Clean sweep!

Well, okay, not really a clean sweep, but I managed to win the marksman class (grand aggregate) this past weekend. I'd been hoping that I would but I was waiting for the match results to see how things fell out. I'd also been wondering if I'd have a clean sweep (winning every match and aggregate.) I certainly wasn't expecting it, but man, would that have made my day. I did manage a clean sweep on center-fire, though, and I won both the CF and .45 aggregates and a smattering of other first and second place scores.

While its nice to win, though, I'm mostly focused on improvement. I'm currently in marksman class, and I want to make it up into sharpshooter. This was a sharpshooter score (2360, with a 2295 cutoff), and if I shoot as well in my next match, I'll be there.

WOOHOO!

No, this isn't actually about the Supreme Court decision that was just handed down. This actually has to so with the 2700 I shot this past weekend.

The 2700 was at my home club (and it was actually the first time I'd shot at our outdoors pistol range.) The "WOOHOO!" is because I shot my best score yet, a 2365. Even though I'd managed to get my trigger control on the .45 up-to-snuff in practice, I hadn't yet demonstrated this in competition. I shot a 2148 the previous weekend, which was my best score at the time, but not quite what I'd been hoping for.

I shot a 797 .22 aggregate, an 800 centerfire aggregate (using the 1911, and including a 97 rapid fire), and a 768 .45 aggregate. I was surprised to have shot better with the .45 that the .22, but certainly pleasantly surprised.

Now I await the official results to see how I did compared to other people.

The most recent 2700

I went to another 2700 this past weekend, again at Central Jersey.

I had a frustrating alibi on one of the .22 timed-fire stages. I had a failure-to-eject on the first round of the first string, which was all well and good, as these things happen, and you get to reshoot. But then I had another FTE on the first round of the second string. You only get the one alibi per stage, so my only other option was clearing the gun and continuing the string. I didn't manage to get any other shots off in the string, so I ended up with four misses on that stage. Which was pretty annoying, as I ended up eight points short of a sharpshooter score on the .22 aggregate. And had I scored at least a 33 for those four shots (which is well within the realm of possibility), I would have ended up third in the Marksman grand aggregate.

The other interesting item from this 2700 was that I demonstrated my newfound trigger control on the .45 -- well, at least for one match. I managed to shoot a 181-6x on the .45 timed-fire match (a 90 and a 91), narrowly squeaking out a victory over the 181-4x fired by the second-place shooter.

I'm definitely making progress.

Thoughts on jury service

Serving on a jury is exhausting. I wasn't the only one of the jurors who remarked on this.

I also noticed something that I'd never noticed before in all those TV and movie depictions of courtrooms. Perhaps I'd seen it, but only noticed it now when I had a unique perspective. You always see the "All rise!" when the judge enters the courtroom, but you never see the "All rise! Jury entering the courtroom." At which point, the judge is also standing for the jury. This is a detail that's impossible not to notice as you walk in and see the judge standing and regarding you respectfully.

And this embodies one of the things I love most about this country. We, the people, are not the subjects of some some authority, but rather we are the authority. There is no member of an elite standing in judgment of us, we judge our own.

World record permit turnaround

HOLY CRAP!

I turned in the paperwork for a couple of permits to purchase on the evening of May 19. I got a call today that they were ready. Given that I turned in the paperwork after hours, that means I effectively had a 26-day turnaround on the permits. Unbe-fricking-lievable.

Not that I can use them before the end of the month, anyway, given the stupid one-handgun-a-month law, but it's still remarkable.

Jury duty

My week for jury duty service was last week. I didn't know this before, but my very high number should have indicated that I wouldn't even be required to go in for jury selection. Apparently last week was a busy week, though, 'cause I was on-call for Thursday afternoon (but didn't have to go in) and had to go in Friday morning.

And when I went in Friday, I ended up getting picked for a jury. My service starts today. Should be an interesting experience.

The Road to Serfdom a bestseller

Sometime last year, Atlas Shrugged was a top seller (I can't remember if it was number one or not, but it was in the top 10.) And now Hayek's The Road to Serfdom has hit number 1.

We live in interesting times.

Trigger control

It looks like I've managed to work through my trigger control problems on the .45. It was really just a matter of focus and practice. Previously, I'd spent most of my time working on slow fire, my reasoning being that, if you can't do something slow, you'll never be able to do it fast. (This being something I picked up some 20 years ago while learning to play guitar.) It seemed about time for me to start working on timed and rapid fire, so I did, and it seems to have paid off. I shot three 900's this weekend as practice, and shot a 777, a 753, and a 788. Considerably better than my last match scores, which were 645, 559, and 671.

Now I just need lots more practice to cement the good habits in my brain.