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Posted (edited)

In Search Of Cleanliness…

Many, many, years ago, Colonel Dan SASS #24025 and Professor Cubby Bear SASS #29521 formed the Stealth Bullet Society and formulated a hypothesis that misses weren’t actually misses, but instead the bullet actually passed through the target without interacting with it, thus no clang after the bang.  There were lots of esoteric theories involving, inter-dimensional flight, wormholes, and even the relative resonance frequencies of lead and steel but, to my knowledge at least, none of those theorems were ever rigorously proven to be true.  However, the one underlying principle that did in fact prove to be true was expressed in this way,  1<5, or for you non-math geeks out there, One is less than Five.  Presented another way, 1 second of aiming is less than the 5 seconds earned with a miss.

 

But, I digress (before I even started…:P)

 

A few years ago I started having vision issues and, without going into a lot of technical stuff, the symptom is that as I scan my eyes across from left to right, they don’t follow the same track and I end up with a double vision situation when shooting targets to my right.  As a gunfighter, it can get very disconcerting when all of a sudden you are staring at 4 pistols and trying to figure out which eye is looking at which gun and which target (if any) they are pointing at!

 

So, at the beginning of 2023, I began a quest to return to “Cleanliness”, or in other words, shoot clean matches again.  Before I found my way down the black hole of shooting Frontier Cartridge Gunfighter, shooting clean matches was a relatively common occurrence for me, and I could go back to that, but FCGF is just too much fun to stop.  I had a pretty good idea what I needed to do (Close My Damnable Left Eye Whenever I Touched My Pistols!) but that was easier said than done.  Holli mumbled something about “Teaching An Old Dog New Tricks” but all I could say was Challenge Accepted!

 

During 2023, I had a few clean matches, but they were pretty irregular, and when I came off the line after an “UnClean” stage Holli would just look at me and say…”You Opened You Eye, Didn’t You”.  But, like that old Indian in Outlaw Josie Wales I just decided that I should “Endeavor To Persevere”!

 

2024 was the test, I was not worried about my speed (not that I ever had much to worry about on that score…) but my focus was on keeping that offending eye closed and paying close attention to my sight picture.  So, did my perseverance lead to success?  Well, for the most part, I would say that it did.

 

FL State – 10 Stages - Clean
DE State - 10 Stages - 2 misses - 1 Procedural – Cold & Rainy Weather, but still my own dang fault!
PA State – 10 Stages - Clean - (I still need to find a "Ribbon Of Shame" to add to my "Dirtiest Clean Match Ever" pin! :rolleyes:)
Smoke On The Mattaponi - 6 Stages – Clean
Black Gold in KY – 10 Stages – Clean
VA State – 10 Stages – 1 Miss (9th stage of my match, and I saw it happen, with that Dang Open Left Eye!)
WV State – 10 Stages – Train Wreck LOL – The smoke hung so heavy I couldn’t even see my sights, but I had a great time!
NC State – 10 Stages – Clean

 

So, while not perfection, overall I will call 2024 a success from my perspective.  Now, if I can just maintain that focus while upping my speed just a little bit, I hope to move up from the top of the bottom third to the bottom of the middle third in the standing in 2025!  B)

 

YearOfCleanliness.thumb.jpg.226b1fde14a90c943e75eed62712be09.jpg

 

P.S. - So far, after two monthly matches shooting smokeless, 2025 is not looking good. :o   Personally, I think actually being able to see the targets is a distinct disadvantage! :rolleyes:   At least that's my theory, and I'm sticking to it! :lol:

 

 

 

 

 

Edited by Dogmeat Dad, SASS #48563L
'Cause I Don't Spel Two Gud!
  • Like 8
Posted

Good Luck, now shut your left eye! ;)

  • Haha 2
Posted
11 minutes ago, Dogmeat Dad, SASS #48563L said:

... Now, if I can just maintain that focus while upping my speed just a little bit, I hope to move up from the top of the bottom third to the bottom of the middle third in the standing in 2025!  B)...

