CHA-LEE's Tale

[CHA-LEE]

Last night I went down to Colorado Springs to attend the indoor USPSA match held by Whistling Pines. There were quite a few shooters that showed up for the match, 28 total, so we only had time to shoot two stages. The first stage was a three box stage. All of the targets were partials with a no shoot blocking the majority of the lower A zone with a few head shot only targets mixed in there. This stage was very high risk with shooting too fast and pulling your hits down into the no shoots. I told myself to take as long as it takes to call every shot solid and it worked out pretty good. I ended up with a miss on one of the head shots which was strange because I called both shots good. But it was also the last target I engaged in the first shooting position so I could have moved my head at the last moment pulling the shot off target. Either way I was still able to shoot pretty fast and aggressive given all of the tight shots there were.

The second stage was a classifier called 3-V. I have shot this classifier a few times before and it’s the same situation as the first stage. Every target is a partial and has most of the bottom part covered by a no shoot. Its really hard to capture all A’s on this classifier without clipping some no shoots so picking up a lot of B’s and C’s on this stage is normal. This means that you have to shoot pretty fast and aggressive to overcome the points loss. At the start of the stage run I had a bad grip on the gun and shot the four targets on the right with a less than optimal grip. During the reload I had to reposition my grip and then complete the reload which took a little extra time. I know I could have shot this stage at least a second faster if I didn’t have a jacked up grip at the start. But oh well, it is what it is.

It was a fun match and a good challenge in forcing me to see my sights in less than optimal lighting conditions. I still battle seeing my sights well in low light conditions so forcing myself to shoot in these conditions give me more experience.

[Sean Gaines]

Last night I went down to Colorado Springs to attend the indoor USPSA match held by Whistling Pines. There were quite a few shooters that showed up for the match, 28 total, so we only had time to shoot two stages. The first stage was a three box stage. All of the targets were partials with a no shoot blocking the majority of the lower A zone with a few head shot only targets mixed in there. This stage was very high risk with shooting too fast and pulling your hits down into the no shoots. I told myself to take as long as it takes to call every shot solid and it worked out pretty good. I ended up with a miss on one of the head shots which was strange because I called both shots good. But it was also the last target I engaged in the first shooting position so I could have moved my head at the last moment pulling the shot off target. Either way I was still able to shoot pretty fast and aggressive given all of the tight shots there were.

The second stage was a classifier called 3-V. I have shot this classifier a few times before and it’s the same situation as the first stage. Every target is a partial and has most of the bottom part covered by a no shoot. Its really hard to capture all A’s on this classifier without clipping some no shoots so picking up a lot of B’s and C’s on this stage is normal. This means that you have to shoot pretty fast and aggressive to overcome the points loss. At the start of the stage run I had a bad grip on the gun and shot the four targets on the right with a less than optimal grip. During the reload I had to reposition my grip and then complete the reload which took a little extra time. I know I could have shot this stage at least a second faster if I didn’t have a jacked up grip at the start. But oh well, it is what it is.

It was a fun match and a good challenge in forcing me to see my sights in less than optimal lighting conditions. I still battle seeing my sights well in low light conditions so forcing myself to shoot in these conditions give me more experience.

Been there and done that with the low light conditions, really makes you look for that daylight in between the sights, literally.. How did your draws turn out? did you figure a better method?

[CHA-LEE]

Sean> My draw method is the same. I tried different variants of grabbing the gun from the side, scoop draws, and other stuff and it would either cause the gun to jam up in the holster or result in inconsistent grip placement. If I really want to change up my draw style I need to take some grip tape off the gun so I can reposition my hand on the grip while pulling the gun out of the holster. Right now I am not willing to ditch the grip tape because it allows me to get a very solid grip on the gun to manage the recoil very well. I guess the main decision I made is that saving a few tenths on my draw is the least of my worries right now. With the dry and live fire practice I have been doing I can produce 1 - 1.10 second first shots regularly. That is fast enough when compared to me wasting seconds on not hitting steel one for one, or moving effectively through the stage.

