CHA-LEE's Tale

[CHA-LEE]

I am still battling through this sickness but decided to suck it up and shoot the Whistling Pines indoor match last night. I was in a slight fog due to the sickness but overall I was able to shoot ok. I shot my #3 Blaster and decided to use my old STI mags for this match to keep my MBX mags from getting beat up on the concrete floor. I figure that if I am going to beat up mags at these indoor matches it should be my old STI mags that are already beat to death.

I shot the match pretty well with only one miss on a speed shoot stage that I called marginal and it ended up being a miss. The major failure I had for the match was on a stage where you had to put small road cones into trash cans on either side of the stage before you could start shooting. I got the first cone in with no problem but then missed the second trash can just barely and the cone bounced out. I didn’t even notice that it didn’t go in and racked up 1 procedural per shot fired effectively zeroing the stage. The funny thing about it is that I was less than 2 feet away from the trash can when I attempted to throw the cone in and thought there was no way I was going to be able to miss it. Think again dummy!!! Oh well, it was a fun night shooting and hanging out with friends. It was good to get out of the house and do some shooting regardless of how good or bad I shot.

This coming week I am attending a Bob Vogel class from Thursday – Sunday. I helped pull this training class together so I get to attend the whole time which will be cool. I have never attended any training classes with Bob so it will be interesting to see how he goes about teaching his craft. I need to get a bunch of ammo loaded between now and Thursday so I can’t be screwing around with this sickness anymore.

[CHA-LEE]

From last Thursday to Sunday I attended a Bob Vogel class. I coordinated the class for the local shooters so I had to be there all four days to help facilitate the event. I was still getting over this sickness during the class and really noticed it any time I tried running around. I would get out of breath really easy and it didn’t get much better until Sunday. I didn’t shoot a lot during the class. I mainly observed the class as I was doing other things on the range. I needed to get a lot of rework stuff done at the range to prepare for the Mile High Showdown next month so I spent a lot of my time doing that stuff. I made some decent headway on prepping for the MHS match so that was really nice. There is still a lot of work to do but a good chunk of it is now done.

I was able to glean a few good nuggets of information out of the class that I want to test out in practice over the next couple of months. These items are not “New” information but mostly different styles of doing the same skills. Maybe doing this different style of skill execution will help improve my performance, maybe not. But it will be fun to test out and see if I can blend these skills into my own style. I didn’t learn any new ground breaking information during the class but then again I really wasn’t expecting to either. Where I am currently at in my skill level improvement is more of an evolution of my shooting style verses learning totally new concepts. Such is the path of a GM trying to improve their performance.

I shot my #3 blaster exclusively through the training and it ran like a champ until I tried using my old STI mags. The old beat up STI mags worked ok for about 500 rounds and then started nose dive jamming again so I decommissioned them and switched back over to my MBX magazines. The old STI mags need to be super clean in order to function properly so they may work for a match, but not for a practice when you are shooting a bunch of ammo. I have to stop using the old STI mags for shooting and only use them for dry fire practice. The good news is that the front sight on the #3 blaster hasn’t moved at all in 1500 rounds since I replaced it. So I think that issue is resolved. I need to get it cleaned up and ready to rumble for the Area 1 match next weekend.

I am about as ready as I can be for the Area 1 match. Hopefully by the start of the match I will be 100% over this sickness. I leave for the match on Thursday and am scheduled to shoot it on Fri/Sat then drive home on Sunday. We will see how it goes.

[Vanniek71]

Thanks for putting the class together and letting me know about it, I learned a TON out there that I can immediately put to use!

Sorry I had to bail early on Sunday too, glad I did though I got my camper torn down right as it started pouring on me!

[CHA-LEE]

No problem buddy. I am glad that you had a good time and learned a lot!!!

[CHA-LEE]

The Area 1 match was this past weekend. I shot the match on the Friday PM, Saturday AM schedule. The weather was hot but not too bad. We walked the stages on Thursday and I was feeling really good about it as a lot of the stages were right up my alley from a shooting perspective. On Friday we got to the range about 3 hours early and I spent time hanging out and meeting with friends before shooting. The problem with that is that I didn’t drink anything during that time as I wanted to save my liquids for shooting the match. So I started the match dehydrated and couldn’t catch back up on my hydration. This dehydration lead to lethargic movement, vision issues, and a slight mental fog. Shooting half of the match in this circumvented state was a good way to give away at least 10% of my performance. I did my best to rehydrate Friday evening to be ready for Saturday but I was still in a funky physical state on the second day. I just couldn’t get it going like I normally would.

