The BJ Norris Blog

Moving services

2009-04-13T21:01:00.000-05:00

At the suggestion of good friend Julie Golob, I moved my blogging to wordpress.com instead of blogger. WordPress will give me a lot flexibilty and functionalty for the same cost… nothing! Please be patient as I work out the bugs and learn the system.

The new address will be bjnorris.wordpress.com and my domain, bjnorrisblog.com will now forward to that address.

Tony Cruz and XTC

2009-03-30T22:58:00.002-05:00

I credit a big part of my success over 3 long days of competition and practice to my trainer and friend Tony Cruz of XTC. In the past 8 weeks, I have dropped 12 pounds of weight and have gone from not being able to run for a mile straight to being able to run a mile in about 9 minutes. Tony has worked with names like Adriano Moraes and
Robson Palermo of PBR fame. Already it has made a huge difference in my shooting and I'm looking forward to shooting an IPSC match carrying less poundage and having a lot of strength in my legs.

Check out his website at www.xtremetc.com

Steel Nationals Recap

2009-03-30T20:58:00.003-05:00

What a week! 3 days of neck and neck competition with a great bunch of guys. I couldn't ask for better sportsman to compete with than Max, Dave, Jerry and the rest.

Big thanks to Derek and Mike and all the RO's that ran the match. With the exception of the stop plates, which were thrown out early in favor of using the shot timers and adding the flight time in, everything ran extremely smoothly and way ahead of schedule. Big plans are already in the works for next years match, and I'm very much looking forward to it. If you were on the fence about shooting the match this year, don't miss next year's match!

So, down to my performance... Two National titles and two 2nd place finishes. The interesting the exciting thing, if you add the time that I lost by from both Rimfire Optic and Open, it totals .15 seconds. I thought it was a close finish when I lost last year's match by .15! For comparison purposes, a blink of an eye is usually around .15-.20 seconds depending on the person. That's two National titles that were decided in a single blink of an eye. Can't get much more stressful competition than that! As far as my feeling of how I truly shot, I'd say overall that it was pretty good. Dave and I both broke the previous Rimfire total time record by a fairly large margin, and neither of us had what I would call a really great match, just consistent and solid.

The Limited match went very well for me, even though I still struggle at times with iron sights. I basically shot consistent and tried not to pay attention to what the other guys were doing and it worked out. Feel's very good to win my first centerfire Steel Challenge match and I'm looking forward to getting more comfortable with iron sights so I can try and push the times down some.

Open was a nail-biter the whole way through. Max and I battled back and forth the entire day and Dave was hanging with us for a good part of the match. The big turning point in Max's favor was Roundabout which he shot very well by shooting 4,3,1,2 stop. After that, he had about a second of time on me with only two stages left. He left the door open on Pendulum, but I couldn't quite get through, leaving about .9 seconds of is lead intact as we went into Outer Limits. I shot before him, and turned in a good time that I knew he would have to push to beat. He had several extra shots on his first two runs, shot well on his third run. I already had the calculator out and was running the numbers while he shot. As he walked back to the box for his fourth run, I wasn't able to stay still. He shot the plates well, but had a pick-up on the stop plate and at that point I knew I had won. However, just a few seconds after I had run the numbers, they looked at the stop plate and saw that he had edged it on his first shot and ran the timer back and it ended up with him winning by 8 hundredths of a second. Although disappointing for me, I congratulate Max on doing what he needed to hold on to the match, and winning his last match as a member of the AMU.

I've already started to develop a training plan for the World Championships in August, so we will battle it out again in just a few months. My main focus and goal is to win all 3 events on the way to the Steel Master award. Less than 1/4 of a second kept me from reaching that goal last weekend, and I believe it is possible in a few months. Until then, Max, Dave, ya'll shot good matches and I always enjoy your company and competition.

Max Michel Takes the match

2009-03-28T21:22:00.001-05:00

Will post more when I get home (leaving at 5 AM in the morning, so not a lot of time to post). But I just wanted to say congrats to Max for just barely getting an edger on the stop plate on Outer Limits to take the win by .08 seconds.

Lunch break

2009-03-28T11:43:00.001-05:00

At our short lunch break, the standings look like this.

BJ
Max
Dave

There's less than 1.5 seconds between us, so plenty of room to move around on these last three stages. I'm up first on Roundabout after lunch, so let's see what happens

First 3

2009-03-28T09:58:00.001-05:00

Max is in the lead with myself and Dave right behind him. The spread us less than a second between us. But watch out for Shannon Smith, he's shooting very steady...

Limited results

2009-03-27T12:42:00.001-05:00

Dave had to push on Outer Limits to try and catch me and couldn't quite pull it off, I won the limited match with a 91.81. It feels good to win a centerfire match at Steel Challenge, let alone the Limited! Thanks to all those who gave helped and supported me and I plan on making a longer post later.

Last stage coming

2009-03-27T11:08:00.001-05:00

As we go into the last stage, it's still anybodys game, will post when I have results.

And it's on again

2009-03-27T11:07:00.001-05:00

And it's back to a horse race between dave, Todd and I... We'll see what happens at the end...

Limited

2009-03-27T09:22:00.001-05:00

After 3 stages, Im in the lead by a couple seconds, and Todd and Dave are looking for any opening.

Doug prepping for Five To Go

2009-03-27T07:57:00.000-05:00

The media....

2009-03-27T07:55:00.000-05:00

Limited super squad getting ready

2009-03-27T07:54:00.000-05:00

Dave Sevigny wins Rimfire

2009-03-26T12:11:00.001-05:00

Dave took rimfire by an amazing .06 seconds over myself. The times were

Dave: 65.72
BJ: 65.78

By far the fastest times ever shot in rimfire. It's always a tough battle with Dave, but we always have a great time doing it, congrats to Dave!