[CHA-LEE]

I got my new shooting shirts in the mail yesterday, they look awesome and fit great

I will give them a try this weekend at the local matches to see how they work out.

[AlexOsensei]

nice, show a video if u can..in action..ehehe

[speedrrracer]

Sean> My draw method is the same. I tried different variants of grabbing the gun from the side, scoop draws, and other stuff and it would either cause the gun to jam up in the holster or result in inconsistent grip placement. If I really want to change up my draw style I need to take some grip tape off the gun so I can reposition my hand on the grip while pulling the gun out of the holster. Right now I am not willing to ditch the grip tape because it allows me to get a very solid grip on the gun to manage the recoil very well. I guess the main decision I made is that saving a few tenths on my draw is the least of my worries right now. With the dry and live fire practice I have been doing I can produce 1 - 1.10 second first shots regularly. That is fast enough when compared to me wasting seconds on not hitting steel one for one, or moving effectively through the stage.

Cha-lee -- if you don't mind me asking, which flavor of grip tape are you using, and do you have any pics of your gun all taped up? Strongly thinking of going in that direction, but not sure how to implement it. Thanks!

[CHA-LEE]

Here is a picture of how I setup the grip tape on my gun. This picture is a little old so I don't use grip tape on the top of the slide and use a blade tech holster instead of the CR Speed. But this will give you a general idea of how I put the grip tape on. I got the grip tape is Skate Board tape and you can find it at just about any sports outlet store. If you have a hair drier or heat gun you can easily get the grip tape to soften up and conform to the contours of the gun.

[CHA-LEE]

Over the last couple of weeks I have been attempting to find a replacement powder for Clays. My goal was to find a powder that produced the same soft recoil impulse as Clays but NOT have the same pressure and case head separation issues. I tried VV N320, but the recoil impulse was noticeably harsher. I then tried VV N310 and it felt great but it barely made major on the ragged edge of being over pressure. That was too close for my comfort even though it shot amazingly soft.

I then tried Winchester Super Target (WST) and that powder had the same recoil feel as Clays but had zero evidence of over pressure. The only thing that is funky about this powder is that its very temperature sensitive. Its also inverse temperature sensitive so you end up with a faster velocity the colder it gets. Due to our cooler than normal weather here in Colorado lately I was able to test out ammo at 60 degrees and then artificially heat up the ammo to 100 degrees then retest it. Much to my surprise this 40 degree temperature swing resulted in a 30fps differences between cold and hot ammo. This is fine but requires load development with “hot” ammo to ensure that I will still be making major PF in hot summer temps. I ended up with the below load that I will be using from now on. I was able to use this ammo at the USPSA match this past Sunday and it worked great. Its awesome to find a replacement powder for Clays that produces the same felt recoil and has zero pressure issues. Double Win!!!

Load Data

Bullet - Rainier Ballistics 180gr Round Nose Flat Point FMJ

Brass - Mixed previously fired

Powder - Winchester Super Target (WST)

Powder Drop - 5.5 Grain

Primer - Winchester Standard Small Pistol

Overall Length - 1.225"

Velocity - 935 - 945fps in 75 degree temp

Pistol - EAA Witness Limited, 4.75 inch Barrel

Note - If you are starting with a factory OAL(1.135) I would suggest that you start with 4.5gr of WST then work up from there. Always keep in mind that WST will be faster in cooler weather.

[CHA-LEE]

This past Sunday I was able to attend a local USPSA match in Pueblo Colorado. The weather was pretty rainy all weekend so I chose to not shoot on Saturday but roll the dice and go on Sunday. Since Pueblo is historically hotter and drier than Denver I figured it would be the safest bet for the weekend. My gamble of not going to the match on Saturday ended up being a bad decision because they didn’t get any rain at the range that day. On Sunday the weather was overcast and threatening to rain all day, but it never actually rained while we were at the range. Since we had overcast skies I knew that I would need to be extra diligent on watching my sights because of the less than optimal lighting. I am glad to report that I executed on this well through the whole match. I probably wasted a little bit of stage time here and there “over aiming” but I would much rather spend a little extra time and get good hits verses trying to go fast and end up with a bunch of misses or crappy hits on target. I had a pretty solid match all together though. I ended up with 3 D’s for the match and nicked one No Shoot. This was a good enough performance to net an HOA for the match.

