Archer

Funny you should mention this- I’m in Japan right now, trying to get Practiscore to let me register for a match in Phoenix next week, and it keeps resetting location and showing me matches “in my area”. Impossible to get it to behave on my phone, had to use my laptop to reset the map.

Stream worked fine for me.

I’m just past 1200 rounds and the thing just runs, so long as ammo is reasonably clean. Aguilla HV has been a problem for ejection, but just about everything else is fine so long as you don’t crack a bunch of dry fires on empties. Then it gets hard to extract. The Speedbeez kit is really a great convenience for this little blaster, and the loader block/case they make is extremely handy for steel challenge.

Set the sensitivity down to about 3 and gradually increase the adjustment until it picks up stray shots. Then back it off at least one. Set echo delay LONGER but not as long as your best split times. It comes configured with 0.12, try 0.13. Remember that you can save the indoor setup separately (p1, p2, p3).

The guy I shoot with regularly has not had keyhole problems with any other coated projectiles, but I am not certain about the mass he’s using- that’s obviously an additional variable. For me, no keyholes at all with the 150 Syntech, but I have just a half case remaining and moved on to 147 grain Blazer Brass and Lawman since using the Syntech last year. I did notice that it shoots around 2” at 25 yards from my 5” HK’s, but spat 6” groups in one of my 4” SIGs and so there is definitely a barrel dependency thing here.

I haven’t had problems with it personally, except the 150 USPSA marked Action Pistol rounds chronographed at 146 PF at my state match last year. There’s much cheaper and equally reliable ammo out there if you’re in that PF range. It was accurate for me. That said, one guy I shoot with regularly and another I know have had keyholes with it from time to time.

Back to topic, current match breakdown for the level 2 UT state USPSA championship:

Our second match of this month comes this weekend- LO participants still decreasing a bit, from about 12 percent last week down to about 8 percent. That proportion is actually in alignment with current pre-registration for our state championship coming up at the end of August, which is currently a little more than 2/3 full.

After a burst of interest, LO in my local club (SLPSA) is more or less half of what it was in the first six weeks of availability. I think people dabbled and perhaps, some realized that it just wasn’t different enough for their taste, with quite a few dabblers seemingly going back to CO with 7 weeks to go till our state match. Here’s this weekend’s upcoming match breakdown, with two slots still available.

Certainly some. I'm just hoping my past five years of nothing but strikers hasn't overwritten my previous 25 of 1911's. LOL.

He’s a hard working RO and I’m disinclined to be very critical of him. I stand by my view that the appendix could be clearer on this subject.

Agreed, that is how I see it as well.

Recently I was tapped to run technology for my local club's steel challenge, as the regular guy was unavailable. I decided to only shoot one gun rather than the two or three I would normally run for an SCSA match. Despite the minor distraction of running the iPads, wifi and timer sync, I had two of my best stage times ever. Sometimes, when you have distractions, doing one thing as well as you can can be useful. As one of Clint Eastwood's more iconic characters once said, "a man's got to know his limitations". Anyway, back on topic, I feel that the new appendix D9 could have been slightly better refined, because right now I'm in a cordial debate with one of my club CRO's about whether it's allowed to run a CO Shadow 2 DA/SA cocked and locked for LO, as one of my squad guys wants to do in our first upcoming match allowing LO. The fact that there's a question about it from a highly experienced and competent NROI certified CRO tells me maybe it could have been made a little more clear. (Seems clear to me that it should be OK, but I'm not a CRO).

I’ve only met YML once. What I know from that experience is that he is an intelligent and extremely competent man who worked his tail (can’t say butt, right?) off at my state match in unbearably hot conditions for days on end. Deeds, not words.

Mine took from June to November of 2022. This guy is a one-man shop, there is still a lot of demand for these devices, and it takes time.

