CHA-LEE's Tale

[CHA-LEE]

What kind of gun are you shooting in the video's here? I understand that you'r building a new one but just curious if it is a Tanfo in the video's.

Thanks.

I am shooting the same kind of gun. Its an EAA Witness Limited which is basically the "US" brand for Tanfoglio guns.

[CHA-LEE]

Last night I attended the indoor USPSA match at the Whistling Pines Gun Club in Colorado Springs. This was a 4 stage match with varying box to box type of stages. My primary focus for this match was staying low after getting into the shooting positions. I was able to execute the “Staying Low” process on every single stage run that had movement and I was really happy with being able to get that done. I could tell that my transitions were a lot smoother and more aggressive while staying low. As always, seeing my sights clearly at this match is a major challenge. Blurry sights and getting pulled into a hard target focus is the normal situation at this match so calling my shots was a lot more difficult. I had two issues during the match. The first was having an uncalled miss on the second stage. This was not a surprise given the inability to focus on the sights. The second issue was on the classifier where I went to do a reload and missed the magwell sending the magazine flying. I had to ditch the first mag and go for the second mag on my belt to complete the reload. Nothing like giving away an extra second and a half on a classifier stage by doing two reloads instead of one. Either way it was a fun match and I liked being able to deploy my “Homework” properly.

I am planning on doing some more live fire practice this coming Thursday on the 4^th of July. The range I am a member at is having an Open house for members and non-members and they want the USPSA club to setup a stage to show what kind of shooting we do at club matches. This is a great opportunity for the range membership to get some first hand experience on a USPSA style stage. We will end up running a bunch of people through the stage and giving them a lot of info about USPSA matches. In the slow times we will be able to shoot the stage and get some practice done on our own. It should be a fun day of shooting and promoting USPSA.

[CHA-LEE]

On the 4^th of July I spent the day at the range representing my local USPSA club (HPPS). The Ben Lomond Gun Club had a member appreciation / open house day on the 4^th of July and they wanted each shooting discipline to setup a stage or shooting challenge that would be a good example of what its all about. We setup a 20 round medium field course with a good mixture of easy and medium difficulty shots and a few different plans could be used to break down the stage. We got there early and setup the stage and unfortunately only had 5 or 6 new shooters check it out and actually shoot it. It was a long day of hanging out at the range but I put the spare time to good use. I shot the stage about 10 times and played around with my AR a little bit.

The night before I gave my gun a full detailed strip and clean and I wanted to shoot it during the open house to make sure everything was working as it should. I am glad that I did because by the end of the day my rear sight loosened up and started walking to the right. Luckily I noticed it and got it readjusted back to where it should be and reapplied lock tight to the screws. This sight walking would have totally ruined my match this coming weekend so I was glad to find it during practice.

Tomorrow I am driving out to Louisville Nebraska for the Great Plains Sectional Championships. I am going with two other shooting buddies so the long drive will be less boring. I am really looking forward to shooting at a new range and make new friends at this match. This is one of my “New Adventure” matches that I try each year. We will be shooting the whole match on Sunday so it will be a full day of blasting entertainment. My only expectations for this match are to deploy my “homework” from the Manny class. We will see how it goes.

On the new blaster front, I got the Limited frame and slide from the coater and the fresh hard chrome looks great. My plan is to get this blaster back together next week so I can get some test rounds down range next weekend.

[CHA-LEE]

This past weekend I attended the Great Plains Sectional Championships in Louisville Nebraska. We drove out on Saturday and checked out the stages then shot the whole match on Sunday then drove home. This was kind of an “Iron Man” match from a travel perspective. It’s a 550 mile one way drive to this match and driving there and back in the same weekend so there was a lot of windshield time.

The weather was hot and humid but it wasn’t unbearable. I probably sweated out a gallon of water on Sunday while at the range, but I kept hydrated and nourished pretty good. We had a great squad to shoot with as well. Everyone worked hard all day long and we had a good time shooting together.

