Bullseye Target Shooting

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2011-08-14T16:20:00.002-07:00

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2011-05-16T10:58:00.008-07:00

My wife and I were on our way to one of our granddaughter's soccer games one recent Saturday. I was hungry and decided to stop for something at McDonalds but the drive-through was jammed so I parked and went inside.

In the crowd as I waited to order, I inadvertently stepped on someone's foot.

The mid 20-ish young man who owned the foot reacted instantly. He yelled at the affront and loudly demanded an apology. He pushed his red face toward me. I could see his balled-up fists and tensed arms.

In my pocket I had my licensed concealed carry, a Smith & Wesson model 36 snubby revolver, and I realized that, in the next few seconds, I might actually need to use it.

Several more thoughts went through my mind. I wondered what sort of a day this guy was having that had contributed to his instant, ready-to-fight outburst? I tried to ponder how many punches I would need to receive before a jury would find me justified in bringing out the weapon and shooting my assailant? And I wondered if he was also armed?

But the young man was correct: I had stepped on his foot.

"I'm sorry," I said. "You're right. It is crowded, I was trying to hurry, and I accidentally stepped on your foot. Please let me apologize."

Luckily for both of us -- and perhaps realizing he'd gone off the deep end rather abruptly -- he started calming down. He lowered his head and mumbled something about the crowd. I saw his fists relax.

In a calmer but still insistent voice he repeated, "But you did step on my foot."

I nodded. "Yes, I'm sorry."

The situation apparently defused, I moved to a different line to put some distance between myself and the now cooling young man and his friends. But the lines were going extremely slow and, considering his display, the starting time of the soccer game and the probable wait time for my order, I decided to abandon the effort.

I circled toward the exit keeping an eye on the young man but he didn't seem to notice my leaving.

Good, I thought as I crossed the parking lot, still glancing over my shoulder.

"This one's too busy," I told my wife as I got back into the car where she had been waiting. "We're going to pass another McDonalds a couple of miles down the road."

Half an hour later as we sat in our folding chairs and watched the soccer game, I ate the sausage and egg McMuffin from the second McDonalds and re-processed the events in the first.

I realized that, while the revolver in my pocket had provided the assurance that if I needed to defend myself I would be able to do so, I was pleased to see that my response had been to recognize who had been at fault -- myself -- and to try an apology first.

Whatever was contributing to the young man's ill mood had been assuaged by an honest apology ... and perhaps by a little common sense on his part.

The anti-handgun crowd claims that, if more people are armed, situations like this will escalate into gunfire more and more often. More guns equals more gunfire, they claim.

But the science fiction author Robert Heinlein said it well. In the fictional society he used in several books, he proposed that "An armed society is a polite society."

In my case, at least, I was pleased to find fiction becoming fact, and that I myself was in that latter -- polite first -- category.

My concealed carry, by virtue of the degree of violence I could unleash, had engendered the polite response.

I knew I could defend myself but, frankly, I'd rather not have to.

It's noisy, damn messy, I'm probably gonna hurt like hell from his punches or, worse, from his shots if he is also armed, the day is gonna be really screwed to say nothing of the coming weeks, months and probably years till it all gets sorted out in the courts, I'm going to have to spend a ton on attorney's fees to defend myself even if I'm completely exonerated, I'll have to live with whatever happens to the assailant, to the bystanders some of whom are kids, and ... Nuts!

I'd much rather find a peaceful -- a polite -- way out.

Because I knew that if my polite apology had not been accepted and the young man had chosen to attack me, I knew that I could -- and would -- defend myself.

It was possible.

I was able.

And I would.

How many punches would I receive first? I don't know.

Would a jury have agreed with my armed response? I can't tell you.

Would the other people at the store, called as witnesses in a case against me, have backed up my story, my viewpoint, my judgement? I can't say.

But I did have -- in my pocket, loaded and ready -- the ability to protect myself. And knowing it was there helped push me toward finding a peaceful solution first.

It enabled finding peace and what motivated that effort was not the threat of an armed response, but rather because I knew I could unleash violence, and that I'd really rather not -- the consequences are just too undesirable.

Because I was ready and understood what would happen, what could happen, and what would probably happen after that, I was highly motivated to find a peaceful solution.

My handgun gave me good reason to be polite.

100 Years - March 29th, 1911

2011-03-29T10:24:00.000-07:00

How many people do you know who have created something that lasts more than 100 years? Although I have several acquaintances whom I admire for their accomplishments, it's doubtful that what they've created will still be in use after that much time.

But that's what John M. Browning did. The semi-automatic pistol design called the "1911" was accepted as the official sidearm of the Armed Forces of the United States of America exactly 100 years ago today, March 29, 1911.

And while the U.S. military recently moved on to the M9 for its primary sidearm, there continue to be several elite organizations within the military as well as various police departments that still carry the 1911 on a daily basis. It is also the favorite carry of many citizens and, in states where "open carry" may be seen, it is the most common firearm on someone's hip. And several official sports, not the least of which is the NRA's Conventional Pistol or "Bullseye" competition I write about, require it. There's even a recognized category of "Cowboy" shooters in the Single Action Shooting Society (SASS) which emphasizes dress and firearms no later than the 1890s who, nonetheless, compete with the anachronistic-to-the-sport 1911.

The 1911s popularity is not one of nostalgia. On the contrary, the firearm is a beautiful blend of form, function, power and utility that is rarely found in engineered products. It is that near perfection that has drawn the eye, and the wallet, for more than 100 years. John Browning's design does what it's supposed to do, and it does it extremely well.

Today, long after his patent has run out, you can purchase brand new 1911s in an enormous variety of styles, sizes and calibers. Plus, there's the aftermarket for replacement barrels, grip safeties, attachments for rails to say nothing of grip materials, colors and styles.

1911 Ball Gun
(Click to enlarge)

Here's my ball gun, an example of the 1911-A1 style that is arguably the most common to be found.

Mine began as a custom-built example in the 1960s with an Essex upper and lower. The source of the internal parts, the sights and grips used at that time are unknown but they have undoubtedly been replaced and refined many times over. I purchased the firearm well used a couple of years ago from a Bullseye shooting friend in Arizona. Most recently, I fired it in an EIC (Excellence In Competition) "leg match" in mid February where only service pistols are permitted. Prior to each such match, the trigger must be weighed and this February, the Air Reserve gunsmith who was doing this noticed this gun's manufacturer and, in particular, its low serial number (removed from picture).

"That's an interesting number," he said. "Where'd you get this?"

I explained it was made by an Air Force gunsmith in the 1960s and, after passing through several owners, it had come to me with uncounted rounds downrange looking battered and tired. I had packed it off to an expert in South Carolina for some TLC and a new Kart National Match barrel; "make it shoot accurately," was my instruction. When returned, this 1911 proved itself to be a tack-driver extraordinaire, as good as or even better than when it was new. So while my example isn't a century old, to the unaided or uneducated eye, few would recognize any difference from Browning's design except perhaps the target-grade sights and trigger.

It is a classic.

Compared to most of my other firearms, the stock 1911 is very light and has a center of balance inside the shooter's grip. It feels and acts like an extension of the arm and, when raised to shoot, most find the sights naturally aimed at the target.

The legislature of the state of Utah where John Browning lived and worked in Ogden recently adopted the 1911 as its official handgun.

1911 Wad Gun
(Click to enlarge)

My second 1911, the "wad gun", is a youngster in comparison and has two obvious modifications, the scope and the grips.

I bought it new from a Phoenix AZ gun store. It is a Springfield Armory MilSpec variant of the 1911-A1. Originally, the MilSpec model sported larger iron sights than the military-issued model.

But since then, there have been many visits to different gunsmiths, local and distant, where it has been tweaked, tuned, prodded, modified and then re-tweaked at least a dozen times.

The first set of changes included replacing the sights with a "rib" along the top of the slide and attachment of a "red dot" tube for aiming. This "scope" does not magnify the target. Instead, looking into the tube from the shooter's end, a red dot can be seen and when properly adjusted, the red dot will appear to sit on the target precisely where the shot will land. The red dot is visible only to the shooter -- there is no tell-tale laser beam between shooter and target. And the system is extraordinarily accurate.

The "trick" is, as with any handgun, aligning the sight to the aiming area and then moving the trigger straight back without disturbing the sight. This feat is a classic "easier said than done" and most shooters, myself included, train -- not "practice" -- for years to do so.

The second visible modification was the removal of the standard slab grips to be replaced by custom-fitting, right-hand only competition grips. Several manufacturers make these, each with their own specific "ours are best because" ideals. I selected a design from Nill-Griffe, similar to the ones seen here at this link. The custom fit makes for a more repeatable and, hence, consistent grip which is essential in Bullseye competitions. But those grips and the red dot sight obviously render the firearm no longer practical as a holstered sidearm.

My wad gun has become, you could say, a thoroughbred race horse. It performs to an amazing level of accuracy, the primary feat to be accomplished in Bullseye competition, but at the expense of utility. This 1911 is now a specialist, tuned for the specific job of high-precision target shooting.

Most recently, that same Air Reserve gunsmith mentioned above made two careful and surprisingly light passes with his best stone on cold steel to give my wad 1911 a "roll trigger". When squeezed -- not pulled -- the trigger feels like you are pressing on a soft pillow rather than breaking a glass rod. The original crisp trigger now feels somewhat like rolling a ball beneath your finger, hence the name.

There are many internal changes in addition to the trigger feel. For example, my "wadder," like the ball gun, has a Kart National Match barrel for accuracy. Also, the recoil spring between the top slide with the red dot and frame in the shooter's hand has been replaced with a twelve pounder instead of the standard eighteen. This is because, with the combination of the red dot and custom-made ammunition with 200 grain Lead Semi-Wad Cutter (LSWCs) bullets instead of the standard 230 grain Full Metal Jacket or FMJ projectiles, and because they are then propelled with 4.0 grains of Hodgdon's Clays (up recently from 3.8 to give better performance in cold weather) which I custom reload on a Dillon 650 progressive press a few evenings a month, the slide moves quite differently.

That is, when the wad gun fires, it has a completely different feel. The combination of red dot and lighter loads in the ammunition make it softer, much easier to manage in recoil and, therefore, to get back onto "the bull" at the center of the target for the next shot. And to the attentive ear it also has a completely different, almost liquid, sound as the action cycles in a fresh round.

When I do my part, whether firing at a target 25 or 50 yards away, when the trigger breaks, the hole appears exactly where the dot was sitting. The gun could, as the saying suggests, drive tacks. It's that accurate.

My 1911s are for shooting. As you can see in the photographs they are well used and, while not necessarily visual beauties, they are both highly functional. I shoot the wad gun more than any other firearm in my collection, but the ball gun with its exceptionally light feel and potent recoil, is a thrill to shoot well.

Some would say that thrill is a "guy thing". And while I wouldn't argue, let me add that there are many female shooters, very accomplished with this same firearm, who would take significant exception to such an attitude. Gripped correctly with the wrist and elbow locked stiff and hard, the recoil is not much more than that of significantly smaller and less potent calibers. It is completely manageable even by juniors. My granddaughter at age 12, after careful instruction on safety and operation which she then diligently followed in a well-supervised environment, had no problem with the recoil.

She grinned broadly with each of her shots from the ball gun.

But 1911s don't have to be black, scratched or ugly to shoot well.

My son, for example, has the pretty 1911 in the family.

His is a stainless steel, full-size series 80. It'll shoot FMJs as well as my wad loads and, while it's a factory-original Colt, well, it's a real Colt and it'll hold its own in any service pistol match.

Colt is the penultimate as well as the original manufacturer of the 1911. Their examples continue to be the most sought after 1911s today as well as 100 years ago. If you've got a Colt, you've got the real McCoy.

The look and feel of John Browning's 1911 design has made it one of, if not the most popular handgun designs in the world. I've got two at the moment but would like to have a Commander for concealed carry, one in 38 Special for center fire matches and maybe one of those elongated specials with the 6" barrel. Of course, each will be sent off for various tweaks, adjustments and personal customizations. And I love custom grips so, in addition to buying them, there are several tools and jigs available for those who'd like to make their own from fine woods or other materials.

How many 1911s is enough?

In a recent Top Shot episode, Brian Zins -- US national champion ten times (and still counting) -- said he couldn't even begin to count how many he had.

100 years today.

That's really something, Mr. Browning.

100 years.

Happy Birthday, 1911.

Calling The Line

2011-02-26T14:49:00.014-07:00

Yours Truly in "The Tower"

"Attention! Attention on the line! Your three minute preparation time begins ... NOW!"

And so begins another relay.

At the recent Desert Mid-Winter competition in Phoenix, I took turns with Tony Silva calling the line. The Conventional Pistol portion spanned three and a half days starting with a Service Pistol 900 and just under 80 shooters. We ran two relays with an individual 900 and then team, EIC (Leg Match) or DR (Distinguished Revolver) matches almost every day.

For competitors who shoot all events and compete in teams as well, that's about 150 rounds, more or less, each day.

When not shooting, there's plenty of time to talk shop, get some lunch and clean guns.

But for those running the match, it's a different story.

As I discovered, when you "call the line", you become the person everyone goes to for answers.

"When are the scores going to be posted?"

"The Men's room is out of toilet paper."

"Where can I get some good Thai food?"

"What time is 45 Team today?"

It behooves you, therefore, to not only have a copy of the match bulletin immediately at hand, but also to have a couple of runners who can be directed to take care of the unexpected requests.

The Desert Mid-Winter competition is known to be well-run and we try to make it, as least for the line-calling portion, as much like Camp Perry as we reasonably can. In a sense, we view the competition as a training ground for those who will be making their first trip to Perry five months later in July.

So, to make sure I was "calling it straight", I reviewed the official rules and prepared a script. Hopefully it sounded very much like the one that will be used in the Nationals shortly after Independence Day.

But there are exceptions such as range alerts that need to be announced. Late last year, for example, a Mohave Rattlesnake was discovered underneath the firing line bench where Jason, a local shooter, was sitting. The snake was apparently a juvenile and, if you look it up, you'll find out this is one of the most dangerous rattlesnakes there is.

So this year we included a "rattlesnake alert" in range announcements. (None were seen nor heard during Desert Mid-Winter, thank goodness.)

But Desert Mid-Winter isn't Camp Perry. It's smaller, more friendly, and because we don't have the crush of competitors that Ohio will see, we can take a less hectic approach.

"Attention shooters. When we ask, 'Is the line ready?', raise your hand and holler if you are not. We will stop and give you the time needed. There's no hurry."

During one of the matches this year, for example, we had a gun that refused to function. We stopped to allow the shooter to change guns. Not having a spare, he was in a dilemma until his neighbor offered a spare. And while he was being briefed on how the sights were set, the Air Reserve gunsmith standing nearby took the disabled one to see if it could be repaired. Two targets later the original gun was back, repaired and ready to go back into competition. (Thank you, Dan!)

Calling the line also means keeping track of re-fires, when they are or are not allowed for a specific shooter within a match and how many total shots are to be scored (whether or not that many were actually fired). Of course, the individual shooters could also keep track of this but, in the interest of following the rules as closely as possible to be consistent with the Perry competition, the line caller takes on this responsibility.

"Shooters, if you have a malfunction and want an alibi, do not clear the malfunction. Instead, continue to hold your firearm with the muzzle pointed in a safe direction and raise your hand. Someone will come and inspect your firearm and tell you what to do.

Range officers then assist by inspecting alibi claims before they are cleared, determining if the alibi is allowed or not. (For example, if the shooter forgets to click off the safety, no alibi is allowed.)

But above all, safety is the first and last concern.

Someone always checks the range to verify that it is clear.

"The range is clear. You may handle your firearms."

When someone shouts, "Not ready!", the line caller repeats it, tells everyone to keep their firearms pointed in a safe direction but to otherwise "Stand easy." And then tells the shooter with a problem, "Take your time and solve the problem safely. Take as much time as you need."

And before going downrange, there's the well-known, "Let's make the line safe. Magazines out. Cylinders open and empty. Slides back. Empty Chamber Indicators in place. Guns on the table."

This year we added, "When your firearms are safe, step back from the table." And then we watch and wait until everyone has moved back. (Sometimes it takes a reminder or two.)

Nonetheless, mishaps still happen.

Someone shot a hole in the firing line table but -- good for them -- they were following the safety rules and had the gun pointed in a safe direction, downrange. (Gary plugged and painted it and then did his normal job of refacing all targets before competition resumed the next morning. Thank you, Gary!)

And an early shot was fired, long before the Rapid Fire targets turned to face. Again, the gun was pointed in a safe direction so no damage was done.

Perhaps most alarming was a shot during a three minute preparation period.

"I thought I was dry-firing!"

Yes dear reader, you are absolutely right: That gun should not have been loaded!

But that's the very case the safety rules are designed to handle. That's why the rules are what they are. That is the kind of accident -- some will say "negligent discharge" -- that is most likely to happen. And because the shooter was otherwise following the rules and had his firearm pointed in a safe direction, no one was hurt.

Here are the NRA's rules:

ALWAYS keep the gun pointed in a safe direction;

ALWAYS keep your finger off the trigger until ready to shoot; and

ALWAYS keep the gun unloaded until ready to use.

Here's rule #1 again -- there's a reason it is #1.

ALWAYS keep the gun pointed in a safe direction.

The line caller's primary job, and that of every shooter on the line, is safety.

"Attention shooters. Anyone, I mean anyone, may call 'Cease Fire' at any time if there is an immediate danger."

I've been shooting Bullseye for several years in Phoenix and in various clubs around the US during my business and vacation travel. I've spoken with shooters who've been engaged in this sport for decades, and some who've been doing so for more than half a century and I've yet to hear of a single injury from a bullet*.

I hesitate to point it out lest I bring down a curse, but the fact remains that Bullseye, in spite of what the public might otherwise expect given the nature of what we do, is a remarkably safe sport.

"Shooters to the line. This will be the Timed Fire portion of the National Match Course, two strings of five rounds, twenty seconds per string.

"For your first string of Timed Fire, with five rounds ... Load!"

____________________
* Note: I have witnessed injuries, however, from a red dot that broke away from a 1911 in recoil and smacked the shooter's forehead, and I have heard of hand injuries from explosions presumed to be due to reloading problems -- a double-charge or a normal round fired after a squib has plugged the barrel.
Accidents do happen.
And, someday, you will be the one at fault.
Practice those rules; your life really does depend on it.

Red Oil

2011-02-22T13:00:00.002-07:00

Another Bullseye enthusiast recently passed along his formula for "red oil". (This is *not* the same as the so-called "Ed's Red" which, by the way, is *not* named after me. I have no connection to either of these concoctions.)

Red Oil formula:

Empty gallon can
8 oz Hoppes #9
Can of STP
Qt of 30W oil
Fill with Automatic Transmission Fluid (2+ Qts)

Reportedly that will be more than you can use in a lifetime.

"Red Oil" smells a lot better than "Ed's Red", possibly because of the primary constituent of the latter, Kerosene, which is becoming hard to get.

At the moment, I'm still using MilComm's TW-25B but recently ran into a problem when the temperature suddenly dropped 20 degrees at a match. I found the slide on my 1911 very sluggish and, as the Slow Fire match was already in progress, didn't take the time to take it apart and add more TW-25B. Instead I just oiled the heck out of it and went back to shooting.

I'll try a heavier application of TW-25B for this evening's cool temperature event but, if the slide again becomes sluggish, I'll look into trying "Red oil" (as per the formula above).

If you're in Phoenix and want to try a pint, let me know. (That offer applies to both Red Oil and to a pint of Guinness.)

The Limits of Repeatability

2011-01-13T15:33:00.002-07:00

We expect that if our scale says a bullet weighs 202.4 grains then that's what it weighs.

But, I expect you already know that's not 100% correct. There's accuracy versus precision and, somewhere in there is also tolerance.

But that's not what interests me at the moment.

Here's what does: If I weigh the same bullet twice, will I get the same answer? Will that 202.4 grain bullet read "202.4" tomorrow? And the day after?

That is repeatability.

I'm interested in this because I want to sort some bullets and, because I have so many to do (3000+), I want to be as efficient as possible on the first attempt. I don't want to have to go back and do it again.

So the question is, how many piles of bullets should I make?

Will the bullets I put in the "200.0 grain" pile today belong in that same pile tomorrow or will some of them get moved to the "200.5" pile?

If my goal is to have bullets that weigh "practically" the same amount for my long-line loads, what is the "practical" range of weight I should look for?

There, in a nutshell, is what I'm after. I want the range of weight, the tolerance, I can expect from one pile.

And it is the repeatability of the scale, its ability to measure a given weight from one day to the next and come up with the same answer, that is the issue.

Strategy

To find out how repeatable my scale is, here's what I decided to do.

I would take ten bullets that weigh slightly different amounts -- the batch of moly-coated 200 grain bullets I've been complaining about would be ideal -- and, one bullet at a time and in random sequence, I would weigh each of them. I would then mix up the 10 bullets and do it again. And then again until I had five weighings and then I would see how much I got for each bullet in each set.

The key question would be whether a given bullet would weigh the same each time or not.

Would the scale repeatedly weigh the same bullet the same each time?

Results

Here are the "raw" results.

**Table One - Raw Results**
	1	2	3	4	5	6	7	8	9	10
Set #1	202.4	200.4	201.8	195.2	197.1	200.1	203.1	198.1	195.4	198.3
Set #2	197.0	201.7	195.4	200.4	195.1	198.1	200.0	197.8	202.5	203.1
Set #3	195.0	195.4	198.0	203.1	202.5	200.1	201.7	198.2	197.2	200.5
Set #4	202.3	194.9	195.3	198.1	201.6	197.9	202.9	200.0	200.4	197.0
Set #5	202.9	200.4	201.6	195.3	197.1	198.0	202.3	197.9	200.0	195.2

The first row, Set #1 above, is the first weighings of the ten bullets, recorded from left to right. Remember that I then shuffled the bullets and did it again. That's Set #2. I continued this, shuffling the order of the bullets each time before re-weighing them. I stopped when I had completed five cycles, five sets.

Hence, five rows (separate weighings) of ten bullets (the columns). And because I shuffled the order of the bullets in each set, the weights appear in random order from left to right.

But this doesn't show me how much the same bullet weighed in each set. For that, I need the same bullet lined up from top to bottom over the five sets.

So I sorted each row into increasing weight, left to right. This put the bullets in order by weight.

Here's the result after the sort.

**Table Two - Results in Bullet Weight Order within Each Row**
	1	2	3	4	5	6	7	8	9	10
Set #1	195.2	195.4	197.1	198.1	198.3	200.1	200.4	201.8	202.4	203.1
Set #2	195.1	195.4	197.0	197.8	198.1	200.0	200.4	201.7	202.5	203.1
Set #3	195.0	195.4	197.2	198.0	198.2	200.1	200.5	201.7	202.5	203.1
Set #4	194.9	195.3	197.0	197.9	198.1	200.0	200.4	201.6	202.3	202.9
Set #5	195.2	195.3	197.1	197.9	198.0	200.0	200.4	201.6	202.3	202.9

Min	194.9	195.3	197.0	197.8	198.0	200.0	200.4	201.6	202.3	202.9
Max	195.2	195.4	197.2	198.1	198.3	200.1	200.5	201.8	202.5	203.1
Range	0.3	0.1	0.2	0.3	0.3	0.1	0.1	0.2	0.2	0.2
Variation	0.15%	0.05%	0.10%	0.15%	0.15%	0.05%	0.05%	0.10%	0.10%	0.10%

"But wait," you might object, "if the scale is reporting a slightly different weight for a given bullet, isn't it possible that bullet #1 might sometimes weigh heavier than bullet #2 and then sometimes the opposite? That would mean that column 1, for example, might not actually be the same bullet each time!"

I would have to answer, "Yes, that's quite possible."

"But my goal," I would go on, "is to separate the bullets into different piles in a repeatable manner. If two bullets are so close that their weights shift their order from time to time, that variation would really put them into one pile."

Sorting the weights according to the scale's reading is really what I'm after, not the actual weight of the bullets.

Therefore, in this second table, if we read down each column vertically, we see what the scale said for something close to that weight.

This is where the repeatability, or lack thereof, shows up.

And from the above data, it therefore looks like the scale's repeatability for things weighing about 200 grains is going to be from 0.1 to 0.3 grains.

To make it easier to quantify this, I added rows for minimum, maximum, the range (maximum - minimum) and finally, the percent of variation (range / maximum).

The worst case variation (above) was 0.15%. That means that if I weighed a 200.0 grain bullet but then weighed a bunch of other things before re-weighing that same 200.0 grain bullet a second time, the two readings of the same bullet might vary by 0.3 grains (200 * 0.0015).

That's the number I'm after.

It means that, for 200 grain bullets, a difference of 0.3 grain between two bullets (or the same bullet weighed twice) could be entirely due to the scale.

Conclusion

"So what?"

Good question. Does this really matter?

For the scale I use, sorting to identical readings gives me bullets that are within 0.3 grains of each other.

My equipment won't let me be separate bullet by weight any better than that.

My sorting of the moly-coated bullets, for the first 1000 with 3000 still to go, has been into "whole grain" buckets. There is a 200 grain bucket, a 201 grain bucket, and so forth.

For my next round of testing, I'm going to load and test the bullets in the 200 grain bucket. From the above, I know those bullets vary from 199.85 to 201.15 grains, a range of 1.3 grains and, if they perform well, I'll know "that's good enough." (Actually, I'll know that's "more than good enough.")

But if they don't perform well and I suspect bullet weight variations might still be an issue, then I can sort them down to those that read (on the scale) EXACTLY the same, say 200.5 grains.

But no matter what I do, there's still going to be that 0.3 grains of non-repeatability. Those "identical weight" bullets may actually vary from 200.35 to 200.65 grains. Will that be good enough?

If so, I'll have my answer. I'll know how much weight variation is permissible and, in the future, I can sort bullets accordingly.

And if not, then I'll also have an answer, and that is that at least with some bullets, it doesn't matter how closely you match their weight. Some bullets will still just not perform at the long line.

So, my hope is that I'll discover there is a weight variation that can be tolerated at the long line.

Is "within 1.3 grains" good enough or do I have to go all the way to 0.3 grains?

I hope to find out.

And when I do, I'll know its number.

[Phew!] I'm beat.

How about we go and shoot up some targets?

All right!

Bullet Weight Distributions

2011-01-09T15:53:00.011-07:00

I weighed 100 samples of each of two different 200 grain bullets. Here are the results and some comments.

Bullet Weight Distributions
(Click for bigger version)

First, let me describe the two bullets.

The Bear Creek -- blue line, the lower and broader of the two -- are labeled as molybdenum-coated 200 grain SWC (Semi-Wad Cutter) bullets with 0.452" diameter. I bought these back when lead was in short supply and almost no one had any bullets for sale. The "price was right" as they say and, from this chart, you can probably see why. They are very inconsistent in weight varying from 193 to 202 grains.