This match was also an opportunity to try a couple of new things. I was shooting the new WST/Rainier loads and they worked great. I was worried that the overcast, cool, and humid morning weather would cause some excessively smoky shooting but I never even noticed any smoke. I also had a chance to try out my new shooting shirt which worked great. It fits really nice and looks awesome. I like it when trying out new stuff works out nicely!!!

[AlexOsensei]

What gun are u Using now?

[CHA-LEE]

The same as I always have. An EAA Witness Limited in .40 caliber.

[eerw]

Congrats on Rocky Mountain 300!

[CHA-LEE]

This past weekend I attended the 2012 Rocky Mountain 300 match. This is a really fun match with only 5 stages but each stage has 60+ rounds. I volunteered to RO the main match so I had to shoot the match on Friday with the rest of the match staff. Shooting the whole match on Friday turned out to be a good decision because the weather was awesome. On Saturday the weather turned bad and we had wind and drizzle rain for most of the morning. There was also a micro burst on Friday night which ripped up most of the stages so they had to be rebuilt on Saturday when we got there to RO. We have always had some kind of funky weather during this match each year so what we experienced was just par for the course. Either way the stages were a lot of fun to shoot and when you have to create a stage plan for 60+ shots it’s a whole new level of mental challenge. It’s really cool coming to the line with 100 rounds of ammo on your belt knowing that you may need all 100 rounds to get the job done. I was able to get all of my stage runs filmed and have listed them below. The stages are listed in the order I shot them.

Stage 2 – Shakin’ Hands – This stage had you starting in the middle and you had to go to both extreme ends of the back of the stage to see a single popper about 25 yards down range. This forced you to run from side to side then come back to the middle before heading forward. In the middle you had four targets on each side then you would book it to the end where they had a boat load of targets stapled to a huge target board. You could see the same targets from many different locations and the round count was usually more than 20+ rounds to break it up into chunks that were grouped together. Since this was the first stage of the match I told myself to shoot solid and move aggressively. This plan worked out well and I ended up with a decent time with good points. The next day I found out that the wood used as visual blockers for the steel was considered soft cover so many shooters were simply standing in the middle and shooting the poppers from the start position and they didn’t have to run to both ends of the back of the stage. It sucks not knowing about the soft cover when I shot the stage because that would have saved me at least 5 seconds in running in the back of the stage. Oh well, that’s how it goes some times.

Stage 3 – Never Again – You started with your unloaded gun laying on a table along with your first mag on the table for this stage. At the start you loaded the gun and entered the shooting area where you had a bunch of targets on the left and right to engage as you moved down the shooting area. You could choose to shoot a lot of the targets from few stationary shooting positions or engage targets on the move as you went down the shooting area. I picked a hybrid plan that had me doing a little bit of both. This plan worked out pretty good but I ended up with a miss on a steel plate and was long gone before I realized I left the plate standing. It was too late to go back and make it up so I had to eat the miss. Lucky for me my stage time was fast enough to “Hide” the miss.

Stage 4 – Animals – This stage was a pretty complicated movement stage with a bunch of different shooting positions that you had to hit perfectly or you would be either breaking the 180 or not be able to see all the targets. The other thing that was challenging with this stage is that you had to shoot 20 rounds of targets through three different magazines. This made you earn every single hit without needing many makeup shots. I told myself to take as long as it takes to see a solid sight picture for every shot to make sure I didn’t need a bunch of make up shots. This produced some slower than normal shooting but I didn’t need any make up shot the whole stage and it worked out well.

