Mantis X10 Elite

Back in July, GunDude Jay gave me a Mantis X10 Elite for my birthday. 

I had recently invested in a couple of DryFireMags to use in classes to teach trigger reset. While it doesn't give an exact trigger reset, it's a great way to teach the concept to newer shooters. When I wasn't using the mags in class, I was using them at home for dry fire practice. They are great for what they are and I don't regret investing in them at all.

However, the Mantis ... Wow. If you follow our Instagram or Facebook page, you've likely seen several posts about the Mantis. To say I love the product would be an understatement. I never much thought of myself as a data girl, but it turns out I'm incredibly competitive with myself and comparing my scores from one shot to another is addictive.

I did find, after owning both the DryFireMags and the Mantis, that you can buy a DryFireMag with an integrated Mantis. However, since I already own each individually, I'm not going to drop the money to buy an integrated one.

Back when I first started shooting, I was diligent about dry fire practice. Sort of. I was really working on my draw stroke, and finishing with one shot. I can't say that I did any focused dry fire practice for more than a shot or two. If I found I was flinching, I might stick a dime up on my slide and do a few trigger presses, but that was about it.

This Mantis has been a game changer. I immediately put it on my M&P 2.0 and tried it out. Five "shots" in and I was in love. Included in the X10 Elite is a course to help familiarize you with the system, and three courses to increase accuracy. I whipped through the introduction course and couldn't wait to get more. The Basic Marksmanship and the Advanced Marksmanship went pretty quickly - just a couple of days for Basic and a week or so for Advanced. The Compressed Surprise Break is my nemesis.

The system quickly found my weaknesses (hello, Compressed Surprise Break). I can be accurate, or I can be fast, but so far, I can't be both. My goal is to work on combining the two. When I get in a hurry, I tend to slap the trigger. When I'm trying for accuracy, I slow down way too much. It can take me seconds to press the trigger.

I did manage to fight my way through my mental block with the Compressed Surprise Break and earn my Advanced Marksmanship patch.

I'm currently working on the Elite Marksmanship badge, and I tell you, if I could stop over-thinking everything, I would have finished it already. But, I'm female and over-thinking is what we do.

The feedback from the system can be brutal, but it's completely objective. I can choose to pay attention to the data, or I can continue to suck. I thought I was doing pretty well with my dry fire, so I decided to take my show on the road and see how I did live fire. Boy, was that a hard pill to swallow.

I definitely had stuff to work on with live fire, and the Mantis showed me in black and white where I was screwing up.

However, there are moments like this (dry fire at home):

To say using the Mantis for dry fire practice is addictive would be an understatement. I've "shot" 3,017 rounds, which is a huge ammo savings. The fact that I can use my Mantis for both dry and live fire, on my pistols, rifles, and shotgun makes me love it even more.

My Glock 43x doesn't have an accessory rail, and to be honest, the stick-on accessory rail that came with the kit was crap, so I bought a Recover Tactical accessory rail that went on to my Glock in seconds. It holds the Mantis nicely, though I had to have a friend mold a holster to accommodate the rail and mounted Mantis.

Since the 43x is my EDC and I only had one OWB holster for it, I eventually used my teaching money to purchase a second 43x for practice purposes. I can now carry my EDC 43x in all of my 'normal' holsters, and practice with the other one. All I can say is thank goodness for the students who are willing to pay to take classes so I can buy 'training aids'.

In talking to someone who also has the Mantis, I found that I could buy baseplates for my magazines that I could attach the Mantis to without having to have special holsters for drawing practice. Since I am 100% drinking the Mantis Tech kool-aid, I bought a baseplate for the 43x and for my M&P 2.0. Now I can practice my draw stroke from any of my holsters with either gun.

I have seen the Blackbeard for the AR system on Active Self Protection's FB page and went looking for that. I desperately need more practice with my AR, but hate cycling the bolt every time. I was pretty excited about the Blackbeard system until I saw the price. I need to teach a few more classes before I can throw out another $199.00 plus shipping and tax. However ... I found the TRT Tap Rack system for a 9mm for only $8.99. Guess what went into my cart?

With the ammo shortage what it is, I cannot recommend the Mantis system enough. You can purchase the MantisX 10 Elite for way less than a case of ammo and it will pay for itself is around 400 'shots'.