The second bullet, the pink spike, is from X-Caliber Bullets. The box says they are 200 grain LSWC (Lead Semi-Wad Cutter) bullets also with a 0.452" diameter. These are a much later and more expensive purchase. And as the chart clearly shows, their weights are much more consistent; although they range from 195 to 198 grains, in fact only 7 weighed 195 and only 3 weighed 198 grains. The remaining 90 weighed either 196 or 197 grains.

Tony Brong, in Electronic Scales Part II, said that by sorting bullets by weight, you then have "the opportunity to select a group of bullets to be culled solely for the long line; where their near identical weights will assist you in minimizing the potential of vertical stringing."

But how wide a deviation would Tony accept, two grains, one grain, half a grain?

So I called him.

"Tony, this is Ed. How are you?"

And after we exchanged pleasantries I asked, "Just how tight a weight grouping do you look for when making long-line ammunition?"

I was astonished when he said, "Plus or minus 0.1 grains."

Wow, that's tight!

After thanking Tony for sharing his expertise I looked at my two sets of data.

I had not sorted to a tenth of a grain. If I wanted to load the moly-coated bullets for the long line would I need to pick the most populace weight (201 grains) -- they were still in separate baggies, one for either weight -- and re-weigh that group to a tenth of a grain?

Now the old hands probably took one look at the chart and thought, "Forget the molys. They're no good for the long line. Save 'em for guests and fishing lines."

But I'm not that wise, not yet anyway.

Plowing ahead, I reasoned that if I took the 17 bullets that weighed from 201.0 to 201.9 grains and re-weighed looking for the 201.4 to 201.5999 grains (Tony's plus or minus 0.1 grains), I would "probably" get about 3 bullets (one-fifth of 17).

And since I had started with a sample of 100 bullets, that would mean that only 3% on average would fall within that range.

Only 3%?

That's awful!

The old-timers are nodding their heads now.

If the same logic is applied to the X-Caliber bullets, I should net 11% within that same plus-or-minus 0.1 grain weight range.

If you then calculate what I paid for long-line bullets, the higher cost of the box of X-Caliber bullets is multiplied about 9X whereas the cost of the cheaper bullets gets multiplied by a whopping 33X -- all of a sudden those "cheap bullets" leaped out to be way more expensive, for long-line bullets, than the X-Calibers.

That is, if I want to load to the level of precision Tony mentioned, I'd have to set aside 97% of the so-called cheap bullets for something else. With the better quality bullets, I would still be setting aside 89% but notice that I'll be making ammunition with 4X as many of the X-Calibers. That's a much better level of productivity.

While I don't think my shooting will be able to realize the full advantage of ammunition as good as what Tony produces, I do know that if I'm shooting poor ammunition and a shot goes astray, I won't know if it's the ammo or me that messed up.

With good ammo in a good gun, I'll know.

It's me.

Revised (11 January 2011)

The math (above) has been corrected.

I had erroneously figured the numbers assuming "plus or minus 0.1 grains" gave a range of 0.3, from 201.4 through 201.6 whereas, in fact, it is a range of 0.2, from 201.4 through 201.5999. That means the acceptance rate is worse than I originally wrote, one-fifth of 17 (3+%) instead of one-third (5+%), and similarly for the X-Caliber bullets. This error and the consequent numbers, computed therefrom, have all been corrected in the text.

Last night I began going through my supply of molys and sorting them by weight. That is going to take some time as I have about 3000 on hand.

For the first pass, I am sorting to "whole number of grains". That is, there are twelve buckets on the work table, one for each integral number of grains weight: 192, 193, 194 and so on through 203.

And using the 201 grain bucket (201.0 through 201.9 grains which can also be described as 201.5 plus 0.4 or minus 0.5 grains), I will make some test rounds to see how they perform at 50 yards.

If they perform well, I expect I can probably do the same with the 200 and the 202 grain buckets. (The remaining bullets will go in the recycle bin.)

If they perform less-than-well but show significant promise, then it may be worth an additional sort, to the "plus or minus 0.1 grain" which will then be loaded and tested.

Of course, it's quite possible that the 201.0 through 201.9 grain rounds will not group in which case the whole lot is no better than the dross they may not have been fully separated from.

Regardless, weighing and sorting that many bullets is a real time killer, and boring as the dickens. I did 1000 last night over a couple of hours but it'll take at least two more sessions like that for this first complete pass.

Stay tuned.

Brass Cleaning

2011-01-04T10:24:00.006-07:00

Ok, Ok, it's a boring subject, I know. But it's gotta be done so let's get this out'a the way.

First, equipment and supplies.

Cleaning machine. I've got the small Dillon vibratory cleaner that does up to 500 pieces of brass in about an hour or so. It's well made and does the job and, after several years, I'm still using the original.
And, yes, it's expensive. But you're not into this hobby because it's affordable ... because it isn't. And you don't reload because it's more economical -- come on, I know better than that. You reload so you can shoot, and you shoot everything you make. If it was "economical", you'd be selling what you've made instead of shooting it up. So stop complaining and go ahead and get a machine you won't have to think about.
Abrasive for the cleaning machine. Some use ground up corn cobs. Some us ground up walnut shells. Choose whichever is available and least expensive. My pick comes from Harbor Freight and, at roughly $25.00 for 25 pounds, the price will be hard to beat -- I know that contradicts the attitude I espoused in the previous item. Ok, so I'm arbitrary. Or maybe after buying that expensive Dillon cleaner, I feel guilty and compensate by saving money on the abrasive. Ok, I feel guilty. Can we move on now?
Regardless, beware the shipping charge from Harbor Freight for that 25 pounds. It's an additional $9.00 for me. Instead, if you have one of these stores in town, pay the local sales tax (about $2.00 in Phoenix) and save on the shipping. I replace the media when the brass starts looking "very dusty" after cleaning. I'd guess that's about every 5-10 batches, more or less. At that rate, the 25 pounds of walnut media will last for a long time.
Manual Timer

Timer. While you may find a "Turn off the plugged in appliance in two hours" electrical timer somewhere, why bother? Just write yourself a note and leave it where you'll find it. Coffee pot, refrigerator, front door and computer screen are all good places to stick it. I've left brass churning in there for hours and hours with no apparent harm so it's no big deal to run over. (For "noise abatement", put the machine outside and well away from any windows. It does make a racket.)
Separator. Use this outside -- the "stuff" that floats up is gonna be bad for your lungs. Don't breath it! Again, I have the little Dillon model and it works fine.
But there are two caveats. First, watch out for the stray 22 shell amongst the 45s. During cleaning, they will "separate" very nicely but when you dump the batch into the separator, they'll sneak back inside a 45 shell and stay there until reloading when it'll make a nasty noise in the deprimer. Inspect the batch carefully and remove any non-45 brass as early as possible.
And second, tumble and separate thoroughly. Bits of the walnut media may hide in the flash hole and make an odd "scrunch" when you deprime. It's distracting and causes me to pause and look to see what's wrong. Interruptions in reloading lead to errors in reloading, and that can be bad. Avoid it by taking the time to purge any wrong size brass before you start pulling the crank.
Brass polish (optional). This is dumped into the walnut media (and run empty for about 10 minutes before adding brass) and shines up the brass more than just the walnut shells would've done. In my opinion, this is purely cosmetic -- but there's nothing wrong with "clean and pretty." I use it and, again, it's the Dillon product. (What can I say? Their store is "in town" for me and it's a fun place to lust and drool.)
Something to store the cleaned brass in -- and it's not from Dillon! I use the quart-size ZipLock baggies and, because I keep my brass separated by head stamp, I also stick in a hand-written 3x5 note so I can see what flavor of brass is in a given bag from a couple of feet away. This week I'm reloading Winchester brass so those are the bags I'm after.
A place to store things when not in use; one of those annoyingly essential things to figure out. Mine are under the work table and come out from there when in use and then back when done.

That's about it -- and I can see by the note taped to my computer screen that the current batch of brass has been in the cleaner for 75 minutes. It should be done.

I'm headed outside to tumble and separate.

See ya!

2011 Dillon Precision Calendar Prize

2010-11-24T08:46:00.003-07:00

Damp and chilly. Brrrr!

The humidity was high and, with the cool 58 degrees, there was a decided chill to the air as we shot the Bullseye 900 last night. Everyone wore a light jacket or a shirt atop a shirt. I "warmed up" with 22 caliber and kept its temperature-sensitive ammunition in my pocket.

Spirits were initially muted, probably by the chill, but once we settled into the Slow Fire match, moods picked up and the usual side comments were heard as shots went downrange.

"Hah! An X!"

"Damn."

"Somebody (!) jerked a shot on my target."

"All right!!"

Bill, Felipe, Hank, Len and myself made up the small group that braved the cool damp to shoot the Luck Target, the 900 and to compete for the evening's prize, a new 2011 Dillon Precision calendar.

Bill tossed the coin and it came up heads so the Luck Target went to the high score. Yours truly, shooting his Smith and Wesson model 41 with Ultradot, tagged my model number's points over the requisite three holes to win.

Then, in the 900 that started promptly at 7:00PM, the biggest group was the combined Sharpshooter, Marksman and Tyro classes. At the start, therefore, it was announced those shooters would be competing for the calendar hanging on display over the registration table.

Firing a variety of calibers, when the final scores for those three competitors were tallied, they were within ten (20) points of each other. Hank took first place and was decidedly pleased with the Dillon calendar and its attractive and "on topic" photographs.

Congratulations, Hank!

Between the small group and the chill, things moved along rapidly. We finished slightly after 8:30PM. One shooter jokingly complained he might have to drive around the block a couple of times to avoid setting a dangerous precedent by arriving home so early after Nighthawks.

November is one of those twice-a-year months with five Tuesdays. Next week will be that "fifth Tuesday of the month" and that's when Nighthawks shoots an L-Match. If you haven't shot one before, you have a real treat in store. Think of a gigantic X ring with an even larger 10 ring. Everyone shoots much higher scores; this is a great ego-booster after those tiny B-16 Slow Fire bullseye or the 3-second face time of the International Rapid Fire targets.

What's your record X count? Are you ready to break it?

"Wow, I cleaned the target!" will be heard more than once next week. Maybe you will be the one to shout it out next Tuesday?

Here are the details in case you've forgotten.

Next: L-Match 900 November 30th.
What: Nighthawks (every Tuesday from mid-September through mid-June)
When: Tuesday evening (practice earlier if you wish)
Time: 6:45PM Luck Target, 7:00PM Competition (arrive early to set up)
Where: Pistol range, PR&GC, 915 W. Olney Dr, Phoenix AZ 85041
Cost: $5 members, $10 non-members
Ammo: 100 rounds suggested (more if you want extra practice earlier)
Extra: $1 for a Luck Target (cash prize!)
Beginners: Always welcome
Format: Bullseye 900 on 1st and 3rd Tuesdays of the month, International [Olympic center fire] on the 2nd and 4th, and a Police "L" Match on the twice-a-year 5th Tuesdays. Shoot one- or two-handed as you wish.
More: Reply to this email with your request (mailto: ed@flat5.net) Or call me, Ed Skinner, 623-203-9038 (cell), 602-866-8910 (home)

See you "On the line!"

Veteran's Day, November 11, 2010

2010-11-11T05:43:00.007-07:00

"We sleep safe in our beds because rough men stand ready in the night to resist violence on those who would do us harm."

George Orwell

To those who have come before and to those now serving, you have my ever-increasing gratitude, and my solemn promise to perpetuate what you have given us.

Six Inches Is Not Enough

2010-11-08T15:34:00.007-07:00

1911 Recoil Springs
Old versus New
(Click for bigger)

... for your wadder's recoil spring.

Here are two 1911 recoil springs, one heavily used and the other brand new. The difference is obvious - the old spring has "taken a set" and is visibly shorter.

In my wad 1911, this old spring was failing to seat about one in twenty (1:20) rounds. In Rapid Fire, that's an alibi, perhaps even a second malfunction in that same match*. In Slow Fire, while a misfeed can probably be dealt with, it is still a distraction; it will throw you off your shooting plan. Consequently, your score may suffer from lack of concentration. Remember, "Matches may be lost in Timed and Rapid, but they are won in Slow Fire." You need every point, every X to win.

A new spring for a full-size 1911 is 6.75" long. I installed this one during a match and the misfeeds stopped immediately. No more alibis.

And while the best measure of a recoil spring is its resistance during recoil -- this is a 13 pound Wolff spring, by the way -- a simple ruler may be all you need.

How long is long enough? That's a tougher call because it really is that resistance to recoil that stores up energy in recoil and then uses it to strip the next round from the magazine, "ker-chunk" it fully into the chamber, drive the slide forward so the barrel link is drawn fully to the rear and, finally, to fully mate the barrel and slide locking lugs. Anything short of that and the recoil spring has failed to do its job.

But too short?

That's easy.

Six inches is not enough, guys!

____________________
* Note: In a typical 900, there are four matches: the Slow Fire match (two targets), the National Match Course (three targets), the Timed Fire match (two targets) and the Rapid Fire match (two targets). The rules state you can have one alibi in a match but that's all. If your gun malfunctions a second time in that same match, or during the alibi string itself, you're out of luck.

Flying Rats

2010-10-30T11:48:00.014-07:00

70-2X Possible Score
(Click for bigger)

If they could, statues would hate them.

Statue cleaners surely do.

And the owner of the park bench in my backyard does.

It's not just their droppings.

The lost but still pest-laden feathers attract the grandchildren.

And the neighborhood cat, coming across one that is temporarily grounded, leaves a mess that, again, attracts the grandchildren.

I'm talking about pigeons or, as we call them, flying rats.

My goal in all this is not to destroy them but simply to encourage the critters to perch somewhere other than on the power lines over the park bench in my back yard, away from the nearby utility pole, and to engage in their ritual mating dances on someone else's patio.

Enter the 1911 handgun, specifically the "air soft" variant.

It shoots 6mm diameter plastic "BBs" that, barring a hit in the eye, are annoying but little else. The kids use these in shooting games and they say it stings but, again, that's the only effect. (The kids wear protection, particularly for their eyes, in case you are wondering.)

And how do I know they're telling the truth? Well, because I tested one on my open palm and, yes, it stings "real good" when only a foot from the muzzle. But even so, ten minutes later there's no mark, nothing to distinguish the point of impact.

At fifty feet, that small light ball will have lost a great deal of its velocity so, if it stings at a couple of feet, then at fifty it must be less. I haven't tried it on myself at that distance but the pigeons indicate it is startling but otherwise harmless.

Specifically, when thumped that pigeon will take off -- after a quick "WTF?" reaction; watch the eyes to see it -- which is almost instantly followed by two or three nearby companions also taking flight.

And if you immediately plink another, they'll all be gone.

The 1911 model I have is from WalMart. We're talking "cheap, cheap, cheap." The packaging is long gone and there are no markings, no brand names, nothing to identify the manufacturer. I'll go out on a limb and guess it was made in China but even that's just a guess.

Even so, I get fairly reasonable accuracy at fifty feet.

But, mind you, the very lightweight plastic ball at this low velocity is going to be pushed around by the wind. And not by a small amount.

There are two aspects that, nonetheless, make annoying the pigeons in this way successful.

First, there's the general intelligence of the quarry. If you thump one pigeon, it will be startled and take flight. That will, in turn, startle a couple of its neighbors so you'll see 3-4 actually skedaddle.

Those that remain will be looking around trying to figure out what panic-ed the others but, for the most part, they'll stay put.

And now, if you wait a minute or so instead of shooting right away, those that didn't take flight will forget their now departed neighbors were ever there. You can then drive off another 3-4 with the next well-placed strike.

Patience is good. Choosing a target well away from the others is good. Waiting for the quarry to spread out is good.

You can be a strategist and improve your score!

The second reason its possible to surprise these critters at fifty feet in spite of the wind is because you can see the ball in flight and know what the wind is doing. On your next shot, adjust your aim accordingly and try again.

It's not uncommon to need 5-6 shots to "scope in" where to aim for a particular target. Depending on the wind and elevation, I may be aiming as much as a foot below or above, and another foot to the left or right.

Fortunately, the pigeons seem unaware of the missed shots. I've watched many a fluorescent green pellet zoom right past a pigeon's head but not seen them react in any way.

Don't expect much of a trigger on these guns. It'll make the typical plastic against plastic "scrinch" noise and the break is as ugly as it gets. And then there's the over-travel!

But then again, if you can hit a pigeon at fifty feet with one of these -- and if I can do it, so can you -- then maybe your hold and trigger control are gettin' pretty good.

Practice makes perfect, you know?

One tip: If you buy the pellets in the 6500 bulk ammunition jar, put it in big tub whenever you open it.

There are 6500+2 reasons for this, the latter being broom and dust pan.

And may your pigeons come home to roost ... NOT!

Afghanistan

2010-10-14T13:37:00.012-07:00

Jim Henderson
October 2010, Afghanistan
(click to enlarge)

Jim Henderson is serving us now in Afghanistan.

Some of you know him by name. This is the same "James" Henderson that's won US championships in Bullseye and who always gives Brian and the other top High Masters a run for their money.

And some of you have met him at various competitions including 2008 and 2009 competitions in Phoenix Arizona where he whipped us all. (Way to go, Jim!)

And I'm sure some of you are particularly lucky because you know him as a good friend.

If you look over in the "Labels" column on this right side of this blog, you'll find a link with his name that'll bring up blogs here where Jim has been mentioned or photographed.

Jim's active duty currently has him in Afghanistan where he is helping teach the good guys how to hit what they're aiming at and, as we all know, that's not as easy as it looks.

If you know Jim, you can "friend" him on Facebook. He's not hard to find.

And I'll mention to him that I've invited each of you to send him your good wishes by adding a comment here. Just click for the comments area (below) and add your well-wishes. I'm sure he'll read every one of them.

Jim,

We are sincerely grateful for your service and we thank you on behalf of ourselves, our children and our grandchildren.

Bullseye shooters know the difference between talking about doing something and actually doing it.

You're doing it, Jim.

Thank you.

And come back here so you can give us another whipping "on the line!"

Good Doggie

2010-10-06T06:47:00.002-07:00

Expert At Last!

2010-09-29T16:38:00.027-07:00

Back in May, I blogged that I'd shot well enough to earn an Outdoor Expert ranking.

That's almost three years after earning the Indoor Expert ranking which sort'a shows you the difference between shooting a 22 [indoor] and both a 22 and a 45 [outdoor]. The 45 is a challenging gun and it has taken me all that time to steel myself ..., no, to desensitize myself, ... no, to learn how to focus every part of myself on the dot and become oblivious to the "Bang!" and, at the same time, to move that much heavier trigger "straight back without disturbing the sights."

Boy, that's been a real struggle.

But in May, my scores said I'd earned the step up to Outdoor Expert.

So, I started checking the NRA Classification lookup site for the change. And I started watching my mailbox for the card.

June, July and August passed.

Nothing.

And one day during the 110+ degree temperatures of August, I guess I quit looking. I began to rationalize that maybe my understanding of the formula must be wrong. Yes, my aggregate of 22+45 scores were good enough, but maybe they're looking at the 45 scores separately and saying, "Nope, this guy's not there yet."

And so during September the phrases, "Close but no cigar" and, "Just a leetle bit more" have run back and forth through my head on those few occasions when I stepped up to the line.

(Click to enlarge)

On a lark today, I decided to check again and, wonder of wonders, I've been promoted!

Hooray, it's official! (Finally.)

That's about a four month lag between shooting the score and getting the ranking upgrade. Like the "X" ring in Slow Fire, it needed patience. Lots of it.

The promotion also means I've entered the vast wasteland of Expert class where many enter but few leave.

But I am there and it feels good.

For the next few days, undoubtedly I'll be chasing down the mailman and asking him to double-check his bag when nothing from the NRA arrives other than the periodic badgering for cash donations.

"Hey NRA, where's my card?

"Should I start warming up the lamination machine at Kinkos?

"NRA, are you there?

"Hello?"

Fall Temperatures Arrive Next Week!

2010-09-29T11:14:00.006-07:00

Hot? Did someone say it's hot in Arizona? And at the end of September?

[Phew!]

On the new pistol range clock that shows the time in both analog and digital forms, set by radio, as well as the current temperature, it was 97 degrees for the first shot at 7:00PM last night at the Phoenix Rod and Gun Club's weekly Nighthawks shoot. And the humidity seemed to be up a bit and, just to make matters worse, there wasn't a breath of wind.

But we know how to deal with that. We set up the big fan to move some air down the line and it was quite tolerable.

And we had a great time. (In other words, "you missed it!" :)

George and I shot Luck Targets at 6:30PM, the coin toss said high score would win and so George won back his dollar.

And then at 7:00PM, we ran an (almost) "by the book" International match to get accustomed to the slightly different rules. Magazines and guns were loaded only after the "Load" command was given and we shot five rounds in five minutes on the Precision Fire targets. But when "all record shots" had been fired, we skipped the remaining time and then fired the next five on the same targets. (In a formal competition, there would have been a target change after each five Precision Fire shots.)

When we got to Rapid (aka Duelling) Fire, a couple of visitors from the action pistol range had stopped by. We invited them to join us for the "action" part of the competition and they agreed. To get the "newbies" (from the action pistol range) familiar with the form, we did two sighter series, one for those who knew the Rapid Fire format, and then again for the newcomers.

(Beginners, even those with experience in other shooting sports, are always welcome!)

I shot a personal best in Rapid Fire, a 94, on my last target! But let me quickly add, I was using an "illegal" gun. Not only was the caliber too large (45 ACP is over the 38 caliber maximum), and I was also using a red dot instead of iron sights.

But even with the (illegal) advantage of a red dot sight, that score still wasn't good enough.

Bill Poole trounced me by 20 points (553 versus 533) *AND* he shot iron sights and 32 caliber, a legal gun. ("I fought the law and the law won!")

Bill won the "best score of the evening" prize, a copy of "A Pistol Shooters Treasury" with the admonishion, "if you already have a copy, pass this one to someone deserving." (Spread the word!)

Earlier this week I swapped emails with a couple of regulars and as we get into October, they will be returning. That's also when the "Mountain Men" (Show Low summer residents), mid-westerners (from Chicago) and other "snow birds" begin their return to Phoenix. The line will be filling up from here on.

And if you're visiting Phoenix from out of town, come on by the range (address below) -- someone's bound to have an extra gun and some ammo -- we'd be delighted to have you visit!

Also, our beginners from last week have also promised to return. (I think last night's heat put them off but next week promises to be very nice -- much cooler [at last]).

Attendance is ramping up as the heat goes down.

Bill Poole will be calling the line for next week's Conventional format event. (I'll be in the Bay area on business as well as paying an evening visit to the Sunnyvale Gun Club to renew friendships and push a few rounds downrange. I'll be back in Phoenix the week after.)

The weather forecast for Phoenix next Tuesday is down nearly 20 degrees from the highs of this week -- it should be really nice. The low next Tuesday is expected to be 71 degrees and at 6:30PM it should be a very nice evening to be out enjoying the stars -- and shooting a couple of Xs, a few 10s and 9s and, hopefully, nothing less.

The heat is gone.

That was it; no more summer.

Hello fall in Arizona!

Here are the details in case you've forgotten.

Next: Bullseye 900 October 5th
What: Nighthawks (every Tuesday from mid-September through mid-June)
When: Tuesday evening (practice earlier if you wish)
Time: 6:30PM Luck Target, 7:00PM Competition (arrive early to set up)
Where: Pistol range, PR&GC, 915 W. Olney Dr, Phoenix AZ 85041
Cost: $5 members, $10 non-members
Ammo: 100 rounds suggested (more if you want extra practice earlier)
Extra: $1 for a Luck Target (cash prize!)
Beginners: Always welcome
Format: Bullseye 900 on 1st and 3rd Tuesdays of the month, International [Olympic center fire] on the 2nd and 4th, and a Police "L" Match on the twice-a-year 5th Tuesdays. Shoot one- or two-handed as you wish.
More: Email to me, ed@flat5.net, or call (Ed Skinner) 623-203-9038 (cell), 602-866-8910 (home)

See you "On the line!"

Nighthawks Great Season Start!

2010-09-22T13:45:00.005-07:00

Wow, what a turnout!
We had a total of ten (10) shooters last night for the Nighthawks weekly event at the Phoenix Rod and Gun Club in spite of the unseasonal heat. That included three beginners and one out-of-state visitor. (Beginners and visitors is how the ranks will be built up. They are always welcome!)

At 6:30PM we shot Luck Targets and, by the coin toss, the low score won -- John Zurek's meager 14 points brought him a $3 cash prize. (John Zurek won with a *low* score? Yup, anything can happen with the Luck Target.)

Then, with three newcomers, we observed an extra fifteen minutes of safety instruction before starting the Bullseye 900 at 7:15PM. The regulars completed their three Slow Fire targets in the normal ten minutes each but, again, some extra time was allotted for the beginners. (Safety, safety, safety.)

But by the time we reached the first Timed Fire in the National Match Course, the beginners were comfortable with the equipment and procedures so we made up most of the lost time.

One of the newcomers shot several very impressive targets. She was a natural for the sport.

The grand prize for the evening, a copy of A Pistol Shooter's Treasury, was awarded to the high score of the evening (regardless of gun or number of hands used) to Jason Demont. Jason, who has advanced well up the Bullseye rankings over the past several years, said it was a very welcome prize as he had heard of but never read the book. Several shooters smiled and warned that his shooting may temporarily decline as he integrates new skills from the book into his performance at the line but the experts then agreed it would ultimately prove to be a significant boon to his or anyone's shooting.

Summer has officially ended and, hopefully, the worst of the heat is now behind us. And evn though it was hot last night, there were no bugs (nor snakes) and there was even a hint of rain. Next Tuesday we shoot the International format, Olympic Center Fire. Personally, I find the Duelling Fire in that form to be extremely challenging and yet, at the same time, I often get a really good laugh when I look at the scattered holes in my target. Someday, I'll master Duelling Fire. [Sigh.]

Hope to see you next Tuesday!

Here are the details in case you've forgotten.

What: Nighthawks (every Tuesday from mid-September through mid-June)
When: 6:30PM Tuesday evening (practice earlier if you wish)
Where: Pistol range, PR&GC, 915 W. Olney Dr, Phoenix AZ 85041
Cost: $5 members, $10 non-members
Ammo: 100 rounds suggested (more if you want extra practice earlier)
Extra: $1 for a Luck Target (cash prize!)
Beginners: Always welcome
Format: Bullseye 900 on 1st and 3rd Tuesdays of the month, International [Olympic center fire] on the 2nd and 4th, and a Police "L" Match on the twice-a-year 5th Tuesdays. Shoot one- or two-handed as you wish.
More: Send email (mailto: ed@flat5.net) or call me, Ed Skinner, 623-203-9038 (cell), 602-866-8910 (home)

See you "On the line!"

