twodownzero

Everybody doesn't shoot major. Even at the nationals there will be people shooting minor. I shot SS major for a long time and switched to a 9mm about 7-8 years ago and haven't shot my major gun at all since then. Don't buy into that crap at all. .40 minor would not be competitive because you won't get 10 rounds, so for the purposes of this thread, we might as well assume that the person is going to shoot major PF.

It's amusing that you mention that because I don't drive electric cars or automatic transmissions, either. I let my membership lapse and I'm going to continue to enjoy SASS, precision rifle, etc. USPSA doesn't care about its long time members anymore. There is and always has been a place for experimentation and new things in USPSA. It's called Open. And the sport was better for all of us when that's where it stayed. Now it's just an arms race.

I don't think it evolved that "quickly." It was doing away with the visual modifications rule and destroying the weight limit through approving new very heavy guns and allowing lights that ruined Production. Well, that and Welfare Open, but everyone knows my position on that. They don't bear that out now, because they fundamentally have changed the sport to leave low cap shooters behind. When Production actually had a set of rules where an actual production firearm was competitive, and before these other ridiculous changes, Production was one of the most popular divisions.

Smart reloaders don't rely on pressure signs alone--they begin with published data and then verify in their application. There is no published data for a 147 grain bullet at 1.080". So my choices were to ream or to experiment. I chose the former. By the time there are pressure signs, you're WAY over pressure.

The person who reamed my barrel did so with a carbide reamer. The reason that it can't be reamed for more freebore is that the reamers that are available don't touch that surface. You might think that it is safe to run ammunition that short, but I do not share your opinion. I think the industry should be more transparent and that guns should chamber all readily available bullet profiles at SAAMI max. And yes, they are buzz words because they don't have precise definitions. But as long as we know what we're talking about, they suffice.

That kind of MBA thinking is how we got here in the first place. That is a mostly irrelevant data point even if it is true. Not alienating longstanding members and creating an arms race should count for something. Maybe I'd get over it if I thought this was the last arm's race they'd create, but I've seen what they did to Revolver, then there was Welfare Open and Rifles, and now there's Welfare Open Round 2. Color me jaded if you think I'm convnced this is their last arm's race. If you read my response above, you would. They have effectively destroyed the low cap divisions. They obviously recognized that they did it, otherwise the 15 round Production thing wouldn't be a thing right now. IPSC Production was 15 rounds a long time ago and they could have done it then. Only now do they want to do it so they can really drive the 8 round neutral rule into the ground and ruin it for the low cap shooters permanently. Yep, it ran Production right into the ground. Now we can destroy Open and Limited, too.

You can throw around buzz words all you want, people call what I'm talking about different things, the most common term I believe is "freebore." I shared my experience that a finishing reamer--which can cut the surface where the ogive touches the rifling--may not reduce the interference between the bearing surface just past the case mouth touches the barrel. I'm not talking or worrying about "throat erosion" or any of that. I'm just saying that for my situation, I sent my barrel to be reamed, and when it was returned to me, not all of the interfering metal was machined away by the reamer because it was unable to cut down the freebore surface just forward of the chamber. Your chamber, your reamer, and your bullet profile may vary, which is why this is my experience and may not match yours.

What a joke! Not many can "afford" open, so let's create TWO welfare open divisions because one isn't enough. Unbelievable!

The headspace surface of a pistol round is the front of the case. A finishing reamer might cut the surface near the ogive forward but on my CZ, it was unable to cut the surface just forward of the case where the bullet is at its max diameter, which was the new spot where it interfered. So I was able to chamber a "longer" round as long as the bearing surface portion of the bullet was inside the case. I was able to extend my COAL from something like 1.080" to 1.130" though, and that's not trivial. Rifling doesn't just wear from projectile friction; the hot gasses from combustion will wear it, too. I'm pretty sure even a few hundred rounds opened up my barrel enough that the surface we're talking about is larger than it was when I got the gun. When I got the gun, it was very tight. Like ridiculously so in what it'd chamber compared to basically every other gun on the market.

"The market" does not dictate the rules. It's exactly that kind of thinking that turned the entire game into an arm's race where it no longer cares about the low capacity divisions. That is also the same thinking you see above where people say that the game no longer cares about rewarding power, which has been one of the three principles of practical shooting since the beginning. It's going to be awfully hard to put the horse back in the barn, but this game has lost its way unless it does. The gun companies cannot be dictating the rule changes. For decades USPSA avoided arms races by not changing the rules like this, for good reason. I can't imagine what they were thinking going back on that. Maybe they just couldn't picture what allowing optics outside of Open and rifles to show up would do and now it's too late.

