59Bassman

It may depend some on where you're at. I agree with the sentiment in general - if there are a lot of experienced shooters in a given match, the beginners will have it handed to them. At my local matches, though, most of the experienced shooters shoot Limited or (sometimes) Single Stack. Putting a new shooter who shows up with a Glock 17 and 3 mags in Limited guarantees a low finish. Not that new shooters should expect different, but it can be humbling.

This past Friday night, someone went into my truck and stole two pair of sunglasses. They left my Tifosis that I wear biking, and my Habervision fishing glasses. They decided to steal my Oakleys. I'm disappointed that my Half Jackets are gone, but I'm absolutely inconsolable about the M Frames. I was tired that night, as the night before we'd gone to a concert and I had three hours of sleep before getting up for work. When I got home, I remember thinking that I should lock the truck, and I thought I had. But when I woke up the following morning, my Tifosis were on the seat, my center console had been rummaged through, and the Oakleys were gone. Those M Frames were special. When I was shooting Sporting Clays, I started wearing M Frames. My shooting partner, Bill, tried them and decided he liked them. He bought his own set. Bill wore those M Frames for every shoot afterwards, trying every lens he could to get a small advantage. Bill wore them to the World Shoot where he won a gold medal for Team USA in FITASC. My friend Bill died several years ago of bladder cancer. While I bought his skeet gun and some reloading equipment from his widow, she gave me his shooting glasses. I kept them in my truck, and wore them every time I shot shotguns. And now some dipwad that believes that private property is theirs for the taking has them. I hate thieves.

I'm going to be the oddball. I prefer Titegroup, 4.9gr at 1.25 OAL with a crimp of .469. I still have an 8lb jug of Clays from shotgun loading, but after trying both back-to-back, I prefer the recoil impulse of TG to Clays, and the smoke difference was not very noticeable to me.

That's not the CZ I'd choose for Production and 3 gun (well, it's not the one I chose anyway...) The CZ 75B has a firing pin block, and that will limit just how good the trigger can be. You'd have to go with something like a CZ 75 Shadow (which I've been shooting for the past year) to get around the FPB, and then you're looking at $1000 for the base gun. I've got a conversion for my 1911, and I will tell you that I use the ever loving heck out of it. I wish I had the kadet kit for my CZ, but I've not purchased one yet. If you can shoot the Glock well, it will be a lower cost overall, with a ton of aftermarket support. I can't shoot one to save my life, but I do shoot the CZ better than any other 9mm I've shot. Either would be a great gun for Production and 3 gun. In 3 gun the Glock does have the abandonment advantage, but I like the CZ trigger better than any Glock I've experienced. If you can, shoot both. Either will work fine for you.

No access to a chrono at present, but from the load data about 6.4 gr WSF should do it loaded short.

The CZ Kadet kit has a pretty strong following for CZ shooters. The kits get somewhat spendy, and magazines can be hard to come by.

The CZ Custom Shop has been very helpful to me. My Shadow originally had some issues with light primer strikes and the trigger. Parts were sent out free of charge, and they turned around my pistol very quickly when it had an issue. I do think that they're pretty slammed right now. I don't think that CZ is shipping nearly enough units to fill demand, and CZC is feeling the pinch at present. I'm seeing more and more CZ's at matches, and a lot of the competition-focused products are out of stock and delivery times seem to be stretching out. This is a good thing long term for the brand, but short term CZC is feeling the heat, I'm guessing. I like the guys enough that with my next order I'm considering throwing in one of their logo'd shooting shirts. Not that they'd want a D class shooter representing them...

While I agree with this (and have stress cracked about 5 M-Frame lenses to prove it), I have found that I much prefer a one-piece wraparound to two pieces. It's not as big a deal in pistol shooting, but in rifle or shotgun I think it matters more. The two-piece lenses require an attachment point in the middle that can block your field of view when your head is tilted forward, such as mounting a rifle or shotgun. It's not much, but it distracted the heck out of me until I switched to M Frames. I like the fact that with my M Frames my field of view is about as unblocked as it gets.

