Five years

I did not support entering into Iraq. I did not believe that Saddam had weapons of mass destruction. I did not believe that he was partying with Osama.

Now that you are through cussin' me out read on.

Today I am of the opinion that the only course for the U.S. is to win in Iraq. To win that means that all forms of terrorism there must be crushed. If that means turning Tehran into a glass crater, well, better there than Jerusalem.

This war is not Vietnam. The Vietnamese were and have not followed us back to attack us. The powers that keep up the fighting in Iraq have already visited destruction on our own shores and will do so again if they win in Iraq.

I support using any and all means necessary to win this war. If that means a draft then Uncle Sam knows where to find an RN who can also shoot and salute. I'm many years older than when I had U.S. Army stamped on my chest but I'm also trained to give medications, change bandages and other valuable skills. I don't have to be able to run fast to patrol a ward full of wounded.

I say this because we face an enemy more lethal than any we have ever faced before. Time was distance was our ally. We found out that distance has shrank a great deal back in 2001.

We must become the sort of nation we never were. Hardened to war. We face an enemy with no head so we must kill all the tentacles. We must burn them out when and where we find them. We must not let sentiment or sympathy stay our hand. Our enemy uses that to weaken us so he may strike when our backs are turned.

We must win in Iraq to give our nation time to wake up. To throw off the lazy dream of "liberalism" like a too heavy comforter and face the cold dawn.

If we do not win in Iraq and we do not throw off that too heavy comforter it will become our burial shroud.

Grip A Glock

It was well over a year ago that I first fired a Glock. It was a 2nd gen with a home-stippled grip frame lent by a guy I got a short course from. I had other guns but wanted to see what all the Glockenfuss was about.

I wasn't too impressed by the feel of the gun but when the instructor popped the slide off of his G 35 and I saw how sweet and simple the engineering was I got hooked. I'm a sucker for good engineering.

It wasn't until later that I heard from another guy about how bad his hand got bitten by Glocks when he was doing IPSC competition. Silly me. I'd drawn that G 19 many times, blew 250 rounds of ammo and failed to get slide bite.

Well, hearing about it sort of cursed me. I did get slide bite from Glocks mostly because I was fearing it. I wasn't even drawing the gun from holster so why I should get bitten must have been out of fear of it.

I let my slide bite heal and then went back to the Glocks. Between last weekend and this one I've fired 200+ rounds out of my G 23 doing grabs from the holster, both from a Blackhawk CQC and a Galco Combat Master.

No slide bite.

Draw, fire, holster. Draw, fire, holster. Draw, fire, fire, fire, holster. Over and over and not once did I get bitten. Well, a light nibble when I shifted to my left hand. More because I haven't been working on training that hand to grip as much as I should.

I haven't stippled this G 23's grip. It's 3rd gen and I haven't even ground off the silly finger spacers.

No Glock Finger. No slide bite.

So much for the fears. Now to work on the real issues.

Glock Like a Man

This morning I got to the range early. This let me get a pistol berm and also allowed me to go pick up a box full of clay "birds" from the trap shoot range. Once sent down range the range personnel don't care enough to pick them up again.

At the berm there were some partial birds already laying on the backstop so I used those for hip shooting.

The G 23 can put a round into the general vicinity of where you are looking when drawn from the holster. I'm talking within 4". I'm still hitting "high" on hip shooting but I expect practice to bring that down. The draw-to-hip-shoot exercises were never left or right of what I was focused upon.

Movement is still a bugaboo. When I switched to firing at an ICE-QT my misses were present, failing to even nick the cartoon thug 8-10 of the rounds I fired. I even managed to miss the cardboard sheet the target was stapled to once. It pegged into my wooden target stand.

If anyone wants to know why you don't want to use FMJ for wet work shoot the bullet into a 2x2. The hole shows almost no deformity except for the splinters on the rear as the bullet flies out. The hole stays a uniform shape.

If it will go through 2" of pine it won't have any problems passing through muscle fat and most organs and exiting the other side ready to penetrate someone else.

FAL ammo testing

Out to the range today.

