CHA-LEE's Tale

[ROY NEAL]

If you guys like and follow Charlie and have questions about his new training book, then look for my review of his book in the May/June Issue of Front Sight magazine. Charlie was gracious enough to send me a copy for a review. As Charlie knows, I was happy to review it and write a very positive article on Charlie and his training book. If you have thought of upping your game, his book is a great way to start. Order one today. You will be glad that you did.

 

Roy Neal

Team SV Infinity

[tanks]

On 2/28/2018 at 10:22 AM, CHA-LEE said:

Ok……… I have been delaying this post as long as I could while getting things ready for this announcement……..

 

For the last 2 years I have been writing a practical shooting training book. This book is finally finished and its call Path of Focused Effort, A Training Guide for Practical Shooting. ...

 

Any plans to release a Kindle version on Amazon?

[CHA-LEE]

3 hours ago, tanks said:

 

Any plans to release a Kindle version on Amazon?

 

Not at this time.

[Bkreutz]

1 hour ago, CHA-LEE said:

 

Not at this time.

Good move, Amazon sucks all the profit. How do you think Bezos became the world's richest man?

Edited March 9, 2018 by Bkreutz

[MemphisMechanic]

Charlie, how long has it been since you last read the very first post in this thread?

 

Seeing someone progress so far in 8 years is certainly really encoraging.

[CHA-LEE]

I was actually checking out the first few pages of my diary not too long ago. It’s interesting to see where I was at back then and the thought process involved.

[CHA-LEE]

I was actually checking out the first few pages of my diary not too long ago. It’s interesting to see where I was at back then and the thought process involved.

[CHA-LEE]

This past weekend I was in Salt Lake City presenting a competition pistol class. It was a long 2 days of training but the weather was decent and everyone had a good time. This is the second time I presented my training class in conjunction with requiring the students to read my book before the class. The students reading the book before the class made it a lot easier to convey the concepts during the training since it wasn’t “New” information. As always, it’s fun watching the light bulb go on when students discover something new or different. Presenting these classes is a lot of work but it’s worth it when I see the students skills progress during the class.

 

I used my #4 Limited blaster for the demos during the class and it ran like a champ. I shot about 300 rounds over the weekend without any additional lubrication added to see if the clunky feeding issue was resolved. It didn’t have any feeding stoppages or clunky feeding when dirty and the tips of the bullets are hitting the correct spot on the feed ramp. I think I got the feed ramp angle sorted out. Now it’s time to tear this bad boy down and prep it for coating. I am going to bead blast all of the major parts to make the finish look dull. I have decided to go with H&M Black Nitride coating as I am leery of the shininess of the hard chrome. My goal is to get this blaster prepped and shipped off for coating this week. I am excited to have this blaster in the final stages of the build so it can be complete and ready for action.  

 

This coming weekend I have the HPPS match which I run on Saturday so I have to get all of that stuff wrangled and ready to go. I also need to load a bunch of ammo sometime this week. This week is going to be a busy one.

[CHA-LEE]

I got my #4 Limited gun sand blasted and prepped for Black Nitride. I also shipped it out today so it shouldn't be too long before I get it back. I should have it back in a few weeks.

 

I have been loading ammo over the past few days. My ammo stash had dwindled down to only 200 rounds after I got back from Salt Lake City last weekend. I have been super busy lately so I didn't have time to load ammo until now. I am going to try to load up at least 5000 rounds this week to get my ammo stash restocked. Pulling the press handle extensively like that is boring, but the ammo isn't going to load itself.

 

This coming weekend is the HPPS match that I run so I also need to get all of that stuff wrangled up and ready to go as well. Not to mention packing up and shipping out book orders daily. Its a busy time right now but manageable. If I didn't have to sleep at night I could probably get a lot more done each day

[CHA-LEE]

This past weekend was a struggle for me. On Saturday I ran the HPPS match and I worked my tail off in the morning to the point that I didn’t have time nor desire to walk the stages from a shooting perspective. I tried to figure out the stages as I got to each berm. To make it worse I was one of the first 3 to shoot on just about every stage. Not having a solidified stage strategy much less being able to program a stage plan was the frustrating mode I was stuck in all day. That and I really wasn’t motivated to shoot. I shot each stage with a half baked strategy and programing effort and my results were appropriate for that lack of effort. I was also noticing that the gun felt like it was muzzle flipping a lot more than normal and the sights were not returning to aligned post shot as effectively as it should. I thought that this was just another distracting effect of not breaking down or programming the stages properly. The good news is that the match ran well and it seemed like most everyone had fun.

