shred

Yeah-- I ordered some stuff from Seattle last week UPS sent it to Kentucky, then over to Arizona, then over here to TX. Seven days later, I got my 3-day package.

Geez... all that page is is a batch of Linkshare links. Anybody can get one of those and get a percent or two of sales made by clicking the links. For example, my personal web page has an REI linkshare on it. That doesn't mean REI supports me, IPSC, scuba-diving or flying squirrel enslavement.. I could get a Dell link in about two minutes. Pop over to http://www.linkshare.com and get some links for your gun club's website-- then they'll get the cash instead of HCI.

I think there's a couple ways to go: Either test out enough different open guns that you can decide what you want, or get one of the middle-of-the-road "stock" open guns, and shoot it a while before you decide what to do with it. Either way, you'll end up changing pieces and parts a lot. There's never a perfect Open gun, at least not for long.

A long while ago, some folks in the Microsoft Gun Club decided to test the ballistic resistance of the lucite 'Ship-It' awards they used to give out prodigiously. Some kindred soul sent me the results and the 1" thick chunks of plastic did OK against pistol fire. Rifles and SG slugs weren't fazed, but supposedly there was still a large increase in award interest by the folks "on the sharp end of the customer relationship".

Once I shoot another 12 frames on my camera, then I may have some blurry, out-of-focus, taken-from-too-far-away, aimed-at-nothing-in-particular pictures on the web I'll let y'all know when that is.

I've noticed this too-- and though I used to be irritated by it, I think I'm starting to see what's going on (as I get closer to 'M'-- really, I'm trying to stay helpful ) There are clearly personality differences between individuals (and many exceptions), but I think a lot of it has to do with confidence and knowing what you can do. The M's are sitting there going "Then I'm going to put my foot just <I>here</I>, then a half-pivot to <i>there</i>.. and if I make this shot from here, I can beat ... he's only 3 match points up.. " and variously doing a lot of thinking and trying (especially trying not to look bad). The GM's just know what they can do and don't have to deal with all that anymore, so they have time to relax and be helpful. (Edited by shred at 10:24 am on Feb. 21, 2002)

Yeah, I agree about the usual discrepancies with match booklets and reality, but here's why I (still) want one: 1- Some vague idea what the stages look like-- We got there around 5:30 Friday. We weren't allowed to do anything more than look from behind the ropes, which doesn't give you a lot of help in that match-- Lucky for us Rosie popped over on his 4-wheeler and gave us the scoop. People that were there Thursday or earlier Friday got to play on the stages. At least once I've made a choice on which category to shoot based on a match booklet (that particular one had a lot of 7 & 8 round strings, making the revolver unattractive) 2- Remembering what the heck I shot-- I try to make little notes on the scoresheets about what worked and what didn't, but two weeks from now, I'd like to remember which was which when it comes to practice time. 3- Showing off to all my friends back home about how cool the match was.

Somebody was working on a gas-operated conversion for the 1911-pattern. I dunno what happened to it.

FYI, the results are now up on the <a href="http://www.frankgarciausa.com/flaopen/main.html">Florida Open web site</A> (Edited by shred at 6:27 pm on Feb. 18, 2002)

Ok, I've got one of those CED-thingies.. F-R-I is "Fixed (3 sec), Random (~1-4sec) or Instant" That's the delay between when you push the start button and the buzzer sounds. Use "I" for matches The 10.0, 1.0 and 0.1 buttons are used to set par times. Each is the number of seconds, so if you want a 1.5 second par time, push the 1.0 button, then the 0.1 button five times. The button on the side is a backlight for the display. The CED is also different in you have to push 'Review' before you can push 'Start' again. For matches, I tell people the 'Review' button is really the 'Reset' button. That's all I can remember off the top of my head.. hope it helps..

Yeah, it was a good match. I didn't shoot well, but still had fun and learned some stuff. This is the first time I'd been, and I was surprised at the number of foreign shooters-- we had a guy from Norway on our squad and there were tons of shooters from Europe and South & Central America and even a few from Japan. I heard a couple shooters say "it's an open gun match", although the longest shot I took was a wide-open target at 20 yards. There were also a few piles of tires, one of which caught me trying to sneak a bullet over it. Unfortunately I had to skip out before the results were final (stupid Daytona 500 traffic jams..), so if anybody has a copy, let me know (I expect they'll be on the web site sooner or later). Thanks to my squadmates for making it fun and keeping everything running smoothly. For future reference, the match was reasonably 10-round friendly, but not the least revolver friendly (I didn't see anybody shooting revolver). Nine field courses and one "speed shoot" wall with lots of holes in it. I brought 400 rounds and took 80 back home with me. The stages were 26 to 32 rounds each. If I could change one thing, I'd want a match booklet with stages in it, but I'm pretty sure I'll be back regardless.

