CHA-LEE's Tale

[Wilkenstein]

I'm going to have to give the slapping mag technique a shot. As I newb, I found that the less I think about getting the gun out of the holster the faster and more solid my draw was. I keep my mind off the draw by concentrating on slapping the crap out of my belly with my support hand. Sounds crazy, but it works so far

Also, you never posted dyno results or photos of the Goat...

[CHA-LEE]

Wilkenstein> I am still working on my GTO. I guess its really a never ending work in progress

Right now I am still working on optimizing the tune on the GTO and have another Dyno session planned for April 20th. After that it should be good to go for the summer so I will post up what the results are. Right now with a less than optimal tune its making 650 Rear Wheel Horsepower and Torque. Once the we get the tune optimized I should be flirting with 700 RWHP. Its a blast to drive

[CHA-LEE]

This past Saturday I spent the day at the range doing some one on one training with a couple of my friends. I have practiced with friends many times giving pointers here and there. But this was the first time that I went into it knowing that it was a specific class for others. We had a great time and I was able to identify and provide solutions for both of the students. They each had different strengths and weaknesses so it was fun to switch up my observations and suggestions to match each shooters needs. I tried to keep them focused on Fixing/Changing only 2 – 3 things each during the training session as that is usually about the saturation point of what people are able to focus on and consciously try to change. They both made marked improvements during the training class. That was really cool for me to see. It was really rewarding to see them make changes to their skills which allowed them to shoot better. Now the hard work of repeated practice starts where they need to burn in the new skills. I hope that I get more opportunities in the future for presenting training.

[CHA-LEE]

On Sunday I attended a USPSA match in Aurora. This match was pretty accuracy biased so my focus for the match was to stay aggressive and attack the targets not wasting time over aiming. This plan worked really well when I actually did it. I failed to execute this plan twice on two different targets and it came back to bite me in the ass. In both instances there was a tight A zone only shot about 15 yards out that was mostly blocked by No Shoots. On both of these targets I consciously told myself and programmed the stage to where I would “Take my Time” while engaging these targets. When I shot them I took my time and thought that I called two solid A zone hits. But when we looked at the targets I had 1 A and then a Miss/ No Shoot well into the no shoot. I was obviously not calling my second shot on these targets because if I was I should have been able to call them bad and make them up. I think what happened is that I reverted to shooting in a slower deliberate two shot cadence figuring that the deliberate cadence would be “Good Enough” to get my hits. I should have simply stayed focused on my sights and let each shoot break as soon as I seen a valid sight picture. This just goes to show that any time you try to interject a conscious commanded action it usually turns out worse than simply letting the subconscious take over and let it happen.

I had one other miss in the match which I called marginal but was already exiting the shooting position and hoped that at least a D hit would be there but it just nicked the outside edge of the target but didn’t break the perf.

Needless to say, when you give away 65 match points in misses and no shoots that puts a serious monkey wrench in your overall match results. Oh well. The good from the match is that I stayed aggressive in my shooting and this allowed me to produce field course stage runs that were seconds faster than the other limited shooters. If I would have just let the shooting happen on the two stages where I had Mike / No Shoots they would have been knocked out of the park. Another really good thing from the match is that I didn’t even think or worry about my draws and reloads. They all happened effortlessly and quickly. All of the live and dry fire practice is starting to pay off in matches!!!

[CHA-LEE]

I was able to attend the evening indoor USPSA match in Colorado Springs last night. We shot three little stages. On the first stage I had the same failure mode as Sunday where I consciously favored a tight shot and took my time to shoot it but still ended up with a miss. I was simply shooting in a slow cadence instead of calling my shots and paid the prices for it. That is frustrating. We shot a smaller version of the same stage using the same partial target and this time I told myself to simply shoot as fast as I could call my shots and what do you know, I called a miss on that target and made it up quickly. On the classifier I shot solid and aggressive but my mag wouldn’t drop free during the reload so I had to pull it out before completing the reload and finishing the stage. This sucked because I could have had a 100%+ classifier result without the mag drop issue. When my mags start doing this “not dropping free” stuff it tells me that the mag springs are getting worn out and I need to replace them.

