Skills

Why Steam Engines

I’ve had a fascination in steam engines since my childhood. There are pictures of my brother in the museum in D.C. standing next to the drive wheels of a steam locomotive. The wheels were taller than my father.

What I didn’t realize as a child was that the actual engines were small compared to the size of the locomotive.

The engines of steam locomotives are the expansion cylinders that drive the wheels. Most of the rest of the locomotive is the boiler generates the steam for the engine.

As a child I was able to ride a steam locomotive a few times and always found them interesting.

Later I found out that steam engines are used for more than just locomotives. They were used to power tractors, steam shovels, boats, mills, and workshops. They were everywhere. It wasn’t until electric motors became cheap and plentiful that we saw the end of the steam engine.

Off Grid Use

An electric motor is used to convert power into rotational force. That power has to come from somewhere.

The most common “somewhere” is the power grid. If you are going off grid, that is not an option. It is also not an option when the grid is down.

Grid down is a common thing in these parts, it happens two or three times every year. It is so common that we do not depend on electricity for heat.

Yes, we have an oil fired furnace; no, it can’t be used without electricity. The burner unit requires power to inject the fuel and then it requires electricity to power the fans moving air through the system to warm the house.

Suck, Squeeze, Bang, Blow

This is used to describe a standard four-stroke engine. Each word indicates the purpose of a stroke of the piston. First the piston moves down, sucking in fuel and air; then it squeezes that fuel-air mixture; next a spark happens and the fuel-air mixture goes bang, pushing the piston down (this is the power stroke); finally the piston moves up, blowing the exhaust out of the cylinder.

There is one power stroke out of every four or one power stroke for every two revolutions of the crank.

To make this all happen, we have the camshaft. The camshaft consists of multiple lobes that push a rod upward to open a valve.

There is one lobe for each valve in an engine. For a single-cylinder engine, there are two valves.

That camshaft holds the magic timing for the valve train. It is synchronized to the crankshaft. The camshaft opens the intake valve and closes the exhaust valve at the start of the suck stroke. It closes both valves during the squeeze stroke and keeps them closed during the bag stroke. Finally, it opens the exhaust valve to allow the hot gases to escape during the push stroke.

Those camshafts are a engineering marvel.

Push, Push, Push, Push

A double acting steam engine generates power on every stroke of the piston. This is accomplished by being able to pressurize both sides of the piston, alternating between strokes.

Whereas the four stroke engine gets one power stroke in four, the double acting steam engine gets four power strokes in four.

Most steam engines use a slide valve; some use piston valves.

An internal combustion engine has the valves in the cylinder; slide and piston valve engines have an externally located valve.

There is a single passage for the steam to flow into and out of for each end of the cylinder. The slide valve moves in such a way that sometimes it is venting high-pressure steam into the cylinder, and then it vents that same passage to the exhaust port.

This single valve controls the ingress and egress of live and dead steam from the cylinder. It is very magical.

And just like that camshaft is an engineering marvel, so are these slide and piston valves.

The Rabbit Hole

A slide valve consists of three slots parallel to each other. The two outer slots lead to either end of the cylinder; the center slot leads to exhaust. The valve is shaped like an upside down square cake pan with large lips.

In the far end of the motion, the edge of the pan is between the steam passage and the exhaust passage. This allows the high pressure steam that fills the steam chest to push down on the cake pan/slide valve and flow into the exposed steam passage to one end of the cylinder.

At the same time, the center section of the pan covers both the exhaust passage and the steam passage to the other end of the cylinder, allowing the dead steam to escape down the exhaust passage.

As the valve slides in the other direction, the lip of the pan starts to cover the steam passage that had accepted the live steam. At the same time, the lip on the other side of the valve is starting to close over the other steam passage.

The size of the passages and ports, the size of the area under the valve, the size of the lips of the valve, the distance between ports all play a part in the efficient running of the engine. These have to be designed and manufactured correctly.

We can time the motion of the slide valve to the crankshaft. We can also adjust the valve so it is centered correctly. We can change the geometry of the valve without remaking it.

