Less Posted July 18, 2012 Author Share Posted July 18, 2012 Been a few days since I posted... My grandma passed away a few days ago and I've just been taking that in. Last Week, through 7/15/2012 Dry fired a fair bit - didn't make it out to the range or any matches since I took the weekend off to head to Door Co., WI for some sailing. Monday, 7/16/2012 Went to practice. Was really hot in the range and my practice partner's front sight fell off his TangFo... Shot groups from 15, 20, 25 yards with my regular load. Shot some plate rack runs - since I've been working a lot on groups, some of my draw & transition skill has atrophied. Turned out a couple of 3.3-3.5 runs on a 12 yards rack with 8" plates. Worked on some 25 yard plates too. Strong hand was pretty good. Weak hand still needs a lot of work. After the FS fell off, we decided to do some close-up shooting and mag changes. Setup and ran "Can you Count?" - Turned in some decent 3.5 runs, with a 1.13 reload and some .17 splits. The draw is painfully slow, so I've gotta get on that a whole lot. Tuesday, 7/17/2012 Went to see BuckCherry last night! Great live act! Dryfired for about 30 minutes before heading out the door. 1/2 of it was drawing related and the other 1/2 was weak-hand related. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Less Posted July 24, 2012 Author Share Posted July 24, 2012 Last Week, 7/18/2012 - 7/21/2012 Worked a lot on dry-fire through the week, but between the family fallout and work, decided to take some time off. Rolled down to Indy to see a concert with the wife on Saturday and that was great! Sunday, 7/22/2012 Took my bullseye gun and the new High Standard to the range to shoot some 25 yards groups and shake out the kinks. New gun has a bit of a different feel - the trigger is a bit too light, meaning there isn't a lot to push against. Shoots fine, like those guns all do. Since I often practice at 50' distance, decided to setup the gun for the "gallery" course of fire instead of a 25 yards COF. Spent a bit of time shooting WHO - about 1000 rounds through those guns and they were running like champs. Monday, 7/23/2012 On Monday night, decided to keep going with .22 practice: broke out the old Advantage Arms kit and decided to run that for a while. My goal was just seeing if my dryfire had paid off on getting faster on 7 yard USPSA A head shots. It worked, but then I'd notice that I'd go slower, so I'd shoot into the backstop for a while to get that speed back up. I'm running about 1.15 to breaking that first shot. Working from concealment, it added easily a 10th... Interestingly, I couldn't seem to draw the gun faster than .94s - that's just drawing into the backstop. I think more dry fire is going to be key here... I have been loading a lot of the upcoming class with Ben - after which I'll go back to assessing those various 135gr .40 caliber loads. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Less Posted July 30, 2012 Author Share Posted July 30, 2012 Last Week, 7/23/2012 - 7/29/2012 Worked a fair amount of dry-fire last week, in prep for Ben's class. Hit an IDPA club match. Rolled up to Ben's class on Friday-Sunday. I'll have to post an in depth review of the class later... Thursday, 7/26/2012 Shot the local match - it was hot in the range but we were having a great time razzing each other! I managed to really chump up a weak-hand only stages, tho: bad grip and I dropped a significant number of shots. Have to really hit trigger control with the weakhand in dry fire this week. Friday, 7/27/2012 Loaded up the car and rolled up to Holmen to spend the night before the class - there were several of us that carpooled, split rooms and bought beer! Saturday, 7/28/2012 Class with Ben - much to say... Sunday, 7/29/2012 Shot the local match with Ben - I had crap performance - chumped up so much, but now I know what to work on - field courses going fairly well, though... Highlight of the day was trying to run stages with Ben's Beretta. I really liked that gun! I just felt like I couldn't miss. Now I know why he does so well! Have a lot of footage from the weekend - much to post and much to analyze. Will be changing my training regimen a lot to push past the comfort zone... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Less Posted August 5, 2012 Author Share Posted August 5, 2012 (edited) Took a bit of time this week to get caught up on the vids/notes/etc... AAR of Ben's class is posted at WIILSHOOT.COM... Shot today for a while - worked on draw to hard targets - tomorrow is USPSA match... Home late due to Lollapalooza. Oh, and Total Recall's remake sucked - except for Jessica Biel and the English bird: They're hot... Edited August 5, 2012 by Less Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Less Posted August 7, 2012 Author Share Posted August 7, 2012 Sunday 8/4/2012 Shot a local match - ran the classifier at 95%! (speedy steel - I dunno which one...) W00T! Took 2nd because I chumped up one stage and because Alex G