All content, tips and info will now be on http://www.predatortactical.com

All content, tips and info by Matt Burkett will now be on http://www.predatortactical.com

Day 2 photos from the Shot Show are upl go to http://ping.fm/5GVq0

The Magpul party was off the hook last night! Thanks to the crew for getting us in! Check out Magpuls products at http://magpul.com/

First day of Shot Show! Woot! Hope to catch up with everyone! Photo video links will be at http://ping.fm/npo6l

New photo's from last weeks training and Media Day at the Shot Show! Check them out at http://ping.fm/K5T13

On the road to the Shot Show! If you going and want to say hi, meet up or do dinner, text or call me (602) 652-2864 - will be there Sun/Sun

One of my Mil friends has started a new record label! All proceeds go to mil charities. Check them out at http://ping.fm/btaYS when you get a chance!

Thanks to http://ping.fm/2Zo6V for their support of my training and our military! Check out their site! Great products, great people!

86,000 rounds of 556 and 9, 12 broken berettas, 5 broken M4's, and one toasted Eotech. What a week of training in Louisianna!

Check out Chuck's new facebook page for his company ShootersConnection! http://ping.fm/Klbvu

Go BSU! What a game!

Saddle ranch Scottsdale for the ufc fight at 7!

Happy New Years! Going to Saddle Ranch Scottsdale from 7-9 then the http://ping.fm/9I3HC for the ball drop! Have a safe one!

Happy New Year to everyone! Especially our troops and contractors in harms way!

Everyone has to check out the photos and story from the range yesterday! Awesome! http://ping.fm/IGoLP

Burkett Off-Set Mounts are in stock at Brownells. Will be back in stock at MattBurkett.com early next week.

Merry Christmas to all our boys and girls overseas. Thank you for all that you are doing for our country! Stay Safe and come home soon!

Merry Christmas to all my family, friends and fans! Love all of you and hope today brings you everything you wished for!

At Mazelpalooza believe it or not! The W is rockin it out in Scottsdale!

Back home after a great time in Chicago once again! In AZ till JAN!

Back in Chicago till Sunday!

Back in AZ for 72 hours. Then, guess where again? Yep, Chicago!

Just landed in windy and friggin cold Chicago! Drop me a call if you want to meet up. Not here very long but still might be able to say hi!

Check out MGM Targets monthly special! http://ping.fm/OfZqm A great company with awesome targets!

On the way back to AZ for a few days! Direct flight on Frontier, 1:20 mins! Great airline too!

Going to the Avalanche vs. Wild game in Denver thanks to Mark P from http://entropyec.com with Jim/Nancy from Firebird prec!

Shooting an Uspsa match at Aurora Gun Club in CO!

Black Friday sale ENDS @6PM CST http://ping.fm/9kjSH ALL Burkett DVDs $199.95 including S&H anywhere in the world! PSV 1-8 and IPSC Strat!

Happy Thanksgiving to everyone, especially our troops overseas! Stay safe!

Check out the fund raiser from Larue Tactical. http://ping.fm/FaZkw

We are working to resolve a user registration issue at http://ping.fm/orDB2 Please call in your order or use the contact form.

Heading to http://ping.fm/ugnQZ for their grand opening of the new night club AIRIA. Look for photos tomorrow!

Meeting with Ryan Mogel at Salty Senorita's in Scottsdale.! A computer chip designer and a magician on the side.

At dinner with Wes Doss talking about the 1" to 100 yard conference next August. http://ping.fm/rdSrt Check it out!

Black Friday Sale! Use coupon code 15 for a 15% discount! Http://www.mattburkett.com

Hope everyone has a safe and happy Halloween! Back in AZ. More big news coming soon!

Heading to Vegas for the night.

Back home in Arizona!

Stuck in NYC on a layover. Happy about it though! Get to see my friends tonight! Give me a shout if your in town and want to hang out.

Class went great in Hampden! Can't wait to get their reviews! On the way back to AZ for a couple of days. See you on the range sometime!

Yeah! Another Dash! But now for an hour and a half! Woot! Can't wait to see everyone in the morning at the class. :-)

On a Dash 8-100 from Philly to NYC and finally the class in ME! This plane only has 36 seats. Look it up. Wish me luck!

Correction on that last post! Class is on the weekend in Hampden Maine 17/18. Sorry for any confusion. :-)

There are still a few slots available for the Hampden, Maine class this weekend! Get signed up at http://ping.fm/sHYa0

LEO Gear is a new distributor of my products and services! Check out their website at: http://www.leogear.com

Congratulations to Nordic Components for getting on the Ruger 10-22 at the factory level! Check it out! http://ping.fm/ATnno

Yeah, home in AZ! Took MMA fighter Dan BigHouse to SGC! He got to blast away with the MP5 and a Wilson .45! Great guy! http://ping.fm/aOmoR

Okay a plane this small leaving Bismarck, ND is cool when you own it. NOT when you paid for a ticket!

Dave Re (a long time close friend and student) of http://ping.fm/4ONkd won the NM Sectional! Way to go Dave!!

Made it into Carpio, ND just fine. Needed a laugh after a long travel day. http://ping.fm/rbmOA OMFG awesome doesn't describe it

On the plane on the way to ND back in the office on Tuesday take care all and good luck at any comps this weekend.

Due to a death in the family, the class in Hampden, Maine has to be moved to the 17,18th of October. Sorry for any difficulties.

My Grandma, Gladys Lee just passed away. One of the only people in the world I know thats going to Heaven. Your going to be missed.

Check out the photo's from Durka Durka of the USPSA Production Nat's! Awesome job!!
http://ping.fm/qxVm2

Getting ready to fly back to AZ from TX. What a great weekend! Thanks to Kevin, JPRifles, Larue, trijicon, Schmidt, DPMS, and Tiger Valley. More pics are upped btw.

Finished 4th team out of 38 got a DPMS rifle and Kevin got a leopold Mark4. Not bad zeroing a stage! Only seven stages. Thanks Tiger Valley!

Day one of the match is over, 19 more photo's of prep and of the first match day were added.
http://ping.fm/y9kCL

Photo's from my TX trip I am currently on over at Kevin's new ranch. Check them out at http://ping.fm/BNoBP

On Southwest Air heading to Dallas to kick it with Kevin "Hollywood" Elpers and shoot a match at http://ping.fm/9jQJI have a great weekend everyone!

Guess I'm going to have to stop posting all that stuff now since if appears they are collecting an enemies list. http://ping.fm/dA20Y

In his first article for MattBurkett.com, Matt C. marched on Washington, DC Sept. 12th! Check it out on my site http://ping.fm/uK5Pp

OMG!! 4th video being released on Acorn right now on Fox's G. Beck show!!!

Still a few slots available for the class in Hampden, ME. Sept This will be the only East Coast class for this year. Sept 26/27 http://ping.fm/ap7sv

The photo's tell it all. Who do you want taking care of the country?
http://ping.fm/qSlEt

If your American need to see this video! So brilliant I have posted it on my front page of my website. Check it out: http://ping.fm/tYH2I

Why is being RIGHT extreme? Why is the country being divided? Is it on purpose? An article to read: http://ping.fm/k9gLX

Ok, here we go! Remember my pings a month ago? http://ping.fm/suCuM that and http://ping.fm/Sx3ok

Check out the brand new DR Performance Practice Deck 1.0 in my store! This deck is very cool! Stop being bored at the range! http://ping.fm/JaKCS

Ecom issues are fixed! BTW for the 5 days get 20% discount off of my DVDs - code: mattshappy Check out the store at http://www.mattburkett.com/shop-online

Some days just need some levity! http://ping.fm/iTrri
and http://ping.fm/xxJtM
Enjoy them! Back to work for me.

Love him or hate him, Ted Nugent has it right on the concealed carry and the Second Amendment! http://ping.fm/f9whW

Thanks to Brian G. for the best/ironic Bday present - a touch up car paint pen in the correct color! BTW another great site http://ping.fm/fEwdo

Thanks to everyone for the birthday wishes! Heading to Saddle Ranch to watch the Cardinals. Join up if you get a chance.

Didn't we have a war over States rights awhile back? TN and MT residents pay attention to this one. http://ping.fm/LxFsg

SLPC report: every one in the US that is conservative (NRA members are included) is a militia/hate party member. WOW http://ping.fm/Gl1Q8

Have you ever really understood the US Dollar and our economy? Here is a crash course that may scare the heck out of you. http://ping.fm/fjZCv

Okay, if this doesn't scare the sh*t out of you - you must be muslim. http://ping.fm/4Hi5Y

If a big label doesn't pick up the band halestorm I would be stunned! I have heard at least three #1 future GLOBAL hits tonight! WOW!

