CHA-LEE's Tale

[CHA-LEE]

This past weekend I shot two local USPSA club matches. The match on Saturday was a “Super Classifier” match that consisted of 6 classifiers. I shot all of the classifiers within my abilities with a mind set of trying to win the match. Pretty much the same way I approach every other local or major match. I had some good classifier runs and some that were less than optimal but no train wrecks. I had a few classifiers end up in the 90% range but I think those will work against my current average verses helping it. It sucks to have my classification average pulled down below 95%, but I think its more of a vanity thing than anything else. I know I can perform at a GM level, I don’t need a classification average of 95% or above all the time to prove that I have the skills.

It was entertaining to watch the other shooters on my squad try to shoot the classifiers outside of their normal comfort zone. Trying to push your shooting and movement skills beyond what you are capable of and expecting a good result rarely ends up with a positive result. But that doesn’t stop people from trying anyway.

While shooting the last stage in the match I noticed that my trigger felt a lot lighter than normal. When I got home I double checked the trigger return spring and sure enough, one of the legs had broken off making the spring really light. Since I had to dig deep to get the trigger return spring out I figured I would give the gun a detailed strip and cleaning. When I got everything apart I noticed a new crack on the frame. This time it was on the frame left frame rail up towards the front of the slide. This new crack was caused by the slid moving to the right when it comes back during recoil and twists the back of the slide to the right. I have tried to weld up this frame several times but it keeps cracking so I am going to decommission this gun as I don’t think it is safe to shoot any more. I pulled out my backup gun and went through it to make sure it was ready to rumble for the match on Sunday. Without having a real backup gun to use at the major matches now, this is moving up the time table of my building the next gun. Hopefully my backup gun will work properly until I can get my next EAA Limited gun worked up and ready to go.

On Sunday I attended a “Normal” local USPSA match down in Pueblo. They had six really fun stages to shoot, the temp was in the mid 60’s and the sun was out. But the wind was insane. We had a sustained wind of about 25 – 30mph with gusts in the 45 – 50mph range. The crazy wind was ripping targets off of the lath, walls were getting blown over, and dust was blown into every crevasse of your body and gear. This match was really hard to shoot from many different vantage points. When the targets are flopping around inside the target stands and walls are moving all over the place every single target turns into a “Moving” target. The only stationary targets were the few pieces of steel that were used in the match. Dust was getting into everyones guns and magazines causing a bunch of funky jam issues for a lot of shooters. I was lucky to only have one feeding issue in the match which forced me to rack out the round before I could keep going, but that was actually due to a bad bullet and not the dust. Given the excessive dust situation I was bagging my gun between stage runs to keep it from getting too dusty. This worked out good and I was happy to see that the backup gun was running like a champ. This backup gun in my First EAA Witness Limited gun so its got a lot of miles on it, but it keeps on working like a well oiled machine. I am probably going to have to use this old blaster through the end of may before I get the new one ready to rumble. I hope that its up to the task of drama free functionality for the next couple of months.

[CHA-LEE]

When I attended an indoor match last Wednesday I pulled a muscle in my left leg Quad during a stage run. The concrete floor was slippery and when I accelerated out of the shooting position my trailing foot slipped and I had to catch myself with my left leg. That is when I pulled the Quad muscle. It hurt that night and I figured it would be better the next day and it pretty much was. On Saturday when I attended the super classifier match all of the stages were stand and shoot classifiers so my leg didn’t hurt. On Sunday though, there were several stages where you had to run hard during the stage runs and it was hurting pretty bad. I could still move aggressively but it hurt to do so. I went to an indoor match on Monday night and it also had some box to box running around and it hurt while doing that.

The strange thing is that it does not hurt walking around normally and if it does hurt it only hurts a little bit doing normal every day stuff. This tricks me into thinking its “Better” but it ends up hurting bad if I try to run around aggressively. I have been taking Advil to keep the swelling down and taking some extra vitamins to help promote healing of the muscle. I just hope that its back to normal by this coming Sunday as that is when I have to shoot the Space City Challenge down in Texas. We will see how it goes.

[CHA-LEE]

This past weekend I was able to attend the 2013 Space City Challenge in Friendswood Texas. This was my third year attending the match and it was fun and challenging as always. The weather was great as well which is nice. This match is only 8 stages so they setup the shooting in a one day format on Friday, Saturday, or Sunday. I chose to shoot the match on Sunday as it was easy to fly in on Saturday, check out the stages, then shoot on Sunday and then fly home.

