I try to be a laid back person, but I know it’s in my DNA to be pretty “type A”. Physically it’s hard for me to relax… physical tension creeps in all the time. One of the most evident places? The shoulders. I can do this to myself, I can do this to other people all the time. Just say “drop your shoulders”… many people think their shoulders are dropped but when you make them go through the motion, they’re always amazed that they were partially shrugged. Tension.

Recently I purchased a bunch of Matt Burkett’s DVD’s. I just finished watching volume 1. One thing Matt was constantly telling the video’s student was to stay relaxed and drop your shoulders. Also, Matt’s discussion of the drawstroke really hit home with me. You see, I know what the proper and ideal drawstroke should be like, but I’ve been going too far. That is, when you get to position 2, I’ve been drawing it up a little higher than it should be in an effort to get the gun higher so it’s in my visual sight plane sooner. I know not to go too high (e.g. in front of the face), but I was still going kinda high and shrugging my shoulders to do so.

After watching the Burkett video and then doing a dry fire session, I see this is bad… or at least, bad for me.

The main thing is, with the shoulders shrugged I’m just not relaxed. I already know that being relaxed is so important (I know this from my empty-hand martial arts practice, but like I said, being “type A” seems to be wired into my DNA), but I was sacrificing some relaxation for picking up the sights sooner. Trouble is, I wasn’t picking up the sights any faster! What I suspect was happening? As I’d push the gun out there would be wobble as my shoulders would change height, or tension which would lead to some jitter. When I keep my shoulders relaxed, the gun in position 2 and 3 may not be as high, but I’m picking the sights up a lot faster because the shoulders are all the way down and as long as I’m not shrugging them up as I present then the gun is staying in a level plane with no wobble or jitter added by the shoulder movement. And get this… I was doing this dry practice with a snub revolver — crappy sights (compared to something better, like the Dawson target and fiber optic front sight).

Stay relaxed. It’s good for many things in life, not just shooting. I’m going to print out a piece of paper to keep by my dry fire area that says “relax, drop the shoulders”. I suspect this will help my performance greatly.

Vandalism struck the Austin Rifle Club. Details and pictures here.

While not a major act of destruction, ARC has been combatting a lot of problems lately, especially when it comes to rules compliance.

If you have any information about this, please notify ARC or the Travis County Sheriff.

My order from Comp-Tac came in. Lots of goodies. I’ll talk about each piece over the coming days as I get a chance to try things out. I’ll try to have pictures too.

I’ll start off with the mundane.

I picked up a spare Minotaur body. I’ve been using the “slide” bodies for a while because I have Springfield XD-9’s of different slide lengths so when I first bought the holster I wanted that flexibility. Now that I’ve settled on carrying a 5″ gun (yes, concealed carry with a full-sized gun… it’s not hard for me to do), I wanted to move away from the slide shell because it doesn’t protect the front sight. It was OK with the 4″ gun (but not full protection) and the 5″ is fully exposed. So I picked up a proper 5″ body. Slipped it on. Adjusted. Works like a charm.

One thing I noticed. The previously purchased MTAC holster had some issues with how the shell was shaped. This new shell is more like my original MTAC shells, which I prefer. They still expose the magazine release button more than I care for, but it seems reasonably done this time around.

Pictures! All pictures taken with my iPhone, and all are clickable for a larger picture.

That’s the first MTAC I purchased. Been wearing it for about 2 years and you can tell it’s well-worn and conformed to my body. Lots of sweat in there (and I do condition and protect the leather) and still holding up well.

Because I knew MTAC #1 was getting well-worn, I ordered another one some months ago. What you see above is the backing and clips from MTAC #2 but now with the new full-sized shell. This leather backing was less “shaped to my body” than #1, so I figured it’d be a better place to start with the new shell given the leather will now conform differently due to the new shell.

This is MTAC #2 with full-sized shell compared against the slide shell that I originally purchased with #2. You can notice the obvious length difference, but what’s more important to notice is the “northeast corner” of the shell. Notice on the slide shell how it protrudes further? There’s a bit more of a lip there, which at the time they said was done to help reholstering (if I remember correctly). I never found it helped nor hindered that aspect, but it did make the mouth a bit bigger above the beltline… which could be useful, or could just get in your way. One of the first things I noticed about the new full-sized shell was it lacked this lip. I don’t know why, but I’m happier without it.

Here’s MTAC #1 with the XD-9 Tactical (5″ barrel). You can see how much the front-end protrudes and how the front sight is fully exposed. If you had a factory front sight it’d probably not be an issue, but with my Dawson Precision fiber optic front sight, it could snag on the draw or just the fact it’s exposed to getting banged up. Notice as well the tab fully covering the magazine release button?

And here’s the new one with the full shell. Notice the partially covered magazine release button? They did that because people wanted the ability to drop their magazines while the gun was holstered. I never found this to be a problem, because the XD has an ambidextrous magazine release, so I always just pushed from the other side. But, maybe someone has a custom gun or can’t get back to the other mag release. *shrug*   I don’t like the lesser protection of the mag button, but I’d reason in practice it will work out alright.

I’ve been thinking more about the 6.8 rifle.

I’m now starting to lean towards keeping it. I can tell because I’ve been thinking about what things I need to get in order to do handloads for it. 🙂

I’m not 100% sure I’m ready to go there just yet. I want to take it hunting and get some results before I really commit. Granted, the results are impressive as it is, but I want to see for myself especially in terms of how it works for my kids. After seeing how Oldest handled the rifle at the range the other day, it’s evident he could handle it. But to go bigger (e.g. .308)? I’m not sure about that right now. So… here we’ll sit for now.

I will say tho, I’ve been thinking about changing the optics.

I’m looking at the Trijicon AccuPoint 2.5-10×56 with Mil-Dot crosshair and probably amber dot (TR22-2). Of course, it’s expensive as all get out (MidwayUSA presently lists it at $825) and then I’d also have to buy a mount (LaRue has something), but the reason for this particular model is hunting in low light or no light situations (e.g. getting that deer just at the end of the day’s time window, hog hunting at night, etc.). It should be ideal for that application.

I’ve ordered lots of things from Comp-Tac.

I just made another order from them; in fact, it was two orders. The thing was, I originally ordered a few things then shortly after submitting that order I realized I needed something else. I wondered if the orders could be combined. Well, they could but due to their process it would cost $20. However, the lady on the phone said I could add a note in the comment field of my order about the other order and request if possible for the orders to be combined. There was no guarantee of that, but there was no harm in asking.

My first order was ready to go and marked as “in shipping”, but it never left. I suspected they were going to try combining. Eventually I receive two emails saying the two orders have shipped, then a third email saying that the orders were able to be combined and that we’re refunding the shipping charge from the one order.

So overall it took a day or two longer than “guaranteed”, but I made a special request of them and they were able to fulfill it. So I have no complaints about the turnaround time, and nothing but praise for the special attention they gave to my orders.

That’s the main reason I keep going back to Comp-Tac. Sure, they have good products and without that I wouldn’t bother at all. But what keeps me going back is the high quality of customer service they provide.

Anyway… when the gear shows up, I’ll blather about it then.