is a helluva shooter... The stage consisted of two clamshells activated by a user-operated steel (you don't shoot 'em) I should've just run the targets I could see and left the activators as NPM's... But we were having fun and trash talking, so I decided to shoot 'em... Goals Been thinking a lot about my goals after taking Ben's class. I know I've come pretty far with my current setup, essentially a stock Glock .40 running sub-major ammo most of the time, but I think I'm getting to a point where tweaking equipment could actually pay larger dividends. Additionally, after shooting Ben's Beretta, I've decided to re-examine a lot more of the firearms out there: CZ, Beretta, Tan-fo, etc - especially in 9sillymeter. I've also really begun to reevaluate my goal of training for the Bianchi Cup - the targets aren't going anywhere, and it looks like the match will be around for a while - so I've decided to make a really hard push to get my GM card and race hard at some larger matches. Perhaps after next year, I'll be able to put together a more realistic training schedule (closest Bianchi-style matches are ~3 hours away in Indiana...) and turn my attention to it. So there it is: Find a softer load for .40: 4.25 Bullseye with a 135gr? Tweak trigger of pistol? Tweak Recoil Springs? Test a pizza-gun (Beretta: I've got an elite on the way) Test some other 9mm out there. Get GM card Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Less Posted August 8, 2012 Author Share Posted August 8, 2012 8/7/2012 Hit the range to practice last night. We wanted to setup a few stages and run 'em, but Kozy and I were so tired that we decided to work on running El Pres and doing reloads... I landed 2 .99s on a 5 yard target! Previous to last night, I had only ever landed 1, .97s reload - a fluke - about 1.5 years ago (March - we were gearing up for "Can You Count") We were pushing really hard at just being able to execute the motion of the reload - as a result we blew quite a few, but was worth it. El Pres was ok - again, it was interesting to see that we were running consistently sub-6s and last year we were just trying to get "in pocket" with 7s runs. Other than that, I'm just gearing up for Indiana Sectional this weekend. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
mikeg1005 Posted August 8, 2012 Share Posted August 8, 2012 I would have joined you guys last night, but I had to pick between falling asleep on the couch, or falling asleep somewhere along I90 while driving. Mike. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Less Posted August 10, 2012 Author Share Posted August 10, 2012 I would have joined you guys last night, but I had to pick between falling asleep on the couch, or falling asleep somewhere along I90 while driving. Mike. Hey Mike - no worries. We were pretty beat too... Eerily enough, a friend of my wife fell asleep at the wheel yesterday and wrecked her car and the car in front of her. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Less Posted August 14, 2012 Author Share Posted August 14, 2012 (edited) 8/8/2012 - 8/11/2012 What a week last week was - work has been grueling, but I'm toughing it out - looks like I'll be working a few late nights this week. Worth it, though, a wicked interesting product that I'm helping to build! Still waiting on that old Elite Beretta to show up ... Spent a lot of time dry-firing every night - really working on movement and being able to relax/tense up as needed. Started the day off early with some dry-fire and a bit of house cleaning, then loaded up and rolled down to Warsaw, IN for the Indiana Sectional! We got there a bit late, but were able to walk the stages. May looked like they were setup to with really one or two ways to flow through them... A few variants on order, but straight-ahead stuff overall. We headed back to the hotel to grill up steaks, asparagus and some corn. Drank WAY too much beer, but we had a great time nonetheless. 8/12/2012 Got some great sleep, but woke up with a headache. Managed to get some Advil infused, then hit the dry fire for about 20 minutes, working draw, reloads, and simple transitions. Cleared the room, then headed to breakfast and the range! The weather was perfect and, with the urging of my buddies, I decided I was really going to hit the gas for the match! I started off a bit goofy, hitting a NS due to movement, but was able to keep the pace really high for most of the match. The only stage I actually shot "in-pocket" was Stage 10 (after lunch). Funny thing was that my run was the same as my teammates who ran it 4 seconds faster with a Mike. Sure I had a lot of issues, but at the end of the day, it was good for 12% of the winner. I took 3rd, 1st Master. I know I need to work a lot on shooting on the move, managing tension, and just thinking "faster!". Video pending - I forgot my camera, but my buddies backed me up! 8/13/2012 Working dry fire tonight. Some "El Pres" and a "Can you Count!" Edited August 14, 2012 by Less Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Less Posted August 15, 2012 Author Share Posted August 15, 2012 8/14/2012 Hit the range after a horrible day in the office - just couldn't shake the stress from work today. Did post a 2Charlie 5:50 El Prez, tho! Worked a bit on shooting on the move, some weak hand (ugh) plate racks, etc. Noticing many things on the Glock with the long slide that are annoying: 1) After dry firing with the SIRT a lot, I get caught up in the trigger of the glock. 