kellyn

You would not have been charged by me, that's for sure!

I've purchased all sorts of shotshell carriers: belt mounted holders, armbands, thigh holders, and 3gungear's bandolier so I can put shot shells all over my body. If I put them all on and I fall down, I can't get up! Normally, I rely on a 5 or 10 round holder on the front of my belt, an armband (8 rd) and the shells on the shotgun (10rd). That allows for spare pistol and even a rifle mag on my belt. It really depends on the stage. I used to use choate carriers. They are well made and reliable. I could never master grabbing more than one round at a time. Plenty of people have though. The chaote carrier is also space efficient as it holds 6 rounds vertically and allows more room on your belt. They are a good way to go I personally prefer mark buchanan's stuff. Mark has now designed a belt-attached thigh holder for rifle and pistol mags that is SWEET. It gives you a lot more room on your belt.

This one time at band camp ........

It completely depends on the stage whether it is SOF or IPSC. I always carry roughly twice as much ammo on me that is required to complete the stage. Two years ago at the 3 gun natl's, Todd Salmon needed about that much to finish a shotgun stage and few if any shoot a shotgun better than he does. Like the Boy Scouts, my motto is be prepared. I actually have enough shell holders to hold 66 rounds on my person and 10 on the shotgun - not that I've ever needed or carried that many.

Michael, I'm sorry that you're unhappy with the 3gungear equipment. I do think it's the cat's meow and much prefer their sidesaddle over the plastic ones. I believe Bushmaster carries or carried the choate shell holders.

Duane, allow me to retort. 1) With the barricades that we were using, you could see over the top with a knee on the ground especially if your as tall as my tango partner TGO. There may be some reason for the rule but it does not match the reality of the matches. With some of the barricades designated as low cover, you actually had to shoot over, there was practically no way to shoot around. This rule leads to stagnation and allows taller people a great advantage in matches. If cover is so important, then use fault lines and barricades to make the shooter use cover instead of subjective guess as to what 50% of the shooter A zone is or whether his knee is on the ground. 2)"Unless you were missing a lot" Ouch. I was not missing a lot in fact I did not miss one shot on this stage or in the entire match. (not that I've never missed a lot!). Some stages required shooters to engage targets while moving out in the open. Most people would empty their guns on these targets while on the move so they could do a speed load instead of a tac load once they got behind cover after the movement. I misspoke in my first post, I did not run my gun dry (I sure wanted too), so I was stuck with a partially loaded gun and could not reload until I was behind cover. Instead I grabbed a mag and held it up right to the gun and did a tac load as soon as I was behind cover, which seemed a great waste of (realworld) time. It seemed very silly to be unable to perform my reload as I was moving along. 3) It may be against the rules to shoot guns to slide lock but it is completely UNENFORCEABLE. Limited vickers or virginia count is so much easier to enforce. How can an RO possibly know the reason a shooter fired an extra shot? Did the shooter call a bad shot and shot again (particularly on moving stages) or did the shooter dump an extra shot to do a tac reload. Who knows?When the RO finally calls the 10th,50th, or100th person on it (NEVER the 1st) and gives them a FTDR, how is that fair? It's far too subjective. 4) I'm no tactician, soldier or gunfighter but I paint ball a lot. I always want to know what my opponent is doing! That does not mean sticking your entire head out but it does mean being aware. I can assure you that the guys I was shooting with were not poorly trained. Mark, thanks for ROing! I'm glad you got to experince the crow woman war cry. (Edited by kellyn at 6:59 am on April 4, 2002)

I have a Benelli M1 practical and I like it. I actually prefer SHOOTING my 1187 but the Benelli has been more reliable. Benelli pros: -reliablity -M1 practical comes with most of the goodies -nice extended safety -did I mention reliability -lighter than an 1187 or winchester Cons: - You have to build up the cheekpiece to effectively use a dot (although other shotguns have this failing) - More recoil - If you fail to fully "seat" a shell in the mag during a reload, it will pop back and sit on the carrier preventing you from loading any more shells -Mine won't shoot reduced recoil slugs - They should come with a 10 round mag and not a 9 round one. Can't the people at benelli read the rules? - Lighter than an 1187 or winchester Despite the # of cons, I do like my benelli. It's biggest advantage is reliabilty and durability. In the end, I prefer shooting my 1187.

