SauconValley Shooter

Good Morning, This was the first USPSA level III match for Joanna and myself. What a great time we had! The drive from PA was not bad and the weather on Friday was perfect. We also shot with a great squad, and a quick squad too as we were done first. All the comments about good stages and great staff are certainly true. I know that I could have done some things differently and finshed a little better, but I won one stage in Revolver division and finished 1st in C class. Now, we will be planning to shoot more major USPSA matches.

Good Evening, Any one reading this post and considering a 9mm 1911 may also want to think about the Rock Island Armory (Armscor) 9mm 1911 Tactical. This gun can be had for $430. Rock Island actually makes some of the parts for the STI Spartan. I am considering the Rock Island after two shooters at one of my local clubs recently purchased them. They are doing very well with the new guns. For less than $900 you could have your game gun and a backup.

Good Morning, The HARD AS HELLertown II match registration is live. Follow the link on the IDPA web site major match page. The match is Saturday and Sunday, May 28 and 29.

Good Morning, I sent a message to HQ and my AC, regarding a steel rule that may be needed. My AC replied that "in the beginning" the founders of IDPA believed that MDs should use common sense and therefore did not feel the need for the rule book to spell out every last detail. Therefore, it is the MD's responsibility to ensure that all steel will fall with the lowest IDPA power factor ammunition. Personally, I like this explaination, my AC explained that IDPA was supposed to be played by "big boy rules", meaning that we do not need a rule in order for everything to be fair. Hopefully, all of the MDs are up to this standard. I would like to think that I am. M1911, do you tilt your muzzle up before each shot through the chrono? If I do not tilt the barrel, my velocities are all over the place, but when I do tilt the muzzle, things tighten up.

Good Afternoon, Quite a while ago, Bones told me that when I get closer to SSR Master, getting closer to the minimum power factor will be important. As a SSR EX, I feel that I am getting to that point, and I will certainly experiment with lowering my current 135ish PF loads. Someone already posted that they checked their times with lower PF ammunition and the times were faster. Shooting faster than everyone else is how you win. (while not dropping lots of points) To all of the people stating that they will not be lowering their loads - thank you!

Good Morning, You are correct.

Good Morning, I run monthly ICORE matches in Hellertown PA. It has been as bad as two shooters, but as long as at least one person besides myself shows up, I will run a match. This is simply because I want to shoot! My ICORE match is on the third Friday of the month. We run on an indoor range and I have a field course, medium course, a couple of shorter courses and a classifier. It is dissappointing that the most shooters we have had is five, but the matches do not take very long and the scoring is done quickly! I run an IDPA sanctioned match at Hellertown, and I have been thinking of running a weekend, trophy, ICORE match this year. Locally, Ontelaunee runs a weekend match in the spring, just before the IRC so that shooters can get tuned up and classified. I am planning on attending the IRC this year. Ontelaunee also runs the East Coast Regional in September. The Ontelaunee 2011 match schedule is due out next week, so perhaps the match will be posted on the ICORE web site soon. Regarding the U.S. Open at Caswell Ranch, I submitted a stage and I thought that I sent in an application. If this match is put on again, and I have no conflicts, as I also shoot revolver in IDPA and USPSA, I would consider attending and bringing a couple other shooters as well.

Good Morning, SSP/EX 47.56(13) ESP/EX 48.85(15) SSR/EX 54.44(16) ESR/EX 58.97(29) My first run was SSR and my last run was ESR. The night of the ESR match, there was a lot going on and I did not shoot well(down 29). I was pretty happy with my pistol scores as I shoot revolvers almost exclusively. I still need to shoot CDP/EX so I will probably run the postal match again in January, at Hellertown.

Good Evening, I played around with a "custom" 629 that I found on Gunbroker. I bought it for the same reason, it looked cool! I won SSR MM at the S&W Indoor Nationals with it. I then bought a 4 inch 629, the first one was 3.5 inch, and I won SSR SS at Blackwater one year. I have not shot the 44s in a while but they were fun. I used Safariland Comp one speed loaders and drew them from my vest pocket as there were not any holders that would work well with a Comp one. You can run a 240 grain bullet at around 500 fps to make minor power factor, but at that speed your trajectory has quite an arch. I shot the 240s at around 750 fps to flatten out the travel.

