Chuck Anderson

So no offense intended, but I get that it's a hard match. I don't think anyone is suggesting, even a little bit, that we make the match easier. (Although I think the AP-1 targets did a pretty good job of that) So knowing that it's a difficult match and that it's not for everyone, how do we, or NRA sell the match. Not just the Cup, but AP at all levels. This is something we struggle with in USPSA. We have the Nationals and our rules and support must reflect the level of that match. We also have a lot of smaller matches, from Area matches to club matches. The rules have to work equally well for club matches and Nationals. We draw most of our support for Nationals from these club to Area matches. Of the 20,000 USPSA members out there the vast majority will never shoot a National Championship. It seems a little different for NRA AP. There seem to be a fair number of people that shoot the Bianchi Cup that never shoot a club match. There also don't seem to be a lot (there are some, but certainly not thousands) that shoot locally but not at the Cup. As it stands now, NRA has pretty much maxed out the current capability for the Bianchi Cup. I know they were close last year (at least they said they were) to not allowing multi gun entries. We are pretty close to reaching the capacity for Bianchi unless changes are made. While I think it would be great if the NRA went back to this being an invitational for the best of the best and it was a true world class championship I'm not sure that would be best for the sport. It certainly wouldn't be the best for me since I wasn't invited this year at all. It seems that the Cup thrives based in large part on the massive prize table/cash awards put forth. For the number of shooters involved I've never seen more loot at any event. Seems like a fair number of folks come out for that. NRA also does a great job with the festivities surrounding the match. BBQ, Dinners, Social gatherings etc. Rarely seen at other practical shooting events. Very well done. What would help local matches get off the ground and act as feeders? NRA Grants for target systems, plate racks and Movers? Bianchi Barricades? A dedicated website/forum to NRA AP? I know I had a tough time finding info on the NRA site because they have so much going on. Additional courses of fire to aleviate the boredom? I know there are a few additional courses. I've never set them up because it doesn't bore me but I heard that. I think the divisions now are well laid out. A Production gun will normally work for Production, a Limited gun will normally work for Metallic and although a USPSA Open gun won't be ideal it will work OK for everything but the barricade. Would a "Level 1" or whatever exemption for equipment rules help? I've had some Production shooters show up with sub 3.5 pound triggers, we just put them in Metallic. But under 2lbs or a pinned grip safety and they are out. Does anyone allow folks to shoot for no score? Or at least no score submitted to the NRA? I haven't pushed NRA AP locally because my travel schedule didn't allow me to really put on matches consistently month to month. I will be home this year and I'd like to get it up and running.

Really? If a match that you otherwise enjoyed decided to add a rifle mag limit of thirty rounds that would be enough to keep you away? I can understand being against a rule about rifle mags, but can't see skipping a match over it. So it adds a few more mag changes, hardly noticable, much less worth missing the match over, I'd think. The change at Rocky Mountain to prohibit Monopodding off dual mags was enough to keep me away. And I thought that was an awesome match. Just wasn't worth it to go shoot Tactical. Do what I've practiced and get bumped to Open for it.

