CHA-LEE's Tale

[CHA-LEE]

I had this Monday off for MLK day, so I decided to head out to the range and do some practice. The weather was in the high 40’s but the wind was going pretty good. Regardless of the weather it was nice to get some more shooting in. I started out the day with my Open gun as I had some new ammo to try out. The new ammo works good and I should be done with the load development. While shooting the open gun we had some targets setup in medium distance transitions and I found it really hard to shoot strings from right to left because I couldn’t “Look for” the next target because the sideways C-More was in the way. Having my vision confined to the glass of the C-More was pretty distracting. Shooting Left to right it wasn’t a problem because there isn’t anything blocking my vision on that side. Being frustrated with it I only shot about 100 rounds through it before putting it away and switching to my Limited gun. Not shooting it a lot turned out to be a really good thing because when I got home I noticed that the comp was starting to unscrew and it wasn’t lined up with the slide any more. I am sure I would have done some damage to it if I kept shooting it that way. When I got home I took the comp off, cleaned up the threads and screwed it back on with some red lock tight. We will see if that holds up.

The rest of the practice session I shot my #3 Limited gun on several different practice stages. I have been trying to burn up some ammo I over crimped and its pretty crappy from an accuracy perspective. This inaccurate ammo mixed with small square plates turned into a pretty frustrating situation. Aiming at the exact same spot on the plates and missing 2 - 3 times before you hit the plate isn’t a good confidence builder. The only saving grace is that I have burned through all of the over crimped ammo so that shouldn’t be an issue any more. The #3 Limited gun ran like a champ and I was happy with my iron sight work that day for the most part. I really like it when we get to the end of the practice and I am feeling “Over it” but I can still produce solid stage runs. For me, this is really good major match practice when you have to shoot a whole major in one day and are running out of gas and motivation at the end of the day. Long practice days are really the only way to reproduce this mental and physical feeling so its nice to have an opportunity to train in these conditions during the winter time.

Since the Open gun ammo is figured out and I got the Comp fixed I am planning on shooting the Bristol Cone match tomorrow with the open gun. We will see how it goes.

[BritinUSA]

I don't think red loctite will hold the comp as it gets too hot. I think the correct color is white loctite….

[CHA-LEE]

Thanks for the heads up. The only other locktite I know of beyond Red is Green and that stuff is permanent. If the Red locktite fails I will put some green on it and be done with it.

[PatJones]

There is a hi temp version of red loctite, 272. It's good up to 450 degrees.

[PatJones]

From Henkel, the manufacturer, regarding the different colors:

http://us.henkel-adhesives-blog.com/post/All-About-Threadlockers/The-Difference-Between-Red-Blue-Green-and-Purple-Threadlockers/

Edited January 19, 2016 by PatJones

[thermobollocks]

Rocksett?

[PatJones]

The problem with rockset is that it largely unaffected by heat. Applying sufficient torque is the only way to break it loose, this can be a problem with some types of parts.

Be aware that loctite doesn't set up as strong on stainless as it does on standard steels.

[CHA-LEE]

We will see what happens with the Big Panda fiddle job. If it fails I will find something else that will get the job done. If it fails again I am half tempted to just tig weld it on and call it good.

[Dr Mitch]

Green Loctite is not necessarily permanent. I remove screws installed with Loctite retaining compound every year. It is not always easy, but it has not yet been permanent. Use green on the comp.

[Shadow]

We will see what happens with the Big Panda fiddle job. If it fails I will find something else that will get the job done. If it fails again I am half tempted to just tig weld it on and call it good.

Set screw.

[CHA-LEE]

Last night I attended the Bristlecone Indoor USPSA match. I decided to give the Open gun a go since I got the new ammo and fixed the comp. The first stage of the match was a four position field course with two doors that you had to open to see/engage the targets. It was a 20 round stage and I decided to use a little stick with 23 rounds in it. This turned out to be a bad decision as I had a make up shot on the second target I engaged and then I spent the rest of the stage shooting like a wussy because I didn’t want to run out of ammo. I was also getting caught up in flip flopping between looking at the dot or the target while shooting. To top it off I also had a miss just into the hard cover on the first target I engaged. Not the best way to start a match. The next couple of stages I shot decent but then had a miss on the classifier. This is the 4^th classifier I have shot with this gun and EVERY SINGLE ONE I have had at least one miss. That should bring the average in at a solid 50%...... Yikes. For the second version of the door stage I decided to use a “Limited” plan and just do a reload half way through and it worked out a lot better. Even though I could load up the big stick and not do a reload it just feels abnormal to shoot more than 20 rounds without doing a reload. My burned in “Limited Brain” also wants to do a reload on the stage so it’s really hard to go against that recommendation.