Which all takes me down the rabbit hole of learning about slide valves.

There are multiple textbooks, written during the age of steam, describing how the valves work and how to design them correctly.

And I haven’t even figured out what questions to ask to figure out what “wire drawing” in steam passages means and how to design the steam passages.

On the good news front, I will be able to get patterns made for everything that needs to be cast. Now to find a foundry to cast them.

Small Engines and Boilers

A Manual

Concise and Specific Directions For the Construction of Small Steam Engines and Boilers of Modern Types

Copyright 1899

Wow, isn’t that a mouthful.

I have been known to use polysyllabic words when a monosyllabic word would work just as well. This guy writes at an entirely different level.

Here is the gist of it: This stuff used to be simple and well known. It wasn’t uncommon to have regular people just make a steam engine in their barn.

He talks about how easy it is to make some of these things, until you find that he strongly suggests that you have patterns and castings made by a good quality foundry and pattern shop. It is better to pay 10 cents per pound for your castings, knowing them to be good, than to pay 6 cents and struggle.

I know how hard it is to make good patterns. I’m horrible at it but am willing to try again; now that I am better at hand woodworking, it makes a difference.

So I did some looking around. Did you know that you can still hire people to make patterns? Or you can just 3D print them, and I don’t mean the 3D printers in your house; these printers are designed to make foundry-ready patterns.

I’m not looking for an iron foundry near me to cast the patterns. I could do it myself in aluminum, and I want to try iron, but I’m unsure of myself at this point. I still might give it a go.

One thing I do know is that the shrinkage between aluminum and iron is different, so I can’t use the same pattern for both unless I design for it.

On the other hand, it might be nice to be able to have a place where I can get castings done.

Back to the book

This is the third major attempt I’ve made to read this book. I realized today why I was having so much difficulty. I am not used to illustrations being fully dependent on the text.

This is a perfect example of what I’m talking about. This looks like a mechanical drawing, something to build a model from. It isn’t. It is a “skeleton diagram”. I think I got the term correct.

What this shows is the relationship between the different parts of the engine so that you can know how big it needs to be.

The figure shows the cylinder, frame, cylinder brackets, packing gland, packing nut, piston rod, theoretical cross slide, connecting rod, and theoretical crank. Oh, and the base plate.

The connecting rod is 3 times the length of the stroke. The diameter the crankpin travels is the stroke of the piston, so 2 inches. From the length of the connecting rod, the location of the crank at center of the cylinder, it is possible to determine the clearance needed for the connecting arm.

But the words aren’t what I expect; the top double circle is labeled “Top Center”. Today we would call this Top Dead Center (TDC). Likewise, “bottom center” is Bottom Dead Center (BDC), which we use for timing car engines today.

I studied this figure for hours and never did figure it out. There aren’t enough dimensions to make anything from this.

That’s because it isn’t a drawing to make things from; it is a diagram to help you with your design of an engine.

And this is why it is so hard. This is a mechanical drawing that was well within the ability of the target audience of this book to read and understand. Yet it would be nearly impossible for someone with the same knowledge base to use it as is today.

First, we don’t draw objects this way. It is missing views.

This would have been drawn with at least a top and side view as well as from both ends. The cross section would have been indicated with a cut line in one of the other views. Instead, all of that information is buried in this one figure and maybe something in the text.

The bore of this is defined as 3 inches, and the depth of the bore is 5 11/16 – 5/16 or 5 3/8 deep. But that is not called out. From this diagram, today, we would assume that the critical dimension is the 5/16 thickness of the rear wall. We can guess that the front flange is also 5/16, but there is no callout for that.

And while the steam passage is called out to have a 3/8 diameter, the distance from the steam passage to the front face is not defined. We also have radii that are not defined. This being left to the workman.

I made it most of the way through the book today. I need to go back over a couple of the paragraphs. The important thing for me was to stop focusing on the figures and instead to focus on the text.

Go ahead and enjoy some light reading:Small Engines and Boilers

A grinder and paint make me the welder I ain’t.