Omfg this cracks me up! http://ping.fm/bpl78

You gotta love it! Finally people are catching on so much that even liberal news outlets are covering it! http://ping.fm/w1zl4

Check it out! Practical Pistol Class announcement in Maine, Sept. 26/27th. Register at http://ping.fm/4o83Z

If you get a chance, please stop by Ian's new holster website. He does a great job on his products! http://ping.fm/8RJ87

Thanks everyone, she is at home from the hospital on some pain meds and recovering. :-)

A friend of mine, Briell, is in the hospital in a lot of pain please send any prayers or wishes you can her way.

Modifying the CSS on my site to make it cleaner and get more info on one page. Yep, a PIA and I'm a geek! LOL http://ping.fm/le4ji

New rifle on the way from CheyTac! Check it out http://ping.fm/Zr9cB :-) It and Hornady ammo, a winning combo!

Yep it's a 116 degrees. Was bitching about it then realized a I'm a jerk. It's 120-130 in parts of Iraq and Afghanistan for our troops and I'm not wearing 40-60 LCD of kit. I'm a pussy.

Most seem to forget that we are in Afghanistan fighting a war. Please check out http://ping.fm/PyF3r his travels really help bring it home.

Happy independence day! Thanks to all the guys and gals in the military for the freedom we get to celebrate today!

At the Mondrian pool party! Damn its going off!

Importing the helmetcam footage from the MGM Ironman. Wow, looks like Doom the video game!

Happy Fathers Day! Hope it is the best one so far!

Back in AZ after 1100 miles! Spent time with Vince from http://ping.fm/11BH6 and the guys at http://cheytac.com/ wow the new 375 CheyTac is awesome!

What an amazing morning - taught a promo class (LE) in Sun Valley area and Scott Glenn stopped by to train with us. Great guy! http://ping.fm/sOfRM

7th win at Ironman won a POF6.8! Thanks to MGM,JP,LARUE,

Off for the last day of the ironman! Match has been running pretty smoothly. Will tweet results later today. Haven't had net access foe the whole match.

Two stages down and on helmet cam! Match is running well can't wait to shoot some more. Will try to get an update out tonight.

Just got to Idaho! Averaging 72 mph including stops. :-) 120 miles to go.

On the road for the ironman! Check it out under my YouTube account mattburkett or at http://mgmironman.com

Finally done training! Woot! Time to try to get some rest. Three meetings tomorrow and flying HOME! Home for 12 hours anyways then the ironman!

Off for another day of training. Record improvement on the carbine yesterday for a student. Day before he ran the rifle drill in 20 seconds, yesterday he got his time under 5! Woot!

Burkett Offset Mounts are in stock. Orders have been sorted out after some coordination issues. Shipping time is back to less than 2 business days.

http://ping.fm/DAQhE - Tired after 5 days of training and 4K miles in a week. Only 3 days to go, then home to AZ then ID for the MGM Ironman!

Just ordered pizza in NC with an AZ cred card. Email is going to my buddy in Iraq and he is telling us when its coming over video chat. LOL

Getting all loaded up for the 5 day class. Thanks to http://mgmtargets.com for the steel! Mike,Travis and the rest up there, you rock!

Here is a group photo (minus two guys) from the great class this
weekend up in Harvard. Can't wait to get up there again!

At the Charlotte airport. Pretty cool place. BTW US AIRWAYS was a great change over my last Delta exp. Hope US Air does well and Delta Dies.

Just finished the three day class at Harvard! What a great time! Heading to Boston tonight and NC tomorrow.

Lunch break and class is going great! 14 students that all seem to be learning and having fun!

Off for the class at http://ping.fm/NBxhc should be a good one! Will post some updates tonight. Have a great weekend!

Got laugh. Antigun Boston and first thing I hear at the hertz checkout is a gunshot.

Just got to Boston! Sat for an extra hour on the plane in Cleaveland. Hope I can get a cool rental car for the weekend!

On the way to Massachusetts for the three day class at Harvard Sportsmans club! Starts in the morning. 2 Slots still open, call 6027908838

We shot 174 rounds of 40mm M178 Grenades and a bunch of 7.62X39 in the sub-munition RPG-7 USA training gun for Airtronics.net What a week!

Back home from the show. Shot some video and pics at the demo day. OMFG was that amazing! Got to blast on the Dillon Mini-Gun. WOW.

Just got to Vegas for the NDIA Show. http://ping.fm/cDgUP should be a really cool show!

Getting ready to crash out. Getting my first news letter ready in awhile which will go out in the morning. Also putting out a radio show, hopefully tomorrow!

Traveling in Europe!

Over in one of my favorite countrys and cities in the world, Prague (Praha) in the Czech Republic. Just got finished watching the Obama speech. Been hanging out having a great time! I fyou ever get a chance to have a vacation here, I urge you to go! It is an amazing place! Off to Germany tomorrow to meet with Schmidt and Bender and tour the factory.

Practical Shooting V9 - Winning Three Gun

Well just finished up primary filming of PSV 9 - Winning 3 Gun and working on the rough cut! Now all the fun post production is starting. Others on the video include Kevin Elpers (Mr. HollyWood from the other DVDs), Mark Buchanan from http://3gungear.com, and Jerod Johnson (MGM Heavy Scope Tactical Winner).

Just won the Rocky Mountain 3 Gun in Open!

Just won the RM3G for the fourth time in Open Class. Great match and incredibly well run! Thanks to http://www.jprifles.com for their amazing support of the match and of my shooting! My Burkett CTR-02 ran flawlessly!

New stuff posted! Check out the youtube link

Added more videos to the Youtube link on the left side from the Primary Weapons Video Shoot. What a great day getting to fill a 5 gallon bucket with brass!

MGM IronMan 08 Lessons Learned

The 2008 MGM Ironman: Lessons Learned
The Ironman was once again held in Parma, ID at the Parma Rod and
Gun Club, perhaps the only range in the country where this unique
match could be held. Put on by Mike Gibson of MGM Targets this is a
very different type of competition! Considered a multigun match, you will need at least a carbine, handgun and shotgun. A sniper/long range rifle is optional, as one is provided on one stage. Two submachine guns are provided in other stages. Yep, you’ll shoot at least 6 guns by match’s end, providing you don’t break anything!

Most shooters use an AR based platform for their carbine with
at least one scope. You will see a lot of Leupolds, Trijicons,
Miopta's, and a few of the Millet's and Burris 1-4's. The carbine needs to be capable of hitting the target anywhere from 5 out to 450 yards, where a 12” plate is used. I use the JP CTR-02 with an 18" barrel and a Trijicon TA-11. A Harris Bipod (three different lengths) and Larue bi-pod mount for my bipod system.

On the shotgun side, you will need to know your slug impacts to 100
yards and how your choke/combo performs out to 25 yards. I
use the Bennelli M1 Super 90 customized by Bevin Grams. (congrats to Bevin for shooting his first IronMan!) The problem with the gun is that they are no longer manufactured by Bennelli. They have moved on to the M2 platform that I don't like as much mainly due to its plastic trigger group.

You will want to know your POI (point of impact) out to 50
yards with your handgun, if not 75, in 5 yard increments. Knowing what
kind of group size you can shoot under stress and with fatigue is also
helpful. Sprinting 100 yards, followed by 20 pushups, and shooting a 20 round group at 20 yards is one way to measure this. Most people only work on
5 shot groups as relaxed as possible which isn't a realistic comparison to the
events you’re going to be shooting.

Pacing yourself according to the demands of a stage is critical to finishing well. Sometimes a fast shuffle or quick jog is significantly better than an all out run,
especially on the long stages. Time yourself on 5 50 yard movements
each way and see what kind of a difference there is. Take note of both fatigue and how that fatigue effects your shooting ability.

Proper breathing is one of the most under utilized techniques in the practical shooting community. The biggest mistake made is that shooters use the inhale, exhale, shoot at the natural respiratory pause technique of position based accuracy shooting. For fast paced and dynamic shooting, this just doesn’t work.

Most shooters only breathe when running to the next position and hold their breath while shooting. This is a fantastic way to cause oxygen deprivation. When you are doing anything on a stage, air should be moving in and out. I can't stress the importance of
this. In through the nose and out through the mouth if you can for
critical shots while using the Approach Shooting Technique.

Learn AST – please review Practical Shooting Volume 6 – The AR-15 for
more info. The great part is that it can be applied also with a pistol
and shotgun depending on the fatigue level/difficulty of the shot.

Take care and thanks again to the great folks at MGM Targets for putting on this awesome match!