Final 3 stages

2009-03-26T10:30:00.001-05:00

Heading into the last 3 stages, roundabout, pendulum and outer limits, Dave and I are almost in a dead heat. Todd dropped back on the last two stages. Will be a very close finish when it comes to Outer Limits!

First 3 stages

2009-03-26T09:33:00.001-05:00

After the first few stages, Todd, Dave and I are in a jumble, maybe Dave out by a little. The next few stages should be interesting...

Yamil doing what he does best...

2009-03-26T09:32:00.001-05:00

Almost there...

2009-03-25T18:24:00.001-05:00

Practiced pretty much all day today, saw Dave Phil, Todd, etc and everybody seems ready for the rimfire match in the morning, should be interesting. After the match it's back to the Limited gun to get ready for Friday.

Dave said he changed ammo, Phil changed his draw, and both said they are shooting faster than ever, Limited will be a fight to the end for sure.

I finished up in rimfire very well today and I'm looking forward to match tomorrow. My gun is running good and after I sighted it in, I put 5 shots right on top of each other with Lspua Signum at 35 yards. Will post after the match in the morning.

In Fl

2009-03-24T18:24:00.001-05:00

Left home at about 8 last night and drove all night to get to the range in time to practice a little today, and then I'll hit it hard in the morning.

The range has made several improvements toward pistol shooting since we were here for the 2007 Steel Nationals. Derek and Mike have the stages looking good, and the stop plates look like they have undergone a redesign after the problems last year.

I shot pretty well this afternoon, after getting loose from the long car ride. I feel good about the match, so we'll have to see what the week holds.

Posted from my iPhone

Steel Challenge Open M&P

2009-03-10T22:36:00.002-05:00

I'm sure that some of you have seen that I will be shooting a new open M&P at the US Steel Nationals in couple of weeks. However, it will have to be delayed until the Pro-Am, as I'm having an issue with the optics mount that there is just not time to track down. I'm exploring some options to make a frame mount to add stiffness to the system.

For Steel Nationals, I will be shooting my S&W 1911PD converted into a 9mm steel gun.

Team S&W 2008

2009-03-05T10:58:00.002-06:00

Team Smith & Wesson 2008, looking forward to a great 2009!

Proposed State Dept regs

2009-02-13T05:27:00.001-06:00

Just saw in The Shooting Wire where there are proposed State Dept regs would ban the export of certain calibers to Canada(most of which are pistol and quote "Assualt Rifle" calibers). Think this might have something to do with the new SecState?

2009 Match Schedule

2009-02-03T09:10:00.001-06:00

Here's what I plan on hitting this year.

US Steel Nationals
Area 6 Championship
USPSA Single Stack Nationals
NRA Bianchi Cup
Texas Open Championship
USSA Pro-Am
Steel Challenge
USPSA Lim/L10/Revo Nationals
USPSA Open/Prod Nationals
USPSA Multi-Gun Nationals
Ft. Benning 3-gun

Busy year!! I'll update with the divisions I'll be shooting when I get to my computer and have a real keyboard...

Good News

2009-01-28T11:04:00.001-06:00

Found a Colt 380 at a local shop, in great shape with 2 mags for $589... Shoots great, and after a trip in ultrasonic cleaner, it looks almost brand new. Lucie loves it, but so do I, so I guess I'll have to start looking for another one...

Customer Service

2009-01-26T14:41:00.003-06:00

What happened to the days of old-fashioned customer service? The kind where every single person that came through the door was treated with the same respect and courtesy that they would expect for themselves in another store? Here's the story...

So, my wife Lucie took her CHL class a few weeks ago and we're now looking for a good carry gun. A co-worker of mine has a Colt Mustang that she really liked, so we narrow the choice down to a Mustang or a Govt 380. There was a gun show in town this past weekend and I figured we might as well go look for one, not really expecting to find what we were looking for at a decent price. Well, I was right, there were several different ones, however ALL of them were over $800... WTH?!? But anyway, we find a dealer that has both a Mustang and Govt model so she can feel the difference. The guy asks her how old she is (without asking for a DL), and you can tell reluctantly gets the gun out of the case, but then completely walks AWAY. Finally his wife, who is not really into the gun show scene puts the Mustang away and gets out the Govt model. Lucie much prefers the slightly bigger gun, so she hands it to me and I start to look at the condition of the gun, which turns out to be pretty rough. But, while inspecting the gun, the "sales” man comes back and barks out "well, how old are you?!" as soon he sees me holding the gun. After telling him that I was 19, he immediately starts berating us about how I can't handle a pistol, and how much he's talked to the ATF, and how they are video taping his table and he'll lose his license, etc, etc. I tried to explain that I work at a gun store and sell guns, and that the ATF says its ok as long as I have a note, but he wouldn't have any of it, stating that "I've been in the business for 30 years" and was overall extremely rude to both me and my wife, which I have a real problem with. We finally ended up laying the gun back down on the table and walking away, which I suppose, is what he wanted, but it was only going to escalate if we stayed. Personally, I refuse to do business with somebody that will tell a bald-faced lie to my face.

Maybe it's just because I've been on the receiving end of this, but I hate how most people in the retail gun industry don't really treat it as a business, and if you aren't a good ole boy then are very rude and disrespectful. It doesn't matter who walks through the door when I'm working at Lock & Load, I treat them exactly how I would want to be treated. I even ran into the same problem during SHOT Show. I guess since I'm only 19, there's no possible way I could know anything about guns, therefore deserve no respect without even having spoken to me before... Please, people, if you're in the firearms industry, ESPECIALLY right now, please treat anybody and everybody how you would want to be treated if they show any interest at all in guns.

Anti-customer dealers...

2009-01-25T15:11:00.001-06:00

I hate gun dealers that don't treat every customer with respect, when the customer tries REALLY hard to be polite and respectful when asking about a product... Will post more later

New Content Coming Soon

2009-01-24T23:45:00.003-06:00

I've been very remiss in my blogging the past few months, as most of you have found out. Not anymore, I'm going to fire back up full steam this year.

