Never met the man but I have seen him shoot in person which is why I'm amazed at the results and yet part of me questions that rifle. Either way, I think that team made a big mistake getting rid of (as near as I can tell) their best pistol shooter. (there I go getting myself suckered into this silly drama)
He does respond to some of the questions over on Enos. Take it for what it's worth.
http://www.brianenos.com/forums/index.p ... try1226924Hey everyone, I normally don't post in Enos much, but thought I would give you information based on what I experienced. After that, I would ask you watch, support, and have fun with the show and forget the rest. I have been on a ton of forums lately out of my curiosity, and think the ENOS forum is the most objective I have seen.
One other thing, I am very disappointed by many of the posters on many forums I won't name, mainly because of their ignorance, and total lack or honor or respect for anyone when they are holed up in their home hiding behind their keyboard. If we are truly a shooting "community" then we all have it in our best interest to support mainstream media for embracing and running a shooting show, and maybe we should have some level of respect for our fellow shooters. Unfortunately, I can see why the liberal media labels some of those who just project negativity and hatred of pretty much anything they can hack out with their little fingers. For those who want to chastise me, go ahead. I did not deflect blame, nor will I. What I will not do is cut anyone down from behind my keyboard, sitting safely in my computer room or office. I will leave that to the dishonorable slim balls who operate that way.
Here are my thoughts, responses to questions you have raised:
Was the gun rigged? I seriously doubt it. I really don't think anyone would do that? As far as the loose sights comment, I know I did not use the technical term, but mid shooting I found that the sliding device that is part of the ladder sight was loose and moving. I screwed it tight and began shooting again (and missing damn it!) I don't think it was zeroed (and in truth, I didn't know a danm thing about the ladder sights, etc.) and I also was not familiar with zeroing a rifle like that before now. (see a new project I am starting called "Project Crosstrain" on my site soon.
Was my spotter to blame? He is no more than me. I wished we both would have had days, weeks, months to work as a team with that gun....but we got about 10 minutes the day before (by the way, that was the first time Andre spotted for me).
Why did I not or he not see the vapor trail? There was none that day. Also the target was shrouded by bushes and impacts were impossible for me to see. I am not sure what Andre saw through the scope.
Was I jerking the trigger, or stressed, or caving under pressure? No, I don't think so. After the first 5 or so shots, I was slowly aiming, and squeezing, etc. I even had time to switch to a standing position and rest on the top bags, thinking I was disturbing or touching the barrel on something when I was in a kneeling position. I have shot years ago in some high power, and have shot at 500 and 600 yards. While I might have been making a shooting error, mostly I was unable to figure out where to aim. Not sure where 37 shots came from, but the point is, on the last shot fired, I STILL did not have a clue where I should be aiming (I was aiming VERY low left during that last shot).
Is my youtube video my way of saying I am not to blame? Shame on you for thinking this! As posted, I simply did a sanity test to see it I could hit the broad side of a barn with that gun (Yes, I know it was a different variant with a peep sight). I did the video for me, not for anyone else!
Who should we blame for my mistake? No one, blame me. Maybe I suck. Get over it, I have.
How much time did I have to zero the gun? I shot the gun about 10-15 minutes, a portion of which was spent trying to get the gun on target at 50. I never used the ladder sight.....and did not even know it existed or how it worked. We did not get this instruction. I fired about 10 rounds and wrote where I thought I would/should aim to hit a target using the notch sight at 100. I believe I got one (although I am doubting this now) hit on the 100 yard target in practice before we rotated. The reason we rotated was because we thought we should get on each of the four guns provided in practice, and in hindsight we should have spent the entire time (30-40 minutes) on one gun (oops!).
Why did I vote for Kelly? Mistake! As said before, I wish I would have shot against my spotter. Hindsight again, but I doubt any of you make perfect decisions all the time. If you do, you are much cooler than me. Obviously, I really did want to shoot against the best shooter, but tactically that might have been dumb. Once again, I made a decision that I would change (and might have changed then) now.
Why did I not shoot at the 50 yard target to see where I was hitting? Not sure. I did not think of that at the time. It was all over pretty quick. That is a great idea, but honestly I never in my wildest dreams would have guessed that I would have had that much of a problem.
Why did Andre say I was talking about how good I was? No idea, and I am not sure where he got that from. Initially, I queried the team what skills they had and had them all rate themselves on a scale from one to ten for use in making decisions on the fly if we needed to pick a strong team member. I wrote this in a chart like drawing in my notebook and wrote their answers down. I think Andre thought I was trying to game something, when in reality I told them all they could have a copy. Upon more negative comments, I ripped the piece of paper up in front of the group (and on camera), to let them know I really did not care to use it, and that I was just trying to prepare for future events as a TEAM so we could make the best decisions possible.
Did I shoot the 100 yard target because I thought I was better? No, actually in our conversation prior to starting, Andre volunteered to shoot at 50, so I said "Ok". Obviously I was team leader and did not think there was any reason to NOT shoot the 100, even though I was not sure of the gun zero.
Why did I use the term "clicks" when calling for Andre? Because it was simple, easy to here verbiage. We decided that each "click" would represent about an inch. We never had an intention of adjusting the sights (I did not know how anyway!). Boy, the some of the forum folks are going crazy on this one....CALM DOWN GUYS/GALS, I JUST USED THE TERM BECAUSE IT WAS SIMPLE and EASY TO HEAR. KINDA LIKE SOME OF YOU SAY "CLIP" WHEN YOU MEAN MAGAZINE.....
I will be very happy to answer any more questions that I might have forgotten. Email me or post here.
Mike Seeklander
Shooting-Performance
http://www.shooting-performance.com
Yeah, but I shoot with THIS hand.