I guess I'm a bit wired wrong in the head. I always thought hard was a good thing. The way I put AP forth to shooters is as a benefit to the other shooting sports. I use AP as a way to work on my accuracy for USPSA/Multigun. As an example of this you can look at the FB3G match this year. They stuck a plate rack at 35 yards (ish?). Tony Holmes and I smoked it. Many other shooters had...issues. Learning how to squeeze accuracy out of your gun and yourself will always be a good thing. I like shooting the same courses every month. Same as when I shoot GSSF or Steel Challenge. The nice thing (at least for me) is the ability to compare apples to apples. I can look at my performance from Jan-Feb-Mar and see the improvement each month. Especially for me starting out. It's cool to gain 100 points in a month. For the matches I run we only shoot the Falling Plates, Practical and Barricade. I was able to rebuild 4 of our really old Bianchi Barridaces relatively inexpensively. The USPSA group already had a plate rack I talked them into a couple years back for GSSF and the Practical doesn't require anything other than distance. We just set up all three stages in the same bay, side by side. Shoot the plates, then barricade, then pracitcal (or whatever order). Minimizes our footprint at the club. And since we're only getting 1-6 shooters per match it's not that big of a delay. We run 3 at a time on the Practical. Don't get a mover to start. It's not that big of a deal. That was one of my concerns starting out was how difficult it would be to put a mover out there. I actually got plans for one off this forum if I really wanted to, but haven't needed to. If your guys are concerned about the mover and going to Bianchi, tell them not to worry. I actually talked to Bruce Piatt a couple years ago about which mover he uses to practice on at home. He doesn't have one. He practices in Columbia the couple days before the Cup. I just don't see it as that difficult to learn in a fairly short time frame. And thats only if you're really set on going to the Cup. As far as trying to force the NRA to use the rules for Production from other sports. It has nothing to do (at least with me) with trying to get commonality between the sports. It has everything to do with watching the NRA make the same mistakes that USPSA/IPSC did when forming a new division. Wording in the rules that isn't clear about sights or barrels. We've already gone through that. I'm not telling/asking them to use USPSA rules. But I've been down the exact same road they are driving now. If they want Production different than USPSA fine, that's cool. But when they have to issue a ruling before every Cup clarifying something, whether its aftermarket barrels, or sights, or whatever this will be that's not good. When that ruling is in direct conflict with the actual rule that's really not good. From what I've seen the NRA does a pretty good job on Facebook. Their website seems a bit rough. As mentioned previously in the other thread I think the NRA could do a better job titling their threads on this forum, an easy fix. Does anyone else have difficulty viewing the threads and finding specific info? Is it just me and I should shut up?

So the last topic that was closed got me thinking. How can we help the NRA market AP better? I talked to Flex and he agreed to let me open this thread. It will remain open as long as we have constructive suggestions on how to better AP. As soon as it devolves into a bitch session about the NRA or anyone in particular it's gone. What I'd like to do is keep it going for a month or two and then get one of the members here who will be...uh, better received than me, to forward the suggestions to the NRA. What I'm thinking is specific items on how to better utilize social media and forum sites, like the ideas that were suggested on thread topics, to just about anything anyone can think of to promote the sport. Thoughts?

Maybe, just maybe, your attitude was such your AD didn't feel like replying. I know if I was your AD, if you talked/wrote to me, the way you do on this site, you wouldn't get a response either. I know for a fact your AD is well aware of the concerns regarding the trigger pull voiced on this forum. I've already talked personally with her on this issue. Whatever decision she makes it won't be for lack of member input. As far as the email links on the USPSA site. They work just fine. Most of the AD's (all I think) have them forwarded to whatever regular email address they have. I know mine just forwards to my personal email account anyway. I know you have absolutely no faith in the USPSA BOD but it will have a resolution in a couple days. Or you can continue to post. Your call. http://www.brianenos.com/forums/index.php?showtopic=141513&view=findpost&p=1590540 Pot calling the kettle black, don't you think, Chuck? No, I don't. To be honest, I have no idea what you're talking about. Someone clearly was trolling for a reaction, called a clearly safe action (one which you agreed with as safe a couple posts later) and was told if they are frightened by accepted safety practices in USPSA to find another sport. What does that have to do with you consistently trashing the USPSA BOD? If WTG doesn't want to reply to me because of my attitude I'm fine with that and would certainly understand it. There is nothing in the USPSA Area Director Contract that says we are required to respond to anyone. Particularly if it's an abusive or other uncourteous email. We don't get paid enough, hell we don't get paid anything, to put up with it. If you don't like it, don't vote for that representative the next time around. Personally I think she's doing a great job.

I used the clip that Safariland uses on some of the ALS holsters. Can't remember if it's the 7, 8 or 9 last digit. Seemed to work for me. I used it in Single Stack last year.

