bbbean

You'll reimburse the cost of a rubber band if I still have pain?

Time to tweak your sear spring. Every case of hammer follow I've seen started as an intermittent problem. If you don't catch it soon enough, you'll end up touching one off at make ready, and that can really take the fun out of a match. Unintentional double taps don't do a lot for your scores, either. BB

Maybe not to that extreme, but +1. $1500 buys a pretty nice 1911. STI Spartan or Springfield (RO or Loaded), and spend an extra couple of bucks having a good smith do a trigger job would be a fine place to start. Even better yet, check the classified ads here to find 1911s that someone has already tweaked and tuned. I'll send a PM on a gun I have for sale. BB

Every house on the farm has a box fan next to the front door. Cuts down on the mosquitos inside by about 90%. BB

Lots of Deet. Spray yard and surrounding fields with malathion if possible. Get bitten enough you no longer notice bites. Those are the things that work in the swamp. BB

+1. It also makes it a lot easier to spot a bad primer. BB

At $600K, I'm not sure a cotton picker is the most cost effective way to reload. Hard to get one of those in the reloading room, too. BB

That'd be my guess. Google Arnold Rifle and Pistol Club for contact info.

What? You dated my ex, too?

Ask any stage designer whether his stage has been gamed in ways he didn't conceive of when he designed the stage. By definition, USPSA is all about finding the best way to solve a problem, and leaving a "loophole" in the rules that sometimes lets you have a mag in front of the hip bone during a stage and sometimes doesn't was going to be gamed eventually. It also left a question mark over mags in pockets that could (I assume did, at some point) create the conditions for an arbitration and hassle. Ultimately, it's one of the easiest rules to comply with. It takes approximately zero effort to put your barney mag in your back pocket instead of your front pocket, or to add an extra mag pouch to the back of your belt for the barney mag. You make some good points, but still, if it's legal to put a mag or ammo into your front pocket, but not legal to remove them from your front pocket during the COF, can you give me some examples of how some dirty gamer could take advantage of it? My limited RO experience is probably showing here, but I'm having a hard time coming up with some plausible situations. The issue is "in front of the hip bone" not "in the front pocket". At any rate, the crux of the issue is that there was a question on interpretation of the rule as written, the issue has been clarified, and it is easy to comply with the current rule.

Ask any stage designer whether his stage has been gamed in ways he didn't conceive of when he designed the stage. By definition, USPSA is all about finding the best way to solve a problem, and leaving a "loophole" in the rules that sometimes lets you have a mag in front of the hip bone during a stage and sometimes doesn't was going to be gamed eventually. It also left a question mark over mags in pockets that could (I assume did, at some point) create the conditions for an arbitration and hassle. Ultimately, it's one of the easiest rules to comply with. It takes approximately zero effort to put your barney mag in your back pocket instead of your front pocket, or to add an extra mag pouch to the back of your belt for the barney mag. BB

Check out eBags.com. They have a search engine that will let you sort bags by size, intended use, features, etc. FWIW, I went to a 4 wheeled checked piece and a backpack for carry on a few years ago, and I haven't looked back. 4 wheels makes life MUCH easier when you're lugging a heavy bag a mile or more from gate to gate or down the street to a cab/subway/train. BB

100% of the limited minor shooters I know shoot minor because they are shooting with a carry gun or a steel challenge gun. Part of the attraction of shooting Limited is the ability to trade a few C hits for speed, and you're going to have to be awfully fast to make minor competitive with major. If you want to shoot minor, Production's the place.

Depends on whether I wore a kilt to the match!

If there are other reasonably matches nearby (within an hour or two), I'd skip the over-priced match unless it: 1) Is very close to my home 2) Has an outstanding set of stages/props/facilities/staff/etc., and 3) Has matches when no one else does. FWIW, the average match fee at the clubs within 300 miles of my home is between $10 and $20/shooter. If they all started charging more, I'd pay more, but why pay more when there are reasonably priced alternatives? BB

FWIW, some of the best advice I have seen is to shoot 20 rounds at a measured rate. Throw out any clear flyers then take the average of the lowest 5 velocities and figure your PF for that. With that, you can be fairly confident that you will make PF. +1 I run strings of 20 and take the average of the fastest three of the slowest 7 (basically following match procedure with the slowest rounds). If those make PF and the overall average and SD are good, I'm pretty confident.Ideally, my slowest rounds make PF and I have an average of 170-172 with a low SD. I also repeat this at least 2 or 3 times with my final load. I figure there are worse things than 40-60 rounds of focused slow fire for trigger practice, and I don't have to worry about a bad run on the chrono stage. BB

The point of standardizing commands is so that regardless of your native tongue, "Make Ready" is the signal to make ready. If English isn't your native tongue, you aren't sure what the RO said, or it just seems like the RO is waiting a loooong time, the shooter should *ask the RO* whether he can make ready. Crux of the issue - as a shooter, your gun shouldn't come out until you are 100% sure the proper command has been given.

I'd guess a simple random distribution that didn't "look random". There's no reason for velocity to change appreciably over the course of 30 rounds. BB

Ultimately, it's up to the shooter to be sure the RO said "Make Ready." What if the RO had said "Stop!", "Can I get you to step forward", or "Hey, look, a badger!"? I'm an advocate of using proper range commands. It grates on my nerves a little each time someone asks me if I understand the course of fire or tells me to LAMR (but not enough to complain about someone who is volunteering their time to make a match possible). But when you have a stage with solid walls or a complicated layout and there's only one RO, I think we can tolerate a non-standard "Range Going Hot" to be sure there isn't a slow taper or air gunner about to get swept by a loaded gun. BB

I wasn't going to call them by name, but yup!

Have I just wandered into another forum by mistake? Are we really debating FLGR vs GIGR? Can discussions of the evils of front cocking serrations, flat tops, and the 8 round mag be next? BB

Consider an aluminum (Dawson) or plastic (STI) mainspring housing.

From the way you describe it, it sounds like you were downrange of your own pistol, which is obviously a less than ideal situation. You might or might not get called on that at a match, depending on the RO and where he was standing. Best bet is to simply avoid teh situation altogether and not outrun yourself. You *will* get called eventually.

Bill, you and I are usually within a few points of each other, so I expect you to be B class next update!

Congrats!