I’d been wondering all year how the
boys in New Brunswick were going to top the 2010 Summer Slam. Having
just returned from Summer Slam VI, now I know. We arrived on Friday
afternoon with enough time to walk the ranges and get a sense of
what kind of shooting challenges we were in for the next day. They
had expanded the faculty with two new bays, and these bays contained
some VERY interesting stuff including three truck trailers set up
end to end forming a U-shaped tunnel. Shooters ran the stage
shooting out of the open ends of the trailers and through ports cut
into the sides. All this with lots of steel, pop-ups and a swinger!
There was also a 160 point hoser stage with two APC’s fabricated out
of plywood that included trap-door activators, pop-up targets and
drop-down rear doors to expose hidden targets underneath. This was
one stage I would have liked to try shooting about three different
ways. I just couldn’t decide which approach was best but suffice to
say it was a high hit factor, dead-run kind of stage. Just what the
doctor ordered if you’re an adrenaline junkie like me. I shot it in
just a hair over 16 seconds but I’m convinced it could have been
done 1 ½ seconds faster. Turing it around in my head on the way home
I had to fight the urge to turn the truck around and go back to
prove it to myself.
The platform stage was there again this
year but they had built on an addition so there was even more
movement! Everyone got a huge workout on this one, and with two
distant targets (35-ish meters?) right near the end of the run and
after sprinting up the stairs, competitors were hard pressed to
engage them cleanly while trying to shoot between trip hammering
heartbeats. This was very challenging stage that also had multiple
possible solutions.
You can get a first-hand view of the work
these guys put into this match. Naturally my own camera cacked on me
again so my photos were limited, but I’ll post more links here as
they become available.
I have no idea how these guys plan to
upstage themselves next year, but I do know they are already working
on it. I have the distinct impression this is a club full of
restless tinkerers who can never be satisfied, so it goes without
saying that Summer Slam will be on my personal list of must-shoot
matches. Additionally, we were informed by our Regional director,
Sean Hansen, at the match banquet that the 2013 Canadian Nationals
will be held at the Restigouche Gun Club. I just KNOW Serge and
Chris are already gleefully crunching a whole boatload (sorry for
the pun: see video @ 6:13) of diabolical ideas for that!
Well
done guys! Simply amazing. Aim will be there again next year as
match sponsors.
IPSC techniques
workshop. Levels 1 and 2 - September/October
Wade and I are planning another IPSC techniques workshop for
this fall. Tentative dates are September 24 and October 01 (2011) at
WCRA. We are awaiting approval from the BOD. and I’ll post details
here as soon as we know if we have the go-ahead.
As always
this workshop will be sponsored by Aim so each student gets to take
home a nice little gift.
Toronto Police Shooting team workshop –
August 6th, 2011
The Toronto Police Shooting Team
workshop wrapped up day 2 this past weekend. There were a couple of
new participants this time out but for some reason I completely
forgot to get a group photo (I’m going to blame it on the humidity).
Hopefully I can get some pix from one of the guys soon and post them
here.
After
spending the first half of the day grinding out the movement and
preservation of momentum drills, we spent the second half doing the
fun stuff…..shooting stages! We had set up two courses of fire that
incorporated a little of just about everything, including swingers,
a drop-turner, and plenty of steel. Everyone got a chance to put the
lessons to a practical test. To measure improvement we recorded hit
factors over several runs and we tracked a significant improvement
across the board as each member of the group put the pieces of the
puzzle together. Again, this was a VERY focused group; able to
assimilate new ideas and adapt them very quickly and effectively
into an existing skill-set. . I’m looking forward to hearing how
much butt they kicked at the World Police Games, coming up at the
end of this month.
Many thanks to the TPS shooting team for
seeking us out for additional training. It was a pleasure to work
with them and I hope to do so again.
2011 Canadian National Championships. July
27-31.
Held again at FRPC in Kingston, the Nationals
this year drew competitors from the US, Czech Republic, and Italy.
