Houngan

[Matt Griffin]

I was using a HFC G17, a pretty cheap one, with propane. Unfortunately the barrel broke after 8k rounds, so I can't really recommend it. Check with Manny Bragg, he sells some higher quality guns, and of course you can actually find him to get it fixed if it breaks, unlike the general airsoft vendors on the net.

H.

[Glockster35]

Who is Manny Bragg, and where can I find him?

[IronEqualizer]

Who is Manny Bragg, and where can I find him?

[Matt Griffin]

Right here:

http://www.frankgarciausa.com/contactus.html

If Manny doesn't answer the phone, Frank can find him for you.

H.

[JThompson]

Who is Manny Bragg, and where can I find him?

[Matt Griffin]

I'm very lucky to have Mark Itzstein in the area, seems he recently moved to Louisville. Mark's a top revolver shooter, and pretty darned handy with an Open gun as well.

Sunday's match was an eye-opener in a lot of ways. First, I learned that once you get fairly good at something, you MUST keep practicing. When I was roughly a C shooter, I was working mostly on natural ability, athleticism, and good vision. Now that I'm somewhere in the A range, I can watch my skills go down the toilet with just a week or two of not practicing. Easy lesson, but an important one.

Another thing: Please get you lead level checked. I was surprised to find mine in the 40s, hopefully this is from the indoor matches without ventilation, and not general reloading lead. I'd hate to have to buy factory, let me assure you. I might just go ahead and switch to copper jacketed, just to be safe. It's only another 400-500 dollars a year in cost, which is well worth my memory and health.

Other than that, the current focus is bullseye for the state games, and strengthening my trigger fingers for revolver class.

H.

[Matt Griffin]

Let's see. Big news is that I've started being careful at work, and my nerve-damaged right arm is healing. I'm able to apply some serious pressure on the gun, which will hopefully bring me back to where I was.

Still loading ridiculous amounts of .45 for the revolver, I've got salad bowls full of the stuff waiting for inspection.

Haven't been practicing as much as I should, I'm about to get serious again.

GSSF shoot in Indianapolis, I won a pistol and $175, gotta love a match that pays you back.

Bluegrass state games, gold medal in air pistol and centerfire.

That's all for now, I need to just generally practice; the last match I shot I was very aware of how loose my control had gotten. Everything needs work.

H.

[Clyde]

Steel Match Saturday at Silver Creek

[Matt Griffin]

Big revolver session yesterday, main lesson is that you have to have great followthrough on the revolver, otherwise the last bit of trigger pull wrecks the sight picture. I'm holding off on trigger work for now, I figure if I learn on a full-power trigger, then a lightened trigger will work all the better when I switch. Wore a blister in my trigger finger, unfortunately, but shouldn't keep me out of the weekend match.

H.

[Matt Griffin]

Ah! And yet again, I am surprised by learning that practice helps! I went back out today, and my first four or five moonclips were wonderful; my trigger control has improved 200% since the last practice. I also, just for fun, took a single one-hand shot at 50 yards at a bottle, and hit it. Always feels good to do something like that. That shot was single action, BTW.

I'm still fighting fatigue, as my finger gets tired, the rest of my hand starts jumping in and ruining the release. The first few shots I felt a clear disconnect between the trigger and the grip, which is where I need to be.

Also, since I've been shooting revolver I've been using a cheap BB gun to strengthen my trigger fingers. I took out the Glock and my control was significantly up. I rarely practice inside of 15yards, I figure that you should practice hard, compete easy. At the end of the day I walked up to 10yards or so, and my increased trigger strength and hand strength allowed me to get some controlled .16 splits, and .18s were downright easy. My transitions are slipping though, raw times were nearly .6 for a 45-degree swing at 10 yards. I worked on it a bit and got it back down to the 30s, but I need to start practicing them again.

H.

[Matt Griffin]

One other thing; I tried a trigger that Mark had worked on, and it was just silly. It might be lighter than my Glock trigger, it's a hell of a lot smoother. I think it still needs another pound for reliability, but it was just incredible. Once I get the basics down, I'm going to try and talk him into working on my 625.

H.

[Matt Griffin]

I'm still having trouble with my weak hand, I think I'm gunshy to really crank down on the grip, I'll have to put in some dryfire draw practice to get my right hand back into it. Shot a few hundred rounds today out of the G35 and the 625.

I noticed that the stronger my weak hand grip, the more detail I could feel in the trigger. If I was being soft on the grip, the trigger felt like a mushy long pull. As I cranked down, I started feeling the sear (striker, whatever) release clearly, and could follow through well.

I also started short-stroking the Glock when I tried to get it back down to the .16 range. It went away quickly enough, but goes to show how much memory there is involved in the trigger pull. I don't think I've short-stroked the trigger twice in the last 15,000 rounds, but I did it four times in a row today. The revolver is obviously causing some confusion.

H.

[Matt Griffin]

I went out to the range, and lo and behold, Mark was there practicing for the Steel Challenge. I'm not in his class by any means, but by the end of the day my best runs were only .3 off of his best runs. He just put a heck of a lot more of them together . . .

Points:

1. Sights, dummy.

2. Draw is good, don't need to worry about that. Grip consistency is where it's at.

3. I'm having trouble hearing the plates. I'm not waiting for the sound, but I like the confirmation as I'm transitioning. Might need to invest in some real ears soon.

I might have a chance in the game, if I practice for it. Think I'll sign up next year and give it a go.

H.

[Matt Griffin]

Classifier match today, 4 classifiers and 3 more stages. I shot very, very well. I'm attributing it to yesterday's practice session with Mark, nothing like Steel Challenge to burn in sight picture and transitions.

