schoonie

No Charles, that's cheating! Seriously, that's it. Now I expect you to help the rest of us un-enlightened ones starting tonight!

Steve, Try to highlight the challenges presented by the different stages, include photos. Discuss the shooting solutions provided by the shooters of various skill levels. This includes the crash and burns for the reading pleasure of the audience. Provide an overall impression of the match, ROs, organization, range, awards, ie. help me to decide if I may want to attend the next match hosted by this range.

Tony, Arrive early, at least to review the stages after the ROs shoot. Another trick is to find a better shooter on your squad and ask him or her during your walkthrough what a good plans is. If you get really lucky, find a better shooter that has already shot the stage to give you a plan.

I think we need to propagate more gators if they only eat 'stupid' people

Brian, This is a simple one, The RO can have a conversation about anything he/she wants to prior to the LAMR command, so the last thing I would say would be "face downrange and Load and Make Ready". I don't want to help a shooter make a mistake and DQ himself due to a mental lapse at the LAMR, therefore, turn his butt around and then start the course of fire!

How about this?

Hey Smitty Thinning the heard works both ways

Leo, The hotel rates don't drop until after the Sebring race a month later. Moving up is the best option. Smitty, I can loan you a few bucks with a reasonable vig, er rate (not more than 10% compounded daily)

Okay now I'm totaly confused. Where is the consitency? Are we talking about the muzzle direction or the relative position of the shooter's body to the gun and the range? From above statement extracted from Steve's post, JA uses the words 'should be' not 'is'. Which is it? How many stages have we shot where the shooter runs/moves uprange to engage a target. See the Todd Jarrett video from the recent Florida State Match for stage 8(or 9) or the videos Sharon made of squad 14 on the same stage. Face down range with a FBI rear cant holster and draw, the muzzle points uprange briefly during the draw and this is allowed. Same shooter faces uprange, draws, but does not rotate the muzzle uprange, just turns behind the gun to face downrange and he gets DQ'd! Open gunshooter with a forward canted holster better not face uprange and even think about drawing! Why is the draw process any different than moving uprange with an unholstered gun? The shooter still has to keep the muzzle downrange! Here's the old thread http://www.brianenos.com/forums/index.php?...topic=16286&hl= and yes my positioned has evloved.

Gary, I have not tried the reduced qty yet. The case feed plate is the larger one. When I bought the case feeder I specified 45 and 40 cal. The literature indicates that 40 cal cases works with both plates. Maybe the smaller feed plate is the answer. I am travelling until Wednesday. I'll check in after I get a chance to reload again. Thanks

Gary, The cases enter the plastic drop tube upside down I think. They react differently with the plunger so I notice them before I finish the stroke. The case hangup I get with the plunger pushing the case under the shell plate is greately minimized if I reduce the stroke velocity by about 30% at the point of the case transition onto the ram.

Gary, The screwdriver trick worked great. The roller now stays in contact continuously with the cam. The cases don't move at all, no more crushed primers. New problem; I switched from 45 to 40 and I'm getting a couple upside down cases and case jams at the top of the feed tubes. It appears that a case drops out of the large bin sideways (90 degrees from verticle) and gets jammed in the clear plastic funnel at the top of the drop tube. The brass keeps dropping on top, stacking up, and eventually jamming the rotary wheel. Have I overloaded the bin? I put about 500 cases into it.

Hey Eric, I left a trail for you, it was black smoke. Guess you couldn't see it at night.

Thanks for the rapid response, I'll try the adjustment this weekend and report back.

Gary, I'm having the same bounce back problem as Trish, how do I adjust the cam? What's the procedure? Also I'm getting a jam when ths case slides onto the base (I don't recall the technical name of the part that the shellplate mounts on). The aluminum insert that the brass slides in is a couple of thousandths taller that the base and the brass sometimes tilts down at the junction point between the two pieces and stops sliding into position. Should both parts be on the same plane? My 550 was purchased in the early 80's if that makes a difference. Thanks for any help you can give.

A smart shooter who is prepared to game a stage will or should take measures to protect him or her self from the possible penalties. I know, as a RO, it can be very hard to make the FTE call for an individual target that is a part of a mutiple target array. If I was to cap off six rounds as fast as possible it sure makes sense to aim at the targets, heck you might get lucky and get an A!

The way I see it is six required shots before a reload and six required shots after a reload. Extra shots are not penalized since it is a Comstock course of fire.

Leo, I know of one stage that may be used involving a chair that's mounted on a frame that rolls in a wooden track. The stage is compliments of Bruce Wells, the president of the SEPSA club in Jacksonville. You are seatbelted into the chair and at the buzzer you have to retreive your gun from a side platform and engage targets while pushing the cart backwards or forwards (if necessary). There will be plenty of targets (16 I think), all more or less hidden behind hard cover. There won't be any sweet spots so the shooter will be forced pedal to find shooting opportunities! O yeah I just remembered some insane drivel about a stage with a long cooper tunnel!!! I can't begin to tell you how much I hate those things!! Just for grins we get to shoot from inside this one.

Zombies, zombies, zombies !!!! Zombie swingers! Zombie sliders! Zombies on Texas stars! Zombie popups!

Jon, It may have been done that way because they were well into the match when the error was discovered and couldn't make the change since it would have reguired the stage to be tossed or have all the previous shooters re-shoot. Not a good excuse, just an explanation.

Matt, Thanks for the Podcast and commentary, it's real helpful in showing the folks I work with what I do with my time!

Eric & Leo, It looked like moving forward on the eating stage was faster since there were shots available on the way in whivh resulted in fewer static shots taken in front of the swingers.

Luca, Excellant observation. You would not have realized that there was a problem if you had not looked again and gotten different visual information. I relate to this problem as it relates to the second shot sight picture when the quick perception feedback indicates all is well but the scoring tells a completely different story. Afterwards I would swear that what I saw and did should have resulted in a good shot but reality is very different. It's like the mental processor in charge of visual processing is running at a very slow clock speed and needs more time to spool up the actual image. My question is how can you tell difference between the bogus but fast image and the correct but slower processed image? When do you know when you got the right one?

Jumping on the 'Thanks to Dillon' bandwagon; I just got my 20 year old 550B press back after only two weeks. One of the overtravel stop lugs had broken. All the lower mechanisms were replaced with new ones containing lubrication holes, and the whole priming mechanism was replaced since it had just started hanging up (probably just worn out from use). All repairs plus shipping for no cost! You can't get better service anywhere!

To prevent the timer from picking up any other sounds, I hold it behind my back while the shooter is unloading and showing clear (gotta be sure he or she is really finished though!). Having seen, and suffered for myself, what Shannon is refering to, I think it's best to ask to look at the timer to verify the time. As an RO I've got to be responsible to be sure that the last entry on the timer was only the last shot fired. I don't mind the request to show the shooter the timer, we're there to help, right?