Mitch Gibson - Learning to be a shooter

[drmitchgibson]

Rifle- before the Pawnee WInter Run 'N Gun, I went to confirm zero on my rifle one last time, mainly because I changed handguards (that meant changing the barrel nut too). It was a good idea, as I had to make a couple slight adjustments. I also had time to shoot my carbine with the Aimpoint, which above I mentioned zeroing two inches low at 30 yards. Turns out that was a perfect 200 yard zero for the load I was using. The handguard I put on the rifle was the Nordic Components handguard from MRPS, and it is very nice, and small in diameter. They also make bolt-on QD sling attachements for it, which are equally great. I got some Midwest Industries sling swivels for the run. My rifle stock is the cheapest fixed-stock Magpul makes, and it has five built-in sling mount points, but four of them require one of their QD sling mount socket kits. All in all, my rifle carried very well for the whole run (I walked), and I wore it across my back for all the travelling. The longer 20" barrel did tend to catch on tree branches in the woods, which was irritating, but otherwise there were no problems. It's a funny thing, no one ever seems to mention things like follow-through in relation to shooting rifle or shotgun, but the fundamentals are the same. There were many challenging-ish shots to take, but one miss I had that I could not believe was shooting at a rifle target 50 yards away from the prone position, on stage 5. I did not follow through and threw the shot high and left.

Pistol- the pistol shooting at the Run 'N Gun was all really, really easy stuff. My only issue was shooting down a steep slope, also on stage 5. I was holding way over the target for some reason at first. Not sure what's up with that.
USPSA stuff: I bought a Glock 22 for the next Run 'N Gun so my 2011 won't get all jacked up. There were several times when I had to go prone, and one area had to belly-crawl under some barbed wire, and I was wasting time keeping my 2011 from scraping across the ground. Decided to go ahead and use the G22 for USPSA Production. It's an LEO-trade-in, all factory everything. I shot it after the USPSA match last week at USSA, at some steel left up after the match ended. It was great, but informal, and not on the clock. Decided to try it out at the next USPSA match. Got some Ghost mag pouches, which are AWESOME and inexpensive, and was set to shoot. I had one evening to practice mag changes before I got really sick, and noticed how badly my form had gotten during the last 18 months. Holy ****, going from shooting my 2011 to a factory Glock was seriously ugly. My shooting was truly awful at first. I couldn't sync up my sight pic and trigger press, and was throwing tons of shots at the poppers on stage 4. Part of it could have been that I couldn't feel my fingers, though. Things got better by the end of the match, but as soon as I got home I ordered some Warren Tactical sights and installed a 2 lbs connector, heavier trigger return spring, lighter safety plunger spring, and polished all the relevant surfaces.
I had loaded up a bunch of 165gr TCFP projectiles over 5.6gr WST, but only adjusted my seating die depth stem to allow the rounds to fit the Glock mags. While running the first brass through, I noticed that the case belling wasn't taken out all the way. But I was sick as hell, only needed 200 rounds to play with, and just said "**** it" and let the Lee FCD crush it the rest of the way to conformity. Some of my bullets were tumbling, and I believe this course of action was was caused the tumbling. Now that I'm almost healthy again, I will rectify my die settings.

 

[drmitchgibson]

Regarding the bullet tumbling mentioned immediately above, it was my die setting. Ran the seating die into the toolhead a bit, raised the stem proportionally, case closed.

Installed Warren Tactical sights on the Glock, the sole reason being the shape of the rear sight. I love it. It draws my eye to the front sight, and I never lose the front sight behind it. Only downside is the front sight is not FO, so there's no bright homing beacon to focus on. Doesn't seem to be a real problem though. I have yet to get any live-fire practice in with the Glock, and have shot four matches with it so far. The 2lbs connector I had installed was too light, and after a few matches and a bit of dryfire, I decided it sucks. It's totally a trigger-slapping enabler, and I do not need to slap triggers any more than I already sometimes do. Got a 3.5 lbs connector from Jamison, which is what I had when I was using a G17. It's like an old friend. That shoots things. Another benefit is that my Glock and 2011 have the same trigger pull weight.

