January 2011 Archives

9mm is cheaper to shoot than just about any other cartridge, except maybe .22LR, but .22LR doesn't give you the recoil to deal with. That's good in some cases, but if you want to work on recoil control it's no good.

So I picked up a conversion barrel for my M&P 40 Pro from Speed Shooter Specialties to let me do some cheaper plinking and practicing. The barrel is made by KKM Precision and is button rifled and has a 1 in 20 twist.

With 9mm M&P magazines the conversion ran flawless for 150 rounds. With .40S&W mags I experienced 3 stoppages, however I found that if kept to 10 rounds or less of 9mm in the .40 S&W magazine it ran without failure.

Accuracy was spectacular. The KKM produced much tighter groups than the factory .40S&W barrel. I'm really considering getting one of their match .40S&W barrels now.

This was the IDPA classifier and my first time shooting it.

I'm a little upset about the results. I felt like I was into Sharpshooter category and doing pretty well on the third stage, but the scorekeeper lost my time on one string.

During the reshoot, the scorekeeper became the cover nazi. I didn't feel like I did anything different than the first time, or different than anyone else. After about the third time he called cover, I stopped shooting and started trying to figure what he was calling. He yelled "your feet!" I was real confused because I was standing completely behind the barricade at point and all I had done was lean back in. How could I not be behind cover? Finally I put my feet together so they were touching and he stopped calling. I was completely flustered at this point. You can't shoot very well like that, I couldn't get my arms extended very much at all, and my accuracy went down and my time went up. All I can figure is that they really want you to hug the barricade.

Anyway, I got Marksman, but I am pretty sure if I shoot it again I will be Sharpshooter pretty easily. Just got to make sure I don't give the scorekeeper anything to yell at me about.

One other thing that bothered me is that I can't tell where the hell -0 zone is on an IDPA target. I shot pretty far down in the order and it was all just a mass of tape. I thought it was higher than it was and I had several in the -1 area above the -0 area.

Oh well. Kinda sucks, but it is what it is. I really want to shoot it again now, just to prove what I know I am capable of.

I tried to sign up for Google AdSense, but they turned me down because of the content of my site. There's nothing specific noted in the email and when you click on the "more info" it lists these things as verboten content.

• Pornography, adult or mature content
• Violent content
• Content related to racial intolerance or advocacy against any individual, group or organisation
• Excessive profanity
• Hacking/cracking content
• Gambling or casino-related content
• Illicit drugs and drug paraphernalia content
• Sales of beer or hard alcohol
• Sales of tobacco or tobacco-related products
• Sales of prescription drugs
• Sales of weapons or ammunition (e.g. firearms, firearm components, fighting knives, stun guns)
• Sales of products that are replicas or imitations of designer goods
• Sales or distribution of coursework or student essays
• Content regarding programs which compensate users for clicking ads or offers, performing searches, surfing websites or reading emails
• Any other content that is illegal, promotes illegal activity or infringes on the legal rights of others

As far as I know, none of these have ever been on this site. I've blogged about firearms a lot, but never sold one on this site. Apparently Google is not gun blog friendly.

I guess I'll look around. I'm not interested in plastering my site with ads, but I have a few posts which get a lot more traffic than the rest of the site, so I thought I might be able to get a few bucks a month out of that. I'd be happy if I could get a match fee per month out of it.

I haven't decided what match will be my next, but I have decided I'm going focus on two things, scores be damned. The two things are grip, and watching the front sight lift on every shot.

I don't think I have a bad grip, but I often let it get too weak. One big difference I have noticed between Master level shooters and mere mortals such as myself, is that if you watch a Master shoot the pistol runs very flat whereas the lesser shooter often has a much bouncier gun. The gun doesn't necessarily have to run perfectly flat or be held in a deathgrip, but rather held firm enough to minimize the time required to get the sights back on target.

I can only recall two stages where I have watched the sights lift on every shot. You know what, those are the only two stages I have shot with all alphas (or down 0 since one of those stages was in IDPA). The times weren't great, but when I get in the habit of really watching the sight all the time, I can work on seeing what I need to see quicker.

