Triangle Tactical Podcast - Competitive Shooting, Mostly

If I were king of the shooting sports, I'd make some changes, across the board. I'd like to see the the shooting sports grow, and I think the best way to do that is to reach out to people who already own guns by hitting them up a gun shows and things like that.

Almost all of the shooting sports could do a better job of making it easier for someone to find out exactly what they need to get started. I checked the IDPA, USPSA, 3 Gun Nation, and National Skeet Shooting Association websites looking for some sort of tutorial (like what I have written here) and none of them really had an actual primer article, however 3 Gun Nation did have a good section of videos on their site that give a good overview of the game.

I saw IDPA posting about this either on Facebook or Instagram the other day, and I thought it was pretty cool. It's a charity called "Aiming for Zero" that's designed to get competitive shooters to donate to causes around veteran suicide. Folks are setting up teams and making donations to the charity based on their number of points down at the match. Below is an example I pulled off of their site:

Example:

IDPA Tier 1 - Tier 3 Matches:

PD (Points Down) x $.10
PE (Procedural Errors) x $.30
HNT (Hits on Non Threats) x $.50
FTN (Failure To Neutralize) x $.50
USPSA Level I - Level 3 Matches:

Points
Bravos   x $.20
Charlies x $.20
Deltas   x $.40
PE (Procedural Errors) x $1.00
NS (No Shoot) x $1.00

I think this is pretty awesome. If you're interested, check them out at AimingForZero.org.

I've been finding myself using my JetBoil stove more and more lately when I'm at different places. At the USPSA Range Officer class I took last month I used to to make hot soup and coffee while everyone else was getting fast food or sandwiches. During the big ice storm that we had back in January and we were without power for a couple days and this thing really saved the day. I was able to boil water, make hot cocoa, soup, coffee, and whatever else we wanted. Serious butt saver.

Just a couple weeks ago, I picked up a french press for it, and now my mobile coffee making setup is complete. I can make a killer cup of coffee anywhere, in about 5 minutes.

If you're in a place where you might lose power or if you've ever wanted to make a good cup of coffee at a match, consider picking one up, it definitely doesn't suck.

This past week I've been messing around with shooting some close targets really fast, and then transitioning and shooting a small target accurately. I've been setting up like 3 or 4 targets at about 7 yards, and then transitioning 90* to a pepper popper and really making sure I'm getting my hits on the popper. You could also do it with just a head box on a target or something like that.

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Today on the podcast I interview James Turnure, a NC shooter who just made USPSA Open Master. That's awesome, but what I didn't tell you is that he shot his first match just 12 months ago. In this interview he and I talk about how he did it, and what sets him apart from other shooters who start and frustratingly stuck in B class for an extended period of time.

Idaho becomes the 9th permitless concealed carry state. Seems like this is picking up a lot of momentum.

One thing that annoys the mess out of me is trying to staple up a no-shoot target on top of a shoot target, and having it not stay put very well. The solution to this is to have 1/2" staples and a stapler that will throw them. They're not expensive, and it's such a time/hassle saver for me that I'll never go back to using anything else.

Check them out at triangletactical.net/doesntsuck

I found out this week that Mike Rowe has gotten into the podcasting thing, and I really like his new show. If you remember Paul Harvey's "The rest of the story" pieces that they used to play on the radio back in the day, you'll be right at home listening to Mike Rowe's "The way I heard it" podcast. I'm a fan.

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Back during the USPSA Presidential election there was a lot of talk about the need to make USPSA TV friendly. As it sits right now, the use of targets with heads on them, walls that cameras can't see through, and championships that don't exactly make exciting TV the sport isn't really ready for it's own TV show.

My question is this: Do we even want it to be TV friendly? What would the average shooter gain? A little more stuff on a prize table somewhere?

Lets say the changes necessary were made, and USPSA became something that was featured regularly on TV shows, and thousands of people decided they wanted to get started. Could local club matches handle the big influx of new shooters? I don't think so. Around here matches open registration as far as 2 weeks out from the match, and they fill up withing days, or even hours.