My wife has had a Beretta 92FS for the past 15 years or so. I don't know how many rounds we've put through it, I'd estimate more than 6K but less than 10K. In that time, the only failure we've had was from a case separation, which blew the trigger bar out (was fixed in 15 minutes in front of the computer looking at disassembly videos). The Beretta gets knocked in carry and duty circles for being too big and too heavy. IMHO, that makes it a pretty good competition candidate. With a set of Hogue wraparounds, the gun is hand-filling and doesn't recoil much at all. Magazines are readily available, duty-style Kydex holsters are easy to find. Where it falls down somewhat is in competition parts and accessories. It's a vicious circle - no one makes accessories for it since very few people shoot them. Few people shoot them because nobody makes accessories... The Vertec does appear to fix one of my major issues with the Beretta. With a stock 92FS, you're pretty much stuck with the stock front sight, unless you want to get into some pricey gunsmithing. The Vertec looks like it has a dovetailed front sight, which is a big plus. I've shot my wife's Beretta in competition a handful of times. In fact, it was competing with the Beretta that gave me the confidence to order the CZ I shoot now. I used the Beretta we had to ensure that the DA/SA transition that everyone claims causes kidney stones, gout, and general incontinence wasn't going to be an issue. I found that once the buzzer went off, I never felt the difference in trigger pull. I do prefer the CZ for competition for a number of reasons. I think the CZ has some features going for it that make it a more suitable choice for USPSA/IPSC. However, they're not significant enough that it will make the difference between winning and losing, IMHO. If you like the Beretta and it's available, there's no reason not to shoot one.

I had a really bad experience going to watch an IDPA match in 1997 that kept me pretty well soured to the sport. When I bought my USPSA Production gun last year, I bought one that would be SSP legal as well so that I could shoot both. It took about 10 months, but I finally shot my first IDPA match. It's different for sure. I believe trigger time is trigger time, and any shooting you can do is better than sitting at home playing XBOX or watching TV. I can't ever see IDPA becoming my primary sport, but it is probably something I will do on occasion to mix it up now and then. I'm already shooting USPSA, 3 gun, and Steel Challenge. I will say that I prefer all of them to IDPA.

I've never been good about removing powder when I'm done with it, however TiteGroup has made a fanatic out of me. It ate through my LNL drop pretty quickly. I've actually looked through the McMaster-Carr catalog a few times for other materials that might be more resistant, but I'm unsure which to try at this point.

They're not hip, cool, or fashionable, but my Uncle Mike's double pouches have been working just fine for my SS rig over the past couple of years, once I changed out the center adjustment screw hardware. I just got a set of CR Speed Versa pouches for my limited gun, and I can see the appeal. But I'm not shooting SS enough to justify dropping $200 ($35/pouch + $5/adapter) on mag pouches for SS. When I can be certain that a mag grab cost me a match, I've got a reason to upgrade.

It turns out I'm not shooting as much (read: any) IDPA as I thought I would, but the above was kind of my thought process as well. I snagged a 75 Shadow about a year ago and have been very satisfied with the choice. I don't know that I'd be shooting any better in USPSA, 3 gun, or Steel Challenge with an SP-01.

I tend to hold a few hundred round buffer of whatever I'm shooting most, and on-demand load in above that buffer. I did stockpile a couple thousand .45ACP rounds over the Christmas holiday last year, as I'm not shooting much .45 and wanted to keep my primer feed conversions down. Also, the only time I really stockpiled was while loading shotguns, and it bit me hard. My MEC 9000G had been trouble-free for a decade, other than the primer feed. I'd weighed charges for years with no deviation from where I'd set it, so I had stopped weighing charges other than when I switched powder bottles. So I loaded up a massive amount of 7 1/2's in my normal clays load. Then I started having issues with the ammo. While troubleshooting, I found my press had come out of adjustment, and was dropping inconsistently low powder drops. Although there's no power factor in shotgunning, these loads were not able to cycle my semiauto. So I ended up sitting every evening for a few weeks pulling shotgun shells apart with a dental pick and a pair of pliers to salvage the hull, shot, powder, and primers. If you're going to load in large batches, CHECK EVERYTHING as you go.

I've been wearing a Seiko 007 with a Nato strap for the last year. Durable, relatively inexpensive, and well-made. Being an automatic, it does lose a bit of time each day (I think mine is something like 4 or 5 seconds/day), but it's still a very cool mechanical device. I also like the Bertucci watches, I have an A2 that I wear. Titanium case, quartz movement. Finally, I have a few Victorinox Swiss Army watches. My first survived a decade of hard use, including a motorcycle wreck and a shotgun kaboom. The bracelet finally gave up the ghost, and Victorinox replaced the case, bracelet, quartz, battery, and back (essentially the same movement with all new hardware) for the cost of shipping.