Maybe the word is getting out that Canadian matches are worth
putting up with the hassles of ten round magazines….?
This was an interesting
match. On the surface all the stages looked pretty simple but in
fact there was quite a lot of technical shooting required. Even the
stages that looked like easy hose-fests turned out to have subtle
little treacheries and speed-limiters built in, with just enough
hard cover partial targets, no-shoots and vision barriers
thoughtfully placed to keep competitors on their toes. Stage 2
(See
Link)
was a real brain twister for many of us and thus, one of my favorites. With four poppers and two swingers activated by a single
popper, there was a high danger factor built in to this stage that
forced competitors to seriously evaluate their known skill set
before choosing a solution. I couldn’t decide whether to take the
safe approach or try for all the marbles right up until I was on
deck to shoot. A lot of the Open guys opted for the right to left
steel engagement which theoretically presented both swingers at the
apex of their arcs for a single pass engagement. But you had to be
quick and if you missed one of the steel after hitting the activator
you ended up out of sequence and had to wait two seconds for the
swinger to reappear. I finally decided to go for the gusto but got a
little tense thinking about it and didn’t quite pull it off; missed
the inside popper on the left and ended up eating the two second
penalty. Another lesson to re-learn….(sigh). Great stage though, and
watching Chris Tilley (U.S.) shoot it was awe inspiring.
The
match staff showed their mettle once again when Saturday brought a
monster, three hour deluge in the middle of the day that flooded
most of the ranges. It looked like we were going to have to suspend
shooting for the day and try to make it up on Sunday, but when the
rain tapered the match staff threw their backs into it, drained what
needed draining and somehow got all the squads finished within an
hour of the posted schedule!
Again, Aim would like to thank
the Match committee for welcoming us as sponsors for the Nationals.
Next year in Brandon….
2011 Ontario Provincial Championships. June
22-26.
Aim would like to thank the match committee
for having us as a sponsor for this match. It was great to finally
be able to show our customers the new product we have been
promising, though it was a mad scramble to get everything ready in
time. All the new moulds seem to be performing quite well.
The provincials were held
at FRPC in Kingston this year, a very nice facility ideally set up
for large-form competition and a perfect little area for the
vendors.
The match went reasonably ok for me. I shot fairly
steady for the most part though generally a little slower than I
would have liked. The wheels totally came off on stage 10 however,
where we had a table pick-up-and-rack start where I somehow managed
to brush the rheostat button on my scope with my knuckle as I yanked
back on the cocking handle, turning the accursed thing completely
off! I never done that before. Hell, I didn’t even know I COULD do
such a thing! So I shot the whole stage with no sights, losing about
five seconds trying to make sure I hit everything I was supposed to
and nothing I wasn’t. Stage 6 was another one that hated me, with
the gun and mags sitting in a closed plastic box to start. It was
raining, everything was soaked and the bottom of the box was full of
water. Trying to pick up two mags at the same time in a huge hurry
was like trying to grab a wiggling fish with a pair of tongs. Not an
ideal outcome, to say the least.
Strangely, my best stage of
the match was the one that actually FELT the slowest while I was
doing it. Stage 2
(See
Link)
was a 150 point stage with 16 pieces of steel! With all those
poppers, mini-poppers and plates the disaster factor was high so all
I wanted to do was hit the steel with one shot each to avoid
unnecessary standing reloads or position overruns. It just seemed to
take forever and I kept imagining glaciers rolling inexorably across
the landscape as I shot my way through the stage. Thinking I had
flubbed it I somehow ended up somehow winning the stage. IPSC can be
weird at times and there is no forgiveness in steel….
It was a
great match. The stages were challenging and interesting and
everything seemed to run like clockwork. This was a testament to the
match committee and the determination of the guys and gals on the
ground making it all work.
Toronto Police Shooting team workshop - May
28th, 2011
This past Saturday, May 28 2011 we completed Day 1
of our Toronto Police Shooting team workshop at Waterloo County
Revolver Club. With nine guys and two ladies in attendance we had
quite a day keeping everyone actively engaged. The group is
preparing for the World Police Games to be held in NYC this coming
August and were looking to mine plumb the depths of the IPSC
competitive mind set.