I'm not against putting the sport on TV. I've mentioned in the past that I remember my first exposure to USPSA being an episode of Shooting USA sometime in the early-mid 90's and I thought it looked awesome. I just think before too much worry is placed on marketing to new folks, there should be infrastructure in place to handle those new shooters.

A cop is being charged with murder after shooting someone with a personally owned weapon (that was previously approved for department use) and had an engraved dust cover with the words "You're F*****" on it. This is being brought up in the courtroom. Something to think about if you're a CCW holder and you've got all sorts of inscriptions and stuff on your carry gun. Personally, I think it's juvenile and silly to put this sort of stuff on your guns, but that's just like my opinion, man.

Instructors from Project Appleseed came to a school and taught a 3 day program about gun safety to middle schoolers. I think this is awesome. Kids who are curious about guns, and don't have anyone to teach them are dangerous.

I used to take a lot of notes and stuff on my phone during dryfire and live fire practice, but my phone started being dumb and deleting things, or being slow to load the notes app, and just generally sucked for quick note taking. I picked up a few of these Field Notes books on Amazon, and just keep one in my back pocket all the time. I've found putting pen to paper is much faster and efficient than trying to take notes on my phone.  If you're looking for a simple little book for note taking at the range, I think these are just the right size and pretty handy. I'm a fan.

Episode 9 of the Armed Lutheran podcast had a training tip towards the bottom of the show that's stuck with me all week. In the segment they talk about training for the probable, not the possible. In the show he was talking about defensive shooting practice, but I think this is very relevant for competition shooters too. Ever spend a bunch of time working on table starts when you only see them in matches once every 3 months?

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I sent Ben a message on Monday to ask if there was anything that he wanted to talk about on his last podcast episode, and he just told me he'd think about it. Fast forward to Saturday evening when we recorded this episode and he had the shownotes written for this episode to talk about all of the things that he's changed his mind on since he joined the podcast way back (over 3 years ago). The things that's coolest to me about this topic is that it's probably the most brutally honest hour of podcast you'll ever listen to.

Some of the things he's changed his mind on:

There's going to be a free seminar in Chapel Hill, NC about ATF 41F and how it effects gun trusts on April 4th. I don't know really much about who is putting it on or anything, I just got the tweet below about it and figured I'd pass it along.

In Michigan there's a bill proposed to create an active shooter alert system not dissimilar from the Amber Alert system. I don't think I'm opposed to it, but it doesn't really seem necessary to me.

The Firearm Blog is KILLING IT with their YouTube channel recently. They seem be be getting a little more edgy than normal and adding in some humor that I don't normally see in their blog posts. It's just really good, so check it out.

I just need to take a second to thank Ben for all the Sunday afternoons over the last 3 years recording the podcasts. The thing that listeners probably don't notice is that making the podcast is a HUGE time commitment. For every hour of audio that we publish, we spend 4 hours prepping, and editing. When there's an hour and a half or more of podcast that comes out every week, that makes a large time commitment. I can't do anything but say Thank You to Ben for getting on board and spending all these Sunday afternoons and evenings on Skype with me making the internet audio magic that's been the last 3 years of the podcast.

As Ben mentioned in the show, if you'd like to follow what he's up to, he created an athlete page on Facebook where he'll be posting his YouTube videos, etc. Go follow him there.

It must be the smell of spring in the air or the upcoming competitive shooting season being in the air that brings out all sorts of lame excuses from people about their poor/lack of performance.

West Virginia overrode the veto of the Governor and will have permit-less concealed carry in a couple months. That makes 9 states now with permit-less concealed carry. 

Yes, we've seen the Keanu Reeves video. It's cool, but we wanted to clarify a few things about it. It's not at a 3-gun match, and he's probably not going to take up shooting competitively. It's still really cool though.

Don't consciously control speed at a match. When you push yourself out of control, bad things ALWAYS happen. I shot the SWGC USPSA match this weekend and had 6 great stages (1 stage win) and then on the last stage I decided that I needed to dial it up to 11 and I got my first penalties of the day (2 hardcover Mikes) and that sucked. 

Bob Owens on BearingArms.com did some good work last week diving into the shenanigans that's going on in Mecklenburg County, NC with regards to pistol purchase permits.