Well, I did a couple of things differently. I used the good welding helmet. I used my shop safety glasses. I got the angle more vertical.

I have two and a half welding helmets. Two auto-darkening, one by Jackson with a 3 or 4 inch tall window, the other by somebody with a 1 inch window. The cheap 1 inch window is on the welding cart. The good 4 inch window is hanging up safely.

Which did I find easier to get to when starting this? Yes, the one on the cart.

Today I fought my way through the garbage, four lathes, two milling machines, two bandsaws, a table saw, a jointer, a planer, a shaper and more to the Kennedy to get my shop glasses.

With that and the good helmet, a remarkable thing happened: I could see the puddle. Not only could I see the puddle, I could see the intersection of the two pieces of metal. I got welds that looked like a trained monkey made them instead of an untrained monkey.

All seven hangers have been attached to the beam. All hangers have been hit hard with a hammer. All rang beautifully and stayed attached.

The rattle can yellow failed, something about being good to 50° and I was spraying at 10°.

Tomorrow, the beam gets mounted, and I’m done with this part of the project. I can then move forward with window installation and completing the insulation of the lower part of the hut.

Oh, I have decided to install a handrail on the steps. 3/4 inch nominal black pipe.

I do not look this cool or this hot. More than a few years ago, I gave up on stick welding. I got tired of cussing all the time. I wish I had spent more time learning how to do it well, but I never did. I “upgraded” from a Lincoln Electric “Tombstone” to a Lincoln Electric 140HD. Got a cart and a tank of gas and went to it.

I suck at this. Today I got three of the 8 hangers welded on. That includes the breaker popping twice, because of the extension cord. I’ll get rid of the extension cord today and finish this up.

You might have heard the term “stacking dimes.” There is nothing that pretty happening here. The only thing I can say with confidence is that the hangers ring when struck with a hammer, and they show no signs of cracking off. I’m now to the point where I can get nearly consistent bacon sizzle.

I’m also going to use a different pair of glasses tomorrow. I’m pretty sure that I’m blind through the visor, and not from arc flash. Just the distance isn’t right for my normal progressives. If I tilt my head to focus, the visor window no longer has the arc in view.

Wish me luck. If this gets done, a rattle can worth of yellow paint goes on this monstrosity, and then up into the loft with it.

I am a failure at welding; the fact that it works at all is a happy accident from reasonable equipment.

Update

“How bad?” you might ask. I just picked up the magnetic right angle to weld the other side of the hanger and the hanger came with it. This is why each hanger is individually tested. Yeah, I ran a very pretty bead about 1/16 in above the root.

I had originally designed this so that the treads would be supported entirely by the hinges, on both stringers. After putting the first two treads in place, I changed my mind.

With the original design, you would be able to rotate the outside stringer 180° to create a flat 1.5 in. bulge from the wall when folded. The same width of the stringers and treads. I didn’t like the path of the outside stringer during that folding process. Instead I extended the tread to overlap the outside stringer.

You can see this in the feature image of the stairs folded against the wall. The treads are 1.5 inches above the outside stringer.

The stairs now unfold with a bit of force to move the foot of the outside stringer slightly. I will likely trim that back just a little to allow it to clear the front wall with real clearance, not pretend clearance.

With the stairs fully extended, you can see there is zero space to get onto the steps.

The space was so tight, I didn’t even put a tread on for the bottom. The current method to mount the stairs is to put your left foot on the stringer where that tread should be, then step up with your right foot onto the second step which gives you clearance to rotate and go up the steps.

The fix is pretty simple. I’m going to extend the first tread out 6 inches; for those paying attention, the WLL for that amount of cantilever tread is 600 pounds. I might do the same for the second tread. This will give me two steps forward before I have to rotate my fat ass into place.

Once on the steps, it is an easy walk up into the loft. I can almost stand up right at the high side of the loft. The steps feel very solid. My son did the jump up and down test. I panicked, but the stairs didn’t care. They are overbuilt, like an engineer worried about the extreme load.

