Chuck Anderson

Definitely not an easy match in Production. I don't think anyone on the SS has shot clean so far. Lots of misses and mental errors. Today we shot in the morning and it was freaking cold. Todd Jarrett and Angus seem to be having some ammo problems with light hits (Although I think he fixed it yesterday). Travis is having the occasional failure to go into battery. I know Phil and Taran are also having some gun problems. Erik Lund is shooting for no score after just missing to make minor. His was the first squad to shoot the chrono this morning and I think it was about 3 degrees out. Shot a little later with the same ammo out of his bag and made it just fine. I'm living up to my earlier prediction and getting my ass kicked.

Robbie showed up early yesterday and was first to sign up on the waiting list for standby shooters. As far as the Production guys: Dave, Travis and Taran are all shooting Glock 34 Chuck and Phil Glock 17 Todd Sindelar Glock 22 Todd Jarret Para LDA Robbie and David Olhasso XD Matt and Angus SP-01

I'll reserve my right to disagree that allowing walkthroughs is somehow unfair. I tend to think it's more unfair at a championship match to make 16 shooters try to walk through a stage like last years bar stage (can't remember the name) that had a shooting area of 5x7yd and targets that could be seen from multiple locations. Throw in the fact that all the divisions are represented on several squads and there are a lot of different people competing for that five minute walkthrough time. I saw a lot of people that weren't big enough bullies last year and either gave up or only got 30 seconds or so of walkthrough time. Instead of the stage being a competition to see who can shoot it the best it becomes a contest to see who can memorize quickly or who's willing to push other shooters during that five minutes (saw it last year) Don't think because you're turning shooters away that everyone likes everything about the match. A2 has some great things going for it. Location, History, Prize Table. But a lot can change with a staff that is unwilling to listen to shooters or that makes committments and then doesn't come through.

So again no walkthroughs? I'll never understand why a match staff would do this, especially with the squad sizes at A2. This is not that big of a deal with 8 or 9 shooters but stick 14-16 in one stage and it gets really tight. I really hope that the stages aren't designed as all memory courses again this year. I understand that A2 and Superstition have way more shooters trying to get in than they can accomadate but rule "decisions" like this, when the shooters clearly don't want them is not good match management. Just like the changes to Heavy Metal for SMM3G. The rules quoted above are obviously not intended to be used only as you are using them. If that's what USPSA intended when they made them, there would be no walk-throughs at Nationals before the scheduled time, and there are.

I use a bushing bbl .40 SV with the EGW lightening cuts on it. Gun is very fast on target and transitions. Little hard on the hand but very quick also.

I predict I'm gonna get my ass kicked.

I'd put big money on Tulsa being the next PASA and having a whole bunch of Nationals over the next few years. A lot of that will depend on the Open/Prod Nats but even if there are a couple of issues, which I'm sure there will be. I'm sure that the USSA crew will have a kick butt facitility in the future. The amount of work that has gone on just this year is incredible. Tom Fee has done a great job of putting together a range, and a world class team of shooters to help guide him. I'm willing to support any match that he'll put on the ground there If we want anyone to build clubs for us we have to. USPSA needs to be willing to support these guys and go to the matches. If Tulsa isn't on your list of places you always wanted to go...bummer. But they're not going to drop a world class shooting facility right outside a major city. Too much expansion. I think Tulsa is going to be great and I hope I get to shoot there at least a couple times next year. And not being in Oregon would be a really safe bet. Tom and Mike are hosting the Area 1 Multi Gun Championship again.

Bend in September maybe. Bend in November? Isn't that parka and ski pants weather? Mesa is the desert and the weather reflects that. It's cool, heck downright cold when the sun isn't up, like first thing in the morning when you're shooting under lights. Check the weather report before you go. We had freak weather for this years SMM3G and instead of a nice mild weather week that we usually see for that match we got rain and snow. I know most people were not prepared and froze their butts off.

Angus stocks some for the CZ SP-01, Rene at Speed Shooters normally has a couple in. I think Brownell's also stocks some for the Glocks. Just depends on what you're looking for.

One word, SIG. Those things came with the worst finishes for years. I think it was one step better than cold blue, but barely. From what I understand the current finish is a lot better but there are tons of used Sig's on the market for cheap. And then there's the guys who bought the NP3'd Glock and want to use it for Production. Nothing wrong at all about changing the finish if you want to.

