CHA-LEE's Tale

[CHA-LEE]

Just now, rowdyb said:

I had friends come from out of state to A4 and the heat and humidity had a definite effect on them.

 

I am a "Desert Climate" shooter so going to full swamp ass weather conditions is a totally different universe for me. The Area 4 match this year is far from the first humid conditions match I have attended. I have actually attended at least 20+ majors in mega humid hot weather over the years so its not a "New" situation for me. I do my best to deal with the conditions, but it always seems to whip my ass. I am just not designed to function properly in those conditions. I guess that is the practical part of the practical shooting game we play.

[CrashDodson]

I actually drove to Fayetteville the morning of the match and had a IV therapy.  Had never tried it before, had hours to kill so figured why not.  It honestly worked.  I felt great all day, and walking the stages the day before in the humidity was brutal enough.  

[CHA-LEE]

IV Therapy to deal with the range weather conditions............ WOW!!! That is taking it to a whole new level.....

[CrashDodson]

Didnt help me win...but I felt good lol

[rowdyb]

Someone who travels as much as you I know no weather is new to you. But it still has an effect when it is a big change from home. Or what your body seems to prefer. I flail once it gets below 60F.

[CHA-LEE]

This past weekend there were no local club matches due to it being the 5th weekend of the month. Since there were no matches I decided to get some live fire practice in on both days. I was able to do some more back to back Limited blaster testing which was an interesting process. I tested my #2, #3, and #4 back to back on the practice stage we setup. Even though I have tried my best to make all of these Limited guns feel and shoot the same they are slightly different enough to be distracting while using them. Since I have been shooting the #2 as a primary this year I am fully tuned into that one and the others feel slightly off in comparison. I did some more spring testing on the #4 to see if I could get its felt recoil similar to the #2. I tried a 9lb recoil spring with a 20lb hammer spring and that got it a little closer but it still didn’t feel exactly the same. Right now I am fully tuned into the timing and feel of the #2 Limited gun and I need to simply stick to it until it starts to fail or wears out. The others have proven to have solid reliable functionality and are accurate so they will serve as viable backups in a pinch. But I need to stop switching around between these three guns all the time as its becoming more of a distraction than anything else.

 

On Saturday we setup a large field course stage that was similar to Stage 4 with 2 swingers at the Area 4 match. I wanted to setup that stage in practice as there were a couple of different ways to shoot it and I didn’t get a chance to try out all of the methods at the Area 4 match. This stage was a hosefest at the Area 4 match and the timing of the swingers was very different so it wasn’t a very accurate representation of the stage. But it still had the same basic shooting strategy options. It was fun trying the different strategies and seeing which one worked out the best. The best plan was basically the same plan I used at the real stage at the Area 4 match.  I shot this stage several times with my different Limited guns to see if the different guns would produce a different result. Surprisingly my stage times were within half a second of one another regardless of which gun I was using but my distracted comfort level was off any time I wasn’t using the #2 Limited gun. I guess this is good because I can still produce solid shooting results with the other guns even though their minute differences are distracting. I shot about 250 rounds that day which isn’t a lot but it was enough for me.

 

On Sunday we setup another large field course that was a lateral movement position to position challenge. We used Turtle targets on this stage and had several tight no shoot blocked targets which made us earn our hits. We also had 8 mini poppers which were kicking my butt. This stage also had a swinger with two shoot targets on it with a no shoot in the middle. It was fun working on this double target swinger as it’s not very common I setup something like that but we do see it in matches from time to time. We started the setup of the swinger in a configuration that exposed out the left side of some stacked barrels. Then later we switched it to an over the top presentation with a row of barrels in front of it. This double swinger destroyed people as a “Trapping” method of engagement wouldn’t get the job done. You had to use a “Tracking” method to ensure solid hits while avoiding the no shoot between the two targets. I was still switching back and forth between my #2 and #4 blasters that day and that is also when I switched out the springs on the #4. About half way through the practice I basically gave up on trying to make the #4 shoot the same and just stuck with the #2 the rest of the practice. The blaster fiddling was becoming too distracting and taking away from the practice session. I shot about 450 rounds that day with at about 150 of that screwing around with different springs while shooting drills on different spring setups. The Mini Poppers were kicking my butt once again. I found myself getting sucked into looking at the steel instead of my sights. I also figured out that I wasn’t gripping the gun hard enough at the end of the day. I basically told myself to grip the gun HARD while engaging the steel and magically they went down fast and one for one. This practice session also had most of the targets in a shadow condition which was good for getting used to that type of sight picture some more. In this lighting condition I usually have to rely on the fiber in the front sight for aiming and calling shots as seeing the top and sides of the front sight simply don’t happen. Overall it was a good practice session and I am glad that I invested the time and ammo to practice both days. Its these kind of practice sessions that I wish I had in between majors that I didn’t have on the last four I attended.

