Springfield/Warren 9mm 1911 Endurance Test: Report #20

Thirty five thousand rounds in the can … who ever would have guessed?

As you can see, I got to practice quite a bit this week. But in addition to the big round count I also spent some serious time dry firing this week: three and a half hours, which for me at least is a ton of dry fire in one week. Results have been mixed but my hope is that as I incorporate dry fire into my regular routine it will transfer more readily to live work.

You may also have noticed the funny looking thing on my pistol grip in the photo above. Here is a closer look:

That, ladies and gentlemen, is genuine J-B Weld compound. Ugly? Very. But in anticipation of this weekend’s class with Robert Vogel I’ve been playing around with my grip some more. As reported previously it was causing havoc with slidelock on an empty magazine. So add one ugly grip tumor and my support thumb is no longer contacting the slide lock lever no matter how I grip the pistol.

More next week after the class.

Train hard & stay safe! ToddG

You can also follow and discuss via the pistol-forum.com 2012-2013 Endurance Test thread.

Previous Springfield/Warren 9mm 1911 Endurance Test posts at pistol-training.com: Read the rest of this entry »

Posted in Springfield 1911 9mm | 2 Comments »

Finger: Safe When?

A couple of recent discussions over at pistol-forum have touched on the question of when is it ok to touch the trigger during the draw stroke?

Essentially it boils down to two schools of thought. Some folks think it is ok to begin prepping the trigger as long as the gun is pointed in the direction of the target. They tend to advocate a draw stroke that keeps the gun below the eye-target line until the very last moment. If they waited to get on the trigger until they saw the sights, it would slow down their shots. So they prep the trigger as the gun elevates toward their normal shooting position.

Others, myself included, don’t want fingers on triggers until there has been visual confirmation that the gun is on target. Rather than drawing the gun in a straight line from the holster to full extension their draw is in more of an “L” or “J” shape that gets the sights into the eye line earlier and then allows sighting (and trigger pressing) as it drives forward.

At least on easy targets, the first version really is probably faster for most people. But the photo above is a perfect example of why it’s a bad idea. That photo is from a USPSA match I attended in 2006 while doing some work at the Federal Law Enforcement Training Center in Georgia. The person photographed is a career law enforcement officer and a firearms instructor.

And under the mild stress of a match, he drew his pistol and was pressing the trigger when the muzzle was pointed at a table just inches away. 

He knew the table was there. He had plenty of time to think about what he was going to do and even had time to rehearse it. But when the buzzer went off, the habit he built up from all that “prep on the rise” practice led him to a situation that could have resulted in injury if he’d launched a ricocheting round into that table. In real life it could have been something a lot more precious than a range prop.

It comes down to a difference in philosophy. In a USPSA or IDPA match, generally everything in a 180 degree zone before you is a “safe direction.” For example, if you look at the photo in the banner of my website it shows a student with the muzzle of his gun elevated for a reload. In most shooting sports, if your finger is on the trigger while you’re reloading you’ll run afoul of safety rules… pointing the gun up into the air with your finger on the trigger, they recognize, is unsafe. But if instead you’ve got your finger on a loaded gun as you draw, pointed 45 degrees down instead of 45 degrees up, that’s ok because on the playground it’s usually harmless to launch a round low or into the ground.

Off the playground there’s no way to be sure what might be below or around the target that you really may not want to shoot. Think about having to take a shot in a crowded theater or — ironically — at a real playground with little kids running around. Sweeping the muzzle past all their heads with your finger on the trigger would be a bad idea, no?

Of course, advocates of the “prep on the rise” technique will assure you that under stress they’ll realize, on the fly, that the technique they’ve practiced endlessly and turned into a subconscious habit will give way to calm rational realization that it would be more appropriate to extend the gun before touching the trigger. Because we all know that under stress, going against our training is easy to do, right? Errr…

That’s why I prefer a draw stroke that keeps the finger off the trigger until the gun is up high and I can actually see that the muzzle is on target before I touch the trigger.