Follow Through

2010-07-05T10:52:00.009-07:00

I went to the range yesterday, the 4th, for several reasons.

First, it's the official birthday of the United States and a little noise-making was in order. And delivering those noise-making shots into the black at 50 yards with several into the X-ring, just seemed like a really appropriate way to do so. Noisy, yes, and accurate. Deadly accurate. Oh yeah.
Second, I needed the practice. My first half dozen shots would be right of center and it would take me that long for my brain to say, "Your finger is in the wrong place on the trigger." (Oh yeah.)
Third, I really needed to be out in the sunlight. I was still jet-lagging -- big time -- from a business trip to Singapore and wanted to get the full strength sun directly in my face to help reset my body clock.

When I arrived, another shooter was about half way down the firing line at the pistol range with a long gun leaning against the table. After setting down my box and equipment, I walked down to greet him.

As I got close, I could see it was a flintlock and my excitement rose; I absolutely love black powder shooting.

All the rigmarole they go through to ready each shot just amazes me. I love the details they need to manage and how the whole process puts them that much closer to all that's happening when the trigger is pulled.

So, of course, I had to have him give me a demonstration.

And what amazes me most of all is, at the end when the cock falls and the flint strikes the face of the frizzen, there's that decided gap in time before the gun goes "Whoosh!"

I was told that, for a proper load, the pause is about 1/30th of a second.

"Follow-through is utterly essential with a flintlock," he added.

"You have to continue to hold on the aiming area well after the trigger breaks. It sometimes seems like forever."

Thanking him, I went back to my position to prepare. With his slow reload and fire cycle, there was no problem getting a short break for me to carry my target out to the 50 yard line.

Then, as I began my own slow fire practice, I thought about what "follow-through" means for more modern weapons because, without that 1/30th second lag, it's a lot harder to grasp what's happening between trigger break and "Bang", but no less essential.

You see, the delay is still there, albeit much smaller, and there's still time to mess up a shot.

Specifically, when the trigger breaks on a contemporary firearm, there are a couple of milliseconds in that same period from break to "Bang."

And in a couple of milliseconds, it's easy to move the gun down and to the side with a jerk, or to push it up in anticipation of the recoil. Not much, mind you, but it only takes a tiny movement to move a couple of inches on the target.

When the sear releases the hammer, the hammer starts from a dead stop and then rotates through not quite 90 degrees. The hammer's rotation shouldn't have much effect on the gun's position but, conceivably, it could cause the gun to rotate ever so slightly muzzle-up.

Then, the hammer strikes the firing pin and then the firing pin stop. That second impact is going to knock the gun ever so slightly muzzle-down.

That slight muzzle down then muzzle up force might balance out to zero, but that's unlikely. Rather, it's more probable that there's a net offset, up or down, that's pretty close to the same for each shot.

Once struck, the titanium firing pin rockets forward and strikes the primer at the base of the cartridge initiating the propellant.

Today, we use "progressive" powders -- that means the burn-rate increases as the pressure increases, and the total burn time is real fast these days. But it's not infinitely fast. It still takes time.

So, as pressure builds inside the case and the elastic brass is pressed outward slightly and grips the inside face of the chamber, there's a little more time for the shooter's jerk or anticipation to move the muzzle.

Eventually there's enough pressure to overcome the crimping force of shell against bullet and the bullet starts moving forward. Then, according to one of Newton's laws, that equal but opposite force of the propellant starts pushing to the rear. Now I'll grant you that the mass of the bullet going forward is small in comparison to the mass of the gun moving backward but, again, the force is real. We call it "recoil" and the gun moves.

And because that rearward force is above the center of mass of the gun, the gun tends to rotate upwards. (That's the primary reason to hold the gun as high as possible, to minimize that rotation.)

About one millisecond after the hammer strike, the bullet leaves the handgun's short barrel and, as far as its trajectory is concerned, what the shooter does is thereafter irrelevant for that shot.

But what the shooter does next is not irrelevant for the next shot. In Timed and Rapid Fire, we have to get back on the target as soon as possible. And in that action, getting back on the target, that's where we more commonly apply the term "follow through" with contemporary weapons.

So today, "follow through" is more often taken to mean "what happens after the shot".

But watching the black powder shooter, I saw how his follow through applies to what I see when dry-firing, and how that in turn applies to what's happening in those 2-3 milliseconds between the breaking of the trigger and the bullet's departure.

So even though we think of "follow through" as what happens after the shot, it really starts earlier with the separation of sear and hammer as caused by the push of the trigger.

Pedersole Kentucky Flint Pistol
.54" caliber (diameter) ball
Dixie Gun Works, Model# FH0080

It's now the day after the 4th and I'm browsing the net looking at flintlock pistols and wondering if some work with them would benefit my use of contemporary handguns and would that justify the expense?

Answers: "Maybe" and "Probably Not But That's Never Been An Issue Before So Why Start Now?"

But regardless of all that, the "Whoosh!" and the huge cloud of smoke sure would be fun.

Happy Fourth of July, America!

Goodbye Southern Arizona

2010-06-26T15:07:00.002-07:00

About five years ago, the adult leader of the Boy Scouts of America troops in Phoenix said that the Arizona chapters had stopped their 100+ year old tradition of taking scouts out for camping trips to southern Arizona because "coyotes" with AK-47s were shepherding illegals into the scout camps and demanding food and water.

Although BSA leaders were forbidden to carry weapons, some had previously felt justified in using their concealed carry permits to bring handguns so that, if necessary, they could protect the scouts against poisonous snakes and other desert vermin. But, faced with automatic weapons, the scout leaders had no choice but to capitulate and give up the deserts of southern Arizona to the illegals.

The Boy Scouts of America understandably decided it wasn't their fight.

And now, according to newly posted official signs, the US government has also capitulated and simply given over southern Arizona to drug traffic and human smuggling.

See for yourself the US Government's signs (click here).

Quality

2010-06-12T07:29:00.011-07:00

John Zurek, Steve Reiter,
Jim Henderson, Daryl Szarenski
(L to R, click for bigger)

My work takes me to many large and successful companies. Some of them build airplanes. Some of them make automobiles. And some of them ... well, they won't say what they do. They just smile and change the subject.

But there is one thing they all share and that is the ability to make their products with a very high degree of quality.

Quality takes time, effort and, above all, consistent attention to detail. Every step, ever facet of their product has to be done to perfection because quality is not one thing but rather the sum total. If any part is flawed, they go back and fix it. Nothing comes out that's bad.

These companies have learned that, to make a quality product, you need a process.

Many of them use a meta-process -- that's a process about making a process -- called ISO 9000.

ISO 9000 is basically a three-step plan applied over and over for each product.

Write down the details of all the steps they follow to build a product.
Rigorously follow those written steps, word by word, as they build the product.
If the finished product is flawed, they go back and revise the written steps so they don't make the same mistake next time.

When this process is followed, admittedly through several less than perfect but always improving iterations, eventually a quality product is produced. And by continuing to follow that plan, they can produce that quality product again and again.

Just follow the steps.

In Bullseye, successful shooters have a shot plan. They tweak and groom that plan over a long period of time with thousands of shots and nearly as many adjustments, compensations, blind alleys and eventual successes. Ultimately, they have a shot plan that works ... for them.

And then they apply it over and over.

Each of us is different. Big hands, normal hands, stubby or long fingers, some are right-handed but left-eye dominant, some have arthritis in a shoulder joint or a knee that needs compensation.

Your plan won't work for me, nor will mine work for you. Oh sure, we get ideas from each other but only by trying things do we find out what works, what doesn't, or what looks like something we're just not able to do (yet).

Trial and error. Yes, that's the meta-process we follow.

It's also true that, the more you practice good technique, the faster you will progress. You can't just throw lead downrange, you've got to throw it downrange with care and attention -- you've got to try and do it right, and learn as you go to do it better and better.

If you shoot a lot in a short period of time, you will memorize what you are doing. Your shot plan will be in your head and, most importantly, it will be in your body.

If you shoot less often, you'll forget some of those details.

And if you don't have the shot plan fully internalized but take a long break, your body and mind will almost certainly forget some of the better details.

So, your shooting won't improve, or it might even go backwards. If that happens, you'll just have to re-discover what works.

I'm in the midst of re-discovering the surprise break.

Yes, I know, that's "basic". I'm supposed to know how to do that already and, for a while, I could do it. But, for whatever reason, I seem to have lost the ability. I see my shots going down and left -- a jerk. Sometimes not much but, watching the dot or the front sight, I see it. I know.

I've forgotten how to make ... or not make, I should say ... it happen.

Ink and paper are good for remembering things. They don't forget like our brains and bodies do.

The note in my gun box says, "In Slow Fire, align the sights on the aiming area, start the trigger so it comes straight back, pour attention into the dot or front sight, and then wait ... and if the shot doesn't go or you 'hear' any thought whatsoever, put the gun down."

That was how I learned to let the surprise break happen, and I'm re-applying it so I can learn that again.

Writing down your shot plan seems laborious and an overkill but the ISO 9000 folks know it works.

If you never forget any part of your shot plan, I applaud you.

But I forget things and the less often I try, the more likely I am to forget.

So I follow the meta-plan:

Write it down;
Shoot the plan; and
Tweak the written plan when something doesn't work.

Next time you ride on an airplane remember the process that brought it to such an extraordinary degree of quality. The wings don't fall off. The door seals in the air time and time again. And, with the pilot's highly skilled guidance, it takes all the passengers thousands of miles before the wheels contact the runway no more than a few feet from where thousands of wheels of other airplanes have put their wheels on that same runway.

Consistent. Quality. Again and again.

The plan works: Write it, shoot it, fix it.

Quick Practice 2700

2010-05-31T09:56:00.010-07:00

Bob Throne

In the ramp-up to Perry, the Phoenix club has a lot of 2700s, many of them "unofficial" which means they are not registered or authorized through the NRA.

As such, the rules can be relaxed a bit.

And in the interest of time, we've found what I think is a pretty good balance between family and shooting almost every Sunday.

I'll call this the "Quick Practice 2700" format and it allows shooters to be back home by lunchtime or shortly thereafter. Sunday afternoons remain open for family activities. Family outings and get togethers can be scheduled from mid-afternoon on. (And those "Honey-do's" left-over from Saturday can still receive some attention ... but you don't have to tell her I said that.)

First, we start early; first shot is at 7:30AM.

For those who have to drive up from Tucson, this becomes a real demonstration of their serious intent. They are up well before dawn and "on the road" by 6:00AM.

My drive is less, only about a half hour but I still arrive early to put out the targets and connect up the PA and target turning system so that, when the "Tucson bus" (Steve Reiter's SUV) pulls up, we are ready to begin.

That early start is the first element that enables an early finish.

The other essential is to shoot more, and to score less.

Specifically, instead of scoring after each ten (10) rounds, we go twenty.

Yes, twenty (20) Slow Fire rounds into one target can all be counted and scored, even in 45 caliber. And remember, this is a practice match so scoring doesn't need to be as nit-picky. The basic rule is to keep things moving and score things honestly, but if in doubt about a close one, go ahead and score "up" to avoid haggling. Keep it moving.

So we begin by firing twenty rounds of Slow Fire. And although we allocate twenty minutes, as you probably know most shooters will finish a little early. If the caller is paying attention, he can ask, "Have all record shots been fired? Does anyone need additional time?" And if everyone is done then, "Okay, we will dispense with the remaining time. Let's make the line safe ..." and so forth.

The Slow Fire target of the National Match Course is the only time we fire ten rounds and then score. From there on, it's twenty shots per target again and again.

That means that the NMC's Timed and Rapid Fire targets are both fired into one piece of paper.

And the Timed Fire match's twenty go into one target, and Rapid Fire's into another.

Scoring is done in almost the usual manner except that rather than writing down all the Xs in a single row on the score card, most scorers split them evenly into the two rows of the two "targets" being scored. This tends to be a little misleading if you don't know what's being done because shooters usually get two targets with almost the same score.

But what matters is not the score. What matters is the shooter's knowledge that he threw a seven (or worse). It's not the numerical score, it's the exceptions that matter. And they're just as much on a target with twenty holes as they are with ten.

And you can have some fun with this.

Someone might predict, "I cleaned my first Rapid Fire target but I don't think the second will be as good."

Someone else might say, "You know, I think I did too!"

And if you have a reasonably skilled set of shooters, you might just discover that everyone cleaned their first target but then blew it on the second. (Remember, there are twenty holes in the target -- it's anyone's guess as to which is the first set of ten and which holes constitute the second!)

"Wouldn't it be incredible," you could ask (and suggest), "if we *all* cleaned the first target at the same time?"

And if everyone catches on and writes the scores in the traditional manner -- all the Xs on one line followed by all the tens and so forth spilling over to the second line (second target) when needed, you may find that everyone truly did, according to the score cards, clean their first target while putting all their bad shots in the second.

What an amazing coincidence!

Between guns we take a ten minute break. Shooters have their fresh fruit or energy bar, get a cool bottle of water from the range refrigerator, rest their feet and talk about this and that, like always."

But then it's, "Shooters to the line!"

If the caller keeps up a steady pace, we can be done with all three guns and the complete 2700 by 11:30AM. Even an alibi or two will only add a couple of minutes.

"Shooters to the line for the 45 competition and we will dispense with the three minute preparation time. Instead, signal when you are ready and we will begin!"

For an unofficial 2700, give the "Quick Practice 2700" format a try.

Your family may like it.

Memorial Day 2010

2010-05-31T09:19:00.004-07:00

"People sleep peaceably in their beds at night only because rough men stand ready to do violence on their behalf." George Orwell

We must not forget the freedoms, nor especially the price paid, to which so many of us have become accustomed that we are no longer aware of them.

It truly can all be taken away, in one fell swoop, or in little drops one at a time.

Acknowledge and thank those who have enabled all that we now enjoy.

And be vigilant.

Abort!

2010-05-30T20:07:00.005-07:00

The probability is greater than 50%
that John Zurek will abort this shot!

What do you do immediately after a Slow Fire shot?

You follow-through, of course.

You reacquire the sight picture on the aiming area, reset the trigger and take up the slack as if you were going to fire again.

And then most of the time, you put the gun down.

In other words, for each shot you fire, you abort the (potential) one that immediately follows.

OK, that's a 50% abort rate.

That's a good start, but I'm now convinced that's not nearly enough.

Here's a clue: Beginners rarely abort shots while the Masters and the High Masters do it a lot.

Do Masters and High Masters shoot better shots more often?

Yes, they probably do.

And do Masters and High Masters abort bad shots more often?

Ya' darn tootin' they do!

You can improve your shooting two ways: shooting better shots and not shooting your worse ones.

The High Masters say it a couple of different ways:

If everything's not right, put the gun down;
The instant you think you might want to abort the shot, then abort the shot;
If it's not gonna be a 10, keep it in the gun and put the gun down; and,
Don't shoot the bad shots.

And some won't say it, but watch them because the better the shooter, the more likely they'll abort.

The Masters and High Masters know what a good preparation looks like, and if everything doesn't look good, they abort.

And they know that if they feel like maybe they might want to abort, they abort.

You can too.

Your timer is running, isn't it? You've got a whole ten minutes.

After all, if you can clean or come close to cleaning a target in two whacks of ten or twenty seconds, don't you have all the time in the world during Slow Fire?

Abort!

Put the gun down.

Take a couple of breaths and mentally replay your shot process.

I'm embarrassed to think how many times I've heard this said and have nodded my understanding of the words but in total ignorance of what a simple but fantastic piece of advice this is.

Abort if it's not perfect.

Abort if you hear that little voice ... and do it no matter what it says -- that little voice is always gonna mess up the shot.

Abort because you feel like it ... especially because you feel like it.

Be one of the few at your range who didn't get off ten rounds in ten minutes -- how many times have you seen that? And when someone asks, just say, "It wasn't a ten, so I kept it."

Keep the ten until everything is ready to let it out so it can fly without being knocked aside.

And you'll be aborting shots just like the High Masters.

It's good to put the gun down!

Family Air Pistol

2010-05-30T16:07:00.007-07:00

L to R: Daniel (firing), myself, Makella,
daughter Mary, her husband Scott,
and on the swing are Elijah and Melissa
(Click for larger)

I've written before about solo shooting in my backyard air pistol range. It's good iron sight work and, with next to no recoil, it's a good way to practice that smooth release.

On the occasion pictured here, however, Daniel and Melissa had brought Elijah for his first visit and my daughter and her family were all present. (My son and his family couldn't make it.)

After we all got to hold Elijah, someone suggested we go out on the patio since the weather was nice.

As we went through the door and knowing I'm a shooter, Melissa said, "My Dad was a shooter."

"Would you like to try an air pistol today?" I asked.

In five minutes, the range was ready.

Most of them had never fired a gun or for the few who had, it was a long time ago. So, one at a time, I took each one through the basics of safety, operating the Baikal IZH-46M including cocking, loading, aiming and firing.

I let each of them dry-fire so they could feel the trigger and get accustomed to the noise. From there, we'd move to live fire and I'd stay close to handle the problems that always arise with new shooters.

As each one finished, we would retrieve their target and put up a fresh one.

As you might expect, some were good and some weren't (A big backstop is a must.)

My granddaughter, Makella, had shot this AP before. The grip is large but she's grown since her last try and she did good. All her shots were in the paper. (At the regular range several months earlier, she fired my ball gun and immediately displayed the toothy grin that often accompanies that first shot of 45 ACP ball ammo.)

Daniel was handicapped by my right-hand custom grip. As you can see he's a leftie. Nonetheless, he did pretty good with most shots in the target.

(Note to self: Get an extra set of grips and carve them for ambidextrous use.)

Scott, Makella's Dad, shot very well. He's got the upper-body strength that benefits pistol shooters and he's fired other guns. Even the air pistol's light trigger benefits from a solid grip.

My daughter, she ... well, let's just say she fired two shots before saying, "Thank you". (See note herein about a "big" backstop.)

And my wife declined to shoot. Like mother, like daughter, it's just not for them.

The surprise was the new mother, Melissa. At the regulation 10 meters, she was good! Each time she fired, a new hole would appear in the black. Grinning, she would say, "Let me do another." Pretty soon she had more than a dozen holes, all in the black.

(Never underestimate a Mother with a handgun!)

An air pistol range needs a space of about 40 by 10 feet with a good backstop and no cross-traffic.

The noise is minimal; we used no ears but the absence of eye protection is a serious oversight on my part. Oops!

Elijah didn't seem to mind the noise and as long as you keep a good watch of the shooter and what others are doing, it should be safe. (Little kids running around would be a show-stopper.)

Check with your local Police Department to be sure it's legal in your own backyard.

The Baikal is not inexpensive, but neither is it expensive like today's better air pistols. I paid $400 a couple of years ago for mine. It is accurate and reliable. I have less expensive air pistols but they don't shoot as well, have a strange balance, or just feel downright klunky.

The IZH-46M, on the other hand, is what the former Soviet Union air pistol shooters used in the Olympics a decade or so ago. Be sure and tell the family that. Knowing "this is not a toy" will both raise their safety awareness and heighten their intensity since they know it's a good piece of engineering.

For new shooters, make it a non-competitive game. The rule could be "five shots and even totals have to set the table and odd totals clean up."

"Shooters to the line!"

Nighthawks 06/01/2010

2010-05-27T15:03:00.002-07:00

"Where the heck's
my front sight?"

It's "traditional Bullseye 900" this coming week (Tuesday, June 1, 2010) at Nighthawks in Phoenix Arizona. Shoot any handgun (no magnums, please -- range rules) and one- or two-handed as you prefer. Bring 100 rounds, more if you come early and want to practice before the match that begins at 6:30PM.

Shoot your 22, a 38, 9 mm, 45 cal, whatever you want. Shoot an automatic, a classy (or ugly) revolver, or ... gee, is there anything else?

We will shoot three different ways this week:

Slow Fire - ten rounds in ten minutes (tiny targets at 25 yards!),
Timed Fire - five rounds in twenty seconds (twice on BIG targets at 25 yards), and
Rapid Fire - five rounds in ten seconds (twice on BIG targets at 25 yards).

Each form has different challenges:

Slow Fire - Perform and polish your "shot plan" (what you do) on each shot,
Timed Fire - Sight alignment and trigger control are paramount, and
Rapid Fire - Recoil recovery and getting back on the target are critical.

Last week we shot the Olympic-style Center Fire and, as always, that Duelling Fire is a real hoot. Sorry you missed it because we had a blast. On one of the Duelling Fire shots a large bug flew into the electronic bug zapper and let out a three second "sizzle and pop" just as the targets faced. I was so distracted I almost forgot to shoot as I waited for the bug to finish frying! (Glad I wasn't standing where the smell or small parts went!)

What: Nighthawks (every Tuesday except July, August and 1st half of Sept.)
When: 6:30PM Tuesday evening (practice earlier if you wish -- bring more ammo)
Where: Pistol range, Phoenix Rod and Gun Club, 915 W. Olney Dr, Phoenix AZ 85041
Cost: $5 members, $10 non-members
Ammo: 100 rounds suggested (more if you want extra practice -- come early!)
Extra: $1 for a Luck Target (cash prize!)
Beginners: Always welcome
Format: Conventional Pistol (Bullseye) 900 this week
More: Contact me with your request by email ed@flat5.net or phone 623-203-9038 (cell), 602-866-8910 (home)

See you "On the line!"

Did You Bring Enough Water?

2010-05-16T15:17:00.005-07:00

Mojave Desert
(Click for bigger -- please!)

Did you bring your desert hiking boots?

I've got a bit of a trek ahead.

Shooters are ranked by the NRA according to their scores in official competitions. These are most easily expressed as the appropriate percent of the perfect 100.

Marksman - Less than 85%
Sharpshooter - 85-90%
Expert - 90-95%
Master - 95-97%
High Master - 97% and above

To earn a higher ranking, a shooter must record a total of 360 shots at the new level.

Back in April at the Arizona Regional Championships, I shot a 2440-35. The 2440 is a smidgin above the 90% mark of the possible 2700 points but only includes 270 shots. It is an expert-class score but not enough shots to earn a step up. (I'm Sharpshooter class at the moment.)

In today's official 2700, I shot a 2441-53 over an additional 270 shots.

And that should be sufficient.

Hooray!

In the next couple of weeks, I should be receiving my Expert-class card from the NRA.

That's the good news.

The bad news is that Expert class is also known as the "vast wasteland" that many shooters enter but few leave.

I think of it as the Mojave desert, completely barren and devoid of plant life, unlike the sometimes lush Sonoran desert we have around Phoenix.

But with a couple of gallons of drinkable water, some dried desert rations and a pair of good boots, I'm ready to begin my trek.

I'll be the dried-up, leather-skinned, dusty-haired shooter at firing position #8 for a while.

10s and Xs, pardner!

Coach in the Mailbox

2010-05-15T15:04:00.007-07:00

Want to improve your Bullseye shooting?

Then consider buying a membership to USA Shooting.

Why?

Because the articles in the every-other month magazine that is included with your membership are spot-on for Bullseye.

They are written by the top coaches and athletes of the United States and you won't find better information.

Case in point is the two-part article, "Statics and Dynamics," by JP O'Connor. The first part appeared in the March/April 2010 issue. That issue is available, free of charge, here on pages 12-13.

The second part is in the current May/June issue that arrived by US Mail yesterday. In it, Mr. O'Connor states, "NPA is about sensing where the gun wants to point ... ... not about getting the gun on target - NPA is about truly sensing where the gun wants to point and only then making adjustments until the gun arrives on the target of its own accord."

NPA, in case you've forgotten means "Natural Point of Aim."

The classic test of a shooter's NPA is for the shooter to assume the firing position with the arm down, close the eyes and then raise the gun to the firing position and to only then open the eyes to see where the gun is aimed.

In his first part of this article Mr. O'Connor says, "Athletes are taught that one method to adjust their NPA horizontally is to adjust where their back foot is pointing. ... [But] whether the coach or athlete realizes, this also affects the athlete's balance and stability. Those who understand the dual effect know that they have to work everything out so that they get the desired NPA and the optimal balance."

Bullseye has more to learn than most of us can master in a single session.

Personally, I only seem able to learn one thing at a time, and I have to practice it, make it subconsciously part of my shot plan, and only then can I consider trying to work on something else. But by the time that happens, I've forgotten what I was going to work on next.

But the USA Shooting magazine's arrival in my mailbox is like the X in the middle of the target; it draws me back, again and again, to my goal.

I need that periodic reminder.

Buy a membership and help the US Olympic team but, more personally, help yourself to some of the best coaching that exists.

(Several more excellent articles by JP O'Connor are also available, free of charge, here, courtesy of Pilk Guns, the web pages for Pilkington Competition Equipment.)

Four Rules of Gun Safety Video

2010-05-13T17:18:00.002-07:00

Thanks to Ruger and Gunsite.

Good Enough For Now

2010-05-03T07:24:00.009-07:00

1911 Trigger and Harp with
Trigger Stop Screw Removed

The rules of the Bullseye sport allow considerable latitude in equipment and technique. And there are certain items and practices that improve one's ability to hit the center of the target.

These include for most shooters but not all

Red dot,
Good stance,
Focus (of attention as well as eye) on the dot (or front sight),
and so forth.

But there are exceptions, and good ones, to each of these generalizations.

A great many shooters "way back" before there were red dots were, as a rule, shooting better than many of us today with (or without) a red dot.
I know a couple of High Masters that, when they assume their shooting stance, look so awkward and uncomfortable I can't imagine how they do that for a full 2700, but they do - -and they do it quite well.
Brian Zins, the most winning Bullseye shooter in history, says he focuses not on the front sight, not on the dot, but contrary to a great many others, he says he focuses on the target.

With those exceptions in mind, here's the real point: There are some items and practices that, while helpful, may prove to be temporary "stopping off" points along the path. They are useful for a while but, ultimately, they prove to have their own limits -- they'll only take you so far. Eventually, they become counterproductive and must be discarded lest you become stuck on a plateau.

I'll use some of my experience as an example.

I still consider myself a beginner. In the few years I've been trying to hit the X, I've used and then discarded some things. For example, when my wobble was basically the entire scoring area (5 ring), the practice of consciously squeezing the trigger as the sights neared the center of the target did -- and here's the key word -- temporarily result in an improved score.

For a frustrated Marksman, that's a powerful incentive and, for a while, it works. But that same Markman will also learn, as did I, that as his wobble decreases with practice and time, when he then "jerks" the shot as the sights near the center of the target, the Marksman will discover the resultant jerking motion overpowers his ever-reducing wobble. So, as the Marksman's skill increases, jerking the shot must eventually be abandoned.

It works for a little while but then becomes counterproductive.

Now, contrast that with the technique known by the experts as "steering with the trigger."