Lessons from Low Light Training

This quarter's training is shooting in low light. I dug out all of my flashlights and spent last night/today charging all of my lights. Seemed like a good time to make sure everything was ready. Thanks to the Year of the Lumen (2018), I have a few to choose from. Any time Greg Ellifritz or Dustin Ellermann posted about a new light, I had to buy it.

Rayovac "The Beast"; Bolder by Anker (x2);
Streamlight ProTac HL-2; Streamlight Microstream USB;
Olight Valkyrie PL-2; SureFire Sidekick

I knew we had some cool stuff planned, so I was pretty excited about tonight's range time. At twilight, I used the Streamlight I keep on my belt to look at something downrange and decided I didn't like the throw. I thought it was too short, so I decided to swap it out for one of the Ankers that I usually just keep in my bag.

When it was my turn to run the stage, I slipped the Anker into my carrier and threw my Streamlight in my bag. I've been practicing with the Anker at the range, since that's what's in my bag, so I thought it would be fine.

I was so wrong. So, so wrong.

What I forgot about the Anker is that it has variable settings and that in order to keep it from cycling through the settings, I had to press the button to turn it on and then let go. Failure to do so, or keeping the button depressed with my thumb will start it to cycle.

I did okay for my first two targets, but when I went to light up my next two, suddenly I had a strobe light. I said bad words and took my shots anyway. But did I remember to definitely turn on and off the light? No, because why would my brain work when it needed to?

When I lit up my next set of targets, I'd cycled to medium power. That was okay, at least the light stream was steady. By this time, I'd remembered to fully depress the on/off button and let go, so my last few targets were easier to shoot.

Ugh.

It was ugly, but I learned a couple of important lessons: 1) don't make a last minute gear change (that should be obvious), and 2) commit to turning on/off the light instead of just using my thumb as a momentary on switch.

I don't have a holster that will accommodate a WML, but I have a really nice Olight that I wanted to try out. Once everyone was done shooting, I attached my Olight and just plinked off a few rounds. I've dry fired with the Olight, but while dry fire is great for practicing fundamentals, I needed some live rounds through. I found that my little Olight really lights up the target beautifully, but in order to activate the light I have to break my grip and really rock my support hand forward. My little girl thumb doesn't reach the switch well.

Again, I didn't commit to turning the light on, instead just used my thumb as a momentary on switch, which worked great for identifying the target, but as soon as the trigger broke and the recoil hit, my thumb lost contact with the switch and I lost my light. I either need to learn to keep my thumb in contact with the switch or hit the button to turn it on and let go.

I'm seeing a pattern here. I have trouble committing with my lights. Push the damn button, turn it on, and then get my damn thumb out of the way.

The one thing I do wish is that there was a way to get more low light practice. I do practice with my lights, but shooting on an already well-lit range with a flashlight is vastly different from shooting in the dark with one. Since I know my problem is not fully turning on the light, that's something I can work on even during the day.

My hope is by practicing the one thing I screwed up so badly, that next month when I shoot at night, I'll see a vast improvement.

Humbling

I consider myself to be a fair shot with a pistol. More often than not, my targets look like actual intentional groupings as opposed to random patterns. Having said that, I've done very little in the way of structured training or practice (shame on me). So, when my best friend and I escaped to the range on Sunday to sight in a recently completed AR, we took along the pistols as well.

My friend suggested we give the Dot Torture drill a whirl. I said sure. Why not? I'm familiar with the drill from seeing others post about their experiences, but I'd never taken a stab at it personally. I thought, "How hard could it be?"

Ha.

HAHAHAHAHAHA!!!

Sure, I can hit a 2 inch target at 3 yards. No problem. You can too I bet. Until you try and get this:

That's my first try at Dot Torture with a Ruger SR1911 5 inch at 3.5 yards. Color me shocked. 

We then had the bright idea to pull out the .22 pistols and give it another try.

Better but still not great. Ruger 22/45 Target model with a fiber optic front sight. 

Well, neither of us was happy with our performance. So, we decided one more try was in order.

Almost clean. 1 dropped shot.

This is going to become a regular part of my range outings from now on. You should give it a try too. 

Changing it up

I've been focusing on the Dot Torture. I see it in my sleep sometimes, I swear!

