MBaneACP

Sorry to be coming back to an old thread, but I have a 9mm SGP (Serial Number 00001, as it happens) and it has been problem child. In fact, I'll have a little spare time this week and I'll go through it again. Occasionally, the cylinder/trigger/everything freezes up. ICORE at Cameo was a huge comedy of errors (on my part). The SGP's quirks didn't help any.

I kinda forgot about this thread...sorry. 2019 Rimfire Worlds at the Old Fort Gun Club in Ft. Smith AR was a huge success...the largest ever, the biggest prize table, the fastest speeds, the fewest complaints, hell, even the best food! I shot with Kolby Pavlock, K.C. Eusebio, ".22 Plinkster," and fellow BoD member Heather Martin; all BoD members made it a point to not just be visible, but to reach out to people at the match who had contacted us previously about issues or with complaints and make sure that we had addressed (or were addressing) those issues. It takes time, but problems do get solved. the next thing on my list is to try and figure out a consistent, interesting way to coordinate coverage of not just Rimfire, but all the shooting sports. Thanks, Michael B

A probably dumb question...in reading that slide lightening cuts are now acceptable in CO, is it safe to assume that cutting a 45 degree angle on the front of the slide, the so-called "bullnose" cuts or radiuses muzzle (per Billy Wilson), are legal as well, since they do remove a (tiny bit) of weight? I ask because my EDC has such a cut, and I'd like to shoot it in a match every so often... Michael B

Hi all...just a note to say that effective 1 January 2018, Ken Jorgensen, formerly of Ruger, and I will be launching the Rimfire Challenge Shooting Association and taking over administration of the RIMFIRE CHALLENGE from NSSF. NSSF has done a great job of "incubating" the sport for the last few years. Ken and I are looking forward to taking the sport to the next level. As some of you remember, Ken and I, along with the late Nelson Dymond, created the RIMFIRE CHALLENGE sitting around a hotel room after the Steel Challenge almost a decade ago. The sport has quite literally exceeded our best-case expectations. Ken, Nelson and I wanted to create a sport that was both open and appealing to new shooters,, to young shooters and to families, but still be challenging to even the top tier of competitors...I think we succeeded! i realize there is a lot to do...the new Rimfire Challenge Shooting Association website will be up and running by 1January, and we will announce the location of the 2018 World Champioships at SHOT. We will be compiling a list of clubs shooting RC through the website, so we can get a regular newsletter out to everyone. Our goal for the first year is stability, in rules and in competitions. One of our early projects will be to compile a club handbook for running RIMFIRE CHALLENGE matches. Since I come out of USPSA/NROI, consistency of rules -- especially safety rules -- range commands, scoring, etc. is critical. Last year, working with Mark Passamaneck, I headed up the AMERICAN MARKSMAN project for OUTDOOR CHANNEL (and yes, Mark did all the heavy lifting!). We learned a lot and managed to bring in between 4,000 and 5,000 NEW COMPETITORS! Think about that...5,000 new competitors. At the 2017 NSSF RIMFIRE CHALLENGE WORLDS last week I met many competitors who fired their first competitive shots ever in the AMERICAN MARKSMAN project. All of us working on the RIMFIRE CHALLENGE, including our top Match Directors and industry execs, are committed to continuing that growth path. We don't have all the answers..but we do have the support of the people who do have those answers. And I invite all you guys out to a RIMFIRE CHALLENGE match...I promise, you'll have a great time! Thanks... Michael Bane OUTDOOR CHANNEL

TV Network, money, recognizable television personalities...we have those things. Which is why I'm working with Mike Foley on raising the profile of USPSA. Under the "old" administration, USPSA had the opportunity to partner with us on AMERICAN MARKSMAN, but it somehow fell through the cracks (as much our problem as anything...teevee decisions get made real quick, and we move on...deadlines are everything). Mike reached out to me, and if you saw this week's SHOOTING GALLERY, we filmed the Carry Open Nationals. I'm meeting with Mike at SHOT to plot out what we're going to do next. michael b