Specifically, Masters and High Masters sometimes talk about their ability to fine tune their aim into the deep center of the black by the use of their trigger finger. That is, in the last few fractions of a second before the hammer breaks from the sear and fires the shot, the growing pressure on the trigger is also used to guide the sights into the very center of the target. The combination of steering and increasing pressure is, while admittedly different from what the Marksman does, nonetheless similar in effect: The shot breaks when the sights bear on the center of the target.

I should add that one of these is conscious while the other is automatic. And that is the critical difference.

Regardless, here we have an example of where two similar techniques -- breaking the shot as the sight picture reaches perfection -- where both the beginner and the expert benefit.

But note that in the middle ranks, perhaps through SharpShooter and well into Expert classes, we try to avoid any connection between where the sights bear and when the shot breaks. In the middle ranks, we learn to align the sights on the aiming area and to build pressure on the trigger until the shot breaks without disturbing the sights.

In these skill levels, the goal is the "surprise break".

As we progress, therefore, we find that what helps our shooting and what is detrimental to it, change.

"Change" is the operative word.

What gives us a better score today may, in the coming weeks and months, prove to be a limiting factor in achieving even better scores.

So, while there may be some near-ideals we learn for stance, trigger control, eye focus and so forth, it is also true that not only are these skills time-consuming to learn, but also that, in some cases, we're just not ready to apply them.

And it is also worth noting that only the top echelon in the sport have developed the abilities to do these things all at the same time and that, even for them, they may have found techniques that work just as well for them.

Each of us must, therefore, be constantly learning, integrating, re-examining, discarding and trying something different.

It therefore behooves us non-High Masters to listen, watch, read and experiment, but never to assume that every technique will apply to us now. Some may work for us but only after years of effort, years where we essentially ignore that good advice. We may not be able to execute on that good advice until our skill reaches a certain level.

It's about finding the right combination that works where you are now.

So, yes, you should look for the ideals and try to work them into your shot plan but also be realistic and know that "putting it all together" takes time, a lot of time.

We may have to file away some techniques we are shown. For us, they may be "later."

In the meantime, we need to push a lot of lead downrange, and do that thoughtfully, studiously and repeatedly.

It will come, but the square of Earth on which I place my left foot today is not the same square I will put it on a year from now.

Times change, and so do we.

Go with the flow, but don't be afraid to push against the edges of the channel.

That's where you'll find the breakthroughs.

Brian Zins Nails It

2010-04-20T07:19:00.004-07:00

In case you haven't already found it, Brian Zins has written some excellent words on fundamentals on his website (link below).

What he says about shot process really hit home for my shooting this week when I shot five Xs in a 45 cal. Slow Fire target, and then threw one outside the five ring on the very next target. [Doh!] Consistency is what developing and then always following a good shot process will bring.

See http://www.brianzins.com/category/fundamentals/ for that specific category, or move up to http://www.brianzins.com/ for everything.

Walking Nine Holes

2010-04-18T19:18:00.006-07:00

I've been told that the mental techniques and skills for Bullseye and golf are much alike. And it's certainly true that everyone is asked to hold down the talking and other extraneous noise so the participants in both sports can concentrate on their current "shot".

But what about the exercise -- is shooting a 2700 similar to playing 9 holes?

Well, assuming you are in the middle of the line, if you shoot a 2700 you will walk about the same distance a golfer does playing nine holes, about 2400 as compared to 3000 yards.

Number of shots?

The average duffer will hit the ball about 30 times whereas the Bullseye shooter will fire 27 times plus any alibis.

Are all shots the same?

No. The golfer will hit long drives, chip shots and putts, each of which require significantly different techniques. The Bullseye shooter will do Slow Fire, Timed Fire and Rapid Fire, each of which (I am learning) require significantly different techniques as well.

Of course, there are some big differences between golf and Bullseye.

Greens fees versus match fees.

Number of clubs versus number of guns.

Golf is ideally played in a four-some whereas a big Bullseye competition will have a 40-some.

But even with those differences, one gun club I visited had a "19th hole" in the main building which, on a hot day like today (with a very sunny 95 degree high) sounds, at least on first thought, to be an interesting idea.

A member at that club was quick to point out that shooters were forbidden from the bar before shooting.

But another, overhearing the comment, gave me a quick wink.

As the club was skeet and trap only, I just watched ... from well back.

I came across an interesting quote yesterday; "A golf course is the willful and deliberate misuse of a perfectly good shooting range."

Fore!

Newbie Jim

2010-03-24T19:43:00.004-07:00

Jim

I took a Newbie to the range yesterday. I let Jim shoot my 22, first with iron sights and then with the dot. As might be expected for his first time, he struggled with the irons but did better with the dot.

Moving up, after briefing him on my 1911 wad gun, firing a couple of shots myself and then letting him dry-fire the trigger a few times, I loaded one round for him.

I said, "Don't worry about the wobble. It never goes away. Grip this gun harder than you did the 22 and then just hold the gun so the dot wavers in, around and through the black. And while you're doing that, slowly move the trigger straight back."

There was a long pause as he held the gun on target but it didn't fire.

I added, "That's good, now just move the trigger straight back."

A few moments passed before, finally, "Bang!"

Without looking at the target, he gave me a huge grin.

"How'd I do?" he asked.

Looking in the scope, it was a 9 o'clock X.

I grinned and said, "Take a look."

"Wow," he said, "That's a lucky shot!"

"No," I corrected, "you just did everything right."

And to myself I thought, "Wish I could do that."

Epilog

Many thanks to Tony Brong for "Fundamentals Revisited (Sort Of)". It brought this experience to its proper perspective.

The Newbie, Jim, did the fundamentals correctly so he shot an X.

With good equipment, correctly executed fundamentals will almost always result in a 10 or an X.

High Masters do those fundamentals 97% of the time. Masters do them 95%. Experts execute the fundamentals correctly on 90% of their shots. And Sharpshooters do them 85% of the time.

If you want an X, shoot an X.

Jim did.

Newbies

2010-03-23T08:27:00.016-07:00

Jeff Cooper's Four Rules

All guns are always loaded.
Never let the muzzle cover anything you are not willing to destroy.
Keep your finger off the trigger till your sights are on the target.
Identify your target, and what is behind it.

NRA's Three Rules

ALWAYS keep the gun pointed in a safe direction.
ALWAYS keep your finger off the trigger until ready to shoot.
ALWAYS keep the gun unloaded until ready to use.

I occasionally take non-shooters to the range for their first experience with firearms. Over time, I've tended toward a similar sequence of presenting things but knowing the Bullseye community's safety record, I decided to ask for their input as well. The following procedure benefits from the excellent suggestions of Fred, JC, Chuck, Sheral, Kent and George in the Bullseye-L email community, and from the shooters I meet on the line from whom I've learned many valuable and sometimes life-saving lessons.

Don't let the number of steps in this procedure intimidate you. If you are shooting Bullseye, you probably know and do most of them already. The purpose of writing it down is to help you become conscious of these things so you can help new shooters learn them as well.

Remember, they are expecting you to keep them safe, teach them, and to help them have a fun experience. Note the order of those. It is significant.

And before getting into the steps, let me say that both the Instructor (that's you) and the Range Safety Officer (again, that's you) must continuously monitor the new shooter(s) until having a high degree of confidence that they are following all of the safety rules as well as the recommended handling procedures. That means you cannot do anything else -- your full attention must be on the new shooters at all times. When a problem develops, as you and I know from experience that it will, the new shooters will start looking for you and, as they do, they will turn their body with that loaded gun in their hand. (See Jeff's rule #2 and the NRA's rule #1 -- they're about to violate it!)

With attentive individuals, I find I can usually handle two or three new shooters at one time but no more than that, and then only when they demonstrate they can understand and follow directions.

Finally and most importantly, you must be prepared to tell (command!) them to stop, and to then reach in, take the (loaded!) gun from the newbie, make it safe and then say, "This doesn't seem to be your sport. Please sit down." You must be prepared to do this no matter who the new shooter is. Family, title and physical size are irrelevant if someone can't or won't follow the safety rules.

So, here is the procedure I use. Note that, depending on the available time, we may only get to shoot one or two guns, not the complete set, but it will be in the sequence I've listed here. For young shooters, especially, keep the time to not much more than an hour and a (much) smaller number of different guns.

Before leaving for the range, clothing check. No open shoes (hot brass!). For the ladies, no exposed decoletage (exposed cleavage) -- again, hot brass is the issue.
Safety lecture: Jeff Cooper's four rules and the NRA's three. I have them read all of Jeff's four rules aloud. Then I have them read the NRA's three rules aloud. And then I ask them to compare the two and tell me where they are different, and where they are the same. I then talk about the reasons for each rule, the common violations and what can happen, and then I have them read all the rules out loud again. For the newbie who thinks this is excessive, I add, "I've seen the best shooters in the world violate one or two of these through negligence, but because they were still following the rest, nobody was killed. We follow the rules or we don't shoot." (If a newbie doesn't get serious and understand that this is deadly serious, he doesn't shoot.)
At the range, the general rules thereof. Basically this is more safety-focused information. What is "the firing line" and what does it mean to be "hot" or "safe". (Guns are visibly unloaded and must not be touched for any reason while the line is "safe".)
And more safety: Eye and ear protection.
Gun handling and where to put your trigger finger 99% of the time (Jeff's rule #3). I have a collection of pictures from magazines that show people holding guns with their trigger fingers outside of the trigger guard. This is a new idea to most non-shooters -- keeping their finger off the trigger -- and most newcomers need a lot of reinforcement to get used to this idea.
Where is the direction called "down range" that the muzzle is supposed to be pointed to at all times -- that's NRA safety rule #1 that's not explicitly in Jeff's list of four -- and that's why I teach both sets. (A "safe direction" is not into the concrete nor up through the roof. It is "down range" and into the berm.
What to do if something goes wrong: Freeze! Continue holding the gun and keep it pointed downrange. Wait for the Instructor to look and tell you what to do.
Instructor verifies the line is safe and is accompanied by newbie to post a target, preferably no further than 15 feet. Use a round target, not a man-shape -- you want them thinking about and focused on the gun and what they are doing with their bodies and hands rather than what they are shooting at. (Leave the watermelons at home and save them for lunch or a "plinking" expedition.)
(Line goes hot.)
How to aim iron sights (explaining center, six o'clock and sub-six if appropriate to the gun they will shoot next). Also, what is "Kentucky windage".
Note that, in the following, the newbie is permitted to "dry fire" each gun before trying a live round. (Where appropriate, take dry-firing plugs to facilitate this.)
A 22 caliber revolver is probably the best gun to begin with. It avoids the hot brass issues of automatics. Demonstrate how to load, grip -- and where to put the thumbs, and then aim and fire, and finally unload. Demonstrate double action and then single action shooting. (I don't have a 22 revolver [Oh dear, I need to buy another gun!] so I skip this and start shooters on my Ruger Mk III.)
Ruger Mk III (22 cal.) with iron sights operation (and how *this* gun's sights are set up) and demonstration by Instructor. Note again where the thumbs go and why. (My 22s will make my thumb sore if I put it up behind the slide when firing. Don't ask how I know. But I don't know what the 1911s slide feels like, nor do I plan on finding out!)
Newbie loads one round, readies the weapon, aims (Instructor verifies all steps including that the newbie's trigger finger moves onto the trigger now, not before, and that the thumbs are not directly behind the slide) and fires -- newbie continues holding gun up, moves trigger finger out of the trigger guard and then puts the gun down. Newbie then loads many rounds and so forth. Finally, newbie makes the gun safe (including Empty Chamber Indicator -- ECI).
Anything beyond this point is subject to your judgment and discretion. (Of course, so have all the steps up to this point as well. Remember, they are expecting you to keep them safe, to teach them, and to have fun -- in that order.)
At some point and after the newcomer has shot several rounds, you may want to show them how to clear a jam or otherwise deal with some issue. This is the most likely time they will violate Jeff's Rule #2 (and NRA #1) so BEWARE! Tell them that, before trying to clear a jam or make any adjustment, they must move their feet and body. The gun must stay pointing downrange at all times. (I imagine the muzzle to glued in that direction and I move my body around while I work on a gun to keep it that way.) Demonstrate standing at the line in firing position but then turn before attempting to manually cycle the slide. Keep the muzzle always pointed down range.
Newbie verifies the line is safe then puts up a new target.
Move up to a moderate center fire caliber such as 38 -- but not a snubbie. Save that for after a 45 ACP 1911.
A 1911 "wad" gun (45 ACP) with red dot can be the next experience, similar to above.
Then, let them try a 1911 ball gun (45 ACP) with iron sights. If they fired the wad gun, you can skip most of the demonstration where it is the same but add, "You'll need to hang onto this even more. Grip it hard."
After 1911 ball and if the newbie is interested, then I'll let them shoot a snubbie (38 or 357). Note that because of the tiny grip, I watch their preparation and firing of this gun as attentively as I did the very first one.
Free pistol (single shot 22, extremely light trigger) demonstration followed by newbie starts by dry-firing (typically by accident and sometimes into the bench, and sometimes more than once!) before proceeding to live ammunition.
At this point -- and if they want to shoot more, then I let them shoot whatever they wish. But note that I'm still doing nothing but watching each of them. As the Instructor, you must remain alert for jams and unusual conditions because that is when they are most likely to violate one or more of the safety rules. The operative phrase, yelled very loudly, is "Everybody freeze". Then I can tell them what to do and safely get to the one that needs help.
Time and inclination permitting, you can work in some air pistol shooting at the indoor range but, by this time, you'll have spent half the day at the range. Some will say this is "too much" for a first time experience. You'll need to be sensitive to your guests and not let your zeal overwhelm their stamina or interest.
On the drive home, I go over Jeff's and the NRA's rules one last time but do not point out any violations -- if they happened, they know if and what they were even if you don't. Rather, I want to leave the experience on a positive note.
So I ask which guns they liked best, which ones were the loudest, how did it feel and so on?
Then, let them talk. Just smile and nod your head. Ask the occasional question if the "conversation" falters but let them talk. This time at the range was for them. Let it be that way.
If they are interested, you can describe some of the different shooting sports. I typically mention the action pistol sports such as IPSC and IDPA, the Olympic-style competitions and, of course, my favorite, Bullseye which is, officially, the NRA Conventional Pistol form. You can add that there are many rifle-only sports (small bore, high power and La Palma to name but a few) as well as several sports that shoot multiple types of firearms. In that latter category, I always mention Cowboy Action Shooting (CAS) because it combines not only three guns (hand guns, rifles and shotguns) but also some play-acting -- a word to the wise: they wear "outfits", not "costumes" -- and social events. Understandably, CAS is very popular in the southwest but it shows up around the country and in many non-US locations as well.
Finally, and again if they're so inclined, I'll then invite them to our regular Tuesday evening Nighthawks event. We shoot a Bulleye 900 on the first and third Tuesdays, an International standard pistol 600 on the second and fourth, and an "any gun" L Match (900) on those twice-a-year fifth Tuesdays. I let them know they're free to shoot my guns as much as they wish and, even if I'm not there, they are likely to find someone else who is just as willing to share.

Again, my thanks to Fred, JC, Chuck, Sheral, Kent and George for adding several excellent ideas.

If the newbies have a safe experience, learn about hand guns and have a good time, they'll come back.

You'll have made a convert.

"Keep the line safe!"

270 Down, 90 To Go

2010-03-21T17:48:00.004-07:00

I fired 2437-37X in today's 2700.

That's 90.26% for 270 of the 360 record shots I need to advance to Outdoor Expert.

Yes! I shot the level I was hoping for. Hooray!

As is often the case, my 22 score today (827-14X) was my best of the three 900s I shot today. My score with that gun gave me a 17 point hedge against the 810 score needed in Center Fire and again in 45. And although I did well with those guns -- actually just one gun used twice, my 807-14 Center Fire needed 3 of the hedge-points to reach 810 and my 803-9 in 45 consumed another 7.

But it was enough.

So now, Outdoor Expert is not only within reach, but with 270 of the needed 360 shots officially to be recorded at that level, my finger is touching the desired ring. And in the next match, it could be mine!

The next 2700 in which record shots will be sent to the NRA is almost a month. Between now and then, there's a practice 2700 as well as the weekly Nighthawks. And I need every bit of that practice as today's "skin of my teeth" success shows.

But now I know how to do it.

Just shoot this shot. There are no others.

One shot. That's all. This one.

One Shot 2700

2010-03-21T05:42:00.003-07:00

There's a 2700 today but I'm only going to shoot one shot -- this* one.

____________________
* I.e., the current shot.

Target Scoring Practice #1

2010-03-16T20:10:00.026-07:00

In Bullseye, you will be scoring your neighbor's target, writing that score on both the score card and also the target, and then moving to your target to check the score you were given by your other neighbor.

And in scoring his target and in verifying yours, there is a procedure to follow that makes things easier, or at least it usually makes it so.

Here's the procedure many shooters use.

Ask the shooter what caliber and bullet type he is shooting. This will determine which overlay you will use if in doubt. Also, because "ball" ammunition leaves a smaller hole but is the same size as its "wad" counterpart, you'll need to take that into account as you eyeball the target. (Plugs should only be used by match officials and, once inserted, cannot be removed until the score is agreed upon.)
Determine how many shots are to be counted as fired at the target. Note this is not necessarily how many shots were fired. For example, if the shooter fired an alibi and a total of fourteen shots, you would throw away the four best scores and keep the remaining ten even if some of them were misses. But if the shooter's gun jammed during the alibi string itself and only thirteen shots were fired, you still "count" the shots as fourteen, and throw away the best four. (You don't get an alibi on an alibi string.)
At the target, count the holes to see if you can find all of the shots. If so, you're ready to begin the tally. If not, look carefully at the holes for elongations or overlapping but slightly offset shots. Note that a skidder will be elongated horizontally and that the beginning of the hole will be much narrower than the caliber's diameter. Two shots almost in the same hole, on the other hand, will also be elongated but the roundness at the elongated point will be the same as the bullet's caliber.
Tally the shots starting at the X ring and moving outward. Count the number of Xs and, on the score card, write an X for each of them. Then count the tens, write down that many tens, then the nines and so forth. The score card might look like this: X, X, 10, 10, 10, 9, 9, 7, 7, 7.
Sometimes, however, it will be easier to start at the low end and work your way in toward the center.
And at other times, you may find it easy to score all the holes except one large ragged hole with multiple strikes. By scoring the other holes first, you'll know how many to look for in the ragged hole by carefully examining the edges for each bullet's outline.
And finally, you will sometimes just have to look at that one big hole and decide if any bullets passed through the center of it leaving no mark, or if it is more likely the shooter missed the paper completely. Most scorers will give the shooter the benefit of the doubt if all the holes are near the middle of the target with no flyers. On the other hand, if the target has a couple of wild shots, you may decide it is likely the missing shots are completely off the paper. As the scorer, use your best judgment in making the decision. (A miss is recorded as "M" -- Maggie's drawers -- on the score card.)
With the record shots recorded on the score card, you then compute the score. This is usually done by counting how many points less than 10 each shot gets. For example, if there were two shots in the X ring, five shots in the ten ring, two in the nine ring and one in the eight, that would be 3 points less than 100, or 97. And then count the Xs, in this case 2X. The score card would be: X, X, 10, 10, 10, 10, 10, 9, 9, 8 = 97-2.
And on the target's repair center, write that same score, 97-2.
You can then move to your target, look at the score written on the repair center and tally your own score to see if you agree. If not, ask the scorer to recheck. And if the two of you still disagree, then you can challenge the score -- usually costing a buck or two -- and the match officials will settle the issue.

Here are some targets on which to practice. (The caliber and bullet type are included in each target's caption.) The targets progress from easy to hard. After you've scored all the targets, add a comment to this posting with the individual scores for the six targets along with any comments you might wish to make.

Target #1 *
45 ACP Ball
(Click the image to enlarge)

Target #2
45 ACP Wadcutter
(Click the image to enlarge)

Target #3
45 ACP Ball
(Click the image to enlarge)

Target #4
45 ACP Wadcutter
(Click the image to enlarge)

Target #5
45 ACP Wadcutter
(Click the image to enlarge)

Target #6
45 ACP Wadcutter
(Click the image to enlarge)

____________________

* Note: This image had a 90 degree rotation when first displayed. The image editor I use to crop and resize before uploading, Paint.NET, displayed it correctly so I assumed blogger was doing something. But the evidence of "right" and "wrong" was misleading.

After some research, I discovered that "portrait" versus "landscape" orientations are encoded in the original JPG data by the camera itself. (I'm using a Nikon CoolPix S210 for most of my stills. This issue reportedly happens with some Canon digital cameras as well.)

The image editor (Paint.NET) ignores this information as does blogger. They simply pass it through (ignored and) unchanged. But the browser in which the image is finally displayed apparently uses that information and, hence, displays it accordingly.

Here's what I did to fix it. First, save the image as a PNG (*.png). This will remove the orientation information. You can upload and use that image on blogger.

Additionally, you can then edit the new image (the PNG) and re-save it as a JPG. Because the PNG format does not retain the rotation information, the JPG created from it also won't have that information. When you then upload and display the resultant JPG (or the PNG), the orientation should then be correct.

Memo #1 to Self

2010-03-15T16:02:00.014-07:00

Sunday came with high hopes but that's as far as it went.

The first target told the story: 22 Slow Fire, 84-0.

To make Expert, I needed an average of 90 across all forms and guns. And although things got better and I ended with 824-19 in that caliber, needing an 810 average, that gave me only a 14 point "hedge" against center fire and 45 caliber performance.

My 22 is often better, much better, and I was counting on it to pull up the scores in Center Fire and 45 to the needed 90% average for Expert.

This doesn't look good for the Expert card today.

Changing to the wad gun I shoot in Center Fire, I knew I needed to do better than usual, and probably much better.

My mind was busy calculating scores as I began Center Fire.

And with the second Center Fire, it was over.

Oh my gosh, how could I butcher a target so incredibly bad!

Looking in the scope at the target 50 yards away, I could only see seven holes that were worth anything.

61-0 with two visible misses, and then one completely off the paper.

Ugh!

How could it get so bad?

I shook my head in disgust.

But I knew the answer: Ignore the basics and it goes to hell in a hand basket real fast.

In Bullseye, you just cannot let up. A moment of distraction and, "Bang," into the berm outside of the target.

And that's exactly what happened.

I was thinking about my scores and that Expert card, and didn't think about the shot.

The shot. The one you're doing right now. You've got to stay on that one shot and nothing else.

So there I was standing and looking at that dismal target and knew it was hopeless.

Should I pack up and go?

Go home and dig up the yard?

Or do I want to work through this, figure out what all is going wrong, and get back to where I can shoot most of the middle out of a target again?"

I'm not a quitter. As long as I'm safe to shoot, I'll try to work through it.

So I sighed, had a quick snack of bitter crow in front of the other shooters, and then resigned myself to work my way through, to forge ahead and get back to the basics.

The first Slow Fire of the National Match Course in Center Fire was next.

I thought myself through the shot process.

I will focus on the dot. Then come into the aiming area. I'll start the trigger straight back (feel my trigger finger arching to move it straight back, and then I'll just hold it there, ignore the wobble, focusing on the dot, the dot, the dot and wait until it goes.

First shot. Do the process. "Bang!" That felt pretty good.

Let's do it again.

And again.

After each shot I'd glance in the scope to see if it landed where I called it.

Most did.

But after seeing that one new hole, I went back to the shot process.

After the tenth shot was gone, I reloaded the magazines, clicked the dot down four clicks for the short line (next), set the screw driver on the table with the blade pointed toward me (meaning the sight was now set for the short line), and looked in the scope to tally the score.

91-2

What?

I looked again, counted the holes, and then tallied the score a second time.

A 91-2 in Slow Fire?

I just shot a 91-2 in Slow Fire!

Damn! That's good!! That's real good for me!!!

Wait. What did I do? Why was that different?

I repeated the mantra to myself: Focus on the dot. Come into the aiming area. Start the trigger straight back ... and then just hold it there, ignore the wobble, and wait for the shot to go.

And what did I not do?

I didn't think about getting my Expert card.

I just thought about the next shot.

Timed and Rapid came and went as I worked to focus back on that basic process for each shot. Sometimes it worked, sometimes it didn't, but even in the latter case, all the shots counted -- there were no more misses, not in Center Fire and not later in 45.

With the three misses in Center Fire and the struggle to resurrect "how to shoot a good shot", I ended with 772-12. That's so short of the needed 810 that even that tiny corner of my mind that hoped against hope to still pull victory out of this disaster, even that gave up.

45 Rapid Fire: 94-1

45 caliber was next. Nine targets later, I saw my total: 802-14.

Still short of the needed 810 but, then again, if you look at the progress of a bad 22 performance followed by an utterly dismal Center Fire Slow Fire, and then the return to basics and the scores coming back up, well, that 802-14 actually looked pretty good.

If my 22 had "been there" and my Center Fire and 45 had been up to that same 802 level, I might have had enough for the Expert card.

But there was a much more important lesson here.

Indeed, if I were looking for a prime example of how thinking can mess up shooting, thia was it. I had started the day thinking, "I'm gonna earn my Expert card today," and then became so preoccupied with that thought that I completely destroyed the possibility.

And as soon as I accepted the fact that I couldn't get there and would, instead, go back to the basics and look no farther ahead than the next shot, it all started coming back.

My Expert card will come someday.

It will happen.

But I won't get there by striving for it.

In some sports, you may be able to visualize that gold medal hanging around your neck and use that inspiration to help you get there.

But in Bullseye, your vision can't be any further away than the end of the barrel or that red dot and this next shot.

Focus on this shot.

The Expert card is the mailman's responsibility, not mine.

It'll come with it comes.

Memo to self?

That's easy. It's to focus on the dot, come into the aiming area, start the trigger straight back and then just hold it there, ignore the wobble, and wait for the shot to go.

Anything else is noise.

Striving

2010-03-13T07:51:00.016-07:00

I shoot Bullseye for several reasons. Those who know me can report that, yes, my #1 reason is for the camaraderie; I just plain like the people I meet who are shooting Bullseye.

But that's not the only reason.

A sense of accomplishment is also important.

And with that also needs to be the knowledge that I'm getting better.

Well, the time has come to move up.

The NRA Pistol Rules rank competitors in several categories, among them are Indoor and Outdoor. My current Outdoor classification is Sharpshooter and it is there -- outside -- where I commonly shoot both 22 and 45 caliber guns, the latter having a heavier, and therefore more difficult, trigger.

My Indoor classification has been as an Expert and it is indoors where the 22 is more commonly fired. Indeed, some indoor ranges permit nothing larger. Consequently, shooters tend to do better.

But I'm now ready to move up. Indeed, I both want to get my Outdoor Expert card, and I think my shooting is just about ready as well.

The individual skill-levels are as follows.

Classification	Percent	900	2700
High Master *	97	873	2619
Master	95	855	2565
Expert	90	810	2430
Sharpshooter	85	765	2295
Marksman	less	< 765	< 2295

My goal, the Expert class, needs a 90% mark. That is, I need to shoot an average of 810 points in Registered and Authorized 900s.