There were several stages where I could attempt to deploy my Manny “Homework” so I focused on that during the match. A big match like this is probably not the best place to consciously try to change things up but I think it was worth it. I was able to shoot at least a couple of stages differently than I normally would have by engaging targets on the move instead of doing more stand & shoot position style shooting. I was really happy with how these shooting on the move stages turned out as well. Or at a bare minimum the section I was trying to shoot on the move.

I had some good stages and also bombed a few stages. But most of my stage runs were fairly solid. I had three misses total and 8 D zone hits which was way too many points given away. The second to last stage of the day I had a complete mental failure in my stage plan and I think this was mainly due to being really hot and worn down. I probably should have drank some more water and snacked on something before getting to that stage as it would have kept my energy level up and helped maintain my mental focus. I still don’t have the correct fluid/food intake program for hot and humid matches like this. Its good experience though as it has given me some ideas for the Area 3 match coming up, which will also be hot and humid.

When all of the results were tallied I ended up being 2^nd in Limited at 99.98% of the winner. I was 0.3 match points behind the winner John Koppi. Congrats to John for winning the match. This was the closest “Loss” that I have ever had from a match points perspective. One less C or D zone hit would have given me the edge. But it is what it is. I was actually surprised that I finished as close to winning as I did given my less than stellar match performance. I learned a lot of good lessons though and it was a fun match with really fun stages. So win or lose, it was well worth attending.

[CHA-LEE]

Over the last two evenings I was able to get my new Limited gun all put together and ready to rumble. Its been a while since I did a full trigger job on a Tanfoglio/EAA pistol and I forgot how fun it was. I setup the trigger to break exactly like my other Limited gun. It breaks right at 2.5lbs which is right where I like it. Its nice to get that project completed so I can actually have a backup gun to take to major matches. I am planning on sighting it in and running it through its paces this coming weekend. It will be interesting to see how it shoots compared to my other Limited gun with the difference in slide lightning. Depending on how the new Limited gun runs, I may switch over to it full time and put the other one on Backup Duty. I have also been thinking about simply running the old one until the barrel is shot out or it has a catastrophic failure of some kind. I seem to be really good at breaking stuff so I am sure I will break something on the old one sooner or later.

This coming weekend I am going to shoot a local USPSA match on Saturday and do some training on Sunday. The Saturday USPSA match is going to have a rifle side match so I am going to bring my AR out to play with that in the rifle match. I rarely get to shoot my AR so I am looking forward to giving it a go on Saturday. On my AR I recently swapped the trigger from a Jard to an AR Gold so the side match will be a good test of the new trigger. In dry fire the AR Gold trigger feels pretty nice. We will see how it does in live fire.

I am looking forward to doing some training with a couple of friends on Sunday. We have shot many local matches together but never did any training together. It should be fun exploring their shooting skills and offering assistance where I can.

Edited July 12, 2013 by CHA-LEE

[madmike283]

Are you going to Bob's on Sunday, or BLGC? I *may* head to Bob's for a bit. Not sure yet.

[CHA-LEE]

Are you going to Bob's on Sunday, or BLGC? I *may* head to Bob's for a bit. Not sure yet.

I am going to neither of those locations. The training I am doing is at a private range.

You should go out to Bob's range if you want some fun practice. He has a lot of stuff setup out there to have fun with.

[madmike283]

Roger.

Yeah, I've been out to Bob's a number of times. I was just curious. Have fun!

[CHA-LEE]

This past weekend I shot a local USPSA match on Saturday and did some Training with a couple of friends on Sunday. The USPSA match on Saturday was out at the Colorado Rifle Club range and the match director setup a rifle side match after the pistol match. The stages in the pistol match were all weather themed. There was a good mixture of shooting challenges on every stage which was fun. One stage was a hose down fast shooting stage. The next stage had soft cover in the form of bed sheets blocking four different targets. Shooting at targets that you couldnt see through the soft cover was interesting. The next stage had hard cover on all of the targets creating a lightning bolt of available scoring area to shoot at. This stage was a real brain teaser because the normal Aiming Point of the target was usually covered with hard cover and every target had a unique design and amount of hard cover. 75% of the shooters had at least one miss on this stage with hits in the hard cover, myself included. The last two stages were pretty normal and fun. I had a good time shooting the pistol match and afterwards I was able to shoot my new limited gun to sight it in. It shot good and only needed a little tweaking to get it sighted in. But the magazine wasnt sliding in and out of the fame very smoothly. I have to do some more work on the inside of the grip to smooth things out so the magazine will go in and come out smoothly.

