I shot the bullseye match today at Central Jersey. It was a hot day, although we were fortunate to have a light breeze from time to time. The match finished pretty early, too. We were done shooting by 2:00 or so. We were pretty lucky -- we had all of one alibi.
After one of my slow-fire strings, John Gemmill, who was running the match (and who's one of the people responsible for reviving bullseye shooting in New Jersey), gave me some unsolicited advice. He'd noticed my pistol trembling a bit, and he advised me to try relaxing my grip on the pistol. I gave that a try on the next few strings, and, although I wasn't immediately successful at shooting better, I managed to shoot a 96 slow-fire stage on the .45 National Match course. To put this into perspective, the High Masters have been shooting 94-95 on average for .45 slow-fire stages for the past few months at Central Jersey. And to give some more perspective, my other .45 slow-fire stages were pretty pitiful, including a 66. It may have been a fluke, but I'm at least on track to improving my slow-fire scores.
The other remarkable event from the match (at least for me) was my slider. For timed- and rapid-fire stages, we use turning targets. If you manage to get a shot off while the target is turning, you'll get a hole that's stretched out a bit. In my case, the hole started about 11:00 in the 9 ring and stretched to the edge of the cardboard. The aforementioned John Gemmill commented on the target and told me that it showed good control, that I hadn't panicked when the targets started turning but had gotten the shot off calmly.
My grand aggregate for the match was 2329, which gives me my second consecutive Sharpshooter score. So, depending on how long it takes the NRA to process things and update my status, I've got a few weeks to be a sandbagger and win some Marksman matches (or get ahead of myself and start shooting poorly.) At least I've met one of my goals for the year, to make it up into Sharpshooter.
Saturday, July 24, 2010
Friday, July 9, 2010
Les Baer wadcutter
Back in February, I ordered a Les Baer wadcutter for bullseye shooting, and it came in Tuesday. I managed to get caught by the bathtub curve -- someone else at the club ordered one about two weeks before I did and had it in 12 weeks. My order took 18 weeks, so I got mine a full two months after he did. I guess they're doing a pretty good business right now.
The one add-on I ordered with the gun was their one-and-a-half inch guarantee (1.5" at 50 yards.) What this means is that the gun is really tight. I took the gun out of the box and tried to rack the slide -- no go, even after cocking the hammer. Doing it from the rear is a bit complicated by the scope mount, so I tried to push it back using the serrations on the front of the slide. It still took a bit just to get it out of battery, but once it was out of battery, it slid pretty well.
I took it to the range Wednesday night before our monthly meeting. The first thing to do was zero it. I put up a 25-yard slowfire target and fired from a sandbag. Okay, up and to the right. I fire another round to see how the accuracy is and look through the scope. Hmm, I only see one hole -- oh, wait, that's two holes. The third hole was definitely distinct, but still close enough to make me happy. (And given that I wasn't using a vice, that very well could have been shooter error.)
I put about 100 rounds through it between zeroing it and shooting a practice 900. I shot an 800 with it, which is certainly not the best I've shot in practice, but for one, I need to get used to the trigger, and for two, I wasn't expecting this gun to make me a master-class shooter. There's a lot of work that needs to happen behind the trigger. And with this gun, it will be painfully obvious where the fault for any failure lies.
One of the things I like about this gun so far is the scope mount. The loaner gun I've been shooting so far has a barrel-mounted red-dot. Because the scope is mounted forward of my wrist, I noticed a lot of wobble. This mount gets the scope a lot farther back, so it's closer to that pivot point. I'm noticing a lot less wobble with this one.
The one add-on I ordered with the gun was their one-and-a-half inch guarantee (1.5" at 50 yards.) What this means is that the gun is really tight. I took the gun out of the box and tried to rack the slide -- no go, even after cocking the hammer. Doing it from the rear is a bit complicated by the scope mount, so I tried to push it back using the serrations on the front of the slide. It still took a bit just to get it out of battery, but once it was out of battery, it slid pretty well.
I took it to the range Wednesday night before our monthly meeting. The first thing to do was zero it. I put up a 25-yard slowfire target and fired from a sandbag. Okay, up and to the right. I fire another round to see how the accuracy is and look through the scope. Hmm, I only see one hole -- oh, wait, that's two holes. The third hole was definitely distinct, but still close enough to make me happy. (And given that I wasn't using a vice, that very well could have been shooter error.)
I put about 100 rounds through it between zeroing it and shooting a practice 900. I shot an 800 with it, which is certainly not the best I've shot in practice, but for one, I need to get used to the trigger, and for two, I wasn't expecting this gun to make me a master-class shooter. There's a lot of work that needs to happen behind the trigger. And with this gun, it will be painfully obvious where the fault for any failure lies.
One of the things I like about this gun so far is the scope mount. The loaner gun I've been shooting so far has a barrel-mounted red-dot. Because the scope is mounted forward of my wrist, I noticed a lot of wobble. This mount gets the scope a lot farther back, so it's closer to that pivot point. I'm noticing a lot less wobble with this one.
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