I'll try at first for at least one post a week, with daily updates for matches. I also now have an iPhone, so it will allow me to do some mobile blogging while on the range as long as I have service.

Check back soon!

Here Comes The Rain...

2008-09-11T19:31:00.002-05:00

Or maybe, here is the rain...

The range is a total mess, mud and/or water inches deep in places. We're all being very careful with our footing, causing much slower times in places than normal. Henning is even wearing big rubber boots...

Nobody shot just real great today, I think mostly due to the weather, we also did not start shooting until about 2:15 PM, and we're supposed to start back up at 7:15 AM instead of the scheduled 8 AM to try and make up some time to get the match finished on time. Not sure of the standings at this point, but I'm looking toward Phil and Todd and Chris to be on top, with myself, Max, Shane Coley and KC in a jumble behind them. Hopefully the scores will be up later tonight.

Production Nationals Day 1

2008-09-08T08:27:00.002-05:00

Well, I got into the match as a walk-on, however there wasn't any open spots on the Super Squad, so I got changed to squad 9, which is a great bunch of guys.

My shooting on the other hand, hasn't been so great. Having not shot Production in 5 years has really taken it's toll on stage breakdown skills and patience on my sights. We still have 2/3rd of the match left to shoot, so there's still time for me to make up ground in the rest of the field.

Phil Strader takes Limited!

2008-08-15T22:49:00.001-05:00

Just a quick note tonight before bed... Phil made an awesome come back to take Limited, with JJ second and myself in third. Overall I’m pretty happy with my performance with the Limited gun, and I have a slight edge over Dave heading into tomorrow in the SteelMaster race. Things should be real interesting in the Open match, it seems like everybody is shooting as well as they ever have leading up to it.

Dave Sevigny wins Rimfire Optic

2008-08-14T19:54:00.000-05:00

After a tough, back and forth battle that lasted all day, Dave Sevigny won the Rimfire optic match with a 69.26, I was 2nd, with a 69.80, Todd and Angus both shot around 75 I believe, but not 100% sure of the times or order of the two. It was an up and down day for most on the squad, Angus had some real trouble on Outer Limits, Todd ate a miss on Roundabout and Dave and I had rough runs throughout the day. I forgot my firewire at home, so unfortunately I won’t be able to put up any video until I get home, but I am pleased to see that Saul Kirsch is here, taking video for the DAA series of match videos, I’m sure he’ll do a great job!

After 22 match and lunch, it was off to the practice range again to work hard with my M&P Pro Series that I’m shooting in Limited tomorrow. I was shooting extremely well with it and can’t wait to shoot the match with it. It’s still a tight race between Dave and I for the Steelmaster title, and the Limited match can make or break either of us at this point. More tomorrow.

Here We Go Again!

2008-08-12T23:32:00.000-05:00

Here we are again in sunny Southern California for the 2008 World Speed Shooting Championships! My dad and I arrived in LA at around 6 PM tonight and got the equipment ready to begin practice early in the morning. This year’s match should prove to be one of the most exciting yet, I know that KC and I are anxious for a re-match after the Nationals this March. Max has said that both he and KC are shooting well, and feel ready for the match. I have been shooting faster and more consistent times on each stage than I ever have before, my new S&W Open class Steel gun is running great and is ready for the big show. We also can’t forget shooters like Dave Sevigny, Jerry Miculek, and Todd Jarrett who are ready to pounce if they sense any weakness.

Thursday will kick things off with the Rimfire match, with Limited following on Friday, leading up to the Open match on Saturday, The Rimfire match will usually give a good indicator of who is shooting well this week. Here’s a rundown of the equipment I’ll be using for each match:

Rimfire: S&W Scandium alloy 1911 frame with a Tactical Solutions 2211 conversion kit.
Limited: S&W M&P Pro Series out of a CR Speed holster
Open: S&W Scandium alloy 1911 frame, built into a 9mm Open Steel Gun out of a Ghost Holster.

I hope to see some of you out here this week, will give another update after practice tomorrow!

New Sponsors

2008-07-06T23:26:00.000-05:00

I am very pleased to announce two new sponsors that I have picked up.

The first, and my new flag sponsor is Smith & Wesson Corp. of Springfield, MA. Smith & Wesson will be providing incredible support to my career and I am extremely proud to wear their shirt, as they are one few remaining American firearm companies that actually make their guns IN the USA. I will be shooting the M&P9 in USPSA Production, modified SW1911PD Tacticals for Steel Challenge and a Performance Center 38 Super Doug Koenig model for USPSA Single Stack and IDPA ESP.

My other new sponsor is Vihtavuori-Lapua of Bensenville, IL. Without a doubt, Vihtavuori is the most consistent powder available, several times I had extreme velocity spreads of under 5 FPS using N350. I’m really looking forward to using their powders again in all of my ammo for the consistency and cleanliness. I’ll also be using Lapua Signum in my Rimfire matches, and again can’t wait to see the accuracy that Lapua is known for producing.

Thanks again to my new sponsors, and I look forward to representing the excellent products to the best of my ability at the coming matches!

I'm Still Alive!

2008-06-17T07:36:00.003-05:00

I haven't had a bunch of time to blog lately, but I promise I'll get something up soon. I shot the Sportsman’s Team Challenge last week, and it was... Well, way different than anything I have ever shot before. All in all, I had a good time shooting, despite being sick and having to leave before we had really planned to. Also, huge thanks to Jamie and Linda Foote for showing my Dad and I a lot of hospitality, and some awesome shotgun instruction in the short amount of time we had to get ready as a team. I'll have some video from the match up next week.

I'm leaving for Junior Camp Shootout today for my 2nd year helping Jerry and Kay as an instructor. More on this next week, but it should be a good year this time, looks like we'll have some new faces, along with a few from last year.