You only need to move up one place to accomplish that.  :lol:

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Posted
26 minutes ago, Abilene, SASS # 27489 said:

You only need to move up one place to accomplish that.  :lol:

 

You'd think it would be easier!  :P

 

I'm just gonna set my goals for the sky, I'm shooting for The Top Half!  :o

  • Like 2
Posted

Have you tried putting a strip of scotch tape across the left lense of your glasses.  That works well for left eye dominate people who shoot rifles and shotguns right handed.  Who knows it might help your situation without having to try and remember to close your left eye.

  • Like 2
Posted
7 minutes ago, Cowtown Scout, SASS #53540 L said:

Have you tried putting a strip of scotch tape across the left lense of your glasses.  That works well for left eye dominate people who shoot rifles and shotguns right handed.  Who knows it might help your situation without having to try and remember to close your left eye.

 

I actually tried buffing the center section of the left side of a pair of shooting glasses, and it worked OK, but I kept finding that I was sneaking a peak around the buffed part of the lens and then things really went sideways.  Need to get back to the eye Doctor again and possibly try a prescription set of glasses for distance.  I have only had them for reading glasses in the past.  Passed my drivers license eye test just last year, so it's just a bothersome annoyance.  Sure be nice to have them working right again!

 

As they say, getting old ain't for the weak!

  • Like 1
Posted
1 minute ago, Dogmeat Dad, SASS #48563L said:

 

I actually tried buffing the center section of the left side of a pair of shooting glasses, and it worked OK, but I kept finding that I was sneaking a peak around the buffed part of the lens and then things really went sideways.  Need to get back to the eye Doctor again and possibly try a prescription set of glasses for distance.  I have only had them for reading glasses in the past.  Passed my drivers license eye test just last year, so it's just a bothersome annoyance.  Sure be nice to have them working right again!

 

As they say, getting old ain't for the weak!

Then put two strips of tape and you won't be able to peek around that. :P

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Posted

 

Nah.  None of the Above.  Just go "Pirate" and gotcha a swell Eye Patch and learn the line "Avast ye Swabs"

  • Like 3
Posted

Hi Dad, old eyes need help. I normally wear progressive trifocals with a developing cataract in my dominant shooting right eye. Challenging too, but I can close my left eye. My daughter is an eye doctor and made me prescription shooting glasses like this. Both bottom parts are for reading. The right dominant shooting eye focuses clearly on the front sights which is what you want. The left eye top part of the lens is for distance. The left eye then is somewhat out of focus at shooting distances. You may want to explore this system as it works for me. Good shootin'! And may the clean be with you! 

  • Like 1
Posted (edited)
34 minutes ago, Preacherman said:

Hi Dad, old eyes need help. I normally wear progressive trifocals with a developing cataract in my dominant shooting right eye. Challenging too, but I can close my left eye. My daughter is an eye doctor and made me prescription shooting glasses like this. Both bottom parts are for reading. The right dominant shooting eye focuses clearly on the front sights which is what you want. The left eye top part of the lens is for distance. The left eye then is somewhat out of focus at shooting distances. You may want to explore this system as it works for me. Good shootin'! And may the clean be with you! 

I actually tried progressive lenses once.  About killed myself.  The issue is that the eyes don't track together all the way across, so unless the correction in the lens is cut across lens following the same track as my eyes, it's like watching the horizon move while standing on the ship of a deck.  Things come in and out of focus independently for each eye.  The one Doc said that they could do a Prismatic Lens and fix some of that, but I haven't pursued it beyond that initial discussion 8 or so years ago.

 

I was always massively right eye dominant, and I suspect it was because of this problem (which I have apparently had since birth), but I just never noticed it.  Probably explains why I could never play Basketball worth a damn! :P  I suspect that as my eyes have aged, and the focus has changed, the left eye now feels empowered to help out.  There is no doubt that it focuses better at gun-sight distances than the right which is better at long distances.

