CHA-LEE's Tale

[CHA-LEE]

This past weekend I served as the Match Director for the 2012 Mile High Showdown. We started setting up the stages on Thursday. It took us 12 hours of non-stop work to get everything setup and ready for the match. It was a ton of work with only 6 of us busting our hump to get all 11 stages setup and the range prepared for the match. We got it done just before sun down so that was a win in its self. The primary match staff and RO’s shot the whole match on Friday including myself. We had a few small issues here and there to resolve on Friday and I was running around with my head cut off most of the day. Needless to say I was NOT focused on my own shooting. I felt like I was at least 10 – 20% off of my game due to being completely exhausted from the full day of work the day before and being pulled different directions all day long to solve issues. My shooting performance was only fair. I only had one major screw up during the match were I ended up with 2 misses on the memory stage. But that wasn’t a surprise because I had to shoot the stage right after solving a bunch of issues with another squad. You can’t jump up and shoot a memory stage cold and expect to do well. Oh well. I knew that my shooting would suffer while being the MD for this match.

From a match perspective everything went pretty smooth as a whole. We had a few small issues here and there but nothing catastrophic. Everything was staged for the Sat/Sun shooters and I kept my fingers crossed hoping for another smooth day of shooting. Saturday ended up being very smooth from a match management perspective. We had a small speed shoot stage that used a texas star with hard cover in front of it and it started being rest inconsistently even though we numbered the plates and tried to reset it exactly the same every time. I think one of the arms shifted causing it to be a little off balance creating a different presentation of the plates. Since we couldn’t get it to reset consistently we ended up throwing the stage out. It sucks to have to throw a stage out but it was the best decision. We had a squad falling behind schedule just before lunch so I decided I would go help reset the stage between shooters to help speed things up. While resetting the Texas star on that stage I cut my pointer and middle finger on my strong hand really bad. I was brushing the sand off a plate before putting it back on the star and felt my fingers catch on something. I looked at my fingers and they were cut wide open. It looked like I cut them on a razor blade. I couldn’t even feel that they were cut but it was bleeding like crazy. I went over to the match Medic and had him check it out. He patched me up the best he could and said that I should go to the emergency room and get some stitches. Luckily my wife was there serving lunch and lunch was about wrapped up so she took me to the emergency room. I ended up with 4 stitches on my middle finger and 2 on my pointer finger. It really sucks to get my fingers cut so bad over doing something so basic. The doctor said that I need to keep the stitches in for a week. Hopefully my fingers will have a speedy recovery. If not I may have to bail out of the High Desert Classic in a couple of weeks.

Sunday was the final day of the match. We had an uneventful day from a match management perspective which was nice, especially since I was injured. The final portion of the match went super smooth. We wrapped up the match, did the awards ceremony and tore down the stages in record time. It seemed like everyone had a great match experience. I did the best I could to put on a fun, and fair match. It was a great learning experience for me. I have served as a Match Director for many club matches but this was my first time being the MD at a major match. I liked the challenge of putting on a big match and its cool to see how everything works from the other side. Hopefully I can get a chance to do it all again some time in 2013.

Now I need to focus on getting my fingers healed up. Hopefully they will get back to “Normal” soon so I can get back into the normal swing of things.

[sharps4070ss]

You did a heck of a job with the match Charlie.

(As well as your wife with her yummy lunches)

I thought the same thing (being off my game), but I think it was due to the fact that the stages looked easy, but they actually weren't.

Second overall, while being MD, is nothing to be mad about.

Congrats!

Lee

[MarkCO]

Charlie did a great job as MD. I have run a lot of big matches and most of the MDs have nothing on this all-star rookie MD.

I too shot very poorly for score in the match...but as the Range Master, I was 8 for 8 with center hits on the challenged Poppers.

Heal quickly dude!

Edited September 18, 2012 by MarkCO

[Jammer1911]

Charlie

This was an awesome match and well worth the drive from SE New Mexico. "Build it and they will come". The 6 of us from New Mexico had an awesome time. Good job and heal fast. We'll see you at the High Desert in 2 weeks. BTW tell your wife great job on the viddles.

Mark

[frunkenstein]

Panda man I had a great time and even though I didnt do as wel as I had hoped, I felt that I physically was able to handle the 11 stages in 1 day fairly well . It was bummer about stage 5 because it was my best stage and being the CRO on that stage I did the best that I could to make it as consistent as possible. All the match staff was great and watching the other great shooters from around the area was a learning experience in it self. Dawn did a great job with the food , and as you know I can eat big LOL. Count me in on the next one, you know you have my support. Get the angry Panda finger ready cuz we need you at the High Desert.

