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.