I'm assuming that most saw coverage of the US Open, seeing Rocco and Tiger go into a Sudden-Death playoff, AFTER an 18-hole playoff forced by Tiger's birdie on the 72nd hole. This was an amazing golf match, and one that a lot of lessons about shooting can be taken away from. I firmly believe that the sudden-death playoff was decided before they even teed-off on the Par 4 7th hole. Please, post some comments one why this might be, I'd love to hear your thoughts and then expand on the topic itself.

In the meantime, check out this Nike ad,

Texas Open Report

2008-05-25T11:23:00.002-05:00

What can I say for the return of the Texas Open? It was Great!

With the exception of a small scheduling SNAFU on Saturday afternoon (which I believed was caused by individual squads more than the match staff), the match ran extremely smooth, with results being posted in a timely manner after the last shot was fired on Sunday. The stages were inventive and challenging in different ways, most with at least two or three ways of shooting them. One word of caution to Match Directors though, if you want to run short courses, please design a new course instead of using a classifier. This isn’t a dig toward this match in particular, I’ve noticed it around the whole country, but it makes for a better match if we don’t shoot the same stages we always shoot at a local match. Overall, I feel the match staff did a great job handling this match. Thanks to Arthur and everybody who helped during this match!

I didn’t have any major mistakes during the match and feel like it was the best IPSC match I’ve shot in a long time. I started out Saturday morning a little off pace, but after the first two stages I started gaining momentum and shot better each stage by maintaining a positive outlook and being confident that the next stage would go better. Despite two no-shoot penalties, I choose not to dwell on them since they happened while I was (as Dr. Bob Rotella would say) “Playing to play great”. I shot this match very aggressively, but not recklessly.

While we’re on that subject, I want to highly recommend the books “Golf is Not A Game of Perfect” and “The Golfer’s Mind: Playing to Play Great”, both by Dr. Bob Rotella. These books, even though focusing on the game of golf, are very similar to Lanny Bassham’s “With Winning in Mind”, and they break down even further the importance, application and execution of focus, a solid pre-shot routine and playing aggressive but not reckless. Most people fall victim to one of two categories on match day, “trying too hard” (Reckless) and “dialing back from their practice speed to shoot solid” (Playing to Not Play Poorly). “Doc” explains in detail almost every mental problem I have encountered while shooting, be it IPSC or Steel Challenge, and I credit my latest success and happiness with my performance in no small part to these two books. Pick them up ASAP!

Below is video from TX Open, and a single stage from Space City.

Texas Open:

Space City, Stage 9:

Texas State Open

2008-05-14T13:12:00.002-05:00

Hey guys, I'm working on the video from the match now, should be up by the end of the week, didn't get pictures from this one, but I'll be uploading the pictures and one video from Space City at the same time as the TX Open videos.

Arthur and CTRPC ran a great match, even understaffed, my squad ran ahead of schedule the entire match and we had a great time. The winners in Open and Limited were myself and Chad Folger respectively. I'll post more details either tonight or tomorrow since I have to leave for work right now (this work crap sucks...).

Space City (finally) and TX Open

2008-05-06T23:15:00.000-05:00

Wow, has is already been almost three weeks since Space City Challenge? I’ve been extremely remiss in not posting before this, however things have been real hectic at work (starting up a league shoot, training to take fingerprints, etc) and I’ve been trying to get ready for TX Open this weekend.

Anyway, getting back to Space City, it was, as always, a great match. Each stage presented its own individual and specific challenges, and tried to lure you into shooting faster than you really should. My favorite stage was Stage 9, Three’s Company. With a well-defined free fire zone and targets visible from pretty much one location, it didn’t offer many options on stage planning, but if you shot it the way you needed to, once you started moving, you didn’t stop until the end of the stage. IMHO, these types of stages are the best since they test pretty much all the skills you need in IPSC (all of the basics of shooting fast, shooting on the move, and the ability to think on your feet). If you missed one of the plates on Stage 9 at Space City, you would have to slow down your movement dramatically, or more likely, stop completely and adding more than a second to your time.

Overall, I feel that my performance was solid, with the low point being stage 6 where I had two mikes. Past that, I shot well and got better as the day went on. Congrats to all of the winners at Space City, and Thank you to all of my sponsors (in no particular order), Montana Gold Bullets, Starline Brass, Tactical Solutions, CED, Grams Engineering, Techwear USA, GT Targets, My parents and my fiancée Lucie for their support, I wouldn’t be able to maintain my success in the shooting sports!

Texas Open is coming up this weekend and I feel pretty good going into it. Since I started working at Lock & Load Indoor Shooting range, I’ve been able practice a little better, as it’s real easy to throw a few target stands on the range after I clock out and shoot 2 or 3 hundred rounds a day, I just wish I could keep up with ammo demand! My 1050 was been acting up lately and it’s been real hard to load any decent amount of ammo in a decent amount of time… Anyway, I hope to see a lot of you in Waco this weekend!

Lead Up To Space City

2008-04-18T22:44:00.002-05:00

First off, where has the first quarter of the year gone? It's already mid-April and the season is in full swing now. Area 6 and Space City are this weekend, with the Single Stack Nationals next weekend. I'm really looking forward to shooting Space City, it's always one of my favorite matches to go to early in the year. Stages have a good balance of speed and accuracy, and a little bit more of a relaxed atmosphere to ease back into IPSC after Steel Challenge Nationals. After that, I'll shoot the Texas Open in May. With this being a World Shoot year and getting married in August, my budget is limiting me to matches that are fairly close to home, but I plan on practicing hard all year to get ready for WS in October and I believe that I'll be ready.

I doubt I'll get to the range in Houston tomorrow in time to have a look around and take pictures, but I will have pics and videos up on Monday.