I am still battling the draw as I keep bashing my strong hand thumb into the back of the C-More while trying to grip the gun aggressively. Granted I haven’t been doing any dry fire with the Open gun either so I don’t know why I would expect this issue to be magically fixed on its own. That is only going to get fixed with a bunch of dry fire.

Overall I was happy that the ammo ran and my comp fix didn’t fail either. My shooting left a lot to be desired and that part was frustrating but I could at least see the dot in the poor lighting conditions so I can’t whine too much.

Right now I need to focus on my Limited shooting for the 2016 major match season. The Open gun will remain a fun side project to tinker with while shooting indoors but I don’t see myself switching over to it full time any time soon.

The weather is suppose to be in the 50’s this coming Saturday so I am really looking forward to shooting the outdoor USPSA match at the Aurora Gun Club. I only have a few more weeks until I head out to the Florida Open so the more shooting I can get in the better.

Edited January 21, 2016 by CHA-LEE

[CrashDodson]

Do you think someone could hurt their performance trying to go back and forth between a limited and open setup? Let's say you did a lot of practice with your open gun can you actually be great at both or will one improve while the other is effected? Obviously shooting irons and dots is quite different.

Sent from my SM-N920V using Tapatalk

[tha1000]

Here is the video footage from the Monday Night match. My buddy Dom took the video and shared it with me after the match. I used the Apple iMovie app on my phone to compile all of the runs into a single video. Its not too fancy but they are at least all together in one video. One thing I really like about this footage is that it shows my increased focus on gripping the gun hard since there is virtually zero muzzle flip while shooting.

that is insane.

[CHA-LEE]

Do you think someone could hurt their performance trying to go back and forth between a limited and open setup? Let's say you did a lot of practice with your open gun can you actually be great at both or will one improve while the other is effected? Obviously shooting irons and dots is quite different.

Sent from my SM-N920V using Tapatalk

The Short answer is Yes, it can hurt your performance flipping back and forth. That is why I am putting the Open gun on the back burner while my Limited major match schedule ramps up. I need my iron sight shooting to be second nature and the only way that happens is with a lot of dedicated practice on the same setup.

That being said, I think that there is a lot to learn from shooting open. The dot movement feedback you get while shooting, transitioning and moving is phenomenal. It really shows you what every single movement does to the point and aim of the gun. Its also a very cool to virtually eliminate the equipment as a performance road block. A well tuned open gun can run faster than most peoples human capability. Its an interesting voyage to push the limits of shooting speed knowing that the speed limit is me and not the equipment. I find myself artificially pacing my Open gun shooting at a Limited gun speed because I can only see and process the iron sights so fast and am use to that speed limit. The few times that I have unleashed the beast with the Open gun and shot it as fast as I can get the dot on target has been very eye opening as it ends up being crazy fast. I just don't have the time or resources to put the 25K - 50K into only shooting the Open gun to fully explore and hone that level of shooting. Thus why its time to put it on the back burner.

[CHA-LEE]

Today I attended the PSAC USPSA club match at the Aurora Gun club. The weather was playing nice with zero wind and almost 60 degree temp. This was great but it also left most of the berms a little muddy with all of the melting snow. This range is really sandy anyway so even though it was muddy it wasn’t horrible. I gave the Pivot Head glasses another go as well. In the 60 degree weather they started to fog up if I kept them tight to my face so I had to wear them a little off my face to breath properly while not shooting. I put them on all the way during my stage runs to ensure I had the best eye protection and luckily they didn’t fog up on me while shooting. But, if they are fogging up on an almost 60 degree day, they would really fog up in the summer time. That is a bummer but it is what it is. Here is the footage from the match today.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oTPUV_2gBt0

I decided to shoot my #3 Limited gun for this match to get some more rounds on it. It ran flawlessly even though a couple of my mags are on the verge of having worn out springs. This will be the last match on these mag springs as I will swap them out this week. Its just interesting to see if things will work when they are getting close to being worn out.