Stage 5 – Rock Star – This was an all steel stage. The front section of this stage had a plate rack and 10 mini poppers on the left then another plate rack and 10 colt speed steel on the right. The mini poppers and colt speed steel sections had hard cover steel in front of the targets so you couldn’t see all of them from a single location. It is SUPER hard to aim hard and take your time on a stage like this with 60 pieces of steel. On the first array I took too many makeup shots and had to throw in an unplanned reload which screwed up my plan a little bit. When I got down to the end of the stage I only had two mags to finish the stage with so I knew I couldn’t go hoser crazy or I would run out of ammo. I completely botched the last reload on the stage, missed the magwell and the magazine went flipping around in front of me. Luckily I was able to catch the mag and get it into the gun and finish the stage. But this magazine fumble cost me at least 6 – 7 seconds of stage time. Then I compounded that error by missing a mini popper at the start of the stage and had to eat a miss. This was by far my worst stage of the match.

Stage 1 – Hangnail – This was the “Speed Shoot” stage of the match. I knew that everyone would have pretty much the same stage time on this due to the simple layout and hosing style shooting so my main focus was on getting as many points as possible and moving aggressively between shooting positions. This plan worked out really well. I was only down three C’s on this stage with a decent time. The only major screw up on this stage was during the last reload were my magazine didn’t drop free and I had to pull it out before I could get the new mag in. This cost me about a second of stage time.

When all of the shooting was done I felt that I had a pretty solid match. I didn’t shoot over my head and executed on my stage plans well. Much to my surprise it wasn’t that hard to program and execute my stage plans, unlike prior years where I would tend to fall apart after about 40 rounds of shooting. When the match results were tallied on Friday I was high overall and I wondered how my performance would stack up against others that were to shoot on Saturday. When the weather turned crappy for Saturday and it was a little muddy I knew that it would take some pretty heroic shooting for the Saturday shooters to overcome my lead. I had mixed feelings about this though. On one side I felt pretty safe in my finish because the poor weather was working to my advantage. On the other side I didn’t want to win the match because of unfair shooting conditions. When all of the shooting was done on Saturday I was still on the top of the heap and ended up being HOA for the match. It was great to win, but due to the unfair shooting conditions it felt like a hollow win. I really wanted my competitors to have the same shooting conditions as I had so we could all be on the same playing field. But I guess dealing with changing weather conditions is part of the “Practical” portion of this game. Some times it goes against you, some times it goes in your favor.

[HoMiE]

Good job and nice shooting, I think you should take up production with those mad reloading skills.

[CHA-LEE]

Good job and nice shooting, I think you should take up production with those mad reloading skills.

Production..... No way. I like having 20+ rounds in each magazine

[Chris iliff]

I'm Happy for you!! Your stage runs looked awesome!! Great job!!!!

[CHA-LEE]

I took full advantage of the great weather this weekend to get a lot of shooting done. On Saturday I attended the 2012 Area 2 Steel Challenge Regional match down in Pueblo. I don’t particularly like shooting steel myself but this is the one match each year that my wife likes to attend so I shoot it with her. My main focus on this match was to make sure my wife had fun. I tried shooting the match solidly but I don’t have a fast surrender draw and don’t load “Weak Sauce” loads for this match so I am usually at a significant disadvantage when compared to the Steel Challenge regulars. I ended up with an ok total time of 128 seconds and some how this netted me 2nd place in Limited division. My wife had a great time and did a lot better than last year. I was really amazed at how well she was able to shoot the stages given that she does not practice at all and the last time she shot at all was back in August of last year.

On Sunday I shot a local USPSA match up in the mountains. The weather forecast was calling for a high temp of 50 degrees so I went up there with a long sleeve shirt that I normally use in winter time. Before the match even started the temp was up to 60 degrees so I had to take off the long sleeve shirt and forgot to put sunscreen on my arms. I was rewarded with a decent sun burn by the end of the day. My shooting that day was pretty crappy. The squad I ended up on had 4 – 5 new shooters and I ended up ROing most of the day. There were a bunch of shooters on the squad that brought chairs to sit on and that is exactly what they did most of the time. Watching the “Loafers” sit around most of the day while only a few did most of the work really put me into a sour mood and by the third stage of the match I was over it. I shot the last two stages of the match without much care and it showed in my performance. I just wanted the match to be over so I could separate myself from the dead beat loafers. It sucks when others wreck your enjoyment of a match due to their selfishness.

