Weekend Wrap-Up

I was down in North Carolina this weekend, shooting the Tidewater 3-Gun match.  It was a good time as always, especially as the rain stopped just as the first stage started.

I’ve lately been trying out that trendy new shotgun quad load.  I’m not as fast with it as I am loading weakhand, but it’s getting better.  I might need to order some more carriers soon.  On the other hand, my pistol shooting was a little bit sloppy.  I’ve been spending most of my dryfire time working on that shotgun reload, and it’s showing a little bit.  Sometimes there just aren’t enough hours in the day.

I should have some photos up soon.  Stay tuned.

The New Glock Commercial…

…at Gun Nuts Media.

I’m honestly blown away.  This is the best gun-related commercial I’ve ever seen.  Glock has just scooped the entire industry when it comes to marketing.

I hope to see more commercials like this, from more gun and shooting-related companies.

Nothing to do with Multigun…

But still a pretty cool promo video.

It’s always nice to see the collegiate shooting sports get some more publicity.

– Chris

Smith and Wesson M&P Magazine Issues

So it’s no particular secret that I’m a ravening Smith and Wesson M&P fanboi.  I have four M&Ps right now, a fifth on the way, and am presently shooting my M&P9 Pro 5″ in both USPSA Production and 3-Gun competition.  I like my M&Ps.

So, when I read about Caleb’s magazine problems, it does not exactly fill me with excitement.  Particularly when I’ve just ordered a dozen new M&P magazines to replace some old worn-out ones…

I haven’t seen any of the new magazines in the wild yet, but looking at those pictures is worrisome.  Moving the locking pin hole that close to the read of the magazine baseplate seems like asking for trouble, and changing the locking pin hole from round to square?  Huh?  How could this seem like a good idea?  These are magazines, people.  They are going to be dropped on the ground, handled roughly, and occasionally kicked and stepped on.  The magazines need to be built to take some abuse.

What really gets me, though, is that I cannot for the life of me figure out what benefit the engineering department at S&W was trying to obtain.  Cheaper to manufacture?  Maybe.  Better feed reliability in the magazine stack?  Doubtful.  They sure as hell weren’t trying to make them stronger.

Anyway, as soon as the new magazines are in my mitts, I’ll put them through the wringer.  In the meantime, I’m going to go shop for some old-style Compact baseplates.  Not to go all sour grapes, but I really do like the Compact baseplates better.

-C

July Tidewater 3-Gun AAR

Yesterday I wandered down to the furthest reaches of Southern VA to visit the folks, and shoot the monthly Tidewater 3-Gun match.

The Tidewater 3-Gun is held on the sprawling U.S. Training Center facility (formerly known as Blackwater, formerly known as Xe, or whatever…), so the Tidewater folks have all the resources they need to put on a smokin’ match.  As usual, they didn’t disappoint.

My own shooting, not so much.  Although my shotgun and pistol game were dead on, my rifle had inexplicably shifted it’s zero about 3MOA towards 8:00.  To add insult to injury, I had planned on going out to the range Saturday to shoot the rifle, but passed on it due to rain.  Sigh.  Lessons learned.

We had four good stages, 2 pistol/rifle (including a very cool mid-range stage on the USTC 1000-yard range) and 2 multigun.  As usual, the kind folks at USTC provided lots of props for our entertainment.  Hitting a flash target at 175 yards doesn’t sound too hard, until you have to hit it offhand through the window of a junked car…

Anyhow, I managed to scrape out like 5th or 6th place.  The always-dangerous Robb J. picked up the top spot, no surprise there.  Congrats, Robb!

Next match will be August 8th or therebouts.  Be there!

The Obligatory “Top Shot” Blog Post

Ok, so I’ve watched the premier episode of Top Shot twice now. For those of you in the shooting community who’ve been living under a rock, or have yet to upgrade to one of those newfangled television things, Top Shot is a new reality show that’s airing on The History Channel. The central conceit is that they’ve selected 16 of America’s best shooters from various disciplines, split them into teams and then make them compete with weapons from various historical eras (hence the justification for the show being on The History Channel.)

The show pretty well follows the established formula for a reality series, throw a bunch of people into a situation, record their actions, and then stick them into an interview chair for a bit of navel-gazing and/or backbiting.

That said, the premiere episode was pretty short on interpersonal drama, and compulsively watchable. Of course, it probably doesn’t hurt that I’m familiar with a couple of the competitors, and at least one of them has an excellent blog and podcast deal chock full of shooty goodness.

As for the shooting in the show itself, the competitions are built to have maximum impact with the viewer, utilizing a lot of high-speed slow-motion photography, and having the competitors shoot at targets that explode. It makes for a pretty potent visual marker of who’s hitting what target, and seems to be a great solution to the problem of making a shooting competition into something that a spectator would actually want to watch.

If you’ve been paying attention by now, you’ve probably read every possible diagnosis of what happened when Mike Seeklander was shooting an 03 Springfield at a target at 100 yards, and failed to hit it despite firing somewhere around 30 rounds at it.

Well, it turns out that the sights on those rifles are some sick Victorian-era Rube Goldberg Device. Couple that with having to shoot an unknown firearm under stress, and I’m not terribly surprised that Seeklander crashed and burned.

Still, if you haven’t watched the show, I’d suggest catching a rerun of it on History Channel or streaming it via Hulu. Whatever misgivings you might have about the show, there’s one thing about it that’s pretty revolutionary:

For the first time ever, there’s a show on television aimed at the general television audience that portrays guns and gun use in a thoroughly positive light.

Even five years ago, such a show would have been completely unheard of.