Matt

Thanks to http://jprifles.com http://laruetactical.com http://atlantaarmsandammo.com http://trijicon.com http://gramseng.com http://www.mattmclearn.com http://3gungear.com http://corbon.com

Traveling PIAs

Okay, so traveling is not all it is cracked up to be especially with a couple of dogs. Just went to ND for a week and got to work with Minot, PD yesterday. Great group of guys that are doing a good job up here. Now trying to get out of town and back home. Already delayed 5 hours thanks to NorthWest Airlines. Once again they have a plane issue (radar) and have to fly a part into ND to fix it. That is right, they left the plane here all night and didn't know that the f**king radar wasn't working and it is apparently the only plane they have in North Dakota. I guess I wouldn't be so irritable if I didn't get up at 3:30AM for the flight. Well I guess it has started out better than my last trip home from TN when I put out a fire in my hotel room at the Wingate. That wakes you up for your drive to the airport! Anyway, back to waiting around.

MB

July 08 Thoughts

I am going to be bringing back my old blogger and updating that regularly. It looks to be a fairly simple one to update on my end with little tips and match stories etc..

Just to catch up over the summer with my students and subscribers. I am currently in North Dakota for the Lee family reunion (Mom’s side of the family). Just finished up with a couple of wins, the Kentucky State 3 Gun Championship and the MGM IronMan. I am writing up an article on the IronMan which should be ready to go by the time I get back to AZ this week. I also shot some footage at both matches, including a few incredible helmet cam videos, that I will get edited by the end of July.

It has been an interesting year, can’t believe it is nearly half over!
It is going to be interesting seeing what happens to the budgets of the average shooter with the increase in costs of gas and ammunition. I believe this is going to have a dramatic effect on new shooters entering into the sport as it significantly raises the financial bar for entry.

A few money saving tips for you:
1. Get a .22 handgun or rifle and practice with those.
2. Really develop your dryfire regimen. Remember that recoil control is the main shooting skill that you can’t work on in dryfire. Everything else you can. Draws, reloads, movement skills, mental game practice etc…
3. Buy components in bulk with other members of your club.
4. Be selective and really picky about your practice regimen. When you do get time and money to go to the range to practice, track every round and make every bullet down range count!


Good luck out there and if you have some ideas for saving some money, drop them into the thread

RM3G World Championship

JP RM3G World Champs and Shooting Tips!

Sorry this article took me a bit to get out, but, we are getting ready to film volume 8 of the series and yes it will be on shotgun shooting!

JP Rocky Mountain 3 Gun World Championship

Placement:
Open Champion
Overall Champion

Well, I was kind of dreading going to this match. Not because of the match itself but because of the drive! I don't like driving since most of the time I have a tendency to go to sleep on the road. Flying wasn't an option since no airline flies to Raton, NM. The 701 miles from my house to Raton made for a long day in the truck. My Ipod was cranked into the stereo in my Armada and made it quite a bit more livable since I didn't have to change CD's or find another radio station in the middle of nowhere.

An explanation of how the eight stages are all "equaled out" to 100 points. The top time in each division is divided by all the other times, then your percentage is your points. Example: top time is 76.47, your time is 98.22. 76.47/98.22 = .7785% or 77.85 points. Now this system can be an advantage or disadvantage to you depending on how you are doing and how the times on the stages are going. A 10 second loss on a rifle stage that takes 100 seconds for the top time isn't nearly as bad as a 4 second loss on a 22 second stage. You would only lose 10 points on the first one and 15.5 on the second one! The shorter and faster the stage is, the more important the time is. Now where this factoring helps is if you dump a stage because of a gun problem etc. Even if you get a 300 second stage and the top guy shoots it in 75 (rifle stage for example) you would still get 25 points out of 100. Yeah, 75 points is going to be hard to overcome in the match but it beats trying to overcome 225 seconds! The part that sucks is if you're the guy that shot it in 75 seconds I am sure you would rather have that 225 second lead. I have both won and lost matches because they were or were not factored.

Now on to the match!

The match was quite diversified as far as the type of shooting other than very few shotgun slugs were required. The match was probably heaviest on the shotgun, then rifle, and then pistol.

Ok, to be honest I did something kind of stupid prior to the match. I experimented with a different (50yard) zero on my rifle. Shouldn't have made a difference but the targets proved otherwise. With angles up to 15 degrees and targets out to 300+ it proved to be a problem. After the second rifle stage I changed it back to my 100 yard zero and that worked out better on the following stages. I ended up in a hell of a race with Gene Ragulsky. Gene shot very solid the first day and ended up having a lead of 15 points after the first three stages. The second day went a bit better for me and I picked up a 4 point lead. With two stages to go, it was going to be an interesting Saturday morning. We had to skip the machine gun stage and go off to a pistol/shotgun stage. The pistol was provided by Springfield and frangible ammo by International Cartridge Company. You started with 5 or 6 steel targets about 2 yards away then dumped it and ran back around the corner and up the hill to pick up your shotgun to shoot 17 (I think) clays and a slug plate. Picked up a significant lead and held it through the last stage. It was a great time shooting with and against Gene. Haven't had a race like that in a while and I can't wait to do it again!

One of the interesting things that toughens the match up is that it is held at the NRA Whittington Center at 7,000 feet. Five of the stages were uphill! By the time you were done with a walkthrough, you were already breathing heavy!

Thanks go out to:
JP Enterprises for sponsoring the match and their continued support of my shooting.
Sabre Defense for the tactical AR that I won.
The match staff, especially the RO's that ran up and down those hills with the shooters all day long!
Tac-Pro Shooting Center for their support and for letting me shoot the AW .50 and having it shear my Rudy Project glasses in half! Might even post the pictures sometime of what happens when you don't "get behind" a .50 on a slick concrete surface.

Congratulations to all the winners and everyone that finished the match!

Tips from the match for multi-gun shooting:
Rifle:
1. Practice oddball, uncomfortable position shooting with a rifle. In the match you had rocks and trees to shoot off . Focus on learning to use your bi-pod, magazine, or fore-end for any support that is available.
2. If you can, practice on targets at significant angles and ranges. Here is a drill for you: Buy some 8" plates and set them between 200 and 300 yards. Do a few wind sprints and find an awkward position to shoot them from.
3. Be careful of having your barrel contact anything. I watch one shooter have extreme difficulty when he found a really solid position with the barrel against a tree limb. He wasn't hitting anywhere near the targets. On free floated barrels you would be surprised how far off the gun will shoot. Also make sure when you go into positions on rooftops, trees, rocks etc. that you aren't going to hit them while you are looking through the sights.
4. Check your comps and screws for tightness and re-LockTite them if needed. I know this is one that most people take for granted. I watched a top shooter get knocked out of the running by a loose comp from the match the previous week.
5. Know your ballistics, sight-in, and hold overs including angles. Use a ballistics program if you can.
6. Really work on shooting on the move especially over uneven ground if possible. I watch a lot of shooters lose time because they come to a stop on targets that were 10-15 yards away.
7. Have different sizes of magazines for either stages with odd ball positions or to make sure you can avoid a load.
8. Replace your gas rings if you are shooting an AR before the match and then test fire 30 rounds and inspect them again.
9. Replace your gas tube every 3-5K rounds. One shooter had a catastrophic failure that cost him a stage due to erosion on the tube. I would also check your gas block for erosion after 5K then every 1.K or so.
10. If you have a variable power scope, check what power it is at before you walk to the line.

Shotgun:
1. Have spreaders for clay only stages and test them out with different chokes. Then check and see how your slugs group with that choke.
2. Know where your slugs hit out to at least 50 yards. All the way to 100 for some of the other matches.
3. Work your loading out until you can do it smoothly on the move. Covering ground almost always is better.
4. Break the stages out by number of rounds. Figure out when the most opportune time to load is and then mentally plan it.
5. Practice putting your guns down both empty and just putting the safety on so you can do either one on demand.
6. Make sure your stock is tight along with any other screws/attachments.
7. Don't leave rounds in your elastic side saddles between stages. They will start falling out under recoil very soon.
8. Clean the damn gun. Use an electric drill or a cordless to clean the barrel. It helps get out all the plastic from the wads. Use compressed air on the trigger group to clean out the corners. On a 1100/1187/870 watch out for your fingers inside the receiver, it is sharp and will slice you open.
9. On a Benelli when you start tube loaded, chamber empty click the button and put one on the loading gate. Finding that little button under stress can be difficult.
10. Use a glove on your weak hand or you will probably burn yourself at some point on a long stage.
11. Don't use an Arredondo magwell on your Ar if you want to use a Beta-mag in the match.
Pistol:
1. Have a locking holster that you can still draw from like a Ghost holster if you are shooting open class.
2. Learn to adjust your style of shooting to the scoring system for the match. Under IMG rules you need two hits or one A. Sometimes you want to just keep them on the brown if you are in Open whereas for a single stack you may want to just shoot A's to do fewer reloads. This may also apply to a rifle for short range stages with 20 round mags in He-Man class. In USPSA 3 gun, don't drop any points if possible, especially on stages scored for rifle/minor.
3. Practice loading the gun with either a mag in or out pre-start. If you have the option when it is empty don't put the safety on a 1911 with the hammer back. Trust me, you may forget to take it off and won't be able to rack the slide.