Since I had Monday off for Memorial Day I arranged to do some one on one training with a few friends. I have a special stage that I setup for training classes that is comprised of a bunch of different aspects that cause us all issues while breaking down and shooting the stage. This is a good tool to leverage when you need to show examples of specific issues and techniques. I had a lot of fun while presenting the training class. Its also very rewarding to help others improve their shooting and movement skills. Hopefully I get an opportunity to do some more training in the near future.

[Chris iliff]

I agree, LOAFERS need not apply.

[CHA-LEE]

I got a lot of shooting done this past weekend. On Saturday I went out and practiced with a couple of friends. We setup a stage and ran through it a bunch of times in different ways. I finally got a chance to give my 9oz Limited Minor upper a try on my EAA Witness Limited. Shooting that thing was very fun. It was like shooting a .22. Very little felt recoil and ZERO muzzle flip. You could basically shoot it as fast as you could pull the trigger and the sights would never leave the target. I found that I could shoot sooner entering shooting positions because I didn’t need to fully setup a solid grip and stance to bear down on the gun in order to manage the recoil. I also found that being able to shoot with a circumvented grip/stance also hurt the on target hit quality so even though I could shoot sooner my hits were worse so any time gained was lost in worse points. I still want to do some more back to back Major vs Minor stage run testing to see if shooting .40 minor is viable.

I also tested the 9oz slide with major PF loads and was surprised at how well it shot. The felt recoil was quite a bit less. I am not sure if this is due to the reduced mass in the slide or the 8lb recoil spring. I normally use a 10lb recoil spring with the standard weight slide. The one negative with using the 9oz slide with the major PF loads is that the front sight would not track back to an aligned state consistently post shot. I don’t think the slide is snapping forward with enough force to properly return the front sight to where it should be. In my next live fire practice session I am going to test my standard slide with an 8lb recoil spring, and the 9oz slide with a 10lb recoil spring. This should give me a better understanding of how the recoil spring is affecting the felt recoil and the consistency of the front sight returning to where it should.

I like fiddling with stuff and its interesting to test stuff out to see what it changes. If I can get away with running a little lighter slide and a lighter recoil spring while shooting major PF loads which does not negatively impact how the front sight tracks post shot then that will be nice. I am not saying that my existing configuration does not work, but if I can reduce the felt recoil while maintaining the good sight tracking qualities it will be worth the effort to make changes.

[CHA-LEE]

On Sunday I participated in a pretty big local USPSA match. We had 97 shooters in attendance with about 25 shooters on each squad. This was also one of the warmer days peaking out in the low 90’s so it made for a long and hot day of shooting. I shot the first two stages pretty good but then made a huge stage planning mistake on the third stage of the match which was a long field course. My stage plan was flawed and I ended up double shooting a target and completely missing another. After that major screw up I pretty much lost all interest in being there. I stuck around and shot the classifier and speed shoot stages but my motivation to do well was completely gone. To add insult to injury the classifier had a loaded gun start laying flat in a cubby. At the start of the stage I pick up my gun and fire the first shot then watched my mag drop to the ground. I had pushed in the mag release button while picking up the gun. I really have to figure out a fix for this mag button situation. I will probably end up welding something onto the frame to stick out above or below the mag release button so it will rest on a post instead of the mag release. Not being able to aggressively grab for the gun while its loaded laying flat on its side is a significant disadvantage.

[CHA-LEE]

Monday night I attended an indoor match after work down in Colorado Springs. We only shot two stages that night. The first stage was a 24 round box to box stage with a little bit of shooting on the move in the last position. This stage was fun and I shot it well until the last target of the stage. I rushed the last two shots thinking that I could point shoot it while looking at the target instead of watching my sights and calling each shot. I was rewarded with a Charlie Mike on the last target for being an idiot trying to rush the shooting. The second stage was the classifier CM 03-11 called El Strong & Weak Pres. It has two strings of fire. The first string is engage three targets 2 shots each freestyle, reload, then reengage the three targets 2 shots each strong hand only. The second string is the same except that you use weak hand only after the reload. This classifier is brutally punishing if you try to rush your shooting. Its really easy to pull the gun off target in the one handed shooting ending up with a miss or no shoot. I told myself to take as long as it takes to get solid hits on every shot. My time wasn’t very good, but I got all of my hits which was more than 99% of the other shooters in the match.

