Graham Smith

This is a big problem for Leupold. They are being passed up in the market with products that are as good as theirs, sometimes better, at a lower price. They aren't keeping up with the changing market as well as other companies and have gone from being market leaders to followers. One caveat... Leupold has a great reputation for warranty service, even including damaged gear. Some of the companies in the same market have a long way to go to match that, which will even out the price some, but perhaps not enough.

From a job evaluation... "During the past year, this employee has performed his job entirely to his own satisfaction."

Much more practical than duct tape. Looks like a nice professional job as well.

It has gotten excessive.

I should also mention that for several years I was an MD and even though I had created or reviewed all the stages, I never really had the time of walking them the way others did. Often, I would be busy with match related things, going around and making sure the squads weren't running into problems or working on range stuff that I hadn't had time to do, etc. On those days I usually just shot through as time permitted rather than going with a squad. So, in too many cases, I literally was the guy who had no plan. In cases like that, I would often watch a couple people shoot to get an idea then do a quick walk while people were pasting targets then shoot. I actually found that worked fairly well because whatever passed for a plan in my head was fresh. As to the second part of the question, I actually find that paying too much attention to what others do can sometimes be a detriment. It's easy to second guess yourself and then get mixed up when the buzzer goes. Happened to me more than once that I ended up just confusing myself.

At first glance, that would seem to be a fairly clear false start, but the discussion that follows makes me question that assumption. If the shooter had drawn the gun, then that would indeed have been a false start. But since they didn't then it's rather ambiguous. It sounds as if things happened so close to the beep that the RO didn't even notice. The shooter is on "gun time" which tends to seem longer than it is so while the time between moving and the beep may have been a half-second, the shooter may be thinking 1-2 seconds.

There are occasions where someone does something that I hadn't thought of or it turns out that something I had rejected actually works better than I thought. So, yes, I sometimes mooch, copy, clone, borrow, and steal ideas from others. Unfortunately, this sometimes happens on a stage that I designed and setup. So I'm left wondering why I didn't see it that way when setting it up.

As said, if bullets are hitting the comp then you have bigger problems. Take the comp off, it's not doing any good. And check the crown to make sure it's flat and isn't damaged.

I started reading juvenile science fiction from authors like Heinlein when I was a kid in the 50's. At that point in my life, terms like "willing suspension of disbelief" and "internal consistency" had no meaning - the books were about an impossibly distant future and were as real to me as anything could be. Today, I'm more of a critic. Now, I like speculative fiction but am somewhat bothered by books and films that play at being hard science fiction but don't take the time to do their homework so almost every little bit of technobabble becomes a plot device, by necessity. But that's still not the problem I have with this movie. It tried to be too many things and the plot(s) just fell apart each time.

More like 15 seconds.

Long time fans of Frank Herbert's Dune may recall that there was a failed attempt to make the book into a movie in the mid-70's. The documentary "Jodorowsky's Dune" tells the story of that project. For nearly two and a half years, Chilean-French director Alejandro Jodorowsky worked with an amazing group of people to produce a movie treatment. The resulting epic tome looked in the film to be at least 6 inches thick and was literally a scene by scene storyboard of the film. Those who have seen it say that it is nothing short of brilliant and would have made an incredible movie. To understand why no studio would touch it, you have to really see the documentary and understand that Jodorowsky was an avant-garde filmmaker known for his surrealistic work. Studios literally didn't trust that he could produce what he said he could and stay on-track and in budget. And after hearing Jodorowsky comment that he would make the film as long as he wanted, even if it was 12 hrs long, it's not hard to see why. I have mixed feelings about the fact that the film was never made because I have not been pleased with the changes made to the book in the two movies made so far. After hearing some of Jodorowsky's ideas for the story and the casting, I have the feeling I would have been jumping up and down screaming "NO, NO, NO!" at the screen. All that aside, this was a fascinating documentary and deserves a viewing.

Actually, I was going to elaborate more on my comment with something right along that line that happened to a match where I was the MD. We were into the third squad (mine) when a shooter did something legal but unexpected that created an unsafe situation (complicated to explain but in essence the RO got uprange of the shooter). The solution was simple enough, I just penned a note on the stage description to the RO to be aware this could happen.

This kind of stealing is something that I simply cannot abide. I don't like to distrust people, but at my age I've been burned too many times.

As a former MD and stage designer, I can tell you without fear of debate, that problems do get overlooked in designs. Sometimes it's because a shooter does something unexpected but sometimes it's because there are some idiosyncrasies about a particular range or bay that result in things being done a particular way that's just taken for granted. This could easily be one or the other or both. Wading in deeper, without a floatation device, I'll add that when there is something in a particular stage that could result in an unsafe situation, it should be up to the designer or MD to find a way to reduce the risk or include a clear and stern warning in the stage briefing. This would appear to be one of those cases. Again, I have not seen the stage diagram so I cannot be sure, so let me say equally categorically, a design can create a safety problem that no one sees until someone does something unexpected.