After the pistol match we had the rifle side match. I recently swapped the trigger in my ZM Weapons AR and I wanted to give it a try. The new AR Gold trigger worked good, but the AR was still doing the stupid jam issue where the bolt will not go back into battery. I did one stage run with the AR and had at least 5 6 wont go back into battery jams which was not fun at all. After the stage run I unloaded and showed clear then proceeded to grab the barrel burning the fingers on my right hand. They didnt start to blister right away, but it hurt like hell. Shooting 30+ rounds then grabbing the barrel is not a smart move. Hopefully that is a lesson I only have to learn once. Since my AR was jamming like crazy and I burned my fingers I felt it would be better to pack up and go home, so that is what I did.

I was fully expecting the skin on my fingers to start peeling off by Sunday, but it hadnt started yet. Hopefully the burn wasnt as bad as I thought.

On Sunday I did some one on one training with a couple of friends. We had a good time and I was able to help them identify several areas in their shooting and movement skills that needed improvement. They each had about 5 6 key things to work on by the end of the class so their Homework of getting those things fixed should keep them busy for a while. I enjoyed the class and its cool to see the light bulb go on when new discoveries are made. I didnt do any shooting that day because I wanted to give my burned fingers a rest.

Tonight I am going to the indoor match at Whistling Pines. This is the ICORE match night so its not a normal USPSA match. They let you shoot rim fire or pistol caliber carbines so I am bringing my M&P 15-22 to give it a go at the match. If they let me shoot the .22 as a second gun I will shoot it tonight. If not, I will shoot my pistol like I normally do.

Edited July 15, 2013 by CHA-LEE

[CHA-LEE]

The indoor Whistling Pines match was fun last night. I was able to shoot both my pistol and my M&P 15-22. Since this match uses ICORE scoring I usually treat it like practice verses a match. Its fun to try doing stuff a little differently during the stage runs. It was really interesting to shoot the M&P 15-22 during the match. I have a suppressor on it and was shooting subsonic ammo so it was really quiet and the timer didn't pick up any of the shots. So I was literally shooting for fun using that thing since the timer wasn't able to pick up the stage time. I put the AR-Gold trigger in the M&P 15-22 and it ran like a champ. Running around shooting a suppressed .22 as fast as you can run the trigger is a lot of fun. On the pistol side, I was struggling to see my sights indoor but I gave it hell and had fun while doing it. I recently replaced all of my Grams followers with Bolen/Taran Tactical ones and my main goal was to make sure that the mags would still produce reliable feeding. Everything worked great with no issues. There was one stage where I went ultra hose crazy and ended up with a bunch of .11 - .14 splits and a crazy fast .08 split as well. Its not often that a .08 or .09 split happens but its fun when it does. At a bare minimum I am sure I was entertaining for my squad to watch while I was shooting the match with my pistol and rifle.

[CHA-LEE]

Last night I did some more work on my new Limited gun. The last time I shot it to sight it in the magazines were jamming up a little bit during loading and unloading due to the inside of the grip being a little rough. I think that the sand blasting that I did on it before getting it hard chromed caused the surface on the inside of the grip to be a little rough. I polished up the inside of the grip and the mags now slide in and out smoothly. I also welded up some extra material on the mag release button to bring it out a little bit making it easy for me to hit it without shifting my hand to reach it. I am planning on getting it all back together tonight then doing some dry fire with it. If all goes well I am thinking about using it at the club match this Saturday. I really want to get this blaster ready to rumble and proven reliable before I head to the Area 3 match in a couple of weeks.

