Call me Ahab

posted by Caleb on Sep 2

This entry crossposted at Gun Nuts Radio Blog under ParaOrdnance 16 40 Limited.

After spending a weekend shooting my ParaUSA LTC 9mm, one of the things I decided that I wanted was a single action 1911 platform pistol in .40 S&W for shooting Enhanced Service Pistol division in IDPA and Limited in USPSA.

Saturday, after trying out my Storm Lake Glock 24 barrel, I made the mistake(?) of stopping by Gander Mountain on my way home, and low and behold what did I see other than a ParaOrdnance 16-40 Limited, a 16 round .40 S&W on the 1911 platform. After hemming and hawing for a bit, I decided that since the gun was in great condition to go for it. That next day I went out to Eagle Creek with Tam, Roberta X, and Brigid to try out my new toy. For comparison, I took along my Glock 24, also chambered in .40 S&W.

Upon seeing the pistol, Tam declared on the spot “That is a serious Limited gun, right there”, to which I agree wholeheartedly. The pistol itself has forward and rearward serrations on the slide, adjustable sights, a full length guide rod and all the other accoutrement that you’d expect on a purpose built Limited pistol.

After loading up the magazines, which was no mean feat, by the way; I tried running a few double taps from low ready - recoil was easily managed, especially if I remembered to grip the gun 20% tighter and bend my “shock absorbers”. Doing fast double taps at speed, I was able to handily keep all the shots within the “Down Zero” zone of an IDPA target at 7 yards.

This gun, in addition to being pretty, can flat out shoot. This and my LTC (when I get my little mitts on it) are going to be my Steel and IDPA guns - which creates the ability for me to transition from platform to platform quite easily because they’re both 1911s.

Compared to my Glock 24, recoil on the 1911 was a bit easier to manage - although felt recoil wasn’t that bad, the Glock 24 had more apparent muzzle flip to me - the all steel construction of the Para 16 40 Limited seemed to cause the gun to settle quite nicely back on target after each shot.

The only thing I don’t absolutely love about this gun is the magazines, which are absolutely murder on my thumbs. I’m actually keeping them loaded at all times in the hopes of breaking the springs down a little bit so that I can load them in the field without the aid of “Ahab’s Reloading Kit”, which consists of a toothbrush that I use to hold the spring down while I shove bullets into the mag.

This weekend is the IDPA match at Atlanta Conservation Club which is where I’ll be in the morning, running my new Para 16 40 Limited. That match is part of the prep for the IDPA State Championships in October, which I’ll probably run with this gun as well.

You know, I blame Todd Jarrett for all of this. Before going to Blackwater, I was content to live in a world without 1911s, I figured between my Glocks and Berettas I had everything covered. But I have to say, the 1911 is the most shootable gun I’ve ever played with. By “shootable” I mean that the pistol has a very low learning curve; plus the grip angle seems to make the gun want to point at what it to point it at.

posted by Caleb on Aug 27

I posted my review of the Para LTC 9mm at the Gun Nuts Radio blog, but I’m not a student of the 1911 like certain bloggers.  Tam, who in 12 hours gave me a master’s level course in “what makes 1911’s so rad” has her review of the Para 9mm - we shot the same gun this weekend at Blackwater.

You really should read her review - while I approached the gun from the point-of-view of someone who hadn’t really run a 1911 that much, Tam approached it as someone who knows her poop when it comes to John Moses Browning’s design.  If you don’t believe me that the gun ran and ran and ran and ran, believe her.

posted by Caleb on Aug 27

Click here to listen to the ParaUSA/Blackwater show, with special guests Kevin Baker and Sebastian.

This was an hour long special, covering all the topics from the recent ParaUSA shoot, everything from the ammo to the guns to the quality of the instruction and the facility. You can also listen via the embedded player below.

Spread this one far and wide - ParaUSA and everyone involved did a great job with this, and it deserves to get as wide recognition as possible.

posted by Caleb on Aug 26

ParaUSA was kind enough to provide me with a firearm for the duration of the event, a 9mm customized version of their LTC platform. Hit the link to check out the standard version of the gun. The pistols that we had in 9mm were slightly different from the standard version, as you can see. (Note: Click all pictures for the fullsize version.) The flash wiped out the coyote brown finish a little bit in this picture, but the rest of the details of the pistol should be readily apparent. It had a single action trigger, a fiber-optic front sight, adjustable sights on the rear, an ambi-safety, skeletonized hammer and trigger, and of course the cherry on the Sundae of Awesome, a pair of Crimson Trace laser grips.

When I first saw it, I thought to myself “this is a pretty cool heater”, and then I flipped it over and looked at the right side of the gun, which pretty much cemented my decision to purchase right then and there. I mean come on, who wouldn’t want a gun that said “Gun Blog 9″ on the side, right? As to the actual shooting, I had not previously spent a lot of time with the 1911 platform, having maybe put 500 rounds downrange out of 1911s in my entire life, which really isn’t a whole lot. I didn’t have anything against the platform, I thought that it was a fine gun for stuff, it just didn’t fit my needs.

