New shooter, Baikal grip shaping, and questions

[CWB]

Hi all,

New member here, just thought I’d introduce myself and share my recent shooting experiences. I started shooting 10m Air Pistol a few months ago, and after reading lots of threads on this forum I figured it was about time I joined.

I’ve been shooting airguns for a couple of years, but until now it’s mainly been air rifle (casual Hunter Field Target-style plinking and paper punching) and rapid-fire air pistol (Iron Plate Action Shooting). My main passion for shooting is around accuracy and precision and I was finding that I had less and less free weekends to visit the local shooting club to really stretch the rifles out to 50+ yds, so I wanted something that I could do on a shorter range. 10m AP fit the description nicely, but I immediately had a dilemma – I normally shoot left handed (rifle and pistol) but all the decent 10m air pistols come with right-handed grips, and sourcing a left-handed one is expensive over here (UK).

I tried holding my other pistol (Umarex CO2 Colt 1911) in the traditional 10m AP stance/grip, and found that it felt so alien and different to a Weaver stance that if I was going to have to learn how to hold a pistol again then I might as well do it with the ‘right’ hand. I practiced with the Umarex pistol for a while, but even in single action it has a pretty horrid trigger and they’re not known for their accuracy, so it was time to invest in the right tool for the job.

A PCP pistol was out of the question due to price, so I looked at three SSPs - the Baikal IZH 46M, the FAS 6004, and the Gamo Compact. After reading lots of reviews the Baikal seemed the best bet and thankfully my local dealer was able to order one in for me (it’s not the type of thing you see over here outside of specialist suppliers).

I won’t bother posting a full review of the Baikal (mine’s labelled MP-46M rather than being an Izzy, but I gather they’re identical) as there are already plenty out there, but suffice to say I’m very pleased with it and it far outshoots my capabilities.

A lot of the Baikal reviews I read said that the grip is on the large side, and that most shooters will need to adjust it to fit them. After shooting it for a while I found this odd, as I have fairly small hands and it fitted me quite well. It was only after shooting it for a while that I realised I was holding the grip wrong, and that while it felt comfortable I was holding the pistol at an angle so when I pulled the trigger it was pulling the gun slightly to the side rather than straight back. Once I gripped the pistol ‘properly’ I did indeed find it was uncomfortably large and it was time to get some sanding done. I looked at third-party grips like Woods and Waters and Rink, but until I can shoot better I can’t justify the cost.

I treated myself to a Dremel for my birthday and started working on the grip. I read a few guides online and followed the general process of holding the gun, making some pencil marks on the grip for where my hand sat, and then sanding with the rotary sanding drum. Once I had the majority of the wood removed and the grip felt comfortable, I changed to 240->400->600 grit wet and dry paper to make final adjustments and sand the wood smooth.

Here is the grip after the first round of shaping:

After first round of grip shaping.

After first round of grip shaping.

At this point the grip largely felt right and when I held the gun out the bore axis lined up with my hand and arm, but there were still pockets of empty space in some areas between my hand and the grip that needed filling. I’ve no idea if you can buy Morini grip paste over here for a sensible price, but I just used regular wood filler. I tried matching the wood colour first, but it didn't look great so I used grey for contrast instead - this is never going to be a 'pretty' gun anyway (I understand it has the nickname ‘industrial stapler’).

My technique was to work out where the 'pockets' were, apply wood filler to these areas, then put some cling film (I think you call it saran wrap in the US?) over the top and squeeze the grip in my hand. This left a fairly close imprint of my hand in the required areas. Once the filler had started to dry I peeled off the cling film to let the air cure the filler properly, then once completely dry it was sanded. A couple of extra bits of filler were added afterwards to raise areas that needed it, then these were again sanded until I was happy with the grip. A coat of Birchwood Casey Stock Oil was applied to the grip to protect it and match the original finish.

Here is the 'finished' grip in its current state:

After second round of grip shaping and wood filler.

After second round of grip shaping and wood filler.

I’m now at the point where the grip fits like a glove and feels a lot more stable. I also moved the trigger back a little and it now feels like I’m pulling straight back instead of to the side. I think the trigger might benefit from being a little lighter, but for now it’s not the biggest problem (my lack of skill is) so I’m leaving it alone until I make a trigger weighing system to make sure it’s not too close to <500g.

