Test ALL aspects of new handloads before shooting in a match

[regor]

I recently starting reloading 9mm minor PF and spent most of my time focused on getting a good 147gr load. I ran close to 200 rounds of those through so I was familiar with point of impact, feeding, cycling, accuracy, the load I needed to comfortably make minor, etc. and was confident that they were ready to go in a match... but I also had a box of 500 124gr projectiles that I also wanted to load to see if I prefer them over 147grs. I did exactly one range visit with loads to find the proper charge weight to make minor, but that was all the testing I did. 

 

In my infinite wisdom I decided to use this weekend's local match (my third ever) to test 147 vs 124 in a match setting. Frankly, they weren't all that noticeably different loaded down to minor, but I had two really bad stages out of the first 6, and both of them were stages I ran 147s with, which I think psychologically made me decide to run the last stage of the day, which happened to be the classifier, with the 124s. That classifier happened to be It's Not Brain Surgery, which was not a good stage to go into without knowing POI. Thankfully it's one of the rare classifiers with Comstock scoring because the targets were in the shade and I couldn't see any of my hits. I ended up putting all 11 shots down range for 6 hits (though that 3-1-2 on the targets), one of which was a lucky nick of the C zone perforation.

 

Yikes. Lesson learned! I managed to scrape by with something like a .25 hit factor (4% in Production), so at least I didn't zero, but it looks like my chances of having my first classification be a C are out the window.

[MemphisMechanic]

I hate to be hard on you here, but if you find a ballisitics calculator and do the math?

 

You’ll like find that your POI/POA shift is so small at 30ft that you’re going to have a hard time blaming anything other than visual patience / trigger control.

 

You might get outside the A-box in the head if your POI was offcenter, but you aren’t missing a 6” square at 30ft altogether just because your bullet weight changed.  

 

Edited November 19, 2018 by MemphisMechanic

[tacomandood]

Looks like a tough one for your first classifier. But, as mentioned above, POI is gonna shift maybe 1" at that distance? Depends on your gun and numerous other variables, but I'd say maybe it was just a bad classifier. 

 

As far as your equipment testing goes, I've made the mistake of running something that I've only tested once pretty recently too. It wasn't ammo for me, but I decided to drop in a new hammer spring into my gun since I was having light strikes with an "11#" spring. In theory, a heavier spring should have less issues, right? That's what I assumed, so in went the "heavier 12#" spring the night before a match. Completely blew the whole first stage with about 20 light strikes before finally finishing lol. I think the average time for the stage was 20-30 seconds, and it took me like 69 to finally hit everything. So I go to the safety area to check my gun and just throw in the stock spring... and the supposedly heavier "12#" spring ended up having about 2 less coils than the "11#" spring. I'll just chalk that up to mislabeling by the manufacturer on both springs they sold me, but man did I pay for that for not testing before a match.

 

Anyway, I've learned that it's best to try and be consistent in everything you practice, and won't be switching gear and equipment the night before a match in fear of repeating what I did last time. Going back to your ammo, it'd probably be best to test and practice with it more... but I still don't think it affected your classifier that much. Maybe just some more practice? good luck in the future ones though!

[regor]

I'm definitely not blaming it all on the ammo. I am by no means a great shot. If I had ammo that I knew the exact POI on I still would probably not have gotten all As. There are definitely other factors that I need to work on that would have made this mostly irrelevant, but the point is that I willingly introduced an unknown variable that is easily fixable (whereas consistent sight picture, better trigger pull, etc. all take a ton of additional training).

 

The point of the match screw-ups forum is to share mistakes that others can learn from, right? The point here is make sure you know all the variables you can so you only have to focus on applying the fundamentals. Even with my 147s I'm not positive if they hit at the top of the post or behind the dot, and that alone could cause A hits to turn into C hits, and this was a stage that really required knowing where your rounds go. Just sharing my experience. 

[Hi-Power Jack]

Good luck with your 2nd competition.      

[JJB05]

Thanks for posting

[beta1759]

sometimes you have to learn lessons the hard way haha. I have seen people mix different ammo before at matches in the SAME MAGAZINE! I was dumbfounded...