General Tips:
1. Have different pairs of shoes and boots available to adjust to different terrain or if they get wet. Extra socks don't hurt either as having wet feet sucks.
2. Keep your guns bagged up as much as possible.
3. Use good ammo. Old surplus ammo may not work. Don't spend $800-1000 bucks for the match and then try to save $30 on your ammo. Use new brass on reloaded pistol ammo.
4. BREATH whenever you are moving on a stage. Remind yourself beforehand since most likely under stress you can forget. I have seen incredibly in-shape people that are almost purple since they tried to hold their breath for the whole stage. Push air in or out whenever having a large transition on rifle targets, then clench and roll the sights into the next one using approach shooting if you are too low on oxygen. This also works with really awkward positions. Check out PSV 6 – The Ar-15 for more info on approach shooting.
5. Plan your transitions between guns and make sure each gun is in the optimal start position.
6. Know how your guns work including all the safeties and buttons before going to the match. Learn how to find the different buttons without looking for them. Dryfire and familiarize yourself with all your guns. Know them inside and out.
7. Don't have extra equipment on the gun you're not going to use. It is just more stuff to fall off, break, or distract you. It might look tactically cool but less stuff is lighter and faster.
8. Don't have extra equipment on you that you are not going to use. Read the above.
9. Use plugs and muffs. If your earmuffs fall off you still have some protection.
10. Watch the position of the brim of your hat if you have a stage that you have to go prone on. Either take it off or keep it fairly high on your brow.
11. Get some hard shell knee and elbow pads if there is a chance of falling down. It gives you something to absorb the impact other than your bones. Just try to remember not to catch yourself with your hands since generally your gun is in them!
12. Listen and make sure the RO has said "load and make ready". Ask them if you didn't hear the command clearly. I saw a guy DQ'd at a match several years ago when the RO said, "Are you ready?" and the guy loaded up. I also take a look down range just one more time to make sure somebody isn't lagging behind.

DPM3 Three Gun and 4 new tips.

I just finished with the DPMS 3 gun championship in Del-Tone Minnesota. Congrats to Randy Luth and the crew at DPMS for another great match with an incredible prize table. I think the list of sponsors took over 10 minutes for Randy to go through. [There was over $130K in prizes on the table and $1750 in cash for each division winner! Happily, I was one of those taking the Open championship edging out Jerry Miculek by about two points.
The Match:
The only thing the match was missing was any significant distance shooting. The range is limited to 200 yards. The types of shooting were quite varied including weak hand, strong hand, single gun stages, multi-gun stages, etc. The scoring was quite different also in that every stage was worth 100 points no matter how big or small. Most of them were time + penalty stages and one was a points earned stage.
On the points earned stage, you had a target at 25 yards with only the A zone available and an 8” steel plate. The same set up but with a 12” plate was also at 10 yards. It had 6 times at each position. 5, 4, 3, 2.5, 2,1.5 seconds. The plate was a stop plate and if you hit it under time you were able to progress to the next string. When 6 strings are over or you don’t make the time, you go to the 10 yard part of the stage and start at 5 seconds again. The most points you could earn were 120. Five points per hit in the A and only the paper scored points. Hits on the steel only moved you to the next string. Jerry Miculek rocked the stage and shot 110 points! This was quite an interesting stage to practice and learn to work under time constraints.
The other pistol only stage was supposed to be quite different than the one we shot in the match. You started at the back of a trailer, ran forward around several baffles, and then shot two to the body (all three had hard cover also) and one to the head on each of three targets, mandatory reload, repeat strong hand, mandatory reload and repeat weak hand. A lot (most) of shooters had misses on this stage.
Okay, on to how the match went for me. Extreme ups and downs would be a good description.
The first stage of the match that I shot was a shotgun stage that had you open a door by shooting a piece of lathe where the lock would be. FOUR shots later and the damn thing finally opened up. That added an extra speed load right off the bat. Got lucky at the end of the stage and hit the slug bonus plate. Ended up winning the stage in spite of the extra issues.
The second stage (shotgun) went a whole lot better. Rocked that shotgun stage. Borrowed some speed sticks from Ron Filho that held 6 rounds. That made a huge difference. The primary problem for an open gun that holds 11 rounds was that each of the 5 shooting positions had 7 rounds minimum. This is a very messed up count for 4 round speed loaders as you are empty by the middle of the stage. The 6 rounds sticks rocked! Going to attempt to make some this week and may document how to do it if anyone is interested.
The third stage was the trailer pistol stage. Shot just fine but had a 5.98 second jam on the stage. Still haven’t figured out what happened. Racked it twice then pulled the mag out and it went into battery. Luckily that only cost me first place on the stage and didn’t hurt me too much for the match. Of course it would have helped if it hadn’t happened, but, it isn’t a perfect world.
The third stage (pistol) was the points stage that I have described earlier. Ended up with 85 points. Made all the times but had several hits just above the A box. Will check and see if America West caused the C-more to move a bit or whether it was just me. Would have made more sense if they were off to one side or the other not high if it was my fault though.
Okay, so it pretty much went to hell on the next stage. They could have named it f***ing nightmare. Sorry, I am still pissed about it. Anyhow, you start out shouldered on the rifle prone in the back of a truck with 5 rounds and 4 mini-poppers and 1 half popper at 103 yards. Not hard shots at all especially with a Trijicon TA11. A little harder when your gun goes off four times. I think I floated the gun too much against my shoulder and it bump fired. I hit the first round and had one left, hit that one and dumped the mag and bi-pod as I jumped up and ran to the next position to pick up the next mag and shot five pretty close targets. The mover and 10+ head shots were next at 78 yards from inside of a bus. The velocity of the mover was painfully different on each pass. I timed it and figured the calculations were varying from 6.5 -14 miles an hour.

Had one miss on the head shots. Then cleared the rifle and grabbed a preloaded 870 pump and knocked down five plates on a platerack. Dumped the empty shotgun, ran out of the front door of the bus, picked up the handgun and shot 5 (?) steel, then ran 30 yards shot the mover again and some final targets through a couple of ports. My raw time was 90 seconds plus 50 seconds in penalties. At that point I thought the match was over for me. Hard to overcome that much in penalties. Later I found out that Jerry had shot a 100+ on the stage and had 20 seconds in penalties so it didn’t hurt as much as I thought.

On to the long range rifle stage. I started out with a S&W 45 revolver and shot 6 IPSC targets from 1-3 yards. You only got six rounds so if you didn’t hit an A it was a 10 second FTN (failure to neutralize)! I dumped the gun, grabbed my rifle, loaded it up, then off a 55 gallon drum (modded to “look” like a horse) and shot 12 rounds at paper targets and 13 steel plates. Hopped off the horse and went kneeling behind a large tub filled with water that had a couple of pieces of lathe attached to the top. Even though the stage had only 38 rounds of rifle required I went and used a Beta mag.

Ended up with a time of 63 seconds and beat second place by 7 seconds. Felt kind of good after coming off that previous stage.

Now I went on to a shotgun/pistol stage. This was the DQ stage of the match for a lot of people. When you are right handed and move to the left with a long gun, PAY ATTENTION TO YOUR MUZZLE DIRECTION! If you run to the left like normal you would break the 180. When you are right handed, if you have the muscle strength, take your weak hand off the shotgun and keep your muzzle in the center of the berm down range with your hips rotated toward your movement direction. This will allow you to still move quickly and yet not have your entry fee be a donation to the prize table. Rocked the stage in a 41 plus a 10 second penalty for a miss on the slug target. No idea what happened on that shot. In the second position I loaded a single slug, shot the popper that threw a clay straight up (flipper type) and then went at the 40 yard slug target. I think that I rushed the shot on the slug target to get to the aerial clay. Oh well, off to the next stage.

Short range rifle with all the no-shoot targets they could find seemed to be the theme of the next stage. I don’t think any of the 16 targets were open. With my C-more canted off to the right with a nice big dot, I treated it as a pistol stage and shot it entirely on the move. 32 rounds and about 24 yards of movement, that one went well at 15 seconds!

The last stage of the match was pretty stressful for me. It was the shotgun stage was where the previous year I pretty much lost the match on the trap targets. I hadn’t shot any sporting clay or trap type targets with a JP sight on a shotgun up to that point. Last year Jerry Miculek hit 7 aerial clays and I only hit three! This year I had practiced shooting Five Stand as at Red Mountain gun club several times. I hit 8 and Jerry hit 9 this year. That practice helped out a lot. Shooting a shotgun with a dot sight on aerial clays is very different than using a bead sight. You can actually do exceedingly well with it and learn leads much easier than when not having the floating dot reference point.
We really didn’t know who won the match until they called out the results. Was pretty surprised to win it after a total of 70 seconds in penalties and a 6 second jam. Now I am off to Raton, NM for the Rocky Mountain Three Gun Match. Will let you know in a week or so how it goes! Best of luck to all and keep an eye out for new stuff coming out soon!

