Triangle Tactical - Uspsa | 3 Gun | Idpa | Competitive Shooting

Memes: If you haven't been following Triangle Tactical on social media, you've been missing out on all the shooting sports memes that I've been making. Carry Rig: I picked up a new carry rig. I've been rocking a Glock 19 for the longest time but I found myself wanting something smaller while doing dad stuff. The G19 was just getting too heavy and big while carrying the baby carrier, diaper bag, and everything else that goes along with having a little tyke. So, I picked up a Glock 43, and a RCS Morrigan holster to go with it. I'm a big fan. USPSA: New rulebook looks decent, and there's one thing in it that I really like: this USPSA approved ammo vendor program thing.  

This is the last episode for a while. I'm taking the summer off to get used to life with our new baby, planning to come back with Triangle Tactical Podcast "Season 2" around August or Septemberish. See you then, carry on.

This week I talk about some RO stuff, after reading about a DQ online that the RO may have not helped. Also, we've got a few First Match voicemails that are FANTASTIC.

This week I talk about cheating in the shooting sports, and what to do ab out it.

This is the 6 year anniversary episode of the Triangle Tactical Podcast! To celebrate we're going live and answering what is probably the best batch of questions I've had for a Q&A show ever.

I've become interested in hearing from people who are the best in the world in other sports recently, so I've been actively seeking out podcasts with people who are the best of the best in what they do.  I kept hearing references to an interview Joe Rogan did with an ultramarathoner named Courtney Dauwalter on his podcast. She won a race called the Moab 240, which is a 238 mile foot race through Moab Utah. She won the overall by something ridiculious like 11 hours or something. Later in the interview, Joe asks her about nutrition, and much to my surprise, she doesn't have a crazy diet, she said that she eats nachos, candy, and beer. She's a total outlier. It's amazing, but just because she does it, doesn't mean that I can keep eating nachos, candy, and beer and do what she does. The same goes for shooting. There might be someone who is REALLY good that doesn't practice like crazy, but they aren't you.

This week Jeff from NC Shooters Supply is on the podcast answering your reloading questions. We had a lot of y'all submit questions, so first and foremost thank you for sending them in! There's a TON of information in this episode, but please feel free to put any more questions you may have in the comments, and we'll get them answered in the future.

This week I had a local Production Master Travis Beal come on the podcast. Travis and I used to be close to the same level, and then all the sudden he rocketed past me and started really killing it as a shooter. As it stands now, he's going to become a Grand Master any time, and it's all because of the change of mindset he had after getting disqualified at a major match.

Chris asked on the Facebook group about competitive equity at matches: Ports - all ports being the same high or low height. Should they be mixed height? I'm taller than most shooters. Not the tallest guy on the range, but above average. Personally I don't have a problem with MD's mixing up the height of ports, as long as they aren't going too crazy with it. Tall shooters can get low, but short shooters can't get higher. I think there's a size and height of port that can work for every shooter, and then it's totally kosher to add in something like a low port here and there. I like low ports, mostly because I like to hear people grumble about them, and also because I like to see people really get tested on their prone handgun shooting skills, which is something that nobody practices, and a lot of people struggle with. Walking stages - should stages be open the day before for people that can travel? I had to ponder this one for a little bit, and while it's not completely fair that someone could walk the match th

I mentioned a theory on the podcast a couple weeks ago about how I expected that higher class shooters would probably pull away from lower class shooters on the shorter stages moreso than the longer stages, but gthat it was just a theory because I didn't want to do the math. Well, I got an email from Louis, and he pulled the data from the different stages at the 2017 Production Nationals and... I was totally wrong.  Louis broke down the stages from Nationals, then charted the median percentage by round count on a chart and it turns out that the median finish from each classification was about the same on all the different round count stages. Louis has been pulling the numbers on some other things with classifications and whatnot and if you want to see them, look in the shownotes for this episode and I'll have a link to his github page with the deets: https://lstange.github.io/uspsa/classification_vs_performance.html (By the way, if you didn't know this, you *should* be able to access all the links and stuff

5x5 Classifier Seems like the 5x5 classifier is causing some issues at IDPA matches. Something I hadn't thought of, but each shooter is putting 20 scored holes in the target with that drill, and that is a lot, especially with a bunch of shooters. Not sure how I feel about this. In USPSA rule 4.2.3 Paper targets must never be required to receive more than 12 hits before being scored and patched. I think that's a decent rule, because we get so used to only scoring 2 hits on the paper. Setting aside the idea of the shooters getting too used to only shooting 2 rounds only at targets, thinking only about scoring. We get too used to scoring the two best hits on a target. I've done it before on a stage that required more than 2 hits where I just went into default mode and scored the two best hits and ignored the others, and thankfully we had Practiscore to tell me that we hadn't scored enough hits on the target.  The other issue is that when you're shooting that many shots at one target, and then trying to score eve

I've been dying from allergies all week so I didn't get much show-prep done, but I did get a bunch of good questions from the Triangle Tactical Podcast group that I answered on this weeks show.