First came re-sighting in one of my 10/22 rifles. A fall had knocked the scope loose.

I did a lot of off-hand shooting but didn't photograph the targets. I'm shooting off-hand from the Marlin 39AS and two modified 10/22s. I don't feel guilty about off-hand shooting at 25 yards so long as I stick to small targets.

I didn't get a chance to shoot my pistol today as the handgun berms were occupied with a 3-gun shoot.

I did get a chance to test out the ammo I recently picked up for the FAL. This is Lake City 7.62x51. I fired the target on the left with that ammo from a bench using front rest and rear. Distance was 100 yards. The target on the right was an equal number of shots from some Australian ammo that the guy next to me had brought. It wasn't serving him well. He had a Sako tactical rifle. The Lake City shot better for him.

The weather was good today, not too windy. Hope to have more fun tomorrow.

Gone Glockin'

After firing off the 7.62 I'd brought to the range I moved over to a pistol berm and used the same target to take rounds from my G 23.

Yes. I've turned into a Glockhead.

Today's practice was useful because I didn't have to stand still. I could even draw from the holster with live ammo in the pistol. Those were both forbidden at the indoor range.

I practiced drawing to fire one handed, transition to two handed and moving backwards/to the side of the target.

Light flannel shirts are not the easiest to get out of your way when you are drawing from concealement.

Lessons better learned in practice than in crisis.

FAL O' Mine

I had the FAL out to the range again today. I'd had it there at least once since my first post about this rifle.

Most of the snow has melted so bullet impacts are mostly just splats into mud.

There was not much wind today. I keep forgetting to bring the wind meter that I picked up with me. I just know it wasn't as hard or as steady as it was the last time I was firing.

The ammo today was some FMJ milsurp I picked up at a gun shop.

I had purchased 6 used mags from someone months ago and they had sat here not being used. Last Sunday I sat and took them apart, cleaning them while watching that silly Lost Tomb thing.

All 6 functioned for me just fine today. I had stuck up an 8" Orange Peel on cardboard 100 yards downrange. It really wasn't too difficult to keep all the rounds in that 8" off the bench with the 3-9x scope cranked up.

I've used up everthing but 100 rounds of Match .308 so I have picked up 1,000 of what was sold to me as Lake City. We'll see how that does next time I'm at the range.

I will want to test the iron sights for shorter ranges, too. See if I can get it set for 50 yards. I can't trust my eyes without magnification past that range.

Lever Action

I finally gave in to the urge to try lever action. Failing to find a good deal so far for a centerfire I took a chance on a used Marlin 39.

Yes, just .22 rimfire. It will get me trained in working the lever, though, for when I do obtain a centerfire lever action rifle.

I got to the range today after work and set about testing ammo. The good news is that this rifle doesn't seem to care for high-end Federal, although it was best with Wolf Match Target. I've yet to see anything that doesn't like Wolf MT. Too bad it costs so much.

The runners up were CCI Blazer solids and Aguila subsonic. I didn't have any standard velocity to test. The CCI Blazers are at 13 a brick and one can usually get Aguila for not much more than that.

The Marlin will be a fun rifle to plink with.

FALlible

A new gun club and new ways to send lead flying. I finally got a chance with my FAL. It's been many a year since I fired a centerfire rifle.

The kick is there but so what? It's not hard.

It's kind of fun to be peering through the lens and seeing a mini-geyser of mud and snow erupt behind the target.

Accuracy so far has been mediocore at best. That could be the ammo and the shooter. I'll enjoy finding out more about what this rifle can do at 100 and 200 yards. More later, when I can find a range that has more.

I'd post the targets but after I got done with poking 7.62 holes in them I carried them over to the pistol berm and put some .40 through them. Waste not, want not.

Further down the spiral

Zimbabwe threatens white farmers

'OHANNESBURG, South Africa - Zimbabwe's national security minister has told the country's last remaining white farmers that they will be jailed if they refuse to abide by a deadline that passed over the weekend for them to leave their farms, according to a newspaper report on Monday.

