CHA-LEE's Tale

[CHA-LEE]

Sunday was a busy shooting day for me. I went out to practice in the morning then attended a USPSA club match in the evening. During practice I test the prescription glasses again and the lighting was great all day. An interesting thing I discovered during practice is that I was “admiring” the sights a little too much on stage runs to the point that I was wasting time on target before breaking the shots. I got awesome hits during those runs but the shooting was too slow. I basically need to relearn how settled the sights need to be for any given shot now that I can actually see them clearly again. It will take a little while to get this ironed out but it’s a good problem to have. The stage we setup for practice had two low ports with some difficult shots so that was some good stuff to practice. I have to slow the shooting way down when shooting through low ports to manage the recoil properly. It feels painfully slow, but if that is what is needed to get my hits then it is what it is.

While at the range I had a chance to test out some other stuff as well. I got some new followers for my old STI mags to see if that would fix the nose diving issue. I used the old STI Mags through the whole training session and they worked flawlessly. I am glad to get these STI mags back in action and will use them in practice that way I am not beating up my MBX mags more than they need to be.

I also did some spring testing with the Open gun. I have been using a 7lb Wolff recoil spring and that produced a little too much rearward slide velocity leading to a little more muzzle flip than I would like. In the past I tried an 8lb recoil spring and that helped with the slide velocity but also produced a slide slamming back forward front end wobble post shot. While at the FL Open I picked up a variable 8lb recoil spring to see if that would come back like an 8lb but come back forward softer like a 7lb. I did slow motion video of both springs and the 8lb variable still produced the post shot front end wobble. So that test was a bust. I could see that there was more up/down wobble in the scope as the dot would streak up and down about twice as much as the 7lb spring setup. The magical flat open gun setup still remains elusive. One thing that I do know is that these new prescription glasses do NOT work well with the open gun. It made the dot way too distracting because I couldn’t focus on the targets. When I shoot open I need to not use the corrective lenses.

Overall it was a productive practice session and I was ready to test out the prescription glasses at the indoor match in the evening.

The indoor match was shorthanded this month so I stepped up to help them do registration and scoring. Since I was doing registration and getting the Nooks ready to go for the match I only got a few minutes to glance over the stages in a hurry. I basically had to figure them out as my squad got to the stages during the match. Lucky for me the stages were pretty straight forward. The varied lighting indoors still made seeing the sights difficult but I could see them way better than before. I did rack up one miss during the match where I was shooting a little too aggressive on a partial target. I ended up mashing the shot low into the hard cover but the hit was at least on the target. I am happy with how the new glasses worked for this indoor match. They are no replacement for shooting a red dot as that would be the real solution for indoor matches but the glasses at least give me some hope in shooting iron sights indoors.

Now I have to get my guns and gear cleaned up and ready for the Area 2 match. I am heading out to Phoenix on Thursday and looking forward to seeing how it turns out now that I can actually see my sights.

[thermobollocks]

Contacts are...different. Often they provide excellent FOV and clarity, but other times they become angry little eye boogers, worse than having dirty glasses. I will be glad to get prescription shooting glasses back (again). The other weird part about glasses is FOV can become a bigger deal than you'd expect, but it generally enters more into long guns and awkward positions that you don't see in handgun matches.

[CHA-LEE]

This past weekend I attended the Area 2 match down in Phoenix. This is my favorite match of the year and they had a bunch of challenging and fun stages to shoot. The weather was awesome as well which made it a great weekend of shooting. We showed up on Thursday to check out the stages and formulate our plans. This match had a crazy mount of moving targets. Out of the 15 stages only five DIDN’T have a moving target of some sort on it. Many of the stages had multiple moving targets on them as well. If you were not comfortable with engaging or timing moving targets you were in trouble at this match. I have done a bunch of moving target training through the years so it didn’t bother me, but several of my squad mates looked like fish out of water dealing with them.