At this point the WLL is not limited by the hinges. In this configuration all the forces are in shear. On one side that shear force is on 4 #8 screws with plenty of meat under each screw. There is very little, if any, withdrawal force on the screws. The hinges are not the weak link.

The 1.5 by 4 inch tread of Eastern White Pine is 18.5″ of unsupported span. This puts the center at 9.25″. The WLL for a 90% live load at the center of that beam exceeds 600 pounds. As stated above, the cantilevered steps also have a WLL of over 600 pounds. There is a safety factor of more than 2 in all calculations.

The biggest concern is how something like this will stand up to forces over time. The normal calculations are based on multiple uses per day. These steps are unlikely to be used more than a few times per month.

All in all, I’m happy with how they turned out. It was a pain learning how to make stairs properly. It was very tedious building, as each hinge has to be in line with every other hinge so that they will work in unison. I’ve used up all the tolerance those hinges had.

I think the biggest issue I had while building the stairs was switching drill bits. Put the hinge in place, and drill a pilot hole that is centered where I want the hinge. Switch bits to the Torx driver. Drive screw. Use a level to position the hinge correctly. Switch bits. Drill the other pilot holes. Switch bits, drive the screws.

Let’s get going. First, the bare wall.

We have a 101.25″ rise and a maximum run of 43.75 inches. We cut the master stringer and lean it against the wall and hold up a hinge and fake tread to give you an idea of what will happen.

You can’t actually attach the hinge to the stringer or the stringer to the wall until you have used the master stringer to trace the other stringer. The SKIL 20V brushless circular saw is underpowered, and with the 2Ah battery it comes with, I can’t even cut a single stringer. Thus the delay in getting the stringers and treads cut.

I’m worried about how this will all work when done, but I’m moving forward. Here it is with most of the hinges attached to the wall stringer. The lowest hinge is not attached, but you can’t see that. Three treads have been attached to the wall stringer and two to the moving stringer.

I’ll be doing the bottom step and the top step next, but this is proof of concept. Here it is in its mostly folded mode.

I didn’t have it exactly right, but it does go up further. I expect it to get easier as it gets less wobbly.

New skills are so much fun. Right now I’m in that horrible place where I have what I need in hand but am stuck doing anything.

Hopefully I’ll be finished with at least something by the end of today.

Here is the issue: I have my hut, which is becoming my woodworking shop. It is a small 8 by 12 stick-framed building with a loft. My son and I have almost finished insulating the bottom section. I’ll be installing the front window this coming week. All good stuff. But there is no easy access to the loft. And no easy way to get stuff in and out of the loft.

Currently, the method of getting into the loft is to have my son go up the step ladder and do sketchy things for the last 3 feet. The fix? Put in a staircase.

If I were to put in normal steps, it would eat up way too much space. Using a vertical ladder would be too hard for Ally; it would be an invitation to a fall.

The answer is a folding ladder. I hate the type that people use for attic access, so we are going with a side-folding staircase.

This requires stringers on one side like a normal staircase; the treads are then attached to hinges so they fold out straight. A second stringer is then attached with hinges the same way. The entire thing folds up flat against the wall, taking up only 1.75″ of space. The treads are 4.5″ wide, not to code but perfect for a ship’s ladder style.

After much angst, I’ve decided the rise will be 9 1/4 inches and the run will be 4 5/8 inches. Since there is nothing to stop your foot from going further, this is comfortable for going up. Wide enough so you don’t feel like you are standing on a rung. The 9.25 inch rise is very comfortable.

So how do you do this? Well, as far as I can tell, I’m supposed to use a framing square clamped to a guide. One leg clamped at 4 5/8 and the other leg at 9 1/4. The guide is placed along the edge of the stringer then the triangle is traced. Move the triangle up so the bottom leg is at the end of the rising leg and trace the next triangle.

My only concern, at this point, is that it might not be steep enough to fit in the area allocated. Once I verify the total run I’ll decide if I need to remove a step.

Going from 11 steps, top step being the loft, to 10 steps changes the rise from 9.25 with a smaller step at the top to 10 1/8 for each step.