Maybe, just maybe, your attitude was such your AD didn't feel like replying. I know if I was your AD, if you talked/wrote to me, the way you do on this site, you wouldn't get a response either. I know for a fact your AD is well aware of the concerns regarding the trigger pull voiced on this forum. I've already talked personally with her on this issue. Whatever decision she makes it won't be for lack of member input. As far as the email links on the USPSA site. They work just fine. Most of the AD's (all I think) have them forwarded to whatever regular email address they have. I know mine just forwards to my personal email account anyway. I know you have absolutely no faith in the USPSA BOD but it will have a resolution in a couple days. Or you can continue to post. Your call.

1. Actually practice, at least 4 times, this year. 2. Top 10 Production Nats 3. Top 16 L10 Nats 4. Figure out stupid reloading presses so I can start reloading again. 5. Find floor in shop and see how many guns I can build out of parts laying around in my garage. 6. Use the heck out of my magnet in Production while I still can. (Sorry Grump, had to poke the bear)

Try writing again. Better yet, just wait two more days. The online BOD meeting ends on the 17th.

Where do you get one? Thanks Chances are your gun already has one. Look at the carrier. If there is a U shaped cut in it it's current. Remington has been using that feature for decades so unless you have a really old gun you should be okay. If your carrier is uncut call Brownells and order the Flex Tab conversion kit for It.

Another thing to think about. 1x optics, at least from the perspective of USPSA had less to do with participation at major matches than the local level. Yeah it's nice to have enough people to recognize the division at the Nationals. But my goal in putting it in was to add shooters at the local level. Those couple guys who went out and bought ARs and added EoTechs or red dots. Let them come in with something competitive and then get hooked.

For which 30? MagPul which actually holds 31, what about Arredondo bases, or MagPul ranger pulls. Or coupled mags. If you build the box big enough for any of those features it's big enough to slip a higher capacity mag into.

Just wanted everyone to know we put the final details on the Area 1 Raffle gun. Through some very, very generous donations from our sponsors we have the ultimate Open prize package we'll be raffling off to one lucky Area 1 Championship shooter. Our sponsors for this package are, Cameron's Custom Guns, Schuemann Barrel, Brownells, Safariland, STI, Springer Precision, and DC Ammo. This is a turnkey Open Division Package. Everything you need to head to the range and shoot. Cameron Custom Open gun, finished in Ion Bond by Springer Precision 2-140 mm magazines 1-170 mm magazine Safariland Belt, mag pouches, holster and 500 rounds of 9mm Major ammunition courtesy of DC Ammo. Now the gun is still being built so I don't have all the specifics. I know it will have a Schuemann Barrel and Comp, Cameron Magwell and Sideways C-More mount, STI 2011 Slide and Frame and a host of other top quality components from Brownells. This package will be raffled off to one lucky winner at the end of the Area 1 Championship this year. We will only be selling raffle tickets at the match. If you want a ticket, you have to be there. All the proceeds, every penny, will be donated to the MGM Junior Camp.

I must have missed something. I thought I was very cordial in my post. It was a simple offer of advice on how the NRA could more effectively communicate information on this forum. I know I spend a lot of time reading this on my Iphone. It's difficult when the subheadings don't show up to know what's new and what isn't. Seems like a relatively simple request to make. I honestly don't know what the offense was. I'm not sure what, if anything Mpolans second post was, it was edited before I saw it. I guess if he was calling the NRA naughty names I can see them taking offense. I don't think he was out of line, (although the tone may not have been conveyed well) to ask that the NRA folks follow the same posting guidlines as in every other forum on this site. It wasn't even a requirement, it was a simple request. I've got a meeting with my gun club BOD next month because they want to eliminate the NRA AP program I've been trying to get off the ground for two years. I sent the NRA a PM, then an Email to the address they requested. No response. Really makes me not want to waste my time going to the meeting next month and just let them ban one of the few West Coast AP programs.

Wow, just wow. I've got nothing else to say.

Here's my take FWIW. The Area matches should be for the Area members. Not exclusivley, but if you live in the area you should have reasonable opportunity to get into your Area match. We've opened registration and guaranteed entry to Area members until a certain cutoff date, normally 4-5 months before the match. After that you're on your own. We've never had an issue before with overselling A1 so it really wasn't much of an issue. We've been doing A1 this way since around 2003 when I helped out with my first match. Basically we gave several months for the A1 members who wanted to go to send in their registration. After that we started accepting A2, A3 etc. members. While I think area members should be able to get in I also see the benefit of having shooters from outside the area in as well. It increases the level of competition and gets that big match feel.