 

Tonight I am attending the Whistling Pines Indoor USPSA match down in Colorado Springs. I am using this match to give my #2 Limited gun a shake down run after the full tear down, clean, and lube I gave it on Sunday after the practice session. On Wednesday this week I am heading down to Albuquerque to attend the High Desert Classic. I have to shoot the whole match on Thursday if possible. I might have to finish up some stages on Friday. Either way I have to head back home on Friday because I have a flight down to Texas Friday night. The wife and I are going on a Western Caribbean Cruise leaving out of Galveston. It will be nice to get some much needed R&R after a super busy summer.

[CHA-LEE]

One thing I forgot about this past weekend was that I finished reading “Parenting  Champions” by Lanny Bassham. This was a really good read that covers the topic of providing effective mental management strategies for your kids or the ones you coach. I don’t have kids myself, other than a couple of wiener dogs, so the parenting stuff didn’t directly correlate to me. But much of the same content does apply for my teaching and coaching process. This book is also not “shooting” focused as it applies to pretty much any competition based sport your kids or students are participating in. I thought it was a really good book with a lot of insightful information. If you are in a situation where you are helping your kids through competition environments or coaching others to improve their skills, I think this book is a must read. I listed a link below to Lanny’s Mental Management website where you can buy it. I also want to make it known up front that my review or impression of this book had zero influence from the publisher. I paid for this book on my own with zero recommendation or request from the manufacture. Nobody “bought” my review of this book if that makes any sense. I figured I would make that clear as its becoming more of a trend where bloggers or vloggers are getting paid to review products and give positive reviews regardless of how good or bad the product really is.

 

https://www.mentalmanagementstore.com/product/parenting-champions/

[Glock26Toter]

I'm going to check that out for sure.

 

Along those same lines.

I also just finished listening to Lanny Bassham's "Freedom Flight" and Troy Bassham's "Attainment."  Both VERY good.  

(also non-solicited) 

 

 

[CHA-LEE]

Last night I attended the Whistling Pines indoor match. This evening turned out to be a scary one due to a detonation incident from a shooter on my squad. The detonation was the classic “Hand over the ejection port during unload” where the round jams up for some reason while pulling the slide back and the shooter rams the slide back with their hand over the ejection port and the ejector prong hits the primer causing a detonation. In this scenario there is nothing to contain the brass and the detonation results in the brass exploding into the shooters hand. In this situation the brass exploded and ripped up the tip of his ring finger causing 7 stitches worth of damage. Blood was everywhere after this happened and it looked pretty bad before we got the first aid kit involved to bandage up the wound. The good thing is that our squad reacted quickly and precisely to deal with the injury, clear the dropped gun, and get him to the ER. Mopping up the blood afterwards was a sobering process for the whole squad that reinforced the fact that we are playing a game with tools that can produce significant injury or death when not used properly. This detonation on unload event was the third time I have seen this happen in my 10 years playing the practical shooting games. All three resulted in significant injuries similar to what happened to this unfortunate shooter last night.

 

I didn’t want to go into “Mother Hen” mode after the injury event but most of the people on my squad didn’t even realize what happened. Some people thought that he actually shot himself. I explained the situation to the squad as a group along with the proper method for unloading the gun in a safe manner. Explaining all of this to the squad helped everyone understand what happened and how to avoid it from happening again in the future. This incident didn’t affect my match performance as I have seen it before. But it absolutely affected the performance of many others on my squad. I observed extreme care and diligence from most of the squad during their make ready and unload processes after that event. This may have distracted their stage performances that night, but a good dose of reality like this is sometimes needed for people to reassess their gun handling processes. Hopefully this incident was a wakeup call for some shooters who were getting complacent in their pre/post stage run gun handling practices. We are playing a game with potentially lethal tools and that needs to be fully understood and respected at all times.