Putting north of 1500 rounds through this gun changed my opinion of 1911s, not because I now think it’s the ultimate weapons platform, but I understand the gun a lot better. I still don’t like grip safeties very much, but I will say that the 1911 grip angle pointed more naturally than any other handgun I’ve ever run; the fact that when I listed to Todd Jarrett and did my part that the Para LTC would come right back on target didn’t hurt either.

I shot more than 1500 rounds of ammo through this gun, and I had exactly 1, count it 1, failure to feed, fire, or eject. The gun was on it’s 700th-ish round, and hadn’t been cleaned and failed to fully chamber a round, a malfunction that was easily fixed by a sharp “whack” to the rear of the slide to seat the bullet. In terms of accuracy, the ParaUSA LTC is far more accurate than I can hold. In fact, once I figured out the Kentucky windage, I was able to easily knock down 8 inch steel plates at 35-40ish yards with the pistol, which was a fun sort of “bang-wait-clang” exercise.

Now, the LTC is designed as a carry gun - as soon as I get my mitts on mine, that’s exactly what’s going to happen to it, is it’s going to end up riding around in a holster with me whenever I put my pants on. I’ll get the adjustable sights lined up for 147 grain hollow points and then we’ll be off to the races with my new gun. It’s light, and even with a full mag will be much, much easier to conceal than my much beloved 92D.

Here’s the part that hurts a bit. I liked the ParaUSA LTC so much that it turned me on to 1911s, and after spending 12 hours in a car with Tamara, I’m now equipped to make a smart decision on what kind of pistol to buy as a starting point to my .45 ACP 1911…which will end up getting used in Custom Defensive Pistol in IDPA and Single Stack Classic in USPSA.

If you were wondering how I felt about the Para LTC - Gun Blog edition, I loved mine. I’m (of course), going to buy it, and can’t wait to get the FFL and all that other stuff squared away so I can get it in my hot little hands. If you’re looking for a Commander sized 1911 but don’t want the whack and roll of a .45, think Para LTC. Seriously, this was a fantastic gun. If you don’t believe me, check out the video Sebastian posted. I’m the only one with an LTC in the video, and you can see it in action at around 2:37 mark. That’s six steel plates, and we had to shoot them in the order 1,6,2,3,4,5. The gun was so fast back on target that I nailed them in about 4 seconds with no misses. My LTC is going to be used as carry gun, and an IDPA and steel gun, and I can’t wait for my first match.

This article cross-posted at the Gun Nuts Radio blog under ParaUSA LTC.

posted by Caleb on Aug 25

That would be the best way I could describe the time we had at Blackwater, courtesy of ParaUSA.  Everyone who was there learned something new about their shooting, and learned how to shoot better.  If I was giving out a “Most Improved Shooter” award, I would give it to Robb Allen, who by paying attention to Todd Jarrett went from shooting a weaver stance to smoking the bejesus out of both Joe Huffman and me in the shoot house on Day 3.  And I don’t mean that “Most Improved” as a slight, he was literally light years better on Day 3 than he was on Day 1.

I learned so much - so many little things that I’m doing that I need to do differently to bring my shooting up to that next level.  At all the local matches I’ve been going to lately, I’ve felt like I’m missing a little component to bring myself into the next tier - after spending a weekend learning from Todd Jarrett, I’ve realized a lot of the stuff that I was doing wasn’t so much “wrong” as it was “not as efficient”.

To elaborate further, one of his big things is “hang on to the gun tighter”, and he would tell all the shooters to grip the gun “20% tighter” - when I would do that, my follow-up shots on steel targets and paper would be light-years faster.  He also told me to get more of my weight forward on my feet, and when I look at videos of me shooting steel and IDPA, I can see exactly what he’s talking about.  I was tending to sit back too much on my heels, which made my follow-up shots not as fast as they could be.

In terms of my shooting knowledge, I learned more this weekend that I had learned in the last 8 years of shooting, my Coast Guard training included in that.  Todd Jarrett is a fantastic instructor, his ability to manage the different skill levels of his class was outstanding, as was his ability to tailor the message for each individual shooter.

I’ll have more content up tomorrow morning, once I get all my videos and pictures uploaded to the blog.

posted by Caleb on Aug 23

It is almost impossible to write a summary post of today, as it was the big big big shooting day.  We started shooting IPSC targets, and by the end of the day were shooting steel on the move, reloading behind barricades and zapping 8×8 moving targets while we were moving in an opposite direction of the target.

The level of instruction that Todd Jarrett is providing is absolutely fantastic - I know that I’m already a better shooter if I can internalize at least 50% of what I’ve learned from shooting with Todd.

For me, the most valuable piece of instruction has been all the drawing from the holster - my draw used to be slow, and while it’s not that fast it’s a lot smoother, which is aided and abetted by the excellent Blackhawk Serpa holster.  Speaking of the Blackhawk stuff, their rigger belt (in addition to being a pretty good belt) makes a decent improvised magazine holder as well.