On the last stage of the evening my hands were a little sticky and when I drew to the first target my grip was all jacked up and I couldn’t shift the gun in my hand to correct it until after I shot the first string of targets and started moving to the second position. This jacked up grip resulted in really poor hits including a miss on the first array of targets. Oh well, it is what it is.

Even thought I had setbacks on each stage I was able to shoot aggressively and quickly which is what I am focusing on right now. Getting the lead down range in a hurry on the further and tighter targets is where I can stand to make up the most stage time these days. I just need to keep doing it so I can have the confidence to simply let it happen without trying to interject consciously driven actions. Such as shooting a slow cadence on a difficult shot instead of simply letting the shooting happen as fast as I can call my shots.

[CHA-LEE]

I made the last minute decision to go to the Space City Challenge in Texas on the 21st. By buddy Jerry Westcott was going to this match by himself so I figured we could go together to cut down on travel costs. This is going to be the first big match of 2012 for me. The only goal I am setting is to have fun

[CHA-LEE]

Over the past couple of weeks I have been working with Gemini Custom Apparel to make a sponsor shirt. After a little bit of tweaking we settled on the attached version of the shirt as the approved proof. The shirts can now be made and hopefully I can get them in a few weeks. It would be really cool to get the shirts before I head out to the Area 1 match at the end of the month, but that might be too soon to get them done. We will see how it goes. Either way I think that the shirt turned out really nice hopefully it looks just as good if not better in person

[Chris iliff]

Good looking shirt!!

[CHA-LEE]

This past Saturday I was able to shoot a USPSA match out at the Byers range. I went out early and helped with setting up the stages since the club was going to be short handed that day. I shot an “Ok” match. I had one miss where I moved my head off the target while breaking the last shot in a string and it pulled the gun off target. This situation was caused by a strange hit that happened that wasn’t expected. The string of fire had one paper, two poppers (one big in front of a smaller one) then three more paper to the right of that. My plan was to shoot the whole string left to right engaging only the front popper on the first pass through the string then transition back to the mini popper to finish the string. When I shot the stage I some how snuck a shot behind the big popper hitting the small popper instead and while I was shooting the paper on the first pass of the string of fire I could see in my peripheral vision that the big popper wasn’t falling. This distracted me and put me in to a mental “Hurry” to get back to the steel which lead to poor follow through on the last paper target in the string. Oh well, it happens. I shot solidly on most of the other stages except for the classifier. On the classifier I couldn’t hit the steel to save my life and wasted a bunch of time. We shot the classifier last and by then I was pretty beat and didn’t really have a solid focus on shooting effectively so tanking the classifier wasn’t a surprise. The weather was great though and the stages were fun to shoot.

Now its time to get my gear all packed up for the Space City Challenge this coming weekend. I have been really busy at work and after work in the evenings so I have not had any free time to get any live or dry fire practice in. I am planning on doing some live fire practice tomorrow though. This will probably be my last practice session before heading out for the Space City match.

I am really excited about attending the Space City match. Shooting the whole match on Sunday will be a challenge though. I will need to bring some snacks and a bunch of water to the range with me to keep hydrated and my energy level up through the whole match. The weather forecast is looking great and I am sure the stages will be really fun to shoot. Is it time to shoot yet

[MarkCO]

Cool shirt! Best wishes for a solid match dude!

[frunkenstein]

Cha-lee unleash the Mad Panda and make us proud. Best of luck to all.

[Sean Gaines]

Over the past couple of weeks I have been working with Gemini Custom Apparel to make a sponsor shirt. After a little bit of tweaking we settled on the attached version of the shirt as the approved proof. The shirts can now be made and hopefully I can get them in a few weeks. It would be really cool to get the shirts before I head out to the Area 1 match at the end of the month, but that might be too soon to get them done. We will see how it goes. Either way I think that the shirt turned out really nice hopefully it looks just as good if not better in person

Hey who's that logo on the shoulder? haha, I am glad you were able to show up for Space City, I guess we will have a re-match, you got me last year, but I will lay the excuses on early, I have been so busy with work to get in some serioius practice in, along with helping out for space city this past week. So you will definately have the edge going in. but i love a good challenge! lol, We will see you in a couple of days... come by the booth and hang.

