Big Red's log

[aceinyerface]

I have been stalking the online gun shops like a red-headed stripper named Tiffani, so when Bud's Gun Shop got the Stock 2 in, I pulled the trigger. So that is on the way.

EDIT>>> I paid $953 shipped out the door. Some joker has one for $1600 brand new in the classifieds, shameless! BTW, Tombstone and Hyatt both had one, so I found 3 on the same day but there was a 2 1/2 month wait between shipments from EAA. Google the model number and stock to find the dealers and check every couple of days, you will get one.

We may be able to get Ben Stoeger down for a class at our club late this year, that will be good.

Edited August 26, 2014 by aceinyerface

[ZackJones]

Congrats! You'll have to name it Tiffani

[aceinyerface]

Dryfire continues. I have a weird callous on the end of my strong side middle finger tip, maybe from crushing it into the grip with the palm of my weak hand. I was doing the dot drill and I had the grip checkering imprinted into my hands.

The extreme curvature of the Stock 1 trigger is causing the corner of my trigger finger nail to be sore. I can see where a flatter trigger could be better, but I don't intend to throw any money at it unless it adversely affects my shooting.

Just got shipping info on the Stock 2, I was half afraid it would be sold out from under me. Now I have my primary and backup heaters. Stock 1 AKA Uno and Stock 2 AKA Dos (Or, according to Zack, Tiffani)

[aceinyerface]

Break-friggin-through!

There is a trick to the mag change!!!

I've been thoroughly aggravated that I bobble the mag change, especially when I misalign the mag with the well. I decided to focus on the mag change in dryfire. I must have done a couple thousand mag changes.

The trick is to NOT line up the mag directly with the well, you want the upper left corner of the mag misaligned into the back left corner of the mag well. When you ram it home with the left hand, the mag twists into the well.

I am excited and can't wait to spend a little time getting my mag changes down into the sick time range.

[aceinyerface]

I suck at the Dot Drill, at least now I know where to focus my attention.

I'm a couple thousand ahead on reloading.

New gun and parts this week, RO class this weekend.

[aceinyerface]

Hmmm, I'm noticing a correlation... we have between 40 and 70 shooters at the local USPSA matches, the GM and M's can usually be counted on one hand. Coincidentally, Ben Stoeger is coming to town to give a class and we have a hard time getting 8-12 slots filled.

I wonder if the lack of interest in getting mo' better has anything to do with people not being all that good??

In other news, I loaded all the Xtreme 147gr that I had. I adjusted the dies and was seating Bayou Bullets 147gr to .155, it seems like they are sticking into the lands/grooves of the barrel. Maybe I need to bring in in a little more. .13whatever seemed a little deep, I think I'll try .14something ish.

Edited September 3, 2014 by aceinyerface

[aceinyerface]

Stock 2 is in, I don't have a trigger gauge, but the trigger is stiff. I have springs and the XL firing pin on the way.

I have the Stock 1 but the 2 is even more impressive. The new grips are pretty but I like the old grips with the checkering better.

[aceinyerface]

Dry fire with the new hotness. I'm going to lose some skin on the more aggressive checkering, oh well, it will grow back.

Sporting clays fun shoot, I suck sooooo bad. 18/50 but, it is still better than sitting in front of the tv.

[aceinyerface]

USPSA match today. For my RO certification. I just about got heat stroke, I thought I was going to fall out. 90+ degrees with about 115% humidity. I drank an entire case of water. I had the nastiest flavor Gatorade, Lime Cucumber, that was my biggest mistake of the day.

I'm still waiting to see the scores, but I didn't make any gross errors. No mikes, a ton of A's. It sure is nice to hear 2 Alpha, 2 Alpha, 2 Alpha, 2 Alpha, 2 Alpha, etc... I didn't have a lot of wild shots, a lot of my C's were close.

I actually didn't try to go fast, I just shot. I don't think my times were particularly fast, but the accuracy was up. Is that the dryfire, the dot drill or slowing down??? It's hard to say.

I need to figure out how to keep from overheating out there. On the last stage I was on autopilot just hoping it gets over with soon. That can't be good.

I had another mag seating issue, but I cleared it relatively quickly. I need to work on that

[b1gcountry]

I would bike a lot in years past, and it really sucked when i would have a really long 70+ mile ride in the extreme heat. There were really only two things I could do to manage it.