Pushing 30K on one SRO and 20k on another since 2020. Both are on HK VP9 long slides, have been run hard in classes (including lots of one hand manipulations) and zero issues. On the (higher volume) game gun I kept the same battery for two years, changed it at new year's on principle, it still had ~45% power capacity.

Ordered mine in June, and it just showed up yesterday. I have a ton of experience with it as my club uses multiples of them in matches. We set up Wi-Fi across all our bays, and you actually get an email from PractiScore with all the details of your stage run within 10 seconds of hitting “accept” on the scoring iPads. My CED 7000 is always dead at the worst times, and my otherwise great PACT timers don’t work well at indoor ranges or pick up dry fire. This handles both issues very well.

I'm bemused to note that last week's local match made me think the stage designers saw this thread and said "hold my beer". Two of five stages with 32 minimum rounds, the final one of which had about 24 barrel stacks and a pair of "hostage" head-only shots that could be taken at ~30 yards- or you could sprint across gravel and rocks to a box and engage at about 10. (I stayed back and shot them from 30, scored AA-AC, so no dog in that fight, but it sucked for the new shooters on that day). It also kind of sucked for a couple of more experienced shooters who pretty much ran out of ammo due to my squad having to re-shoot the first stage, where steel had been set up to drop back rather than the mandated forward at my club. We had a couple guys in my squad decide to take a zero on the stage and go home rather than re-shoot. None of this was a problem for those of us who shoot regularly, but a tough day for a few new shooters- you know, the types who stop by whatever store the day before to buy the match minimum round count and find out the hard way, that isn't a good idea. It's a tough balance. Keep things interesting for the experienced, be friendly to new shooters, keep round counts reasonable in continuing times of component scarcity/high cost, be grateful for the very hard work put in by the stage setters, get stacked two squads deep due to the sheer complexity of scoring and pasting in a forest of paper and barrel stacks...

My club shifted entirely to pasters a couple months ago. The reliability is much better than tape, particularly in inclement weather. You almost never get that "blasted off nine pieces of tape" effect on close targets with pasters. There's always one or two guys with paster guns on most squads and they tend to fly through the pasting compared to those of us who refuse to spend a hundred bucks on a paster gun My only complaint is that they do generate a ton of waste paper.

As far as I am aware the VP9L Match isn’t legal in CO anyway, regardless of the magazine problem, as it is not on the approved list. Taylor Freelance Border Specials fit the gauge and can provide a reliable 21 rounds (and super tight 22 rounds), I use them with the regular VP9L and P30L with complete reliability.

With a full mag of actual ammo, locked-open slide, and a brisk reload (slam the mag home) every HK polymer pistol I have ever owned- USP’s, USPC’s, HK45’s, VP series and P30 series, all will drop the slide on impact. This is quite a time-saver on slide-lock reloads.

Yeah, you are actually better off running a +5 base on the 17 rounders (I use TF’s myself) and keep the factory 20’s for practice. No problem getting them seated even with the full 22 round payload and makes stage planning easier than running the 17’s.

Just a follow up, shot a USPSA Level 1 match and on the (retired, so not sure why it was used?) CM-0805 stage involving 3 targets at 50 yards, had an honest-to-gawd 4” group of 6 shots on the first (standing) target with the VP9L-OR ….right in the left side of the C-D zone. LOL. Fixed my zero after that one.

I was very disappointed in the fit of one I had built in 2018 for a SIG X-five. Loose to the point of being hazardous, even when completely cranked down. Absolutely zero retention. It’s one thing to get a holster that runs tight- easy to fix- but a super-loose one is more of a challenge to solve, especially double Kydex. Now, I run a PHLster Floodlight OWB with an X300 on a VP9L for steel CO, and that holster works really well. I know a few people who like their RHT holsters, but I have a tendency not to give second chances to companies that do a shoddy job the first time.

The SFP version has two magwell options (aluminum and polymer), a true match trigger, 20-round mags configured for the magwells, and nickel plated action parts. The US version is crippled, with the full weight combat trigger, and no magwell, for reasons unknown.