TIP 1
To calculate the speed of a mover you need the following information.
Distance the mover travels visibly in feet. (Walk down to the mover and use a LRF (laser range finder) and stand at the edge of one side and paint the other side. Convert it to feet.)
Time it takes to cover that distance.
Now to get the miles per hour use the following equation:
Distance in feet / time in seconds x .6818 = MPH

To calculate the lead on the mover you need the following:
A ballistics program such as the Horus Atrag or the http://www.shootingsoftware.com/ shooting lab.
Distance in yards from the mover.
Ballistic data of your ammo. (velocity, BC, and weight are the critical)
Run your calculations and figure out what the lead is in inches not mils. That would be easier to figure out what the visual lead looks like. If the lead is 18” and you are shooting at an IPSC target you need to shoot 9” off the edge of the target.

Tip 2

How to keep a Beta mag working!

I know everyone complains about keeping Beta mags working. They are the 100 round dual drum mags for the Ar-15’s.
1. Keep them full of the dry graphite!
2. Use 6-8 times and sell it and get another new one!
3. Keep an eye on the lips and the front of the feed area for any damage.
4. That’s it!
That’s how I keep my Beta’s constantly functioning properly.

Tip 3

How to keep your AR mags working!
1. Buy the MagPul anti-cant followers. http://www.bizplaces.com/magpul/
2. Use dry graphite on the follower and in the mag.
3. Replace the springs if there is any sign of weakness or bad angles.
4. Load them to 28 or 29 rounds and unload them when not in use.
5. Slightly bevel the top inside front edge of the magazine so that the tip of the bullets have a smoother ride into the chamber.

Tip 4

Shotgun aerials and reloading tip!
Okay, learning to reload on a shotgun can be really boring and frustrating to do at home or even on the range. What you can do to learn to reload under pressure is to go out to your local sporting clays club and “bribe” one of the pullers. Put only two or three shells in the gun and have all your appropriate shell holders filled up. Get them to pull a clay every second or two until you run out of ammo. Five stand is the most fun and if you just let the puller send whatever clays he wants, it is definitely interesting since you have to look for each bird. Start one string and do single loads only. Do the next string doing two shells and so on. After a few hundred shells, your loads will settle in and you won’t feel rushed getting to the birds. If you just do this a couple times a month it will make a huge difference in your shotgun shooting.

CZ Trip

Well, what can I say about the Czech Republic. Get on a plane and go if you can! It is amazing. First thing is that most people seems to really like Americans - not like some of the attitudes that you run into in other countries. The only argument in two weeks that I got into about politics (not IPSC politics of course but real world politics) was with a Norwegian. I do love people that debate with comments like “well we don’t like that” (about the war) and then you ask them why and generally the conversation flow with an idiot goes like:
Them: “The war isn’t right.”
Me: “Why not?”
Them: “Because that is not the way you’re supposed to do things!”
Me: “According to Whom?
Them: “Well its just not! That isn’t the way you act in a civilized world!”
Me: “You actually think those people are civilized? What definition of that word do you use?”
civ·i·lized adj
1. having advanced cultural and social development
2. refined in tastes
If you notice interestingly enough there is not any discussion in the definition as to treatment of others or of world politics but generally users of the word have never looked it up.
My favorite political argument happens when you debate with someone from a neutral country. That is an easy one to end really quick! Try something along the lines of, “Like your country does a f**king thing about anything in the world!”
Oh, sorry for the tangent… back to the CZ!

Flying to the Czech Republic with guns was exceedingly easy. All you need is an invitation to the match which I printed out at home from the http://www.CZEO.CZ website and then go to the police station in the airport and they will get you checked in and issue you a firearms transportation permit. Took about 15 minutes and I was out of the airport. When you are in the country for competition there are no fees for the permit. The people in CZ seem very positive about guns and sport shooting. Didn’t meet anyone that didn’t think that shooting was cool. Now I did spend some time working on my flight schedule so that I didn’t have to go through JFK, Boston, Heathrow or Amsterdam. Ended up with a great flight from Phoenix that had one plane change in Newark, NJ then straight on to Prague! Took four and half hours to Newark and about 7-8 to Prague. Same on the way back. Flew Continental (which pretty much sucks – smallest seats I have seen yet) to Newark and CSA (Czech Airlines) over the pond. The staff at CSA was significantly more polite and nicer than the people I dealt with at Continental. On the way back they even upgraded me to business class when I showed them the trophy from the championship!

Here are some general pieces of advice that will help make your trip smoother.

Electrical Plug-ins – make sure to have an adapter for everything you want to plug in. A power converter might not be a bad idea. Look at the back of your adapters to see if they are rated at up to 230 volt. Just Euro adapters may not work. You may want to find an electrical store the first day or so when you arrive in Czech and see if you can get one of the multi-plug style of adapters. FYI do not plug in more that one device without having an actual power converter (about $80) otherwise it can make pretty blue sparks and be rather exciting. Just get the adapters, they should cost about $5 each.

Don’t take air conditioning for granted. It is only hot here for a few weeks a year so most places don’t have it. If it doesn’t say it on the hotel reservation, you aren’t getting it. Open up the mini-bar for some cooler air if you need and ask the front desk if they have a fan. ☺ Of course the second week I was there it hit 38c (100F) and about 80% humidity.

Good luck with the road systems. Just finding the street signs and then figuring them out can be quite interesting. In Czech, they are about 9” x 18”, off red, and up on the sides of the buildings. Sometimes. Most of the signs are understandable even though they are in Czech. Driving through the country is actually exceedingly easy. I made it from Prague to Krumlov (about 130 miles) with no problems at all and it was a really nice drive. Inside of Prague I would just recommend taking a taxi or figuring out the public transportation system. Taxis can be a rip-off no matter what country you are in, including America. Get a taxi provided by the hotel or place you are at. The others are rip-offs generally. Make sure you get the price in advance for where you are going otherwise you will have a surprise in store for you when you get there. Also, if you get a street taxi, make sure it has a meter and then make sure they use it. We have gotten out of several taxis because they refused to use the meter and just told us a price that was usually $8-15 more than it should be!

There definitely could be a book written on the driving over here! (One on drinking too! That one might end up being a series with no end in sight!) It looks like a huge continuing game of chicken between cars and car versus pedestrian. It is quite a bit of fun to ride around with one of the locals like Martin Alusik, my host in Krumlov. Getting the right cab driver in Prague can be a kick too! The stop lights go Red, Yellow, Green, Yellow, Red. Makes a lot of sense when you get used to it. It would be nice if they would place them so you can see them. In a car you end up looking to the upper right of your rear view mirror to see the light.

Ground floor is actually 0 and in the old buildings don’t stand too close to the door of the elevator. In the first hotel I was in, the door stays and you actually see the different floors as the elevator moves. Most of the buildings have been upgraded to the newer style of elevators.

You are going to walk A LOT. There is so much to see that you will want to bring several pair of comfortable shoes.

Light cotton or the new fabrics like the UnderArmour stuff are needed in the summer. Be ready for humidity. I wasn’t! If feels hotter at 80 degrees here than 105 at home in Arizona. The weather changes quite a bit but is normally really beautiful. A sunny day in the Czech Republic is one of the best things in the world with the history, the views and the great people!

During the day don’t worry about looking like a tourist, just keep your pockets buttoned and look around. At night look like you know where you are going even if you don’t and if approached by a streeter, ignore them and keep walking. Don’t stop and get into a conversation as you may end up missing some items that you started out with. (You can also use the fake out of not understanding or being deaf. Yelling WHAT??? Repeatedly and really loud is pretty funny. (F.O. works well too if you have a big bald goateed guy like Matt Kartozian with you from CustomGlock.com) If someone looks like a dirtbag, they probably are. The government isn’t supposed to use profiling, but you sure can.

When or if you can’t carry a gun, you can most likely carry an Emerson mini-commander or tanto. They are my favorites since you can use the wave and open it on the draw instead of adding a second motion. If needed, most likely you will need it right now and your other arm may be busy. Best option would be to have one on the left and the right side. FYI if you put it behind your belt buckle/zipper area you will pass almost any frisk or pat down. Best spot is to actually put the clip over the zipper with the knife inside the pants. Remember to take it out or move it prior to sitting down or it may get, umm, extremely uncomfortable. Most of the searches are pretty pathetic as they never checked boots or shoes either. If you see a good search going on in front of you in line you can actually check your knife or whatever with the staff and they will return it on the way out.

Get your money out of an ATM (bank-o-mat) and you will usually get the best deal on the conversion without any issues. Max your withdrawal if you use an ATM since your bank will give you the actual rate on the money exchange but may charge a $5 foreign currency fee.