2.) The slide to frame fit actually rattle enough to disturb my sights. 3.) MPro-7, when it gets hot, smells like some serious hi-grow. Weak hand a dealing with tension - those are the things I'm focusing on for a while. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Less Posted August 20, 2012 Author Share Posted August 20, 2012 8/16/2012 Worked from home and rolled out for a practice match. Shot like the dickens! Was good just to get out and work on some stuff. I feel like my cadence is really coming along! 8/18/2012 - 8/19/2012 Setup for a local IDPA match. Had 5 stages I pulled outta my ass and setup. Took a while putting walls and crap together, though. Match was pretty good! Shot well. The biggest issue was some of the new guys - I really need to setup and run a competition skills building course or something so they know the rules and what to do and not do. (One guy had his pistol staged on table start. Granted he was smart enough to know that nobody was down range, but didn't know he had to wait for a "Make Ready" command...) Wife's motorcycle broke down, so I've got to get that fixed. Still waiting to get my Beretta - a big of a screw up with the FFL's. Took a bunch of old Mausers I had to get appraised and sold at a big auction/show this coming weekend. Hopefully it goes well... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Less Posted August 21, 2012 Author Share Posted August 21, 2012 Indiana Sectional Review... Couple of stages... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Less Posted August 22, 2012 Author Share Posted August 22, 2012 8/21/2012 - Practice Was trying to run "Can You Count" a bit... To hit GM, you have to draw crazy fast, shoot crazy fast splits and then hit a blazing fast reload. I botched several reloads, which is frustrating because I was landing .99 reloads pretty consistently last week.... Win some, lose some... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
rvb Posted August 22, 2012 Share Posted August 22, 2012 8/21/2012 - Practice Was trying to run "Can You Count" a bit... To hit GM, you have to draw crazy fast, shoot crazy fast splits and then hit a blazing fast reload. I botched several reloads, which is frustrating because I was landing .99 reloads pretty consistently last week.... Win some, lose some... I can usually run that classifier at a GM pace..... on one of the two strings! On the other I botch the draw or reload or both.... -rvb Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Less Posted August 25, 2012 Author Share Posted August 25, 2012 8/21/2012 - Practice Was trying to run "Can You Count" a bit... To hit GM, you have to draw crazy fast, shoot crazy fast splits and then hit a blazing fast reload. I botched several reloads, which is frustrating because I was landing .99 reloads pretty consistently last week.... Win some, lose some... I can usually run that classifier at a GM pace..... on one of the two strings! On the other I botch the draw or reload or both.... -rvb I run it consistently. Consistently slow, that is! I've really amped the dryfire reloads and have been setting a 3s par time on this one. I'm nailing the reloads now and am noticing a nice flow, but I'm noticing too that my finger just gets tired! I've got to take a break, then come back to it. Usually I can get ~8 runs in before things turn bad. 8/23/2012 - Local McIDPA Match! Was a lot of fun, 4 stages followed by pizza, beer and ice cream! I was down 4 the entire match. Fun stuff... Still waiting on the pizza gun - should be here tomorrow. Wife is outta town for the weekend - planning to hit a local on Sunday with some buddies. Team WIILSHOOT picnic tomorrow (Sat)! Reloading a lot... Life is busy... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Less Posted August 27, 2012 Author Share Posted August 27, 2012 8/25/2012 Had our team BBQ on Saturday and it was a real pleasure to just hang with some of my buds. It is an awful lot of fun to head to a match, but part of the value in heading out to places is the sitt'n-bull session the night before! Weather was hot, but sunny and breezy! I had just enough beer and tequila to loosen me up for grill-master duties, but not enough to derail me the next day. Unlike Kozy. Was sad that my wife couldn't be there to meet my teammates, but with my brother-in-law heading to college, she needed to be there helping him out. 8/26/2012 We headed for the monthly match at Schultz', the weather turning for the worse. Got rained on, but still managed