Photo above is me performing a demo at a C.U.S.S. class with Jack “Failure2Stop” Leuba in 2010. The gun is already more than halfway to my eye-target line and finger is nowhere near the trigger. (photo courtesy of ByronG)

Train hard & stay safe! ToddG

Posted in Safety | 24 Comments »

365 Days of Training

My friend Josh Savani (aka joshs on pistol-forum.com), F.A.S.T. Coin #10, has just announced that he is committing to an entire unbroken year of pistol practice. Whether live fire or dry fire, he’ll be working on his shooting skills for three hundred and sixty five days. Not only that, but he’s also committed to shooting the same model gun — the outstanding HK P30 — the entire time.

You can follow Josh’s daily progress through his online training journal.

And if for any reason he skips even a single day, he’s promised to shave his head. On YouTube. While wearing a dress. In public.

(and a Happy 1st Mother’s Day to Mrs. joshs)

Train hard & stay safe! ToddG

Posted in Learning | 5 Comments »

Springfield/Warren 9mm 1911 Endurance Test: Report #19

The pistol is back from SACS and has already seen one long day of practice.

The whole trip to the mothership and back took sixteen days. As Springfield customer service always does, they covered overnight shipping in both directions. According to the work order, Springfield recut the slide stop notch, installed a new extended 9mm ejector, and restaked the plunger tube. Everything was covered under Springfield’s lifetime warranty, of course. The entire process was as easy as it could be for me as a customer.

The broken ejector had already been counted in the report tally but as SACS performed a repair on the slide, I’ve added that as well so now the total under parts breakages is three.

So is it fixed?

Absolutely. The gun devoured almost 1,100 rounds on Friday without a hiccup of any kind. To make sure the slide was cycling and locking back properly regardless of recoil impulse I tested it with three different loads: American Eagle AE9DP (115gr FMJ standard pressure), CCI 54882 (124gr mil-spec leadfree FMJ), and my carry ammo P9HST3 (124gr +p JHP).

As the photo at left shows, a couple of minor but noteworthy changes happened on Friday. First, purely on aesthetic grounds I’ve swapped out my desert tan VCD Grips for the black set that had been living on the backup gun. Regardless of color, these things continue to be the racetrack performance tire of the 1911 world as far as I’m concerned providing tremendous grip and recoil management regardless of whether you’re wet, dry, or on fire*.

Second, I’ve gone back to using the JM Custom Kydex aiwb holster. If I’m honest it’s a little less comfortable and a little less concealing than the 5 Shot Leather SME which still remains probably the best overall appendix holster I’ve ever used. But for the 1911, the SME holds the gun so tight against the body that it’s a bit difficult to get the grip I want before drawing. Well, I say for the 1911 but perhaps it would be more appropriate to say for the 1911 for a guy with a gut but I’d much rather blame the holster than my lifestyle so…

The difference is that the JMCK gives me about two tenths of a second faster draw and, when I’m really pushing at maximum speed, less chance of a fumble or delay. And because I’m going to Bob Vogel’s World Class Pistol Skills class this coming weekend the speed issue is foremost in my mind all the sudden.

On a side note, during the two weeks that the test gun was in Geneseo I put almost 1,500 rounds through the backup SACS/Warren pistol, serial -16. Like the -17 test gun, it quickly became apparent that the gun needed an upgrade from the stock 12# recoil spring to the variable 14# spring that Jason Burton recommended months ago. It took two feed stoppages for me to figure that out, though.

This next week will see quite a few rounds downrange working up to the much anticipated Vogel class. Check back for Report #20 which will include a full write-up on the class and the 35,000th birthday of the gun that no one thought would work!

Train hard & stay safe! ToddG

* Setting yourself on fire to test this claim is done solely at the reader’s risk.

You can also follow and discuss via the pistol-forum.com 2012-2013 Endurance Test thread.

Previous Springfield/Warren 9mm 1911 Endurance Test posts at pistol-training.com: Read the rest of this entry »

Posted in Springfield 1911 9mm | 3 Comments »

IDPA and AIWB

It may be a fool’s errand but for what it’s worth, I submitted the following to IDPA via their rules comment section (accessible to any IDPA member who is logged in to IDPA.com). If enough of us ask for it, perhaps the rule will get some new consideration.

Train hard & stay safe! ToddG

Posted in Competition, Gear | 14 Comments »

Round Dumping Now Only on the History Channel

The IDPA “round dumping” rule is history, verified a short while ago in an email I received from IDPA Executive Director Joyce Wilson.

Thanks very much to Joyce for her quick reply to my question and to the entire IDPA Board of Directors for putting a stake through the heart of that villainous rule.