I got an SIRT training pistol from Jamison. I wasn't too sure it would be a good training tool, but I really like it. It's the kind with two lasers. The trigger prep laser can be turned on and off, but the shot indicating laser can't. So I threaded a short screw into the hole, and now I can just read the sights with no laser distraction. The laser isn't totally useless by any means, but it is very distracting. I can only use it for about a minute's worth of triggering at a time. It seems like the non-dominant eye wants to pick up the laser while the dominant eye focuses on the front sight. Weird stuff. Also, they offer weighted mags for practicing mag changes. Winner winner chicken dinner. Now I can keep my dirty mags off my carpet.

I like the Warren rear sight shape so much that I installed a Warren Tactical adjustable Bomar-style sight on my 2011. I also went with the widest available notch at .150". I sighted it in roughly, and then shot 3-Gun with it in March. I used the first stage to sight it in a bit more, and on the second stage shot all alphas on the pistol targets. Too bad it wasn't USPSA during that run, it was pretty good.

During that 3-Gun match, I used some bullets I'd not tested yet out of my rifle. It was 55gr projectile over 26.5gr Varget. It shot well, but I just used it for hosing. All these recent powder woes are really getting irritating, mainly because I want to shoot a lot of rifle this year. The prospect of having to test loads very frequently based on what powder is available is ugly. I have maybe 800 rounds of .223 made up, so it will hopefully get better by the time I shoot all that. The powder market was totally unprepared for such demand.

This spring I've been making bullets. I had a lot of supplies on hand and used them all. The upside is I can shoot all I want through the summer. The downside is they were almost all for my Limited gun and AR, and so my Production run will probably be shorter than expected.

But maybe not. I'm on the H&H Prostaff shooting Team now, and there are some very nice benefits to that. I hope you like hearing about H&H, because you will be hearing about H&H.

 

[drmitchgibson]

I haven't really practiced much this year, but I've shot a lot of matches.

Pistol: I was dry-firing pistol a lot for a couple months, but that's tapered off with the need to complete a bunch of projects at home. Production has been a lot of fun, but makes stage planning a bit of a pain in the ass. Very little wiggle room on a lot of stages. Last weekend I did finally chrono my Production loads, and they are 145PF. I'm not sure I'm going to change the recipe, as the loads shoot great. It's 165gr Xtreme over 4.5gr WST. I'm going to stick with Production in USPSA until the fall, and then switch back to Limited for a while, for one reason: I have thousands of bullets loaded for my Limited gun, and it will save me from having to buy as I go as I'm doing for Production. I have practiced semi-seriously only one session with the Glock since I got it in February. My classifier skills have suffered. Reloads and freestyle have been OK except for rushed shots, but my SHO and WHO are totally in the shitter. I'll be working on those. I will also be using the Glock for 3-Gun, and need to get a big basepad or two.

Rifle: Last 3-Gun @ USSA I shot like a ***** at 300 yards. For some reason I went full retard, didn't hold over properly using my reticle, and went to war with the steel. After 20 or so shots it finally clicked and I did this thing called "aiming at what you want to shoot", after which I hit the targets all pretty quickly. I was thinking about how I hadn't tested this particular load at distance and it screwed with my head. Otherwise things have been great. I did damage the illuminator knob on my Vortex scope during one of the two matches I went to on May 24th and 25th, I assume from throwing it into a barrel, but they are going to fix it for free and pay return shipping. Woot.

Shotgun: Had issues with Fiocchi low-recoil not cycling well and jamming into the side of the chamber mouth. Not happy about that, as I haven't had that kind of issue in two years. At the USSA match my slug shots were poorer (shooting high) than they've ever been, but think I was mounting the shotgun abnormally. It seems like I mount the shotgun inconsistently if I don't shoot it often. I tried to find some stock shims to try and fit it to me better, but this SBE seems like it's too old for anything currently available. Got a kit from Brownell's that was supposed to fit, and had to return it because it wasn't even close to being right. I'd really like to move up to an M2 at this point to take advantage of the shims and Comfortech stock.

