CHA-LEE's Tale

[Not-So-Mad Matt]

He got it welded up and while I was there I had him take 1oz of weight out of the slide. Half an ounce from the front and back to keep the weight reduction balanced. After that was done I took it back home and recut the frame rail and fitted the slide to the frame again.

How did you come to decide that you needed one ounce taken off the slide?

[CHA-LEE]

He got it welded up and while I was there I had him take 1oz of weight out of the slide. Half an ounce from the front and back to keep the weight reduction balanced. After that was done I took it back home and recut the frame rail and fitted the slide to the frame again.

How did you come to decide that you needed one ounce taken off the slide?

Knowing how much and where to reduce slide weight is more of a trial and error process verses an exact science. In the past I tried taking a whole ounce out of the front of the slide and that negatively impacted how well the front sight would return post shot. Basically the front sight would stay higher than it should unless I gripped the gun really hard. The next test I did was to take 2oz out of the slide (1 up front and 1 on the back) to make a Limited Minor gun. This worked awesome and kept the correct balance while shooting minor but also produced inconsistent front sight tracking when shooting major PF rounds with it. I think there was simply not enough slide mass to snap the front sight back to the correct position post shot. This last time I had .5 oz taken out of the front and .5 oz taken out of the back and this seems to retain the proper front sight tracking while also reducing the felt recoil. Basically the gun has less muzzle flip just like the version where I took 1oz out of the front, but maintains proper front sight tracking and returning post shot, unlike the 1oz out of the front slide.

How much weight and where to take it out of (front/back) really depends on each person's grip and recoil management skills. One thing to keep in mind is that the lighter the slide gets means that you can run a lighter recoil spring. But that is a slippery slope because the lighter recoil spring you use the more solid your grip needs to be to ensure proper feeding. If you let the gun muzzle flip a lot with a light slide and light recoil spring you can have feeding issues because all of your slide velocity is being eaten up by excessive muzzle flip. That is the main reason why guns come with heavy slides and heavy recoil springs from the factory. They pick a slide weight and spring combo that would allow the poorest grip and muzzle flip control to still allow the gun to cycle properly. As your grip and muzzle flip management skills get better you can get away with using lighter slides and lighter recoil springs.

Edited August 7, 2012 by CHA-LEE

[Not-So-Mad Matt]

Knowing how much and where to reduce slide weight is more of a trial and error process verses an exact science.

Thanks for the thoughtful reply.

It seems like the proper slide weight should be known -- even if the right answer for a USPSA GM shooting minor is different than for a typical gun-buyer shooting whatever Wal-Mart sells.

In the past I tried taking a whole ounce out of the front of the slide and that negatively impacted how well the front sight would return post shot. Basically the front sight would stay higher than it should unless I gripped the gun really hard. The next test I did was to take 2oz out of the slide (1 up front and 1 on the back) to make a Limited Minor gun. This worked awesome and kept the correct balance while shooting minor but also produced inconsistent front sight tracking when shooting major PF rounds with it. I think there was simply not enough slide mass to snap the front sight back to the correct position post shot. This last time I had .5 oz taken out of the front and .5 oz taken out of the back and this seems to retain the proper front sight tracking while also reducing the felt recoil. Basically the gun has less muzzle flip just like the version where I took 1oz out of the front, but maintains proper front sight tracking and returning post shot, unlike the 1oz out of the front slide.

You mention the importance of balancing front vs. back weight. Is high vs. low a consideration?

How much weight and where to take it out of (front/back) really depends on each person's grip and recoil management skills. One thing to keep in mind is that the lighter the slide gets means that you can run a lighter recoil spring. But that is a slippery slope because the lighter recoil spring you use the more solid your grip needs to be to ensure proper feeding. If you let the gun muzzle flip a lot with a light slide and light recoil spring you can have feeding issues because all of your slide velocity is being eaten up by excessive muzzle flip. That is the main reason why guns come with heavy slides and heavy recoil springs from the factory. They pick a slide weight and spring combo that would allow the poorest grip and muzzle flip control to still allow the gun to cycle properly. As your grip and muzzle flip management skills get better you can get away with using lighter slides and lighter recoil springs.