[CHA-LEE]

I got my new Limited gun all back together and tuned up. The extended mag release button requires that I push the button in deeper to release the magazine so that is a little strange to get use to, but in this configuration I can lay the gun flat on a table without the mag button being pushed in to a point where it pops the magazine out. So I think I am going to have to get use to pushing the mag release button a little deeper during reloads. I did some dry fire last night with the new gun and it worked pretty good. I had a few instances where I didn't push the mag release button deep enough to drop the mag but that was when I got lazy about pushing it in. All of the reload dry fire went smooth with no magazine jams going in or coming out so I got the excessive friction issue resolved.

I setup this gun with less aggressive checkering on the front and back strap. My intent was to make it easier to adjust my grip and let my hand settle into the correct position during the draw. Instead of sticking exactly where I grab the gun like my other pistol. I am a little worried that the gun will move around more in my hand while shooting but the only way to test it is to shoot and see how it goes.

I am going to use the new Limited gun this weekend for the local club match. That should be a good shake down run to see if the reduced checkering and deeper mag button push are an issue or not.

[CHA-LEE]

This past Saturday I served as Match Director for the Monthly High Plains Practical Shooters USPSA club match. We were down three of the normal board members so the remaining board members had to really bust our humps to get all of the stages setup in the morning. I worked solidly all the way up to the start of the match and didnt get a chance to look at the stages from a competitive perspective. I was forced to figure out all of the stages when I got to the bays as we shot the match. It also didnt help that I was the second or third shooter up on half of the stages. I didnt have enough time to figure out the best plan for the stages much less time to program the stage runs. This left me in the Wing It mode and that didnt work out well at all. I also got sucked into looking for holes in targets to confirm hits due to a lack in confidence in my stage plan. Overall my match performance was pretty poor due to working the match.

I was able to use my new Limited gun at the match. I didnt have any magazine jamming or mag button issues which was great. I did have one strange jam where the slide failed to go all the way forward after picking up a round. The slide was back about an eighth of an inch so the hammer dropped when I pulled the trigger but it didnt hit the firing pin. This happened in the middle of the classifier stage so I racked out the round and kept on shooting. It took quite a bit of force to rack the round out so I think that the jam was due to brass or bullet issues causing an obstruction in the chamber. I looked at the round that I racked out after the stage run and couldnt see anything obviously wrong with it. For grins I put the round back into my magazine and it shot without any issues on the next stage. So there may been something strange in the chamber causing the obstruction, but it was cleared by racking the round out. I am going to keep an eye on this as I shoot it over the next 1000 rounds. Up to this point there was less than 50 rounds though the gun so I am sure there are some things that need to break in before it works 100% reliable. The gun didnt have any other issues the rest of the match, so the strange jam may be a one off thing.

I was able to get all of my stage runs on video and its pretty funny to watch me shoot like a donkey on several stages. All of these videos are on my YouTube channel for your viewing entertainment

Edited July 22, 2013 by CHA-LEE

[CHA-LEE]

This past weekend was a busy one from a shooting and training perspective. On Saturday I presented a Competition Pistol training class with six students. The weather was awesome for the class and right when we got done and were heading out it started raining. That was a close call with the rain. Everyone had fun during the class and much was learned by all. Now its time for them to do their homework in deploying the changes needed to take their skills to the next level.

On Sunday I attended a local USPSA match in Dumont Colorado. This range is a little ways up into the mountains so its always an unknown with what the weather will do. While we were driving out there it was raining pretty good in Denver and I was really expecting the same thing to be going on up at the range. By the time we got to the range the rain was gone and there was no standing water which was nice. Dark clouds were looming all around us so we knew it was only a matter of time until we got hit with some rain. We helped setup the stages as the match staff was short handed. We got three stages into the match before the first wave of rain started. It wasnt a hard rain, more of a drizzle, but it was enough to stop shooting for a little bit. Once it died down we jumped back into shooting the stages and had to do this stop and go a couple of times. With the dark clouds the lighting was pretty low and I was struggling to see my sights properly. For a lot of the stages all I could see was the FO rod in the front sight. This lead to 4 Ds on one stage, and an uncalled miss on another, then a boat load of make up shots needed on the all steel stage. It was fun shooting the stages but it always sucks when you cant see your sights very well.