 

[drmitchgibson]

Rifle: shot my best groups ever today with 55gr projectiles, but also had a disappointing experience. I had gotten some Hornady 75gr HP Match projectiles, and my gun shoots them to the left about 3" and in more of a pattern than a group, 6-7" at 200 yards. WOOF! I actually was betting that my rifle would be a lucky one that shot them OK out of a 1:9 twist, but that is not so. I guess I'll try some lighter bullets.

Also, I had damaged my scope reticle illuminator knob at the May back-to-back 3-Gun matches. Probably from chucking the rifle into barrels, or grabbing it out of them. Someone else noticed it being bent, I think it was Jesse, so I had no idea when the damage actually occurred. I sent the scope to Vortex and they fixed it for free, cleaned the scope, and paid for 2-day return shipping! They had quoted me 10-day turnaround from the time they received it, but it was actually 4 days from when they received it to when I got it back. Pretty awesome service. Now that I've covered that, I must say I have never used the illuminated reticle and don't intend to. I turned it on a few times when the scope was new, but it just seemed like a sales gimmick. Maybe in low light or with nightvision it would be useful, but I don't know if I'll ever deal with that.

 

[drmitchgibson]

Shotgun- I have not practiced shooting it this year, or loading it. My skill level has dropped considerably, even though it was only moderate to begin with. I will focus more on it in the winter.

Rifle- I've noticed that I can use more visual cues than just the reticle to shoot well. If I use landmarks, so to speak, on the target in conjunction with my reticle I can shoot amazingly precise groups. For example, drawing a cross on a target and using the whole reticle to line up the shot. Or tracking the reticle as it moves toward your ideal POI and timing the shot break with the reticle movement. Holes touching holes at 200 yards. This isn't something that has had any benefit during a match, but in shooting benchrest it has been a beautiful thing.
I tried my cheap-ass carbine out at a 3-Gun match today, and it was great and fun. Using a red dot felt fast, as I didn't have a lot of useless reticle mess in my target acquisitions. My holdover sucked on one target, and I pulled a low shot on another, both resulting in hitting a no-shoot, but otherwise the shooting was very, very good. I will be trying out this dot for medium ranges, and see if I can do anything promising out to 300yds+. If so, I may switch to the dot for 3-Gun and run in Tac Irons.
Next weekend I'm taking a carbine class at Alpha Training Academy. More to follow.

Pistol- In the spring I made several thousand Limited Major rounds so I could shoot all summer without needing to load (my press is in the garage). Then I bought a Glock and had to load up for it as needed, which sucked ass, but shooting Production was very fun. More fun than Limited. Just before the Sectional I switched back to the 2011 in order to save money by shooting all the Limited bullets I'd made up in the spring. I'll be using the 2011 for the TDSA Competition Pistol class in three weeks. My Glock is replacing my 2011 as my 3-Gun pistol.
Since switching back to Limited I haven't been respecting steel and have been rushing the trigger against it. Not respecting steel has cost me a lot of time lately. At the same time, I'm rushing few shots anymore against paper and shooting mostly alphas.
I found my 2011 shooting 2-1/2" high when I went to Wilshire on Tuesday night. That was alarming. I wonder how long it's been like that.
I have resisted dry-firing the 2011, but that will come to an end soon. I really have enjoyed the reseting trigger of the SIRT I've been using, and have continued using it for dry-fire even though I'm shooting a 2011 in USPSA again. I am considering modifying the sights on the SIRT to install an FO rod and narrow the front sight.
It's funny, when I started shooting, after a stage I really couldn't vividly remember much of the shooting. Now I mainly remember staring at my front sight, and some stages that's the only thing I take away from it. Staring at my front sight.
I did a deep clean on the 2011 before the Sectional, and found some plastic deformation in the trigger track of my grip frame. There were gouges running diagonally in a top-left/bottom-right orientation on both the top and bottom of the track. I sanded them down to totally smooth and flat, and it seems to have kept my shots dramatically more centered. I had tended to throw plenty to the right, and I think my triggering was dragging the gun over due to the track-like gouges in the trigger track. Bad juju.
Shooting the Glock today in 3-Gun was interesting. I think I may index and shoot a Glock better than a 2011. We'll see how things go over the next few months.