I've now cleared it right-handed at 3 yards with three of my pistols: GSG 1911-22; Glock 42 (.380); and my Para-Ordnance 1911 (.45).

I even cleared it last week left-handed at 3 yards with my GSG 1911-22. Still need to shoot it clean with my G42 and Para.

I do love the Dot Torture and it has improved my shooting by leaps and bounds, but I feel like I was eating, sleeping, and breathing Dot Torture, so when a new drill showed up on my Facebook feed I decided to give it a try. I've seen it before, but had forgotten to write it down or save it. This time I remembered. It's the Tactical Professor's "Baseline Evaluation" that I stole from Active Response Training (that he re-blogged from Tactical Professor).

This was a fun, quick drill, five sequences of ten shots. Though untimed, it does require one to focus on the fundamentals. One of my failures is that if I start from a low-ready, I tend to overshoot my target on the first round (for example, my first round ends up as a head shot instead of a body shot). This is a great drill for remembering to slow down and find that front sight. There is also one mag change per sequence, and I found that I'm fairly accurate with my first round after a mag change (thanks to dots 9 and 10 on the Dot Torture).

The instructions say to mark your target after each sequence with a pen or with masking tape. I forgot about those instructions when I shot the first couple of tehm. When I got out to 7 yards and threw my first couple of rounds out of the 10-ring, I thought I could remember which rounds were which, but by the time I got to 10 yards, I had to start marking.

I'm waiting on my IDPA targets to arrive, so I used the silhouette targets that the range had. I scored my target in two ways for each distance: the first score was total rounds in the 10-ring; my second score was total rounds in the 8-ring. I'm sure that once I get the IDPA targets my scores will change somewhat (worse, I think, because I found the 8-ring really generous).

Even with the generous 8-ring, I threw the last two rounds of my last string at 15 yds.

My scores with the Para, shooting right-handed were:

• 3 yd 10/10 in 10-ring
• 5 yd 10/10 in 10-ring
• 7 yd 6/10 in 10-ring;10/10 in 8-ring
• 10 yd 8/10 in 10-ring; 10/10 in 8-ring
• 15 yd 3/10 in 10-ring; 8/10 in 8-ring
• Total 37/50 in 10-ring; 48/50 in 8-ring.

I switched to left-handed with my GSG and remembered to mark the targets after each sequence with masking tape. It makes for an ugly target, but one that is much easier to score.

One day, I'll stop pushing to the right with this gun.

My scores with the GSG, shooting left-handed were:

• 3 yd 10/10 in 10-ring
• 5 yd 10/10 in 10-ring
• 7 yd 6/10 in 10-ring;10/10 in 8-ring
• 10 yd 3/10 in 10-ring; 10/10 in 8-ring
• 15 yd 0/10 in 10-ring; 8/10 in 8-ring
• Total 29/50 in 10-ring; 50/50 in 8-ring.

I still had time and 20 rounds left, so I brought the target in to 3 yards and shot 10 rounds left-handed, and 10 rounds right-handed. My left-handed group was much tighter, but just to the right of center, than my right-handed rounds.

I did have an experience at the range for the first time that I'm not thrilled with - there was a new(er) shooter in the lane next to me who had a hot piece of brass go down her shirt. I get it, it's hot. However, you don't get to jump around in your lane waving your gun around. She got an ugly, pissed-off instructor look from me, and a terse "watch your muzzle!". She was quite apologetic and I hope she learned a lesson about muzzle discipline. I never want to discourage a new shooter, but I also don't want anyone getting hurt.

Please, if you are teaching someone to shoot, or even just taking someone shooting, tell them in advance what to do if they get brass down their shirt. If you shoot often enough, it's going to happen and it shouldn't have tragic consequences. If the new shooter knows what to do in advance, then they will have a plan in place.

What the Dot Torture has Taught Me

People are probably sick of me going on and on about the Dot Torture. It dawned on me, after talking to my mom, that while I've talked about the Dot Torture for years, I've not explained what it is recently or why I'm so in love/hate with it. This is a drill, shot at close range, that tests a shooter's fundamentals: sight picture, trigger control, transitioning between targets, one-handed, and weak-handed shooting. The instructions are available online (see link above), or you can find a target pre-printed with the instructions.