I had fun shooting with a great squad, but my performance was pretty bad. I had a total of seven misses and one no shoot over 8 stages which is absolutely horrible. Funny enough, I didn’t have any D zone hits, just misses. I started out the day on the classifier stage where I racked up two misses and a no shoot. This was not a good way to start the match but it seemed to be a trend of what was going to happen the rest of the day. On the second stage of the day, I couldn’t shoot steel worth a crap and had a boat load of extra shots trying to shoot a plate rack down. By the third stage of the day I started to settle in and had a solid stage performance. Then on the forth stage of the day (stage 2) I had a really funky issue at the end of the stage. This stage had a bunch of run-n-gun left and right shooting at the start, then you open a door and it activates a double swinger and there are four poppers to take down. My plan was to shoot the right two poppers, both swingers, then the left poppers but much to my surprise I couldn’t hit the first two poppers to save my life. I literally took me 8+ rounds to take down two fairly close pepper poppers. By the time I finally took the poppers down I was totally frazzled and just slung rounds at the swingers and kept missing the last two steel to the point of running out of ammo while leaving one steel still standing. At the time I thought that my rear sight had drifted on me and I was shooting way left or right. So I went over to another stage to double check the sight in at about 15 yards and it was dead nuts on. After thinking about it I was able to replicate the issue in the safe area. When I opened the door and went to build my grip again my weak hand was too far around the strong hand and I was pulling the front sight to the left. In the safe area the sight alignment issue was obvious but during the stage run was once again look at the targets and not my sights. I remember seeing the green FO in the front sight, but not much else so that pretty much tells the story of why I was having so many issues. Sticky hands and not paying attention to the sights for the loss on that stage run, one miss on a swinger and another miss on the last steel.

At this point in the match I pretty much knew that my chances of winning the match with four misses and a no shoot were over. It sucked to know that the ship was sunk already only half way into the match, but it is what it is. The last four stages were more of the same. Some good stage runs mixed in with a disappointing miss here or there that would ruin the run. My main issue on these last four stages was due to rushing shots on close targets trying to point shoot them instead of watching my sights. One miss was just into the black hard cover on a long range standards stage, I called it good but it was slightly low.

Along with battling the repeated issue of not paying attention I was nursing the sore quad muscle on my left leg. If I launched too hard using that leg a spike of main was the reward. I didn’t want to completely blow out my leg during the match so this had me moving around a lot less aggressive than I would have preferred and I clearly remember thinking about not wanting to hurt it during the stage runs. Having a day to think about it, I wonder if this leg pain/worry was the primary thing distracting me from watching my sights? I think the leg pain along with using my backup gun were both distracting enough to keep me off my primary job of watching my sights.

This was the first major match using my backup gun and I had some teething pains. As much as I try to setup my primary and backup guns exactly the same, they are still a little different and that difference takes a little while to get use to. The main difference on the backup gun is that the grip tape and checkering is more aggressive so it is not as forgiving when it comes to shifting your hand around on the gun once you grab it. There were a couple of stages where I was forced to shoot with a poor strong hand grip on the gun because I missed the grip a little bit during the draw and couldn’t adjust it on the fly like my old gun that was a little less grippy. The other issue is that I think the recoil spring is worn out because the front sight would stay slightly high after the shot. Then lastly the trigger feels slightly different than the old gun in trigger return spring tension so I felt like I had to row my trigger finger back excessively to ensure that it would reset between shots. I didn’t want to blame my poor performance on my gun as I am the one commanding what it does. But it being different than my primary gun was distracting. I am going to work on it this week to try and make it feel and function exactly the same as my old primary gun. I might not be able to get it to work exactly the same, but I should be able to get it a lot closer.

After all of the results were tallied I ended up 2^nd in Limited about 5% behind Damon Stanforth from New Mexico. Sure I wanted to win, but it wasn’t meant to be this time. I am happy that Damon won the match. He is a great guy and a hell of a shooter. We will be competing against one another at a couple more matches this summer so I will get another chance to give him a run for his money.

[CHA-LEE]

I worked on my backup gun last night in an attempt to get it to feel and function closer to my old primary gun. I made several changes in the right direction. First, the recoil spring was totally worn out. I put a new 10lb recoil spring in it and it felt significantly stiffer than the one that was in there. The one that was in there felt more like an 8lb recoil spring instead of the 10lb that it should have been. Since the recoil spring was in question I figured it would be smart to replace all of the other springs as well. I setup the new trigger return spring to have more tension so it would push my finger back easier. The old trigger return spring wasn’t strong enough to push my finger back consistently during reset. For my type of shooting this is very important. The trigger still breaks at a very crisp 2.25lbs, it just has more spring tension in the pretravel portion of the trigger pull stroke. Since the grip tape and frame checkering was a little too aggressive I smoothed it out slightly. Now my hand can slide over the checking and grip tape easier so I can reposition my hand as needed but still produce enough traction while gripping firmly on the gun. I look forward to running this gun during the club matches this weekend to see if it shoots closer to my old primary gun.

I think it’s funny how you get tuned into a gun after shooting tens of thousands of rounds through it then feel like a fish out of water when you switch guns. I guess it’s like riding a bike for a while then switching bikes and it feels strange riding the new bike. I hope I can get this backup gun function and feeling exactly like my old primary gun. But I am sure there will always be a slight difference between them.

I am planning on putting some serious work into the new EAA Limited gun this week. Right now the slide has been lightened to my liking and needs to be sand blasted before heading off for a fresh hard chrome coating. If I can get the frame prepped, magwell welded on, and the whole thing sand blasted by the end of this week that will be good. If I can get the frame and slide into the Hard Chrome place early next week that should get this new blaster in action in early May so I can take it as a backup to most of the major matches I am planning on attending in May.