So, that's it for this week. Depending on how things are going, I may just focus on one of those.

My first IDPA match.

I have shot USPSA for about a year now, and enjoy it a lot. I ended up getting pretty far away from my carry gear, but I was having fun, so I didn't really care. I kind of felt like trying something new, and at the same time getting more trigger time with stuff I actually carry, so off I went to my first IDPA match.

Things I liked about IDPA:

Sometimes I feel when I'm at a USPSA match, or watching one on Shooting USA, that USPSA is really just an agility contest with shooting thrown in to make it interesting. Me, I'm big, slow, top heavy, and, sadly, getting older. IDPA feels more like a shooting sport to me. (In all fairness, you can run a USPSA course as slow and "tactical" as you want, for me it's just hard to do that when everyone else isn't.)

I like that not everything is engaged with 2 rounds per target. Today we had some targets that required 2 rounds, 3 rounds, and 2 rounds to the body + 1 to the head.

I like that shooting on the move is required in many cases.

I like having to use cover.

I like that it uses more of the skills that a civilian concealed carry licensee should have. There was a stage that started with shots fired from retention, for example.

I like that accuracy is such a big factor.

Things I didn't like:

Retaining magazines is dumb. You may disagree, that's fine, I think it's a bad habit to get into.

I don't like having to do things a certain way. IDPA feels a lot more rigid. I like being able to plan out a strategy that may be different than what the other shooters do. Maybe I'm good at long distances, but slow moving, I'll try and minimize how much ground I have to cover. Or maybe the opposite, whatever.

The match:

I shot the match OK. I slipped into USPSA mode a couple of times and had some -1's, and -2's sprinkled in liberally. There was a stage with 3 targets, and a total of 8 rounds per target that was shot advancing and retreating. From about 5 yards you would fire 6 rounds, reload and fire 6 more rounds all while moving backwards. Then you would do it again, but advancing. There were some ugly scores for everyone on that, like a total of -30+ ugly for some folks. I think I had -10 total on that one. I had a procedural for stepping over a painted line on it though. (I also got a procedural for dropping a magazine on another stage.)

On the final stage of the day I finally managed to break my running and gunning habits and shot it -0 with a decent time (just based on what the rest of my squad did, I doubt I was anywhere close to the top shooters). I watched the front sight lift on every shot, and knew I shot it clean.

I don't think I'll be moving from USPSA to IDPA, but I'll keep shooting IDPA from time to time.

Update (Results):

I came in 7th out of 14 shooters in SSP. I was shooting a 1911 though, which is in CDP. I guess I filled out something wrong. That score would have been 1st in CDP.

I actually had -13 on the stage I thought I had -10 on, but the real killer was my two procedurals. I would have come up a good bit on those stages if I hadn't committed them.

I'll leave the debate about whether a magazine disconnect is a good or bad thing for another day, but let's say you have a gun with a magazine disconnect and want to dry fire it?

Obviously, you can shove an empty magazine into it which will allow the gun to fire. If you have a gun with an external hammer, like a Browning Hi-Power for example, you can simply re-cock the gun after each trigger pull. Pretty simple.

If you have a gun like an M&P, or SR9 you can still put an empty magazine in it, but you'll have to rack the slide after every shot. When you do that, the slide will lock back because the empty magazine follower will be pushing up on the slide release lever. You'll have to hit the slide release lever to get the gun back in battery. That's a hassle that cuts into your practice time. Also, there's the issue of needing to make sure your magazine is truly empty before doing this. You can drop the magazine before you rack the slide to avoid having the slide lock back, but that's kind of a hassle too. Or, you can manually hold down the slide release lever when racking the slide with the magazine in it, but again, kind of a hassle and possibly a bad habit to learn.

There's a simple solution that a lot of people apparently aren't aware of.

Take your magazine, unload it if necessary, and remove the base plate. Take out the spring and the follower, so that you are left with the empty tube. (You can put the base plate back on if you so desire.)