US Steel Shoot Press

2008-04-09T22:30:00.000-05:00

From The Shooting Wire

Michel and Miculek Take Top Honors At Smith & Wesson 2008 US Steel Nationals

Sedro-Woolley, Washington — Facing off against the nation’s best shooters, Max Michel and Kay Clark Miculek captured the Men’s and Women’s titles the 2008 US National Steel Championships presented by Smith & Wesson. The match, now in its second year, was help at the Skip-J Range in Anderson, South Carolina, March 12-16, with 90 shooters competing.

The 26 year-old Michel, who is a Staff Sergeant and captain of the U.S. Army Marksmanship Unit’s Action Pistol Team, topped all shooters with a total match time of 81.62 seconds beating second place finisher BJ Norris by just 0.15 seconds and third place shooter, and defending Champion, KC Eusebio by 0.36 seconds. Eusebio also serves in the U.S. Army as a member of the Marksmanship Unit.

The same three finished in identical order at the 2007 World Speed Shooting Championships setting up what many expect to will be the most hotly contested Steel Challenge when the three face-off again in August.

“The competition continues to get better and better every year. I just happened to be the guy on top this time,” said Michel. “The weather wreaked havoc on all the competitors and it was like a mental roller coaster shooting under those conditions. Although the scores were a bit lower this year, I thought everyone dealt with the weather challenges very well. I’m looking forward to the return match-up this August."

In the women’s match, Kay Clark Miculek, the sport’s most accomplished female shooter, added the National title to her record setting six Steel Challenge titles by defeating the defending Women’s Champion, Jesse Abbate, with a time of 102.09 seconds to Abbate’s 105.37. Abbate previously topped Miculek at the 2007 World Speed Shooting Championships.

Rounding out the top five shooters were Todd Jarrett with a time of 83.01 and Dave Sevigny shooting 85.40. Among the women shooters Rebecca Jones finished third with 109.86, Kaci Cochran came in fourth with 115.82 and Margaret Reese rounded out the top five with a time of 136.83.

Two World Records Fall

Despite the inclement weather which threatened completion of the match at several points, two new world records were set at the 2008 match. BJ Norris claimed the records on the stages Outer Limits and Roundabout.

On Outer Limits Norris beat his own existing record of 11.40 with a blistering time of 11.14. On Roundabout Norris shot a time of 8.29 edging out the previous record of 8.35 set by KC Eusebio. Along with his time on Showdown, Norris now holds three of the eight Steel Challenge world records with Max Michel holding three (Five to Go, Speed Option and Accelerator) and Eusebio holding the remaining two (Smoke & Hope and Pendulum).

- 30 -
About the SCSA: The Steel Challenge Shooting Association (SCSA) is the governing body for the sport of Speed Shooting and runs the Steel Challenge World Speed Shooting Championships which will be held Thursday through Sunday, August 14-17 in Piru, CA. To learn more about the SCSA and the Steel Challenge visit the Web site at www.steelchallenge.com.

Media Contact:
Dave Thomas (360) 855-2245 or Dave@steelchallenge.com

See the playlist below for all four videos from the match!

The Lady Smith

2008-04-09T08:46:00.000-05:00

This is a great opportunity for women! Kay put on an awesome match, hard enough to make you work for it, but nothing that anybody just beat their brains out on because it was so hard. I wasn’t able to get much video as I was the RO of the squad most of time. My fiancée Lucie did a great job, shooting better than she really thinks she did! It was great to have her back out shooting matches again (which is where we actually met). I think she’ll be a more common sight at matches next year when all of her vacation days aren’t tied up going to Bali…

I’ll try to have the video up before the end of the week, but between working and trying to get to ready for Women’s Night Out next Wednesday, I’m covered up. I’ll see what I can throw together.

Until next time.

Lady Smith, New posts coming soon

2008-04-04T22:17:00.000-05:00

Hey all,

Sorry for the lapse in posting lately, I've been buried under so many things going on that I haven't had a chance. I plan on posting about everything thats been going on by Tuesday.

Lots of stuff going on right now. Tomorrow, Lucie and I are heading over to Jerry and Kay's so she can shoot in the Lady Smith match, while I caddy for her once! Also, if you know any ladies in the Tyler Area, have them come see On Track Training Inc. at booth #21 of the Gap Broadcasting Women's Night Out, April 16th at Harvey Hall. I'll get a link up within a day or so.

Off to bed, 4:30 is going to be an early morning!

A few more thoughts on US Steel Shoot

2008-03-24T23:38:00.003-05:00

A few more thoughts on the match, and on how to improve match performance.

First, I’d like to say thanks to Derek, Mike, Pat Cochran and all of the RO’s for doing the absolute best job possible under the circumstances. However, this match did bring light to the fact that with Steel Challenge growing as fast as it is, USPSA must develop a new training program for Steel Challenge RO’s vs. the standard NROI for USPSA curriculum. I saw very good IPSC and IDPA RO’s struggling with the Steel. Why? Well, if you haven’t ever seen an entire squad of guys draw and hit 5 steel plates in under 2.5 seconds, it’s something to watch and it’s understandably difficult to see every little detail of exactly what happened during the string. There is an enormous talent pool of Steel Challenge RO’s in CA, and I believe that USPSA should let them get together, develop the curriculum, and then teach the RMI Corps of NROI, creating the trickle down effect.