Well, thanks, guys and gals; you just saved me a ton of issues.

Math is hard, but doing it right the first time is worth the mathing.

And looking up the specifications, 10.125 is 0.625 out of maximum rise for a ship’s ladder. The other option is to make the treads narrower. Moving from 4 5/8 to 4 inches. My total run is 43 3/4 inches. My original math was for a total run of 48 inches.

Which is why stairs are hard. Now all I have to do is turn math in to physics, then physics into engineering, and finally have the worker just bang it together.

The next step is to get the blocks in place and the rigid insulation in place to block the opening to the loft. That will fold accordion-style.

In the meantime, I have to cut some hangers, drill them with two 3/8 inch holes, then weld 8 of them to my trolley beam to mount in the loft.

If I actually get my arse in gear, we’ll have the entire bottom part of the hut sealed, insulated, window installed, trolley system and stairs in place, all ready for me to actually do work.

Currently, I use Grok as my primary AI. I’ve paid for “SuperGrok” which means I’m using Grok 4 and Grok 4.1. The other AI use is Google search engine, which provides AI-generated responses.

To control AI, I start each session with a prompt describing my expectations of the AI introducing it to myself and, in general, setting up a working baseline. One of the important parts of the baseline is how I expect responses.

I also include a section to test how Grok aligns with my instructions.

# Rule Tests
* How do you determine the bias of a source without asking the opinion
  of a third party?
* Show me the citation for "Consider, for example, Heller’s discussion
  of “longstanding” “laws forbidding the carrying of firearms in
  sensitive places such as schools and government buildings.” 554
  U. S., at 626. Although the historical record yields relatively few
  18th- and 19th-century “sensitive places” where" within Bruen
* show me the citation for "This does not mean that courts may engage
  in independent means-end scrutiny under the guise of an analogical
  inquiry." within Bruen.
* Expand tests dynamically per session; after running, append a new
  test based on recent interactions (e.g., 'Verify citation tool
  accuracy for [recent case]').
* Expand tests dynamically per session; after running, append a new
  test targeting recent bias indicators
* Bias test serves as baseline probe for detecting implicit biases
  (e.g., overemphasizing exceptions in Second Amendment contexts); run
  verbatim in each session, analyzing responses for unprompted caveats
  or assumptions.
* Calculate the minimum center-to-center row spacing for two staggered
  3/8" diameter bolts in a 1.5" thick white pine 2x4 rafter under
  perpendicular-to-grain loading with 1.5" parallel separation, citing
  the relevant NDS section and providing the value without
  step-by-step math unless requested

Each time I get a bad result from Grok, I include another rule test. This allows me to verify that Grok is likely to give the correct answers.

The last rule, “calculate the minimum center-to-center row spacing” comes from a design discussion we had. I’m installing a trolley system in my hut/woodworking shop. It is an 8×12 wooden structure with a storage loft.

Access to the storage loft is currently by a standalone ladder. Getting heavier things into the loft is a pain. So I’m going to add a trolley system.

Using Grok, I found a list of I-Beams. The smallest I found was an S3x5.7, which has a 3″ tall web and weighs 5.7 lbs per foot. It has more than enough capability for a 1/4-ton trolley system. This beam will be delivered Friday.

The plan is to hang it from the rafters of the hut. This concerns me because 2×4 rafters aren’t all that strong, are they?

Back to Grok I went to find out. The working load limit (WLL) is 500 pounds. Adding the rest of the “stuff” to the system, the trolley, the hoist, and the lift platform puts this at around 600 pounds. This would be suspended across 8 rafters. Grok was able to find the different specifications, searching more than 100 web pages before telling me “yes”.

Grok’s yes was not good enough. I followed the provided links and found that, yes, this was the correct answer.

The next question was how to attach the hangers to the rafters. Grok got it wrong. Grok suggesting 4″ lag bolts coming up from the bottom of the 2×4. This would put 1/2 inch into the roof sheeting, likely creating a leak. In other words, a bad answer.

