Ken Nelson

Definitely worth attending. The stages were hard but fun. And it was cool to be amidst so many shooters.  Also, the Orleans Hotel, which I’ve never stayed at before, was affordable and comfortable.

Scores can be found here.

I  placed 126th with 55%
Brian placed 154th with 52%

Given the difficulty, my physical condition during the match (poor), and Brian’s age/experience… I think we did pretty good.  There were about 260 shooters in the field.

I videoed Brian on all but 2 stages. They follow.  He did pretty good for his age and experience.  His best finish was 39th on Stage 9 (of 250 shooters).   His CR-Speed kept hitting his mag release on the draw, so on 5 or 6 stages you will notice a mag hitting the dirt on the draw.  And on Stage 17 he skipped 2 targets for HUGE penalty points and effectively zeroed the stage.  You don’t get much chance to airgun the stages at Nationals, so you really have to get it in the 5 minutes they give you. You will see him hesitate and wonder “what’s next” a few places in the videos.  Lessons learned!

Most of those attending said that the stages were exceptionally tough this year. Jerry Miculek, in his speech as the revolver champion, asked for a partial match refund because he had shot at “partial” targets all week!  All in jest of course… but look at the target below in the first video. See much of it ??? (hint – you can only shoot brown, not white targets) (-:

Squad 12 of the USPSA Limited 2010 Nationals Match

From left to right:

Brian Nelson, Ken Nelson, Steve Pries, David Farrell, Albert Lim, Jeff Bailey, Steve Leroux, Bill Johnson, Gary Powell, and Rob Boudrie.

We had an excellent time. Our squad was a great bunch of fellows.

Our sports National championship started on Saturday.  Our division shoots later in the week.

We did a quick final tune up session today with Brian’s coach supervising.   I’d reviewed the Nationals matchbook stages and setup a couple practice stages that had long shots guarded by no-shoots, which seem prevalent this year.

For instance this jewel, Stage 14, seems typical:

If you aren’t familiar with how it works… don’t shoot the black or the ones with X’s on them.

With any luck we got all our no-shoots out of the way today, but frankly… I doubt it. Reports coming in show even the super squad throwing no-shoots and mikes.  So I think this Nationals will be more like the golf U.S. Open that brings even the pros to their knees.  

Our mental cue is “slow down”. Towards that end,  Brian and I have evicted cars from the garage and setup a serious set of airsoft stages.    The targets are all steel, but to slow us down we’ve placed  no-shoots behind it each – misses NOT permitted.

Here is Jo Jo Vidanes shooting the Open match.  Notice that bobbing target with A zone only exposed by bracketing no-shoots at about 43 seconds in the video.  Yep… should be fun!

We go down Wednesday, and shoot start our match Thu morning on Stage 12.  I will try to post status updates but may not til after the match because it will be a busy few days.

Me shooting Stage 4 at the USPSA 2010 Area 1 Championship
I’m actually moving backwards at this point.
This is a captured frame from home video of the match.

Carrying is not just a survival tactic for me; it’s a service, a net benefit to my neighbors and my nation and my civilization, and I feel good about that.

Eric Raymond
On why he carries.
From his post about carrying for 14 months.

 
Guns should be well concealed and secure.
Read Gun Digest book of Concealed Carry by Massood Ayoob for tips

Erik Scott, a 38 year old concealed weapon holder was killed by police in Las Vegas outside a Costco.  He had been seen carrying a gun in Costco. Was asked to leave. Refused. Costco called the police, who confronted him as he left. Reports vary at that point, but police claim he reached for his pistol. And he was shot and killed.

By all accounts Mr. Scott was a great American. His unfortunate death does highlight the risk of taking on the responsibility of carrying a weapon.

I hold a CCW permit and carry every day. Until Nevada stopped accepting Utah licenses, I carried in Las Vegas frequently.

My thoughts on this unfortunate event:

a) Costco handled this wrong
b) the police handled this wrong
c) but mostly, Mr. Scott handled this wrong.

Of the three, I’d say Mr. Scott is mostly to blame. As much as I want to support a fellow gun owner, fellow former Army officer, and by all accounts a great guy, he just did not handle the responsibility of gun carrying well on that day.

At least not based on the reports I’ve read.

He should have carried his gun in a more concealable fashion. He should have left when Costco asked him too – after all they have property rights.  And he should have followed police instructions precisely.

Now maybe they shot him with his arms up. Maybe the police are lying. That does happen (a lot).  But maybe they aren’t. We don’t know yet.  But what we do know is this…  he should have just left when instructed. It never should have gotten to the point where a line of police were aiming guns at him.   He had that responsibility, to himself, to his family, to the police, the public, and to fellow CCW holders.

I’ve got plenty to be irritated at police about, but them being jumpy about a guy with a gun not following their instructions is low on that list. If he had behaved responsibly, it wouldn’t have escalated.

I carry every day, and nobody knows it as I walk around. I keep it that way. But if a property owner does notice, and they ask me to leave, I will.  That’s just the way it is. I have my rights, they have theirs. We honor and support both.

A rare photo of me, taken by my brother.  Not a bad position, my left thumb is a little high, eventually it could get into the slide and cause a jam. I’ll watch for that.  This was in CA, so I’m shooting a Glock 34 (9mm) with silly 10 round magazines. What a silly state. Too bad they have such nice weather.

