Camo Cowboy's performance analysis journal

[Glock26Toter]

The weather here in Colorado held off just enough to hold a match in Pueblo this weekend. The weather wasn't exactly ideal and I was still recovering from the Flu last week, but had to get down there and shoot my new gun.

I had installed the new PT Insert in my holster and made some adjustments to the gun so all was ready for live fire.

I was very happy with the way the gun shot overall and felt like the dot was super stable the entire time, but for some reason seemed to be very loose when it came to accuracy. I think I racked up a total of 10 Deltas, 2-3 mikes, and at least 2 no shoots. I think there are two things contributing to the poor accuracy.

One, is the fact that the 8MOA dot might just be too big. I think I'm just letting it wander around in there too much. I'll be swapping it back to my favorite 6MOA dot and stick with that for a while.

Two, could be the gun. I need to get it back on paper and try to make sure the sight didn't change or I didn't just do a bad job sighting in. As I recalled all the Delta hits I believe all of them were to the left. If the scope had drifted a few inches left it could be dropping some charlies into the D zone without it even really being my fault.

The bottom line is, I need more technical time with the gun so I can fully trust it, and more trigger time to get used to it before I'll really see the full potential of what I've got.

Speaking of technical time, I need to adjust the safety. At one point I believe I had flipped it back on before firing. This has happened before and I took the Dremel to it to make it take a lot of pressure to tun on. This is a simple fix that takes care of one very frustrating issue that I see a lot of shooters experience. Once you make the safety take a lot of pressure to turn on, it goes away and it's not like you forget to turn it on because of it.

So what went well?

I was very happy with all my reloads. Nothing notable happened all day. They just went smooth and quick. Considering the grip is bigger and the button is totally different I'm happy with that.

The other thing I was happy with was my movement. I don't recall any time where I felt I should have, or could have moved quicker. I was aggressive and posted, what I thought were good times.

So, the bottom line is I need more trigger time and a few minor adjustments with this new blaster and I should be very happy with it moving forward.

Goals: Nothing changes.

Stage plan like a GM.

Call every Alpha.

Arms straight, Firm grip.

[Glock26Toter]

This weekend was an interesting one for sure.

On Saturday I went to the match at Ben Lomond Gun Club out in Ramah. A fun match for sure, but my new gun has started jamming consistently and it was very frustrating. It's failing to feed completely and the rounds are sticking at about the 1/2 way into the chamber point. The only stage I didn't get a malfunction on was the classifier. I shot a delta-mike on one target so that was a bust.

I went to Rick's afterwards and he did some work on the chamber and a few other parts. We shot a few through the chrono and I came in at 174PF so although 2-3 points higher than I like it, the fact that those same rounds are 170PF in the green gun mean I'm good to go.

So the following day I went up to Weld County for another match. The 2nd stage of the day was the classifier, and I made a dumb mistake. I had nailed a no-shoot (to the left of the A-Zone) so on the 2nd string, I was like "let's just hose this one down as quick as possible!"

Well.... with cold hands and a running reload my trigger finger closed along with the rest of the grip and I bumped the side of the trigger. BOOM!. my first AD while reloading. So it was a very short match for me.

I decided to head home to the practice range for some badly needed technical time with my new gun.

Upon checking zero at 20 yards, I found that the gun was shooting 4" left. This certainly explains all the left-side deltas, AND the no-shoot on that classifier. I decided, since I had to change anyways I would go ahead and swap in the 6MOA dot. Now, the zero is perfect and I have a dot with less margin for error.

Next, I drilled on a single target at 12 yards and just did 2-reload-2 for quite a while. Despite the AD I'm pretty comfortable with all the reloads and didn't mess a single one of them up. I actually think this may be an improvement over a standard sized grip so even though some doubt has crept into my thoughts with this grip I'm going to keep running it for a while.

During that initial exercise I was consistently seeing .98 - 1.1 on my first shot. This made me curious about raw draw times so I just did some draw and shoot drills. (plus, I was tired of cleaning mags)

I found that I could consistently make a .88-.95 draw at 12 yards and hit an alpha/charlie. My best shot was .84 - alpha but that was pretty lucky. Usually, if I could hit .88 or less it felt like more luck than aiming, but I only missed like 1-2 times while doing this.

What that told me, was that I can consistently draw and put an aimed shot on paper in the mid .9's and be within my comfort zone. While that's not going to win a match, it's just nice to know.