I shot it first back in 2012, but haven't been shooting it regularly until this year. It has always been a humbling experience, and often quite frustrating.

First time ever shooting Dot Torture 10/26/12 (GSG 1911-22)

10/26/12 (Para LTC 1911 .45 ACP)

When I came up with my shooting goals for the year, shooting more frequently was one of the goals. I plan on shooting at least 200 rounds a month, and it's easy to do if you know what you're going to be doing each time you go to the range. I knew if I shot the Dot Torture twice with my right hand and twice with my left each month I'd hit my goal easily.

The Dot Torture has frustrated me for a long time. I've never been a precise shooter - I'm what some would call "combat accurate", but I very rarely have been able to shoot nice tight groups on purpose. My groups fall in the 1.5 - 2" range, not bad, but hardly worth bragging about.

While I was expecting to improve my Dot Torture scores, I was not expecting to see the drastic improvement in my group sizes.

1/31/17 GSG 1911-22

2/7/17 G42

2/10/17 G42

2/14/17 G42

I'm still not shooting one-hole groups, but they are much better and I know the moment the trigger breaks whether or not I've thrown a shot. The shrinking group sizes has helped build my confidence, which has been sorely lacking. I know it's weird to say my confidence is improving when I've only shot the drill clean once, but it has. I'm beginning to feel like the shooter I used to be, and that feels really good.

Further, I've seen vast improvements in my left-handed shooting as well. I've always been fairly proficient with my left-handed shooting because I work at it, whereas most people don't. I make a point to shoot as close to 50% of the time with my left hand. I dare say that my current left-handed shooting ability is far better than my first right-handed go at the drill. (I thought I had more pictures of my left-handed targets, but I must not have uploaded them.)

2/7/17 G42, left-handed

With my confidence renewed, I'm looking forward to shooting my first match of the year.

Happy Dance!

One of my shooting goals for this year was to shoot 200 rounds per month and I was running out of time to meet my goal. Mez and I went to the range on Sunday, where I'd hoped to finish out my 200. I took my GSG 1911-22. I have a fair bit of .22LR right now, and can afford to shoot that up, so for the next bit that's what I'll be practicing with.

I've some *this close* to shooting the Dot Torture clean for well over a year. My last attempt was with the G42 and G43 last month. Close, but no cigar. For our Sunday Gunday, I planned on shooting the drill with both my right and left hands. I might have been a bit cocky, knowing that shooting a full-sized 1911 chambered in .22 should have been a breeze compared to shooting the drill with pocket pistols. The last time I shot the Dot Torture with the GSG was in October of 2012. It's been a while and I didn't realize until I reviewed the post just how badly I'd sucked that go 'round.

Sunday's trip to the range wasn't as great as I had hoped, but it was a damn sight better than the time I shot it in 2012!

Right handed 40/50

Left handed 39/50

I am a Weaver shooter. It's the way I was taught, and it's what I'm comfortable with. However, we teach isosceles in our pistol classes, so I thought I'd shoot the way I'd been teaching. Isosceles is not at all comfortable for me. It's not so much the fighting the muscle memory that's difficult, but the girls get squished and in the way; it's physically uncomfortable for me to shoot isosceles. However, discomfort or not, I was determined to shoot both drills (right- and left-handed) in this manner. I can't say I hate the stance if I don't give it a fair shake, right?

Sunday Gunday was still a pretty good day, despite the fact that I should have shot much better than I did. I got range time, got to hang with Mez, and slung 100 rounds down range. There are much worse days than that.

Even with Sunday's shooting trip, I was short of my goal by about 40 rounds. I didn't have to be into work until noon today, so I took my happy ass to the range for another round of Dot Torture with the GSG. This time was much better!

I reverted to my Weaver stance, the girls breathed a sigh of relief, and we got started. I threw my first round because I forgot that the sights are wonky. I stopped, put the gun down, gave myself a good reminder that I know that sights are off and re-started. Instead of getting a whole new target, I started over and continued with this one.

I was so thrilled with my first two groups I stopped the drill to take a picture. Usually when I start off strong, I get ahead of myself and that's when my shooting goes to crap. I wanted proof that I could shoot well before I went and blew it.

I was pretty happy with this start.

I warned myself not to get cocky and to take each shot one at a time. Take as much time as I needed and make the freaking shot.

