Saturday, April 22, 2023

Outlaw Steel Action Pistol Match - 04/22/2023

Outlaw Steel Action Pistol match at 41 Lead Farm in Lubbock, TX. Still shooting my custom V8 ported Staccato P (still loving the gun too), however my performance was really off. It was cold and windy again, which really wreaks havoc on my focus, so I was going way slower that I would've liked. No major mistakes other than an unexpected first shot into the berm on stage 2, which was embarrassing. I fully expected to come home, review the video, and be utterly disappointed in my performance, but it actually wasn't that bad. 😜 I ended up in 4th place Overall out of 43 total.




Saturday, April 8, 2023

USPSA Action Pistol Match - 04/08/2023

USPSA action pistol match at 41 Lead Farm in Lubbock, TX. Shooting my custom V8 ported Staccato P in the Open Division. Still trying to get the right balance of speed with acceptable hits.  Went too slow in some sections of stages, too fast in other sections, and had two misses on the first stage which is hard to recover from. Ended up in 7th place Overall out of 53 total.




Saturday, March 25, 2023

Outlaw Steel Action Pistol Match - 03/25/2023

Outlaw Steel Action Pistol match at 41 Lead Farm in Lubbock, TX. It was cold and windy at this match and it was causing me to not be focused on shooting as I was expecting it to be warmer and did not bring a heavier coat to keep me warm in between stages. The first three stages went okay, but they weren't very fast as I only had one miss/makeup shot. On the 4th stage I had several misses that took time to make up and I forgot to get my planned reload done on the 5th stage and ended up running dry and had to finish the stage with a flat-footed emergency reload. I also had a few trigger freezes with my new custom Staccato P 2011 which just look like weird hesitations on video. Despite my mistakes and slower runs, I ended up in 4th place Overall out of 37 total.




Saturday, March 11, 2023

USPSA Action Pistol Match - 03/11/2023

USPSA action pistol match at 41 Lead Farm in Lubbock, TX. I was using my new custom V8 ported Staccato P 2011 in the Open Division. The gun ran great and the V8 ports work really well even with my lower powered reloaded ammo that I use for matches. I had a few minor mistakes (more like weird confusion hesitations), a couple instances of trigger freeze (typical for me with 2011s), and a miss on a target on one of the stages. I ended up in 9th place Overall out of 72 total, which was a really large turnout for our area. 👍




Thursday, March 9, 2023

Custom Staccato P Handgun

With the recent initial frustration and disappointment with my Springfield Prodigy 1911DS, and the frustration with Bul Armory's lack of supply of their newest generation of 2011-style guns in the US market, I decided to sell my first generation Bul SASII Tac Commander and purchase a used 4.4" Staccato P 2011 handgun to customize and to have for holster test fitment at RFV Tactical. I knew that I wanted to have it direct milled for a Holosun 509T red dot, so I picked up an iron-sight only version and sent it off to Impact CNC Machine to have it milled for the optic and then to DSC Gunworks to have the barrel and slide ported in a V8 configuration. After getting the slide and barrel back from Impact and DSC, I textured the grip while retaining the star logos, pinned the beavertail grip safety (because the previous owner permanently disabled it), cut the front of the frame's dust cover at an angle to better match the factory cuts on the slide, completely dehorned the slide and frame of all their sharp corners and edges, and then Cerakoted the slide in Graphite Black H-146 and the frame and beavertail in Stainless H-152 to match my custom two-tone Staccato C2.



Having the slide direct milled for the optic rather than using Staccato's optic mounting plate system allows the Holosun 509T to sit really low and there are no additional small screws that might come loose if they are not torqued and thread-locked properly. 👍


I plan to use this gun for daily carry and to compete at action pistol matches for a little while going forward. Surprisingly, this full-size 2011 is an ounce lighter than my 4.25" Springfield Prodigy 1911DS, but it actually has much less muzzle flip due to the V8 porting even with my lower powered reloaded ammo that I use at matches.


Wednesday, February 22, 2023

IDPA Action Pistol Match - 02/22/2023

Indoor IDPA action pistol match with my Springfield Prodigy. I designed all the stages (I kept it simple) and ran the match, but we had a small turnout with only 6 people total. I got a little sloppy on the fourth stage trying to push my speed and then slowed it down too much on the last stage, but I still came in 1st place Overall with a margin of over 8 seconds. The Prodigy has been running 100%, but I am considering going to go back to rotating through different guns for carry and competition until I finish my new custom Staccato P that I am building. Carrying and competing with the same gun every week gets a little boring for me. I may even rotate my Sig XCarry, Walther PDP, and Shadow Systems MR920 into the mix to keep it interesting. Who knows what I'll do next... 😎

Update: I finished the custom Staccato P build a few days later, so I will be shooting it for a little while going forward. 👍