I've been using a JP upper pretty much since I really got into three gun. If you're not going to use an ACOG, you can pass on the CTR-02 and just get his basic upper. A lot cheaper, just not as pretty. Everything else is the same. MSTN also has what look like some great rifles. Taran has been using them and he seems to do OK I guess. As far as the shotgun I've used most of the current designs and I'm currently shooting the Gold now. Took a couple years to get it running right (went back to stock spring and that fixed all the problems) It is very sensitive to cleanliness. The other downside is when it does have malfunctions they tend to be a LOT harder to clear than Remmy malfunctions. Cool thing with the Browning is the auto load feature. Allows for a little more lattitude in stage planning. This year at Nationals there was one stage that had two banks of 9 rounds each. Other tactical shooters either had to do two reloads or load the chamber. I just stuffed 9 in the tube and moved on. Only shotgun stage I didn't totally get my clock cleaned on. It's also great for matches like the MGM where stage planning really doesn't count for much 150 rounds into the stage. I've still got two Remingtons that I use for backup. They still work great.

If you're looking for prizes as encouragement, shouldn't they go from the top down? What would the incentive be to improve if it was random? What would mean more? Winning a CZ pistol for winning your class at Area 3 or winning one in a random drawing.

Saying that Juniors aren't involved in the sport because of the numbers at Nationals is like saying that women can't drive because you saw one doing her hair on the way to work the other day. You're looking at, to use your own number a sample of 350 out of 15,000. This completely disregards that Juniors (by nature of them being juniors) are most likely newer to the sport and less likely to attend a Major or Nationals level event. It also ignores that this National took place when a lot were in school. In my section we've got a great Junior program. We've got about 14 kids involved right now and we're sending 6 to the Open/Production Nationals (that should skew the %). As far as Prize Tables I've seen success both ways. Area 1 we did cash payouts to Division winners along with a random prize table. Some people liked it, other people didn't like it. No matter how you do the prize table someone is not going to be happy. As to the idea of posting the amount of money the match will spend on prizes, this probably isn't a workable solution. Few matches other than Area 2 will know how much money they have. For Area 1 we figured X number of shooters as our break even point. When we got a much better number of entries than that we used the overage to purchase some additional prizes. (wasn't much, less than $8,000.00 out of a 105K table.) The sponsors donate a ton of product and money each year. I'm working on the Area 1 Multi Gun match for next year now. Been on it less than a week and we've already got 6 sponsors. If I had to pick a distribution method, the Nationals works pretty well. Rewards the top 16, and class winners and category winners, then back to order of finish. Not bad in my opinion. As far as those folks that think they work just as hard as GM's. You probably do work harder than some. There are plenty that work harder than me. But I'll bet very, very few work as hard as Rob Leatham and Dave Sevigny and Manny Bragg, and I'm sure there are more, those are just three I know the practice habits of. They are the best because they work at it.

I just received a S&W 686 for a kid who won it at the Steel Challenge from Keep it in The Ten Ring. He charged them 35 at the match for the transfer and then $55.00 for shipping to Oregon. $31.00 cheaper than what he charged Doug. But here's the kicker. UPS left it on my front porch for two days while I was out of town. Can't really get mad at UPS though. There was no adult signature required listed with the tracking number, and UPS had no way of knowing since they shipped it GROUND! Now I'm not going to begrudge them some profit but this is borderline criminal. I know Oregon has a statute, Theft by Deception. If they're claiming that they're only charging actual shipping and that it will be shipped a certain way, and then they lie about the price and the shipping method? Well I take that back, there's no borderline about it. They're just stealing.

Any word yet on whether this will be a qualifier match for the World Shoot Gold team?

I'm just using the .115 that came with the set. I used a .090 on my 2011 when I started but switched to about a .100. I don't see any problem with trying a narrower front sight but with the Glock the bottom of the sight is your base. The thinner it is the less stable. It's not like a 1911 sight that has it's own dovetail.

And speaking of that thread, who had Production first? I've talked to some IPSC guys who are adamant that Production is a creation of IPSC and some USPSA guys who says it's ours. There has to be an actual answer on this one, hopefully. I think this one may have been an attempt to eliminate some guys filling the empty area with lead or brass and capping it with an innocent looking plastic plug. As far as this being a needed "tactical" accessory, I would tend to disagree with that. The open area is there to allow you to strip out sticky mags, which happen from time to time. Especially in a dusty environment where the plugs are supposed to be used. I won't use one in my guns and I've never felt the need for one.

I'm sure USPSA is just doing their best to ignore Revolver like they did last year.

Actually I was planning to expand on that. Chris, while I appreciate input from pretty much anywhere...if you're not interested, read another thread. You've already made your participation in Production clear. That you're only in it for a year while your Open gun is being built. Many of us intend to shoot Production for a bit longer than the time it takes to get our gun built. I for one have a vested interest in seeing how Production will turn out. If you don't, why post to this thread?