 

I have hopes of taking this downtime from our shooting to get it looked at, but we will have to SEE how that goes.  (Pun intended!) :lol:

 

 

Edited by Dogmeat Dad, SASS #48563L
'Cause I Don't Spel Two Gud!
  • Like 1
Posted

Yikes! Sounds like we're back to "Patch the Pirate"! Glad I couldn't help. :D

Posted
2 minutes ago, Preacherman said:

Yikes! Sounds like we're back to "Patch the Pirate"! Glad I couldn't help. :D

 

If it weren't for friends like you, I would be completely "Help-less"! :lol:   Looking forward to seeing you again at The Last Stand!

  • Haha 1
Posted
5 hours ago, Dogmeat Dad, SASS #48563L said:

In Search Of Cleanliness…

Many, many, years ago, Colonel Dan SASS #24025 and Professor Cubby Bear SASS #29521 formed the Stealth Bullet Society and formulated a hypothesis that misses weren’t actually misses, but instead the bullet actually passed through the target without interacting with it, thus no clang after the bang.  There were lots of esoteric theories involving, inter-dimensional flight, wormholes, and even the relative resonance frequencies of lead and steel but, to my knowledge at least, none of those theorems were ever rigorously proven to be true.  However, the one underlying principle that did in fact prove to be true was expressed in this way,  1<5, or for you non-math geeks out there, One is less than Five.  Presented another way, 1 second of aiming is less than the 5 seconds earned with a miss.

 

But, I digress (before I even started…:P)

 

A few years ago I started having vision issues and, without going into a lot of technical stuff, the symptom is that as I scan my eyes across from left to right, they don’t follow the same track and I end up with a double vision situation when shooting targets to my right.  As a gunfighter, it can get very disconcerting when all of a sudden you are staring at 4 pistols and trying to figure out which eye is looking at which gun and which target (if any) they are pointing at!

 

So, at the beginning of 2023, I began a quest to return to “Cleanliness”, or in other words, shoot clean matches again.  Before I found my way down the black hole of shooting Frontier Cartridge Gunfighter, shooting clean matches was a relatively common occurrence for me, and I could go back to that, but FCGF is just too much fun to stop.  I had a pretty good idea what I needed to do (Close My Damnable Left Eye Whenever I Touched My Pistols!) but that was easier said than done.  Holli mumbled something about “Teaching An Old Dog New Tricks” but all I could say was Challenge Accepted!

 

During 2023, I had a few clean matches, but they were pretty irregular, and when I came off the line after an “UnClean” stage Holli would just look at me and say…”You Opened You Eye, Didn’t You”.  But, like that old Indian in Outlaw Josie Wales I just decided that I should “Endeavor To Persevere”!

 

2024 was the test, I was not worried about my speed (not that I ever had much to worry about on that score…) but my focus was on keeping that offending eye closed and paying close attention to my sight picture.  So, did my perseverance lead to success?  Well, for the most part, I would say that it did.

 

FL State – 10 Stages - Clean
DE State - 10 Stages - 2 misses - 1 Procedural – Cold & Rainy Weather, but still my own dang fault!
PA State – 10 Stages - Clean - (I still need to find a "Ribbon Of Shame" to add to my "Dirtiest Clean Match Ever" pin! :rolleyes:)
Smoke On The Mattaponi - 6 Stages – Clean
Black Gold in KY – 10 Stages – Clean
VA State – 10 Stages – 1 Miss (9th stage of my match, and I saw it happen, with that Dang Open Left Eye!)
WV State – 10 Stages – Train Wreck LOL – The smoke hung so heavy I couldn’t even see my sights, but I had a great time!
NC State – 10 Stages – Clean

 

So, while not perfection, overall I will call 2024 a success from my perspective.  Now, if I can just maintain that focus while upping my speed just a little bit, I hope to move up from the top of the bottom third to the bottom of the middle third in the standing in 2025!  B)