Given the attrition rate of these EAA pistols it seems like there should always be the “Next” Limited gun in the works so I don’t end up empty handed.

[CHA-LEE]

Last week was rugged. I came down with a serious sinus infection starting on Tuesday of last week and was down for the count the rest of the week. I finally broke down and went to the doctor on Thursday and they gave me some antibiotics to help battle the infection. After taking the antibiotics I was feeling a lot better than before. Being stuck in bed most of the week I was starting to get cabin fever. By Saturday I felt good enough to venture out and decided to shoot a local match. I didn’t realize how weak the sickness made me until I started shooting the first stage. After breaking the first couple of shots I felt like I was shooting a .44 Magnum trying to manage the excessive recoil and muzzle flip. I had to revert to a slow deliberate shooting speed which allowed the sights to return properly after each shot. Since I knew I wasn’t going to “Burn Down” any stages that day I simply accepted the situation and shot the most amount of points I could. I shot really good points on all but one stage. On the fifth stage I tried shooting on the move and was calling the shots marginal and ended up with 4 D’s on that stage. I am chalking that up to the poor grip strength due to being sick. By the end of the match I was totally exhausted. The good thing is that all of the changes I made to my backup gun worked better for this match.

On Sunday I was feeling a little better than the day before so I decided to attend another local USPSA match. I felt like I had more strength than the day before, but was still not at 100%. The sights were tracking better and managing the recoil didn’t seem as hard as the day before. This match I battled other issues though. We started on the classifier and a speed shoot stage which both had poppers and plates that were all painted dark blue. I couldn’t call my shots worth a crap on the dark blue poppers. Black sights on dark blue poppers is just as bad as black poppers. Lots of make up shots needed to finish these speed shoot style stages which wasn’t the fast way to get it done. On the next stage it was a nice run and gun stage with a lot of shooting on the move. I was shooting the stage aggressively and after the reload I had a nose dive jam that cost me at least 3 seconds to recover from. Wasting three seconds on a 12 second stage is a huge negative impact to the stage run. After the stage run I was checking out the magazine and the mag spring was really weak. This is funny because the day before when I was cleaning the my magazines I was thinking to myself “I should replace these magazine springs, they feel kind of weak”, but I didn’t replace them. That will teach me to not listen to reason while reworking my gear. The last two stages of the day went well, but the damage was already done. You can’t trash three out of five stages and expect to do well overall.

The really cool thing about this match was Stage 5. It was an accuracy and memory stage with a boat load of walls, no shoots, and hard cover everywhere. This stage was absolutely brutal and I knew that if I could simply get my hits in who cares how long stage time it would end up in a really good results. 80% of the shooters in the match had some kind of shooting penalty on this stage with an average stage time of 45 - 50 seconds. When you have a long field course stage with an average hit factor of 2.5 – 3.0 you know it’s down right evil. I took my time and aimed hard on every single shot which felt like the stage run took forever but it paid off. I was able to shoot the stage in 29 seconds, had all of my hits with only one D zone hit. This stage run was a huge win for me personally. It’s hard to buckle down and aim hard for 34 shots over that long of a time.

Hopefully I can overcome this sinus infection and get back to 100% this week before I head out to the Cow Town Classic in Texas on Friday. I really don’t want to shoot a major match under the weather like I did this past weekend.

[CHA-LEE]

This past weekend I attended the Cow Town Classic USPSA match in Texas. This range and club is new and this was their first major match. The Range facility was awesome. The Cross Timbers USPSA club did an awesome job in hosting this major match. They had 10 fun and challenging stages setup for the match and it was run in a single day shooting format. Shooting 10 medium to long field course stages in one day is a test of endurance to say the least. I did a really good job of keeping hydrated and nourished throughout the day so I didn’t run out of gas towards the end of the match. There were several shooters on my squad that were completely wiped out by the time we got to the last few stages. I felt bad for them but it is what it is.

The interesting thing about this match is that it had a boat load of running during stage runs. So it really tested your ability to run hard between shooting positions. I stretched really good before starting the match and my left quad was feeling good. The first few stages I ran a little more tentative than I wanted to but I was scared of blowing out my quad again. I didn’t have any pain while running on the first few stages so I got more confident in being able to really haul ass when I needed to. By the end of the match I was running as hard as I could without any pain, so I think that my quad is finally healed.

I shot the match pretty good. I had one miss on the first stage and that was on a shadow target in the early morning lighting. I couldn’t call my shots on the target and tried to point shoot it and ended up with an Alpha, Mike. The only other major failure I had was on stage 7 which had a wobbly bridge and you had to pull a rope to activate two swingers. The plan was to run up to the wobbly bridge, engage the targets through a port, then pull the rope as I left the bridge to run back to the other shooting area. Well, I didn’t program pulling the rope into my stage plan well enough and sure enough, I forgot to pull the rope before running back to the other shooting area. I had to run back up and pull the rope then run back to the shooting area again. This fiasco cost me at least 8 seconds of wasted stage time. This was a complete bone head move on my part, but I am sure it was really entertaining for my squad to watch.