Interesting side note...at OUTDOOR CHANNEL we created a project called AMERICAN MARKSMAN, specifically as an amateur shooter competition. We gave away $50k to the winner last weekend in our Finals (a brilliant competition designed and run by Mark Passamaneck)...you'll see the whole thing on OC later this year. You'll also see what a properly filmed shooting competition looks like -- we ran 4 primary cameras, DSLRs for specialty videography and GoPros down range. Our "net net" was that we brought in almost 5,000 new competitors nationally, probably 80+ % of which had NEVER shot any competition whatsoever! I'm pretty sure nobody has ever done anything close to that number. Our hope is that after the taste of competition, our thousands of newbies will go on to USPSA, IDPA, 3- Gun, etc. So it can be done, but it takes thinking outside the box... michael b

Michael Bane here...been a long time since I posted. My crew and I filmed the CO Nationals for SHOOTING GALLERY 2017, the first USPSA match we've filmed in a coon's age. As I have no idea how old a raccoon can get, suffice to say it has been a while. We had a wonderful time, and it is going to be an excellent episode. We came to film at the invitation of President Mike Foley, a gracious and thoughtful man. When I came onto the range, he shook my hand and said, "Welcome home." It was for me in many ways a bittersweet homecoming...God knows how many times I've been at PASA Park over the decades. As I walked the ranges I was certain that I saw people who were not there, who have indeed left the range. I remembered conversations and joking around and good stages and stupid DQs. And I met old friends I'd long since lost touch with. I chased Bob Emerson's scores for years in the early days in Florida and I never could catch him...I still can't...but he's 80 years old and still pulling the trigger. Sometimes I'm not quite sure how I managed to spend most of my adult life pasting targets and setting steel. But on the ranges at PASA Park the reasons became clear again. It was always you guys, the best people I've ever known. I just wanted to say, "Thank you...thank you so very much." I was not shooting this year because it's a rehab year, reassembling the wreckage of my right leg (note to younger people...strive to keep your quadriceps attached to bone and your kneecap in one piece), getting new knees in both legs, having the oil changed, etc. I'm 11 months into the rehab, and we started lateral movement last week. There should be a word combining "boring" and "really painful." Anyway, again, thank you Mike Foley, my old friend Troy McManus and so many of you. I look forward to being back, and I hope you enjoy the shows! Michael Bane OUTDOOR CHANNEL

Been a while since I posted, but today was a good day. My physical therapist said I do not have to wear the massive right knee/leg brace while I'm walking in the house! That's after only 9 weeks rehab from quite literally destroying my right knee--while in the queue for knee replacement surgery, I took a hard fall on a steep hiking trail. Because I am an idiot, I forced myself to get up, them fell again, harder. The tendons holding my quad to mt right kneecap ripped apart with such force that chunks of the kneecap itself were torn out. Emergency surgery...the whole enchilada. It has been painful (LOL! Understatement alert!), but I have followed the advice of my dear friend Mike Seeklander--"Push. Then push harder!" My plan is to be at SHOT, then have the knee replacement surgery the Monday after. Then back to rehab. I am reminded that those lessons I've learned shooting translate into real life. Focus. Intensity. The willingness to keep pushing when that little voice in your head says, "Why the hell are you doing this?" So the short story is I like having friends like Seeklander, and Mike Janich, and Tom Yost, and Joyce Wilson, and Mark Passamaneck, who won't let me get away with slacking off. Thank you, and see you on the range. Michael B

He made the decision to continue on with our show, SHOOTOUT LANE, because he is Jimmy Clark and truly a man among men. Michael B

At last year's SHOT, me and Frank and my Sweetie shared a late late night dinner. We laughed and BS'ed and talked about friends old and new. It was a wonderful time. At the end of dinner, Frank leaned across the table and said, "You know, the lives we've led, we've been blessed." As usual, he was right. Damn, I miss him. Michael B

She's an excellent cowboy shooter shifting to 3-Gun. She wanted an STI 9mm more than anything, and today I ordered an Edge from Dave Dawson. I am so profoundly glad I can make her Christmas a happy one. I never seem to have the time to post on BE anymore, but my thoughts are here a lot. Merry Christmas, guys. Michael Bane

BTW,, I wish I had the dovetailed rear sight! Michael B

Interestingly enough, my good friend John Snow from OUTDOOR LIFE shot one of the the out-of-the-box VersaMaxes at CRIMSON TRACE...we shot on the same squad (with Match Director Chuck Anderson). John was very happy with it, but I liked my Carbon Arms VM a bit better. Easier to load with the opened up port. Michael B

