Continuing on with my series of SASP equipment articles, let’s talk PCC.
PCCs are a nice transition gun for athletes who started on rimfire rifles, but want to move into a new division as they get older. They are heavier and have a bit more recoil, but are generally not too overpowering even for 10-12 year-olds.
Read on for some thoughts.
Continue reading SASP Equipment Series: PCCsAs I’ve alluded to in other articles, I’m spending an inordinate amount of time these days coaching an SASP team. We did great at Nationals – much better than I expected – but a lot of work went into it to get the team there.
I would say one of the biggest responsibilities for an SASP coach is guiding athletes to what equipment is going to give them the most (legal) advantage at matches. While I don’t think equipment is the end-all, be-all, I do think it will help give athletes a noticeable performance advantage. Good example: one young woman on the team who was already a fantastic shooter swapped to fiber optic sights and a better trigger, and she turned in better times on several stages. Those equipment changes didn’t make her any better or worse, but they sure helped enable faster splits across transitions. (She wound up placing third in women’s iron sight competition at Nationals, which is awesome!!!).
One critique I have of the SASP organization is that there is precious little out there in terms of writing about how to equip athletes… and I am going to try to help fill the gap. While it is tempting to simply go “use what the RFRI/O Steel Challenge folks use!”, not all of those choices work well for young adults who are not fully physically mature quite yet. Read on for some thoughts.
Continue reading SASP Equipment Series: Rimfire RiflesAridus Industries has released a carrier spring tool designed to set the springs in the Aridus Q-DCs deeper. Further, the newest Q-DCs will already have the springs set deeper by default, so those of you who are newcomers to the ecosystem won’t have to deal with this in the first place.
Why is this important? Because setting the springs deeper fixes the issues I had with too-strong retention that I encountered during the Green Ops shotgun class. Shells go into the carriers without getting caught on the cut-outs, and they come out of the carrier with much less force. The shells are still held in pretty well, so you’re not losing that Q-DC retention performance that made the system so attractive in the first place.
The tool comes with instructions, but you really don’t need them… just stick the tool into each slot on the carrier from the top and then the bottom (or vice versa), and it will push the spring in adequately. The tools are supposedly calibrated for Federal Flite Control shells, but the difference was immediately obvious even with dummy shells.
The one caveat that that you’re paying $12 plus shipping to buy the tool to do this, and if you only have a couple carriers, I’m not sure it will be cost-effective. I have a whole bunch of carriers, so it seemed worthwhile. There is a part of me that wonders if a 3D printed version could accomplish a similar goal, but that is an experiment for another time…
I’ve gotten deep into optics on pistols. But this is mostly optics mounted to pistol slides. Now that I’m coaching an SASP team, I’ve started having to familiarize myself with pistol optics mounted to rails. SASP competitors go this route so they can use the same pistols in both irons and optics divisions. In a perfect world, you’d use different guns, but this could mean literally mean thousands of dollars in guns, and youth sports don’t typically support such high costs.
I have a Ruger MkIV 22/45 Lite and a MkIII 22/45, and I needed an optics solution for them. I had an old Docter-style ADM mount lying around, so I decided I would try out the new Burris Fastfire 4 (FF4). I liked the FF3 – I still run it on a Glock slide from time to time – but found that the window was smaller than I preferred. The FF4 has a bigger window, better battery life, and an intriguing selectable reticle. What did I think? Read on…
Continue reading Burris Fastfire IV (4) ReviewIt’s been about six months since I’ve taken a class. This was not entirely intentional (a TOC class got cancelled in the interim), but is in line with my goal of being more selective with how I use my time vis a vis classes vs competition.
When I saw the post from Green Ops on Facebook that they would be hosting an advanced competition class, I jumped on it. I literally signed up minutes after seeing the post. I know I have deficiencies with movement and stage planning, and a class that could help me fix those things would be absolutely worth it.
Continue reading Green Ops Advanced Competition Pistol Class AARMy friends at the TargetBarn company – an online ammo and targets retailer – apparently thought that my previous review of Federal Syntech 130gr “PCC” 9mm ammo was not the worst thing in the world that they had ever read, and offered to sponsor another ammo review. We went back and forth for a bit, because it’s the ammo crisis, and I also didn’t really know what anyone would find interesting. Boring reviews don’t help them, and they don’t help you.
Poking around, I noted that they had some of the 145gr Wolf .300 AAC Blackout ammo. Despite my previous assertions that .300 AAC Blackout is a caliber with no real mission, I had built out a cheap-ish upper anyways because Wolf had (or would have) cheap steel-cased ammo, and I’m a sucker for such things. They agreed to provide some for review. Well, smash-cut to September 2021, and that cheap ammo is not looking so likely anymore. Now we have a different question: should you stock up on a bunch of this before it’s gone?
If you want one of those sweet, sweet autodrives for your Dillon 1100, the day has arrived. Give Dillon a ring (1-800-421-7632) and put in an order. First come, first serve.
I’ve covered it before from my time talking with them at SHOT, in case you need a refresher.
As I noted in my Green Ops shotgun class AAR, I am a HUGE fan of my SDS S4 shotgun. This is a Benelli M4 clone that, unlike the previous M2 and M3 clones, is damn near perfect in. Read on for some thoughts, and how I upgraded mine.
Continue reading Quick Review of the SDS S4 with some upgradesSorry for the lack of recent posts! My job has been hectic, the SASP season has started, and I’ve been prioritizing reloading and shooting over posting. I have like half a dozen articles “almost ready” for posting that really just need pictures.
A few interesting developments to chew on:
Besides my ammo checker, I also got a few more accessories from Armanov, namely:
I took some time today to install them and take a look at functionality… how did I like them? Read on.
Continue reading Armanov Dillon 650 Accessories Quick Review
The Hebrew Hammer 