So, during all this practice I was very conscious of the dot tracking as well and I'm still super happy with how consistently this gun cycles. It jammed 2 more times so I'm sure there's still some fine-tuning to be done and will be visiting Rick's again soon.

[Glock26Toter]

Lots of shooting and learning has happened over the past several days.

I shot twice over the weekend and got some practice time in on Monday over my lunch hour.

First was the AGC Match on Saturday. A great day for shooting with warm weather. I had recently changed out my dot to a 6MOA and could see a big difference in my ability to call shots. While there were a few moments of "what the hell am I doing" for the most part I had a good day shooting. Stage 5 was my best run and despite messing up a target order after the steel, I'm still happy with my visual patience on this and very happy with how I nailed the steel. Looking at the results I did this 1 second slower than 2nd place, but kept my hits exactly as needed to take the stage win. 25A,8C,1D for some long distance shooting does a lot to boost my confidence in getting alphas.

Just like real life though, only moments later I was reminded how quickly we can forget how to call shots and let things spiral into crapville. My Stage 1 run was all about revealing areas for improvement. I let my entire body move onto each next target well before I was done shooting it. None more obvious than that 3rd mini popper. I still have plenty of work to do.

Overall, I felt like I made progress on my goals and had a good time.

My gun malfunctioned once during the match so that night I decided to really look it over and see what I could find. I compared the ramp, chamber, breech face, magazine fit, and extractor to my old gun that runs tip top. The only difference I found was that the bottom of the extractor had a very sharp, stock edge while my old gun had a rounded and polished edge. I was able to get a round hung up pretty good when entering the extractor with that edge on it so I decided it was time for the old Dremel tool. I tuned it up and made it look just like the other one.

The following night I shot the CGC indoor match. Unfortunately I ran into Rick who gave me an MBX big stick to use and I ran that the entire time. Zero malfunctions and only a single stage where I decided to stop calling shots led to a pretty good score and a very good time shooting. As is the norm with Centennial, there were lots of new guys and I concentrated on running them and handing out a few pointers so I feel like there were plenty of missed chances to really push myself. Overall it was a match that further pointed out that visual patience seems to be my key area for improvement.

On Monday I went back to Centennial over my lunch hour with 2 goals in mind.

One: Function check the new gun with my old magazines in order to verify whether the MBX mag or my Demel action was responsible for the new reliability.

Two: Shoot my Glock. It's been a looooooong time.

So the function check went off without a hitch. After checking zero at 20 yards and adjusting about 2" left I started hitting both big sticks with lots of rapid fire. I was both function checking and doing some dot watching. This new gun is definitely quite different than my old one and I just shot, watched, and shot some more. I was mostly concerned with showing myself what repeated Alphas looked like at the fastest speed I could muster. I wound up with over 150 rounds downrange and not a single malfunction. I'm confident that the extractor tuning has solved my feed issue and while I'm still going to buy a new MBX big stick, I don't think it's needed as a fix.

I also shot my Glock. WOW, that little 26 sure jumps around a lot. While I was able to remain "tactically accurate" I can plainly see that I've lost a lot of my iron sight skill set over the years. I slowed things down and at 25 yards was able to maintain 18 head shots out of 20. At least I know that little Glock is as accurate as a 26 can be.

So, my goals moving forward are going to lean toward accuracy only.

CALL EVERY SHOT.

That's it. One main goal to focus on.

[Glock26Toter]

I just got back from shooting the Aurora Gun Club match. It turned out to be great weather and a lot of people showed up. There were 85 shooters, so I think we had 23 shooters on our squad.

Under normal conditions this is a recipe for slowness, but everyone worked and things went super smooth.

I really worked on my singular goal today of calling every shot. I was not concerned with attempting to do anything faster that I already can, and just wanted to watch the dot, call the shot and trust that I wold be fast enough.

The first stage was the classifier and a speed shoot. I managed to shoot an 89.4% on the classifier 99-48 with a very nice time and a single point dropped. I was still thinking about that classifier run when I went into the next stage and forgot to watch the dot for a single target costing me a delta that dropped me pretty low in the standings for that stage. That was a good reminder how important keeping that shot calling in the front of your mind is.

