Chuck Anderson

Well Area 1 is over. I'd just like to say thank you to the Match Director's, CRO's and everyone that worked the match, even Floyd. This was one of the best run Area matches that I've been to. The courses were well designed. They were deceptively simple. I know that I had more penalties at this match than I have in a long time. For those that haven't been to Missoula, the range is absolutely beautiful. Set right against a big old mountain. The weather was perfect for our squads, we shot in the morning on Thurs and Friday. The match ran great. And thanks to Alma for letting me fondle his Glock. That Vanek trigger is great.

What is the process for clearing that officer upon arriving at the range? I've been to many ranges where all the bays are in use for the match, or as safety areas. Obviously unloading at the safety area or vehicle is a horrible idea. I'm not driving to the range, on duty or otherwise without a loaded gun. What's the best process to deal with this?

And for anyone that was taught to do a reload by Travis Thomasie, with the muzzle up. Don't. From everyone that I've talked to if the muzzle goes over the berm, you're out.

15 rounds might not be a factor for Glock but that is the exception. .40 in just about every other gun, CZ, Sig, Beretta, Smith & Wesson, will not have a 15 round capacity. And where do you draw the limit? 11 rds? 12? Just about every full size gun, and most compacts, can get 10 in of 40. As far as course design most that I've seen use 8 to 9 round arrays. The only thing having 15 in allows you to do is miss more. I like Production being more of an accuracy division. Less room for error. I know my steel shooting has gotten a lot better since switching (except for that no shoot at Area 1 that was hiding behind the steel, he might beg to differ)

I would be heartily against a trigger weight limit. I'm shooting a Glock with a stock 5 pound + trigger. But if you put a weight limit like IPSC does, you tend to bias towards DA first shot guns, i.e. CZ. The first shot is 6-7 lbs and the rest are 2 lbs. If you shoot a striker fired gun your stuck with 5 pounds for every shot. USPSA got this right. As far as the 10 rd mag? Like Alma said, it's kinda fun to go through a stage and do two more reloads than limited and still win the stage. I don't think there is a real good reason to change this rule. The 10 round limit allows more guns, and more calibers to compete on an even playing field.

What if you are pre squadded and are riding, sharing golf cart ect. with others and would rather/need to be off that pre squadded squad ? You can try to do what I did. My shooting partner is signed up in the squad next to me. Not perfect but at least it's close. I think 20 would work for you guys.

Or the massive piles and shelves in the garage.

Production in USPSA/IPSC was not designed around carry guns. It was designed to allow shooters to get involved with less investment. And to allow a place to shoot DA first shot guns, "competetively". I use the quotes because there are shooters who can shoot the DA guns, pretty darn well, like David Sevigny. Don't worry too much about what other shooters are using. The guy who is the World Champ in production is running a gun with maybe $100.00 in work. And almost all of that is in the sights. The only thing I did to my Glock 17 is put a set of Warren sights on and Eric Wesselman's TruGrip (that stuff is the S##t). I run into this attitude a lot when I'm trying to get cops on the range. They "say" they don't want to go out and shoot because it's not tactical or the equipment isn't what they shoot. USPSA can be as tactical as you want to make it. Shoot from concealment if you want, shoot a 5 shot S&W snub. There is nothing in the rules against it. The only thing that stops people from doing it is they're competetive drive. Personallly I shoot USPSA for trigger time. No, it's not tactical training. No, I have not had the urge to suddenly jump out from cover and engage an array of 4 bad guys with two shots each. And Brian, yes I had fun at the ABC Match (where are the results?), and no I didn't stick around to shoot against KC. After getting my butt kicked by a tiny Philipino boy all day I didn't feel like paying extra to get it kicked some more. Great kid to shoot with though.

Eirk's just upset because he can't keep a set of sights on his gun. Erik, so you know, when most people put sights on their gun, they stay on for a long time. This allows them to add things like paint to them. As the sights get old maybe they need a little pick me up. This is unlike your sights which rarely last long enough to lose that "new sight" smell.

That is some very cool fine print.

