The verge of a breakthrough

I'm on the verge of a breakthrough with my pistolcraft; I can feel it.

I was at the range yesterday with my trusty Buckmark .22 pistol, and was doing alright, but not nearly as well as I'd done in the past.

I tried to remember what I did differently, and it struck me. I adjusted my grip, and shot off 10 rounds at 50 feet. It felt uncomfortable, I needed to readjust a few times, and I had little idea of how well or poorly I had done.

When the paper plate was close enough for me to see, I was dumbstruck. Well, not dumbstruck exactly; I did say, "You've got to be fucking kidding me."

I had a wide three leaf clover, with one shot right in the middle of the three. The remaining 6 shots fell randomly around the group, but the impression was made.

For those four shots, I did everything perfectly. I futzed with my grip and position while shooting, so I can't tell if the good group was from shots made while uncomfortably in position, or in a slightly looser position. Either way, I'm getting better.

After a bit, I hung a tennis ball, and kept putting it further out. Locking my shoulders, and moving my eye with the front sight made tracking the swinging target much easier, but the front sight was black against the black backstop, necessitating true lock up on eye/front/rear sight alignment, because in order to confirm my sights were aligned, I'd have to aim at the white of the roof, or a neighbor's target. I wanted to develop that "feel" for my firearm that I had developed with my paintball marker.

Where you look at your target, and think about hitting it, and it is hit.

Practice, practice, practice.

Buckmarkery!

My recent trip to the range showed some improvement.

10 shots at 50 feet

The way I figure it, ammo's too cheap for me to NOT be good with it.

I was actually interrupted by a gentleman shooting a .44 like a GOD, who wanted to compliment me on my shooting.

I was having difficulty returning to my natural point of aim, so I started experimenting with my grip. When I had my arms fully extended with a high grip on my shooting hand, and turned the inside of my support elbow up as much as possible, everything clicked. Recoil was straight back, and seemed to push into my high shoulders instead of rolling the top of the gun back. After firing, my sights were much closer to on target than they were before. Keeping my elbows and grip locked made my shooting much more consistent.

With the success of locking my body in place I wondered if I was ready for a moving target. I picked up two hanging tennis balls, and set the first up. I realized that without a white background, my black sights on the black backstop were very difficult to see. After a bit of practice, and keeping everything locked, I was able to move my aim with my eye, and shoot where I was looking. I only really had one magazine that felt the kind of perfect where you will the gun to shoot where you want, and it does exactly that. But one was good enough for starting on moving targets. It was a good feeling. I look forward to having it many more times.

Total cost of range trip; $5.

When I got home I decided to give it a good cleaning (not that I'd experienced any malfunctions), and found the slide area around the cocking lug to be caked (CAKED) with carbon. Seriously, I wasn't wiping it up, I was scooping it out.

In other news, the G22 is teh dead. After the last range trip, and a prolonged shooting session (1k rounds?), the trigger no longer released the sear. I checked all I could without disassembling the main action, but couldn't find any indication of buggered disconnects or slipping parts. Just trigger pulling into nothing. I'll probably send it in, and sell it. The 10/22 has outperformed it in every field except novelty.