The next stage was a pretty choppy setup with some far, partial no-shoots, some close hosers, and some steel that was in the next time zone. I remember during the partial no shoots that I was doing exactly what my goal was. I was just breaking the shot when the dot hit the alpha-zone, and then moving on. Same with that far steel. "See-break-move" It felt really good and I was rewarded with a stage win and a single delta. Where was the delta? On the close hoser target OF COURSE. Looking at my time on that stage, I was not really any faster than the top few shooters, and .04 slower than 2nd place. It was all about having got my alphas.

Following that stage was another distance challenge. This was a bunch of 25 yard open targets that read a bit like a memory stage. Nothing difficult from the memory perspective, but it tested my visual patience like crazy. I just focused on each shot and moved along the instant I could, but no sooner. I wound up with a big stage win and felt really good about my progress.

Overall, a good day of goal progress and a very good time shooting with friends.

So, during the day I had 4 moments of trigger freeze. I've rarely run into this and actually, trigger control is not something I've ever identified as an area for improvement. Many years of accuracy shooting from the time I was about 10 years old have instilled some trigger discipline that carry into today and I've never felt like it needed work.... until today. I don't think it's total trigger freeze. I would say it's more like a "missed reset." It's like I'm pulling the trigger and it just, dead heads. I do another reset and BOOM, all is well. I'm sure it's that the trigger has not been allowed to move forward far enough to reset. In the past, when I say I "trigger froze" it seemed more like an "I forgot to let go" moment. This is much more like I ran through the motions that usually lead to a full trigger function and this time it was a dud.

The only other time this type of thing happened I found that the return tension was super low, but that's not the case this time.

I'm going to leave the trigger thing alone for now. I don't want to get into a situation where the more you think about it, the more it's a problem.

So, moving forward it's the same thing with my goal.

CALL EVERY SHOT

[frunkenstein]

Guess what I found in my barrel.

[Glock26Toter]

parts of rounds? or wait. A mouse!

[frunkenstein]

Half of a case. I cant figure out why the rounds wouldnt go in

[DocMedic]

The 25 yard stage was a brutal experience, I don't think I've shot so many C's in a Match in the past year as I shot on that stage. Turns out I need to aim a hair higher lol.

[Glock26Toter]

I was able to shoot at Colorado Rifle Club this weekend. It was a great day and I wished I had worn shorts by about 11:00am.

I really wanted to concentrate on accuracy and I feel like I did that for the most part, but was not able to make any real progress. It was just a bit more sluggish than I was hoping for and although I had an overall good score the times that I forgot what the heck I was doing, I REALLY forgot what the heck I was doing.

I was able to get a vid taken of Stage 4, but it wasn't particularly great. From an accuracy perspective I got good hits so I guess I shouldn't complain. I was just a bit bummed that I had a large hesitation on the first target and messed up my order in the last position. I got lost and started to engage an incorrect target when I had no idea where my feet were.

At any rate, this is a quick journal entry because I have things to do, but wanted to at least take a few minutes to reflect on how I shot.

Since I'm always preaching on this forum about finding a positive note, I've got to take a step back and find something to close with.

Overall, the gun ran great and I was able to call most shots. My best stage was one that had a high disaster factor and required some strategy that I think I nailed fairly well. It was 24 rounds of up close hosing and then a long stairway where there was steel that just about required a recon team to call in your hits. I mean, they were out at 50 yards and with some no-shoots out there also the real issue was strategy not accuracy. I told several people to take one shot each... go back for a makeup shot and then STOP no matter how many were left standing. This would eliminate FTE's and avoid trashing the 120 points just earned for an additional 40. I was able to get them all with only 1 makeup shot on a few so I scored very well and I'm super happy with how I well I was able to call my shots throughout that stage.

So there's my positive note and I think I'll be able to shoot both days next weekend. So I'm excited to get some more progress made soon. Oh. and No trigger control issues.

Goal list. Same as before:

CALL EVERY SHOT... I mean seriously... ALL OF THEM.

[Glock26Toter]

C'mon man. Stop snowing already!

Most matches were cancelled due to a famous Colorado spring time blizzard last week. It's very difficult to keep a good attitude when you get a blizzard warning issued, and it's 70 degrees out.

So, anyways Centennial Gun Club came to the rescue again with an indoor match. 4 stages of fun with friends.

I was really trying to focus on my goal of calling all my shots. I was not too worried about movement as far as doing anything different. At CGC you can only do 80% of what you can outdoors anyways so movement is not a major concern.