 

YearOfCleanliness.thumb.jpg.226b1fde14a90c943e75eed62712be09.jpg

 

P.S. - So far, after two monthly matches shooting smokeless, 2025 is not looking good. :o   Personally, I think actually being able to see the targets is a distinct disadvantage! :rolleyes:   At least that's my theory, and I'm sticking to it! :lol:

 

 

 

 

 

Put a patch over the left eye and change your alias to Rooster Cogburn. Worked for John Wayne. LOL

 

TM

Posted
28 minutes ago, Texas Maverick said:

Put a patch over the left eye and change your alias to Rooster Cogburn. Worked for John Wayne. LOL

 

TM

Maybe just One Eyed Dog ...:lol:

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Posted
6 hours ago, Dogmeat Dad, SASS #48563L said:

Black Gold in KY – 10 Stages – Clean

We can fix that.

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Posted (edited)
On 1/17/2025 at 4:30 PM, Shawnee Hills said:

What is this thing called a "clean match"?  Sounds awful boring.  😁

It's about the only time I ever get my name called out at the awards ceremony.  Usually the only time I get my name called is when the TO is yelling, "Dogmeat! What in the Wild World Of Sports Was That?"

 

 

Edited by Dogmeat Dad, SASS #48563L
'Cause I Don't Spel Two Gud!
  • Haha 3
Posted

Eye patch and SHOOT IT LIKE YOU STOLE IT!

 

All your friends will want an eye patch after they see how cool you look. Heck I might even go out and get one for myself!

:lol:

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Posted
11 hours ago, Kid Rich said:

Try Outlaw. You look at the targets instead of your revolvers.

kR

Between the BP smoke, and not using the sights, I doubt I'd hit anything!  What the max time per stage, 120 sec for a 10-10-4 plus the raw time?  So 720 seconds of misses for a monthly match, but the raw time would be epic! :lol:

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Posted (edited)

Has your opthamalogist tested for strabismus or anisometropia/amblyopia? 

Edited by Dr. Zook
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Posted
2 hours ago, Dogmeat Dad, SASS #48563L said:

Between the BP smoke, and not using the sights, I doubt I'd hit anything!  What the max time per stage, 120 sec for a 10-10-4 plus the raw time?  So 720 seconds of misses for a monthly match, but the raw time would be epic! :lol:

When you shoot Outlaw and BP you can see the targets because the smoke is lower than your line of sight.

kR

Posted (edited)
18 hours ago, Kid Rich said:

When you shoot Outlaw and BP you can see the targets because the smoke is lower than your line of sight.

kR

 

That just makes it easier for the spotters to see the misses!  You're no help! :P :lol:

 

In reality, I always wanted to try it just for the heck of it, and I know a bunch of folks that do it down in Florida, but up in our neck of the woods the vast majority of the ranges do not allow firing from the hip due to the proximity and density of housing and the requirements of the range insurance.  It's bad enough battling the forces of evil in our local .Gov without giving them ammunition!

 

 

Edited by Dogmeat Dad, SASS #48563L
'Cause I Don't Spel Two Gud!
  • Haha 1
Posted
7 minutes ago, Dogmeat Dad, SASS #48563L said:

 

That just makes it easier for the spotters to see the misses!  You're no help! :P :lol:

 

In reality, I always wanted to try it just for the heck of it, and I know a bunch of folks that do it down in Florida, but up in our neck of the woods the vast majority of the ranges do not allow firing from the hip due to the proximity and density of housing and the requirements of the range insurance.  It's had enough battling the forces of evil in our local .Gov without giving them ammunition!

The smoke still gets in the way of the spotters. You are not firing from the hip. Outlaw rules say the shotgun and pistol must be fired from below the shoulder the rifle is optional (can be fired from shoulder or below). I have shot at ranges that have that rule and the match director said my style of shooting is fine.

kR

PS This from the website that Tennessee Tombstone originated.