The official Chronicle newspaper quoted the minister Didymus Mutasa as saying police would be "unleashed" to deal with white farmers who ignored the eviction notice.

"Those farmers who do not comply with the orders to vacate the land will be dealt with severely," said the minister, known to be close to President Robert Mugabe. The deadline was on Saturday'

No compensation is mentioned in this story. People just told to get out so black "farmers" can move in.

Why do I put the quotes on black "farmers"?

'Zimbabwe is suffering its worst economic crisis since independence, with acute shortages of hard currency, food, gasoline, medicines and essential imports. The meltdown is blamed largely on disruptions to the agriculture-based economy after the often violent seizures of thousands of white-owned commercial farms began in 2000.'

Doesn't sound to me like the black "farmers" moving onto the farms taken from whites know how to make food grow.

'There were around 4,500 white commercial farmers in Zimbabwe in 2000, when Mugabe launched the program of land seizures that has seen agricultural production plummet. Now only around 400 white farmers remain — and at least 150 of them were handed eviction letters in December giving them just 45 days to leave their land to make way for new black farmers.'

The obvious cure to a bad policy? More of the same bad policy, apparently. Note that the agricultural production has plummeted. How in the name of whatever they hold holy do they expect to feed people?

'Mugabe says land reform was necessary to correct colonial-era imbalances in ownership. The longtime Zimbabwean leader blames the more-than-40-percent drop in production on repeated drought and Western sanctions.'

Okay, so to correct the land grab by Euorpeans a hundred or more years ago the CITIZENS of Zimbabwe who happen to be WHITE are being evicted. They, just like the black citizens were born there. They didn't do the land grabbing, they just happened to be born white in a majority black country.

Are those "Western santions" because Mugabe is mean to whites? More like he's mean to anyone who isn't Mugabe, like all dictators.

'The U.S. State Department last year put Zimbabwe on a list of six countries where restrictions on rights were particularly severe, along with China, Cuba, Iran, Myanmar and North Korea.'

So, what sort of production did Zimbabwe have before Mugabe?

'Once known as the breadbasket of southern Africa, Zimbabwe has seen its status reduced to an importer of its staple maize crop since land reforms were launched.'

'U.N. agencies estimate that about 4 million people are in need of food aid in Zimbabwe.'

From breadbasket to beggar bowl in less than a decade. That's possibly a record for bad leadership.

This post isn't about being black or white. It's about policies based solely upon whether someone is black or white. Taking people who were born in your own country and dispossessing them of their way of life based upon the color of their skin is wrong. Replacing them with people who don't know how to be as productive is stupid.

Mugabe could have used the tax revenues from being an exporter of food to educate his black citizens. Train them to be doctors, lawyers, nurses, teachers, accountants, engineers and everything else. Just throwing them onto land they can't work effectively is a stupid, useless and deadly mistake. Soon those who wanted to be farmers would buy the farms from the white citizens. The rising tide would float all boats.

Instead Mugabe has sunk their ship.

Too Important To Ignore

Up until now I've kept CZ the day on the topic of firearms.

I'm not going to be breaking any news but rather than consign my thoughts on this story to comments on other blogs I wanted to post them here.

This original story begins at Talisman Gate. It is further explored at Hot Air, complete with video so simple even a liberal can understand it.

This is the story of a CBS reporter using footage that Al Qaeda claims as it's own. There is no mistake. Watch the video and you will see that the footage was shot by the same camera.

The footage did not air on network television. Instead it was orignally relegated to extra content on CBS News' web site. The reporter, Lara Logan, began a campaign to get the footage aired. She was the one who called this story "too important to ignore." She has spoken the truth, but not for the reasons she meant.

It is too important to ignore that a member of the U.S. press would accept any video shot by Al Qaeda as being from a reliable source. It is too important to ignore that she would try to conceal the source for the video. It is too important to ignore that she would include with this footage a masked person claiming that the battle was the fault of the United States.

The United States did not attack New York and Washington on September 11, 2001. That was Al Qaeda. I don't care whether Al Qaeda was in Iraq prior to the U.S. invasion. The fact is that they are there now and we can not afford to give up that fight on that battlefield.