First, drink a lot. If you don't have to stop at least once every two hours to go, you probably are not drinking enough. It is also important to drink before you get thirsty. That means a bottle before you leave home, and one the moment you realize you are sweating. If you wait until you are thirsty, then you have already list to many electrolytes, etc, and you will never be able to catch up enough. If I start to actually get thirsty, I might a well take a Tylenol right away because I know I will have a dehydration headache later.

The other thing I learned was that the only way to get used to it was just acclimation. You need to go out in the heart of the day if you expect to be able to do any kind of exertion in the heat. After a few hot summers in stl doing competitive rides, I actually stopped using the ac on my car, because I just got used to it.

Of course now that I have young kids, and I'm old and fat, i use ac

Tom

Edited September 8, 2014 by b1gcountry

[aceinyerface]

Results are in, my accuracy was almost the best at the match but my times were terrible. I need to figure out where to pick up time without killing the good thing I have going with the accuracy.

I think inefficient movement plays a good part of it.

Specific things that cost me time

I was missing steel regularly, even though I was hitting A's on paper. Moving the pistol early because it is a single shot?

The moving targets just flat out throw me, I missed 3-4 shots on the Texas Star. There must be a strategy to shooting that thing, I'll eventually work it out.

I may dwell on target some before pulling the trigger on it. Maybe a more immediate response between sights on target and breaking the shot.

I'm sure stage planning is not what it could have been.

I get the feeling that I could have shot some targets on the move, but I never get to practice like that so I didn't try it. I need to arrange to drill on some of these skills. I found the range that allows it, if I can quit buying guns I might be able to actually join it.

[aceinyerface]

Indoor range time , about 500 rds. I made up a drill to address the "dwell on target" issue.

I got the large 5 bulls eyes paper target at 7 yards, as fast as I could get a sight picture put 2 shots on each bullseye.

That went pretty well, I had a lot of questionable sight pictures but 90% of my shots were in the black. It was funny, the "mag dumping" kind of frightened the locals, getting some "what the hell" looks and even stranger looks when they do the obligatory "did you even hit anything" look down range to see that I did.

It was also the first time I shot the Stock 2. I pimped it out with all the springs and XL firing pin. I even made up some rounds with the CCI primers as a test. I had maybe 3 that lit on the second strike.

I put the Extreme firing pin in the Stock 1 and it was lighting all the primers as well.

[aceinyerface]

USPSA match tomorrow. The stages are posted online. I think I am going to try to shoot on the move this time and see what happens.

I made myself up a little dryfire drill to practice for it.

I'd like to eliminate the delay in putting sights on target and pulling the trigger, we will see how it goes.

It is considerably cooler today, I'm hoping for the same tomorrow. A more mild day might allow me to focus on the small things instead of not dying.

[aceinyerface]

The Match was fun, it didn't hit the 90's until we were almost done.

My first couple of stages were horrible. I hit some no shoots on the first stage. The second stage was 7 heads, one shot each reload and repeat Virginia. Yeah... I started double tapping those bad boys then realized I was messing up. Penalties galore.

Then I got a Rectal Craniotomy and tightened up.

I only threw 3 extra shots at the Texas Star with the swinging no shoot behind it.

I had a number of close C's on the classifier.

I had one stage where I actually felt like I was doing well. I was shooting fast and accurate, running and reloading well. I think that is some progress.

My recurring problem is being so wrapped up in trying to do the small stuff right that I completely brain-fart on the stage directions. More dryfire will tighten up the small things. When I get to the point where I don't have to think about those things, I'll quit making mental mistakes.

I need to work the Dot Drill hard.

More practice needed.

[aceinyerface]

Working dry fire, I can hit the .9 second mark on the draw but only if everything goes well, and my weak hand grip is not as firm as I'd like. I think I need to start at the beginning and get that weak hand straight,

My reloads are around 1.3 seconds but again with the weak hand.

I think I just need to retool the entire thing to be more proper, then start chasing the timer again.

I'm thinking maybe the grip needs to reach max pressure a split second before the shot or right as the shot is being fired. I'll need to mess with it.

[aceinyerface]

Range trip working the Dot Drill, I put six on the dot 3 out of 42 times.

The lines on the dots were thin, when I focused on the front sight I lost the target. I took a sharpie to the targets and darkened the lines. That made a world of difference.

I noticed some grip nuances I want to explore and a mental/ tension thing that I need to mess with.