My squad was mostly comprised of fellow Colorado shooters and we were on the AM/PM/AM schedule. Starting in the morning twice wasn’t the best but with my new glasses it make seeing my sights a lot easier in the early morning light or lack of. I used my new glasses the whole first day of the match and they worked good but I started getting some double vision issues as I transitioned between targets. I would ether see a single target and double sights, or a single set of sights and double targets. This forced me to fully close my left eye during a few stage runs to eliminate the double vision issue when it started happening. For the second day I switched back to my non-prescription glasses as the lighting was good enough in the afternoon. It got a little overcast towards the end of the day so I switched back and forth between the prescription glasses and the non trying to find the best vision solution but the double vision issues were getting worse the more I used the prescription glasses. I think that my brain was finally getting used to wearing them and trying to process both left and right eye images at the same time and switching which eye is the dominant one during the process. I don’t think that the “Mono Vision” setup is going to work for me if I want to shoot with both eyes open. I am going to get a left eye lens made with the +0.50 prescription so that both of my eyes have the same amount of distance vision reduction and close vision improvement. Hopefully that will eliminate the super confusing double vision issue.

Even though I was battling my eyes at this match I could at least see my sights the majority of the time and it allowed me to shoot fairly accurate. Through the first two days of the match I only had 2 misses and 1 no shoot. One miss was simply rushing the shooting on a swinger, the other was a marginally called shot on the “trolly” moving target which ended up being a miss. The No Shoot was purely mashing the crap out of the trigger and pulling at shot down into the no shoot. The good thing about these shooting penalties is that I was able see my sights and know that something might be bad when the targets were scored instead of not being able to see crap and simply hoping I had hits. Since I had a fairly solid first two days of shooting in the books I knew that if I simply shot the last four stages on Sunday clean I would be able to earn a solid overall finish. I shot the first three stages on Sunday and then disaster struck on the last stage of the match resulting in 2 misses on one target. The stage had me engaging a head shot target through a low port to start off with. This type of crouching and pointing the gun above my head is exactly what my weak left arm can’t handle. I shot the head shot target 4 times because the gun was bouncing around and the sight picture wasn’t looking the best. I figured 4 shots would be good enough but when we scored the targets I had 4 hits in the hard cover about an inch down from the bottom of the head. I was super bummed to rack up 2 misses on a target that I shot at 4 times but it is what it is. I think that the root cause of the failure is that my left arm strength and grip strength gets so circumvented that I am not able to grip the gun hard enough to isolate the trigger press and I am simply mashing the shots low.

With a tally of 4 misses and 1 no shoot I wasn’t sure of how I would finish overall in Limited. I knew I had a chance of being in the hunt for 2^nd or 3^rd without the two misses on the last day but with them I was not sure how much that would impact my finishing order. After the results were tallied I ended up 4^th in Limited at almost 94% of Nils who won. As it turns out even if I wouldn’t have had the two misses on the last stage I would have still been 4^th overall, and still 25 match points away from 2^nd place. My 4^th place finish allowed me to pull a 1050 GSI Bullet Feeder off the prize table so that was awesome. Now my 1050 will be totally ready to rumble for loading Open ammo.

Overall I am satisfied with my results at this match. I know I could have shot a couple of stages more aggressively if I wasn’t battling the double vision issues, but it’s a work in progress. If I can get these shooting glasses ironed out so I can see my sights clearly all the time its going to be a huge benefit. I also need to fix this weak left arm issue so the low ports don’t kill me. The improvement process never ends!!!

[PatJones]

Glad you had s good time Charlie. This is the most positive you've sounded after a big match in a while. It sounds like the glasses are just what the doctor ordered.

[Husker95]

Great job Charlie. And a bullet feeder for a bonus!

[CHA-LEE]

I stopped by the eye place yesterday and got a +0.50 lens made for my left eye. Now both lenses are at the same prescription. The first thing I noticed is that the odd unbalanced feeling was dramatically less when putting them on verses when it was in a Mono Vision configuration. It takes a lot less time to get use to them after putting them on. The little bit of testing I did in dry fire seems like it has fixed the double vision issue but that was indoors. I need to test it outdoors in good lighting to see if my focus will flip out again like it was doing at the Area 2 match.

