The Official Redbrush/WSSC IDPA Thread

[DustyDawg48]

I didn't think there would be that much differences in the trigger unless there is something wrong with the trigger bar that is making something act funny. I could see it shooting high and sporatic and it being a problem of unlocking prematurely but for it to shoot low at that distance is odd. this is when we need one of those pistol vices and you can clamp the damn thing in and remove all variables when it comes to the shooter!

 

[sbcman]

That's was partially my reasoning for trying the pro slide/sights with my frame/barrel. Apparently I can hit properly with your sights, but maybe the trigger differences are the problem?

 

[DustyDawg48]

We knew it was only a matter of moments before TJ's S&W Sense went off and he'd be alerted to somebody talking about accuracy with them!

There is something to be said about that particular M&P. The groupings aren't bad but the results are low for 15 yards. Brent fired a group of his ammo from both his M&P and mine and my M&P put a beautiful group together just about 1/2" low of where he was aiming at 15 yards. I tried a different sight picture and got higher hits on the target but mine were way left...nothing the gun did, just me.

His was about 6-8" low while aiming at the same spot with a similar hold on. We've tried swapping barrels and other things...only thing we haven't done is put his slide/barrel etc on my frame and try it to see which 'gun' was producing the highest quality groups. Any thoughts as to what could possibly be happening? A trip back to S&W costs nothing but time...

 

[sbcman]

I tried a different sight picture and got higher hits on the target but mine were way left...nothing the gun did, just me.

Ah, that's better.

And, yes, my S&W senses were tingling.

I'll take a shot at this....again. Ya'll have already found the problem, not sure why it's not apparent. Here goes.

The gun is unlocking before the bullet leaves the barrel. This is common on M&Ps. The bulk of the time it is not an issue and as you've seen it doesn't affect group size. What it does change is POI from POA.

Try two things. One black out the rear sight if it's not already blacked out. If that doesn't solve the problem, get a Dawson .160 fiber optic to raise the POI. Also, shoot of a rest when testing.

Do not worry about different frames- seriously, just don't mess with that. Do not think of sending it in- it's not needed.

You know what, just scratch all of that. I don't think Brent has brought forth an M&P that shot right for him. Get rid of them, use the CZ. Or better yet, get a revolver, we seem to be immune from all this drama.

 

[DustyDawg48]

Ah, that's better.

And, yes, my S&W senses were tingling.

I'll take a shot at this....again. Ya'll have already found the problem, not sure why it's not apparent. Here goes.

The gun is unlocking before the bullet leaves the barrel. This is common on M&Ps. The bulk of the time it is not an issue and as you've seen it doesn't affect group size. What it does change is POI from POA.

Try two things. One black out the rear sight if it's not already blacked out. If that doesn't solve the problem, get a Dawson .160 fiber optic to raise the POI. Also, shoot of a rest when testing.

Do not worry about different frames- seriously, just don't mess with that. Do not think of sending it in- it's not needed.

You know what, just scratch all of that. I don't think Brent has brought forth an M&P that shot right for him. Get rid of them, use the CZ. Or better yet, get a revolver, we seem to be immune from all this drama.

Lolol he does sling the M&P9 Pro of mine like a beast though! You through out the lake stage from Saturday and his remaining runs were with the M&P and it was great. Would a change in bullet weight make the problem better or worse? Or no difference if the gun is unlocking earlier than expected?

 

[sbcman]

Lolol he does sling the M&P9 Pro of mine like a beast though! You through out the lake stage from Saturday and his remaining runs were with the M&P and it was great. Would a change in bullet weight make the problem better or worse? Or no difference if the gun is unlocking earlier than expected?

If we're talking 8" low it's not an ammo issue. A heavier bullet- 147 or better- "might" lift the POI to an acceptable poi.....emphasis on "might".

Really sounds like it's a sight issue. Did ya'll ever put his barrel with your slide? That move, shooting from a rest, will reveal much.

For whatever it's worth, S&W shoots their guns from a Ransom Rest at 10 yards with the front sight covering the intended target area- not below but dead on.
I rested on those rests while waiting to shoot.

 

[DustyDawg48]

I think that combo of my slide on his frame was one of the few combos we didn't try. If we get to WSSC early enough we can always run down to the pistol range and make the swap to see if that is the difference maker.

 

[sbcman]

I think that combo of my slide on his frame was one of the few combos we didn't try. If we get to WSSC early enough we can always run down to the pistol range and make the swap to see if that is the difference maker.

It would be interesting to see the results. It's not the slide that will make the difference, it's your sights that I'm thinking will turn things around. Since he's got a baseline of shooting well with those sights, if it all fell apart on the slide change then we can point to other issues.

While we're doing this diagnosis, Brent do you recall if your barrel is rounded in front of the chamber or square? Earlier versions were rounded which allowed the barrel to twist and unlock as the bullet goes down the tube. Faster powders will have more influence on this occurrence. S&W squared up the front part of the chamber on later guns to make this a non-issue.

