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Your Gear Is Good Enough


Steve Anderson

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Steve you are so right. We shot a steel match Saturday and I shot it with my super duper SVI .40 and then with a HK USP with uncle mikes mag pouches (cloth) and a blade tech hoslter. This was the second time I had shot the gun. I shot each stage an average of 15% slower with the HK (good enough for 2nd place to my 1st with my .40.) After thousands of $'s I wish I would have just bought a stock pistol in 9mm and more ammo. I would have gotten where I am much faster.

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Thanks for the post. I keep trying to get myself to buy either a limited or open setup. My current butt ugly colt is accurate enough (3inch 25 yards), reliable, decent trigger, and isn't costing me anything.

I keep telling myself if I had a wide body I could reload faster, but if I'd practice regularly I would have a faster reload.

I'm gonna save those pennies and invest time to get better.

Josh

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Dear Mr. Moderator:

Please delete this thread. Then burn the electrons that were used to store it and send it out across the internet. :ph34r:

If our wives ever got wind of this we wouldn't get new toys! ;):D

And, since this thread will be expunged from the record shortly...you are absolutely right Steve. :)

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Of the 22 new post/active topics this morning, 2 of them actually deal with shooting. :(

These other topics ARE important, but I worry that newbies may get the wrong idea.

There really is a belief out there that you can buy a better score. This may be true is a few cases, but Brian and Robbie found out that none of it matters if you miss just one shot!

Now, if a new piece of gear inspires more practice and subsequently greater achievement...then that's a GOOD thing.

That new holster probly won't cut 2 tenths from your draw, but if it inpsires you to (here it comes, sorry guys) dry fire every night, then that new holster is just what you needed for your temperament.

Everyone is here out of a desire to improve, right?

SA

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Of course one must consider that we are at that point in the year where practice can be downright uncomfortable in certain regions of the country. Some of us (myself included) don't let a little wind, snow, rain, etc deter us from our appointed practice sessions. Others get a drop of rain or a flake of snow and abandon the range in haste. To each his/her own.

Of course dry fire can and should still take place but I have found that all dry fire gets real old real fast when the opportunity to "prove" it in live fire isn't available; which is part of the reason I practice in just about all weather (the other being big matches ala Area 1 2003 where the weather was unexpected and many were thrown off their game).

We are at the low eb for matches. In many regions the monthly club match won't reappear for several months. There aren't any "big" matches coming up for most of us for many moons. This is the natural time of the year where folks start sending the blasters off for work, start thinking about the changes they want to make to their gear for the next season, etc. This is especially true for folks likee myself who are working on gearing up for something new like 3-gun, or MOR, or moving to a different division, etc.

Yes, we should be concerned about people getting the idea they can buy a score. But we shouldn't be losing sleep over it.

My 2 cents anyway. :)

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Somebody recently sent me a request to close the "gear" section for a month...so that everybody would focus on their shooting.

What do you all think??? :D

I think the gear guestions are more important to us rookies :)

We don't want to look too foolish (fat chance), but get decent enough equipment to last a season or two. I've only been shooting this sport since April, had I known about this forum earlier, it would have saved me a lot of money.

But Shooting is like any other hobby/sport (golf?) - we all tend to get swept up in the spending...

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Well, if there are only 2 of 22 topics concerned with shooting, do we know how many are concerned with gear?

This IS a competition forum for the most part and the actual shooting aspects of the competition are pretty static. The fundamentals are the same. The techniques for getting to the final result are a bit different, as are the mental techniques.

After you have 90K posts, most of the fundamentals will have been discussed, time and time again. There are always new gear items coming out by various folks, so there will be some disproportionately larger % of topics allocated and discussed about gear than actual shooting, when you consider the average classification of the daily poster on this fourm is probably A, and they have already decided on gear, ammo, reloading, etc, and are most interested in obtaining some pearl of wisdom from Matt or Benos or someone else who has a real break through, usually under the heading of mental techniques. On the other hand, the forum members who are not classified A or higher are really interested in trying gear which might make a difference TO THEM, or hearing the opinions of the higher classed shooters on the forum, concerning that which they are considering.

As I have been told before, this forum is about inclusion. I would think that the "gear" topics are just as important, maybe more so, to the lower ranked shooters than are the mental topics, and that interest might, probably would, switch 180 for the higher ranked guys and gals reading the forum.