[DerrickJ]

Great job Charlie, and thanks to you and all of the match staff that busted their butts to make thing match go off. Everyone I spoke with was very happy with the way things went, and felt like the stages were well designed.

Hope the cut heals soon, and you are back up to speed. Again, great job sir.

[CHA-LEE]

I get my stitches out today. Hopefully my fingers are healed up good enough to not split back open after the stitches are taken out.

[CHA-LEE]

My fingers are healing well. I should be back to "Normal" by the end of the week, just in time for the High Desert Classic match in New Mexico

[CHA-LEE]

This past weekend I attended the High Desert Classic in Albuquerque New Mexico. This match is normally held earlier in the year but this year they decided to host it late in the year to avoid the dust storms that plagued the prior matches. Moving this match to later in the year made a HUGE difference. The weather was awesome with very little wind and not even a hint of a dust storm.

I have been traveling with work lately and got home from an out of state trip the day before driving down to NM for this match so I wasn’t feeling 100% rested. Not getting decent sleep in your own bed at least a few days before heading out on another road trip is not a recipe for performing well. This combined with not being able to shoot due to my cut fingers for two weeks left my shooting skills a little rusty for this match. All of these factors combined were painfully obvious the first day of shooting on Saturday. I felt worn out, unmotivated, and out of practice. I literally was contemplating packing up my gear and heading back to the hotel about half way through the match on Saturday. Nothing was going well up to that point and it was turning into a grind instead of being fun. I pushed through the feeling of wanting to leave and am glad that I did. Nobody likes being a quitter and you never really learn unless you put in the time grinding through matches that are not going your way. I was able to get most of my stage runs filmed which was cool. This is a bonus for me as I have not had a chance to film my stage runs in a while. I have listed below my stage runs in the order I shot them.

Stage 10 – This was a port to port stage with two or three targets in each shooting position. The really low port required you to go prone or take a knee and shoot one handed. I don’t like going prone so I decided to take a knee and shoot one handed instead. In hind sight this was not the best stage plan. I should have saved the low port for the final position and laid on my side but refused to do it out of pride of figuring out a way to shoot the stage without going prone or laying down. Since these were my first shots in about two weeks I was actually taken off guard by the gun firing on the first shot, then I shot the rest of the stage really tentative and slow. My slow shooting, missing the poppers, and screwed up stage plan cost me about 5 seconds of wasted stage time.

Stage 1 – This was kind of like a memory stage as you could see many of the same targets through multiple ports. I was first up on this stage and I didn’t get a chance to see the clamshell & drop turner at normal shooting speed so all I could do was assume that I could shoot the clamshell popper, then the drop turner popper, then clamshell and drop turner after that. This timing ended up working out well except that I had a light strike on the second shot on the DT and had to rack out the round and reengage the DT on its second pass. This light strike cost me at least 2 seconds in lost stage time. Then after the reload my plan had me shooting 18 rounds and I had way too many make up shots in the third port which forced me to do another reload before the final port, which probably cost me another second. Throwing away 3 seconds on this stage on the light strike and extra reload was costly. After the stage run I checked out my gun in the safe area and found that my hammer spring was super weak. I took it out and found that one of the coils had collapsed so I replaced the hammer spring and it was back to normal. I have never had a hammer spring fail like that before, but there is a first for everything. I am just lucky it kept hitting the primers hard enough the rest of the stage to keep firing when I wanted it to.

Stage 2 – This was the memory stage of the match. This stage basically forced you to shoot a bunch of partial and awkward angle shots through two ports. You could see a lot of the same targets through both ports as well which made it really confusing. There really wasn’t an easy way to optimize this stage other then hunting and packing at targets through the ports. To make it even harder you had to push the first mag to 18 rounds with a boat load of difficult shots. I started with 21+1 and took my time on all the shots but still ended up with a miss on the far left open target while moving into the second position. I called the shot good but the target had an Alpha, Miss. The only thing I can think of that happened is that I broke the shot as I was taking a step into the position and pulled the gun off target. My stage time was pretty much on par with the top guys but the miss sunk the run.

Stage 3 – This was a fairly fast stage were you started seated at a table with your loaded gun on the table. There was nothing special about this stage but I managed to screw it up anyway. When I slapped down for the reload the magazine popped out of the mag pouch and I had to catch it. This reloading error totally screwed up my plan and timing for the steel and swinger at the end of the stage. I ended up screwing up the timing of the swinger and had to go back for it on a second swing. This combined with 4 D zone hits pretty much ruined this run. At this point in the match I was really frustrated. I had some kind of major error or screw up on every single stage so far and it was really starting to erode my positive attitude.