 

For this match I shot my #2 Limited gun and it worked great. As expected the first few shots out of the gun produced a slower than normal slide speed due to the fresh grease/oil application. But after a handful of shots fired it was back to normal. Getting this thing broken back in after cleaning and relubing was the primary goal for this match. The secondary goal was testing the Salomon Speedcross 4 Wide shoes on the slippery concrete floors. Traction wise these shoes produced the same amount of traction as the Speedtrek shoes. Stability wise I found that the rounded sole in the toe portion of the shoe produced more of an off balanced feeling from front to back versus the Speedtrek. The Speedcross 4 soles have an upward curve in the toe area which for me, detracts from front to back balance. I didn’t realize I used my “toes” that much to produce a solid front to back stance but evidently I do. I felt this front to back unbalanced situation a little bit while shooting outdoors but most of the time the dirt or sand is conforming to the shape of the sole and it’s a non-issue. Indoors is a totally different situation as the floor isn’t conforming to the sole of the shoe.

 

As always, seeing my sights indoors is a challenge. The main issue I had this time around was the artificial lighting shining on the rear sight more than the front. This created a strange sight picture where the rear blade was fully lit up and the front sight was in a shadow condition. This situation generated a funky sight picture with an in focus rear blade with a really blurry and muted fiber dot dancing around within the notch. I tried my best to make it work but still racked up 2 uncalled misses for the match. This isn’t a surprise because calling shots with that funky sight picture is an odd visual situation. The good from the match is that I got my gun functionality verified and tested out the Speedcross 4 Wide shoes. Overall I had fun, minus the detonation incident. Now it’s time to get my guns and gear packed up and ready for the High Desert Classic this coming week. I am looking forward to this match as it’s always fun and challenging.   

[CHA-LEE]

I forgot to mention that I got my Area 2 Director Ballot in the mail yesterday and submitted my vote for Leighton Oosthuisen. I have known and shot with Leighton for many years now and believe he will do an awesome job as our Area 2 Director. The latest issue of the USPSA Front Sight magazine has some interview information about both Area 2 Director candidates. I would suggest all Area 2 USPSA members read their bio's and Q&A articles to make an informed decision before voting. To me Leighton is the clear decision given his business background, involvement in USPSA nationally and internationally, and dedication to the sport. 

 

Regardless of who you vote for, please take the time to vote!!!

[Paulie]

Thanks for posting about the accident. It’s a good warning to us all.

 

On that note, I think that people in the action shooting sports should strongly consider using eye protection rated to “MIL PRF 31013 rather than “ANSI 87”. 

 

In a nutshell, the former is rated to a .22 lr impact and the latter shatters at a fraction of that force. Ordinary reading glasses should be banned IMO because they present additional hazard and are probably worse than wearing nothing. 

 

I own a pair of Smith Optics Aegis Echo’s that cost me $90. Between shooting steel / indoor backstop splatter and various types of detonation accidents, it well worth the extra cost in my mind. I would gladly part with 3x that amount to protect my eyes. 

[CHA-LEE]

1 hour ago, Paulie said:

Thanks for posting about the accident. It’s a good warning to us all.

 

On that note, I think that people in the action shooting sports should strongly consider using eye protection rated to “MIL PRF 31013 rather than “ANSI 87”. 

 

In a nutshell, the former is rated to a .22 lr impact and the latter shatters at a fraction of that force. Ordinary reading glasses should be banned IMO because they present additional hazard and are probably worse than wearing nothing. 

 

I own a pair of Smith Optics Aegis Echo’s that cost me $90. Between shooting steel / indoor backstop splatter and various types of detonation accidents, it well worth the extra cost in my mind. I would gladly part with 3x that amount to protect my eyes. 

 

Good point on getting the higher safety rating glasses!!! I don't think anyone would balk at the extra cost of lenses when compared to losing an eye.