My personal training has basically been down to lots of research, and then trying to implement what I learn in practice. I don’t have a coach nor am I member of a club that shoots this discipline, so I’m a complete amateur. I have been working my way through Don Nygord’s Notes and I believe I’ve now got the grip and breathing elements fairly well sorted.

I think I’m now at the point where my biggest struggles are physical and mental fatigue. If I shoot a 60-shot string, then I find my mind and arm tend to wander on the third and fourth groups of 10. I’m working on the physical side by trying the StrongLifts 5x5 (I have always had rubbish core muscles and hope this will improve them), and once that’s improved I will work on the mental side.

My first question to you all is what is a ‘good’ score for an amateur? I started using the TargetScan phone app (https://play.google.com/store/apps/deta ... n&hl=en_GB for Android, https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/targets ... 45769?mt=8 for iOS) to track my scores and have found it is the perfect companion tool for tracking my ability.

When I first started keeping track of scores, I was shooting somewhere around 75-80ex100. I would typically shoot 30 shots in a practice session and score somewhere around 230-245, with the majority of shots being a 7 or an 8. If I scored 9s, 10s or 10xs, then it felt like luck as much as anything else.

Since finishing the grip shaping (only last week), my scores are more consistently over 80ex100 with mainly 9s, and I shot my personal best of 89-2x. Are these scores reasonable for someone who has been shooting for around four months now? I know I still have a massive amount to improve on and I'm enjoying myself so the score doesn't matter too much right now, but am I in the right ballpark? I would personally consider a 500ex600 to be a good score right now and I am working towards consistently achieving this. Below is a screenshot of a recent 60-shot session. As you can see, there are a lot of 'fliers' when the physical/mental fatigue kicks in. If you ignore these (if only scoring was that easy!) then to me it looks like a decent group for an amateur?

Recent 60-shot practice session.

My second question is where is the 10 metres actually measured from? Is it from where the shooter stands, the muzzle of the pistol, or what? For practice I have just been taking 10 large paces between roughly where the gun is held and where I place my target. Not overly scientific but it should be about right. I need to measure it properly really and put a marker down.

My third question is around the ISSF rule "No part of the grip, frame or accessories may touch any part of the wrist." The heel rest on the Baikal extends quite far backwards and arguably comes into contact with the base of my wrist when my hand is angled in the shooting stance. Is this allowed or not allowed? Is it fairly common to find the Baikal 46M falls foul of rules in this way? I will try to take a photo of what I mean and post it here if it's not clear.

Thanks in advance for your time and reading this rather lengthy first post!
Chris

[CWB]

To give something back to the forum as it's helped me a lot, I though I would post all the useful links I found while researching the things I mentioned in my post above. Note that I haven't read through all of this stuff (nowhere near!) so please follow any links and/or download/open files at your own risk.

General Info

• Nygord's Notes - http://www.australiancynic.com/NYGORD.htm
  The Fundamentals of Olympic Pistol Shooting (ISSF Academy) - http://www.issf-sports.org/theissf/acad ... istol.ashx
  Interesting blog on pistol shooting - http://toz35.blogspot.co.uk/
  ISSF Youtube Channel - https://www.youtube.com/user/issfchannel/videos
  Pilkguns Pistol Coaching Index - http://www.pilkguns.com/pistolcoaching.shtml
  AMU Pistol Shooting Guide - http://www.bullseyepistol.com/amucover.htm
  Lots of resources (I have not checked all these, download/use at your owk risk!) - https://www.mediafire.com/?z99adcfay43md

IZH-46M Grips

• Aftermark grips and grip shaping - http://www.network54.com/Forum/79537/th ... or+IZH+46m
  IZH 46M Custom Grips - http://www.targettalk.org/viewtopic.php?t=32349
  IZH 46M Custom Grips - http://www.targettalk.org/viewtopic.php?f=4&t=30085
  Grip shaping advice - http://www.targettalk.org/viewtopic.php?f=4&t=49473
  Aftermark grips - http://www.formgriffe.de/en/shpSR.php?A=79&sf=baikal
  Useful IZH info - http://www.airgunarena.com/index.php/IZ ... Air_Pistol
  Interesting custom grips (Russian) - http://forum.guns.ru/forummessage/16/17 ... 60825.html
  IZH Grip shaping - http://www.targettalk.org/viewtopic.php?f=4&t=21070
  General grip shaping advice - http://www.targettalk.org/viewtopic.php?f=4&t=18161
  Aftermarket grips - http://woodsandwateroutdoors.com/izh-46m-grips

[dschaller]

Hi Chris,

Your scores are not at all poor for as new to shooting as you are. In fact, if you took that target and just figure out how to avoid the 9 shots in the white (6s or lower), and could instead shoot 9s (you shot almost twice as many 9s as anything else), your score would be a 520.