Right handed 50/50

Left handed 46/50 (I scored it incorrectly initially)

The GSG is having some serious issues, but I worked through each and every one without getting frustrated and it showed. I had easily a 40% failure to fire rate. I took that opportunity to practice my trigger press without flinching and practice clearing the gun.

I had intended to leave the gun with the gunsmith, but since he wasn't in, I decided that I'm going to try to fix it myself. I think the issue is that the gun is dirty. I cleaned it really well the other day, but I know I haven't done a complete tear-down and cleaning (like to the frame tear-down) since I've owned it. If that doesn't fix the problem, then he'll have to go to the gunsmith.

By the end, my hands and arms were tired, but I was thrilled! I might have to do this shooting before work business more often!

Range Day with Mez

It's been a couple of weeks since I've been to the range, so I was really looking forward to getting some gun powder therapy. I had a new drill I wanted to try and it was going to be much easier to do at an indoor range than an outdoor one, where I'd have to keep moving the target.

Mez took me to a really, really nice range in the city he lives in and in the excitement, I forgot to pick up the target I needed to shoot the drill, so I pulled my training book out of my bag and fell back to the dreaded-but-much-loved Dot Torture.

I had done some sort-of training with the G42 to make sure I could hit the broad side of a barn (or a torso-sized target), but I haven't done a lot of training/practice with it. When I'm just out farting around at the range - not doing any drills - I shoot primarily strong-handed (in my case, right-handed), but when I'm doing drills and focused practice I always run the drill both strong- and weak-handed.

It was a good decision to go to the Dot Torture instead of the other drill, which requires your first five shots to be at 25 yards. With the Para, I have full confidence I can hit at that distance. However, with a pocket pistol ... well, it would have been iffy.

Right handed

Left handed

There are times, like today, when I feel like I should just switch to shooting left-handed. And there are times, like today, when I wonder if I'll ever be able to shoot this damn thing clean.

But then I remember, I'm doing it with a pocket pistol and while I didn't shoot it clean, I did complete the strings of fire and I can only improve. I just need a lot more trigger time. A lot more.

And when I do finally shoot it clean, there will be much celebrating!

Girls' Day Out

Tara and I try to get out to the range every Friday. More often than not, we don't make it. Lives get in the way, don'tcha know. When we do get out, its fabulous, but this last time was even more fabulous than usual. We had five guns and no time constraints. I'm not sure it gets better than that.

Choices. Lots of choices.

Since we haven't done much shooting, and since the last time we went out we both shot like we'd never held a gun, we worked on the basics. I didn't bring enough dots for the Dot Torture, so I made up my own drill.

3 2" targets and 5 1" targets at 7 yards.

I forgot to take a "before" picture, but you can see my dot set-up.

Using a normal shooting stance, one shot at each target T1-T8. Next round, strong-hand only, one shot at each target T1-T8. 3rd round, weak-hand only, one shot at each target T1-T3, then T8-T4 (reverse order). Last round, weak-hand, two hands, T1-T3, then T8-T4.

I was a bit high on each of the targets T5-T7. And who the hell knows what happened on T8.

After I finished my round (and felt pretty good after my performance with the Dot Torture a couple of weeks ago), I played with some of Tara's guns. Boy, I love those cowboy guns. Love them. Unfortunately, they're an expensive habit I don't need to take up.

And just for shiggles I emptied my last magazine at the middle of the target and called it a day.

Not the best target of my life, but I'll take it.

Remember when I said we had a fabulous day? Tara mentioned that she needed some work with the AR to get more familiar with it and I remembered that Double Tap had the sim up and running, so to make our day even more fabulous, we headed to FiTS.

Double Tap put her through her paces with accuracy drills before running her through some scenarios.

When she got tired, I took a turn. I did pretty well. The two tactical rifle skills classes I took were helpful. It's been a year or so since I took my last AR class, but the repetition in class helped build some muscle memory that I was able to tap into. There's another class coming up that I want to take, but it conflicts with an event I'm in charge of, so I can't attend.

It will be another couple of weeks before our schedules match up and we can hit the range again, but I'm looking forward to it.

When I Suck, I Admit It

I have been intermittently cranky, which could be attributed to a couple of things: 1) I'm female and that just happens, or 2) lack of range time.

