JAFO

Yep. Got mine Wednesday. I had printed one (double-sided) for my RO class in August, but this one takes up a lot less room in my range bag.

I bought a very lightly used KJW copy of a 226 for practicing, but I can't seem to get more than about 10-15 shots out of a charge. I searched the internet and found the suggestion to lubricate the o-rings. I disassembled the magazines as far as I could and lubricated the o-rings, but they're still not right . I'd like to remove the main valve and clean/lubricate it, but I can't find a tool to remove them. Does anyone have a source for that tool? Are there other causes for gas leakage that I'm overlooking? Thanks.

Being that I haven't left C class since I started, I may have a bit of a personal bias in this, but I also like shooting with all levels. I've been outperformed by unclassified shooters on many occassions. "U" does not always mean "novice". And sometimes new-to-the-sport shooters have some novel approaches to a stage that I hadn't thought of. And if you're friendly and helpful to them, you'll most often find them very willing to help with taping and teardown. It's always nice to see a new shooter that was in your squad for their first match show up consistently after that. That's when you know you've hooked another one.

I just sent my carbon slide 226 to GGI this year for the competition package. The DA is very smooth with no stacking and the SA is incredible. Being a carbon slide instead of stainless, I couldn't get the Ti firing pin block and spring upgrade, but I think I got just about everything else.

Also, if someone saw you pulling your mags from a dry ice bed just prior to shooting, you could be required to have your ammo retested. App C2 #28: "An initial sample of eight rounds of ammunition will be collected from each competitor at a time and place determined by Match Officials. Match Officials may require that a competitor’s ammunition be retested at any time during the match and may collect further samples as necessary."

Very nice window dressing. They must have used a backhoe to dig the trenches. Glad they didn't have a downpour just prior to the match. I'd not seen the target type with a popper in front and a rising clamshell-like paper (stage at ~4:40). Is that one target, or a popper placed to activate another target?

You know, I haven't even tried to find out what kind of group I'd have at this distance. Thanks for giving me the next thing to check on!

If I find a stage or section of a stage that stumps me, I will pick the brains of the other shooters in my squad, especially the better, more experienced shooters. Sometimes they come up with some simple thing that just totally eluded me. But don't discount the opinions of others at your own level, especially if you're in a position like me where most of the M and GM shooters are shooting Limited or Open and I'm in Production. There was a stage recently where I felt just what you described. I had sort of a plan, but I didn't feel happy with it. It was a straight-forward run-n-gun stage with lots of paper. I shot the stage and ended up with a standing reload on the last shot . A friend of mine (same classification, same Division), just simply threw in a reload right after the first two targets, which put him in a position of reloading automatically right before the last set of targets - no standing reload. It was a simple thing, but never entered my mind.

While I definitely can see your point in the first scenario, I think a procedural (or maybe six) would apply to the second one. In your first case, the competitor switched sides of the barricade between T1-T3 and T4-T6, but they performed the reload prior to engaging the targets from the opposite side (or sides, in this case). And I don't think anyone would argue they gained any advantage, since it would take longer to run the stage this way. In the second case, the competitor did not perform the mandatory reload prior to engaging from the opposite side. As mentioned by others above, the timer would stop at the last shot, not counting the time for the reload. Since the competitor's time stops with the last shot fired, the competitor seems to have gained a significant advantage in that their reload did not happen on the clock. That would be six procedurals. Also, since a mandatory reload after the last shot can't be picked up by a timer, it would seem hard to argue that it was within the stage designer's intent to do it this way. Any mandatory actions written into a WSB are intended to be done on the clock, otherwise they wouldn't need to be mandatory, right? Now, to play Devil's Advocate , what if the competitor performed the mandatory reload immediately after the start signal and then engaged each target with one shot from each side?

I shoot Production with an Uncle Mike's kydex paddle holster. It was the only kydex holster I could find for my P226 locally. I really don't see much quality difference between it and the Blackhawk CQC (non-serpa) that I have for my P229. I have toyed with the idea of making a Blade-Tech style drop-offset attachment to give me a little more room, but I never got around to it.

No, only "Available for order soon."

Thanks, Sarge. I had heard the "more powder required" statement from more than one person, but was unsure about the wear issue since so many people seem to use them.

I was having this problem regularly with 9mm cases of different brands (using mixed range brass that had been tumbled). I tried hitting the powder funnel with a little OneShot now and again, but I sometimes ended up with powder sticking to the funnel. I started throwing the cleaned cases into a gallon Ziploc and spraying some OneShot in the bag, then sealing it and mixing the brass around inside. That seems to have removed most of the problem. In regards to brand-specific problems, there's one brand of brass (headstamped "WC" with a crosshair in a circle) that my 550 fails to seat primers in about 80% of the time. I started pitching it to save the headache.

I've been shooting 124gr FMJ Zero's, but I recently bought 1K of the MG CMJ's from a friend to try them out. I've since heard that the coating that gives them their gold color is harder than a standard copper jacket, and that this leads to slightly slower velocities with the same charge weight and more wear on the barrel. Does anyone have any experience with this?

Just saw the MSRP: P290 Nitron, 9mm, SIGLITE NS, 6-rd. mag. $530.00 P290 Two-Tone, 9mm, SIGLITE NS, 6-rd. mag. $550.00 I'd like to think actual prices would be below $400.

Perhaps saying "stance" wasn't quite the right wording. My feet are in more of an athletic position, weak side foot slightly in front of the strong side foot, and they pretty much maintaining that orientation. It's my arm position that's shifting from being fairly evenly centered to bringing the strong-side arm toward the centerline of my torso. I go from sighting down the gun over the empty space between my arms to sighting down my strong-side arm.

