The short version is that accuracy by volume is a lousy way to shoot. Having good fundamentals, being accurate is actually how you develop skill, not pulling the trigger as fast as you can until you occasionally get the results that you want. I went too long last year losing those fundamentals, so instead of shooting Limited Minor with the soon to arriving Hayes Custom 6" 2011, I'm going to spend the 2016 USPSA season shooting single stack. The 1911 is similar enough to the 2011 in terms of feel and function (narrower grip since it's a single instead of double stack) that practicing with it should make for an easy transition to shooting the 2011 in 3-Gun.
I looked very hard at the Sig Match Elite 1911, and almost bought one, but ultimately ended up buying the Dan Wesson Pointman Nine. The gun came in on Monday, and since I was on the road for a few days with work, I had three days of dry fire, about 20 minutes each night in the hotel room to try to get familiar with the platform, and to start getting used to the gun. Today was my first chance to take it to the range and put some lead down range, and actually see how the gun would run for me.
I went off to the range with some Wilson Combat Elite mags, as well as some Chip McCormick mags, as I understand it, reliable magazines is the name of the game in Single Stack, so I wanted to try a couple mags this time, and see what works for me. Next time out, I hope to be able to test some Dawson precision magazines along with some Tripp Research magazines. Before I get too deep into the day of shooting, I've got to say that the 1911 platform just fits perfectly into my hand. The CZ-75 seemed to melt into my hand to the point where I doubted that I could or would ever find another handgun that could exceed how good it felt. The 2011 feels great, don't get me wrong, but the narrow grip here just feels perfect for my hand.
I've put in some solid dry fire the past couple of weeks now. I'm not claiming it's been great, but I'm starting to see a little more consistency in what I'm doing, and to me that's the first sign that I'm moving in the right direction. Consistency first, then I think I'll start to improve on what I'm doing, and tap into that muscle memory I hope I have somewhat retained. I was not expecting to be as awful as I was a couple of weeks ago, but I also did not expect to come out at the top of my game either.
I started out with a few Bill Drills to get loose, and get a feel for the trigger. At 7 yards I was hovering right about 2 seconds or a hair more. Nothing to write home about, but good groups, about as fast as I was able to run the Edge. Looking back at past times, I think I had a few runs with the CZ in the mid-high 1.90's, but consistently I was over 2 seconds, usually between 2.05 and 2.20. This made me happy because here I was, brand new gun, and I'm able to put up fairly consistent times that are on par with the way I was running the CZ at my best.
My best run appeared to be a 1.79 second run, but upon further review I'm going to disqualify that run. It would have been my best ever run, and while it felt good, I don't know it was that good. On the next string of drills I noticed that my Pocket Pro II timer was acting oddly, not picking up all shots, picking up extra shots (from the rifle range) and had some wicked times of .04, which I know is not me. While I don't know that I had the issue on the great run, I also don't know 100% that it was legit, so in my notes, I'll go with about a 2 second average.
In my range bag I had about five phillips screwdrivers, and not a single flat head. When I was shooting groups I was consistently about a half inch lower than my aim point, and if I had the screwdriver I would have adjusted my sights, so that's something I'll have to do next time. With that in mind, I was more about shooting good groups, than hitting my exact point of aim. I spent some time shooting transitions, generally shorter ones, one to five yards, from ten yards away. Thankfully, I also had my CED timer with me (and the car charger for it!) and on the shorter transitions, I slowly improved until my last two strings I had .19-.21 splits, and .28 to .30 transitions, with hits. (At that speed I kept them on the paper, but I had better hits when I was just a hair slower.) With the Edge, my splits were in the .21-.23 range fairly consistently at that distance, and at my best with the CZ I would hit .18-.19. (Which I'm sure was not the norm, but a "best/fast" run, and I doubt I had good hits. Here I kept everything on the paper.) Again, I was fairly impressed, I'm way out of practice, but this gun made it so very easy to shoot accurately, I felt the weight over the CZ in the transitions, but it felt very Edge-like, except with far less recoil and almost no muzzle flip.