Mez, the shooting hubby, told me I needed to take my "pew pew pills" to cure my crankiness. He was right, it had been months since I'd done any shooting and I missed it.

Friday rolled around and I decided to hit the range. I had some unused money on a gift card - just enough to buy 100 rounds of .380 and some range time, so off I went to the range.

I hadn't shot the Glock 42 seriously since May of last year. I knew it had been a while, but I didn't think it had been that long! I shot an entire defensive pistol match with it and did okay. Not spectacular, but okay considering I was using a "mouse gun" and it was the first time I'd had it out of the box.

Because I did okay in the match, I felt fairly confident taking the Baby Glock to the range to run the Dot Torture drill. It's a tough drill, even when I'm in practice.

I sucked. I sucked badly. There are excuses I could make, but why? I'm rusty and I know better. However, since I feel like it's important to share the bad with the good, here are my targets. I completed the drill with both my strong (right) hand and my weak (left) hand. I'm embarrassed to say I did much better weak-handed than strong. (PS - don't bother chastising me for using the term "weak hand"; I say what I mean and I mean weak, as in not strong.)

Right handed

Left-handed

I failed both of these, as I should be able to shoot them clean at 3 yards. It was very tempting to go grab another hundred rounds and go again, but instead I called it a day.

You know, it's true though, a bad day at the range is still better than a good day at work :)

Ammo Shortage - An Example By The Numbers

Okay, I know some out there really hate the new math especially when it translates into a 50 round box of Winchester White Box 230 grain .45ACP going for 40 of my hard earned dollars, and I know many of us would like to blame the evil government like any good conspiracy theorist would. We can blame the government INDIRECTLY all we want. BUT, let's take a step back an look at some real numbers for a second.

According to the May 2013 issue of American Rifleman (that'd be the NRA's membership magazine for those of you who are not NRA members), somewhere between 1 billion and 1.5 billion rounds of .22 long rifle ammunition is produced by all manufactures ANNUALLY. That's up to 1,500,000,000 .22 pills of all sizes and flavors from my personal favorite CCI Stingers to your cheap, dud infested, big box store, bulk pack stuff made to supply the whim and demand of every man, woman and child over a 365 day span of time. And, last I checked, the goobermint wasn't sending out orders for .22 bullets by the ship load.

So, assuming for the moment that the smallest size box you can buy is a 50 round box of formerly cheap fun in a gun, that's 30,000,000 (30 million for those getting tired of seeing zeros like I am) boxes of .22 caliber satisfaction hitting the streets every year.

But, wait, that amount of ammo doesn't hit the street all at once. There's twelve (12) months in a year. 30 million divided by 12 is 2,500,000 boxes hitting the streets a month on average. If we assume that there are an average of 30 days in each month, we get that narrowed down to 83,333.33 50 round boxes of ammo arriving on store shelves somewhere every day (setting aside the fact that deliveries don't happen every day).

And where is all that ammo going? Well, the USA is a big place. There are literally millions of gun owners spread across 50 states clamouring for a piece of that action every day. I know that reality is different, but let's assume that the 83,333.33 boxes a day gets spread equally among the states. That leaves us with 1666.66 boxes per state per day.

What's the likelihood that you're going to be one of the lucky ones to snap up a box or two on any given day when every other Cletus in town is waiting at the gun stores doors on delivery day with cash in hand? Um, yeah. Not good. Do those per purchase limits make a little more sense now?

What does all this mean? That's an excellent question. I'm glad you asked. I don't know much, but I do understand basic economics.

Ammunition manufacturers and their suppliers are and have been working at or near capacity according to every report I've gotten a hand on including perusing some of their websites. That means that supply is pretty well maxed out; or, at the very least, it's as good as it's going to get for the near future. That leaves us with two options: increase supply or lower demand.

As long as the current resident at 1600 Pennsylvania is in office, lower demand is unlikely for the foreseeable future. Maybe ever. As long as there are gun banning politicians clamouring to relieve us of our Constitional rights, people are going to be stockpiling ammo. Truth be told, I don't blame them. If I had the extra cash in my budget, I'd be stockpiling too. Which makes me part of the problem.

