Ray Ninness

I have always used the Point of Aim method, where do I want the shot placed.. The sight picture is about as your illustration shows. A GM asked me once what do you aim at, and I said the "A" Zone, "Wrong" was his answer, "Try to imagine the "A" stamped in the middle of the "A" zone, that will lessen you "Wiggle Room" toghten you shot tolerance so to speak.. Which is again why I set mt sights to point of aim, imagine that little perferated "A" smack in the middle of the "A" zone and have at it..

I always carried six user mags, set on my left side, I'm a righty.. And two in a straight mag pouch on my right hip, as loaders, and a striper clip in my right rear pocket..I always went to the line in the same configuration. Always did my "Make Ready" the exact same way. Stripper clip for the chamber round, safety holster, stuff the stripper back in my hip pocket, grab one of the two started mags on my right hip and fill the gun up, reholster, ready to have fun!!.. Now I have a full gun, and 7 mags available, the second started mag is an absolute last resort. But I can't remember ever using it?? But it's still there and available if needed, someday???

I have been looking for a nice Single Stack gun, in 45 ACP, lots of nice toy available out there??

I was perhaps the only club member at the Livingston Gun Club, in Brighton, Michigan, that didn't lke Pins, many of the guys were big on Second Chance. Pin drove me crazy especially when they laid down and just spun around when you shot them :-( The only steel I ever shot was in IPSC matches, IPSC is my game of choice. If I get frustrated at the back of the pack, maybe an STI will be in my future???

That is all................... or, do what I did with my .38 super single stack useless comp guns, refit with a bushing barrel & use for single stack or IDPA! Go green, recycle! The gun shoots nice I still understand the principle of mag changing, aren't courses supposed to be 8 round neutral??? I think I'm well past winning the National Championship, so I'll keep shooting the 45 and the Super, it's supposed to be fun right???

I usually shot lead for practice, and at matches when it was warm-hot and dry.. I used Jacketed 185 Gr Semi-Wadcutters on cool mornings, especially, and on courses where there were a lot of static targets to be shot.. On the dirter gun issue, I was and am a clean gun freak, I used to clean the gun, every night at matches, rigt down to the bare frame.. I'm not sure exactly why?? As I knew how many rounds my guys would fire before puking, and that number was much higher then and round count in any match I ever shot.. So in theroy I could shoot the whole weekend and not have any issues.. I guess I just liked a nice clean well oiled gun every morning ???

I have been and I'm sure others here to have been too, Saved by a Paster falling Off :-D

I laid out a lot of courses in my former time in IPSC, really enjoyed that part of the Game, and I like to think I did a good job.. And back then I consider myself to be a Run and Gun advocate. We shot some course that covered a whole 50 yrds and required 40-45 rounds, I know the National office frowned on those kinds of courses, but the guys in our club loved to shoot.. Oh and the courses were "Revolver Neutral" :-O I always paid close attention to making sure the courses were Safe and FUN....

Not to be a Dinosaur, I really stopped shooting the bigger matches in 1995, when my knees started limiting my ability to run with the crowd.. IPSC was one of the most enjoyable sports I have ever participated in.. When I finally stopped shooting in 1996, it wasn't a conscious decision to actually stop shooting, it was a "Slow Down".. I'm sure we have all experienced doing that?? So here I am twelve years later getting the itch to go play IPSC again, some old guns, same old leather and a slightly older body :-) I said Play IPSC, I pretty much always considered it a game.. Back wen I satrted there were basically two schools, the Defensive Hand Gunners, and the Gamers. I started as the former, but quickly became a Gamer.. Back then the sport was drifting in the direction of the Gamers, but on some courses you had to engage targets in "Tactical Order", and many times from cover provided, around corners, peaking around doorways.. As a Gamer I'd show up with a trunk full of "utensils" look over the courses of fire and select the best tools for the job...I had a box full of knee and elbow pads, and shoes to cover any kind of terrain I might need to cover on a course... After all it was a Game, and you have to have the right tools :-

Ray, I think the safety record for the sport speaks for itself. I generally feel safer shooting a match then I do driving to it. I totaly agree, I shot pretty actively back in the day, matches all over the place, and never saw anything that looked dangerious happening. I understand that the sport is safe, I was an RO, and I worked hard to makesure I was doing my job, and while doin it, that nothing bad happened on my stage... Heck back in 1985 when I first started shooting you'd get a "Muzzle" anytime you were past 45 degrees to the back wall of a course. :-)

I think this was the reason for the change. When EXACTLY do you yell muzzle? At 150, 160, 165, 175? If someone hits 175 and then goes back to 150 do you yell? If you yell at one guy at 150 and not the next guy, have you effected the time/score of the guy you yelled at? What if you know the guy is real good, would you yell at a GM at 165? How about a M, an A, a B? I usually see RO's point out places where the 180 is likely to be broken during a walkthrough. I like it when an RO tells me about ways I could have been safer during a COF, after I am holstered and the stage is over. Recently an RO told me I was getting close to the 180 during reloads, I work on it. If it isn't necessary to be at 165, why do it... He didn't yell "muzzle" at me during the COF though. The biggest difference was the course design, I did a lot of courses and I generally kept the design to keep the shooter and the gun facing down range as much as possible, perhaps limiting the aray to 140 degrees?? As I mentioned, if a shooter got beyond the area where the targets were, that was when he got a Muzzle warning, I gave perhaps more Mezzle calls when the shooter was reloading, then when engaging targets.. I never wanted to, nor do I believe was it the intent for a shooter or an RO to ever actually let someone break the 180, in any way shape of form.. if you thought he was going to do it you stopped him.. I can see the conflict, and no doubt that was why things changed.. Again it seems that the powers that be, wanted to open up the sport, but I think it is pretty crazy to be flirting with breaking the 180 in any shooting situation.. Is the intent to keep the spectators and RO's on their toes??? There is no safety zone, which I believe was more or less self imposed, and perhaps too arbitrary for the level of competition being shot today.. I would have hollered Muzzle and anyone back in the day that I felt had the potential to be unsafe, and possible break the 180.. Just waving the gun well past any potential targets would have been cause...But again we didn't place targets the way they are today. I was always trying to keep the courses fun and safe at the sametime.. Progress???