I uploaded my match video to my YouTube channel and it’s painful for me to watch. I had an alarming amount of make up shots on steel, bumbled foot work in shooting positions, and overall pretty sub par accuracy racking up Deltas on just about every stage run. I had two misses for the match, both I called bad shots but just moved onto the next target for some unknown reason. These two blatant failures in making up called bad shots was a bitter pill to swallow as I don’t even understand how I could do it. I guess that happens when you have a mental fog in full effect. I am not sure if the dehydration mixed with the tail end of this sickness I have was what did it or if I just sucked this past weekend. Either way I know I left at least 10% of my performance on the table.

Once all of the shooting was done I finished 5^th overall in Limited at 88% of Shane Cooley. Congrats to Shane for an awesome match performance. Hopefully I can give him a run for his money next time around. This time I will have to concede to the fact of simply failing to get the job done.

The good news for the weekend is that it was nice shooting with friends. I got to see my fellow squad mates shoot the stages really good. We also got to have dinner at Rodizio Grill for a meat apocalypse which was super yummy. These are all wins in my book.

On Thursday when we left for the match I stopped at Longs Shadow Holster in Longmont to pick up my backup gun and new Huron holster. Long’s Shadow Holster is now sponsoring me and the Area 1 match was my first match using the new Huron holster. The Huron holster fits my gun like a glove without being too tight or restrictive. The gun does not flop around within the holster like the blade tech I was using before. This holster also uses the Springer Precision aluminum hanger making the whole setup very ridged. When we got to Utah I was a little leery of swapping holsters right before the match but I was able to get the Huron holster setup and adjusted just the way I like it. Its position and function felt exactly like the Ghost holster that I was using in dry fire so I figured it would be good to go for the match. I have listed the link to the Long’s Shadow Holster website below if you want to check them out. These guys make awesome hand crafted products so if you are in the market for a new holster check them out.

www.lsholster.com

[CHA-LEE]

The #2 Limited blaster has been rebuilt with a new Caspian slide. I decided to go with a flat top only on this one instead of the tri-top setup. The #1 Limited pistol has the same type of flat top setup and I like how it shoots so I decided to do the #2 the same way. The new slide is not coated yet as I still need to break it in. I am planning on going to the indoor range tomorrow to run a couple hundred rounds through it to see how it does. I also replaced the rear sight on my #1 Limited blaster so I have to sight that one in too. It will be fun to do some blaster testing and fiddling this week.

[Glock26Toter]

I just purchased a Long's Shadow holster for my concealed carry gun. I'm super impressed with the snappy retention. The quality is very nice on these holsters. They are back ordered like crazy, but well worth the wait.

[CHA-LEE]

Last night I was able to do some shooting at the indoor range. I decided to bring all three of my Limited blasters to compare their accuracy. I started out shooting groups at 10 yards and was able to produce all rounds touching groups in all three guns. Then I proceeded to shoot 200 rounds through the #2 Limited gun with the new slide to break it in. It had a super tight lockup when I started shooting it with the groups and it loosened up quite a bit after the 200 rounds. I decided to shoot some more groups with the #2 Limited gun after the 200 round break in and it started having vertical stringing issues. At 10 yards it would string the hits about 2 inches. We tried to reuse the old barrel and weld / recut the lower lugs to make it fit the new slide, but I suspect that it isn’t going to work. I need to get it back over to Rick to look at and possibly put a new barrel in it so it can be fit properly to the new slide.

The good news is that my #1 & #3 Limited blasters are accurate and running great. It’s been a while since I have shot my #1 Limited blaster in a match so I am thinking about running it this weekend. It will be nice to give it a work out to confirm its functionality since I need to rely on it as a backup in majors for the next couple of months.

This coming weekend I am running the HPPS match as MD and Score Keeper. Its been several months since we have been able to host a match due to the crappy weather causing match cancelations. I have my 4Runner PACKED with stuff to take out there to prepare for the Mile High Showdown as well. I am trying my best to prepare for the Mile High Showdown well before hand so I am not slammed with stuff to get done right before the match. MDing a Level 2 match isn’t for the faint of heart. There is a crap ton of work that needs to be done well before the match even starts. If I do my job properly the match its self should run like a well oiled machine.

