CHA-LEE's Tale

[CHA-LEE]

Real Spring Weather was actually in attendance this weekend!!! Sunny with temps in the 60’s and 70’s make it super enjoyable on the range both Saturday and Sunday. On Saturday I was able to get a good Live Fire practice session in at the BLGC range. We setup two field course stages in the same bay and shot each one a bunch of times then combined the two into a “40 round MEGA stage” at the end. The first stage had two different port wall shooting positions with a good mixture of hosing and aiming then required a hard run to the other side to repeat the same shooting challenge. This was a good test of hauling ass when needed and I was happy with my movement aggressiveness.

 

The second stage was a lateral movement stage that had multiple port or wall gap shooting positions with wide transitions within each position. It was a mild memory stage as each shooting position had shared targets that could be seen from multiple positions. This stage also required some aggressive reloads to get them done before you got to the next shooting position. I tried this stage with both Limited and Production stage plans to mix it up and force more reload gun handling during the stage runs.

 

At the end we combined both stages together which resulted in a 40 round MEGA Stage. It was fun to combine the stages and do a stage run that forced me to use all of my mag pouches in Limited division. This reminded me of the Rocky Mountain 300 where each stage is 60+ rounds. It’s good to push the stage size outside the normal once in a while to get used to it. Overall the practice session was good for me and I was able to execute my movement and shooting in a very consistent aggressive manner.  

 

On Sunday I attended the USPSA PSAC match that is hosted at the Aurora Gun Club. This is the first match where they had access to 5 total berms to setup stages on. In the past they only had 4 berms to setup stages and they usually doubled up stages on one of the berms to make it a 5 stage match. This time they had 5 stages on 5 berms. This is the most attended match in the section due to the range being centrally located and very close to town. They had 102 total shooters attend the match which made for a long day of shooting with 20+ people on each squad.

 

The stages had a good balance of aiming, aggressive shooting, and hauling ass between shooting positions. The average Hit Factor for the stages was in the 7-8 range which is similar to what you see at many major matches. This is good because in the past a lot of their stages would be in the 10 – 11 HF range which would put a heavy bias on rage blasting verses aiming. The other thing that was cool about the stages is that a couple of them forced me to do two reloads as the optimal stage plan. Its always good to exercise that skill. I shot the match solidly with no major mistakes or issues. All told I had 3 D zone hits but no other shooting penalties. I was happy with my result of the match but was also worn out from the long day at the range. The only bummer while attending the match is that my squad kept log jamming on the squad ahead of us. We got log jammed on every stage where they had at least 5 – 8 shooters to go when my squad got to the stage. I am not sure why that kept happening because we had the same amount of shooters as they did. But it was annoying. Oh well, sometimes it happens like that. I did my best to power through it by helping the squad tape and reset to get them pushed through faster. That also helped me kill the time while waiting for them.

 

The other strange thing that happened at this match is seeing many experienced shooters not able to effectively assess and figure out the proper stage plan on their own. Most of the stages had multiple ways to shoot them with some of the options being very close in overall time but had dramatically different shooting difficulty risk. I got to the match early enough to look at all of the stages and formulate effective stage plans and to me, it wasn’t a big deal deciding on the best strategies. For some reason my squad mates had a really hard time coming up with the best stage strategies and relied on me to spoon feed them the proper stage strategy. I don’t have any problem with helping people formulate the best stage strategy and I will tell anyone what my strategy is. I do my best to help people out whenever I can. But I thought it was strange how many of the shooters on my squad simply gave up on figuring out any strategy and wanted me to spoon feed them my stage strategy. To me a really fun part of USPSA is figuring out the best strategy for a stage that fits my skill set. I don’t understand why others would give away that part of the match experience so easily. After the match I also wondered how much of a performance improvement was given to these shooters by allowing them to poach my stage plans. It would be interesting to see how the stage results would change if I didn’t attend the match and these people had to figure it out on their own. I know this isn’t a realistic experiment that can’t be easily deployed. But it would be an interesting data point to know.

 

I found some new shoes for outdoor matches. I was wondering through DSW with the wife last week and these Saucony Peregrine 8 Trail Running shoes looked cool. They fit my feet better than standard width Salomon Speedcross 3/4’s and the lugs on the sole are big and soft. They remind me of the Salomon Fellraisers which I loved but are discontinued. They were on sale for only $69 so I decided to give them a try. I used them exclusively this weekend during my practice and match attendance and they worked awesome. So awesome that I promptly got online and snatched up 4 more pair. If you have a local DSW shoe store near you stop in and check these out.

