Sore Fingers!

A couple of quick notes before I crash:

• GUNSITE is the best training facility in the United States, period. There is a tremendous reservoir of talent and information here, and you owe it to yourself to attend a class here if you'd like to kick your shooting up a notch. If you can't make it here, not to worry — I plan on continuing SHOOTING GALLERY's special relationship with GUNSITE and give you at least two GUNSITE training episodes every season. I want to make sure SG has take-home value! I think one of the things I really like about GUNSITE is the attitude of all the trainers. They seem genuinely concerned with your learning the material presented, and they do an amazingly consistent job with presentation. The other thing is that GUNSITE''s training is the baseline, the core of techniques that so much else is built on. No, I don't agree with everything they teach here, but more than once they've forced me to re-examine my own preconceptions!

• The S&W scandium-framed Commander-sized 1911 is an amazingly well set up gun. When I was out here last time, I shot Col. Jeff Cooper's personal carry gun, a lightweight Commander (in, duh, .45 ACP!) with S&W revolver sights. I thought at the time that a 1911 set up the right way did a super job of reducing the felt recoil from the .45, even in the lightweight frame configuration. The new S&E GUNSITE Special is perfect. I put about 300 rounds of Black Hills 230-grain .45 ACP ball through mine today...I say "mine" because even though I had resolved not to buy the gun, it's rock-solid performance turned me around. I can't pass this one up! As long as I do my job, the hits are right there, and the gun isn't particularly punishing — although, yes, my right hand is sore! No failures of any kind...I like the "speed bump" grip safety, which has worked well for me even though I have a nasty history of failing to hit the grip safety because of my girly-man hands. I also like the Novak sights (the dovetail front has a gold bead, which is my ABSOLUTE FAVORITE front sight configuration). Brother Novak is shooting with us, so I get to make fun of him whenever he screws up (which is, in all honesty, very rarely).

Sleepy time now!