Storm

In the US, you'll find major matches tend to have fewer stages with higher round counts. We don't tend to follow the guidelines for the number of short, medium & long COF's. They're mostly medium & long. In the last 6 years, I've shot about 40 major matches. I can only recall one Area match that was over 12 stages. The only ones larger than 15 have been the Nationals. You might be able to shoot 2 matches in one weekend. Shoot one on Friday, travel Saturday & shoot the other Sunday. Or, if you can be here a week and a half, shoot matches on 2 consecutive weekends & sightsee during the week between matches. As far as the best matches goes, I'd say Area 2/Rio Salado Desert Classic, Florida Open or any USPSA Nationals.

It's possible to have a very firm yet neutral grip. Not only that, he admitted to doing it intentionally. He even recommends improving your grip strength via Ironmind grippers & etc. He also mentioned that he no longer recommends a 70% weak hand / 30% stong hand bias. He now recommends 50/50. Sounds like a firm neutral grip. Think about this for a minute. If I remember correctly, Todd, Jerry, Robby & Eric G. all grip the gun hard. Todd & Jerry have admitted to doing it on purpose. Notice anything in common with these 4?

Assuming your 1911 has a flat mainspring housing, you may want to try a curved or wedge mainspring housing. That should give you a similar wrist angle to the Glock.

Check out the Sept. 10th "Ask Rob" answers on Rob Leatham's site. It might help answer some of your questions. http://www.robleatham.com/answers040910.htm That's what Jerry Barnhart would tell you to do. Time yourself in practice or check the timer at local matches. Know what your splits and transtitions are at different distances. At the match, use a stopwatch to time the movers. You can also use the stopwatch to time yourself when moving from one spot to another during walkthroughs. But, as Shred said, that's probably overkill in most situations. Where it matters most is if you have multiple ways to shoot it and you want to figure out what is best for you. It also helps when you're trying to figure what sequence to shoot multiple movers in.

A better way of looking at it is, you can find the center of the a-zone as quickly as you can find the target. Many people drop points because the just "blast at brown". Flex gave a great example of that. If shooting all A's were as easy as shooting Alpha-Charlie's, Eric Grauffel would always shoot 100% of the points. He doesn't. He usually shoots about 95% points for a match, with no penalties! I notice a number of people claim to shoot 90-95% A's. I suspect this is wrong. I think what they actually mean is they shoot 90-95% points. Assuming major and no D's, that's really 50-75% A's and 25-50% C's. Look at the nationals this year. If I didn't screw up my math, Eric shot 2013 out of 2110 points (95.4% points). But, 330 of those points were on steel where you must shoot an A. So, he shot 1683 of 1780 points on paper (94.6% points). Assuming no D's, he shot between 70% and 75% A's. Now, let's look at your PPC example. I'm guessing shooting a C is more like shooting a 6 than an 8. (I don't shoot PPC.) In fact, I'd guess an A is more equivalent to an 8. So, how fast can you shoot 75% "8"'s and 25% "6"s?

Flex- Your idea doesn't suck. I think it all depends on the match & who's running it. It's far better than not having an area match. Being from Area 3, I know what it's like to not have an Area match. I think it's worked out OK for Area 2 / Rio Salado Desert Classic. They've consistently drawn 350-400 shooters since 2000. I've been to it twice & am going again this year. They've been running the Classic for so long, they pretty much know how to run a match. That's one of the advantages of combining with a "known" match. Contrary to Chriss' experience, all of the people I've spoken with think combining A2 & RSDC was a good idea. I'm sure there are people that don't, but I haven't encountered them.

I'm pretty sure I know "who" wfmft is. But, what the acronym stands for, I can only guess. World Famous Mark F. Twight

BDH - You did the right thing. As a shooter, it's quite annoying when shooters from other squads get in the way of your walkthrough, especially when they don't even shoot until the next day. It's even worse if you're the on deck shooter doing your final walkthrough. In that situation, I'm not nearly as polite as you were, especially if I have to ask them twice to move because I'm on deck.

No, it doesn't. At least that's how I've seen similar things handled at the Nationals. (I've been to several.) It's quite possible that the stage description will be clarified as the match goes on. Consistency is the key. If the RO has not allowed a particular action to this point, it's possible they will change the stage description to strictly forbid that action. If the RO/CRO did say, "Sorry, but you can't do that", you can argue it to the RM. The first question the RM will ask the RO is "Have you allowed anyone else to do it this way?". If the RO says no, you're probably gonna lose. The RM will politely tell you that you must do what the RO says. At least that's the way I've seen similar issues handled in the past.

It won't do you any good to get bumped down. Since most classifiers that get set up are of the "stand and shoot" variety, you're gonna end up right back at the top. Enjoy where you're at & shoot the best you can. Like Nik said, shoot as much stuff on the move as possible. That will make up for time lost while moving.