Put the empty tube into the gun, and you will now be able to rack the slide without having the slide lock back and without having to do any extraneous manipulations of the slide release lever or dropping the magazine. You can now just focus on dry firing.

The tube may be a little difficult to remove without the magazine spring applying pressure, but if you put your thumb inside and pull it should come out without too much difficulty, or if you put the base plate back on you can use that to pull.

When done dry firing you might as well use this opportunity to clean your magazine before re-assembly.

Another night match.

This is the first time I had shot the gun since I finished the Apex CAEK install, and it felt like the gun shot much flatter (keep in mind I'm shooting one handed at the night matches). I know that the striker spring and the recoil spring oppose each other when the slide is coming forward, so perhaps the weaker striker spring helps. Or maybe it's getting broken in, or maybe I'm imagining it.

The first stage I shot went excellent. Everything was under 3 yards, and I was shooting about as fast as I could one handed. No misses. (I probably could have halved my time running without a light, there was really no need for one on this stage.)

The second stage was a real clusterfuck. My actual shooting was OK, no misses, just slow. The course required some reversing to shoot without breaking the 180. I hate reversing, I'm worried about my muzzle, tripping, walking over a fault line, etc. It makes me overthink when I get back into things, but I would rather be safe than sorry. What made this stage suck, was that we actually got into an argument about what the 180 rule was. The guy was of the opinion that because when they laid out the stage they did it angled with respect to the bay, that the 180 was relative to the course and not the bay. I can see how if you've only shot at this range with it's huge bays that you might think that, but that is wrong. He was somewhat worked up about it, even though no disqualification was issued. He even challenged me to show him the rule, and I was trying to stay out of it because I'm not an RO, but you know something like that you just can't let continue. Things cooled over eventually, but it was the first time I had seen an argument at a match. (Argument is probably too strong a word though.)

On the third stage my shooting wasn't up to par, and I had 4 misses. A big part of that was that the area was between 2 walls and I had trouble seeing the targets after the first couple of shots. The smoke was reflecting a lot of light back at me, but I can't really attribute all the misses to the smoke, some of it was me not getting the sights lined up right. When I rush things I tend to get the front sight sticking up and I'll shoot high. With shots over 15 yards, you can easily miss. (I really think 3-dot sights are superior to the fiber optic/black rear I have on the M&P Pro for night work.)

On the last stage, there were 11 targets all laid out from 3 yards to 20 yards. I had 3 misses but for a different reason this time. I started from the closest targets and worked towards the farthest targets. The problem was that when I reloaded, I lost track of which targets I had shot and I couldn't see the holes. I knew that I missed a target, but wasn't sure which one. With the clock ticking, I took a guess and guessed wrong. I had 4 shots on that one and 0 on the one next to it. There was another miss in there somewhere too.

I'm getting better at night matches and shooting one handed, I had a lot less misses this time. I need to work on not poking the front sight up, especially on long shots.

I was running low on Hoppe's #9 and CLP (cleaner, lubricant, protectant), so I picked some up at Academy this weekend. 

I'm amazed how expensive this stuff has become.  The CLP was $9.99 for 4 ounces, and even Hoppe's was over $1 per ounce. Yeah, it was my fault for not picking some up cheaper from Midway or wherever the last time I made an order, but still, the markup on this stuff is incredible.

I did some googling and found this page of homemade gun cleaners and such.

Next time I run out of something I might try one of those recipes.

So on Sunday the sear spring plunger for my M&P exited the universe in the general area of my garage, which obviously left the gun inoperable.

A big thanks to Speed Shooter Specialties for getting my replacement to me so fast! Ordered on Sunday and in my hands on Wednesday with no expedited shipping costs, you can't beat that!

I got the gun back together after work, and all seems well. Looking forward to shooting it again.

I decided to snap a pic of the part so you could get an idea how hard that sucker would be to find in a cluttered garage.