 

On Sunday I attended the Weld County match and felt way more motivated. I got to the range early enough to walk all of the stages and formulate solid stage plans. I shot the first stage pretty solid and my main focus was shooting the steel one for one which I did. The second stage of the day had a lot of up close blasting and this is where the in consistent recoil management started rearing its head again. I dropped way more C’s than I wanted to simply because the gun was flopping around a lot more than I wanted it to. After our squad was done shooting the stage I shot the last section of the stage using a really hard grip pressure and the muzzle flip and sights tracking was back to normal. The bummer is that my support hand pushed the mag release on the last shot and dropped the mag out. I went to the next stage which was the classifier and was completely distracted by trying to figure out what grip pressure I should use to manage the recoil properly. I started shooting the stage and called a marginal shot then fired a make up shot and then realized this was a Virginia Count stage and would eat an Extra Shot penalty. I did the reload then engaged the next array of partial targets and tried gripping harder while shooting more aggressively and had a miss over the top of one target. When the shooting was done, I ended up with a D zone hit on the marginal called shot so I had three hits on one target which resulted in an Extra Hit penalty as well. I lost 35 points in penalties and a miss on the classifier which was horrible. I can’t remember the last time I train wrecked a classifier that bad. This was a good lesson mid match of “Trying” stuff during the match instead of just rolling with what you have and dealing with it. For the remaining stages in the match I stopped trying to screw around with my grip pressure and just shot as soon as my sights were aligned enough for the shots. The gun was still flipping more than it should but I was at least able to get my hits and not do anything else stupid.

 

When I got home after the match I started inspecting the #2 blaster that I used for the match. I completely stripped it down and cleaned it to make sure there wasn’t anything strange wrong with it mechanically. Everything looked good mechanically. When I was dry firing it I noticed that the grip tape felt a little smooth. I pulled out my #1 and #3 Limited guns and compared the grip tape friction to the #2 and the #2 had half the grip tape friction of the others. The grip tape had simply worn out on the #2 and I didn’t notice it because I am usually using the #1 blaster for dry and live fire practice. I put some fresh grip tape on the #2 and did some dry fire with it and my grip felt much more secure. I need to verify this in live fire, but I am pretty sure this is the root cause of the problem I have been seeing in the last couple of matches. I have worn out grip tape in the past like that but it was several years ago and it completely slipped my mind as a wear item. This is one of the challenges with swapping between different guns for practice and matches. I will switch to a time based grip tape replacement schedule to proactively replace the grip tape at least 2 times a year on all of my blasters. Doing this should eliminate this issue from ever happening again.  

Edited March 19, 2018 by CHA-LEE

[Bkreutz]

Charlie,  I got your book a few weeks ago and started reading it. I had a detour earlier this week. I had a Quadruple bypass done. Hopefully this will help my shooting.

 

[CHA-LEE]

10 minutes ago, Bkreutz said:

Charlie,  I got your book a few weeks ago and started reading it. I had a detour earlier this week. I had a Quadruple bypass done. Hopefully this will help my shooting.

 

I am glad that you got my book. I wish you a speedy recovery from your heart surgery......... Take it easy and let yourself heal properly.

[jnr88]

I just recieved your book Charlie. It's full of little nuggets that readers of your diary will really appreciate. There is something for every level of shooter. Thanks.

[CHA-LEE]

Last night I had the opportunity to participate in an interview on The Shooter's Mindset. We talk about myself and my new book Path of Focused Effort. Enjoy the show!!!

 

 

Edited March 21, 2018 by CHA-LEE

[Aggieddad02]

Watched it Charlie and really enjoyed your approach to your training technique.  I wish I was closer there is not a doubt I could benefit working with you.

 

Walter

[GunBugBit]

CHA-LEE, your irrepressible enthusiasm and impressive journey into shooting proficiency are inspirational. I have been enjoying your YouTube videos and have visited your great looking web site.  I have no doubt your classes are highly worthwhile.  Thank you for your ongoing contributions to the shooting sports.  SA-LUTE.