[CHA-LEE]

This past weekend I was busy on the range hosting a competition pistol class. The weather was pretty crappy on Saturday due to cold and a little bit of snow at the end of the day. Luckily we were able to use the classroom at the range during the first half of the day which kept us warm and dry. All of the students were troopers and powered through to the end of the first day. Lucky for us the weather was awesome on day 2 and we were able to get a bunch of training done outdoors. The weather is crazy this time of year here in Colorado and all we can do is hope for the best and just deal with it when it isn’t optimal.

 

It was a lot of fun hosting the class over the weekend. It’s always fun to work with students who are eager learn new things and are motivated to improve. It’s also really rewarding to see the proverbial light bulb turn on when new discoveries were made.

 

Given that my top priority was presenting the training I didn’t get to do much shooting myself. My shooting was pretty much limited to doing a few demos during the class. I used this live fire to test out some new STI magazines in my Limited gun. These mags fed ammo without any issues which was good. But they also had the same issues as my other “Newer” MBX mags where the tube is loose within the grip which leads to unexpected dropping issues when my palm hits the mag release during recoil. I don’t think that this “Loose tube in the grip” issue is an actual magazine problem. I think it’s more of a Grip internal size issue as I am using the old style Phoenix Trinity steel grip. I need to do some more tweaking on these new STI magazines to see if I can tighten up the tube to grip fit. TIG welding may be needed to achieve this goal. It will be an interesting project to figure out. In the mean time I will stick to using my old MBX mags that flat out work with zero drama or issues.

[CHA-LEE]

On Saturday I busted my hump putting on the HPPS match. This was our second match of the year due to the last two getting cancelled because of sucky winter weather. The weather for this month’s match was AWESOME!!! It was in the mid 70’s with very little wind and clear skies. It was great to have summer time weather for a match for once. I was super busy in the morning getting everything wrangled and didn’t get a chance to look at the stages from a competition perspective. Lucky for me most of the stages had pretty straight forward stage plans without being too complex. A few of the stages had some different options in how to shoot them. Since I had to figure out the stages then shoot them soon after my squad got there I defaulted my stage plans to make them as simple to remember as possible. I know that I probably gave away some time on a couple of stages by not having the best plan, but there simply wasn’t enough time to program the more complex plans. This is the donation I have to make when running the match.

 

This match had a good mixture of shot difficulty and if you were not willing to aim hard when needed you would be punished appropriately. I was able to get all of my hits through the whole match with only 2 D zone hits. We had 67 shooters attend the match and only 8 were able to shoot it clean including myself.

 

For this match I tested out some new bungie style locking laces on my shoes. These function like the cinch style laces on the Salomon Speedcross shoes but have a stretchy lace. The stretchiness of the laces required them to be pulled much tighter than normal laces to keep my foot from squirming around within the shoe. When I tightened down the bungie style laces enough to stop the squirming they felt really tight on my feet. I rolled with it for this match and my feet were hurting pretty bad by the end of the day. The bungie style laces are a fail for what I need so I took them off and put the standard shoe laces back on. I used the same shoes with the standard laces the next day for practice and the shoes didn’t hurt my feet at all.

 

On Sunday the Weld County match got canceled due to potential rain so I decided to go out to practice instead. The forecast called for rain to start at 3PM at the BLGC range and we are usually done practicing by then anyway. The weather was really nice that day and we got all the practice done and everything put away just before the skies opened up and started to rain which was awesome.

 

For the Sunday practice we setup a large field course that had two difficult swingers, some hard running, and a good mixture of shot difficulty. Since the Magnus Cup match at the start of May has a moving target on just about every stage we wanted to get some more practice on those. We also didn’t want to make the movers easy either so we put no shoots on both swingers. This forced you to aim hard and track the moving targets while engaging it or pay the price in poor or no hits. The first swinger was an over the top only presentation at about 15 yards with a no shoot blocking much of the body on the target. The second swinger had two shoot targets side by side with a no shoot in between that was only visible to the left and you couldn’t engage either target in a lull of movement. This double target swinger was very difficult as your tracking window of opportunity was much narrower than the single swinger. All of us struggled to get our hits on the double swinger but by the end of the practice we could generate more consistent hits while avoiding the no shoot. The type of swingers we put in this practice stage would be down right evil to put in a match. The average shooter that attends the matches at HPPS would get destroyed by these swingers. As an MD there is no way I would put these in a match as it would only punish people. But that isn’t going to keep me from practicing this difficult stuff on my own.