For the training class and the Sunday match I shot my new Limited gun to give it some more run time in stage based shooting conditions. I had a couple of instances where I didnt press the mag release deep enough to drop the mag out. After the match on Sunday I modified the mag release hook to require less press depth to drop the mag. Now it requires the same press depth as my old limited gun. I also changed the trigger return spring adding some more preload to it so it would be more like my old limited gun. Right now both my Old and New limited guns have the exact same mag release and trigger pull feeling which is nice. I am really liking the reduced checkering aggressiveness on the new limited gun. It allows me to adjust my grip and let my hand settle into the correct place during the draw. The old gun is more aggressive and where my hand touches during the draw is usually where it ends up because it cant slide around in my hand. The new limited gun is also running solidly without any jams. I think that the one jam that I did have last week was an anomaly in the ammo. Or whatever tightness in the gun that caused it is now loosened up enough to not allow it to happen any more.

I am confident enough in the new limited gun that I am going to use it for the Area 3 match this coming weekend. The old limited gun will serve as a backup, which hopefully will not be needed.

Edited July 29, 2013 by CHA-LEE

[CHA-LEE]

Yesterday I got out to the range to chrono some ammo in both my old and new guns. The bad news is that my old gun's barrel is almost shot out. I was getting an average of 925fps out of the old gun and 955fps out of the new gun. So its time for a new barrel in the old gun. This is not too much of a surprise because I probably have 30K - 40K though the old gun which is right on track with barrels slowing down in prior EAA Witness Limited guns I have had. The good thing is that even though the barrel is slowing down it does not affect the accuracy. Its still dead nuts accurate even though the velocity isn't the best.

I also had a chance to shoot the old and new guns back to back to see how they compare from a recoil perspective. Both guns have a 10oz slide. The stock slid weight is 11oz so I remove 1oz of weight. My old gun has .50 oz taken out of the front and back of the slide. My new gun has .75oz taken out of the rear and .25 taken out of the front. My old gun tracks the front sight straight up then right back down to an aligned state. The new gun tracks the front sight straight up but when it comes back down it bounces down below an aligned state then comes back up to an aligned state. This tells me that the weight on the front of the slide is a little too much or that the recoil spring is too heavy. I am using a 10lb recoil spring in both guns right now and I didn't bring any different spring weights with me to the range. The next time I make it out to the range to test this I am going to try an 8lb recoil spring on the new gun to see if that fixes the front sight dip issue.

The other thing I noticed is that I could run the trigger faster and more consistently on my old gun verses the new one. The only difference between the two triggers is that the new gun has a little more sear push through travel before it drops the hammer. I didn't think that this very small difference in trigger setup would make much of a difference while shooting, but man it does. On my old gun I can crank out the shots as fast as I want without even trying hard. On the new gun I have trigger freeze issues while trying to crank out the shots fast. So I need to do a little more work on the new gun's trigger job. Lowering the hammer hooks a little bit should bring the sear push through travel down to where the old gun is. Given that the old gun tracks the sights properly and I can run the trigger better I am going to use it during the Area 3 match this coming weekend. I just hope that the shot out barrel will keep me in the Major Power Factor range when I get to the Chrono station. There is not enough time to put a new barrel in the old gun or fine tune the new gun before heading out to the Area 3 match so I am stuck with what I have for this match. Hopefully I can get both of these issues resolved next week before I head to the High Desert Classic in New Mexico.

The good news is that I have a functional backup gun to take with me to these major matches. It may not be running exactly how I want it to, but it will get the job done if I am forced to use it.

Edited August 1, 2013 by CHA-LEE

[old506]

I would say the old gun did pretty good......

[CHA-LEE]

This past weekend was the 2013 Area 3 match. I really wasnt planning on going to this match due to the crazy hot and humid weather that was there two years ago, but my shooting buddy Derrick Johnson talked me into going. I told him that I reserved the right to whine like a baby if it was super hot and humid. All of the worry about the hot weather wasnt needed because it wasnt hot at all. There was actually more worry about rain over the weekend. I guess the range got totally swamped out with rain on Thursday night and the match staff had to do a lot of mud control by spreading around wood chips to help reduce the mud bog effect. When we got to the range on Friday afternoon to check out the stages there was still some mud on the outer edges of the bays but the shooting areas within the stages were well taken care of. The Area 3 match staff really knows how to get the job done when rain tries to ruin the event.

