d_striker

[thermobollocks]

It's at 131PF. 3.2 grains of Clays and the 155 SWC. I didn't know you could seat primers so hard they'd get damaged -- I only ever worry about getting them deep with my revo stuff 'cause of the crazy light hammer spring. All my other ammo, if it's flush or below I'm happy. What I don't want is when one of those crimped .223 cases sneaks in and I wind up with a high match primer that can slamfire my rifle. That is even less fun than a dud.

Are you going to make Aurora on Saturday?

[d_striker]

If the match is on, I'll be there!

I just got back from the range. I tried the 16lb spring with the Tula and Remington primers. I still had quite a few light strikes. I put the 14lb spring back in and ran 100 rounds loaded with Federal primers. Every round fired without an issue. I know 100 rounds is a pretty small sample size but I'm hoping it's a good sign.

Edited January 22, 2015 by d_striker

[CHA-LEE]

I just did a quick interwebz search and its looking like the Tula and Remington primers are on the "Harder" side of the scale. Federal followed by Winchester seem to be the popular "Softer" primers.

[d_striker]

I dry fired a CZ at the last Aurora match. It was pretty rad.

I fired an awesome 2011 a few weeks ago. That was pretty rad also.

I need to decide if I'm going to keep shooting Production or go back to Limited because I can only get one. And even then, it'll be awhile as I just pulled the trigger on a 650.

Decisions.

[drewbeck]

Dominic I'm not sure if you figured all this out yet but when I shot a lot of glocks I had to go to a lighter striker spring when encountering light primer strikes.

I don't know if the xd is of similar design to the glock but on a glock the striker and recoil spring work against each other during the trigger pull. So if I had a light recoil spring but a heavy striker spring installed the last little bit of trigger pull was cocking the striker and the heavier spring would overcome the lighter recoil spring and pull the slide out of battery as the striker was just releasing. Then both the slide and the striker are moving forward at the time the gun should be firing which caused light strikes.

It's totally counterintuitive but imagine shooting a sling slot and right as you fire you let your front wrist goes completely limp and all the energy is lost and pulling it back harder doesn't do much to help.

Like I said, I don't know if the xd is designed this way or not but a lighter striker spring usually helps fix this situation in glocks.

Oh and it's a no brainier get a 2011 and jump back to limited

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[d_striker]

The xd is designed the same way in that the recoil spring and striker spring work against each other. But, the trigger pull does not "cock" the striker at all on the xd. It just releases it which is why many people say that it's a single action trigger mechanism.

Too light of a recoil spring and too heavy of a striker spring may cause the xd to not go fully into battery. Using too light of a striker spring might cause light primer strikes.

I had 100% ignition using Federal primers at the last match.

Edited January 29, 2015 by d_striker

[thermobollocks]

Get a 627.

[d_striker]

Get a 627.

Gross.

[drewbeck]

If we wanted to be barbarians we'd just use muzzleloaders

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[d_striker]

Had an awesome day today. Got a match in and it wasn't too busy at the pub which means I didn't have to go in and help out.

We had weather in the 70's at the PPPS match so it was a little taste of summer shooting. I feel like I've made pretty good progress with my shooting over the winter and am amped going into the spring/summer shooting season. I only had one malfunction on the first stage but every round went bang which is progress. The one malfunction still sucks though. It was only a 90 point stage but the malfunction cost me at least 4-5 seconds. I finished 16 points behind 1st Production shooter. 4 seconds would have given me more than 16 points on that stage.

I think a little more polishing with the Dremel and my Production gun will be running strong. Matches are a lot more fun when your gun runs.

I've been getting better at being visually patient on targets and also operating in the moment. I stayed on my sights for the bulk of the match. I had one M on a stage where my bullet struck a wall. The only stage where I didn't stay on my sights resulted in two M's. The stage had easy open targets at pretty close range which lured me into looking off the target on the second shot. I was doing it on the majority of the targets on the right side and I'm surprised it only resulted in two M's.