[CHA-LEE]

This past weekend I was able to attend two local Club matches. On Saturday it was the HPPS match that I run. I got there extra early to get all of the Mile High Showdown stuff unpacked and put away then busted my hump in getting the stages setup. For this match we had an unannounced Chrono before starting the match. Everyone was run through the Chrono and there was a decent amount of shock from the shooters about it. I figured it would be good to have a mandatory Chrono for this match since we have our two local Major matches coming up next month. There were a few shooters that went sub Minor and a few that went Minor instead of Major. I didn’t do the Chrono to screw people over but instead make it clear to everyone that you need to be shooting “Legit” ammo all the time.

For this match we also did all of the scoring in Practiscore without doing the EzWinScore to Practiscore conversion. Since Practiscore can now generate the USPSA Webfile and Activity Report files there is no need to use EzWinScore any more. It worked out great and I am happy to not need to screw around with EzWinScore anymore. The only thing I am not sure about doing is second guns on classifiers. EzWinScore has the ability to create a “Re-Entry” for the same shooter and that can be used for the classifier second gun. I need to figure out how to do something like that within Practiscore.

As mentioned before I shot this match with my #1 pistol to make sure it was running properly and it worked great until the dust started getting to it. It was really windy and dusty at the range and the dust started to gum it up so the slide wasn’t cycling well. I shot 5 of the 6 stages and on the 5^th stage it was so gummed up that it was barely cycling while shooting. It didn’t malfunction but it was damn close as the slide was moving in slow motion. After the 5^th stage I went to the safe area and oiled the gun to get it lubricated again. This was the first time in a very long time that I have had to re-lube a gun in the middle of a match. One thing that I am finding is that these bushing barrels seem to need more lube on the barrel since the bushing is riding on the barrel the whole time, unlike a bull barrel setup. After the match I had to completely strip down the #1 blaster for a detailed cleaning and relube. The dust and sand was everywhere inside the gun to the point that I was surprised it didn’t malfunction. The #1 Limited blaster gets two thumbs up for still functioning solidly in very harsh range conditions.

As for my match performance, it was pretty lack luster. I didn’t have too much time to check out the stages before the start of the match because I was busy setting up stages or doing signup. This is normal when I put on the MD hat. But overall I was just in “treading water” mode all day. I didn’t burn anything down or have any major train wrecks. I did manage to clip a no shoot right on the perf and that was my only shooting penalty for the match. I survived the match and that is about all that I could hope for when running it. Being the first person at the range that morning and the last one to leave at the end of the day was exhausting. I didn’t realize how tired I was until I started driving home and was feeling absolutely beat. I pushed through the suck and got done what I needed to at home before slipping into a Big Panda coma.

[CHA-LEE]

On Sunday I attended the CCPS match up in Dumont. This was their first match of the season as this range is up in the Mountains. The weather was awesome and they had quite a few shooters for the match. I decided to give the #1 blaster a go again since I got it all cleaned up from the dusty mess the day before. It worked like a champ all day so I am happy with its proven reliability. I will clean it up again and put it on backup gun duty. At least until I get the #2 Limited blaster rebuilt and back in action.

I was feeling on my game at this match and shot all of the stages solidly. I was patient with the steel and only needed 2 makeup shots for the whole match. I also shot awesome points being able to shoot 98% of the available points. For the whole match I only shot 5 C’s and 2 D’s with several stages where I only had one non-A zone hit. Some might think that I was over aiming with capturing 98% of the points but I wasn’t dilly dallying while shooting. Everything was simply clicking and I was running the gun only as fast as I could call my shots. It’s super cool when that works out for a whole match. I feel like I have been in a little bit of a shooting performance slump for the last month and this match has snapped me out of it. I am not sure it the slump was in my head or due to that sickness I had, but I am glad to put it behind me.

I am not 100% over this sickness as I still have a lingering cough. Hopefully I can be totally over this crud by the time the Rocky Mountain 300 comes around in a couple of weeks.

[BritinUSA]

I had to clean my XDM after the HPPS match also. That sand got everywhere, if you don't have one its worth investing in a gun cover as that fine sand will find its way through the mag well into the innards of the gun. The bigger the mag-well the more sand it will collect, and as your mag-well is only slightly smaller than a black hole then you're going to get more crud that most other people.

