Match Day, April 2005

¶ . . . Today I brought out my recently acquired Para Ordnance .45 to give it a real - time run at this month's club match. Man, what a difference from my tiny Commander!! This gun shoots real light with its tungsten guide rod and with some not - so - especially - light loads!! I did have some magazine issues, however, but I believe I loaded them up too much to their liking. The mags are a little old, too, so I think I'll tune them up forthwith by getting some new bases, springs, and followers. Again, the pistol itself ran great and my ammo functioned well (although it was recommended I might try shortening them a bit. I'll go to 1.235"). It's larger size sure fills out my hand well, too.
. . . The fact that I have a new pistol DID NOT, however, bring about any miraculous performances!! I'm still getting "lost" on stages ("Pay attention & plan them out!!") and I still don't have a steady hand for the "aimed" shots, i.e. plates, distance, Mozambiques. When I do get a good run it's marred by mikes or no - shoot penalties.
. . .Match Results as soon as they are posted.

V.B.'s Combat Shooting Genesis . . .

(Thought I'd put in this previously unpublished piece from 19 January 2005 about my competition origins. Hopefully it will inspire some that would like to learn to actively use their weapons competitively AND how to keep them running!!)

19 January 2005

¶ - The genesis of my Competitive Shooting career came about when I realized that my ownership of a firearm was, well, pretty dull without regular usage. I wanted to shoot frequently, but the only outlets I was familiar with were the desert or National Forest lands or indoor shooting ranges. The former are fast disappearing due to rapid population influx and the latter are just plain dull! One requires an environment where it is possible to have "free form" workouts. Here is where it all began for me, the great group of men I have been privileged to associate with, and how you, too, can get involved in this great and extremely rewarding pursuit.


About three years past I took the cash I had earned as an umpire and bought a Colt M1911 (Combat Commander,Stainless) pistol. I took it once to an indoor range and another time out to the range in San Francisquito Canyon. What a dud! Standing there slowly, plink...plink...plink..." The places I had known in earlier years were no more; there had to be something better. Sure, I knew about the U.S. Olympic team and Camp Perry, but was there some kind of "combat pistol" competition (a la the combat course in the picture "Magnum Force")?


My best recollection is that an Internet search provided me with the International Defensive Pistol Association and the United States Practical Shooting Association/ International Practical Shooting Confederation.


The IDPA site, while the premise itself was attractive,and has from what I later learned some large names in the sport, appeared to be somewhat of an "upstart" league. Its disgruntled allusion to the USPSA, well, naturally, occasioned my gravitation to the USPSA. The USPSA looked to be THE major entity in the kind of gunplay I was looking for and were the U.S. governing body of the International Practical Shooting Confederation(the "practical" shooting aspect derives from a more "P.C" manner to present the game to the international community.). This looked like a happening scene.

So, after finding a local club with the "club finder," I fire off an e-mail to the director of the Southwest Pistol League and the next day . . .the next day I get a response! I was impressed. The gent instucts me to go up to Piru and check it out. What luck! As I'm standing around with my best lost-and-a-newbie look, the first guy I happen to run into happens to be a champion USPSA shooter and lets me tag along. I observe for one more match after this, this same guy outfits me with my rig, and it's on!!The rest is history in the making! I've been at it ever since! This has become the passion in my spare time, my avocation, as it were. I now am a member of a pretty good club, with "my own" place to practice and practice the way I like, as it pertains to the game.What a hoot!

Oklahoma 2005, Part II

(Read the preceding entry first for chronology's sake!!)
¶ . . . Sunday was to turn out to be a much better outing. I stopped first at Stockyard City in downtown OKC. It was kind of neat for the clothing stores there. Then I went over to the Oklahoma City Memorial.
The Memorial here is very touching and very well done. What struck me most deeply was at the west side adjacent to the Catholic Church was a large statue of Jesus Christ, facing away from the building site with his face in his hands, as if to be crying in shame and despair. I failed to get a picture of this, but I will next time.

