Nik Habicht

I'm pretty sure you grossly overestimate the size of the customer base in the shooting sports. I could be wrong, but I'm pretty positive that the vast majority of powder and primers produced is sold to manufacturers of new and remanufactured ammunition; and that the manufacturers could pretty easily survive without supplying the amateur reloading market.....

Happy 20th, and a sincere thank you to everyone who has contributed here during the last two decades!

Happy Birthday, Brian! Hope you're having an awesome time!

I it it hard and heavy for five years, shooting local matches most weekends, hitting Sectionals, Areas, and Nationals four years in a row - then got laid off from my job as my industry was literally dying, and moved out of NJ - where I had competed with my friends the most. Shot less the next couple of years while attending nursing school, then just bogged down trying to get a new career off the ground; also made the decision not to shoot any more matches in NJ, which really cut down on one of the attractions: Shooting matches with friends. Shot a few local matches in 2019; planned to shoot a few more in 2020, but COVID happened. So, maybe this year is it - but I doubt I'll be as committed about the sport as I was in the early years of the Millenium. Too much else going on.....

Old Bridge NJ has been around since at least the late 90s. Central Jersey - which I don't think is a USPSA club anymore - has history going back to the 80s I think. Lower Providence goes back that far too I think - at least it;'s the current home of PPSA The Philadelphia Pistol Shooter's Association, which met elsewhere before moving to LP. LP did take a couple of years off before Area 8 Director Ted Murphy revived the match....

Let me take a crack at this: Shooter engages T1 with two rounds - immediately earns a stacking procedural Shooter engages T2 with two rounds - ditto Shooter engages T3, T5, and T4 with one round each - no penalties to this point, but now a reload is required: Shooter engages T3 with a second round - one procedural for round fired after the point where reload was required. Shooter fumbles with magazine, but does not reload, because he reinserts same mag - no change too procedurals Shooter engages T4 and T5 with one round each, earning the second and third procedurals for firing rounds after missing a required reload. The actual reload made after engaging T3 the first time is irrelevant - the shooter is free to reload at that point, but this reload does not satisfy the requirements of the course description, which required engaging T1-5 with one round each prior to the reload. To look at the math differently: Shooter fired seven rounds, earning two stacking penalties, before hitting the reload point. Shooter fired three rounds after hitting the reload point without making a reload, earning a procedural for each round fired. Shooter earned the stacking penalties because he didn't reengage the targets after the reload (If he'd fired two at each of T1 and T2 because he thought he missed with the first round on each, and if he then reengaged them after a correct reload, we'd call those extra shot penalties rather than stacking penalties, and look for extra hits as we scored the targets. Shooter earned penalties for the firing the second rounds at T3-5 after not having made the required reload..... Did that help?

I've only played with rifles in 3 gun competitions, but I always kept some 10 and 20 round mags in my mag specifically for stages with mandatory reloads. Why? Because they're a much faster reload for me than a 30 or 40 round curved mag. (And I had ten rounders, because I bought my first rifle between '94 and '04 - when those were the only new mags available - I figured some youngster would wonder....)

Some of the best times I ever had was when I was shooting matches with two other C shooters in Production, and later with two other B shooters in Production (4 friends total, the C shooters drifted away, the B shooters drifted in). We'd razz each other and compare scores on a regular basis - we weren't competitive for a division win, but we could compete for class wins, and for bragging rights among ourselves - friendships were forged there....

Trace, my go to for classes is my USPSA tuned G34 in an OWB holster - but not the dropped and offset holster I use in competition. The gun's reliable, and I've shot it so much, it's like an extension of my hand. I don't want to have to think about gun handling in class; that time is reserved for soaking up as much instruction as possible. So pick your most reliable blaster, that's most comfortable and intuitive for you to shoot. An argument could be made for you bringing a gun you'd actually carry on duty - just in case the difference between a 34 and a G45 somehow makes itself apparent in class. But what do I know?

Because those are products considered to be essential to human survival. Food, water, clothing, shelter, medications, and other supplies needed to ensure human survival. Interestingly only 36 states may have laws or statutes regulating this; these are generally civil offenses, not criminal offenses, but in some states criminal charges are possible. Primers - unlikely to be covered....

Better read the definition of theft too.....

Me thinks you've never read a definition of price gouging: also defined as: Kind of challenging to make primers meet that definition. TL;DR: Seller believes his primers are very dear to him; buyers are free to agree and buy, or disagree and not buy......

That would have been fun at Nats - when I used to attend. Let me go to the truck - here's the six batches of 350 rounds each. I know I was overthinking it; but I was prepared for the match staff to declare a different batch to be unsafe each day of the competition, and was prepared with additional batches.....

This. While I haven't RO'd a match in about a decade, I've served as RM on a couple, and would not have allowed an RO to be placed at this position, if I had been serving in that position. The standard for me isn't "Is it safe?" rather the standard is "Where's the safest place for an RO to be to monitor for a 180 violation?" Then place the RO there - or if an RO trap exists on the stage as designed/built - work with the MD to have the situation rectified before the first shot is fired.