Rob, I like when Brian gives me nicknames like "Rifle Master." That's simple and easy. It makes me feel goood. With you, I'm going to end up with a nickname like "warm Guinness drinking, gunmalfunctioning, silly, tactical reloading, marytr (who still shoots major by the way). That's a lot to remember. BillF, I really don't want to tango with TGO. I just want to take him down in a pistol match (we all know I can spank him with a rifle). He is too tall and furry to tango with :-)

I don't shoot a lot of IDPA so take this with a grain of salt. I consider all forms of shooting to be "training," be it IPSC, IDPA, highpower, skeet, or even benchrest. Fighter pilots such as Joe Foss considered skeet to be excellent traing for air to air combat. One thing that I find silly about IDPA is that IDPA really tries to consider itself somehow above the other shooting sports as "real" combat training. I just shot the Arizona IDPA state championship and was once again exposed to the nuances of IDPA rules. I saw more gamesmanship at this match than I did at Area 2 Desert Classic and the USPSA 3 Gun Nationals combined. To me, many of the IDPA rules seem absolutely silly and I would never follow them in any sort of realistic combat scenario. To wit (sorry, that's the lawyer in me!): 1) Low cover requires a knee to be placed on the ground. That's stupid. As long as the shooter is behind cover, he should be good to go. Why is kneeling somehow better than squatting? 2) Magazine changes must be behind cover. That's silly as well. I saw plenty of people (including myself) running to cover and they could not perform a mag change until they got behind cover. So here I am, waiting 2-3 seconds with an empty gun running to get to cover before I can perform a mag change that I could have completed WELL before I ever got to the cover in the first place. 3) Mag changes must be tactical or done from slide-lock. I saw plenty of shooters firing extra shots so they could do slide-lock reloads instead of tactical relaods. I did this myself once until I said to myself that this is stupid, I'm not going to fire extra shots just so I can do a faster reload. From then on, I did slower tactical mag changes, TO MY DETRIMENT. This is an untenable rule and leads to a lot of "cheating" that really can't be penalized. 4) mag changes etc. must be done completely behind cover. This rule sent a couple of military and police types that I was shooting with into orbit. People would be assessed penalties if they did not go completely behind cover while they were manipulating their guns. When you are completely behind cover, you have no idea what your opponents are doing. You can't see them. In a real fight, an opponent could walk right up to you and blast you and you would have no idea what he was doing. IMHO, IDPA is probably less training for the real world than IPSC. In IDPA shooting you primarily think about following rules and course descriptions. In IPSC, you think about hitting targets fast. Neither provides the ultimate in combat training but I'd rather go up against an IDPA master rather than an IPSC A class shooter any day. Sorry for the rant but the "real practical shooting sport" seems not so real.

That's Guinness stout. In retrospect, I should have had a lot more. I should also have soaked my single stack in some. Rob, I thought my new nickname was "Tactical Reload." I may be a silly martyr but I don't have the war cry of a crow woman! Sorry, had to get one last dig in. (Edited by kellyn at 9:18 pm on Mar. 26, 2002)

With a limited gun, you'll also want to consider what kind of hold you'll be using on the 200 to 300 yard swinger targets. I think most people use a center of mass hold. I use a 6 o'clock hold on steel.(affectionately known as the pumpkin on the post). That means I zero my rifles to shoot a bit higher, something like 2 inches high at 200. I have to hold a little lower at closer targets with that zero though. I also know the dead on zeroes (clicks up from the bottom on the rear sight) on my ARs for 100, 200, 300, and 400 yards. After I get those, I obtain the "battlesight" zero mentioned above. I usually rely on the battlesight zero for most shooting but I can always quickly set the sights on my AR for the demands of any stage. I usually zero from the prone position and do not use the bench.

Yes, I had a 54 second stage in what should have been a 125-130 second match. But I'll let TGO tell you all about it. (Rob, we will meet again!)

The wily veteran crushed the young idealistic hopeful younger shooter who has a day job protecting the public from dangerous criminals. I should have stayed home and drank tea. But I was still shooting major. The good news is that Steve did win the CDP championship!

