Tag: uspsa

Canik Wins – 2023 USPSA Area 5 Championship – Full Carry Optics match video.

The 2023 USPSA Area 5 Championship was held at the Brooklyn Sportsman’s Club between May 31st and June 4th, 2023. The shooting schedule had me competing half days on Saturday and Sunday. My main competition at the match included Jacob Hetherington from the AMU, Army Marksmanship Unit, John Vlieger from team Mark7 Reloading and Tom Castro from the Tom Castro Shooting Academy.

Everyone with the exception of Jacob shot together on our little Carry Optics Super Squad. Results are on PractiScore and can be found HERE.

Squad #201

https://youtube.com/watch?v=jCWehYYthGQ%3Fsi%3DaZOJrd4Ia3PHVDtr

Area 5 is what I would consider a more traditional style USPSA match. It’s not a hose fest with targets 5 feet from your face, and you generally won’t see crazy activators or gimmicky stages that are inconsistent from shooter to shooter. You can however expect to see some very challenging stages that mix some element you probably haven’t practiced much with others you have

Take stage #13 “The Train Station” Time code 5:50 on the attached YouTube video. It was a 2 string stage requiring some accurate distance shooting using only your primary hand after the reload on the first string, then more stand and deliver shooting with another mandatory reload between positions ending with 3 targets draped with penalty targets to be engaged with only your non-dominant hand. This year they were gentle and gave us a time limited of 12 seconds, which sounds bad but actually make the stage easier. Last years Area 5 had an identically looking stage without a par time, which meant every miss you had not only counted against your point total but gave you an additional penalty for each missed shot. This left a large percentage of the match effectively zeroing this 120 point stage due to missed shots. For 2023 the addition of the 12 second par time meant that it was treated like the now fixed time stage it was, meaning the points you score is your hit factor, assuming you didn’t hit a noshoot or fire an overtime shot.

Fun fact – Only 4 people zeroed the stage in 2023 whereas nearly 40 people zeroed the stage in 2022. In Carry Optics Tom Castro won this stage with a 112 point score while I finished 2nd Carry Optics with a 110 point score.

Should YOU spend your money shooting Area 5?

This is one of the best area matches in USPSA and I absolutely recommend attending Area 5. I believe this is my 3rd year shooting the Area 5 at the Brooklyn Sportsman’s Club and I every year they continue to make it better.

Huge thank you to the staff and everyone that makes these matches possible by volunteering your time and energy designing, building, staffing and administering events such as these.

THANK YOU.

Results & Equipment

I’m happy to say Canik pulled out another win at Area 5 Championship this year. Final Carry Optics standing were

Nils Jonasson 1st place

John Vlieger 2nd place

Tom Castro 3rd place

My pistol was the Canik SFX Rival-S which is Canik’s new steel frame 9mm pistol designed specifically for USPSA, IDPA and IPSC competition.

The Basepads I use are a combination TaylorFreelance and Taran Tactical extensions with Grams springs and followers.

Open Guns. 9mm or 38 Supercomp?

pros and cons of 38 supercomp vs 9mm major when building a open gun for competition.

I’ve been asked what caliber Open gun would be best for USPSA/IPSC competition a lot this past month. It’s something I’ve had to research a great deal lately because of the Open build Mclearn Custom did for me last month. Caliber is the number one question when building a major open gun and deserves careful consideration.

The two main options nowadays are either 9mm major or 38 supercomp. Both have pros and cons and both are good options. I want back and forth for a long time deciding

 

                                                                     PROS & CONS

 

  • 38 Supercomp Pros:
  1. Softer shooting
  2. 10 plus reloads per case
  3. More consistent ejection
  4. Many powder options
  5. Able to use standard upright C-more with large viewing area.
  • 38 Supercomp Cons:
  1. Expensive initial investment “Starline Brass”
  2. Losing brass at major matches that are lost brass matches
  3. Having to pickup brass all the time
  • 9mm Major Pros:
  1. Little to no initial investment
  2. Don’t worry about retrieving all your brass
  3. Major matches don’t cost any extra because of lost brass
  • 9mm Major Cons:
  1. Erratic ejection because of mixed headstamps
  2. Unreliable with upright mounted C-mores “because of #1”
  3. Snappy compared to Supercomp
  4. limited powder choices when making major
  5. short brass life “2-3 reloads max”
  6. Need to use micro dot sight or side mounted C-more

 

I originally wanted to run 9mm and not change my reloading setup or worry about picking up brass like a crazy person. It was a struggle, on the one hand 9mm brass is cheap and easy but I really wanted to run a standard C-more mounted upright, any chance of a malfunction is not an option at nationals level matches. I had to take a deep look at what my goal for the pistol would be. Winning was that goal and after going round and round I finally decided that the extra initial cost of 38 Supercomp would put me in a better position to perform at my best.

 

Here’s a picture of the completed open gun by Mclearn Custom

IMG_9799.JPG