Hey Denise, now that you've shamed me into entering, I think we're going to be filming for SHOOTING GALLERY (we're trying to get some date conflicts resolved, but it looks good to go so far). Still juggling optics on the .308, thus assuring that I will not be able to hit anything at all. See you soon! Michael B

Why would it be more likely that I might claim to be President of USPSA? Just asking... Michael B

Prototype Streamlight HP/HL, Jesse! Available probably Q2/Q3 next year... Michael B

FWIW, effective January 2013 Wild Bunch shooters can use Winchester Model 12s in addition to the original 97s. Little easier to keep M12s up and running if you beat them to death! Michael B

My dear friend Captain Dave Arnold, in a damned car wreck! You guys won't remember, but Dave Arnold was one of the "inventors" of practical shooting in the U.S. He was one of the founders of USPSA, helped launch NROI and it's international counterpoint, IROI. We shot more matches than I can remember together, and damn it damn it damn it damn it I will miss him! Go with God, brother. Michael Bane

First a caveat — I haven't really shot IDPA competitively in 5 years, and I attended the Worlds at the invitation of Joyce Wilson and Robert Ray. I have, however, attended as many...or perhaps more...shooting matches than most. I thought the Worlds were excellently run, with challenging courses and SOs who did a fine, fine job in hellish conditions. The conditions are the range sucked hard...I was constantly worried about my crew, especially the poor videographer strapped into the Steady-Cam rig for 3 days. Michael B

Sigh... I wish I had the budget of the TOP SHOT guys...the good thing about the show for me is that my Galactic Overlords green-lighted a Phantom camera for Series #5, which we'll start filming after the first of the year. And no, it's not a competition show. You guys have done an excellent job of dissecting sport shooting on TV. We are sponsor-driven media...that means less to me than it does to productions on History or Versus or Spike because of the nature of my sponsors and audience. I realize that at times I'm not very popular around here, but the fact remains that my shows are relentlessly non-PC and will remain so as long as I'm executive producer. At this point, most of my show concepts have been "knocked off" by other networks (one producer even thanked me...LOL!), and in every case the concepts have had to be "watered down" for the other networks. I would also like to point out that my shows and media outlets are NOT "pay to play." I am very good to my advertisers, and they are very good to me. But just because you don't advertise — or, for the smaller companies, can't afford television's staggering rates — that doesn't mean you don't exist in Michael's world. Ask Glock. I had hoped that one of the organizations would step forward to work on a made-for-TV format that would both showcase the sport and still allow me to film it in the manner it needs toe filmed to work on TV. That hasn't happened in the 7 years or so I've been doing this, and I don't believe it will happen. I tried for years to get a TOP SHOT type project green-lighted and couldn't do it. Lots of reasons for that...some (most) money, some logistical, some political. TOP SHOT won an audience because they made a television show...the drama was contrived, but hey, what television drama isn't? More importantly, they looked at the whole spectrum of our sports through "producers' eyes" and took what was visual and exciting and dropped all the rest. It's important to remember that we see the sports we participate in different than a viewer sees them. For example, man-on-man shoot-offs are only interesting to the viewers if they KNOW the people involved and have an emotional investment in the competitors. That's nearly impossible to do in a match context...I can think of once where we pulled it off, but the long-term consequences for us were overwhelmingly negative. Last season, at the request of a good friend, I offered a top shooter the chance to shoot a championship level match "wired"...we would put in the time to let the audience get to know the shooter and the sport, blah blah (which we know works)...after initially accepting, the shooter backed out of the deal, because we would be "intrusive." You betcha it would be intrusive! That's why a show like TOP SHOT works (to whatever level it works). It runs under what we loosely term the ESPN Rule — "Our way or the highway." The participants sign draconian contracts that essentially give the producers the power to do anything they want...and hey, we producers ALWAYS want that! I'm always interested in competition, but only if I can use that competition to put the butts in the seats. Michael B