[CHA-LEE]

I was finally able to get my 2005 GTO all tuned up and on the Dyno today. The final results are 670 RWHP and 672 RWTQ

I was "Hoping" for 700+ but 670 will have to do. Its a hand full to drive as it is so I am not sure if I could even make use of another 30 HP/TQ.

[MarkCO]

Put a few cases of Raniers in the trunk and add that 30!

Nice smooth curve though.

Edited April 21, 2012 by MarkCO

[MarkCO]

Nice job at Space City!

[CHA-LEE]

I just got back from the 2012 Space City Challenge in Houston Texas. This was a fun 8 stage match with a bunch of different shooting challenges. The weather was in the mid 80’s with only a little bit of humidity which was really nice. I went to the match with my friend Jerry Westcott and we shot the whole match on Sunday on an 8 shooter squad. Our squad was great. Everyone was really nice and we all worked hard to reset the stage for the next shooter so we could get through the match as quickly and smoothly as possible. Its been a while since I videoed my stage runs so I figured that this would be a good opportunity to start it up again. With the help of my squad I was able to get all of my stage run’s filmed which was great. Listed below are my stage runs in the order that I shot them.

Stage 1 – This was a stand and shoot stage were you had two arrays of steel/paper with a reload in between arrays. Since this was our first stage of the day the lighting in the berm was pretty poor. The sun was coming up right behind the berm which put the targets in a heavy shadow then the cooler humid morning air made everyone’s gun smoke like crazy. I truly felt sorry for the guys on my squad that were shooting lead because they had super bad smoke. When I shot this stage I was “ok” until after the reload and a few plates in. By then the smoke was super thick and with the targets in a deep shadow I could barely see them. Hell I could barely see my sights. The only thing I could see on my sights was the dull green FO rod in the front sight and I basically ended up putting the FO rod in the general location of the plates and hoped that I would hit them. I needed lots of extra shots to clean the plate racks which killed a lot of time but to be honest I was surprised that it went as good as it did given that I basically had to “Hope” my hits onto the targets. YIKES!!!

Stage 2 – This was a really fun long field course. You started with a loaded gun on the barrel and had to engage two small plates about 20 yards down range. Then run down range and engage some targets on the left, reload and go through the door. Opening the door activated two clam shell targets one leaving the head only and the other being a disappearing target. Then you shot your way to the right where you finished on five pieces of steel and a final zebra paper target. The early morning sun was once again playing havoc with me. The two plates at the start with in the shadows and it was still kind of Smokey. It took me 5 shots to clear the two plates which killed a bunch of time. Then to compound the problem my magazine didn’t drop free when I went to reload and I had to rip it out of the gun and complete the reload before I could open the door and finish the stage. The one saving grace to this stage run is that I was only down 3 C’s. But I still gave away about 3 – 4 seconds with missing the steel at the start and then battling the reload. This stage ended up getting thrown out of the match because the scoring of the clam shells got screwed up at some point during the match. It sucked to loose these stage points from the match, but I was happy that I got to shoot the stage because it was a fun stage to shoot.

Stage 3 – This was another long field course. You started unloaded and holstered in the middle of the stage. The far left and right of the stage were a mirror image with 4 open targets to engage through the far outside ports. Then two paper and a mini popper to engage in the second to outside ports and a texas star to engage in the middle. The tricky part of this stage was were the second to outside ports. You couldn’t see all of the targets through that port from one shooting position so you had to hunt and peck for them using a wide stance. I felt that I shot this stage pretty decent. I needed two make up shots on steel which wasted a little bit of time but I got good points once again. The strange thing on this run is that I missed my first shot on the star then shot all 5 plates one for one. I was able to shoot all of the plates off without letting them swing around. I am kind of glad that I missed my first shot on the star because it forced me to aim hard for the rest of the shots so I could shoot it one for one.