Good Morning, Revopop, I have never had a problem with 231 not burning. I use 231 for 38, 357, three different 40 loads and 38 super. I use Clays for 9mm. I wonder if there is something else that could cause the un-burnt powder. I use Federal primers for wheel guns, but a few different brands for semi-autos. Anyway, my pet 38 special load for almost ten years is 5.1 grains of 231, with Federal 100 primers, and Berry's 158 plated, DSRN bullets seated to 1.500". This has consistently made 132 to 135 power factor.

Good Morning, I use a CR Speed holster. As was mentioned before, I had to drill through the plastic and move the rod clamp to the right side of the holster. That was the extent of the changes. I do not mind the lock being between the holster and my belt. I use the holster for ICORE and USPSA and I have adjusted it for a 625/4"/5", 646/4", 686/6", 627/4"/5"/6". It is important to ensure that the holster holds the gun with no slop. You may have to change shims when changing gun frame sizes. Be prepared to get creative with the muzzle base riser when using the short barreled 610. I also have the Safariland holster in L frame. It is a fine holster once you are used to the movement required to draw. I do not know how the N frame holster would hold a L frame, but my L frame holster worked well with a 6 shot 686, but started to remove the holster lining with a 7 shot 686. Because of this, I do not think that the L frame holster will work well with a N frame.

Guess Jerry will never make it, then.... Good Afternoon, Well, for Jerry, I will try real hard to make master and then round up all of the ESR masters of whom I know to shoot Nationals with me.

Good Afternoon, I thought that the match was fun. Yes, two or three stages were certainly easier to shoot with eight round guns, but I did OK in Retro/Classic. (2nd place!... out of 2) Joanna and I shot Saturday afternoon as one of the IDPA matches I run was on the Sunday. And speaking of doing OK in Classic, I just checked the ICORE classifiers as they have been updated since the East Coast Regional, and I am now A class in Retro/Classic. I am thinking that as I have a 93% and a 90% (from the East Coast match)in Classic, there must not have been a lot of fast shooters shooting classifiers in Classic.

Good Morning, Tom is still very much envolved in the East Coast Regional. The stages are posted on the club web site. The Hellertown match starts at 7pm if that helps. I have been toying with the idea of a weekend match, not monthly, but maybe a couple of times a year, perhaps just before the New England Regional and East Coast Regional.

Good Morning, I shoot a CZ85B in ESP. I love the way the gun fits in my hands. I have had some jamming problems and searched this forum to learn if I was not the only one. There were three suggestions that came up frequently. 1) Stone the bottom of the breech face. When the top cartridge in the magazine slides up, the bottom edge of the breech face is riding along the cartridge at the top of the magazine. The edge of the breech face is sharp enough to dig into the brass case and pull it along out of the magazine. You need only take the sharp edge off. 2) Change the recoil spring. I bought a Wolff spring pack and started with the lightest recoil spring, which seemed to work so I did not try the remaining springs. 3) Change the extractor spring to a Wolff extra heavy spring. I bought the extractor spring but I have not put it in as I have not had extraction problems. I have a Blade Tech holster. My load is a 124gr plated round nose bullet and around 3.2 grains of Clays. Have fun!

Good Afternoon, The squad list shows 11 shooters and 6 staff members, of whom 9 (or more than half) are unclassified. I do not see Dave or Josh listed. If there are people that have told you they will be shooting the match, perhaps you can persude these people to register as it will make the match more enticing to others.

Good Afternoon, If you would like to try SSR for the least initial investment, I would recommend the following: If you can find a Fobus left hand holster, buy that for now. One of my friends is a 5 gun master and he uses Fobus holsters. If they do not make a lefty revolver holster, then I would look for a Safariland 567 series holster. I have seen them as low as $35 on line. I do not believe that Safariland is making them anymore, but that was recent enough that there still should be some around. Do not worry about speed loader holders. I went through SSR marksman and sharpshooter with my speed loaders in my vest pocket. I won SSR marksman at the 2007 Nationals and 2008 S&W Indoor nationals pulling speed loaders out of my vest pocket. If you decide to stick it out with SSR, then I would recommend the Ready Tactical holders. For speed loaders, I started with Safariland Comp I's. Midway has them on sale quite often and the Comp I and Comp II, although not as fast as Comp III's and Jet Loaders, are still much faster than HKS and they are not too expensive. Good luck, and welcome to SSR!