Stage 4 – This stage had a bunch of options in how to shoot it. You could shoot all of the down range targets from the up range ports, but take a lot more difficult shots. Or you could take only the close targets in the ports up front then run through the tunnel and dance around the barrels engaging the down range targets. The way the barrels and targets were laid out it would take quite a bit of leaning back and forth to see all of the targets. One incorrect transition or movement would cost you a bunch of time trying to relocate the targets. Most of the my squad shot the stage this way. I was the only one to use a different plan. I shot the down range targets through the left up range port as this allowed me to shoot the remaining down range targets from the right side of the barrels at the end of the stage. This way I wouldn’t have to weave around the barrels looking for targets. This stage plan worked out well for me and I ended up shooting it pretty solid. I needed some extra shots on the steel at the end of the stage but that probably only cost me about a second. When the RO’s were scoring the stage they called a close edge hit on a zebra hard cover target as a miss so I had them pull the target and call the RM. The RM looked at the target and declared it a hit so that turned out well for me. Finally having a decent run but facing a miss was going to suck. But it ended up going my way. Sometimes the RO gods shine on you, sometimes they don’t. This ended up being a shiny moment.

Stage 5 – This was really the only “Run-N-Gun” stage of the match. You were pretty much forced to go to each port in the stage but there were a bunch of different options in the order of getting that done. I don’t think that anyone on my squad ended up shooting this stage exactly the same due to the varied options in how to shoot it. My only focus on this stage was to haul ass between shooting positions as that was really the only way to make up time over others. Each shooting position had at least one or two targets that were difficult shots so you couldn’t shoot too aggressively or you would end up with a miss. I ended up shooting this stage pretty solid and got all of my hits.

Stage 6 – This was the last stage of the day and was a pretty straight forward stage. The main pain point on this stage was the swinger as you could only see it over the top of the wall and it was going pretty fast. Then to add to it the step pad also activated a drop turner. The best plan of attack for the swinger and DT was to shoot the swinger one shot per pass then engage the DT on its second exposure. When it was my turn to shoot I noticed that the targets were in a pretty deep shadow and I knew that I was going to have trouble calling my shots. This was painfully evident on the first set of targets I engaged at the start of the stage. I couldn’t call my shots worth a crap and knew I was in trouble. By the time I got to the swinger I couldn’t call my shots at all and ended up throwing multiple “Hoper” shots at the swinger. I was lucky to get hits but ended up wasting about 2 seconds waiting for the swinger to show for three passes. I was glad to be done shooting for the day because it was obvious that I couldn’t see my sights well enough to call my shots anymore due to the reduced lighting.

Stage 7 – This was pretty much the only speed shoot style stage of the match. You started with your unloaded gun and first mag on a barrel in front of you then the rest of your mags were on other barrels. The targets were laid out with 4 steel and 2 paper on the extreme left and right of the stage in a mirror image. The big poppers were in front of the little poppers so you had to shoot the big poppers then engage the paper while the big poppers were falling away exposing the little poppers. In the middle of the stage you had four more paper targets separated by no shoots. This was the first stage of the day and even though this was a speed shoot type of stage I was having a hard time programming the shooting order of the targets. Before I knew it my turn was up and the only thing I could do was burn in that the big poppers needed shot first then everything else after that. The buzzer went off and a frenzy of shooting ensued. I just let the shooting happen when it could with the only focus being in shooting the big poppers first. This resulted in some super fast shooting and a pretty decent stage run. This run didn’t get filmed, which sucked because this was one run that I would have liked to analyze after the fact. This run was pure “Auto Pilot” with very little injected actions or directions.

Stage 8 – This was the wobbly bridge stage. The targets were laid out in a way that forced you to move to both extreme ends of the platform to access all of the targets. You could see the same middle targets from many different shooting positions so this was another stage where you seen a host of different stage plans. I don’t think that anyone on my squad used the exact same plan. I am usually pretty good at these kind of stages because I simply accept that the platform will be moving around and the only way to gain stability is to use a more crouched stance and just roll with the flow. I broke up the stage into three main shooting positions and told myself to stay low. The buzzer went off and I did the best I could to keep steady and keep the bullets flowing as soon as I could call a valid shot. This stage run ended up being really solid. When I look at this video I am honestly shocked that I am able to shoot as aggressively as I did given how much the platform is moving around. When I shot the stage I could feel the platform moving around but I had no idea it was really moving around that much.

