JohnKSa wrote:NcongruNt wrote:I'm quite happy with that, and don't feel I need to prove its reliability further.
It's funny how different people react to this match. Some seem to take it as a personal affront while others see it as a chance to interact with other shooters, spend a day at the range free of charge, and perhaps learn a bit about themselves and their pistol.
I think you missed the intention of my statement. I am not taking any of this personally. We're on a forum discussing guns. My commentary was simply that - commentary. I have no problem with your match and I hope it is fun for you. I just don't see myself getting much out of it. I simply find the statement that " It is about seeing how well real guns work with real people shooting them" doesn't really pass my logic test. If I were trying to garner valuable information in this arena, there would need to be a control for the variables like ammo. This is, after all, a CHL forum, and to really want to limit the result variables to "real people" and their "real guns", we'd need to control the ammo aspect to something we actually carry. The fact that cheap ammo is in the mix (and as an overwhelming majority) negates the usefulness of the test for me, and that's why I'm not interested. I'm all for y'all putting lots of ammo downrange, I just think you are unable garner proper results from cheap ammo. When you push this as a real-world test of people and equipment, you're going to have people disagree with the validity of the exercise if there are some logical holes in the specifics. That's what I did, nothing more. I have no disagreement that shooting is fun, because it is.
JohnKSa wrote:For whatever it's worth, NO ONE brought a pistol to the match thinking that it was likely to malfunction. EVERYONE brought a gun that they felt would get through the match without a malfunction. Only 3 of the 14 entrants were right...
NcongruNt wrote:I'd sooner go buy a new gun than put that much money into the dirt in one day. Maybe some folks have money to blow on expensive ammo, I dunno.
So when you practice you use ONLY self-defense style ammunition? Or do you, perhaps, find some value in shooting less expensive "practice" FMJ ammo?
There was a time that I shot only my chosen carry load when I visited the rage. I can't afford that these days, but I still get in a good bit of valuable range time thanks to budget ammunition. So far, at least, I've never felt that any time spent at the range amounted to "putting money into the dirt".
I shoot mainly cheap ammo that I find to be reliable and consistent for most of my range time. The choice of ammo is simply because it's cheaper and the objective of that range time is to hone my shooting skills, not to prove that my gun is reliable. It proved itself long ago to be a reliable firearm with my carry ammo, so I have no need to prove otherwise. I don't take my car on extended off-roading "torture tests" just to prove that it will perform as I want in case I need to go off-roading in an emergency, and I see no need to do the same with my gun to prove that it will handle a few mags worth of ammo in case of an extreme emergency. I run occasional failure drills with snap-caps so that I am proficient in clearing them, and regularly practice shooting drills from various positions (kneeling, crouching, one-handed, weak-handed, etc) so that I can familiarize myself with how I and my gun perform in those situations. I test it with a few mags of carry ammo just to be sure it works properly, but I have no need to put the kind of wear on my gun that a 1000 round rapid-fire session would induce - just to prove it will work
As for carry ammo, I cycle my on-body ammo through my gun every few months or so and replenish it with new stuff. This gets rid of old ammo that's been subjected to sitting in my gun or on my hip in a mag carrier in various environments, and performs a periodic test of my specific carry ammo's reliability in the gun. I put a couple hundred rounds of carry ammo through it when it was new, and it performed beautifully. Every so often I will run a different brand of carry ammo (Hornady XTP most recently, I have a box of Federal HST waiting for my next trip), just to see how the rounds perform. I stick with the 124gr +P Gold Dot because it provides the power level that I prefer in my SD ammo, has proven itself consistent in its performance, and is widely accepted as a quality carry round (lots of LE departments use it as their standard 9mm round).
Anyhow, now that I've answered your questions, let me say specifically that I wasn't deriding your event in general, just the specifics of reasoning in your promotional statement. We are adults, and I expect that we can disagree and still respect each other, contrary to what the internet has taught us.
I hope your event is fun for everyone involved.
