First Time Shooting "open"

[JDBraddy]

I recently bought a used "Open" gun, loaded a couple hundred rounds of .38 Super Comp, and took it to the range this past weekend. WOW! This thing is a whole different animal than my series 70 Goldcup! First, It's LOUD! My ears where ringing even with plugs in. I set up my chrono, and clocked about twenty rounds. Using 7.8gr "True Blue" I was getting an average of 1260fps, with deviation from 1230-1280fps with a 124gr bullet. I'm going to try bumping that up to 8.0gr next time, as I figure I need 1330fps to make major. I tested the four mags that came with the gun, and all seem to feed reliably. It came with a Sarfariland 007 holster, but no belt or mag holders. I guess I'll need to choose some soon. The holster slid around on my belt some, I also need to sit down an figure out how to adjust the thing a little. I've got a bit of a "Ponch" and it hangs over. Finding the dot after the draw and on recovering shots it a bit more of a challenge than I thought it would be. The trigger pull seems more difficult sometimes with the magazine in the gun, than when dry-firing What would cause that? I also caught myself anticipating the blast, or even flinching on a few shots. I can tell I'm going to really have to conciously whatch that, as it's quite obvious with this gun. Anyone have any other advice for a first time "Open" shooter???

[XRe]

Here's a couple of quick tips - I'm on the way out the door, otherwise I'd write you a novel...

Double plug - plugs and ear muffs, especially indoors. You can take one or the other off when you're not shooting... The muffs help stop the transmissive sound that comes in through the area around your ears on your head. The plugs are added insulation, and keep you from having to wear heavy, bulky muffs...

Practice drawing, etc, extremely slowly - work the draw from the holster outward, and then backwards from presentation back to holster. Do that a lot in dry fire - *VERY* slowly. Double check your grip a bunch (if you don't know a proper grip, get an experienced shooter to show you). Break the draw movement down into parts - strong hand to gun, gun up to weak hand, gun up and out, etc. When you've done that a bunch (I mean hundreds if not thousands of reps), start slowly speeding it up. What you will have done is burned in the presentation that you need to find the dot each and every time, and the grip/stance angles that will provide it. You'll never have a problem again if you do that work up front.

Open is very unforgiving about consistency of presentation - it'll drive you nuts until you get that down, so do the work now and save the frustration later!!!!

[Sgtsvi]

+1 on what Dave said about double plugging. This will become very apparent when you shoot in a stage with a hallway or through ports. The concussion can be pretty distracting to a new open shooter who is still a little blast sensitive. Do ALOT of practice on your draws until the dot naturally comes up to your sight picture. Nothing is more frustrating than hearing the timer go off and wasting 3-4 seconds trying to find the dot.

It sounds like your trigger problems may be due to your overtravel set screw being in too far and hitting your magazine catch. Try backing the set screw out 1/4 turn at a time until the trigger feels like you like it.

Get a Ghost or CR speed holster. Once you have them adjusted they are very fast.

Welcome to the dark side!

Edited February 7, 2007 by Sgtsvi

[Singlestack]

You might want to try getting those 124s up to about 1380. You will find there is a sweet spot where your comp will really start working. Don't worry about how much over major you are to a point. What you are looking for is a load that will make use of the comp and that will keep your dot as still as possible and track straight up and down.

[.40AET]

Finding the dot after the draw and on recovering shots it a bit more of a challenge than I thought it would be.

Wait 'till you try it weak hand. I got my gun on a Friday and shot a match on Sunday. Damn you should of heard the laughter on the weak hand stage. Practice the draw and transition to strong and weak hand and finding the dot.

Good luck and welcome to the dark side.

[open17]

Noise/blast. Earplugs and good electronic muffs.

Finding the dot. Practice--a lot. Start slow, get the draw and index nailed down before you try for any speed. Losing the dot between shots can be helped with load developement. Try some different powders. True Blue is cheap, but probably not the first choice for Super loads. LOTS of threads and load data on the "best" load and tips

on load tuning.

Trigger pull-- Is it harder with all the magazines? I'm going to guess it's got a

bent trigger bow, that is rubbing on the magazine.

Welcome to the Dark Side

Edited February 7, 2007 by open17

[DrawandDuck]

CR Speed Belt and Mag holders....Might want to look at a Ghost holster (love mine)!! It took me about a month to get where I could find the dot consistantly from the draw.....Left hand....well every now and then I still have a little problem with that one....depends on if I get a proper grip or not though....Speed is addictive but SMOOTH is FAST!!

Have Fun..

Randal

[HSMITH]

Number those mags, see if it isn't just one or two that are making the trigger feel change. Mags get beat up pretty badly in matches and you might just have one or two that are dragging on the trigger bow. If it is just one or two you can look at them in the area around the mag catch notch to see if you see anything different from the ones that don't cause a problem.

[OpnBlstr]

Wait 'till you try it weak hand.

I had a helluva time with weak hand and the CMore. I was out screwing around trying to figure out a better way and now I hold the pistol very close to my head when shooting weakhand. It's about half of the normal arms extended distance - very bent elbow - almost 90 deg. Now I have very little trouble weakhand.

+1 on the power factor thing also. I chronoed my ammo yesterday - 183 in a 5". It shoots flat and soft - really generates enough gas to make the comp effective.