J.jensen

[jostein jensen]

Thought I'd join th crowd of range diary writers.

Spring 2006 I fired my first shots with a handgun.

I had joined a local club, took a beginner safety class (mandatory in Norway) and began shooting bullseye with the clubs .22's.

The club was really bad and many of the senior members were not very friendly or welcoming. Some even rude. I wondered if this was a normal thing with pistol shooters, but then I found Salten Practical Shooting Club.

O boy this was something else! Really nice ppl who were eager to help and even let you try their guns! Long story short I changed club and took an IPSC safety class or whatever I should call it.

After hearing about a bazillion different views from different people about what gun I should use, I finally came to my senses and started with just using the club glock's.

A month ago I got my first gun. I bought an Sti Edge with Dawson FO front and a bigger mag release. Through the winter I have been reading BE's book and I was really looking forward to starting training with it.

The first thing that surprised me when I got it was how natural it felt in my grip. First time i gripped it and raised it, the front sight was there in the notch. It was really a lot easier than what I had become accustomed to with the G17's where I was constantly adjusting my grip to find the sights.

Along with the Edge I got a CR-Speed WSM rig.

First day on the range, and its a muddy one, I learned the HARD way to put the damn lock on the holster. I was jumping over a mud-puddle on my way back to the safety area when this funny feeling of my hip suddenly becoming about a kilo lighter and then the splosh sound when it hit the mud... The first bloody day on the range and it dropped into mud!

Luckily I had a full cleaning kit and lots of patches and paper in my rangebag so I was able to get it cleaned and complete my training.

So far what I have learned after 300 rounds with the Sti:

The gun is absolutely marvelous. The trigger is probably shyte, but since I'm comparing it to the glock - I think its great.

The gun works and shoot straight.

My handloads factor in on 176.x - I use Frontier 180gr over 5.2gr N320 31mm long.

And the most important thing I learned so far: I close my eyes when it goes bang and I really really really need to work on keeping the focus on the front sight in the notch. My focus tends to be on the FS and on the target and anything in between.

So from now and up to my first L3 in june it will be a lot of dry practice with front sight focus as the main issue and slow live fire practice. We usually set up a medium course on every training so I'm going to go slowly through these with a perfect sight picture on every shot. Maybe the speed will come eventually...

Looking forward to get back on the range this weekend...

[Stefan Lundkvist]

Hej Jostein,

Welcome to the one and only shooting sport there is. Glad to hear you decided to leave the tupperware gun and go for the real thing - the modern version of the J. M. Browning invention. Keep up the training and your first LIII will be a great experience. Is it by any chance the Red Apple Open?

Load and Make Ready!

Stefan

[Catfish]

lots and lots and lots of dry fire will help keep your eyes open when you pull the trigger.

Welcome!

[jostein jensen]

Hej Jostein,

Keep up the training and your first LIII will be a great experience. Is it by any chance the Red Apple Open?

Load and Make Ready!

Stefan

It will be the Kongsvinger Open

I'm hoping I will be able to shoot Red Apple too, but its in the middle of the family holiday so it will require some negotiation with the better half

Edited for proper link function.

Edited April 12, 2007 by jostein jensen

[Stefan Lundkvist]

it will require some negotiation with the better half

Buy her a gun and bring her along...

[jostein jensen]

Yeah I wish she would join me on the range sometime..

Today the weather finally was good enough to go to the range. Scattered clouds, light breeze and about 10* celcius. Its as good as it gets in april in northern Norway. Heck, I'm just glad the snow is gone from the range!

I brought a colleague to the range today. He had never fired a handgun but really wanted to try it after I told him about IPSC.

I brought the club's glock and my Sti and we went to the range. We're a small club - maybe sub 10 active members so we had the range all to ourselves. Needless to say, he's forever hooked.

Today was the first time I was able to just keep calm and try some precision. The gun outdoes me by far. Without a rest it will make one ragged hole on 15m. I actually made on big hole with 5 bullets. It was really cool. I could count 5 hits on the outer edge of the big hole.

But thats not the coolest thing I did today.

I discovered two awesome things.

First, the fastest I can fire my edge is around .18-.19. That gives a group of approximately two feet! Then I changed mag (10rounds in each) and fired "controlled" at the next target. Both at 10m. This time I was going to just focus on the front sight and just shoot.

It was better. All 10 shots hit the paper this time. Most within the Charlie.

What amazed me was the splits. My friend commented that I was shooting so fast (fast when compared to mine/his level of expertise, not the same fast as you guys.) so I checked the timer. The shots were around .25.

Its really amazing how much more info the eyes can see and brain process by increasing the splits as little as 0,05 seconds. The cool thing is the splits just got that low from trying to relax and just shoot.

The second, and even more awesome thing happened when I fired my last round today. I was totally relaxed and just, as the clip before, just shooting.

I SAW THE DARN FRONT SIGHT LIFT OUT OF THE NOTCH!

That means, when I'm relaxing, my eyes don't close when the gun goes bang anymore!

I think I have to go have a celebrating beer or something. It was just cool.

I just stood there, focusing on the front sight, seeing that the sights were aligned on target and the finger just on autopilot pulled the trigger. Gun goes bang and I was like:

"Heey. That was weird. I could see the sight as the muzzle went up! Godd dammit I'm out of ammo and can't do it again "