Improving match performance can be one of the more difficult tasks around. In practice, it is very easy to see improvement, but it can much harder to translate into better performance when it really counts. Before two weekends ago, I always dissected what went wrong during the match so I could break each part down in practice and improve it before the next match. The theory behind that is great on paper, however it can be hard to transfer that improvement, which you will more than likely see during practice. This is because your mind is always looking back to “X match, where I did Y wrong”, increasing your chances of doing it wrong again, since that’s what you are thinking about. After this match, I decided to dissect what I did correctly. Your body will repeat what your mind sees, therefore, you should be thinking about the things you did right, while letting the other things go, take my Smoke & Hope for example. I had to eat a miss, bingo, that’s it… I could probably write two, single spaced pages on exactly why I missed that plate on two separate runs, but what good would it really do? I know that I over swung slightly and missed, since I was trying to get a quick shot on the stop plate. What I would rather write two, single spaced pages on is what I did after Smoke & Hope. After picking myself off the ground, which I’ll admit took a few minutes of sitting on the berm completely alone, I choose to go on the attack Every. Single. One. Of the last four stages, as a result I was able to win three of them, two by a fairly large margin. When I stepped into the box on Speed Option, I was a totally different shooter than the first half of the match, I shot the last four stages without fear. This doesn’t mean that I was shooting at 100% of my ability, what it means is that I wasn’t thinking about anything other than what I had to do… Which is hit the plates quickly.

US Steel Shoot, Final Report

2008-03-24T15:52:00.001-05:00

Here’s the final report from the US Steel Nationals, sorry it took so long.

Going into the last 3 stages, Showdown, Pendulum and Outer Limits, the standings were,

Max (48.17)
KC (48.76)
Todd (49.7)
BJ (50.18)
Dave (52.08)

(Apologies to a few people whom I told I was about 3.5-4 seconds out of the lead going into the last day. This was the amount I was down after Smoke & Hope, when I had to eat a miss. Brian fade set in after the match and I got them mixed up)

We started on Showdown, then Pendulum, finishing on Outer Limits. Since the rain delay forced us to start a new day, Showdown was a great place for me to do so. I knew that if I wanted to be in the running for the match, I had go on the attack for every stage, or shoot safe and settle for a Top 3 finish. I made the decision to go for it Saturday night and did my best to keep my mind prepared by visualizing shooting well on the stages (“Like me” for those that have read Lanny Bassham’s book), and by also visualizing (from a 3rd person view) myself standing on the top of the podium after the match. Looking forward and positively toward the next day helped keep my confidence higher than trying to “fix” what I had done wrong during Saturday’s match. Sunday morning dawned bright, with calm cloudless skies, but it was cold. After the rain, the temperature had dropped quite a bit over night and it was colder than it had been all week. Everybody has different ways of dealing with cold, my favorite is to put air-activated hand warmers in the gun case before leaving the hotel room. This not only keeps the gun warm enough that the viscosity of the oil stays low enough to for it to run, but it doesn’t hurt my hand as much when it hits a cold grip on the draw. We also learned Sunday morning that all of the stop plate wires had been shorted out by the heavy rain and that they would be adding the flight time of a 900 FPS bullet to the audible sound.

So, back to the shooting… I posted a real good time on Showdown, building my confidence heading into the stages. Max was very deliberate in his aiming and as a result, about 1-1.5 seconds off the pace, Dave, Todd, and KC all shot consistently, making the race for the win even tighter heading into Pendulum. What can I say about Pendulum… Well, the only person that shot it well was Mike Voigt, the rest of us shot it bad to say the least, probably one of the worst performances I’ve ever seen the super squad of any match shoot on any one stage, I think there were a few runs where almost all of us were wondering if we had enough rounds left in the magazine to finish the stage! This left Outer Limits to determine the winner, and anybody who has shot OL knows that there is almost no room for error, especially when you are pushing yourself to pull ahead of others. KC shot, and posted a strong time of 11.64, setting the pace for the stage at well under 4 seconds per run. I knew that I had to shoot a great OL to win and I feel that I did just that, not only winning the stage, but breaking my own world record on the stage by about 3 tenths of a second. Todd fell away under the pressure, shooting a 12.96 and putting him in 4th place, Max shot next, his first 3 runs were strong, however he did have one string over 4 seconds because of a make-up shot on the stop plate. On his final run, he gave up on the stop plate which is so easy to do when you have shot the other 4 plates well and fired several rounds before hitting and stopping the clock at around 4.5 seconds. This left the question… Who won? Until the final results came out, we didn’t know who had won the match, which is not very common in Steel Challenge. The results came out and were:

Max (81.62)
BJ (81.77)
KC (81.98)
Todd (83.01)
Dave (85.40)

I was disappointed to say the least! However, as it was last year in CA, it hasn’t been my day to win yet. Everybody around me has been extremely supportive, big thanks to my family, my fiancée Lucie, John Scoutten, Billy Abbate, and also Max and Dave for taking the time to offer words of support and encouragement!! With the Steel Challenge regional matches coming online, I look forward to being able to compete in Steel Challenge again before THE match in CA.

Congratulations to all the winners!!

Overall:

1. Max Michel Jr.
2. BJ Norris
3. KC Eusebio
4. Todd Jarrett
5. Dave Sevigny

Women’s Overall:

1. Kay Miculek
2. Jessie Abbate
3. Rebecca Jones

Junior Overall:

1. James McGinty
2. Kaci Cochran
3. Sonny Morton
4. John Suber
5. Cody Tucker

Limited:

1. Dave Sevigny
2. Todd Jarrett
3. Doug Koenig
4. Jerry Miculek
5. BJ Norris

Women’s Limited:

1. Jessie Abbate
2. Randi Rogers
3. Rebecca Jones

Junior Limited:

1. Sonny Morton
2. Cody Tucker

Rimfire Overall:

1. BJ Norris
2. Max Michel Jr.
3. Todd Jarrett
4. Dave Sevigny
5. Jerry Miculek

Women’s Rimfire

1. Kay Miculek
2. Rebecca Jones
3. Jessie Abbate

Junior Rimfire, Overall:

1. Sonny Morton
2. Cody Tucker
3. Ian Betzel

Men’s Steel Master:

1. Todd Jarrett
2. Dave Sevigny
3. BJ Norris

Women’s Steel Master:

1. Jessie Abbate
2. Kay Miculek
3. Rebecca Jones

Waiting on Results

2008-03-17T22:58:00.002-05:00

Right now, I'm waiting on full results to be posted to the internet before I make a full report so I can congratulate all of the winners without forgetting somebody. In the meantime, here are the final 3 stages of the Open Super Squad’s match, it came down to the last stage for sure.