I've been using Uncle Mike's double pouches for the past year (I know, low-budget solution at the time), and they've worked fine once I did some modifications to them. They're cheap and available at pretty much all the big box sporting goods stores. I recently bought some CR Speed pouches for my CTS, and have been starting to mess with those in for my Shadow in Production as well. With the CZ insert they work great, and I like being able to adjust the tension of the mags individually.

I really don't care for the direction this is headed. I understand why the existing targets pose a problem for the major network producers. However, rather than use the sport to change attitudes, it appears they're going to change the sport. Next up will be 10 round mag limits on all firearms and a restriction on pistol grips for shotguns and rifles. It won't change the sport you see, it will just make it more appealing to those in major markets.

I agree with most of the above comments. IMHO, the 9mm 1911 shines in two potential competitions. Unfortunately, neither of them are USPSA. I think the 9mm 1911 is a great IDPA ESP pistol (mag capacity, trigger pull), and it's also a pretty good choice for Steel Challenge (cheaper ammo, trigger pull). But in USPSA, you're either shooting Single Stack minor or Limited 10 minor, either of which will put a new shooter at a real disadvantage. I try to buy guns in the calibers they were created in where possible. That means .45ACP for 1911's, 9mm for most service sidearms (Glock, Beretta, Sig, CZ). Guns like the Glock 17, Sig 226, Beretta 92, and my favorite CZ75 are "multipurpose" - they're highly competitive in USPSA Production, IDPA SSP, IDPA ESP, and 3 Gun. They can also compete (at a minor scoring disadvantage) in Limited, Limited 10. I agree with starting a new shooter in 9mm, but even before that, I'd try to get the new shooter to buy something like a Ruger 22/45. A good .22 pistol is something that will pay dividends for many years for a new shooter, and allow them to get the fundamentals down without thinking about the $4 it just cost them every time they empty a magazine. If he wants to skip the .22, I'd look hard at a service-type 9mm pistol. See if you can find a range to shoot the Glocks, Springer XDm's, S&W M&P's, Sigs, Berettas, and CZ's. Pick the one he likes and see if he can wear it out.

Lugnut- I've not had the first issue, but I have had the second with my 75 Shadow. As to what causes it? I dunno. My personal belief is that when you slap the mag in that hard, you bounce the slide back enough to let the release down. I have also had the top round fail to strip twice in a match, so I have really worked hard at not pounding the mag in the magwell. It's difficult in a 3 gun match to think that much about it - an AR mag takes a bunch of force to seat on a closed bolt, but that much force on the CZ will cause a problem. Unfortunately I don't have any advice on the second issue other than a lot of reload practice without jamming it in there quite as forcefully.

Yesterday was 3 gun at a club about 100 miles from home. Very nice club, interesting stages. I ended up shooting on a squad made up almost entirely of guys I shoot with at my local club. It was a very nice day and a really great time. The first stage was an all-shotgun stage, nominally 20 shots. This was the first time I'd ever shot flippers, and I was nervous. So nervous about them in fact that I never got a really good plan for shooting the rest of the targets. As it turned out, when the clay went in the air, I was in full-on Sporting Clays mode. I don't remember how I shot them, but I do remember that I crushed them pretty well. They turned out to be the easiest targets of the day for me. I got bit by some bad decision-making on a couple of stages, but I was trying different things, even if they didn't work out. What killed me was the last stage, which was slugs, pistol, rifle. I knew I'd lost some points with the shotgun (although I didn't know it would be 15 seconds - ouch!), and when I ran down to the pistol array (25 - 30 yards away), was trying to go too fast. One of the pistol targets was a small steel plate at 30 yards to activate a bank of rifle targets. I never settled in for front sight focus, so I probably burned 6 or 7 rounds trying to hit that target. That rattled me enough that I didn't settle into the rifle very well. I had good hits with the pistol and rifle, but they were just slow hits. In hindsight, I should have shot the 6 IDPA pistol targets at 25 - 30 before I tried the steel plate. The guns ran very well. I'm currently debating using my 75 Shadow over my CTS for 3 gun, but it will probably come down to whether I can get the 75 mag capacity up to 23 rounds. My rifle ran great. I think with the latest addition of a Drissel Cat Tail, it's about done. The shotgun is close, I think I need a 2-shell carrier on the receiver end of the forend to get that right. Kinda nice to have a rig that you can't blame for your mistakes.