Train hard & stay safe! ToddG

Posted in Competition | No Comments »

Initial Thoughts on New IDPA Rulebook

I’ve only read through it once and scratched some very rough notes but here are some of the issues that particularly stood out to me:

Safety. The new book has some rather complicated and sometimes contradictory rules about safety. Section F1(B) states that “unsafe gunhandling will result in immediate disqualification (DQ).” Then we get S5 which allows a shooter to violate the finger placement rule three times before getting DQ’d. The first incident gets a warning, the second a 3-second penalty, and the third a 20-second penalty. (Rule S7, on the other hand, goes from a warning straight to the 20-second penalty and then DQ) I’ve always maintained that this is a bad practice. Safe gun handling should not be part of the shooter’s score. Either he’s safe enough to shoot the match or he should be DQ’d.

Round Dumping. (edited 2106 7-May-13) Joyce Wilson responded to my email from earlier today asking for clarification and stated in no uncertain terms that “the ‘dumping rule’ is gone.” Halle-kitten-lujah!

Appendix Carry. Still disallowed. While I cannot begrudge them the decision I do wish they’d gone the other way. I wonder if we started a big mail-in campaign whether we could change their minds. I suppose we’d have to mail them our appendixes, though. That may not be legal. Or healthy.

Cover. IDPA has now clearly stated that shooters aren’t required to hug the barricade when shooting from behind cover. While this seems obvious to most folks it actually became a problem at some clubs and even some big matches because someone with no real training or understanding of realistic cover principles decided that you had to be close to the wall in order for it to stop bullets… no, seriously. Good change on IDPA’s part.

Malfunctions & Cover. Rule R9.3 was written hastily and without much forethought. The rules states that if you have an out of battery gun after trying to reload, you have to try pulling the trigger before you can clear the malfunction. That’s simply dangerous not to mention pretty silly from a tactical standpoint. I’ll be amazed if that’s not changed, and quickly.

Reloads on the Move. For a while IDPA had an absolutely ridiculous rule that if your gun went dry in the middle of an open field you were required to sprint (safely and with your muzzle downrange) to the nearest point of cover before you could do anything about it. Now they allow you to begin your reload as soon as the gun goes dry. However, you cannot engage any targets until you’re behind cover. I’m of two minds on this. On the one hand, it’s stupid from a realistic/combat standpoint; if the gun is ready to fire and there are targets to be shot, why wait? On the other hand, I do see the problem from a competition standpoint; if you allow people to reload and re-enage out in the open, they’ll take baby steps so they can engage the targets easily and quickly before getting to cover. The new rule probably isn’t what I would have suggested but thinking it through, it makes sense to me.

Video. The rules explicitly state that there will be no “instant replay” through the use of video. One of the things that makes IDPA so great is that most officials and competitors are honest and sincere sportsmen. Getting each ruling mired down in “but look, Bubba done video’d it!” would become tiresome. I imagine it was a tough decision, but I think they made the right one.

Round Count. Stages no longer have to make an attempt at being revolver- or CDP-neutral. As someone who’s designed a lot of stages over the years, the old limitation was frustrating.

Equipment Rules. The rules are a lot easier to follow and standardized more appropriately between the different semiauto divisions. While there will still be people complaining that their favorite mod isn’t allowed in SSP, there aren’t too many things that will keep most people from competing as long as they’re willing to do so in ESP or CDP, depending on caliber. There will also be complaints that 10mm still isn’t allowed in CDP… complaints from the same six people who think 10mm is still popular and wish that Smith, HK, and every other handgun manufacturer would make guns in 10mm.

There are other little things I like or don’t like but those were the major points for me.

Posted in Competition | 9 Comments »

One Picosafety

In the metric system, “pico” is the prefix denoting one trillionth (0.000000000001, or 10 to the -12th power). It’s ridiculously small.

Pico is also the name of Beretta’s latest mouse gun. To introduce their new polymer pocket wonder Beretta produced a video which, as pointed out by ByronG on pistol-forum.com, demonstrates what I would call 1 picosafety, or one trillionth the attention to safety that you’d expect from a major firearms manufacturer. Byron’s post is reproduced below with permission.

I’m pretty sure the owner’s manual that comes with the Pico will just say, “Please observe the four cardinal safety rules at all times. In other words, do not do anything we showed in the promotional video for this firearm.”

