So I haven't had the heart to pull down the footage and do a video on my Area 4 match which I shot last Friday because it was frankly incredibly disappointing. If you have been following my notes on my open guns - I made the decision to use the MPA open gun for Area 4 and Nationals and it let me down in a major major way.

First stage I'm first shooter on decent field course - shooting into the rising sun - the sun was barely peeking over the berm. I made the mistake of NOT making my dot as bright as possible for the last 2 positions picking a brightness appropriate for the first few positions assuming that my dirty lens - which I INTENTIONALLY left dirty assuming it'd be almost like an occlusion on the dot and would help when I was shooting into the sun.

First few positions go fine - shooting aggressively - dot is moving well - I get to the second to last position - aaaand the dot is gone. The lens lights up with the morning sun and I can hardly see my dot. I end up tagging a no shoot just indexing on targets adding serious time to my stage - whatever it is what it is. I get to the last position and shoot the first two targets - as I transition to the final pair of targets the gun hard locks open - I assumed I had a slide lock reload. I do a mag change and try to put the gun back into battery. It won't budge. It's hard locked open. I turn to the RO " I don't know what you want me to do - I can't move the slide".

I drop the mag - put it in the holster and that's all she wrote. 4 Mikes. 1 No shoot. 2 failure to shoot at procedurals - it's not a zeroed out stage - but it is good enough for the lowest score in open at a match that Christian Sailer (currently the best open shooter in the US) is attending.

I grab a ride to my car to grab the spitfire which I grabbed this morning "I won't need this but I mean it's good to have a back up gun". Well I needed it. And that was the beginning of the end.

My Bul Armory gun - which is a super fine gun in it's own right and I shoot it nearly as well as the MPA - but it has 155mm mags to reload and I haven't shot it in a match for 2-3 months - I think that 25 is the magic number of rounds for it to lock back.

I have my pity party and put it out of my head focusing on just getting in solid performances on the rest of the stages and prepping for nationals. The next stage is a split stage - a Virginia count short course then immediately a Comstock standards stage short course. I can say- unequivocally - that the Sig Romeo 3 Max (the RTS footprint one) is WAY better shooting into the sun than my RTS2 on the MPA. That dot was beautiful.

The Comstock standards stage was engage 4 paper, reload, engage 4 mini poppers at 20 yards. The poppers are in front of no shoot targets. The paper goes well - I shoot aggressively. Reload. The magazine doesn't lock in on the reload and falls out of the mag chute. I manage to catch it and about 6" from the magwell and reseat it successfully and shoot the poppers first two go down no problems - third target I duff two shots on the popper - one connecting with the no shoot and one vanishing into the ether. I have no idea where the shot went but it wasn't on steel or the no shoot that should have caught it - either way - it adds about 1 second in make ups on top of my probably 1.5 - 2 seconds bobble with the magazine. What should have been a 7-8 second stage for me is now a 10 second stage with a penalty because I don't remember that 24 is the magic number to reload to with my 155 magazines. Womp womp. I finish mid pack on the stage in field at 51% - not catastrophic on a short not valuable stage but not good. That was when I realized that balance of the gun that I had been training with (the MPA) is more neutral and the Spitfire is decidedly rear heavy. On precision shooting - like 20 yard mini poppers - that was enough of a difference to affect how I was aiming the gun. The neutral balance of the MPA I had gotten used to and honestly prefer that kind of balance. So my confidence took a hit as I was getting used to balance and the cycling speed of the Bul armory gun - which has a commander length slide versus the 5" slide on the MPA.

I shake it off - it's going to be a long day. I take another stage or so. I manage to slide back into where I should be performing for most of the rest of stages - the mid 70s to a couple 80% finishes on stages .

At Chrono - I am reminded that the ammo that I am shooting is special snowflake ammo for my MPA gun and not the Bul Armory gun as I EASILY make power factor - with my 124 grain loads clocking between 1440 and 1480 FPS. For you non open shooters - ideal with 124 grain loads is about 1380 - 1400 FPS. Since I don't bother to sort head stamps on my once fired brass that I buy - it radically affects the extreme spread - typically in 10 shots there are 40-50 FPS swings - so I load so that it averages about 1400 FPS at the muzzle - accounting for that fact. So the gun is a little violent but whatever.

So what happened to my MPA? Well apparently the guide rod wasn't fit to the frame - which isn't even something I was aware needed doing. I noticed when cleaning it before the match that the base of the guide rod was deformed but didn't think anything of it because when I first noticed it a month or so ago it hadn't caused any issue in my preparation for the match. Apparently - in recoil the guide rod reset onto the fins in the frame and that caused the rod to bind with the reverse plug seizing the slide up. At home I hit the back of the slide with a rubber mallet - not even that hard - and it went home.

In credit to MPA - they are sending out a new guide rod and reverse plug - they had updated the design so this doesn't happen.

Later in the match my Bul Armory gun reminded me that it had sat in the case and the oil evaporated on it - there were 2 to 3 instances of brass getting caught in the ejection port - each time costing me the better part of 2 seconds. I oiled it after the last time going into the final 2 stages and it didn't have any more issues.

The ammo I sent to Nationals is ammo for the MPA gun - so I'm locked into using it. Per a text conversation with David over there I should use the new rod - but taking a file and knocking down those fins will be good enough.

So long story short - I've had a largely uneventful open career as my guns have generally worked no problems. This was the first "open guns don't work reliably" match that I've had in a LONG time.

I'm going to take the gun out this morning and shake it down to make sure it's not locking open.

What's funny is one of the reasons I didn't pick the spitfire to train up heading into Area/Nationals is that - to my knowledge - it's the only one in the country and if something went down I'd be hosed and have to go back to my UR guns - which are fine - but very different in how they shoot. With the MPA - since they're a sponsor of the match - I'd at least have access at nationals to backup guns.

I'm pulling down the footage off the cameras now but it's not pretty.