Stage 9 – This was the last stage of the match for me. You started with your unloaded gun on a barrel and all your mags on your belt. After the start you loaded then engaged two poppers and four paper on the left side of the stage, reloaded then moved to the back right of the stage and engaged four more paper and two mini poppers followed by a texas star that you could only see the right side of it. Alternately you had the option of running up to a wall and holding open a port with your weak hand and shooting a fully exposed start strong hand only. Running up front was a total waste of time so everyone ended up shooting the star from the back of the stage. I shot the left side of the stage solidly but then during the reload my spent mag didn’t drop free and I had to rip it out of the gun. This wasted some time. Then I took three extra shots on the texas star which wasted some more time. I probably gave away 2 seconds on this stage in the reload and star issues. I didn’t get this stage filmed so there is no video to share.

When the shooting was done I knew that I had a less than optimal match. Having issues on 5 of the 7 stages shot on Saturday was going to hurt my overall result. I felt that I shot the last three stages on Sunday pretty good but they didn’t have too many points to dig myself back out of the hole I was in from the day before. When the results were tallied I ended up 2nd in Limited to Ron Avery who stomped us by 8%. I barely beat 3rd place Jeff Morgan by 2 match points. He was shooting solid most of the match and if he didn’t have a Miss on the last stage of the day he would have beaten me.

Now that I have had time to think about this match, I was not happy with my overall performance. I ended up second in Limited but I knew I could have done a lot better if I wasn’t totally worn out from a crazy month of shooting and work. September was an insane month of events. I attended three major matches, was the match director of one of those, traveled out of state twice for work, and cut my fingers bad enough to require stitches. That is simply too much crap to deal with in too short of a time. Something has to give and my shooting performance was one of those things. I am glad that I have a couple of weeks of down time until the nationals. I am going to need it if I expect to do well there.

[CHA-LEE]

This past weekend I worked hard at getting all of my gear ready for the nationals. Lots of ammo to load and stuff like that. I still have some more to get done before everything is packed up and ready to go. I am feeling good about where my shooting and mental game is right now. I should be able to perform well at the nationals. I am going into it treating it like any other club match. Shoot my game, don’t get tricked into “Chasing” others, and have fun. If I can execute on those things I will be able to produce a solid finish. Walking away from the nationals with a top 16 finish would be really cool. Time to make it happen.

This past Sunday I shot a local match at the Aurora Gun Club. This was the first “Cold Weather” match of the year. The temp was about 30 degrees in the morning so you had to bundle up and get the hand warmers going to fend off frozen fingers. It warmed up to the mid 50’s by the end of the match which was better but not “Warm” so we all had to keep our coats close just in case the wind got a little too much.

I shot a solid match. I didn’t try to push the shooting or movement through the whole match, just let the shooting happen when I could and it resulted in a solid performance. I didn’t have any D’s or other shooting penalties. I captured 95% of the available points which was really good given that the match had a boat load of partial targets. This match was a really good confidence builder right before heading to the nationals. It reinforced that I could shoot quickly and accurately without needing to “Try” to go fast. From a shooting and mental perspective, I am ready to go for the Nationals.

Edited October 8, 2012 by CHA-LEE

[CHA-LEE]

Well ...... My nationals is done early. I DQed on the 5th stage of the first day. Had an AD on the draw at the start of stage 10. The gun was about 3/4 the way out and BOOM I cranked off a round through the wall. Luckily the round went down range in a safe direction and nobody was at risk of getting hurt. It really sucks to throw away my nationals like that. But it is what it is. I am still trying to analyze what went wrong in my head. I know that I wanted to move aggressively to the first shooting position but I wasn't even thinking about drawing or shooting fast at the start. I don't know why my finger was even on the trigger that soon to allow it to happen. I am planning on dry firing the start position a bunch of times to try and figure it out.

[BritinUSA]

Been there, done that...

I did the same thing, ran the event through my head over and over again until I figured out exactly what I did and what I could have done to prevent it.

[HOOLIHAN]

Man, that sucks!! Remember, it's not what happens to us, but how we react to what happens that matters!

[Chris iliff]

That is unfortunate. Sounds like you handled it well and have a plan to fix it.

Sorry brother.

[Brammy]

That's a tough one man.... But you will bounce back better than before.... Keep up the great shooting.... I learn a lot from your analysis and videos.

