What did you shoot today?

I took my new Les Baer Custom Carry out to the range today. I put 500 rounds through it. About 200 rounds of UMC and 300 rounds of American Eagle. I alternated between the factory Les Baer magazines and WC ETM mags.



I only had one failure to feed. The FTF occurred at about the 150 rounds mark. It was the 7th round in the 8 round Les Baer mag.

I also had a problem with the grip screws coming loose. I guess I need to put o-rings under the screw heads.

The thumb safety on this gun is really stiff. I can disengage it with my strong hand thumb, but I can't engage the safety (flip it up) without using my support hand thumb. Hopefully it will loosen up over time.

The memory pad on the Les Baer is more pronounced (digs into the palm more) than on my DW Valor. After a couple hundred rounds, I really started to feel it digging into my palm. I prefer the grip safety on the Valor.

Otherwise, this gun is a great shooter. I'm quite happy with it. I don't think I'll be selling it trading it anytime soon.

Shot the Baer today. This time, I tested it with Federal HST and SIG V-Crown hollow points. The Baer fed them without any trouble.

I mostly just practiced double tapping 4x4 sticky notes at 15 yards. When I did my part, the Baer printed nice and tight pairs. (The IDPA practice target in the background had been used as a backer for the sticky notes, which were placed in random locations each time I reset the drill. Hence, what appears to be 45 cal scatter gun holes in the background )



I do need to read up more on practice drills. I have a hunch that I could be using my time and ammo more efficiently than I currently am.

I did have a two nasty failures to extract when shooting Remmington UMC (out of 150 rounds). I was using Wilson Combat ETM mags.



These may have been cause by me. I used to have a problem with pitching the gun up (healing) to avoid/minimize the recoil impulse. I thought I had gotten over it. It's been a long time since I caught myself doing that. Maybe it snuck back up on me. Well, practice what you suck at, I guess.

Took the Les Baer out today. Total round count is now up to 1475. The gun is running smooth.

I mainly just practiced with an IDPA target set out to 25 yards. If I do my part, the Les Baer can make heads shots all day long. The size of the font sight is just small enough to negate the need to play "peak a boo" with the head box and front sight post. For me, a combat hold put the rounds where I needed them to go.

I decided to try out a different indoor range. I haven't been to this place in over a year. Now, I remember why:

• The place is super busy, with wait times approaching 1 hour.
• A lot of unsupervised novice shooters. Although, I didn't seen any egregious behavior while I was there.
• This place has really poor ventilation. With all 11 lanes filled, it was like walking into a cigar parlor.
• The target system is one of those old-school cable driven things. So, every time you send your target out, you have to while for the target to stop bouncing and swaying.

But, they are one of the few indoor ranges near me that allows you to shoot out to 25 yards, and their relaxed range rules means I can practice drawing from a holster.

An obligatory, after the shoot, gratuitous gun pic

I put a couple hundred rounds through the X Tac this evening.

The gun performed well. It was not one of my better days, however. I just felt kinda jittery for some reason and had sloppy trigger control. Too much caffeine? Not enough caffeine? I don't know.

I did manage to squeeze out a few respectable strings. However, for every string that looked like this,



There were about 5 strings that looked like I was shooting a Glock. I guess that's what I get for not eating my Captain Crunch this morning.

On a side note, we had a conservative/orthodox Muslim couple show up to the range. The women was wearing a full burka dress. About an hour later, a conservative Jewish couple showed up. I live near Philly, so it's not unusual to see a diverse ethnic crowd at the range. (I think the diversity at the range is awesome, by the way.) However, this is the first time I've seen hard core Muslims and Jews show up.... and all on the same evening.

Good. These people are bonafide Americans. I'm glad to see them embracing their right to bear arms. Should a piece of **** skin head show up to one of their gatherings intent on doing harm, I hope they go full John Wick on him.

I shot the X Tac today at a local action pistol match. As expected, the gun ran like a champ.

The match was best described as "open." You could shoot whatever pistol you brought, and a hit anywhere on the target counted as a -0. A miss counted as -10. You could drop non-empty mags without penalty, and carry as many mags on your person as you could fit. There were no divisions. So, a guy running a 1911 with full power ammo was competing against people running tricked out 2011 style race guns with reduced power loads.

I saw about 3 or 4 guys running high end race guns. One guy had a Taran Tactical Combat Master. A few people showed up with Glock 17's and 19's. One lady was running a CZ Shadow. I think I was the only one under 40 running a 1911. One guy was running a DA/SA pistol of some flavor (it looked like a SIG from where I was, but I couldn't quite tell).

The match consisted of 3 stages, with one stage being a classifier. I haven't seen the scores yet, but I presume that our scores on the other two stages will be ranked based on how we did on the classifier.

The Classifier was pretty basic. Shoot two handed from about 25 yards at an array of 6 paper targets, 2 shots each. Then walk up to 15 yards, and repeat using strong hand only. Then walk up to 7 yards and shoot weak hand holy. I got a metaphorical pat on the back from the RSO for being one of the few to clear the classifier without any misses. That said, I know I wasn't the fastest gun there. The guys running the race guns were performing on a whole different level (as you would hope).

The other two stages looked like a typical, small scale, IDPA/USPSA style stage. The targets were a mix of paper silhouettes and steel poppers. If I had any advantage over the guys running smaller calibers, it was on the steel poppers. One guy was running a 9mm Glock with what I presume must have been 115 grain loads. He had a hell of a time knocking the steel over. He was getting good hits. I could see the rounds spattering on the steel. But they just didn't have enough oomph to push them over. My 1911 handled the poppers with authority.

One one of the stages, I was able to exploit their mag rules to even the tables a little between my 1911 and the double stack pistols. I loaded up my belt with 4 mags, a couple extra in my pockets, plus one in the gun. Then every time I was moving between shooting positions, I would just drop the mag and reload while on the move.

All in all, it was a great way to spend a Saturday morning. I look forward to going back. The only down side is that it's giving me a reason to buy a 2011.