  • Thanks 1
Posted (edited)
16 hours ago, Dr. Zook said:

Has your opthamalogist tested for strabismus or anisometropia/amblyopia? 

 

Dang Man, I had to look those words up!  I haven't had to deal with $10.00 words since I retired! :lol:

 

I do go to my local optometrist regularly, and my eyes are not that far apart, +/- 0.25, but my astigmatism seems to have changed a bunch and I am way overdue to go back to my Eye Doc (neuro ophthalmologist) as other life events have kept me completely overwhelmed and I put my personal health on the back burner while I cared for others.  Trying to catch up on some of that now.  The "official" diagnosis was diplopia, double vision, but after a head CT (that much to my wife's amazement proved that I did have a brain in there :o) they determined that I had a weak nerve that drives that eye.

 

Now, whether that nerve was weakened due to 68 years of limited use, or I was born that way, is a topic for debate.  I only saw the Eye Doc twice, about 10 years ago during a particularly bad period of double vision when I was dealing with the passing of a family member and getting basically no sleep.  It is definitely worse when I am tired, which is far too often these days, but the condition never totally goes away.  Just one of life's difficulties...

 

 

Edited by Dogmeat Dad, SASS #48563L
'Cause I Don't Spel Two Gud!
Posted
15 hours ago, Dr. Zook said:

. . .  strabismus or anisometropia/amblyopia? 

You do that and you'll clean it up, too!!!

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Posted
3 hours ago, Dogmeat Dad, SASS #48563L said:

 

Dang Man, I had to look those words up!  I haven't had to deal with $10.00 words since I retired! :lol:

 

I do go to my local optometrist regularly, and my eyes are not that far apart, +/- 0.25, but my astigmatism seems to have changed a bunch and I am way overdue to go back to my Eye Doc (neuro ophthalmologist) as other life events have kept me completely overwhelmed and I put my personal health on the back burner while I cared for others.  Trying to catch up on some of that now.  The "official" diagnosis was diplopia, double vision, but after a head CT (that much to my wife's amazement proved that I did have a brain in there :o) they determined that I had a weak nerve that drives that eye.

 

Now, whether that nerve was weakened due to 68 years of limited use, or I was born that way, is a topic for debate.  I only saw the Eye Doc twice, about 10 years ago during a particularly bad period of double vision when I was dealing with the passing of a family member and getting basically no sleep.  It is definitely worse when I am tired, which is far too often these days, but the condition never totally goes away.  Just one of life's difficulties...

 

 

I had to go look them up also.  :D  ;)  You definatly need to go and visit your eye doc again soon.

  • Like 2
Posted
2 minutes ago, Cowtown Scout, SASS #53540 L said:

I had to go look them up also.  :D  ;)  You definatly need to go and visit your eye doc again soon.

 

Definitely on the agenda.   Now if I can just get a referral from United Healthcare...:rolleyes:

  • Like 2
Posted

ill admit that my goal is a clean match and ive yet to get it done , ive gotten close a couple times but there has always been a stage i tried to fast on or was fooled by , i considered that it could have been done had i slowed down a fraction but then i came to believe that i just missed and i still have a goal to achieve , it keeps me shooting , ill never be fast again inmy lifetime but i still have a goal to achieve - over and over 

Posted
On 1/17/2025 at 3:30 PM, Shawnee Hills said:

What is this thing called a "clean match"?  Sounds awful boring.  😁

Yeah, every time I get one they say I wasn't shooting fast enough. LOL

 

TM

  • Like 2
Posted (edited)

It took me 83 matches to get my 1st clean one and another 84 or so for the second, but it was a lot harder back then.  Now I'm up to 220 clean and shoot clean pretty often.    But I'm still shooting as fast as I can, it's just not real fast (especially the shotgun).

Edited by Abilene, SASS # 27489
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