How to do everything perfectly all the time

[thermobollocks]

What in the world have I been doing?

Aside from chipping a tooth at the Pueblo USPSA match, I feel like I have a solid enough handle on my Singlestack setup to not crash and burn during He-Man, and the STI has slowly been coming together. I did a massively aggressive grip reduction to the point where Cha-Lee would probably crack the grip in dry fire, but it helps me out quite a lot. The low bias problem seems to go away if I simply shoot to my sights and refrain from spazzing out, but it did start to rear its head on stages 4 and 5 on a very long day. This is somewhat of a cardio problem on my end, I think. Particularly as it relates to multigun, my basic motto is that I have to suck less when I'm tired and work on getting tired less often.

I've had an edifying several multigun and pistol matches since the last time I felt like putting down words. My stage planning is becoming more solid, and during bay work, I don't get lost (except for this one time). While I still favor simple plans, I've found myself better able to stick things like tricky positions yielding the best views, order of engagement on movers, and multitasking when it comes to aerials. Arrays involving an activator, two plates, and then a clay coming from the first activator basically don't freak me out anymore. Saturday's match at BLGC we also had a pistol spinner, and I was somewhat pleased to nail down the plan of spinner - plate - spinner - plate - spinner - plate - spinner, so even with my 140 PF 147 grain bullets, I didn't have to waste too much standing around time to finally get that sucker over. The 930JM continues to run like a champ, and I'm getting more confident on intermediate rifle engagements that have given me trouble in the past. That said, I have an outstanding task to catch a 300y zero on my 55 gr stuff as well as my 75 gr stuff, and mark down the offset so I can dial it in on a match by match basis. I only whanged one no-shoot, but I'm not sure if it was an offset issue or a simple problem between brain and trigger.

USPSA at Pueblo was fun as always, but a Nook failed on one stage and we got backed up like a low-flow toilet in a Taco Bell restroom. It probably netted us another hour, hour and a half on the range, and by that time it was getting windy and threatening to sprinkle. We edged it out, though, but barely. With several of that range's BoD and regulars absent, it could have been worse. My Limited stage planning is slowly improving, and I'm trying to put conscious thought into which target I'm going to use to get into position, and the most effective engagement orders to get out of position. Basic stuff, but it's stuff I've been lazy about in prod/ss/revo. I only nailed one no-shoot at this match, which is obviously to be avoided, but I am also working on the problem of going "I'm shooting major, so I get to throw points away like dollar bills at a strip club." Just no. This can also be an issue with my SS game, but luckily (or not) my SS gun has blockier sights that really force me to pay attention to them anyway. Maybe that's a good thing. I could be the only one with an STI Edge with Novak Tritium sights on it

The same story kind of held for last weekend's pistol match at Aurora. I remember what I want some stages, but then get a little too zesty and do some stupid stuff. Again, this is to be avoided, but as I get more time behind the gun I do better at not freaking out. Additionally, while I feel like I can make use of the improvements with the STI over the M&P, I don't feel like I'm losing out or forgetting stuff when I pick the plastic gun up and go do 3-gun. It's a bit like putting on an old pair of boots. You don't run as fast but you don't get blisters either.

It's steel challenge time, too, and my short term goal is to just stuff my bag with a few bricks of .22 and shoot my sights on pistol or rifle as the case may be. It's a logistical issue even being able to show up, so I don't want to have the baggage of trying to match my performance doing whatever else I'm trying to do. Besides, I want to see how long my .22 can go without cleaning.

He-Man is coming up, and with any luck I will have a good stash of .308 made by then, and my .223 dies have gotten fixed, so I can make use of the giant brass box left over from the summer. Beyond that, I finally got a 16" match barrel in the mail, so I can build up a pair of sick Limited rifles, and by sick, I mean functional.

[thermobollocks]

I've been leaning a decent amount on rifle stuff, but I'm having a few slow learner experiences. After being proud of myself for actually cleaning my .308, I managed to get it bound up pretty good at the rifle match on Sunday, to the point where I had to disassemble the upper with the bolt all the way stuck back. As it turns out, the recoil spring is under considerable tension, and also a pistol cleaning rod can be used as a recoil spring guide. Of course, it took me around a half hour to even get to that point, and lots of swearing in the trunk. DocMedic was there, though, and let me borrow his DPMS for the last stage of the day, which has the unfortunate side effect of making me want to build one for myself. I also have to back off my current load a little -- I suppose maybe my wires got crossed from last year. I have to Loctite everything together and re-mount the scope on Saturday, so with luck, I'll refrain from having to beat the gun apart the second time.

Speaking of, with any luck I have finished the Limited upper I'm going to use this year, and assuming I haven't done anything stupid, I'll be putting it through its paces over the weekend. I've also revised my loading process to incorporate a case gauge and primer tension monitoring (via orange Sharpie), so I can hopefully avoid some of the issues I had last summer. I'm ridiculously excited to fire baby's first self-assembled upper.

Progress with my Limited gun is slow going, but I'm feeling less and less bewildered by the thing, and I feel like I'm at a decent point where I can shoot to my sights without screwing up badly. The last handful of times I have shot it, I haven't eaten a hot bag of suck on the basic marksmanship, so I have been trying to remember to execute my plan with due urgency instead of getting bored and screwing around.

[PatJones]

Which 308 do you shoot?

[thermobollocks]

It's a Century-built Imbel FAL. I somehow got a barrel that shoots minute of MGM flasher, but I can't say I'm super jazzed about the dust cover optic mount.