But scores are reported to the NRA for an entire competition. And, the NRA tallies "shots fired" as well as the score. In a 2700 I need to shoot at least 2430 as my total for the three 900s (3 * 810), and I need to "keep it up" at that level for at least 360 shots.

Within a competition, I can do better, or worse, on any given 900, as long as the average for the competition comes out at the 90% level.

For the 360 shots, at 10 points per shot, a 900 has 90 shots, and a 2700 has 270 -- not enough. It takes four 900s, or a 2700 plus a 900 or, in my case, it will be two 2700s to accumulate the needed 360 shots.

For some time, my 22 scores have been around 840 to 850. If I shoot at that level outdoor, that will give me a 30-40 point "helper" on CenterFire and 45 scores. (And shooting 840 to 850, you can see that I could, on a good performance at several indoor matches, move up there as well -- but I want to keep my Indoor and Outdoor classifications more or less in-line with each other. So I've been avoiding indoor Registered and Authorized matches for that reason.)

In the most recent outdoor matches, I've done better than expected. That's especially true with my 45 caliber wad gun now that it has the roll trigger -- thank you, Dan Norwood. It feels like I'm pressing on a soft pillow and, rather than needing to "build pressure" to break a shot, I now "keep it flowing".

For the level of my ability at this time, the roll trigger is a real plus.

And tomorrow we shoot the President's Day 2700 at the Phoenix Rod and Gun Club. It is an official event so the scores will be reported to the NRA.

And the following weekend has a second, and also to be reported, 2700.

If I can shoot both 2700s and score 2430 or better in each one, then the record of my most recent 360 (or more) shots will make the grade.

I want an Outdoor Expert classification.

That goal, and the determination to get there, will be driving my focus and attention for the next two Sundays.

Align the sights in the aiming area and then move the trigger straight back without disturbing the sights.

10s and Xs!

____________________

* Note: Above High Master, there are the unofficial 2650 (98.1%) and 2670 (98.8%) clubs. Performance at these levels is truly stunning, especially when you take into account that this is not for one shot, but for a repeated performance over at least 270 individual shots.

Extractor Tip Takes a Hike

2010-03-03T14:03:00.014-07:00

Old / New
(Click to
magnify)

Last Sunday and on the last target of the day, the working end of my wad gun's extractor decided to leave the gun. Amazingly, it landed on the table right in front of me in plain sight. (Why can't little springs do that when accidentally released in the workshop?)

In the picture at the right, the old extractor missing its tip is seen, with the replacement on the right. (The angle at the end of the new tip is a photographic artifact due to lens distortion. It is, in reality, quite square.)

After a quick conference with Don and Bill, I not only had a replacement and a spare extractor, I also had way more information on exactly how to fit it than my brain could remember.

So I nodded politely but knew I'd need a refresher from the web. That's what Google is for, of course.

And although I knew that Bullseye 1911 wad guns are different from stock 1911s, I had assumed the differences were mostly in the area of better quality parts. But, as I was to learn, the parts are only the beginning.

Case in point, the amount of tension by which the shell is held by the extractor is often quite a bit less in a wad gun. I discovered this on the net after reading several otherwise good articles on replacing the extractor, only one of which described a lower force for lesser powered ammunition (e.g., in a wad gun).

Indeed, if you look at the old and new extractors -- click the image on the right to view a much larger version -- there are some fine points to notice.

First, the "bump" nearest the tip is shinier on the old extractor. This is not due to wear, however. Notice in particular how sharp the left and right edges are in that shiny area. That's because that bump has been machined down slightly during the fitting process.

The new extractor (on the right) hasn't had this area fitted and, if installed in the gun "as is", it doesn't quite press sufficiently on the brass. The reason is that the "bump" functions as a stop against the inside of the extractor tunnel and, when a round is loaded, it's supposed to slide up into the notch and the extractor is supposed to be pushed away from the stop.

But the "bump" is too large in the replacement extractor and when a round is loaded, it touches the slot in the extractor but doesn't push it away from the stop. As a result, the new extractor exerts almost no pressure on the shell.

Not good.

The standard fix is to bend the extractor between the middle and end "bumps" but, in this case, the end "bump" is already pressing against the side of the tunnel. More bend won't move it farther out to contact the shell.

What's needed instead, is to remove a small amount of that final "bump".

And that's the shiny area you can see on that "bump" in the broken extractor.

But notice again the new extractor -- it is slightly wider than the old. That means it fits into the round extractor tunnel a little more snugly and, if I take away metal only from the contact spot on the "bump", the area of contact will just move to the sides.

What's needed is a slight reshaping into more of a "U" shape than circular as well as a slight reduction in the height of the "bump".

Tricky!

In the process of figuring this out, and as I studied what I had at first assumed to be a rather simple part, little by little I slowly began to understand the purpose of each little bump, cut, angle and ridge. And while I certainly don't claim to understand all of his design, for what I now know of its intricate functions, I can see, in probably in my own and still very ignorant and small way, that John Browning was a genius.

Closer Look
(Click to magnify)

As of late yesterday, I have a replacement extractor finished, installed and working reliably. It's not perfect and I pity any spectator standing 10' behind and to the right of me where the brass is going, but the gun functions 100% again.

Much remains to be done.

The "bump" nearest the tip needs to be reshaped and ever so slightly reduced as already described.

Then, the slot needs to be polished and the angled step along its left-hand edge smoothed into a graceful ramp.

And the top of the slot needs some more work -- I didn't understand how to cut the top of the slot entry area and this probably accounts for the interesting path my brass now takes when it leaves the gun.

Perhaps the best advice I received from fellow shooters and Bullseye gunsmiths was to buy several extractors, plan on throwing at least one away while I learn, and before stopping make sure I have two that work well, one in the gun and the second with an appropriate label stored in the spare parts bin.

Another piece of advice I received but (also) failed to appreciate is to plan on doing the work at the range. My two new extractors both need followup work and with my meager set of tools at home, that means more trips to the range.

Better would be a portable tool chest and tools to do it all at the range.

At the recent Desert Midwinter Competition, Dan Norwood made use of several tools from his portable box when he put a roll trigger on this same gun.

And his tool box as well as its contents caught my attention. My best guess is that it was a Kennedy 8-Drawer Journeyman #526.

That's a beautiful box but, for my needs, maybe a little over the top.

But even with something from Home Depot, I'm gonna need lots of specialty items. I need files and stones, feeler gauges, some magnifying goggles, probably some dykem marking fluid and ... ...

Where's my Brownells catalog?

Pass Right, Score Left

2010-03-01T20:54:00.011-07:00

Five days, four guns, nine disciplines and over a thousand rounds, that was the Arizona Desert Midwinter competition for 2010.

And I'm pooped!

Tony Brong and myself

Tony!

My good friend from Pennsylvania, Tony Brong, came out for the competition this year. Like many of you, I've been following Tony's blog (click here) for some time. Tony is an accomplished Bullseye competitor and I consider myself lucky to know him as well as benefit from his Expert (soon to be Master) observations.

Our blogging and emailing friendship grew when Tony and I both shot the August 2008 Dutchman 2700 at the Palmyra club when I was in Pennsylvania for two consecutive weeks on business. The weekend "break" with Tony was great although I can't say the same for my shooting.

With Tony returning the visit at this year's Arizona Desert Midwinter event, I can't say much more for my shooting as I had been "on extended hiatus" from shooting for several months due to personal issues, but getting to spend time with Tony again and to introduce him to all the wonderful people I've come to know at the Phoenix club was, well, wonderful.

Don Kling and Tony Brong

More PA in AZ

Don Kling, now an Arizona shooter, originally hails from Tony's club back in Pennsylvania. Although their times at Palmyra didn't overlap, they both knew many of the same club members.

Don calls the matches in Phoenix, both International and Conventional segments. Each has unique requirements. In Conventional, for example, it is not only common practice but typically encouraged for shooters to load their magazines at the end of each string before scoring targets. That way when they come back to the line, the next string can begin without delay.

But in the International disciplines, this is considered a safety violation and is grounds for immediate expulsion.

In International, shooters are forbidden to touch ammunition or firearms until commanded to "Load". They then have sixty seconds to load a magazine or whatever the weapon requires, and no more than what the next string requires -- typically five (5) rounds -- and otherwise make their weapon ready to shoot.

At the end of that sixty seconds, the "Attention" command is announced and shooting ensues about three seconds later.

Well, for Bullseye shooters who are unaccustomed to but otherwise eager to try the International forms, Don patiently explains the difference in rules. He then follows up with an inspection and one-on-one "correction" with anyone who needs a little extra attention.

And don't forget your ECI -- Empty Chamber Indicator -- typically a 8-12" piece of brightly colored weed-wacker (grass trimmer) line that is threaded through a gun's empty chamber and out through the end of the barrel. The NRA (Conventional pistol rule maker) mandates these in every NRA sanctioned event.

But when, during an International segment whose rules don't require ECIs, Don called "Empty Chamber Indicators in place", one of the shooters objected.

"International rules don't require those, Don."

Without missing a beat however, Don replied, "I'm calling the match and I do."

That was that and ECIs were promptly put in place.

Presenting the Case

Scoring Jury

Scoring of a shooter's target for most Bullseye matches other than at the annual championship in Camp Perry is almost always done by the person to the right of each shooter.

At the beginning of a match, each participant is given a blank score card on which they write their name and firing position number.

The command, "Pass right, score left" tells the tale. (The shooter at the extreme right end passes his card to the one at the extreme left, who then has to make the long trek to the other end of the targets each time around. Some ranges will make smaller "loops" where the line is divided in half to save walking distance.)

Immediately after scoring a neighbor's target, each shooter looks at his own target to see his score -- scorers write the score on the target as well as on the scoring sheet -- and to see if he agrees with it.

Late in the Desert Midwinter match, a shooter challenged the scorer's call on a critical shot. The scorer and shooter discussed the matter but could not come to agreement. As per the rules, Don then formed an impartial jury and included several expert and better level shooters including Tony. Tony's participation as an unbiased outsider who knew none of the individuals made him a particularly good choice.

After each of the jurors had carefully examined the target and listened to both the shooter's and the scorer's case, they voted. And both shooter and scorer, after seeing and hearing the honest assessments applied to the case, accepted the outcome with no further argument.

Cara Kraus, Long Skidder
(Click for larger image)

Does It Count?

Some shots, while dramatic, can end up being worthless.

This one, for example, is called a "skidder" and before looking at the possible numerical values, the scorer must consider from which side of the target the shot entered -- did it enter from the front of the target or the rear?

You see, a shot fired on a turning target, if the target has turned away from the shooter, may over-rotate slightly and allow a late shot to hit the backside of the target first.

Shots fired after the target has turned away from the shooter don't count.

But if the shot enters from the front of the target, it is good. The scorer then looks to see what was the lowest valued ring encountered and, if the shot also marked the next higher ring, the shot is scored for the higher ring. If not, then the lower score is entered.

Skidders can also obscure -- destroy would be a better word -- other holes in the target and make scoring unusually challenging for the remaining holes.

How would you score this one?

Dan Norwood

This gentleman is one of the top finishers at this year's competition. He is on the United States National Guard Marksmanship Team.

And he's a gunsmith.

Bill Weldon, one of the regulars at the Phoenix Rod and Gun Club knew Dan's abilities and when I asked Bill to recommend a gunsmith to put a roll trigger on my wad gun, Bill suggested I ask Dan.

I did.

And he did.

In ten minutes using the extensive collection of tools he carries with him to competitions, Dan disassembled my 1911, measured and then dressed the parts, adjusted the three tongues of the flat spring and, voila, I now have a roll trigger. (Dan would later help Tony with his centerfire gun.)

Winners and Losers

In the end there are those who received awards and rightly celebrate their win.

And there are those who didn't receive anything and perhaps some of them felt they lost.

I shot better than expected in some events, worse in others. In that respect, you could say I won some and lost some.

But a week later, I couldn't tell you my scores.

You see, I've become pretty good at filtering what is important from what is not. I remember the faces you see above, the kind acts, the sincerity. I remember the smiles, the laughs, the jests and the good-natured ribbing. I remember the people.

So, I shoot Bullseye for the people.

Tony is one of them. So are Don and Cara and Dan and the shooter who challenged the scoring of his target.

Next time you stand at the line, look at the person to your left and then the person to your right. They're gonna be good people, honest people, sincere people.

Pass right, score left.

You won't lose.

Five Years

2010-02-13T09:47:00.015-07:00

Me (floral shirt) in 2005

In this month of 2005, I competed in my first Bullseye competition.

Next week, I will again compete at that same annual event, the Phoenix Rod and Gun Club's Desert Midwinter competition.

This is the big event of the year for the southwest. Shooters will come from dozens of locations all over North America to compete. Some will drive and camp out while others fly in and stay at area hotels.

Tony Brong, a good friend I've made through this sport, is flying in from Pennsylvania for the event and will be staying at our home. Tony shipped his ammunition and empty gun box a few days earlier via UPS whereas his guns will fly with him, securely locked in baggage of course -- er, the guns, not Tony.

Also competing will be the top finishers from the annual US Championship in Camp Perry Ohio, and several teams from both the US Army and Marine Corps.

I haven't seen the roster but last year nearly 80 shooters, ranked from beginning Marksman through Master and High Master ratings, will stand side-by-side and shoot their targets at 50 and 25 yards.

In what other sport would you get to compete with the likes of Tiger Wood, Yogi Berra or Wilt Chamberlain?

And yet that's exactly what happens in Bullseye.

"Hi guys, good to see you again!"

Events begin Wednesday with the International shooting forms, the same as fired in the Summer Olympics. This includes Free Pistol with some of the strangest-looking handguns I've ever seen, Rapid Fire (five shots in four seconds at four different targets!), Standard Pistol and Air Pistol.

Thursday will see the final International event, Center Fire, and the beginning of the Conventional Pistol (a.k.a. Bullseye) competition with a Service Pistol 900, so-called because there are 90 shots fired worth a maximum of 10 points each.

Friday, Saturday and Sunday have the 22 caliber, Center Fire (32 caliber and larger), and 45 caliber events, both individual and team. Ending the competition is the Civilian Marksmanship Program (CMP) sponsored Excellence In Competition (EIC) event where the top finishers win "leg points" toward the much sought-after "Distinguished Pistol" award. (Tony earned this high-honor last year!)

And as much as I will enjoy the competition -- I'm taking a week of vacation so I won't have to miss a single second -- I look forward even more to renewing the friendships I've made around the United States on my business travels where I was able to "work in" a local competition at clubs in nearly a dozen states.

And without question, I'll be making new friends every day next week as well.

This week when they call, "Shooters to the line," I'll be stepping up.

10s and Xs!

Indefinite Hiatus

2009-09-20T14:47:00.010-07:00

Click for original
(Not my artwork)

I'm on an extended break from Bullseye. [Not any more. See below.]

And before you ask, no, I didn't shoot myself.

Rather, professional as well as personal matters are taking so much time that I've had to, reluctantly, put the guns away for a while.

And in case you're not already following Tony's Bullseye Blog, you might want to check it out. Tony's a champ!

10s and Xs, everyone!

February 2010 Update: The break is over. I'm back to Bullseye and blogging after a five month hiatus.

9/11 and Other Contributions to Maturity

2009-09-14T07:04:00.008-07:00

No doubt you remember where you were and what you were doing when you first heard of the 9/11/2001 attacks.

I was teaching the first day of an on-site class at the large Motorola plant in Austin Texas. We stopped class to go and watch television coverage in the company cafeteria. Hours later, with horror heaped upon horror, class that day was abandoned. We reconvened the next day but, for the remaining three days, I doubt anyone learned anything other than "we are vulnerable." At the finish of class, I called Avis and said I would be driving their rental car back home to Phoenix instead of flying. They said there would be no charge for the extra days and no drop-off fee.

Four years earlier, my father had passed away peacefully. In the follow-on paperwork, our stepmother's Arkansas attorney announced that my father had placed his entire estate in "Joint Custody" with her and that, when he died, it all passed to her. His Last Will and Testament was essentially null and void as it had no assets on which to operate. Several attorneys later we were forced to give up, my father's final wishes frustrated and come to naught.

Life is, among many things, a process of maturing, of coming to grips with reality.

On the one hand, I thank my parents and extended family for the sheltering and protection they provided. Unlike so many in this world, I had an idyllic childhood.

And I am grateful for the extended grace I've experienced in my adult life with the mercifully slow pace of "wake up calls" to the brutal reality of just what human beings are capable of doing.

And it is these latter "contributions" to my maturity that I hereby acknowledge.

Life is not about what happens but rather about what you make of it, what you make of those events, how you respond and what you choose to do because of them.

Life is action, doing and making.

Last week I was teaching a class near the NSA in Maryland. The students were identified only as "DOD", nothing else. They were mostly young in their late 20s and, on 9/11/2009 the first day of class at 8:46AM EDT, I announced that I would be observing a minute of silence for those killed in and as a result of the terrorist attack eight years ago.

Later, we talked about hobbies and I mentioned that I liked to shoot Bullseye. There was another shooter in the class who used bow and arrow at 30, 60 and 90 meters. He and I had much to share about our respective Shot Plans and the role of body versus mind in each release at the firing line.

But for the minute of silence and, later, as each in the class described their individual hobbies, I could recognize their still mostly virginal 20-something naivete.

In time, that will pass, hopefully with gentle mercies but, nonetheless, if they live long enough the innocence will pass.

I've been blessed in this life by never having to shoot anything other than paper targets. I am blessed by the Lord and by the country in which I live.

Flying home this past Saturday, several groups of World War II veterans were passing through the Baltimore-Washington airport (BWI) on their way to and from the wonderful WW-II memorial on the Washington DC mall. It is, fittingly, a large memorial.

At the airport that Saturday morning, contingents of active duty military were on-hand from each branch to welcome the veterans as they disembarked from various commercial flights.

One group began cheering as the first veteran, wheelchair bound, rolled off the ramp and into the gate area. And for the full ten minutes as that one airplane emptied and more veterans appeared, the applause, whistles and cheers continued without pause. Indeed, word had passed from gate to gate about the welcomes taking place in the airport and many applauded even though they could not see the arriving veterans. And throughout the B concourse, all conversations were soon abandoned as each of us were reminded of the awesome debt we owe.

Some cried in their remembrances. Others did so in their realizations of what these veterans had secured for us.

To all those who have served and who are now serving our country, our future and the world in which my children and grandchildren will mature, I give you my most humble of salutes.

And for those in defense-related industries I have taught and for those I will teach in the future, I pray for the strength and wherewithal to give them my very best.

For they serve the future.

Bullseye Video Tip: Odds and Ends Shopping

2009-08-30T17:24:00.002-07:00

Bullseye Video Tip: Sounding Out the Brass

2009-08-23T17:35:00.003-07:00

Now That's A Picture!

2009-08-23T06:04:00.005-07:00

Poll Results: Why Do You Shoot Bullseye?

2009-08-21T08:59:00.019-07:00

Poll Results

In ranked order,

I enjoy the camaraderie. (18)
I need the distraction it provides. (14)
I get a thrill from the Bang! (10)
I like to win, tied with I like being out of the house. (8)
I like helping others shoot better. (7)
I like being needed to help out, tied with It's good exercise. (4)
I don't honestly know. (3)
My boss/spouse isn't there. (2)
Habit, tied with I need the sun, and Other. (1)

Although the sampled number of shooters was small (23), I think most will agree the results are in-line with what they experience at the range.

The top voted reason, "I enjoy the camaraderie", suggests Bullseye is more about socializing than anything else. Eighteen (18) of the twenty-three (23) respondents said this was one of the reasons they shoot Bullseye. As the bar-chart indicates, that's 78% of those who responded, better than 3 out of 4.

And the #2 reason the poll's participants shoot Bullseye, "I need the distraction it provides," is also about something other than shooting. It is about improving mental health and emotional temperament.

Only when we get to #3, "I get a thrill from the Bang", do we have a gun-related reason. And with only 43% indicating this as a reason they shoot Bullseye, the thrill of the "Bang" is important to less than half.

Winning came in a poor fourth. Then again, even with the different classes of shooters in the NRA ranking system, there just are that many "winners" in any given match. Perhaps we have grown immune to not winning? But far more likely, and as this poll suggests, "winning" just isn't that important.

Recommendation: If you organize Bullseye matches, socializing should be actively worked into your program, not just left to chance.

At Camp Perry where many camp out, enjoy shared picnics and have ad hoc get togethers during the week-long event, socializing is a significant activity.

And the organizers at the Palmyra Sportsman's Association (blogged here) know this. I shot a 2700 there just about a year ago and, along with registering the shooters before the beginning of the 2700, the organizers also handed out the menu from a local sandwich takeout. I marked my order, included my name and turned it in. We then proceeded to shoot 22 and Center Fire and, when lunch time arrived, our lunch bags were ready. Each person paid for their lunch and then everyone sat down at picnic tables to eat. We talked about the matches, guns, the weather, different places we knew -- and unexpectedly, I even got to renew an acquaintance from more than a decade ago. I couldn't tell you any of my scores from that 2700 nor even if I did well or poor, but I do remember the faces and personalities of those sitting at the lunch tables.

Socializing is the #1 reason we shoot Bullseye.

Air Travel, Guns Checked in Baggage, Another Perspective

2009-08-19T06:31:00.003-07:00

Bullseye Video Tip: Subscribing to Bullseye-L

2009-08-15T14:08:00.003-07:00

Attentional Spotlight

2009-08-12T11:21:00.005-07:00

I'm reading a non-Bullseye book that has, nonetheless, a lot to say about how we succeed or fail at many aspects that directly contribute to our performance at the firing line.

The book is "brain rules" (yes, the title is in lower case) by John Medina, a molecular biologist with a lifelong interest in how the brain works.

Here's a brief video by the author on one of the aspects he writes about that is directly applicable to what we [try to] do at the firing line.

The Evolving Shot Plan

2009-08-11T07:01:00.004-07:00

A shot plan is the sequence of steps, physical and mental, that you go through when shooting.

Top shooters use their shot plan to gain consistency of performance; if they follow the exact same steps for each shot, they will get the same results for each shot.

Of course, that begs the question of what's in a successful shot plan?

But there's no simple answer because, over time, the shot plan changes.

Well, that's not quite correct because it doesn't, but it does.

Confusing?

Bear with me a moment.

The shot plan changes for two reasons one of which is experienced by the beginner and the other by the expert.

Beginner's shot plans change because, to be blunt, at this stage we don't know what we're doing. We haven't (yet) figured out what will work for us.

Beginners have to find these things out the hard way. And because we're all built differently, each person has to figure out his own "best solution".

For example, I'm right-handed but left-eye dominant. About 25% of the general population works that way.

In Bullseye, someone who shoots this way is said to be "cross-dominant" or to shoot "cross-eyed".

To line things up, I should rotate myself (body, head and wrist) to align the sights with each other and to my left eye.

But my body has a problem.

When I was eight or nine, I had a neck injury that prevents turning my head as far as most people can. So if I try to use the "correct" cross-eyed position, my neck hurts. It's tolerable for a couple of shots but not for an entire 2700.

So I shoot "righty-righty".

My shot plan, therefore, includes aligning the sights to my right eye. And because that's not my dominant eye, I wear a blinder over my left eye. Even so, I have to work extra hard at staying mentally focused; staying alert to that eye takes effort. Left to its own, my mind will ignore it and start thinking about other things. In Bullseye, "thinking" is bad so I have to work to keep my mind focused on what the right eye sees.

Years ago "In the beginning," my shot plan had me try lefty-righty (ouch that hurts), lefty-lefty (look out!) and finally righty-righty with a blinder before I found the "least bad" solution. That is, I had to go through several experimental stages while I worked out what to do with my body and equipment to perform a successful shot.

During that period, my shot plan changed because I would try something, that would force something else to change (and be written down) which would change something else, and so on.

And if I ultimately decided "this isn't working," I'd have to throw out a whole series of steps and begin again.

This period when we're working out the most basic of details can be very frustrating. Each choice leads to more choices but when you decide the first domino in the line is wrong, you have to remove and re-stack a lot of dominoes.

Trial and error.

Eventually -- for me it's been years -- we work out most of the basic steps.

That's when we start seeing, as I do, that our shot plan is still changing but in a different way: It's getting shorter and shorter.

You see, for the most part I have internalized "Ed's Meticulously Worked Out Shot Plan" and, if you'll pardon the analogy, I know the yellow brick road. If I stick to it, I know I'll get to Oz.

My body has learned what to do and what step comes next. (Of course, knowing and doing are two different things, but that's another essay.)

Today, I pretty much "know" my shot plan. It is largely internalized.

When "shooters to the line" is called, I "start the dance" and it all pretty much just happens on automatic.

I step up to my firing point and verify that my two magazines are loaded and sitting where my left hand can reach them.
I eyeball the location of the brass catcher and the spotting scope, and then move to position myself equally distant from both. In that position, brass will [mostly] land in the net and I can see through the spotting scope just by turning my face.
My feet and body go to a 90 degree stance and I look down at my feet to make them parallel with each other. I've heard this called the "Russian position" and, of all the stances I've tried, this one seems to work best for me.
I can then lean over, pick up the gun while keeping it pointed down range and verify the slide is locked back -- I have to twist my body a bit to make all this work.
When the "Load!" command is given, I ready the gun. The written-out shot plan might say, insert one magazine pressing the release button as it rides over it, press the trigger, hold the hammer with right thumb and release the slide lock with left thumb, move left thumb in front of hammer, release hammer from other thumb, release trigger, remove thumb [if hammer didn't drop], re-square my shoulders with my body, hook left thumb in belt where appendix used to be (on right front side) to take stress off left back muscles, start the first of three deep breaths, relax my shoulders, feel my body "settle in", lean slightly toward the target, get a little bit angry which tightens my grip and focuses my attention to the end of my hand and the gun, ...

Let me interrupt.

You can probably start to see why my shot plan has to become internalized: If completely written out, it would be ridiculously long and impossible to read/do at the firing line.

It has to happen from memory, but not from "head memory". There's another kind of memory that's needed for this.

It has to be body/movement memory, not word memory. I don't "talk" the steps. I just do them. I know step one and what follows it and what follows that.

I don't think.

I just "do".

So let me recap.

In the beginning, and because each of us is slightly different, each of our shot plans will also be different. We each have to work out our own set of details.

Viewing that process over time, each of the individual steps may have been written down at one point but they were then practiced and, once learned, they were summarized into one or two words and the beginner's attention then moved on to other parts of the shot plan needing work.

The beginner's plan was starting to evolve into the expert's plan.

As each part was detailed, it too became just one or two words. And the sequence of three or four steps each containing one or two words were, in time, summarized into one step of one or two words.

Ultimately, the "shot plan" becomes short, really short.

Several years after starting this, I can see what my shot plan will become.