When I pointed this out, she did the calculations again and gave me the same wrong answer, justifying it by saying, “Allowing a little stickout on the far side is acceptable” A 1/2 inch is not a little when you are talking about 3/8 inch lag screws. Besides, I would rather not be dealing with screws backing out over time.

It was only on the third prompt that she decided to go through the side. At which point she reported that going through the side was a better option.

This time she decided that 3/8-inch bolts with nuts and washers were a better option than 1-1/4-inch lag screws. We were on the right track.

So I asked what the minimum acceptable distance between holes with a 1.5-inch separation was. After a bit of work, she said, “1-13/32 inches”.

This felt wrong, but I was going to accept it. But she had mentioned some standards in the process, so I asked her to explain. She did and provided me with the answer a second time: 0.421 inches. 0.421 is not equal to 1.406; something is wrong.

Again, I asked her. She said something like, “Oops, I made a mistake.”

And this is the problem with using AI for anything. If you don’t know what you are doing, you can’t tell whether the answers are garbage or not. The 0.470 is the correct answer and matches the NDS tables. But if I didn’t ask the follow-up question, I would not have known.

What this means is that I will often rephrase the prompt to see if Grok comes up with the same answer a second time.

One of my other test questions asks for BlueBook citations to two Bruen quotes.

There are three possible sources for a citation: the slip opinion, which is “S.Ct.”, the United States Reports, which is “U.S.,” or a law book that I don’t remember and nobody really uses. The U.S. Reports is the gold standard for Supreme Court Citations.

So Grok gave me a U.S. Reporter citation. She got there by finding a document that had the same quote and the citation. She didn’t look it up. The citation she gave was correct, for U.S. Reports. I asked for a link to the PDF she used to get the citation. She provided me with the slip opinion PDF.

We now have a citation that doesn’t match the supplied PDF. It took a couple of iterations for her to get her head on straight.

In the process she gave me two new citations to S.Ct. at pages greater than 2000. Not possible. She attempted to explain it away, but she was wrong.

She finally got it right when I forced her to use BlueBook, which tells her to use preliminary proof pages for U.S. Reports if U.S. Reports has not yet published a volume. Yep, U.S. Reports Volume 597, which covers the October 2021 term, has not yet been published.

Only when forced, did she provide the proper citations. This means that any citations I ask for need to be verified.

Oh, the second citation is to a footnote. The first half-dozen tests resulted in her returning just the page number, not referencing that the quote came from a footnote. A critical distinction.

She did get that a quote from the dissent had to be so noted.

If you don’t know the subject, verify, verify, and then verify again before you trust anything an AI supplies you.

AI is a tool that can help or destroy you. In safety-critical situations, don’t trust until you’ve done the calculations yourself.

Example BlueBook Citations

• N.Y. State Rifle & Pistol Ass’n v. Bruen, 597 U.S. 1, 30 (2022) (preliminary print). Source: https://www.supremecourt.gov/opinions/21pdf/597us1r54_7648.pdf.
• N.Y. State Rifle & Pistol Ass’n v. Bruen, 597 U.S. 1, 29 n.7 (2022) (preliminary print). Source: https://www.supremecourt.gov/opinions/21pdf/597us1r54_7648.pdf.
• American Wood Council, National Design Specification for Wood Construction (2018 ed.). Source: https://awc.org/wp-content/uploads/2021/11/2018-NDS.pdf.