[CHA-LEE]

I had to clean my XDM after the HPPS match also. That sand got everywhere, if you don't have one its worth investing in a gun cover as that fine sand will find its way through the mag well into the innards of the gun. The bigger the mag-well the more sand it will collect, and as your mag-well is only slightly smaller than a black hole then you're going to get more crud that most other people.

I have a gun cover but am not proactive enough to put it on BEFORE it gets too crappy. I put the gun cover on after I oiled it so I could preserve the oiling for the last stage. But I need to bust the gun cover out way sooner than I usually do. I am retarded like that some times.

[Sandbagger123]

when you do the unannounced chrono do you do the whole thing as in weigh bullets etc, or do you just have them throw some over a chono? i am thinking about suggesting this to our MD ,but the last time he said it would take too long.

[CHA-LEE]

We didn't have time to pull & weigh bullets so we leveraged the declared bullet weight given by the shooters. Beyond that we followed the standard chrono procedure listed in the USPSA rule book. From a schedule perspective we had shooters sign up then immediately go to the Chrono bay after that. Doing the chrono did add about a 45 minute delay to the start of the match but we wanted to get everyone through the chrono before the start of the match. We didn't have the match staff to do the Chrono during the match and we wanted to keep it consistent by having the same guy do all of it.

Did it add time to the match? Yes, but to me it was well worth the investment to do at least once a year. I think every club should do it at least once a year to keep their shooters honest or at least bring to their attention that their ammo isn't getting the job done. I don't think there are many shooters trying to intentionally cheat with sub Minor/Major PF ammo. The bulk of the shooters who didn't end up with a chrono result they expected were surprised because they thought their ammo was legit for whatever reason. There were plenty of "My buddy loaded this ammo for me and said it was good....." or "This is the load I have always used and always makes XYZ PF......" excuses to be heard.

The reality that they all learned is that flirting with the minimum PF level ammo is like dancing with the devil. Its going to bite you in the ass eventually.

[PatJones]

You know Charlie, as a shooter I would apriciate a chrono stage once in a while.

I load 10 power factor over minimum, but I would have been more comfortable at nationals if I had been thru the process at least once.

[Sandbagger123]

We didn't have time to pull & weigh bullets so we leveraged the declared bullet weight given by the shooters. Beyond that we followed the standard chrono procedure listed in the USPSA rule book. From a schedule perspective we had shooters sign up then immediately go to the Chrono bay after that. Doing the chrono did add about a 45 minute delay to the start of the match but we wanted to get everyone through the chrono before the start of the match. We didn't have the match staff to do the Chrono during the match and we wanted to keep it consistent by having the same guy do all of it.

Did it add time to the match? Yes, but to me it was well worth the investment to do at least once a year. I think every club should do it at least once a year to keep their shooters honest or at least bring to their attention that their ammo isn't getting the job done. I don't think there are many shooters trying to intentionally cheat with sub Minor/Major PF ammo. The bulk of the shooters who didn't end up with a chrono result they expected were surprised because they thought their ammo was legit for whatever reason. There were plenty of "My buddy loaded this ammo for me and said it was good....." or "This is the load I have always used and always makes XYZ PF......" excuses to be heard.

The reality that they all learned is that flirting with the minimum PF level ammo is like dancing with the devil. Its going to bite you in the ass eventually.

Cool . thanks we have some major matches coming up and i think this might be a good idea. i will bring it up with the mD in the area Ok all you Seattle area shooters , you have been warned!!!! LOL

[thermobollocks]

While it's certainly valid I keep wondering if there are better ways to accomplish the chrono from a time management perspective. Saturday I was one billion percent dragging (as were most of the people on my squad) by the end of things thanks to the massively late start. The courtesy chrono before/after is of course nice, but then there's zero teeth to motivate anyone to actually care. Majors will have it be an entire stage, but that's far more palatable when you still get 9+ field courses to shoot in addition -- I can imagine some grumpiness if we took off one field stage during the summer. Plus, you'd have to get at least one BoD to shoot through the match and be standing chrono officer. Maybe it could be mixed in with a single-string classifier next time (and I hope there is a next time).

