I have been waiting to get one of these back in stock for quite some time. If you follow USPSA and competitive shooting you know there are two guys crushing it right now Max Michel and JJ Racaza. I wish buying a gun they use would give you their skillset instantly but that is not the case. The firearm I am featuring today is Max Michel’s Custom Works Model.
The SIG SAUER P320MAX is a 9mm striker-fired pistol optimized for competition at the highest levels, specifically in the Carry Optics division. The pistol is built around the TXG tungsten-infused heavy XFULL grip module with a flat skeletonized trigger. The SIG Custom Works P320MAX slide was redesigned entirely with custom wrap-around serrations for ideal side and top manipulation and is fit with a 5” match grade bull barrel, one-piece stainless steel guide rod, and both a 14lb. and 12lb. 1911-style recoil spring, allowing for an easily customized shooting experience. The pistol comes standard with a SIG SAUER Electro-Optics 6MOA ROMEO3MAX, and four 21rd Steel Magazines…enough for any competition set-up!
This week, I wanted to keep it “simple” Focus on fundamentals, get a good draw, get your trigger prepped, and go. So I went with the Bill Drill.
No reloads, no movement unless you want to do a retreating billy.
Bill drills are a solid way to warm up or find some flaws in your system. You are going to have to dial in your draw, focus on getting the sight picture, prepping the trigger, and then manage the recoil. Finding little flaws will help speed up time and make you more accurate.
The instructions for the bill drill are as follows.
Draw your weapon
Fire 6 rounds into the target
A zone hits are the goal
Time: everyone has different standards for the time. From 3 yards under 1.8 should be easily attainable. 5 yards and 7 yards people have different acceptable rates. I personally think at 5 yards it should be under 1.8 seconds as well. At 7, which is the “standard” distance, under 1.99 seconds is passing most standards. I think a better measure when starting out is to run it from whatever distance you want, do it 3 times. For the first run, do it cleanly and not worry about time but make a note of the time. For the second run, go as fast as you possibly can being safe, and take note of the time. For the third run, find a balance of those two speeds and times, and go for that. Set your base time and make that your goal to beat every time you run it.
Running this drill one of the most important components is the draw. If you start off with a bad draw you waste time correcting it to get back to where you need to be. If that draw leads to a bad grip when presenting you either fix it or run it with a bad grip and miss your shots. On the other side of it, if your draw is dialed in, it’s fast out of the holster, and you are presented and ready to fire, you have more time to make your shots.
Go grab some USPSA Targets, set them up, and head to the range to put in some work!
This week we finally got a firearm in, that a lot of people have wanted to see. The Stribog with a twist, a Glock mag version.
Since the Bog started to explode in popularity, there were only a couple tweaks people wanted to see happen, the ability to swap lower parts like any AR lower so you can run something like a radian safety selector or whatever trigger setup you wanted. The other being different mag options. A lot of requests for Glock mag, scorpion, mpx, and some colt mag requests. People took to printing 3d lowers or buying different lowers and adapter plates. Well, no need for that anymore if you just want to run the Glock mags you already have!
Outside of the Glock mag lower, the Stribog remains true to itself. The same operation and manual of arms, nothing has changed between versions except the magazine choice. This is one of if not the best PCC guns on the market. I personally have shot 2-3K rounds through mine and have 0 complaints other than I wish I could switch to different controls and maybe run a different grip and trigger. No absolute needs, just would be cool to have somewhat of some carryover from my rifle setups.
This week of July 2022, we have in the showroom some… drum roll, please….. SWISS MODEL 1906/24 LUGERS!
Everyone always asks when we are going to get surplus. Surplus dries up, that’s just how it works. Since it dries up, it costs money to get what people can find. So the days of 75-dollar AKs and SKS rifles are gone forever. When this stuff pops up now, we do what we can to get it.
This brings me to my gun of the week.
Really Cool, I know it’s not the same model but it always reminds me of Indiana Jones.
I have been posting about our EDC/Pocket Dump setups and it’s been all the guys carrying. This week I wanted to take a look at what the office mom carries.
Autumn has chickens and she loves her chickens… I expected her to have some sort of chicken or baby chick in her bag. That and snacks… because I like snacks and I was hoping she had some in the bag.
Autumn is running her M&P Shield with an extra magazine and plans on upgrading to the new Shield Plus. This may frighten you but she carries a screwdriver as well, she said “A knife is ok, a screwdriver is personal” and then shouted, “catch me on D-Block bruh!” Once she sheds her inner gangster she goes right into mom mode. Cellphone/keys sure but an apple for a snack! We have lotion and bandaids and her wallet. Now, this obviously is not her pocket carry, but unless you want her to shank you this will be her post!
In a world where ammo skyrocketed and then is slowly returning to stable prices, we managed to secure some ammo at a great price. Not just like a couple cases of it or even 1 pallet of 9mm. As I type this, we have 8,469 boxes of this. Brass Case ammo has not been this cheap in years. We currently have it at $14.95 a box!
I am sure by now you are familiar with Eli and the events at the Indiana mall. A person of evil decides to harm innocent lives, Eli stepped in without thinking and ended the threat before more lives could be lost.