 

It was a good practice session and I was glad to have the opportunity to work on some difficult movers. My Atlas Titan Operator Limited gun has about 1500 rounds on it since the last cleaning and it’s still running like a champ. It’s good to know that it will run a long while between cleanings. That being said I will be doing a full tear down, clean, inspection and relube this week to get it ready for the Texas Open match this coming weekend. I am looking forward to attending my second major match of the 2019 season. I am also hosting a class right after the match on Sun/Mon so that will be a lot of fun too. This match kicks off my rapid fire major match and training schedule for 2019. It’s going to be a busy season for sure but I am feeling ready for it and looking forward to seeing how it all turns out.

[RaylanGivens]

23 minutes ago, CHA-LEE said:

My Atlas Titan Operator Limited gun has about 1500 rounds on it since the last cleaning and it’s still running like a champ. It’s good to know that it will run a long while between cleanings. That being said I will be doing a full tear down, clean, inspection and relube this week to get it ready for the Texas Open match this coming weekend.

 

That's a long time to go between cleanings...  I'll sometimes shoot a practice or two between matches without cleaning, but never that many rounds...  Assume you at least oil it every once in a while.

 

What kind of oil do you use?

 

[CHA-LEE]

42 minutes ago, RaylanGivens said:

 

That's a long time to go between cleanings...  I'll sometimes shoot a practice or two between matches without cleaning, but never that many rounds...  Assume you at least oil it every once in a while.

 

What kind of oil do you use?

 

 

I do add a little oil here and there when it needs it but its usually not more than a single drop in key locations like the barrel hood, frame rails and guide rod.

 

Through the years I have found the best lubrication package being a mixture of BE Slide Glide and Lucas Extreme Duty Oil. After I do a detailed clean on the gun and everything is dry I will put Slide Glide Standard on everything except for the trigger components. I will use Lucas Extreme Duty oil on the trigger components. Once I have everything put back together with only Slide Glide on the major components I will rack it a bunch of times to get it spread around really good. Then I will add a few drops of Lucas Extreme Duty oil to the frame rails, barrel hood, barrel and guide rod. Adding the oil to these areas eliminates the slight "Gummy" feeling of the slide glide and makes it feel like it only has oil on it when racking it. But this combination of slide glide and oil helps everything stay put and produce very good lubrication for much longer than oil alone. The slide glide also serves as a physical barrier on all of the internal metal surfaces to keep the burnt powder from building up excessively. When I clean my guns I use a plastic safe electronics component aerosol spray that easily and quickly breaks down the oil and slide glide along with cleaning off all of the burned powder. No excessive scrubbing needed.

 

I never do "Field Strip" cleans on my guns for a partial cleaning/lubing. To me that is a waste of time. Any time I clean my gun I do a full detailed disassembly, cleaning, inspection, and relube. I can usually hammer that out in less than 20 Minutes which is not much of a time investment if you are shooting 1500 - 2000 rounds between cleans. 

 

The longest I ever went between cleans on one of my 2011 Limited guns was 10,000 rounds. During that time all I did was add a few drops of oil when needed and kept shooting it. Even at 10,000 rounds it was still functioning with 100% reliability. When I cleaned it up most everything looked good without excessive wear. The extractor tunnel was packed with crap though and I am not sure how much longer it would have run before I would have started having extraction issues.

 

From my experience with 2011's the number one component that is sensitive to being dirty or contaminated is the extractor tunnel. That is usually the first thing to cause problems when you shoot a bunch of ammo through a gun between cleans. How "Dirty" your powder is also plays a big roll in how long you can go between cleans. 

Edited April 22, 2019 by CHA-LEE

[RaylanGivens]

Thanks for the info, Charlie...  I had a hunch that you would have some specific oiling preparation.

