MiniUzi

Congrats on the fun project! Physical design I've seen folks build huge walls that are strong but end up being too cumbersome to move around. If you have to move the thing then you're best to do it with framed wooden walls with the plastic Visquen from home depot. If you can build it semi-temporary and will have it in place for a couple weeks/months then just build a few sturdy walls and start locking them together on the top. The first video below has a shoot house build this way slowly over the course of a few years. It has a dedicated bay. If this is something that needs to go up and then come down I have build plans around here somewhere for walls designed to be put up and torn down from match to match. If it's going to be in place for some time, take into consideration the largest person you've ever met.. putting 100% of their weight on any of the walls.. It needs to survive that, repeatedly. Some thoughts on stage design... not physical design... A few things to consider Is this for fun or are you trying to impart a lesson to the shooters? Will it be a blind shoot house or can they walk it prior to shooting? A big consideration if you have multiple rooms and walls that are penetrable is shoot throughs. House size and wall material and ammo being shot should dictate target placement. Never underestimate a competitors ability to miss the target. Be focused on not setting up 180 / DQ traps Keep the COF straight forward enough that shooters don't loose orientation (depends on the size of the house). You can always mark the down range walls with a specific color. always, always always have someone be the last man out and clear the stage. You can also count X people in X people out etc... establish a protocol for success/ safety. Fun things to think about. Barrels / vision barriers can be used in a TON of amazing ways to force the shooter to move/think/act. Including putting barrels in spots so they move there to engage and instead find nothing behind them If it's a blind shoot. Having a room they walk into which is absolutely filled with No-Shoots and a handful of shoots between/ behind them makes for some awesome "ohh wtf" moments. I've done rooms with 15+ no shoots they have to move through to get to 1 or 2 shoot targets. It makes for high anxiety / fun and helps instill the notion that movement is important. No-shoots & hard cover can make shoot houses fun/challenging. Don't be afraid put targets lower down if the range space allows for it. This solves a lot of shoot through issues and also keeps the shooter looking /scanning Consider covering the roof in some / all rooms. In the past I've tossed a surplus green parachute over the top in some rooms if there no roof. The changing color/ambiance is pretty cool and gives a nice effect and takes some folks out of their comfort zone. You can use the same target for all shoots and no shoots. Designate shoots with a weapon. Put shirts on some paper targets so they have to call their shots on those. This will slow down reset but if you put targets like this toward the front If you have a big enough space to work with and it's a blind shoot one tactic that is fun for design is to place a target in an area that draws the shooters attention and then set up targets that will surprise them (or they will miss/not see) as they move to engage that target I can give examples if needed. Anyway Good luck with this! I'm off to the range to setup a shoot house and a few other stages for 3 gun tomorrow If the event allows for it, run the shoot house blind if you can at some point. It's really the true test of one's ability. Unknown targets, unknown or partial house layout... @multigun on instagram and I'll be posting some stuff today as I do some plotting and planning. A few examples of shoot houses with semi-permanent structures to give you ideas of room layouts/ target arrays. Granted the examples below are from 3gun

I found the answer.

Looking forward to it! Thank you and all the awesome folks at the AMU for doing this!

The notion of a new Ft Benning match is spreading on facebook faster than Rosanne Barr at an all you can eat Buffet.

Good question. My 18" was a stag 3G and my optimal gas was a .089 My 16" rifle gas Micro moa is .096 gas for optimal gas. They aren't quite apples to apples in terms of configuration but I do not "feel" any difference in the impulse. Felt recoil is subjective. With that being said I'm working on another project that was spawned by my need to have actual data instead of "yo bro this shoots so flat" type range logic on evaluating the effectiveness of component changes. This year we have the ability to actually measure the g forces, axis shift etc... accelerator and gyroscope paired with some blue tooth and an android app in a package a little bigger than a quarter. This is a prototype but it works and works well. I hope in a few months we can have solid data on a number of components and know exactly what they do to the system from a data standpoint. Saying "it feels better" versus saying "this is 20% reduction in force on the shoulder between setting A and setting B" is where I want to be. Data is good thing. Perhaps I'm not sensitive enough to feel the difference in the 18 to 16" variations but there is more gas with the configuration I choose to run. My setup is not "optimal gamer" . I'm running regular full auto carrier , rifle stock( luth AR) and regular buffer. A freakishly low gas option so far that we have found is being run by team member JP Thompson. He has .082 gas setting, hyperfire 24c trigger,light carrier, JP Captured spring, Govnah gas block on the 16" rifle and I think a SJC titan break (another important factor for system pressure) . His barrel port is .101 , optimal gas is .082. You can feel the difference between full gas and his optimal gas for sure. -Todd