I am planning on doing some more dry fire testing with the glasses tonight in varied lighting conditions to see how they really work. Hopefully this is exactly what I need to get my vision where it needs to be.

[ksorrell]

This is something I definately need to try. I've been using a +1 in my Right (dominant) eye and no script in my left. I didn't even know you could get +.5. I think as you are doing if I drop to a +.5 in both eyes it might help my old eyes out with adjustment and transitioning from medium to far targets. Ill be following your progress on this one.

[CHA-LEE]

Ksorrell> You can get prescription glasses in 0.25 increments. If the +0.50 in both eyes works good to eliminate the double vision issues I was going to get another set of lenses made with only +0.25 on each eye to see how that works in comparison.

[m2oore]

Was great shooting with you at Area 2. My very first major competition and although I did not do that great I gained a ton of experience. Nice to see how a GM handled the stages!

[ksorrell]

Just ordered some .5's. We'll see how that goes.

[DocMedic]

Hey Charlee, I just got done watching your vids, one thing that stuck out to me was almost every vertical Zebra target you shot 3 rounds at. Was this planned?

[CHA-LEE]

The extra shots on the hard cover targets were not "Planned" I just kept shooting until two shots were called good. I would rather shoot more aggressively and make up marginal shots verses shoot slower and risk needing a makeup shot anyway.

[CHA-LEE]

I decided to take this past weekend off from matches or practice. I took the wife up to Steamboat springs for a relaxing weekend getaway and it was great. I have been going pretty hard and heavy with the practice and matches lately and it was nice to take a weekend off.

We got back on Sunday afternoon and I was able to get caught up on some gun maintenance. I put a forward scope mount on my Open gun to see how that will perform verses the “back” version. I know the forward mount will add some more dot movement while shooting but it will also get the scope out of the way of my thumb during the draw. I need to do some live fire testing with the new scope mount to see if the additional dot movement is acceptable or not. I also had to get some minor fitting and tuning done to my #3 Limited gun as we just put a bushing barrel in it. I got the feed ramp tuned so that it feeds rounds smooth as silk on the bench. The next step is to test it out in live fire to see how it feeds and how the bushing barrel affected the POI on target. I am sure there will be some sight fiddling needed to get the POI dialed back in after the barrel swap. Lastly I got the #2 Limited blaster cleaned up and ready to rumble for the next match. I have been using the #2 Limited blaster as my Primary at the majors this year and the #1 as my backup.

I have also been dry fire testing my new prescription glasses that have the script in both eyes and they are working great. I have yet to experience the double vision issue since using this new version of the glasses so I hope the issue is resolved. I will be testing them out for real this coming weekend.

This coming weekend I will be driving to St. George Utah for the Taran Tactical Zion Classic and I won’t get a chance to do any live fire before then. But I am feeling fine about that as I have been shooting a ton lately and still feel pretty practiced up. We are driving to this match so it will be a full day of driving on Friday to get out there. But we should still get there early enough to check out the stages and get some stage plans figured out.

The 2016 Major Match schedule is in full swing right now and I am feeling like this is the best I have been prepared for it in a long time. If I can get my vision dialed in with the glasses and my neck does not blow out I will be able to do some damage at the majors this year. I am really looking forward to seeing what I can do from a shooting performance perspective this year.

[ksorrell]

Good luck at the TTI match this weekend. I had to withdraw due to work. I did receive the +.5 script glasses. Seem much better in dry fire. Will try them out in a couple of local matches this weekend. Thanks again for the tip. I never would have known you could go lower than +1.

[CHA-LEE]

This past weekend I attended the TTI Zion Classic in St. George Utah. It has been a couple of years since I shot at this range so I was eager to shoot there again. They have done an amazing job in improving that facility over the years and its cool to see a range thrive like this one has. We left Denver on Friday morning in a blizzard which made the first few hours on the road a little sketchy, but once we got over the mountains the roads were clear. The weather was great in Utah over the whole weekend so that was a welcomed changed from the winter Colorado weather.

