June Range

Went to OnTarget on Tuesday to shoot off precious, precious .45.ACP out of the 1911.

I have 500 left. Down from 600. Now. Multiple ammo purveryors I've talke to are hearing rumors of a let up in demand. No evidence on the shelves just yet.

I got to try out the new, slim, mainspring housing. It hurts. The grooves are too sharp. I'm gonna need to scuff it up with sandpaper. Or toughen my hands.

I worked on finger positioning. More meat on the trigger. Less. To see if it changed anything. It didn't. Or I didn't notice.

I noticed my elbows going bent and out for some reason during the session. What the...? Fixed that right away. Grip arm straight, support arm slightly bent. Better to grip the piece 20% tighter.

It was warm in the range. I was wearing longsleeves. A little sweaty on the grip. Especially for gripping tighter. The gun is rough enough to hold onto, the problem is wear a sweaty hand holds onto the other sweaty hand. But my pacing between magazine was more patient and relaxed. That helped keep me loose and allowed the hands to dry a bit.

I concentrated on breath control halfway through. When I remembered to. That helps a bit.

I even played with the range of the target.

Anyway; on to the results.

Target one. The first mag was at a 'blank' target at the red center. No Birchwood Casey splatter target. Then I stuck on the splatter target. I wanted to differentiate a cold shoot. I circled the first 7. And for giggles I later aimed 2 at the red spot on the head portion of the silohuette. And, as you can see, no epiphany on the low-and-right tendency I have. It's getting more right than low. And tighter than it used to be. But it's still off. One ugly flier down low there on the first 7. 21 more at the splatter target center and head, with one lucky bull:

Second target of the day with 2 splatter targets to shoot and see. Targets above and this one below are at 25 feet:

And the 3rd target. I marked a black spot on the throat area to have a third bullseye to aim at. I started with the low red spot and 50 feet. The low and right tendency is very evident at this greater range. 14 rounds with 2 not hitting paper. I marked those and then aimed for the black dot with 7 shots, and did a little bit better. I then moved the target to 25 feet again and aimed for the upper red spot, sort of. I actually adjust my point of aim a little high and left to compensate for my flinch. Where the right eye would be. And you can see one shot actually hit my POA. More importantly, all the other shots, while low, hit on vital areas. If I was ever in a true self defense situation I should aim for center mass, but a little to left of the centerline to be sure everything actuall hits a bad guy.

I'm still pacing the shots a bit fast. It's not that I'm impatient. It's just that I get the sight picture and know it's not going to get much better that right then, I might as well start to do the squeeze. It's not good for shooting a cigarette out of someone's hand, but I'm never going to want to do that anyway. I might be good at bowling pins, but I may never be good at shooting empty shotgun shells off a fence post like MBtGE sometimes does. Not with the .45.