Sunday, November 25, 2012

Squeak, squeak, squeak....SSP Expert

That was the sound of me squeaking by and shooting Expert in SSP at today's IDPA classifier.

120 is the minimum score (smaller number is better score) to make the cut, I shot a 119.99.

What's more amazing is that I shot was is now my best classifier with a gun I had never shot before this morning in 20-30 degrees of weather...I wonder what I can do with the gun in warm weather?


As my P30S is no longer IDPA complaint, I wanted a similar gun that I could shoot at a match without question.

I lucked into a P30LS in LEM that had all ready had a Gray Guns trigger job and the Heinie sights that I prefer. The pistol was received on Wednesday night and with all the Holiday and other activities I didn't get a chance to shoot the pistol until arriving at the range this morning. I got to shoot 20rds on the plate rack and the rest was all on the classifier.

Top: HK P30LS - Light LEM -Bottom HK P30S w/ Leupold Delta Point


For me it was a great end to the 2012 IDPA season, I went in to 2012 wanting to make Expert, but I planned on doing it in the Custom Defense Pistol (CDP) division, never thought in a million years I'd be doing with a P30LS in LEM in SSP.

As stated, this was our last IDPA match for 2012.

Much thanks goes out to those that helped us at BHPC with successful 2012 IDPA Season.

Back to the drawing board for stages to shoot in 2013!!!

Sunday, November 4, 2012

Bowie HK P30S w/ Delta Point Update

Well we were off to a rough start. The original Delta Point died before I had it fully zeroed it. Leupold replaced it without question.

I installed the replacement unit and set to sighting it in and had some strange trigger issues that I have attributed to the altered slide geometry regarding the firing pin block channel and the "heavy" firing pin block spring. It seems that there was to much tension on the inner workings of the gun and the firing mechanism was binding and the gun would intermittently not go bang. I happened to have a "light" firing pin block spring on hand and tried that as a quick fix and lo and behold my problems went away.

Previously before the original dot died, I had ran the gun in a couple of matches with tape over the emitter and used the back up iron sights. This time I was able to compete with the sight active and I was floored by my level of improvement in almost all areas. The one issue I'm having is picking up the dot during my initial press out for the first shot on target, this just requires more dry practice of mounting the gun and building "muscle memory" ( I hate the term, only because there's always going to be the one guy that says "muscles have memories") in order to replicate proper draw stroke and apply it correctly. In order to do this I need to get the gun a little more up and my head a little more down....

Like Dave Bowie as seen in this picture.



This optic really does wonders with my eye dominance issues by bringing target and sighting into one focal plane*2. So instead of having to look at the target, look at the front sight, look at the rear sight, look at the target etc. I just look at the target and place, in my case the triangle on the target and press the trigger. One little oddity is that to get the optic zeroed, I have the windage almost all the way to the left, I attribute this to my severely dominant left eye.

I have a Glock 17, 2nd Generation on it's way to Bowie for him to work his magic on with some of the same things I had done to the P30. Not sure if I'm going to stick with the Delta Point or go with a Trijicon RMR, Dave currently prefers the Delta Point due to the fact that it keeps zero better than the RMR but the RMR is supposed to be more rugged....Suarez has been doing a lot of work with the RMRs in the last couple of years as well as some others, currently Hilton Yam of 10-8 (their blog is now Modern Service Weapons) has a test going on now with several RMRs and the results are not that impressive but he has been in contact with Trijicon and they are to be improving the RMR to make it more rugged.

I am now on my fourth RMR since starting the project at the end of August.  The first three have failed as follows:
  • Adjustable intensity RMR07 died after 1185 rounds, with the dot turning on/off intermittently. Thanks to painted witness marks, it was easy to see that the windage adjustment screw was also rotating 2-3 clicks every 50 rounds or so.
  • An automatic intensity RMR02 suddenly lost zero after only 625 rounds. The external elevation adjustments had not moved, but the point of impact shifted down about 24″ at 15 yards.
  • A second automatic intensity RMR02 (below) lost zero after about 750 rounds in the first day of a class.  It was off by about 6″ at 15 yards.




Dave has said the same regarding Leupold and the Delta Point and ongoing improvements. Not sure which way I want to go. Good news is that I have some time to think about it as my gun won't be ready till near summer of 2013 so I have some time to evaluate the Delta Point some more before making a decision. Maybe by then we'll see some real progress from either maker, but currently I'm pretty happy with this package.


HK P30S with Leupold Delta Point 7.5MOA Triangle Reticle