Who'd 'ave Thought?

While I try to decide what to include in my next update regarding M&M and The Queen to satisfy kymber's curiosity, I thought I'd take a moment to gloat a little about my most recent competition experience.

I participated in one of the local clubs' USPSA (United States Practical Shooting Association) match last evening/night with positive (at least for me) results. I placed second out of four shooters in my division (single stack) and 30TH out of 43 shooters overall. I won two of the four stages within my division; and, more importantly, I was even two places ahead of cousin B. in the overall standings.

For those who have not been following my escapades in the shooting sports, that's a huge improvement for me.

I went into the match intending to focus on accuracy over speed; and, for the most part, I succeeded in spades. I shot well enough to get 404 out of a possible 450 total raw points (which means I didn't miss the "A" scoring zone very often in the 90 or so rounds fired). I was slightly bummed on one stage when a good target was ruined by someone who forgot to tape the target after the previous shooter sticking me with their hit on a no shoot for a penalty. How do I know it wasn't me? There were four holes in that target when there should have only been two. I shoot .45 ACP which makes a significantly bigger hole than either 9mm or .40 S&W on a cardboard target. The no shoot hit was most definitely NOT a .45.

The most difficult stage of the evening had 14 targets each requiring two shots for a total of 28 rounds. Guess who only has 26 rounds worth magazine capacity in his current rig? Yeah, that would be me. Fortunately, there was someone willing to loan me a spare mag. I also wound up having to bum eight rounds of ammo off another shooter after an administrative error by the match director forced a reshoot of the first stage. I was scorer on that stage, and they really should have listened to me when I told them the scoring sheet did not match the stage. But, who am I to say I told you so?

Also of interest, I ran into the VP of the other local IDPA club from a couple of posts ago at last night's match. He is a real nice guy, and there did not appear to be any hard feelings about my complaint. He runs a Smith & Wesson M&P 9 that has had over 50,000 rounds through for those who are interested in that sort of thing.

Speaking of round counts, WARHAMMER! has now officially passed the 500 round mark. It has actually fired 508 rounds mostly in competition since I am not blessed with an over abundance of time and money to train. A fuller report on WARHAMMER!'s performance thus far will follow at a later date; however, I have to say that I am happy with it overall even if it's probably not the best competition gun when measured against combat tupperware and high dollar, bespoke race guns (top shooter last night was running a $6000 custom 2011 in .38 Super). There are things that I would like to change on it: some cosmetic, some not. The short list of mods is a fiber optic front sight, an extended magwell, a cerakote job on the frame for a reverse two tone look, new grip panels and possibly a trigger job.

The one gripe I have isn't directly related to the gun but to the Chip McCormick 10 round Power Mag I bought as my third mag. It will not reliably feed the tenth round when fully loaded. Load it with 9, and it is dependable as the day is long. Put the tenth round in, and let the curses begin. At less than 500 rounds, it should not be having a weak spring problem in my opinion. The Sig factory 8 round mags have been almost flawless with the exception of one incident in which I had a nose down round that didn't feed which I suspect was the result of me not loading the mag properly. I foresee three more factory eight round mags and another mag carrier in my future.

Oh well. Life goes on, and remember: a slow hit is better than a fast miss.