Stage 4 – This was a medium field course where you had four paper targets to engage at the start, then four more in the middle. After that you reloaded and stepped on a step pad which opened a port two 6 poppers which you had to engage strong hand only. I shot the front and middle sections decent, hit my reload then proceeded to rush my shots on the strong hand portion and ended up with a 3 – 4 make up shots. All of my misses on the steel were simply due to mashing the trigger and pulling my hits low left. I think I could have shot this stage about 2 seconds faster if I shot the steel one for one.

Stage 5 – This was a 32 round speed shoot stage with four shooting position each containing 4 “Turtle” targets. They put a decent amount of no shoots around the shoot targets to punish you severely if you went chainsaw crazy shooting too fast. Before shooting this stage I knew that I couldn’t have ANY thought of shooting fast or I would trigger freeze or mash the trigger and pull my hits into the no shoot. Since this would be a 12+ HF stage I knew that there wouldn’t be any time to go back and make up poor hits so I had to make them all count the first time around. I ended up shooting this stage at a good aggressive pace but ended up with a miss on the last array. The second target in on the last array I called my second shot marginal high but felt that it should be there. When the shooting was done it ended up being a miss. But my stage time was fast enough to absorb the miss and I still ended up winning this stage. If I wouldn’t have had the miss I would have knocked this stage out of the park giving me a significant lead. Oh well, it is what its is.

Stage 6 – This was a long field course stage where you started seated in the middle holding a fake bowling ball. The way the stage description was written you had to “Attempt” to get the bowling ball in the bucket or you would receive 1 procedural per shot fired until the ball was placed in the bucket. If you “Attempted” to get the ball in the bucket but missed or if it bounced out you would receive 1 procedural. The way this stage was laid out made it worth simply throwing the ball at the bucket and eat the procedure if you missed. It would take more than 2 seconds to run over and place the ball in the bucket verses throwing the ball at the bucket and running straight towards the first shooting position. Since this was a 7+ HF stage I chose to eat a procedural and simply throw the ball at the bucket and if it went in, Merry Christmas. The only thing that sucked about this stage run is that I missed my first shooting position badly which cost me at least a second. But after that I shot it pretty solid. Technically the procedural(s) assessed with regards to handing the bowling ball was not legal but what can you do really. I didn’t want to protest the stage and get another stage thrown out of the match so I rolled with the flow. I just wish that I got the bowling ball in the bucket instead of missing it.

Stage 7 – This was the classifier stage of the match called Golden Bullet Standards. Its two strings of fire. First string is one shot on each target free style, reload, then one shot on each strong hand only. The second string is one shot on each free style, reload, then one shot on each weak hand only. At this point in the match I knew that I just needed to get points and not do anything stupid. So I shot this stage very deliberate to ensure my hits. I felt that I shot the first string well but screwed up the second string. During the second string I botched my reload then once I got the gun in my weak hand and on target the front sight was wobbling around all over the place because I was trying to grip the gun too hard. I forced myself to let the front sight to settle down before breaking each shot and was rewarded with really good hits even though my time suffered.

Stage 8 – This was a medium field course where you had three ports to engage targets through. The port on the left had three paper targets, the middle port had a plate rack, and the right port had another plate rack. My goal for this stage was to shoot the plate racks solidly with little or no make up shots needed. I feel that I succeeded in that goal but I screwed up on the first port while shooting the paper. I had trigger freeze on the last target in the first port then hesitated before leaving which cost me about a second. I also rushed the shots on paper leaving me with a Delta hit on the middle target. Giving away time and points on a stage like this was not good.

