AustinWolv

You aren't the first that has gotten strange interactions from him. Can speak from personal experience, although he did realize his mistake and made gesture to make up for it after realizing it. Have heard a couple other instances as well.

Team member of.....hmmmmm...... Hayes I don't have one. I have a Hayes Custom 2011 9mm however. I shoot with quite a few people that have, have had, or borrowed Hayes Custom RIAs, as well as shooting a couple in random range sessions. They run and run. I've shot a number of 2011 from name custom builders, SVI, etc........the trigger job that Ben Hayes does is my favorite in terms of crispness, travel, short reset, positive not clunky reset....... That being said, I haven't owned and put a Hayes RIA through a beatdown and abuse. Can put you in touch with people that have them if so desired.

Haven't had the MOA. My understanding is that it is small business that the owner is great, but may have had some health concerns? Have seen the MOA in action at matches, and it ran well, but can't speak on longevity or reliability other than a few stages. Have indeed owned and used the J.Kenny for a little while. It auto-loaded every time in my gun. However, after a short while, gun would almost every time lock back the bolt prematurely with the last or 2nd to last shell half-sitting on the lifter out of the tube (forgive me, don't recall the exact symptom as it has been over a year ago). As soon as regular lifter was swapped back in, the gun ran 100%. There has to be some tolerance difference between receivers and the lifters that were causing some issues as others had similar situations as I recall it. Moreover, I think the lifter is sensitive to the custom spring that it comes with to raise it reliably, such that the spring needs to be switched out with regular maintenance as a FAR higher rate than one would expect.......enough that it gets to be a pain in the ass. Perhaps the lifter should have been designed with two springs instead or a far stronger, more resiliant one. Anyway, might also be that Americans run longer mag tubes than J.Kenny does, so the set up isn't as reliable as we expect it to be. The auto-loading worked great however.......every time. But could not trust it to run through a mag tube full of shells by any means, so I stopped using it and haven't bothered to mess with it to get it working right. The parts certainly looked nicely made and finished however. As for stock, sorry, don't know, can't help there.

Today, didn't take long. Fixed the double post (I wasn't logged in originally, so inadvertantly submitted as guest, but then saw what happened and copy/paste, after which I logged in normally, but didn't realize it kept the guest post.) If you have concept of approach shooting slready and get good at that offhand rilfe, you'll be well-served, along with those pistol skills. There is a lot of time to gain on people for offhand shooting, accurate pistol at distance, and then minimizing make-up shots on long-range rifle shots. Yes, be prepared to shoot pistol from 0-100yds. Not overly common to shoot them at 70-100yds except for some majors, but locals and other majors will easily have them 40-75yds often. Targets at that distance are usually C-zones. There have been some other big matches that I've shot larger steel out to 120yds, but that is uncommon. Pistol racks at 25yds. Steel knockdowns, anywhere from 4" to 8", typically seen in the 15-20yd range, but some matches will extend that out to 30yds (not the 4" ones). For rifle targets at distance, general guideline for years has been 4MOA, although you'll rarely see 4" targets at 100yds. Most of the time you'll get 6" gongs at 100yds, but will typically see 4MOA from there on out, i.e. 8" at 200, 12" at 300, and so on. Round gongs are most common, followed by C-zone steel which they'll use out to about 300yds typically. Beyond that, round gongs pretty much, but once targets get to 500-600yds, some matches will use full-size IPSC-shaped steel or rectangles roughly sized at that. Plate racks at 75-100yds are seen often enough as well. No worries at all. There are a number of videos at my sig link so you can get a flavor of different matches, although mine are skewed to long natural terrain, as I prefer that style to short movement hoser stuff.

Can't recall a specific 3gun dry-fire book out there. Suggest to create your own plan, tailored to your weaknesses to work on. 3gun matches vary quite a bit in flavor, from bay hoser stuff to rather technical "close-range" stuff to long movement natural terrain stages. Thus, based on the flavor of the match you are attending, you'll tailor prep to it. Some things to work at home in regards to 3gun: Gun transitions - dumping a pistol or long gun and switching to the next gun. Lots of match time can be made here. Get an old sturdy plastic trash can, weight it down, add cushiony stuff at the bottom, and work on smooth technique to ditch the long gun and go to pistol. Use a small bucket to ditch pistol and transition to slung long guns. Shotgun quad loading - tons of videos out there. Spend a couple weeks to get the technique down and you'll be golden. Don't sweat being the fastest, as there is typically tons of movement time to effectively quad load. More important to consistently and smoothly get shells in the gun during matches than have a blazing fast quad load due to that movement time. Off-hand rifle - set up small scaled targets to replicate 100yd steel in the space you have. Learn to read the sight movement and break the shot as the aiming point is approaching the target. Look up Pat Kelley's YT video on approach shooting as reference. Keep up your pistol dry-fire work, being great at pistol in 3gun goes a long way. Generally, 3gun will use a lot of steel at distance compared to USPSA, including shots out to 100yds on C-zones for example, so you can dry-fire that as well. Target transitions - not new to you, but work on much wider target transitions to replicate some of the long movement wide natural terrain transitions you'll encounter Rifle positions - get used to quickly getting into a stable position with rifle for targets at distance. Prone, kneeling, standing braced off of any type of prop you can think of (ladder, rickety chair, VTAC barricade, a random log, anything unstable). Small scaled target in space you have. Lots of folks lose a ton of time ambling up to a shooting position, taking a bunch of time to get braced and stable. Get used to doing it quickly and learn how you like to brace the gun, what works for you to be stable -> then, go confirm live fire. Just some stuff off top of my head real quick.