You can sign up on Match day.

I don't think that is what he was asking for at all from the Mods. Not for them to stop you from posting, but to fix the thread titles for what you do post. I know I've tried to contact you at least three times with this specific request. Twice via PM and then following the last message about how you don't follow this forum, I sent an email to the address you listed. Never heard back, but like all my other emails I send to NRA I didn't expect or need a reply, just wanted you to have the info. I think what the poster is getting at, in case none of the other messages got through is when you title everything, 2012 or 2011 in this case Midway USA/NRA Bianchi Cup, and then in the line below that write what your are getting at (Shooting USA in this case) those of us reading on mobile devices like Iphones, can't see the second half so we open up each thread not realizing it's the same stuff we already read. It also makes it very difficult to locate information you have already posted. I would suggest, and you can take it or leave it. Post your title threads in reverse, Shooting USA as the main title and then below the competition and year. At least on this board you are posting in the subforum for the NRA Bianchi Cup. We'll figure out it's for Bianchi just by it being here and from you. Personally I was happy to watch the rerun of Shooting USA.

Relatively simple? Clearly you've never modded a forum of this caliber...... :D One of the reasons this forum is as civil as it is, is the restriction on content. I won't speak for the team -- until we've discussed it, but my gut tells me that such a change is a long shot. (And Brian would almost certainly ask for input from the mod team....) As much as I would love to have a functioning USPSA forum, the existing one was active for a few moments, but IIRC, that surrounded the release of a rulebook, and possibly an election. That may have been 2007, or around the time I ran for A8..... I said it would be easy to open the forum, I didn't say anything about moderating it. I was just talking from the perspective of adding the forum, not dealing with it later. How about this, open the forum, allow members to post questions, the candidates reply and lock the thread. Seems like it would allow for some dialogue but the back and forth would be cut down. If a candidate didn't like the tone/presentation/nature of the question, they just don't answer. And make it very, very clear that forum is the only one to speak of such icky things. That's the way the rules forum is handled. It's a bit different than the rest of the forum. I'm not saying Brian has to do this, it his, and the mods call. I'm just answering Jim and Mark's question the best way I can for how to interact with candidates. I'm not the most computer literate guy. I, unlike Phil, don't know how to make a website on my own. I've got Facebook, but rarely use it. I'm not really worried about the election from my perspective (I think I'm running unopposed, but so did Alan a year or two ago). I was hoping for a way to get more info out about the candidates and hope people would vote more. Gary's experience above is what I have seen and talked about with a lot of non-voters. Many believe they just don't know enough to vote so they don't, or they just vote for the incumbent. I would much rather people know who is on the BOD and be comfortable enough with them to not only vote for who they want but comfortable enough to contact them with questions, advice, suggestions, whatever.

But we do limit magazine length or capacity in every pistol division, which ensures every division will have to reload on the clock at least sometime. So if you want to engage all the targets, pistol shooters are required (for all practical purposes) to reload. Arguing the contrary is just a semantical game. We who? USPSA? IMGA? They highest standard round count in USPSA for pistol is 32. There are 31+1 round Open mags, no loads there. Most stages, except where you shoot tend to be less than 32 rounds. Yes USPSA and some IMGA matches have mag length limits on the pistol(not all by the way). However that limits length, not capacity. You have an option to shoot a smaller caliber to obtain a higher capacity. Sure you can limit length in rifle mags, but you'll still find someone who will stuff more rounds in somehow. I guarantee you if you limit it to the length of a thirty it will take someone all of twenty minutes to cut down their Surefire to that length. Sure you can eliminate quad stacks, triple stacks etc you'll still have people game it. Why? Simply to require a reload? Why do you want to screw with the single most popular division in three gun? Here's another idea, you want to practice loadIng the rifle? Start with the rifle unloaded. There you go. Grab it and load it. You're not going to force anyone to sell their $500 in magazines they already bought. There are a lot of different reasons why this is a bad idea. It's easy to try and focus on one and disagree with it. I still haven't heard a decent argument in favor of changing the equipment rules other than why not?

