Graham Smith

Actually I sort of got molested by a Smurf once - I sat on one. Had a girlfriend in Germany in the 70's who collected them. And one of them ended up on the couch after a pillow fight.

Switchable lenses are good but there is something to be said for having two pair. When I am shooting, I prefer a lighter colored or even clear lens. So I have a good pair for shooting and a darker less expensive pair for when I'm not shooting. I have yet to find the perfect frames but if you can test fit them first, you will be better off. Try asking around at matches and see if you can borrow someones glasses for a stage.

There are MP3 collections available from iTunes, Google, Amazon, and Audible. A friend told me that there are PodCasts of the shows also.

For anyone who has ever spent an hour laughing listening to Car Talk on the radio, here is a little remembrance of the late Tom Magliozzi http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BnNVxGvXjTg The show stopped in 2012 when Tom's Alzheimer's got too much for him. But there is a huge archive of past shows that continue to be rebroadcast.

Didn't want to be prudish but it did seem to be heading downhill fast.

Just remember, there are women and children here.

This is trending into dangerous territory. How did we get from a toilet bowl cleaner accident to all this talk of murder and mayhem.

It's probably worth mentioning that there are some types of tactical/practical/sniper rifle matches where you move from stage to stage and have no opportunity to survey the setup. Once you get to the shooting position, there is a card (or something) that shows you where the targets are and may or may not include distances. You have a brief time to setup then the clock starts.

If you load .40 major, then the first thing you might want to try is just backing down on your current powder load. Don't change anything else. Might work, might not, but it can't hurt to try.

Darn good question. P.S. Smurfs are Belgian not British, so they are blue in color not colour!

If you want something simple that isn't quite as loud then have a look at one of the pepper pot style brakes. They aren't quite as effective as some but they do a pretty good job and are no where near as loud.

There is also safety to consider. If you don't know where the targets are from the start, then half the time you are shooting you are frantically running around looking for targets. That's an invitation to trouble.

If it's not a USPSA match, then it's anything the organizers say it is.

Never, ever, no matter what, for any reason what so ever, try and take one of the blue toilet tank pills out of it's package without wearing gloves. Even if it is sticking to the packaging. My hand looks like I've been molesting a Smurf !

Decided to give Live Chat a try and after about 2 min got a person on line. Explained the issue and they asked for a phone number. 10 min later, I got a call from the local dispatcher who said that for some reason the package was given to the second shift driver. He said that driver would be going out shortly and that he would make sure I was the first delivery. Got the package at 2 pm. Driver apologized for not making sure the dispatcher knew what had happened the first day. He knew that my street wasn't on his normal route. I guess it never hurts to keep trying until you get the answer you want.

<start ranting> I have packages delivered to my office and include the business name in the address. Also the "smart" UPS delivery software is supposed to know what addresses are residential or business. For years now, there has never been a problem with UPS trying to deliver outside normal hours. But recently, they have apparently gone brain dead. For some insane reason, a package that was sent from a local Amazon warehouse, went on the truck with a delivery of "before 8:00 pm". And sure enough, the next day, there was a note on the door for an attempted delivery at 6:54 pm. WTF? So, I call UPS and they say that's it's out again and they'll let the driver know. And yes, they did say that it says in their computer that this is an office building. Yesterday I hung around until 6pm then left a note on the door to please deliver the package two blocks over (where I live). When no one had arrived by 8pm, I took a quick run over to the office to make sure that they hadn't left the package at the door. Nothing - no notice, no package. Next morning I get an email that they had attempted delivery at 7:14 pm. WTF is wrong with this driver??? I'm betting that this is either a new driver or a substitute or something because the regular driver knows that the entire two block area is all offices and that they can't expect to deliver packages after 5 pm. <ranting complete>

I'm in the same boat, and I learned not to do that after too many problems. Bear in mind that the reason it's hard to seat is because that 20th round is pushing up against the bottom of the slide which can cause your first shot to fail to cycle properly. After it happened to me a couple times (assuming the mag didn't just pop out that is), I stopped doing it.

Actually, our differences may be due more to how we got to our results. I'm not using theoretical data. I was basing what I said on a comparison done last year using field results from 5 days of shooting with a group largely made up of police marksmen. Almost everyone had 20" .308 bolt guns except two guys with 20" Grendel AR's. The Grendels did fine up until 700yd and at that point they started having problems with the wind.

Yes, I can read. And I DID compare the factory loads and no, the Grendel doesn't beat the 175gr .308 but it's not far behind. And, I went further to compare that Grendel load to my 178gr custom load and, as I said, it's not far behind that either. They are close enough that depending on what ballistics program you use and what default conditions you use, you are going to get slightly different results. And, the Grendel is going to go transonic sooner than the .308 which means that once you get beyond a certain distance the difference will increase faster. I'm not knocking the Grendel at all. I'm building one. I think that it's a great middle distance caliber. But I've shot against guys using Grendels and once they got to 800yds, they started having much more trouble with wind than I did with my .308

It won't better the .308, but it won't be far behind. Even comparing the Hornady factory 123gr against my 178gr handloads, the Grendel is only slightly behind on windage. It does, go transonic about 100yds before mine but that's not that big a deal at 1000yd

Do this ... don't do that .. stand up ... sit down ... Everyone has a different routine that is better than all the others - usually whatever they originally were taught. The most common recommendation I see for bolt guns from knowledgeable folks is this: If the maker has a recommended routine then do it. If not, then shoot 20 rounds at a modest pace, swab it out with a bit of mild solvent. Shoot 20 more and repeat the swabbing. You are now finished with the break in.

Take the example of a 180 DQ. Consider what would be required of a video system for that. You would really need an overhead camera, and you would need some kind of grid lines so you could know where the 180 was precisely. PRECISELY. If you cannot establish that, then a camera becomes useless in this situation because the angle of view and the depth of field an a half dozen other things come into play to make it irrelevant. There are, perhaps, cases where a fixed position video recording might be of some use. But is that really a can of worms that should be opened?

Sterling hit the mark on one very important point. Wind resistance is one of the most important factors. You have to know your ballistics. Don't get hung up on velocity and drop but ignore wind - it'll get you every time. Use a good ballistics program (JBM online is a good start) and study different loads. Then find what's best for the shooting you will be doing.

While this is somewhat off-topic, this thread has some interesting comments on the job of a spotter. The author of the thread has a lot of time behind a rifle in places where targets tend to shoot back and thus has a very good perspective on the role of spotter and shooter. He generally considers the spotter to be the more important member of the team while the shooter is just "the monkey on the trigger." http://www.sniperforums.com/forum/misc/37527-mildot-master.html

I haven't got my rifle setup yet so I've got no load data to compare. On paper, the Lapua 123gr beats the Hornady 123gr but I'm not sure that it beats it enough to make up for the cost differential. Distance and wind are going to be more important than drop.