Rob Boudrie

Do not use the aresol can of expand in place foam to plug the noisemaking unit, as that would be illegal vandalism.

If you follow that link an go to "registration", you can see a list of everyone they have registered for the match (though I am not sure how up2date it is)

The new squadding system is in place and currently being used for the Area 7 Championship. (see www.uspsa.org/squadding). I am looking for a couple of other matches willing to use this system for their squad assignments. Email rob@boudrie.com if you are interested.

The only reason there is a "shortage" is due to an insistance on the part of the buyer to pay less than the market rate where the supply and demand curves intersect.

If you are legally carrying it is a bad idea to open you coat when requested or do anything which would allow non-leo personel see you are armed. People who are not familiar with guns (and if you are a state that has discretionary but occasionally issued CCW's, people may not be familiar with legal carry) can get very nervous very easily - and the responsing officer is likley to see two civilians - one babbling about being afraid of someone with a gun, and someone reported to have a weapon - not a good way to spend an afternoon out shopping. If an leo is going to find out about my gun, I want it to be when I calmly tell him, while observing all common-sense safety precautions for such an encounter. Insist on real police conduct any search if they attempt to detain you, and don't let them take you to the back of the store (that's called moving you from crime scene A to crime scene B. Stay out front with plenty of wittnesses.

The survey is missing a "middle ground" of doesn't make much difference either way. I do not think it will help the sport, but I don't think it will hurt either. It's like asking "Should handguns be banned or should anyone including children be allowed to carry them loaded and concealed?" and trying to pass it off as a "survey". I would not have voted for this rule if we were starting from scratch, but saw no reason to push for a USPSA exception - in fact, this did not even register as a big issue for myself or any other board member when we went over the rules - Rules which were posted for review and comment for some time leading up to the board meeting. This was not a "sneak attack" or a "foisting". Based on what I saw of the board discussion of other rules, I can state with confidence that if any member had made an issue of this prior to the Orlando meeting, it would have resulted in about an hour's discussion on the issue. I don't understand the "slipper slope" argument. If some feel this was about political correctness, would it make things better if the board resolved "whereas two hits represents a neutralized target..."? The classificaiton impact is that some existing scores on record for classifiers alrady shot will represent a lower hit factor than they would have under the new system, particularly for lower rated shooters. While not perfect, I don't think this undermines the current system. As to USPSA/IPSC - There has been considerable progress towards a much more productive working relationship. While USPSA has the go-ahead for regional rules, I think it's important that USPSA recognize the spirit of what both parties intended and try to avoid changes to anything as basic as scoring. To me, changing the 2 hits rule (even though I do not personally prefer it) would be the same as deciding no-shoots are -12 in the US because -10 isn't a severe enough penalty.

Better than that - the will even accept many out of state permits. AZ is still much more restrictive on carry for licensees than Massachusetts which seems a bit odd.

I stumped it with Zefram Cochran - and it then prompted me to add a question to the database so it would not get stumped again.

You're going to have a tough time undercutting Four Seasons when you buy at "Quantity One" pricing. Carl is a major dealer known to a number of distributors and can no doubt do better than "shotgun news pricing" for his inventory. I'm sure you'lll find a lot of transfer customers at the local matches if you do go through with it.

Ok, so I forgot something. I'll add it within a few days.

The area 6 problem has been fixed, and "Webmaster@uspsa.org" is listed on the USPSA Staff page. Rob

Time for credit where it is due... The decision to use the services of a consultant to come up with a new look & feel was made by the marketing committee (President, Exeucitive Manager, A1 director and A8 director). They consulted me about this, and my reaction was "fine, as long as this person doesn't try to rewrite the data management features" (classifier upload, match posting, etc.). With that green light, they went ahead. Johnnie Scoutten (yes, there is a relation) designed the look and feel of the menus, as well as the introductory writeup text. You can thank her for the "Safe, fun, fair family sport" slogan. The consulting arrangement was structured as a "one shot deal" - her job was to come up with a modern look for the site, get approval from Dave Thomas, and hand it over to me for the dirty work. The only fundamental change we made to her look & feel was changing of the menu box text on the left from red to blue for greater contrast, and to help the color blind and a few minor tweaks to fonts and text sizes. I was glad I didn't have to re-do the "artistic" part. This look & feel was delivered to USPSA late last year - I had to convert many other pages; integrate the dynamic code (classification lookup, etc.) and make a few changes for performance reasons. Johnnie used Net Objects Fusion for her work, so I obtained a copy and used that to pick up where she left off. Dave Thomas and I agreed to withhold intruction until I had a critical mass converted as we wanted to come pretty close to "getting it right the first time"

Ahem! Did someone forget the Combat? Mr. Boudrie? I keep reading - I keep finding more blasphemy. Heavens to Besty! Nope, all that stuff was in the template I was handed from the consultant. Before passing final judgement, please look carefully at the rotating photos on the home page and note that there is a target which is hard cover except for a designated "B" zone/

I don't know exactly what happened, but a re-upload somehow got botched. I kicked off another upload and that seemed to fix it.

I don't have electronic payments available yet, but Area 7 Championship shooters for 2004 are already going on-line to pick their squads - see it at www.uspsa.org/squadding.

I wonder where the got the "Age 12" from. If their "coventant not to sue" you must sign to join is legally binding (a dubious claim), it's irrelevant. If it's not, I wonder what legal precedent or statute they are thinking of when they considered "12" to be the "magic age".