Other than these two major issues I had only had a few minor issues during stage runs, like mags not dropping free or slightly missing a position. Overall I felt like I had a solid match performance. I was really happy with my stage 4 run, which was an “X” shooting area where you were forced to run to each corner of the X. My only goal during that stage run was to run super hard between shooting positions to minimize the non-shooting stage time. I ended up with the fastest stage time of the match on that stage, which was awesome given that I am not a small dude and hauling my fat ass around takes a lot of effort. I guess this proves a point that when you have to dig in and run hard, it pays off to run has hard as you can.

I was worried that my Stage 7 mega screw up would cost me too many match points to pull out a win. That screw up cost me about 45 match points which is the same as having 3 misses. When all of the results were tallied I ended up winning Limited by 5% so my consistently solid finishes on all of the other stages were enough to keep me in the lead. It may have not been a “Pretty” win, but a win is a win and I will take it.

I hope that this club hosts the match again next year. If they do I will try to make it back again. This was the last of my major matches in Texas for this season and I had a lot of fun. I really like shooting these matches down there in the spring when the weather is nice. I will leave the mid summer Texas matches in the mega heat and humidity to the shooting bad asses.

[38SuperDub]

Cmon Charlie - Double Tap is calling your name :-)

Amazing run on Stage 4 - I think you scared the crap out of Bo - he said "Damn I didn't expect him to run that fast".

See ya at the range sometime!

[CHA-LEE]

Cmon Charlie - Double Tap is calling your name :-)

Amazing run on Stage 4 - I think you scared the crap out of Bo - he said "Damn I didn't expect him to run that fast".

See ya at the range sometime!

I can't do the Double Tap this year. I already have 15 major matches on the schedule for 2013 and adding another isn't going to happen. That and I am the Match Director for the 2013 Mile High Showdown, which happens the weekend after the Double Tap. I will be too busy running around with my head cut off trying to get everything and everyone ready for hosting the match the weekend of the Double Tap. You will have to put some extra rounds down range in my honor at the Double Tap this year. I will see you Texas guys next spring.

As for my Stage 4 run, it was a fun stage. I am just trying to show a good example that fat kids can haul the mail just as well as the skinny kids. All you need is the proper motivation

[Jerome]

Congrats on your Cowtown win Charlie. Enjoyed shooting with you & learned a lot. Hope I didn't bother you with too many dumb questions.

[CHA-LEE]

Congrats on your Cowtown win Charlie. Enjoyed shooting with you & learned a lot. Hope I didn't bother you with too many dumb questions.

Thanks and no problem on the questions. I hope that I was able to provide some help by answering your questions during the match. Hopefully we will get a chance to shoot together again some time in the future.

[CHA-LEE]

Last night I shot the Whistling Pines indoor USPSA match. I have been helping this club move from paper scoring to electronic scoring using PractiScore with Nooks. This match was the first one to use the new electronic scoring and it went great. My primary focus that night was to help RO and train people on how to use the Nooks so my shooting suffered that night. Either way it was fun and everyone liked having the new scoring system. I like it when a plan comes together properly!!!

[CHA-LEE]

This past weekend I attended the 2013 Rocky Mountain 300 match hosted by the Weld County Practical Shooters club up in the Fort Collins area. This is a 5 stage match, which may seem like a small amount of stages for a major match but then you notice that each stage is 60+ rounds and it all starts to sink in. This match has a really good mix of stages and shooting challenges on each stage. As a Limited shooter its always a little disturbing to add a 4^th mag pouch to my belt and KNOW that I will need to use it at least a couple of times during this match. Going from needing only one reload during most normal size USPSA stages to needing to do 3 – 4 reloads during a single stage run is an interesting challenge. Shooting this match in a one day format on Friday was my schedule so a lot of blasting was needed in a single day.

The Weather was a little iffy going into the match with there being heavy rain Thursday night. When I was driving up to the range on Friday morning you could see pools of water everywhere and very muddy conditions along the sides of the road. I brought my rain/mud gear so I was prepared and looking at the fields and streets leading up to the range I thought for sure that it was going to be a mud bog mess at the range. Much to my surprise, there was only a little bit of mud on the actual stages. This range recently added road base to most of the roads so there wasn’t much mud driving in the range either. One of the stages was muddy but they decided to skip that stage until lunch time to allow it to dry out and that plan worked great.

I shot a solid match from start to finish with only a few small mistakes here or there. I had one miss for the match which I called marginal and it ended up being a miss, but my stage time was fast enough that I still won the stage so it wasn’t too painful. My main competition at the match, Paul Clark Jr and Jeff Morgan both had major issues during the match so they pretty much took themselves out of contention. After the second stage in the match I put myself into cruise control mode shooting the stages a little conservatively but solidly and it resulted in a Limited HOA finish. The match was a lot of fun and I was glad that we got it shot all in one day.

They usually do a shoot off on Sunday then the Awards ceremony after that. Since I am not into shooting steel I figured I could better use my time by shooting a local USPSA match down in Pueblo. I figured that if I am going to drive a bunch of miles to a range, I would rather shoot a USPSA match verses doing a little bit of steel shooting in a shoot off.