Sorry for no blogging. I’ve been traveling to Idaho Falls, ID for the United States Practical Shooting Association (USPSA) Area 1 Championship. Area 1 includes Nevada, Utah, Idaho, Montana, Wyoming, Washington, and Oregon.  The sport is divided up into pistol types – Revolver, Production (stock factory guns), Limited (fancier, bigger magazines), and Open (scopes, huge magazines).  There were hundreds of shooters there, including 110 in the Limited division I shoot in.

This was my first “big” match and it tested me and found my weaknesses (-:  But I did pretty good, just finishing out of trophies by less than 1% and finishing 29th out of 110 in all of Limited and 6th of 33 in B class (sort of a handicap system).

Here is a video of me shooting Stage 1:

This link will show other videos for me. Currently 6 are uploaded. There were 12 total and 6 more will be posted when I get video from the fellow who had the camera on day two.

My overall standing can be seen here. And my stage by stage results here.

Those who shoot the sport will know what these stats mean. For those that don’t, you do not want anything under the D (sort of like the 1 ring in a bullseye target), M (miss a target completely), NS (no-shoot – hit a fake bystander), or P (procedural penalty).

I had 2 “M” on really easy targets (like 5 feet away), and 2 no-shoots because I slipped when I shot. Both were on the move.  Without those I finish 2nd in my class, and 18th or so overall.  Sigh…

 
Example of firing in a “direction”
Unrealistic simulation of something unlike the actual situation

Correct behavior?

Johnson drew his own handgun and returned fire in the direction of the suspects, who fled the scene.

Not in my book. I fire at a specific spot on a specific target. Suppressive fire, in a neighborhood, isn’t part of my self-defense plan.

It is hard to get the entire situation out of news reports, but as it reads, I would have handled it differently.  Bullets fly miles and can kill out of eye sight. Each shot needs to be accounted for and you should train so you can know when you can and can’t make a shot.  Shots should end in bad guys or in identified safe backstops behind them. Period.

Watch your back Ken!

A: This Watson doesn’t back up Holmes, he plays Jeopardy.

The NY Times has an interesting article about IBM’s efforts to build a Jeopardy playing super computer.

It was just the beginning. Over the rest of the day, Watson went on a tear, winning four of six games. It displayed remarkable facility with cultural trivia (“This action flick starring Roy Scheider in a high-tech police helicopter was also briefly a TV series” — “What is ‘Blue Thunder’?”), science (“The greyhound originated more than 5,000 years ago in this African country, where it was used to hunt gazelles” — “What is Egypt?”) and sophisticated wordplay (“Classic candy bar that’s a female Supreme Court justice” — “What is Baby Ruth Ginsburg?”).

As a computer scientist, this would be interesting work.

This weekend our family visited Greeley, CO and Brian and I shot the Rocky Mountain 300 USPSA match.

As you can see these stages are long and have lots of positions/reload options. We shot with 6 GMs (top ranked in our sport) in our squad (a nice learning experience) and you could see even them backing up, missing reloads, and forgetting stuff. Fun!

All of these are of Brian, I didn’t ask him to video me as he had plenty to think about.

Brian kitted out a G35 for new USPSA shooter this week:

Details of the modifications at the link above. He took the trigger to a crisp 3.5 lbs, he can get it down to 2 or so with some polishing, a lighter striker and striker springs.

We will sight it in and function test it tomorrow and hand it over ready to race when the shooter gets back in town.

Ready to race out of the box

Brian has written a review STI’s GP6-C pistol. It is their offering for USPSA Production and IDPA Stock Service Pistol classes:

The GP6-C is race-ready out of the box. There’s no need to spend a lot of money on a heavily customized SIG, Glock or XD, nor go to the trouble of installing aftermarket parts. Even with hundreds of dollars in aftermarket triggers and components, you will only come close to the single-action trigger on the GP6-C, probably its most outstanding feature. It is a new gun, so accessories are scarce, but I’ve found three suitable holsters and magazine holders. I’m very impressed with the GP6-C, and you’ll see me shooting it in IDPA competitions in the coming months.

I shot it as well and liked it.  Especially the SA trigger, with an extremely crisp 3lb trigger and next to no reset.   I’ve got my G34 pretty well slicked up, at a cost of about $1100 dollars if I add it all up (and I DON’T usually!).  Some of that isn’t in the gun still, you have to try stuff and see if you like it.

The GP6-C offers race ready, no-hassle performance, for $600-$700 bucks. 

It is also light and a pretty decent home defense / carry gun.

But hey… read the review, he covers it in detail.

While in Phoenix recently I dropped by the Dillon Precision factory store. While there I purchased a Dillon Leather by Mitch Rosen leather inside the waistband clip on holster.

After a week or so wearing it in, I can say this is a very comfortable and easy to get on and off holster. 

How comfortable?  I find myself at home, after taking a nap, working on the computer, and I have to feel my waist to see if I’m packing my full sized Glock 22.  It is very comfortable,and I can feel it getting more so as it wears in and fits to my body.

I had been using my 1911 Commander sized CrossBreed holster. It, too, is comfortable, but it is quite difficult to get on and off, and while the G22 “fits” it isn’t as protective of the trigger as I liked. So I decided to give the Mitch Rosen leather a try.

It is easy to get on and off and the clip works from dress belts up to my 1.75” Wilderness belt.

I recommend this holster heartily, especially if you choose to carry a full sized pistol.

While in Texas recently Brian, his granddad and I visited the pistol maker STI in Georgetown, Texas (a bit north of Austin).

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