The first stage went well and despite a time that was slower than the GM's I was happy with my hits.

The next stage was a short one with the classifier next to it. I wound up with a shot through the wall, successfully called it and went back to make it up after moving into the next engagement. Unfortunately I chose to make it up in the middle of said engagement, but in keeping with my main goal, I was glad that I had called all the shots in this stage in order to see it. Same with the classifier. I had a NS. At that speed I would have only scored 84.5% had I not hit the noshoot. No big deal with respect to the run, but called all the shots. I knew I had a low charlie (thought it was a delta) and I knew when I nailed the noshoot in the middle. A lesson learned.

Lastly was Stage 4. A 28 round stage that didn't have much in the way of options but had plenty of shot calling opportunities. Some long shots and I had a mike on the first target on the far left. I just missed the shot calling, but was pretty happy with the shots I called from then on. I pulled a makeup where I wasn't sure, but executed the rest including the delta on the far right array. You can see I went back to the middle target at the end to do a possible makeup, but couldn't quite remember what to do. It was a marginal call on the 2nd in from the far right that turned out to be a delta. By the time I processed all that it would have been too late, but for sure a lesson learned.

Also, I almost fell and busted my ass on that engagement so another reminder to be careful.

So let's sum this up with some positive about the match. I did call almost every shot and was happy with my shooting performance. Although I made some mistakes they were simply reminders of how important this latest goal is to keep at the top of my light right now. I did several dry fire practice sessions over the last couple of weeks as well and that's always good too.

Again with the single goal:

Call every shot.

[Glock26Toter]

I got to shoot a match at Aurora Gun Club this Sunday. With 100 shooters in attendance it was a long time between shooting for sure.

I had a couple of good runs, but the ones that I lost my shit on, I really lost my shit. I shot several arrays on one stage where I just plain didn't see the dot, or if it was there I was firing without regard for it at all.

This led to several Deltas and 2 mikes on the stage. The classifier went about as well. I completely missed my grip and dot hunted for about 2 seconds before I could get going. This caused me to do exactly the opposite of having visual patience. I pulled the trigger, almost in an effort to get things on track and had several misses.

This is contrasted with some quite good runs where moments of shot calling were very clear and I was able to know everything was in place with controlled gun handling and good movement.

I didn't get any video but these days I'm not seeing much value in watching vids. My issue seems to be much more mental than anything.

My main problem I've decided is consistency. I really think that I need to make a better commitment to more practice and managing my consistency rather than worrying about technique.

I'm starting to get a bit frustrated as improvement seems to be slower than ever. I know this is expected as the jump from Master to Grandmaster is not exactly a "leaps and bounds" movement. Still though. I can plainly see now why a lot of people give up the sport when they reach a plateau like this. I'm not thinking about giving it up... just saying that I can understand where that comes from now.

I know exactly what the real deal is. MUST SHOOT MORE! hehehehe.

So my goal of "call every shot" I think can be broken down now into a couple of steps to try to reach that consistency needed.

Manage your shit. Keep a consistent roll and don't try to "outdo yourself" or "act like a GM"

Trust that each engagement will be fast enough. Do your work, get the hits... shoot like you shoot. THEN move on.

[BritinUSA]

The phenomenal wind resistance created by that enormous hat is probably slowing you down.

[CHA-LEE]

Cool Pictures!!!

[Glock26Toter]

I made one of those pics my Facebook profile pic. Thank you.

So I also went out today and made good on my commitment to get more practice. I found it pretty decent timing to leave work at 3:30 and run home, then jet to the range by 4:15-4:20. After a 10 minute setup I'm blasting away with plenty of sunlight and not too harsh of an angle. I hope I can get my ass to make that happen once a week.

I setup this past classifier, 06-10 Steely Speed 6. I ran it about 15 times or so. It was frustrating and I wound up leaving in a "better quit before you practice angry" mood.

After reviewing the videos I was able to shoot it clean more times than it felt like, but at maybe a 50% rate it was nothing to get excited about.

My best time put me at a 86% classifier run. Barely in my class.

It seems that something in that classifier just throws off the balance and draw enough to really screw me up.

I've decided not to think too hard about it for now other than to this bit of reflection. I'm going to see if I can run it a few more times over the next few weeks and see if I can improve it.

