pwalker

Dale, Recently, I researched all the digital SLRs on the market and decided to go with the Olympus E-330. (I am a pro and am moving from Hasselblad / film (the Rolls Royce of cameras) to digital.) The things that I liked about the Olympus was: - The 4/3rd format which prints easily - Lens quality - Live preview on large LCD screen - Ergonomics - fits the hand well - Ergonomics - location of buttons and layout of menus - Portability (anything is better than that huge old 'blad - Underwater housing available. Take a look at it too. Regards Peter

The Primer...

I have a 1 hour DVD of the Thailand 2003 Level III and am about to make a 2 hour DVD of the 2004 Thailand Level III. Professionally edited. Price: $25 USD each. Regards Peter

Bangkok Glock 17 1,330 USD a lot of which is tax Regards Peter

We are going to try the "no sight pictures" approach in our next level III. To do so, we need to add a sentence to every stage briefing but it might help weed out some bad habits that we've seen growing recently. It should stop the "practice draw" bad habit if there is a -10 penalty for taking a sight picture on a target. Now, if only we could find some way to stop some of our guys doing the flip-the-round-in-the-air-circus-trick at the Show Clear command... We've tried telling the culprits that: a. it is rude b. ROs dont like it c. it damages your gun (not sure if this is true) d. there is a risk of an AD DQ. But, to no avail. Regards Peter

Rule 8.7.3 says "When permitted, competitors taking a sight picture with an unloaded firearm prior to the start signal must only do so on a single target, to verify that their sights are prepared as required. Competitors who test a targeting sequence or a shooting position while taking a sight picture will incur one procedural penalty per occurrence. Does the second sentence disallow a competitor from doing a practice draw on the first target after the LAMR? I noticed one competitor at a recent Level I match doing such a practice draw on the first. After the LAMR, he would pull out the gun, check that his optical sight was turned on, place the gun back in the holster, then do a dry draw on the first target. Then he would insert the magazine and load the gun, waiting for the next command. I was not ROing so I did not intervene but suggested to him later that he might get into trouble doing a practice draw with a more knowledgable RO on the line. Before I confirm to him that his practice draw technique is a no-no, can someone please confirm that I've got the right rule and I am interpreting it correctly. Regards Peter

Mai, Sounds like you had quite a day on Sunday. Me, I just enjoyed the match (taking home that big trophy for Production division ended the day nicely). But, I seriously doubt if anyone accused you of cheating, unless it was done in a very joking manner... And, I do suggest that, in future, you don't do any little practice runs after the LAMR. Any out-of-the-usual actions at that time is likely to make most ROs a bit jumpy. And, our Thai ROs have very sweet dispositions, compared with others you might encounter around the world. Regards Peter

Try polishing the connector / trigger bar interface. That, plus a lot of dry and live firing will, after about 300 rounds, smooth out the trigger pull. Regards Peter

I used to have a girlfriend who believed that, if you bought a new pair of shoes and you did not want to get sore feet from them, you should bite the shoes before wearing them. Her thinking went that, if you bit them first, they would not bite you... Try biting your Glock. I suggest biting the bottom of the grip because, if you try biting the barrel, you might make anyone watching very nervous... Regards Peter

I think that it would be simpler and just as effective to change the command to "Make Ready" for all starts. One simple command, easy to say and clearly indicates what the competitor must do. Regards Peter

Vince, Good idea. I'll check it out on my P900. In terms of requirements, what I'd really like is a version of the rule book on a PDA or smart phone. This way, you would have a searchable rule book in your pocket all the time. A PDF file with content tags, modified for a smaller screen would be great. Maybe the WAP site coule provide any easy download point or online access. Regards Peter

We have the best matches in the world here in Thailand (no bias in my opinion). A great match combination at the end of this year (almost 2005), would be the Thai Level III at the end of November and the Australasia Level IV in Bali in early December. You could do both matches with a one week vacation either in Thailand or Bali in between... If these are too early for you, we will run a Level III in June and December 2005. No problem bringing your equipment for these matches as we have a great relationship with the Thai customs and police. Regards Peter

I use a CR-Speed holster in IPSC Production division. I also use the mag pouches - the new adjustable type. Great products. Regards Peter

IMO, in the case oif the RO answering the phone, the shooter should have: a. been offered a reshoot, b. should have received an apology from the RO, and c. reported it to the MD, RM and the head of the NROI. Regards Peter

When I am doing slow target shooting, I definitely position the soft end pad of the trigger finger on the middle of the trigger. Almost none of the finger protrudes from the left side of the guard. This provides for the most exact backwards pull. But, for IPSC, I find that my finger is happier when it is a bit further into the guard, the groove of the first joint touching the right edge of the trigger. Some of the tip protrudes to the left, but my thumbs are further back and so there is no risk of interference. I think that I prefer this finger position because it is quicker for the finger to find this place and the difference in accuracy for 99% of IPSC targets is not significant. Maybe you have very long thumbs or your grip is skewed a bit to one side of the gun... Regards Peter

One option would be to add a holster test to the chrono: 1. Test power factor 2. Check magazines 3. Check trigger weight (production) 4. Check holster retention Number 4 could simply be done by the chrono man tugging on the gun while it is holstered. If it appears to be unsafe, he could then call over an RO or RM to do a more valid test. At least we are then sending the signal to all competitors that a safe holster is important. Regards Peter