Might want to see if the crown is messed up or funky.

I'm thinking it's the sights though.

 

[sbcman]

Don't know if anyone is interested, but I'll throw this out. The registration form for the BUG major in Bowling Green is up

Event Flyers

Even though this is smack in the middle of deer season, it's close and I dig BUG matches for some reason. The range is a little over an hour from me but with them starting at 9am I think there's plenty of time for everyone to sleep at home and drive in that morning. Jeff has made it there from Lynnville before for reference. Price is right too.

The only thing is that this club has a history of saying they are holding a major and then it not happening. But, they are BUG crazy there (night match BUG, daylight BUG, etc). So I think it might happen. They're holding an SO class, I assume, to get plenty of SOs.

 

[Sandbagger]

Don't know if anyone is interested, but I'll throw this out. The registration form for the BUG major in Bowling Green is up

Event Flyers

Even though this is smack in the middle of deer season, it's close and I dig BUG matches for some reason. The range is a little over an hour from me but with them starting at 9am I think there's plenty of time for everyone to sleep at home and drive in that morning. Jeff has made it there from Lynnville before for reference. Price is right too.

The only thing is that this club has a history of saying they are holding a major and then it not happening. But, they are BUG crazy there (night match BUG, daylight BUG, etc). So I think it might happen. They're holding an SO class, I assume, to get plenty of SOs.

Are we going to need to run a BUG classifier before hand?

 

[Grelber]

Earlier versions were rounded which allowed the barrel to twist and unlock as the bullet goes down the tube.

Tripp magazines website used to (may still) have a neat super high speed film clip of a 1911 being fired. Slide was about 30% of the way back when the bullet cleared the barrel if memory serves. I think it is a bit like rifle accuracy, you accept that the rifle barrel moves during the shot but you do what you can to insure the movement is consistent. That is a bit of a left handed tangent to finding and fixing a problem of excess motion though.

A neat starting point is to call a manufacturer and find out what they deem to be acceptable on your particular gun. A full size XD (4" or greater) is deemed acceptable by Springfield if 5 shot groups do not exceed 3.5" at 25 yards, shorter barreled guns and the pass fail point goes to 4.5", on my first XD I got lucky and the gun will group as good as you can shoot it (about 1 7/8" 5 shot 25 yard on a factory supplied target), on my 5" XD's I'm a lot closer to the 3.5" spec.
I'm assuming the spec's for M&P would be similar to the XD but it would be a good thing to know for sure.
Personally I think 3+ inches sucks dirty pond water so my XD is off to the factory for a match barrel, that is more of a what is important to you thing than a what you really need thing though.

 

[DustyDawg48]

Don't know if anyone is interested, but I'll throw this out. The registration form for the BUG major in Bowling Green is up

Event Flyers

Even though this is smack in the middle of deer season, it's close and I dig BUG matches for some reason. The range is a little over an hour from me but with them starting at 9am I think there's plenty of time for everyone to sleep at home and drive in that morning. Jeff has made it there from Lynnville before for reference. Price is right too.

The only thing is that this club has a history of saying they are holding a major and then it not happening. But, they are BUG crazy there (night match BUG, daylight BUG, etc). So I think it might happen. They're holding an SO class, I assume, to get plenty of SOs.

I would love to hit this! I'm with you in simply digging the BUG idea and cannot wait for this one on Saturday!

 

[Kisada]

It would be interesting to see the results. It's not the slide that will make the difference, it's your sights that I'm thinking will turn things around. Since he's got a baseline of shooting well with those sights, if it all fell apart on the slide change then we can point to other issues.

While we're doing this diagnosis, Brent do you recall if your barrel is rounded in front of the chamber or square? Earlier versions were rounded which allowed the barrel to twist and unlock as the bullet goes down the tube. Faster powders will have more influence on this occurrence. S&W squared up the front part of the chamber on later guns to make this a non-issue.

Might want to see if the crown is messed up or funky.

I'm thinking it's the sights though.

I'm not sure about the rounded/squared chamber, but I'd read about newer barrels and it has two dots/witness marks that supposedly denotes a newer twist barrel.
If I measured correctly it has a .160 height front, but its sloped down from back to front, so kinda weird to measure correctly.

 

[DustyDawg48]

Tripp magazines website used to (may still) have a neat super high speed film clip of a 1911 being fired. Slide was about 30% of the way back when the bullet cleared the barrel if memory serves. I think it is a bit like rifle accuracy, you accept that the rifle barrel moves during the shot but you do what you can to insure the movement is consistent. That is a bit of a left handed tangent to finding and fixing a problem of excess motion though.

