Memes: If you haven't been following Triangle Tactical on social media, you've been missing out on all the shooting sports memes that I've been making. Carry Rig: I picked up a new carry rig. I've been rocking a Glock 19 for the longest time but I found myself wanting something smaller while doing dad stuff. The G19 was just getting too heavy and big while carrying the baby carrier, diaper bag, and everything else that goes along with having a little tyke. So, I picked up a Glock 43, and a RCS Morrigan holster to go with it. I'm a big fan. USPSA: New rulebook looks decent, and there's one thing in it that I really like: this USPSA approved ammo vendor program thing.  

Triumphant Return

This is the last episode for a while. I'm taking the summer off to get used to life with our new baby, planning to come back with Triangle Tactical Podcast "Season 2" around August or Septemberish. See you then, carry on.

Well... Bye

This week I talk about some RO stuff, after reading about a DQ online that the RO may have not helped. Also, we've got a few First Match voicemails that are FANTASTIC.

Range Officer Stuff

This week I talk about cheating in the shooting sports, and what to do ab out it.

Cheating Cheaters who Cheat

This is the 6 year anniversary episode of the Triangle Tactical Podcast! To celebrate we're going live and answering what is probably the best batch of questions I've had for a Q&A show ever.

6 Year Anniversary Q&A LIVE!

I've become interested in hearing from people who are the best in the world in other sports recently, so I've been actively seeking out podcasts with people who are the best of the best in what they do.  I kept hearing references to an interview Joe Rogan did with an ultramarathoner named Courtney Dauwalter on his podcast. She won a race called the Moab 240, which is a 238 mile foot race through Moab Utah. She won the overall by something ridiculious like 11 hours or something. Later in the interview, Joe asks her about nutrition, and much to my surprise, she doesn't have a crazy diet, she said that she eats nachos, candy, and beer. She's a total outlier. It's amazing, but just because she does it, doesn't mean that I can keep eating nachos, candy, and beer and do what she does. The same goes for shooting. There might be someone who is REALLY good that doesn't practice like crazy, but they aren't you.

Outliers

This week Jeff from NC Shooters Supply is on the podcast answering your reloading questions. We had a lot of y'all submit questions, so first and foremost thank you for sending them in! There's a TON of information in this episode, but please feel free to put any more questions you may have in the comments, and we'll get them answered in the future.

Jeff Wallace Answers Your Reloading Questions

This week I had a local Production Master Travis Beal come on the podcast. Travis and I used to be close to the same level, and then all the sudden he rocketed past me and started really killing it as a shooter. As it stands now, he's going to become a Grand Master any time, and it's all because of the change of mindset he had after getting disqualified at a major match.

How Travis Beal Got Good at Shooting

Chris asked on the Facebook group about competitive equity at matches: Ports - all ports being the same high or low height. Should they be mixed height? I'm taller than most shooters. Not the tallest guy on the range, but above average. Personally I don't have a problem with MD's mixing up the height of ports, as long as they aren't going too crazy with it. Tall shooters can get low, but short shooters can't get higher. I think there's a size and height of port that can work for every shooter, and then it's totally kosher to add in something like a low port here and there. I like low ports, mostly because I like to hear people grumble about them, and also because I like to see people really get tested on their prone handgun shooting skills, which is something that nobody practices, and a lot of people struggle with. Walking stages - should stages be open the day before for people that can travel? I had to ponder this one for a little bit, and while it's not completely fair that someone could walk the match the day before, and someone else couldn't, as long as the the range is open for everyone to have the opportunity to walk the match, I'm pretty much okay with it. Because if we close the stages off completely to everyone until match day, do the match staff that helped setup the match not have an advantage over everyone else? My thing is this: If the range is open to everyone to walk stages the day before, and you just can't get an early flight in to the match, that's not the concern of the match, that's your problem. What about Match Directors who setup stages that will be used at a future major match, at a local match ahead of time? Setting up exact stages seems shady. I haven't seen that before, at least that I can think of. However when the Carolina Cup was still the big IDPA match in my area every June, if you were to shoot at that range in the few months leading up to the match, you could definitely tell that the match director was working on different things to get ready for the match. Things like tweaking the speed of moving targets, engagement orders, different props, etc, but I don't think he really ever setup entire stages for everyone to shoot ahead of the match. Personally, the big competitive equity thing that I see is pepper poppers screwing people over. If I were king of the shooting sports, the first thing I would change would be to treat poppers the same as falling steel. If it's hit and doesn't fall, that should be a stage equipment malfunction, and the the shooter should get a re-shoot. Plug of the Week: Watch this episode of This Week Tonight, and tell me what you think about the messaging that they're countering. Is this the sort of messaging the pro-gun people should be putting out there?