CBS needs to decide which side they are going to be on in this fight. Either they are with the United States or they are with Al Qaeda. Having the enemy supply your reportage isn't truth. It isn't fairness. It isn't the way one wins a war.

You won't see 60 Minutes shoving microphones into Lara Logan's face asking her where this footage came from. You won't see Katie Couric doing an expose on how their reporter was acting with deliberate treason. The disgusting thing is you won't see the other networks tearing down CBS for this, either

Fist-Fire 4

My last Sunday morning at the gun club for a bit. My new job has me working Sunday mornings.

After my success with the Fist-Fire grip I found myself falling out of form. The support shoulder HAS to be hunched or the wrist lock will not work. It was easy to tell that something was amiss. My sights didn't snap back onto target.

Time to study the rest of the information as I work to get muscle memory of the proper form so I don't drop out of it in the future.

Fist-Fire Attempt 3

I finally figured out what I was doing wrong. Trying too hard.

I don't think I need to go into what I was doing wrong more than that. It occured to me in studying the illustrations that I had read too much into the roll over wrist lock. It was much more simple.

My firing today was, I think, a lot closer to Fist-Fire. Every shot with this technique brought the sights back into alignment. At one point I noticed that my sights were back on target before I heard the spent casing hit the floor.

I ran through several different 9mm for a box of 50 then switched to .40 S&W for another box of various makes and models. Even my XDSC .40 behaved. I did torque one of the 5 rounds off to the left but that's a big improvement for that pistol. 1 round out of 5 an inch to the left at 25 feet. Used to be 5 rounds 5 inches to the left of point of aim at that range.

This was still sighted fire. I haven't begun to experiment with the more advanced concepts. The basic building block of this system is in the grip and support hand.

Tomorrow I'm taking a basic NRA class. The instructor is a former SWAT instructor. I would prefer to take his intermediate course but that's not available until March and I want to get my CCW paperwork in. Better a very basic class I probably don't need and a CCW in my hands in April than paperwork for the CCW turned in by April.

Fist-Fire attempt 2

I got some range time in today.

I think I was close to getting the rollover wristlock right once, but I can't claim more than that. This is a crucial element for aimed fire and I haven't gotten it, yet.

Fist Fire attempt 1 - Impressions

I took my faithful and trusted CZ 75 with the Kadet Kit to my range this morning. We had our 5 th straight weekend of snow falling but I slip and slid and skidded my way to the range anyway.

For much of the past month and a half I've been working on my one-handed bullseye form. I haven't given up on bullseye but I've signed up for a CCW class on the same day as the next 2700 match so I will not be competing for another month.

I've also returned to going to the gym lately and just started a new phase to my program. Friday's workout was upper body and I was working it. It's not unusual for me to have day-after muscle soreness but I really blasted my upper body and have a second day's worth of chest, shoulder, arm and back soreness. I really felt it when trying the support hand wrist lock.

I now know why the "reverse Weaver" is the term for this. You can not get your wrist lock in position with the gun-hand elbow locked. You can have both bent, for "guard" or both partially extended for "partial" but full extension is support arm locked out and gun-arm bent.

I'm sure I still have a lot more to learn about this position before I can even think I'm close to doing it right but, yes, it DOES help reduce muzzle flip and gets your gun indexed for another well placed shot faster than what I had been doing. You don't need to try and squeeze the gun between the hands, either. The wrist lock acts to reduce muzzle flip by working at the other end of the 'lever'. The soft webbing of your hand absorbs more energy, too, than trying to line up the hand/wrist/arm bones when you properly index the gun in the firing hand.

Prior to this I would consider what I did a "shallow" grip. The backstrap was normally on or close to the bones of my thumb. Only recently in bullseye shooting with my S&W 41 had I worked into a deeper grip. Middlebrooks' use of indexing with the second finger is a key component to achieving a proper grip.

A side benefit of using this "deeper" grip is that my long fingers don't try to wrap through and around the trigger. The finger is better positioned to use the tip to activate the trigger which will help with trigger torque.