You can easily polish off the black finish on a stock Glock slide. The Tennifer finish is below that, so no worries there. The black stuff is only cosmetic. Glock will even still let you shoot in the stock class of GSSF with a polished slide.

You can easily polish off the black finish on a stock Glock slide. The Tennifer finish is below that, so no worries there. The black stuff is only cosmetic. Glock will even still let you shoot in the stock class of GSSF with a polished slide.

Just to balance this out a bit, I RO-ed three new shooters through our club match this weekend. All of them did great, keeping their fingers off the trigger when appropriate and even were aware enough of the 180 to worry they'd broken it moving onto one target array (they hadn't, but it was close). All of them were a) friends/acquantances and somewhat experienced pistol shooters (Pins, plinking, etc), which I think helps a great deal since they actually listened to our advice and warnings.

I've gone back to 124gr bullets for IPSC major. I don't see a big advantage in 115's with my Super and would rather not deal with the pressures. 7.8gr of 350 or 8.4 of 4756 are my usual loads. btw, I think Shooters Connection usually carries 3n37

If you're shooting a dot, try this-- Cover the front of the front lens with masking tape or something opaque. Make sure you can still see the dot by looking in the scope and go shoot. If you've got both eyes open and you're focusing on the targets, you can shoot fine-- the tape is hardly noticeable since your brain adds the images from both eyes together. If one eye or the other is closed, you'll know. (Edited by shred at 7:23 pm on Feb. 9, 2002)

Just FYI, picking up echoes of the shot is common with CED's, especially indoors, mandating use of the mic sensativity control to avoid a lot of 0.02 mystery-splits. It would seem that smart software could get around that, but so far as I know, the PACT has the fanciest software.

You can also do what I did to make some "Classic" targets, which is to get the dimensions off the IPSC page (www.ipsc.org or so), make one out of a chunk of cardboard and voila, you now have a template to hack out a few dozen more in short order with a sharp knife. It's also handy to poke some holes in your template where the corners of the A and C-zones are. Then you can poke a pen through onto your newly cut targets and play connect-the-dots to get proper scoring rings. Jack-- yeah I know Jimmie and Artie, they're great-- we were supposed to be squadded with them at Paper & Iron this year, but they got delayed. (In order to move this discussion full-circle, I made my pseudo-Classic targets above from old ISSA targets, which were formerly used at Paper & Iron) (Edited by shred at 6:49 pm on Feb. 9, 2002)

Practice on the euro 'Classic' target, if you haven't shot on them before. Much smaller a-zone.

Rumor has it that Tasco/Firepoint lost or decided not to fight some patent litigation with C-More. I don't have details or confirmation though.

I think Gatorade & the like were designed for people putting out serious effort for quite a while-- playing football, soccer, running, whatever. IPSC is much more 'bursty', in that there's lots of inactivty interspersed with a few seconds of real action. So we generally don't need so much of the sugars most sports drinks have in them, but to maintain a balance. Drinking water and eating reasonably balanced snacks is probably a better way to go. It's probably a good idea to stay away from range food until you're done shooting too, but sometimes that Texas BBQ is just too tempting..

Oh yeah (in a blatant dot-adding effort, I'm posting a new note instead of editing that last one), the TJ class was worth it. He does some things a bit differently than some of the other GreatOnes, but it's definately worth it.. Our class was mostly B's & A's, with a couple C's and everybody got good value out of it.

TJ did say something about working on a second video, but allowed that he needed to get enough of the first one out the door so he could actually use his furniture first. The first one starts with the basics, but is good.

Had a thought as I was reading this... does the trend (at least in my area) towards seemingly ever-increasing round count have anything to do with the reluctance of new shooters and relative lack of interest in the 10-round categories?? I know I don't like telling prospective shooters "well, you need a gun, holster and, uh, five, magazines and pouches". I think I'd never done a single speed reload in my life before shooting my first IPSC match. We've all seen great 14-round stages, and lousy 40-rounders. Can we do anything to stop the "I'll force everybody to do a reload" mentality of stage designers? What's the obsession with big-match round-count too? Was it once a sign of quality? Enough of my ramblings.. off to get coffee

"Herb Holster"???