Competitive Equity

I mentioned a theory on the podcast a couple weeks ago about how I expected that higher class shooters would probably pull away from lower class shooters on the shorter stages moreso than the longer stages, but gthat it was just a theory because I didn't want to do the math. Well, I got an email from Louis, and he pulled the data from the different stages at the 2017 Production Nationals and... I was totally wrong.  Louis broke down the stages from Nationals, then charted the median percentage by round count on a chart and it turns out that the median finish from each classification was about the same on all the different round count stages. Louis has been pulling the numbers on some other things with classifications and whatnot and if you want to see them, look in the shownotes for this episode and I'll have a link to his github page with the deets:  https://lstange.github.io/uspsa/classification_vs_performance.html (By the way, if you didn't know this, you *should* be able to access all the links and stuff from the podcast shownotes in whatever podcast app you're using. I always tell you to go to triangletactical.net/280 or whatever, that's unnecessary for most of you, all the links should be right in your podcast app in the shownotes for this episode). Why do people quit shooting? Trying to think of people who I know who have actually just quit, vs those who have just not been to a match in a while for one reason or another, but have every intention to shoot again. I've "quit" twice over the years. - Ammo crunch after the 2012 Obama Election - Hardcore burnout after ROing way too much So, I emailed everyone on the Triangle Tactical email list and asked them if they've ever quit shooting, and why. I got a bunch of answers that are pretty wide ranging. (BTW, this is what I like to use the email list for, so if you're not on it, get on it!) Interestingly, a bunch of people emailed me back and mentioned that cost probably makes some people quit, but nobody specifically emailed me back and said that they've quit because of cost. Joe mentioned that he's in Michigan and the winters shut down most of the matches up there. Jason and Khan mentioned time away from family. Some matches take a LONG time to get through, so I can see that. With a baby on the way, balancing matches and practice and family time is going to be something I need to put more emphasis on going forward. Several folks mentioned jobs. Either job loss, or new jobs, or jobs taking up way too much time on the weekends. Aaron actually said that he quit a job because his days off were only during the week and he had to work every weekend so he changed it up to get his weekends off. Quitting because the match near you isn't challenging. Aaron mentioned that quit because a local match jsut wasn't pushing him the way it needed to, took some time off and came back as a USPSA shooter where he's being challenged a lot more, and that's making things better for him. Boring clubs. James mentioned

Why do people quit shooting?