This was also my first clean match, ever, with no penalties, no Mikes. I'm anxious to see the scores, since these four classifiers should give me a good idea of where I stand. I suppose I could have picked up 5% here and there, but they were representative of my shooting ability when I'm in practice and nothing goes terribly wrong.

I need some basic practice on reloads, transitions, and trigger control, they're all at 75% and I know I can get them back to 90% with a few sessions. September is going to be a big month for majors, so it's time to get serious again.

H.

[Matt Griffin]

Results are in, looks like right now I'm a low-A. Frustrating, honestly, because I thought when I was on my game I would be a bit higher. However:

1. Need to work on hip turning. If anything will illustrate the importance of this, it's shooting SC against a top competitor. When I'm properly turning from the legs/hips, the sights stay in view and stop cleanly on the target; everything feels slow and easy.

2. I'm not moving based on sight picture. It's funny, but sometimes you think that if you know something, then you must be doing it. Not the case, I'm afraid. Again, shooting the sights seems slower, but is equally as fast + no misses/better points. By shooting the sights, I mean waiting until I have a clear, clear sight picture. I've been accepting too much slop when breaking the shot.

3. Watching the Miculek video last night, I'm going to experiment with side-to-side pressure. I haven't been applying much, and it may very well be the missing element in my faster shooting.

4. Bring the arms back, don't hunch shoulders. Jerry again, and something I've noticed. I've been fighting recoil with a strong outward push of the arms. Time to bring it back in and let technique handle the recoil, while I drive the gun.

Time to get the timer back out, and re-prove to myself that the fundamentals work better than forcing the shots by strength or athleticism.

H.

[Matt Griffin]

DQ'd the Ohio state match, knocked my gun out of the holster. Everyone feel free to mock, it's a Powerspeed. However, the angle I hit the gun at, it would have come out of any unlocked holster, managed to catch it perfectly on the front of the magwell. As far as I can tell, I gave it the exact vector that a draw gives it.

So, we've learned a lesson. LOCK THE FRIGGIN' HOLSTER when you have to move at all on the draw. I've modified the locking mechanism two ways today:

I've made a curvy bit of metal that I can stick in the holster between stages, which will keep it full-locked.

I've removed the lower side of the lock, so that I can get a better grip when it is locked. The ambi nature of the Powerspeed makes the lock get in your way on the draw unless it is off, and even then it's easy to hit it on the way up and lock the holster completely.

Still sick about the DQ, I was really looking forward to that match. At least I was 100% on the one stage I managed to shoot.

H.

[Catfish]

The sucky thing about lessons is that they're usually painful.

Chalk it up and move on.

[Matt Griffin]

I'm glad it was a clear DQ, I've got nobody to blame or question but myself. I'm already moving on, and the good news is that drawing from a locked holster actually improves my average grip quality, since I have to hit the gun straight down with the thumb. I'm sure I've lost .1 or .2 on the draw, but that should come back quickly enough.

H.

[Catfish]

Frankly, my fear of tossing the gun at the wrong moment is why I don't even use a race holster any more when I shoot Limited. Now I just use the same setup as I do when I'm shooting SS (Comp-Tac locking paddle) and I don't have to worry about it.

Was hitting 1.03-1.09 draws today with no probs with that setup; may lose a couple tenths to some folks but the mental worry it's saving me is well worth it.

[Matt Griffin]

Frankly, my fear of tossing the gun at the wrong moment is why I don't even use a race holster any more when I shoot Limited. Now I just use the same setup as I do when I'm shooting SS (Comp-Tac locking paddle) and I don't have to worry about it.

Was hitting 1.03-1.09 draws today with no probs with that setup; may lose a couple tenths to some folks but the mental worry it's saving me is well worth it.

I'm leaning your way . . .

H.

[Catfish]

I figure if TJ and Manny are doin' it that it can't be all that bad...

[Matt Griffin]

Back on the wagon. I went out twice this weekend, first time I've shot centerfire in 3 months.

The good news is that I can still shoot. I don't seem to have lost the fundamentals, like raw accuracy. Unfortunately, I didn't manage to lose any problems, either. I have to, HAVE TO get out with the timer and convince myself to wait for a good sight picture. Until the bad habits crept back in, I was drilling As at 20 yards. Then I sped up 10%, and my scores dropped 40%.

My hands and forearms are sore as hell right now, but it feels good. First thing I'm going to work on: getting a perfect grip, every time. That's the base, everything else can wait (and depend) on that.

H.

[Matt Griffin]

Step one of teaching myself that slow is fast:

I was watching a movie last night, and had the timer running while I did a "table start with load" drill. Picking up a G17 and mag, seating the mag, getting my grip, then whacking the timer to register the time. Big surprise, when I relaxed and did it at what seemed like a slow pace, my times were in the 1.2s. When I twitched as fast as possible towards the gun and mag, my best time was 1.15. Except half of those were also 1.5 and higher due to bobbles. LESSON LEARNED.

H.

[Matt Griffin]

Two practice sessions as weather permitted this week. Monday was a complete waste, I was tired, rusty, and my arms were aching.

Yesterday was a success, however. I finally stopped wasting ammo and started to really practice again, my attention level went way up, and I worked out some bugs.

Lessons learned:

Mental separation of the trigger finger and the grip are necessary at all times. I've been pulling shots due to ignoring this.

Transitions need a lot of work.

Draws/reloads need work.

Focusing needs work.

On the plus side, I'm running drills out at 25yards without any Deltas, just Charlies when everything goes wrong. I think the winter of bullseye has readjusted my acceptable sight picture to the better.

H.

[Matt Griffin]

Match Sunday, I was completely out of control. Likely due to lack of sleep/hangover, but I really need to crank down on perfect dryfire, I've lost my draw and reload grooving. Hits were somewhat there, but I was still rushing.

H.