For me this was an interesting
challenge. Knowing that everyone on the firing line, while looking
to gain some competitive advantage, also has to integrate any new
skills with real world equipment and tactics forced me to rethink
the validity of every technique in the presentation. A fantastic
lateral thinking exercise.
A great group to work with, they
all brought a refreshing sense of humour to the day which lent a
nice relaxed feel to the proceedings. As well, to a person the TPS
shooting team all exhibited amazing focus and the observed
integration of newly learned skills was a pleasure to watch. Both
Wade and I were thrilled with the degree of progress.
Also,
several of the guys wanted to try out an Open Division gun for the
first time. The pictures I got from that were priceless!
Wade and Rob IPSC Advanced techniques workshop, September 18/19, 2010
Our first Wade and Rob collaborative IPSC advanced techniques course is now a matter of
history. We had six willing participants on the firing line this past weekend, all working hard, pushing the limits and trying new things. It was a pleasure spending the weekend on the
range with these guys, and we were thrilled to see everything really start to gel together near the end of Day 2.
Wade and I spent many hours developing and massaging the curriculum
for this class. We had a huge amount of material to cover and it was quite a challenge finding just the right series of drills to highlight the concepts and condensing everything down to a
presentation that we felt would make sense, build layer upon layer and flow well from lesson to lesson. Even so, as we worked our way through this course we learned some new things as
instructors that we will definitely be incorporating into our next presentation.
As always, thanks to Aim Projectiles for sponsoring the event. Everyone took home a thousand
bullets in calibre of choice, which should help offset the cost of the ammo expended over the course of the weekend.
Group photo from left: Wade, Paul, Kyle, Eugene, Thien, Nik, Peter, and me.
Note: Peter had to get home for a family obligation and couldn’t stay for the photo at the end of the day, so I took the liberty and used my massive Photoshop skills to
comp in his likeness. I think it’s pretty convincing.
Rob
August 18th, 2010:
The Summer Slam V Level III IPSC match held this past weekend at the Restigouche Gun Club outside of Dalhousie NB was a crashing success. As a
late entry and one of the match sponsors representing Aim Projectiles, I opted to drive out to New Brunswick and I was able to find someone to share accommodations and navigation duties
(colt45gunner from CGN) to make the trip easier. Thanks Stavros.
This was my first time in attendance at this event, and while I was expecting a fun weekend of shooting I was
completely unprepared for what awaited us when we arrived on the range. Stepping out of the car I could see stage 5 looming monolithically right in front of me and my jaw must have hit the
ground at that point. I walked up to it thinking, “Is that a real stage or is it a building they are putting up....?” It was a stage, and it had so many shooting positions and angles, some
of them underneath the building, some of them through the floor, that my mind was starting to race. Is there going to be any more like this...? Then, as I walked around to all of the
shooting bays each stage was a new, fascinating reveal and I started to get quite excited about shooting the match the next day.
This small crew of work-horses had constructed for
us a match consisting of 16 stages of fire, 325 rounds and everything with free-style, multiple choice solutions. In fact, there were quite a few real head-scratchers with so many
possibilities that it was difficult to figure out what the best approach would be. Exclusive of the visual impact of the stage set-ups themselves, a huge amount of effort by a very small
group clearly went into planning this, and it showed.
Then there were the actual stage set-ups:
Movers, sequenced drop-turners, sliders, pop-ups, disappearing pop-ups, tons
of steel, a car, a telephone booth, a huge boat to run around on and shoot through, a platform in the sky the size of a large house and built out of telephone poles....! And it goes on.
Most matches have one or two stages that you just think of as “Get-through-them-alive” stages. They may be challenging, but they aren’t much fun so you just gut it out and try not to
crash too badly. In this match, all sixteen stages were fun. There were no exceptions, and they ran from the full range from very challenging/technical, to move fast and squirt bullets
stages. But I don’t think there was a single stage that had a simple, immediately obvious solution, so even for the hoser stages you still had to use your brain. It was just a “boat-load”
of fun (Pun intended) and all of this was done for a match capped at 70 entries!