Shoot whatever you want. I started in IPSC with a Glock 22. Worked my way up to a 35 and then made, "the big move" to an SV platform limited gun. I shot the Limited gun well and enjoyed it but my classification never seemed to go up. After playing with Open and going back to limited I realized that I really hadn't improved in 5 years. Too much switching back and forth between duty/carry gun and play gun. Switched back to my Glock 17 this year and I'm shooting better than ever. Keep shooting what you're comfortable with.

There was an article in Front Sight not long ago about local clubs not enforcing ALL of USPSA's rules. The long and short of it was that if clubs are running matches advertised as being USPSA they need to use the rules. There are a couple matches in the area that I no longer shoot because, bottom line, I don't feel safe. One is a practical rifle match where a shooter pointed his rifle downrange with people setting targets. After a little chat with the RM after I tried to DQ him he was given a stage DQ and allowed to continue with the match. I haven't been back since. If we allow RO's to compromise safety then we need to find a new sport because sooner or later USPSA will go away. What happens when on the next stage, or the next match the same shooter launches an AD and it causes an injury. Sounds like a pretty good lawsuit against anyone who allowed this unsafe shooter to continue. What about the people who came to the match, maybe one of their first, maybe they've been to several, who saw this and thought, "maybe I'll just find a way to spend my weekend where I don't get guns pointed at me." Speaking as someone who has had guns pointed at him, I don't like it. So what to do about the situation with the RO. Talk to the RO. It's not too late even now. In fact it might have an even greater effect. Let the RO know the reasons that everyone gave for DQing that shooter. And let him know that you still have concerns because of it. I think if you explain it from this point of view I think he might get it. If not explain it to the MD and RM. Let them know that you can't keep coming to their matches if the RO's won't follow the rules. I can't imagine the shooter would have a problem with being DQ'ed. It's not like it was a minor infraction. I think if you tell him, sorry you pulled a gun out with a shooter downrange, you gotta go, he's going to understand. And frankly, if he doesn't get it, he's not going to figure it out. That is not the kind of shooter we need coming back to our matches.

Carina's answer would be my first guess. Replace the mag catch and try again. This is not an uncommon problem. It may also be that the notches on the magazines are wearing at uneven rates. Is the mag catch that he put in the gun metal? If it is, get it the heck out. Metal mag catches destroy Glock mags. Next best guess would be recoil spring/rates. Try switching out to a new stock Glock recoil spring assembly. Glock springs work pretty well but there's no way to really tell if your aftermarket spring is just shot out. I've had some last 30k and some last less than 1k. If the recoil spring isn't doing something to slow the slide down a bit, i.e. too weak, than the slide could be coming forward before the round has a chance to pop all the way up. The 10 rounders may be a bit different because they don't have as much weight to hoist and may be popping up more quickly. Have you tried the hi-caps with partial ammo loads? Say 3-4 rounds in the mag and see if it functions. And put the slide stop lever back in the gun. It's not going to affect your problem. Try putting empty mags in the gun. Rack the slide. If it's not catching and holding open, there may be something else wrong as well.

Anybody know if the classifier at this match was going to be submitted to USPSA? I had a good run on it and was hoping to see it used.

But the most important date is when can the applications be postmarked. My guess is your mailman is going to be real mad at you when he tries to stuff 250 applications in your mailbox the day after.

They don't appear to be.

For those of you that haven't shot the MGM Ironman match, it's a bit of a different vibe than IPSC. The first one that I shot was in 2002. First shooter of the first day. It was a combination Rifle/Shotgun/Pistol stage. About halfway through his run the RO looks down at the shooter and then looks at the peanut gallery. He yells back to us, "anybody know where his pistol is?" I ran over to the shooters bag, dug his gun out and had it waiting for him when he grounded the shotgun. That was the same year that I broke the firing pin on my 1100 mid course. The RO looks at me and asks if I have another shotgun. My buddy ran to the truck, got the spare and brought it up on the clock. Last year we had a guy that got midway into a multi gun course and grabbed up his custom, fancy JP 11-87. Couldn't get it to shoot. Apparently TSA has figured out that you don't need a key to lock the little trigger safety's on Remington's. His was locked up tight. The RO was "nice" enough to let him run back to his truck grab the key and finish the course. Like I said, it's a different match.