And that's where my understanding of this starts to fails. I'm assuming that his has something to do with how the bays are setup at this range. And (for obvious reasons) I am assuming that there is not a stage requirement that a shooter holster a loaded gun and then move to another area then draw and start shooting again. So, I would have to then assume that the stage design created a situation where a shooter might legitimately be right up next to a line that is perpendicular to the line of fire engaging one or more targets. And if they were to move to the other side of that line, might create a safety hazard. If all this is true, then I would say that this was a poorly designed stage. A person could inadvertently step across the line after they were finished shooting and get DQ'd for it. If this was such a critical safety situation, then a physical barrier should have been used rather than a fault line. As to what should be done after the shooting started... I would say that as soon as the problem was seen, the MD should have been advised and made a decision what to do before anyone else shot the stage.

It's probably because my brain isn't ticking over right, but I'm not familiar with the term "FA line". I can tell what you mean but am having a bit of trouble understanding the purpose, particularly in context. From what you describe, it would seem that this line should be outside of the shooting area, which would prevent anyone getting too close to it. But it also seems implied that at some point, the shooter could or would holster a loaded gun to cross that line???

You could probably use almost any kind of jug or container for this. I wonder if gallon Zipper Lock bags would work for long term? You might also want to start taking bags of powder to matches and selling them because it sounds like you have more powder than you would ever use and you can't buy beer with gunpowder - at least not now.

If you have a tight chamber and need the EGW or Lee "U" dies, then you won't be able to run a SDB unless you pre-size your cases. That isn't really that big an issue but you would need something like a single stage press for that operation. Like others, I have looked at the Square Deal and I just prefer a manual index press. Strictly a personal preference.

I watched this movie on DVD over the weekend. I'm not sure what I was expecting but it wasn't what the film turned out to be. If you are an old-school classic Asimov/Clarke/Heinlein/Bradbury sci-fi fan, then this is a movie you should see for the image it brings to the screen. An incredible "wow" factor without any monsters or space battles. Some gut-wrenching scenes when things go wrong (or right). It's a movie that had me riveted to my seat. But when it was over, I realized that somewhere along the line, the wheels had fallen off the bus. For all the technology on display, there are HUGE holes in the story and the science. In several places, the plot hinges on science but does so without even a modest attempt at explanation. It left me feeling that for all the drama and imagery, it's not a movie I would want to watch again because I know I would end up picking it to pieces the second time around. The movie couldn't decided what it wanted to be. It wasn't an action movie, but it had action scenes (that relied on loud music a bit too much). It wasn't a character driven drama, but it had a good deal of overly contrived emotion and recriminations. It wasn't a morality story but there was a great deal of moralizing. The ending is so ambiguous in so many ways that I still don't know what was supposed to be happening. Clearly there is a planned sequel.

I never had any luck with the adjustable charge bar. Lee has unofficially stated that the bar doesn't work well with pistol volumes but does with rifle volumes. The same unofficial source suggested drilling a hole in the side of the autodisk then using a drywall screw for adjustments. The pointed end of the screw seemed to work well as an adjustment. HOWEVER, it only works for small adjustments so the unadjusted volume should already be as close as possible to what you want.

Take care that you don't fall into one of several traps (as I have). --When switching from a popper to paper and back, you can tend to rush the paper and not give it your whole attention because part of your brain is telling you to hurry up and get back to the popper. So rather than two good hits you have a mediocre score. --You shoot the front popper and then paper and forget the rear popper. --You shoot the popper then grab a paper while the popper falls and activates the out-n-back but don't make it back in time to get a good shot on the mover.

I shoot a Limited Glock 35. My vision isn't great and practice time is almost non-existent. I'm a middle C shooter and expect to stay there. For fun a couple years ago, I picked up the parts need to swap uppers between Limited and Open. That gave me a way of exploring Open at a relative low cost. I can see the appeal of the red-dot but can also see that practice is definitely in order. Which brings up an interesting point - if I were to practice more with the Open setup, I might be able to make it to C class. If I spent the same time with my limited gun, I could probably get to B class. I'm not sure how the two would compare in overall scores, but I wouldn't be surprised if they were about equal. Still, I do like the open gun setup and might start shooting it just for fun. I'm not going to win any prizes no matter what I shoot so I might as well have fun with it.

I have an old Melita filter and a thermos mug that I use for my one or two cups of morning joe. I do use some half-decent coffee these days as opposed to the floor sweepings I used to drink. But I've tried some of the really good coffee and it's just not my thing. I fear that 20 years of Army coffee and 20 more years of office coffee have pretty much permanently destroyed my taste buds.

There are dozens of different brands and styles of bags that will work, some will last longer than others. There are also dozens of small backpacks and the like that will work. Tool bags and boxes also work well. IOW, there's no end of things that will work. So unless you want a purpose built range bag like the CED or Shooters Connection, you shouldn't sweat it.

Think of it this way, you are keeping her from eating food (and I use the term loosely) that every nutritionist in the world will tell you she shouldn't be eating. Isn't that good parenting?