Some more food for thought in regards to the healthy system concept. In our testing we found a few interesting things that popped up. #1 Trigger / Hammer system in gun plays a much greater role in how much gas you need to introduce to make the system reliable. We found that the angle on the hammer of some trigger systems actually created friction on the bolt while traveling rearward . This of course caused for more gas to be introduced into the system to make it reliable. Hiperfire triggers have an interesting angle to the top of their hammer which we found allowed us to reduce the gas needed compared to other triggers. #2 Magazines: Some of us go prone and get our magazine or a pair of coupled magazines on the ground. It's not uncommon to use a clamped pair of magazines as a monopod of sorts on long range shots. Most magazines have a little vertical movement to them.Weight on the gun while prone and resting on magazines can also increase the friction on the bolt while traveling rearward causing more gas to be needed to ensure reliability. -Todd

jkrispies Viable yes. Absolutely. I'm on the Micro MOA shooting team and I've been running the 16" rifle length gas since July with the Govnah gas block. Mark CO is 100% correct it's a system and it needs to be healthy. The barrels Mico Moa uses has single edge polygonal rifling which lends itself to less bullet deformation and a tighter seal around the bullet which results in less loss of gas around the projectile giving a bit more pressure. Some awesome rifling coupled with the Govnah gas block, which I think could be considered a long term adjustable gas block, seems to be a solid solution thus far. Due to the design of the gas block plate system we know exactly what each setting for the gas block is since the holes restricting the gas are drilled. We have four 16" rifle length guns in team members hands running a variety of adjusted port sizes for optimal gas ranging from .082 up to .096. depending on the gun configuration. The info on some of the specs is detailed here . The main issue that seems to be pop up in these discussions is dwell time. How much gas do you get into the gas system and how long do you get it for. What does it take to push that bolt carrier back and cycle the action 100% of the time. We haven't seen issues so far that would point to any dwell time related issues. We have thousands of rounds and dozens of matches in the books with zero issues. We did have two of our guys decide to see how far they could game their loads and they went single shot right off the bat which was to be expected. They pushed the gas plates over and went to the full gas setting and finished the course of fire (and match) without issue. We have never seen a single issue with this system running full gas. Not one. We would like to do an objective test on a 16" rifle length barrel this year and put this argument to bed. The only remaining question we need to answer is "will the system degrade, and if so , at what point ?". So far those involved in the project say it's not going to degrade at all and although I believe them I'd prefer an outside opinion. If anyone has suggestions as to a number of rounds and method of testing to achieve this we're listening. On a side note, if you see any of our folks running around with a Micro MOA logo on their shirt at a match, ask them for trigger time on the gun, try it for yourself. It's in their contract to hand over their blaster and share it with others. If any of you are going to the ATL versa max challenge we'll have a couple there with team members at the end of the month. -Todd

No inverted support side prone then? Disappointing

I have Micro Moa Govnah gasblock with SSK-Keymod one piece rail and liked it so much I somehow ended up with three uppers with the combination. The gas block is great since you just use the head of a bullet to change the gas settings .

I had a great time at the match and thought that was the best bunch of shooters having the most fun possible in the worst weather imaginable on Friday. I've added a new term to my vocabulary after Tommy Thacker got done with his run on Stage 2. He held the gun together for his last two shots which was a technique I've not seen before . He had apparently damaged the shotgun on a previous stage and then had some issues on Stage 2 after "fixing it". Thackered : The act of unintentionally disassembling a firearm in a safe condition while placing it into a dump bucket. (adjective) Example : He thackered his shotgun when the empty receiver ripped off the barrel and magazine tube and tumbled into the ground. A big thanks to everyone who let me video tape you on Stage 2... I'll be doing a bit of a video mash up as time allows. If anyone would like to contribute your video and pictures of the good , the bad and the wet and muddy for the mashup I'd love to see it. Drop me a note. -Todd

Hotel room is now taken.

dt1 or anyone else in need... I have an extra room at the days inn , in Blakely from the 26th-31stwhich I will not be using. I believe it's a king side bed non smoking room. If someone would like it please message me otherwise I'll be canceling it tomorrow. -Todd

The match was a good mix of speed and accuracy. RO staff was outstanding and the only real issue was getting golf carts late in the day on Friday instead of the morning when only 3 of the 8 stages could be seen without them. Quite a few people arrived in the morning hoping to walk stages only to have to wait several hours to get the carts. There were also some issues with the ipad that was being used to swipe the cards for charging people for the golf carts but the staff pretty much handled all bumps in stride and got it all sorted out in the end. Overall I enjoyed the match and compliment the 3GN crew for what I suspect was a somewhat stressful few days for them but made a few hundred competitors pretty happy. The prize table was awesome and the RO's were consistent and professional with each competitor. For the number of people who shot the event and the number of stages things seem to balance out pretty well. Loved the demos and the side match, if the half day schedule continues more side matches would be nice.

Well Said Bryan 45, even if you have anger issues toward chicken noodle soup

Good point 3GN website shows the cool number of 222 shooters. Looking forward to the match, looks like I need some warmer clothes and a poncho!