One aspect occured to me. It seemed to me that the steeper grip angle of a Glock would work better for someone learning Fist Fire. It's not required as Middlebrooks is shooting a Witness in DVD 1. There was another club member with a G17 and I held that with Fist Fire indexing and it felt better to me than the CZ 75 or the other two guns I fired, an XD Service 40 and a 1911 clone in .45 ACP.

I plan to get my G 17L and 23 out for the next test fire.

Free Wayne Fincher!

I am taking a break from my ongoing Fist Fire posts to announce that CZ the Day is joining the Free Wayne Webring.

The following is the Inclusion statement of the Free Wayne Webring.

Free Wayne Webring Inclusion Statement:

We support the right of all peaceable people to keep and bear arms. Your age, race, sex, religion, political party, sexual orientation, or national origin are of no concern to us. Anyone who requires you to disarm is not your friend, and not our friend. Only when all peaceable citizens can freely exercise their inalienable right to self defense, and their right to keep and bear arms, will we attain the ultimate safeguard for our mutual protection, as individuals, as members of a community, and as citizens of the Republic. The right to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness extends to all human beings, and all who support the right to keep and bear arms are welcome here, period.

Update:
1/22/07 0014 hours
I went to the Webring website just now and found that I'm one of twenty. I look forward to that list growing in the days to come.

Fist Fire DVD 2 "How We Do What We Do"

This is the meat of 'how-to' as far as available DVDs from Tactical Shooting Academy.

Middlebrooks is back with a lesson in the history of handgun holds from someone who was there to see it. Why is this important? It's important to disucss the evolution of Fist Fire. Fits has mentioned on his blog about the "reverse Weaver" and this introduction teaches where this is coming from.

Instruction begins with lessons in physics, the strong hand grip, and intruction of the offhand wrist lock. From what I've seen here Middlebrooks has put a LOT more thought into this than other instructors I've read/seen/been taught in person.

The second DVD in this series is much more a "how-to" than the first and as such contains elements that the viewer can practice. Rather than continue this review I think I need to pause and attempt to internalize some of the lessons learned so far on grip and wrist lock as these are a departure from what I do right now.

Good thing I'm going shooting tomorrow.

Tactical Shooting Academy's Fist Fire DVD 1

Recently Fits over at Shooting the Messenger had posted a link to a video trailer for Tactical Shooting Academy's Fist Fire DVDs.

The system looked very interesting. Using a pistol with the sights taken off D. R. Middlebrooks
showed how he was able to engage multiple reactive targets accurately at speed.

After watching that trailer and some others on Google Video from Tactical Shooting Academy I wanted to see what all the hub-bub was. I placed my order for both DVDs and the book.

Let me say first and foremost, the shipping was rapid. Let me say secondly that at no point in this blog will I try to teach what Fist Fire is. If you want to learn how to shoot yourself this guy is your role model and the only instructor I recommend for that training.

The first video “What we do and why we do it" is an introduction to what Fist Fire has to offer. Shooting from "Guard", "Partial Extension", and "Full Extension" are demonstrated to show that combat accuracy can be attained without resorting to the use of sights. Using the same gun with repeated zoom-ins to show that sights have not been introduced to the gun the demonstration continues engaging at ranges of 25, 50, 75 and 100 yards with combat accuracy.

You get to watch Middlebrooks and his wife execute very impressive shooting on multiple targets, moving targets and even while walking backwards on moving targets. They repeatedly demonstrate that the gun they are using has no sights.

The actual grip used is discussed, a little in the early part of the first DVD but without going into great detail.

Next Middlebrooks demonstrates his "Moon Walk", his method of moving backwards. This is a bit different from other methods I've read or seen demonstrated. What is somewhat impressive is seeing him engaging targets while moving backwards over obstacles that happen to be on his range (2x4 shooting box frames, for instance).

I am left with no doubt that this method of shooting is effective.

