jar

I did it at my normal renewal time. I decided, why pay $40 every year when I can pay once and be done. I'm only 29, so I figure I've got a good 50 years of shooting left.

The awful classifier I shot this month won't change my percentage, but the next update will change my member number: L3434

I agree 100% that stage props should be field tested prior to a major match. I also agree that being busy building and working the match is more of a drag on performance than any advantage. However, that's not at all true for blind stages. Knowing where the targets are instead of having to look for them saves a ton of time.

Blind stages are cool in concept, but there's no way to run them fairly. They're never blind for everyone. Not giving shooters a walkthrough and letting the setup team shoot for score is bogus.

No way in hell would my parents have let me do something crazy like that at 9.

Here's a post on the matter from a friend from a local forum: http://vintagepistols.com/40isbad.html

Buy the Dillon pick up tubes. They're better than the Hornady ones anyway. It takes a touch more finesse to dump the primers from the tube into the machine, but picking up the primers goes noticeably faster. I used the one Hornady tube that came with my LnL for a year or two and then bought a 4 pack of Dillon tubes from Brian. I never use the Hornady one anymore.

If the only fun part was the shooting, playing this game would be kinda silly, economically speaking. Luckily, shooting matches is also a reason to spend the day outdoors with my friends.

Just like in USPSA, which divisions have the best shooters varies by area. Here in MA, there are barely any CDP shooters. SSP is by far the most popular, followed by ESP. Most of the ESP shooters seem to be shooting plastic with mods that aren't legal in SSP, rather than 1911/2011 type guns. ESP tends to be a shark tank, because it's stacked with SSP/MA shooters who are shooting EX in ESP. In USPSA, Open, Limited, and Production are the big 3 competition wise. L10/SS/Revo usually have a handful of shooters.

The only time I ever used anything other than 1x or 4x was a stage with a bunch of paper and a few clays at 25y. I started at 2x for the clays so I could see/confirm hits.

Flat Dark Earth. AKA tan.

I don't have my copy in front of me; does R&R have barricade drills in it? If not, I'd add the various permutations of 2,2,2 from left, reload, 2,2,2 from right, etc. Basically, dry fire stage 3 of the IDPA classifier at both it's normal distance of 20y and probably also at 7 and 10. Shooting from cover is a fundamental IDPA skill that's not tested nearly as often in USPSA.

I really hope the DirectTV ad with the clip of Craig hanging his head doesn't air all season long.

Whether and how I'll use Finger or Muzzle depends on match level and shooter experience. With a new shooter at a level 1, I'll yell Muzzle if they start to move toward doing something unsafe, like turning the wrong way. With a clearly experienced shooter, I'm not going to yell at them if they're purposely engaging a target at 179.99. For me, Finger comes in to play when I'm not sure whether the finger is in the trigger guard or not. There have been plenty of times where a shooter's finger gets a bit lazy and seems like it's probably out of the guard, but not clearly out and indexed along the frame. I don't *know* the finger is in the guard, so I can't issue a DQ, but I'd rather not do nothing.

There's a division champion with the highest overall score. Then there's 1st Master, 1st A, 1st B, etc. GMs and unclassified shooters can only win division champ.

Gotta love an Area match 20 minutes from my door! Everything is great about Harvard except for out of staters dealing with our awful gun laws. If there's anything I can do to help non-MA people attend the match (as long as it's legal, obviously), send me a PM. Mikegot38, I'm curious why fly if you're from SE PA. I'm originally from there and go back and forth all the time. It's an easy 5-6 hour drive.

I sent my team's app in about 2 weeks ago, should I be expecting a confirmation of some sort?

I think the problem with AP is that there are very few club matches. I don't know of any in my area, and I could shoot IDPA or USPSA almost every weekend day within a 2 hour drive. There are probably several reasons there aren't many club matches: 1. AP is hard. The C/D/SS/MM shooters that put in a ton of the work to put on USPSA/IDPA matches would be too frustrated. 2. Start up costs are high. Plates and movers are pretty expensive, so it's hard to start a club match without dedicated shooters. It's hard to find dedicated shooters without club matches to recruit them. I think this catch 22 is the biggest problem. 3. Shooting the same stages each month gets boring. I don't know that there's any way to fix this. I think production division was a great addition to keep the big match alive, but I'm not sure growing the grassroots is possible without changing what Bianchi is about.

Loving the slide cuts!

The PDR is not IDPA legal. IDPA doesn't allow dropped or offset holsters.

Supposedly an M&P SIRT is coming soon. I'm hoping there will be news on availability at SHOT show next week.

Yeah, everything I hear about that match is good. The only reason I didn't shoot it was I was working the NE Regional IDPA match that weekend. Hopefully there won't be a conflict this year.

Personally, I hate lewis class. I don't like the idea of "If I did a little *worse*, I would've won money." If I wanted to win money based on chance, I'd play the lottery.

A piece of advice for the test, which you take at home after the class: use the PDF of the rulebook. Being able to search makes it go much faster than using the paper rulebook. If you have a smartphone or tablet, get it set up with the PDF rulebook.

http://www.history.com/shows/top-shot/bios/top-shot-season-4 The show premieres on Valentines day, 2/14.