Cherryriver

Oak Park Sportsmens Club in Plainfield, Illinois (about 40mi. SW of Chicago) is holding its third annual Revolver USPSA match at 9am CST, November 8th, 2015. Special match fee for Revolver Division: Zero. Plus a box of Fed 100s or 150s to the best showing by Moon-fed and Speedloader-fed shooters. As in the past, firearms of the other divisions will still be allowed and scored, but with scorn. Six stages, five field courses and a classifier. Guaranteed to be the most eight-shot-hostile match of the year or your non-existent match fee back. Online signup at the OPSC Action Shooting Sports page.

It would also be a grave disservice not to give a huge callout to the match administrators (for want of a better term), most especially the indefatigable Caspers, Ronnie and Lori. Their work on registration, stats, admin, and electronics management was immense and beyond description. Down on the range, we called them the NookNappers but there were so few problems with the devices and the entire system it almost seemed as though it was transparent, just the way we dream it could be. But it was Ronnie and Lori slogging it out day after day that made it so. What a terrific (and under-appreciated) job. Thank you.

Can't say enough good about Match Director Dan Pawlak and Rangemaster Tom Palmer. A privilege and a pleasure to be able to be on a range with either. A superb match. https://practiscore.com/results.php?uuid=e5f51e93-13d5-4fb3-bece-be75711950e7

Well, staff just finished shooting just before 7pm local time. At least the weather was beautiful, even if Mr. Mike visited a few times too many. Only three more days to go!

Yes, USPSAers tend to consider practical guns as declasse.

+1 on Mike, he's fun to watch at our local matches" Imagine if he ever started to take this seriously... put down the waterfowling shotgun, Redhawk big game sixgun, the fishing pole...

Spend a few years RM-ing and you'll be cured of that curiosity. Another thirty minutes of my life gone that could have been used doing something worthwhile.

In the instance RePete cites, I was the MD/RM. I was called to confirm the interpretation. I declared outside meant outside. Apparently the timing RO on the run(s) in question didn't get the message and the shooter started inside. The RO should have enforced the start position. The only other option is for the shooter to take the penalty and appeal. While the logic of faulting outside during shooting being the inverse of faulting inside during starting was proffered, it's still incorrect. Additionally, it's important to note that the start position and the portion of the course of fire with firing shots are two different things. No one saw a need for additional verbiage to reinforce the plain language of the WSB. "Outside" means outside. I always hesitate to change WSBs once the match is underway (this event took place more than halfway through, with 73 shooters) as it can easily lead to demands for reshoots that frankly, no one wants. In this case, there was no need, given the stage director/designer's plain language. (I do like the cite from Webster's.)

I tried CFE, but basically, it's intended for jacketed bullets at higher velocities. The results with lead coateds were discouraging- lots of charge weight for not so much velocity. I traded it off.

"Major" power in USPSA begins at 165 power factor. Your load is well above that floor. If you mean, does your load fall within SAAMI specs for pressure, about all most of us can do is go with the manufacturer's tables. If Alliant's site says it's within spec, it's good to go, to the extent they can know. You still have to work up from a reduced charge to the full charge while watching closely for what overpressure signs are available to we non-manufacturers.

Well, since this thread is back on the screen, I shall add an update about the dealings with Red Dot/Promo in these precincts. Short version: it's Red Dot for .40 USPSA loads henceforth. The Boss went to the Limited Nats last autumn with her Canyon Creeks and a hastily-assembled thousand Red Dot loads and that settled it. The ammunition was perfect and more pleasant to shoot than anything else I've put up for her to try. The 200gr SnS coated round nose still holds sway, combining perfect, and I mean perfect, function in all four of her .40s and the recoil impulse she wants. While 3.6gr of Red Dot worked, a bit of distrust of some chronos including our own had me run the charge up to 3.75gr (yeah, I know a Dillon won't get that close with this powder but I like to also weigh a ten-charge collection to verify). The last major-match chrono that saw this load thought it went about 175pf as I recall, a bit much but we've all seen fluctuations and security won out. Yes, it's a bit dirtier running than the replaced 320 but it's not been a problem, not for someone who's a chef during the daytime and cleaning the tools is frequent thing. The velocity spreads are about equal. For day-to-day use I've been running through the Promo jugs and it's been fine. I use exactly the same charge weight and get exactly the same results. Still, superstition has me go to the pricier Red Dot for the majors. Promo's been working it's way into my .45ACP loads for my guns, too. Cheap and not much less good than the VV310 my .45s like so much. Plus, when loading up to standard power for clone loads, the Promo goes there easily without even hitting book max loads (unlike 310- can't make hardball with that). Again, dirtier by a notch but my guns are good Colts- my Special Combat Government SS gun goes 1000-1500 rounds between cleanings with the SnS coateds no problem. Count this household as a Red Dot redoubt. And, since there was all this Promo on hand, it was given a try at the Single Stack Minor loads she puts in her .38 Super SS guns. And it works, really well. At the Single Stack Classic, 135gr round-nose SnS coateds with around 3.4gr Red Dot in the .38 SuperComp cases went 172pf and ran, again, utterly perfectly, and she had to shoot on the monsoon day, Friday. (Only 1 mike all day on bagged targets, too, I might add!)(Must be the ammo!).

