range report 1/24/12

Got out to shoot some practice today, did my usual new practice of alternating between the 22 and the 45. Respectable scores today, not my best, but not bad either. Used SK Pistol Match ammo, only one stovepipe in 250 rounds, no failures to fire or failures to feed. I filled a small feed ramp onto the top of the chamber that hopefully it letting the rounds feed a little better if they go high.

match results

Ended up winning the marksman 22 match despite not taking an allowed alibi during the last rapid fire string.

So competition on Sunday, I have my Wolf MT and in the rapid fire
section of the NMC I get a failure to feed on my 5th round. I take an
alibi and shoot the alibi string ok. But then during the timed fire
match I have ANOTHER failure to feed. I did not know you could take
multiple alibi's as long as they are in different sections of the
match. So I didn't take an alibi and I only got one damn shot away.
So one of my timed fire targets only had 6 hits. I learned later that
I could have taken an alibi for that. I was so incredibly mad at
myself and at the stupid POS izzy. That one target kept me from
breaking 800 in the match.

I ended up shooting a 789 I believe and something like a 670 with the
45. But I did get my best slow-fire target ever with the 22, I shot a
94! That was pretty nice. Most of my 45 shots landed on target too,
which was good, and I had zero issues with the 45, even using the
Brian Zins hollow-point ammo on the long line.

Still need to work on my rapid fire with the 45, that's the hardest
thing for me right now. One guy was saying I need to use lighter
loads and maybe that's the case, but I almost feel like I SHOULD learn
to shoot the 45 with 750fps loads. Still, I will probably have my
handloader dude download the next set of rounds to something like 650
or 700 fps so I have something a little softer to shoot and will
probably have to change my spring out.

range report 1/20

Got out to practice on Friday. Tried using some SK Pistol Match ammo but it kept giving me jams. The round would feed high and get hung up. Went back to wolf and the session went fine after that. Didn't shoot as high with the 22 as last time, but I upped my score with the 45. Used some new handloads that I got from this guy, PointMan, that I met at a gun show. The loads were pretty accurate at 50', at least for my shooting abilities.

IZH-46M trigger adjustments

Screw A = Reserve trigger creep (over travel after the shot breaks) - turn clockwise to decrease travel after the shot break.

Screw B = Final creep (second stage length) - turn clockwise to decrease sear engagement, which similar in action to pulling the trigger. Do not reduce it too much or the gun may become unsafe.

Screw C = Trigger weight - turn clockwise to increase trigger pull. Set to no less than 500 grams (many shooters set it to 530 - just to be sure).

Screw D = Trigger shoe adjustment on bar

Screw F = First stage length - turn clockwise to decrease first stage travel.

Turning the screw too far will start to apply pressure to the sear (like pulling the trigger).

Found this on another site, figured it would be good to spread the knowledge.

The other izzy arrives!

Today my IZH-46m air pistol arrived! This is a single shot air pistol designed for 10-meter competition. I also got a red dot mount and all the accessories. Still waiting for some pellets to arrive so I can test it out, plus I bought a used Ultradot to mount on it so I'm waiting on that as well. Should be a lot of fun and good practice for learning to steady my hold.

range report 1/15

I went out on Saturday
with this guy I used to work with, Mauricio, and his work friend Yang.
Yang apparently just got into guns too, so he brought out a Beretta
92FS and a Sig Mosquito. I brought the Ruger and the Spartan. It was really funny shooting the Beretta; I was not that
impressed at all for what is a high-dollar pistol. The trigger was
terrible, super long, and even in single action mode, there was a lot
of creep and an indefinite break. The sights were combat sights and
were off; the gun was shooting high-right for everyone. Personally, I
don't get combat sights. I know the idea is to have something rugged
that won't snag or break, but it seems to me like almost every gun
I've shot with combat sights has been quite a bit off in terms of POI
versus POA. The little Mosquito was a fun gun, but again, a crap
trigger. It was more accurate than I thought it would be. Anyway, it
was fun to shoot some different guns. I mostly shot the Spartan and
did pretty well even using the factory ammo loads that I brought
along. I think I am finally starting to improve with the 45's.

Then Sunday night I went out for another session by myself. This time
I decided to shoot half my targets with the izzy and half with the Les
Baer. As you know, I use the targets that have four bulls on them, so
I shot two bulls with the izzy and then two with the Les Baer and did
that for 6 targets; 3 sf and 3 rf. Normally I will shoot a whole
match with one gun before switching. Well this was pretty
interesting, because I was constantly switching guns. I think it gave
me some insight into what is difficult about the 45's for me. Its the
grip. When I hold the izzy, especially now that I have the Horton
grips on it, it just hooks onto my hand and it feels like a natural
extension of my arm. With the 1911, I have to squeeze the crap out of
the front and rear straps to get a good grip on the gun and while I
have the Herret National grips on the gun which have a palm shelf that
helps, its not as good as the izzy. I wish the 1911 grip angle was a
little steeper I think.