Ron Avery's Site is: http://www.practicalshootingacad.com/ The NRA Whittington Center is in Raton, NM. Their website is: http://www.nrawc.org/

Don's a Team SV shooter. Here's some info from SV's website. http://www.sviguns.com/cgi-bin/team/team_p...?ident=dbednorz

PaulW - I couldn't agree with you more. Jake - Lighten up dude! It's not a job unless you get paid. The stats person is typically a volunteer who's usually doing something nobody else wants to do. But, if you want to volunteer, have at it. You're opinion of stats will forever change if you only do stats for a year. Sometime's there are more important things that stats. Also, how did the stats person screw up your goal anyway? If you know you have an M class worthy classifier waiting, then relax. You already hit the goal.

Flex, A class with Max & Travis would be great! I'm planning on going to the Buckeye Blast anyway. I'll e-mail you my contact info.

I've shot A2/DC a couple of times. I was planning on shooting it again this year. But, if I have to be there all 4 days, I definitely won't be there. I don't typically shoot any area matches that require more than 2 days. That's why I haven't been to the last couple of Area 4 matches. I make an exception for A2/DC since it's like a mini vacation. But, 4 days is way too much for an area match. Or, put another way, if it's a 4 day match, it better have 18 stages...

Brian, It looks good & I'd be interested. But, I would like to know some of the answers to earlier questions Like does it use a proprietary seating die, how sensitive is it to bullet profile, does it support a powder check? Blkbrd - Liability shouldn't really be any worse. It looks like it should support a powder check. Otherwise why is the extra hole for the powder check there? (The small one in the corner of the toolhead, not the die position.) The die position may not be threaded, but it is a prototype, so they may not have just machined it. Or, it may just be a bad picture. Even if you don't have a powder check, you can still see in the case while it's in the position between the powder drop and the bullet feeder. Drifting the thread a little, I love Matt's disclaimers on his videos. "If you shoot yourself or someone else, it's your fault!" The same thing applies here. "If you blow your face off because you can't reload ammo safely, it's your fault!"

Personally, I think a 5 day, 24 stage "run what ya brung" match is a good deal. The big dogs will shoot in whatever division they shoot best. If the talent pool is diluted by having a multiple division match, so be it. It's just like the World Shoot. One of the nice benefits is you can shoot with your friends. I prefer to shoot Open, most of my friends shoot Limited or L10. With last years format, that had us spread across 3 different matches. I'll be there shooting Open.

Yeah, that's why I only compared HHF rather than top 10 HF's. There were still plenty of good Limited shooters there. So, I think the numbers are still relevant. Kind of like an educated guess. Often times the HHF's at a Nationals are not set by the match winner. There are a lot of folks that end up putting together a "perfect" stage at the Nationals. They just don't do it for the whole match. I kind of think of a nationals stage win along the same lines as BE's LOHF (Limit of Human Function). If each stage win is truly an LOHF run, then the HHF comparison's would be accurate. It's just that it's the LOHF of the shooting populace rather than an individual. Who knows? Of course, another way to look at is, if Limited field wasn't as deep, that 11.5% figure is probably high. Maybe it really is closer to my original guess of 8-10%. Again, who knows?

OK, I just did that. On average, it's 11.5%. (But, I only used the top HF, not the top 10.) The largest difference was Stage 1 "Jackalope's Revenge" at a whopping 25%. If I remember there were distant partials (20 yds?) and prone steel (40 yds?). What's interesting is the stage with the least difference. It was stage 3 "5 to 50 Standards". Very interesting. I would have guessed 8-10%.

I took a 2-day class Frank taught before Area 3 last year. It was definitely worth the time & expense. As Paul mentioned, he hammers home the basics with an emphasis on accuracy. He really tries to give you a basis so you can go home & train yourself. If you want an endorsement, Emanuel Bragg arranged and also took the course. Let's see, he was 2nd at the factory nats & 8th at the limited nats this year. He'd been in the top 16 before, but not the top 10. Maybe Frank's class helped.

Mark, Thanks! I already sent in a paper application rather than waiting for the online app to work. So, I should be good to go. Ought to be a fun match.

Mark, The link to the registration form may work. But, as soon as you try to submit the application, it fails. I tried it from 2 different computers on 2 different ISP's. http://www.infinityopen.org/ioreg.php comes back with an HTTP 404 Not found. The problem is on your end. How many competitors are registered?

If you've already got a limited top-end, I'd say go ahead & try it. I just recently set up a single-stack Kimber in .38 super. I plan on shooting Limited 10 with it just for fun. I'll probably shoot some IDPA with it too. With heavy bullets, recoil should be pretty tame. I've been playing with 160 Lead roundnoses using Winchester 231. It feels pretty soft to me. Can't remember the load, but it's on the low end of the published book loads from Winchester. I'm sure there are other powder choices that would be just as good. I could care less whether the "big dogs" shoot minor. A minor .38 super is just plain fun to shoot. I figure at worst, my reloads will improve. I'm not used to these skinny guns...

As Ron mentioned, the problem with the re-entry feature is the second gun does not show up in the printed reults. Since our club allows shooters to shoot multiple guns, we just create seperate matches for each division. Not the most elegant solution, but it works.

I think Kimber is still making a .38 super single-stack 1911. STI makes both single-stack & double-stack .38 supers. So does SV.