Nik Habicht

As far as Magazine extensions go, I like the Arredondo Pads for the Glock Mags. Tough, affordable, and best of all they separate easily for cleaning with the supplied tool. In magwells I really like the Tac-Rac for the 17/22 frame sizes, its available through http://www.classicpistol.com.

BamBam Choate out of Arkansas or SpeedFeed. I personally like the feel of the SpeedFeed a little better, but friends of mine really like the Choate. The SpeedFeed should be available through Brownells, it'll come in long and short variations with or without shellholders. The shellholders will hold two rounds of ammo on each side.

Debbie, I like them too. I've got to order a couple more. Then I've got to go to some matches in Pennsylvania, so I can pull the plugs out of the tubes. However they give me just enough length so that I can reliably chenge mags without fumbling one of the tubes..... TDean, They don't come with followers. You use your stock Glock followers. You get the tube extension, base pad, spring and a very nifty little pinch tool to allow you to easily remove the base pad. Reliability has been flawless so far; I've used them in one match.

John, Do you think you might have felt differently if the 9 mm load had been 115s at 1100 fps? That would give you a roughly 127 pf load.

I'm a know nothin newbie and I surmise that what matters in winning a shotgun stage is the same thing that matters in shooting a handgun stage, namely the number of steps you need to take to see all the targets. Of course having said that, next months shotgun side match will be a bill drill......

John, Remember Pat's line? "Cheating IS practical! " You Go Boy!

John is giving Kyle serious competition for master of "Iconcode!"

John, I paid $850.- for a new Bushmaster 20" HBAR with the A3 removeable sights about five months ago. I have no experience with RRA nor do I know what a two-stage trigger is worth; but I figured I'd throw a price up so you'd know what other options are out there.

In my limited experience shooting other people's Glock .40s I've noticed that the 9mm gun are softer if you're comparing factory ammo to factory ammo, or soft loads to soft loads. But that's my perception.... ShooterGrrl, If you're still on the fence you know by now that I can't speak highly enough of the 9 mm. However, which caliber will be easier to reload for you? Do you guys already reload .40 or .38 super? If so, you might save money going with components that you're buying in quantity anyway....

Eric and Chris, If anyone is interested in a light, smooth Glock trigger in a competition gun all it really takes is the installation of a 3.5 lb. connector with the standard trigger spring; a Wolff reduced power striker spring, and a Lightning Strike titanium striker safety plunger. Those parts reduce the pull a little more than the connector by itself, they also smooth out the trigger pull so it's almost impossible to predict when the trigger will break. Best of all, it requires no permanent modification of the gun, so if you decide you don't like the change you can undo it. I will warn you that the reduced power striker spring may require you to use Federal primers for 100% reliable ignition.

Eric, Nice Rant!!

Kyle, I forgot about the short (read standard) slidestop. It exists only on my house guns.....

Peter, If you were to pull the slide stop on the G-35 you should examine your trigger pin on a regular basis. The trigger pin has a groove machined into it that is engaged by the spring on the slide stop. That's why you have to wiggle the slide stop during disassembly to be able to punch the trigger pin out. With no slide stop it's possible for the trigger pin to wander --- that ocurred on two of my Glocks when I removed the slide stops from all of them. I solved the problem by reinstalling the slide stops and really working on a perfect grip during dry-firing sessions. I'll leave it to someone more knowledgeable than I to comment on the legality of no slide stop. In that vein though, the experts might need to know what division you shoot and whether USPSA or IPSC rules apply... Tschuess,

Quote: from benos on 7:28 pm on Oct. 29, 2001 imagine your hands are remaining/feeling COMPLETELY STILL during the time you are aiming and releasing the shot. I direct my attention into my hands and "will them" to be completely still, nothing moves except the trigger finger. If I look right at the sites, while preserving this feeling of stillness, the results are usually good. Often I don't even remember my finger moving to fire the shot, or even being aware that a shot was going to fire. be Earlier this year at an IDPA match I had to shoot a stage that was two open paper targets at less than seven yards while moving to cover behind a barricade; then a hostage rescue shot around the side of the barricade. Problem was that the target was at 15 yards, only the head was available with a no-shoot head directly adjacent, a limitation of one round fired at the hostage taker, a sixty second penalty for hitting the hostage and a thirty second penalty for failing to neutralize the hostage taker. I remember taking the sight picture and prepping the trigger while really concentrating on maintaining sight alignment when I was shocked to feel the gun fire! Apparently I was so focused on the sights that I never realized that I was stroking the trigger. And I was shocked to discover that I had succeeded..... this was before I learned to call my shots! I've thought about that shot often; it's cool to realize that it's what should happen.