This match had 10 total stages with them all being large field courses testing a lot of different skills. All of the stages looked fun while we talked them and most of them had multiple different ways of shooting them. The only bummer about the match was that the attendance was down due to a conflicting Bike race on the same weekend which made getting hotels nearly impossible. Even though the attendance was down we still had some solid competition in Limited division with 4 GM’s (myself, Ron Avery, Bob Krogh, and Sam Travis). Not to mention a few solid Masters in the mix as well. I was on a great squad with mostly fellow Colorado shooters but also some Arizona shooters as well. We had two junior shooters as well and they did great. It’s cool to see these young shooters having fun and giving each stage all they had.

This was my first chance to shoot outdoors with my updated prescription glasses so I was a little leery to start off with. But I am happy to report that the updated glasses worked great. I didn’t experience any double vision issues like I did before and they helped me see my sights even in crappy lighting during the morning stages. This match was actually a really good test for the glasses because we started the match on a berm facing into the sun. With the sun just above the back berm and the targets in heavy shadows this was a perfect storm which would have been kryptonite for me before. With the new glasses I was able to see my sights well enough to call my shots and get my hits. WIN!!!

I felt that I shot this match pretty decent. I had a miss/no shoot on a 20 yard head shot target which I called marginal but it ended up being a miss/no shoot. Then I had a miss on a “Winnger” target that I called really marginal but didn’t want to waste the time to see the target again to make it up. I also donated several seconds of combined stage time with extra shots on steel. But I chalk that up to either not enough visual patience or poor trigger control. The great news about these failures is that I was able to SEE my sights the whole time so I knew what was going on when it was happening. I never felt like I couldn’t see my sights and would have to revert to point shooting and hoping hits onto the targets.

When the match was all done I felt pretty happy with my overall performance. Sure I wish that I didn’t have the shooting penalties or extra shots on steel, but it’s always a work in progress. When the results were posted I ended up 2^nd in Limited to Ron Avery with Bob Krogh very close in third. Ron shot a solid and clean match to solidify a 4% lead over me. Congrats to Ron for a job well done!!! This was a really fun match to shoot and I hope that the turn out ends up being better next year as all of the people who didn’t make it really missed out. I will put this one on my calendar for next year for sure.

My buddy Nick was able to capture all of my stage runs on video and I have uploaded them onto my YouTube channel. There are some entertaining stage runs to be seen. I let out a loud Big Panda ROAR on the gully run stage as I ran up the hill. My squad mates found this very entertaining and it was a lot of fun.

Now I need to get some more live fire time under my belt with these new glasses to get totally use to them. I am really excited to get these glasses figured out as it will allow me to take my performance to the next level.

[thermobollocks]

Remember to get some indoor testing tonight.

[CHA-LEE]

Not going to happen tonight. I am beat from shooting half the day on Sunday then driving for 12 hours home afterwards. Panda Coma time.

[RaylanGivens]

Looks like they had some great stages at the Zion Classic... Much different landscape than Florida (where I live)... Nice shooting...

How do you like your Ghost holster?

[CHA-LEE]

Looks like they had some great stages at the Zion Classic... Much different landscape than Florida (where I live)... Nice shooting...

How do you like your Ghost holster?

How do I like the Ghost Holster? Its "Ok" but nothing special. In all honesty I actually prefer a Blade Tech kydex holster for Limited from an ease of use and securing the gun perspective. The kydex holster is also more comfortable to wear as it distributes the weight of the gun on my belt/leg better without creating excessive pressure points. The only reason why I switched to the Ghost holster is that I can use it for my Open gun as well with very little change to the actual holster. All I have to do is remove the Limited gun muzzle perch and the Open gun goes right on without any other adjustments needed. This makes switching between Limited and Open during practice a breeze. In all honesty, since I have been focusing on Limited right now I have thought about switching back to the Blade Tech holster. The only thing that is keeping me from doing it is that the gun position between the two holsters is slightly different and it takes a little while to get use to it during the draw.