My continued short term goal is to stay on my front sight and to be visually patient; waiting for the A on paper snapping my eyes to the A zone on the next target and having my sights be there, and being especially patient on steel. You can't be sloppy on steel shooting Production when your stage plan includes an array containing steel and you need 10 hits. Also, first shot accuracy needs some work.

Edited February 10, 2015 by d_striker

[d_striker]

Finally got some shooting in at the local indoor match. It was a lot of fun. It's been a couple of weeks since the last match and I haven't done any dry fire. It's amazing how fast my draw and reloads go to shit when I stop dry firing.

Overall, it was a fun hoser stage match. I had too many M's, D's, and fumbled reloads.

Get back to dry firing, damn it!

[d_striker]

The decision has been made. I pulled the trigger on a CZ Shadow Target from CZ Custom. I'm going to be shooting Production for awhile.

I think I'll get a couple extended base pads and shoot Limited minor from time to time as well. If I like the CZ platform, maybe I'll get a Tactical Sport down the road for Limited major.

I shot the Whistling Pines indoor match last night. Really fun stages with a couple tight shots but mainly fast blasting. One thing I realized is that when I don't solidly program in a stage, my position exits aren't very explosive. Sort of like I forget at which point I need explode off the x.

For where I'm at right now, I need to burn it in during the walk-through all of the spots that I need to "MOVE, DAMN IT!!!"

Image courtesy of Stuart:

Edited March 18, 2015 by d_striker

[CHA-LEE]

Is your CZ going to be 9mm or .40? A .40 minor CZ blaster would be stupid soft shooting. If Stuart is doing the trigger job on your CZ blaster you will be very pleased. He works magic on those CZ triggers.

[d_striker]

Is your CZ going to be 9mm or .40? A .40 minor CZ blaster would be stupid soft shooting. If Stuart is doing the trigger job on your CZ blaster you will be very pleased. He works magic on those CZ triggers.

9mm. Do they even make .40 Shadows???

[CHA-LEE]

I did some searching and couldn't find a .40 Shadow, so they may not exist.

[thermobollocks]

WPGC in particular seems tougher to get going and stop than the outdoor ranges. I'd rather haul on gravel than dusty concrete.

[d_striker]

WPGC in particular seems tougher to get going and stop than the outdoor ranges. I'd rather haul on gravel than dusty concrete.

I find it's a different type of "hauling" when you're only going a few steps left or right. It's more staying light on your feet and shuffling off the balls of your feet. Sort of like playing defense in basketball. When you're covering someone or playing zone defense, you're shuffling side to side rather than picking up your feet and stepping hard.

I refer to it as "ninja feet." I used to skateboard quite a bit in my younger days and having "ninja feet" was critical to skating park and street. To me, having "ninja feet" is staying light on your feet and being in precise control of where your weight is. Operating in this mode allows you to move with less effort and more quickly.

The dusty floor isn't usually an issue for me with movement like this. I was just casually moving out of positions instead of leaving with intent on a couple stages.

Edited March 19, 2015 by d_striker

[d_striker]

Another weekend gone and getting closer to summer. I shot Production at the HPPS match on Saturday. I shot 4 out of 6 stages pretty good and tanked the classifier and Stage 6. Stage 6 had a lot of tight shots and no shoots. The furthest target was two partials at 25 yards. I racked up a bunch of no shoots and mikes. It's apparent that I can't hit shit beyond 15 yards with any consistency. The indoor range that I mainly shoot at is only 14 yards so it's obvious why I suck past that distance; I simply don't practice it enough. I was aiming pretty hard at those far targets so it's probably a combination of two things...I'm jerking the trigger and flinching, and my load/gun combo is just not accurate enough to score a hit when my shot breaks in the C/D zone.