To me it would depend on where your focus is. If it's USPSA, I'd go with a .40 double stack. You make major and hold more BBs than a .45. If IDPA and steel are your focus get a 9mm or .38 Super. With a no holds barred budget, I would get both! And a Dillon 1050. Of course you could simply rely on your .45

Sure, bring up your bolt gun victory NOW! Last week Steve and I shot in a police sniper competition. He was shooting his bolt gun and I was shooting my DSA .308. Steve beat me on one timed stage, of course he cheated by accurately firing one "A" while I gave everybody 2 or 3 shots. Steve will probably ending up winning the IDPA match as Rob and I focus on picking on each other. he took Rob down hard on the wall stage at Area 2. Must have beat him by 2-3%. As for odds: Wily Veteran: 25 Young hopeful darkhorse nice guy w/ a day job: 1

Martyr or Silly? Mmmmm. I choose martyr. (might as well go down in spectacular flames!) Sure Rob, you may have won all sorts of fancy titles like Mr. World Champion, Mr. Limited champion, Mr. Open champion, Mr. IDPA champion, Mr. Steel Challenge, and even Mr. Bianchi but Open Rifle 2001 is all mine! Oh yeah, I remember winning the Gunsite Invitational too! I'll let you pick: CDP or ESP? (You still have to drive me to the match though.) Brian, are you aware of any secret weaknesses that Rob may have? kryptonite? radiation, glocks? (Edited by kellyn at 8:30 pm on Mar. 21, 2002)

Save a lot of money and get a Winchester featherweight Model 70 in .270 with a Leupold variable and get a trigger job! I can't really answer your question about which caliber because I have no idea what you want to hunt. .308 WCF is certainly a better all around cartridge for deer, antelope, etc. You could certainly hunt elk with a .308 as well. The .376 is designed for larger game and is not meant as a general purpose cartridge. It does not shoot as flat, kicks more and has a lot more horsepower. If lions or tigers or (big) bears (OH MY!) were on the menu, I'd go with the .376. If you wanted to hunt deer with the occasional elk, black bear, sheep, I'd get the .308. (Actually I'd get a .270!) A note on the scout rifle. I think Cooper's theories on general purpose rifles are interesting and thought provoking. I am not, however, sold on the scout concept. I think Steyr has done an excellent job of producing Cooper's vision and it is a nice rifle with an excellent trigger (regrettably American manufacturers are unable-unwilling-afraid to put a decent trigger on a sporting rifle). But let's face it, scout scopes suck. A low to medium powered variable is by far a superior general purpose sight. I also prefer a bit flatter trajectory than the scout rifles offer. I hunt in Arizona, Wyoming, Sonora, and New Mexico where a rifle may be called on to fire a shot at 0 to 400 meters (assuming the shooter is up to it!) Nothing wrong with a .308 but give me a .270, 6.5-06, .280 Ackley, 25-06, any day.

Let us know how the match went, I'm very interested about stage design, range of rifle targets, style of rifle targets, etc. etc.

I love five stand and don't get to shoot it nearly as often as I would like. "Double your lead" I'm going to try that. I doubt I've ever missed in front of a clay!

Steve, I would have been a hero but Rob ended up beating me by 2 3/4 seconds. If I hadn't had that jam while shooting prone on stage 6?????? I was happy with my match though, I did not make any major mistakes. I took some risks on stage 1 (the movers) and stage 8 (the table) that paid off but I was too cautious on stage 7 (the barrels). Rob picked up 2 seconds on the barrel stage. Hey, at least I was shooting major! I've decided that this weekend, Rob can shoot major and I'll shoot minor!

I used a turkey extra-full choke in a stake shoot at Gunsite. They allowed any weapon system so I chose my shotgun and plugged my turkey choke in. It blew the hell out of that stake!

I'll be there. I've (temporarily!) given up on knocking TGO off his CDP pedastal and will be shooting ESP. In AZ this past weekend, we had the Az 1911 Single Stack Classic and the Spring Steel match at Rio Salado.

To be honest, I don't think comps help a whole bunch on shotguns. I don't really shoot my open gun too much faster than my Limited - a little maybe but not much. My open 1187 has both the Briley comp and is ported. I normally rely on an improved cylinder for my standard choke. However, on courses with poppers at 25 yards, I've used modifed and even full. I don't use skeet or cylinder that much but I have seen good shooters do so on some courses.

More research on monopod technique. The Canadian Army uses the monopod technique but they place their weak hand on the mag well. This is a popular technique in inter-service matches. I briefly tried it and found it to be quite steady but I thought that transitioning between targets was slower. (FYI they rarely shoot multiple targets in inter-service and when they do it's nothing like USPSA/SOF/Myst.Mtn) Thread drift : I also jam the mag well for suppor when shooting off tables etc.

2 in Limited 99-35 and 99-50