Hey Sharyn...it's not the technology that's the stumbling point here...in fact, with DOWN RANGE TV we've pretty much hammered that out. The tricky point is, as always, money...who pays the expenses and what is the potential for revenue. Essentially, a couple of years back me, Paul Erhardt and Marshal Halloway (my partner in DRTV, now owned by OUTDOOR CHANNEL) put together a proposal for what we laughingly referred to as "match in a box" — live Internet coverage of shooting matches. I strongly believe that's what we need to be doing, because 6 minutes of coverage aired 6 months later doesn't really do much for us. As Dave Cutts noted, a live stream per se probably doesn't work because it makes no sense to non-participants, and unfortunately there simply aren't enough practical shooters to make such a stream commercially viable. We need to capture the people who just "drop in" (as does USPSA for potential new members). SOOOOOO, as the "match in a box" proposal outlined, in addition to the stream, we'd need some level of commentary and color, pre- and post-stage interviews (both video and audio) and still photos and companion graphics...sort of like discount Tour De France coverage. Again, all do-able, but with a price tag attached. Marshal and I did a beta run for OC at the NRA Show this year, and it drew big numbers to DRTV and the various OC sites. Our overlords asked us what was next, and we suggested a "match in a box" run at this year's Steel Challenge, which adds the additional cost of a sat Internet link from some kind of on-site truck, since Piru is in the MIDDLE OF FREAKIN' NOWHERE. In general, 3G cell links will work, but it's really slow for what we'd like to accomplish. OC is not 100% on the Steel Challenge, but all three of us are preparing on the assumption we're going forward with it. Additionally, both industries involved — shooting and television — are extremely (and surprisingly) conservative when dealing with new technologies. Firearms companies that think nothing of paying full boat for an add in a magazine with an unaudited circulation of less than 70K balk at the idea of paying a similar amount to reach 250K or more viewers on the web — viewers who are 100% trackable and can actually click a button and buy their products. Television worries that their existing advertising models won't work on the Web — pretty much true — and that what we do on the Internet risks cannibalizing what we do on broadcast. While any number of potential sponsors have told me how excited they'll be to see the effects of the new technology in the shooting sports, no one has even hinted there might be a check attached to that excitement. All I can say is we're working on it!!! Michael B

Guys; I strongly urge you to contact USPSA and THANK THEM for hiring my good friend Paul Erhardt to do their media! Paul is the guy pulling this stuff off, and he's a genius with it. GOOD JOB, PAULIE! Michael B

Sorry...not guns, but handguns. ESPN does not allow handgun mfgs to even advertise their wares. mb PS: OUTDOOR CHANNEL is right now the only channel supporting the shooting sports.

MODERATORS...I'm answering a question here...not pitching anything! Actually, I wasn't there...my team was there. This is a major test for DRTV of how to cover a big match, and in fact, USPSA in the person of my good friend Paul Erhardt, who does media for Sedro Woolly — and my partner in DRTV, Marshal Halloway — are responsible for the coverage. Paul is doing the still photography and audio coverage, with Marshal handling video. I am in California filming "Get Out The Vote" public service announcements for Outdoor Channel, another task I believe is hugely important, or I'd be in Tulsa. Paul and I have been working together on major match coverage for years, and we're still not happy with our at times excellent results. Paul came up with the idea of a "boiler room" style of coverage a la ESPN's football coverage, using multimedia to speed the coverage to essentially real time. Such coverage could go to any website, but it does require a "backbone," an Internet site with all the multimedia "building blocks" already in place for easy uploading. DRTV is such a backbone (and exactly why Marshal and I spent a bunch of money to build it). None of those building blocks are in and of themselves complex, but to get them all up, running and always accessible is the work of a master (Marshal). The USPSA Nationals are, essentially, proof of concept, and USPSA and Erhardt deserve the lion's share of credit for the coverage! Michael B PS: We were impressed enough with Sharyn's live streaming set-up that we plan to totally steal it! Way cool!

When I was working with NSSF on the ESPN Great Outdoors Games, we approached ESPN on adding a handgun/racegun competition. The ESPN guys were pretty excited, but it was harpooned by ESPN's parent, the Walt Disney Corporation, which is viciously antigun. We ran into the same thing when, before SHOOTING GALLERY, I was working with the producers of the old AMERICAN SHOOTER series on an updated version for ESPN...there was an agreement in principle in place, but it ran into a stone wall at the corporate level. Michael B