The Handgun Grip by Travis Haley – Magpul

For those of you who are new to shooting or is having issues with accuracy and recoil control, checkout this fantastic video clip of Travis Haley from Magpul Dynamics about the pistol grip. Incidentally, Travis is the famous sniper from the Blackwater video clip that went viral many years ago, so you know he has the credentials.

 

If you like this, make sure you get the full DVD set (it’s totally worth it) from : http://www.magpuldynamics.com/products/dvd.shtml

or try to sign up for their Dynamic handgun classes : http://www.magpuldynamics.com/training/schedule.shtml

A very shiny polished 1911 feedramp

If you see your 1911 (or any gun for that matter) with a feedramp that looks like this,

or this

you definitely need to get it polished. Remember, polishing is NOT REMOVING any material, just polishing the metal to a very smooth shine. Why would you do it? When a round feeds into the chamber, it will come in contact with the ramp and you want the ramp to be as smooth as possible. This will make the round slide up and chamber without snagging on any imperfections or grit/dirt.

here’s what I’ve done with mine :

it’s so easy to do with a Dremel as the shape of the polishing tip just fits perfectly. Here’s the Dremel tip and Green polishing compound I used.

Blending the 1911 Extractor

Found out the extractor on my new slide juts out from the slide a little bit. I believe the original owner replaced the extractor with a brand new one but didn’t bother blending it to the slide.

After reading many different 1911 forums online, I decided to take a dremel and try to blend it to the slide. Here’s the result after 45minutes of careful shaving, blending and polishing.

Unfortunately I don’t have any bluing agent to make it black again but I think leaving it stainless goes well with the rest of the gun.

What do you think?

WA State Match Chrono Results

Here are the chrono results from the Washington State Match I shot last week. According to Cel, the chrono they used was the venerable Oehler Model 35 Chronograph. It’s an old design and the most expensive in the market today.

The results differ from my earlier chrono tests of the same load but not terribly negative that I’d not make Power Factor. Using the CED Chrono, I shot my 4.5gr of Clays, 200gr Moly Bear Creek bullets to 170.52 PF.

Results from Oehler Chrono:

Shot	FPS
1	846
2	832
3	822
Ave	833
PF	167

I wonder why it’s a little less, I’ve heard that temperature or barometric pressure would affect it but the two chronos i’ve done were from the same range. I guess it’s chrono calibration. I’m gonna be shooting the same bullets at the IDAHO State match in two weeks,  I think my ammo will make PF there too. *cross fingers*

Hi-Point 45

OMG This gun is almost as big as a Desert Eagle! It’s a huge hunk of metal. it holds only 7 rounds of .45 ACP but if you run out of ammo, you can definitely use it as a mace. Dave said it pretty eloquently, “It’s a hammer that shoots bullets”. The trigger is another whole world of awesome! But one things for sure, you won’t find another cheaper gun : http://www.hi-pointfirearms.com/ 

I do feel the need to shoot IDPA with one of these one day… hmmm..

Howard Leight Electronic Ear Protection

I’ve been using my Peltor S6 earphones for a while now while I shoot and they have served me well. I’ve always wanted one that has a small jack so I can plug in my Zune to listen to music to pass the time during shoots but those earphones are relatively expensive.

At the state match recently, a shooter clued me in on one by Howard Leight Impact Sports that’s really cheap and that allows you to listen to music. The noise amplification and reduction sounds much better than the Peltors but I need to test it in the range to be able to tell the difference.

I bought these off Amazon which has the best price with free super saver shipping. http://www.amazon.com/Howard-Leight-R-01526-Electronic-Earmuff/dp/B001T7QJ9O/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=hi&qid=1282949768&sr=8-1

Kimber Magazine Hangup fixed!

I’ve been having problems with my Kimber’s magazine release for a long time now. Sometimes, the magazine never ejects completely and does not fall freely. This problem is hard to troubleshoot because it happens only occasionally. It’s frustrating when it happens during a match because that can cause me up to a second during reloads. Thanks to a brilliant & fellow shooter, Emanuel, he recommended that I take a look at my mag release, namely the left part of it. Sometimes, if you press really hard (not hard to do while shooting a match because of adrenaline), the left part of the magazine release protrudes out of the frame of the magwell and holding the magazine up.

Here’s a pic of the magwell at rest :

and if I press it really hard :

The fix? dremel around 1mm of metal off from the left side of the mag release, and test it in the gun for fit. Once it fits, polish it so there won’t be any hangups.

Washington State IDPA Championship

We had our 9th State championships yesterday at the Renton Fish & Game club, with over 100 shooters competing for top honors over a course of 13 stages. I shot decently well, with no equipment malfunctions and won the Sharpshooter category in the Custom Defensive Pistol (CDP) Division.

Both Victor and I were neck to neck on some of the stages until I got lucky when I brain farted on one stage but got a reshoot because of an equipment malfunction. Victor (who is the better shooter btw) didn’t know that the last stage (35 yard) was Limited Vickers and he took extra shots, giving him a HUGE penalty that gave me an edge.

I learned from my last few matches that the most important thing to do in IDPA, is to read the stage description. Not following the course description incurs penalties that do not accurately reflect your shooting performance, and that is very frustrating and unnecessary. I’m sure Victor will do well at next month’s Idaho IDPA State Match 🙂 Looking forward to shooting that too!

Here’s the video :

1911 Firing Pin Stop Bevel Hack

After hearing about this from my buddy Victor, I decided to give it a shot and try to make this hack which is known to reduce felt recoil dramatically. Here’s the procedure : http://elmtreeforge.blogspot.com/2007/03/1911-firing-pin-stop-modification.html and the sticky thread on 1911 pistol forums : http://forum.m1911.org/showthread.php?t=13060&page=1

The hack is to basically use an oversized firing pin stop, (you can order this from EGW) and file a very small 45 degree bevel instead of a huge slope.

the one in the middle is the stock Kimber Firing stop(this is a series 80 version). The one on the right is my failed attempt at trying to get a straight parallel bevel. The one on the left is a Series 70 firing stop (which works on my Kimber) that I managed to get right.

The idea is that by having a small bevel, it contacts the hammer and creates extra tension so that the slide loses more energy as it moves back from recoil, thus reducing felt recoil. I have to try this out tomorrow to see if it works. If it does, I’m gonna shoot my WA State IDPA Championships with this installed 🙂

Taking and Editing Picture in picture Shooting videos

A lot of people ask me about my camera setup, what software I use and how do I make picture-in-picture videos. I use two cameras. the hatcam is a Contour HD 720p (there’s a new 1080p version now) from http://vholdr.com with my custom mount that I have on my earpros. here’s how I made that mount : https://gunbot.wordpress.com/2009/08/21/finally-got-the-right-mount-for-my-contour-hd/

for pistol matches, I use the mount that is on my hat : https://gunbot.wordpress.com/2009/08/29/headbandcam-now-hatcam/

The second camera is a Flip Mino HD which is a very easy to use HD camera that anyone can operate. I bought this off ebay. You can use any good quality HD camera here.

Editing Software is Adobe Premiere Elements 8. It’s a resource hog especially editing HD videos on your PC, so make sure you have lots of RAM (at least 4gb) and preferably running on a 64bit OS like Windows 7. If you don’t have that much resource, then change the video setting to Standard Definition.

The trick to aligning the videos is to use the sound waves. you match the sound for each video. I learned this from a fellow shooter GaminGoddess. checkout her excellent tutorial on youtube :