My personal thanks and the thanks of Aim Projectiles to the crew from New Brunswick for surprising
me so completely. The long drive was totally worth it; though I the all-nighter drive home was probably not the best plan for me. My God, I’m wrung out today!
I’m putting this one
on the schedule for next year for sure. Can’t wait!
Rob
2010 IPSC National Championships
The IPSC Canadian National Championships was held this year at the Thompson Mountain Sportsman’s Association in British
Columbia from July 28 through August 01 2010. Aim Projectiles was there as a Silver Sponsor this year, and we extend our gratitude to the match staff for inviting us.
Having never been to Thompson Mountain, I found the venue to be simply gorgeous to look at. I can see why people love living in BC; the visuals are never boring. The range is nestled on
the side of the mountain, surrounded by woodlands with a steep incline up to the range proper; it must be quite the challenge to get up there in the cold weather. With such a magnificent
setting, it seemed almost anachronistic to be stuck in horrendous traffic only a few minutes from the range. Man, the traffic there seems to be getting nearly as bad as Toronto. Ok,
nothing is THAT bad….
We had 16 challenging stages of fire to wrap our heads around (and our skills), and with the oppressive heat and humidity we all had quite an endurance test to deal with as well. Kudos
to the match team who obviously worked their butts off designing and executing the stages. At a National Championship match, competitors expect to have all of their skills tested, and this
match did indeed require us to bring our “A” game. Of course it’s always much nicer when the tests are also fun, and this match delivered there as well.
I would like to have ended up with a stronger showing, but with equipment issues cropping up the week before and a back injury on top of that, I was more or less just in survival mode.
Nonetheless, it was a great match and I had tons of fun seeing and hanging with all of the great folks from this giant, extended family we call IPSC, and competing together for the big
glory.
I did not bring my camera this year, because frankly, I suck with it. I know that we had many competent photographers there however, and that thousands of fantastic shots were taken. I
hope to see some of those in the near future, and perhaps even link a few to our page (calling Mark Hamrol).
Congrats to the top finishers, and to the also-rans like…..ahem…..me. Note that the first place spot in Open division went to Martin Kaminicek from the Czeck Republic, but our own Chris
Yang and Alex Szakacs were hot on his heels. Looking at Martin’s physique, we are clearly missing something in our food here in Canada. The man is built like an inverted ice berg….
Open 1. Kamenicek, Martin (CZE) 2. Yang, Chris 3. Szakacs, Alex 4. Chang, Don 5. Markessinis, Nikita 6. Kirkpatrick, Brad 7. Auger, Michael 8. Koch, Frank
9. Samchek, Alan 10. Runions, Ivan
Standard 1. Burrell, Mike (CAN) 2. Dame, Mike 3. Znamenacek, Petr 4. Fisher, Randy 5. Sicotte, Pascal 6. Abram,
Kelly 7. Mathieu, Dominique 8. Hansen, Sean 9. Parago, Benjie 10. Dzurka, John
Production 1. Drolet, JeanPhilippe (CAN) 2. Engh, Robert 3. King, Nick
4. Ross, Jamieson 5. Smith, James 6. Kamieniecki, Kane 7. Milburn, Clint 8. Hill, Kent 9. Reid, Darren 10. Sniezek, Jonathan
Open Senior 1. Kirkpatrick,
Brad (CAN) 2. Koch, Frank 3. Runions, Ivan 4. Lao, Mike 5. Lau, Ivan
Standard Senior 1. Fisher, Randy (CAN) 2. Pirogowicz, Edward 3. Razniak, Marek 4.