There was a recent question in the Triangle Tactical Facebook group asking about what sort of things a Range Officer should bring when working a match.  I thought I'd put together a list of things that are nice to have and make them into an episode. Coincidentally, most of the things on the list are also helpful to have around in your practice sessions as well, so even if you're not a range officer, you might pick up a couple ideas for your personal use. Pistol grip thing that snaps onto paint cans: If you’re working a stage that has a lot of steel, you’ll thank me. It makes a TON of difference in the ease of painting. Duct Tape: If you’re really concerned about competitive equity (which you should be at every match, but at least at Level 2 and up matches) you can allow the target sticks on swingers and drop turners to soak up a few more bullets on these targets if you wrap the sticks in duct tape before stapling the targets to them. Swingers and drop turners are more apt to get bullets in the sticks since th

I had a very frustrating practice session at the range on Monday. I burned about 500 rounds just shooting a plate rack because it's been something that has been really killing me at matches recently. Here's what happened: I could kill the plate rack at 10 yards. Anywhere between 3.1 and 3.5 seconds, no misses, no problems. At 15 yards, I was an absolute mess. I'd hit the first plate, then start missing all over the place with no obvious reason why. Then, at 20 yards, I was actually shooting better than I was shooting at 15 yards. I burned a bunch of ammo at the 15y plate rack and it was just a crap show. What I noticed though, was that I didn't really need much of a sight picture to shoot the plate rack at 10y. A flash of the red fiber optic inside the rear notch, and I was sending the shot and getting a hit. At 15y, I obviously needed more than that, and I wasn't getting it. At 20y, my brain was making my trigger finger wait for the sights before sending the round. I did some thinking, and decided I'd take a

SERPA There was a post on the r/competitionshooting subreddit this last week from someone talking about how they were an IDPA match last weekend and a new shooter was drawing from his SERPA holster at the match and plugged himself with a round at the hip, which then travelled down to around his knee. I don’t really want to beat the SERPA horse anymore, but I’ll tell you that in my years of competition, I’ve seen 4 people AD while drawing their pistol, and all 4 were using a SERPA. Here's what happens: Buzzer goes off. Shooter attempts to draw the gun, but doesn't get the button pushed in all the way and the gun doesn't come out of the holster as expected. Shooter then jams the gun down into the holster, mashes the button super hard, and then rips it up out of the holster. Because the shooter is mashing the button super hard while ripping the gun upwards, the finger slips off the edge of the holster and hits the trigger. Sometimes the round discharges into the dirt, sometimes it hits the shooter. Cross draw Sh

The USPSA Board of Directors announced some changes to several divisions in the BoD meeting notes from earlier this month, and in this episode I discuss the highlights and lowlights. I'd encourage you to go to the USPSA website, log-in, and actually read all of the changes. Far too many people have just been asking for the Cliffs Notes version of the new rules, instead of just reading the rules. Read. The. Rules.

Bryan What is a good age to start a junior shooter? A lot of it probably has to do with maturity/responsibility. Start them with a pellet gun, BB gun, .22? Bryan My practice range is an indoor range, and can be rather loud at times; what is great practice drill to do that does not require a shot timer? Mark Hello Lucas. Thank you for your show. You've helped me get started in competitive shooting. As a middle-aged guy, my biggest challenge is my eye sight. I only use glasses for reading and computer work. I don't wear prescription glasses otherwise which includes shooting. This means the front sight is always fuzzy. I shoot fairly accurately, but I know this is holding me back. I've tried some of my own junk science by shooting with my reading glasses. This brings the front sight into focus, but it makes the target fuzzier than before. I've only done this on a limited basis since my reading glasses aren't safety glasses. My results have been mixed. What do other shooters do to overcome this? Chris Are there a

Most folks out there can't afford to take a shooting class more than about once a year or so, and most people don't get instruction that much. Previous podcast episode on coaching here. I hear a lot of people talk about how they struggled for years doing things incorrectly. How they then changed something in their practice and saw improvement. People talk about how boring dryfire is because they're doing the same crap over and over and over, day after day, month after month and they're not really seeing improvement either. I was listening to a small business podcast today where a lady was being interviewed about the small business that she runs where she brings together these women who run businesses into these Mastermind groups. They pay her to be part of a group, and as part of the group they all counsel and support each other in their businesses with regular conference calls, etc. This got me thinking about the shooting sports. Why couldn't there be some sort of group coaching for shooters looking to impr

Last week when I was on the range doing all the shooting for last weeks Junk Science show I noticed something that I’d never noticed before. When I was doing the step into the box draws, I could reliably shave a tenth of a second when I put my focus on the draw stroke, and not the step. If I just let the step happen, and put my focus on the draw, a pretty average draw was about .95, .96, .97, something like that. However, when I focused on the step, and let the draw stroke just happen, the time went up to about 1.06 or so. I’ve subscribed to the “get bored while you practice thing” and get in a lot of repetitions thing for a long time, but I kind of wonder how much better I’d be now, or how much more I’d enjoy practice if I were really focusing on things, and not allowing myself to get bored. Doing the shooting for last weeks show, I couldn’t allow myself to get bored. I had to keep focus. I didn’t get bored, and I actually got to where I could feel it when I’d shot a draw that was sub .9, and sub 1 second, a

For a long time I've wondered if the expensive race holsters that hold the gun just by the trigger guard are really worth the money, so that's what I've decided to find out for this episode. So, here's what I did: I setup a 10" steel plate at 10y. I tested both holsters with 50 draws in the following ways: Kydex - Stand and shoot 50 rounds. DAA Alpha X - Stand and shoot 50 rounds. Kydex - Step into the shooting area and shoot 50 rounds. DAA Alpha X - Step into the shooting area and shoot 50 rounds. The results were surprising, even to me.