The more I think about the shooting last night the more I realize that I was having a really hard time getting a crisp focus on the sights due to the lighting in the range. I clearly remember forcing myself to pull my focus back to my blurry sights on every shooting position. I think this is the main reason why I transitioned from watching my sights to looking at the targets and point shooting on the first stage. I like attending this match because this funky lighting conditions mimic what happens while outdoors in early morning and late afternoon. Any chance I can get to shoot in this less than optimal lighting condition is a good thing to practice.

[CHA-LEE]

This past weekend I attended the USPSA Colorado State Championships in Pueblo. The weather was a little goofy this weekend. On Saturday the temp peaked out at a little over 100 degrees, but there was a little breeze so and there was no humidity so it wasn’t that bad. On Sunday we woke up to lots of wind and a high of 81 degrees. A lot of the stages had to be fixed to hold up against the excessive wind in the morning. Eventually the wind died down around 11am so we could get the match wrapped up without getting dust blown into our eyes.

All of the stages were very challenging from a shooting perspective. This match had the most hard cover and no shoot blocked targets that I have ever seen at a big match. If you could shoot the whole match clean you were doing way better than most everyone else. At the end of the match the Match Director asked how many people shot a “Clean” match and only 2 or 3 out of over 100 said that they did. I wish I could say that I was one of the “Clean” shooters but I was far from it. I had a pretty lack luster match myself. I felt that I shot a little too tentative on some of the stages to ensure hits but even when doing that I still ended up with a grand total of 5 misses and a no shoot for shooting penalties. Two of my misses were less than an inch down into hard cover right were the A zone is located. Those really close to scoring misses are super frustrating. But that is what happens when you are racing.

I was able to get all of my stages filmed for this match which was awesome. Buy buddy Jim did a great job of filming all of the stages for me. I have listed below the stages in the order that I shot them.

Stage 1 – This was a medium course of fire with four paper targets with heavy hard cover and no shoots on both the left and right sides. Then you went through a port and engaged tree paper and two poppers. Some people where kneeling in front of the port and resting the door on their head. I figured that I would jam my whole body through the port and shoot it from a somewhat normal stance position. This run felt good but I ended up with a miss on the first target I engaged on the left side port. The miss was about a quarter inch into the hard over to the right of the A-zone. My stage time was a little slow due to the tentative shooting, but that combined with a miss pretty much blew this stage out of the water.

Stage 2 – This was a large field course where your loaded gun started on a shelf between two barrels. You could see a bunch of targets from many different locations but you were basically forced to move to the far left and right of the stage in order to engage all of the targets. The targets were far away enough to make shooting them on the move not very good as it would create really slow movement and shooting. I decided to use a two shooting position stage plan starting on the left then finishing on the right. I felt that this stage plan was good but I shoot a little too tentative wasting time. I didn’t have any misses on this stage which was good, but I probably wasted about 2 seconds in shooting too slow.

Stage 3 – This was another large field course where you started up range of the shooting area and your unloaded gun and first mag were on a barrel in front of you. The rest of your magazines were on barrels around the outside of the shooting area. The thing that was really strange about this stage is that they used shotgun clays as “Mines” that were scattered around the shooting area. If you broke a mine by either stepping on it or dropping a mag on it you would receive a procedural penalty per broken mine. Having to deal with the mines in the shooting area this really killed your ability to move aggressively through the stage. I can see in the video that I am pulling the gun back and poking it back out a lot during this stage run and I think that is because I am moving my head around looking for mines. I didn’t break any mines or get any shooting penalties on this stage so it was an ok run.

Stage 4 – This was a large field course that had you starting in the back middle of the stage. Your loaded gun was on either left or right barrel. This stage was kind of funky because it made you run around like a monkey at the start and middle then you had to shoot a critical timing section at the end. Not all of the targets at the very end of the stage could be seen from a single shooting position so you had to shoot while moving slowly to the step pad then hit the max trap and swinger on their first passes. I thought that I shot the stage solidly then when they were scoring it I had a miss on a half hard cover target straight down range. The miss was once again less than an inch down into the hard cover in the A zone. The miss on this stage really hurt the overall performance.

