get a feel for it but it's going to take a lot more conscious focus in practice until it starts to become automatic.

It was cool because my wife wanted to come out and shoot as well. My objective was just to get her familiar with USPSA range commands and safety so I didn't even bust out the timer for her. After a couple of runs, she wanted the timer which was awesome. She did really good and had a lot of fun. We're both super competitive individuals so we were soon keeping track of points down between our runs. It honestly made me focus more on shooting A's at speed which made it a really good practice session. I asked her if she would like to shoot a match and she said maybe eventually which would be rad.

Edited December 10, 2015 by d_striker

[d_striker]

Still using backup gun. I had another bad FTE/Double feed malfunction. When it happens on the clock, I typically just clear the malfunction without really observing what's going on. It's happened three times now in the past couple of matches and I think I know what's going on. A couple of times, the spent case failed to eject but the slide traveled far enough back to try to pick up the next round. It's seems as if the extractor is slipping off the case head. I managed to get a couple of videos of stage runs last night and I was watching brass eject out of my gun. I noticed that every now and again I would have a piece of brass behave inconsistently as it was being ejected.

I'm not sure if it's just really beat up brass or if it's the extractor. I'm going to slap a new extractor in and see if the issue goes away.

[d_striker]

This winter has been pretty cold in CO which means that there has not been much live fire practice or club matches going down. It was good to get out over the weekend to get some practice in and get the backup gun running flawlessly.

A new extractor in the backup gun seems to have fixed the FTE issue as far as I can tell in about 800-900 rounds. Dummy rounds hand cycled through it slowly shows that it doesn't need any initial tuning out of the gates but I'll be sure to keep an eye on it. I've also been trying to tune out an issue where mags aren't dropping freely. A couple weeks ago, CHA-LEE looked at it for about 5 seconds and figured out the problem instantly. When pressing on the mag release hard,the left side of the mag release was pinching the mag enough to kill the mag dropping velocity at which point the right side of the mag release would cause it to stick when the mag release was let go. I ground down the left side of the mag release and the issue seems to have gone away completely. I'm going to shoot my backup gun tonight at the indoor match, give a good cleaning, and put it away for now. It feels good to finally get the backup gun running to where it feels as close to the primary as possible and have the little kinks tuned out.

I haven't gotten to shoot my primary gun that much after installing a new barrel a few weeks back. It only has a few hundred rounds through it but I haven't had the chance to shoot it off a rest to see how the accuracy compares to the original barrel.

I managed to get in a really good practice session over the weekend with some buddies. I'm starting to verifiably understand, first hand, that it doesn't take longer to aim at the a zone than it does to go full retard and hose at brown. Also, for as long as I've been really trying to push everything except for the shot-calling, it's finally starting to click. I need to continue to work on letting the shot calling happen without trying to chase fast splits. Chasing fast splits takes me out of the zone of calling shots and doesn't allow me to transition to the next A-zone as the sight is lifting from the previous. Of course there are still a ton of things that I need to work on. Things that will take a lot of deliberate, conscious effort until they become automatic but I think that it never ends. The day one stops learning is the day they stop progressing.

One of the biggest things that I'm struggling with once the timer goes off is my hand speed to my mag and to the gun.

Also, anytime I need to reload while covering significant distance I need to haul ass out of position and then go for my mag. I have a habit of always reaching for a mag as I'm pushing out of position. This works great when I only need to cover 1-3 steps but it's slowing me down when I have ground to cover. I believe it's to the tune of at least 1/2 a second. I managed to do it properly on a couple practice runs yesterday while consciously thinking about it. Of course, on the next run when I wasn't thinking about it, I reverted back to grabbing a mag while leaving.

Another thing that really clicked for me yesterday is the level in which I'm programming my stage runs in. For where my level of shooting is at right now, I need to spend more time programming it in. Simply put, one cannot execute a stage to their fullest potential if the plan is not programmed in sufficiently. This means no more dicking around pre-match. Especially club matches. My focus is going to be to treat every match the same regardless of what level match it is.

Edited January 4, 2016 by d_striker

[d_striker]

Winter in CO continues to suck. We haven't had an outdoor match in at least a month. In the meantime, I've been able to continue my accuracy/ammo testing.

The new barrel in my primary gun is very accurate. Slugging it showed that it's quite a bit tighter than my other two barrels. The new barrel slugged at .3545". I've been playing with the Xtreme 147gr .357" bullet. Even with brass that has the thinnest of case walls, the bullet get's sized down to about .3565" from seating.

The ogive of the Xtreme 147 .356" bullet starts further back than the .357". The .356" bullet doesn't hit the rifling until 1.188" in my primary's barrel and 1.175" in my backup. The .357" hits at 1.172"in primary and around 1.155" in backup.

I did some accuracy testing last week in both guns. Both guns really like the .357" bullet. I shot four 5-shot groups at 20 yards off a rest and averaged about 1.5" with my primary and about 1.7" with my backup. I also noticed that with the same powder charge I was running previously, the .357" bullet was about 4 PF higher.

I bumped the .357" load down a couple tenths and the slowest rounds were still around 130PF with the highest at 136PF. Right where I like it. It was only 40F outside though when I chrono'd. I'll have to see if Prima V is affected by temperature at all once it gets warmer out.