Now that the weekend is over I have to get all of my gear reworked and packed up for the Area 1 match this coming weekend. I am heading out on Thursday with a couple of friends so it should be a fun trip. The May Major Match Madness month is half over and so far I am doing pretty good. The Area 1 match will have some stiff competition in Limited so it will be interesting to see where I end up. A top 5 finish would be nice. We will see how it goes.

[CHA-LEE]

The Area 1 match is over, thank god. This was to date my worst match performance ever. Out of 13 stages there was only one which I had a half way decent result and that was the classifier stage. You can’t bank your major match performance finish on a single 60 point classifier stage. This match was a perfect storm of compounded failures. On the first stage of the match, stage 9, I had a miss shooting weak hand only on a standards stage. The next stage, stage 10, was a house stage and I wasted a couple seconds going back to a target to make up a shot that didn’t need it. Stage 11 was a funky port to port stage where you had to hold the ports open with your weak hand and shoot strong hand only. I did the strong hand stuff fine, but I stumbled on the forward fault line between ports while engaging targets and wasted a couple of seconds getting back into the shooting area. Then on stage 12 it was basically a fixed time stage with activated max traps turned on by poppers. The wind was crazy at this time of the match and it was screwing with the timing of the max traps opening and closing. I screwed up this stage by missing the first and second activated steel then transitioned to the max traps and waited for them to open which they wouldn’t because I didn’t shoot the steel down. Edge hits on the steel for the loss. That is what I get for listening for a “Ding” and expecting it to be a solid hit. Then the last stage of the day, stage 13 had a “Winger”. I screwed up my timing of shooting it and had to wait at least 2 seconds for it to show again before I could continue shooting the rest of the stage. This combined with 3 D zone hits pretty much sunk that stage run. This was the end of the first day and having screwed up every single stage I was pretty bummed about my match performance. I figured that day 2 would determine if the whole match was toast of if only day one was a bust.

I went into day 2 with as much optimism as I could muster. This optimism didn’t last long. Stage 1 had a bag that you had to move from the start position to a box with a step pad under it. The Step pad could only be activated by the bag. This basically forced you to shoot strong hand only for half of the stage, which wasn’t a big deal. I shot the front half of the stage good strong hand only then threw the bag into the box. The plan was to engage the swinger right after dropping the bag on the step pad as I advanced down range. So I drop the bag move forward and there isn’t a swinger coming out. So I look back at the box and the bag got wedged sideways in the box and was suspended above the step pad. I had to run back and shove the bag through the box so it would activate the step pad. This whole monkey show wasted a good 5 seconds of stage time. I was so frustrated about it that I shot the rest of the stage slow and very deliberate. I absolutely HATE getting screwed by retarded stage props. Why they would use a bag that could get wedged in the box and screw the shooter is beyond me. Stage 2 had two disappearing targets that took FOREVER to activate. I tried my best to optimize my shooting plan to incorporate shooting both DT’s but in the end it was a waste. I should have blown them both off and used a different stage plan. Then stage 3 was a disaster before I even got to shoot the stage. The written stage briefing had the start position written as “Hands touching X’s facing wall. The wall was even with the side berm. The CRO read the stage briefing and added that you MUST stand right behind the X’s on the wall. I challenged that requirement because it was not in the WSB and the range master was called. The RM tried to justify the requirement by leveraging the rules that define what facing up or down range are and I said that it was not valid because we were facing the side of the berm, not down range or uprange. He got angry and threatened to DQ me due to Unsportsmanlike Conduct. I was shocked that the RM would pull that on me, but at that point I was stuck between a rock and a hard place. If these guys were willing to fight for breaking the rules there was no telling if they would actually DQ me over questioning them over it. So I started using their illegal requirement and shot the stage and ended up with a miss. I was still rattled by the DQ threat while shooting the stage and it affected my performance but I had a miss and owned up to it.

At this point in the match I had completely given up on doing well at all. The rest of my stage runs showed my lack of desire in wanting to perform or even be there. This was the first match, club match or major, that I had literally SUCKED on every single stage. Talk about humble pie. On the long ride home I think that the majority of this was mental. I think that my threshold of back to back crappy stage runs is about 5. After screwing up 5 stages in a row my confidence is so beat down that I can’t seem to dig out of it or leave the stage baggage behind. I need a mixture of good stage runs mixed in with the screw ups to keep my confidence up. Unfortunately that never happened at this match. Another issue that I experienced was a failure in my support hand grip on a couple of stages. This range is super dusty and the dust is very fine and slippery. It is literally like cake mix. I think that this dust was getting on the back side of my strong hand fingers and on my support hand and allowed my grip to slip and fail during some of the stage runs. I do remember a lot of odd sight pictures and strange tracking of the gun while shooting but didn’t think of the dust and failing grip as a possible root cause. The last challenge was dealing with uneven holes in the shooting area that seemed to always put me off balance while shooting. There were several stages that had excessively deep holes dug into the shooting positions where people normally stood and these holes would put my feet at odd angles and disrupt my ability to transition with my knees or manage the recoil effectively. This is something that I want to replicate in practice to see if I can figure out a solution.