 

[CHA-LEE]

This past weekend I attended the Texas Open match hosted at the Area 59 range just outside Houston. This was a 10 stage match that was shoot all in one day on either Thursday, Friday or Saturday. I opted for the Saturday schedule as it gave me the opportunity to fly down there on Friday to check out the stages. This was a 10 stage match where all of them were large 32 round field courses. Even though they were all large field courses there was a nice variety of shooting challenges with many options in how to tackle each one. It’s always nice to have stages designed in a manner that gives you options in how to shoot it. Even though this match happened at the same range as the Henry’s Cup last month the “flavor” of the stages were much different. This time the no-shoot partials and vision barriers were out in force. All of the extra No Shoots didn’t make the shots excessively difficult. But it absolutely set the tone for aiming hard when needed or you would be punished appropriately.

 

I shot the match solidly with only a few minor mistakes here or there. Most of these mistakes were on rushing the shooting on steel and needing make up shots. I had 1 miss for the match which I was sure looked like two overlaying hits in a slight oval pattern but the RO god’s didn’t rule in my favor. Oh well, sometimes you get punished for being too accurate. If I can put the bullets in almost the same hole then I can also spread them out enough to make two obvious holes.  

 

Overall I felt good with my performance and it was good enough to generate a win in Limited division. I was able to get all of my stage runs on video and uploaded it to my YouTube channel. Check it out and let me know what you think.

 

 

[CHA-LEE]

The day after the Texas Open I hosted a two day Competition Pistol training class at the same Area 59 range. I had a great group of eager students ready to learn and it was a bunch of fun. I really like helping others improve their practical shooting performance and this class was a blast.

 

I also used this training class as a test for the AMG Commander shot timer. I used it through the whole class with zero issues in both the Dry and Live fire sessions. This was easily at least 1000 start beeps triggered over the two day class and the battery level is still at the top. I am not a fan of the pocket clip vs screen placement though. This forced me to hold it in hand with the screen facing directly upwards most of the time. The good news is that it picked up all of the live fire shots without any issues on a sensitivity level of 8. We will see how this thing holds up through the season.

 

By the end of the second day all of the students had brains full of new skills or processes to tackle in the days and months after the class. I look forward to seeing their skills progress as they start to deploy what they learned. The Path of Focused Effort has been found once again for all of these students. Cool Stuff!!!

[Furrly]

Congratulations Charlie, it's alway fun watching you shot. 

[Paulie]

1 minute ago, Furrly said:

Congratulations Charlie, it's alway fun watching you shot. 

 

Came here to post this. 

 

Thanks for sharing the footage and debrief. 

[CHA-LEE]

This past weekend I attended the Magnus Cup in Saint George Utah. This was a big Level 3 match with 19 stages. I was on the PM/AM/PM shooting schedule starting on Friday since I didn’t know when I would be able to get to the range on Thursday driving from Colorado. I also hauled my KTM Dirt Bike out there so I could take advantage of the endless trails in Saint George after the match.

 

The first two days of the match went well for me. I was shooting solid and only had a few minor mistakes. At the end of Day 2 I was solidly in second place with a 60 point lead over third. There was an amazing junior shooter from the Philippines in the lead after two days with about a 50 point lead ahead of me. I knew that it would be unlikely for me to catch that junior shooter as he was laying down some awesome stage runs consistently. I thought I would have an easy cruise to a 2nd overall finish in Limited on Sunday by simply keeping on the comfortable pace I was shooting at but that didn’t happen.

 

On Sunday I was shooting the PM schedule on the final 7 stages (14 – 19) and I couldn’t catch a break to save my life. I racked up two misses, one no shoot, a crap ton of steel misses and one failure to go into battery gun jam. While shooting these final stages I felt like I was in a mental fog. Physically I was fine and I was drinking a lot so it wasn’t a dehydration situation either. After the match was over I was confused at how my match could take such a nose dive like that. Then it dawned on me that I hadn’t eaten any lunch before starting shooting for the day. I had a little bit of lunch meat and cheese for breakfast then headed to the range at 10:30am to watch some of the movers on the final stages. I had some beef jerky and peanuts to snack on but that was obviously not enough to keep me properly nourished. I basically put myself into a nutrition deficit and it resulted in a mental fog that completely derailed my shooting performance. Instead of 2nd in Limited I finished 4th. To rub even more salt into the wound I could have gotten 2nd in Limited by having only 7 more match points. If only 1 of the 8907234234293 mistakes I made on Sunday didn’t happen, I would have been 2nd overall. That is super frustrating.