5x5 Classifier Seems like the 5x5 classifier is causing some issues at IDPA matches. Something I hadn't thought of, but each shooter is putting 20 scored holes in the target with that drill, and that is a lot, especially with a bunch of shooters. Not sure how I feel about this. In USPSA rule 4.2.3 Paper targets must never be required to receive more than 12 hits before being scored and patched. I think that's a decent rule, because we get so used to only scoring 2 hits on the paper. Setting aside the idea of the shooters getting too used to only shooting 2 rounds only at targets, thinking only about scoring. We get too used to scoring the two best hits on a target. I've done it before on a stage that required more than 2 hits where I just went into default mode and scored the two best hits and ignored the others, and thankfully we had Practiscore to tell me that we hadn't scored enough hits on the target.  The other issue is that when you're shooting that many shots at one target, and then trying to score every one of them, it gets crowded. Especially after like 10 other shooters have shot at at and it's got pasters stuck all over it, pasters starting to peel, etc.  I can see it becoming a tough thing to score if the target isn't replaced every so many shooters. Which, since it's a classifier, maybe that's the right answer.  Clarification from Last Week: Wanted to clarify something I started talking about last week. Video podcasting would be an awesome alternative to YouTube, HOWEVER were not at a place where bandwidth is viable for doing good quality, decent videos just yet. As I was writing the notes for this, I was downloading a couple audio podcasts on works wifi and it was taking several minutes to get there. Had they been multiple gigabyte video files, my phone would have just died. USPSA RO Exam: The USPSA RO renewal exam used to be 10 questions, but it sounds like they've changed it to 20 questions to make each question carry less weight so that hopefully more people will pass the exam. Personally, I didn't have any trouble with the renewal last year. Here's a tip: have the .PDF rulebook pulled up, and use the search function to find what you need. Then, download the .PDF to your phone so you have it at matches, and you can use the search function right on the range to find the relevant rule quickly. You don't even really need a paper rulebook anymore.  Mistakes experienced shooters make. 1. Not putting enough emphasis on live fire practice. I know a bunch of dudes who have been shooting for years who don't regularly live fire practice, or don't live fire practice in a place where they can actually get good practice for competitive shooting. For some reason, this has become a thing in the action shooting sports, but if we were to look at some of the other games, let's say long range PRS type stuff, I don't think anybody would expect to get good at those sorts of games without having a place to live fire regularly. 2. Sticking it out w

Mistakes Experienced Shooters Make

I've been dying from allergies all week so I didn't get much show-prep done, but I did get a bunch of good questions from the Triangle Tactical Podcast group that I answered on this weeks show.

Q&A: Questions from the Group

There was a recent question in the Triangle Tactical Facebook group asking about what sort of things a Range Officer should bring when working a match.  I thought I'd put together a list of things that are nice to have and make them into an episode. Coincidentally, most of the things on the list are also helpful to have around in your practice sessions as well, so even if you're not a range officer, you might pick up a couple ideas for your personal use. Pistol grip thing that snaps onto paint cans: If you’re working a stage that has a lot of steel, you’ll thank me. It makes a TON of difference in the ease of painting. Duct Tape: If you’re really concerned about competitive equity (which you should be at every match, but at least at Level 2 and up matches) you can allow the target sticks on swingers and drop turners to soak up a few more bullets on these targets if you wrap the sticks in duct tape before stapling the targets to them. Swingers and drop turners are more apt to get bullets in the sticks since they're moving around, so it's a good idea to give them a good wrap of duct tape before hanging the targets. Some sort of brass squib stick. Not because you’ll be hammering out peoples squibs, but because it’s nice to be able to check if the barrel of a gun is clear right on the bay. You don't have to buy an actual squib stick, a 5/16" brass rod from Amazon will do the trick nicely. Your own stapler. Get one that throws really long staples. I like the ½” ones. Long staples are helpful for situations when you have something like a no-shoot target stapled on top of a regular target. Shorter staples have trouble getting through that much cardboard and reaching the target sticks, and you end up with no-shoots falling off, and poor competitive equity. A 9V battery or two. Sucks to have to find the MD or the Quartermaster to try and get a new battery if the one in your assigned timer goes dead. Having a spare in your range bag keeps the match moving. Overlays. I always misplace them in my range bag, so I started keeping two of them in my wallet. Actually bought a new wallet yesterday and found 4 overlays in it when swapping everything over to the new one. If you’re able to whip them out nice and quick when a shooter asks, you’ll be favored over being the RO that has to yell up range asking if anybody knows where an overlay is. A tarp. Good for several things. I’ve seen ROs at majors who are working a stage that’s mostly stationary put a tarp on the ground to catch brass. When I was working the 2015 Nc USPSA Sectional we used my tarp to put a wall on the side of the shelter we were under to keep our stuff dry. Also worked great. Tools. Basic stuff like a phillips screwdriver and a flat head, as well as a crescent wrench big enough to adjust poppers at your club, etc. Personally, I wouldn’t bring my nice tools to a match, it’s too easy for someone to borrow them for another bay and forget to bring them back. Just make a trip t

