Quote of the day
No sword, no matter how perfect, is much use if it just hangs over the mantelpiece looking pretty. Shoot your defensive firearms, people. Take them to the range. Get them dirty. Clean them sometimes. Shoot them more. Say I went out and bought an STI Rangemaster in 9mm for Bianchi Cup Metallic Division (I yearn for this gun in a decidedly inappropriate way, btw). The gun starts at $1500 MSRP, but the additional touches I’d have put it on it would definitely drive that cost up. So then after I’ve had one of the top 1911 companies build a gun according to my specs, would I let it languish in the closet not getting shot? No way. Shoot your guns. Shoot them lots.
In fact, here’s my challenge to you. Pick one gun from your collection that you compete and/or carry. I want you to try and shoot 1000 rounds through that gun this month. If you already shoot 1,000 in a month, try for 2k. And don’t just do magazine dumps in to the berm at 5 yards, make these rounds count. Shoot for accuracy, or speed, practice drills you’ve seen online, but try to shoot 1000 rounds through the month of August. I’d be very interested to see how that goes!
Hey, I know that guy
Stage from the 2010 Indiana USPSA Section Match.
You had two targets to the left and two the right, then 4 more behind the port that could only be activated by putting the ammo can in the slot. Some people chose to shoot the four visible targets strong hand only and then put the can in the slot, I figured that I could drop the can in the slot with both hands and engage the four targets, reload while stepping back and get the last four. It worked pretty well, my time was 9.something and I shot 14 alfas…and two deltas which hurt my score pretty significantly. It was definitely a fun stage, and one of my favorites from the match. This is just me, but I don’t believe that a “good” stage has to be 32 rounds, but rather that it presents a shooting problem that can be solved in different ways. That was why I liked this stage, as there were multiple ways to shoot it. The match winner, Bob Vogel shot the stage in 6.57 seconds with 15 alfas and 1 charlie, on his way to winning every stage at the match.
That’s the big advantage of going to major matches. You get to shoot against the best, and see how your skills stack up against them. If you never shoot against the best and only compare yourself to other shooters in your classification, then you’ll end up the sad little king of a sad little hill, and never really improve. For that reason alone I encourage people to go to matches. Challenge yourself to shoot better, faster, and more accurately by comparing yourself to people that you don’t have a chance of beating, and who knows – someday you might just pull it off.
The last HAVA Charity Gun
Is now available on Gunbroker for you to bid on, and we are closing out the auction in STYLE. For our last item, 
we’re bringing out the big guns…literally. This is a DPMS LR-308 with a Leupold VX-II 3-9×40 variable power scope. You’ve got two magazines, the scope, and of course a DPMS .308 Winchester rifle. Perfect for hunting, 3-gun heavy metal division, long range rifle matches, or just for making guys with .223s feel inadequate about their caliber of choice. You can bid now on the LR-308 and Leupold scope package at GunBroker!
As of right now, we’ve raised over $2,000 for HAVA. This gun will put us over the $3000 mark when it sells, and I wouldn’t be upset of it went for $2000 or so and bumped us over $4000 total. This is a win-win situation – you get to buy a cool gun, and help our veterans! Bid now at Gunbroker!
Movie thoughts
I watched Terminator: Salvation last night, which means I have no seen every movie in the Terminator franchise, including the thoroughly wretched Terminator 3 or whatever it was called. This isn’t a thought so much on the movie itself, but rather on something that got my attention. During the movie, there’s a scene where John Connor, as played by Christian Bale is pointing his USP at one of the other characters, and you get a good look at his grip. To Bale’s credit, he’s holding the gun in a positive two handed grip with his arms extended isosceles style…just like a real pro would be doing in that situation.
Now, we know that Christian Bale is an insane method actor, and having worked on a Michael Mann film and just generally being Christian Bale, it stands to reason that if he was going to play a hardened commando/special ops type like John Connor, that he’d actually learn how a hardened commando/special ops type would hold a gun. For whatever reason, seeing that made me unusually happy. Perhaps I’ve seen one to many TV cops and soldiers tea-cupping their guns lately, and watching someone look like he had actually shot a gun before was very refreshing.