It's kind of funny how I put it back together. I took my vice into the house and set it on the sheet of plastic that my office chair rolls around on. Then I got all my tools and parts together, and placed the sear block into the vice. I got out a ballcap and put on my handsfree light I got for Christmas, and sat down on the floor.  Then I took a bedsheet and draped it over me and the entire work area. The idea was that if sucker launched it would be caught in the sheet somewhere, on me, or bounce back to the plastic. Turns out I managed not to launch it this time, but I was prepared nonetheless.

So after all that, I'm not sure how much of an improvement the sear spring itself was. Too much time had gone by since I tried it with the old sear spring, and I don't have a trigger pull gauge.

With Apex's kit overall, it's a vastly improved trigger. The reset isn't as nice as it was with the heavier trigger spring, but that's to be expected and it's decent enough with the RAM. I think I can live with it, if not I will put the factory trigger spring back in. It is a pretty long pull, but the reset is much shorter. It reminds me of a well broken in Hi-Power's trigger but with a vastly improved reset (the Hi-Power has to travel almost the entire length back to reset).

I came across this video on Youtube last night, and thought it was an excellent tool to help understand how the sight picture effects shot placement.



I think the point of the video was to show that at close distance a perfect sight picture is less critical, which is true, but it's important to remember that a less than perfect sight picture plus a less than perfect grip, trigger pull, adrenaline, etc. can all add up to a miss even at close distances.

When I took my CHL class the instructor, a retired cop, told us a story from when he was on the force where another cop and a bad guy exchanged gunfire in a hallway at close distance and nobody was hit. (If I recall correctly, the bad guy had a big .44 Magnum revolver, which has got to be scary as hell when pointed at you.)

I've been seeing a lot written against the 1911 in some of the blogs I've been reading lately. Some true, some not.

The 1911 is a great gun when everything works, but I would never recommend one to someone getting their first self-defense pistol, unless the manufacturer has a superb warranty (or they have the funds for a gunsmith) and they are willing to train under some stress.

Failures out of the box are more common than I would expect for a gun with a premium price. Both of my 1911's which I purchased new ended up going back to the manufacturer for work, as an anecdote. I have seen a handful of them jam at matches as well.

The capacity is limited compared to the Wonder Nines, and against double stack polymers that fire the same caliber. More bullets is always a good thing.

It has manual safeties which some people will have problems with under stress.

Still, I carry a 1911 most of the time. Why?

Well, the old design still has a lot going for it.

First and foremost the trigger is superb. Unlike most other pistols it comes straight back with no rotation to the pull. Most triggers pivot on a pin somewhere in the frame which gives them a little bit of a curved pull. It also "breaks" cleanly, and is easily adjusted. What this means to the shooter is that it's easier to put the bullets where the shooter wants to put them. When I got my first 1911 I was amazed how much more accurate I was with it than I was with guns I had owned for years.

Second, the ergonomics are great. It points naturally, it lends itself perfectly to the "thumbs forward" grip that is used and taught by pretty much everyone these days, and with a beavertail grip safety it lends itself to a high grip on the frame without "biting" your hand. It's also a heavy gun which tames recoil pretty nicely. All that adds up to a gun that is easy to shoot, and shoot a lot. I once put through over 300 rounds of .45ACP through my old XD in one range session and my hands were not happy. My trigger finger stung, and my hands felt like I'd been in a 12 round slap fight. To top it off, my hands were sweaty and I was constantly fighting the gun's tendency to slip under recoil. With my 1911's I have to limit how much ammo I take, and how much "rapid fire" I do at the range because I will shoot it all up in an hour.

Third, it's slim. That means despite it's large size, it's easy to conceal, and with the proper gear is quite comfortable to carry too.

Fourth, the aftermarket is huge. I can find mags, mag pouches, holsters, etc. at pretty much any gun store. (Not that you should necessarily get your carry stuff there, but if you're on vacation and break your holster or something, you can at least get a functional replacement.) I can get every 1911 part there is from a variety of catalogs and internet stores. (I could build a gun from scratch with proper tools and knowledge.) Because of this huge aftermarket, you can customize the gun to suit you.

So if you're willing to spend the time testing your gun to make sure it's reliable, and training to use the thumb safety until it becomes ingrained into your draw, it's still a viable platform.