Overall I felt that I had a fairly decent match. I shot good points on most of the stages with only 2 D’s. Then I only had one miss that I called marginal. I knew that I was treading water on each stage not really gaining significant ground. Then when I had an opportunity to pull ahead I screwed it up by having a miss. When Stage 2 got tossed out I knew that would help me given the 3 – 4 seconds I wasted on that stage. But I still didn’t know if I was able to win the match or not. I knew that I would be first or second, just not which one. When we were done shooting we headed out to get some lunch while the rest of the shooters were finishing the match and the scores were tallied. When we got back from lunch they had posted the scores and I was at the top of the heap in Limited by a scarce 5% over Sean Gains. Sean had a very solid run on stage 2 which didn’t count since it got tossed out. I am not sure if he would have won the match if that stage was included. Either way it would have been VERY close between us if stage 2 was counted. It was cool to come away from this match with a HOA in Limited. This is a nice way to kick off the 2012 shooting season. Now lets see if I can carry this momentum through next weekend while attending the Area 1 match in Utah.

[HoMiE]

Congratulations, good luck at Area-1!

[eerw]

Congratulations on Space City!

good luck at Area 1

[CHA-LEE]

I heard back from Gemini Custom Apparel today. My new shooting shirts should be here some time next week. It sucks that I didn't get them in time for the Area 1 match, but it be nice to have them for the rest of the local and major matches this year

[CHA-LEE]

I am all packed up and ready to head out to the Area 1 match tomorrow. I am excited to attend this match. We are scheduled to shoot the match on late Saturday and early Sunday. This will give us Friday and Saturday morning to check out the stages and get them all figured out.

I don’t have any specific performance goals for this match. I simply want to experience shooting at a new range and have fun while doing it. Where I end up in the results will be what it will be.

[AlexOsensei]

I like very much how u move in stage 2.

Very nice!

Edited April 26, 2012 by AlexOsensei

[CHA-LEE]

I am back from the USPSA Area 1 match in Utah. It was really cool to shoot at a new range. Their facility is awesome and they ran the match in a top notch manner. I guess this was the biggest Area match ever with 430+ shooters in attendance. Even though there were a ton of shooters attending it never felt like the place was overrun with people. Since this range is on the south west corner of Utah we decided to fly into Las Vegas and then drive about 140 miles back up to Utah. The drive was easy and we got to the match on Friday at about 2 PM. We were able to check out the stages here and there between squads but ended up waiting until all of the shooting was done to get on all of the stages to check them out. The amount of work that went into the construction of each stage was amazing. All of the walls had multiple braces to stand up to the wind and they painted each stage uniquely. I can’t even imagine how long it took the match crew to setup all of the stages in this manner. If I had to guess it would probably be weeks of non stop work. We were on the Saturday afternoon, Sunday morning shooting schedule so we were going to be the last shooters in the match. I was able to get all of my stage runs filmed, but my video camera got put on “Close Up Focus” mode for some of the stages so they turned out blurry. This is the second time that this has happened at a big match. I think that the people I have filming my stage run flip the switch on accident. I am going to glue the switch in the correct position so this can’t happen again. Through this whole match I felt like I couldn’t get away from making small mistakes, all of which add up and waste match points. Then when I would have a good stage run going I would end up with some other major issue like my mag not dropping free during a reload or something like that. To be honest, it was super frustrating to get beat by my equipment. I can accept getting out shot but when your equipment fails that is really crappy. Listed below are my stage runs in the order that I shot them.

Stage 6 – Gully Run – This was a deceiving stage because its called a Gully Run but you really couldn’t do any run and gunning. The positions of the targets and the difficulty of the shots kept you from shooting on the move. You were basically forced to shoot the stage in three shooting positions. I went a little crazy on my stage plan for this stage because I could see the middle steel targets over a barrel which would save me a few extra steps. But I could only see the circle and head of the steel which made them harder shots. This poor stage plan lead to a boat load of extra shots needed on the middle steel and wasted a good 2 – 3 seconds. Then at the end I tried to rush shooting the last two mini poppers and needed 4 – 5 shots to clean those up which wasted some more time. This was not a good motivational way to start the match.

