Bryan M. starts Friday.  Jim, Gary, Jeff and Ken start Saturday. Brian N. nurses a damaged trigger finger and will just be bringing us cool drinks as well as following the super squad (hint – not us).

The weather looks good:

Here are the stages. They look pretty fun and will certainly be challenging.  Or maybe weak hand to an A zone only with Virginia scoring will prove easy.  I doubt it  (-:

I’m told the prize table is rich, but alas we have to enter it based on performance.

Just something I stumbled across on the Internet today.

Personally… I dubious Dad’s ear plugs are quite enough…

We enjoyed the tour greatly and were impressed by their operation and people. Brian’s report can be read here:

http://briankevinnelson.com/a-tour-of-the-sti-factory-134

Last year the theme was “Indiana Jones”. This year, the Flintstones…

Stages can be seen here.  Yabba Dabba Doo!

A typical example is Stage 9:

I knew it had to happen sometime. I just didn’t quite expect it so soon.  My son smacked me down. Sat on me. Owned me. In pistol shooting… that is.

In the past, he had beat me once ,by a very small percentage and only when I’d had severe jamming of my pistol.

But at yesterday’s IDPA match, he started with an early 1st stage smack down, and then turned on the heat. He finished 4th overall (of 36 shooters) , with 116 seconds, I in the middle of the pack with 157 seconds. His score was within 1.5 seconds of 2nd place.   I would have had top ten if I had not had a lot of jams on the 5th and 6th stages, but even if the gun had run, I wasn’t in his league on that day.

Which pleases me (-;

This match didn’t have a lot of movement. I can still move better than him, but in stages stressing shooting and gun handling – he has an edge…. for now.

Oh… and he’s just 12.

You will recall that I have a custom STI 2011 that many consider to be the best Limited race gun available.   That pistol is now Brian’s.  We’d made an agreement that when he got better than me, he’d get the best pistol.   Right now we are about even, but he is moving up fast, so I went ahead and handed it over.

About this Glock…  It pretty much checks the box on improvements over a standard Glock 35:

• Mag well to speed up reloads
• Dawson fiber-optic front sight
• Dawson adjustable rear site
• extended magazine release button
• squared trigger guard to prevent slippage
• notched back of trigger guard to permit higher grip
• race tape gritty grip
• Zev trigger and connector. A smooth and crisp 2 lb trigger
• titanium striker, mainly smoothes out the trigger pull and reset
• lighter IMSI recoil spring
• T.H.E. tungsten guide rod which puts weight up front to minimize recoil
• grip backstrap plug – again for weight

The only things left to do, perhaps, would be a KKM or Bar-sto, match barrel. And perhaps more slide lightning (it already has a ported slide).

So I’ll compete with this or a Springfield XDM configured similarly going forward.  Which ever I like better, I’ll use.  The other will either be sold or used as  a backup gun.

BTW: I’ll try to remember to bring some white backdrop material to matches. Then we can photograph your gear and describe it here similarly.

www.briankevinnelson.com

He was a bit negative about his performance, but I (and the other shooters) thought he did very well for a 12 year old on a set of complicated stages.  And he didn’t finish last… so a few other folks had a worse day (-:

A highlight of the day, BTW, was meeting Kay and Jerry Miculek, who stopped by to try out some slick SAIGA shotguns our squad mates R&R Targets manufactures.

Thrown in a CED Air Soft timer, and some 1/7th scale USPSA steels and plate rack to make a complete training system in garage, basement or backyard.

The system uses “green gas”, which is basically propane without the scent. One $19 tank of actual propane and a $5 dollar tube of silicon oil will keep him shooting for a few thousand airsoft shots.

The system blows back the slide and is an exact replicate of an SVI Infinity 5”. They fit in my 2011 holster system and the magazines fit in the magazine holders on my belt as well.

Once we sorted it out (the manuals are in Japanese) we found it quite realistic and very accurate.  Using a USPSA target sized to simulate 20 yards, he got 1.30 second draw to A zone hits in our first tests.  Hitting pop cans at 15-20 yards is no problem. We have the system dialed down a bit now, but we can rev up the gas it uses to better simulate recoil.

Driven by the popularity of airsoft IPSC in Japan and Asia, there are many after market options for these guns.