I've got one of the safeties pictured above. Not impressed. It's shinier but still not high quality. A couple local guys bought them and broke either the shield off or broke the right side lever where it meets the left side.

You should be able to drop down to a 12 or 13 lb spring pretty easily. There is not a slide racker that I'm aware of w/o removing the rear sight. However, there is plent of metal there if someone wanted to mill another sight cut in front of the rear sight for one. Cheap solution is to put skateboard tape on the rear of the slide to help with the grip.

Duane, you are right about the x200 series. However, SureFire has many weapon mounted lights that are not LED based. LED has some advantages and disadvantages. Disadvantages would be that you can't use it with an IR filter (I know, you're all disappointed) and that the focusing of the beam becomes a lot more difficult than with the filament bulb. SureFire has two solutions for this. One is to use a pretty standard looking reflector. This if bright but the beam is not very focused. An example would be the L4. The other is the lens used on the X200 which is a focusing lens. It projects a very tight spot. This is designed to be able to identify a target at 30 yards. Advantages are the are rock solid, won't break and run time is a little longer. All the remaining SureFire Weaponlights use shock isolated bulbs. These work great as well, they are just bulkier. I've used a SureFire forend on my 870 for years and never had a bulb break. Now for the remaining part of your question, run screaming from other lights. I'm a firearms instructor for an agency with around 350 sworn members. I cannot count the number of M-3 and M-6 lights from Streamlight that I've seen break. So far, every time that I've had a night qual with one or more M-3's on the line at least one breaks. Most common problems are the switch mechanism, contacts breaking and bulb breaking. With the X200's I've also seen a few break. They were all at the same spot, the rear contacts broke. SureFire redesigned the contacts and these were older models. The newer ones seem to run like champs. I've got one on my Glock 40, which, in my opinion, is one of the hardest guns on weapon lights. I've got around 5000 rounds downrange with the light on and no problems.

I don't think that shooting six matches in two years is really that much to expect. I'm not really fond of the division between odd and even area matches. But, if you want a slot on the team it's pretty clear which matches to shoot.

That's my understanding.

You've got it pretty close. It's different for the divisions. Some were Odd 2003/Even 2004 and the others were Even 2003/Odd 2004 for area matches, then the Nationals both years.

First things first. The information from the American Handgunner article is most likely directly from the new SureFire catalog. The information directly from SureFire is that they include a protection circuit in their batteries and overseas batteries may not. Some of SureFire's high performance bulb assemblies drain power very quickly, i.e. 9P with a P91 bulb assembly will drain in 20 minutes. Clay the first question I would ask is what do you want the light for? How do you plan to carry it? The answer will be different for belt mount or pocket carry. I would stay clear of the M-2/M-3 lights. I think their main reason for being is parts interchangability with the Weaponlight series in a military setting. For belt carry the Z2, 6P, 9P or C2-C3 work great. For pocket carry the E2E, E2D, L4 Lumamax or C-2(at the biggest) work great. I carry an L4 on duty as a backup everyday and a E2E off duty all the time. The only time I ever carry my E2D is when flying. The crenelated bezel always ends up poking me. In response to the concerns about the Nitrolon strength, don't worry about it. The Nitrolon is a very strong material. Even as a contact weapon, you're not going to break it. The lights are too short to get enough leverage to snap them. The only two concerns I have with the G2 are the lack of a lock out tailcap and the lexan lens. SureFire lamps are bright enough to melt the lens on the G2 with any kind of extended runtime. The G-2Z does not have these problems. It has a lock-out and pyrex lens. Clay1 send me a PM if you want and I'll send you some pricing info on the lights. I'll cut you a deal as a forum member, I just can't put any pricing information on the Internet below retail. Dealer contract and all.

And the best part is now there is a complete gun that I don't have to buy, throw out the AET bbl and then have a Bar-Sto fit.