 

It absolutely sucks to give away an easy second place finish at this match by not doing something as basic as eating properly. This hard lesson has driven home the fact that with my new Ultra Low carb diet, not eating, isn’t an option. I need to stick to my normal eating schedule to ensure I have enough nourishment to perform my best. I think that the number one thing that caught me off guard with this situation is that since I am now in much better physical shape the nutrition deficit didn’t affect me physically. I still felt like I had good energy in my body and could move around aggressively. In the past when this nutrition deficit would happen I would feel the effects both physically and mentally.

 

Well it’s a lesson learned and water under the bridge at this point. All I can do is learn from this and go to the next match better prepared. The good thing from this match is that it proved to me that when I am on my game I am on pace to contend for the win, which is great. In the mean time enjoy my match video…

 

 

[Furrly]

Still  a  Very Solid performance, Congrats...I saw that Kid from the Philippines shot the prior weekend at our Local Match out here in So Ca, blew me away how good he was, astonishing!!! not to take anything away from you Charlie, I think you are an incredible Shooter!!! I always enjoy watching you shot..

[CHA-LEE]

I had a chance to participate on the Make Ready Podcast the other day. It was a lot of fun and went long enough to have two separate 1 hour shows. I listed a link to it below if you want to check it out....

 

http://makereadypod.libsyn.com/

[CHA-LEE]

The 2019 Double Tap Championships is now in the books. I drove out to this match with a couple friends which made the 10 hour drive from Denver a lot less grueling. We got to the DTR range on Friday afternoon just as they were getting done shooting for the day. The weather was nice and we were able to walk all of the stages. Most of the stages were setup in a manner that required hard core rage blasting combined with super aggressive foot movement which is right up my alley in “Normal” conditions. I was really excited about shooting the stages because they were setup in a manner that promoted my strengths. We were scheduled to shoot the whole match on Saturday and the weather forecast was calling for rain that day. How much rain we would get at the range wouldn’t be known until we got there the next day.

 

On Saturday we got to the range at 7AM and the dark gray clouds were looming but it didn’t start raining when we first got there. Right before the start of the shooters meeting it started sprinkling then just as we started shooting the first stage of the match, it really started coming down hard. Mega rain mixed with lightning strikes close to the range triggered a cease fire for all squads. All we could do was huddle under the canopies and watch in dismay as the deluge of water proceeded to submerge the shooting areas within the stages. With the rain not letting up the Range Master made the call to delay the start of the match until 11AM to see if the rain would subside by then. We took that opportunity to head back to the Hotel and get some breakfast as well as some dry socks. Luckily, the rain stopped around 10:30AM and the dark clouds started to dissipate. The bummer is that the proverbial “Damage had been done” to all of the stages turning it into a complete mud bog everywhere. Soaking wet feet and trying not to slip and fall in the mud were the “Prizes” given to all that chose to stick around and finish the match. There were about 50 shooters who decided to call it quits and not return. I honestly don’t blame anyone who decided to call it quits as the muddy range conditions were horrible. Quitting wasn’t an option for me after driving 10 hours one way to attend. It was time to embrace the suck and do the best I could in the muddy range conditions.

 

The slippery muddy shooting areas on the stages completely ruined my ability to do anything aggressively. Even though I wanted to perform well, I knew that a single match wasn’t worth pushing maximum movement aggression and risking slipping and getting injured. I tried my best to move through the slippery stages as aggressively as I could but there was no way I could put even 75% effort into it. The real bummer for me is that the artificially restricted foot movement aggression also translated to reduced shooting and transition aggression as well. Watching my videos from the really slippery stages is painful because I am doing everything slower, not just the foot movement. I couldn’t seem to separate the shooting aggression from the reduced movement aggression. This was a good lesson to learn during this match and something I need to replicate in practice to see how I can overcome it. Rain induced slippery range conditions can and will happen so I need a solid solution for it.

 

While shooting the match I found myself being mentally distracted by the slippery conditions which also kept me from being able to execute things subconsciously. I had a metric s#!t ton of extra shots on steel that were also caused by this situation because I was trying to shoot at the steel while still settling into the slippery shooting positions. The other thing that was abnormal is that I had to change my navigation path strategy on a few stages simply because the optimal path was WAY muddier and slipperier than the less than optimal path. Donating stage time by choosing a navigation path through the stage that minimized the chance of falling down succeeded in keeping me upright, but there is no getting around donating the time in moving longer distances.