Nagy, Richard 5. Sanford, Ralph
Production Senior 1. Piluso, Dom (CAN) 2. Sniezek, Duane 3. Robinson, John 4. Pshyk, Jim 5. Gunson, Steven
Open Super
Senior 1. Auger, Michael (CAN) 2. Fermill, Arturo 3. McLean, Bill 4. Graham, Neil 5. Collins, Kenneth
Standard Super Senior 1. Hudson, Robbin (CAN) 2.
Gardner, Murray 3. Cardinal, Henri 4. Preston, Stephen 5. Johnson, James
July 2 - 4th, 2010 - Ontario IPSC Provincials and Canadian Nationals
July 28 - August 1st, 2010 - Canadian Nationals at TMSA in British Columbia
Well that was a fun weekend. Considering it was supposed to rain all day Saturday, I think we got off pretty lucky with two solid days of amazing weather.
Congrats to
7.62mm and the rest of the crew for getting through both days intact. We managed to squeeze in some time for a successful gun surgery, and had a couple of those “ah-ha” moments which left
me feeling pretty amped up at the end of the day. That’s always a kick.
Without being asked, everyone pitched in and helped me tear down afterwards, saving me several hours of work
and a long drive back to the range. Much appreciated guys.
Aim Projectiles again sponsored the event, and prizes were given out for; fastest looking hat (it had flames on the sides), steeliest gaze, most ferocious sunburn, and lowest body mass
index.
Well done everyone! Now practice practice practice....
Many thanks to the great group of guys (and one lady) who came out and spent the weekend with me running around in the fresh and working their way through the May 15/16
IPSC techniques workshop. As always I am amazed at the innate ability of IPSC people to adapt on the fly, spend an entire weekend with people they may barely know, and get along like old
friends.
Sponsored by Aim Projectiles, prizes were given out for such things as; Top Female, Neatest beard, Hardest partier (how are you even still alive Simar...?), Most visible
hat, Knobbiest knees, Earliest arrival and of course, Most intense grip. Many thanks to Aim Projectiles for supporting us yet again.
I enjoyed myself immensely and after a day and a
half of running drills, it was very cool watching everyone wring the juice out of that stage in so many different ways. Great fun! And I slept like a dead man when I got home.
February 4th, 2010 - From the Montreal Indoor challenge last weekend
December 23rd, 2009
Christmas/New Years sale.
Aim Projectiles would like to
wish all of our friends in the shooting community and their families
a Merry Christmas and Happy New Year. With our economic woes
apparently on the wane we hope that 2010 will be a healthy, happy
and prosperous year for all. And of course we hope everyone's
resolutions come true!
We would also like to thank all of our
customers for their continued support, especially through our
various product R&D phases. 2009 has been an "interesting" year, to
say the least, but your support and feed-back has been deeply
appreciated and has helped us to refine our product line
considerably over the last twelve months.
I just got off the
horn with Bill and he told me he had been thinking of having a
holiday season sale. So if anyone out there wants to buy themselves
a last minute Christmas present, we'll be (as of today) giving a
flat ten bucks off the regular price of a box of any caliber bullets
until January 05, 2010. No purchase limit or anything like that so
you can stock up.
Be well, drive safe and eat too much
turkey!
Rob
November 28th, 2009
Well I guess I can finally officially post that our new, 3rd Generation 124 grain 9mm bullet is now in production. This bullet profile places
more or its mass back in the bearing surface area for maximum stability. We are casting hard with 6% antimony and 2% tin, and we are now plating to .005" thickness per side before final
sizing. We wanted to be able to push these bullets through high-end race guns at maximum velocities, so we needed to go to the heavier plating.
Bill had asked me to hold off posting
a notice until we'd had a chance to prove these out in hard use, but I have been testing this new profile out now for a few weeks in small local matches, practice sessions, and just this
past weekend at the excellent annual Triangle Level III IPSC indoor match held at the Wentworth, Burlington and Brant clubs. The bullet is quite accurate out of my new IPSC Open Division
race gun (built by Josko and Mike at Double Tap Sports), and I am pushing them to 1390 feet per second out of an AET barrel. Actually, according to match chronograph #2 this weekend they
were 1460 feet per second, but I think chronograph #1 was right on the money and matched my own personal chrono at 1389. In any case, not many will argue that you don't generally see
plated bullets holding together or grouping well much beyond 1100 feet per second, but these are definitely getting the job done. I think Bill and the boys at Aim have paid attention to
detail and created a plated bullet that will perform. To all those out there who put their faith in us and hung tight through the different generational phases of our development process,
we thank you. I think the journey has been well worth it to end up with a locally produced, reasonably priced bullet that can handle match conditions with ease.