 

[drmitchgibson]

Shotgun-- haven't been practicing, and not sure I'm going to anytime soon. I have to make a conscious effort to mount the shotgun like an AR so I can actually aim and hit things, and it is just ****ing irritating. It's kind of weird because when I didn't have any shooting skill and had very little idea what I was doing, that wasn't a problem. I will probably call Benelli sometime soon and see if they can still supply me a shim kit for this old girl. If not, then I'll be buying an M2 and retiring the SBE.

Rifle-- I took a carbine class at ATA last fall, and also did an Appleseed Project class. The class at ATA was very good, although mostly too basic for someone of my skill level and knowledge. I did end up learning interesting things about some gear and the various type of malfunctions that aren't double-feeds or stovepipes/FTEs. Things like bolt overides, charging handle impingement, etc. That was cool. I definitely got better at handling and aiming and shooting quickly.

The Appleseed Class was overall a total waste of time, money, ammo, and effort. Apparently I needed to be precisely zeroed at 25 yards, even though I had no way of knowing that beforehand. I nearly passed the Rifleman test with a holdover using my 200 yard zero, and after a few exercises I mentioned it was a bit difficult to shoot a 1/4" group at a 3/8" square while holding over. The Shoot Boss did some brain-damaged math and told me what number of clicks to dial in to adjust for 25 yards instead of 200, and it pretty much went south from there. He had no clue what he was talking about regarding making scope adjustments on the fly, but I listened because I went to learn. I even ended up trying to make adjustments on the fly, which helped a bit, but I continued to shoot dramatically worse than I had while holding over using the 200 yard zero. The class itself was a failure at that point, because having a rifle exactly zeroed at 25 yards is the key to success. There was some small redemption in the very interesting portions of the class dedicated to April 19th, 1775. The Appleseed Project is partially about history revolving around the first battle of the Revolutionary War, and partially about teaching prone shooting using an obsolete prone position that the military used to teach, but no longer teaches.

This winter I replaced the barrel on my rifle with a 18" Satern fluted barrel. At first it seemed dramatically less accurate than my DPMS Heavy Contour barrel, but it isn't. I was having trouble with flinching, and that ****ed up my group shooting. I ended up giving up on the SJC Titan. It is so amazingly loud that if I take time off from shooting the rifle, when I come back to it I flinch like a motherfucker. I replaced it with a JP, which is effective and not mind-alteringly loud. I also ended up installing a JP low-mass carrier and buffer, and putting an adjustable gas block back on. It was the Kies gas block I used the year prior.

I took a week off recently to shoot. I shot all week, and it was great. My rifle shooting made great leaps, and I feel really great about my shooting skill with a rifle. The only hiccup was the Kies gas block screw turning during recoil, unbeknownst to me, and it eventually shut the rifle down due to short-stroking. I made a pair of replacement set screws for it, so that one would adjust and one would serve as a locking screw. And then I bought another SLR gas block like the one I installed on my carbine, and will replace the Kies with that one sometime soon. The SLR gas block is badass. 100% thread depth so the screw can't be fouled, and an external detent to prevent it from moving. Oustanding design.

Pistol-- I made a lot of progress in my pistol shooting in the last year, or maybe 18 months. I did a bit of dryfire, but hardly anything in the way of live-fire practice. Everyone seems to think I've been practicing a lot, but it's really just been shooting matches, and quite frankly I'd rather have been practicing. I don't really come up with the terrible stage plans that I used to. Sometimes they are spectacular. My shooting during a match is still inconsistent. I still pull the trigger with a bad sight picture with some regularity, but I am going to absolutely crush that habit going forward. It is just as fast to shoot an A as it is to shoot a miss, and I think that having developed a good index lends to accepting a really shitty sight picture because often-times it just results in a C-zone hit. Steel targets don't have C-zones though, and neither do head boxes. I did a bit of work on my draws recently, and found that I can come up to an excellent sight picture and shoot consistently at 0.90sec par time, and mostly consistently at a 0.80sec par time. This is a good time for me to practice basics.