Interesting.

How much performance have you squeezed out of fine-tuning a gun? Enough to measurably improve your scores?

Edited August 9, 2012 by Not-So-Mad Matt

[CHA-LEE]

Q: It seems like the proper slight weight should be known -- even if the right answer for a USPSA GM shooting minor is different than for a typical gun-buyer shooting whatever Wal-Mart sells.

A: Its not that simple. That like saying that Humans have the same basic body parts so we should know EXACTLY what each persons perfect diet is to fully optimize their bodily functions. You could take a pair of identical twins and find that they each need a slightly unique diet to fully optimize their bodily functions. Performance tuning a handgun to a specific shooter is no different. Everyone physically grips the gun differently, with different grip pressure, with different arm positions, with different upper body and lower body positions. EVERYONE has a unique level of gripping the gun and managing the recoil. So you can't simply say, "If you have XYZ grip strength you need an ABC slide weight". You may be able to make some close correlations but it will never be perfect. Its like comparing the "Fit" of a 3 piece suit you buy off the shelf verses a custom made 3 piece suit that it tailor fit to your body. Both "Fit", but one obviously fits better than the other.

Q: You mention the importance of balancing front vs. back weight. Is high vs. low a consideration?

A: I would say that the height of where the weight is taken off is a consideration. The higher up on the slide you can remove material the better. The challenge with removing the majority of the slide weight from the top of the slide is that there is usually not much "Extra" material that can be removed without circumventing the structural integrity of the slide. A lot of times you are only left with removing material from the sides or the under side of the slide because that is the only place where the extra material is able to be removed without risking the structural integrity. Another consideration is what holster you use. If you are using a blade tech paddle type holster those are form fit to a standard slide shape. If you hack and slash the slide so much that it changes the profile of the slide it will not fit in the holster properly any more. Obviously if you are using a race holster that only retains the gun by the trigger guard that isn't an issue. But I prefer to use the Blade Tech holster so I am limited in changing the profile of the slide too much or I risk it not fitting the holster any more.

Q: How much performance have you squeezed out of fine-tuning a gun? Enough to measurably improve your scores?

A: I would say that fine tuning any gun to a specific shooter can yield significant measurable performance improvements. I think that the performance tuning of the gun gets more important the faster you want to shoot. If you are shooting at a one shot per second pace then any trigger setup, sight setup, spring setup, slide weight setup will work equally as well. Having a whole second to overcome minor issues with the guns configuration is actually a lot of time. If you want to be able to shoot and call your shots effectively at a .10 - .15 split pace, having a gun tuned to your needs greatly reduces your tension level while shooting that fast. That and you have to overcome the bio-mechanics of certain things to shoot that fast. For example, if I put a 20lb recoil spring in my gun it will function but I will not be able to shoot it as consistently or as accurately at a .10 - .15 split pace because of the excessive muzzle flip that spring creates. Through extensive spring testing I have found that a 10lb recoil spring is exactly what I need to ensure proper feeding and proper muzzle flip/front sight return characteristics while shooting fast.

If you really think about it performance tuning your gun to what you need is no different than perfecting your actual shooting skills or gun handling mechanics. Your goal should always be to optimize what you are doing so it can be done as efficiently as possible with the least amount of waste. This is what allows you to do things as soon as possible. To put it in perspective to the topic at hand, my goal in lightning the slide is to find a perfect balance between reducing muzzle flip of the gun but still maintain proper returning of the front sight post shot. If I can minimize muzzle flip and return the sights to an aligned state post shot faster because the slide is lighter then I can start breaking the next shot that much sooner. The added benefit to lightening the slide is that the felt recoil is less which in turn allows me to shoot more relaxed because I don't feel like I have to bear down on the gun to manage the recoil. Shooting more relaxed allows me to move and shoot more smoothly which in turn allows me to shoot sooner and more consistently.

