shred

FP-10 works well for me in cold weather, but we don't get Alaska-cold or anything down here. It was noticeably better than Breakfree though. (Edited by shred at 10:11 pm on Oct. 29, 2002)

Let me tell you, the sponsors don't beat down your door when you finish 3rd-A in every major match in Texas . You can get some OK stuff from the prize table every now and then, but it won't pay for your shooting. Of course I know a middle-D-class sponsored shooter too. Of course she was 14 and cute, which brings me to-- Bottom line is if you want a real sponsorship, you need to provide at least as much value ($, advertising, etc) to the sponsor as they give you, and you have to be able to prove it. If you're 14 and cute, you get a lot more attention shooting D scores than a doughy white guy shooting mid-C-class. Many more people have "sponsorships" like me-- I wear my gunsmiths' shirt, and get maybe a bit more priority and the odd tuneup free (if you win something, bring your 'smith a picture to put on the wall), and some friends that own a range let me shoot there in exchange for bragging about me on their website and having me help with a class or two. These 'friend' deals are lots easier to get and probably much less stressful than a commercial deal, right Brian? (Edited by shred at 10:00 pm on Oct. 29, 2002)

Anybody that thinks HHF's are 'adjusted' as time goes by trusts the USPSA web site a tad too much. There are clearly classifiers (Open & Ltd-- the others are %'s of Ltd) with "Pulled-from-thin-air" HHF's, and there are several that desperately need adjusting, but haven't been, despite multiple requests to Sedro over several years. (I think they just want to irritate me enough to volunteer to fix 'em)

I thought Bomb Squad from the RGN's blew-- there was no good way to shoot it as a lefty that didn't have you either almost sweeping yourself or shooting weak-hand only. Note to stage designers: If you've got a prop I've gotta dink with and/or carry around, make sure it's friendly for righties and lefties.

One thing I did for DF practice was to make "ports" out of cardboard or coreplast. Get a rectangular target-sized piece, chop a large hole in the middle and mount to a target stand, which you then use to practice acquiring hidden targets and getting in and out of shooting ports.

Ron-- here's something to try: My 'usual' practice draw on a close 8" plate from flat-footed is around 1.2. As an experiment, I tried drawing, then moving out of the box after shooting the plate. I was surprised to see my draw consistently 0.1 to 0.2 faster when I had to move, especially as I was starting to move and all. I asked a friend to watch me carefully and his diagnosis was I was 'accepting less' sight picture and still making the hit. FWIW,

Without a shooting buddy (which is most of my practice), you have to be a lot more diligent about noticing what you are actually doing and not what you think you're doing. A simple "Why do you dip your head like that?" can be worth hours..

A friend did some DIY grit-grips on an STI by sanding off the checkering, applying epoxy and sandblasting grit. It doesn't look super-good, but works well. Someplace else I mentioned 'sugar-decking' as in surfboards and windsurfers and such-- put down a thin layer of epoxy, sprinkle sugar (big or little crystal, your choice) all over it and wait for it to dry. Then apply water and wash off the sugar, leaving a nice grippy surface and a good view of your kewl graphics underneath. That should work for grips too.

Think about hard-cover on targets too.. takes more work & paint, but they're both easier on the new shooters and surprisingly challenging even when placed close (for some reason shooters that whine about a full target at 25 yards don't complain near as much about an A-zone-only hard cover target at 7 yards)

Well.. that's pretty much right. Chip McCormick is mixed in there somewhere at the beginning, and Dave Skinner showed up sometime after the STI/SV split, but the upshot is Virgil is in Alpine doing TrippResearch and CobraChrome and isn't directly involved in STI or SVI anymore (besides chroming a lot of their guns). Heck of a good guy too.

The tub rules. I can swipe a finger in there and come up with as big or as little a glob of SG as I want. Perhaps you could sell a separate "SG-safe" syringe as an extra like the brushes.

Probably my first pass will be for fixed cameras-- then it's easy to subtract out the background images and keep the shooters. You could then sync the video at various places-- on the beep, getting into position whatever, etc.. It would work well for "let me try doing it a couple of different ways" drills, or seeing where somebody pulls away from you on a stage.

Can we put this joke in the FAQ along with Detlef's favorite hunting story? (Edited by shred at 2:33 pm on Oct. 24, 2002)

Somebody was selling a couple of hydraulic-adapted 1050's on eBay a while back. I think they wanted $5K for two.

Cool.. This goes well with my next software project-- a ghost-shooter video setup, much like the olympics did with skiing this year.

Bag-within-a-bag is extremely popular with backpackers and anything with straps and parts sticking out-- the airports usually have a stock of thick plastic baggies to cover packs and strollers. Bonus is these are usually free and don't offer a good grip-and-throw to the baggage gorillas. Downside is they're transparent and hard to lock. If I was going to check my gun bag, I'd probably use either a military-style canvas duffel bag or ballistic nylon equivalent-- cheap, lockable, looks like a sack of clothes. Extra tip-- get a golf-club hard-case for checking rifles. Cheaper, lockable and not quite as much 'steal-me' factor.

This is a hero-or-zero stage. Shoot accurately and you'll be fine.

is this going to be fun... I'll be there shooting Open, unless all three of my open guns somehow get broken between now and then.. Should benos mock me, well, I'll have to haul out some pictures from my old Sierra handgun loading manual... Dunno what squad I'm on, but if somebody's planning to be going from the Country Inn to the range Thursday afternoon, drop me a line. My ride to the range doesn't get in until after dark. (Edited by shred at 8:08 pm on Oct. 22, 2002)

Look into the true old-west gunfighters. It wasn't the fastest guy to clear leather that won, it was the first accurate shot. Wyatt Earp and co usually shot last.

Thanks! I saw that episode years ago, and even last week was wandering around going "I really like the vest", which nobody else got..

5.0 gr Titegroup works for me in a comped .38 Super under a 115gr bullet (~135 PF). A friend uses 4.2 for steel in an uncomped gun, and 4.7 for 125PF IPSC minor.

FYi-- TJ teaches a bit of an outward flip as part of the reload-- well, not quite. It's more of a rotate the magwell away from the incoming mag while bringing the gun back to the reload position. Done fast and smooth it works well.

Any thoughts on the Miculek comp as seen in the Dillon catalog? The JP is way-cool, but not Limited OK.

Guns (unless they are very old, collectible or banned) seem to drop down to a certain value (about 10% below dealer cost for a new one for common guns) and very slowly drift downwards from there, as condition gets noticeably worse. Race guns can drop faster, especially if they're "old technology". There doesn't seem to be a steep drop in depreciation otherwise. Sell the ones you don't shoot anymore and have little emotional attachment to. If there aren't any like that, don't sell any. (Edited by shred at 3:01 pm on Oct. 16, 2002)

Scotch tape is the one to use. Best is the standard translucent-but-not-completely-transparent type.