Johann the Horrible

I feel that 5 minutes is not enough for me. I am going up to the Nationals one day early to watch the Pre-Match and get some clues like that. Maybe it is just because I am a beginner as the "old dogs" does not seem to have much of a problem. To me it is a huge problem as I find it difficult to work out a workable plan, especially if other shooters are bumping into me during the walk-trough. 10 Minutes on the longer stages sound a lot better to me. At the moment I see it as just another hurdle to overcome.

I do not know how it is in the USA but here in South Africa I would have advised you to just get to a shooting range and make friends. Over here most of us have spare guns and is glad to have a new shooter shoot is for a while. It is only by actually competing that you learn where your interest lies. Shoot a friends gun for a while and then jump in and buy one. BTW, It is better to spend your money on ammunition and practice than try and "buy a solution".

No RO of my acquaintance gets to the match and says to him/herself- "Let`s see how many people we can DQ today". As a RO myself I find it unpleasant, to say the least, to DQ a competitor. RO`s have a job to do - to ensure all our safety at all times. Because I am so "shite" scared of getting DQ`ed I run with my finger pointed away from the gun. I believe the onus is on me as the competitor to have my finger visibly outside the trigger guard during movement. And yes, I am one of the "bottom feeders" in the hierarchy of IPSC but I do not think it is my finger position while moving that is keeping me back. BTW INDSHRK it is shooters like you that makes us RO`s volunteer do our work, the competitors with the attitude and the bitching and the moaning just makes us want to stay at home. Thank you for your attitude! You qualify for the title "gentleman" as apposed to merely a man.

This means that I will have to travel to the US of A. No one, and I mean no one calls my conversation "civil". People just cannot call people names like that and get away with it. Please tell Mr Anderson to be on the lookout for me, I will be the one with the big stick. LOL. Thank you, most kindly sir.

I am not sure that you would get parts in the USA. The Spinx is a very high quality pistol but you would probably only get parts in Europe. Nice gun though!

What hard drive are you planning on using? Please tell me that you are not considering Windows, especially Vista!

Today's match was postponed to infinity and beyond just because it is raining. Come on guys that is why plastic sleeves was invented. I just had to rebuild my gun due to a slide cracking and was planning on testing it under match conditions today but no...a few drops of rain and the "he-man shooters" all become "shrinking violets"!! Whine, whine, whine.....We cant shoot, it is raining. Even my 14 year old daughter is disappointed - and she took of from her studies to come and shoot today. Come on guys, guns work in the rain!! I am positive that the human body is pretty waterproof- Why can`t we shoot? Are we a bunch of "wusses"? Apparently so! How in thee hell will this Saturday afternoon ever go by? I will now go home and sulk in my room if someone is looking for me - and yes I WILL be playing with my gun!!

Stuff comes from the same factory as Highland ammo.(I hope you know that over there in the States) I have always found it to be pretty decent but hot. I sometimes think that manufacturers over in the States are a bit cautious when they load to prevent lawsuits. Privi see not to fear that so they load to the full extent and if you have a tight chamber you might have trouble. Personally I shoot a 8mm Mauser and all I use is Privi

If you ever want to get rid of the mags send me a PM. I seriously need them.

Excellent news, for me! The gunsmith is dropping my gun off during lunch. I run a Coffee shop and cannot get out until closing time so he is bringing the gun to me. Look at the time frame: Sunday night: Notice the cracks in the slide Monday morning: Phoning everyone and his brother looking for a slide Tuesday morning: My friend William Stopforth drops the slide off at my shop. Tuesday afternoon: Drop the slides of at the gunsmith - he works at nigt to get the"new" slide ready Wednesday morning: The gunsmith picks up the the rest of the parts and start fitting the gun. Thursday afternoon: Gun ready, as tight as could be but ready for shooting in The best is that he does not even want to have his name mentioned as he has more than enough work as it is, thank you very much indeed. With friends like this I will shoot Nationals. I just hope that one day I will be able to do him a huge favor to thank him for all the extra bother that he went to .

I am no gunsmith but without seeing it I think that the lead might be a little on the short side. After a few rounds there is some build-up and you then start getting failures to feed. If the chamber was dirty( we seldom clean the chamber as good as we clean the barrel) you could also have this but failures to extract would be more frequent. I would let a good gunsmith look the gun over as nothing keeps you back as much as a gun that is not working.

IMHO you earned a DQ if you "un-bag" the guns in your car. Except if your car is not on the range though, then it is not covered. Why take the chance "un-bag" in the safety area, that is why we have them.!

I got mine on the Monday right after the home leg of the Nationals. Yep that is right, I drank the prep on the range - did not shoot too good either, I kept on getting distracted for some reason. The RO`s were pretty cool about it and one even did the ULASC for me while I was haring off to the nearest cubicle. He still had my gun when I crawled back to the range. Nice man. The Monday was even worse as after the Colonoscopy I was sent for a Barium enema to make double sure that the doc saw what he did and to make 100% sure I had no dignity left. The Radiographer was a petite blond with serious issues and a foot pump from hell. I can tell you that the Chemo is almost better. I even learned to swallow when I taste my toenails. The good news is that it was picked up early enough and my treatment does not include knives - just chemicals. The bad news is that I was 43 when it was picked up- don't wait for 50, if I did it would have been too late.