[jnr88]

Sure looked like great stages!

[CHA-LEE]

This past weekend all of the outdoor matches were canceled due to the recent blizzard we had and lingering snow. I took advantage of the down time to get some ammo loaded and do some work on my guns.

I put a forward scope mount on my open gun and I like that better than the rear mount. I have only been able to test it at the local indoor range but it makes the dot movement a lot more predictable. With the rearward mount the dot would shatter then rematerialize on every shot which made it really distracting to shoot. With the forward mount the dot moves up and down in a smooth predictable manner so its way easier to track while staying focused on the targets. I also did some testing with different angled firing pin blocks and a normal rounded one worked the best for dot tracking. With the current setup the dot moves up/down in the middle of the glass a little bit but never even gets close to leaving the glass. Right now its only roughly sighted in so that is the next task for the Open blaster.

I had Rick put a Bushing barrel in my #3 Limited blaster and the fixed sight setup I had for the Bull barrel was way off in POI with the new barrel. So I switched out both the front and rear sights with different heights and was able to test it indoors. The POI is now where it should be so I decided to use that blaster for the Indoor match on Sunday night. With only about 15 rounds shot through the new barrel setup I was leery about using it in a match, but with all of the crappy weather I didn’t have the luxury of really beating on it before shooting it in a match. It ran flawlessly during the match which was great but I still won’t feel comfortable with it until I have at least 1000 flawless rounds through it.

Right now the only outstanding blaster project is getting a bushing barrel put into my #2 blaster. Once that is done all three blasters will be in the same configuration and ready to rumble. My next major match is the Area 6 at the end of April so I should have plenty of time to get all of this stuff sorted out before then.

I used my new glasses at the indoor match on Sunday night and they worked great. The lighting still sucks indoors but I can at least see something on top of my gun verses nothing before. One interesting thing that I have noticed and that I really like is that beyond about 10 yards I can’t see holes in the targets, especially in this low light. This forces me to stay on my sights and call my shots verses getting sucked into looking for holes. I have not really noticed missing looking for holes while shooting but it makes scoring targets while ROing a lot harder. I also can’t switch between the non-prescription and prescription glasses frequently during the match because it takes about 20 minutes for my eyes to settle down after putting on the prescription glasses. It’s interesting to learn all of the subtle things about using these prescription glasses. One thing I am sure of is that I am kicking myself for not getting them a LOT sooner. There would have been several matches last year where they would have been a life saver. Oh well, lesson learned.

[thermobollocks]

How's the bushing setup more useful than the bull setup? The last few practices you seemed far more pleased with the bulls.

[CHA-LEE]

That is a good question. From an ease of shooting perspective the Bull barrel setup is softer shooting and produces less muzzle flip and whole gun displacement. But this is a double edged sword because its so easy to shoot that it tricks me into getting lazy on gripping the gun HARD while shooting. When I started doing back to back drills with the two setups, even though the bushing barrel gun felt more harsh to shoot, it also forced me to grip the gun harder to manage the recoil. This extra effort put into gripping the gun harder also translated to transitioning the gun more aggressively. Simply put, on the clock time and on target hits were consistently better with the bushing barrel setup even though it wasn't as "enjoyable" to shoot as the bull barrel setup. As with racing anything, performance is the top priority and comfort is optional. The Bushing barrel setup makes me earn it where as the Bull barrel setup promotes coasting along.

[thermobollocks]

Interesting. Got to go with what the clock and the targets say.

[BeerBaron]

it's a bit like this in race car setup. You can setup a car with not much front end castor, neutral toe front and rear and it's very easy to drive fast. Given it a lot of front end castor, few mm toe out each side on the front and even a little toe out on the rear and suddenly it becomes very 'pointy'. much more of a knife edge but when you get on top of it and drive it hard it turns in much sharper, gives more feedback through the wheel and ultimately laps faster.