[Maksim]

Sorry bud, was shocked to see it in the results, and came to find it here.

[Ryan626]

Sorry to hear that!

[DerrickJ]

Sorry to hear that Charlie! I'm sure this was a killer, but I'm also sure you'll move on a stronger shooter.

[CHA-LEE]

I got home last night from a long 10 hour drive from Vegas. Making long road trips solo is pretty boring. When I got home and unpacked all of my stuff I decided to put my pistol on the trigger pull gauge to see what the weight of the break was and it ended up being at 1.5 lbs No wonder I touched one off early during the match. I prefer a 2+ lb trigger pull so I can get some feel to the prep before breaking the shot. At 1.5 lbs its pretty much a touch it and it goes off kind of setup, especially now that I have reduced feeling in my trigger finger due to me neck issue last year. The trigger return spring on these EAA guns continually lighten up as you use them so I should have been keeping an eye on it but failed to do so and paid the price. Checking the trigger pull weight on a regular basis will need to be added to my pistol maintenance program. Its not very fun to know that you threw away a Nationals because you are too lazy to verify your equipment is in proper functioning order. Some lessons are harder than others I guess

[CHA-LEE]

This past Saturday I attended a local club match. It was pretty cold in the morning (low 30’s) so the first couple of stages were frozen finger shooting. We started on a large field course that had a very tricky front section. There were multiple targets to engage from multiple shooting positions that are only a shuffle step one way or the other. Hitting these shooting positions were key. I was the first shooter up and right before I started the match staff moved around a couple of targets which made my stage plan partially invalid. I tried my best to reprogram the ending section of the stage but I didn’t have enough time to really burn it in. This lead to a little bit of hunting and pecking on that section of the stage which cost me about a second. But I shot the stage clean with only 6 points down and no D’s.

The next two stages were speed shoot stages and I screwed up each one pretty bad. On the first one I ended up with a miss on a moving target. Slinging shots toward the target instead of actually aiming. Then on the second stage you started with your gun unloaded on the table with all of your mags on the table. The stage was load the gun, shoot 4 targets, reload, then reengage the targets. The first string went well then when I went to do the reload the magazine didn’t drop free and I ended up bumping the spend mag back into a seated position with the new mag. So I had to press the mag release again then rip the spent mag out of the gun and finish the reload. By this time I was really frustrated and just hosed out the remaining rounds ending up with a Mike Noshoot.

The next stage was the classifier called Lightning and Thunder. This is a three string fixed time stage from varied distances. I have shot this classifier a few times before and knew that the 5 second fixed time is plenty of time to get all of the shots off and the biggest thing to battle is shooting too fast and sacrificing a lot of points. I took my time on each string and was only down 4 points resulting in a 96% classifier result.

The last stage of the day was a box to box stage. You had to move to three different boxes and engage multiple targets from each box. Not a difficult stage at all. I start the stage, get through the first and second box well then when I get to the last box my gun has a death jam half way into the string. The slide wouldn’t go fully into battery. I racked, and racked, then changed mags and racked some more and finally a round was able to chamber and I finished the stage. A 12 second stage ended up taking me 44 seconds to complete with the death jam. I took my gun over to the safe area after the stage run and looked for anything that was out of the normal and couldn’t find anything. The only thing I can think of which would cause a jam like that is a shard of brass being stuck at the front end of the chamber. All of my fiddling with it during the stage run must have dislodged it.

I absolutely HATE getting beat by my equipment. Needless to say this match was a total waste due to all of the issues with my gun and mags. Two tanked matches in a row is not a very good confidence builder.

On Sunday I went out to a buddies private outdoor range and burned through 300 rounds doing stage based practice and other drills. Since I have been having so many challenges lately I really needed a solid shooting session that went well. Luckily this was able to happen on Sunday. I shot solid all day and didn’t have any equipment issues. I think I am going to go back out there this coming weekend and do the same thing. This practice felt really productive and I want to build upon that. The Area 2 match is right around the corner and I want to be hitting on all cylinders when attending that match.

[CHA-LEE]

This weekend is going to be packed with a bunch of shooting. Friday I am going to the annual Halloween match hosted in Boulder hosted by the indoor combat pistol club. This is a one off club that hosts an IDPAish style match every month. This Halloween match is cool because it’s a single 60+ round stage that is a blind stage. You don’t get to see it until after the buzzer goes off and you run into the range. They also use all kinds of funky targets so it totally puts you out of your normal USPSA match comfort zone. I usually use my S&W M&P 45 for this match because the range is usually in a low light condition. That and I like to get some trigger time on the 45 every once in a while.