See if the hotel has a vault to store your weapons in and check the bag daily to make sure it is still there. Remember that a pelican full of guns is probably more than most make in a year and could be quite a tempting target. Most of the hotels seem to have a secure room available for free. The rooms generally have a small electronic safe that you set the combination on. Keep a photocopy of your passport, drivers license, all credit cards, travel itinerary, plane tickets, and anything else that may be a nightmare to get replaced. Also keep the numbers of the US Embassy, CC phone numbers, etc. that may be hard to look up without the use of the internet.

Getting a local cell phone is also beneficial if you are in the country for a bit. If you have a GSM phone that takes a chip it really easy. Get your phone unlocked and get your PIN, Puk and Puk2 codes. T-Mobile gave me the codes while I was in the CZ for unlocking my Nokia 6600 which was very cool! Check the pricing on a SIM card and how many minutes you get along with talking to a couple of locals about which one has the best service. If you need to call Internationally with it find out how much that is going to be. For me with the OSKAR service it was eleven crowns a minute (roughly .40 cents). At the cell store they not only install the chip but set it up on their network and tested it. Took about 5 minutes and we were done. Call and reset your voicemail message on your US phone to notify people that they can send SMS or call you directly on your new number.

Okay enough of that stuff and on to the shooting!

The match:

Pre-match testing: I knew my handgun and rifle ammo were dialed but checked them anyway since the airlines might have decided to have a catapult contest with the bags. (My current record of baggage abuse was from America West Airlines and the huge dude unloading the plane was able to throw the big Pelican double rifle case with 20K in guns into the third baggage cart. EVERYONE on the plane knew I wasn’t happy about that!) Now the problems started showing up with the shotgun ammo that was provided. The new Practical Slugs didn’t have enough power to cycle the customized Grams Benelli. Most people don’t know that I don’t shoot reduced recoil slugs most of the time. I think that last case I bought was a year or two ago. (To the ammo manufactures, work on a slug that is 64mm long, 1 or 1 1/8th oz. at 1350, then call me!) The shot shells didn’t cycle well either.

Now the way it works for the scoring in IPSC three gun is that all guns compete separately. So basically it is three separate matches that are combined at the end for a final score. Even shotgun stages don’t mix slugs with shot! Whatever gun is the most modified is the overall class you are in. Say you have a production pistol, open rifle, and standard shotgun. The scores would work something like this:
96% Production Pistol Final Overall
100% Open Rifle Final Overall
70% Standard Shotgun Final Overall
= 266 total “points” towards your overall finish in Open Class for the Aggregate.
If you knew who was going it could be a pretty easy match to sandbag the divisions and get a title.
The match was shot independently, with all rifle stages being finished on day one for all competitors and then shotgun the next day followed by handgun and closing ceremony the last day.

Match Day One: Rifle! 104 Rounds
Lots of walking and most of it seemed uphill. Found some muscles in my calves that I think have atrophied! The stages were anywhere from 50-300 yards apart. No private vehicles were allowed down the range roads. Luckily it was only 1 gun per day.

Started out strong with the first 5 stages. The coolest stage I shot started with two sets of three targets, then a 70 yard run and offhand four poppers at 110 yards. Nailed all four with one shot each. That felt good! The rifle match kind of went down hill from there. The next stage was just a little rough and off my pace and then I went collectively stupid. Still not sure what happened. 3 misses on two targets at 35 yards with a C-more on a JP. There was some brush in front of them so it may have deflected the rounds, but on the left target I burned four rounds at it and it was clean. The C-more may have been hitting high at that distance too, still don’t know. Will try to figure it out when I get back home. At an IPSC match you can’t afford that when there are only 8 stages and 100 rounds. Hell, you can’t afford C’s with a rifle since it is scored minor. When you have stages that are 20-30 seconds and only 15-20 rounds, you have a very low hit factor. C’s end up being worth between one and two seconds each! It was a real mental change up from the matches that score two hits or one A like the International Multi-Gun (IMG) rules. I am still irritated at myself because of the last rifle stage of the match. Two targets at 50, then 5 poppers at 145 yards. I know I could hit those off hand and was stressing about using a long bipod because of the grass in front of the targets with the angle you had to shoot at them. Ending up having a ton of extra shots since the rounds were just zipping off into space from the grass. Didn’t trust myself to just stand there and shoot it. The poppers were set pretty heavy and didn’t always go down with the first hit with 55’s. Will remember next time to take some 77’s with me so I don’t have to worry about the energy delivered on target. They smack the targets so much better than 55’s it is amazing. I ended up second in the rifle match because of my own stupidity and not making sure that my standard set of ammo is available. I re-shot the last stage of the match for fun and with a bunch of extra shots (repeat hits – the poppers were set pretty heavy) still bested my time by four seconds. Ended up second to Raine Petrolsky out of Finland. He shot a solid match and deserved it.

Match Day Two: Shotgun! 108 rounds
Oh, crap here we go. So, Raine out of Finland (sounds like a movie doesn’t it?) picked up ammo for our shotguns in town. How exciting going into the first slug stage not knowing if it will work or if the slugs will hit anything. Only had two or three jams and 5 extra shots on the long target. Pretty rough start for the competition after coming off of a frustrating day with a rifle. Slugs that aren’t sighted in and don’t work add a massive amount of time to your shooting! I was almost ready to call it a day by the third stage with more slugs. Only one stage went well and that was a shot stage that just rolled smooth. Everything else just felt rough and awkward. To hit the 50 meter slug poppers, I was aiming about 2 poppers low. Ironically I ended up winning the Open shotgun division.

Match Day Three: Pistol! 109 rounds
Okay, back to a gun that I have my own ammo for and that I know works. Martin Kamenicek from Team CZ was my main competition and it was a great match. He only shot the Open handgun match in preparation for the upcoming World Shoot. I think he finished 2nd to Eric at the last WS. Great guy and an awesome pistol shooter. In fact everyone on team CZ were very personable and great representatives for the company. We were pretty close, about 3-6 points apart, going into the 7th stage when I slipped a bit and felt my knee tweak. It was one of those forward and back movement stages. When I was moving rearward I grabbed the wall with my hand just to keep upright. Brought the gun up for the next port and didn’t drill the 20 yard movers very well. Had a miss and was about 2 seconds behind Martin. With only one stage to go, I was kind of toasted out of the match having lost over 30 points. I sucked it up on the last stage just listening to my iShuffle and some violent music. With the knee hurting I knew the only thing that would get me through the uphill run was adrenaline. Since it was the last stage and I had three weeks before my next competition to heal up I went for it and got Martin by 1.5 seconds, if I remember right. At that point, I was glad the competition was over. Marin ended up beating me in the handgun match by about 5%.

The closing ceremonies, which were held at the range, they were fully catered with a band and fireworks! Pretty darn cool way to finish up a match!

Thanks to CZ the major match sponsor for helping such a great event get off the ground! Thanks to the match staff and RO’s for all the work and making it through the first European 3 Gun Championship! Great job! I can’t wait to shoot the match again next year!

Now I am off to Prague (Praha) for a week of partying and being a tourist!

To team CZ and everyone else going to the WS, good luck!

By the way, over 400 pictures will be posted on http://www.mattburkett.com later today!

MGM IronMan

I know it has been awhile since I sent one of these out but it has just been a hectic summer with a June vacation thrown into the schedule. Luckily we got PSV 7 Shipping and it has been a very successful release with many great reviews coming in from the shooters. Hopefully those of you that have it are actually using it and doing the drills that you print out.

Angus Hobdell reminded me of one of my favorite quotes that I heard a long time ago.
“The harder I practice, the luckier I get!”

Yes, we are working on the shotgun video. Send in your idea’s to matt@burkettvideo.com in case you think we are going to leave anything you think is important out. I am also working on a match compilation DVD with some really cool footage. No, I don’t know when it will be done – hopefully by Sept.

I will try to send out multiple comments on international travel that might help out some considering shooting a competition outside of the country. Some of the following emails may seem kind of random but with a big jet lag for me, everything is a bit random.

