Glock3422

Probably the easiest way to handle this is to explain the rule book regarding changing guns. Then, offer to allow him to reshoot the stage with the CDP gun after he shoots it with the SSP gun and everyone else is finished. If he insists on shooting the CDP gun before the SSP gun, he should be allowed to, but advised that his SSP score will include an FTDR for rehearsing the stage with the CDP gun. If he insists on only shooting with the CDP gun, he should be allowed to with a DNF. It is a local match and who really cares? Then, someone needs to have a blunt conversation about how he treats SOs. I know quite a few former SOs because it got to be too much trouble. If any of that logic doesn't get through, the MD needs to handle it. I know a few SO abusers who are officially no longer welcome. They are not missed.

I have seen such a thing happen. In that instance, as presumably in this one, the round did not go over a berm, strike the ground too close, or endanger anyone. Red faces, oh yeah. It should add time to the shooters score since it is buzzer to last shot. Learn from it and move on. You can not blame the shooter for the limitations imposed by the stage, SO, or range. The primary concern should have been for safety, not for the shooters yet to go. If stray light is such an issue, the upcoming shooters should have been isolated so that they would not be impared by stray lights. Personally, when I'm next up on a low/no light stage, I get to the starting line, close my eyes, and cover them if necessary.

You don't have to have an FTDR to deliver a message or draw a line. A procedural will do just fine. The FTDR is for those instances somewhere between a procedural and a DQ. Something that is an accumulation of procedurals or a clear violation of the rules that does not involve safety, to the level of a DQ. Don't get me wrong, I think round dumping is a tactic to be utilized in order to improve your score. If you don't do it well, it will be its own penalty. If you do it well, it will improve your result, which is the point of keeping score. I've seen FTDRs issued for each stage shot using a holster that did not have all of the retention features functional. It was not an unsafe holster, it just had a retention device disabled. I don't think I agree with that since it was no less safe than any other holster in use at the match. It was certainly safer than some. It was at least as safe as mine. One guy had his gun fall out while pasting a target. No penalty. Where is the justice in that? It was his good luck that the whole squad wasn't hot. One guy saves some money by adjusting a full retention holster, another guy has his gun fall out of a holster that is adjusted too loose. Same match, one action interpreted to have intent, the other just bad luck. Hmmm. I didn't mean to paint the entire west coast with one big brush, I'm just saying, the California match did not look as much like an IDPA match as it might have, if they used the rule book. I really don't care what the rules are, as long as we are all expecting and playing by the same book. It is that element of local rules and interpretation that makes what we have so frustrating.

Regarding the subject of round dumping- Having shot major matches in five states, on both coasts, round dumping is called much more closely in the southeast than in the west. I shot the California match last year and saw an amazing display of round dumping on virtually every stage. If that had happened in the southeast, the procedurals would have been flying. That difference is exactly the situation that created the after the fact penalties against an outstanding west coast shooter at the IDPA nationals two years ago. If he had been penalized on any stage, he likely would not have been penalized so severely after he was done shooting and had left the match. Having received a penalty on a stage, he would have been informed about the limits for that match. Shooting the California match for me was a disadvantage because the rules were not enforced to the degree I expected to encounter. Don't get me wrong, rounds are dumped in the southeast, just not as obviously as they are in California. And don't get me started on low cover. They don't seem to follow the one knee down or the both feet behind cover criteria. The problem with IDPA rules isn't that there are too many. It is that there is such a disparity of application to what the book says. The LGB only needed clarification. The new book, in my opinion, created more problems than it solved. But hey, it is what it is. It just needs to be enforced consistently. The IDPA rules require judgment and interpretation of intent. That is where the mischief starts. And now back to the subject- Since no one other than the shooter can know their intent, round dumping is a call best left for the most obvious of situations. If that is too complicated, it should never be called. No one, other than the shooter, really knows what their intent was or their perception of what needed to be accomplished. A round dumping call disadvantages small calibers and poor eye sight. Now, the judicious application of insurance rounds does reward the shooter. There is no doubt about it. If there was no advantage, there would be no rule against it. Watching a Master hit two zeros and then mysteriously miss, does create reasonable doubt regarding the purity of intent. Any other combination begs to award the shooter, the benefit of the doubt. See rule book. It could be that the Master (or anyone else) decided that an insurance round was appropriate right before the reload, since they may have been preoccupied thinking about the next array. That's my story and I'm sticking to it.

I have heard that Para specifically designed this gun to be IDPA legal. It is in response to the SSP weight limit that the LDA ran up against. By removing some of the grip and adding the built-in magwell, they made weight and added a desireable feature in one shot. A smith who knows the LDA can make a VERY nice trigger. The initial pull will still be long, but not hard. The subsequent shots will be short pulls, with the same force effort to the break. I've also heard that some associated with the project referred to this gun as the FU Bill gun, since it met the rule and made the LDA even more competitive in IDPA SSP. You have got to like a manufacturer that responds to the competitive environment.