[CHA-LEE]

18 hours ago, GunBugBit said:

CHA-LEE, your irrepressible enthusiasm and impressive journey into shooting proficiency are inspirational. I have been enjoying your YouTube videos and have visited your great looking web site.  I have no doubt your classes are highly worthwhile.  Thank you for your ongoing contributions to the shooting sports.  SA-LUTE.

 

Thanks for the kind words!!!!

[CHA-LEE]

Last night I attended the indoor USPSA match at Bristol Cone. Against my better judgement I shot my #2 Limited blaster to test it out with the new grip tape. This was a bad decision because the lighting was really bad that night and I couldn’t see my sights worth a crap. I had to point shoot at the targets and this produced pretty bad hits and two uncalled misses. I should have shot my Open gun but I really wanted to test the new grip tape on my Limited gun. The good news is that the new grip tape worked awesome so that was great. The bad news is that I couldn’t see my sights and the match had a huge squad log jam on the classifier. The Log jam was huge and since that was the last stage of the match I chose to bail and head home instead of wait around to finish the match. It sucks to leave before the match is finished but it wasn’t worth the wait given that I couldn’t see my sights anyway. That and I have shot that classifier many times in the past so it wasn’t anything “new” that I was missing.

 

I am looking forward to the PSAC match on Saturday to give the #2 blaster a true test in decent outdoor lighting. I am also planning on doing some practice on Sunday which is long overdue.

[CHA-LEE]

This weekend was a lot of fun. On Saturday I shot the PSAC match at the Aurora Gun Club. I shot the match clean and only had 1 D zone hit. The fresh grip tape on the #2 blaster completely resolved the grip issue I was having the week before so that was great. I had a few minor mistakes in the match which cost me some time. The first was on the classifier with a surrender draw that I botched. For some strange reason I bent forward at the waist during the draw and doing so made me miss my hand registration on the grip. It was a horrible 1.4 second first shot draw due to needing to reposition my hand on the grip before initiating the draw. The second issue was on the last stage of the match where I planned on doing 2 reloads during the stage and the second reload was performed while moving to the left against the grain. I had the gun pulled back to a funky position during the reload to keep the muzzle pointed down range and it took me a while to get the mag into the gun. This wasted about three quarters of a second on the stage as I could have been shooting  way sooner if I had the reload completed on time. I am going to work on surrender draws this week along with replicating that funky right to left movement while reloading to see if I can replicate the failures and solve the issues.

 

Sunday’s match was up in the mountains at the Clear Creek range. This was their first match of the season and the weather forecast was looking kind of cold with a high in the low 40’s. Lucky for us the weather turned out better with it topping out in the high 50’s. We started on a fairly complex shooting position stage with a bunch of steel at the end blocked by barrels which made for a lot “Ray Charles” wondering around looking for the steel. I didn’t program my stage plan well enough and engaged one less target than I should have before the reload. I had to reenter the shooting area in a different shooting position to engage the target I forgot and this added some more time to my run. Then I had 3 make up shots on the steel with a little bit of wondering around because I missed the critical position slightly. I donated about 2 seconds of wasted time on this stage due to the screw ups. After that I buckled down and burned in solid stage plans for the remaining stages which I shot pretty good. I racked up 4 D zone hits for the match which were all on shadow targets. I also had 1 miss on the classifier which was a hard cover head shot during the weak hand portion. I mashed the living crap out of the trigger during that shot and it pulled the hit way down into the black. Much more trigger control patience is needed while shooting weak hand.

 

While ROing an Open shooter on the second to last stage I got hit in the leg with a bullet jacket frag. It stung pretty good and I thought that it just hit my leg and bounced off. I looked down at my leg and could see blood start to soak through my pants and knew something more serious was going on. I headed over to the score shack and bused out the First Aid Kit. I pulled a fellow shooter in there with me to help. I dug a piece of bullet jacket out of my leg then we patched it up. It was bleeding really good for such a small cut. Amazingly it didn’t hurt at all while I was digging in the wound for the jacket piece. It sucked to take a frag to the leg mid match but I am glad it hit my leg instead of my face. This was a good reminder why we wear safety shooting glasses and I am also glad that I was wearing the Rudy Project Rydon glasses that have more wrap around coverage than my other prescription glasses. After taking this frag to the leg I am bummed to learn that I am not bullet proof.

