Bob Hostetter

Beven from Gram's is looking at making a special follower for the M&P that would allow for 24. I have used a Gram's STI 9mm follower with the stock spring and TTI's basepad to get 24 rounds but it won't reliably lock the slide back and sometimes gets hung up on the slide stop.

If you take the base pads and put a slight taper on the inside of the 4 corners with a small file the problem will go completely away.

Interesting.

You can't put patches on your vest pockets? Why would that be illegal?

Typically people refer to a pistol being shot out when the accuracy drops below an acceptable level. You should be regularly range testing your pistols accuracy and keeping a record of it. This way you can track it's performance and/or it's decline. There are several things that can effect the accuracy but the most common, excluding ammo and technique, is the barrel. It can be a result of either internal wear (rifling worn out) or fit (clearances worn). It is pretty hard to wear out the rifling, I just rebarreled my Kimber 1911 after 8 years and approximately 150,000 rounds. But there are things that will cause it to happen quicker. The type of powder you use, the type of bullet you use, how carefully and often you clean it, how hot you get the barrel, can all influence the life of your barrel's rifling. Rifles, because of increased pressure and heat (and flame cutting) will wear out a barrel much quicker then a pistol. (A overbored cartridge case pushing a small, fast bullet will eat barrels very quickly). The fit of the barrel and to a much smaller degree the fit of the slide to the frame can also influence your accuracy. The slide to frame fit is much more important on a gun were the sights are mounted to the frame, usually Open guns. In that case even if the barrel is locking up the same everytime with the slide, if the slide is locking up different each time relative to the frame and thus the sights, your groups will expand. For iron sighted, or at least pistols with the sights mounted to the slide it is much less important. With those it is the fit of the barrel to the slide that makes the most difference. A requirement of accuracy is that the barrel lock up into the slide in exactly the same way each time the gun cycles. Since the sights are mounted to the slide that means the barrel would also be locked up exactly the same with the sights each time the gun cycles. That provides the repeatability commonly referred to as accuracy. As the pistol cycles and parts rub up against each other the softest material will start to wear away increasing the clearances that were built into the pistol allowing the barrel to lock up slightly differently each time the pistol cycles, causing it to lose that repeatability and thus the accuracy. In simple terms the barrel will be pointed in slightly different direction, relative to the sights, each time the gun fires changing the point of impact relative to the point of aim. Things like Hard Chrome or Ion Bond on the slide and frame can reduce wear extending their life. Some of the hard coating's for the barrel (and bushing if so equipted) can help protect those clearances. Under those conditions, assuming quality maintenance and quality parts, a pistol should be good for at least 100,000 rounds especially considering the accuracy requirement of IDPA and USPSA.

If you have to buy, buy the 5".

The frame is what is probably the 1st hi cap 1911 style gun ever built. In 1985 Mac from Mac's 45 Shop in Seal Beach Ca cut the whole grip and magazine well off of a Colt single stack and pieced together one that would accept S&W model 59 magazines. I used it until I switched to an EAA Witness and then to a TRI. The Plaxco World Speed Model by Rogers holster was what I used before I put a red dot on it.

yes, you can adjust pre-travel by opening the loop, to a point.

Ziebart, are you looking at shortening the shotgun mag tube by choice or by rule?

Not at all, I what all the info I can get. I am trying to figure out what kind of equipment package would be best. It seems straight forward except for the rifle. It looks like you need a 400 yard rifle to qualify to shoot in a tournament series that specializes in 50-60 yard rifle targets.

Sorry for the dumb questions but I have been out of 3 gun for a while. If I understand the program for the 3 Gun Nation you must qualify thru the regionals in order to shot the Pro series? BUT the courses of fire are pretty different, at least for the rifle?

are the qualifiers different?

What is the average distance for the rifle targets in the 3 Gun Nation series?

Not sure what area you are from but the PDA Smith's never really ruled IDPA. The was some interest but mostly in the 5" guns which were for most people impossible to get. The accuracy was great, trigger just ok, and there are (were) a lot of other guns out there that were as good or better and actually available and reasonably priced. When the M&P came out the DPA's pretty much completely died off.

The perceived advantages of ESP over SSP are more helpfully at the lower classifications levels then at the top. An example might be if you are still hitting the edge of the magwell opening when reloading an enlarged magwell would be very helpful. But if you are a MA or DM and hitting the center 999 times out of a 1000, its value is much less.

A RWR is almost never better then a speed lock reload. If you have enough movement to completely bury the RWR then maybe. But remember you are proibably going to move slower if doing the reload so you need to really make sure its an advantage.

You would think a "Nationals" would have pre-screened these issues out before the match started.

I guess you have to know somebody special?

The worst thing to happen to the Steel Challenge in the last 20 years is for USPSA to buy it.

We will also need a fingernail hardness/sharpness tester to make sure no one is using illegal fingernails to test the cleats with. By the way the best way to soften the cleats is with chemical immersion, not heat. It does cause the grass to die and the gravel to discolor, and of course your feet will go numb after a couple of stages but a small disadvantage considering the potential increase in traction.

I guess they decided to make the Salamons everyone is wearing legal.

You are correct, the people in charge believed that the single action guns would have an advantage based on the trigger. The truth is that with the technology currently available there is very little advantage to the triggers over say a properly tuned XD or M&P.

It makes the sight picture match the rest of my pistols. And I don't like the way the Dawson sit's a little higher and the notch seems shallower then the BoMar style. I done it on XD's and Glock's and it's very doable on the M&P.

Ya, I used to live out there, it's either going to be beautiful or cold and wet. But it should make a great warm up for the Berry Steel match in St George Utah.

Ok, thanks