Chuck Anderson

As far as the merging of USPSA and the "outlaw" matches. I think this would be a bad idea. They both represent a different group of people. The folks that shoot USPSA tend to like more structure. The outlaw matches tend to be a little more free with the rules. While this can be good and promote rapid growth and change, it does come with consequences. My biggest issues with outlaw matches come in the area of safety. While we'd all like to say that the matches we shoot are safe, I've seen more major safety violations at outlaw matches than at USPSA matches. And I shoot a lot more USPSA matches than outlaw matches. The other thing that I've seen is more inconsistencies in the outlaw matches. As an example, a shooter at the 04 MGM Ironman was climbing the tower. This year they had a rope attached to you. The RO had attached it so that it was looped incorrectly around a support wire. The shooter spent a long time trying to get to the platform. The RO was not interested in giving the shooter a reshoot. Also at some local matches the rules consistency is abysmal. I had a shooter LAMR with people downrange resetting steel. The MD reisntated him with a "stage DQ". This was the second time he pulled out his gun before being told too. I took a year off from shooting that match because I just don't feel safe. Whether you like USPSA or not they do a good job of safety.

Not true... The new Blackhawk holster is released my using your trigger finger to depress and thus disengage the retention. In classes (thankfully using air-soft) where close engagements (force on force) were being taught/practiced, several students (under stress) pulled trigger on their Glocks while drawing the pistol. Again, there were not first time shooters and some were even LEO's. The common denominator was they were not used to the new holster. To start with, these must be some poorly trained LEO's. The Blackhawk CQC lines the trigger finger up along the frame, not the trigger on the draw. If they're ND'ing with this holster they need a lot more training. As far as hot holstering, stay the heck away. LEO training and most tactical training stress reholstering slowly. The emphasis is on not putting the gun away too fast. There are very few times when we reholster under any kind of speed emphasis. I have personally seen people ND while trying to reholster under stress. In both cases it resulted, fortunately, in ruined pants only and no damage to flesh. However, I'm personally aware of one in a neighboring jurisdiction that nearly resulted in death from a nearly severed femoral artery.

Give it a couple weeks. They just finished the 3Gun Nats. I know it would be nice to have the dates by the end of that match, but it just ain't gonna happen. The clubs need to be picked, then dates, etc. I'm sure as soon as decisions are made everyone will know.

BDH, the only thing that I think should have been changed was putting the SG box inside the house. I just really don't like opening the door and going through with that long old SG. Saw a couple hit the muzzle going through and "nearly" DQ.

I think this was far and away the best USPSA 3-Gun match run yet. The stages were well designed and the rules were, in general, followed well. I did see a couple things that could use improvement. The boxes for leaving or picking up hot guns could use some work. The layout of the pistol box on Stage 6 allowed for the muzzle to point backwards uprange. It should have been a very simple thing to angle the box a little. The other change I would have liked to have seen was doing away with the door opening with long guns. I saw more than one Open shotgunner break the vertical 180 going through the doorway on stage 6. There was no reason that the SG box could not have been placed inside the building to alleviate this. As far as rules, they seemed to work very well. The only confusion seemed to be on the part of one RO regarding sight pictures. The other was about what exactly constituted a break of the clay pigeons. Originally the ruling was that a single bb hit would not count as hit on the bird. I have to give the RM credit. Instead of taking a, "tough, my range, my rules" attitude. He made some calls and said that he was wrong. Yes, SMM3G gets a bigger draw. I wouldn't neccesarrily say that is because of the rules though. I think it has a lot to do with the range, staff, stages, prize table and just plain excellent match production that Rio Salado does. This is the same reason that Area 2 (a USPSA match) fills up in about the same time.

The decision on the location has not been finalized yet. We're still meeting with the board at Tri-County to see if they are willing to host the match there. As soon as anything is final I will make sure that it is posted to this forum as well as let USPSA know to change the website.

+1 for the Carbon/Hard Chrome option. I have an open gun from SV with a stainless frame/slide. Gun started life pretty tight. Now its the loosest gun I have after about 6K rounds.

I actually had the reverse experience at Mid South when I took a course there in 1999. Absolute worst class I've attended, very little training and mostly just shooting on your own. I would not go back to Mid-South with Ross still there. However, I've heard that they have a new instructor there and he might be worth a try. Great facility. Just wish John was still teaching. He sounds like a good instructor.

GSSF hasn't even posted the awards from the Shelton, WA match. I'm not sure what is taking them so long this time. Normally it is much quicker. I had the guns from the Roseburg, OR match about 3 months after the match. The prizes were up only a few weeks after the match though. Hang tight. They'll get them up eventually.