Thank you for all the feedback. The gunsmith that is rebuilding my gun know what he is about and I got excellent service from him for years and years. I kept as many parts of the original gun as I could because of time constraints. The old slide failed because the previous owner had to much metal removed from the area around the extractor tunnel. You could see that the gun was loaded by glancing at the ejection port! I used the slide because of all the other work done like the lightening cuts, the "haircut" the checkering on the rear of the slide and the specially made barrel-bushing. The barrel came with the slide and was fitted. My gunsmith called the slide a POS from the moment he first laid eyes on it but some customers think they know better than gunsmiths that has been doing gunsmithing since the late 60`s. This customer is now paying the school fees for that. What I was also told on another forum that the cone might wear the slide and cause the slide to fail earlier than with a bushing system. Although I take advice from everyone(I cannot think of everything myself) I will currently not interfere with the build. Any gunsmith that leaves all his other work just so that he can finish your job deserves to be left alone. I shudder if I think about the cost of this late hour rush job. The build should be finished either today or tomorrow. So then I can report back on how it worked and where it factors. The only problem at the moment is that Saturday I am shooting a Level 2 and that is not the way to test a gun, except if you are shooting Nationals the next weekend - so much pressure!

Sorry to bother again:Should the cone push the Power Factor up or bring it down. I am sensitive to that as I attained a Power Factor of 169.99 at the previous Nationals and would not like a repeat "performance". If I am to get the PF right I basically have this Saturday to sort it out as I am leaving for the Nationals on Thursday. PS: The gunsmith is adding the cone to the existing barrel.

Sorry it is a Standard Division gun built on a Para 45 frame. Current factor is about 175 but I have tons of 192 Factor stuff.

Yep, mine looked just like one in the last photo. It started of with bouts of either bad diarrhea or complete constipation, almost like a blockage. My wife forced me to go for the medical indignity and now I get to throw up my toenails every second week. Such is life I guess. She made it through breast cancer and now it is my turn. I wil beat this into a pulp, just like anything else that stands in my families way.

My competition gun developed three cracks last Saturday. I managed to get hold of an Ithaca slide at very short notice and this will installed this week. My gunsmith friend says I will be able to shoot the gun on Saturday. This is marvelous as I am leaving on next week Thursday for the second leg of the Nationals. One of the things the gunsmith is proposing is to convert the barrel to a “cone lock-up system”. I trust the guy as he has been building guns for me since the early 1980`s but I do not know this “cone” system. Is it any good? The gun needs to be 100% reliable as on the 14th and 15th I will be shooting Nationals.

I strongly believe in only fixing something if it is broken. If 230gr RN is working do not change it as most 45 shooters use the 230Gr RN in any case. The SWC does not work as reliable in all guns as the RN. The 45 was also designed for the 230 RN.

I wrote a fairly lengthy letter to letter to the school pointing out that my daughter did report the bullying on several occasions and that no steps were taken. The letter was non-confrontational and friendly. Before the teachers had a meeting about this, another child reported another occurrence of swearing by this child and the bully was promptly served with a "detention letter". Obviously the school has had enough. The class teacher discussed the occurrence with my daughter and that was the end of that. I am taking my daughter shopping this weekend, not because she beat another child, but to try and explain to a 12 year old that you can do the right thing and still get into do-do. That is going to be kinda hard since I have always taught my children to do what is right. Now she also has to learn it sometimes has a price. Think about it, what she did was surely not right but also not wrong. People are telling her that what she did was great, and yes it was, but she cannot go through life beating other people. But she also cannot stand passively by while her friends are hurt. Life is like that, but we should not learn that before we are old and grown up. Kids should play and be happy because once you are grown-up the time for playing is over.

My youngest daughter, in grade 6 has managed to get herself in deep do-do at school. She is a placid child that could hurt nothing except a spider. Like her dad she is rather large but different from her dad quite quick witted. This kid, son of the chairman of the school board, started calling her names and pushed her friend (a frail little thing) around. The next moment, completely out of the blue my daughter whacks this guy one in the mug. Says, she just could not help herself. She only realized she whacked the guy after he hit the floor. The teacher came into the class just in time to see the guy getting whacked. The Chairman also happens to be a lawyer so I expect that there will be repercussions. Such is the life of a parent – in my heart of hearts I cannot blame her for doing something that was apparently quite overdue and, to my dinosaur mindset, the right ting to do.

That is sad man. Maybe if you took a few days off it would come back to you. I still get the jitters every Friday night - just getting ready for a Level1!

Les reporting of what you are doing too. I have been riding this one since it was called Gran Paradiso in Alpha stage. Never had a single problem.

I do not care who or what we are, it is never nice to get DQ`ed, for any reason. Personally I absolutely detest it. I can never stick around after getting booted of the range. It is so unattractive to chew on your liver in public. I always admire a person that can stick around and be the case picker-upper or scorer or whatever.

WOW!! There is no money in the world to pay for advice like this. Sir, you are truly a great man to have such insight into a problem explained in my halting English. After reading your advice I took out my gun and started working on your advice. I will need to work on this for quite a while - obviously it is not a magic switch cure. I need to work to perfect it. I will also need to unlearn my "wrong" hold since the moment I stop paying attention the gun points left low again. Thank you very much sir, I believe you have provided me with the solution to my problem.