I brought with me 400 rounds, and I wanted to run a few things that I was familiar with, so I could perhaps gauge myself based on my own past experiences. El Presidente has always been a go-to, so I had good baseline data. The last time I ran it as part of a match was March of 2014, and it was part of the classifiers I needed to earn my "B" card in Production. I had a 71.6%, and I want to say I did it in 7.65 seconds. My goals in Single Stack shooting minor should be pretty close to what I did in Production, so I was hoping to run the drill in a similar fashion. I ran it once for accuracy, and it was a 9.25 second run, but featured 11 Alpha and 1 Charlie. I ran it once for speed and did it in 6.16 but my hits were not hot, 7 Alpha, 3 Charlie, 2 Delta (Still a 7.76 Hit Factor and 71% run) Then I ran the drill three times at what I would call match speed, times were 7.22, 7.31, and 7.17, hits were: 9 Alpha and 3 Charlie, 9 Alpha and 3 Charlie, and 10 Alpha and 2 Charlie. The last was a 7.81 Hit Factor or a 72.3% run. (In Production that would have been a 76% or "A" class run.) So here's the thing, I shot the drill much better than I have in almost a year, but the best part in all 5 runs, was that I did not have a single "mike", and that's something that has always plagued me. I know that it's a virtual guarantee for me to drag the gun and rush a shot and throw at least a mike, but 5 times in a row, I did not do that. That's progress. My reloads suck, and will until I get a magwell on and practice, observation? Reloading a 1911 sucks! So, I think I could probably shave off about .25 a second or perhaps more just by getting the magwell on, which means, my shooting is actually faster, because my reload is slower.
To close out my session I wanted to practice a long ignored part of the game, strong hand, and weak hand shooting. I'd rarely practiced it, I'd been awful at it, and there was a stage at Oilfield this year, where hanging from a rope you had to shoot half a stage strong hand, and half weak hand, which was a struggle for me. A few weeks ago with Les and Tim I had problems hitting a pepper popper weak hand, and it was almost embarrassing.
The PM-9 is a heavy gun, and with a good grip really eats up the muzzle flip and recoil, and to my astonishment made me at least competent shooting strong and weak hand, to the point I kept moving back further and further until I hit 20 yards (about the back of the bay to the front of the canopy).
This was weak hand with 10 rounds. That's 8 Alpha, 1 Charlie, and 1 Delta that was frankly lucky to be on the paper. Something to crow about? For most people probably not, but for me that was pretty impressive, look at the 5 shots right in the middle of the "A" zone.I was not fast, but I'll take that all day long if I can get hits like this. I have never in my life managed to shoot a group like that weak hand, much less put 10 on paper. This looked pretty good for me.
The last picture is 6 rounds, strong hand only at the same distance (the rip in the shoulder was un-pasted from an earlier drill.) I was not fast at all but the recoil was so mild, it felt like the gun was not moving other than a slight rise in the sights.
Summary
Pretty amazing gun. It's incredibly accurate, way more accurate than I am, but it hid flaws that I have, and it frankly made me look much better than I am today. I'm not going to discount that some dry fire has helped me brush off some rust, but there is no doubt in my mind that I have a very long way to go to get back into shape. I'm sticking with plan, and figuring 8 weeks of good dry fire, with once a week live fire of 250 rounds, to get my fundamentals back to near where they were when I had good practice habits and decent fundamentals back in Spring/Early Summer '14. One of my biggest issues was that I have always moved the gun before I finished breaking a shot, and today was not as transition intense, but even on El Pres, and my other transition drills, I had far less Mikes than I have had in a long time. Some of it was me being deliberate (read; slow) but this gun is so heavy it's hard to get started, I wonder if as I try to get faster I'll bring the problem back because I'll want to move the gun earlier. Today I just shot, I was not trying to go faster, rather just see where I am at, and start to get a feel for the gun.
Everything here so far was a highlight, but there some issues too. I have a couple of Wilson Combat magazines that the gun does not seem to like. I need to really focus on getting a good grip on the draw, the narrower grip of the 1911 was almost a geometry issue to get my strong hand thumb resting on the thumb safety, and still engaging the grip safety. While I will pin the grip safety when I add the magwell, it was a clear indication that I was not getting a consistent grip on the gun from the draw. I also think that I still had some movement in my shots early on, and that's part of the reason I felt like I was shooting left to start the day.
My new VZ grips should be in next week, and I'll install the magwell, and grips at the same time, and then I'll start to practice reloads. 1911's seem more finicky with magazines than any gun I have owned, in fact with those two magazines I had as many issues as I probably have ever had with all my guns combined in terms of magazines. I'm going to ask Ben over at Hayes Custom have a look, and give me some tips on what I need to pay attention to on the 1911 magazines and platform.
I may be a long way from where I was 18 months ago, but I'm a mile closer than I was just a few weeks ago. Sure, maybe a lot of it is the gun, but it felt really damn good to get out, shoot, and prove to myself that I'm not as bad as I was just a couple of weeks ago. A little bit of effort can make a bit of a difference, and it went a long way in re-establishing some confidence, something that I was entirely out of not long ago.