Rained Out!

2008-03-15T20:20:00.000-05:00

As the title says, today was rained out and we have yet to finish. The first line of thunderstorms delayed our start until 10-10:30 AM, and the second line forced us to stop around 1:30 with 3 stages to go. Right now, Max is in the lead, then comes KC, Todd, myself and Dave. We are all in position to win the match, so tomorrow morning should be interesting.

Another note, the results of the Limited match came out today and Dave easily took the title. He told me that he has been working real hard to win a Limited Steel match, so big congrats to Dave!

As we are leaving sometime tomorrow go home, this will be my last entry until at least Monday. Two videos tonight, a few stages of Limited, and the first 5 stages of the Open match, I’ll try and have the last 3 stages up by Monday night.

Limited

First 5 Open stages on Saturday,

US Steel Shoot Limited

2008-03-14T21:52:00.001-05:00

Not much tonight, Outback was covered up and it took forever to get a table.

Looks like Dave won Limited with a 92 and change, past that it’s big jumble. Nobody shot a real stellar match today, a few good runs here, a few bad ones over there was the story of the day for the Super Squad. Without a doubt, the most consistent match shot today was Doug Koenig, only having to two keep two pick-up shots over all of the eight stages. My shooting was… Not quite what I expected in the morning, however after lunch, I started shooting very strong and was able to finish the match in just under 110 seconds. Overall, I’m pretty happy with that time, I know I can shoot under 95 seconds with a fair amount of practice with the proper equipment.

Max Michel Jr. finished Rimfire today with a time slightly over 70 seconds, so I am the official Rimfire champion with a time of 69.04 seconds!

I’m really looking forward to the match tomorrow, I was shooting extremely well with my Open gun and when I checked the zero on the scope, it had not moved at all and I shot a great group before leaving the range.

Sorry for no video, dinner took forever and there just wasn’t time to download and produce it to video. I’ll get it up either Saturday night, or I may work on it during the drive home. I uploaded a few more pics to make up for no video.

US Steel Shoot Rimfire Match report

2008-03-13T21:09:00.001-05:00

The final times (overall) for Thursday’s Rimfire match are:

1. BJ Norris: 69.04
2. Todd Jarrett: 72.31
3. Dave Sevigny: 72.98
4. Jerry Miculek: 78.7
5. Phil Strader: 82.3 (with Iron sights!!)
6. Kay Miculek: 83.7
7. Rebecca Jones: 84.72

A few surprises there, Todd shot better than he was letting on and edged out Dave for second place. Dave started out the day really rough, having to eat two misfires on the first stage, costing him around 3-4 seconds, and also distracting him for the first two stages. After that, he shot very strong the rest of the day and dug himself out of a hole to shoot a very respectable time.

Before I talk about my match, I have to give a huge thanks to Pat Cochran for loaning me a Buckmark after mine broke last night. The gun ran and felt great all day, and I was a lot more confident shooting a gun that was much similar to the one I practiced with, than with the much heavier 1911 conversion I had for a back-up. I feel that I shot very well, with only two stages that I feel I could have shot much better. On Accelerator, the scope zero shifted about 3-4 inches to the right, forcing me to take the time to aim for the left edge, and Pendulum… well, that stage always tries really hard to remind you just what trigger control is! Speaking of Pendulum, Dave shot that stage like he was possessed, well under 8.5 seconds, amazing to watch, which you can with the video below. When we came to our last stage of the day, Outer Limits, I knew I had to shoot extremely well to stay under a 70 second total time. I shot very well the first 3 runs, all being under 3.25 seconds and two of them being around 3.1. I knew I could really push on the last string, having 3 good runs on the board and being comfortable on the stage, I went for it, I went 1-for-1 and shot the 4th run in 2.97 seconds!

Phil Strader shot his TacSol 1911 conversion on an STI frame, and even choose to shoot with iron sights. He strong, finishing 5th overall with it, shooting most runs under 1.6 seconds on Smoke & Hope, not something many people can do with a dot, let alone iron sights. Kay Miculek also shot a TacSol 1911 conversion, though on a Smith & Wesson single stack frame. The gun ran well and so did Kay! She was shooting as well as I’ve ever seen her shoot Steel Challenge, and it shows on the results. I hope she can hold everything together over the next two days and win ladies Steel Master.

Max Michel is still to shoot Rimfire tomorrow while the rest of the super squad shoots Limited, which should be an interesting match for me. My Dillon 550 broke as I was loading practice ammo on Tuesday morning. As a result, I was only able to bring 3-400 rounds of practice ammo to shoot this afternoon. I made those count for the most part and plan to AIM on every shot!

Here’s the video from my squad today. It's a little rough, but with time constraints, I wasn't able to dress it up. I plan on re-posting the videos after I get home and have time to play with it. Enjoy.

Quick Note before dinner

2008-03-13T18:15:00.002-05:00

Hey guys,

Just a little update before I eat. Right now, I'm in the lead in Rimfire with a 69 and change, next up is Dave S at 72.98, not sure of the order past that as we were spread out among the squads, but it was pretty close with Todd and Jerry hanging (I heard) around 75, I'll get the exact times and post tomorrow. Hope to update again later tonight with a video, but here are some pics.