Voodoo Tactical 3gun case. That's my current and it is really good. Only downside is that it doesn't have a handle on the end to pull it lengthwise out from a truck bed, for example. 2nd choice is the Hogue XL double 3gun case. It does have the handle on the end, but the layout and pockets are not quite as laid out as well for 3gun IMO than the Voodoo Tactical. Both are padded and protect well.

What distance are you going out to? If out to 500+ yards at majors, hard to beat the Vortex Spitfire AR with the BDC turret. Zero at 200yd. Hold 0-300, dial as needed for targets farther than that. First round hits after dialing are faster than a couple misses. Has etched reticle with a sharp dot. Been using it for a couple years. Leupold supposedly has a similar 1X sight but haven't used it and it costs more as I recall it. If you are just doing short range matches, the Vortex Huey is pretty awesome. Very fast, sharp small dot for precise stuff, picking up head shots on Czones at 100 or skinny Sammy targets at 100yds, no problem. Of course, other great true red dots for short/bay also are out there. Recommend something with a small dot though, i.e. 2moa

I've attended one in Elite division. A friend local to me has finished 1st, 2nd, or 3rd in Elite at each that he's attended, and he gets asked quite often what he uses: Overall thoughts? - Get in shape. My two cents would be to focus on cardio more than strength stuff. Work on doing things at elevated heart rate for longer stretches of time at a pace you can keep, not blowing out full effort right off the bat. The shooting looks very boring on video but is more challenging than you'd think due to VERY elevated heart rate. The shooting is not the attraction. The physical challenge is very rewarding after you are done. You'll be hating life at certain points, but as soon as you are done, good times. The different events may vary in "loading" focus of shooting versus physical tests. Kind of like flavors of 3gun matches.......some will be more physically challenging with easier shooting, while others will be evenly split, etc. What plate carrier you running? - Used Shellback Banshee because I had it. No major complaints. The ballistic plates I had in it (again, just used what I had at the time) were heavier than needed, so that wasn't ideal. Any certain gear i should have and not have? - The "battles" are so long over the course of a weekend that little speed advantages here and there from gear are negated by NOT MISSING shots. Misses are huge penalties. Same with being able to breathe. Being able to load/unload/stow mags (cannot drop and leave them) in efficient manner is useful, so open top mag pouches with easy out/easy in are useful IMO. Some people use dump pouches, I haven't, as I didn't want that flopping around. Gun recommendations? - Definitely reference the rules. Used an 10.5" SBR with an Aero slim handguard. Worked well, but after playing with a few of my different uppers, I think I'd prefer a setup with a bit more weight as that smooths out muzzle movement for offhand shooting. 14.5" pinned or 16" with as long as possible gas system for that particular barrel length. I also used my 3gun 2011 pistol without issue with MBX mags, but it is a quality build that I fully trust to run from Hayes Custom.

Rack Buddy work well. They are little 3D printed parts. Depending on the sacrificial mag, you cannot always rack the slide without catching the rack buddy. Probably due to jacked up feed lips. The DAA are cheaper than setting up dummy mags, unless you have a few old beat-up mags already to sacrifice. Otherwise, 3 DAA ready to go for the price of a stock STI mag.

Have 3 for 2011. For reference, I've got a Hays custom guns 2011 in 9mm. The mags lock in place without any slop, and they go in easily and drop cleanly. I did not have to Dremel on them or modify them in any way. There's no issue with the magwell that is on the gun which is a Dawson ICE. They do feel like they are a little bit more slick than standard mags so the action to seat is smooth. Don't think it matters as much for releasing mags.

XLR AR lite stock. Highly adjustable, very strong.

McFadden Lightning loader

They aren't shipping yet. Scheduled to start shipping 5/15 from a pop-up window I saw.

Glad to see it

Yes