Overall, it was fun to see old friends and make new friends while at the match. But it was a disaster from a shooting performance perspective. My initial goal of being in the top 5 was totally blown out of the water after the first day. By the end of the second day I knew that making the top 10 would be tuff, then by the end of the last day, I would be surprised to be in the top 20. When all of the scores were tallied I knew I was going to be way down in the list. I ended up finishing 16^th in Limited at 77% of Nils Jonasson who won Limited. Ouch!!! I thought I did bad last year at this match, but I managed to top that hurting performance this year. Oh well, you can’t do well at every match. I just hope that I used up all of my bad USPSA Luck at this match and the rest of the year will be good. We will see how it goes this coming weekend at the Area 2 Steel Challenge match in Pueblo.

[DonovanM]

I know exactly how you feel man. Keep kicking ass and taking names in practice though... it never ends.

[Sleepswithdogs]

Cha-Lee, what do you think you could have done differently to change the mental match you shot?

[CHA-LEE]

Realistically the continual chipping away at my confidence in being able to execute a solid stage plan without something getting screwed up stage after stage is what did me in. Every match has a threshold of acceptable failure depending on how many stages there are and the competition level attending. Once you dig a hole deep enough and you KNOW that there is no recovery, you are left with the fact that a decent finish is not going to happen. In this situation its very hard to keep a positive attitude. I always go to Area level matches with a goal of finishing in the top 5. I assess my performance through the match and know when that goal is still within reach or the opportunity is blown without even looking at the scores. Once the opportunity is blown I pretty much give up as finishing 6th, 16th or 60th is the same to me. I failed at achieving my goal. The depth of the failure really does not matter to me.

There are a few things I could have done differently.....

(1) I could have gone conservative in my shooting to minimize the risk of having a major blunder so I could get a half way decent stage runs. This is only a band aid as it gives you false hope and still yields a sub par stage run because I am shooting too tentative wasting time. I have tried this in the past and it just makes the shooting a grind and no longer fun because you are in "Survival" mode. I would much rather let the shooting continue to happen at my normal pace and hope that it goes my way. I would rather have fun shooting a stage and screw it up, verses shooting scared and still produce a sub par performance.

(2) I could have simply packed my bags and drove home after day 1 knowing that my goal of finishing in the top 5 was blown. I actually thought about doing just this after the first day. If I was not traveling with other Colorado shooters I may have just done that. I could have used the rest of the weekend to shoot local matches in Colorado or do some live fire practice that would have been more productive than getting my ass handed to me and every inch of my body coated with dust. My travel buddies took the "Leaving Early" option off the table as I didn't want to leave them in a tight spot. So I decided to grind through the remaining two days of shooting and use it as a learning experience on how things are done at this range. With this range hosting the Limited/Open nationals this year knowing what to expect in range conditions and weather is a good thing to know. Its also good to have a decent understanding of the props the club likes to use and how they normally setup stages. Once I knew my goal was unobtainable I turned my focus towards recon for the Nationals.

(3) I could have switched to simply having fun while shooting the stages not caring how I did. This option is hard for me and I can really only do it in practice or at a local match. I am a competitive person and I drove hundreds of miles to this match to compete. Its hard to throw all of that investment and competitiveness to the wayside and simply let loose. I did let loose on a couple of stages using unorthodox stage plans just to see if I could do it. But even that wasn't enough to lift my spirits. The two stages that I "Let Loose" on cost me four misses and a no shoot and that dropped me another 5 - 6 positions on the leader board. Knowing the results impact of playing around verses taking it seriously adds more frustration to the situation.

[SoCalNoMore]

I know when I was involved with NHRA/NASCAR and we knew we were smoked for the weekend, we would start trying out new stuff. We always had something to experiment with. I know in shooting sports if I blow out a match I experiment with a new process/procedure just to see how it works out. For example, it is easy to use habits to get through a stage because they are comfortable. But it is fun to see how I shoot when I change something up completely i.e. turn my hat around, different color glasses. Sometime you may find that since you "switched it up" and your mind is not on the failed stages, you actually shoot pretty well. I get a lot of experience at this since I often can "blow" a match. IMA-NOOB

[CHA-LEE]

This past weekend was another very busy weekend of shooting. On Saturday I went down to Pueblo with my wife to attend the 2013 STI Rocky Mountain Regional Steel Challenge match. My wife likes to attend this match so I tag along and shoot it as well. Steel challenge really isn’t my cup of tea but this year I experimented with shooting Minor .40 rounds. I built a Limited Minor upper for my EAA Witness Limited a year ago and I never really had a chance to try it out in a match. I figured that this steel challenge match would be a good test for it. Even though the .40 Minor loads shot softer than my normal Major loads I really didn’t think that it made much of a difference in my performance at the steel challenge match. Since you are only shooting one shot at each plate then transitioning to the next plate the reduced muzzle flip of the minor loads couldn’t be leveraged. I ended up 4^th in Iron Sight Pistol with a total time of 133 seconds. This result is not surprising given my crappy surrender draw which gives away at least .40 - .50 each draw. The good thing is that my wife had a fun time making the steel go “DING” on every single stage.