The rest of the weekend the rain threatened but it really only amounted to a little sprinkle here or there. This kept the temp in the low 70 degree range on both Saturday and Sunday which was awesome. Its a lot more fun to attend this match when the weather isnt super hot.

We checked out all of the stages on Saturday and came up with good plans for all of the stages. I was on the AM shooting schedule for both days so we started in the morning and shot until about lunch time each day. One cool thing is that we had Blake Miguez on our squad on Saturday and he shot through the rest of the stages on a PM squad that same day. Getting to shoot with Blake for half of the match was fun. He is a really nice guy and a bad ass when it comes to laying down the lead in a hurry. On Sunday when we got to the chrono stage the chrono guy was looking for Blake because he didnt go through the Chrono on Saturday. Since Blake shot through and left he didnt get to chrono his ammo and the match staff ended up zeroing his stage scores. It sucked to see that he got taken out of the match due to a chrono technicality, but the rules are the rules. Hopefully that is a lesson he does not have to learn again the hard way.

On Saturday my shooting performance on every stage was really solid. I was shooting within my skills, calling all of my shots and getting good hits. I wasnt burning down any stages but I was consistently netting top 5 finishes on each stage. By the end of Saturday I knew that I had a really good match performance going and if I kept the same pace on Sunday I would be able to net a top 3 overall in Limited. When Sunday rolled around we got to the range and the sky was very dark gray and overcast. Due to the poor lighting I couldnt see my sights worth a crap. This resulted in 5 misses in the remaining stages. All of the misses were uncalled due to the poor lighting so I didnt even know that I had a miss until the ROs started scoring the stage. It also didnt help that we lost several shooters on our squad due to DQs or shooting through on Saturday. When you have to tape and set steel all the way up until its your turn to shoot, it usually does not lead to a good shooting performance. I hate to blame other things for producing a poor shooting performance, but the poor lighting and the working all the way up to my turn to shoot really screwed me up on Sunday.

After racking up 5 misses on Sunday I was sure that it would be difficult to net a top 10 finish. Somehow I managed to finish 4th at 91% of Manny Bragg who won. Without the 5 misses on Sunday I could have finished 3rd at 95%. The good news is that my old Limited gun ran good and didnt give me any trouble at the chrono. It ended up producing 169 PF during the chrono but I think a lot of that was due to it being 65 70 degrees when I went to the chrono stage. If it was 90 degrees I am sure that the power factor would have been a lot closer to 165 than I would have liked. My buddy Derrick was able to get all of my stage runs on Video and I have uploaded them to my YouTube channel for your viewing entertainment.

https://www.youtube.com/user/chimpdaddyllc

Edited August 6, 2013 by CHA-LEE

[CHA-LEE]

This past weekend I attended the 2013 High Desert Classic in Albuquerque New Mexico. This match was different than most major matches because all 10 stages were large field courses. The smallest round count stage was 24 rounds with the majority of them being 30 32 rounds. Another difference is that almost every stage had a moving target of some kind. The match was chocked full with Swingers, Drop Turners, Clam Shells, Texas Stars, Polish Plate Racks, Trap Doors, and swinging steel hard cover. Figuring out the best plan for some of these activated contraptions was a challenge as a lot of stages had two of them being activated at the same time. Some of these activator stages lead to range failure issues and several reshoots. Stage 7 in particular was really bad as it caused over 60 reshoots during the match due to various contraption failures. Hopefully the match staff will take that as a learning lesson for next years match.