I was doing some dryfire practice this weekend, concentrating on being able to draw the gun to a natural POA. With a little practice, I was able to draw with my eyes closed and open them to find the sights aligned by themselves. I then moved to drawing, dryfiring a shot, then reload and aim again. I was still able to have the sights come back up on target, but I noticed something peculiar. On the draw, I was coming up in a fairly balanced (right-to-left) isoceles position with my arms. After the reload, I found myself in sort of a modified Weaver. My left arm wasn't bent downward, but my arms were shifted so that I was sighting down my straightened right arm (I'm right-handed). The sights were still coming up on the target, but as I know consistency is one of my biggest problems, I feel the need to correct myself so I'm always holding the gun the same way. The question is - is one method significantly better than the other? I haven't been able to try this at the range and pay attention to how the gun will recoil, but it seems the isoceles would be balanced better for straight up-and-down tracking during recoil, since I can apply almost equal extension with both arms. On the other hand, I was unconsciously going to the modified Weaver after the reload. Should I be changing my draw stance, or focusing on maintaining the isoceles? Thanks!

It seemed an appropriate forum name when I joined my first internet forum (SigForum), since I had silently observed and read for a month or two before I joined and actually took part in conversations. I still admit to observing some threads where people self-destruct.

Thanks, Ron. How'd you like my stage last weekend with all the movers?

From what I've read, this one is DAO, not SAO like the P380. I haven't heard whether it's more like a DAK or a P250, though.

For standard DA/SA parts, you can get them through Top Gun Supply. They also have the list of everything you'd need. I'm not sure if they have the SRT parts available. I've ordered a lot of parts from them and they're good to deal with. The Customized Creationz website video is good, and there's also a DVD by Chris Orndorff that you can buy from either TGS or Brownell's for detail stripping and maintenance. When I priced the parts for my 229, I believe it came to around $200+. If you do want the SRT, your best bet may be to contact Sig about doing the conversion. Others have suggested that selling the gun to buy one with the trigger you want may be more economical.

Hello, all. I've been shooting since my Dad first let me fire a .22 at about age 6. I primarily stuck with plinking, shooting clays with my 870, and informal trips to the range with friends. I eventually got tired of my best friend always shaming me on the handgun range (although I returned the favor often on the shotgun range ), so I looked into some instruction. I took a few classes with Bruce Gray that got me started on my way to improvement, especially with my reloading and gun handling. Then about 2 1/2 years ago I discovered USPSA. Wow! This stuff is fun!! I shoot a 9mm P226 in Production and was initially classified "C", but I have floundered there ever since. This year I decided to start putting more into my favorite hobby. I know my biggest problem is consistency. I'll routinely have matches where I do extremely well in a few stages and below average on others. Along with some dryfiring, which I need to increase, I began attending some club practices when work and home life allowed. I found out about this forum from one of the other club members, Steve Cline. I've been exploring the forum and finding a lot of useful information and advice, both about shooting and reloading (I use a Dillon RL550B). I just have to remember to actually use it!!

It appears there are two different arguments in this thread. The first being that the 10 round limit doesn't allow the shooter to be as competitive as a 15 round limit. The second being that the 10 round limit pushes new shooters away because of them having to purchase more mags and mag pouches to shoot Production. I've been shooting USPSA Production for over two years and I don't understand the first complaint. Yes, more capacity would change the way you could shoot a stage, but you're only competing against other Production shooters who ALL have a 10 round limit. How does that limit make you less competitive than the other Production shooters? If you want to talk about certain guns being more competitive than others, then talk about trigger type, trigger pull weight, sights, sight radius, etc. But basing your point on the one aspect that's actually exactly the same for all guns involved doesn't make sense to me. I don't mind the 10 round limit. I also wouldn't mind being able to put 18 rounds in my mags. So when my accuracy gets to the point where I'm making a lot more A's and a lot fewer C's, I'll consider trying Limited Minor and load to capacity. As for the new shooters shying away because of buying more equipment, I think there may be another aspect to that - ammunition costs. The magazines, holster, and mag pouches I bought to compete cost a lot less than what I spent on ammunition before I started reloading (and even after I started reloading, for that matter). Someone mentioned shooters moving over to IDPA because of the equipment costs, but those people may have ammo costs in mind as well. I've never shot IDPA, but it's my understanding that round counts are significantly lower than in USPSA. The cost of 75-100 rounds per match looks pretty good compared to 120-150 rounds per match, especially since any USPSA stage with steel on it seems to eat an awful lot of ammo when you're starting out (come on, how many rounds did it take you to clean a Texas Star the first time? ). Once anyone realizes the cost of the ammunition needed to participate in these games, the cost of a few mags and mag pouches is a minor investment. And as others have said, what new sport or hobby doesn't require you to invest a little something for equipment? Regarding the new shooter who gets put into Limited because of a lack of magazines, who said they need to compare their scores strictly against the other Limited shooters? If someone's new to USPSA and shows up with what they have (let's say a 9mm w/ three 15rd mags), put them in Limited Minor on the scoresheet and encourage them to compare their scores to the other Production shooters at the match to get an idea of where they might fall if they shot Production. It won't be apples to apples, but neither is comparing a production gun with 15-rd mags to a modified Limited gun (most of which are shooting major pf). They more than likely aren't USPSA members and might not want to join until they try a few matches, and I feel it should be up to the experienced shooters to encourage the new guys to not worry about scores the first time out. Just have them get a feel for a match and see how they like it. Did they have a good time, enjoy the atmosphere, learn something new? If they like it, someone can go over the Divisions and let them know what they'd need to shoot Production or L10.