Range Officers Toolkit

I had a very frustrating practice session at the range on Monday. I burned about 500 rounds just shooting a plate rack because it's been something that has been really killing me at matches recently. Here's what happened: I could kill the plate rack at 10 yards. Anywhere between 3.1 and 3.5 seconds, no misses, no problems. At 15 yards, I was an absolute mess. I'd hit the first plate, then start missing all over the place with no obvious reason why. Then, at 20 yards, I was actually shooting better than I was shooting at 15 yards. I burned a bunch of ammo at the 15y plate rack and it was just a crap show. What I noticed though, was that I didn't really need much of a sight picture to shoot the plate rack at 10y. A flash of the red fiber optic inside the rear notch, and I was sending the shot and getting a hit. At 15y, I obviously needed more than that, and I wasn't getting it. At 20y, my brain was making my trigger finger wait for the sights before sending the round. I did some thinking, and decided I'd take a full magazine and shoot it into the berm, only pulling the trigger when the sight picture was acceptable. Then I immediately reloaded with another magazine and I was able to shoot the plate rack well at 15y for a few runs, and then my problem would come back. So, I burned a ton of ammo, and I didn't totally solve my problem, but I think I at least have it sort of figured out. I've been dryfiring since leaving the range on Monday without pulling the trigger at all. All my dryfire this week has consisted of just acceptable sight pictures, and no trigger pulls, and things feel pretty good. I'm certain this is something I'll have to practice for a while, but I'm determined to not suck at shooting steel going forward...

Frustration

SERPA There was a post on the r/competitionshooting subreddit this last week from someone talking about how they were an IDPA match last weekend and a new shooter was drawing from his SERPA holster at the match and plugged himself with a round at the hip, which then travelled down to around his knee. I don’t really want to beat the SERPA horse anymore, but I’ll tell you that in my years of competition, I’ve seen 4 people AD while drawing their pistol, and all 4 were using a SERPA. Here's what happens: Buzzer goes off. Shooter attempts to draw the gun, but doesn't get the button pushed in all the way and the gun doesn't come out of the holster as expected. Shooter then jams the gun down into the holster, mashes the button super hard, and then rips it up out of the holster. Because the shooter is mashing the button super hard while ripping the gun upwards, the finger slips off the edge of the holster and hits the trigger. Sometimes the round discharges into the dirt, sometimes it hits the shooter. Cross draw Should be self explanatory, but maybe it’s not. You can’t really draw a cross draw holster without breaking the 180. Simple as that. Pocket holsters I’ve never heard of a match that would allow them.  Years ago actually, there was a "pocket carry" shooting league in my part of the country, and even in the pocket carry league, you couldn’t shoot from a pocket holster. I think it comes down to someone being able to put their hand on the gun where the RO can't see it.  Every BUG match I’ve ever been to, you start either holstered or at low ready, no pocket stuff. Gimmicky sights This is a frequent question from people who are interested in competition but don’t know anything about it. I had a guy ask me what type of ghost ring sights he should get for his pistol before his first match... You really want to have precision sights. I hear people talk about wanting to have a hig honking front sight that’s as bright as the sun so they can acquire it on the draw nice and fast, but… what about the rest of the shots in the stage? I get that it’s cool to hammer that fast draw, but it really is meaningless if you’re then hurting your performance on the rest of the shots that you have to take on the stage. The holster that came with your gun (generally) They’re usually super tight, and basically unusable. They get new shooters into trouble because when the holster is so tight, they end up reaching across their body, grabbing the holster with their weak hand to keep from giving themselves a wedgie, and then when they draw the gun they sweep their weak hand that’s holding the holster. Random Magazine pouches from the gun store. Don’t just go buy random mag pouches from the local gun store. They probably carry some selections from different brands that are probably more suited towards concealed carry or tacticoolness than actual competition use. Gear that Doesn't Suck: I tore open my Pocket Pro 2 shot timer this weekend because