Work on learning to "feel" what a good shot is like. Then any time you start to deviate from that feeling, put the gun down and reset for another attempt. Letting your ego take over because "I can still shoot a good shot" is increasing the chance for a bad shot. That includes holding for too long. You may get lucky and shoot a good score after holding for 20 seconds, but how long do you hold for most of the good shots? Make that your personal target, and put the gun down if the shot doesn't break within a second or two beyond that.

10 Meters is measured form the face of the target to a plane that your feet can not touch or cross. Most ranges have a line on the floor marking that distance. Your arm and gun can extend beyond that toward the target.

The grip can only touch your hand. If the shelf touches anywhere beyond where the bones in the hand end, even just the flesh, it is likely illegal. You should trim the shelf off so you can tilt your hand down beyond normal shooting position and not touch the arm/wrist.

[CWB]

Many thanks for the reply dschaller, that was exactly the type of information and advice I was looking for! You are completely right about holding shots too long. I am often guilty of rushing and being impatient in my shooting, even in a practice session, and this leads to the desire to get the shot away, even if the back of my brain is saying "lower the pistol, breathe, and try again". I will work on including this in my next practice.

Thanks for clarifying the 10m distance. That certainly makes things simpler and makes me wonder if I might be over-estimating the distance I'm shooting (one can but hope, anything to make it easier!). I shall get the tape measure and some chalk out the next time I shoot.

I suspected as much on the grip/wrist issue. Thankfully it should be easy to cut a bit off the back of the shelf to resolve this.

Cheers,
Chris

[Lenny]

deleted.

[Lenny]

1. Don't worry about the scores. Concentrate on fundamentals and you will see improvement.
2. 10 meters is from the front foot to the target.
3. You grip is legal under the rules if you hold the pistol correctly.

I recently started shooting 10m AP with Izh-46M. I also have small hands. I ordered Rink grips and very happy with mine. You can get them left handed. The trigger is made for right handed shooters, but you can get after market trigger, which is neutral to either hand. I experimented with different sights that came with the pistol, but came back to how it was set up by the factory.

[Chris__Colorado]

Hi Chris,

When you decide you want to adjust trigger, I've attached a file with two techniques that have worked for me.
They are also described here:
http://www.targettalk.org/viewtopic.php?f=4&t=42699

And I've attached a few useful files on the IZH.

Chris

[Chris__Colorado]

and one more file...

[CWB]

Lenny, Chris__Colorado, thanks both for your input, very useful and much appreciated!

[tpambau]

As for IZh-46M trigger:

It's much better to apply dremel not for grip, but for improving trigger, as shown on picture.



By rounding (fine sanding paper + polishing paste) and polishing trigger lever 18 and trigger sear 15 (green arrow 3) as well as screw and lever 18 (red arrow 2), you can make trigger significantly softer.

I don't know if these improvements already done on your pistol, but as for mine (purchased factory new in Russia) - these modifications completely changed trigger feeling.

[CWB]

Thanks, I'll bear that in mind, tpambau.

I must admit, the actual feeling of the trigger is already very nice, I just wonder if it might benefit from breaking a little lighter, but we'll see when I get around to weighing it. :)

[Rover]

You did a nice job with the grip, but I have to warn you that after several years I am still giving minor tweaks to my two AP grips. Some of other shooters laugh at me, but they don't outshoot me.

BTW I have completely eliminated any "finger grooves."

[CWB]

Thanks Rover, I had a feeling that might be the case which was why I put 'finished' in quote marks. ;) They certainly feel a million times better than they did out of the box but I'm sure there's still work to be done.

I quite fancy making a set of grips from scratch from a wood blank. I don't think the outside would prove too much of a problem, but getting the inside routed properly to match the metal of the pistol frame and ensuring the screws lined up perfectly might be a little harder. Maybe a project for the winter months...

