Open Arms Instruction

RELOAD!

We’ll talk about when to reload in a GPA match on Friday, but for now I had a couple of discussions with people last weekend about magazine issues since GPA allows larger magazines. There are a couple of things to consider.

The first is that longer magazines will seat differently in your hand and put the bullets farther from your fingertip. You may find that a really long magazine is hard to reload and use that one for your first mag, but not a spare.

Second is that really large magazines use some serious springs, so that a fully loaded mag may not seat on a loaded chamber. Figure out if that’s the case and download those magazines by a round or two as necessary.

See you on the range!
-Adam

(Pic is of two books I found on my front seat after the match. Why is Mike called Ox? Who is the other guy I need to train harder and smarter than? Most importantly, who left the books? Oh wait, it was Sam. He wrote his name in the books. Thanks, Sam.)

Two matches, 100 competitors and 90 degrees

Two great matches at Fairfax Rod and Gun Club this weekend. Thanks to the set-up team, safety officers and match directors and everyone who came out in the heat. They had some awesome stages, a few of which were based on what we shot at the big match in Delaware in May.

The Open Arms-run Galactic Pistol Alliance match on Tuesday, June 30th at the NRA Range is open for registration. Sign up right away to attend:
https://practiscore.com/open-arms-june-gpa-at-the-nra-hq-range/register

A free Practiscore account is required to sign up. Email if you have any questions or need assistance.

See you on the range!
-Adam

(Pic is a powerful sun rising over the Fairfax Rod and Gun Club. And it was just getting started!)

Match weekend

Today and tomorrow are the set-up and main GPA matches at the Fairfax Rod and Gun Club. I went over two of the stages in the online class Wednesday night and they look like a blast. If they seem familiar to some of us, the match directors based them on what we saw at the big Delaware match in May.

They’ve got steel, a ton of no-shoots, movement and a serious round count! Sounds like fun, but the only real goal is the same as always: hit our target as fast as we can and as slow as we have to.

Are you ready? Standby!

Have a great weekend and I’ll see you on the range!
-Adam

(Pic is old school again, this time a C**t Python from the 80s. A friend just got this and it was fun to shoot… for a few rounds of .357 Magnum… that gun needs a comp!)

Truly a marvelous age

When I started shooting, guns were made of steel, had wooden grips and iron sights. Now I’m going to teach online about the Galactic Pistol Alliance to a group of shooters who use mostly polymer pistols with optics. Can’t wait to see what the future looks like!

Sign up here for a free online class to break down a GPA stage from an upcoming match. We’ll be on at 7p tonight for an hour:
https://www.openarmsinstruction.com/event-details/galactic-pistol-alliance-stage-online-class

See you on the interwebs!
-Adam

(Pic is of the oldest school pistol I own. It’s an early 2000s production Springfield TRP in .45 ACP. Still a great shooter if I do my part!)

Hot enough fer ya?

Welcome to the 90s! No, not garage bands and Blockbuster Video, actual temps in the 90s. Arizona has been there for months, but, you know, it’s a dry heat.

Great Moving and Shooing class last night, thanks to the team for coming out. On tap this week I’m conducting a free online class to break down a GPA stage from an upcoming match. We’ll be on at 7p for an hour, sign up here to attend:
https://www.openarmsinstruction.com/event-details/galactic-pistol-alliance-stage-online-class

Then I’ll be competing at the Fairfax Rod and Gun Club GPA Friday and Saturday matches. Looking forward to seeing a lot of you and I’ll report back as always on what I learn.

See you on the range!
-Adam

(Pic is of a new popper I’m testing. It’s space-age polymer (or something like that) instead of steel so it can be safely shot at any distance. Supposedly good for “thousands of rounds”… We’ll see…)

Building on success

Continuing with my goal to get match performance to be on par with training performance, I’m working on shooting more moving/dynamic targets. For this session, it was a sw***er and some cardboard. Every magazine I added to the difficulty so that as I got good at a task, I turned up the difficulty little bit.

It’s the same concept as in fitness, where you add a pound or two to lift or go a little further on a run each time. Pretty soon, you look like a young Arnold Schwarzenegger, just like me…

Have a great weekend and I’ll see you on the range!
-Adam

(Pics are of the session. Each mag I added barrels to restrict my vision of the sw***er and I had to get the shots off on the first time it swung into view. Not all Down Zeros, but all hits. My average was about a half second penalty for every two shots. I’ll take it!)

Adding it all up

To recap May, what a month! I taught three group classes, six individual sessions and competed in four matches. In total, it was over 2300 rounds fired from my Staccato HDs, with most coming from the 4.5” compensated model. I really like that new Red Dirt trigger!

What did I learn from all that? I’m still working on the Ben Stoeger book and his discussion of how he practices really resonated compared to what I was doing. In short, I was focused too much on static shooting in both my dry and live fire. When I got to a match, I had a hard time bringing those standing skills on the move. I’ve already started to correct this and I saw benefits in the last few weeks. I’ll report back on how it goes.

See you on the range!
-Adam

(Pic is the 4.5 HD in its current form. No, the Red Dirt trigger does not HAVE to be in red. But they didn’t have it in tan…)

Greatness Awaits

June is here! I’ll recap a busy May on Wednesday, but for now let’s take a look ahead.

This Sunday at the NRA HQ Range, we will be moving and shooting! It’s a topic that throws a lot of people, but we can easily build it into our routine by basing it on what we are already good at. We’ll look at movement in different directions as well as shooting from a position where we are built to move.
https://www.openarmsinstruction.com/event-details/moving-and-shooting
(Remember to use code USA250 for 25% off when you register for this or any course before July 4th.)

Then at the end of the month, I’ll be hosting the second Open Arms GPA match on June 30. The public registration starts on June 15 at 1130a and will be posted here. People who were waitlisted for the May match will be contacted the week prior.

See you on the range!
-Adam

(Pic is some models that a friend’s son made on a 3D printer. It led to a discussion about 3D printed suppressors, which I thought were a joke when I first heard about them six or seven years ago and now are really common.)

I had a good feeling about this

The first Open Arms-hosted Galactic Pistol Alliance match is in the books! Thanks to the volunteers who made the match run and everyone who came out. The next match is on Tuesday, June 30th and registration will open on June 15th.

I was reminded how things have changed since I was running the IDPA matches at Fairfax Rod and Gun with my partner Tony M. a decade ago. First off, we used PAPER score sheets. As in, those things that are made from trees and get soaked in the rain. It used to take me a day to put 80 scores into a spreadsheet and then email the results out. Now the tablet knows who won all along, it just won’t tell you until the end!

What hasn’t changed are the good people, the sting of a miss and the thrill of a good stage. If you haven’t tried it, come out next time!

See you on the range!
-Adam

(Pics are from the match… so many different types of rounds in so many colors…)