On the other side of the coin, supply is harder to predict. For the near term, we can expect it to be relatively constant. In order for there to be an increase in supply at this point, one or more manufactures would have to invest in additional facilities, equipment and the manpower to staff the production line as well as getting their raw material suppliers to ramp up too. The likelihood of those stars aligning comes down to a cold, hard, cost/benefit/profit/loss calculation. If a company foresees that investing the necessary capital to increase production by adding another plant will yield a net profit over a period of time that makes sense to them, it will happen. If not, don't count on it. 

Don't ask me to figure out what that magic profit/loss number is...I don't have enough information to figure it out. For example, if you assume those 30 million boxes sell for an average of $8.00 a box (don't quibble with me about prices for match ammo...this is an example), that's $240,000,000 ($240 million) in gross retail sales. A guesstimated SWAG of the manufactures net profit out of that would be 10% or $24 million. Split that among however many ammo manufactures there are based on market share, and the picture gets even bleaker for the chances of a new ammo factory sprouting from the earth anytime soon.

Now, go ask your buddy who's bragging about his 1000 round score to sit back and let the rest of us have a shot.

Drills and Practice

I subscribe to Active Response Training, and I've found their daily articles valuable.  Always.  I've yet to find something that I felt was a waste of my time or that didn't make sense to me.  I've run across sites that offer advice that just doesn't make sense, yet I see people following thier advice.  Not so with Active Response Training.

A few weeks ago, they had an article about the Dot Torture Shooting drill.  I quickly followed the links to download the drill.  Just reading the directions, I got excited and couldn't wait until I could get to the range to try it.  I shot an email over to Tara and she got just as excited as I did.

The weather has changed for the worst here in Colorado and we decided to move our weekly range day to an indoor range.  We were joined by another local GunDiva, MShell, who we hadn't shot with in months.

Though this has nothing to do with Dot Torture, I have to say something.  We checked into the range, got to our bay and looked around.  The range was full, so many people were shooting two and three to a lane.  And men were outnumbered by women.  Go ahead, take a second to digest that.  I've been shooting regularly for nine years or so and it was the first time (other than at an all-female shoot) I'd ever been on the range where the women outnumbered the men.  And not by a little bit, by better than 2:1.  Six full-grown women and two little girls compared to three men on the range.  It was awesome!  Since I didn't know any of the other ladies, I didn't take a picture, but I should have.

Anyway, back to the Torture.  It is very appropriately named.  Only fifty rounds, but requires something like eighty-three sight pictures.  For our fist time around, we didn't draw from our holsters, but we will next time.

Since it's kind of an ammo-eater, we shot it with the GSG.  I started out and felt like I did okay.  Not fabulous, but okay.

I didn't actually read the directions properly,
oops.
Each dot has a specified number of strings.
In my brain, it was five strings for every dot.

Tara loaded up the GSG's mags and took her turn.  She did really well, too.

The #8 dot is shot weak-handed only,
it was her tightest group.
Brat.

And then MShell shot it.  With a gun she'd never handled before.

It's hard to see,
but she shot the damn thing clean.

A clean round.  From our newest shooter.  MShell's only been shooting about two years.  Tara's been shooting five or six, and I've been shooting more than nine. MShell's a rock star.  Maybe she'll teach me a thing or two.

Sadly, as I was loading up one of the GSG mags for her, I dropped the mag on the cement floor.  It exploded!  Parts went everywhere and I'm not exaggerating.  I scrambled around, trying to find all of the parts.  I found all but the most important - the spring.  The damn thing just disappeared.  We all looked for it, but it's g-o-n-e.  Now I'm down to just four mags, but at least I still have some.

The second time through, I chose to shoot it with my Para.

Oh, it was ugly.
Really ugly.

MShell ran it with her 9mm.

She "threw" two rounds.
The hole off the paper on the right was a pre-existing hole.
I really want to hate her.

I can't wait to run this drill again and again.  I love it and intend to incorporate it routinely in my training.

If you're looking for something to hone your skill, I suggest you give this one a try.

(And if you don't already subscribe to Active Response Training, go do that, too.)

Range Day

To prepare for Top Shot (see? Positive thinking), I'm getting as much range time as absolutely possible, learning new weapons, and re-familiarizing myself with guns I haven't shot in a while.