Sometimes shooting on the square range is a necessity. Whether you don't have access to a range with bays where you can set up stages and drills, or the weather just isn't cooperative, there are times when the square range is the only place you can go to get some trigger time. 

A lot of people just shoot when they go to the square range. One target, and 200 rounds and then they pack up and go home. This isn't effective practice. 

Hopefully your square range will allow you to draw from holster. I don't think we have any ranges in the Triangle area that don't allow it, but I've heard of ranges in other places that have that rule, it makes things a little harder. 

The NRA is getting rid of the women's division in smallbore rifle. Because women are just as good as men, and that's cool.

Virginia finally got some sense around concealed carry. The Governor just signed a bill allowing reciprocity with basically all other permits from other states.

Don't tumble your dummy rounds. Last night I posted this picture of me drilling out all of my primer pockets on my dummy rounds because I tumbled them, and as luck would have it, they got filled with tumbling media and then deposited the media into my magazines and gun. What a mess!

Breach Bang Clear dropped a truth bomb this week that you should probably go read. Agree or disagree, it's worth a read.

Shownotes at triangletactical.net/174

This last week on Instagram a trend got started where people were filming themselves dryfiring a reload, and then catching the magazine before it hits the ground. There were some really well made videos put out there, but at the end of the day practicing catching your magazine, and altering the way you do your reload practice probably isn't the best way to spend your practice time. 

It's cool that this got some people out practicing, but at the end of the day, doing this probably wasn't real useful for actually getting better at shooting. 

This video of Travis Haley swept the gun-ternet over the past couple weeks and we're just kind of over it. He was demonstrating why a technique was bad and prone to ND's and had an ND. Meh.

A lot of local folks have their panties in a wad about this too, and it's really not a big deal. Most gun ranges have the same or similar rules so stop worrying about it. 

KevinC over at the Misfires and Lightstrikes blog is doing really good work these days. If you don't have him in your feed reader, go subscribe. 

The difference between a really good match, and an average match isn't a lot of super crazy, hard to do things. It's simple really, and in this episode we talk about a few of the things that set some matches apart from others.

The Holly Springs, NC police department is setting up a couple parking spaces at their new police department for online commerce (craigslist sales, basically) but they're specifically not allowing people to sell firearms there. I think they're being a little weird about banning the sales but whatever.

Strict scrutiny was applied to the Maryland assault weapons ban by judges in the 4th circuit this week. They overturned the AWB and the hi-capacity magazine ban. Awesome. Here's more from Andrew Branca over at Legal Insurrection.

A VA man who was open carrying was robbed of his gun last week. He's lucky that the bad guys only took his gun and not his life. If you're going to open carry, get a retention holster. I like the Safariland ALS, it's the best thing going.

This weeks episode is sort of a companion from this blog post that Ben wrote last week. You should go read it, it's really good. We've both seen good shooters, and shooters who have the potential to be good fall out of the sport due to burnout over the years. It's probably helpful to know what burnout is, and how to avoid it. 

Virginia was set to revoke concealed carry reciprocity with a bunch of other states on 2/1/2016 but it looks like the Governor has made an 11th hour deal with Republicans in the state to reverse course and keep all of the previous reciprocity agreements. 

USPSA had a Board of Directors meeting right after SHOT show, and they made some changes to the Carry Optics division rules. Here are the approved changes from the USPSA Down Range email that went out last week:

The changes for Carry Optics Division will make it truly unique from other divisions, and will include:

Facebook bans gun classifieds. Meh, it's their house, so we play by their rules. Some people are all up in arms about this, but I'm not. It's a crappy medium for a classifieds site anyways. Have you seen the new Armslist website? It's beautiful.

Not a super tactical, or gun related product, but something I use in my range bag to keep things organized and dry. Back when I used to mess around with Geocaching quite a bit, I found that these Lock-n-lock boxes are awesome because they are completely waterproof. I have some that have been hidden outdoors for over 5 years now that are still completely dry. Mine holds my timer, gun parts, holster parts, spare fiber optic rod, and Triangle Tactical stickers so they don't get damaged or wet in my range bag. No worried about the lid coming off or my stuff getting wet. 

(Yes mine is painted green, it was once a Geocache hidden in the woods.)