We got to the range on Friday to check out the stages and figure out as much strategy as we could since we couldnt see how the activating target timing was. We would have to wait until we shot the match to see how the moving target timing really worked. Well that plan backfired on me at the start of the match. I ended up being the first shooter on stage 10 which had a tricky clam shell & swinger that got activated by pulling a rope. I got to see it once during the walk though and it seemed like it would be doable to shoot a static, then clam, then swinger. When I shot the stage by the time I got done with the static the clam shell was already closed and I had to take head shots, then I was completely out of time with the swinger and had to wait a couple of passes to get it fully engaged. If I could shoot that stage again I would have shot it in a different order (Clam, Static, Swinger). The next couple of stages I was shooting really slow and conservative. I am not sure what the deal was but I just couldnt get aggressive in my shooting on Saturday. I think that a big part of it was that I didnt sleep worth a crap the night before. On Saturday I shot slow and racked up two misses. At that point in the match I thought that my match was sunk.

Saturday night I made sure that I got a good nights sleep so I could be fresh for shooting and the long drive home. This worked out good and I ended up shooting the last four stages a lot more aggressive. I didnt have any shooting penalties on Sunday. This overall performance resulted in a 3rd overall in Limited at 94% of the winner Ron Avery. Honestly I was surprised that I was that close to the winner given how crappy I shot on Saturday. But this is a good reminder that every match is an exercise of long term consistency. When the going gets tuff you have to keep grinding along.

I was able to get most of my stage runs on video and I have uploaded them to YouTube. The primary issue I see in my videos is that I keep standing up after getting into a shooting position. I really need to work hard at fixing that issue as it does kill my ability to transition aggressively between targets as I stand up. To me, seeing this issue in video and knowing that I have to fix it is the biggest take away from this match. Over the next couple of months I am going to focus on staying low after getting into shooting positions.

Edited August 13, 2013 by CHA-LEE

[DerrickJ]

Strong work Charlie, congrats on two great finishes in these matches!

[CHA-LEE]

I decided to do a detailed strip and clean on my old gun last night since I have used it in the last two major matches and a couple of club matches. When I got it all apart I noticed that the slide has a serious crack right above where the slide impacts the frame. This is right above where the guide rod and spring go. I have attached a picture of this to the post. This was the slide off of my old gun that had the cracked frame. I put this upper on my really old frame and have been using that setup since my old frame cracked and I was building up the new gun. I still have the original upper form my really old gun but the barrel is totally shot out so I will have to replace the barrel to make it a viable backup gun. I am still not sure if I should invest the time and effort to lighten the slide on this really old gun as its already been to hell and back at least twice. But if I am going to put a new barrel in it, then why not lighten the slide how I like it? I am going to wait on that until I figure out if I like the new slide lightening balance or not.

When it comes to breaking stuff I am an expert!!!

Since I am now forced to shoot the new gun I did some work on it last night as well. I made some changes to the trigger to make it feel closer to my old gun setup. I also put in an 8lb recoil spring and hope that it helps with the front sight dip post shot. I need to get out to the range today or tomorrow to give it a try and see if it will work or not. I am a little worried that the 8lb recoil spring may cause some unreliable feeding, but the only way to find out is to shoot it.

Looks like I need to start building up a New, New gun over the winter as I am sure I will find a way to break my current guns.

Edited August 15, 2013 by CHA-LEE

[CHA-LEE]

Yesterday after work I made it out to the range to test out a bunch of stuff..

First, I sighted in my old backup gun. I was able to get the windage right but it kept hitting 3 4 inches high at about 25 yards. I am using a fixed rear sight that is the same height as all of my other ones so I was confused at how this could be hitting high. When I got home I measured the height of the front sight and sure enough it was shorter than expected. It was .160 tall instead of .180 tall. I am not sure how this shorter front sight snuck into my collection of front sights, but sure enough here it is. I need to replace it with a .180 tall front sight and it should fix the high POI issue.

Second, I ran some rounds through the chrono on the old backup gun and it was producing an average of 930fps. This is slower than I want, but its enough to make major. So this old blaster should be able to serve the purpose of the backup gun.

Third, I test fired about 60 rounds though the new gun to see if the trigger and recoil spring changes helped. I am happy to report that the trigger is right where it needs to be. The 8lb recoil spring also resolved the post shot front sight dip as the slide snaps back forward. The 8lb recoil spring produced solid feeding and didnt feel like the slide was cycling excessively slow. The sights are dead nuts on at 25 yards where my POA and POI is exactly the same. I am really happy with how this new blaster is running now.