In other news, I've just measured my range and it turns out I've been shooting 11.5 metre air pistol all this time, and I don't think that's a recognised discipline! I've made some marks on the floor to a true 10m and will see how I get on next time I shoot.

Thanks all for the input.
Chris

[mikeyj]

I've found that the most critical part of the shaping is in how the grip tapers from front to back. By removing material from one side or the other you alter how the gun points. Refining this helped me insure the sights lined up properly.

[CWB]

I have followed everyone's advice and just shot my first 500ex600, only just though! :)

First true 500.

There's less fliers on this one which is good, but the main grouping itself isn't as tight. I'd put that in part down to the fact it's flippin' cold here this morning which doesn't help. I think I now need to learn the difference between a 'good' shot (7/8/9) and a 'great' (9/10) shot, and try to only take the shots that feel great. Lots more practice needed, but so far so good.

[GaryN]

I first tried plastic wood to fill my grip, but it STUNK. Then I had Seaton Thomas adjust my grip, and he used a kneadable expoy and that worked much better than the plastic wood, no SMELL. And the epoxy was easily shaped with a rotary sander/Dremel.
Rather than grabbing the grip to fit, Seaton and I followed Don Nygord's method of adjusting the grip so that it makes the hand do what I want it to do. Since you have Don's notes, you should find the grip fitting article in there.

A trick that my AR coach taught me was to work gradually and forget your scores.
First, try to keep all your shots in the black, the 7 ring.
Then, try to keep all your shots in the 8 ring.
Then, try to keep all your shots in the 9 ring.

This training was/is to shoot a tighter and tighter group. Because by scoring, shooting a 10 will off-set a 6, to average an 8. It is better to shoot two 8s, rather than a 10 and a 6. Because it is out lying 6 that you do NOT want.

And as was said, try to remember what a GOOD shot felt like, then try to duplicate it.

I would also change targets when the target has so many shots close together that it is difficult to score and train on. If you shoot 10 or 20 or 30 shot targets, you might see a trending that may help your training. Like the group opens up on the last 20 shots. So then you need to address why; are you getting tired, is your attention drifting, etc.

gud luk

[CWB]

A couple of small updates from me on my progress.

I realised that I wasn't always pulling the trigger with the centre of the pad of my finger, and was instead hooking my finger around the trigger and using the first joint of my finger. This not only pulled the pistol to the side rather than straight back, but also made the trigger harder to pull and made it difficult to get a clean break. Focussing on fixing this moved my scores from 500/501/503 up to 514 which was a nice improvement.

I also decided to weigh my trigger pull so I built a thing:

Trigger weight tester

I was surprised to find the trigger was set to 450g; I expected it to be higher than that. The tins are filled with coins, nails and washers, so added them as needed and gave the trigger weight screw just over one full turn (re-testing with different weights and screw rotation in between) which has set the pull to somewhere between 540g-550g. I figure there's no point in tuning it any more than this until I have access to a more reliable testing method. I haven't shot the pistol properly yet but hopefully this won't have detrimental impact on scores.

I'm not competition-ready yet, but I figured it would be better to train with a pistol that's 'match legal' than one which isn't.

Cheers,
Chris

[hundert]

This is the most reliable testing method, you can fill them with used pellets too like I did. You can also experiment with first stage weight by removing one can. Not even sure if izzy has a 2 stage trigger.

the are people who use the joint for the trigger, they're usually people with long fingers. Do whatever feels best, but experiment either way, write down if you liked it or not, I write everything down, because I'm surprised how much I forget if I don't.

[CWB]

Cheers, my biggest concern about accuracy was the scales I was using to weigh the tester, but they're digital and my partner uses them for baking and her cakes turn out well, so they're probably about right.

I completely agree about writing everything down. I've been using TargetScan on my phone to record all my shooting sessions, and I use the notes field to record what I tried differently, what I focused on, what seemed hardest and needs to be improved, etc. It's handy for jogging the memory on what to try to improve next.

[rmca]

A digital kitchen scale should be accurate enough (1 to 5 grams error).
Make your test weight 510-520g, and adjust your trigger so it just barely lifts it without firing.
That would take care of any error the scale may have. And you won't notice the extra 10 - 20 grams when you fire it.

Make sure you put the test weight on the middle of the trigger AND keep the barrel 90 degrees to the table top.

No rocket science here, it's quite simple.

Hope this helps