I adjusted the izzy trigger before I went out. Finally got the
trigger blade loose and moved it rearwards to fit my hand better after
adding the Horton grips. I also dialed out a little bit of the
pretravel and I lightened the trigger up 3 clicks. Didn't mess with
the sear engagement screw. The trigger feels about the same, just a
little bit lighter and less pretravel. Definitely not as light or as
short as yours though. Also cleaned the izzy and lock-tited all the
screws and scope mount.

So I got my targets back home and found out some good news in two
areas: with the 45 I was putting pretty much all of my shots inside
the target, which is not an easy feat for me. And #2, my izzy scores
were really really good! I shot an 825-23x match score with the izzy.

Practicing with the laserlyte system I think has really helped with
the 45 and getting more used to the trigger. I still need to figure
out how to grip the gun better so that its not so shaky. I can hold
the izzy really steady but when I switch to the Les Baer, it just
moves around more. Its a lighter gun, the 45, so maybe a barrel
weight or something would help?

Anyway, I was really proud of the 825 match score! Its a new high-water mark.

range report 1/10

Got the izzy out last night to the range and shot a match. Ended
up scoring a 792-9x (no X ring on the B2 target for slow-fire). I
don't know what EAA did to the gun when they said they 'adjusted the
barrel'. But the gun seemed like it was shooting tighter groups, or
maybe it was just switching to the izzy after months of using the
Ruger. I'm still getting used to the Horton grips, but they feel
pretty good. I think I like my mentor George's grips a little better, but I do
really like the finger grooves that Mr. Horton put on mine. The izzy
trigger was nice to get back to, but it was feeling a little heavy.
And compared with George's izzy, it was feeling positively sluggish.

I think when I take the gun down next, I will mark the trigger
adjustment screws and start to tweak them. I need to move the trigger
aft, and I was having a heck of a time getting the screw loose to move
it. I'd like to get a little bit of the pre-travel dialed out of the
trigger and try to get the break a little more crisp. I will get out
my old emails where George described the magic screws and their
interaction with the trigger.

Ended my session a little bit early, it was getting kind of late and I
had a discussion with a new shooter to my right. I let him shoot the
izzy (they started him with a Glock 19...not the best choice IMHO) and
he was pretty surprised at how little recoil it had. He was
struggling with the recoil of the 9mm so I was recommending he get a
22 for practice. Also at the end of the session I noticed the scope
mount was loose on the izzy so I imagine that EAA did not lock-tite it
back on after they stripped and cleaned the gun. ARG!

One thing I noticed was that the quality of the dot is superior in the
matchdot ultradot sight than it is in the regular ultradots. Its more
round and has less 'twinkle' and actually even seems smaller even when
the matchdot is set at 4MOA which should be the same size. George's
aimpoint has a very nice dot in terms of roundness. Normally I have
used the 2MOA setting with the matchdot, but yesterday I turned it up
to 4MOA and found I was liking that a lot better.

My zero was off a little bit, so I was tweaking that throughout the
session. I'm gonna blame that for not having shot over 800! :-)

I did have a few malfunctions. I had a couple failures to feed the
first round which was a little bit weird. The bullet was hanging up
on the upper lip of the chamber. I also had THREE failures to fire.
Each time I inspected the round and it had a pretty good dent in the
rim, so clearly the firing pin struck it. I was shooting exclusively
Wolf MT and the stuff I have is pretty new, at least to me. I got it
from Champions. But.....NO DOUBLING! The gun wasn't doubling that
frequently anyway, maybe once or twice in 100 or 200 rounds, so we'll
see if EAA's 'barrel adjustment' helps at all.

the izzy returns!

Well my '99 import IZH-35M started to develop doubling issues, as is a known issue on these pistols. This started back in Sept/Oct. The gun would double maybe once every 100-200 rounds, and I had one slam-fire upon racking the gun which scared me. Glad I always keep the muzzle pointed downrange.

So I sent the gun to EAA with a note that the gun was doubling. I got the gun back shortly after the new year. The gun was in a plastic bag inside the case. The repair order noted that the gun was 'excessively dirty' (which it wasn't, at least not in my opinion) and in the notes for repair, they noted that they cleaned the gun, "adjusted barrel" (I have no idea exactly what that means), and test-fired the gun with no issues.

Can't say I'm real happy they didn't address the doubling issue as they normally do by increasing the headspace by milling a relief in the breech-face.

Took the gun out for the first time last night and did not have any doubling issues in 250 rounds of Wolf MT, but I did have three failures to fire. In each, the round was inspected and found to have a good strike on the rim. Not sure if EAA did anything that would have decreased the striking power of the firing pin.

Anyway, glad to have the gun back, so we'll see if it doubles any more, in which case its back to EAA.

On a positive note, EAA did the work for free as a courtesy, besides the $20 return shipping fee.