From movement to reloading. Middlebrooks has again re-thought Old School with an eye toward what happens on the street. He has some very good points and talks about how his developments in this respect have assisted him in winning in competition. His slide release is part of a combination move that re-indexes the pistol in the hand as opposed to a sling-shot move.

Using the Fist Fire technique with Carbine and with a flashlight are discussed. The Sentry position is demonstrated and the Tactical Shooting Association is discussed.

Will you learn how to do Fist Fire with this DVD? No, not with this DVD alone. This DVD will show what Fist Fire is and why you would want to learn it, just as the title promises.

An Example

Okay, so now I have an example of what I'm shooting like at 50' with the 41.

This was shot using some of the last 2 bricks I have of Winchester T22. As you probably know you can't get this round any more. It was good and it was cheap so naturally it had to be eliminated from production!

I'm sure no one is threatened by this sort of shooting except people who don't like private citizens owning weapons at all.

Bullseye!

After many months of concentrating on firing from a two handed stance I've taken an interest in bullseye shooting.

Yes, I know. It's about as far from defensive shooting as you are going to get and still have a gun in your hand. It's slow. Methodical. It uses loads that are likely to stop before penetrating all the pages of a copy of The American Rifleman.

And it's FUN!

Or at least it is when you have an accurate gun that works for you. I'd picked up several pistols that didn't suit me for shooting this way. The Ruger Mk III Hunter, the Beretta U22 NEOS were two such. Long barrels, yes, but I couldn't hold them well enough to group very well.

A friend from my gun club had always remarked "you know you are going to do it so you should just go and get a Smith & Wesson 41 and be done with it!"

Last month one got posted to one of the local classifieds I check regularly and it was priced very reasonably. I e-mailed for contact and before I knew it I was drawing cash from the bank and driving to meet the seller.

I have had NO reason to regret it. My regret is not doing this in the first place. Even one of the newer ones would have been better than my attempts to make the other pistols work for me.

As it turns out I have a low-round count 70's vintage 41 with a wonderful trigger that functions very, very well. Today I sold the Ruger and the Beretta to the guy who sold me the 41. I'm firing the 41 at 41 feet and keeping almost all the rounds in the 5.5" Orange Peel circle. That's WAY better than I was doing with the Ruger or Beretta.

Hope to have some images of my pistol and its work later on this week.

Targets and Target Repair

I'm guilty.

I'm guilty of buying loads and loads of targets, shooting a generous number of holes in them, then tossing them and putting up a new one.

I'm less guilty, now.

Viewing some of my posts you'll note the use of self-adhesive Shoot N C or Orange Peel targets on cardboard. The cardboard comes from my workplace where they have to pay to have it hauled away as trash so no one cares how much I take away.

I have purchased more formal targets, though. I have some of the ICE-QT targets and I purchased a few silhouette targets. I had not previously learned to use tape to repair these, but now I am. A 1" wide roll of cheap masking tape can prolong the shooting life of a target.

So, I am guilty, but I'm working to reduce my guilt and my expenses. The better to have more money available for ammo, guns and gunsmithing.

Speaking of gunsmithing I just picked up several of my pistols which had been at the gunsmith for an "action job". While this is more about the trigger than the actual performance I highly recommend having a competent gunsmith work on your pistols. Maybe you are adept enough with tools to do a good and safe job but not everyone is.

The work done has greatly improved the trigger on all of my CZs. While none are as good as the trigger on my Witness Stock (which had been done by another gunsmith) the internals of a CZ are different from those on a Witness/Tanfoglio. The pay-off is tighter groups.

I finally got some professional help with another issue I had. I mentioned that kept having problems with my XD SC shooting left to a club member whom I knew carried an XD. I took a look at the way I hold that pistol and diagnosed the problem right away. Too much trigger finger.

I had been using the joint of my finger instead of the pad and because of the shape of the grip and the weight of the XD's trigger I was pulling the gun with my trigger finger.

Shooting the little pistol with just the pad of my trigger finger brought the rounds back to center line with my point of aim.

I'll need to practice this method more, I think so I use it consistently with all my pistols. It could improve my group sizes on all of them or at worst not make the groups any larger.