Telling a newer shooter to get a gun, some workable gear and then practice is great, but it is like telling a child the stove top is hot. They still have to touch it to see for themselves. If shooters stay with this sport long enough, they learn what Steve Anderson advocates, but it is a process they have to work through. I don't think depriving the less advanced shooters the benefit of the forum's cumulative wisdom by closing the gear topics for ANY amount of time is benificial and could be taken as a snobbish attitude by some. (I can still beat your time even if you have a race rig and I don't, kind of thing).

It is my opinion that maybe most of the daily posting members of the forum have been part of most of the topics discussed here since inception of the forum, and have perhaps become a bit jaded by what they might consider lack of stimulating topics being posted. Experience level of the induvidual is a big contributing factor to what that shooter thinks is important or stimulating.

So taking into account that the forum is for all shooters not just those on the upper end of the spectrum, there might indeed be more gear questions during the off season than during the more weather appropriate shooting months. I think it will probably all even out in the long run. More importantly, is the fact that the upper classed shooters can really improve the knowledge base of all us lower shooters by providing insight and wisdom from the things we ask about, be they either fundamentals, mental, technique or gear. But that is just my opinion.

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TL,

You make some good points. I should note that the idea of closing the gear forums for a while is simply NOT going to happen (not by me, anyway). It was just posted to rattle the cage a little bit.

As you have posted many a time..."it's the indian, not the arrow".

Telling a newer shooter to get a gun, some workable gear and then practice is great, but it is like telling a child the stove top is hot. They still have to touch it to see for themselves.

Yeah...that is the part that is so hard. We see the new guys come in with all the questions 9which are welcome, that's why we are all here). They think they have to have the race holster, the $2500 gun, and ammo made by NASA.

You just know it's going to take them a year longer to get to the same level as the shooter that bought simple Kydex gear, Wal-mart Val-u-pak ammo, and a Beretta, Glock, or Springfield "Loaded" (for example).

Oh well...it's all good.

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We've had this discussion B4, but this is about your gear being good enough...so...

I believe that the best/trick gear avaliable will help a lower class shooter achieve their max potential within the limits of their current ability.

Logic tells us that the Big Dawgs wouldn't use it if there was no benefit. So, to that end, I think you can buy a better score.

Truth is that it helps only to a point, and then it is just hard work, better technique both physically and mentally.

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I believe that the best/trick gear avaliable will help a lower class shooter achieve their max potential within the limits of their current ability.

Within reason, of course. There's some 'top-gun' stuff that probably isn't appropriate.. For example a rank beginner in Open will probably do better with a tube sight instead of a c-more just in dot acquisition in wierd positions, and in Limited, a rock-solid reliable 18-round magazine may be better than a finicky 20-rounder that needs careful attention to loading and cleaning to make run 100%.

The gear has to work 100% for you. Then it's all about where you point it when you press the trigger.

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I wholeheartedly disagree with tightloop. :)

I think the most basic gear would do them better if they spent the $ on training instead. For a couple thousand K you could get some great training about what you real should be working on to reach your potential.

ps. Some of the big dawgs use stuff because they get PAID to and they get things for free. ;)

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Shred

I agree.

What's more, after you get to a certain amount of rounds, ie, 18 or so, is it really worth the risk of a possible mag malf if the extra rounds don't buy one less reload? Also, having gear that you do not understand or have the ability to troubleshoot on the fly, isn't helping you at all.

When I started shooting in the Dark Ages, I would beat lots of shooters who were actually better than I was, simply because I had equipment that ran 1st time every time. Same is true even now.

L2S

Let's use me as an example. I am getting back into USPSA after many years of not playing the game. Having an Open gun built, but getting a Limited gun ready NOW till the foo foo blaster is ready.

STI Edge, grip contoured and roughed, remainder of the gun made as trick as my smith can make it, .40, mags blessed by Grams, Safariland 011 holster and 773 mag holders. I could make a list a page long of the mods to the gun..

Point is that I don't want to buy two sets of anything. Holster, mags, belts, ammo, anything. If I get beaten with my gear it is lack of ability, if I drag to the line with some worn out pistol, questionable mags, cheap ammo, and some soft nylon holster and get beaten, I don't know if I was the culprit or my gear or a combination of the two that caused me to finish last in class.

I do agree that $$ spent on quality training is a huge help toward getting where you want to be.

I guess it is my opinion that you cannot "poor boy" any part of the journey , because it is just two steps back instead of one forward. I don't mean you have to spend $$ indiscriminately, but within the scope of the BIG picture, don't scrimp. I would rather see someone save up their $$ till they could do it RIGHT, one time, than suffer, cuss, and and become disenchanted by trying to transition their gear from basic to trick one piece at a time.

Just a difference in philosophy, I guess.

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