I have been asked if
I am getting "special" hand-picked bullets to shoot for matches, or if I am sorting individual bullets myself. The answer to both questions is no. I shoot the same bullets as everyone
else, and I don't sort anything. I just take my boxes off the production shelf, load them and go shoot, and for the record I am using them for my match loads. They seem to be working
pretty well as I managed to eke out a win with them at the Triangle. To say I'm pretty happy with this would be understating, but as always I/we will always be looking for new ways to
improve the product line. I guess that is the down side....or the upside depending on how you look at it....of working with an obsessive IPSC competitor like me.
Be well and I'll
see you at the matches.
P.S: don't forget that if you know I am going to be at a match you are attending, you can save yourself some shipping if you let me know what you need in
advance. Just contact via email and we'll sort it out.
August 29th, 2009
I had a chance to do some informal testing on the new 124 grain 9mm bullet this weekend. I discovered I would have an extra hour free that I
could use for my own selfish purposes, so I loaded up 400 rounds of the new, third-generation profile and my new STI IPSC racing pistol and headed out. Since I was pressed for time I
naturally forgot to bring the camera, but here are the short strokes:
Frankly, in this new gun, the Second Generation bullets wouldn't group that well. The Schuemann barrel with its
AET gain twist (razor sharp) rifling is one of the few types of barrels that will have difficulty with plated bullets, and the goal all along has been to get them to shoot in these things.
If they will shoot in an AET, they will shoot in anything. I wasn't sure what I should expect from these new Third Generation bullets, but was hopeful there would be some improvement. I
paced off 25 yards and put up a fresh IPSC target with a small 1" black dot on it for an aiming point. Then, shooting 50 rounds exclusively from an off-hand position, the dot was gone and
I had a nice jagged hole sitting where it used to be! Hmmm, not bad indeed.
Still not quite believing what I was seeing I set up three more targets at the same distance and
proceeded to do the same thing, with the eventual result being that at 25 paced off meters, I can group as well as I can hold with no un-called fliers, so I am well pleased. I haven't
tested at 50m meters yet, but at this distance I can't group any better with jacketed bullets. 250 rounds went to accuracy and the rest for just messing around on a few drills.
This
bullet is a completely new profile, with a pointier nose and more of the material back in the bearing surface for greater sectional density and in-flight stability. They are plated now to
.005" rather than the usual .0035", and I believe it is the combination of these two factors that nailed the elusive accuracy question in the AET barrel. As well, this profile feeds like
butter. Even hand slow-cycling was very smooth. This batch came in slightly heavy at an actual weight of 130 grains, and my first attempt load ended up averaging 1405 feet per second; way
too hot for what I need in an IPSC Open gun. But at those speeds in that barrel, they are certainly grouping. They are sized at .3555" A new mold is already on the way with the same
profile and a true 124 grain weight. Even so, I'm going to be shooting these 130's in my match loads. There's no perceivable increase in muzzle flip for me, and they definitely hit where I
want them to.
I also took some measurements on the new 147 grain 9mm's. I don't have a gun to shoot them out of, but wanted to see how they turned out. I think people are going to
like these.
They are a again, the same basic profile as the new 124's so feeding will be excellent and they should be extremely accurate. Actual plated weight comes in on about 50
random samples that I took at 145 grains, and they are sized at .355" as they are considered a 9mm only bullet. Right about now I'm wishing I hadn't sold the M&P last year. Might be fun to
mess around with a Production gun and a 147 grain bullet behind a super soft pillow of Clays.....
