May 2010 Archives

Man it was hot. I drank 2 large bottles of Gatorade and a canteen of water, and it wasn't quite enough. I always try to go overkill on the liquid refreshments, but I didn't think I would be outside for 7 hours.

Anyway, the match itself was 6 classifiers and 2 "regular" stages. It seemed like a lot of really good shooters were drawn out for the chance to increase their classification.

I was pretty happy with how things were going until we got to the last two bays. I was starting to cook at that point, and didn't shoot as well I could have. (I kind of wish I'd ended up on one of the "regular" stages as my last stage.)

So, I'm plugging in my hit factors and I might snag a 'C' classification. That would rock! I was fully expecting a 'D'. It depends on how good ClassiferCalc is as an estimator.

Melody Line:
Based on HF entered, we calculate your "National Percentage" will be: 45.5624% (C)

Nuevo El Presidente
Based on HF entered, we calculate your "National Percentage" will be: 29.2200% (ouch)

Works For Me
Based on HF entered, we calculate your "National Percentage" will be: 31.5145% (meh)

Fast'n Furious
Based on HF entered, we calculate your "National Percentage" will be: 40.8193% (C)

Six Chickens
Based on HF entered, we calculate your "National Percentage" will be: 51.3977% (C)

Mini-Mart
Based on HF entered, we calculate your "National Percentage" will be: 54.5868% (C)

I had a miss on Nuevo El Presidente and Works For Me, which tanked those. Fast'n Furious is kind of borderline, so I might still get a 'D'.

I fumbled the mag change on Mini-Mart. I need a magwell.

Six Chickens and Mini-Mart were the first two classifiers I shot when I was still feeling pretty fresh. You can tell my scores kind of go to pot after that.

In an article about bringing legal open carry to Texas, there is a quote from the North Texas Brady Bunch president:

If you see someone with a holster on, are you just to assume this is a law-abiding person? Are you to assume this person is safe to be around your family?

Now there's a pro-gun rights blogger meme out there where you change a couple of words around and the statement becomes racist, sexist, homophobic, or what have you. I'll do something similar but more milquetoast:

If you see someone, are you just to assume this is a law-abiding person? Are you to assume this person is safe to be around your family?

The short answer is, no.

You shouldn't assume anything, and it applies just as much to people who aren't openly carrying guns as it does to people who are.

The truth is you can't know what anyone is going to do. The best you can do is pay attention to how they act, and have some sort of a defensive tool, like a gun, if they do act to cause harm.

I personally think open carry would be a great thing to have, but not something I would do very much in town.

Our app contains an instance of Internet Explorer in it, and by default we go to Google.com since it's a fairly lightweight page and could potentially be useful. The page isn't shown immediately but it is loaded up on start.

We've been getting calls and emails this morning about strange Pacman sounds.

We are now setting about:blank as the default page, and probably won't go back to Google.

My neighbor's brother just graduated from Texas A&M and is leaving for the Marine's OCS soon. He was in town over the weekend, so I couldn't resist asking him if he'd like to go shoot while he was here. Of course he said yes. Hooorah!

So, on Sunday we went over to the rifle club and slayed some paper targets.

I hopefully imparted a little useful knowledge to him, but mostly it was just shooting.

I did spend a lot of time with his sister, going over stance, grip, etc. She's completely hooked, and confiscated her husband's Ruger SR9C for herself. (Don't feel too bad for him though, as he has his eye on a Springfield Armory 1911 in Stainless.) Later that day she talked about getting all the neighborhood ladies together for a range day.

Everybody had a fun and safe day, and I was able to do something for someone who is about to serve our country which made it even better for me.

This is not a review, that will come later after I get a chance to use it.

I shoot rifles and shotguns left handed and while the B.A.D. is more oriented to right hand use, it is useful in two ways I have found so far.