Stage 5 – This was a speed shoot stage where you started facing up range. You had to engage paper targets on both sides but there was also two sets of steel and two drop out and back targets. The left out and back target took a long time to expose but was super fast when it did expose. Since the left drop out and back was so fast in exposure it made more sense to simply shoot the head shot instead of trying to engage it when it dropped out. My stage plan had me engaging the three paper on the left side then two more paper on the right, followed by the activating steel for the right drop out and then the two left side steel before engaging the right drop out. I knew that cramming in three steel before engaging the right drop out was a lot but I figured I would go for it. When I engaged the right drop out and back I didn’t call the second shot a hit so I tried to make up the shot by engaging the head last but ended up mashing the trigger hard and pulled the shot down into the no shoot. I ended up not needing the make up shot anyway as I did get two hits on it when it exposed. So I wasted time making up a shot I didn’t need to then really kicked myself in the teeth by yanking my last shot down into the no shoot.

Stage 6 – This was a large field course where you had a choice of starting with your palms flat on any one of the three barrels at the start of the stage. You could choose to shoot the whole stage from behind the walls but take longer and riskier shots on the last four targets down range. Or you could shoot the front section of the stage aggressively and then haul ass down range to engage the last four targets without risking poor hits or clipping no shoots. My original plan was to shoot the whole stage from the back but the more I started thinking about how much time it would take to get hits on the down range targets it made more sense to simply shoot the whole stage in an aggressive manner and run around like a crack head. The one thing that I had to make sure of was to get really good points while shooting hoser crazy while running around. This stage plan ended up working out great. I got really good points and was able to shoot the stage about 2 seconds faster than anyone else.

Stage 7 – This was the chrono stage of the match. I was really interested to see how my new Major rounds would end up in these conditions. The WST powder goes slower in hotter temperatures and with it peaking out at 100 degrees that day it was a perfect test. To offset the loss in velocity due to the hot temp I used Winchester Magnum primers for these rounds instead of the standard Winchester primers. But another variable was that I used brand new Star Line brass which is usually a little slower than other brass because of how soft it is. So the soft Star Line brass pretty much cancels out the use of Magnum primers. After they shot 3 rounds I ended up at 169PF which was right were I wanted it to be. This is good because I loaded up 2000 rounds of this “Major Match” ammo using Rainier Ballistics 180gr bullets, WST powder, Magnum Primers, and new Star Line brass. I should be covered for at least 4 major matches with the major match ammo I have loaded up so far.

On the bad news side of the street there was a production shooter on our squad using Factory Blazer Brass 9mm ammo then went sub minor at a 121PF. They were pretty upset to see that they went sub minor even though they were using factory ammo. There was another shooter on our squad that went sub major at 164.5 PF so they ended up being scored minor for the match. It sucks to see people not meet their declared power factor, especially when people are shooting factory ammo.

Stage 8 – This was a medium length stage with all of the targets along the left side of the stage. There was hard cover on many targets and no shoots all over the place. The way the targets were laid out made it so you could keep moving through the stage while engaging a few targets in many different shooting positions. Or you could pick a couple of shooting positions and engage a bunch of targets that had less than optimal partial shots. Shooting this stage on the move would be very risky due to all of the hard cover and no shoots and if you missed even one position you would waste a lot of time stopping and going again. I figured that the easiest stage plan to execute properly would be shooting I in basically two shooting positions. This plan worked out really well from a stage time perspective but it did hurt me on points. I got all of my hits but had a lot of C’s and a few D’s due to taking more partial shots than I would have if I shot the stage on the move. Even though I didn’t get as many points as I wanted I still thought that I shot it with the best plan that I could.