[CHA-LEE]

That classifier is usually a mental trick because you feel like you need to aim at the circles in the poppers which makes the transitions way harder than they have to be. The next time you shoot it use the same aiming height for all poppers. I like to use the circles of the small poppers to set the height to aim at for the big poppers. Then shoot it straight across like a plate rack.

[Glock26Toter]

Another match is in the books. This weekend it was at Pueblo West Sportsman's club and was an awesome day for weather. I gambled on wearing shorts and it paid off.

The crew down there setup another fun and challenging match. They always do a great job.

The match was a good one overall, and although the mistakes I made were severe it seemed that the shooting I did well was consistent and I wound up HOA for the match.

The first stage I was not quite warmed up and tagged a no-shoot, miked one, and got a delta. All on different targets. I vowed to leave that baggage behind and keep my goals in mind for the rest of the match.

I was very happy with the remainder of the match and didn't score another delta or get another mike... no-shoots, well...

I received 2 no-shoots on another stage. It was one with a long run into a "between the no-shoots" scenario. Scoring 3-per paper I came into that array super hot and squeezed off 2 shots before I realized there was no dot in the sight. ooops! The dot was apparently on the no-shoot. I made up the shots and can honestly say that those two shots were the only un-called shots for that stage.

The classifier was a total victory. It was Table Stakes (09-13) and I just made sure not to overthink it. It was an unloaded table start with 2 partial paper targets separated by 3 mini poppers. I focused on making sure I visualized my paper hits while eating my lunch and making sure I didn't get worked up. I was still chewing as I walked up to the line and just sat down and got ready. The load had a very poor start, but I just did a "fix and proceed" and didn't let it affect me at all. It was a hasty, efficient start, but not rushed. I wound up with all alphas and 3.97 seconds. That put me at 97.9% for a finish. YES!

In the end, with only a single delta for the match I was very happy with my "good shooting." Regarding my "bad shooting" moments I certainly would have given the win away to any GM's that had showed up with 3 no-shoots racked up.

This reinforces to me, that I'm capable of shooting as a GM, but still lack the consistency required to actually be a GM. More work is needed to be sure.

Goals reiterated for this week:

Get to practice once this week.

Don't outdo yourself.

Trust you will be fast enough.

[Glock26Toter]

Well, today was a nice day so I scooted out of work at 3:30 and headed to the range to make good on my practice goal for the week.

I setup that same classifier, 06-10 Steely Speed 6. I ran it a couple of time and did pretty miserable. After double checking I had somehow got the barricade angled funny, making the lean exaggerated. After fixing that as good as I could it went much better.

I still lack consistency, but was able to get a couple of good runs that didn't feel particularly lucky. I got one 3.03 and a 3.08 run in. That's a 96.69% and 95.13% respectively. Not too shabby. This was done using the technique Cha-Lee recommended. He had said so aim below the circle on the big poppers so that you shoot that array across a straight line instead of up and down. Nice tip!

I later got distracted and did a bunch of freestyle, standing runs and some weak hand only runs that were pretty non-scientific. Mostly a lesson in what it takes to call those steel hits.

Although just barely, I'm glad I was able to prove to myself I'm capable of getting a GM score on that classifier. Even if I can't reproduce it in a match it's nice to have practiced it.

To keep the goals rolling forward, here they are again:

Get to practice once this week. (I'm heading down the Phoenix on Monday so I'm all setup to borrow a limited rig from a buddy and shoot Tuesday night steel. This counts, I think.)

Don't outdo yourself.

Trust you will be fast enough.

[Glock26Toter]

I sort of got to practice last night. I'm in Phoenix on business and hooked up with my buddy Paul to go shoot Tuesday Night Steel at the Rio Salado range down here. I wound up driving down instead of flying and brought my wife and gear. We both escaped the snow for a bit. She's painting, I'm working, and I managed to shoot too.

At any rate, it was a fun match. It's not what I expected and turned out to be a limited movement and remember what steel to hit from where type of thing. No reloads for me since all stages were between 21 and 24 rounds.

I just did my thing, with trying to call shots and move quickly.

The first stage was almost like my first ever. I think it was a combination of never shot this type of match and never shot with all these people I didn't know. I was shaking like a leaf and had a ton of misses. I started with 31 rounds and finished with 1. It was a 22 round stage. yikes.

Once I relaxed, I did much better. I did wind up misunderstanding a stage briefing and earned 5 penalty seconds. It was canceled out by -5 seconds for hitting 2 "Optional" plates. But still, not a great run.