US Steel Shoot, Day 1

2008-03-12T20:23:00.002-05:00

Here is it, the day before the first Steel Challenge National match under the Steel Challenge/USPSA/US Steel Shoot merge at the Skip J Range in Anderson, SC. The range, while spread out with some pretty good hills to climb, the bays are well built and the stages fit them very well. The super squads will the shoot the stages in the order of Roundabout, Five To Go, Accelerator, Smoke & Hope, Speed Option, Showdown, Pendulum and finishing up on Outer Limits. I’m happy with this order, as it puts the stages I like and shoot well at the beginning and the end of the match. I hope to build an early lead, hold on during the stages that I may not be as strong on as a few other guys out here, and rebuild the lead heading into the final stages of the match.

This match tomorrow should be an interesting lead-up to the main Open gun match. I saw Todd Jarrett shooting today, he seemed pretty strong overall, Jerry Miculek was shooting well the weekend I shot with him, Dave Sevigny was at the range today, however I didn’t see him shooting any stages. I was having a great day, shooting very well with both my open gun and my .22 Buckmark that I had planned on shooting in the Rimfire match. However, when I was cleaning the gun before doing a final zeroing of the scope, I discovered that the helicoil that protects the aluminum barrel from the steel top rail screw had backed out of the hole in the barrel. Without the proper tools to repair the coil, I was unable to get the top rail sufficiently tight enough to hold the slide and the scope in place. Big thanks to Derek @ Millennium Custom for offering me an identical Trail-Lite barrel for my Browning, however, I again lacked the correct tools to change the barrel, and enough time to properly test-fire the gun to make sure it was running as well is it did before. From now on, I plan on carrying at least one extra barrel with extra Allen wrenches and helicoils. Luckily, I brought along my TacSol 22 1911 conversion with scope mount. I changed the scope between guns, re-zeroed and ran a few practice runs right as the they were closing the range to prepare for the match. Even though I haven’t practiced much with this gun in the past week, I feel confident as I have won the Rimfire event with this gun before and I intend to do it again tomorrow. Another wildcard for the Rimfire match is Max Michel Jr., he isn’t shooting Rimfire until Friday, so we won’t really know who won the Rimfire event until Friday night. Since he hasn’t ever shot Rimfire before, nobody really knows what he is capable of.

My final equipment line-up:

Rimfire: Tactical Solutions .22 1911 conversion upper on a Springfield Frame, Aluminum C-More scope.

Limited: STI Edge in .40 Cal

Open: Brazos Custom Gunworks Pro Sx with 9x19 Steel Challenge barrel, C-more scope.

Below is a slide show of pics from today, I hope to have more tomorrow, as well as some vids on Youtube. One other note, the wireless internet at the match hotel isn’t very strong, so I may or may not be able to update every night.

Wednesday Practice

2008-03-06T23:03:00.001-06:00

Antibiotics work! With my sinus infection pretty much history, I decided to head out to the range to try out the .40 cal ammo that I loaded earlier in the day. After rediscovering what “recoil” and “iron sights” really meant, I settled in and shot some pretty good runs on Show Down with the Limited gun and that clinched my decision to go for Steel Master in South Carolina. I’m really looking forward to expanding my horizons in Steel Challenge even more by shooting Limited in addition to .22 and Open. I really owe a big thanks to Chet, Dan and everybody up at TacSol for breaking me out of a mold and getting me to shoot something besides Open Centerfire all the time. Unfortunately, the tungsten guide rod in gun decided to break on about the 5^th or 6^th run… Already have that replaced with a steel guide rod from another gun.

Anyway, I broke my Open gun back out after the iron sights practice and after a small re-adjustment period (like, remembering that I can shoot a dot gun with both eyes open…), I had one of the best practices I’ve had the entire year. I was consistently shooting sets under 8 seconds, and even a few under 7.5 seconds. I’m really looking forward to shooting the US Steel Nationals in South Carolina next week. I spoke with Max, he and said that he and KC are shooting real well, so it should be a very interesting match. Of course, check back here every night of the match and look for the update. I’m planning on a 30-45 second video and maybe 5-10 pictures every night, along with a report of the match with the winners, their times and their stories from the match!

Super Tuesday II

2008-03-04T09:20:00.002-06:00

This video made the rounds after the Superbowl (Big thanks to Fox for doing something in the name of patriotism), but with it being Super Tuesday II today, remember this video before you go vote!

Practicing in Shreveport, LA

2008-03-03T23:02:00.001-06:00

What a weekend! Of course, you always tend to say that after you spend one with Jerry and Kay Miculek at their home in Princeton, LA, without a doubt, they are two of the finest people that anybody could ever know. Before I say anything else, I have to thank Kay and Jerry for letting me use their range to practice at the drop of the hat. Oh, and if you’ve ever wondered what about 60K rounds of new, factory production pistol ammo looks like sitting in somebody’s entry hall, I have to tell you that it is quite impressive!

I’ve been fighting a sinus infection for the past week and this managed to contribute a little bit of up and down performances over the weekend with the blast wave constantly stirring things up in my head. I’m confident however, that these last few days of antibiotics and a couple more practices and I’ll be ready to take on everybody at the US Steel Shoot in Anderson, SC next weekend.

Right now, I’m entered in .22 optics on Thursday and Open centerfire on Saturday, and I’m seriously considering adding Limited on Friday to go for SteelMaster. The biggest thing that’s holding me back is a lack of .40 bullets available to practice with. Oh well, I’ll go ahead and load what ammo I can and practice some iron sights with my Buckmark and after the Rimfire match on Thursday, I’ll put the iron sights back on my Tactical Solutions 1911 conversion unit and be able to shoot a few hundred rounds of .22 before shooting the 3 or 400 rounds of .40 that I’ll have to practice with.

Watch this page all of next week!! I’m going to try (though no promises) and put up a daily match report, complete with pics, vids and the times of the winners for that day. This’ll be my first attempt at day-to-day matc blogging, so please forgive me if I don’t get the vids, my laptop leaves a little to be desired in the video production category…

Stay safe!

Review of 2007

2008-02-29T09:07:00.001-06:00

A video review of 2007.