I’m trying to convince Mrs. Ahab (pictured in link) to join me for a live, on air episode of Gun Nuts Radio. What say you, my friends and readers?
Ammo quest
Mrs. Ahab is out of town today, abandoning me in favor if the girls. C’est la vie. This however leaves me free to spend my afternoon in search of the elusive 124gr jacketed soft point, one of my favorite loads for 9mm. Barring that, I hope to be able to find some 147 FMJ, since the ExDee seems to really get it jollies on the heavier bullets.
Planned stops: Goose Hill South, Bradis, Beech Grove Guns, and Goose Hill Norte. I also will adhere to my philosophy of not spending my sporting dollar at places like Wal-Mart, which do not support our right to keep and bear arms.
Pistol Training.Com
I’ve linked to Pistol-Training.Com before, but if you didn’t go over there the first time I did, now would be a great time to check it out. Todd, the primary writer is an excellent shooter, and someone that we as defensive shooters could all stand to learn from. Oddly enough, he has a post that’s about a week and a half old that neatly parallels my “Train your weaknesses” post, which was completely unintentional on my part.
Right now he’s in the midst of torture testing the new HK P-30: he’s up to about 24,000 rounds, and has had 7 stoppages, and one parts breakage. These are the guys that did the 60,000+ round test on the S&W M&P 9mm.
More IDPA Practice
With two (and maybe three if I can find the free time) major IDPA matches in the next couple of months, I need to get all the “non-match” practice in that I can. While shooting regular matches is a key factor in in improving performance, you also need to get that solo practice time on the square range so you can hone certain fundamentals. Like I said here, you have to practice the things you’re not good at, and there’s no better time to do that when you’re by yourself at the range.
That means today I’ll be setting up and shooting the IDPA qualifier. I had an email asking me why I used that to practice for major IDPA matches since it’s relatively uncomplex. The value of the IDPA classifier is that because it’s a fixed COF, it’s very easy to measure improvement. You shoot it with the same gun and gear each time, and you can tell just by comparing your scores from 2 weeks ago to today what you’re doing better or worse. Additionally, 1/3 of the qualifier is fired at the 15-20 yard distance, which is the distance that I need the most work on, so it’s worthwhile for me to spend some time putting bullets downrange at that distance.
I’ll keep shooting the IDPA classifier once a week through August, then come September, I’ll hit my match archives and pull a few former matches stages and shoot those to give myself more practice. My ultimate goal is to win my division and classification at both the Tri-State Regional and the Indiana State match.
From the mouths of babes
Conversation I had with the girl who cut my hair yesterday while watching CNN:
Hair Girl: “I don’t get what’s wrong with this Cash for Clunkers program. Do you?”
Me: “Yeah, basically the government said they would give people ‘free’ money to take their crappy old car and trade it in for a new, awesome car. Then the government was surprised when a shitload of people wanted to do this, so now they want to take more of your and my money to fund the program.”
Hair Girl: “…That’s just stupid.”
Not that again
In the effort to avoid any more rehashing of old arguments than necessary, I’ll just say this simply: from a personal defense standpoint when using a pistol in a service caliber such as 9mm, .40 S&W, or .45 ACP all modern hollowpoint ammo regardless of grain weight and velocity such as Winchester Ranger, Golden Saber, Speer Gold Dots, et al is designed to meet or exceed the FBI penetration standards. So my 147 grain 9mm is going to penetrate 12+ inches of ballistic gelatin after defeating common barrier materials and still give reliable expansion. Same as your .40, or your .45, or your 9mm in a different bullet weight.
I’m begging you people, please stop all the caliber wars. Can’t we just get a long gun?
Let's see Tiger Woods do that!
Reporting on the USPSA production circuit is almost boring – when we’re reporting on the big area matches, this guy keeps winning everything in sight. Dave has won 4 USPSA Area titles this year – to put that in golf terms, it would be like Tiger Woods winning 4 of the major open tournaments, and then going on to win the Master’s. We haven’t even gotten to the USPSA Production Nationals yet, where Dave will be looking to reclaim his title from Bob Vogel, who (by the way) has been running around smoking everyone in the Limited 10 division lately.
In all seriousness, congratulations Dave. You don’t get to be the dominant athlete in your sport without a lot of hard work and practice, and best of luck to you at the Area 7 Championships, which kick off today in New York. Come Monday, I’d like to be able to put up a post about you winning your fifth Production division title of the year! After that, he’ll be off to Piru, CA for the World Steel Shoot, where he, BJ Norris, Max Michel, Todd Jarrett, and a field of shooters will be going head-to-head to see who is the fastest gun alive.
And for the record, yes, I am in fact saying that Dave Sevigny is a superior athlete to Tiger Woods.
Winchester ballistics calculator
Winchester has what appears to be a pretty spiffy ballistics calculator available as freeware for shooters. Apparently you have to install Microsoft Silverlight to run it, which violates my rule of “No more Microsoft apps than actually necessary”. Sorry, Winchester.
Daniel Defense State of Operations
There was some brouhaha (ed: YES! I have been waiting YEARS to use that in a post!) about Daniel Defense’s recent layoffs and furloughing of certain staff personnel. The short version of the story is that yes, Daniel Defense did some layoffs, and which immediately sparked wild speculation from the 4chan of gunboards, Arfcom. Yesterday, Daniel Defense issued a press release, which I’ve uploaded and is available for you here. Full press release from Daniel Defense.
The short version of the presser is that the employees that were furloughed are now back at work, and Daniel Defense is operating normally. Rumors of their demise were greatly exaggerated, and I offer them my sincere best wishes. I hope the new DDXV sells like gangbusters, because honestly? Everyone needs a semi-auto M4 clone.