Today is the day that I've been waiting for, my new Akai V6 has arrived, and now I'm firmly on the path of shooting Open, and making good on what I want to accomplish. It's been a few months since I've done a blog, but my time has not been "wasted", nor have I forgotten about what I wanted to do. Up until now, all I've really been able to accomplish is the prequel type of work, but it's things that I needed to do in order to be prepared to work, and fortunately, those things are done, and I have my ducks in a row.
Early on I identified ammo as something that "could" hold me back. Running Open, I have to reload, I can't buy any factory ammo, and frankly reloading is something I considered a chore in the past. Buying a 1050 was supposed to make things easier, but so far what I've found is that it's not just made things easier, it's also reduced my "error" rate substantially. In the past it would not be uncommon for me to have 1-2 rounds per 100 that would not case gauge for a variety of reasons. In the last 500 rounds I've put thru the 1050, I had one round that did not case gauge, that's it. I need to go Chrono the the gun, but looking at 8.3 grains of HS-6 with an OAL of 1.140-1.149. Kozy says this should put me around a 170-173 Power Factor, which gives me enough room to safely make major. While Les was in town this past week he made a few relatively small adjustments for me, and I'll run another few thousand rounds by hand before I install the Mark 7, and go fully automated. Both Les and Kozy impressed upon me that I need to know and have the 1050 running at tip top form before I go automated. Since Kozy learned it the hard way, I've committed to learn from his mistake, and wait just a little bit longer. In the picture? That's 20,000 Precision Delta 124 grain JHP bullets ready to be loaded. There are 64 lbs of HS-6 Powder, and 30k CCI Primers as well, so I've done all the basic things that I need to in order to be prepared to start. The good news is that there isn't anything standing between myself and my goals than me. Now it's up to me to put the work in, and get it done.
Early impression is that Shay put together a real shooter for me. The gun shipped first to Kozy so he could run it for 750-1k rounds and make sure that it was in perfect condition, and his report to me early on was that it was astoundingly good. He did some little things, like add some blue loctite to the grip screws. Below is a slow motion video of Kozy shooting the gun.
As you'd expect, the gun looks amazing, but when I picked it up we put it on the trigger gauge and the pull is a mere 1 lb. 3 oz. which is by far the lightest trigger that I've ever had, combine that with a nice reset, and short take-up, and I'm pretty impressed. This is an open gun among open guns!
Admitting that my times were better three years ago in Production, you need a starting point, and that's what I got today. I was consistently hitting a draw to first shot on an open target in 1.5 seconds, I was hitting 75% of the time at 1.4 seconds, and at 1.3 seconds I was about 50-60% successful. My issue was more getting a good grip. Grip is an adjustment on this gun for me, I have to adjust my support hand a little forward to hit the thumb rest, but it's a better feeling grip. Going forward I'm going to set my par at 1.3 and work to push at that level.
My reloads started out at about 1.8 seconds, and I got them down to 1.5 seconds on a consistent basis. I did not spend as much time on reloads as I did on the draw, simply because in Open I'm just not reloading as much as I did in Production or Single Stack, and I think reloading on the move will be a bigger deal for me. Don't get me wrong, I'll spend time on reloads before Cowtown, but had to make some choices today, and keeping my eye on the dot was a big deal.
Last thing I did was more about movement, and I did not put a part time on it. Draw to an obstructed target, break grip and run, turning to an open target, breaking grip and running to another position and shooting a piece of steel, and finally breaking grip and going back to a final spot and coming in hard on a final cardboard target. My goal was to get the gun up, and have the dot right where I expected it to be so I could get on the trigger as soon as possible, and get moving again. Mission accomplished here, at first the dot was higher than expected, but the last half dozen runs were absolutely perfect, and I felt comfortable getting the dot on the steel quickly.
I know, things will change with live rounds, but to me this is a simple exercise I need just to get comfortable with basic gun handling with the Open gun. Where does this leave me? Well, live fire practice with Linda on Thursday afternoon, and I'll dry fire Thursday morning. I'll be dry firing every day thru next Saturday's match, as long as I've got the time, I'm aiming for at least one hour every day, but if something comes up, I'll take 30 minutes. There is a match at ARC on Sunday, which I'll shoot, it's due to storm on Saturday, so we'll see, if it's too messy I won't go, but we will play that by ear. Live fire and chrono on Tuesday, and then get the gun cleaned and ready, and get my ammo loaded for the weekend. In live fire, going to spend some time checking my hold over's, that'll be fairly big for me as well.
So, what's my goal for Cowtown? There are 41 Open shooters, and 11 in "C" class, plain and simple, I want to win "C" in open, but I'd settle for a Top 2 finish. There are 5 Open GM's, so I'm hoping to finish at 70% of the top score in open, which would mean a consistent match, and really a mid-upper "B" level performance. Is that setting the bar high? Yes, it probably is, and maybe that would be a better goal for Double Tap in just over a month, but I want to set a goal that is worth achieving.
So here we go, now I'll have to start updating the blog more frequently, and I absolutely will be on dry fire, looking forward to a class mid-summer with Les to get me going. It's not just that I'm out of excuses, but that I'm actually excited as hell again to do all of this. Reloading might be work, but the rest of it is something I'm passionate about again. Time to let it rip!
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