As much as I despise Glocks and am a die-hard CZ fan, in the choices you've given, I'm going to have to say G17. Unless I'm buying a gun that's a killer deal, I try to never buy something that I know I'm going to have to sell in a short period of time (your flipping the SA for a DA/SA). Since getting a DA/SA now is off the table, I'd say get the Glock. The unfortunate reality is that SA 9mm's in USPSA really don't have a place to be competitive. I could make the argument in Single Stack that a 9mm 1911 may be an asset on certain stages or matches. And you could shoot a 75 SA in Limited, but it's giving yourself a handicap before you even start. If you can't get a DA/SA CZ75 now - G17.

I bought a paper copy, but will have a Kindle one as well as soon as it is available.

It's been a while. I missed 3 matches in the past two weekends due to work commitments. I was not able to pull a trigger on a live round for over two weeks. However, I took my Production and Limited rigs with me just in case. I was able to spend a lot of time almost every night practicing reloads and dry fire. Brian's book was a big help in thinking my way through reloads. Also, a lot of thought about my draw helped it feel smoother, and certainly get the gun out faster. Yesterday was USPSA at a club about 80 miles from here. I like the club, although it's a different place to shoot. Pretty far off the beaten path, but a bunch of experienced old salts wringing out their "Sunday go to meetin'" guns at a match. $15 shoot through once, $5 to shoot again. I shot Limited with my new CZ CTS the first time through, Single Stack with my old Kimber the second time. The first go through went OK. I had a couple of real brain farts. Almost one per stage. A mike on a seated Bill Drill. Throwing an extra shot on a Virginia Count classifier (and having the argument with myself before I pulled the trigger). Never getting front sight focus on a Texas Star on the last stage. Overall I was 10 out of 17 limited shooters. I knew that Limited would be swimming with sharks, as that's where most of the more experienced guys gravitate. But I'm happy with how I shot. It wasn't completely clean, but it felt great. It's a much different experience when you're starting with 22 rounds in the gun, coming from 9 or 11. Second go round went great after the first stage. Our first stage that run through was three ports, 12 targets. You had to shoot 4 targets through each port. My run with the limited gun was about 27 seconds. With my SS, it was 59. I made a critical error, I got too close to the wall and had the barrel through the ports. The slide was hitting the top of the port after every shot, and I was getting one FTF after another. I didn't realize it until the final couple of rounds. But after that stage, it went very well. I shot very accurately, if not as fast as I should have. Overall I was 5th out of 7 SS shooters, due entirely to that one stage. If I'd shot similarly to my Limited run, I should have been in 2nd or 3rd. One thing I was very pleased with was that both of my classifier scores were solid upper C's. I'm still D in Production, and believe I should be higher. Seeing my two classifiers show that progress was helpful. Rather than sitting in the 30's and 40's like my last few have been, two in the 50's gave me some hope. I know that I can do better. I had a couple of tastes of watching the sights, seeing what I needed to see, and shooting as fast as my sights aligned, rather than as fast as I was comfortable. That was an amazing feeling. I want to feel it again.

I've got an old Kimber Clackamas Classic Custom that I purchased new in 1996. It's my first handgun, and the gun I started shooting USPSA with. I had an original Bo-Mar put on it as well as a S&A magwell back when. It's the most accurate pistol I've ever owned, but the reliability has always been spotty, regardless of magazines. I had sent it to Kimber about 5 years ago to have the chamber re-cut (mine was one of the early run with slightly oval chambers), but it's still having 3-point failures about 1 out of every 100 rounds. Which means about 1 failure per match when I'm shooting SS. Looking at the classic causes, the only thing I can potentially see is that the frame ramp to barrel distance isn't quite the 1/32" spec, but there is a gap there. There's a part of me that says retire the old girl and just shoot my CZ's until I can save up the scratch for a Les Baer or an STI. But I'd also like to get it running, and running well. Is reliability work on the Kimber something to trust to the local gunsmith, or is there someone I should talk to about sending it off? PM's are fine if you'd rather not broadcast to the world.

The CZ will be very difficult to find mags for. The current TS mags hold 20. Adding the basepads don't help, as the basepads don't have ribs. CZCustom makes a 75 CTS Longslide that's a TS slide on a Shadow body. Mags that hold 23 rounds don't seem to be that difficult, more than that might be an issue. I'm also not sure where you'd get a compensator for a 75, or whether the 75 will stand up to 9mm major loads. The safest CZ bet is the Czechmate. Then the package is done for you.