As we have all heard about, Rep. Gabrielle Giffords and others were shot, and some died as a result.

I hate hearing about these events. Some good people are gone, and we all feel the loss. I wish we could live in a world free from tragedy such as this, but the reality is that things like this will always happen.

Within hours some people were already calling for bans on large capacity magazines, and for the Assault Weapons Bill to be reinstated. It's a very knee-jerk reaction, that in my opinion does nothing to make any of us safer.

I am concerned that if those people have their way, they will actually make me and my family less safe. I know that there is no law that our government could enact and realistically enforce that could prevent someone from attempting violence against me and my family.

Ultimately, we are all our own protector. Events such as this strengthen my resolve to carry every day and to learn and become better at the skills I may need to be that protector.

I blame the weather.

There was supposed to be a match today, but it got called on account of bad weather. I figured I would spend the morning cleaning my guns, which I did. I was in the tinkering mood I guess, so I decided to install the rest of my Apex CAEK.

The trigger spring install went ok, and really lightened up the trigger pull a lot.

The striker spring install was super easy and lightened up the pull a little bit more.

Against my better judgment, I decided to go for the full monty and install the sear spring. After a while I got the sear plunger back in, and decided just to make sure it was seated correctly by giving it a little push with my punch. Well, the punch slipped off and that little sucker launched itself into low-earth orbit. Gone.

So now I have ordered 2 new ones from Speed Shooter Specialties. The part is "CNC machined fom A2 billet for long life and wear resistance." Fancy. I decided to get 2 since they're only $3 and it's quite possible I end up launching another one.

Grrrrrrrr.

My neighbor asked me to post my recipe here.

I really don't have a recipe. When it tastes right, it's done.

As far as I know I am not the least bit Cajun, Creole, French, etc., so no claim is made as to the authenticity of said recipe that I don't actually have or follow.

This is what went into it last night. I usually don't make this much at a time, so you could cut this in half or even a quarter for a "normal" dinner.

Ingredients

• 2 boneless skinless chicken breasts, cubed
  
• 1 lb andouille sausage, sliced
  
• 1.5 lb medium size shrimp, peeled
  
• 1 bell pepper, diced
  
• 3 lengths of celery, sliced
• 2 cloves garlic, diced
  
• half a large white onion, diced
• fresh thyme, chopped
• fresh rosemary, chopped
• dried oregano, basil, rosemary (aka Italian Seasoning)
• Tony Chachere's creole seasoning
• Louisiana Hot Sauce
• 1 Chicken bouillon cube
• 3 cups rice
• 2 tbsp of my homemade pepper sauce (you could use a diced fresh jalapeno here, or some cayenne)
  
• olive oil
• white wine
  

Preparation

Put enough oil into your pot/pan to get about an 1/8" depth of oil. Get it hot, but not quite smoking, and then add your vegetables and garlic. Cook for about 10 minutes until they start to wilt a little bit.

Add rice, but no water, let toast for 5 minutes, Stir frequently so it doesn't stick or burn.

Add enough water to cover the rice (anytime you feel like throwing some wine in, go for it), and add your chicken and your bouillon cube. Cover the pot/pan now, and keep it covered throughout (unless stirring of course), also you'll probably need to turn down the heat some.

You'll want to season a little bit after this with some hot sauce, creole seasoning and the dried spices. I don't measure any of this, but you don't want to go too heavy on the creole seasoning as it's pretty salty. I like to season a little at a time throughout the cooking.

Stir every 5 minutes or so, add some water each time you stir it to bring the water up until it just covers everything again.

After 20 minutes or so, add the sausage and a chunk of the fresh spices. (The timing of all this isn't too important.)

You'll want to make sure you stir it at least every 5 minutes, you don't want to burn it. Add water, wine, spices, pepper sauce, seasoning, hot sauce, etc. Taste, taste, taste.

After about 20 minutes of that, it should start to take on a nice golden color and the rice should be close to done. If the rice isn't done, keep stirring, adding water, etc. if you need to.