 

 The only stages that I felt like I shot to my true ability were the final 4 stages of the match. This was simply because the shooting areas had dried out enough to not be a total slippery mess and you could run and move with 100% aggression. But, by that time all of my wimpy stage movement had already been donated and there was no way I could make that up.

After all of the shooting was done and the scores were tallied I ended up 2nd in Limited 10% behind AMU shooter John Browning. John shot the match on Saturday as well and had to deal with the same muddy range conditions. My hat is off to him for being able to maximize his performance in those super slippery range conditions. I wish that I could have performed better in the poor range conditions, but I will have to consider embracing the suck to simply finish the match as a personal “Win”. Sometimes you win the weather lottery, like the Friday shooters did. Sometimes you lose the weather lottery like all of the Saturday shooters. I guess that is the “Practical” part of the game we have to deal with.

 

 

[Paulie]

Stage 5 should have had a lifeguard chair! 

 

Regarding your gear, anything you wish you had packed?

 

How did your footwear do? Would legit football cleats have been better? 

 

 

[CHA-LEE]

14 hours ago, Paulie said:

Stage 5 should have had a lifeguard chair! 

 

Regarding your gear, anything you wish you had packed?

 

How did your footwear do? Would legit football cleats have been better? 

 

 

 

I felt that I packed everything I could have needed for the wet conditions. That wasn't my first experience with rainy or muddy conditions.

 

As for football cleats for the slippery and muddy conditions, I have tried those in the past and they added a marginal level of increased traction. What most cleats do for me is absolutely MURDER my feet after wearing them for several hours. Especially with soaked feet inside of the shoe. I would much rather have slightly less mud traction generating shoes that are comfortable to wear all day long. If money was no object the ultimate solution would be to bring 10 pair of football cleats and 10 pair of socks to the match along with a comfortable pair of muck boots. Then put on a fresh pair of cleats and socks right before each stage run. But that isn't realistic or cost effective. 

 

[obsessiveshooter]

This might sound dumb, but are you wearing good socks too? All cotton socks are crap if you sweat or your feet get wet. I've thrown out literally all of my cotton socks and replaced them with socks that are at least 60% merino wool. It sounds like they'd be hot in the summer, but my feel are cooler in summer weight wool socks because my feet stay dry. I have sweaty feet, which causes all kinds of problems. You may not have sweaty feet, but the high-end wool socks might make those football cleats feel wearable for a whole match. For me, they make every pair of shoes feel twice as comfortable. Two brands I've been impressed with is Meriwool and Cloudline.

Sent from my SM-N960U using Tapatalk

[CHA-LEE]

11 hours ago, obsessiveshooter said:

This might sound dumb, but are you wearing good socks too? All cotton socks are crap if you sweat or your feet get wet. I've thrown out literally all of my cotton socks and replaced them with socks that are at least 60% merino wool. It sounds like they'd be hot in the summer, but my feel are cooler in summer weight wool socks because my feet stay dry. I have sweaty feet, which causes all kinds of problems. You may not have sweaty feet, but the high-end wool socks might make those football cleats feel wearable for a whole match. For me, they make every pair of shoes feel twice as comfortable. Two brands I've been impressed with is Meriwool and Cloudline.

Sent from my SM-N960U using Tapatalk
 

 

Thanks for the recommendation!!! I will try some of those socks out.

[DKorn]

On 5/27/2019 at 11:55 AM, obsessiveshooter said:

This might sound dumb, but are you wearing good socks too? All cotton socks are crap if you sweat or your feet get wet. I've thrown out literally all of my cotton socks and replaced them with socks that are at least 60% merino wool. It sounds like they'd be hot in the summer, but my feel are cooler in summer weight wool socks because my feet stay dry. I have sweaty feet, which causes all kinds of problems. You may not have sweaty feet, but the high-end wool socks might make those football cleats feel wearable for a whole match. For me, they make every pair of shoes feel twice as comfortable. Two brands I've been impressed with is Meriwool and Cloudline.

Sent from my SM-N960U using Tapatalk
 

 

I would check out Smartwool as well. 