Next I visited Bricktown, also downtown; pretty much just a cental watering hole area. Didn't stay here to long.
Next was the real highlight of the whole weekend. Over to the 45th Infantry Division Museum. I spent about three hours here. It is free to go in, they ask only for a donation, but it isn't pushed. Give 'em a couple of bucks: it's definitely worth it. Lots of vehicles on the surrounding grounds, World War II to post-Viet Nam, including trucks, artillery, armor, and aircraft. The small appearance of size of the building from the outside belies the amount of treasures within!! Mostly militaria from World War I through Gulf War I. There is a great tribute to Bill Mauldin, caricaturist of the WWII Dogfaces and a display of a few hundred of his cartoons. Very well done.
The real highlight here however is the museum's weapon collection. Donated by a private citizen it is one of the best I have ever seen. Though relatively small in size, I believe it rivals that of the extremely large collections of the J.M. Davis Arms & Historical Museum, Claremore, OK, and the Buffalo Bill Historical Center, Cody, WY. Weapons include pieces from the Colonial Period through Gulf War I, with a good array of WWII and Korea-era battlefield weapons, mortars, recoilless rifles, etc. Any history buff traveling through Oklahoma City should make it a point to reserve time to visit this property, absolutely a true gem!!

Oklahoma 2005, Part I

¶ . . . As promised, some on my trip to Indian Territory . . .
The one weekend I was there I took to the road, as usual. Dodge City, Kansas it was this time, as any real Wild West aficionado, I thought, should make a pilgrimage. This has to be one of the biggest all-time duds I have ever experienced!! What a total letdown!! So-called "Front Street," actually really a front pushed back from U.S. 50, wouldn't have made even a good movie set!! The cowboy town for the S.A.S.S. guys at 5-Dogs in Bakersfield looked more realistic!! And for an added touch of realism, there was an Applebee's restaurant on the corner of it!! Even though it was a Saturday, the Visitor Center was closed; only the kitschy gift shop was open. This didn't even warrant a purchase of the customary 'fridge magnet!! After not even an hour, I was able to call my parents and say for real:
"I'm gettin' out of Dodge!!"
Though this would eventually turn out to be a 700 mile day, I decided I would just head back to Norman (which was a good thing; Sunday's outing was superb. Next post will have that!).
¶ . . . In summary, you can pretty much scratch Kansas off of any list of places I would want to live!! Although my Pop says the run along I-70 to the north is pretty nice, I'm not buyin'!!

Back From Indian Territory . . .

¶ . . . I'm a little tardy in posting, seeing as how I've been back from Indian Territory for a week now. . .
. . . I did make it out to Norco before I flew out and shot with the Running Gun guys and had a real swell time! I saw a Texas Star (though not this fancy) for the first time and boy was it tough!! Wasn't able to clean it off. Shot at my usual ability, could do better if I could work out my gun malfs. I did feel I was hitting my reloads well, however, so there's much improvement there. Six stages, including a classifier, "El Strong and Weak Pres." You can get Match Results here.
Out to Lopez Canyon the next day to complete two days of shoot-'em-up before my trip, the usual malfs/jams/screw-ups, but it's great to get in this much gunslinging. Sure need those weekends off!! Match Results here.
. . .Oklahoma, Kansas, and the 45th Infantry Division Museum in OKC in forthcoming post . . .

I'm Going To OKC . . .

¶ . . . It's off to the Great State of Oklahoma (OK!!) come this Monday, but not before I head out with my blaster for some back - to - back pistolero action, IPSC - style, with the boys at Norco Running Gun and then my esteemed fellow gunslingers at Lopez Canyon.
I really like my Postal training excursions to the Sooner State. Hopefully the Owlhoot Trail will take me up to Dodge City, Kansas this go 'round. Yee-Haw!!

Area 2 3 - Gun Championships . . .

¶. . . Went out last weekend to the Area 2 3-Gun Championships at the 5 Dogs Rifle & Pistol Range. It's a little northeast of Bakersfield, east of the Oildale area, and it's quite a range. To me, it seemed gigantic, a neat looking Cowboy town for the Cowboy Action shooters, plenty of action pistol bays, and expansive rifle ranges. I tagged along for five stages with Darin and Rob and got a good look at the action. I even got to talk a few minutes with Matt Burkett!(No, Darin, I'm not asking for his autograph!)
This is another shooting discipline that's definitely for me, but as long as I reside here in Kalifornia, it's gonna be tough. I cannot purchase the proper weapons here. Shooting Heavy Metal is possible, but no optics, and the outlook for tricking-out a Ruger Mini-14 is not very encouraging.
The Battle Born State continues to look more and more attractive, its siren call beckoning!!

A Note On On - Line Poker . . .

