Wednesday, August 21, 2013

*sigh*

Other than a dud primer experienced while shooting the qual at MAG-40 back in June, my carry gun has not failed to go through its complete cycle of operation since the TulAmmo fiasco in Colorado last October...

...until shooting the plate rack* on Stage One at M3GI, where I experienced a... well, let's be honest, you don't stand there and diagnose the malfunction while you're on the clock, but whatever it was, a tap-rack didn't fix it and I had to rip the mag out of the gun and stuff in a fresh one to finish dropping plates. This will affect your score, in much the same way as will missing the pool from the ten meter platform†.

I guess it's time to give the gun a real bath. Maybe even wipe out the inside of some mag tubes while I'm at it.


*And a fiendish plate rack it was, too. Rather than nice circles, the plates were cut so they spelled out the logo of the stage sponsor: *FLIR*. The asterisk-like blobs on either end were pretty straightforward but if you held dead center on, say, the "R", your bullet would go right through the hole. Thanks to FarmDad's "bastard plates", I was ready for this and didn't have any problems with hitting the actual metal part.
As a bonus, I finished the stage and the guys on my squad were all like "Did you see that film crew?" What film crew? "The film crew that was following you through that stage! You're totally going to be on TV!" I wish I could have found out who they were filming for so I could warn people to look away from the screen at the appropriate time.

9 comments:

global village idiot said...

"Training to Failure" is more important than "Training To Standard."

One of the things I stress when I train my Soldiers (on whatever task - it really doesn't matter) is that it takes relatively little time or effort to teach The Right Way; and that simply showing you know how to do something The Right Way, under ideal conditions and with everything going right, is no indication of proficiency.

REAL proficiency is the ability to turn Completely Jacked Up into Right under conditions often not contemplated in the training scenario.

What you demonstrated was the ability to turn Completely Jacked Up into Right.

That's real-world proficiency where I come from. The only comparison you need to gauge yourself by is "How did other people who experienced a similar setback do?"

gvi

Bubblehead Les. said...

"Cleanliness is next to Godliness."

Take it as a sign from Above to break out the Hoppes #9.

After all, Goblins won't give you the time to Prep your Weapon, will they?

Scott J said...

Gvi, great description of proficiency. I'm stealing it.

It applies well to coders. It's one thing to be able to be able to bang out lines of code like a monkey. Quite another to diagnose jacked up and make it work as intended.

Al T. said...

GVI, another way to express that is "amateurs train till they get it right, professionals train till they can't get it wrong".

Only downfall to having a locked down failure drill is that it leaves you wondering exactly went wrong a few seconds later... After you've gotten back up and running.

wv - "voluga" - almost right on the first one, dead wrong on the second.

Tango Juliet said...

I ran my beloved CQB a few hundred cast bullet loads too long during Sunday's Steel Challenge event. The thoroughly gooked up chamber was impeding cycling.

I got some spontaneous TRB work the last two stages. I was proud of myself for launching into the routine automagically with little discernable hesitation.

Though a smart man would've cleaned out the chamber between stages. :)

Old NFO said...

You fixed it, didn't give up and finished. THAT is what counts!

T.Stahl said...

What? No one's asking for that video?

Anonymous said...

Michael Bane from Colorado was there, filming.
OldeForce

Tam said...

OldeForce,

I chatted with M.B. a fair bit. I don't think it was his crew on the second night, but I don't know.