Playing around with gun accessories
Here’s a quick video about two very useful tools for the 1911/2011 platform. I got this tip from John, my gunsmith at http://www.jplprecision.com. They’re super useful for disassembling and reassembling your firing pin / pin stop and extractor.
Brownell’s 1911 Extractor Removal Tool
I’ve resisted getting a slide racker on my USPSA Open Division pistol for a few years now. Didn’t really see the need for it, until I shot a few major matches. There’s always one or two stages that required you to load the gun while on the clock and I’ve always struggled with it. Racking my slide by pinching it is not the most efficient way to do it and always makes me nervous doing it.
So during the winter downtime I consulted with John from JPL Precision, my gunsmith, and he figured out a way to install it on my gun.
And O.M.G. what a different the racker makes. Now I feel a lot more confident while loading on the clock. Getting the racker installed also made me think about the other mods I used to have on my gun and went about streamlining everything. This made everything lighter, improved the balance of the gun and made gun handling easier.
I like it and you should to (if you don’t have one yet)
Here’s a video update where I share how I designed the simplest yet most effective GoPro Hero4 Session hatcam mount for my shooting videos. Hope you find this useful! And if you make one too, share your shooting videos with me, I’d love to watch them!
More detailed pics of the mount :
I’ve been wanting to get a new camera for my hatcam footage and have been trying out many different types of cameras. I started with a Contour, then Contour+, dabbled with the Mobius and settled with the Polaroid Cube which is a fantastic and convenient camera. It doesn’t have the best video/audio quality but it’s certainly easy to use.
Then recently GoPro announced a brand new camera called the GoPro Hero 4 Session. Same form factor as the cube BUT with much higher quality video and audio. That got me stoked and I quickly bought one when it was available.
In this video, I’ll give you my unfiltered first impressions of the Hero4 Session camera with a specific use case in mind, which is for shooting. I will be uploading more videos of me using it for a match and figuring out the best way to mount it.
enjoy!
I recently found out that there was a company who’s making 170mm magazines that is purported to be able to fit 30 rounds of 9mm ammo so I decided to purchase one to give it a try.
Company is called MBXExtreme.com and they currently have four models of magazines 170/140 in 9mm and 140mm in 40S&W and 140mm in 45ACP.
According to the website, the 140mm 9mm magazines can hold 24 rounds and 170mm can hold 29-30 rounds.
As you can see from the video, I could fit 30 rounds in the magazine but not without some help. I think it’ll get better after “breaking in” the springs.
It is still not very clear to me how beneficial 30+1 rounds would be for me as most stages are around 30-32 rounds max especially with the stress that it puts on my grip. Perhaps it would be most beneficial if it was 31+1 for a maximum of 32rounds in the magazine.
I have a match coming up in a few days, I’ll take it out for a spin and report back with another video.
Not hugging trees or going organic. I’m talking about fiber optic sights. I’ve always been a fan of using red fibers in my front sights for all my guns until I started shooting a red dot sight on my Open Division gun. I’m so used to looking at a red dot with both eyes open and hitting where I place the dot (most of the time).
The problem comes when when I switch to another gun like my S&W 625 revolver for IDPA or USPSA, Kimber TLE RLII for single stack. I’m so used to looking at the dot that I forget that I need to align my rear sight. I’ll place the red dot where I want and pull the trigger wondering why I’m not hitting the target correctly.
So, I’ve decided to trick my mind with a simple color change 🙂 Switch my fibers to green and voila! Now I would remember to align my rear sight because it’s different enough from my red dot.
 
Ever since I had that crack in my C-more, I haven’t had the chance to replace it until recently. Here’s a quick video of me replacing my existing C-more sight with a brand new one.
Trying out Rain X in my scope lens. Hopefully it’ll be more sweat, condensation and rain resistant. Not sure if it’ll work but it’s an experiment.
Looks like it’s time for stuff to start breaking down. I’ve been shooting over two years with the same gear, maybe only around 7,000-8,000 rounds total without any issues until recently. You’ve seen my problems with the cracked grip (due to loading 29rounds in my magazine) and a cracked c-more scope mount (material taken off from the mount). Most recently during the Paul Bunyan match where Arrun and I switched guns, the c-more dot kept turning off during the match. I discovered that the pin for the dot module had broken off.
As you can see from the image, the pin remained in the c-more base. We didn’t have any tools to remove it at the range so we tried to maintain the electrical connection by using a small piece of metal from a paper clip, that didn’t work.
Dennis, who’s a resourceful tinkerer and home gunsmith suggested we use a more robust and reliable fix using aluminum foil as it’s more “flexible” so during recoil, the aluminum foil can still flex and maintain connectivity, unlike a hard paper clip.
We also added some foil to the hood of the c-more dot cover to hold the module down to maintain the connection to the foil.
This solution worked out well and Arrun was able to finish the final two stages without any problems from the dot.
Looks like I have to find a new replacement dot module, or better yet, find a replacement c-more sight. I’m holding out for a chance at one of the cool new prototype sights that a local shooter has developed but am still unsure how long it would take to get it. For now, I’ve replaced the dot module with a new 8-MOA dot. Hope this will last me for a few more matches.
Just discovered another crack, this time on the C-More Serendipity red-dot that I have on the gun.
you can see the previous owner cut down the mount a little to ease with extraction but after John worked on the gun, that cut was unnecessary. Guess I’ll have to get a new red-dot. 😦
Gunbot! 