I wouldn't be sure the Gary vote had to do with a minority of USPSA members here. I still think the polls and threads on here where people actually post are skewed. There is a very vocal group that if your opinion runs contrary will argue till they are blue in the face. Sometimes they are the majority, sometimes the minority. I think a lot of people just don't like to take an unpopular position because, as polite as this forum is, they still get chewed up. A lot of people just don't care to do that. I can also tell you there are significantly more people that view this forum than are registered users or posters. I talk to people all the time who are just lurkers. As far as the "No Politics" I get that. It's Brian's Forum and his rules. However, I don't see a rule at the top against asking Brian to change one of his rules. Here's the problem with saying "No Politics" and expecting it to stick. Let's say I'm an AD up for election this year (Oh wait I am). How difficult is it for me to come on the forum and start threads, or reply in them to get my feelings on topics across. As an example, is there anyone who thinks I'm in favor of a three pound trigger pull limit in Production? No I'm not coming out and saying, "If elected Area Director I promise to....blah, blah, blah." But anyone on here who wants to know my feelings on any topic can probably go to that forum, do a bit of looking around and find out where I stand. Unless you ban people up for elections from posting during the election cycle there will always be the ability to get political messages across on this forum. Just a matter of whether the candidate chooses to use it for that purpose. I imagine, if Brian was okay with it, it would be relatively simple to open up a subforum for "USPSA Elections" with a page for each candidate. Let them answer or ignore as they see fit. Make it very clear at the top that this is the only location where political discussions may take place. As far as having the USPSA site involved, have a link on USPSA.org that points to that specific subforum. As far as USPSA addressing the issue of how to have their own uber forum, personally I think it's a waste of resources for USPSA to do it. There is already an excellent forum for the discussion of USPSA rules, matches, shooting, guns etc. Why would USPSA want to try and recreate that. All it would do is dilute the sources of information. I know when I want clarification on something I either come here or email DNROI. Why would I want to add the USPSA Forum to that? I would rather use the resources we would put towards that project to support this forum and use this as the "official" USPSA forum.

Yeah, but no one could figure out how to get on the USPSA forum site, and the three people that go there didn't do a whole lot of posting. Except Alan. Yeah, it was difficult to read the note that said to use uspsa for the user name and password . It wasn't just Alan, some guy named Kyle also posted there In any case, USPSA business really belongs on the USPSA website. Perhaps it should be discussed at the next BOD meeting? Later, Chuck Sure USPSA business belongs on the USPSA site, but no one goes there. USPSA business is clearly discussed on Enos far more than at the USPSA site. There are far more people that come here than the USPSA site. I'd love to figure out a way to get more people on the USPSA site, but really why bother. Enos is the best site out there, and everything else will just be trying to play catchup.

Yeah, but no one could figure out how to get on the USPSA forum site, and the three people that go there didn't do a whole lot of posting. Except Alan.

Or by limiting magazines, they same way we do with Pistol. We don't require maganzine changes on stages by limiting the magazine length. Sure we can run a stage with more rounds than can be held in a normal pistol magazine. But there will always be someone shooting Minor who has a couple more rounds, or in Time Plus they decide to single targets instead of doubling them. Pistol magazines had length restrictions before Multigun even started. They weren't implemented after 1000 people already had gear that would now be illegal. I'm pretty sure the many reasons for not limiting rifle magazines have been covered, but I'll try this again in really small words. 1. Make bad equipment shooters have. 2. RO no count big number 3. Mag long hard measure 4. Scope Tac work, leave f alone

How about a subforum on Enos for candidate discussions. Open it and only that forum to political discussions regarding USPSA. While some of the candidates will participate, some probably will not. At least it give somewhere we can do this at. Funny thing is I just sent an email talking about how we should do this on Enos.