 

This week I am going to continue to focus on reloading ammo as I still need to get my 40 ammo stash restocked. I am not looking forward to many hours behind the press this week. But the ammo isn’t going to load itself.

[CHA-LEE]

This past weekend I was able to get some live fire practice in on Saturday. This was a group practice and we setup a stage and shot it several times in different configurations. I invited a new shooter to the practice session to get them some exposure to the practical shooting sports. I went through the safety training program and did some basic range command and gun handling training with them. After that we headed over to the practice stage and I guided him though the practice stage. Then I turned him loose and he had fun shooting the stage and tackling the challenges. It’s cool to see a totally new shooter give it a go on their first outing. I brought back a lot of memories of when I first started and felt like a fish out of water. Hopefully he enjoyed this day of practical shooting practice and we will see him at some future matches.

 

The practice session for me wasn’t super productive as I was focused on the new shooter. This was more of an equipment testing session for me as I brought my #1 and #2 Limited blasters to do some back to back testing. The #1 has dulled down grip tape and the #2 has fresh grip tape so I was able to see how that friction difference affected the recoil management. The #1 gun was muzzle flipping more than the #2 due to the reduced friction on the grip tape. I decommissioned the #1 blaster after a couple of runs then finished the remainder of the practice session with the #2 blaster. I only shot about 200 rounds that day so it wasn’t an extensive practice session for me. Even though I didn’t get to practice a bunch it was much better than not shooting at all.

 

On Sunday I attended the club match at the AGC range. It was really overcast in the morning and a lot colder than expected. By the time the match started the clouds had burned off and the sun was out, but the cold breeze was consistent all day. A coat was required or all of your heat would be drained from your body quickly by the wind. The stages in this match were an interesting mix of hosing and aiming. The interesting anomaly for these stages is that all of the long field courses had target arrangements that forced Limited shooters to do 2 reloads. Usually there is maybe 1 stage in a club match that requires 2 reloads but not every field course like this match. I am not complaining about needing to do 2 reloads on the field courses as it is good practice. It was just a strange anomaly for this match. I shot the match solidly with only a few minor issues. I fumbled with a second reload on one stage which cost me at least half a second. Then I racked up 2 D’s on another stage while shooting through a low port. Trying to shooting aggressively when the gun is pointed above my head while hunched over in a low port continues to beat me up with crappy hits. I need to slow down the shooting in those scenarios because I simply don’t have the same level of recoil management. I shot a 101% on the classifier which was cool. Overall I felt like I produced a pretty solid match performance which was nice.

 

Tonight I am heading down to the indoor match at Whistling Pines. I am going to shoot my Open gun at this match to have some Dot fun. It’s been too long since I have given that bad boy a go.  

[CHA-LEE]

Last night I was able to attend the indoor Whistling Pines match. I shot my Open gun and it was a lot of fun to get some time behind the red dot. I had a couple instances where the dot wasn’t in the glass when I mounted the gun in front of my face. That is to be expected given the different sight offset verses irons and not putting in the dry fire time before the match to get used to it. Either way it was fun and much nicer than trying to see iron sights indoors. The last stage of the match was actually setup as a low light scenario so I was super glad to have a red dot for that. I shot really good points though the whole match with no D zone hits or shooting penalties. I could have shot some sections more aggressively but getting hits was a higher priority for me that evening.

 

Shooting the Open gun with big stick mags is always a challenge for me once the stage round count gets above 18 shots. I battled against the habit of doing a reload on a couple of stages as I would have if I was shooting Limited. The good thing is that I didn’t do any reloads during the stage runs even though I wanted to. It’s good for me to be outside of my comfort zone every once in a while.

[CHA-LEE]

This past weekend I was able to get some practice in and attend a match. On Saturday we had a work party day at the range for the HPPS club. This was basically a spring cleaning effort to get our storage unit cleaned up and reorganized for the 2018 match season. We all busted our hump in the morning getting the work done then had some lunch. After that we did some live fire practice. The weather was iffy that morning so I didn’t think we would get to do any shooting. I brought my shooting gear just in case but I didn’t put on any sun screen. This proved to be a really bad decision as we ended up shooting and I got a decent sun burn. That was a total bone head move on my part. Other than that the practice session was good and it was nice to get some live fire done.

