It has been a very busy month.
The PGP75 parts arrived from Larry as expected. After screwing around with them for a while, I noticed that the pin on which the sight adjusts for elevation was bent slightly upwards. I gave it a tap with a rubber mallet, and it broke off about 1/8" inside the receiver of the gun. Disaster!! There was no way I was getting it out myself, so off the gun went to Larry. He was surprised the pin was bent at all in the first place, as it is hardened and very brittle. About a $100 fix, which he was gracious enough to split the difference on. Optionally, Mr. Carter had a Hammerli 162 in stock that he was willing to give me full credit towards a trade for; I have decided to make the switch. I was very happy with the performance of the Pardini, very comfortable with the fit, and may come to regret this decision, but it is most definitely a more modern and up to date design. Larry is primarily a Hammerli guy so support down the line for the 162 seems a sure thing, whereas the Pardini is a thirty+ year old design. I look forward to receiving the Hammerli, and hope to shoot it in competition on the 16th of June.
In the mean time, I have acquired a Walther CP2 air pistol - this is a CO2 powered gun of much higher quality than my Daisy 717. I received the gun about 24 hours before the May 26th match at DCPA, but decided to give it a go anyway if I could secure a bulk CO2 tank and get it filled in one afternoon. Luckily, a local welding shop had a brand new aluminum 5# tank ready to go, and I was in business. One very hasty shakedown cruise later, and it was match day. I had literally only fired 10 shots from the airgun before shooting it in competition, but more on that in a bit.
I was not going to make the trip and only shoot a single discipline, as I did last month, so I removed the JPoint sight from my .22 (RBAPS600) and spent the two Thursday night sessions prior to the match trying to get used to iron sights again! The results were, quite frankly, disappointing. At 50 ft. using Bullseye targets, I was shooting well below my usual practice average. Lots of shots high center, which was puzzling to me. I figured it was probably inconsistent sight alignment, and made a note to get as many sighters in before the Standard match as possible.
Match day, shooting Air Pistol in the morning and Standard in the afternoon. This was my first sanctioned shoulder-to-shoulder AP match, and I was a bit nervous. It didn't help that I arrived a bit late and caused the entire line to be held up while the club set up a target for me (oops). One thing was apparent right away - the grip on the CP2 was frickin HUGE - it felt like I was holding a bag of pointy rocks. I could barely reach the trigger. You'd think I would have noticed this during the shakedown the prior evening, but I didn't. I was so uncomfortable I didn't come close to my postal or practice averages. Not even a whiff! But, a bad day shooting is better than a good day mowing the lawn, and yadda yadda yadda.
On to the Standard Pistol event. This was a brand new event for me, I hadn't a clue what the course of fire consisted of before the match began. No worries, it is more-or-less the same format as the .22 portion of a Bullseye event, only with iron sights. During Precision fire (slow fire) I was once again throwing shots high that I called good. Results were nowhere near my usual .22 average. Timed fire was a train-wreck, as I had sorta psyched myself out a bit and couldn't find a comfortable sight picture. An alibi string (I always screw those up) made a semi-ok performance semi-awful. And then, all of a sudden like, it all came together in Rapid Fire. I shot 20 percentage points better in Rapid than in Timed, also much better than the Precision stage. No problem raising to the bull, right on target, great trigger control and follow through. Only having 10 seconds forced me to stay on the front sight, and the "alignment" problem was nowhere to be found.
Thinking about things afterwards, I believe I was "looking up" and not following through properly. I had a chance to practice this past Thursday with a view towards testing this theory and it seems I have at least identified the problem, if not completely resolved it. My targets were much more consistent this past week during practice, much higher scores and all that jazz.
I also made some substantial mods to the CP2 grip, and it now fits very comfortably. No time as of yet to do any serious practice with it, but I look forward to it at least fitting a human hand!
Only two weeks until the next International match, and my plan will hinge on whether the new Hammerli free pistol is ready to go or not. If so, I will shoot Free, Standard, and Air if possible. If not, Standard and Air. In either case, I will be much better prepared than for the first effort in each discipline this season.
And I haven't made a Bullseye match since March! That has to change, and soon.