Stage 9 – This was the classifier stage for the match. They used Classifier CM 99-63 called Merles Standards. This is two string of fire classifier. First string is draw and engage the middle target with 6 rounds free style, reload then engage the right target strong hand only. Second string is draw and engage the middle target with 6 rounds freestyle, reload then engage the left target weak hand only. On the first string I shot the freestyle section good but then my mag wouldn’t drop free during the reload. I had to rip it free before completing the reload. This killed at least a second and a half on the first string. On the second string I shot the freestyle section ok with one called marginal shot then completely fumbled my reload. I almost sent the magazine flying due to hitting the edge of the magwell instead of getting the magazine into the gun. After wasting at least 3 seconds on that reload I finished the stage. I had all of my hits on the strong/weak hand targets but ended up with a miss on the middle target which I am sure was the marginal shot I called on the second string. Two botched reloads and a miss = craptactular stage run.

Stage 10 – This was a cool stage where you had to pull bags off of barrels in order to activate swingers. You could see the left side swinger from the forward section of the stage so I figured that I would engage it second to last from the forward section. When I shot the stage the right and left sides went great. I shot fast and aggressive but then when I got to the middle section I couldn’t hit the steel at all. The plate rack was 20+ yards from the shooting area and my hits were going right below the plates. It took me 6 shots before I could even take the first plate down. This got me so flustered that I forgot to engage the open paper target next to the plate rack and ended up with 2 misses on it. I think that my rear sight may be a little too low because I had to aim at the top of the plates to hit them dead center, which is not where I normally aim. I completely tanked this stage both in time and shooting penalties. I figure that I gave away about 50 match points on this one stage alone. This pretty much sunk any chance of finishing in the top 2 at this match and I knew it. There wasn’t a squad behind us so I was able to reshoot this stage just for fun, this time I aimed at the top of the plates and was able to shoot them one for one. If I could have used this second stage run in the match I would have won the stage by about 10%. Oh well, that is how it goes some times.

Stage 11 – This was the last stage of the match. It was a large field course with a bunch of back and forth shooting through ports and between walls. At the end of the stage there was a step pad that activated two swingers. Figuring out the timing of the two swingers mixed with the two head shots was a little tricky. My plan was to step on the activator while I was engaging a full target on the right, then engage the left swinger, left head shot then right swinger and right head shot. This plan worked out ok, but I stepped on the pad a little early putting my timing a little behind schedule. I ended up engaging the right swinger with one round, then went to the right head then went back to the right swinger to finish. This was an ok stage run for me, but nothing special. I am just glad that I got all of my hits.

When all of the results were tallied I ended up finishing 3rd in Limited at 91% of the winner Ron Avery. To be honest with a combined 5 misses, one No Shoot and completely bombing one stage I was surprised to finish that high up. When I was on my stage performances were competitive. But you can’t expect to finish well when you have misses. This was a very difficult match though. The match director asked for a show of hands at the awards ceremony of who shot a clean match and only 2 or 3 people had so pretty much everyone was having issues with getting all of their hits. I wish that I could have done better, but it is what it is. I learned a couple of good lessons during the match and that was well worth the experience.

Now I have to regroup and get ready for the Area 5 match this coming weekend in Polo IL.

[HoMiE]

I felt like a monkey and crackhead too, didn't even think about running down on stage 6 until after we shot it. I told my friend I kinda wished I went sub-minor so my scores didn't get posted.

[co-exprs]

You may not have noticed, but i haven't been around much this season. Well one of the things I discovered end of last season was that, our sport reaches a point in which it becomes a bit tedious. I found that i was having far less fun at Master than I was as a B. I found that I had to work just as hard to maintain Master level performance as I did to get there. To compete on that level requires little to no mistakes at all. There is literally no room for error... Ever! You had a lack luster match... It happens. You're not only an excellent pistol shooter, but an excellent competitor. No one can maintain razor's edge performance all the time. No one. You'll find your balance again and be back in top form for Area 5.

[Less]

Hey CHA-LEE,

Was nice to meet you at Area 5: I was the big dude that came outta nowhere and shook your hand, then later at the safe table when you were looking at your busted roscoe...

Many thanks for the .40 Reload tip - the one with the Gizmo - it has worked great (except I've had got goofy magazine issues at Area 5)

Cheers!