Edited September 27, 2014 by aceinyerface

[aceinyerface]

Working the Dot Drill again, this time I hit six in the dot 9 out of 54 times.

My work on my grip seems to have some validity, I'll keep working it.

I shot a particularly good group and it felt so clear and "right" while I was doing it. One of those mushin moments. I need more of those. When I can do that all the time, I may get somewhere,

[aceinyerface]

Dryfire, I still suck but am making progress.

Grabbed 4 boxes of Federal Primers on discount.

I'm ahead on reloading, a little.

Need more Dot Drill.

[aceinyerface]

I'm constantly trying different nuances to see what is faster.

I notice when I reload, if I keep the pistol at eye level and bring it back to about a foot from my face, I only have to move my eyes to find the mag well. I am able to make the reload more controlled and quick like that.

As a result of this minor change, I was able to catch the 3.2 second advanced par time for single target gun handling out of Stoeger's 2nd book.

[aceinyerface]

Boozed up ramblings...

I can't help but compare shooting with the martial arts I used to do. It kind of fits, action pistol is the modern martial art.

Particularly, I notice the connection between kata and dry fire. In martial arts kata (and I'm talking Judo, Tomiki aikido, and iaido), one goal is to eliminate inefficiencies, particularly movements that take excessive time or effort.

Dry fire equals uchikomi, which is repeated movements up to but not including the execution of the technique. I am intimately familiar with the benefits of this as my first judo ippon was with a tai otoshi I smoothed out doing uchikomis on a folding chair.

Kata is a prearranged set of movements designed to perfectly practice a certain skill. It seems, for me at least, I am doing uchikomis in order to create my own kata. Everytime I do dry fire, I am attempting to eliminate inefficiencies and figure out the best (fastest) way to practice.

I notice that people like Ben Stoeger do sick amounts of dry fire and this corresponds with my recollections of Olympic caliber judoka doing nonstop uchikomis while the rest of us wusses were resting and BSing.

So, I am drawing from my martial arts training, I am the carpenter, I am trying to create my own kata, and I am doing my uchikomis.

[aceinyerface]

The Dot Drill is still beating me. My groups are getting smaller and I had 4/6 dots on a page with 6 holes on the dot, once. But still no success.

I need to order more 147g's, those things sure get used up fast around here.

[aceinyerface]

Match today, I wasn't feeling very good.

My first 2 stages were pretty decent.

I missed a mandatory reload for 2 shots on the next stage, and it was all downhill from there. I need to do more visualization of the stage before I shoot it. I hit 2 no shoots.

One stage had soft cover to shoot through and a bunch of no shoots to work around. I shot one target twice and FTE another, dammit! The zebra effect made me lose track of what I was doing. The Polish Plate rack started ok, but once it started moving, that was it. I hit 2 no shoots

The classifier sucked. The fake playing cards BS gets on my nerves, it doesn't have anything to do with the practice I've been doing. I didn't get my points because I was staying away from the no shoots. I should have shot the damned thing from a seated position.

It didn't help that 70% of the paper targets at this match were obscured by no shoots. Hitting a no shoot and not making it up will ruin you, you drop 20 points per shot. This is a repeating occurrence with this particular match, the no shoot behind the texas star last time was especially hateful. Until I get my skill level up, I have to skip this particular match in favor of another a little further away. The increased difficulty makes it hard to attempt the things I am working on. I can't work on not pausing after getting a sight picture when every shot is a tight one.

My accuracy at speed has gone down. I have been working the dot drill exclusively, I think I need to mix it up so that no one skill suffers.

I was moving my feet better.

I think I need to see my sights better, I've been getting fast sight pictures that are not very good. Sometimes, I just see the front sight only.

Edited October 20, 2014 by aceinyerface

[aceinyerface]

Life is seriously getting in the way of anything resembling practice. I finally got a few minutes of dry fire this morning.

[aceinyerface]

.7 draw this morning, .8 consistently, .9 for sure.

[aceinyerface]

i shot a relatively clean match. I was trying to watch the sights lift, I'd be lying if I said I was entirely successful.

I bobbled the mag change on the classifier.

I made a bad stage plan favoring a hard lean instead of taking an extra shooting position.

2 Mikes on single shot targets, I am sensing a pattern since I suck on steel worse than paper.

I got video of 2 stages, I look slow even though I feel like I'm shooting fast. I need to get some better practice.