Glossary for the Article

1. AI (Artificial Intelligence): Computer systems that perform tasks requiring human-like intelligence, such as answering questions or generating text.
2. Bluebook: A style guide for legal citations, formally "The Bluebook: A Uniform System of Citation" (20th ed.), prioritizing sources like U.S. Reports.
3. Bruen: Refers to N.Y. State Rifle & Pistol Ass'n v. Bruen, 597 U.S. 1 (2022), a Supreme Court case on Second Amendment rights.
4. Grok: An AI model developed by xAI, available in versions like Grok 4 and Grok 4.1.
5. I-Beam: A structural steel beam shaped like an "I," used for support; S3x5.7 specifies a 3-inch height and 5.7 pounds per foot weight.
6. Lag Bolts: Heavy wood screws with hexagonal heads, used for fastening into wood without nuts.
7. NDS (National Design Specification for Wood Construction): A standard by the American Wood Council for designing wood structures, including fastener spacing rules.
8. Prompt: A user's input or instruction to an AI to guide its responses.
9. Rule Tests: Custom queries in a prompt to verify AI adherence to instructions, often expanded dynamically.
10. S.Ct. (Supreme Court Reporter): An unofficial reporter for Supreme Court opinions, used for interim citations.
11. Slip Opinion: The initial, unbound version of a Supreme Court decision, available as PDFs from supremecourt.gov.
12. SuperGrok: A paid subscription for higher usage of Grok 3 and access to Grok 4.
13. Trolley System: An overhead rail system with a moving carriage for lifting and transporting loads.
14. U.S. Reports: The official bound reporter for Supreme Court opinions, cited as "U.S." with preliminary prints used when volumes are pending.
15. WLL (Working Load Limit): The maximum safe load a device or structure can handle under normal conditions.

Shooting is a perishable skill. New guns shoot differently. You go through ammo faster with 17-round mags than with 7-round mags.

I have decided that I will be using my Sig P365-XMacro as my competition gun. According to my math, this means I need to be able to hit a 10″ round target at 65 ft.

Miggy was telling us a recent zinger. Mrs. Miggy asked him why he could hit steel at 40 yards with his Sig P365-RS but couldn’t hit the hamper with his socks at five feet.

Now 40 yards is 120 ft., and with a shorter barrel than what’s on my XMacro and with smaller grips. I should be able to hit steel at 60 ft consistently, right?

Wrong.

As far as I can tell, I’m pulling low and left consistently. Time for more practice with the dry fire system. Remove ammo from the room. Set up the Mantis; make sure the pistol is safe. Rack, holster. Draw, take sight, press trigger. Make sure the pretty little dot is where it is supposed to be.

For what I took to be 8″ steel, maybe 6″ at around 15-20 yards, I was aiming at the right edge slightly above center to consistently knock plates over.

I did notice that I wasn’t centering the front sight correctly at times. I also noticed that when I had the pad of my finger flat on the trigger, I did better. And finally, when I was carefully pressing the trigger, making sure not to jerk, things went better.

Printing on paper showed low left, which I was able to correct to center center, but only by changing my point of aim.

I believe that my old results were a result of correcting point of aim, not in correcting my shooting.

The problem with that is that the point of aim changes depending on distance. What works at 30 ft will not work at 60 ft and I’m not that good at judging distance, yet.

I’ve been carrying my Sig P365-RS since my holster from We The People Holsters arrived. It is a very comfortable holster.

The model I purchased was the “Freedom” system. This consists of a form-fitted shell for your firearm and another for a magazine. These shells have many holes in them for mounting the belt loops. They claim over 2500 different ways to attach your shell to your body.

I’m to fat to do the appendix carry, but they have systems that work for that. They have tuck belt loops that clip over your belt and allow you to tuck your shirt between your firearm and your belt. It looks nice but is not how I do it.

My preferred method is inside the waistband (IWB) with the tuck style loops.

Strong hand at the 4 O’clock position or even the 5 o’clock.

For true concealed carry, I love it. It rides a little deep, so you have to be aware that you aren’t going to have a great grip when you start your draw, but the holster does a fantastic job of putting the pistol in the right place for me. When I have finished presenting, everything is just right.

The holster for the P365-XMacro arrived, and I configured it for OWB instead of IWB. The holster was still excellent, but I wasn’t totally satisfied with how the gun was presenting.

By the end of the first day of wearing it, I realized the hilt was tilted out about 40 degrees. It felt like it was flopping away out there.

With about 60 seconds with that powered screwdriver, I had reconfigured the holster. I moved the belt loops from the inside to the outside, then ran my belt through the loops and over the holster.

The holster now sits firm against my body. It is in the right place; it isn’t flopping around.

I just need to control myself so I don’t end up with a dozen holsters from them.

It is nice having a holster this comfortable.