“Come one step closer and I’ll blow a hole in my own hand!”

—–

“I don’t want the bullets going anywhere before I’ve decided to pull the trigger, so I plug the muzzle with my finger. It’s safe because the bullet doesn’t reach full speed until well after the muzzle.”

—–

“How you guys like my stylin’ teacup grip?”

—–

“So then you whip out your gat like this and go pew pew pew!
Doesn’t matter if you’re firing into the ground: the noise will scare attackers away!”

—–

“Hey, you can’t be the only one who gets to play with the trigger! Let me try!”

—–

“Ha! I can do even better than you did! Finger on trigger and muzzling myself…
just in case I didn’t quite muzzle myself in the last frame”

—–

“How do these mags work again?…”

—–

“No… wait… flip it around…”

—–

“OK… here we go!”

Maybe… just maybe… if you’re going to brag about how easy a pistol is to control and operate, it would be a good idea to show people who know how to control and operate said pistol.

Posted in Gear, Safety | 5 Comments »

IDPA’s New Rulebook Inbound

The new IDPA rulebook, which has been a work in progress for the past couple of years through the use of anonymous “tiger teams” set to task on various aspects of the sport, is being released for comment to IDPA members today on IDPA’s website.

Joyce Wilson, Executive Director of IDPA, gave an interview to ShootingUSA during the NRA Annual Meeting in Houston. You can listen to the entire podcast on the ShootingUSA website.

In particular, Joyce spelled out the 4-step method by which potential rule changes were evaluated:

1. What was the purpose or history behind the current rule?
2. Is the rule still valid today?
3. Does the rule support the founders’ principles and values?
4. Does the rule require the Safety Officer to make a judgment call?

Those last two questions are the key ones.

Joyce’s comments during the podcast make it clear that IDPA is looking to move towards the founding principles of the game. As someone who’s been an IDPA member since 1997 I can certainly appreciate how much the sport has changed in that time. While some competitors have pushed to make matches more “gamey,” it sounds like the tiger teams and Board of Directors want to remain true to the original intent behind IDPA as a way for people to focus on realistic concealed carry skills.

But it’s the judgment call question and Joyce’s comment that IDPA wants to “take some subjectivity out of the officiating at matches” that really grabbed my attention. Anyone who has competed at multiple major IDPA matches around the country, if he’s honest, will tell you that rule interpretations vary wildly from match to match and sometimes from stage to stage depending on who is running the show. Stage walkthroughs are normally followed by a long (and often tedious) process of asking the SOs for permission to shoot the stage certain ways. Whatever steps IDPA is taking to alleviate this problem will be welcome. One can only assume that the much-hated dumping rule will also be deleted or at least more clearly defined as part of this shift toward objectivity.

A few other previews Joyce offered during the ShootingUSA interview:

• After a long and confusing period of banishment, the Springfield XD line of pistols will finally be allowed to compete head to head against similar striker-fired guns such as the Glock and M&P in Stock Service Pistol Division.
• The current rulebook will be split into two separate items: a simple statement of the rules for competitors and an explanatory description of concepts and intent for Safety Officers, Match Directors, and Area Coordinators. In addition, there will be a new online recertification program for SOs.
• IDPA will be instituting a “Code of Conduct” for its members. The podcast made it sound like this would revolve primarily around range safety but one can but hope it will also address the unsportsmanlike behavior that has become the norm in some corners of the action shooting sports.

It’s also worth mentioning that the rulebook as it is presented today is not finalized. IDPA intends to have a three week comment period for members to voice their opinions. The Board of Directors did a very similar thing before IDPA went “live” back in 1997 and I still remember some of the changes we were able to push through (like giving ESP the same front & backstrap checkering rules as CDP).

More on the new rules once I’ve had a chance to read the proposed changes…

Train hard & stay safe! ToddG

Posted in Competition | 1 Comment »

Free Crack at Tam’s

Read all about it at View From The Porch.

As a reminder, Heckler & Koch remains the only handgun manufacturer that designs all of its barrels to withstand firing a a live round behind a squib. They even use a proprietary steel for their barrels… the company that produces the steel has a contract with HK guaranteeing they won’t sell it to anyone else.

Train hard & stay safe! HK Fanboy

Posted in Gear, Safety | 9 Comments »