I wound up finishing 12th overall, and 10th Open for the match. Not too shabby for 212 shooters and my first time.

As far as practice, well it was a match so I wasn't really working on anything specific.

Next time I get a chance, I'll shoot that match again. It was pretty darn cool.

I have another opportunity to shoot a normal USPSA match on Thursday night. This time, I'll need to borrow a gun and ammo since I only brought enough for one match. We'll see how I do with Limited!

To keep the goals rolling forward, here they are again:

Get to practice once this week.

Don't outdo yourself.

Trust you will be fast enough.

[Glock26Toter]

It's been a crazy couple of days.

I drove back from Phoenix on Friday after shooting the "USPSA" match at Ben Avery. We wound up staying the night in a hotel in Walsenburg Friday night and then driving into Denver Saturday morning. I made it home by about 7:45AM, so I loaded up and made it to the match by 8:30.

First I want to reflect on the "USPSA" match. Those guys in Phoenix run a very different match than I'm used to. I was told it was USPSA, but learned it's not when I got there. It was a fun match, but they only count Alphas and have very "rigid" stage plans. There's really no different way to shoot them other than how described. It was still fun, and I mean no disrespect to those that shoot the match. The big time positive from shooting those matches is that you really learn to go for the Alphas and not settle for less... since it doesn't count.

I was also shooting Limited with a borrowed gun and a hodge-podge box of ammo. I thought I was doing OK until I realized I just wasn't making sure the front sight was actually in the notch for every shot. I would do great for a few shots, and then just start launching them over the top. All I could do was laugh when those guys were like, "why don't you slow down?"

The good news is, I still remembered to manage the sight/target focus and when I was doing things right I was getting my hits. The bad news is, when I let that sight wander... well, I didn't mess around with the misses.

It was still a good time and I'll do what I can to make more of those matches when I head back down there for future work.

So, when I got back this morning I was able to shoot my regular open gun at the "actual USPSA" match at Aurora Gun Club. It was windy as hell the entire time and we never saw the sun, but it was still plenty warm.

I had a good run the first 2 stages. I felt good about calling my shots and hadn't scored a single delta in the first 2 stages.

The classifier didn't go so well and I nailed a mike/no-shoot combo to trash that one good. I felt good with the load and reload on it. It was just a moment of landing on the wrong end of "hero or zero" so I really didn't let it bother me.

The 3rd stage is when things literally fell apart. By the end of the run, I had failed to reset the trigger and racked the slide about 4-5 times. I was squeezing, but there was no BOOM. In my limited troubleshooting ability during a run I just kept racking it and moving on. As it turned out the over travel screw or something else had gone awry causing the trigger to go way beyond it's normal stopping point. So when I was working the trigger through it's normal travel distance it wasn't resetting. A legit equipment failure and I did NOT bring my spare gun.

I borrowed Lauren's gun to finish up the last stage. A CK grip model with pretty much all the same specs.

That run didn't go much better. I learned that the CK non-aggressive grip is quite slick when compared to my trusty grip-tape. I was like a 4H kid trying to catch the greased pig at the county fair! The dot was moving... the gun was sliding... I was just pulling the trigger and hoping for the best. It turned out "the best" was a couple of deltas and 3 mikes. Oh, and I forgot the reload during all this gun groping fiasco so a standing reload was just icing on the cake.

Well, it's been an interesting week getting to shoot weird matches, weird guns, and having weird equipment failures. I have been laughing it all off pretty well and genuinely still having fun. HOWEVER, it's time to get my shit together and hit this shooting season with a spice weasel, SQUEAL-BAM! (A Futurama reference for those with a nerdish leaning)

To keep the goals rolling forward, here they are again:

Get to practice once this week.

Don't outdo yourself.

Trust you will be fast enough.

Maybe I'll add... bring the spare gun!

[Glock26Toter]

Another match for the week. That makes 4 matches in 1 week. Not bad except for the fact that not a single one had a "Normal" experience.

Once again, I decided to change things and take my old OD Green blaster out. This time a match at CGC on Sunday night.

I was surprised at how in tune I am now to the dot tracking. This gun was all over the place in comparison. I miked several targets and on every one of them it was to one side or the other. (zebra's or headshots so not a lot.) The dot does NOT track in a predictable up-and-down motion. It's definitely what I would call "static."