Mine will soon become a single word.

It will be, "Flow."

And even on a bad day, I can remember that.

"Flow."

I'm a computer geek by profession and, of late, a teacher of other computer geeks. My job requires me to think and analyze all the time, not just computers but also students trying to learn to program computers, and not just any computers but those doing complicated and dangerous things such as flying airplanes.

So perhaps that's why I enjoy ... no, why I need Bullseye. To be successful at it, I have to do something completely differrent, I have to "not think."

Instead of thinking, I have to

"Flow."

There's an excellent article on this in Shooting Sports USA magazine. You can find it at Page 16 in July 01, 2009 issue of Shooting Sports USA.

And looking over at what Tony has written recently, I see this same idea there as well.

And a long time from now, that one word shot plan will become shorter.

Eventually it will become a single letter.

X

That's the ultimate shot plan. Everything happens on auto-pilot. Our body knows what to do each step of the way. All we need is that single letter to start the process.

X

And then

X

And again,

X

Staphylococcus Interruptus Redux

2009-08-05T13:36:00.002-07:00

I'm mending well according to all the MDs seen today, 10 days after my ER visit. The orthopedic surgeon removed the stitches and said to "keep it clean" but to otherwise go on with things. And the infection MD moved me from the IV administered heavy-duty bug killer to a pill which should be sufficient from here on -- the RN will come by the house tomorrow and remove the PICC line.

Also, I have one more appointment today, with my regular MD, but expect mostly to be bringing him up to date so he can pick up the reins from here.

That's the good news.

But all this comes with the revelation that, even though I thought I had "good medical insurance" that provided 100% coverage for emergencies, and even though I was diligent in selecting an ER that was "in the [insurer-approved] list", I'm still going to be getting bills the insurance won't cover, or at least not at the billed amount.

Apparently "100%" isn't 100%.

Here's how it works. The hospital has an agreement with my insurance to bill only at the "reasonable and customary rate". And that's what they do. The room, the medications from the hospital pharmacy, the surgical theater and all that are billed at this approved rate and, because it was an emergency, my plan gives me 100% coverage. The insurance pays 100% of the hospital's fees.

Now, enter the physicians.

They are contracted -- sub-contracted actually from the insurance company's perspective -- by the hospital. Their [sub-]contract does not require their adherence to the insurance-approved rates. The physicians, if they so choose, may charge whatever they wish for their services.

True, my insurance pays 100% -- and here's the got'cha -- of the "reasonable and customary rate" to the service providers who are "in the network". But these sub-contracted physicians charge more, sometimes quite a bit more. And worse, the unknowing [OK, I'll say it, the ignorant] patient [me] didn't know to challenge each and every physician to see if they take my insurance.

So imagine, if you will, the unconscious patient wheeled in to the ER -- with good insurance, mind you. At the presumably good judgment of the hospital and attending physicians, they can, without ever waking up, run up considerable debt which is only covered in part by their insurance.

Same for the fully-awake but otherwise ignorant patient.

To the case at hand, my insurance plan from Blue Cross Blue Shield of California states that I'm 100% covered for emergency care.

But that's only for the care I receive that is covered by agreements between health providers and the insurance company. Going to an in-network facility only guarantees me that the services of that facility are covered. Sub-contracted providers such as the physicians are not bound by that agreement. They can charge whatever they wish.

The bottom line is, if you get sick and need emergency treatment, it's gonna cost you something, maybe a lot or maybe a little. Don't believe the insurance company's "100% claim". What it costs you will depend on who's on call when you get there, and who's on call when they, or one of the sub-contractors, decide you need some other sub-contracted specialist.

The "old boy" physician network is, surprise, alive and well.

Today, the medical and the insurance industries are one-up'ing each other in this tit-for-tat game. And it is the lowly consumer, you and me, that are ultimately footing the bill.

BEWARE: As negative as I've made this sound, please do understand it'll be worse with Obama's plan. Wait times will go up as providers are paid less but more and more seek attention. Instead of "playing it safe", future providers may take a "wait and see" approach before prescribing (note the prefix "pre" in that word) antibiotics.

In the current system, I *did* get immediate attention -- virtually no wait whatsoever -- in the ER.

And in the current system, I *did* receive the needed surgery by the "on call" specialist appropriate to my needs (an orthopedic surgeon). Surgery took place within a couple of hours of my walking through the ER door and saying, "I've got this funny bump on my finger that keeps coming back. Do you have someone that could take a look at it?"

And when the culture from that surgery said "Staph infection, could be MRSA", I did get the appropriate medication including a PICC line, a ticket home, medicines delivered to the door and an RN who has made three visits (with one more to go) to my home.

I'm on the mend with no complications (knock on wood).

I did receive top-notch care, thank you very much.

But when the insurance says "100%", don't you believe it.

I don't like being the pawn.

Back to Bullseye -- I'll be in the backyard tomorrow morning throwing pellets 10 Meters. The range opens at 6:00AM.

10s and Xs!

Own a Piece of History

2009-08-01T06:56:00.014-07:00

For Sale: $374,900
John Browning Mansion
505 27th St, Ogden, Utah

Opposite View
via "Street View" in Google Earth

My X Count

2009-08-01T06:47:00.002-07:00

Staphylococcus Interruptus

2009-07-29T17:14:00.007-07:00

After packing the wife off for a family visit this past Saturday, I decided to give myself a visit to the Emergency Room.

You see, I've had this recurrent bump on my left pinkie that goes away just after making a doctor's appointment. I guess it overhears the phone conversation and goes back into hiding. So, this time, I said nothing and quietly took it to the ER.

To make a long story short, the hand surgeon sliced into it Saturday evening, said it was a "Mucous Cyst" (yuch!) but sent off what he removed to be cultured. Two days later the infection specialist reviewed what showed up and said, "Oh Shit!"

They released me from the hospital Monday afternoon with a "PICC line" in my left arm and a visit from a home RN coupled with a delivery of two weeks of Vancomycin scheduled for that same evening.

For the next fourteen days I self-administer the IV antibiotic twice a day via the PICC line to kill off the nasty bug. If all goes well, they won't chop off the little finger (or worse) from my non-shooting hand.

Zounds!

So, that coupled with the record highs (113 degrees Farenheit, 45 Celsius) in the Phoenix weather, I'm taking a break from all shooting including the early morning air pistol. When the heat abates and the body parts stop threatening to leave, I'll pick up the guns.

Bullseye remains my primary non-work interest even though some PSK31 ham radio equipment did catch my attention today -- I'm WB7UTR on the air by the way.

So keep checking back here -- there will be new postings coming out from time to time on Bullseye.

And if you're out there on the line, shoot a couple of Xs for me!

Slow Fire Trigger Time Poll Result

2009-07-29T15:19:00.006-07:00

Poll (ended July 25, 2009):

Data point: John Zurek, a High Master and 2012 Olympic team hopeful, holds in the 30+ second range. John placed fifth at this year's Camp Perry Championship.

Broad generalization: A shooter's ranking can be estimated from his Slow Fire hold time; longer holds suggest higher rankings.

But this does not necessarily mean that a longer hold will improve your score. Instead, it may simply indicate that accomplished shooters are able to hold longer (and wait more patiently) for that optimum alignment with a minimum of wobble.

Ergo: Upper-body strength coupled with fine motor control is paramount in this sport.

Camp Perry 2009: National Championship

2009-07-18T10:48:00.007-07:00

Jim Henderson (on left), National Champion for 2009
Lowly Ed Skinner (on right), dreaming of Perry in 2010
Photographed February 2009
Not seen: Steve Reiter (who didn't "jerk" the shutter)
(Click for significantly larger image)

For those who've followed the developing scores over the past several days, it's been an exciting competition.

The big question has been will Brian Zins be able to capture the national championship for the tenth time or will it go to someone else this year?

And the results are in; the winner is Jim Henderson with 2646-141 followed by Philip Hemphill at 2642-129 and Brian Zins in third with 2637-131.

You should note that the difference is a mere 9 points. In the 2700, a total of 27 targets were filled with 10 shots each. Of those 270 shots, if a mere 3.3% of them had been pulled inward for one more point, Brian would have won.

Now that's close!

Also in the top finishers is an Arizona shooter and friend, John Zurek, at 2624-112. John takes 5th place in the national championship. Way to go, John!

John's performance in the Rapid Fire match today was 199-12 placing him just behind another Arizona shooter, Steve Reiter, at 199-13, for 3rd and 2nd places, respectively, in that match. John's score equaled that of Jim Henderson, by the way, and out X'd Brian Zins' score of 199-11.

And Steve Reiter took #20 in the national ranking. (The first targets I ever scored in competition were Steve's. Finding the edges of ten rounds in that one large hole at the center of some of his targets can be a real challenge.)

Somewhat farther down but still on the first page of finishers for the national championship is another Arizonan, Robert "Bob" Throne, with 2559-89. Bob was competing in the Master class at Perry but when I shot against him earlier this year, he was a lowly Sharpshooter. Yes, you can move up that ladder really fast when your shooting merits the rewards.

A recent Arizona adoptee, Tony Silva, also finished on the first page of the national rankings with 2547-84.

Several other Arizonans competed this year and won leg points, individual matches within their classifications and, undoubtedly, just had an all around great time.

Speaking as an outsider watching from the side lines, everyone who competed sure made for a great time even from this distance.

And if watching from home can be this much fun, I can barely contain my excitement at how much more it must be to be there in person.

My pledge for 2010 is to hear, first hand,

"Welcome to Camp Perry. Shooters to the line!"

Camp Perry 2009: 45 Championship

2009-07-18T10:39:00.002-07:00

Brian Zins eked out his win of the 45 championship.

Indeed, looking only at the Slow Fire scores, it looked pretty bad. Brian was in fifth place, four points down from the top score in that match.

We can't know what was going through Brian's head at that point. All we can see is that, when he fired the National Match Course, he fired an amazing 294-12 for second place in that match.

From there on, he was on a roll firing 200-19 in Timed and then 199-11 in Rapid.

And the combination was enough for the win of the 45 championship!

Camp Perry 2009: Center Fire Results

2009-07-17T13:55:00.008-07:00

Do you see it?

Look at the top eight scores from today's Center Fire championship:

**Center Fire, Top Scorers**
Henderson, James	878-41
Hemphill, Philip	876-38
Wiesehan, Donald	872-25
Park, Robert	870-34
Zurek, John	868-37
Johnson, Christopher	868-35
Clark, Larry	868-33
Zins, Brian	868-24

The first four finishers each improve upon their nearest competitor by two points whereas #5 through #8 all have the same point total, 868. Combined with yesterday's 22 totals, that puts just about every shooter in this list within shooting distance, no pun intended, of #1 in the overall 2700 aggregate. While it's true they will need to do some amazing shooting tomorrow with their 45s -- and mostly in the Slow Fire targets at the beginning, we also know it can be done, and Camp Perry is where it happens.

The weather forecast is partly cloudy but dry in the morning favoring those that shoot first, but with chances of showers in the afternoon and increasing winds. The third group of shooters will probably be challenged by the weather.

But the highest classes shoot in slot #2 tomorrow, the time frame in which the weather could go either way.

The weather is the wild card and those who are able to make the most of what comes will be the winners.

"It ain't over till it's over."-- Yogi Berra

Slow Fire Score versus Final Score

2009-07-17T10:10:00.010-07:00

Does your Slow Fire ranking predict your overall ranking on that same gun?

I decided to find out.

But there's an important disclaimer we need to acknowledge. Samuel Clemens said it best with,

There are three kinds of lies: lies, damned lies and statistics.

With that in mind, it has been said that more points are lost in Slow Fire than anywhere else. Yesterday's 22 results certainly bear that out when you look at the Timed and Rapid Fire matches where most of the top competitors cleaned (scored 100 points) on one or both targets in each of those matches.

Restated, Timed and Rapid Fire add more or less constant numbers to each shooter's total. And for the top shooters, they all get about the same constant, 199 or 200.

This means that the 22 competition is pretty much won or lost in Slow Fire. That is, if you win the Slow Fire competition, you have a very good chance of winning the entire competition on that same gun. And if you do poorly in Slow Fire, you will place about the same in the overall competition with that gun.

In other words, it would appear that one could look at the rankings in Slow Fire and, from that, predict the overall rankings.

Using yesterday's scores from Camp Perry, I did a little spreadsheet hacking and found this to be generally true, but only as a general guideline.

Specifically, the top six ranked shooters in yesterday's 22 Slow Fire competition all placed within the top eight for that overall competition.

But when I take in a larger span, say the top twenty (20) Slow Fire shooters, things splay out a bit more or, in other words, the larger the sample, the less this predictability seems to work.

To an individual shooter, it means if you shoot well in Slow Fire, you will probably finish in about that same ranking overall. But if you shoot poorly, you can still "come from behind" as it were and move yourself well up in the finishing.

For example, Philip Hemphill (scores below) fired a 190-4 in 22 Slow Fire yesterday, a full six points behind the leader. But he ended up #2 in the overall competition on that pistol by equaling the scores of the top shooters who, amongst themselves, varied their standings in each of the other contributing matches. Philip's consistent performance bettered the sometimes superior but variable performance of his peers.

**22 Competition, Top Competitors**
Competitor	Slow Fire	NMC	Timed Fire	Rapid Fire	Total
Henderson, James	194.010	298.020	199.015	199.013	890.058
Hemphill, Philip	190.004	298.017	200.016	200.010	888.047
Park, Robert	194.008	296.011	198.011	200.013	888.043
Zins, Brian	193.004	294.021	200.017	200.015	887.057
Zurek, John	195.005	295.013	200.016	197.008	887.042
Steinbrecher, Ron	194.007	296.016	199.013	197.012	886.048
Jones, Christopher	196.008	290.008	200.012	200.009	886.037
Ennis, John	195.003	293.014	199.011	197.012	884.040

In other words, if you have a bad Slow Fire, don't despair. As Philip Hemphill demonstrated yesterday, in Bullseye you can snatch a damn good showing, #2 overall, from the jaws of defeat!

So, forget that last shot and focus on the dot!

Camp Perry 2009: Center Fire Day

2009-07-17T08:51:00.003-07:00

The squads have been rotated and Center Fire has begun. Some of the Slow Fire scores are posted - see http://www.nrahq.org/compete/champ3.asp and click the match of interest -- Center Fire includes #139-142 for the individual matches and then #102 for the Center Fire championship.

Yesterday, conditions were close to ideal for the first relay but, as the day wore on, the wind picked up and became a significant challenge to the last relay. Since this is common at Camp Perry, the relays are rotated each day; those in yesterday's first squad will, today, shoot last. If the wind pulls the same trick today, the Masters will suffer the most.

And with the best shooters going last today, that also means the intermediate results posted earlier will better reveal some of the lower level competitions but make prediction of the final results much harder.

So today, I'll wait until all the results are in and then post a commentary late in the day.

Otherwise it's "run errands" day here in Phoenix where the high is forecast at 111 - and where we live, probably another 5 degrees with the heat island effect. Short stops are a no-no as the car tends to vapor-lock unless we can find shade in which to park.

The Camp Perry forecast, on the other hand, is scattered rain and 72 degrees.

Wish I were there.

Regardless, 10s and Xs everyone!

Quote: "It was really, really windy"

2009-07-16T17:47:00.003-07:00

Report just in, "... it was really, really windy."

Apparently the wind picked up substantially in later relays and wreaked havoc with scores today. This is a significant "wild card" at Perry and could make for incredibly interesting standings.

Camp Perry 2009: 22 Day Recap

2009-07-16T16:44:00.003-07:00

Looking back at the scores now with all three relays reported, things look a little different.

For example, after the first relay's Slow Fire, John Zurek was in the lead with 195-5X. But Christopher Jones, firing in a different relay scored 196-8X bumping John down to the #2 spot in the 22 Slow Fire match.

In the NMC, when I first looked only one relay was reported. That tabulation has everyone now but the results are the same: Jim Henderson took first with 298-20X and Philip Hemphill with the same number of points but three fewer Xs (298-17X).

In the Timed Fire match, there were several more 199s but no additional double-cleans.

There was no substantial change in the Rapid Fire tallies once all the relays had been reported.

Of course, it's worth noting here that we don't know the order in which the scores are being entered and made available. It appeared that one relay at a time was being reported but it's also possible that the scores were only made available on the web after all the results were in but the scores were being entered from the highest to the lowest.

But this doesn't change the fact that the best Bullseye shooters in the country are competing in near perfect weather conditions. We truly are watching the "best of the best" this week.

The numbers from today's 22 Championship are still unofficial -- as of this writing, they're not shown in green on the NRA site -- but, even so, some interesting observations can still be made.

It appears that Jim Henderson has won with 890-58X and, somewhat like yesterday, he did it by a couple of points, two as compared to yesterday's six but, nonetheless, at this end of the range of scores, and this close to the perfect 900 score, to win by more than one is astonishing. To say that Jim is "hot" is an understatement.

Brian Zins who is looking for win #10 overall came up three points short today. Getting those three points back is possible over the next two days but he's going to have to earn them. At this level in the game, it's much more about the mistakes you don't make rather than the good things that you do.

And snapping at Brian's heels is John Zurek with the same score but fewer Xs.

And both Brian and John will have to hope that Jim, Philip Hemphill and Robert Park succumb to small errors over the next two days.

And Ron Steinbrecher and Chris Jones as well as a dozen other shooters are all doing their best and giving everyone at the top end cause for concern and renewed focus on doing what they need to do to win.

And this is what competition does best: when a group of top competitors get together at the same time, they indirectly push each other to even higher levels of performance. Each one knows they cannot afford to make a mistake, that every point and every X is going to matter.

And when they shoot a 9 or, horrors, an 8, they also know that the shooter right next to them is pushing himself or herself up to that same limit and they may falter by that same loss of 1 or 2 points.

So each one shakes off any error and re-focuses on that next shot which is, as you probably know, the only one that matters.

To all the competitors at Camp Perry this year, I wish you all a very sincere,

10s and Xs, ladies and gentlemen, lots of 10s and Xs!

Camp Perry 2009 22 Championship, First Relay Results are In

2009-07-16T08:23:00.006-07:00

In the first relay, James Henderson's early start at one point back and then dogged persistence combined to earn him a two point edge in the overall 22 championship -- but again, that's only for the first relay. Jim finished at 890-58X, two points ahead of Philip Hemphill and Robert Park at 888-47X and 888-43X.

Fourth and fifth places in this relay went to Brian Zins (887-57X, one X shy of Jim's 58 but three points down) and John Zurek (887-42X).

The second and then the third relays will be shooting next and the results of this championship could well change over the next couple of hours.

Unfortunately, I'm headed downtown with my two grand daughters to the Arizona Science Museum for some education, fun and lunch. We will ride the light rail from one of the Park 'N Ride lots for a little more dimension to the day.

I'll see the final 22 Championship scores tonight.

But part of my mind will be in Ohio and listening for,

Shooters to the line!

Camp Perry 2009: Rapid Fire Match

2009-07-16T08:21:00.003-07:00

6 "clean" pairs of targets (200 points) and 9 with 199.

That completes the first relay.

Camp Perry 2009: Timed Fire Match

2009-07-16T08:16:00.003-07:00

13 "clean" targets and 24 at 199. Zounds!

Again, this is just the first of three relays.

Camp Perry 2009: 22 NMC

2009-07-16T07:51:00.003-07:00

The 22 caliber National Match Course (NMC) scores are in from the first relay.

James Henderson and Philip Hemphill took first and second, both with 298 points, 2 shy of the perfect 300. James' 20X count pushed him to first over Philip's 17X.

The 297 tally, one point down, finds Eric Daniels and Kevin Vacura followed at 296 points by Ron Steinbrecher, Jesse Durrance, Joseph Urish, Matthew Buckman and Robert Park. And with 295 are John Zurek, Steve Setian, Jerry Chaney and Rob Mango.

Undoubtedly every one of these shooters, when they "threw" those 9s or 8s in this match, suspected its ultimate impact in the score sheet's rankings.

But also without doubt, each of the Master and High Master shooters knew to "let it go" and move on to the next shot.

Next up will be the Timed Fire match, four 5-round strings fired with 20 seconds per string, and then the Rapid Fire match, a similar set of four strings but with only 10 seconds for each 5-round string. Both matches are fired at 25 yard targets, 10 rounds per target.

All of the shooters listed above are within reach of first place but remember this is only the first relay. There are two more groups waiting to shoot.

Although the weather at Camp Perry is supposed to be sunny all day, the wind is forecast to slowly increase throughout the day. An untimely gust during Rapid Fire can easily push an outstretched shooter's arm and turn an X into an 8 ... or worse.

And although "clean" (100 point) targets are fairly common in these upcoming matches, they are not guaranteed. Again, a couple of 9s would shuffle the rankings as the overall 22 competition continues.

10s and Xs, everyone. Watch the dot!

Camp Perry 2009: 22 SF First Relay

2009-07-16T05:54:00.006-07:00

It looks like the first relay's Slow Fire results are posted (see match #135 at http://www.nrahq.org/compete/champ3.asp).

With the first relay's NMC, Timed and Rapid matches and then many more shooters in the next two relays to come, John Zurek is in the lead with 195-5X, a single point ahead of the next four all with 194 including Jim Henderson (10X), Robert Park (8X), Ron Steinbrecher (7X) and Luis Esparza (5X). Brian Zins only one additional point behind and well within striking range from sixth place with 193-4X.

The National Match Course (NMC) coming up next consists of a Slow Fire, a Timed Fire and a Rapid Fire target. It is fairly common for these top shooters to "clean" (tally 100 points) for each of the latter two targets making that first Slow Fire of this match the deciding factor.

Another exciting day begins!

Camp Perry 2009: Preliminary Match

2009-07-15T15:49:00.007-07:00

"Evil" Jim Henderson
(Feb. 2009)

The scores from the NRA Practice Match are posted (see http://www.nrahq.org/compete/champ3.asp and click #111) and Jim Henderson is the winner with an astonishing 891-56x.

This match consists of three National Match Courses, one with the 22, one in Center Fire, and the final in 45 caliber.

Jim's 891 score is only nine (9) points short of a perfect 900.

And his 56X count means that 62% of his shots were in the X ring itself.

This is truly an amazing feat!

John Zurek was second at 885-45X and while John's score is incredible, Jim's finish is all the more amazing when you consider that #2, #3 and #4 were all within one point while Jim leaped out by a full six (6) points to cinch the #1 finish.

Brian Zins tagged in at #6 with 881-46X.

And remember, this was only the practice match.

Tomorrow, the main event starts with the 22 caliber 2700.

"Who knows what tomorrow may bring?" (Forrest Gump)

Camp Perry 2009 Coverage

2009-07-14T09:21:00.003-07:00

The NRA Blog is updated as much as a couple of times per day with the goings-on at the Camp Perry National Championships this week (July 13-18, 2009).

Individual shooters are occasionally posting to the Bullseye-L mailing list which also has an archive of past messages available via this same link.

The big question is, will Brian Zins achieve win #10 thereby extending his already record number of wins?

10s and Xs, all!

Ultimate Traveler's Pistol Box?

2009-07-13T07:02:00.003-07:00

The Pelican 0450 is available with a standard set of drawers (one deep, six shallow) or in an open, you-design-the-combination configuration. Although not inexpensive, this could be the ultimate pistol box for travelers.

Where Do You Hold with Iron Sights?

2009-07-12T19:40:00.008-07:00

Over the week of July 5-12, 2009 we had our first poll. Readers of this blog were asked, "When shooting iron sights, where do you hold?"

Trigger Weight Surprises

2009-07-10T16:47:00.014-07:00

Recently I mentioned that I had the trigger weight on my IZH-46M air pistol cranked up to the maximum. I did this to practice with a heavy trigger.

Today, I decided to measure it. And while I was at it, I weighed triggers on my other guns as well.

But before weighing triggers, I thought it might be a good idea to calibrate the trigger pull scale itself. It's just a simple spring and indicator, after all. How accurate could that be?

For the calibration, I made up some home-made samples of known weight. They are plastic baggies with different quantities of 200 grain LSWC bullets. The bullets were, in turn, spot-sampled on an RCBS Digital Powder Scale that I use when reloading. According to that scale, the bullets were within 0.1% of their 200 grain weight.

I reasoned that if the two scales came within a few percentage points of each other, I could accept their answer.

So, I counted out 35 of them (35 x 200 grains = 7000 grains = 1 pound). I did that four times to check the trigger pull gauge at 1, 2 and 4 pounds to more or less span the trigger weights I expected to find. I then weighted each calibration weight six times to make sure my "pick up the bags" technique was consistent.

Here's what I got.

**Calibration Weights**
Calibration Weight	Trial #1	Trial #2	Trial #3	Trial #4	Trial #5	Trial #6	Avg	Error
35x200 gr LSWCs (1.000 pound)	1.125	1.125	1.000	1.000	1.000	1.125	1.063	1/16th lb. heavy
70x200 gr LSWCs (2.000 pounds)	2.125	2.125	2.125	2.125	2.125	2.125	2.125	1/8th lb. heavy
140x200 gr LSWCs (4.000 pounds)	4.250	4.250	4.250	4.250	4.250	4.250	4.250	1/4th lb. heavy

Basically the RCBS Trigger Pull Scale is off by 6.5% and is always higher than reality. (I wish RCBS made a bathroom scale like this -- knowing it is 6.5% heavy, I could back 10+ pounds off what such a scale would say I weigh.)

That isn't bad. Not bad at all. For just a "simple spring with an indicator", you might even say that's pretty darn good.

So with the trigger pull scale calibrated, I was ready to measure the triggers on my guns.

And, Voila! Here they are.

**Trigger Weights**
	Trigger Feel	Trial #1	Trial #2	Trial #3	Trial #4	Trial #5	Trial #6	Avg
IZH-46M Air Pistol	Springy	4.750	4.875	4.625	5.375	4.375	5.000	4.833
Crosman 2300S Air Pistol	Long roll	3.250	3.000	2.875	2.750	3.125	3.000	3.000
S&W 41 (Main 22)	Crisp	1.750	1.750	1.875	1.500	1.875	1.750	1.750
Ruger Mk III (Backup 22)	Medium roll	2.250	2.250	2.125	2.625	2.250	2.750	2.375
1911 #1 (Wad gun)	Crisp	4.625	4.875	4.750	4.500	4.625	4.750	4.688
1911 #2 (Ball gun)	Crisp	5.000	5.250	5.000	5.125	4.875	4.625	4.979
S&W 36 (Snubby)	SA: Short roll	3.000	3.000	3.250	3.000	3.000	3.125	3.063
S&W 36 (Snubby)	DA	> 8.000	> 8.000	> 8.000	> 8.000	> 8.000	> 8.000	> 8.000

The trigger weight on the IZH-46M was, as expected and as desired, high at nearly five (5) pounds.

I set it that way to help my ball gun shooting but, now that I look at the numbers, I'm surprised.