Most of the top Production shooters around here are B/A class shooters with the occasional M or GM. So it's always a handful of A/B class shooters gunning for the win when there isn't a GM in the mix. I've come to realize that the shooter that makes the least mistakes, or whose mistakes are the least severe, is typically the winner. I need to adjust my stage planning and shooting accordingly to the difficulty level of the stage. I need to shoot more conservatively on stages that I know have a high disaster factor. I don't need to hero the stage; I just need to get my hits and minimize penalties. I can get the bulk of my points and shoot more aggressively on stages that are more conducive to where my blasting skills are right now.

I practiced yesterday outside with a great group of guys out at BLGC. I had to learn the hard way that your gun needs to run even when practicing stages. I've got a bunch of underpowered ammo that sucks and is FTE prone. I'm going to simply use that ammo for static/indoor practice and use match ammo for run & gun practice. When you practice with shitty ammo, your practice session turns into a malfunction drill practice session...Not a shooting practice session.

I shot a CZ shadow yesterday for the first time. My first impressions were full of both pros and cons.

Pros:

-Feels good in my hand

-Points very naturally

-heavy, although I can already tell it's going to take a lot of dry fire to get used to transitioning with the extra weight. It's not too heavy but I was under and over swinging it just because the weight is different.

Cons:

-Oversize safety gets in the way of my support hand. Can probably be fixed with lower profile safety.

-I can't reach the slide release with my strong hand thumb. I really like where the slide release is on my xdm as slide lock reloads are very quick back into battery.

-My plastic .40 minor gun shoots much softer than the heavy 9.

Recoil is extremely subjective. But for me, it's quantified in the form of muzzle flip and the "sharpness" or felt impact in my hands. Muzzle flip was only slightly more but the felt impact was much sharper in my hand compared to my plastic 40 minor gun. I'm wondering if this is due to a plastic grip & frame possibly dampening some of the vibration/impact vs the all metal frame and grips of the CZ. If this is the case, rubber grips may help soften it up.

Only way to see if I like it is to give it a fair shot. I still can't wait to get it as I get excited about that sort of shit.

Edited March 23, 2015 by d_striker

[thermobollocks]

I have the same issue with the slide lock on my 1911 -- I just can't reach it. Even worse, my M&Ps knock themselves back into battery if I give the magazines a healthy seating. Maybe practice slingshotting?

[d_striker]

-Being visually patient is not slow...It just feels that way because you are impatient.

-You cannot respond accordingly to processed visual information when you are impatient.

-Let go and flow.

Edited March 31, 2015 by d_striker

[thermobollocks]

You were rocking out on Sunday. I still don't notice that you shoot the Production gun any differently than Limited.

[d_striker]

My lower back is acting up and it hurts walking and moving around so I didn't get to shoot the Aurora match today. I did manage to get some outside practice in yesterday, though.

It was hard to get into the practice mentally as I was pushing through very annoying and sometimes sharp pain. The more run and gun practice I get, the more comfortable I get being visually patient and calling shots.

Stage planning at most club matches is pretty simple. It's typically easy to figure out the fastest way to shoot it in just a couple of minutes as the target engagement locations are limited. It get's tough when you have a memory stage combined with being able to see the same targets from more than two locations. This combined with shooting a limited capacity division makes proper stage planning crucial.

I learned yesterday that the simplest plan is often the fastest plan. It's also one that is most likely to be executed as planned. I spent a good deal of time programming the stage plan in and ran it 3 times. Each time, something went wrong or I went to slide lock which caused the rest of my plan to go to shit. A completely different stage plan was suggested to me and I for the most part executed the plan in one run. It was also about 8 seconds faster.

-On elaborate memory stages, look for the simplest plan instead of trying to engage targets in a completely random order with the hope of being efficient on transitions. It's too hard to remember an arbitrary target engagement order and you end up wasting time thinking/looking for targets when you need to be flowing.

Edited April 5, 2015 by d_striker

[d_striker]

-QUIT SUCKING AT STAGE PLANNING.