The point I was trying to make is that for the new shooters looking at the top there is not one dominant gun. Going down to top 10 or 15 there were other choices in there including Sig and Springfield. I'm sure I'm probably missing a couple as well. Most of those guys aren't sponsored by anyone. Production really is a division that offers choices in your gun platform. There is not one dominant platform that is required to shoot at top level. This is great because other manufacturers are more likely to be willing to support the sport when their product is competetive. Other than those three shooters you mentioned (plus Dave with his Glock) there really aren't that many other shooters or designs. With Production there are half a dozen gun brands, heck, probably even more than that that could win a Production championship. I'm curious to see what happens at this years Nats as far as gun choices.

OK, first we'll clear up a couple errors. At the 2005 Production Nats, the guns didn't go to 5th or 6th. They went to 3rd. Trust me, I was 4th. However I remember the person who came in 18th in Limited walking away with a gun. Production was definitely the bastard stepchild at that match. As far as the dominance of one gun in Production...uhh which would that be? There are guns, Glocks, that are probably used by the majority of that Division but I certainly wouldn't say they dominate anymore. 05 Nats: 1st Place, Glock 34, 2nd Place CZ, 3rd Place CZ, 4th Place Glock 17, 5th place Beretta 96. Not exactly an dominating performance. When I started this poll I deliberately left some options out. Keeping it the same is one of them. Simply because that doesn't address the intent of the division. The BOD can't decide what it should be. The rules were written without a specific mission statement and that a big part of why some of the rulings are ambiguous. Yamil, you mention to Keep the Spirit of the Division. It's pretty obvious that there is no firm consensous on what the spirit is. Everyone has their own opinion but they don't all match. As far as the idea of DQ'ing folks for unsportsmanlike conduct if they have a part that's not allowed. Umm, didn't you get bumped to open for a grip plug? Were you deliberately trying to cheat? Of course not. You just didn't know. That's part of the problem that I have with the rules as they exist. They need to be changed so that they are easily understandable. But without a template of what the goals should be? I hope not. For those folks that seems to think that IPSC rules with limited modifications are easy to enforce. Take a look at the Global Village (except you Jim) Vince Pinto seems to spend most of his waking life telling people that mods aren't allowed. And the last IPSC match I went to people were still breaking those same rules. Probably after another week or so, I'll do another poll. One with more specific questions pertaining to the most voted on options here. This is just kind of general to get the parameters set. As far as the top shooters making a lot of changes to their guns. Most really don't. Of those top 5 at the Nationals last year. The only one that wasn't IPSC legal, factory parts etc. was 1st Place. And that was one spring and a pound of trigger pull away from it. Those top 5 run with guns that are basically stock. Of the changes the CZ's had the most, but they're all legal under almost any rule set that we would use.

Here's the deal. USPSA is going to make changes to Production. I can almost guarantee that the Production Division rules that appear in the USPSA rule book come next year will be different. They may be a little different, they may be a lot different. If we can figure something out that might be workable great, it might help the BOD. Like I said though. I'm not looking for a specific list of modifications. That, once again, is putting the cart before the horse. Deciding what mods to allow with out deciding intent would be like determining speed limits for roads without looking at the road. There needs to be some context. For example, if the majority of USPSA shooters want Production to be box stock, well the approved modification list is going to be real short. If the majority says DA Limited it's going to be extensive.

I think the first step we need to take in fixing Production (if it needs fixing) is to identify just what the division should be. There has been talk in a lot of other threads about the "Spirit" of the division. The BOD is not even able to come to a consensus about what the division should be. Before we start trying to change it, lets figure out what we want to change it to. If you've got another idea that I didn't list, feel free to pick other and lay it out for us. Not looking for a specific list of approved/disapproved modifications. Just what shooters want the Division to represent.

Great, someone has figured out what the "Spirit" of Production is. Because the last issue of Front Sight that I got seemed to indicate that the BOD hasn't even figured that one out. I do find it ever so amusing that you keep throwing the external modification rule out there as justification that Bo-Mars are inherently evil. Even though there is a ruling from Amidon saying expressly that they are allowed. The same type of ruling that you use to support the argument that guide rods are okay. No problem with the guide rod, there is an official ruling that allows it. But guess what, the same is true on the sights. If you don't want them to be legal in the future, cool. But they are legal right now.

I would say no on the grip enhancements in Production. Looks like it's a great texture though. I might send him one to do as a carry gun.