Speaking of steel, I replaced my front and rear sights on my 2011 so that I can shoot steel more quickly. The wide-notch rear and .100" front were just not a good combo for fast and precise shooting. I reshaped the rear blade on my STI stock Bomar-style rear sight and reblued it, so it generally resembles the Warren Tactical shape. I replaced the front sight with a 0.090" blade with fiber rod. It was tough to adjust to a much smaller sight picture, and then I compounded that problem with moving the front sight over to the right to compensate for the gun shooting left. This 2011 has always shot left. To prevent having to adjust the rear sight blade so far over, I moved the front sight a bit (this is all just about personal preference at this point, which makes the next statement worse). This really jacked up my index, and it doesn't seem like it should be that way, but it is. In retrospect, I should have taken the gun out and burned a thousand rounds in drills and groups to get back in the game. Instead I shot poorly at matches, which isn't bothering my conscience, but I would definitely do it differently if I could go back. The narrower front sight and notch have allowed me to shrink my groups by 1/2, and shooting steel is very easy when I actually aim. I believe I am now completely done making changes to my 2011, unless I stipple the grip or buy one from Tony that Mike stippled.

I shot Cowtown this weekend, and had a middling performance. I had a couple good runs taking 6th place on two stages, 9th place on two others, but those shinier runs were really overshadowed by pulling the trigger on a bad sight picture on most of the other stages. It was my first major pistol match, other than the Sectional last year (is that a major match?). It was a really fun match, and it had generally really difficult target presentations. Lots of cover, lots of headshots, relatively limited options for how to engage the arrays. The steel wasn't very challenging. There were misses and dropped points from everyone at every level of shooting. Someone said it was the most difficult match of the year. I have no idea how to quantify that. I had six GMs on my squad, which was exciting to hear and interesting to see, but their shooting didn't really wow my pants off or anything. They were, as a group, very consistent and shot accurately, but most of the time it didn't look all that fast. It was very efficient, and that must be the key. That thought makes me wonder about watching the vids that the top GMs have splashing around the internets, and if they haven't poisoned my view of what it is like to shoot like a GM. On stages where I shot well, the more-skilled Limited GM on my squad (there were two) had somewhat better points (2 on one stage, 5 on the other) than I did but much better time, six and eight seconds. Looks like a very attainable goal to shoot like that.

I think that I'm going to buy a tarp so I can dryfire in my living room without getting it all smudged from filthy magazines. Dryfiring at work with the SIRT kind of went out the window in January, as I picked up more accounts.

 

[silver star]

OKC Sectional & Double Tap are Level 2 approved and fall under "Major".
I too have shot with top tier shooters, although 3gun I noticed what seemed not a great run...but 12 stages later the consistent shot calling, no unnecessary risk decisions and equipment that runs put them at the top.
Practice gives confidence and getting every point for every stage seems key.
Take that with a grain of salt for this is coming from someone who has never won any kind of match.

 

[drmitchgibson]

I bought a grip excerciser from Academy around Xmas, and have used it quite a bit. My grip has been evolving lately, maybe for a few months, and I feel like it is stabilizing. It seems like a combination of the Vogel and Stoeger grip types, if I had to describe it. Sort of pinching the gun into the web of my hand with my strong hand, and applying about 75% of my grip pressure with the weak hand. I did some Bill drills today. My grouping was badass when I concentrated on building an excellent grip. My sights were tracking amazingly well, and I never lost the front sight when I developed a good grip. Most of my runs were <2.5sec, and I may be able to break the 2sec window if I can knock .3sec off my draw. I will be working on my draw seriously. Everything will be timed from now on, unless I'm tweaking equipment. Ejection has been weaker lately. My extractor needs to be tuned. I think it's been 12 or 13k rounds since I last tuned it. Prob will do it during the next cleaning.

My G34 is shooting 6" high at 25 yards with a .215" front sight. Ordered a .265" front sight from Dawson. A little irritating, because I can't get a width less than .105" with an FO rod, and no one makes a plain black .090" width in the appropriate height. I might shave the new Dawson sight down to narrow it. We'll see.

 

[LuckyDucky]

What grip exerciser?

I have a set of 6 heavy grips from 100lb to 350lb and some bands for working my hands backwards.