Stage 7 – Nu-Biz – This was a pretty straight forward stage with no real choices in how to shoot it. The hardest part of the stage was the timing of the single steel in the third shooting position and the swinger of the fourth shooting position. The low target on the left side of the fourth shooting position had a steel plate behind it so shooting the paper target and hearing “DING, DING” was confusing for me. I wasted a little time making up a shot that I didn’t need on that target because I thought I may have missed the target by hearing the dinging. When the shooting was done, I felt like I had a solid stage run but was surprised to see that I had a miss on the first target I engaged in the second shooting position. After watching the video I can hear that my second shot hit the steel barrel instead of the paper target. This was a tight shot and I guess I pulled it to the right enough to send it into the barrel. This was my first and only miss of the match, which sucked because the rest of my run was pretty solid and would have netted me a 3rd place finish for the stage.

Stage 8 – Ceasars Palace – This was kind of a confusing stage. There was a bunch of different ways to shoot this stage give that most of the targets were setup in a horse shoe fashion. I decided that it would be best to hug the right side of the stage because that made a lot of the left side targets present well. With two drop turners you also had to fit stuff to shoot in between hitting the activator. You started the stage with your gun loaded and laying flat on the table and since I know my gun lays on the mag release I was really concerned about pressing the mag release when I picked the gun up. This totally killed my aggressiveness on the start with picking up my gun and getting it on the target. I probably wasted at least 1 – 2 seconds with my super ginger and slow grabbing of the gun and getting it up on target. Once the shooting started I felt like I was shooting scared and tentative as well. This was evident by only being down 2 points on this stage. At this point in the match I was pretty rattled by the crappy execution of stage 6 and then having a miss on stage 7. So all I wanted to do was get a stage completed without any major screw ups. I accomplished that but also gave away a good chunk of time by not being aggressive enough.

Stage 9 – Conversion - This was a speed shoot kind of stage were you had a lot of fast shooting in multiple positions. Once I was shooting I felt that I had a pretty solid stage run. I botched the load of the gun at the start which cost me about a second and then at the end of the stage I had trigger freeze on the second to last target and had to swing back and make it up which ended up being a D zone hit. Giving up 1.5 seconds on this kind of stage is painful. This should have been a 15 second run but due to the bobbles I had to live with a 17.6 second run.

Stage 10 – Need for Prayer - This was a medium stage with a whole bunch of activators. I probably watched the timing of these activators the most out of the whole match. The front left had two mini poppers, one of which activated a drop turner and swinger at the same time, then there was a lone static paper. On the front right there was the same drop turner/swinger setup but no extra static target. When I watched people shoot the stage they would start on the left port, run to the right for the single target, then cut through the middle and shoot the front left section, then run to the front right and finish the stage there. When I looked at the stage it didn’t make sense to run to the front right section just so you could engage the right side drop turner. You could instead stay back and only shoot the two mini poppers and swinger. Then finish on the front left section. I still think that blowing off the right drop turner and using a further back shooting position would be the best plan. But I failed to execute my plan by missing the second mini popper on both sides then having to go back and make I up. I simply rushed the shooting on the steel and paid dearly for it by needing to go back and make it up. All this screwing around with the steel and getting me out of time with the activators or target engagement sequence cost me at least 3 – 4 seconds on this stage. I hate giving away match points by executing poorly.

Stage 11 – Double Down – This stage had a lot of people concerned because it had a Polish Plate Rack that was set spinning when you stepped on the step pad. I have shot the Polish Plate rack enough times to know that its best to start in the middle and work out from there so it really didn’t bother me. This was our last stage of the day on Saturday and up until that point I had nothing but crappy stage runs so I was in an “I don’t care” mental state. This actually worked out well for me because I just let the shooting happen when it needed to. Looking at the video I can see that I shot the paper targets in the port with the step pad really deliberate, but that was a funky shooting position that had me using a strange stance and arm position. Shooting deliberate and getting hits is better than going hoser crazy and ending up with a bunch of misses and no shoots. It was nice to finish the day on a decent stage run though.