CZ road trip – thoughts from the long damn plane ride.
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I found it interesting this last couple of weeks how much stress I placed on myself about this match. I am still trying to find out what was the cause of all of it. I am on the plane coming into Prague right now and finally relaxing! Now if I can just find the hotel after I get the rental car I am all set!
I think the main reasons for the hight stress level were as follows:
1. First 3 gun match I have shot in a foreign country
Wasn’t sure about permits – Was told just take the invitation to CZ and then they will issue a permit in the airport. Not really comfortable with that but it worked.
Travel arrangements – rental car and hotel has been a pain in the butt.
2. Not sure about availability of ammo locally for what I can’t take on the plane. FYI 200 rds 124 gr. Super and 200 rounds of .223 55 gr. makes weight for the airline. Going to be purchasing S&B slugs and shot at the match. Have used a bunch of their shotshells successfully to win the IronMan the last 3 years so I know it works for the shooting and for the Gram’s Benelli. (If you need to knock plates down get their 1 ¼ oz. 3 ¾ dram #6 loads!)
3. Ammo legality – Found out JHP’s aren’t legal 1 day prior to flight! Had tested Winchester 130 FMJ’s with N350/3N38 without success in the Hybrid setup. It shot about 12-15” groups at 25 yards! 124 JHP Montana Golds shot about an 1.5” at 25 which is okay for most of this stuff. When I had to get some different bullets that work, I contacted Angus who handles Zero bullets locally and got 125 FMJ’s. Was I seriously surprised when I got to the range and shot a 1.4” group at 50 yards without a whole lot of effort! Probably switching to that bullet for the rest of the season. Feeds awesome since there are no edges around the hollow point and no exposed lead to drag on the front inside of the magazine.
4. Rebuilt SVI pistol from M2i (MattMcLearn.com) got in the week before the match. Decided it was too short of a timeframe to get used to it. Worked and felt great, but I figure I better use the gun I have used to win all year.
5. Had to study the IPSC rules to see what is legal in Open class internationally which is different than USPSA and other multi-gun matches. Still don’t know if changing out bipods is legal or even if they can be removed for different stages.
6. Different style of match – all guns are shot individually on stages. No multigun stages or gun changes. There isn’t even a mix of slugs and shot on a stage. Seriously short stages compared to what I am used to. Many of the stages are 8-15 rounds. Scored Comstock style which makes the accuracy requirement go up especially on what are normally take it for granted close targets. Don’t shoot c’s and d’s with a rifle on a two hit factor stage! You are losing 1 second per C!!! (.223 rifle is minor). This is a massive change from the style of match that only requires two hits or one A.
7. Susanne started her second year of residency. I wouldn’t wish on someone what they put the residents through.
8. Fatigue from a pretty hectic schedule.
9. Choice between the US Nationals and this match. First time in 15 years I am not going to the USPSA Nationals. (Of course skipping Barry, IL in July is a definite benefit as far as I am concerned.) Still a strange feeling to not be going.

The above is to let you know that yes I suffer from stress too and the areas it comes from can be widely varied. Everything in your life can affect your shooting especially if you are not paying attention to the causes of stress. Once the problem is known, it makes it easier to deal with and causes some reduction of stress. Remember that most people solve their own problems at the therapist’s office. (Really? How do you feel about that?) ☺

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Most people find it interesting that I actually setup equipment and training differently for each 3 gun match.
I will setup and optimum zero on my guns for each type of match. Farthest, closest and average target distance. Good rule of thumb is a 50-60 yards zero. Always check your secondary intersection to make sure that it is where it is supposed to be and matches up with your ballistic calculations.
Slings or not? 1, 2, or 3 point? Are they needed? Rifle and shotgun? Do you need the ability to get in and out of them quick or are they more needed for shooting position support?
Ammo requirements? Distances, types of targets, difficulty to knock down, accuracy required, aerials and 20 yd plates in the same stage – all these questions have to be answered prior to actually being ready for just the ammo setup.
How are the guns getting put down for the change up in a multigun match? Is it safety on, like the SMM3g, or is it completely empty like the USPSA Nats? Which mods to the gun would allow you to do either one of those activities easier?
What gear is needed for that specific match? What backup parts and accessories may not be easily obtained locally?
What can I take off the guns that I won’t need for the match? Do I need the secondary on the rifle?
What bi-pods are needed? Is removal of bi-pods legal or do they have to stay on the whole match? How about switching lengths?



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(Didn’t get this sent out earlier)
Well, I just finished up the MGM Ironman. The wonderful crew in Idaho did a great job again! A personal thank you goes out to Mike Gibson of MGMTargets.com for holding this match ones again! PLEASE DO IT AGAIN NEXT YEAR! You guys and the match ROCKS!

Picked up the third win in a row at the match. I know I have been telling people about this match for the last couple of years, but, I just can't get over how fun and what a test of shooting and equipment it is. If you haven’t seen it or have any idea what it is about, check out PSV 6 – the AR-15 as it shows a couple of stages from the match.

A few things that I want to talk about from the match.

M193 ball worked as a replacement for Black Hills 55 grainers in a pinch for the JPrifles.com Ar. Our rifle ammo (55’s and 75’s) ended up getting lost and the m193 worked the guns fine and was still able to get hits out to 450 yards. Tried some PMC target and it wasn’t reliable on cycling the guns.

Pay attention to the wind. Right before you start on a rifle stage – figure out your wind dope so that you are not doing the fire and correct type of shooting. Know all the distances of all targets and what your hold offs are for every gun.

Equipment:
Most people don’t have the equipment for this kind of a match. Set yourself up right to do well. Get good solid guns that are reliable and will last through 600 rounds or so. Use a lubricant that doesn’t gum up and attract too much dirt. The Action Lube kept my rifle and shotgun working flawlessly for the match. (Side note: Just had a guy stop by to trim the palm trees and he needed some lube for the chainsaw. Lent him the Action Lube heavy and he said it was the best stuff he had ever tried. Kept the saw cooler than anything he had ever seen! Well time for a new label for that market!)
If you are going to shoot this match don’t bring a minor pistol. Many of the targets were spinners that took good hits to turn over.
Learn how to stage your ammo. If the multi-gun match allows you to stage ammo always put extra mags or whatever you might need down range. Don’t give yourself the nightmare of possibly running out at the wrong time.
Know your zero for all ranges and guns. Minimums: Shotgun slugs up to 100 yards. Pistol to 75 yards. AR to 500, LRR rifle to 700.
Bring a complete cleaning kit and a small stage kit for each gun. Minimums: Pull through cleaning rope or a rod and patches. Lube, rags etc.
Organize your stuff every night of the match. During the match, your going to end up having crap everywhere in your vehicle. Empty it out, clean all the guns and reset everything. This will also let you know how you are doing on ammo etc.

LEARN TO BREATH!
It does crack me up watching people in significantly better shape than I am in, just about puke at the end of a stage because they are so exhausted. For some dumb reason nearly everyone holds their breath when they are shooting. Guess what? That doesn’t work that well on a seven minute stage! Learn to always be pushing air in and out even on wide target transitions. Lower abdominal breathing so your upper chest isn’t moving your shoulders around.

BTW thanks to DPMS for providing the .308 as the top prize for the match and thanks to Cavalry Arms for being the overall match sponsor.
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I will be sending some more stuff from the CZ soon and hopefully posting up some pictures.
Take care and stay safe on the range,
Matt

2005 Season - random thoughts from Bakersfield

Right now I am over at the Area 2 3 Gun in Bakersfield at the 5 Dogs range. What a beautiful facility in the middle of no where! Would love to have that range to train on. You could probably hold a couple of world shoots there simultaneously! I thought my list might enjoy a few moments on the road. Hopefully I will be able to do this from every match.

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Had more match stress this morning that I have had in a long time. I think it may be partly related to not having shot a major three gun match in several months along with self imposed performance expectations. Another issue was not having my equipment together. I didn’t have the rifle and shotgun ammo to shoot the match when I showed up so I hit up Wal-mart. (FYI the Winchester white box does not shoot anywhere near as well as the Black Hills I normally shoot.) It was interesting that I was able to overcome most of it and not let it significantly detract from my performance. Remember when you get stressed and the knees start knocking and/or your hands start shaking there are a few things that can help you out. First, realize that you have an abnormal amount of stress. This in itself can make a difference. Second, understand what your stress is caused by and put it in perspective. Is it lack of preparation, expectations, the crowd, your friends? If it is lack of preparation, understand that and survive it as well as you can and write it down in a journal so that you can work on it in your next practice session. If it is the crowd or your friends that are stressing you out, put that in perspective and realize that only you allow others to “rent” space in your head. Pressure is purely self-imposed – others can only put pressure on us if we allow it.
A few additional tips on stress:
If you get back to the basics and realize that the only important thing is putting bullets on targets one at a time, everything gets easier.
Programming the stage with extreme visualization may also help reduce the stress level. Even if it doesn’t it may get you through, as your body will do what you have trained it to do if you focus on the job at hand not the extraneous factors.
If it is really bad, try out “combat breathing”. I will have more on this later.
Wiggle your toes. Sounds dumb but it works.
Remember that the match is not life itself and that you will not have your B-day or your car taken away if you shoot poorly.