You see, and to be completely frank, I find the IZH-46M substantially easier to shoot even though its trigger and that of the ball gun are almost the same.

Part of the reason must be the feel of the two triggers. The air gun's trigger is "springy" and as I add pressure, it moves. I like that. On the other hand, the ball gun's trigger is "crisp": As I add pressure, nothing happens until, suddenly, it breaks. And I don't like that. Indeed, on days when it seems harder than usual to break a shot, I find myself wondering if the safety is still on, or maybe the hammer isn't cocked, or any of a number of other worries creep in. And with that, my head is no longer in my shot plan.

When that happens, I need to put the gun down and get back into the plan.

So that small difference in feel makes a huge difference in how difficult or easy I think the two triggers are to operate. A smooth release of the air pistol's trigger is easier to do than that crisp break on the ball gun.

Of course, anticipation of the size of the bang and recoil of one versus the other is also a significant factor. Although those aren't supposed to affect how I release the shot, my gut tells me this is also happening. I know the ball gun has a big bang and throws a big recoil and, psychologically, that's also making it harder to get off a clean shot from the ball gun.

Afterthought: The 1911 also demands a much harder grip pressure for several reasons including the functioning of the slide, to route the recoil up the arm and shoulder into the body, and to bring the gun back on target in preparation for the next shot. That tighter grip makes independent movement of the trigger finger more difficult. The harder I grip, the harder it is to move the trigger finger.

The air gun, on the other hand, could be fired with an extremely light grip. The recoil powers nothing, is almost nil, and with only a single-shot available, there's no need to quickly get back on target (other than follow-through which isn't as time sensitive.) While a light grip is counterproductive for accuracy and, consequently, I do "hang on" pretty good to the air pistol, nonetheless, I don't have to grip it as hard. It is easier, therefore, to control the movement of my trigger finger with that gun.

Bottom line: A five pound trigger on an air pistol is not much like a five pound trigger on a 1911. But it still makes for good "trigger control" practice so I will continue with this arrangement.

Funny what weighing triggers leads into, isn't it?

I then weighed the triggers on my 22s and you can see that the S&W 41's trigger is underweight. It should be a minimum of two (2) two and a half (2.5) pounds. The check weights showed the RCBS trigger pull scale to be on the heavy side so the S&W 41's trigger is even lighter than these numbers indicate.

The Ruger Mk III 22 has Volquardsen parts and shoots with a medium roll. As you can probably anticipate from what I wrote above, I absolutely love the trigger on this gun. (Indeed, the Crosman 2300S has an even longer roll -- about a mile and a half by my estimation -- thanks to some minor gunsmithing on my part and a sheet of 2000 grit sandpaper from the auto refinishing store.) Unfortunately, at 2.375 pounds, that trigger is under the 2.5 pound minimum.

My biggest surprise, however, was the wad gun's trigger. It averaged out at slightly over 4.5 pounds. The rulebook says it can be as light as 3.0 3.5 pounds. And a couple of years ago, that's where it was. Somehow between then and now, that trigger has increased almost 50% in weight. That's a lot.

And the ball gun's trigger at 5 pounds is also high.

To complete the suite, I decided to measure my "pocket buddy" too, my S&W 36 snubby that rides around in an Uncle Mike's Sidekick and rarely sees the light of day. In single action, it is a very clean and highly repeatable 3 pound break. In fact, after going through and testing all my guns in a relatively short period of time, I'd have to say it probably has the best trigger of all my guns. Nice work, Smith & Wesson. (And not surprisingly, the double action trigger weight was higher than the 8 pound limit on the RCBS trigger pull scale so I couldn't weigh the trigger in that mode.)

In summary then, three four of my guns need attention. The 41 and the Mk III are below weight while the wad and the ball gun are both much too high.

As I recall, the 41's adjustment is fairly easy to change. There's a lever somewhere that needs to be moved. I'll pull out the book or check online to see if that's something I can do.

But the two 1911s and the Ruger need an expert gunsmith. And given that I really like roll triggers, I need to find a gunsmith who can do that on the 1911s, and the longer the roll the better. From previous checking I know that's not your run-of-the-mill trigger job.

And with the Bullseye championships taking place next week at Camp Perry in Ohio, most of them will be there having fun, not sitting at home wishing he were there.

But since I can't be there, then I'll wish all of you lots of Xs and tons of 10s!

6:00 AM AP 600

2009-07-09T13:16:00.021-07:00

For the next several months the high will be at or in excess of 110 degrees Fahrenheit here in Phoenix. Consequently, I'll be shooting a "6:00 AM AP 600" which, as the title suggests, is an international (Olympic-style) 600 with the air pistol (AP) starting every day at 6:00 AM. At that time of day, it's often below 90, shady in parts of the yard, and few others are up and about. It's a good time of day to focus and concentrate.

To that end, I recently moved my 10 meter AP range to a nicer part of the yard that has shade that time of day.

Firing Point
(Click for larger image)

Here you can see the firing point. In the background is the tool box in which my air pistols are secured. I have an IZH-46M (on the table) and a Crosman 2300S (in the tray to the right of the toolbox). I shoot the former, a hand pump air pistol that was used by Olympians up until the last decade or two, whereas the Crosman is CO2 powered and used more by the grand kids with my supervision.

Incidentally, I have the trigger of the IZH-46M cranked all the way up to its maximum, a couple of pounds. Although I could shoot it better with a lighter trigger, my primary goal with the AP is to learn to shoot difficult triggers, not to get a high score. With the trigger pressure set to its maximum, I get the practice I want. Scores can come later.

In the background you can see the next relay's "waiting bench". Although competitions are rare in our single firing point backyard, during family gatherings we do occasionally have a couple of shooters who compete to see who has to clean the barbecue.

Looking Down Range

In this next view looking downrange, the contents of the shooting table are fairly obvious. From right to left you see my morning cup of coffee -- yes, I know the caffeine messes up my hold but, gosh darn it, a man's just gotta have at least one cup to get going -- my record book, the open box of pellets and supply tin, the IZH-46M and then my funny glasses. I say "funny" because the right lens is set for close-up and that eye focuses on the front sight. The left lens is set for distance as when moving around but nonetheless, when shooting, it is covered with a blinder clipped to the NASA baseball cap I wear.

The glasses are from China, from Zenni Optical (http://www.zennioptical.com/) and are the cheapest ones I could get. They cost all of about 15 bucks and, at that rate, I can order all sorts of specialized glasses for this sport. I use my "iron sight funny glasses" for AP, EIC and Service Pistol competitions, a set of traditional bi-focals when shooting red dots, and then I wear a pair of progressives for all other times. I seem to be about ready for a slightly stronger prescription for the right lens in the glasses you see here so all I have to do is go to their website and increase that number for the next pair. No need for an eye doctor visit for that simple a change. I've written about Zenni Optical before - see http://conventionalpistol.blogspot.com/2008/05/cheap-glasses.html for complete details.

The target, as you can probably tell from this vantage point, is hanging in front of our storage shed (which needs paint).

And behind that to the right you can see our "Bobbitt" Saguaro cactus, so named when the power company came by with a chain saw and chopped off the central stalk because it was getting too close to the electrical wires.

You might remember John and Lorena Bobbitt from the news a couple of years ago because of a rather infamous incident you'll find written up at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_and_Lorena_Bobbitt.

Perhaps like a lot of men, I remember that story well. And so years later when the power company tree trimming worker started his chain saw to emasculate my giant Saguaro, well, I nearly passed out. Yes, we're talking about the possibility of some major psychological trauma for this "bobbing" in my own backyard!

. . .

Uhm, where were we?

Oh yeah, the shooting range.

Target Holder and Backstop

Finally, here's a close-up of the target holder. Basically it is a 2x2' piece of 3/4" plywood fastened to a 1x3 strip of wood with an "L" bracket at the top end. The assembly is stored in the shed and, when I want to shoot, I bring it out and hook it over the peak of the shed. There are no fasteners -- it's just hanging there. That could be a problem on a windy day but since I'm usually shooting in the early morning calm, it hasn't been an issue.

And although I occasionally have a "flier" outside of the black, the 2x2' plywood could be regarded as excessive. But for younger shooters, I may find even that to be inadequate. Only time will tell.

But the wife is happy with the size of the 2x2' backstop. It's there more for her reassurance than anything else. Besides, if I really do yank one out of the black, off the white and completely outside of the pellet box, that backstop will provide reasonable insurance against my depositing pellets in the Christmas decorations box deep inside the shed.

And for the neighbors, I'm firing away from the one who can look over into my yard the easiest, parallel to and not at the one who is most likely to be out there and wonder at the sounds, and for the one who actually does look over from time to time in a friendly way, his view will be obstructed by the shed as will any shots that miss the backstop.

So, to repeat my previous offer, if you're in Phoenix -- especially around 6:00AM in the morning -- stop by and we'll shoot a few targets. And I'll make you a cup of coffee if you like.

Keep 'em in the black!

Rapid Fire String

2009-07-07T18:39:00.004-07:00

Ever have a Rapid Fire string that goes like this?

Edited, from http://www.noob.us/miscellaneous/train-vs-tornado/.

Mouse-Finger versus Trigger-Finger

2009-07-05T07:09:00.012-07:00

Mouse-finger

Rest your hand on the table, palm down, in a relaxed and slightly arched shape.

Tap it with your trigger finger.

That's mouse-finger and, if you're reading this on-line, it's probably something you did to get here; you clicked a link or a button with your computer mouse.

And if you use the mouse a lot, you've probably become very good at positioning it quickly and then clicking or double-clicking. Your motor skills have probably become second nature. You see what you want on the screen and you click it.

Over the last two decades since computer mice have come into common use, I've used them for many hours just about every day. As a result, I'm good with the mouse. Real good, in fact. So good that my double-click speed adjustment in Windows is at the maximum.

Mouse Double-Click Speed

To adjust your double-click speed in Windows, click Start and then Control Panel, double-click Mouse, select the Buttons tab and move the Double-click speed slider left or right and try double-clicking the folder in that same area.

Mine is at the maximum setting.

That's mouse-finger.

Now imagine you're holding a gun in that hand and your finger is resting on the trigger and you want to shoot something ... Now!

Those motor skills I've practiced daily for twenty years are going to take over and I'm almost certainly going to use mouse-finger on the gun -- remember, that's what I've practiced on a daily basis -- and mouse-finger is going to push the muzzle, and the shot, left.

Jerk!

Well, no, that's not really a "jerk" even though the end result is practically the same.

Jerking is when you anticipate the sound and the recoil of firing a gun and your grip and body flinch before the bang. (The body is starting toward a fetal position to protect itself.)

That's a jerk.

Mouse-finger, on the other hand, pushes left and there can also be a downward component too as we'll see in a minute, but the source of the movement, the reason for these movements is not a flinch. It's the body trying to click the mouse (down) rather than push the trigger (back).

There is a 90 degree difference. One is "down" while the other is "back".

And to see where the downward movement comes from in all this, we need to shift to the the trigger-finger motion.

So, put your hand back on the table.

This time, however, imagine your finger tip is gently touching something soft and gentle (!). With that thought in mind, use your forefinger to gentle caress it.

...

OK, bring your mind back from erotica-land, please.

Focus attention on the gentle stroke. There are several things to notice about this action as compared to mouse-finger.

First, the direction of movement now is back toward your wrist not down into the table.

Second, the speed of movement is dramatically slower than before.

And third, it is a gentle movement, not abrupt like mouse-finger.

This is how the trigger should be moved when releasing a shot.

But we're not quite done yet.

Trigger-finger

Rest your hand on the table again, palm down as before with that same relaxed arch.

Moving only the trigger finger, move it over so it touches the middle finger.

Now try that caressing motion.

Can you move it straight back without moving the rest of the hand?

I can't!

With my trigger finger "down" toward the middle finger, when I try to bring it straight-back, my whole hand arches.

Oh it's true that if I "aim" the motion toward the base of my thumb, the finger can move and the hand remain still but I'm not moving straight back. My trigger finger is moving "up" to do that.

Conversely, if you scoot the trigger finger over toward the thumb and then try to move it straight back, the tip of the finger draws a gentle arc on the table-top.

Again, I can't move it straight back.

So, trigger-finger is most naturally accomplished when the fingers are in their most natural and relaxed position. Ideally, this is how the gun should fit your hand.

If your fit isn't perfect like this, then you'll have to learn to move the trigger straight back in an unnatural (for you) movement. The more awkward the fit, the more challenging the motion.

Custom target-shooter grips attempt to put the hand in a natural position. This will be instantly obvious the first time you take hold of grips that fit your hand.

All others require some touchy-feel'y experimentation to find that position where "straight-back" happens most naturally.

So, here are the rules:

Mouse-finger bad;
Caress-finger good; and
Natural hand position including all fingers is also good.

And feel (!) free to substitute your own word for "caress".

But keep your mind on shooting because that's a dangerous object you hold in your hand.

(So's that other object but that's not for blogging!)

Independence

2009-07-04T10:42:00.010-07:00

Continental Congress

Here's how it's supposed to work.

There are three parts of our government: the legislative branch, the executive branch and the judicial branch. Each one is intended to keep the other two in check and permit change only when all three are in agreement.

The Congress can make new laws. The President can veto the Congress. The Congress can, in turn, overrule the President's veto. The Supreme Court can rule the law unconstitutional. That constitution can be amended but, as evidenced by how long it takes to do so, that is a very rare event.

Change, yes, but only very slowly. This is a key and intentional feature of our Constitution, the goal of which is to make it hard for the government to infringe upon our rights against our will.

And by preserving our rights, by hamstringing the elected government so it can only move slowly, the constitution gives us time to assert our wishes. We have time to elect different representatives who will do as we wish. We have time to overturn laws that infringe upon our rights.

This intentional and forced slow-to-change nature of our Constitution works to preserve our independence. Our founding fathers were amazingly wise.

Change, yes, but only slowly, with much debate and discussion, and with considerable recourse.

Independence ultimately also means we don't depend on our government. We take care of ourselves, our families, our neighboring community and, when necessary, our country. That was the goal of the settlers who came to this continent. They wished to express their lives in actions and words as they saw fit, to live, to flourish, to flounder and to die according to their own minds and hands.

And to ensure those rights, we hire amongst ourselves those to oversee our interactions as we go about our independent lives.

By any measure, the government depends on us, not vice versa. We elect them. We pay them. They represent us but only at our bidding or, in its absence, at our knowing acquiescence. Ours is a "representative democracy". We rule through our representatives. They run the collective works while each of us runs our personal work.

The Continental Congress began as a coordinated resistance to British control. "Taxation without representation," was a primary complaint in a long list that described how the British government had infringed upon the rights of its citizens in the colonies. And on this date in 1776, that Continental Congress signed what is known to most around the world as the Declaration of Independence.

And that's what this day of the year is about, independence, yours and mine.

Nurture and display it and, when -- not if but when -- necessary, protect it. It is very precious and many are trying to take it away, both here and abroad.

Independence Day is about embracing, not just reflecting upon, your freedom.

What will you do today to demonstrate your Independence?

Solution to Primer Shortage Problem?

2009-06-30T15:36:00.006-07:00

Well, it would certainly take a long time to make enough for a 2700 this way but, then again, the video below has an undeniable appeal for the do-it-yourself types.

I wonder if the ignition time feels different?

See http://www.youtube.com/user/delstacy24 for related videos from this same gentleman.

After the Match

2009-06-25T20:27:00.003-07:00

Trust and Honor

2009-06-22T06:02:00.008-07:00

EIC Match Coming Up

I wrote the following as a comment to http://xavierthoughts.blogspot.com/2009/06/19112-m1911-and-other-heirlooms.html, a blog I follow.

In the sport of Bullseye, a.k.a. Conventional Pistol, dozens of shooters stand side by side firing at targets. Each shooter trusts those on both sides to fire their weapons safely, make them safe when the time is up, and follow the four rules of gun safety at all times.

At a large match, on a table for all to see and consider, are the items each shooter has brought to sell or trade. Several thousand dollars worth of guns may be sitting on that table throughout the match.

And at each shooter's firing point, two or three more valuable handguns will be sitting there while everyone is 50 yards downrange looking carefully at and scoring the targets.

The thought of a gun going missing never crosses anyone's mind.

Mixed Bag

2009-06-14T20:28:00.007-07:00

Steve Reiter (2008)

Here are some scattered notes and comments from today.

I didn't shoot very well in today's 2700. All my scores were down at the low-end of where I've been shooting. The bad news is this was an Authorized match and the scores count so I'll be in Outdoor Sharpshooter land for a while. The good news is that's where I *should* be competing, that's where I *need* to be working, and doing the things I did today (shooting, not quitting, re-focusing on basics) is what will *eventually* let me learn what I need to know to advance. Patience!

Clarence, to my immediately left, had a squib but caught it immediately. Other than the round stuck in the barrel, there was no damage to his 1911. (I think he was shooting the gun later in the match but I didn't confirm that.) He shot well in spite of that incident (and whipped me by 100 points -- way to go, Clarence!).

Steve Reiter, Senior US Champion many times over, was scoring my 45 targets. I let that get to me on the first two Slow Fire targets and butchered them both, scoring only in the low 70s with not one hole in the black on the second of the two. Ugh!

But then I re-focused all my attention back into my shot plan by meticulously following each step and, I'm pleased to say, resurrected myself on the first SF of the NMC with all shots in the black. TF and RF thereafter weren't great but they were tolerable, mostly in the mid-90s.

I fired some carefully reloaded Aguilla brass in Slow Fire after making them specially for today and making doubly certain to fully seat all the primers. Even so, I had nine high primers in the 60 rounds in Slow Fire over CF and 45. For TF and RF, I switched to reloads in Starline using the same batch of primers but had no problems -- no high primers. So, something is decidedly wrong with Aguilla brass.

But I still have mixed feelings about discarding it.

On the down side, the high primers cannot all be detected by vision or touch. I've had several shooters try and we all failed to spot several high primers. So the bottom line is if I shoot the Aguilla brass, some "thunks" will happen.

But on the plus side, if I restrict its use to Slow Fire only, shooting it is a great "ball and dummy" drill; and brother does it show me I have a problem when I think there's a live round in the chamber.

(Jerk!)

Dry firing alone just isn't solving my "jerk" problem so, for the time being at least, I think I will continue reloading and shooting the Aguilla "Surprise" ammo, but only in Slow Fire of course. And quite frankly if the high primers continue long enough for me to learn the lesson of how *not* to jerk, that would be fabulous.

So, looking forward, we shoot a "Camp Perry Warm-up" next Sunday starting at 7:30AM.

I'll be the jerk with the high primers in Slow Fire ... but not for too much longer if this works.

See you on the line.

Where and When

2009-06-12T16:16:00.011-07:00

Six O'clock Hold
Focus on Front Sight

I've been shooting Bullseye a little over four years, since early 2005.

Like many other shooters, I also have a full-time job that limits my practice time. And also like many others, my job includes travel which compounds the situation.

And in my case, I mean a lot of travel. On a typical trip, it is common for me to be "in transit" for 8-10 hours on day #1 with a combination of shuttle to the airport, checking in the recommended 60-90 minutes early, flying for 5 hours (Phoenix to some east coast location), and then having another hour of airport and travel time to some previously booked hotel. Then, I put in the next four days, 8 to 5 or 6 or 7, at a customer's location. Then, there's the company email to be scanned and mostly deleted before bed. Day #6 of such a trip is fly-home day with another 9-11 hours "in transit" since I buck the jet stream on the way back west.

So, I take my Bullseye sport if, when and where I can.

Most clubs are very welcoming to newcomers. And although my Outdoor Sharpshooter and Indoor Expert ratings aren't the most stellar, they do say I've developed some small set of skills and that I'm not likely to do any harm ... well, except to the target frames or maybe a low-hanging overhead on occasion (sorry, Florida!).

Although my progress up the Bullseye ranks has been slow, there are some advantages to how I've had to fit in the sport.

First, and as I've noted before, I've met a lot of nice, stable, solid and dependable people.

That's because this sport attracts those people. Remember, you're standing side by side with loaded guns, concentrating on your own front sight and trying hard to ignore everything else around you. This demands a deep trust in, and also from, the person standing next to you with his or her own loaded gun. Those undeserving of that trust, or who cannot develop the same toward their neighbor, don't stay in the sport.

Second, because the laws in some places make it difficult for me to bring my own guns, I've been blessed with the opportunity to shoot a wide range of very fine handguns that have been loaned to me by shooters in those locations. I've shot everything from stock Rugers to Hammerlis, from more Rugers with Volquardsen parts to Rock Rivers, and from even more Rugers that've been blessed and fussed over by the finest Ruger gunsmiths in the country to 1911s that have been tweaked, ramped, honed, pressed and maybe even prayed over by the likes of Roddy Toyota and Dave Salyer, and I've had the honor of being able to shoot more than one Ed Masaki which, as any Masaki owner will probably tell you, just getting to shoot one of those is fabulous.

And the triggers I've experienced across all of these get a very wide range of descriptions. A very small number have been like dragging a brick across concrete. Those are darn hard to shoot straight. Most triggers, though, are like breaking a glass rod in their abruptness except that a glass rod will give a little before it snaps but a crisp trigger won't. And then there are the roll triggers, short, medium and long, with one so long I wanted a bathroom break before the shot went.

Over all those fine guns I've had the priviledge to shoot, I've learned to my public embarassment that I can jerk the finest handguns just as badly as the cheapest. (And thanks for not laughing.)

But I've also learned that I can hit the bullseye with just about any trigger as long as I concentrate, press straight back and move only that one finger.

This Sunday's 2700 starts at 7:30AM to try and beat the heat.

I'll be there concentrating on that "straight back" and "only that finger" and I'll be the one feeling like all of me is just pouring into the red dot.

I know you'll pardon me if I seem to be ignoring you while we're shooting.

But then again, if you're a Bullseye shooter, you already know that.

I'll see you on the line!

Brass Pool

2009-06-07T20:40:00.013-07:00

The sorting of my large bucket of all 45 ACP brass according to headstamp is done.

If you've been reading along, you'll know I'm doing this so I can separate out the Aguila that seems to have been having high-primer problems.

With the baggies of brass arrayed before me, here's what is in my pool.

The most common headstamp in my collection is Winchester of which most was saved from ball ammo purchased at Walmart back when I first started shooting the 1911.

Second and third most common are StarLine purchased at the Dillon store and the Aguila of which I've been writing most recently. The Aguila is also from ball ammo but purchased from a different source.

Here's the complete lineup and for the "rare" ones, the count:

Aguila
AP 02 (qty 1)
CBC
CCI (qty 4)
Federal
LC
MFS
Midway (qty 1)
PMC
PMP (qty 1)
RP
S&B
S&W (qty 1)
Speer (qty 4)
StarLine
Texas 45 Super (qty 1)
TZZ
WCC
Winchester
W-W

Scoring Targets
(click for larger image)

My original plan was to discard the Aguila. But with it now separated out and in its own baggie, I realize I can give it the extra little attention it needs in reloading. That is, when I decide to reload the Aguila, I'll just remember that this brand needs an extra firm push in the 650 reloader to fully seat the primer. (And I'll restrict its first couple of uses to Slow Fire just in case a high primer sneaks through.)

So, what have I learned from all this?

First, all 45 ACP brass is not the same. Although all of my supply is of the reloadable variety (brass not steel), some of it needs a little extra oomph when reloading.

Second, keeping brass sorted by headstamp is a good idea. Doing so from the beginning might have saved me a couple of days of headscratching and testing.

Third, top competitors use new or once-fired brass in competition. I assume there's a valid reason for that but exactly why, I don't know. If it makes a difference, then some of my tired old brass isn't gonna cut the mustard, but I don't know which shells those are. Although this experience didn't "teach" me this lesson, it did point out that, by storing brass in a single bucket, keeping track of firings for the brass was impossible. But by sorting the brass and storing it by headstamp from here on, this becomes possible. So, as I buy new brass in the future, I'll start doing this additional level of documentation -- each purchase will get its own baggie and I'll start tallying the number of firings of each such purchase.

And fourth, I still enjoy recognizing a problem, gathering evidence, conducting experiments and drawing conclusions. In software, we call that "debugging" and it's why I've been a software engineer (and software teacher) all these years. I do love the chase.

10s and Xs ... and no high primers!

The Great Aguila Purge of 2009

2009-06-05T16:28:00.034-07:00

Note: The pictures herein have nothing to do with the content of this article other than the inspiration for excellence each of these Bullseye shooters has provided over the years.

Strike #1

Pat Clarkson
California

After its initial firing (as factory-loaded hardball), 100% of the Aguila brass would not pass through the Martindale gauge. This suggests it has been stretched beyond its ability to recover possibly because of the thinness of the brass or its composition among other reasons.

My normal reload procedure is, after cleaning, to run each piece of brass through the Martindale gauge. Any that fail are discarded. I inserted this step into my procedure shortly after I started reloading because of a number of jams that occurred due to Glock-bulged brass. The Martindale gauge was 100% effective in resolving that problem so I've retained the step to guard against future jams.

But for the once-fired Aguila brass that came from my gun -- a 1911 not a Glock -- I made an exception. I resized that brass before the Martindale gauge assuming that wad loads would prove to be easier on the brass and that the Aguila would, therefore, perform well.

That exception has proved to be the cause of my efforts this week but not for the expected reason. That is, if I had followed my procedure and discarded the bulged Aguila brass, I would have removed it from my supply and thereby avoided this week's chase with high primers. The Martindale gauge step was added to prevent jams, not high primers but, for possibly coincidental reasons, that step would have been effective against this spate of high primers, nonetheless.

Strike #2

In the testing this week where the ammunition suffered from a very high probability of high primers, it was determined that all such high primers were in Aguila brass. None of the rounds in other head stamps had high primers. Not one.

The testing involved a total of 300 rounds of which 50% were Aguila. And a good proportion of that Aguila had been fired only once -- as ball ammo -- and had been resized before reloading. The remainder of the Aguila and all of the non-Aguila brass had been fired many times.

It's worth adding that I had already made those 300 rounds before figuring out that something was wrong. They then became "the test batch" because they were all suspect.

"Slocat"
Steve Locatelli
Colorado

Was it only the newest Aguila that suffered high primers?

If that were the case, then perhaps only the latest batch of Aguila brass had flawed primer pockets. But it is also true that I've been getting high primers for almost a year, in slowly increasing frequency, which is just about the same amount of time over which I've been slowly adding Aguila brass into my supply.

Regardless, I didn't pay attention to high-primer versus once-fired status so the question is moot. I don't have the data to know.

This week's batch did, it may be worth observing, have an inordinate amount of once-fired Aguila brass. Normally my mix of brass is relatively homogenous but when I went to make up the ammo for this week, I grabbed the nearest containers of clean brass. On my recent trips to the range I've been shooting ball, the Aguila ammo, and those were in the containers I used in making the 300 reloads.