The choice between 40 and 9 can be very simple. If you reload, consider the 40. I wouldn't buy it but you can at least consider it. The majority of the top USPSA Production shooters, with the exception of Dave Olhasso still shoot 9mm in Production. 9mm is easy to buy factory, cheap. With 40 cal. you either have to reload or shoot the much more powerful ammo with no benefit. Everything in Production is scored minor so I'd rather shoot the soft stuff.

Tentatively it will be Fri-Sun Jun 16-18. The match director is just waiting for the final OK from the club before changing the dates on the USPSA site. Hopefully it should be firmed up in the next week or two.

Are you looking to shoot IPSC (internationally) or USPSA (in the US)? There are different rules for each.

Normally everybody shoots, i think, 2 stages on Sunday as well.

Nothing to this issue as in...what. Are they dropping the power factor, not chronoing slugs? What.

Well I just got done chronoing my loads and looks like I'll be buying some new slugs. Ran them out of my Remington 11-87 with 22" bbl. Remington Red Recoil Slugs were very close to factory specs, 1167-1189 fps. Still don't make it. The Winchester Red. Recoil slugs were even worse in the 1130 FPS range. The Federal Barnes Sabot Slugs and Winchester Std Slugs I don't think I got good results on but they are definitely over. The Barnes with a 5/8 oz slug were reading between 1500-2000 fps. The Winchester were in the 2000-2220 fps range. The Spreaders I tried next topped out at 2700 fps. I'm fairly certain my chrono is not giving good results since the birdshot is coming out at double the spec'd velocity. Should be very interesting to see how the chrono's hold up down there.

If it's 100 yds or less it might not be worth taking the time to go prone, depending on how you are standing.

Anybody have an idea what squadding is going to look like? Are they using online squadding or is Kimberly doing it. What is the shooting schedule. I've got number of stages per day and what days but are we shooting all day/half day? Every other stage? Be nice to know so I plan the evenings out, you know get trashed Friday or Saturday night.

So? Not shooting power factor is cheating. Just because someone has gotten away with it doesn't make it right.

This is the specification for calibration. So it would be like specifying a 9mm for a pistol calibration. I'm not entirely sure what the problem is. There are power factor rules that have been in the rulebook since at least 2004, and I would bet longer. If the match wants to chrono to make sure that people are following the rules, let them. If you're not following the rules, why should you get a freebie shooting light loads. Looking at the rules it says that a level III requires chronograph testing. Carl is following the rulebook. If you're not making power you don't play. People who go to a pistol nationals with 120 power factor pistol ammo should know that they going to be playing for fun. I think that villifying Carl for enforcing the rules is certainly not the way to handle this. I would like to see the power floor dropped to 480. Hopefully a meaningful dialogue will help this. Insults I doubt will.

I'm not sure that the fact that you've been knowingly shooting minor shotgun and declaring major is a real good arguing point. It seems to me like this is the perfect reason for them to test SG ammo. I've never chrono'd mine. I think it will make major. But knowing that your ammo is below the floor and still calling it Major?

The problem I see with Chronoing the shotgun is which load to you chose. At the Area 1 3-Gun I shot everything from 3 3/4 dram #4's, Rem Red. Recoil slugs, 3 1/4 dram 4, 7 1/2, 8, and a 1/2 dozen spreaders. Which SG ammo are you going to chrono? I think it's a bit different in that load choice is dependant upon stage.

Either bbl should be fine for USPSA Production. If you shoot outside the US neither will work. The bbl that requires fitting should be installed by a gunsmith. The drop in's will work normally without fitting.

Lasers work OK inside of buildings or where it is very dark. If this will be kept as a home defense gun, not a bad idea. If it's going out on the street, I would say no. I personally don't like the Crimson Trace unit. They are well built here in my home town, but... I place my finger high on the outside of the trigger guard, up along the division between the slide and frame when I'm not pulling the trigger. This blocks the Crimson Trace unit for me.

It looks too narrow to use with extended basepads and regular ones would be too hard to get out of the gun if they hung up. I really like this guys percentages. Increases reload speed by 50%. Well lets see, I'm around 1.25 now with my production gun. This will get me to .75 easy, yeah right.

I always have a spare. There are several things that can go wrong that either a. just can't be fixed there, or b. can't be fixed quickly enough. While some of the big name shooters may consider their match a total loss with just one stage, I'll fight for every point I can get. As far as keeping one gun for practice and one for match, use caution with this strategy. Bob Londigran had a very good point in a Front Sight article a while back. If you use your match gun, only for matches and it develops a problem, guess where that problem will appear. You're better off rotating them if they really are identical, or just always shooting your main gun. The same goes for magazines.