Also, if you can get it on HBO or DVD, you should watch Terminator Salvation. It’s quite fun, stuff blows up and people shoot robots with all kinds of crazy weapons. And John Connor uses an HK USP, so the HK fanboys will love it.
No new Gun Nuts Radio this week
I wanted to get this announcement posted as soon as possible, but I’m afraid that we won’t have a new broadcast of Gun Nuts this week. Lots of stuff going on that’s going to require my immediate attention in the next week. We will be back next week with an all new episode with new surprises and info!
2010 Indiana USPSA Section Championship results
They have posted the official results from the 2010 Section Match that occurred over the weekend. The total number of shooters was 245, making this bigger than some of the Area championships in the game. The round count was “a lot”, I think something in the order of 257 rounds, and I know I fired about 270ish through the Ruger SR9c. Here are your winners by division:
- Open: Randee Uy
- Limited: Chris Keen
- Limited-10: Bob Vogel (no surprise there)
- Production: James Tarr
- Revolver: Matt Griffin
- Single Stack: Tony Hawkins
Interesting note on Tony’s performance – he shot minor power factor and still won the whole shootin’ match. Now, I’m not sure if he shot Minor intentionally in Single Stack or if he had an “oopsie” at the chrono, but it is interesting to see the Minor PF guns being run successfully in Single Stack. It’s one of few divisions where it makes sense – guns shooting Minor in Single Stack are allowed to load two more rounds in the magazine for a total of 11 shots in the gun, as opposed to Major PF guns which only can have a max of 9. One of the stages at the match, stage 8 was an 11 shot stage, giving a clear advantage to someone shooting a Minor PF gun.
I’ll have more on my performance on this week’s edition of The Quest for Master Class on Downrange.TV, however out of 30 shooters in Limited-10, I finished an astonishing 12th. I honestly thought that any finish higher than the bottom five would be good, and so with a 12th place finish I’m incredibly happy. Plus, the nice thing about USPSA is it really gives you an idea of how you stack up to other shooters – for example, I shot 53.03% as well as Bob Vogel did. Being able to say I’m “half as good” as him is an okay thing in my book.
The Ruger SR9c did fine. Using 147 grain ammo, I had no issues with malfunctions of any type using both full size magazines and the compact 10 rounders. I did identify one gear issue though – the front pouch on my Comp-Tac double mag pouch is absurdly tight for some reason. I need to get after that with an Allen wrench and loosen it up a bit before my next major. This match did definitively prove to me how easy the SR9c is to shoot. In Limited-10, I’m running up against tricked out 1911s, STIs, Glocks customized as race guns, and the little Ruger SR9c held its own. I have no doubt in the hands of a better shooter than I am that the gun could have done even better. I will say that one advantage of the 3.5 inch barrel was how fast I could clear the holster with the SR9c – not quite race holster fast, but fast enough to get the job done.
I had a great time at the 2010 Indiana USPSA Section Championship. Hopefully I’ll be able to make it back next year. The nice thing about shooting Run ‘n Gun matches like this is you really get to see how you perform when you’re at the ragged edge of your skills, and I couldn’t be happier with a 12th place finish shooting a compact firearm with concealed carry gear!
No new Top Shot recap today
Because I haven’t seen the new episode yet! The hotel I’m in right now doesn’t get the History channel, and they’ve not yet posted the full episode online for viewing. So I can’t give you my thoughts on the trick shot challenge, or the elimination challenge (which I heard was cool) or the results of the elimination. I mean, I know all the stuff that happened with the episode (who goes home etc) but I don’t have any context for it.
Don’t worry, I’ll catch up to the episode ASAP and get my thoughts online once I do. Maybe I should just bite the bullet and get Hulu Plus for my iPhone.