Forth, I ran the same ammo I used on the old gun through the new gun on the chrono. This produced an average of 955fps which is right were it should be on a brand new barrel.

Fifth, I ran both the old and new guns back to back with the same ammo just to see how the felt recoil and front sight tracking was different. Since my old gun has a standard slide with no lightening and my new gun has 1oz removed and a lighter recoil spring it was cool to shoot both back to back to feel and see the difference. The old gun had a softer felt recoil but the front sight would raise higher post shot, basically having more muzzle flip. The new gun has a sharper felt recoil and the front sight didnt raise as high post shot. The felt recoil was really like the difference in light weight bullets verses heavy bullets making the same power factor. The difference in muzzle flip was HUGE. I could stay on the front sight a lot easier with the new gun because it didnt muzzle flip out of my vision plane like the old gun did. Then again I am not sure if this is also due to having a slightly shorter front sight on the old gun. With less front sight to look at I am sure it makes seeing the sight just a little more difficult.

After the short testing session I am happy with the results. I feel that my blasters are ready to tackle the last few major matches I have left in 2013. Its nice to have this equipment issue resolved for now. Now I can focus on the shooting instead of my equipment.

Edited August 16, 2013 by CHA-LEE

[CHA-LEE]

This past Saturday I served my Match Director duty for the local High Plains Practical Shooter club match. We had a lot of help setting up in the morning so the setup went fast and all of the stages were fun. I was excited to use my new Limited gun at the match and it didnt disappoint. The new blaster ran great and the sights were tracking perfectly with the 8lb recoil spring. My shooting performance for the match was pretty solid. I only screwed up Stage 5 really bad with a blown plan and running out of ammo. This stage had you starting with all of your magazines in a brief case held in your strong hand with an unloaded gun in the holster. So at the start you had to open the brief case, get your mags, load the gun, and then shoot. My plan was to grab two mags and slap one onto my magnet and then load the other one. Well during the slap it on the magnet motion the one I wanted to stick didnt stick and fell back into the brief case. So I had to reload from the brief case. I then proceeded to go hoser crazy after the reload and shot too many make up shots and could only engage the last target with one round, forcing me to eat a miss. This was a monkey show for sure and entertaining to watch on video. I was able to get the stage runs filmed and uploaded to my YouTube channel.

Other than the Stage 5 fiasco I was happy with my performance. After reviewing the videos of the stages I can see that I am still standing up excessively after entering the shooting positions. I really need to work on eliminating that as it does kill my ability to transition aggressively. The work on improving never stops. Hopefully I can get it right one of these days.

Edited August 19, 2013 by CHA-LEE

[CHA-LEE]

Last night I attended the indoor USPSA match down in Colorado Springs. We shot 4 stages including a classifier. My performance that night was a complete disaster. On the first stage I was having a hell of a time seeing my sights and that lead to too many extra shots taken after the reload and running out of ammo. I had to do a standing reload to engage the last target with two shots verses eat an FTE and two misses. On the second stage I shot the first position well, then did a reload and ran hard to the next box. As I was stepping into the next box I stepped right on my magazine that I dropped during the reload and slipped falling down. I caught myself before falling all the way down and kept the gun pointed down range the whole time. But it added an extra 2 3 seconds to the stage run to get back up and finish the stage. Falling down in the middle of a stage is never fun. On the third stage which was the classifier, I threw a miss on a target sinking that stage run. Then on the last stage of the night it was a low light stage and I had to point shoot everything because seeing my sights was pointless. I shot the majority of the stage good but then my gun jammed on the very last shot needed to complete the stage. The round didnt fully chamber due to a bulge in the bullet keeping the round from registering completely in the chamber. So I had to eat a miss and had another miss to boot. Holly horrible match performance batman!!!

[thermobollocks]

I think you are the only person I know who would go butt-down unintentionally and then say it ate 2.3 seconds. At least you get to practice for seated starts, right?

[CHA-LEE]

I thought I was practicing my break dancing skills???