[Tripod]

During your practical shooting career have you seen this brass detonation happen during unload and show clear where the shooter launches the round into the air and catches it.   I worry about it when I RO someone who likes to do this.  But I have never seen what you described happen.

[CHA-LEE]

On 10/3/2018 at 2:12 PM, Tripod said:

During your practical shooting career have you seen this brass detonation happen during unload and show clear where the shooter launches the round into the air and catches it.   I worry about it when I RO someone who likes to do this.  But I have never seen what you described happen.

 

I have never seen a detonation happen when a shooter is doing the “flip and catch” during unloading. In that scenario the slide is usually racked fast enough to avoid the chance of the round slipping down off the extractor to a position where the ejector prong can hit the primer. You may not like shooters doing the “flip and catch” but it’s actually way safer than racking the gun slowly with the support hand or fingers covering the ejection port. At least from a detonation risk perspective.

 

A detonation is primarily promoted by an extractor engagement depth that is not sufficient. If the rim of the brass case isn’t pinched against the side of the breach face by the extractor then it will allow the case to slip down as the slide is racked back. When the case slips down it moves the primer into the path of the ejector prong. This usually results in a failure to eject the round so the shooter attempts to rack the gun harder and that is when the detonation happens.

 

I am explaining this in detail because a poorly tuned extractor is usually the root cause that enables a detonation scenario to even happen. Poor gun handling (hand over ejection port) during the unload process enables the detonation to become an injury scenario. The moral of this story is keep your gun functioning properly at all times and never have your hand over the ejection port while unloading. Or not and pay the price with a donation of flesh.

Edited October 5, 2018 by CHA-LEE

[MemphisMechanic]

8 hours ago, CHA-LEE said:

 

I have never seen a detonation happen when a shooter is doing the “flip and catch” during unloading. In that scenario the slide is usually racked fast enough to avoid the chance of the round slipping down off the extractor to a

position where the ejector prong can hit the primer. You may not like shooters doing the “flip

and catch” but it’s actually way safer than racking the gun slowly with the support hand or fingers covering the ejection port. At least from a detonation risk perspective.

 

Agree with Charlie. The most dangerous way to unload a gun is with your hand cupped over the port, which is ironically what a lot of “flip & catch” haters do.

 

The legitimate concerns over flip & catch are:

 

1) The shooter sweeping themselves with the muzzle while focused on chasing down a flying round, particulary when it ejects in an unexpected direction. Let that one go, and focus on safe gun handling.

 

2) ‘Speed unload’ contestants who have the round caught and the gun holstered before the RO has gotten to the words “if finished.” Catch the round, then show your RO the gun. (I lock my slide back as I flip the round into the air, as well.)

 

Edited October 4, 2018 by MemphisMechanic

[ATLDave]

Just came by to offer a hearty "amen" to CHA-LEE's words about the flip-and-catch being the safer of the round-retention methods.  And MemphisMechanic is also correct that, every once in a while, you just can't catch it easily... you just let that one go.  

[CHA-LEE]

I am not sure if it really matters, but I don't perform the "Flip & Catch" unload process myself. I don't think that doing a "Flip & Catch" is as bad as people make it out to be. If you want to do a Flip & Catch, do it. Just realize that doing it can create a situation that leads to unsafe gun handling, such as sweeping. I have seen more Flip & Catchers get burned by this and eventually change their process to something else verses the die hard guys that always do it. The funny thing to me is that the time, effort and potential safety risk, needed to perform a Flip & Catch followed by a secondary slide rack back to show the RO the gun is clear is far more than simply racking the slide back once, holding it open for the RO and bending over to pick up the ejected round once the gun is holstered.

 

I don't know about you guys but I want all of my gun handling activities to be 100% above reproach, especially during the Make Ready and Unload process when being "Fast" with it doesn't matter. I never want to be in a situation where the RO is caught off guard by an aggressive gun handling situation and they are not sure if a safety rule has been violated. I have seen it happen many times with the flip & catch guys where the round flings forward and they snatch outwards toward it and the RO isn't sure if they swept themselves or not. All it takes is an RO being at the wrong vantage point to observe what happened and believe that you swept yourself then your match is done. Do you really want to risk getting DQed over something as stupid and avoidable as that? As people like to say, play stupid games, win stupid prizes.