[rowdyb]

On 5/21/2019 at 10:07 AM, CHA-LEE said:

Then put on a fresh pair of cleats and socks right before each stage run.

I used to rock climb a fair bit. The shoes were very tight and painful. You could not wear them for hours at a time unless you were actively climbing. Especially what I wore for bouldering. So you would climb, come down and instantly take off your shoes.

 

I like cleats for most natural surface bays. (not for running on wooden stuff or concrete) But like you my feet do hurt after 8 hours in them. So I have toyed with taking them off and on for just my stage run and just wearing Vans or flip flops or anything else more comfortable while not shooting. Or mud boots if in that situation.

 

But I like to pack light, I vowed never to drag a cart around at a pistol match. So not sure I want to bring another "thing". And as it's not what I do in practice I have a fear of breaking my routine.

[CHA-LEE]

This past weekend I attended the Rocky Mountain 300. This is a 5 stage match where every stage is 60+ rounds. I shot the whole match on Friday as part of the match staff as I was tasked with being the Range Master at this event as well. The stages this year were fun and challenging. We didn’t have a memory stage like we have had in the past but I didn’t hear anyone complaining about it. Programming and executing a 60+ round memory stage successfully is usually a task that not many competitors could do with any level of consistency. Another large field course stage was used instead of the memory stage which everyone had fun with.

 

I shot the match pretty solid with only a few minor mistakes here or there. I shot solid points through the whole match and didn’t have any penalties. For me the hardest part to this match is executing the 3 – 4 reloads per stage. As a limited shooter it’s a super rare occurrence to do 3 reloads during a stage run much less 4. I put a 4th mag pouch on my shooting belt only a few days before the match and didn’t have a lot of time to dry fire reloads to that 4th pouch. I am not going to lie, it felt pretty strange reaching back that far for a mag. It worked out during the match though as I didn’t bumble any reloads. I wasn’t trying to do rock star speedy reloads during the match though as I didn’t have any “extra” mags on my belt to recover from it. I watched several shooters fumble reloads and then have to pick up mags out of the dirt to finish the stages. I would rather donate a little bit of time during the reload to ensure it happened successfully than try to go crazy and have magazines fly everywhere.

 

I am glad that I got a chance to do some “Mega Stage” live fire practice the Monday before. It takes a little while to get used to breaking down large round count stages that have plans that are 4 magazines deep. That and being mentally ok with shooting that much ammo in a single stage run. I wonder how many other shooters that attended the RM300 setup and practiced large mega round count stages before attending the match?

 

The second part of my job this weekend was serving as the Range Master for the match. I did my best to proactively head off potential issues by checking and setting steel to the proper weight, verifying that the cardboard targets were being replaced properly, and assisting the RO’s in formulating an optimized scoring strategy. I only had a handful of steel calibration challenges for the whole match and all of them were the result of edge hits or super low hits on the steel. All of these challenges resulted in the steel falling when shot with the calibration gun/ammo. We had a handful of DQ’s which all were associated with a 180 break of some kind. I only had a few scoring calls to make. The one thing that surprised me as the RM is how many shooters had to switch to their backup guns. I don’t remember the exact number but it had to be 10+ shooters who requested to switch to their backup guns because their primary was failing. I assessed and approved all of these gun swaps, that wasn’t an issue. But it just seemed strange to me that so many people had gun issues that caused problems during the match. Maybe it was a mixture of large round count stages and them using a random mixture of extra magazines they don’t normally use? Either way, it was strange to see that many guns have issues.

 

When all of the shooting was finished on Saturday and the scores were posted I ended up winning Limited division by 12% over my buddy Nick Brazzale who got second place. It was a lot of fun and I am glad that my practice and preparation for the match paid off. Listed below is the video of my match. Hopefully we can do it all again next year!!!

 

 

[Furrly]

congrats CHA-LEE , what a hooser fest!!! must have been a blast

[obsessiveshooter]

What I'm most impressed with is that you only had 23 Charlies in the whole match.  Besides stage 1, I wouldn't really have called it a hosing match.   I think you could have beat us even if you declared Minor...  

[CHA-LEE]

Gotta have points to divide by the stage time

[ClangClang]

Charlie, I don't think I'd ever seen any of your match videos before, but dang. Those were fun to watch. Makes me want to buy an Atlas! (Of course the real answer is practice more)