Last weekend we made the trip up to Waco for a match we had heard was pretty good, and gotta say was pretty impressed. The match only had 35 shooters, 10 of whom were GM's or Master class shooters, so the heat and the competition was on. The squad that Linda and I were in had 3 GM's, a Master, us, and one other shooter. Small squads, 6 stages, and were out done shooting in just over 3 hours.
This was to be my first mach with the Edge, and only having it about a week, I was not expecting to light things on fire, and I did not, by the end of the day I had some decent runs, but it's obvious that the switch to Limited from Production is going to be far greater than the switch from the Walther PPQ to the CZ and staying in Production.
Early on, I had issues with the gun shooting nearly 6"-8" low, being honest the issue was my trigger control about 95%, and adjusting the sight up about 4 clicks. This is what happens when you let someone else sight the gun, do it yourself so you know it's hitting where you want it to hit. My own fault. The trigger control issue took four bad stages, but another shooter tightened up my overtravel screw, and made the trigger better, and I realized I had too much finger in the flat trigger and was pushing the gun when pulling the trigger. Again, a switch from Production to Limited, and a new gun is a set-back.
Stage 6:
First stage I shot, I had an issue getting the mag in, it did not seat, so I dropped it and went on. I did not have a great grip, so I did not have the grip safety engaged, and then I had the first of the bad sight issues with the steel plate.
Stage 1:
Struggles on steel, hitting low, almost hitting the post instead of the plate. I put a couple shots into the hard cover as part of my struggle. We stopped after this stage to help get me sighted in correctly, and that was step 1 in the process.
Stage 2:
This was a memory stage, I had a pretty good plan, some slow execution in the middle, but no mikes at all, and in a tough group of shooters, I was 14th overall on this stage, so no complaints, I thought I was doing okay. Notice though that I was ignoring my mag on the front of my belt, and going immediately to my hip. Either I need to move the front mag, or I need to get in a lot of practice to get used to that.
Stage 3:
Had a near total meltdown on the steel plate, almost a full mag on it, and I could not understand why with the sights lined up I could not hit it. Wade looked at my trigger before the next stage to make the overtravel adjustment, but it's also where I realize that the gun was hitting but I was exhibiting poor trigger control and pushing the gun. Look at the way I ran the plate rack after not being able to hit the steel plate. The last plate shocked me, I had poor control because I was wondering WTF was happening. Poor attitude.
Stage 4:
With the sights being fixed, the trigger being in shape, and me showing much better trigger control I had my best field course stage of the day, and showed improvement. My only real error was running down the "long hall" without a reload, another shooter said that's what they were doing so they would have extra for the star. Considering how I had been running, extra on the star sounded good, so I changed my plan, I should have stuck with the original, and I'd have been better off. No mikes, and I felt good about the run.
Stage 5:
This was Classifier CM 99-13 Quick II. I had a single "mike" on the weakhand run, it was slow, my reload and transfer were not smooth, and I ended up with about a 41% "C Class run". I'm not saying this was a raging success, but neither was it a failure, and considering where I was on the first 4 stages in the match, it was an improvement.
Summary:
A lot of dry fire, and live fire are in the cards. Kozy told me it would take me at least 6 months to get used to a new gun, and with the Production switch I did not believe it, and it did not take that long, but from Production to Limited it will be every bit of 6 months before I'm 100% comfortable. I'm hoping that in 60-90 days I should be eliminating a lot of the little mistakes that I saw in this match.
I also feel like I'm going to be a better shooter in Limited than I was in Production. Right now I'm running slower splits, around .21-.22 seconds instead of .18-.20 in Production. The difference is that I've really been able to see my sights, and once the gun, and my finger was doing what it should, I felt extremely dialed in, and I did get good hits. I'm not saying I don't have to push, I do, I'm just saying that I feel an instant comfort with that aspect of the new gun.
I'm aiming to run two matches (Temple and Waco) in March, and the ALSPPC match in April, so I can be classed by the middle of April. I know it'll end up in the "C" area, but that's probably where I deserve to be, and I think I'll be able to get competitive in that class sooner. Keeping up with the dry fire, and live fire is going to be the name of the game. I saw some progress, but the new gun was a step backward as well. When it comes together though.....I'm really looking forward to this season.
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