I think this is due to both the plastic grip and forward sight mount. I decided that I need to modify the gun to be more consistent with the new blaster. I really don't think it does any good to have a backup gun that causes a marked drop in performance.

On the other hand, the weight, grip size, and different trigger had no noticeable affect on my performance. I say "no noticeable" because I can't argue the fact that it felt different and possibly had some affect, but I feel that it was negligible.

This tells me that the decision to move into the PT Grip setup was a good one and I'm sticking with it.

I'll be ordering a new setup for the Green gun to hopefully make it a proper backup.

The question is, do I save some $$ and time and get a CK grip, or stick with PT? The PT, although noticeable larger doesn't seem to affect me so I'm not sure how important that feature is to replicate. hmmmmm?

To keep the goals rolling forward, here they are again:

Get to practice once this week. (compare guns again in practice)

Don't outdo yourself.

Trust you will be fast enough.

[CHA-LEE]

Hulk SMASH!!!!

If you want a truly functional backup gun I would suggest building another exactly like your current primary with the PT grip. The overall grip shape differences between the CK and PT grips would make each gun "Feel" unique and become a distraction. The differences between the two grips may not make any difference to the actual shooting performance of the gun but the physical differences will allow mental distraction to creep into your mind during stage runs. I have tried using slightly different setups on my Limited guns which I would consider very minimal and even that becomes distracting to me. That is why I strive to make all three of my Limited guns identical to one another in build, features, and functions.

On a side note, my Open gun started with a rearward scope mount and it still had too much dot "Static" while shooting. I recently switched it to a forward mount and there is more dot movement but its very predictable going straight up and down in a smooth motion while shooting. I am able to maintain a hard target focus better with the forward mount because the dot movement is predictable with the forward scope mount.

[drewbeck]

Firing pin stop angle and mainspring weight also play a huge role in the "noise" factor.

I also agree that unless they're identical there will be an adjustment period between the two. So then if they're not identical, regardless of how big the difference is between the two you'll notice it and think about it.

I've never asked but I'd venture to guess that even though cha's guns are "identical" and built with the same parts, paint, trigger, and by the same person he would be able to tell which one was which without looking based on how they felt last. Whether it's slide wear, chips in the coating, whatever, it doesn't matter because he's proven to his mind they're going to shoot exactly the same and the one in his hand at that moment is his primary gun.

If someone really doesn't want to have a mid match mental grenade go off when having to switch to a "backup" gun, you can't have a primary and a backup but instead it's gotta be a rotation.

I think it's a lot like shoes, I have 3 pair of identical shoes that I randomly rotate while shooting. (Good Deal, I'm not overly concerned with backup footwear) But my point is someone could hand me any one of the pairs at the LAMR and it would have zero effect on my mind. On the other hand is someone handed me MY cleats that I've previously worn for years, it's gonna take more than a few minutes to quit thinking about it and I'd much prefer a couple laps before that buzzer goes off.

At the end of the day it comes down to how important the lack of any match stumbles is to you and how much you wanna spend to avoid it. Panda has a trio, which is cheap insurance relative to his schedule and travel risk. I carry a fitted backup for every part except the grip, barrel, frame, magwell and slide, and the tools to fix it in minutes which allows me to always shoot the same gun but if it's catastrophic I'll be shooting open with whatever glock is in my truck at the time to finish the match. It's all relative to your level of participation

[Glock26Toter]

Yeah, I think you guys have convinced me I need to spend the extra money and time to go with a PT grip.

It's interesting to me, that conversely to Cha-Lee, I see completely consistent dot tracking with the rearward mount, but maybe I'll keep the original forward mount and compare those two before making a decision on that part. Maybe I'm seeing "less static" due to the grip and "no static" with the PT/Forward combo.

I think that the amount of travel is not a concern. It's definitely consistency we need.

I do know, that the two guns can't stay as different as they are now. The unfortunate part is that PT is so damn back-logged it will probably be after this summer's shooting season before I can get it. They haven't even answered my email asking about lead time yet.

[drewbeck]

I have a rearward mount I'd sell you if you're interested. I too found, I prefer the forward much more. Partly dot tracking, partly better draw from not having to avoid hitting my thumb on it.

[CHA-LEE]

Then order 2 CK grips and switch over to those ones. You can always sell your PT grip for what you paid for it since there is such a back log.