 

[drmitchgibson]

It's an Everlast brand adjustable model from Academy. It only goes up to 90lbs. It took a while for my weak hand to be able to squeeze it at the 90lbs setting. I'm just using it to do reps at this point. Not sure if I'd move up to higher force rated grip exercisers, yet.

Weak hand establishes recoil control/recovery in freestyle shooting. That is so important.

I'm pretty sure at this point that I spent the last four years holding the gun in a manner conducive to shooting groups, which is not effective for shooting quickly. Even the The Great One went on record recently about this: http://blog.springfield-armory.com/7-key-components-of-the-upper-triangle-in-a-shooting-stance

I installed a flat faced "gunsmith fit" trigger in my 2011 two evenings ago. I dryfire tested it without a mag in the gun, and that turned out to be foolish, because I took it out the next day and it wouldn't fire. Turned out that the trigger bow was severely misshapen right behind the trigger shoe. Holy **** was I pissed. I punched it as flat as it would get but the metal behind the shoe was also misaligned at the bends so I had to file it flat. It works fine now, and I really like the extra length. It fits my triggering better. Today I shot better than ever while doing drills. Not sure I'd attribute that to fitting the gun to me better, but it is notable.

 

[drmitchgibson]

I shot Limited until recently, except for one match in September (?) at Old Fort where I shot Production. Did Area 4, OK Section Limited, OK Section Production, and High Desert Classic major matches. Came in 2nd B classs at Area 4 and High Desert, didn't shoot worth a **** at OK Limited, and OK Prod was me just coasting and calling every shot. High Desert easily had the highest fun factor of any match I've been to. Next year I think I'll probably just do Area 4 and am planning on Production Nationals.

I've been exercising my grip to the point where I broke the spring on the Everlast brand device. I picked up a set of three single-weight exercisers in increments of 150lbs, 200lbs, and 250lbs that have very substantial springs that won't break. Using the 150lbs is not a big deal but I can't do that many reps. Will have to work up.

My dryfire leading up to Area 4 was consistent and good, and I recorded baseline times and pushed to a few breakthroughs. This is something I'll focus on really seriously as we approach winter, to develop an iron-clad schedule that makes sense. In my live-fire practice I am tending to focus on my grip and calling all shots. My shot-calling has been excellent lately, and at OK Section Prod it was exceptional. I didn't run stages all that fast, but I made up every miss immediately based on feedback from the sights. It was exciting, and I felt great about my shooting.

I got my Glock 34 zeroed toward the end of May with a .260" tall front sight. It was kind of a douche trying out front sights that were "supposed" to work on the G34 with the Warren rear, but the formula on the Dawson website is spot on for figuring out sight heights. I made some good progress the gun recently in practice, just making sure my grip pressure was correct. It is tough to break the habit of just holding the gun and I am having to force myself to grip the gun hard. Gripping the gun hard is starting to make such a huge difference in the shooting. I would say now that it is the most important part of all of it when talking about shooting fast and accurate with consistency.

For a period of months I had considered getting a revolver to use to work on my grip and triggering, as exercise. This is something I did when I started out, but was too ignorant of lots of other aspects of shooting and just generally unskilled, and so at that time it made no difference at all. In September I had the idea of getting a DA/SA pistol instead of a revolver and using it to the same effect, and instead of being a really expensive piece of exercise equipment I could also use it to shoot. Naturally this led to the CZ and CZ-clones. I had shot a souped up CZ last year and thought it sucked because my strong hand activated the safety during recoil after every shot, my trigger finger was angled back severely when triggering, and the sights looked stupid as **** with a tiny front and very tall rear (I know that doesn't matter at all, but it was my impression at the time). On a positive note, the CZs can be bought race-ready for $900ish all day every day from a couple sources, and the stock safety can be replaced by a slim safety. The other reasonable choice was the Tanfoglio Limited Pro or Stock 2. Lim Pros can be had in 9mm all the time, and Stock 2s were exceedingly rare prior to mid-September. I was able to dryfire the Stock 2 that Micah got from Pinto in the early summer, and it was a good fit. The big con with the Stock 2 is limited aftermarket parts, limited accessories, and gun tuning information is spread out over way too much of the internet, most of it being incomplete and poorly described. As far as I know the only guy in the region doing work on them is Jim Bodkin, but I believe Henning is starting to offer trigger work and other tuning. It looked like I'd need to do the work myself if I got one.