Agreed, I would say 2.1.4 covers designing a course for failure... I designed a lot of courses, and I was a big fan of "Run and Gun' back when I could run :-) I alwys made sure that all the targets were safely inside a comfortable zone well inside the 180, and if a shooter got beyond 70 degrees, he generally got a "Muzzle".. he did it again, and it was in the opinion of the RO a potential violation of the 180, he was gone!! Shooting courses of fire up to the very limit sounds pretty crazy and it's just asking for trouble.. If the RO thought the shooter had the potential to break the 180 with his movement it was his job to stop the shooter before he broke the line, and caused a problem not after.. I would not want to be a course RO who let someone shoot at 179.9 degrees and then the guy had an issue, falls down, looses control of the gun and someone behind the line or the RO gets popped... It is the job of the RO to insure, nothing bad happens on the range.. And having shooters flirting with the 180 on a course of fire just sounds irresponsible, and something that puts the sport in jeopardy... What rule have been broken if the RO "thought" the shooter was about to break the 180? If this happened to me, I would challenge and ask for the MD to assist. If I haven't broken a rule - you can't DQ me. If you want the rule to be only 150 degrees (75 degrees on either side) then make that the rule. But until then, the shooter can go all the way to 179.9 degrees and should not be DQ'd The 180 has always been there as an absolute limit, and it was at the RO's discretion as to what was unsafe.. I just had a bit of discussion on this point with someone from th NORI and was informed that in 1997 most of the rules governing, safety issues and runing and gunning were revised, and that it is totally the shooter's responsibility for safe gun handling and he only has to not violate the 180, and he is safe.. In theroy I have to agree with you, the calls were very arbitrary at times, but back then I never saw a target set 90' to the shooting direction. If a shooter got seriously beyond anything that looked like a target he would get a "Muzzle" and I have called it myself, and seen shooters DQ'd even though the muzzle was still some distance from an actualy violation of the actual 180 line.. Times change, and I'm sure the friendly folks at the USPSA and NORI had their reasons.. But shooting targets 90 degrees to the back wall of a course, and swing a loaded gun that close to the 180, is still something that will take some getting used to????

Ray, not trying to flame on this but how can the RO possibly know what the shooter is gonna do before he does it. I dont see that the RO has reponsibility to prevent the shooter from breaking any of the saftey related rules. The shooter holds the responsibility for this. The RO is just there to enforce the rules as they are written. As ROs we also have a mandate to avoid interefering needlessly with the shooter during a COF. This is definitely a balancing act. I do not believe in calling "muzzle" when I am running a shooter. If they have broken 180, I call "stop". I have never shot a match at NORCO but I suspect it is no more prone to 180 violations than the 2 locals close to me. We do have situations where if the shooter is not careful he has the potential to break 180. If there is any movement at all and side berms come into play, this can often not be prevented, only discouraged. This is also common at the sectional and area matches that I have shot. No flame taken?? All I can say is that things sure have changed since I shot, RO'd and designed courses. Yes a lot was up to the RO to balance safety against interfearance. Many times I called a Muzzle on shooters that were beyond say 70 degrees, and in my opinion in jeopardy of breaching the 180 plane..The last thing I wanted to see as an ROis someone letting fly with a round up range!!! :-( As I said it's seems to be a whole new ball game ow days, I'll have to do a bunch more reading and a whole lot more practice, and shoot a few more matches to get a better feel for the new look of IPSC.. I used to shoot a lot of matches all over the country, so I saw a lot of different concepts to the sport..And I used to think we were real runner's and Gunner's :-D

Agreed, I would say 2.1.4 covers designing a course for failure... I designed a lot of courses, and I was a big fan of "Run and Gun' back when I could run :-) I alwys made sure that all the targets were safely inside a comfortable zone well inside the 180, and if a shooter got beyond 70 degrees, he generally got a "Muzzle".. he did it again, and it was in the opinion of the RO a potential violation of the 180, he was gone!! Shooting courses of fire up to the very limit sounds pretty crazy and it's just asking for trouble.. If the RO thought the shooter had the potential to break the 180 with his movement it was his job to stop the shooter before he broke the line, and caused a problem not after.. I would not want to be a course RO who let someone shoot at 179.9 degrees and then the guy had an issue, falls down, looses control of the gun and someone behind the line or the RO gets popped... It is the job of the RO to insure, nothing bad happens on the range.. And having shooters flirting with the 180 on a course of fire just sounds irresponsible, and something that puts the sport in jeopardy...

Haven't shot since 1996, everyone got a kick out of my old school guns.. And what with 32 rounds in a gun, has mag changing become a "Lost Art Form"??? You used to get a Muzzel call if you were significantly past the 45 degree line, and in the eye of the RO had the potential to go beyond the 180, but you only got the call once!!! I guess high teck run and gun is the current thing?? I saw lots of people real close on the 180 at the match I shot Saturday.. I actually felt a bit uncomfortable seeing muzzels swing about so close to the 180 on every course.. That video was a good example...