I have a plan.  My plan is to practice everything ambidextrously.  I figure it's just a matter of time before the folks who come up with the challenges will dream up weak-handed shooting.  They got close in Season 2 with the Trick Shot Showdown, when the contestants had to shoot with both hands.  Besides, if you have confidence in shooting with your weak hand, you can pretty much do anything.

I'm good with my pistol weak-handed.  Slow, but good.  It took a lot of practice, but I like having the confidence that I can do it if I have to.  Honestly, it's a ton of fun to do, too.

One of my "boys" - one of my original shooting buddies - has stepped up to the plate and offered up his time and energy to help me out.  Mez and I have put a lot of lead down range together.  If I make it through the casting process, it will be because I've got a whole slew of people who believe in me and who are willing to help me out.

Before Saturday, I had never shot a long gun weak-handed, but I was determined to do so.  I was also determined to shoot offhand, as it's the most unstable and therefore most difficult position to shoot from.  I headed to the range with RockCrawlinChef (and his family) to meet Mez immediately after I finished a killer workout.  I'll call it a win that I could hoist Mez's 9.5# with my jello arms.

Here's the AR15 footage.  I shoot it like I shoot my pistol weak-handed - slow.



I'm surprised that my shaking arms weren't visible, but then even the slightest movement looks enormous when you're sighting down a barrel.

By comparison, the .45-70 was light-weight.  What a rush shooting that was!  I shot the shit outta that gun weak-handed.  However, you'll see in the video that my core was weak and the recoil pushed me around more than it should have.



 The Little Bastard...Gymnastics Boy...El Poquito Diablo, as my trainer now likes to be called, will be so disappointed in my lack of core strength.  Guess it's time for more Bosu work. I'll be buying one within a week to practice shooting from.  The next time I shoot this .45-70, it won't knock me around so much.

I had an issue while shooting my 870 weak-handed; I'm so used to racking the slide with my left hand that I'd fire, then try to move the pistol grip backward before I realized that I had to work the action with my right hand.  The tactical 870 that I built for myself had a mercury recoil system that I put in and it weighed 12.5#, so the recoil - even from shooting heavy slugs - was minimal.  I have yet to modify this shotgun and I'd gotten spoiled shooting one with next to no recoil.  This new one kicks like a damn mule.  The thing about shotgunning is that if you're not on your gun like you're supposed to be, it will tell you about it - often painfully.

I have just a couple of seconds of video of strong-hand shooting my 870, but I'm going to share it anyway because I *love* shooting my shotgun (even with the resulting mule kick).



I didn't get video of all of the guns I shot on Saturday, mostly because everyone else was shooting too!  But here's a list of what I shot:

• Lever action rifle (.45-70) - my bad, I don't remember the make/model
• Long barrel AR-15 (.223)
• Remington 870 (12ga)
• Remington 700 (.223) - shot from prone just because I could; strong-hand only because the eye relief for my weak-hand was completely wrong, but I tried.
• Glock (9mm)
• Double action revolver (.38) - again, don't remember the make/model
• Ruger Super Blackhawk (.44 mag) - strong-hand only; forgot to trade hands

I think that's a pretty complete list of my three hours of playing with the bangsticks.  By the time we were done, not only were my arms completely toast, but my upper abs were en fuego.  Maybe an hour at Body Bootcamp before three hours of shooting was a bit of overkill.  But I'll do it again next week!

Magazine Practice

Yesterday was the day I'd planned on working on my magazine changes and, oh boy, did I need the practice.

Tara was kind enough to film my practice.  I almost didn't post this because it's so ugly.  But, you know, things just don't always go right and you just need to work through them. 

With a match coming up tomorrow, I know that I need all of the magazine changing practice I can get between now and 9:30 am.  I loaded each magazine with just one round (cartridge, if you read Thursday's post), fired the round and changed the magazine over and over again.  One of my magazines did not like only one round, which caused me some fits, but I worked through it as well as I could.  You'll also notice that I initially tried to retain my magazines, which is how I was trained, but then gave up and started dumping them on the ground.  Trust me, it's a conscious effort to allow my magazines to hit the ground - I never just dump my magazines on the ground.  Ever.




What surprised me the most was that I was concentrating so hard on my magazine changes that I wasn't really paying attention to my target.  What a pleasant surprise this was...

I threw one round to the right, but am pretty darn pleased with the rest :)