Stage 11

Stage 12 – Noodle Soup – This was the first stage of the day on Sunday. I debated quite a bit on what the best shooting order would be for the front of this stage. Going to the left port first was a must but after that you could engage a single paper before going to the back right or go to the back right second and engage the single paper as you moved forward. Engaging the single paper as I moved forward seemed to flow the best to me so that’s what I ended up doing. When I shot the stage I turned around after the first shooting position and almost stopped to shoot the single paper second. This caused a hesitation getting from the first position to the second. Then I moved through the stage without much aggressiveness. I think this was because I was still a little tired and foggy first thing in the morning. I guess staying out at the match banquet until 10PM and then getting up at 5AM the next morning to shoot isn’t the best way to do it.

Stage 1 – Block Party – Yet another fast stage with multiple shooting positions. I was having a good run on this stage until I went to do my reload and the magazine didn’t drop free. I actually hit the bottom of the spent mag with the new mag and reseated it. So I had to stop, push the mag release button again, then rip the old mag free before I could get the new mag in there and finish the stage. This whole reload monkey show wasted 4 seconds which is was worth about 40 stage points. After this stage I was really angry. In the past this mag not dropping free issue only happened when the mag springs were worn out. I replaced all of my mag springs with brand new ones before I headed out to the Space City match two weeks before. I do lube up the inside of the mag bodies when I clean them so maybe I am getting too much lube in there making the top round shift forward too easy. I will need to do some testing with different lubes to see what will work but also keep this mag not dropping free issues from happening. I hate it when I get beat by my equipment!!!

Stage 2 – Over the Top – This stage had a lot of activated stuff. At the start you had to shoot a popper down range through the right port which would unlock the door. It took it a while to unlock so you had to engage the popper first then move to the other side and shoot the two paper and then go through the door. After you went through the door you engaged two paper on the right then moved to the left and engaged two paper and one popper. You could shoot two poppers from this location but I chose to leave one so I could have something else to shoot at the end of the stage. At the end of the stage there was a popper that triggered a series of drop out and back targets in front of you. The left drop out and back was a disappearing target but the other two had the head showing at all times. You could speed up this section by shooting the popper, the middle head, then the left DT then finish on the right head to maximize the target appearance sequence. But the more I thought about that plan it seemed a lot more risky verses leaving an extra popper to shoot then simply shoot two A’s on the body of each appearing target. At this point in the match I didn’t want to take any more risks than I had to so I choose a “safe” plan that probably took more time but guaranteed me solid hits.

Stage 3 – House Cleaning – This stage had you starting with your unloaded gun on a shelf with you facing up range. There were a few different ways to shoot this stage as you were forced to go to just about every corner of the house. Since you had to go to each corner I tried my best to shoot on the move as I went forward in the house. I felt that I shot this stage pretty solid. I needed too many make up shots on the steel but I shot the paper aggressive and got good points. At the start I almost forgot to open the front door as I ran from left to right so this cost me some time as well. This was a fun stage because you could unload a lot of lead in a hurry.

Stage 4 – Do it All – This stage was an attempt in forcing you to shoot strong and weak hand through the ports. In the first port you were suppose to pull the lever down with your strong hand and shoot with your weak hand, but I decided to pull the lever down with my strong hand and then hold the port open with my weak hand. I don’t think that this saved me any time but it did help me capture better on target points while shooting. The way this stage was setup you engaged a swinger in the second port which was activated by opening the first port. The timing of the swinger was off so I ended up waiting for it to expose its self. Then you move to the third port and open it by pulling on the lever with your weak hand and shoot two targets with your strong hand. After that you crouch down and engage four mini poppers through a low port, reload then engage three open paper through the fifth port. My mag didn’t drop free again so I had to rip it free before completing my reload. After that you shoot a single popper that activated a swinger on the right side and engage it some time after you get on the far right side. I never got the timing planned right for the far right swinger and it showed. I thought that I could engage one target and then the swinger but the timing was way off and I ended up going back and forth between the static paper and swinger. This stage performance was pretty bad all together. The only saving grace is that I didn’t have any misses or no shoots.