¶. . . Just nickel and dime, I know, but I've gone from twelve bucks to fifty-eight dollars this past week playing Texas Hold'em a few minutes a pop a couple of nights.
. . . Would be kind of cool to say, "I bought this shotgun with my poker take!"

Target Practice Notes . . .

¶. . . a brief session out at the range to try what I learned from the Matt Burkett conversation with Brian Enos: starting the fundamentals by shooting from the bench, learning to "call the shot," and learning to keep from blinking. As pertains to the bench work, I took to task the sight alignment on the target and not "waiting for the perfect alignment." As was stated, my gun is already aimed, it's the "mischievous friend" out there moving the target about. What can be done about that? Nothing! Shift more consciousness to the hands and pulling off the shot and . . . my groups moved into the center (from the left) and though not so tight yet, were considerably closer, within six inches. This at twenty five yards. Great! Can' say as I've made any progress toward not blinking or calling the shot, however. I'll keep up the practice, I can do quite a bit with a brief run up there.
Worked a few "Bill Drills," the 50-yard plate a little, too. Some slower, more patient execution seems to be the order for now, let's remember this next match!!

An Intoduction To Trap Shooting . . .

¶ Well, today was kind of neat . . . I went up to the range to help on the work party scheduled for today and I'm quite glad I did! I helped a couple of the guys install a pedestrian gate at the entry (which came out looking pretty good!) and afterwards I got an intro to trap shooting from Maurice P., a fellow club member: singles and doubles. It was really quite fun! I guess I got a chance to shoot at least fifty birds, so it was a pretty good introduction and more of a workout than I had thought. I shot the singles with a . . . single barrel, and the doubles with a . . . double (over and under)! I actually hit the very first few that I attempted!! Can't say that for the doubles . . . they're pretty tough. I inquired about the club's involvement in the "Round Robin," so maybe I'll look into getting a trap gun and pursue this. Sporting Clays look rather intriguing, also. Oh, to have the time . . .

24 January 2005

¶  Up to the range yesterday, Sunday, with great intentions, recently acquired knowledge, and my new Limcat Stealth holster. And another disaster it was, too!! In the box for Stage 5, I reached over to pick up a mag up off of the ground and the gun fell out of my holster! I didn't lock it, something I hadn't accustomed myself to yet (reason, not excuse!). Concept grasped: Do NOTHING other than start the stage after the gun is loaded and made ready! Other items shown to need work:

• Practice my draws


• Acquiring the grip


• Presentation


• Off the table


• GOTTA NAIL THOSE RELOADS!!


• Sight align/picture


• Patience, and


• The long shot!!

  Not an auspiscious start for 2005, so let's get out to the range for those workouts and do the home drills!
MATCH RESULTS

17 January 2005

¶ . . .I just started one of the free website hosting services to see if it's worth the effort to actually get my very own. The one at Tripod looked to be OK as I have a choice of using the "auto" or HTML forms of editing, so I gave it a shot. As soon as it's presentable, I'll link from here to it. What little I've done so far with this weblog and trying to learn a little of writing code from scratch has demonstrated that it all can be quite time consuming, so I'll try to stay motivated and do a little at a time.

¶ . . .Wasn't able to go up to the range for some practice today do to the damage from the weather inclement of late, so I did some reloading and readied-up my pistol for the coming weekend match. I was up there yesterday and the road was barely passable for a sedan like mine. I sure wanted to work on my draw and presentation.

12 January 2005

¶  Trying this with my editor:  Getting ready to start a new pistol season, so lets see if I can put together some of the things I've learned the past two years.I had been practicing some more toward the end of the last year,applying some of the principles I've learned from the videos I "won" in November. The heavy rains of the past three weeks has put a damper on that; however, I should be able to head up to the club Monday for another workout before next week's match. I should also have my new holster by then!

06 January 2005 Redux

Here it is again, colors, tags and spacing edited:
¶ I've been trying to learn how HTML code works and I've had some small victories. I at first only wanted to know how to create hyperlinks without using the whole URL script, but it has now turned into a major educational endeavor!
  My brother told me about this free HTML editor (I'm composing this on it now.) so I downloaded a copy and then looked for and found this tutorial. I'm not sure about the tags for the link colors (it looks like it might alter the background), but let's see if it works!!

06 January 2005

¶ I've been trying to learn how HTML code works and I've had some small victories. I at first only
wanted to know how to create hyperlinks without using the whole URL script, but it has now turned into
a major educational endeavor!