Saturday, February 11, 2023

USPSA Action Pistol Match - 02/11/2023

USPSA action pistol match at 41 Lead Farm in Lubbock, TX. I went back to shooting my Springfield Prodigy 1911 Double Stack again after finally receiving the RMR-footprint optic mounting plate that I ordered in September of 2022. 😒 During my recent daily dry fire practice sessions, I have really been trying to consciously grip the gun harder so that I can shoot the gun faster in live fire. I've been carrying and dry fire practicing with the Prodigy for over a week to get used to it, but I ended up getting a blister on the top of one of my fingers on my strong hand from gripping the gun so hard with my support hand. Apparently the fingers of my support hand land differently on top of my strong hand when gripping a 2011-style gun. This blister forced me to change my grip slightly just to avoid pain when gripping the gun. You can see on the last stage in the video that I actually had to re-acquire my grip during my draw because of the pain from establishing my grip wrong. 😵 Due to this, my performance wasn't as good as I would've liked and I ended up in 12th place Overall out of 59 total. The 2011-style gun is still a great platform, and I am going to run the Prodigy at a few more matches just to get used to it. I am also building a custom Staccato P 2011 with a ported slide/barrel, so I plan to dedicate some time to the 2011 platform for a little while.






Wednesday, February 8, 2023

IDPA Action Pistol Match - 02/08/2023

Another indoor IDPA action pistol match recorded. 😜 I switched to my Springfield Prodigy 1911 Double Stack for this match as I plan to shoot it at several action pistol matches this month. This gun took a lot of work to get running reliably, but it's good to go now.  My performance was okay, but nothing spectacular.  While the 2011 platform is great for shooting fast with the single action trigger and the Prodigy is nice and heavy to help mitigate recoil, I think I still shoot my Zev Tech OZ9C faster. I came in 1st place Overall (only 7 total) with a 7+ second margin. 👍



Saturday, January 28, 2023

Outlaw Steel Action Pistol Match - 01/28/2023

Outlaw Steel action pistol match at the Lead Farm in Lubbock, TX. I was again running my Zev Tech OZ9C in the Open division. The gun ran great again, but I didn't perform as well as I would've liked. I had a lot of misses because I was trying to go too fast, and making up all the missed shoots took extra time. 😟 I also got called for a miss on the second stage (6 hits required at each of the four shooting positions) which added 10 seconds to my overall time, but after getting home and reviewing the video, I confirmed that I made up all of my missed shots on every stage. I ended up in 9th place Overall out of 47 total, but I should've been in 6th place without the incorrectly called penalty. 😡 Oh well, it was still a lot of fun! 😁



Wednesday, January 25, 2023

IDPA Action Pistol Match - 01/25/2023

Although I attend these indoor IDPA action pistol matches all the time, it's been a while since I recorded one. I was again shooting my Zev Tech OZ9C that I recently updated with an Overwatch Precision TAC trigger, and the gun ran flawless. Other than a few brain farts and reload fumbles (typical for me at an IDPA match), I ended up in 1st place Overall out of 8 total with a 23+ second margin. 👍 This OZ9C is an absolutely amazing gun! I love everything about it and I love shooting it! I normally rotate through a lot of different carry guns (CZs, 2011s, Glocks, Walthers, Sigs, etc), but I can see myself carrying and competing with this one on a regular basis for a while. 😁💓😎💜



Saturday, January 14, 2023

USPSA Action Pistol Match - 01/14/2023

USPSA match at the Lead Farm in Lubbock Texas. I was running my Zev Tech OZ9C again, and after some problems with it at previous matches, it is now running flawlessly!  I was finally able to figure out and resolve the light strike issue I was having with the gun. I discovered that the trigger bar's vertical extension was not fully depressing the firing pin block (see photo below). This may be because Zev inadvertently cut this too short at the factory or possibly the previous owner modified it (I bought the gun used), so I installed a used factory Glock Gen3 trigger bar temporarily to test it at this match and it ran great. I've since installed an Overwatch Precision TAC trigger as a permanent replacement, and will be running it a at a few more matches before rotating other guns back into my regular carry and competition usage.


Unfortunately, I made a careless mistake on stage 2 by letting a prop that we had to carry with us (fake cell phone) slide off the top of a barrel, which cost me a lot of time as I still had to pick it up and take it with me to the next shooting position. Despite my fumble, I still managed to come in 3rd place Overall out of 35 total. I can tell from reviewing video footage that I am shooting a lot faster than I have before as I have deliberately tried to break myself of over-aiming on close up targets. I pretty much just "point-shoot" with two quick shots for any target that is inside of 7 yards now (still kinda sorta aiming), but my hits are still acceptable for USPSA scoring.  It's still a work in progress! 👍



Saturday, January 7, 2023

Outlaw Steel Action Pistol Match - 01/07/2023

First match of 2023!  This one was a new Outlaw Steel action pistol match at the Lead Farm in Lubbock, TX. The match is similar to USPSA but with all steel targets and "time+" scoring. These matches will be going on once a month at the Lead Farm this year in addition to their regular USPSA matches, so I am very excited about it! There is something very satisfying about shooting steel targets and hearing them ding loudly with each hit. 😁 Unfortunately I had a LOT of light strikes with my new Zev Tech OZ9C at this match, which cost me some time, but still managed to come in 3rd place overall out of  42 total. I've got to get the light strike issue worked out on the OZ9C as this gun is amazing to shoot otherwise.