40-50 yards from concealment. 10 shots with 8 hits in under 15 seconds. There are some that say he was braced, some say he was walking in towards the threat. Either way, it’s damn fine shooting under the highest stress possible for a civilian. Nobody knows for sure but he reportedly used a Glock, and seeing ten shots makes me think 43x or 48. If that is the case it makes what he did even more impressive.
I was watching videos of people running his drill this weekend and I noticed nobody had done it under elevated heart rate like the adrenaline Eli would have been having. So I hopped in the car and went to the range to try it out.
I ran 50ish yards and back with ten burpees to get my heart rate up as high as I could, 153ish is what I could get that quick. The first run, was cold except for the cardio I just did. 8/10 shots 11:11 with a horrible draw. Eli didn’t get to use an excuse of a horrible draw but I am. Still passed and they are lower torso shots so the stomach and intestine areas, not an easy area to repair so I will take it.
Second attempt: 9.86 8/10. I did not have a round chambered so I sped everything up. Always carry with one in the chamber! I am more ok with this one, still mid-thorasic hits. I am shooting and not accounting for the distance like I should. Still a pass and that threat should be down.
I went on Instagram live and completely failed when I moved to shooting steel. 4/10 and it was just sloppy.
For redemption I went to my personal carry ammo. Decided to make it as real as I could.
9/10 hits at 9.41. I will take that all day.
Sure I didn’t get all A zone and didn’t bother calculating hit factors cause 1. I don’t care, that’s for nerds that keep score. 2. In a situation where my life is on the line, I will take stomach hits, arm hits, hand, face. A hit is a hit and if it stops the threat, I call that a perfect score.
Here is the video for you to check out if you want to. Go train!
One of our employees took her first pistol class this last weekend. These are her thoughts:
Hello all, Autumn here! This past weekend I had the honor of participating in a pistol 1 class at Impact Shooting Center and I truly do not think I can put the experience into words, but I will give it my best shot.
1. What is your prior firearm experience?
Working in the firearms industry, over the past 5 years, I would consider myself street smart when it comes to a firearm, how they work, the components of one, and how to operate the trigger. My range and behind-the-trigger time used to be weekly, about 5 years ago, but that was completely self-taught with the assistance of my sister and brother-in-law; outside of that, I have had very little prior firearm experience. Going into this class I was looking to sharpen what I thought I knew and it turns out it wasn’t as much as I thought.
2. What firearm were you shooting?
I took my Smith & Wesson M&P 9 Shield, with iron sights, to this class and it proved to be a headache, but hey! It’s the gun I am currently carrying so I decided that I should practice with what I’m carrying. This handgun had two magazines, one 7-round magazine, and one 8-round magazine; luckily, another AIM employee showed up and had 3 extra magazines for me to borrow, which definitely helped with how much reloading I had to complete. My other conundrum was that I am left-handed and my handgun is an older model and did not have the capability of switching the mag and slide release.
3. What did you hope to learn going into this class?
All these handicaps aside, going into this class I was really hoping to learn how to be in better control of my firearm and have more confidence behind the trigger. Even though I am comfortable around firearms when it comes to conceal carry I lacked the confidence. So I was hoping that I could gain the confidence and control through some training and instruction.
4. What was your biggest takeaway from the class?
My biggest takeaway was my grip and even though I thought I was holding my firearm the correct way and applying the right amount of pressure, with the correct hand; I was actually not.
5. What area did you improve the most?
My grip and stance are where I improved the most. Shane took a portion of the class to explain the differences between the fight stance and the isosceles stance and how these two stances affect the body’s movement when pushed upon in different directions. Then he took another portion of the class and explained grip and arm extensions and how when you correct your grip and hold your arms out at the right extension, without your arms being locked, you have a more secure grip and are in more control of your firearm. With these couple of little tweaks to what I thought I knew, my shooting became significantly better.
6. Is there anything you thought you would learn but did not?
Shane covered everything and more. I left the class feeling infinitely more knowledgeable than when I went I entered.
7. How do you think the instructors did?
The instructors did awesome! They didn’t let anything get past them; the moment I started slinking back into my old ways they were right there reminding me. My favorite instructor was BFlann Superstar!
8. Are you interested in taking more classes?
I would love to take more classes, I feel like this intro class has given me the desire to grow and become a better shooter. There is nothing more rewarding than a day’s worth of hard work and you see the hard work paying off, just after a few short hours.
9. Do you practice anything you learned in class? Like dry fire or grip?
I have practiced since the class with my grip, but truly I probably have not practiced enough.
10. How did you like your first class?
I loved my first class and am truly grateful for AimSurplus, Bryan, Peter, Josh, and James that pushed me to go and get started past entry-level gun ownership!
Sometimes I like to switch it up and carry something other than my normal m&p setup. Today was one of those days.
Let’s start at the top left, arguably the most important part of the carry. The black cold brew coffee. It fuels the soul. Then you have my HellBent front pocket wallet and my keys. We have some AimSurplus grape chapstick. My Hellbent “bottle opener”. Kershaw Shuffle 2 knife so I don’t have to worry about breaking or losing an expensive knife plus they are nice. Front and center we have my LV ghetto camo print holster from NorthCoast Tactical and that is holding my STI 2011 4.0 Tactical that is ported and an SRO. The only things you really need.