My brother told me about this free HTML editor (I'm composing this on it now.) so I downloaded
a copy
and then looked for and found this tutorial.
I'm not sure about the tags for the link colors (it looks like it might alter
the background), but let's see if it works!!
  (Postscript, 01/07: I had to remove the tags and do the link color from the "compose" window; the tags I used torqued the Nav Bar at the top of the page!)

05 January 2005

¶ ...Ten Days After!! I finally get my car Monday, the day before yesterday. So far after two round trips to work it seems to be OK. I also had to fork out the cash up front for the rental ($352.00!!). Supposedly I'll be receiving a "letter," whatever that means. They sure didn't jump up to pay outright for the rental car, so I'm sure I'm not done with these people yet.
  As alluded to in a previous entry, I guess it was about time for some "s***" to happen to me, but I'll handle it and learn from it(!).

01 January 2005

¶ Well, I made it to Vegas and even up to Santa Ynez, but still using the rental car so graciously "provided" by my friends at Jiffy Lube (appears that I'll have to pay for the rental first. More trouble ahead!). As of this past Thursday they still hadn't "found the part" but they subsequently informed me it would be ready Monday the 3rd. I'll bet.
   An oil change that has taken over a week. Check out Ripoff Report for more horror.

25 December 2004

¶ It's an early morning, 35 mile bus ride to work this morning due to last night's event. Normally, I would have just blown off the workday, but those Christmas ducats are just too appealing (I gotta have a new pistol!). This one bus ride was all it took to remind me of why I don't use rapid transit in this crummy burg and its true raison d'etre. With the "Bus Riders' Union" and proliferation of bums and welfare-sponging slackers here, it’s clear who the MTA serves. If I was a driver, I'd get fired or quit within a week. Here's an example, just one of several, ON THE ONE RIDE:
Bum gets on board Downtown.

Driver: "What's that? That pass ain't no good."
Bum: "I got it this morning."
D: "I've been driving this line all night. Tell me another story."
B: (some slurred, unintelligible guttural)
D: "No, what you really want to tell me is, 'I want to ride for free,' right?"
B: "Uh…"
D: "Man, it’s the Lord's Day, tell the truth. Merry Christmas, take a seat."

These freeloaders are commonplace and the hold up the bus, a particular bane if you have to make connectors. Some people that watch certain TV programs, The Bob Newhart Show, for instance, think that there are public transit patrons like physicians and attorneys actually make up a large percentage of the bus-riding demographic. Not in this town! Not unless all three of their cars are broke down, they too are mentally ill, and someone is holding a gun to their head.

Give me my car back!!

24 December 2004

¶ The next time you hear me say, "That kind of s*** doesn't happen to me, you can remind me of this Christmas Eve...

  Hoping to get a jump on tying up any loose ends prior to another trip to the Silver State for the holidays, I decided I would get my oil changed (this is a Jiffy Lube story). Seeing as how I hadn't had my gear case oil changed since who knows when and they offered me a good price to do so, I told them to go for it. To make a long story short, they blew apart the gear case drain port! Irreparably! I should have known better than let these "mechanics" do anything other than change the oil, and even that is taking a risk. The convenience of JL and its ilk are what make them attractive, or rather an attractive peril, to me when I procrastinate and try the "easier, softer" way.
After an hour (a sure indicator of incompetence) attempting to "fix" (read: jerry rig) the situation, the manager, crestfallen, explained blah, blah, blah, it's Christmas Eve blah, blah, Monday this, Sunday that, blah . . .
In my best form, I didn't get upset (VB is not really vile). I actually felt bad for these guys. I'll make it to Nevada anyway, though somewhat belatedly. What I'll do if they don't rise to the responsibility, I don't know. Hopefully I won't have the need to gaff them for that.
Stay tuned!!

22 December 2004

¶ . . . Last night I was thinking about this blog-thing and I said to myself, "Self, this is the type of vehicle your brother might use as the proverbial soap box." After all, his '90's website "The Judge" was one of the biggest hoots I had ever seen, excellent composition, exceedingly relevant, and was getting so many hits that then-GTE decided they weren't going to host it free anymore!! Utilizing my prodigious detective skills, I conducted a search and found it! (Search time: all of about 3 minutes). Link here for some more great relevance and hilarity: Journal Yellow