Interestingly, it is probably that anomoly of using a non-homogenous mix of brass that enabled the meaningful results from this week's testing. (Anomolies can be your friend?)

So, in preparation for the final round of testing last night, I divided the 300 rounds into three categories. First, there was the non-Aguila brass, all of which I hand-checked but found no high primers. Second, there was the Aguila brass that did not appear to have high primers, again hand-checked. And third, there was the Aguila brass that had eyeball-spotted or finger-felt high primers. That final batch had subsequently been run through the press a second time -- fully loaded -- to reseat the primers.

Yes, I was nervous about pressing primers deeper into fully loaded rounds. Of course, I followed all the usual safety precautions of eyes and ears, but I also kept my face and body shielded by the reloader itself. And while it is true that the reloader has (almost!) never set off a primer and I was careful to press the primers with a smooth steady pressure, I was still nervous about doing so.

Fortunately, I'm typing today with both hands and arms intact. Nothing went "Bang!" in the reloader.

Tim Copley
Arizona

By the way, I said "almost" because I did once, and only once, have the entire stack of primers go off during reloading. To this day I don't know exactly how that happened. But as you might imagine, it was quite startling. The 650's steel primer tube safely contained the blast but launched the plastic follower into the ceiling sheet rock and left it stuck there. The reloader was, of course, instantly unusable. (Dillon replaced all the damaged parts at no cost -- that's part of their warranty.)

Suffice to say, I was careful in reseating the high primers and although I pressed them very solidly home, it was not without some trepidation.

Afterwards, and with no explosions in the process, all the formerly high-primer Aguila rounds looked normal.

That's group three in this test, the reseated former high primers in Aguila brass.

With those three groups ready, I drove down to the range to try them out.

The last group (re-seated) and the non-Aguila brass all performed flawlessly. Only the middle group, the Aguila brass that appeared normal, had failures. In that group, the failure rete was 2 out of 80 rounds or about 2.5%, somewhat like the failure rate I had been seeing up until most recently.

I concluded that, for whatever reason, some Aguila brass was prone to high-primers. An unusually high amount of pressure was needed on the press to properly seat them but, once that was done, they would work correctly. Most, but not all of the remaining Aguila brass did not seem to need this extra pressure. Only about 1-2% needed it.

For the non-Aguila brass, this extra pressure was never required.

Obsessed!

In case you are wondering why I seem so obsessed with finding the source of this problem, let me just say it's an occupational hazard. Or, better still, I should say that it's a common characteristic of many successful software engineers, myself included.

To put it as briefly as I can, in my work I love "having debugged."

Software, as you probably know, sometimes has "bugs". Finding them, understanding why they cause the failures they do, and then figuring out how to correct them is my favorite part of the job. And the harder the "bug", the more gratifying the discovery of its solution.

That carries over into my hobbies.

Unfortunately, it doesn't help me shoot. On the contrary, that analytical "I can figure it out" attitude is counter-productive. And that's why I enjoy, why I need Bullseye. And it's probably why, when I shoot a good target, I discover that my mind has enjoyed a nice vacation.

Don't think. Just shoot.

Strike #3

Returning from the range, I then ran all of the fired brass through the Martindale gauge.

None of the non-Aguila brass failed.

Five of the 80 middle group (Aguila loaded but primers not re-seated) failed.

But then a whopping 22 of the 50 re-seated (former high primers Aguila) failed this final Martindale gauge. That's a 44% failure rate.

"You're out!"

While it is certainly possible that only the newest batch of Aguila brass was faulty, the fact remains that as long as I've been adding Aguila into the mix, I've had increasing problems with high primers.

This was the final straw.

"Okay, all you Aguila, out of the pool!"

I'm done with it.

All of the Aguila brass will go into the club's recycling bin.

Of course, I've got to find it first.

I've been through the whole supply once this week already, to clean all the primer pockets. That took considerably more time than just looking at the head and tossing them one way or the other.

Still, it'll take a while to paw through 2400 pieces.

And following from a comment on an earlier item in this thread from Tony Silva which is also in keeping with the practices of other Bullseye shooters, I'm going to start separating my brass by headstamp.

So, this final pass, the "Great Aguila Purge of 2009," will be used to kill two birds with one stone. I'll purge the Aguila and, at the same time, separate the rest by head stamp.

Tonight I'll be sitting on the floor for a couple of hours watching TV and going through the brass, shell by shell. There will be Winchester to the left of me, Aguila to the right of me (in the recycle bin), and Federal, Midway, Starline and TZZ arrayed in front of me.

And I'll keep my trusty -- and chilly -- Stella Artois close at hand.

"Kampai!"

Oh, wait, that's Japanese.

Anyone know what the Belgians say when hoisting their mugs and tossing brass?

Made 300 to Test

2009-06-01T20:33:00.020-07:00

Jim Henderson and the author
(Click for larger image)

I made 300 rounds of wad ammo to test at Nighthawks tomorrow evening. Previously I was seeing a couple of high primers per hundred so if all 300 shoot OK, I'll pronounce the "cure" complete.

Here are the load details. (This is my normal "wad" load.)

Parameter	Setting	Tolerance
Bullet	200 gr LSWC	n.a.
Primer	WLP	n.a.
Brass	Mixed	n.a.
Hodgdons Clays	3.8 gr	±0.1 gr
OAL	1.240"	±0.003"
Crimp	0.469"	±0.002"

Addendum

Late Tuesday, 2 June 2009

Nope, dirty primer pockets were not the cause of the high primers I've been having.

In fact, testing today revealed a huge number of high primer failures. Previously I was seeing one, two, maybe three per hundred but earlier this evening I fired fifteen rounds but more than half of them took multiple strikes to fire!

Fortunately, two other very capable Bullseye shooters were there and, in the finest of traditions, they turned their complete attentions to my problems.

First, we disassembled my 1911 and inspected this, that and the other.

"Nope, the firing pin isn't bent."

"And the firing pin hole looks round and its tunnel isn't jammed up with dirt."

"Here, Ed, shoot some of my wad ammo in your ball gun."

Ten rounds later we pronounced my gun as working normally. We turned our attention to the ammo.

"Hey, these primers look high -- that's a lot if you can see it!"

"And yeah, there's a whole bunch like that in this box alone."

We concluded that the ammo was, indeed, at fault. I said I'd call Dillon tomorrow and talk it over with them to see what they suggest.

Next Day

An hour after talking with Dillon I had checked and tweaked everything they suggested but had not found anything out of whack. The reloading machine was completely in tolerance and working fine.

So I pulled out the ammo and set aside all the visible and feel-able high primers. Out of the 300 rounds I had made, I pulled more than 50 that were instantly suspect.

And that's when I saw it: all the suspect rounds had the same headstamp, Aguila!

Thinking back, for several months now I've been buying that brand of ball ammunition since I hadn't yet worked up my own load. And after firing, I had been adding that brass into the general supply.

Since I travel a lot, shoot a little and reload only once every couple of months, the Aguila brass was originally a very low proportion of my overall mix, maybe 1-2%.

Months later, after shooting a lot of ball a lot of Aguila brass had accumulated at the top of the brass bin -- and that's mostly what I reloaded for this test batch.

I think that explains the sudden increase in high primers.

So with this recognition in mind, I seperated all the Aguila reloads from the rest -- they constituted 50% of the test batch.

Now things were starting to make sense.

The last check was to look at the now empty brass from what I had fired last night. Sure enough, 11 of those 15 were in Aguila brass. I felt sure that explained the "more than 50% failure rate" I experienced.

Test Reloads Before Firing

Above are two of the reloads.

If you look carefully at the picture on the left -- in Aguila brass -- you can see white-space between the steel straight edge and the brass in the "high" primer round. But for the "normal" primer round on the right, there is no gap. (Sorry, I did not record if it was Aguila or not when making this picture.)

I'm satisfied with this explanation.

All the evidence fits.

What remains now is to do some final tests to confirm that it really is the Aguila brass that's causing the problem.

So I've set all of the Aguila reloads aside. More than half have abnormal looking or feeling primers. If fired, I should experience the classic high primer failure of needing multiple strikes to make them go "Bang!"

And of the remainder in non-Aguila brass, they all appear to have normal primer heights. They should fire on the first strike.

My next trip to the range will be Thursday.

If testing confirms that the Aguila brass is the culprit, then I'll go through my entire supply of brass and purge all of it.

Are we having fun yet?

Oh yeah, you bet'cha. I love debugging!

Stay tuned.

High Primers

2009-05-31T10:17:00.036-07:00

Four High Masters (not high primers)
John Zurek, Steve Reiter, Jim Henderson, Daryl Szarenski
Desert Midwinter, Phoenix AZ, February 2009
(Click for larger image)

Note

The cause of the high primers is apparently not dirty primer pockets which is what this article is about. Although they may be a contributing factor, after cleaning the primer pockets and testing the resulting ammunition, things got worse, not better.

Ultimately, the cause proved to be the Aguila brass I've been adding to my brass supply after shooting their ball ammunition. The final installment is in The Great Aguila Purge of 2009.

But having forewarned the reader, there is still some value in the following article so I leave it otherwise "as is."

Around the time of this year's Desert Midwinter competition, I started getting some high primers, perhaps two or three per hundred rounds.

When the hammer falls on a high primer, instead of going "bang," it just pushes the primer further into the shell.

"Click."

If you then manually cock the hammer and pull the trigger again, now that the primer is fully seated, it usually fires.

"Bang!"

There's no problem with this in Slow Fire other than the distraction from your shot plan.

(Well, to be honest, there is the distraction of the smile on the face of the shooter next to you who saw that little tell-tale "jerk" that sometimes sneaks in on a mis-fire.)

In Timed Fire, if you're paying attention and keep your mind focused, the mis-fire can be corrected by quickly cocking the hammer and firing without too much degradation of the shot.

But in Rapid Fire it's an alibi, and only if you haven't already used the alibi for that match. If you have, then it's a missed shot.

Zero points.

That hurts.

At two or three high primers per hundred rounds, there's a good chance that one will come up during Rapid Fire.

So with the air conditioner now installed and running in the reloading room, it's time to find, and fix, this problem.

There are two likely reasons for a high primer, both happen when reloading. First not pressing home on the handle when seating the primer will do it. Or secondly, dirt in the primer pocket will prevent a primer from seating to the bottom of the primer cup.

In either case, the first hammer fall pushes the cup the rest of the way in and the second hammer fall makes it go bang.

An occasional "short stroke" of my Dillon 650's handle can sneak through but the operator has to be daydreaming for this to happen.

I try to have an environment where this is unlikely. First, no radio or TV are allowed while reloading. Second, there's no clock in the room to distract my thoughts. Third, I have several safety gadgets on the 650 that keep my attention focused on the machine and what I'm doing.

In a nutshell, I do pay attention to what's going on and if I short-stroke the machine, I know it. Short strokes don't get past me. Instead, I immediately stop, survey the consequences and then take the appropriate steps to either complete the cycle, or to remove the partially assembled rounds and set them aside for later disassembly.

A short-stroke is probably not the culprit.

My brass, on the other hand, is of mixed age, mixed brand and mixed history. And I've been reloading it for a couple of years.

It is, therefore, suspect.

The largest category is from commercially manufactured 45 ACP including a lot of Winchester, purchased at WalMart when I was first starting, and more recently a fair amount of Aguila because I don't (yet) make my own ball ammo. The Winchester, in particular, has been cycling through my brass supply for several years and although I don't count reloads, a dozen round trips isn't an unreasonable guess. (When I find a piece of split brass, odds are it will have a Winchester head stamp.)

TZZ Brass

But those are just two of the brands. I also have quite a bit of TZZ that has been scavenged over the years when shooting next to military teams who don't want their used brass -- thank you! And a lot of Federal from when I practiced at the Scottsdale Gun Club (ah, air conditioning!) that was, again, scavenged from other shooters who didn't want it.

Then, there's the new brass I've purchased, much of it Starline -- great stuff -- and which gets extra attention in the process to make my highest quality of reloads with this highest quality brass.

Finally, my supply of ready-to-shoot ammunition is almost zero right now. Between my business travels and the unusually warm April and May, I've fallen behind on making ammunition. As a result, most of my supply of brass is empty shells.

So, it's a good time to clean the primer cups in all my 45 ACP brass.

The needed tool was all of about three bucks and looked simple to use. I planned to put it in the electric drill, fasten that down, set it to a low speed and do each piece one at a time.

"How hard could this be?" I asked, smug in the view that I'd be done in an hour or two.

My first discovery was that I have a fair amount of brass.

No doubt others have several times my 2500 piece count but, nonetheless, when you start processing them one at a time, that's a pretty big number.

My second discovery was that they all had old primers still in them and that, before I could clean the primer cup, I needed to de-prime all of them.

No, problem, I thought. I'll just run them through the 650 and let it do the work.

I put about 200 pieces in the brass hopper and started pulling the handle. The first station removed the primer and I then just let the shells make their way around through the other stations to the final bin. Cranking much faster than when reloading, I could do about one shell per second.

Okay, that's 2500 shells at one per second. Let's see, 60 pieces per minute that should be about 45 minutes, right?

Three hours and about 1900 pieces of deprimed brass later and even with the breaks that were getting longer and longer, my arm was tired. Very tired.

That's a lot of brass.

Broken 650 Ring Indexer

And that's when the ring indexer broke.

This part is beneath the platform and, as the platform comes down on the handle's upstroke, it advances the brass to the next position.

No ring indexer, no advance.

Fortunately, Dillon is just across town and, from time to time, I've walked in their front door, handed them a broken piece from my 650 and walked back out in less than five minutes with a new one, no charge, and been back home in an hour.

Except that it's now after 5:00PM on Saturday. Without checking, I'm sure they're closed.

Well, I can still clean the pockets on those 1900 de-primed pieces.

I put the cleaning tool into the drill's chuck and tightened it down, and then secured the drill in the padded jaws of the vice.

But the drill's lock sould only run the drill at full speed. (Damn. I bought the cheap drill!)

Hmmm, I mumbled, looking around the tool room.

Maybe a C clamp or ... ...

I settled for some stiff wire -- hmmm, this isn't real safe -- wrapped around the handle and holding the drill's trigger at the desired (slow) speed.

I'm starting to have second thoughts about continuing.

But how should I position the work? Dirty pockets to the left or right?

A quick experiment showed dirty to the left was best so I could pick up a dirty piece with my left hand while cleaning one with my right. Once cleaned, I'd pitch the clean piece with my right hand into the clean bucket, transfer the next dirty one, left hand to right hand, and continue the process.

Inspecting the result, I see that some primer cups still have carbon around the outer edge which is where the new primer needs to seat. That buildup is specifically what I'm after so, a few experiments later, I see I need to maneuver the brass around so the primer pocket cleaning tool scours the outer edge. Only then does the cleaning work like I think it should.

And 400 shells later, I see this is taking 4-5 seconds per shell. For the available 1900, that's ... uhm ... maybe two and a half hours with breaks?

Gotta fit in some dinner this evening, too.

Careful!

At last, my better judgement catches up.

I remind myself that I'm now standing very close to a rotating piece of machinery with something hard and sharp on the end.

And I'm tired.

And a little frustrated as well.

"Stop!"

I tell myself, "I can finish cleaning the rest of the deprimed brass tomorrow morning."

I remove the wire holding down the drill's trigger and throw it in the trash.

"I'll find something better -- and safer -- for this tomororow."

"And the rest of the brass will wait until I get the part at Dillon on Monday. Or maybe Tuesday. Or maybe I'll just call and have them mail it across town."

"And then after all that, I can start reloading again and see if cleaning the primer pockets really solves this high primer problem or not."

Phew! Buying finished ammunition at Walmart sure was simpler.

Addendum

Dillon 650 Partially Disassembled
Broken Ring Indexer Removed

Many months ago, the two bolts holding the platform to the main piston had worked themselves loose. Dillon gave me the alignment tool and instructions to use before tightening them up again.

When I put in a new ring indexer, I'll need to repeat that process. So this morning I went searching in the "spare reloader parts" junk box for that tool.

And right next to the alignment tool was a "Spare 650 Parts" baggie, original and unopened from Dillon, and therein was a new ring indexer.

Hooray!

So today after lunch, I will put in the new part, align and then bolt down everything according to Dillon's excellent instructions. That will put the 650 back into operation and, with that, I should be able to deprime the last of the 45 ACP brass and finish cleaning the primer pockets.

I like finishing a job and that "Spare 650 Parts" baggie from Dillon is going to make that happen today.

Thanks, Dillon. You guys think of everything!

A Couple of Hours Later

The Results
(Click to enlarge)

Done.

The 650 has been re-assembled with the new part and everything has been adjusted to specification;
All remaining brass has been de-primed; and
The primer pockets in all my empty brass have been cleaned.

I have 12 quart-size yogurt tubs each with approximately 200 pieces of deprimed and primer pocket-cleaned brass ready to go.

The next step will be to reload that brass and see if the cleaning has solved the high primers problem.

But that's enough for today.

Right now I'm thinkin' Stella Artois.

Probably two.

Note

The cause of the high primers is apparently not dirty primer pockets which is what this article is about. Although they may be a contributing factor, after cleaning the primer pockets and testing the resulting ammunition, things got worse, not better.

At the moment, the chase for the source of this problem is still in progress.

Having warned the reader, there is still some value in the following article so I leave it "as is" but with this note attached.

Ed Skinner, 3 June 2009

Debt

2009-05-25T07:35:00.022-07:00

Crew of Nemo

I am bankrupt.

I can never repay the debt.

What these men -- and women -- sacrificed is beyond my ability to restore to them. Indeed, it is without any doubt beyond my ability to comprehend what they gave up, what they lost, what was taken from them, and what they gave.

My wife's father is lower-left in this picture. He manned a waist gun in "Nemo", a bomber in the European Theatre during World War II.

Cotton, as he was called for his blond hair and complexion, gave up his young life. It could have been high above Germany. It could have been during a hopeless landing attempt at some English-countryside field. Or it could have been in a shelter during a bomb attack at his airfield.

Perhaps it is ironic that it was actually a diving accident while on leave back in the States.

But, does it matter?

Cotton was there at the lake trying to live in a few small days the joy and freedom he'd lost in so many ways. Temporarily returned for a brief release to the sane world of automobiles, Sunday school, weekends and, in comparison, a carefree life, we can only imagine the reckless, desperate release he felt, and that he tried to live.

Cotton's life was sacrificed for us. It doesn't matter whether it was at 15,000 feet over Germany struck by a piece of shrapnel or because he struck an underwater stump when diving a mere five feet into a lake.

So I try to remember on this Memorial Day those whose lives were lost as a direct consequence of the many wars, "police actions," or simply from manning the lines, and not just from enemy-inflicted physical injuries, but also from "shell shock" or from the escape from what they endured into alcohol, or from the decades of life spent in wheel chairs, veteran's hospitals, or in a back bedroom supported by a family who struggled to fulfill their needs, or whose future days hold little more hope than for a cardboard bed beneath some underpass.

Their lives, not just those of the dead, were sacrificed for us.

They gave up their futures, their chances for lives like those we now live but for which we, by comparison, have practically no basis for appreciating.

In my ancestry and in my wife's ancestry are those who obeyed the call, and who lost their lives in degrees from partial, to devestating, to complete.

Citizens of the United States of America
Adriana, Gosia, presiding Judge

My daughter-in-law recently became a US citizen. Her father and I are the grandfathers of Adriana seen in this picture.

Mietek came to this country, alone, a couple of decades ago from Poland, exiled for standing up to the Communists. And only after many more years had passed -- after the fall of Communism -- were his wife and daughter able to follow, to come to this country.

Here, his daughter met and eventually married my son and, through them, our lives are now joined in this grandchild and in our citizenship. And I am honored to be a part of their family, a family that knows other circumstances but chose this country for their home, this country for their future, and this country for the future of our grandchild.

Mietek and I are amazed whenever we hear our grandaughter effortlessly switch between Polish and English, sometimes in mid-sentence, as her attention shifts between us. Adriana does this because she knows we understand best in two different languages. But it is also true that he and I bear similar unpayable debts to those who fought, sacrificed and died so we can enjoy this day, this family, this life and, most preciously, these freedoms.

Our debt is so profound, so far beyond the words "Thank you," that I can only ...

[Silence.]

Reloading Room

2009-05-24T21:23:00.005-07:00

Reloading Table
(Click to enlarge)

The newest addition is that air conditioner in the upper-left corner. With daily temperatures already over 100 in late May, it's what you may acknowledge as a necessity here in Phoenix Arizona.

Some other features you may notice will include the "L" brackets holding the brass feeder on the top of the Dillon 650 and clamping it to the wall, two walls to be precise. For whatever reason, when I would get cranking at a regular pace, the "tower" would start to wobble and eventually feed a piece of brass upside down. Depriming an upside down shell doesn't work. Indeed, it jams up the works pretty good. But with the head now glued to the wall as you see it, that no longer happens.

Even so, the table is bolted to the rear and side walls. The table top consists of a sheet of 1" particle board with a sheet of 3/4" plywood glued and screwed to its top. Just exactly how that 650 gets to rockin' with all that is beyond me but, well, there it is.

Looking at the 650, you'll see all the bells and whistles from Dillon. I particularly like the powder checker but, in my paranoia, you can also see the side of the red battery tube that is hose clamped to the frame and the black "snake" coming from its end that carries the wires to the white LED that is aimed down so I can look inside each shell before setting the bullet on top. Yeah, I look at how much powder is in every shell, and Dillon "feels" for it too. And so far, no squibs. (Knock on wood.)

The mechanical balance on the table is the backup and double-check for the RCBS digital scale on the shelf. RCBS equipment is green, in case you didn't know, so that should help you spot it. Two tiny boxes just to the right of the digital scale are the check weights. Paranoia again. I turn the scale on 30 minutes before loading to let it reach a stable temperature. I then press its "Zero" button and then drop in the two tiny 2.0 grain weights. The scale should read 4.0 grains. (My wad load is 3.8 grains of Hodgdon's Clays; I check the scale as close to that as the check weights allow.) If the scale disagrees with the check weights, then I would have to stop and figure out what's wrong. That's where the mechanical balance would come into play. But so far, it hasn't been needed.

But with the new air conditioner, the timing of all this will have to change.

The reloading room is part of the garage and it's on the west side of the house where the concrete block construction soaks up the infrared all afternoon. When the sun goes down, all that infrared re-radiating into the garage and reloading room will push the interior temperature 10 degrees above the high at the airport.

The record high in Phoenix is 118. Add 10 and you'll understand why I haven't done much reloading over the past several summers.

And when I did reload, I've noticed that I had to adjust the powder drop with the season to get those same 3.8 grains of Clays. Without doing so, summer loads would have been about 0.2 grains lighter. I presume this is because the size of that cavity in the Dillon powder drop was changing size with the temperature. Whether it is the cavity adjustment screw (of UniqueTek.com's Micrometer Powder Bar Kit) getting longer in the heat or the cavity itself getting smaller as the metal sides adjust to the temperature, I couldn't say. I just know it changed about 0.2 grains with a temperature change of 50 degrees or so.

But now, my new plan is to start the air conditioner an hour ahead and go back inside, possibly for dinner with a recorded NCIS episode. Half way through the show, I'll pause it to run back out and turn on the RCBS digital scale.

With the air conditioner, I'm looking for that to be less of an issue. If it's not, I'll have to do some more sleuthing.

The black box on the tabletop to the left of the mechanical scale is the digital caliper. I keep two spare batteries in the box so I'm never denied its truth-telling. I've thought of getting a purely mechanical caliper as a double-check but, well, I've had no reason to suspect the caliper of any funny business. Not yet, anyway.

The rest of the stuff is typical for home shops and reloading rooms.

Oh yeah, you can see the spare license plate for the car hanging on the wall to the upper left. It's one of those geeky obscure codes and if you know what it means, then you're a significant as well as an "old time" geek yourself.

Under Table Storage

Beneath the table are my three buckets of brass, all 45 ACP. The left-most reads, "Clean 45 ACP (Needs Martindale)", which refers to the Martindale gauge through which I hand-pass each and every piece of brass before I reload it.

Well, there's one exception to that rule. I've been shooting some Aguila in my ball gun and that always comes to the reloader a bit fat. It won't go through the Martindale gauge in that once-fired condition. But after resizing, reloading with the lighter wad loads and firing, it passes. It seems to be reasonably good brass so I make an exception for it. But only for that one brand, and only after the first firing. Anything that fails the Martindale gauge after that is tossed.

The use of the middle bucket should now be obvious from its label, "Once Fired."

The right-most bucket is for dirty brass but I try to keep it empty. That is, the day after a match, I clean brass. It then goes into the "Clean 45 ACP" bucket to await the Martindale gauge. And after passing the gauge, the cleaned and gauged brass is stored in empty 1 qt yogurt containers -- they hold about 200 pieces each and are the right quantity to dump into the shell feeder on the top of the Dillon without jamming it up. Those containers full of ready-to-load brass are stored out in the garage in a cabinet with other supplies.

More recently, I've suffered a spate of high primers, perhaps as many as 1 per 100. I shoot and reload the same brass a lot and someone suggested that after a half dozen firings, the primer pockets may accumulate enough crud to prevent the primers from seating correctly. So today I bought a primer pocket reamer and will spend a couple of hours going through everything. [Boring!]

On top of the middle bucket you can see a plastic jar labelled, "Bucket O' Primers." There's about an inch of water in the jar and damaged primers go in there. In a different posting here on this blog, you can read of my researches into deactivating primers but, in a nut shell and depending on who you ask, water will do it, but only until the material dries out again, or oil will do it, or won't, or it just can't be done. These reports are from the companies that make them! My "final answer" came from a Phoenix Police officer who said he soaks them in water until trash day, puts them in the trash wet and hopes they make it to the city dump before reactivating.

Interesting.

The baggie you see to the right contains 38 Special brass. Only my snubbie shoots that caliber and I don't (yet) reload for it. Someday I'll have a nice K-38 for Bullseye and will need that brass but, for now, I'm just collecting.

Work Table

Here's the final part of the area. This is where I clean guns, fix lamps, break small irreplaceable plastic parts and so forth.

On the extreme left you can just barely see the Lyman single-stage press I occasionally use, mostly to shrink that once-fired Aguilla brass. The press is attached to the board you see and the near end is held to the table with that large, rusty "C" clamp. The far end is held down by a screw through the board and into the work table below.

You can see a couple of bottles of Dillon's purplish brass polish on the shelf but most of the other items are standard fare for anyone's home workshop that's been accumulating tools, bolts and odd parts for a couple of decades.

Off to the left is storage with most of the items being put there years ago and forgotten. Worse, of course, is the storage shed in the backyard. We haven't seen the boxes in its deepest parts for more than a decade. And then there are the items stored in the attic above the garage we put in there when the roof was off but can't get to now. We don't have even the faintest of clues about what's up there.

But that's another story.

Keep 'em in the black, ya'll!