Self-loading handguns come in .45ACP caliber. Well, that's my world. I have heard of .38 Super, and maybe there's a couple of those here, too, but... Having said that, my Significant Other made a bit of a name for herself toting around a couple of Canyon Creek Custom .40 cal single-stacks, and her original gun changed my crusty old mind about custom guns vis-a-vis reliability. Even in the recalcitrant caliber of .40 S&W, for which the platform wasn't designed, it pretty much never stops running. I can't even remember the last stoppage that wasn't bad ammunition. After years of running/officiating many, many USPSA and IDPA matches and watching all sorts of finicky racer-boy specials choking and snagging, it came as quite a surprise to see nothing but sustained, accurate fire out of a tricked-out gun. (And it is tricked-out.) So here comes the Single Stack Minor wave. The SO isn't built like a middle linebacker. The .40 hardly pushes her around but well, the smallbore can be shot faster, after all. And besides, Jessie shoots .38 Super. So she had Mr. Dettelhouser take her old 9x19 IDPA gun, rebarrel it to .38 Super, and away she went. 9x19 is even less ideal in the JMB design but .38 Super really is. Any old magazine works (settled on McCormicks, though) and the gun has simply never stopped running since the conversion. Not once, in many thousands of rounds. It runs so slick and happy with the long cartridge it's almost uncanny- observers watching the gun run even remark on its smoothness. So having two more rounds aboard... starting to sound even to this old curmudgeon as if the concept might have merit.

I'm no fan of "Springfield Armory" but... the Range Officer series are probably, and this hurts to say, the best of low-mid 1911s these days. I had a Target and there've been Loadeds around here. The Target was poor, went back to Geneseo, and was not better. It tore its link in two, between the pin holes. Sheesh. But the Range Officer is a new day. The missus has one built by Rich Dettelhouser as her newest minor-power Single Stack gun. Rich is picky but he raved about the frame and slide quality. He's settled on building a run of smallbore Single Stacks using the Range Officer as the base. That's a high recommendation. Our buddy Mike Gnyra (6th place at the Single Stack Classic!) won an RO in the Bluegrass, took it home for the GF, and had the same to say: great frame/slide. Fire control parts, well, a bit sketchy but serviceable. With retail tags running in the $800 range, that's a helluva value. Can't tell you how painful it is for an old Colt guy who bleeds blue to write that.

Our chef's scale here at home rendered Ms. Roe's Canyon Creek .38 Super (built on a Springer Loaded, not the newer gray RO-based gun) at 42.4oz. The SSC match scale said the very same thing. We have a chef's scale because Ms. Roe is a chef. That's really good. For me. On the other hand, our chrono kept saying the SnS 135s were going to make 134ish, but at showtime, they only went 129.7.

There was someone else? No bias. At the end of Friday, overall was Mike Gnyra and Sara Taylor first lady. Matt Mink running away in Open. Supposedly shooting just ended at 4:30CDT or so... we shall see soon enough. Well, not soon enough for Mike.

Been told Matt Mink went overweight with Minor gun. The barrels have more metal in them, you know. Mike Gnyra is our hometown favorite and still may surprise some. An astonishing combination of fast hands, quick thinking, excellent vision over the field, and intelligence. Only in his mid-20s- a long ways to go. Gives me faith in the youth of America. Almost wish there were separate scores for the poor souls who suffered through Saturday's monsoons, thunder/lightning delay, splashing through ponds where the trout were jumping, and cleaning mags more than ever before. In the words of TD Roe talking about the conditions, "It was the worst day on a range for me, ever." (And that included the Saturday of the 2011 SSC.) Again, speaking as the extremely biased homer, she still managed to toss only one mike into the floppy, bagged paper cardboards and no other penalties through the whole match, for second lady of the day behind the excellent Sara Taylor. That's determination. Mother Nature may have seemed to win Saturday, but competitors like her fought her to a draw. No attempt at impartiality was made here.

The beautiful Oconomowoc Sportsmens Club puts on an excellent match on third Sundays. The estimable Dave Richman and gang. I look forward to attending myself.

My experience with two conversions hasn't been all good, especially when power is considered. A 686 was fitted with a .38 Super conversion cylinder. Getting minor with 9mm cases is tough, if you stay within the load data lines. .38 Super makes minor in a walk and runs well. I had done up some USPSA loads in the old days when six-shooters were involved for the 686. Getting 160s up to major took some kinda scary lumps of powder. Not really worth shooting nominal .357 Magnum in USPSA, but I had to try. Reloads with Super are quite good. I sent in my .45 Colt Model 25 for a moon cut. This gun just doesn't want to give power with .45ACP cases. I had to go to Blue Dot in large doses to get to major in this 4" gun with 230gr SnS coated round noses. I suspect a lack of crimp groove in these bullets is part of the problem. Fascinating experiment: got a hundred .45 Win. Mag. cases, tried with both the 230s and some 250s with crimp grooves. Yes, the cases had to headspace on the moons. Lots of revos do; lots of semis hang on the extractor hook, too. Don't tell anyone. The 230s were awful, wild variations. The well-crimped 250s were fine, nice and consistent and accuracy within minute of USPSA. Short result on the 25- boy, it works pretty well with .45 Colt brass. A short cylinder and a setback barrel would do a world of good in both cases.

You're right. And, it's fun to win, too. It's all fun.

3 625s in the first 39 finishers at the Revo Nat. That's a landslide.

The best satire is that which deviates little from the reality.

Ironically, the AMT runs perfectly with Gold Dots but is sketchy otherwise. Way off topic! But I have yet to see a low-priced 625.

Trade ya an AMT BackUp .40 DAO!

Bruce, there'll be boxes of them behind the Lorcins.

Oopsie... forgot about the Dominion-pleasing barrel length.