Edited August 8, 2012 by CHA-LEE

[CHA-LEE]

The important point that I am trying to make is that I am taking the time to performance tune my gun an gear so it works perfectly for ME. This is why I do the vast majority of my own gun work. I want to understand how things work and effect my shooting and have the ability to make changes as needed. How I shoot today will NOT be how I shoot tomorrow. Perfecting my ability to shoot is a never ending process. Things change and I need to be able to change my gear effectively to keep up with my ever changing shooting skills.

Take an honest look at how you have optimized your own gun or gear. Have you really taken the time to test different configurations and find what works best for you? Or do you simply emulate what others do and hope that it will work for you as well? If you are not taking the time to figure things out for yourself then you will forever be stuck with the scraps that others are willing to throw your way. For me, that is NOT a place where I want to be.

Edited August 8, 2012 by CHA-LEE

[CHA-LEE]

I had a good dry fire session last night. I ended up bruising my left middle finger while practicing reloads though. Slapping down at the next magazine during the reload has its consequences some times. But I would rather stay aggressive when grabbing for the next magazine and risk a bruise here or there verses slowing down.

This coming weekend I am going to head up to Steamboat springs to attend their local match. It will be nice to get out of town with the wife for the weekend. The weather is suppose to be in the low 70's so I am looking forward to the awesome weather.

[Not-So-Mad Matt]

EVERYONE has a unique level of gripping the gun and managing the recoil.

Sure. It just seems like the difference between, say, a minor load and a major load would be a much, much bigger consideration -- especially since shooters adapt their grip to their gun over time.

The higher up on the slide you can remove material the better. The challenge with removing the majority of the slide weight from the top of the slide is that there is usually not much "Extra" material that can be removed without circumventing the structural integrity of the slide.

I'm assuming the slide has to remain strong near the chamber, but the front-top can more-or-less go, as on the Glock 34/35.

Through extensive spring testing I have found that a 10lb recoil spring is exactly what I need to ensure proper feeding and proper muzzle flip/front sight return characteristics while shooting fast.

Have you made a change to your gun and immediately improved your performance, or do you find that it fees simultaneously better yet off until you've practiced quite a bit?

[CHA-LEE]

Q: Have you made a change to your gun and immediately improved your performance, or do you find that it fees simultaneously better yet off until you've practiced quite a bit?

A: Most changes you make tend to be accumulative. If I had to pick one specific change that I make to a gun that shows an immediate improvement in shooting performance its a trigger job. When you change the trigger pull from almost a half of an inch of travel and 5+lbs of pull to a few millimeters of travel and 2lbs of pull weight it creates a significant improvement in your ability to shoot accurately and quickly. Second to that would be using proper recoil and hammer springs to tune how well the gun muzzle flips compared to your grip.

The main thing that most people don't understand or are not capable of is being physically and visually observant so you can actually feel and see how things work differently. I can feel the recoil difference between 165PF and 167PF ammo. I can see the front sight tracking difference between a 10lb recoil spring and an 11lb recoil spring. I have many shooting buddies that can shoot 165PF ammo back to back with 175PF ammo and not feel a difference. The same goes for recoil springs, I could put a 10lb recoil spring or a 15lb recoil spring in their gun and they wouldn't be able to see how the gun muzzle flips differently. I think its because they turn all observation off preparing for the BANG event when the gun fires. Its not a surprise that these same shooters have congenital issues with calling their shots. If you turn off your observation when the gun fires then you sure as hell are not going to be able to call your shots, much less feel or see the difference in one gun or ammo config over another.