First, locking the bolt back is super easy now. Pull the charging handle, push the B.A.D. inwards with your trigger finger and you are done. Your dominant hand (although I'm really right handed) never has to leave the grip. (For righties the drill is basically the same except your trigger finger pushes up on the B.A.D.)

Second, releasing the bolt is also very fast now. Basically with your right hand thumb, push the B.A.D down. If you run with your right hand around the magwell you will be very happy with the B.A.D., as all you really have to do is seat the mag and push the end of the lever down with your thumb while getting your grip on the magwell. If you shoot with your right hand on the handguard, you just need to remember to seat the mag, and push the B.A.D. down before resuming that grip. (For righties, you get to use your trigger finger again, just push down.)

I'm taking a class with it in June, so I'll post a more thorough review after the class, but I think the B.A.D. offers left handed AR shooters some useful features.

First off, I hate running. Really hate it, but I hate stationary bikes and treadmills even more.

Second off, I'm really not built for running. I'm large framed, and somewhat tall, but the killer is my legs are like stumps. Squats are easy for me, but running is hard.

Despite those things, I'm trying to lose some unwanted pounds and improve my general health, so that involves cardio among other things.

Anyway, long story short, I've been concentrating on running for about 6 weeks. Today I doubled my normal distance just because I felt good and there was a nice breeze which helped to cut the nasty humidity some.

For kicks I pulled up Google Earth and commenced to find out how far that actually was. Turns out it was 3.28 miles which is just a bit over 5 kilometers.

Not sure of the exact time for the 5k part itself, but I was gone for 45 minutes. I walked the first little bit of it, .08 miles according to Google Earth again, ran a little bit over a true 5k, and huffed and puffed for a little while before I went inside and looked at the clock.

I figure that actual 5k part was done in around 40 minutes, which probably puts me on par with a 65 year old woman running barefoot. (No offense intended to said group.) I'm hauling around twice as much mass, but it's still pretty pathetic. On the other hand I wasn't really intending to race and was just cruising.

I'm kind of intrigued now. If I took it seriously and dropped 20 lbs, I wonder if I could run one under 30 minutes? I'll probably never know.

BTW, that was the farthest I have run in a long, long time. Probably 15+ years. Heck, I'm not even sure I have ever run that far before.

As societies become richer, citizens tend to want better schools, better medical care and other government services. This country is following that pattern, but without paying the necessary taxes.

I disagree somewhat. I don't think all citizens are in favor of an expanding government and its services, but there hasn't been a lot of political will to do anything about it.

American governance won't begin to inch forward until the political class faces basic facts.

After the match today I took one of my boys out for some one-on-one time with daddy today.

He caught his first fish today! A nice looking male bluegill.

About 10 minutes later I caught a female. I think we happened to have found their nest/home/territory.

He wanted to take them home and put them in the aquarium, but they were released back into the pond.

Pretty good day today.

I shot the ALSPPC USPSA pistol match today.

Like a dumbass I forgot my hearing protection, but luckily I was able to bum some ear plugs.

Things went pretty well overall. I continue to make stupid mistakes on complex stages. It seems like they just love to put walls everywhere that hide targets. Lesson learned, walk the stage until you're sick of it, then walk it some more.

I still get target fixated at times. My problem is that I'll get away with it a couple of times and then seem to forget there are sights on my gun.

I was happy with my performance on 3 of the stages, one was ok except for a fumbled mag change, and then the complex stage that I borked. One of these days I'll get a match in where I actually do my best on every stage.

One area where I did pretty well, compared to what I saw in my squad was the classifier stage. The stage was: 15 yards, draw put 2 rounds each on 3 targets, reaload put 2 rounds each on 3 targets using strong hand only. Then basically the same thing at 10 yards, except weak hand only. The classes I have taken from KR Training and Rangemaster really stressed one handed shooting, both strong and weak hands, and I have continued to practice those drills. From what I can tell, most competitors, even Master class, don't practice one handed and weak handed shooting that much if at all. (I am right handed, but I do a lot of things left handed due to my vision, so that might have something to do with it too.)