Once the rice is done, add your shrimp. Cook for one minute, then shutoff the heat. Let sit for another 2-3 minutes, the shrimp should be done now, if not let sit a little bit longer.

Eat!

My first night match! The match was put on by Texas Multigun at Best of the West range. It was my first time out there and even at night I was impressed. The place is huge, and the bays are huge too.

Based on my squad it seems like 80% of the shooters were using a carbine, mostly M4 looking, 18% were using a pistol with a mounted flashlight, and only a small minority used a pistol with a hand-held flashlight. (I was the only person in my squad shooting with an unmounted light.)

If you've never shot a pistol at night without a mounted light, it's very different than daylight shooting. You've only got two hands so that means shooting one-handed. There's two basic styles of doing it. In one way you hold the pistol in your strong hand completely unsupported with the flashlight in your weak hand behind the sights lighting them up and the target too, usually you would put the light to the side of your head to do this. The other method is to hold your light in your weak hand with your arm bent at the elbow and somewhat parallel to the ground, then you place your strong hand that is holding your gun so that the back of your wrists kind of lock together. It's kind of hard to describe, but it kind of reminds of the Weaver stance, and you see it in a lot of cop shows. I shoot the unsupported method myself. (My GLC friends have probably seen me imitate it a few hundred times, and I'm always holding my flashlight to the side of my head whenever I use it around the 'hood.)

I used my M&P 40 Pro at the match. This was my first time shooting it one-handed, and the first time shooting it at night. I didn't really have any expectations as to how this would work out, but I think it went great. I did have a few misses, and a few more one hit targets, (The scoring was different than I am used to. A completely missed target is -2 (I think), a target with one hit that is not in the A-zone is -1, but a target with one hit in the A-zone is considered neutralized.) but shooting one handed at night against the clock is not the easiest thing to do. The only thing I could fault the gun for was the green fiber optic front sight was really not that visible. I was expecting it to be easier to see. Perhaps it's the color, I've never had a fiber optic front sight before so I'm not sure, but the last time I shot at night was using my Hi-Power with the very basic 3-bar sights, and the white front bar was a lot more visible than my fiber optic was.

I think if I was going to do this with the intention of winning, I'd spend some time finding a load that doesn't smoke so much. A couple of stages were shooting through a portal and the darned smoke was so thick I could hardly see.

Anyway, I got to spend a few hours shooting a night. It was fun and good practice.

I'd like to give a mention to some training I have had. Karl Rehn puts on an excellent low light/night shooting class. I wouldn't have performed near as well if I hadn't had that instruction, and I took the class at least a year ago so it sunk in pretty well.

This was my first match shooting Production, and also my first match using my new M&P 40 Pro.

The gun did great. It's a very easy gun to shoot well. The only issue is that when you throw a magazine into the gun with some "oomph" to it, it tends to drop the slide. I did some googling and it appears a pretty common thing with the M&P in general. This could be a bug or a feature depending on how you look at it. The first time it did it, it didn't quite have enough momentum to go into battery, but every time after that it did. It's kind of a time saver in a way, on the other hand I could see how it could mess up your training. Since this is not a carry gun for me, I'm going to go with feature for now.

My wife asked how I did, and I replied "I had moments of brilliance." I left out the parts where I stunk it up. The first stage I did, I just kind of took it easy and ended up doing better than I expected. I started thinking about how awesome I was with this new gun. Well, my head got too big for my shoulders I guess because on the next stage, which was our classifier, I was terrible. I mean I flat out missed targets. I can't remember the last time I actually missed an entire target, missed the "A" zone, sure, but not the whole darned thing. Replaying the thing in my mind, I think I did two things wrong. First, I was looking over my sights, and second I was not watching the front sight through the trigger press. I wasn't doing some basic things: sight picture and trigger press. Stages 1 & 2 were in the same bay and were shot sequentially, so the stupidity carried over to stage 2. After that I settled down, realized I was not going to make Grand Master in one day, and just focused on making sure I did things right.

All in all, I'm pretty happy with the initial run in Production.

Have fun and be safe tonight.