to post a decent 90% run on 03-03 (even with mud and slippery conditions) Was trying some neat-o minor loads: 4.3r of bullseye and 135 gr Nosler. Hehehehehehehehe.... Like shooting a 22! I only had ~100 rounds of the stuff, so I had to transition back to my std 5.7 Power Pistol and 165gr load. Big difference, but after the first few shots, I really didn't notice. Shot with Alex Gutt and his pop! Great folks - was a joy to watch some of his runs! Other New Still waiting on the pizza gun... Sigh... Stupid slide rattle and trigger safety are bugging me... Maybe I need to practice more with the glock instead of the SIRT. ... Or peen the slide to grip the rails gooder Getting ready for LETC in Provo, Utah! Was there last year running 4 days of rifle classes! Should be a blast again this year! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Less Posted August 30, 2012 Author Share Posted August 30, 2012 8/28/2012 Pizza pistol finally showed up! Thing is minty fresh, but I changed that and started beating the crap out of it ASAP! Really like the dry fire of the gun, magazine changes are coming along pretty well too... It is different. It feels good. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ou6R1QtwiSI Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Less Posted September 6, 2012 Author Share Posted September 6, 2012 8/29/2012 - 8/31/2012 Man, work has had me crazy busy these past few weeks. Project I'm leading is almost complete and we even have a week to spare! I'm rolling out to Provo, Utah to help my first teacher, John Krupa, run his excellent carbine course for 3 days then help his other instructors run a pistol class for another day at the Action Target Law Enforcement Training Camp (LETC). I went out there last year, and it was a helluva time! John runs a good class and really tries to get LEO's out of the "Academy" mindset. During the week, managed to dry fire a lot: still working on beating a 3 sec par for "Can you Count". I'm nailing the draw and reload 90% of the time, which is improvement. Been dry firing the Beretta a lot too! My teammates tell me not to screw around with the pizza gun before nationals, but I'm having too much fun! So much fun, in fact, that I picked up an old Brigadier "D" model in order to use as a dry fire/trainier... Noticing a lot of grip consistency now - working a DAO def. strengthens my grip and teaches me to relax the trigger finger enough. Also found another Elite (first gen) and a 92G-SD... I think I'm full up on pizza now... Time to revamp the tool-head, etc... 9/1/2012 - 9/3/2012 While a lot of WI and IL shooters were at the IL Sectional, several of us setup the local match at Pine Tree. We had some tough stages - lot of hard cover, far shots, tough ports - and ran CM 99-14 "Hoser Heaven". I messed up considerably on the classifer, shooting 55 points. (70's?) Had a good time running the stages, though. Headed out to Mik3's for some grilling on Monday... Wife tried to ride the Ducati back home, but the engine died on the highway Damn Italian technology! Had to get Mik3 to come out and drag the bike back home... On the bike rack! :surprise: Oh well - going to have to get the bike over to the shop for a proper fixing sometime soon... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ben Stoeger Posted September 6, 2012 Share Posted September 6, 2012 Jeez… You went from Beretta-Curious to full on nuthugger in a big hurry. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Less Posted September 7, 2012 Author Share Posted September 7, 2012 Jeez… You went from Beretta-Curious to full on nuthugger in a big hurry. So... You selling? It isn't that I dislike the Glock, it is just that the pizza gun really feels that much better - I really like it! Reloading is almost on par with the GLOCK. I do need to find some new grips though, the big ass-ho, err Hogue, grips aren't cutting it. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
rvb Posted September 7, 2012 Share Posted September 7, 2012 I do need to find some new grips though, the big ass-ho, err Hogue, grips aren't cutting it. I always used Burner grips. Same profile as factory plastic grips. Not sure if he (Jerry Barnhart) is still in the grip making business as I couldn't find his website w/ a quick google, but you can make them yourself by sanding smooth some factory grips, and applying some epoxy and blasting media. -rvb Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Less Posted September 20, 2012 Author Share Posted September 20, 2012 Will only be posting here sporadically since I've got WIILSHOOT to update and since I've got many personal issues to sift through... Shoot Straight, ya'll. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Recommended Posts
Create an account or sign in to comment
You need to be a member in order to leave a comment
Create an account
Sign up for a new account in our community. It's easy!
Register a new accountSign in
Already have an account? Sign in here.
Sign In Now