[d_striker]

It's getting really busy at the pub which has been leaving little time for shooting. I also had the opportunity to play Augusta National a couple of weeks ago so I was trying to get my golf game back together prior to my trip. I only had the chance to hit balls three times before my trip. For not playing in over a year, I didn't shoot too bad at Augusta. It was an unbelievable experience that I will never forget.

I almost caught the golf bug again but finally got my CZ on Friday. I put a couple hundred rounds through it at Whistling Pines while waiting for the background check to clear. As I noticed when I shot Joey's Accu-Shadow, the left side safety interfered with my grip. I anticipated this and already had a thin safety that I slapped on. I also installed an 8.5lb hammer spring that I ordered a couple of months ago. Just swapping out the safety, I realized that this gun has WAY more parts than an XD. I had a couple of "oh shit" moments but got it back together.

I ordered a BOSS hanger/holster setup and slapped it on my existing Production belt. The BOSS hanger is WAY better than the Bladetech hanger. The CZ mags were already a perfect fit in my Ghost pouches. I had two older CR Speed pouches on my belt that the CZ mags didn't fit into. The great thing about Ghost pouches is that they give you two pouches, one bullet out and one bullet forward. I have two bullet out pouches on my Limited belt which meant that I had two bullet forward pouches just lying around. I was able to mount the Ghost pouches on the CR Speed belt attachments and was ready to roll.

I shot the Aurora match with the CZ even though I didn't really have any time to dry fire or practice with it. DA sucks. I guess it's not bad as far as DA triggers are concerned but it still sucks. I would hate to have to draw on a metal plate or a mini popper with DA, as the trigger is right now. I need to get some serious dryfire in as my transitions are off due to the weight of the gun. There were a a few poppers that I struggled with as I over swung the first shot on all of them.

I was initially concerned that I couldn't reach the slide stop but found that the slide will release from a solidly inserted magazine with 10 rounds in it. I need to get some serious reload practice in with the new gun.

The SA trigger was pretty good but it still needed work. The takeup in SA was almost heavier than the break itself. When I got home I took the gun completely apart in order to polish parts, replace the trigger return spring, and install a floating trigger pin from CGW. I ended up taking the gun apart about 4 times as the DA trigger was still gritty in certain spots and I didn't want to remove too much metal while polishing, so I went at it incrementally. I probably spent about 5 hours polishing the trigger bar, sear, sear cage assembly, hammer, frame, and hammer strut. I've got a pretty good handle on how the gun works and how the different parts engage/interact with each other.

After polishing, the DA trigger is a little better but it's still not as good as other CZ's that I've dry fired. It's still a little gritty around half cock and then it starts to stack and gets gritty right before the hammer drops. The SA trigger is better. Takeup is a lot lighter with the CGW trigger return spring and the break seems to have gotten slightly more crisp. I don't have a gauge but I'd estimate the SA trigger is around 2.5 lbs and DA around 5-6 lbs. From CZC with a 13lb hammer spring, they listed the weight as 8.5lb DA and 3.25lb SA.

All in all, I like the gun. It's way more accurate than the XD and I like the extra weight. For a backup gun, I'll probably get a stock SP01 Shadow or SP01 and install parts/polish myself.

Edited May 25, 2015 by d_striker

[d_striker]

I worked up a bracket of loads before getting my CZ so I could get it chrono'd and start loading up as quick as possible. I had the afternoon off so I decided to chrono some ammo. I found a 130PF load that seemed accurate enough.

After chrono'ing loads, I shot about 400 rounds of some old 9mm I had lying around through the CZ to get it broken in. I shot a few targets out to 50 yards and it is MUCH more accurate than the XDm 5.25.

I got home and gave the pistol a good cleaning. After cleaning, I noticed that the DA trigger has already improved from firing. What's interesting is that the DA trigger didn't seem to improve after a few hundred DA dry fires but seemed to improve through live fire.