On Saturday I attended a USPSA match up in the mountains. Since I loaded up about 1000 rounds of the .40 minor ammo I figured I would shoot Limited Minor for this match. This was going to be an interesting test of how much the reduced muzzle flip of the minor ammo would be on paper targets. During the match I had a few malfunctions that cost me a lot of stage time. On the first stage of the day my mag didn’t drop free during the reload and I bumped the spent mag back into a seated position. This stupid reload issue cost me at least 2 – 3 seconds on a fast hosing stage. This stage was the only stage in the match where shooting Minor would really show a benefit. But that got thrown out of the window by the stupid mag issue. The next stage was a long field course with a bunch of partial targets and running around. I shot the stage well but all of the partial targets killed me with points down. I was down 18 points shooting a combined total of nine B’s and C’s. Stages like this is where shooting minor really does not make it worth it. The next two stages were the classifier and speed shoot, both of which I shot solidly with only a couple of points down on each stage. I shot a 100% classifier which was cool. The last stage of the day was a disaster. At the start of the stage I got my strong hand thumb pressed into the side of the slide and it kept the slide from cycling as I was falling out of the shooting area. So I had to rack the slide, get back into the shooting area, then reengage the targets. I had wasted so much time on the start of the stage that I simply gave up on the rest of the run and it turned out poorly. My Limited Minor test in this match pretty much proved that its not an advantage. There were only a few targets in the match that the reduced recoil was an advantage but that was insignificant verses the loss in points for non-A hits.

Since Monday was a Holiday I decided to go out to the range and do some live fire practice with a couple of friends. We setup a field course stage and used it to shoot small sections as different mini stages. I started out with my Limited Minor setup then switched over to my Limited Major setup. Through the steel challenge and Saturday USPSA match I shot about 600 rounds of the Minor ammo. When I switched back over to the Major ammo I was surprised at how much more pronounced the recoil was. My hits were all over the place on the first practice run using the Major ammo. Then I made the conscious decision to simply grip the gun hard while shooting and my recoil management and on target hit quality got WAY better. I continued to shoot the remaining stage runs with an artificially harder than normal grip and was very surprised by the increase in shooting speed, better shot calling ability, and on target hit quality. On the drive home from the range I was thinking about this harder grip situation and it dawned on me that over the last couple of months I have been battling with strange sight pictures and funky recoil management. I think that since I have been doing the grip workouts with the CoC grippers I figured I didn’t have to grip the gun hard while shooting because my normal “Firm” grip is pretty strong. I had basically stopped griping the gun hard enough to properly manage the recoil. I am excited to give this consciously hard grip a try at the next club match I attend. It’s funny how shooting minor for a while then switching back to major brought this to my attention. But it makes sense as the minor ammo makes it viable to grip the gun with even less pressure and manage the recoil effectively. Doing this tricked me into loosening my grip pressure even more, then I was caught off guard when switching back to the major rounds. It may have sucked to shoot the Saturday club match with minor ammo, but it setting the seed in my head to grip the gun harder made it well worth sacrificing a club match to experiment with it.

[CHA-LEE]

This past weekend was super busy with shooting and training. On Saturday I presented a competition pistol training class with 6 students. It was uncharacteristically chilly in the morning and really windy blowing sand all over the place making the morning of the training class not very pleasant. But the sun eventually came out and the wind died down a little bit making it a lot more enjoyable. Everyone in the class seemed to like the training class and it was fun to do some training with friends.

On Sunday I attended a local USPSA match. My goal for the match was to consciously grip the gun harder especially with my support hand. On the first stage of the day I had a couple of strange issues. I was gripping the crap out of the gun with my left hand and I managed to flip the safety back on three times while shooting because my left hand kept bumping the safety back on during recoil. I think that I had an artificially high left hand grip on the gun which lead to this issue. Then on top of this I had a strange nose dive jam. I have had intermittent nose dive jams very infrequently recently and I have not done a really good job of keeping track of which magazine it was occurring on. I number all of my magazines so I took a mental note of the one that caused the nose dive issue so I could look into it later. Giving away at least 30 match points in stupid failures on the first stage of the day wasn’t a good way to start the match. I shot the rest of the match ok, but nothing special. In the end I had one miss and 4 D’s plus the monkey show on the first stage of the day. I knew that my overall finish was going to be significantly impacted by all of these issues and it was. Some times it does not go as planned.

When I got home I looked at the nose dive jam magazine and couldn’t find anything obviously wrong with it. The spring was pretty used up so I replaced the spring but kept the same follower on it. I actually replaced the springs in all of my magazines at the same time because its easier to keep track of that kind of maintenance if I replace them all at the same time. Since I was planning on attending the indoor USPSA match on Monday my goal was to run the suspect magazine to see if replacing the spring solved the nose dive issue.

