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@slavex automated the Apex 10 about 5 months ago; and one of the bonuses were the digital sensors. However, with the Digital Powder Sensor having a swing of +/- 2g, and given the N320/N330 9mm powder I load, that's just way too much variation! So, I too am in the planning stages of upgrading to the Keyence style laser sensor that will integrate into the M7 autodrive system.

Same here. If I shoot a match with Titegroup, I like to do a full cleaning afterwards. I don't want that crud building up too much. Especially in my trigger group. N320 is WAY cleaner after shooting a match. I only feel the need to do a real basic cleaning when using that.

^^^^^^^ This! I switched to N320 because of this. I'm okay with paying the extra $$ because I don't like scraping the residue off my guns.

Wasn’t to bad maybe an hour.

It's expensive, but I like Sport Pistol about 1000 times better that titegroup. Titegroup is filthy.

Agree with what has been said - also, if someone was gerryrigging stuff, they probably removed the backplate and took out the extractor plunger, and consequently the extractor and firing pin safety. Make sure the plunger was put back in correctly, i.e. metal first. That won't fix this issue per se but is worth checking.

Pretty much yes to all (including the beltpouch and loops), except for the chest rig. The rules technically say that the equipment belt containing all of the shells needs to be worn at the waist level, although there seems to be a very loose interpretation of what is 'waist level' when it comes to those caddies. A Chest rig or bandolier are explicitly prohibited.

Dip the brass end in soapy water, then let it air dry. This will remove the static.

Not often. The original IDPA classifier had a weak hand only start from low ready, have had to do it at a few USPSA matches but it is rare.

Those diagrams are from here: https://pistolshootingsports.com/blog/steel-challenge-competition

Getting back to Joe late on this one. Hitech on Bayou bullets. IIRC, I used TG on some 45 loads with Precision Black Bullets. Those had a proprietary coating. No smoking that I noticed.

US IPSC Nats last weekend had a weak-hand-only gun-in-box start. Couldn't even touch the pistol strong hand to pick it up. That sort of thing is way more common in IPSC than USPSA.

I'm curious. How many times have you had to start from the draw, hammer down, weakhand only start in the last few years? Even classifiers that have weak hand usually start freestyle then transition to weak hand after a mandatory reload. There may be a classifier that starts weak hand, can't remember though.

Edges in 9mm aren't super common (vast majority were in .40) but they're out there. I like mine for LO, although I may go with a lighter slide next time around.

I like 231 and HP-38, but I just started loading for 9mm and find Titegroup works better for me than 231 or HP-38 with a 135 grain lead bullet.

Are you referring to the filler piece that sits where a manual safety sits? Not essential, but does keep out lint or whatever. Just call up S&W customer service and tell them which side is missing. Took care of me when I lost one. Mark

I'm currently using Sport Pistol but switching to TiteGroup since it's now 20% cheaper for the 8 lb hug I just bought. Sport Pistol is now $330 - $340 for 8 lbs

Thanks. my gun arrived yesterday. Custom Works version. Magwell was simple to take off. Good combo gun…..CO, LO. I’m waiting on my Gray Gun trigger kit. But when I checked my trigger currently in the gun it’s right around….average….4.25 lbs. a friend of mine got 2.5 lb with his Gray Gun kit. What are you guys with GG kit getting on trigger pull? thanks

I shot the match around 30 or so shooters, came in 3 overall, I would have won the match overall but went to uspsa mode 2 times and dropped a load mag and got like 6 seconds in penalties I believe. Just got to get use to not dropping non empty mags

As previously answered by Hogrider, it is pretty easy to take on and off. Nationals had the provisional, now permanent Limited Optics category, which doesn't require the removal of the magwell. All things being equal, I prefer to leave it on and run in Limited Optics.

Did well with a Beretta in Production. Tons of dryfire, but did, sometimes, change my "first target" selection based on the difficulty of the shot. Someone (Angus?) pointed out that in a 150 rd club match only 5-6 of your shots would be DA.

I’m tired of cleaning Alien pistons. I have a big ultrasound cleaner but… it’s big. I ordered a cheapo small unit today and will experiment with doing the pistons in simple green. I have done heavily carboned MPX pistons in CLR and it works great but I’m a little nervous to damage the coating on the piston that I think is TiN. It would probably be fine, but I’m going to try milder things first.

My recollection is that you can't use chest rigs, but off your belt with the rest you should be fine.

V’s last run on the same classifier. Even with a stumble on entry, 79%. Hits were good. Again for the people reading, her goal wasn’t to make a classification… it was to improve in a balanced way that would hold up to a variety of objective grading criteria. My goal as a coach is to make sure she didn’t ingrain a fundamental flaw that would limit her progress down the road. So I make sure her technique is good (or at least as good as I can coach at my level) and it’s up to her to develop the refinement and work at it to improve. This is from October 2023 shortly after we started training together. She had already self taught and dry fired basic fundamentals up to around a C class level. This is after 6 months of continued dry and live fire with some coaching. The things she has to work on to be an A class on demand are just extensions of the fundamentals we’ve laid. More precision in index and transitions (with less delay), better (and nuanced) recoil control. Basically improving the kinesthetic and proprioceptive accuracy so less vision required because less wobble and variability. But those things take time to refine. In discussion with V, she was a good friend and was concerned that I was kneecapping my own plans and goals in order to help hers. I assured her that helping her is getting me to a place that I had always wanted to get to, but lacked motivation and focus. Bundling our goals together is helping me stay on track in a way that I couldn’t / wouldn’t do on my own. It’s a very symbiotic relationship. Her time course and pace of improvement is similar to what you’ll find in some of the journals here. It’s not unheard of for someone to initial classify as B and then make A in 6 months after that and M 6-12 months after that. I like to think that I’m saving her some of the frustration and missteps that I personally went through in trying to figure out what’s what. I also like to think that her risk of burn out is way less doing it this way. We are really celebrating the process and the classification is just the spot check test of the ability. It’s really, really enjoyable. .

See if you can find an STI Edge. Awesome pistols.... and should be around USD 1.500,- I believe. Great guns from a time STI still had quality products (in my humble opinion) I absolutely love mine. Bought it six months ago and it runs flawlessly.................. ............ I agree with you. I recently tested 3 STI guns, one shot about 200K and 2 others about 100K. Only one of them had a crack in the frame( 100K) , something that can be easily repaired. all of them shoot 9mm factory ammo. Some of the pistols from the same category of other companies, which I tested after 15K looked much worse than STI, that shot 200 K