[CHA-LEE]

This past weekend I went up to Steamboat Springs with my wife to do some shooting and have a relaxing time in the hot springs. I shot their local match on Saturday and the morning weather was pretty wet. It was drizzling or raining most of the morning while we setup the stages. I think this wet weather scared off some of the local shooters because they only had around 20 shooters attend the match. But we all lucked out with the weather because it stopped raining and the sun came out right before the match started. The weather for the match ended up being great. It was in the low 70’s and the sun was shining which made for a nice day of shooting. The match was only 4 stages but there was a lot of challenging shooting challenges on each stage. We had Strong hand, Weak hand, 50 yard shots, shooting on the move, and even a swinger. That is a lot of variation in only a few stages. My performance during the match was only fair. I had too many shooting penalties to be a solid match performance. I was still a little leery of my gun or mags screwing up mid stage so I was almost always in a mental state of “Is it going to screw up this time?”. My equipment ran flawlessly through the match which was nice. I still need some more run time on the gun and mags before I can build my confidence back up so I don’t worry about it any more. But that is going to take some time and proven performance over the next few weeks. All I can do is send some more lead down range to build my confidence back up.

[DerrickJ]

Glad it's running better for you Charlie! A gun that runs is something that is taken for granted until it stops doing so. Hope it keeps it up for you man.

[CHA-LEE]

This past weekend I helped setup and attend a local USPSA match hosted by the HPPS club. I am on the board of this USPSA club so I had to come up with a couple of stages and bust ass in the morning getting it all setup. We setup 6 really fun stages to shoot and the weather was great. We had a good mixture of shooting challenges and fun was had by all that I talked to. I had a pretty solid match. I had two magazine malfunctions during the match though. When I switched over to my new hard chrome magazines I had two where I had to reused the Follower. Both of these magazines caused me issues this weekend. The first one cause a mag not dropping free issue on one stage. The second one caused a nose dive jam on another stage which cost me about 3 seconds on the stage recovering from it. This nose dive jam cost me the match win which sucked, but gave me solid data on not being able to reuse old followers on the new mag bodies. My shooting was solid throughout the day though. I only had 2 D’s for the match and both were called marginal but I was already leaving the shooting position so I couldn’t make it up without wasting a bunch of time.

I was able to buy some new followers from another shooter so now I have all new springs and followers in my magazines. Hopefully this will once and for all resolve my gun/mag issues. I am going to do some practice tonight after work and give my gear another test run so hopefully it will be back to its normal working order.

[CHA-LEE]

This past weekend I was able to shoot two USPSA club matches. My primary goals this weekend were to get some warm up exercise in before starting the first stage of the match and to simply allow myself to shoot only as soon as I could call my shots effectively. Being warmed up before starting shooting for the day has allowed me to shoot the first stage of the match at the same speed and aggressiveness as the rest of the stages. Being slower on the first stage of the day has been something I have battled for a while now. On the second goal I was able to execute solidly on shooting only as soon as I could call my shots effectively. Doing this allowed me to capture 95% of the points on Saturday and 93.5% of the points on Sunday with no shooting penalties and only 3 D’s for both matches combined. I had a few bobbles here or there during the draw where my gun would get jammed up in the holster. But I think that is due to the new slide cuts and that I have been creeping the holster more forward on my belt. If I keep the holster back a little bit more and don’t hunch over during the draw the gun comes right out so I need to do a little more work on refining my holster position and upper body position during the draw. There is always something that can be done better. Striving to improve never stops.

Shooting both of these matches also gave me a chance to test my gun and mags in match conditions to see if the issues are resolved. I am happy to report that my gun and mags ran flawlessly over the weekend. I think I have resolved the gun and mag issues I was having before. This is good because September is PACKED with major matches I plan on attending and I don’t want to be battling my gear during a major match.

I have listed below my shooting schedule for September. Its going to be a challenge getting all of this stuff done effectively. But I will try my best to have fun through it all. All of this major match shooting and Training should be a good lead up to the USPSA Nationals in October.