To echo what Say Uncle said, I’ve learned more in the last two days than I had learned in the past eight years of shooting.  For example, by applying the trigger discipline and other sundry lessons, by the end of the day I was knocking down a plate rack at about 35-40 yards with the 9mm.  That was pretty awesome.

Sorry we weren’t able to do a live show, however the upcoming show on Tuesday night will contain a full wrap-up of the weekend, and will be extended out to an hour instead of the usual 45 minute show.

The last piece of business is that the bet between Joe Huffman and me has changed, instead of shooting an El Presidente bet, we’re going to use our score on the shoot house we run with the Crimson Trace laser grips tomorrow.  So that will be our final determiner on the winner of the bet.

Tomorrow, we run the shoot house - our guns are all equipped with a Crimson Trace lasergrip, so all the shooting tomorrow is going to be indoors.

Come Tuesday on the blog, I’ll have a review of the pistol I shot and the gear I used, however in the mean time you can check out the 2aBlogBash page for a great aggregator of the event.

posted by Caleb on Aug 22

Day One of the ParaUSA Summer Camp was pretty cool, right up until the part where Joe Huffman shot me.  I’ll get to explaining that later, so instead I’ll begin at the beginning - getting up in the morning.

I woke in the morning and I was amped, I had so much adrenaline pumping through my system that I didn’t know what to do with myself, as many of the bloggers can attest.  Eventually we got calmed down, and we all got on the Blackhawk Bus, which is a site to behold.  I took pictures of it, but forgot the sync cable for Camera number 1, and the battery was dead on camera number 2.  I’ll hopefully be able to get all the day one pictures uploaded sooner than later.

So, we went to the Blackhawk corporate headquarters, where we had a nice intro to some of Blackhawk’s products, including the Serpa holsters, the clothing line, and what I thought was the coolest thing of all, the Knoxx stock.  It sucks up recoil, and if I have any money left over after buying the gun, then I’m going to pick up one of those Knoxx stocks for my Remington 870.

After that, we got to Blackwater, where we were given a tour of the facility, had some chow, and eventually some classroom time with Todd Jarrett…and then the guns.  I’m actually going to do a whole separate post on the guns tomorrow, because then Camera 2 will be up and running, and I can get some good shots.

After the classroom time, we finally got out to the range to do some shooting - in less than an hour we managed to run about 100 rounds downrange from our guns.  We shot quite a few relays, first at some paper then at some steel, but didn’t do a lot of shooting.  What really impacted me was how much difference in my shooting a couple of minor adjusts made.  Todd told me I wasn’t gripping the gun hard enough, so I tightened up my grip and got deeping into my stance, and next thing I know my group at five yards closed up quite a bit.  I think I’m going to learn a lot from this.

I’m still working out the details of our live show for tomorrow, however if tomorrow is anything like today, we can plan for an 8 or 9pm show, coming in live from Blackwater.  Squeaky will be hosting and I’ll have to call in, but it should be a pretty awesome show after a day of shooting, and I’ll be able to give you a full update on the products and and everything that we’re doing out here.

I’ve got some pretty good audio as well, so when we do the ParaUSA wrap up show, we’ll have a lot of different clips to play for the show.

I will break the coverage down a bit and talk about some of the gear as well, we have holsters and mag carriers and gloves from Blackhawk - so far the best piece of gear that I have from Blackhawk hasn’t been the Serpa holster (which is good rig), but the GLOVE they gave me.  The factory new 9mm mags were a little…rugged, so I was really happy to have that tactical glove from Blackwater to keep my thumb from getting all ripped to pieces loading these mags.

Tomorrow is going to be a full day of shooting; we’re basically going to shoot all day, which means by the end of the day my trigger finger is going to be hurt and I’m going to be grinning from ear to ear.  More to come as we get it!

Remember, you can check out the coverage of the event at one handy place, the 2A Blog Bash.

posted by Caleb on Aug 22

I didn’t do too well. Turns out, I can’t handle the 9mm very well. They gave me a .22 and it worked much better for me.

I cried a lot. I miss home.

Update: Thanks Robb, you cheeky bastard.  It’s what I get for leaving my computer unlocked and stepping away while he’s within 500 yards of anything.

And for the record, I only cried a little.

posted by Caleb on Aug 21

I actually really like the airport at Norfolk, it’s pretty well laid out.

Finally here and settled into my hotel, and just kind of chilling out for the time being. Looking forward to getting down with the shooting tomorrow.

Also, if you’re looking for a great place to find all of the ParaUSA Summer Camp coverage, check out this feed aggregator at the 2ABlogBash website.

posted by Caleb on Aug 21

The wonderful wizard of guns.

Needless to say, blogging will be light today - I’ll post periodic updates from my Blackberry as sit in the airport and wait for my plane. And of course, for the people that really, really love those posts I’ll post about any misadventures I have with TSA. I’m not bringing a firearm so I don’t anticipate any problems with my luggage, but you also never know with these guys.

Looking forward to getting in to Norfolk! Also, keep your eyes on this spot; hopefully I’ll be able to post details of our “Live from Blackwater” show for Gun Nuts.