A neat starting point is to call a manufacturer and find out what they deem to be acceptable on your particular gun. A full size XD (4" or greater) is deemed acceptable by Springfield if 5 shot groups do not exceed 3.5" at 25 yards, shorter barreled guns and the pass fail point goes to 4.5", on my first XD I got lucky and the gun will group as good as you can shoot it (about 1 7/8" 5 shot 25 yard on a factory supplied target), on my 5" XD's I'm a lot closer to the 3.5" spec.
I'm assuming the spec's for M&P would be similar to the XD but it would be a good thing to know for sure.
Personally I think 3+ inches sucks dirty pond water so my XD is off to the factory for a match barrel, that is more of a what is important to you thing than a what you really need thing though.

That is a helluva good notion! The grouping out of his wasn't bad just very low.

 

[DustyDawg48]

I'm not sure about the rounded/squared chamber, but I'd read about newer barrels and it has two dots/witness marks that supposedly denotes a newer twist barrel.
If I measured correctly it has a .160 height front, but its sloped down from back to front, so kinda weird to measure correctly.

I'll bring my M&P to WSSC on Saturday and if you get there early enough we can run over to the range and see what happens when we make a few swaps at the 10 yard like. Just let me know!

 

[sbcman]

Are we going to need to run a BUG classifier before hand?

No. If it's set up like nats there will be two divisions- ssp and ssr. The highest class you hold in either category will be used. For example, I don't hold an SSR classification, but I'll still be shooting as an SSR/MA.

There's no separate classifications for BUGs.

It will be interesting to see come the first quarter of next year how they change the BUG rules, if at all. A lot of folks think that gun sizes and categories will be changed. Maybe...until then I plan to flat out game it with a 3" 686

 

[DustyDawg48]

No. If it's set up like nats there will be two divisions- ssp and ssr. The highest class you hold in either category will be used. For example, I don't hold an SSR classification, but I'll still be shooting as an SSR/MA.

There's no separate classifications for BUGs.

It will be interesting to see come the first quarter of next year how they change the BUG rules, if at all. A lot of folks think that gun sizes and categories will be changed. Maybe...until then I plan to flat out game it with a 3" 686

it seems like they introduced the BUG format and had no notion of how popular it would be. There is a lot of room for improvement; somebody said something about a need to introduce a maximum weight limit for BUG guns. I wonder if they will ever do anything concerning Power Factor in BUG.

 

[sbcman]

Brent, here's the two generation barrels. Older barrel on left, new barrel on right.

 

[sbcman]

my XD is off to the factory for a match barrel, that is more of a what is important to you thing than a what you really need thing though.

Nice. Are you planning to do some SSP with it?

What accuracy are you getting out of your 9 and 40 STIs?

I would love to hit this! I'm with you in simply digging the BUG idea and cannot wait for this one on Saturday!

Let's do this!

I'm fire up for Saturday as well. Don't get me wrong, I like the movie matches, they're a lot of fun. But I would be totally happy with an entire BUG match!

I'm not sure about the rounded/squared chamber, but I'd read about newer barrels and it has two dots/witness marks that supposedly denotes a newer twist barrel.
If I measured correctly it has a .160 height front, but its sloped down from back to front, so kinda weird to measure correctly.

Yeah, they just aren't the best. But I'm thinking an honest 160 with a dot might bring things where they need to be.

That is a helluva good notion! The grouping out of his wasn't bad just very low.

Don't encourage him.

it seems like they introduced the BUG format and had no notion of how popular it would be. There is a lot of room for improvement; somebody said something about a need to introduce a maximum weight limit for BUG guns. I wonder if they will ever do anything concerning Power Factor in BUG.

Who knows what the cougar teams will come up with. My hope would be that they keep the standards as they are now but introduce a micro class for really small and lightweight 380 and j-frames. S&W calibrated their steel to be taken down with a 380, so instead of having a set PF I think that would be a better way to go about it- make sure your rounds will down steel. Clubs would then need to make sure they could.

 

[Grelber]

Nice. Are you planning to do some SSP with it?

What accuracy are you getting out of your 9 and 40 STIs?

Would like to shoot a bit of ssp but more than that I want to shoot production class in USPSA. Tried it a little bit 1st part of the year & 10 rounds seemed like a near maximum fun place to be.

Really don't know what groups I'm getting on the other guns. My pass fail test is whether or not I can make free hand head shots at 25 yards (caveat, when I'm shooting my best) if I can do all hits when I don't mess up then I call it good. If I can't stay on the head shots then I start the painful process (for me) of trying to get scientific about what is going on & messing with different loads & yadda yadda yadda. A ransom rest would be a wonderful thing, else trying to be really focused shooting from a rest is something I avoid, it is difficult to be the same day to day & my eyes fatigue fairly quick & all that stuff. With the good XD and the STI's I can pass the test (gun slop + Jeff slop < miss) without getting marginally close to the break lines, with the other XD's, not so much.