That's what I know for now. I'll get some pix when I can.
Be well and I C-U
at the range.
Rob
August 24th, 2009
My 2009 IPSC techniques workshops are now history. I’m feeling
pleasantly bagged right now as I write this, having run two full sessions of my Level 1 foundation skills workshop and Level 2 movement skills workshop over the past two weekends. This
year’s classes were held for the first time at Waterloo County Revolver Association and the venue proved to be perfect for our needs. It’s a fantastic range and I would like to thank the
Board of Directors of WCRA for hosting this event. I hope to be able to do it again sometime in the near future.
This time I opted for a much smaller than usual class size with only
four people per session. I wanted to focus more on the individual participants, and I’m really glad I did. The small class format felt very comfortable and we were able to absolutely tear
through the many drills I had prepared in record time. Even with all of the material I wanted to cover it never felt rushed and we got a lot of rounds down range. We covered a vast body of
skills in the two full days of each course and without exception, everyone made significant progress.
Many thanks to Arthur, Tom, Dave, Ron, Bea, Eugene, Paul, Andrei and Sidney
for coming out and working your butts off. It was a pleasure working with all of you and thanks to Aim Projectiles for providing sponsorship. Everyone who attended got to take home a
thousand bullets in their choice of caliber and I think being able to come away with a little reward for working so hard was a very nice thing. Aim truly supports our sport and the people
in it.
Be well, and I’ll see you at the range.
Rob
Why .356" for 9mm?
To answer a few folks who have queried us on this:
We chose the .356" diameter over .355" deliberately for the following reasons:
Note that plated bullets are somewhat softer than full metal jackets, and thus more malleable. The .356" diameter tends to give a better gas seal in most guns and results in better
accuracy. Settling on the larger diameter also permits people who shoot 9mm as well as .38 super to use the same bullet, and all of our testing has shown this to be working quite well.
Backing this up further, we have many customers out there who are already shooting these bullets in their 9mm guns with excellent results.
The .356" hard cast, copper plated bullet will not spike your load pressures so you needn't be concerned. Just shoot them and enjoy! As always, when developing loads with a new
bullet, be sure to back off your charge weight a few tenths and chrono your test ammo until you are certain you are in the correct range.
Rob Elliott
March 28th, 2009 - 50 yard test
For those of you who were wondering about shooting Aim Projectiles at 50 yards, I got my chance today (march 28, 2009). The weather today
was wonderful and the range had finally dried up enough for shooting prone at 50 yards.
Having mangled my right shoulder about three years ago, the rollover prone position is
really not a comfortable position for me so as a result I ended up with a few fliers (7 out of twenty rounds), but they were all called. In other words; I knew they were not good shots the
instant I fired them, and pretty much new where they were going to be. They are my fault. The fliers are the ones that are circled.
I'm using a new C-more scope with an 8" minute
dot which covers 4" of target real-estate at 50 yards and as it happens, 4 1/2" in diameter is what the group of 13 rounds that were fired without jerking the trigger measured.
This
is the only target I photographed, but I shot about 200 rounds today for groups at 12, 22 and 50 yards. Results were consistent at all distances. Have a look!
January 23 – 25, 2009 - CTM IPSC Level III IPSC match in Dorval Quebec:
Aim Projectiles got a real workout this past January 23 – 25 weekend at the CTM IPSC Level III IPSC match in Dorval Quebec. The folks at CTM did a great job setting up a challenging
and fun match in an indoor facility. Quebec has some difficult range restrictions so movement can only be accomplished on a horizontal plane at the firing line, but they made maximum use
of the available space and came up with some very interesting stages for us to shoot.
The match had plenty of steel and moving targets, including sliders (fast ones), swingers,
drop-outs, disappearing drop turners and pop-ups. These were combined with up close, blisteringly fast shots and partial or distant difficult shots, forcing shooters to change their tempos
and visual inputs on the fly. As well, many of the stages had multiple possible solutions, so it was a chance to wring out the old lateral thinking machines on the ends of our necks.