 

On Sunday I headed down to Pueblo for their USPSA Club match. The weather was nice to start off with then got really windy in the afternoon as we were finishing up. I shot the match pretty solid except for the classifier. The classifier was Triple Choice which has 3 strings of fire with each one being Freestyle, Strong Hand, Weak hand with one shot on each target. There is a head shot target in the middle of the array and I ended up with 3 misses on it just over the top. The thing that made these misses painful is that all three shots just grazed the outer edge of the target just outside of the B zone perforation. All three of the misses where less than a half a 40 caliber bullet diameter away from the perf. I don’t think I could replicate those close misses in slow fire again if my life depended on it. To add insult to injury I shanked another shot one handed creating another miss. Eating 4 misses on the classifier was a bitter pill to swallow. This happened on our 3rd stage of the match so I had to suck it up and make the best of the remaining stages in the match. Other than the classifier train wreck I shot all the other stages solid with good hits. I didn’t have any D zone hits and shot all stages aggressively. The only oddity that happened was a fail to fire situation on the last stage. The gun wouldn’t drop the hammer to fire a shot about 7 rounds into the stage run and I had to rack the round out. This was a 1.8 second delay to the stage run which sucked. Since this was at the end of the day and it was really windy, the only thing I can think of is that something got blown into the gun or trigger action to jam it up. It was really windy and I didn’t have a cover on the gun because it didn’t seem very dusty. When I got home I fully disassembled inspected and cleaned the blaster to see if I could find any strange stuff going on. I didn’t find anything strange or broken so whatever caused the failure had worked its way out while shooting that last stage.

 

Other than nursing a decent sun burn it was a good weekend of shooting. Next weekend I will get a chance to do some more live fire practice on Saturday then I am hosting a local group class on Sunday. The busy shooting season is HERE!!!

 

I also got a call today from Primary Machine telling me that my #4 Limited blaster is done getting Black Nitride coating and is shipping back this week. Hopefully it will show up early in the week so I can have time to get it all back together before the weekend. It would be great to give that blaster a shakedown run this weekend during practice and training. When I get it all back together I will take some pictures and post them up.   

[CHA-LEE]

Yesterday I got my #4 Limited blaster back from the Black Nitride coating process. The Black Nitride finish turned out very nice with a dull black finish. I am glad that I did the garnet sand blast on the parts before getting them coated as it made the black finish dull as well. I don’t like shiny stuff on the gun as it causes sun glare issues while shooting outdoors.

 

I started the reassembly process last night by fitting a new Geppert X-Line Vario trigger bow to the Grip and Frame. These trigger bow/shoe setups are unique in that the shoe is screwed onto the bow so you can change the depth of the trigger shoe within the trigger guard independently. The bow is also steel instead of titanium like the SVI bows which makes it much stiffer and resistant to bending. I am using the old style Phoenix Trinity steel grip it requires an SVI trigger bow shape. The X-Line trigger bow is in the STI Plastic grip shape so I had to rework the bow to the SVI shape using a mandrel . This isn’t anything new as I usually have to do that anyway even on SVI bows to true them up. I got the X-Line bow reshaped and fitted to the grip and frame then set the pre/over travel for the trigger job. I am setting the trigger shoe depth to match the SVI Medium Flat setup so I can compare it directly to the SVI trigger setup to start off with. I am sure I will do some trigger shoe depth testing at some point in the future. By the time I got the trigger bow installed and tuned it was time to call it quits for the evening.

 

Tonight I will dive into the #4 build again and I should be able to get it all back together and ready to rumble. When I get it all together I will take some pictures and post it up. I am planning on doing some more hammer/recoil spring testing this coming Saturday with a couple different blasters. This will also give me a chance to get the #4 sighted in and a good shake down run to ensure its still functioning properly after the coating process. I am excited to have the #4 Limited blaster finished and ready for action.

[CHA-LEE]

I got my #4 Limited blaster together last night and took some pictures of it. I really like how the Black Nitride turned out. Now we will see how it holds up to real life match and practice use. I will get a chance to sight it in and do some more spring testing this weekend.  

 

 

[CHA-LEE]

Last week I was able to participate on the Leadslinger’s Radio podcast and that show was posted yesterday. It was a lot of fun and we talk about some good stuff. I listed a link to my media page below and you can find it there. Enjoy the show!!!  

 

https://bigpandaperformance.com/media/