I shot the match “ok” today. I didn’t have any misses, no shoots, or D’s so that was good. But I felt like I couldn’t get the shooting going aggressively enough. There were a couple of stage with some serious hose down shooting and I felt like I was stuck in slow shooting mode. My hands were a little cold and stiff early in the morning during the first two stages so maybe the Big Panda rage blast finger was just too cold? I was also battling the “Shadow Target” issues today as all of the targets in the left side of the bays were in heavy shadows. The thing I really liked about my performance today was my gun handling. There were a couple of stages that required two reloads for the optimal plan and I am always a little leery of reloading to my second or third mag pouch as I don’t do it very often. I nailed all of my reloads today and that was very rewarding. Its nice to simply let it happen at whatever pace it wants to go and it gets done effectively. I also liked my patience on Stage 5 as it had a bunch of partial targets to engage while moving mixed in with some fast blasting. I screwed the pooch on the first stage by trying to shoot too aggressively on the last two targets which resulted in a crap ton of make up shots to get my hits. Then on the classifier I had three misses on steel which I think I was just mashing the crap out of the trigger. These two stage blunders easily cost me at least 30 match points. So Even though I shot “clean” I still gave up about 2 misses worth of points in poor shooting.

Even though I am not excited about my match performance today its still a win as we got to shoot a match outdoors in decent weather. I will take a crummy performance match verses a canceled match and not shooting any day!!!

[titandriver]

Hey Charlie - what was the start position on stage 2?

[CHA-LEE]

Hey Charlie - what was the start position on stage 2?

The start position was Unloaded gun on any barrel. Then it said touching barrel. That was it. So I gamed the shit out of it and stood my gun up and had my hand just off the grip with my pinky touching the barrel. Gamers gotta game baby

[titandriver]

Atta boy! I'm guessin' the stage designer won't make that mistake again!

[d_striker]

Atta boy! I'm guessin' the stage designer won't make that mistake again!

I think the designer intentionally does start positions like this occasionally to see if people are paying attention.

[titandriver]

I do the same thing at our matches. Amazing how many folks lay it on it's side when it's not required.

[thermobollocks]

Mine's too skinny to do much else

[CHA-LEE]

No shooting for me this past Sunday. The weather was too cold and windy to shoot outdoors so I decided to tinker on my shooting stuff. Not being able to shoot as fast as I would have liked on Saturday had me thinking about the trigger setup on the #3 Limited gun. I had the total trigger pull weight at 2lbs 4oz where I normally like it but the overall feel of it was different than my other two Limited guns. The take up spring tension was a lot less and the sear spring tension was a lot more. It had a lot less finger push back spring tension and a lot more force needed to push through the sear to break the shot. I switched it up to flip flop the spring tension making the take up tension stiffer and lightening up the sear push through. Comparing it to my other Limited blasters it now feels very similar. It’s funny how I get dialed into a specific trigger pull feel and style then get thrown off when it’s not right. It also does not help that I have been doing musical chairs with my three different limited guns. I am going to do one last round of back to back testing this coming weekend between the three guns and after that I am going to settle on one as a primary.

On Saturday I let my buddy Hannu from Finland shoot my Open gun. He came back to the US to attend the SHOT Show and stopped in Colorado to shoot a local match. He needed an Open gun to rental so I offered mine up as it needed some more rounds on it for break in anyway. He had a good time shooting it and said it had one failure to extract jam through the day. I had gone fiddle crazy on the AFTEC extractor to give it as little tension as possible while the round is chambered and I probably went too far. Since the extractor was questionable and the gun needed to be cleaned I decided to do a detailed strip and clean along with fitting a new extractor. This new extractor I setup with just a little less tension than stock that way there isn’t a crazy amount of extractor tension when the case is chambered. I was able to hand cycle dummy rounds through it without any clunky feeding or lockup so it should be good to go. I also double checked the Comp to see if it was clocking again and its holding steady so far. I know I need a lot more rounds down the pipe to confirm the comp won’t move but it’s at least a good start. The Open gun is ready to rumble even though I am not sure when I am going to shoot it next. Until then it can sleep in the safe and at least keep my AR’s company.

After that I did a trigger job on a buddies M&P using the APEX forward set sear/trigger kit. That is a great kit for the M&P’s and results in a pretty sweet trigger job. The only thing that its lacking is an over travel adjustment which I am surprised that they don’t include. I had to create an over travel stop using a small 2-56 set screw in the back of the trigger shoe. This guy wanted the trigger pull setup right at 4lbs which is heavier than I am normally asked to set them up, but the APEX trigger kit comes with several different trigger return spring weights so it wasn’t too much trouble. When I was done with it the break was right at 4lbs with a dramatically reduced pre/over travel. It now has a very nice trigger action that would give quite a few 1911’s a run for their money.