Good Afternoon, You inspired me Matt to time my reloads. I too am left handed and I do put my thumb through the frame to hold the cylinder. I am thinking of trying your method as it looks like a little less movement. It will take a long time to switch as my thumb is very, very accustomed to going through the frame and not on top of the frame, but I have made a change in my reloads before. It just took lots of dry fire practice. My test was different than yours in that I was using IDPA gear, I ejected empty brass and I put a primer on my bench about 6 inches up from the timer, so that I would have aimed shots before and after the reload. I shoot a 646 in IDPA ESR and USPSA right now. My average was 2.25 and my best was 2.06 seconds. I have just switched to a round nose bullet, for better reloads, but all of my practice ammo is truncated cone (flat point). With my 625 my best was 1.87 with the average just over 2 seconds. Should I switch to my 625? I would like to try again with round nose 40s, and I feel that I drive the 646 faster through the targets. I tried my 627 with the crappy factory moonclips (I have Hearthco's but they are all loaded) and my best was 2.60 with an average of 2.65. Then for fun, I got out the 686 and speed loaders and got a 2.51 best and 2.75 average. Thank you for the inspiration! The tests were interesting and I will see if using your method can save me some time.

Good Morning, There have been a few posts about a lack of matches, so as I did not see anything about the East Coast Regional, I thought this would be timely. You will find match information on the Ontelaunee web site: http://www.ontelaunee.org/ I run a monthly ICORE match in Hellertown PA, on the third Friday of the month. I usually run a 30+ round field course, a medium course, a short course and a classifier. Ontelaunee, home club of Josh Lentz, runs at least two club matches a year besides the regional match. Attendance is usually light as seems to be the norm with ICORE. Last month it was me and one other shooter at Hellertown. I believe the last Ontelaunee match had about 20 shooters. http://www.hellertownsportsmen.com/

Good Morning, For IDPA, I made moon clip holders with Safariland speed loader holders (CD-2 I think) and Rem 300 SAUM rifle brass. I drilled and tapped the primer pocket to 1/4-20 and punched a hole in the holders. (Good luck drilling the spring steel) The 300 WSM brass should also work, as it is also fairly short and the case body is a good diameter to support the cartridges.

Good Morning, I prefer to only load 10 rounds in all of my magazines. I take four magazines to the line. When instructed, I remove the first mag from my pouch and practice a slide lock reload. Then I remove the second mag from my pouch and practice a tactical reload. I pull two fresh mags from another pocket and fill my pouches. With this method, I do not have to keep track of the special magazine, and I will not get caught with any mags over capacity on an empty gun start. I also get those two practice reloads right before the buzzer. But then, I shoot revolver most of the time so what do I know.

Good Morning, I have the X frame grips on every S&W I that I shoot in competition. 625s, 627s, 686s, 66, 617, 610s, and 646s will all accept the X frame grip. This way, every gun I pick up feels the same. The only place that I have seen them for sale is on the S&W web site, but I have always found orange, yellow and black available. I suppose that the orange and yellow will run out soon, as when I spoke to Pat Hogue at the Shot Show, he mentioned that they made an initial run of each and no more since then. I use the colors for caliber. Yellow is for 45, orange is for 40 and black is for 357 and 22.

Good Evening, Nik is correct in that Hellertown is not an affiliated USPSA club. I actually sent NIk two emails asking questions about Hellertown joining, but he never replied. We are an official IDPA and ICORE club. Thank you, Ken Ortbach Action Pistol Chairman Hellertown Sportsmen's Association That's interesting -- I haven't got anything in Outlook. Even checked the junk e-mail folder.... Good Afternoon, You would have to look back a bit, as I sent you emails a few months ago when I learned that Guthsville would no longer be running USPSA matches. This morning, I sent another message to your email address.

Good Evening, Nik is correct in that Hellertown is not an affiliated USPSA club. I actually sent NIk two emails asking questions about Hellertown joining, but he never replied. We are an official IDPA and ICORE club. Thank you, Ken Ortbach Action Pistol Chairman Hellertown Sportsmen's Association

Good Morning, You actually have two Canadians registered.