Aug 30 – 31 – Manny Bragg Class

Sept 2 – AGC Club match

Sept 7 – 9 – Oklahoma Open/Limited Championship

Sept 13 – 16 – Mile High Showdown (I am the Match Director for this match)

Sept 22 – Presenting a Training Class

Sept 28 – 30 – High Desert Classic in New Mexico

[CHA-LEE]

I am ready to start the Manny Bragg training class tomorrow. This will be a 2 day class with 8 other shooters. I am really interested to see what I can glean from the class this time around. This will be the third time I have attended his class and every time I have gotten really good information out of it. At a bare minimum I will get a ton of ammo sent down range during these two days which in its self will be a good thing. Time to open up my awareness so I can fully absorb what is taught.

[CHA-LEE]

On Thursday & Friday I attended the Manny Bragg class. This is the same class that I have attended a few times now so a lot of what was covered wasn’t “New” to me. What I did discover is that on medium distance transitions I have been staying on my sights during the transition instead of moving my eyes over to the next target then bringing the sights over to the target. Doing this properly greatly improved my target to target transitions. I will need to work hard on making this change in looking for the next target before the gun is there. The second thing that I discovered is that I have been too tentative in getting my hand to the gun during the draw. I am aggressive getting the gun out and up on target once my hand is on the gun but my hand speed getting to the gun is slow. I will need to do a ton of dry fire practice to make this change my new normal. It was cool to get a bunch of shooting in during this training session and find a couple more things to work on in order to improve my shooting skills. Everyone else in the class had a good time and learned a lot. Manny is a great instructor and if you have a chance to do some training with him it’s well worth the time and money.

On Sunday I attended a local USPSA club match. I tried my best to deploy the transition and drawing changes that I identified during the class. I was able to execute the eyes to next target transition change well on a couple of stages. I was actually able to catch myself screwing this up during my walk through before shooting the stage. Burning in the eye transition during the walk through make it a lot easier to execute while shooting the stage. Since I was busy thinking about my transitions and draws during the match my hits suffered a little bit. I ended up with 5 D’s for the match and one near miss. The miss was on a head shot target and the round just nicked the outer edge of the cardboard but didn’t break the B zone scoring perf. I was trying to cram in the head shot between activating a swinger and I simply rushed the shooting which lead to the miss. I was trying to “Hope” my hits onto the head shot and ended up with a miss. Not a big surprise. Otherwise I had a pretty solid match. Ron Avery and Jeff Morgan were also shooting this match and we were all finishing really close to each other on each stage. Without my miss all three of us would have been within 7 match points. That’s some pretty close competition for a club match.

This coming weekend I am heading out to Oklahoma for the Oklahoma Open/Limited Championship. It’s a shoot it all in one day format on Saturday. I will be flying out on Friday, Shooting Sat, then flying home on Sunday. It will be cool to get a chance to shoot at a new range and meet some new people. Hopefully the weather plays nice.

[CHA-LEE]

I recently received an e-mail from the USPSA Self Squading system about squading for the USPSA Limited Nationals. The Nationals self squading page has been locked down for a while so I was excited about moving myself over to a squad so I could shoot with my friends. I went to the web page and was looking through the list of shooters in the “Unsquadded” list and couldn’t find my name. I was confused because I didn’t move myself onto a squad already so I did a generic page search for my name and found that the USPSA match staff had already moved me over to the second Limited Men’s Super Squad. To be totally honest, I was shocked. This is the first time I have been considered for the “Super Squad” and for it to be at the Nationals its pretty strange. I have only been to the nationals once before, last year, so I am not sure how or why I would be considered for the Super Squad. Honestly I am not sure if this is a gift or a curse. I am not worried about figuring the stages out on my own or shooting my own game. I am worried about shooting on a squad of guys that I don’t really know personally. Being on a squad that is ultra competitive and can’t relax and have a good time wouldn’t be very fun. Hopefully it won’t be that way. We will see what happens.