More random thoughts:
Won the ASRPA Presidents match last month and still haven't had time to put it up on the website. It is an interesting match with a traveling trophy going back to 1980 when Robbie won it the first time. Rob's name is on it 6 times, BE's 5 and mine 4 now. Need three more years. :-)


For the first time in 11 years, I am running my own uniforms, which you will see on the cover of the DVD volume 7 How to Practice! It is great not being tied down to any contracts, which is kind of funny because I worked for 11 years to do just that. Now I can shoot whatever I want when I want! I will still be working with most of my former sponsors and using many of their products. This remove any conflicts between sponsors and other great products I want to show off on the DVD’s.


Personal reflections on the current situation of Open Guns:
I have recently been shooting JohnnyO's .38 super which was designed based on my spec's from 1994 when the hybrid-comp was getting really big and we were still shooting a 175 PF. Under a 175 PF the gun flips and bounces around! Around 180 the gun settles down and really comes into its own. Hopefully I will post some pic's up of the comp setup. It is a standard hybrid with 5 ports and a 4 chamber comp. The ports are at a -10 degree angle with a 10 degree included angle cutter. This makes them so much more efficient that it completely changes the way the gun feels. They actually start working as a comp. Rusty Kidd one of my awesome former gunsmiths introduced me to the idea a long time back when he had his viper setup. He also included a -20 degree side port toward the end of the slide on each side. That mod does a great job of taking any torque out of the gun and softening it up it just causes a few issues. It is annoying to any RO since the rearward blast is increased significantly and you can’t use it around barrels or ports without getting powder burns or what feels like frags to the face and arms, so that idea was dropped. The comp which I like is a very simple design. Take the bullet you want to use and measure the length of bearing surface and then make the port length the same. This way the bullet is always sealing the gas going into the next chamber. With the 165 PF it looks like three port comp with the inner length of the chambers being .35 long seems to be the ticket for the 121 grain HP bullets I like now.
BTW I am not a fan of the shorty type guns that have since regained popularity in the last couple of years. They appear to be extremely finicky, prone to more failure issues and require significantly higher pressure levels to make major. I can’t think of any top shooters that now use a shortened open gun. Just something to think about when you are building your next open gun.
For those that are interested here are the current specs I recommend for an open gun:
1. standard length slide – carbon or stainless
2. 5.5” non-drilled standard hybrid comp Shuemann barrel in Super or Super-Comp
3. 4 -10 degree holes with a -10 degree included angle cutter
4. 3 chamber comp with .35 length chambers – carbon steel or stainless unless Incanel is available
5. Cmore sight
6. Alchin scope mount with built in blast shield
7. Wide body frame
8. SVI Scott Grip
9. High gripped front strap
10. 20 LPI serrations under trigger guard (see DVD 1 for close ups in interview with Don Golembieski)
11. Dawson or other big magwell
12. SVI, Koenig, or Extreme Engineering trigger parts
13. SVI modular trigger
14. 10 pound recoil spring
15. flat topped slide
16. Ed Brown safeties
17. Rear Serrations and panel cuts on the slide like what SVI produces.
18. Aftec extractor – I use these exclusively in all my 1911 type guns


Misc. advice:
Another good thing to have in your kit for the range is a compensator reamer. If you practice a lot, you will have erosion on the comp plates that will contact the bullet and cause your gun to hit in different spots. You can probably order one through Brownells.com one of my favorite sites for getting gunsmithing parts.

Well got to get ready for tomorrow. If this type of random advice helps you out, please drop me an email and I will keep sending it out to the list and posting it to the blog.

FOP 3 Gun Match

Just won the inaugural 3gun FOP charity championship at Fayetteville, NC. Great match, great people, great time! Thanks to Rick Porter and everyone involved with putting it on.

The stages required you to:
Shoot from a four story tower.
Breach a door to a surprise six room kill house and shoot the bad guys that you had been shown the photo's of.
Shoot from an APC.
Shoot under a car sideways with a handgun.
Shoot off a motorcycle with a rifle - it wasn't moving.

Lessons learned:
1. Check all your equipment before and try it out on a full run before you go. I used a G17 by CustomGlock.com with a Safariland drop holster. With the extended mag button and how physical the match was - some mags got left behind until I figured out what was going on and grabbed a dremel.
2. Make sure you are putting your gear on the recommended way. I attached the velcro belt quick connect from http://www.3gungear.com backwards and after getting off the motorcycle and then running - 6 shotgun speed loaders FLEW all over the place! Yes, I have it on video. Wow, what a way to look like an idiot having a yard sale! Stuff was laying everywhere!
3. Know your angles and holdovers. We had a 50 degree (roughly) angle shot on a 25 yard plate with the rifle. Have your dope and data down or bring a palm pilot with you with the A-Trag software or Perry systems loaded up and ready. I had that, but, forgot to charge the damn thing. :-( Didn't make much of a difference in the match, but, would have been nice to know.
4. Explosive charges are LOUD. Been awhile since I have breached doors. Here is a hint, double plug and when the bang goes - get moving. Some people just stood there and had to be shoved into the kill house.

Will post more when I get some sleep this next week.

Take care,
Matt

Class in CA

At the class in Richmond, CA recently I ran into something interesting relating to shotgun shooting that may help someone out. We had a small stature female in class (less than 100 lbs) that got to shoot a Benelli with slugs and shot. She had never done it before and was rightly so concerned about it. Well, I had already taught her my stance and then showed her how to shoulder the shotgun so it wouldn't be painful. Then I asked her to pull forward with her weak hand. BANG, she hardly moved a 1/2"! Was really amazing how little the recoil affected her. She even wanted to shoot it again! If slugs or buck really move you around, try it out.

New Rifle DVD coming soon, the Mental Game and just won the AZ 400!

Just finished up with the AZ 400 and picked up another match win for the season! Thanks to the guys and gals out at Cactus for putting on a great match! It was interesting the way they set it up. Eight stages all 32 rounds each. They did a good job at the mix of close targets, hard cover, steel etc. Taught an IDPA class on Friday had to change out the gear and shoot open the next morning. Hide behind stuff one day and the next run around and shoot everything!
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We are getting ready to film PSV 6 - The Ar-15! We go into production in just a few days. If you have any cool idea's or things you would like to see, drop me an email at matt@mattburkett.com

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Some random thoughts on the mental game:

It was interesting to watch some of the shooters and their mental game approach to the match. Most have the basic problem a ton of shooters have - blowing the first stage and then relaxing since the stress is over. There really is no logical reason for this other than the build up of expectations. We go to matches thinking we are going to do well, but, set ourselves up for failure by not preparing properly mentally. If we could just get back to the shooting and the important parts included in putting the bullets on the targets it would make the job a lot easier. There is a tendency to build up a match mentally and prep for it differently depending upon what level of competition it is.
We place different levels of importance on different competitions. It shouldn't be this way. The brown targets don't care what kind of match they are shot at and neither do the steel ones. One of the things I do is to take several matches and add them together into one big match. How I got the consistency I have now is to take an entire year of competition and treat it as a match. Helps me take the pressure off of any given event.

What we are looking for is the most important word in competition - confidence. You first need the ability to make any shot on demand. Once that is out of the way, it takes a significant level of stress off. If you have any weaknesses in your shooting, make sure that you develop them into strengths. If you stress about something at a match, most likely you are not the only one.

Remember that this is not a team sport. It is only you on the line. There really is no start line or finish line - the first bullet is of equal importance to the last.

If we can get rid of the need to "chase" other shooters, we are going to do much better than we expect. This is another thing that is a huge problem for more shooters. It shouldn't matter who is at a match and it has nothing to do with the way we shoot the targets.

A lot of shooters treat a club match flippantly and then take a big match seriously. You should take them all at the same level of performance and importance. This way you are shooting the best you can all the time instead of trying to just at a major match.

Ask yourself what is causing the tension and butterflies? Are they helpful to your shooting? Does getting pumped up strengthen your shooting or destroy it? What can you do to more effectively compete? Are you a positive or negative shooter in your mental approach?

Does your training include working on your mental game?

Check out:
http://www.lannybassham.com/
for more info on mental management.

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There will be more tips and advice in the future on the mental game but right now I have to get back to work on the rifle video quite a few have been screaming about!

Take care,
Matt

Class in Dallas

Just got finished with an IDPA class in Dallas, Texas at the Elmfork range. Had a great time and a few interesting issues came up.
The most interesting was a couple of shooters that were hitting about 4-5″ to the left at 14 yards. Tested the guns, they were sighted in and fine. Pulled the trigger for the shooter while they were aimed at the target and they hit to the left which takes out the flinch aspect (what is normally occurring). Asked them about their eye dominance and had them close an eye. BINGO, now they can shoot straight! One of the shooters had just been through LRK surgery and the other had a huge astigmatism. Don’t believe everything you read, both eyes for shooting are great if you can shoot straight that way.

This is my shooting journal of random thoughts.

I wanted a place to share my experiences with you the shooter. Some posts may help out only a couple of people. Some may not relate to anyone. It is just my personal journal.
Take care and have fun on the range!