Saturday I am going to head out to the private range with a few other shooters and get some serious practice done shooting drills and stages. I am going to bring 400 rounds for this practice session and hopefully I can build some more confidence up in my shooting skill and equipment functionality.

Sunday I am attending a local USPSA club match in Aurora. My goal here is to have a clean match with no D’s. Simply letting the shooting happen at its own pace.

Monday I am heading down to Colorado Springs to attend an indoor USPSA club match. This will be the last club match I will be able to attend before heading to Arizona for the Area 2 match. Hopefully both me and my gear will be hitting on all cylinders by the time I head down to Arizona.

[CHA-LEE]

I had a productive weekend of shooting

Time to head down to Area 2 and play with the big boys

[CHA-LEE]

The 2012 Area 2 match is now over. Just before this match I received a pair of Salomon Speedcross 3 shoes and decided to give them a try at this match. These shoes have very aggressive cleats but are made out of really soft rubber so they produce really good grip on both hard and soft surfaces. I wore them all day at the range on Thursday while checking out the stages and they were really comfortable and didn’t hurt my feet at all so I decided to wear them the whole match. These shoes worked out great making excellent traction on all kinds of different surfaces. I am glad that I gave them a try at the Area 2 match. The only thing that I could tell would be a set back to using them is that they allow wind to pass through them pretty easy so using them in really cold weather would lead to some pretty cold feet at the range. They may not be the best choice for winter weather shooting but they are going to be awesome for summer. I am going to order a few more pair of these to stock up before they get discontinued like most shoes do.

I am not going to break down each stage of the match like I normally do. Going into the match I felt very confident about my shooting and thought that I would be able to do really well at the match. During the actual match I was plagued by shadow targets in the poor lighting of the mornings and evenings. Every year I complain about the same situation of not being able to see my sights effectively in the morning and evening and this year is no different. There were at least 5 stages were I was effectively shooting blind and trying to “Hope” hits onto the targets as I was forced to point shoot at the targets because there was no way I could see my sights to effectively call my shots. That or I would end up pointing the gun too high as I tried to pick up my front sight and end up with misses high. From a shooting penalty perspective I had one stage with three misses, another with two misses, and one with all my hits but also 5 D’s. All three of these stages were shot in really poor lighting conditions and I had no idea the hits were not there or so bad until the stage was being scored. Not being able to see my sights on these three stages cost me 90 match points, which is a deficit that you cannot come back from and expect to finish well at this level of match. To add to this hurting situation, I had varying levels of minor issues on every single stage. I would botch a draw, miss a shooting position, have a poor stage plan, or simply not execute my intended stage plan correctly. Shooting 12 stages and knowing that every single stage had some significant issue is a pretty disheartening situation. I probably gave up another 75 - 100 match points in little mistakes or issues on all of the other stages combined.

When all of the scores were tallied I ended up 9^th in Limited at 81% of Nils who won over second place by about 10%. I knew that I had the skills to finish in the top 5 at this match but had to settle for a top 10 due to the lighting conditions. This match is awesome, the stages are very challenging, and the prize table is second to none. So I will be back next year for sure. But between now and then I MUST find a fix to my poor lighting sight issues. Ever since I got Lasik done my vision has been very sensitive to less than optimal lighting conditions. Black rear sights and a FO rod front sight is obviously not getting the job done in these situations. I think I might have to switch over to running a three dot night sight setup all the time. That way I at least have the three dots to work with when the lighting is crappy. The problem I have with that solution is that the front and rear sight option for the EAA/Tanfo guns is very limited and night sights are nowhere to be found. I may be forced to switch over to a different gun platform that has more sight options to work with. The 2013 shooting season is coming soon. I may be running a different gun platform next season to solve the issue of not being able to see my sights effectively in poor lighting situations.

[rtr]

Cough...STI...cough

[CHA-LEE]

Cough...STI...cough

If the web of my strong hand didn't get chopped to bits by slide bite when shooting a 1911/2011 based pistol I would be shooting one. The unfortunate fact is that my hand is too chubby and the beaver tail does not keep the web of by hand out of the way of the slide. This is why I am stuck with shooting EAA pistols since the slide is half the height and well away from the web of my hand.

Right now I am thinking about building up a Limited Major M&P. Those guns have a really deep and wide beaver tail to keep my hand from getting chopped to bits by the slide. They also have a good selction of night sights available for them so it solves that issue.

I have a couple months over the winter to tinker on things to see what I can come up with.