Gear thats No Good for Competition Shooting

The USPSA Board of Directors announced some changes to several divisions in the BoD meeting notes from earlier this month, and in this episode I discuss the highlights and lowlights. I'd encourage you to go to the USPSA website, log-in, and actually read all of the changes. Far too many people have just been asking for the Cliffs Notes version of the new rules, instead of just reading the rules. Read. The. Rules.

Ch Ch Ch Changes!

Bryan What is a good age to start a junior shooter? A lot of it probably has to do with maturity/responsibility. Start them with a pellet gun, BB gun, .22? Bryan My practice range is an indoor range, and can be rather loud at times; what is great practice drill to do that does not require a shot timer? Mark Hello Lucas. Thank you for your show. You've helped me get started in competitive shooting. As a middle-aged guy, my biggest challenge is my eye sight. I only use glasses for reading and computer work. I don't wear prescription glasses otherwise which includes shooting. This means the front sight is always fuzzy. I shoot fairly accurately, but I know this is holding me back. I've tried some of my own junk science by shooting with my reading glasses. This brings the front sight into focus, but it makes the target fuzzier than before. I've only done this on a limited basis since my reading glasses aren't safety glasses. My results have been mixed. What do other shooters do to overcome this? Chris Are there any benefits to shooting 40 Minor for production or Carry Optics? Edd When shooting competition, where/how do the different bullet weights come into play? 9mm/.40 Steve what movement drills do you practice most in dry fire? Mike I've been reviewing my match and practice videos and I've noticed something in common, I can get the gun on target fast, but then it looks like I just leave the gun hanging there forever or at least a good second before actually pulling the trigger all the way through, I assume that I'm letting the sights settle. I am using a revolver so every shot is double action and am currently trying to improve my accuracy so I don't just want to push myself to go faster and blaze my way through. Any drills you would suggest for improving accuracy while maintaining speed beyond 10 yards. Thanks Trey What do you use to keep up with your reloads a journal or software? Marty On a recent episode I heard you briefly mention your head position when doing turn and drawers. I am assuming you have your head turned to the Direction that your body will be moving when you have made ready. I hadn’t put much thought into it before, I usually just look straight forward and then turn my head and body on the beep. Do you have any evidence that having your head pre-turned makes a difference? Maybe A future junk science episode? Thanks! Marty in Massachusetts. Sarah I just wanted to let you know I enjoyed hearing you briefly talk about 'Stage Design' this week on the podcast. Anytime you could give pointers on this topic would be great. For instance, when you have limited room to move within a bay, how to you create options? Is there a place where you can find LOTS of stages already designed (I have found random websites with a few stages listed). Also, any information you can give on creating a stage plan before shooting would be helpful too. I know in the past you have mentioned this, but for new shooters like myself, I find it very difficult to

Q&A: Is my Glock 19 holding me back? Heard any Production rumors?