[RangerTrace]

I don't do it.   I donate my last round to the range, every time.  What kills me, (and I'm no GM) is watching a lower classed shooter finishup a stage (slow as crap) and then do the flip and catch like a hot shot.  Lots of Juniors seem to do it in USPSA.

[CrashDodson]

Well said Charlie 

[arkadi]

If you're open to evaluate other brands of running / trail shoes, I highly recommend Inov-8. They are very popular in Europe amongst people who do orienteering, trail and fell running.

 

X-Talon line will be the closest grip profile to what you like in Salomon. The beauty of Inov is that there are models with minimalistic drop and thin sole - not quite in the "bare-foot" department of Merrell or Vibram, yet the proprioception of flexible sole with minimal drop is a totally different world of experience. I moved to Merrell and Inov-8 about 6 years ago and didn't see how could I go back to traditional footwear. My current favorite is X-Talon 200, which is out of production, but there is X-Talon 210 now. The shoes are light and wear well. I have some with 1000+ km on them (running soft surfaces). Paired with a Shoe Goo glue, I just repair them when they start to look tired.

 

The thing to watch out is Precision Fit models - they are clearly marked as such (225 for example) . If you have wide feet - and most likely you do - well-spread fingers working independently, then precision fit will hurt a lot in a very short time. Standard Fit is overly better choice.

[CrashDodson]

I moved switched to Altra King MT this year.  They are great.  I ran inov8 last year and saloman before that.  The toe box of the Altra's is huge and they have great stopping power which I find more valuable than launching grip.  

[jnr88]

I couldn't agree more and recommended them to Charlie earlier this year. I believe he purchased a pair. Besides the grip the comfort after a long day is really helpful.

[CHA-LEE]

I tried a pair of the Altra King MT shoes and they fit really well with their wide toe box. I used them at the Utah State match as those there full 8+ hour days on the range. My feet felt a little tired at the end of the day but not bad. The bad thing is that both days wearing them resulted in holes being worn through my socks on the top right above my big toes. I have never had that happen before with other shoes so there is something unique about these MT’s that caused that. I haven’t worn them since because I don’t want to keep destroying socks.

 

The latest shoes that I am trying are the Salomon Speedcross 4 Wide. These shoes fit me well and do a great job of keeping the dust out. Way better dust resistance than the Speedtrek’s. The only strange thing with the Speedcross 4 is that the toe portion of the sole angles upwards starting at the balls of the feet. This promotes a front to back unbalanced feeling when running around in hard surfaces. This is one issue that the Speedtrek’s don’t have. The front to back unbalanced feeling may be the nail in the coffin for the Speedcross 4’s for me. 

 

I tried some Inov 8 shoes a long time ago but didn’t like the really rounded heel traction nubs. It felt really squirmy when braking hard. I actually cut the heel lugs flat on those shoes to try to solve the issue but it was still squirmy so I gave up on them. Given how long ago that was there may be newer versions that don’t have that problem so I will look into them again.

 

So far the Speedtrek and Fellraiser are my favorite practical shooting shoes. Unfortunately both are getting harder and harder to find since they are discontinued.

[CHA-LEE]

Two weeks ago I attended the High Desert Classic in Albuquerque New Mexico. I had a conflicting vacation trip that same weekend so the only way I could shoot the match was on the Thursday / Friday schedule with the match staff. I was able to drive down there on Wednesday and had a chance to walk the mostly finished stages which was nice. But no targets were up and not everything was nailed down so I knew some additional tweaking was going to happen before I would shoot the stages. Not being able to see the stages in their final configuration with the targets hung is always a disadvantage because you really can’t solidity a stage plan. Not being able to see the moving targets, and there were a bunch in this match, was also a disadvantage. Then finally, shooting with the match staff usually ends up being more like a club match where we are all running ourselves through the stages working the whole time. With all of this combined I knew that my overall match performance was going to suffer verses shooting on the normal weekend schedule. But I would rather have a chance to shoot this fun match on any schedule verses not shoot it. So I sucked it up and ground through the stages the best I could.