Jon, I reload mostly from a Glock 21. The resizing doesn't seem to be a problem on my Dillon Square Deal B with the factory supplied dies. I case gage my ammo for match use. About 4-5% of my loaded rounds fail the case gage test ---- I want the round slipping completely into the gage and then falling back out from Gravity alone. If I've got to help it, I toss it in a bin as practice or fun ammo. All of the rejected ammo will feed in both my Glock and my Colt 1911 about 98% of the time. I just don't want to run into a defective round during a match; I hate running clearance drills.....

I got a couple of the Nationals videos for Christmas last year. After watching them for the third or fourth time, I thought that at least one of the top guns had to have a website ---- si I wrote down a bunch of names, put www. in front of them and .com behind 'em, and plugged 'em into my browser and Voila! Search engine? Real men don't need no stinking browser...... Of course now that I've discovered Google, I'm changing my mind about a lot of things....

WooHoo! I just got one. As soon as I figure out how to shoot it, I'll probably be thinking of ways to modify it. Actually I'm thinking of ways already; I just think I should understand it a little bit better before I modify it heavily.

Detlef, No physics lesson today?

Phil, Make sure you show Kelly where it is.......

Actually the times are lowest in ESP. Master requires a time in the 89 second range. The theory was that it's easiest to shoot single action autos (Browning High Power, 1911) fast and hardest to shoot (really reload) revolvers fast. So the times are staggered to allow more time for guns that are perceived to be harder to shoot. However, I suspect that if you asked any one of the grandmasters to shoot the classified with a tuned DA auto, they'd still shoot master class scores. The two second difference in ESP and CDP accounts for the lower power factor (125,000) that's also used in ESP.

Quote: from Jon Merricks on 7:29 am on Oct. 25, 2001 I hate it when good people die. Jon, Me too. Especially when they die too young. I'm sorry for your loss.

It's probably not an exact answer but here goes: Shoot one (1, eine, uno) gun only! If you must shoot more than one gun, shoot guns made by the same manufacturer with identical triggers done by the same smith. Do this for one year. You'll be amazed by how well you pull, stroke, caress, fondle, yank, etc. that trigger. That was the advice given me by a tactical shooter (read SWAT team leader.) I couldn't follow it completely; you know somedays you just gotta shoot a wheel gun or a .22, but I've done probably ninety percent of my shooting in the last year with identical triggered Glocks. It's made a big difference in my allaround shooting ability. If you try this and want to shoot something different once in a while, I think that's o.k. if you separate it from your usual practice routine. I go shooting with friends of mine a couple of times a year who are casual shooters. On those days, I leave the Glocks home and play with something else. It's fun, and it doesn't disrupt my Practice routine.....

If it's George Jones, he won the Area 8 election on a write-in campaign. I've shot with him and his son, Brian, for the last couple of months and they've been nothing but pleasant.

Kath, The parts add up to about $30-60, depending on where you buy them. The 34, because it's almost an inch longer than the 17, has always felt like it was slightly muzzle heavy compared to everything else they make. However, I find it to also be the one Glock that points most naturally to me. I really like the length, both in feel and in increased sight radius.

Quote: from Mike Auger on 5:49 pm on Oct. 22, 2001 Once you get a screw up you are no longer shooting subconsciously so a thought you could use to get yourself back on track " like shoot A's now" seems to be a good idea. I disagree. I think if you are really shooting subconsciously, then the jam won't throw you out of that. You'll just see it and clear it and go on to shoot the rest of the stage. I think I'm getting the hang of that. I've always gotten stressed in the middle of a stage when I made a mistake, and let it affect the way I finished the stage, and sometimes let it affect me for the rest of the match. Sunday shooting a 24 round field course I had a jam where the slide failed to fully chamber a round. Thinking that I didn't want to jam it shut, I racked the action and gently let the slide forward, creating the same jam over; then I did it a second time before finally remembering to let the slide go on the third attempt. My attention was totally in the gun and as soon as the slide closed I was able to shoot and move through the stage as I had planned before the buzzer. I shot 23 A's in 27 seconds, about seven seconds slower than what I had hoped for. And not until I had holstered the gun did the F word leave my mouth...... Now, I'll admit that I'm slow (kind of like molasses running uphill in the winter time LOL) but I've been trying to focus on two things this year ---- fundamentals of shooting and my mental state during a match. As the year's gone on, I've been calmer, and it seems like I'm more able to flow through stages in one cohesive movement, instead of having to stop and think about what should come next, in several places. Last Sunday convinced me that it's possible to shoot a stage subconsciously even if you have a problem. I may not be able to repeat that on demand, but I'm working on it.