Most folks out there can't afford to take a shooting class more than about once a year or so, and most people don't get instruction that much.  Previous podcast episode on coaching here. I hear a lot of people talk about how they struggled for years doing things incorrectly. How they then changed something in their practice and saw improvement. People talk about how boring dryfire is because they're doing the same crap over and over and over, day after day, month after month and they're not really seeing improvement either. I was listening to a small business podcast today where a lady was being interviewed about the small business that she runs where she brings together these women who run businesses into these Mastermind groups. They pay her to be part of a group, and as part of the group they all counsel and support each other in their businesses with regular conference calls, etc. This got me thinking about the shooting sports. Why couldn't there be some sort of group coaching for shooters looking to improve their game? Check this out: It's 2018. There's a lot of technology out there today that allows for small groups of people to fire up a web cam, share files, and conference with each other that we simply couldn't do a few years ago. I'd like to see shooters get together with 3 or 4 other shooters that are like minded and similarly motivated and jump on Skype or Hangouts once a month or every other week and talk to each other about what's going on in there shooting. What's going well? What sucks? What feels like it sucks? I think that if people are honest with each other, that type of group coaching could prove to be really valuable for a lot of folks who are highly motivated, but aren't able to get instruction more than once a year or so. Connecting over the internet, watching each other's match video, or maybe even just the highlight and lowlight stages from each other's video and discussing it could prove valuable. I could be wrong, but I think having similar skill levels, and similar motivations would be really important. You don't want a situation where there's 3 C and B class shooters and a GM, because the GM probably isn't going to get a lot from the group, but will end up probably giving most of the advice. Plug of the week:  Firearms Nation with USPSA President Mike Foley

How About Group Coaching?

Last week when I was on the range doing all the shooting for last weeks Junk Science show I noticed something that I’d never noticed before. When I was doing the step into the box draws, I could reliably shave a tenth of a second when I put my focus on the draw stroke, and not the step. If I just let the step happen, and put my focus on the draw, a pretty average draw was about .95, .96, .97, something like that. However, when I focused on the step, and let the draw stroke just happen, the time went up to about 1.06 or so. I’ve subscribed to the “get bored while you practice thing” and get in a lot of repetitions thing for a long time, but I kind of wonder how much better I’d be now, or how much more I’d enjoy practice if I were really focusing on things, and not allowing myself to get bored. Doing the shooting for last weeks show, I couldn’t allow myself to get bored. I had to keep focus. I didn’t get bored, and I actually got to where I could feel it when I’d shot a draw that was sub .9, and sub 1 second, and when I was greater than a second, it felt SLOW. Being able to perceive that sort of difference between different draws, when I’m human, was really interesting to me, but if I weren’t totally focused, they would have all felt relatively the same. Q&A: Drew:  Hi Lucas. I've recently started helping with my IDPA club's Facebook page. That made me wonder, what do shooters want to see from a club's page? Just links to Practiscore? I've seen some clubs that post with a summary of the match calling out the winners of divisions. What would be fun or helpful without being annoying?  Post interesting stuff. Sure, you want to post stuff about the IDPA club, and Practiscore links and things like that, but also drive some conversation with the shooters. Talk about proposed rule changes, both with IDPA, and things within the club. Get people out shooting at other clubs in your area, post match video, post interesting things from other pages, things like that. One thing I’ve learned about Facebook, is that if you’re constantly just posting links back to the same site (practiscore) Facebook will start showing those posts to less and less people, which isn’t what you want at all. Not sure how your club does it, but you could also use it to put out a call to action for match setup, and as a way to recognize those who help out. Evan:  You've touched on about what makes a great match. But what about what makes a great stage? What tips would you give match directors and stage designers? What should they avoid doing?  Options. Options make a good stage. For instance, the match I shot on Sunday was the Devil Dog USPSA match up in Oxford, NC. Almost every stage had several different ways that made sense to shoot it, and you really had to think about which was the most efficient way to do it. One stage in particular, you started in the far right corner of the shooting area. Most shooters started there, and then worked the stage from

Focus

For a long time I've wondered if the expensive race holsters that hold the gun just by the trigger guard are really worth the money, so that's what I've decided to find out for this episode. So, here's what I did: I setup a 10" steel plate at 10y. I tested both holsters with 50 draws in the following ways: Kydex - Stand and shoot 50 rounds. DAA Alpha X - Stand and shoot 50 rounds. Kydex - Step into the shooting area and shoot 50 rounds. DAA Alpha X - Step into the shooting area and shoot 50 rounds. The results were surprising, even to me.

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