I even volunteered my gamiest of 3-gun ammo to set a good example. It still clocked in at a healthy 135 PF

[Intel6]

Shot a local match once and the last few shots on one of the stages were through a smaller diameter piece of plastic drain pipe at a target with a chrono on the other end of the pipe. So after the stage was complete the shooter could see what his velocities were. It was just a courtesy thing and it didn't affect the match and since it was part of the stage it didn't add much time. Yes there were some surprised/embarrassed people swearing up and down their loads were good.

[pkm]

We didn't have time to pull & weigh bullets so we leveraged the declared bullet weight given by the shooters. Beyond that we followed the standard chrono procedure listed in the USPSA rule book. From a schedule perspective we had shooters sign up then immediately go to the Chrono bay after that. Doing the chrono did add about a 45 minute delay to the start of the match but we wanted to get everyone through the chrono before the start of the match. We didn't have the match staff to do the Chrono during the match and we wanted to keep it consistent by having the same guy do all of it.

Did it add time to the match? Yes, but to me it was well worth the investment to do at least once a year. I think every club should do it at least once a year to keep their shooters honest or at least bring to their attention that their ammo isn't getting the job done. I don't think there are many shooters trying to intentionally cheat with sub Minor/Major PF ammo. The bulk of the shooters who didn't end up with a chrono result they expected were surprised because they thought their ammo was legit for whatever reason. There were plenty of "My buddy loaded this ammo for me and said it was good....." or "This is the load I have always used and always makes XYZ PF......" excuses to be heard.

The reality that they all learned is that flirting with the minimum PF level ammo is like dancing with the devil. Its going to bite you in the ass eventually.

Isn't there a part in the rulebook about changing lightening conditions though? I don't think it had any really impact on the chrono this weekend since it was all done at relatively the same time but had it been stage the lighting would have been an issue.

[thermobollocks]

A light box or IR screens typically solves that

[birdog]

I think it is an unnecessary waste of time and particularly of NO value in local matches. If you shoot a Level 2 or 3 match, you expect this scrutiny, no worries/questions. This at local matches seems like a power play with little or no real value to our sport at a local event. Consider that some may be shooting for the first time and have no clue about PF. Seems like political BS, and adds NO value or help to new shooters. In my view, we should be all about bringing new people into this sport, NOT excluding people that don't yet understand the parameters. If you feel the need to have a chrono stage at a local match, announce it ahead of the match.

Edited May 24, 2016 by birdog

[pkm]

A light box or IR screens typically solves that

Agreed

I think it is an unnecessary waste of time and particularly of NO value in local matches. If you shoot a Level 2 or 3 match, you expect this scrutiny, no worries. Seems like a power play with little or no real value to our sport at a local event. Consider that some may be shooting for the first time and have no clue about PF.

A chrono is not going to please everyone regardless of the level of match but to that point power factor counts no matter what match level you are playing at as well. If you are going to play the game, then follow the rules. If you are shooting for your first time your score is just about as important as your power factor..

[PatJones]

I think it is an unnecessary waste of time and particularly of NO value in local matches. If you shoot a Level 2 or 3 match, you expect this scrutiny, no worries. Seems like a power play with little or no real value to our sport at a local event. Consider that some may be shooting for the first time and have no clue about PF.

Charlie's match is in BFE. A good hour + from anywhere, I don't imagine he gets too many first-timers.

Good stages every month though.... better than I saw at Single Stack Nats.

[d_striker]

I think it is an unnecessary waste of time and particularly of NO value in local matches. If you shoot a Level 2 or 3 match, you expect this scrutiny, no worries. Seems like a power play with little or no real value to our sport at a local event. Consider that some may be shooting for the first time and have no clue about PF.

Rules are rules no matter what level match it is. Seems like the butthurt is from people that were knowingly close to or sub-PF.

Since we allowed shooters to declare their bullet weight, there was still some lying going on with what their bullet weight was. (You know who you are, and I do too.)

I'm not buying the "first time shooters don't have to follow the rules" argument. Additionally, most first time shooters are going to be using factory ammo. I have not seen any factory 9mm or .40 plinking ammo that does not make minor or major PF. WWB comfortably makes PF every time I've seen it chrono'd.

Edited May 24, 2016 by d_striker

[birdog]

So you accuse people of lying? A new low. Brilliant, this should help our sport.