[dravz]

Grats, CHA-LEE, that's a big honor! I think you'll find it will still be pretty fun.

[CHA-LEE]

This past weekend I shot the Oklahoma Limited/Open Championships. This match was a one day match were we shot 10 stages. My buddy Conrad and I flew into Oklahoma late Friday night so we didn’t get a chance to head out to the range to check out the stages. We showed up really early the next morning so we could check out the stages and found that wind had blown down most of the stages. We helped the match staff setup the stages again and had plenty of time to check out all of the stages before the match started. I wanted to video my stage runs but our squad was pretty small and we were really busy with ROing, and Score keeping. They used Practiscore with Nooks and also did full paper scoring as a backup. This meant that we needed two score keepers and an RO running the timer at all times. With 10 person squads there was really no time to have others video my stage runs. We were all too busy working our tails off churning through the stages. I would much rather have the squad run smoothly and effectively verses jam things up so I could video my stage runs.

I felt that I shot the match fairly solid. I had a few issues here or there that cost me time but nothing catastrophic. I had a failure to feed jam on a speed shot stage, then missed a shooting position on another stage and my mag wouldn’t drop free on another stage. Overall I think I gave up about 5 seconds in all of these issues combined. From a shooting quality perspective I shot ok. I had one miss for the match. It was a plate on a polish plate rack, I called the shot good then moved on to the next target and it ended up being a miss. I had 6 D’s for the match which is way too many. The crappy thing is that 5 of those D’s were on Virginia Count Stages and I couldn’t make them up. I called each D a marginal shot and wanted to make it up but couldn’t due to the Virginia count scoring. I need to have a little more visual patience on the Virginia Count Stages to make sure I have solid hits. The good thing that I was able to deploy was grabbing for the gun more aggressively on the draw and snapping my eyes to the next target. I was really happy with that part of my shooting.

I ended up winning Limited by about 5% over second place. Given the miss and other screw ups I had I was surprised to be that far ahead of second. It was a fun match to shoot and tested a lot of different shooting skills. The people on my squad were great to shoot with and the weather was great. It was cool to make new friends and shoot at a new range as well. It doesn’t get much better than that.

[HoMiE]

Congrats Charlie, what training class do you have coming up on the 22nd?

[CHA-LEE]

Congrats Charlie, what training class do you have coming up on the 22nd?

I will send you a PM on this.

[38SuperDub]

Great meeting a fellow Tanfoglio shooter this weekend - good job at the match!

[CHA-LEE]

Great meeting a fellow Tanfoglio shooter this weekend - good job at the match!

sssshhhhh....... Don't let everyone know our secret to shooting awesomeness

[38SuperDub]

My first match with the Tanfog and I shot a 94.72% classifier - I hope they don't catch on - I don't need any issues getting parts!

[AlexOsensei]

Cha do u solved the problem of the fall of the magazine?

One friend of mine, limited shooter , has the same problem...

but only during the match, we tryed to analize what happened to the magazine.. we discovered that his grip was to hard (COC workout) ..and the stop of magazien was fault of the plastic grip of his 2011. Under the pressure of the grip the magazine didnt fall.

[CHA-LEE]

Cha do u solved the problem of the fall of the magazine?

One friend of mine, limited shooter , has the same problem...

but only during the match, we tryed to analize what happened to the magazine.. we discovered that his grip was to hard (COC workout) ..and the stop of magazien was fault of the plastic grip of his 2011. Under the pressure of the grip the magazine didnt fall.

I understand why my magazines don't drop free some times. Its due to the next round getting biased forward too much. Basically if my mags get too dirty or the mag spring gets too weak it does not have enough upwards pressure on the top round to keep it from getting biased forward when the slide cycles. For this match I was reusing the same mags over and over without cleaning them so its not a surprise that I had one not want to drop free.

[AlexOsensei]

I c. The important is that u understand why. U r improving a lot. Nice to hear about ur class.