Stage 5 – Classifier stage called Paper Poppers – I have shot this classifier a bunch of times before. Pretty straight forward stage. Shoot the poppers, reload, and shoot the paper. My primary goal for this stage was to shoot the steel one for one and hit my reload. I was able to execute solidly on both and ended up with a decent run. It was nice to finish the match with a solid stage run.

After the results were tallied I ended up 8th in Limited. I was hoping to be able to finish in the top 5 after the first day, but the mega screw ups on stages 1 and 4 pretty much sunk that opportunity. Overall I felt that I had a lack luster performance. I had some kind of screw up on just about every stage and in this kind of match there is zero room for error on even one stage much less all of them. I think that some matches are just harder than others some times. I will chalk it up to a good experience builder. I need to figure out why my mags are not dropping free. That jammed me up on three different stages this match which is totally unacceptable.

On the other side of the coin it was really nice to get a chance to shoot at this new range. They did an awesome job with hosting the Area 1 match. I hope that they get a chance to host the Area 1 again next year. If they do I will be back for sure!!!

[dravz]

After the results were tallied I ended up 8th in Limited. I was hoping to be able to finish in the top 5 after the first day, but the mega screw ups on stages 1 and 4 pretty much sunk that opportunity. Overall I felt that I had a lack luster performance. I had some kind of screw up on just about every stage and in this kind of match there is zero room for error on even one stage much less all of them. I think that some matches are just harder than others some times. I will chalk it up to a good experience builder. I need to figure out why my mags are not dropping free. That jammed me up on three different stages this match which is totally unacceptable.

Sorry about your equipment problems but forget all that stuff -- you were FAST on those courses, man. Your movement was lightning! I haven't watched a vid of yours in a while, but that was definitely not the same CHA-LEE I watched before. Outstanding runs, dude.

I also notice you never, ever break your grip during your movement. You are not a fan of breaking grip to run then obviously?

[CHA-LEE]

dravz> Thanks for the kind comments. Its easy to get focused only on the bad stuff. As for not breaking my grip while moving I think that is an interesting observation that I didn't even notice. I know that I consciously break my grip and pump my arms when I have to accelerate hard over a long distance. In dry fire and live fire I have been working on keeping my grip intact but still be able to move aggressively. Keeping my grip intact allows me to get the gun on target and ready to shoot sooner. I guess its just one less variable to worry about or redo during a stage run.

[CHA-LEE]

I am back in the normal swing of things again after returning from the Space City and Area 1 matches. To be honest I was getting a little bit of “Big Match Burnout” with attending both of those matches in back to back weekends. Don’t get me wrong, the actual shooting part was a lot of fun. All of the travel involved is what gets old.

On Saturday I took the day off from shooting to get some yard work done and also work on my GTO. It was a very productive day in getting stuff done around the house but man I was beat by the end of the day. Sunday morning I got up early to attend a local USPSA match and not surprisingly I was really sore from all the hard work the day before. I took a couple of Advil’s and headed to the range hoping that my stiff muscles and aching joints would get better as the day wore on.

The match on Sunday was a lot of fun. It had a good mix of fast shooting, aiming, and stages with a bunch of options in how to shoot them. I was in a great “Lets have some fun” mindset and it allowed me to shoot very well all but one of the stages. I just let the shooting happen at whatever pace it wanted to go and it worked out really good. The only stage I trashed was the Classifier stage which was called Six Chickens. This classifier has you shoot one shot on 6 targets, reload, then reengage them with one shot each strong hand only. I shot the free style string solid, hit my reload then proceeded to mash the crap out of the trigger on the strong hand only section and ended up with two no shoots and a miss. Other than this putrid classifier run I only had 1 D zone hit on all the stage combined. I was shooting really good points on all of the stages and doing so with good aggressiveness.

When the results were tallied at the end of the match I ended up winning high overall. This was a big surprise to me since I had given away 35 points on the classifier. But I will take it. Its nice to have fun, screw up a little, and still come out on top.