Mixed Bag

Here are some scattered notes and comments from today.

I didn’t shoot very well in today’s 2700. All my scores were down at the low-end of where I’ve been shooting. The bad news is this was an Authorized match and the scores count so I’ll be in Outdoor Sharpshooter land for a while. The good news is that’s where I *should* be competing, that’s where I *need* to be working, and doing the things I did today (shooting, not quitting, re-focusing on basics) is what will *eventually* let me learn what I need to know to advance. Patience!

Clarence, to my immediately left, had a squib but caught it immediately. Other than the round stuck in the barrel, there was no damage to his 1911. (I think he was shooting the gun later in the match but I didn’t confirm that.) He shot well in spite of that incident (and whipped me by 100 points – way to go, Clarence!).

Steve Reiter, Senior US Champion many times over, was scoring my 45 targets. I let that get to me on the first two Slow Fire targets and butchered them both, scoring only in the low 70s with not one hole in the black on the second of the two. Ugh!

But then I re-focused all my attention back into my shot plan by meticulously following each step and, I’m pleased to say, resurrected myself on the first SF of the NMC with all shots in the black. TF and RF thereafter weren’t great but they were tolerable, mostly in the mid-90s.

I fired some carefully reloaded Aguilla brass in Slow Fire after making them specially for today and making doubly certain to fully seat all the primers. Even so, I had nine high primers in the 60 rounds in Slow Fire over CF and 45. For TF and RF, I switched to reloads in Starline using the same batch of primers but had no problems – no high primers. So, something is decidedly wrong with Aguilla brass.

But I still have mixed feelings about discarding it.

On the down side, the high primers cannot all be detected by vision or touch. I’ve had several shooters try and we all failed to spot several high primers. So the bottom line is if I shoot the Aguilla brass, some “thunks” will happen.

But on the plus side, if I restrict its use to Slow Fire only, shooting it is a great “ball and dummy” drill; and brother does it show me I have a problem when I think there’s a live round in the chamber.

(Jerk!)

Dry firing alone just isn’t solving my “jerk” problem so, for the time being at least, I think I will continue reloading and shooting the Aguilla “Surprise” ammo, but only in Slow Fire of course. And quite frankly if the high primers continue long enough for me to learn the lesson of how *not* to jerk, that would be fabulous.

So, looking forward, we shoot a “Camp Perry Warm-up” next Sunday starting at 7:30AM.

I’ll be the jerk with the high primers in Slow Fire … but not for too much longer if this works.

See you on the line.