On Monday I attended the Monday night USPSA match down in Colorado springs. My primary goal was to test out the suspect magazine to see if it was working properly. Unfortunately on the first stage of the evening, it nose dive jammed again about 15 rounds into it. I wasted quite a bit of time recovering from the jam, but it was worth testing the magazine to see if it was fixed or not. I would rather throw away a stage at a club match figuring it out verses a stage at a big match. For this suspect magazine I think that the follower may be worn out causing too much friction as it pushes against the side of the magazine while feeding rounds. I am going to replace the follower next to see if that fixes it. The rest of my match was ok. I had two misses for the match and both of those were due to getting in a hurry trying to get the shooting done using point shooting instead of calling my shots. The cool thing is that my buddy Dominic was able to video most of my stage runs so I have listed those below. I am using my iPhone for these video’s so hopefully the video quality is better than my prior videos.

Stage 2

Stage 3 String 1

Edited June 5, 2013 by CHA-LEE

[CHA-LEE]

Stage 3 String 2

Stage 4

[Not-So-Mad Matt]

Frankly, I'm disappointed to see that your shooting shirt and pants aren't black and white, panda print.

[CHA-LEE]

Frankly, I'm disappointed to see that your shooting shirt and pants aren't black and white, panda print.

I know....... I am full of disappointments

[MarkCO]

Panda wears clothes when he shoots, and we are thankful for that.

[CHA-LEE]

This past sat/sun was another packed weekend of club match shooting fun. On Saturday I attended a USPSA match hosted by the Colorado Rifle Club and it was a section qualifier match. I went out early with my buddy Conrad to help setup. This was a unique match because every single stage had a different amount of scored hits on each paper target. For example, one stage had only one shot per target. Then the next stage had two shots per target, then the next stage had three shots per target and so on. It went all the way up to five shots per target on the classifier “Can you Count”. It was an interesting challenge to think about shooting different round counts on each stage. The hardest one mentally was the three shots per target stage. For whatever reason, shooting three shots on a target is a lot more distracting or confusing than shooting 1, 2, 4 or 5. With lots of shots on each target the high hit factors for every stage was really high. The average hit factor for most of the stages was 11 – 13 HF and the only stage that was lower was the one shot per target stage with a 6 – 7 HF. So most of the match you had to get the lead unloaded in a hurry. It was a lot of fun shooting the match and its cool to have a unique challenge like this every once in a while. I didn’t get any video of my stage runs that day.

On Sunday I attended another USPSA match down in Pueblo. The weather was sunny and hot. We are now settling into summer here in Colorado so the hot shooting matches now happening. The temp peaked out in the low 90’s but there was a slight breeze most of the day making it not feel too hot. If you stood in the shade it was actually really nice. I love the low humidity that we have in Colorado. It makes being outdoors on hot summer days not so bad. This match I was able to squad with my buddy Dominic and he was able to film most of my stage runs which are listed below.

We started on stage 3 which was a long field course with a good mixture of close and medium distance targets that gave you the choice of stand shooting or shooting on the move if you wanted to push the limits of your skills. I really like these kind of stages as it allows you to test your limits using unique stage plans verses doing a follow the leader kind of plan. I shot this stage pretty good. The only thing I could have done better was to be a little more patent on the steel so I didn’t need make up shots.

Next was stage 4 which had two different swingers that were activated by shooting out the Steel Plate support holding up the swinger. I rushed my shots on the steel plate supports of both swingers and needed two shots each to take them down. This probably wasted a second. But other than that it was a pretty solid run. The video on this stage starts after the start of the stage. The part that is missing is me going to the port, engaging one paper target, the steel plate support, and the first swinger.

[CHA-LEE]

Stage five was the classifier called “On the Move”. I shot this stage pretty conservative as I didn’t want to risk getting a miss or no shoot trying to shoot the middle section on the move.

Stage 6 was another field course that had a bunch of mini poppers in front of no shoots and a mixture of open and no shoot or hard cover paper targets. I shot the first half of the stage well but mashed the trigger on one of the no shoot partials and pulled the shot right into the no shoot. I made up the miss, but the no shoot damage was already done. It would have been a pretty solid stage run without the no shoot hit. No video for this stage run.

Stage 1 was a medium field course that had three ports you could use to engage targets. The front port had a cover that you had to open and get under. This club setup this same stage a few months ago and the last time I shot it I went to each port. This time I decided I would skip the front port and shoot the forward targets strong hand only as I leaned through the right port. This plan seemed like it would be a good idea at the time. But I didn’t account for how much the wall would move around during recoil. While shooting the strong hand portion I had 2 misses and 4 D’s due to the really unstable wall moving around after each shot. The two misses and four D’s on this stage pretty much sunk my chances of winning the match, but it was fun to give it a try. If I could do it again I would simply go to all three ports. The stage time would have been the same and my hit quality would have been a LOT better.

Stage 2 was the last stage of the day and my best stage run. This was a long field course that gave you the option of starting in one of two different boxes. The down range targets were a good distance away so engaging them from a solid stance was critical. I knew that this stage would be won or lost in how quickly the long distance targets were engaged effectively. I did my best to shoot the far targets as soon as possible and it worked out well. I don’t think that I could have shot this stage any better without risking a bunch of points by shooting the paper targets too fast.