Completely unrelated: I'm probably going to start assembling an AR-10 of some sort over the fall.

[PatJones]

As a gunsmith I've encountered more problems with the AR-style 308s than other semi auto 308s. I'd run a Scar if I could get the necessary accuracy out of it, they eat anything you feed them.

[DocMedic]

I can count on one hand in the past 3 years I've been shooting Heavy on how many Non-AR 308's I've seen used. Even at Precision Rifle matches, I've never seen any other SEMI rifled used that wasn't a AR-308. I'm not saying your wrong, but there is a reason why we see what we see.

[PatJones]

AR-308s group better than many other semi auto 308s, but as a group they don't run like their AR-15 cousins.

[thermobollocks]

They run until I have to hit them with a hammer.

Geoff and company use those POF piston-driven ones, don't they?

[thermobollocks]

This kind of goes back to one of my overarching equipment philosophies. I don't like buying into something (like getting an STI over an M&P, the new hotness in 1-x scopes vs. an MTAC, whatever) unless I'm confident that I can actually make use of whatever capability is going on. I also have a huge laundry list of crap I'd like, all with certain priorities involved (ammo first!). I'm not particularly attached to the FAL, but it's done what I've asked of it pretty decently (as long as I remember to Loctite the optic mount and don't make crappy ammo, but that's not a gun problem)

That said, now that I have my RM3G rifle squared away, I now have a Google docs spreadsheet for an AR-10 build.

[thermobollocks]

As of last night, I have all the .308 ammo I'll be capable of shooting during He-Man, and my non-bent optic mount is assembled and functional. Saturday I was able to get some practice at the high power range with the new Limited AR as well as the FAL, and man, that 16" .223 will spoil me. I think this is also the first time I've had a main and backup rifle configured near-identically -- it's almost like I know what I'm doing. The 10" plate at 300y was no problem at all with the Strikefire, but I kept breaking the bolts at 400y, so that'll just have to do. I was also able to get a chrono baseline, but I will likely repeat it once I get down to Raton since it was so chilly Saturday morning. I made it to the range much earlier than I typically do for practice to beat the wind and the rain, and it still wound up being a really solid day. I even wound up packing my clothes and boxing up all my ammo so I won't feel so rushed on the way out on Wednesday. My only remaining concern is that since I hung up the pumpgun after last summer's shoulder-aggravating festivities, it's far more harsh than I remember. It hits dead on with slugs, though, so I will pack an extra straw in order to suck it up.

Sunday I got a last minute USPSA match in with the 1911, and I brought the 10 round mags to make sure they still work. The good news is they do, but the bad news is I got a harsh reminder about overinsertion upon slide lock. This tanked one of my stages, but since I was tired anyway I knew it was going to be a sluggish match. I managed to hit things (and only nailed one no-shoot), so I suppose that's the final gut check before having to go 3-gunning. As another bonus, I added an extra power mag catch spring so the massive flappy paddle mag catch doesn't allow for poor grip to dislodge magazines as much. This time around, I didn't have any unintentional reloads.

The weekend before that was some 3-gun, where I used the brand new AR after having only fired 50 or so rounds through it to sight it in. I somehow managed to win Limited, but I'm fairly sure that's because the smart people didn't want to show up to <40 degree weather, and other smart people were shooting scoped, for some reason. The only tricky part with the match was a spinner at 100y with the rifle, but since I was shooting 75s it didn't cause too much trouble. It ate a lot of people's lunch, though. People burned entire magazines missing the thing, then timed out before they even had a chance to pick up their shotgun or pistol. I wound up forgetting about rifle sight offset and headshot a few no-shoots on one stage, but that happens. I'll have to check my close range offsets again anyway for the 75 gr ammo as well as 55s at the 300y zero.

[thermobollocks]

While I've been happy with being able to settle into the M&P again, I shot a level 2 Steel Challenge match with it this Saturday, and damn, I must've been dragging. Something is off when I'm only 3% faster with a 3 pound trigger than with a 7 pound double action. I think all of the stress of the last week and being unable to get any Steel Challenge practice in took something out. In general, on weekday practices I'm generally around 12% faster with the auto.

I'll try to remedy the practice situation tomorrow, though it will be with my Single Stack gun, since that's what I signed up for in our upcoming level 2 USPSA match at my home club.

[thermobollocks]

While practice with the Single Stack gun was generally fruitful, in that I shot reasonably cleanly to my sights, I changed out the recoil spring and started getting some hammer follow issues. Sometime Sunday, I'll make it out to the range to do some tuning and confirm function -- Cha-Lee mentioned an interim solution would be to increase tension on the sear spring, which is reasonable considering the break point feels a bit more squishy than I'm used to. Maybe I beat it up too much in preparation for He-Man.

I also changed up the trigger return spring in my Limited M&P, so even though there should be a low probability of me screwing something up in doing so, I'll want to function check it pretty thoroughly. I also have a reduced power striker spring available, but given my nasty Eastern European primers, that is likely a bad plan.

As for Saturday, CRC is hosting a pilot match in an IPSC rifle format. I'm not entirely sure what to expect other than targets out to 200y, and the leisurely drive out east in the morning. I will be shooting my newish 16" build, which thus far has performed admirably. Mid-range offsets are another thing I'm going to have to check and annotate, especially if I want to use something like 55s/62s for bay stages and 75s for longer range.