To wrap up the day I reloaded about 1000 rounds of 40 ammo to get the stash restocked. With all of the practice and matches lately I have been putting a good dent in my ammo stash. I am going to focus on reloading a couple nights this week to further bolster the stash. Hopefully I will get a good enough stock of loaded ammo going that I won’t have to go into scramble mode loading ammo the night before a match or practice. It always sucks to get stuck in a situation like that. There is no excuse to not have at least 5K in loaded ammo stocked up given all of the canceled matches we have had this winter. Time to get to it.

[Glock26Toter]

Atta boy! I'm guessin' the stage designer won't make that mistake again!

I think the designer intentionally does start positions like this occasionally to see if people are paying attention.

The stage designer learns more by leaving open ended descriptions and see how they are gamed than trying to lock things down.

[CHA-LEE]

This Saturday the weather was nice so I gathered some friends and we got some good practice in. We setup a large field course stage with a bunch of different skills to test. It was a difficult stage and a good test for everyone. The steel at the start of the stage was giving everyone a hard time myself included. It had a good dose of left/right transitions along with shooting on the move so that was good to practice as well. The optimal movement through the stage required a lot of accelerating and slowing down to keep from breaking the 180 and getting to the next target as soon as possible.

This stage also required two reloads in Limited which was nice to exercise those skills. I hit my reloads solidly most of the time but I did have a couple of bobbles when trying to get it done too aggressively. I was able to get my runs on video with the Pivothead glasses and noticed a disturbing issue with my reload. When I would try going really aggressive my trigger finger would be off the trigger but still in the trigger guard. I need to fix that issue ASAP. I can’t have my finger in the trigger guard during reloads and it seems to only happen when I am really getting after it. On a normal reload from one position to the next I get my finger out of there so I am not executing the process properly when I get really aggressive.

I also used this practice session to do some more Limited gun testing. I kept rotating between the three blasters throughout the day. I am still trying to figure out which setup is the most effective overall. The #3 blaster is the most “comfortable” to shoot. The #2 is a little more harsh feeling due to the slightly lighter slide but not very different than the #3 blaster. The #1 is the bushing setup which is the harshest feeling recoil but it also forces me to grip it harder to manage the recoil. I am still intrigued about the #1 blaster as the increased grip pressure also increases the aggressiveness of my transitions and speed of shooting. Its not as “comfortable” to shoot as the other two guns but maybe that is a good thing? Being “comfortable” while shooting doesn’t matter if its not as effective as being “uncomfortable”. With that in mind I am going to shoot the next two club matches with the #1 blaster to see how it goes. The only thing I am concerned about is how the increased recoil will affect the less than optimal shooting positions. We will see how it goes.

Video of the practice runs....... Lots of blasting getting done that day

[CHA-LEE]

Last night I attended the CGC indoor USPSA match. I shot the #1 Bushing Barrel pistol and it didn’t seem to hinder me at all from a recoil management perspective. I did have a nose dive jam on the first stage of the match using a mag I don’t use regularly. This gun ran flawlessly on Saturday and the rest of the match so I am chalking the jam up to a one off funky mag issue.

As usual the lighting was pretty poor so seeing your sights was really hard. I racked up two misses through the match trying to point shoot targets while not being able to see my sights. I have to admit that I was bummed that I didn’t shoot Open due to the lighting. Shooting a dot gun in there is a HUGE advantage over irons. Other than that the match went fairly well and I had fun shooting with friends.

Tonight I am planning on shooting the Whistling Pines match down in Colorado Springs. That is if the snow doesn’t cancel the match. The MD sent out an e-mail stating that they might cancel the match if the roads are too crappy. I hope it does not get canceled but I understand if it does.

I am going to shoot the #2 pistol at this match. I was thinking about it last night and it makes more sense for me to use the #2 & #3 pistols for the Florida Open happening in a couple of weeks since they are very close to one another in how they shoot. If I have to switch to a backup at the Florida Open I don’t want to also be dealing with the distraction of a gun that recoils differently. I need to stop doing the merry go round with these guns and settle on one as the primary and another as a secondary. We will see how it goes.