Adding Carry Optics and rifles to this game ruined the enjoyment for me. I just let my membership lapse after 15 years. Nobody cares about the 10 shot divisions anymore and the entire thing has simply become a hose fest. The last straw for me was a 30 round stage broken into "strings" even though it had one array of targets and one shooting area where I got to do standing reloads for the entire stage. Destroying major power factor by having the two largest divisions also left behind a principle of practical shooting. That never should have been allowed. We have always had a place for Carry Optics and Limited Optics--in Open. We avoided an arms race for 25+ years which all ended with someone opening Pandora's box and now there is no fixing it. Optics should have never, ever been allowed outside of Open.

I sent my CZ out and it's longer but no reamer will touch just forward of the headspace surface. Maybe shooting it will wear that area down, but I still had to shorten my ammo, just not as much.

The only variable is cutting it too close. By the way, there are no decimal places in power factor. 165.2 is 165. 162.4 is 162. If you're not 172-175, you're too close.

I'm pretty sure the closest I ever got was 173. I know I've seen at least 179 and perhaps more than that.

I let the chrono RO tell me every match.

I have been using one of my Bladetech holsters for 17 years now and it's still going strong.

My first setup was a Dillon 550 on an old kitchen table in the living room of my apartment. After that it was the same Dillon 550 on an Ikea desk in the living room of my college studio apartment. I believe I continued to load on that Ikea desk throughout graduate school in my dad's basement when I was home on breaks so that I'd have enough ammo for the school year, and only after I moved thousands of miles away to New Mexico where I am now did I get anything resembling my current bench, which is made out of a used piece of countertop from one of my uncle's apartment buildings. I also vacuumed up more gunpowder and spent primers than I care to admit. Don't be discouraged.

The rules are the work of a collective body of people, all of which had intent, but the document they produced has no intent, only meaning, hopefully which incorporated what they all thought it would mean when they ultimately voted for it. Words that come from one person can have intent. Words that come from a collective body have to say what they mean and mean what they say, otherwise they just mean whatever the reader thinks the people who write the words "intended." I prefer to apply the rules as written. If it leads to a result we don't like (which has happened to me before), the solution is to fix the rules, not to read into the rules some intent that isn't there. Thank flexmoney for the fact that we can all pull our pants up by the bottom of our holsters even if there's a loaded gun in it, which the rule obviously once prohibited.

Rules don't have intent, they have meaning. If the meaning is satisfied, your interpretation is over.

I guess I could say that, but my magazine only holds 10 rounds, so it was easier to just not come back.

This has been a frustration of mine as a low cap shooter for a long time. I've even considered arbitrating stages at local matches and I no longer shoot at a club that I shot at fairly regularly when I pointed out to the match director that a stage required 12 shots from one position and his response was "this is a local match," as if the rules don't apply those circumstances. I don't know what the answer is to that stuff, but I agree with your general idea here that matches can be designed to be fun for everyone and not just hose fests. My most recent match, I shot limited because my friend shoots carry optics and he's somewhat new, it's good to have the same stage plan. I enjoy shooting high capacity. It just shouldn't feel like it's the only option, and it's a lot harder to convince anyone to care with the high cap divisions taking over to such an extreme degree like they have lately. Man, I feel like a Revolver shooter typing that.

Heavy 2011s? I'm pretty sure my Production gun weighs more than my 2011. It's probably both, but if Production went to 140s or even went to 16 rounds, that would actually be a fun improvement. The game is more fun with a big mag for me, but I like shooting 9mm.

My Shadow 2 feels like a cap gun already. It's heavier than my single stacks or my limited gun. I'm not sure more weight would make a difference although I doubt it hurts anything either.

I will be loading 3/4 ounce 12 gauge loads, 7/8 or 1 ounce are excessive for SASS. The targets are like 15 feet away. I would imagine our local shotgun guys have the same shortages we all have. Fortunately I found a bag so I will be getting started now! I finally have all I need. Already had 3 pounds of titewad, primers, hulls, and wads.

While I don't flip and catch, I do have a good friend who had a round go off after he ejected it on the ground. The RO wanted to DQ him and insisted that he pulled the trigger until other shooters found the brass on the ground, blown apart, and showed him that it was unstruck. I still think the flip and catch is a risk you won't see me taking in a match, and while I'm not out to DQ anybody and haven't worked a major in a bunch of years, I'd really hate to have to DQ someone for this. It's just a risk not worth taking.