 

Our squad would basically get to a stage, staple up the targets and nail down the remaining stuff then try to figure out the best stage plan and shoot it. I did my best to pitch in and help RO, Tape, and Reset in order to keep the squad churning through the stages. Out of all 10 stages I only had two stage runs in what I would consider as a “Good Performance”. All of the others had issues in one manner or another. Most of the issues were due to simply not having enough time to program my stage plans to the point of subconscious execution and I found myself consciously thinking through each process of the stage run while shooting it. This match had a crap ton of no shoot partials all over the place with a bunch of non-shooting scampering between shooting positions. This resulted in slow shooting and average hit factors in the 5 – 6 range. The only way to really make up time on others was to shoot the no shoot partial target arrays very aggressive, which for me was way too risky given how low the hit factors were. Whoever had the balls to engage these risky target arrays with reckless abandon and escape unscathed would destroy everyone else. Since I couldn’t even program my stage plans effectively I didn’t want to compound the issue by trying to shoot these arrays with too much aggression. I reverted to “Conservative Mode” and picked stage plans and shooting speeds that would generate good hits while minimizing penalties. Through the whole match I felt like I was battling the recoil more than I should have to. The gun seemed to buck and flip a lot more than normal unless I was consciously gripping it HARD. Once again, doing this abnormal grip pressure was also distracting which also kept me from being able to shoot subconsciously.

 

I was able to get 7 stages shot on Thursday before we ran out of sunlight. I wanted to get all 10 stages shot that day but it wasn’t possible. Friday morning I had a hard exit time of 10AM so I could get back home in time to make my vacation flight. The last 3 stages still needed to be setup and finalized and that went on until about 9AM. I had to shoot through the last three stages back to back in less than 10 minutes which was more of the same conscious shooting and simply trying to survive with insufficient time to program the stages. Going into this match I knew that my match performance was going to suffer trying to shoot it on the staff schedule. But I didn’t expect the magnitude of sucking I would be doing trying to grind through it while not fully prepared. I left a lot of meat on the bone for others to exploit and I knew that my chances of winning this match were very unlikely. When the final results were posted on Sunday afternoon I ended up 2nd overall in Limited at 89% of winner Glenn Shelby. I knew that I was going to get a beat down at this match and the 11% loss validates that. Oh well sometimes you are the windshield, sometimes you are the bug. This time I was the bug.

 

With a 6 Hour drive back home I had plenty of time to think about how I could have done things better to help improve my performance. I could have ROed less and spent more time dry firing the stages before shooting them. But I don’t think that would have been more than 1 – 2% improvement in performance. I think the primary issue was not being able to settle on a stage strategy soon enough simply because each stage wasn’t fully setup and finalized until it was too late to effectively program it. The only way to fix that issue is to shoot the match on the weekend schedule with stage recon happening the day before with targets stapled up so the “Real Deal” could be seen and assessed. I was also struggling with what could be causing the excessive muzzle flip which required a HARD grip to minimize. When I got home I picked up my Grip Dyno and tested the grip strength in both of my hands. Much to my surprise each hand was down 25lbs from my normal max strength. Normally I can easily produce a 150lb grip strength result on the dyno. I couldn’t crack 125lbs that day no matter how hard I tried. I have been on an ultra low carb diet the last 4 weeks and haven’t changed my grip training regime. Losing weight on an ultra low carb diet is usually done by burning muscle before fat and I think this diet has circumvented my overall grip strength. I am not going to give up on my diet, as losing weight and getting more fit is one of my primary goals right now. So I need to change up my grip training regiment to boost my grip strength back up to its normal level.

 

I was able to hit the grip strength training hard through my week long vacation and will continue to do so for the foreseeable future. It’s just a bummer that I had to find out about this grip strength loss in the worst possible way, during a major match. The good thing is that I still have time to improve my grip strength between now and the Area 2 match in November. Hopefully I can get it back to “Normal” by then.   

[Furrly]

Charlie,

would you mind sharing your grip strength training program. Would like to get ideas on what you do so I can tailor my mine. 

Thanks