Indoor Action

24. August 2012 · Comments Off on Indoor Action · Categories: Pistols · Tags: ,

We thought we were showing up for PPC but turns out we got the dates wrong, and it was Indoor Action! Which is even more fun! We also finally got our membership. I can get to the range and practice without attending a competition.

This was the first time I’d taken my new PPQ out to an event. Meanwhile, my husband took over my P22 for a change.

There were fewer people at this event because it was sort of cancelled at such a last minute that only half of us got the message. It’s amazing how little time it takes to set up a quick and dirty stage when you’re in a hurry.

I finally get up there, and on the first stage, the first thing I’m supposed to do is shoot over a metal barricade, but below the metal railing that is above it, thus shooting through a rectangle.

As I mentioned before, the PPQ had way more kick than I expected. So when I came to this event, the first shot goes off and the gun flips up, smacking into the railing. I was pretty surprised and it stuck with me through the event. The guy keeping time was very helpful and gave me advice after each of the four scenarios we went through.

In the sidelines there were a couple comments suggesting I had ‘too much gun’ and I should downsize.

Whatever. I can handle it, I just need to learn how to get that good grip.

For the most part, these guys are friendly, helpful, and encouraging. But some of them are a little socially awkward.

Two different people had to ask why the girl had the .40 and the guy had the .22 and while a little teasing might be ok, a pattern is not so much. The first time I attended this event, the guy doing introductions reassured me that there usually are other girls around. Well, this is why they’re not as around as all that.

I’m even more determined to stick with the gun I picked. I’m not out to win anything. I’m not out to prove something to anyone else.

Now I just got to find the right sights for Bruce.

New Toys

02. August 2012 · Comments Off on New Toys · Categories: Pistols, Rifles · Tags: ,

I brought home a couple new toys recently.

First, I bought a lever-action Henry. These are supposed to be great for training. It is supposed to be a great training gun because the ejection of the bullet is separate; you can do it at your leisure, you have less recoil because the firing is not used to eject the casing. That also means less of a trigger pull because less work has to be done with each click.

I found this to be a very easy weapon to use, but my arms grew tired even on this little one and I will have to work on my stamina (seriously, can’t even finish the tube?).

I also bought the PPQ. I needed a full-sized, full-capacity centerfire. I didn’t really like the options that most people had. I didn’t want to get into the 1911 platform, I don’t like glocks, I was ambivalent to the M&P (but anything glock-like, I’m not a fan of), and the CZ I saw looked promising but they don’t come out of the box like that.

In the PPQ I expected good ergonomics, good balance, and from the videos, a ridiculously short trigger reset. I got all of those, but it turned out to be not exactly what I expected either.

I have a PPS which I enjoy a lot, but being a compact gun, it’s not really conducive to any of the games. It’s in .40cal because I actually like having a bit of recoil and the 9mm just didn’t do it for me. I got the PPQ in .40cal too. I expected that, since it’s a bigger gun, there will be less felt recoil. With people going on and on about how little guns have lots of kick, that seemed well, obvious, right?

But I was totally wrong about that. There’s more barrel so less gas is wasted. The PPQ has substantially more recoil than the PPS. So much so that I was genuinely surprised. I haven’t figured out a good grip yet, especially on this larger gun where there’s more room for my hands to move around, so the minute tilts that I would get in the past because of a limp left hand was wildly exaggerated. At first, I didn’t know what hit me when it’d cant wildly and the casings would fall on my head. I eventually fixed that, but then I started having feed problems and I just don’t know how to reliably make that not happen yet. I really need to take a good look at how I hold the gun and work it out.