I bought a Stock 2 in 9mm from Hinterland Outfitters. Got the basic upgrade kit from Henning, and did the trigger work myself, replacing the appropriate springs. The trigger went from awful but usable to great. There is nothing wrong or undesirable with the stock single action trigger, but the DA is where the magic happens. I was concerned about lots of things I'd read about fitting a one-piece sear, a different disconnector, and a different hammer, but it turns out that most of the talk about what to do to the triggering on these guns is serious overkill, and not at all worth doing if you want to get out cheap and easy. All the stock parts are fine except the mainspring, trigger plunger spring, and firing pin. Lots of polishing is involved, and reassembly is difficult the first time around when you are learning how to do it. The ammo I loaded up for my G34 would not chamber in the S2 most of the time due to the TC shape, but I had some Xtremes loaded up and they fed just fine. I shot it in two matches this weekend because Micah and Luis chided me into it, and it was ****ing awesome. I hadn't practiced with it, just shot some groups in order to figure out which front sight height to buy, and had a limited bit of dryfire and a one session of mag changes. I wasn't even sure if it would fire because I hadn't tested it after doing the trigger work, so I went to the gun club really, really early and shot 20 rounds successfully. I brought my whole G34 rig and ammo just in case it didn't go well.

The gun is really heavy, about 4oz heavier than the generic Edge-type 2011, and with a hard grip it returns to the same spot after each shot. I did not quite hold it to that, but my hits on a lot of targets were remarkably excellent and in several cases touching each other.

Shotgun: I got some stock shims for my SBE thanks to a source suggestion from Pinto, and the thickest one gave me the best fit. I am going to replace my +9 tube with a +6 which I got from Pinto, as the extra capacity has benefited me too infrequently, and the extra length is extremely irritating to me.

 

[SpaceFlunky]

*mitch gibson DOES give a **** about Tanfos

 

[hunter_dmw12]

great read Mitch I have been looking into a tanfo limited in 40 to shoot in limited class and putting my match tanfo 9mm away for production. Im glad i took the time to read this write up. one can ALMOST always trust what other boomer shooters have to say.

 

[drmitchgibson]

This was a great year, although there were many disappointments. All of which were me pulling the trigger with a bad sight picture, and a few fumbled reloads. I won 2nd B-Class at Area 4 and at the High Desert Classic, shooting Limited. 3-Gun has taken a back seat, due to infrequent matches.

As I have practiced very little (almost nothing, a few drills and some mag changes, a small amount of dry triggering) with the new gat, I am not sure if I can say there are any downsides other than the magwell chute in relation to the grip angle. It could be, and probably is, me (switching from a Glock) but the magwell seems deceptive. Otherwise I like the gun very much. I'm going to buy another one next week.

When I got this thing I ordered basepads for the mags because that is the thing everyone says to do, and I soon found why in that the factory basepads have a huge front lip that makes reloads horribly awkward. Really, really bad. It's like the front lip on an M&P factory basepad, but way longer. The basepads I ordered were from Springer Precision, and they are nice, but very thick, and I think their shape is only halfway to being helpful. The mags for the Tanfo are big, and don't need any extension, and the Springer extensions go straight down from the angled bottom of the mag, making an unnecessary compound angle that could just be better. I checked out some Shockbottle basepads, but was not impressed. So yesterday I cut the extended front lip off the stock basepads by clamping them all together in the vice and trimming them as one with a hacksaw. Then I smoothed and rounded the cut edge with files and sandpaper so it looks and feels good. They are now not stupid, way more comfortable, and feel very natural during a reload.

At the November OKCGC USPSA match I squadded with Tim Barker and Robbie Haas, who made me aware of the problem with Henning Gen 4 firing pins not being blocked by the firing pin block. I tested it in the safety area, and it worked fine, so I began saying as much while still working the firing pin against the block, and thereafter it failed every single time. That is a problem in Production division. I ordered an extended firing pin block and it works fine with no modification needed. Yee-haw.