Since there hasn't been any shooting happening lately, I've been trying to get ahead with brass cleaning/sorting and reloading. I got a few thousand rounds loaded and case gauged using up of my remaining .356" bullets. I might hold off on reloading the .357's until I can get more testing done. The last thing I want is 5k rounds of sub-minor ammo or ammo that doesn't like to feed properly.

[d_striker]

We had our first outdoor club match in quite some time. It was pretty cold but it was good to get some outdoor match action in. Especially with A2 just around the corner.

Highs during the match were around freezing. Gun ran flawlessly in the cold. Slide Glide cut with oil seems to work pretty good at freezing temps.

I opened up the notch in my rear sight about .015". I like the way it looks but I need to get some time with it and figure out where it's shooting when sights aren't aligned. Seems like at 10 yards the gun shoots off in the Delta region when the front post is touching the side of the rear. With the narrower rear notch, I could have the notch lined up on the A zone and with the front sight all the way over I could still pull off a close Charlie. I also had some trouble on small square steel plates.

I'm going to get out on the next warm day and see what's going on. If I don't like it, I'll switch back to the original rear sight width.

Edited January 17, 2016 by d_striker

[d_striker]

I've been trying to break the habit of shooting my fiber like a dot. With the narrower and shallower rear notch, I could get away with it most of the time. But it's very sloppy shooting and I know I need to break the habit.

I've been using an orange fiber for as long as I can remember. I've always used orange because it was the brightest to my eye. I'm learning that brighter is not necessarily better. In fact, it can be very distracting and almost too bright at times.

Widening up the rear notch has been frustrating as I can't get away with shooting the fiber like a dot anymore. Especially on small steel plates. CHA-LEE gave me a good tip to try shooting without a fiber for a bit. I'm not sure I'm quite ready to completely ditch a fiber but I'm definitely going to play around with different colors. I have some violet fiber lying around that really doesn't light up at all no matter how bright it is. I'm going to play around with it tomorrow and see if I can get on the right track to breaking my bad habit.

It's frustrating but I know it will be better for me in the long run to use my front sight properly. I just wished I would have made myself use my sights properly from the beginning as it will be hard to undo at least 100k rounds of shooting it like a dot.

[d_striker]

I did some testing with a couple different color fibers on Friday. I was trying to find a color that allows me to focus on the entire front sight post rather than just the dot.

First I tried violet. I really liked how this looked under certain lighting. When shooting into the sun or with the sun at a right angle to the gun, the violet fiber has a very faint glow and it allowed me to focus purely on the post with the fiber giving me a reference point. However, when the sun was directly behind me, the fiber just looked black and I just couldn't keep track of the post. This tells me how much I've grown accustomed to shooting a fiber like a dot.

Then I tried yellow. Yellow seems to be a step down from green in glow intensity. When shooting into the sun or with it at the side, it glows a bit but it doesn't drown out the post and it doesn't completely suck me into shooting it like a dot. I'll have to be careful though as it's still bright enough to suck me back in to completely focusing on just the fiber in certain lighting.

Using the entire front sight post to aim and call shots is a challenge but I'm starting to get it. It's a lot more information for my eyes to process as it's simply a new way of doing things for me. But it also provides much more information on where the shot is breaking. I had a couple practice runs on small square steel plates that I started to see the value of using my sights properly. I've never called shots so well. I still have the bad habit of occasionally listening to steel to confirm a hit. While using the entire front sight, I was breaking a make up shot as soon as I broke the missed shot because I knew where the missed shot went as it broke. I am starting to discover that this is a whole new dimension of shot calling.

I shot the AGC match using the yellow fiber. The day started out pretty overcast and then it got sunny out. The low winter sun creates challenging lighting conditions as the left side of the berms are cast in a shadow and the right side is brightly lit. I'm starting to understand how big of an impact different lighting affects ones' ability to use the entire front sight post. Like any learned skill, it's just going to take time, practice, and patience to get to the point where I'm not constantly consciously processing it.

With the match starting out pretty overcast, I was a little slow processing the visual information in front of me and was shooting pretty slow. I'm actually pretty happy about this though. My focus lately has really been to use the entire post and purely allow the visual information in front of me determine how fast the shooting happens.

The clouds burned off by the time we got to the next berm and it was pretty bright. I knew that the fiber was going to be bright, but at make ready I made the conscious decision to use the entire post. Again the shooting was a little slow but I'm happy with that. The shooting only happens at the pace I can clearly call shots. There were a lot of partial targets scattered throughout this house clearing type stage. Again, the low sun and numerous walls and ports created varying light intensity. I didn't have the best stage plan but it didn't hurt me that much. I only lost about 10 stage points which brings me to another strategy/mindset I've been trying to employ. I'm realizing that I don't have to win every stage. Just move aggressively and shoot as many A's as possible.

I shot the next stage a little more aggressively but I wasn't trying to, if that makes sense. The lighting allowed me to call shots better and I automatically turned on the trigger finger throttle a bit which was pretty cool.

The last stage was a box to box chainsaw stage on open targets. All targets were open and inside 10yards which meant that every position had an easy exit. I got caught up on shooting my fiber like a dot on this stage on almost every array which resulted in a lot of Charlies. I'm going to need to practice chainsaw arrays at 10 yards while focusing on using the whole sight.

Edited January 24, 2016 by d_striker