Shooting in indoor low light conditions at moving, disappearing, partial and infinitely small steel targets, accuracy was definitely a requirement. Aim’s 124 grain round nose bullets
performed beautifully. All of my shots went exactly where the sights were aligned, and I was able to call my shots with confidence. On one stage there were four mini-pepper poppers placed
behind two full sized poppers, so the front ones had to be cleared in order to shoot the smaller ones at the back. The steel (1/16”?) shroud on one of the front-most poppers was placed so
that from the shooting position it was visually in the exact center of the rear-most pepper popper, essentially cutting it in half. I’d say the distance was between 15 and 18 meters in
low-ish light. Shooting as always for the center of the available target, I hit the leading edge of the steel shroud THREE TIMES before I finally clued in and shot to the side of it,
knocking the popper down. I could see the bullet impacting on the shroud and disintegrating, so I knew I was hitting it. The rest of the stage ended up only one point down from 140
available. That’s 99.3%!
In matches like these it always comes down to a case of “he who makes the fewest mistakes, wins.” Everyone I talked to had some problems at this match, and
I was no exception. But I certainly didn’t have to worry about the plated bullets I was using not performing. They were up to the task of taking first place in Open Division, and I’m
pretty happy with that.
Deconstructing the Right Angle Match:
What has been traditionally known as the annual Triangle match was this year renamed the “Right Angle” match because it was held at two clubs (Wentworth Shooting Sports Club and
Burlington Rifle and Revolver Club) rather than the usual three. Still, they somehow managed to cram 9 interesting stages of fire into those two facilities, and considering the
difficulties and limitations of indoor shooting, I’d say they did a pretty decent job of it. My thanks to everyone who put in the work to bring this event to fruition.
It was a fun
couple of days and my first outing where I got to man a vendor table. It was great fun and very interesting fielding questions and getting input from competitors, and I came to a new
understanding of just how different we all are and how vastly our individual needs may vary. There was a boat load of information to absorb, and we took away many ideas to play with over
the next few months. Bill, Carmen and Janice all came out to represent Aim and get to know our people, and it was great fun introducing them for the first time to the IPSC fraternity.
This was my first level III match using AIM’s first generation production run of 120 grain 9mm round nose bullets, so it was the first REAL test that they would undergo in competition.
Up until this match, I had only been range-testing and messing around with my loads, so going into it there was a certain amount of trepidation that is natural when one does something for
the first time. However, performance more than met my expectations and in their first time out AIM’s bullets managed to pull off a match win!
Yes, it’s an indoor match and there
are no 50 meter targets, but hell, I shot the whole match (681 available points) only down 20 points. On several of the stages I dropped no points at all, but for the whole match I was
down less than 3% and I would have been happy with 10%. And this includes the moving and/or disappearing targets!! Indoors, targets always appear to be farther away than the do outdoors.
It’s a trick of the omni-directional light I guess, but it’s a very real phenomena. Even so, there is no question that even in ugly lighting conditions I can be confident enough to call my
shots and have them consistently land where I point them, without having to visually verify the shot on the paper. This is a confidence builder.
This is not to say I didn’t have a
few stinker stages though. I had a few that I would like to have done over, but I guess everyone else did too.
Until next time, here’s some useful nerdy stuff.
Rob
Sectional density is the ratio of an object's weight to its cross-sectional area. It conveys the ability for an object to overcome resistance. When a projectile is in flight or
impacting an object, it is the sectional density of that projectile which will determine how efficiently it can overcome the resistance to air or object. The greater the sectional density
is for a projectile the greater its efficiency is and therefore ability to overcome the resistance of air and object.
Sectional density is stated as:
SD = Sectional Density
M = Mass of the object, kg or lb
A = cross-sectional area, m2 or in2
or
d = diameter of the circle or the bullet's caliber
Units are kg/m2 or lb/in2. In Europe the derivative unit g/cm2 is also used in literature regarding small arms projectiles to get a number in front
of the decimal separator.