I went down that route a year back. I put an extended, ported barrel into the G34 and added the mount and red-dot sight. The 3 barrel ports were outboard in front of the slide. I did some tests of recoil control with the ported barrel. But only simple stuff. Got a friend to stand on the left of the gun as I fired it and he marked the upper most point that the gun reached on a pole on the right side of the gun. The impact of the ported barrel was minimal, about 1.5cm reduction of lift on average. I dont know the impact on cycle time but my feeling was that it too was minimal. When I compared this to the challenge of shooting minor against the major open guns, I gave up on this idea... Regards Peter

Stake him out on the ground, cover with honey and let the ants slowly chew him to death...

Vince, Hear, Hear... Let's keep production production. Regards Peter

Khun Mai, Yes, I am afraid that your friend might need to go shopping for a "production-approved" G19 or G17. I can't think why he bought a G19C in the first place. I have compared the G19 and the G19C at the range and the difference in recoil lift is not detectable. Plus, the ports make the gun useless for defence - at night the port flash temporarily blinds you... Remind him that, these days, we are also checking trigger weights at the chrono at all matches. Regards Peter

I always find that the original factory parts work best - this applies to springs as well... Regards Peter

We ran a fun "Steel Games" match at the end of a recent Level III here in Thailand. Using the same stage setup as for the Shoot-Off (5 poppers and 3 plates at various distances, with an overlapping stop popper), we had a couple of hours of challenging fun. Entry was voluntary for anyone who had shot the match. Entrance fee was small. Shooter order was randomly selected and we used a "sudden-death" ladder to manage the rounds. Their match percentage was used to set each shooter's handicap. The top percentile had to shoot down all targets. Lower percentile shooters had one less target for every X% that they were below 100% in the match results. So we had some new shooters having to shoot down only 4 targets shooting against guys having to shoot down all 8. The handicappiing worked OK because we had some new shooters and some experienced shooters make it through to the final rounds. The entrance fees were used to pay prize money of X, Y and Z% to the top three in each division. If anyone is interested, I have the stage layout, procedure, rules and ladder in a PowerPoint document. Regards Peter

Paul, If I were you, I would have found the RM and had a quiet chat to him. It is quite likely that, if, as you say, they are "top notch" they would have either repaired the surface or taken that stage out of the match. No match organizer wants a dangerous situation to continue. Quite often, it just needs someone to bring it to the attention. The RO should have done that but maybe we was too focused on "moving the competitors through the stage". We have just run a Lvl III match here in Thailand over this last weekend. This is the monsoon season and it rains everyday. Fortunately, we were lucky that the rain passed through during the evenings over this weekend. We were also fortunate that the drainage ditches that we dug last year did their job. However, we had a pick-up truck of sand and gravel standing by in case any stage became slippery. Regards Peter

Good idea. But, given that the objective is to make it easier to understand the intention of the rules, I would suggest that the language and structure of the Case Book be simplified. In the example that you cited, I would suggest you could write them as 3 separate cases, rather than all that A, B and C stuff. I would also suggest that the wording can be simplified to achieve the objective of helping ROs and competitors understand the intention behind the rules. For exmaple: "muzzle of gun face further than 90 degrees from the median intercept of the backstop", could be "break the 180". The language simplification, which is difficult to do in an official rule book, would also help the non-native-English-speaking IPSC people. 8.6.3 Case 1: A competitor unexpectically changes direction and makes contact with the Range Officer. Ruling: The Range Officer shall offer a reshoot before the competitor is aware of any time or scoring for the course of fire. 8.6.3 Case 2: A competitor unexpectically changes direction but sees the Range Officer and makes obvious effort to avoid contact. Ruling: The Range Officer shall offer a reshoot before the competitor is aware of any time or scoring for the course of fire. 8.6.3 Case 3: A competitor unexpectically changes directions and bumps into the Range Officer. The competitor falls and the muzzle of his gun accidentally breaks the 180 degrees line. Ruling: The competitor shall be issued a match disqualification in accordance with rule 10.5.2. Of course, the real challenge with this great suggestion is: who is going to write it... And then of course, there is the ongoing effort to keep it synchronized with changes in the rule book. Regards Peter

Thanks for the feedback guys. To summarise the response, it is currently OK to place a ready handgun more than 1 meter away from the competitor, as long as this is a start position requirement and done under RO supervision. Later versions of the rule book will further clarify this exception. -Start of Joking Section- This is a terrible shame - almost equivalent to the loss of the feathered tit. On Sunday, stage 10 was a "place the ready gun on the table" start with the start position about 3 meters up-range. I was doing so badly on the day that I decided to start with my gun unloaded, no magazine, slide-open. As I was the last competitor to shoot this stage and the only one to start with an unloaded, open-slide gun, after the match over a few beers, I put in a bid to have everyone else DQ'd so I could take home the big trophy. Unfortunately no one agreed with me. And now, you have confirmed their case... I guess I'd better go back to practicing instead of trying to range-lawyer myself to victory. -End of Joking Section- Regards Peter