I finally used up all my Glock-only ammo a couple weeks ago, and can finally transition over to the Tanfo full time. Once the xmas **** is out of the living room, dryfire will commence. I am finalizing a training schedule for 2016.

 

[Feegee]

I seen a tremendous improvement in your shooting this year!!

 

[Robaire Pullicar]

I did as well Mitch! Had a blast squadding with you guys too

 

[SpaceFlunky]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Aqwm0n23hbg

 

[drmitchgibson]

The only consistent thing I have been working on is my grip, for the last six months. It is pretty good, but still has a ways to go. I am able to close the 200lbs grip exerciser, but only a few times. I take a 150lbs exerciser with me everywhere, and work it in my down time.

I spent most of the first four months of the year zeroing and shooting my rifle for the IPSC match. It paid off pretty well, but I did not give the long range stages a single bit of the patience they deserved. Maybe I'll work on that in the future, maybe not. Using a red dot has been interesting and rewarding. I can typically shoot groups with no magnification that another shooter is able to shoot with up to six times magnification. I am done with rifle stuff for the year, and can't even remember the last time I practiced loading a shotgun. It really doesn't matter anymore. In the early spring I put together a little 14.5" pinned/welded carbine chock full of good parts, and it is really cool and fun. Once I grab an optic for it, I will probably train with it quite a bit. Will prob buy a Strike Eagle for my 3-Gun rifle and move the Aimpoint over to the carbine.

In January I bought a backup Stock 2, and Zeke's STI Trojan. I did trigger work on the new Stock 2 while training Micah how to do it on his primary gun. I feel like I should have spent a bit more time on it, but it is fine. I shoot it just as well as the first Stock 2, if not better. It has sharper checkering, and I left the factory 10lbs recoil spring in it. As I write this, I realize that I like it better than the first gun quite a bit. A couple weeks ago I cut diagonals on the corners (removed the corners) of the rear sight of each of my Stock 2 guns, and the Trojan, which is now my standard way of doing things. It allows so much more visual input, and if you pay attention to handguns and shooting, you'll see it becoming more and more common.

The Trojan is a great gun functionally and especially in terms of accuracy, but there were some irritations. The grip safety and slide lock had been deactivated, the rear sight locking set screws were not tightened or loctited, and it shoots to the left. I ended up moving the front sight to the left to zero the gun with the rear sight centered. The Magpul grips were OK, but I really like the feel of a large frame double-stack gun, so I put on a set of Hogue Thick Grips, which are 9/32" thick each. I ordered them with the Pirhana texture, which is very aggressive. I also ended up milling a large groove in the left grip panel for my thumb to reach the mag release button. Without the groove I was inconsistently able to reach the mag release button with the thick grips, and I ended up gripping hard with my fingers during a reload to allow my thumb slightly more reach. This resulted in my trigger finger torching off a couple ADs. No good.
I ordered a new slide lock lever and had to fit it to the gun. The new lever is "correctly" sized with a .1995/.200" pin, and it increased the lockup and bound the action a bit during unlocking, so I had to reduce the diameter of the section that rides under the lower lugs to the same .196" of the factory pin. Fitting parts in my garage is fun in the winter, but sucks dingleberrys in the hot summer. I might wait to install a functioning grip safety in the fall.
The few matches I shot Single Stack were a total blast. It is currently my favorite division. Not sure how that is gonna work out, as I signed up for Production in all the majors I have attended/am attending this year, which includes Production nationals, and I am not switching divisions.

At Prod Nats we will have a small crew with myself, Micah, Chad, and Kelly Raglin. I think that is it. We are hooking up with our brothers from Arkansas, and hopefully will put on a good show.

 

[SpaceFlunky]

TL;DR Work on your grip

 

[drmitchgibson]

Last night I dryfired Four Aces for about 30 minutes. Just drill after drill after drill, no breaks. During the reload, when I was able to get my hand to my mag at the same time that I got my thumb to the mag release button, it cut my reload time in half. I am guessing a .4 second time savings. Pretty big deal. It actually wasn't a session full of successes and decreased times. There was a lot of ****ing up. Mostly ****ing up, really. It was very productive, but I think that I need to separate draws from reloads for a day or three, and then put them back together.