Pretty light if the actuation mechanism was using your finger tip to interrupt a light beam crossing the area in the trigger guard where the traditional trigger mechanism would reside.

It is interesting that the recent issued raised regarding rules stabiliy (production holster psition and 2 round scoring limit on noshoots) have been the direct result of USPSA accpting changes at the world level, and making an effort not to re-write every rule from the world body.

I have some comments about one sub-topic - prize tables at the nationals. From what I see, there are some problems which could occur if we went to bragging rights only: 1. Sponsors donate merchandise MUCH more readily than cash, both for marketing reasons and actual cost. For most manufactured goods, the incremental cost (not "fully burdened cost with overhead", but the "incremental cost of making another unit") is a fraction of the price. Manufacturers know this. 2. If we don't give prizes away, it will be hard to extract value from the manufacturers to put towards the match. 3. Although we buy prizes, we do so from those who also donate to us. The bottom line is that any reduction in match fee would NOT be equivalent to the average value in prize lost. I wonder how members would feel if they found out that they had a $30 or so reduction in their match fee as the 'payoff' for removing the prize tables from the nationals. No-prize matches are fine, but don't expect that $150 match to suddenly be able to offer you the same service for $75 - the numbers don't always work that way.

I easily make Major using 4.7 of Titegroup behing a 200gr zero loaded a bit long (for an SVI). I'm finishing up my invenotry of 200gr zeros, then I'm switching to the 180's. I've heard that Clays (just plain "Clays", not "Universal Clays") is very susceptible to overcharges and can easily generate a KB, but have never heard that about Titegroup.

I think before issuing an FFL, the BATF requires you to demonstrate a basic knowledge of firearms No they don't :)/

Massachusetts will require that you have a place of business which is not a house in order to obtain your state dealer's license. Massachusetts specifically will not allow you to count your garage, basement, outbuilding on your property, or any other "creative" solution even if it involves a separate entrance. Also, ATF now requires your premises zoning allow a gun business, though I do not know how rigorously they check on that point. If you think you're going to make $$ running a gun shop, think again. It can be done, but it's hard. Go to a gunshop some weekend and watch how many 4473's per hour you see get processed. Often, you'll walk away wondering how the owner can pay the overhead. That is, unless you visit a place like Four Seasons (www.fsguns.com) in MA, where you generally have to wait your turn to fill out the 4473 on a weekend because all the other clerks are busy calling in NICS checks for buyers ahead of you in line. You'll have to contend with a product liabiltiy chain that can follow you for life on any gun you sell, and a product where many buyers are price sensitive and can easily find the prices offered by big dealers, who can often sell at the same price a small dealer must pay at a "1 per order" distributor in Shotgun News. But, if you have a business that can double as your FFL address, and you're interested in a sideline to sell to the local shooting community on a transfer basis, go for it.

I've personally never worried about the resale value on a gun since I tend to keep them to until they are so old they're not worth selling [ anyone got a grand to spare for a single stack 38 super on a cracked frame with a tasco scope or perhaps you would prefer a single stack 45 caliber open division gun with an eggholed slide stop hole ? ] I've seen amazing work from the local gunsmith here in MA. It's common for a smith to rebarrel a comp gun. What's not common is seeing one do it without having to trim the comp or slide to keep a perfect slide to comp fit - the smith told me it was all a matter of starting the threads on the barrel in the right place. My first super was built by this same local smith 10+ years ago, and it was every bit as good as those offered by the "big names" at the time ... and, I could visit my gun as it was "in progress". I'd suggest another factor in you shopping: How likley is it that you will be wanting to sell your gun used? If it's within a couple of years, considerations of residual value are probably important. If you plan to shoot the gun until it's either worn out or obsolte, such concerns are a distraction in your purchasing decision. I drive my cars until they have 150K+ miles, so I don't get that excited when the Honda salesman tells me about "better resale value" than American cars.

One of the big things about "resale value" is the name recogniiton of the vendor. If you gun is build by a well known custom gunsmith or a popular factory, you will have a national market for you gun upon resale, and potential buyers will be able to get an easy "reference point" as to what the gun goes for new. I won't mention names, since I'd forget some great gunsmith and spend the rest of the afternoon posting apologies, but if you go through Front Sight you will see a number of ads from smiths everyone knows, most (maybe all) of which have a reputation for great quality and service. Ditto for the factories which cater to our spot. There are gunsmiths out there who are every bit the equal of the "big names" in terms of quality and service. The limitation of buying a gun from such a smith is that the name will be recognized only in the local market - with a big name, you'll be able to market the used gun to a national audience which will recognize it for what it is. (After all, used comp gun aren't likley to be snapped up on consignment sale at the local shop). If you want to get an idea for the liquidity of a used gun, follow the classified ads on the members page at www.uspsa.org - wait for used guns to come up, note the price, and see how long it takes for the ad to either disappear or have "sold" added to it.

Rose Distribution is the retail arm of Zero Bullets. Zero will deal with you direct only if you are a dealer or a PD. Interestingly enough, the drop ship prices Angus posted here recently were a bit lower than the qty 10,000 dealer/pd bullet prices direct from Zero. Zero is very reliable, and I would expect the same of Rose. I will probably give Angus a try with his drop shipping deal the next time I order, since I had good luck ordering a couple of Ghost holsters from him, and got good support when a part broke. I've had good luck with their bullets - they are real "jackated" bullets, not "plated."