Cd662

3. There are a lot of people out there that would like to start taking up the shooting sports for many reasons, chief among them is to get some definite gun handling practice in due to where many people believe the country is heading. Competing would allow them practice and to test out some of their gear, which is cheaper than going to a firearms school. What they don't want to do is spend a lot of money to get into the sport and decide they do not like it. There is nothing preventing people with speedloaders from competing. Nothing prevents me from taking my 2.5" Model 10 and my carry holster to an Area match and competing with it. I'm sure it would be valuable trigger time. So would saving the money on entry fee and doing drills. So would saving that money and putting it towards a class. 4. Economics. Wake up! The economy sux right now and will for a loooong time. Most 'mortal' people just do not have the disposable income to go out and buy the latest Buck Rodgers ray gun 8 shot revolver or an over inflated S&W 629 moon clip gun, or waste money converting a perfectly good defensive revolver (which may be their only defensive handgun for home and hearth) to moon clips. The money can be better spent on speed loaders and if you only own one gun you’d be reluctant to send it off for an unnecessary modification leaving them/their family unprotected. If someone is in such a dire situation that they only have one home defense revolver and can't part with it, then I think their potential participation in USPSA isn't really the discussion to be having. Besides: Conversion to moonclips: ~100 dollars Moonclips for 38 Special - 8 dollars a piece Moonclip carriers - About 20 a piece (times 5 at least) Total: 240 dollars Decent chamfering job for speedloaders (Useful for a self defense gun): 50+ dollars Speedloaders: 20 a piece Speedloader Carriers - About 20 a piece (times 5) Total: 250 dollars I don't know if it was intentional but you seem to imply that the moonclip conversion is somehow going to ruin the "perfectly good" defensive revolver. I don't understand how that is physically possible. 5. Economics, part dux. The supply and demand situation with the firearms industry is a pretty dry well now and will be for months if not years to come. The prices on the used gun market is pretty outrageous right now but prices for used revolvers are not as bad as used pistols, just imagine what the prices are for used moon clip or 8 round revolvers are right now. I imagine pretty high and probably almost as much as the cost of a new one, but am not sure as I have been deployed for a while and have not seen what the used prices are at this time. How many people are out there right now that is new to the shooting sports that can afford to spend a lot of money on 'specialized' pieces of equipment such as an 8 shot revolver or moon clip revolver vs. can afford a 6 shot revolver or already have one? I think we need to address what someone brought up before; there is a difference between participating in USPSA and having a competitive setup. I'm assuming you want speedloader/6 shot guns to be competitive. Yet, even in IDPA where there is a very specific place for 6 shot, 4 inch or shorter barreled guns using speedloaders and shooting a very delicate power factor, revolver participation is STILL low. I just don't buy this argument that it's a gear issue. Doing anything competitively costs money. See next point for continuation... 6. Reducing the intimidation / envy factor allowing the shooters to focus on the art and technique of shooting to become better shooters and to handle their arms safer and with more confidence, not to mention enjoying themselves enough to come back for additional matches as well as joining the local clubs? A few years ago I spoke to a new revolver shooter at the end of a USPSA match and asked him how he liked it and if he would come back. He told me that he didn't think he would as all he had was his S&W 15 and couldn't afford to buy newer gear to be more competitive, he also made the observation that "it's one thing to be beaten by someone that has better skills and years of experience, but it's something else to be beaten by someone that can afford better equipment that gives them an even bigger edge over skill levels." He also said something else that stuck with me, that being "even if he found that he had some unknown natural ability that he didn't know about and could catch up pretty quickly, skill wise, that the differences in equipment would always hold him back, just because he could not 'compete' financially." This brings up a good point, is the point of the match a competition of skills or an equipment race? I’ll tell you that that is exactly the ‘perception’ of USPSA sport in a lot of people’s minds due to bad personal experiences and / or word of mouth. I don't buy this at all. I know it's a point of intimidation for some newer shooters but if you take Craig Buckland, Cliff Walsh, Josh Lentz, Dave Olhasso (who just shot a Regional ICORE match this past weekend with borrowed gear, without really practicing using speedloaders, and still won Classic by a landslide) or any other high level IDPA, USPSA, or ICORE revolver shooter and give them an out of the box Smith and Wesson Model 10 with a pancake holster and HKS speedloaders, and put them up against a lesser competitor with the latest and greatest gear as you put it, I will put all of my bananas on one of the aforementioned dudes running train on the challengers. The expensive part of the equation isn't the gear directly - it's the cost of training, matches, travel, supplies, classes, etc. I understand that people may have perceptions about being outclassed due to purely financial skills, and obviously it's going to be hard for a broke college kid or someone in a tough part of life to be able to buy the shit they want to. At the same time, if you are shooting at any regular frequency in a recreational atmosphere, then you either aren't poor or really need to prioritize. I firmly believe in 6 shot revolvers. I don't know if I support 8 minor. If there were masses of folks with Model 10s and 686s with speedloaders clamoring at the gates of Level 1 matches saying "Let me in, I want to compete!" then I would say sure! Let's push for that speedloader category. But USPSA is about numbers, time, hit factor, scores, and participation. Numbers don't lie. There are tons of people that shoot Open division, the most expensive division around, and Open EASILY EASILY outnumbers Revolver in terms of participation. Even if we got a surge of ICORE 8 shot minor shooters, I suspect our numbers would still be pretty weak. And what's the goal here anyway? Have the revolver division recognized as an official division (10+ participants?) at every major USPSA match? 20? 30? X percent of the most popular division? I think jhg is right. It comes down to being fun. People don't have fun when they don't dig the format or the stages. Revolver is a lot of work right now and shooting is hard enough without the extra stuff in the way.

sbc, I would have left that one alone but obviously it's done and done. I can understand the gripe about big butt grips, it has some sort of logic in relation to the self defense aspect. I don't think anyone carries a gun with a Hogue Big Butt grip for conceal carry. At the same time, matches shouldn't have asinine stages that involve shooting prone at 15+ yards...I've been to some that say prone shooting must be accomplished with both arms on the ground, aka "straight on" at the target. Really? Bottom line is, the people in this discussion here are not important to IDPA. IDPA wants to replace us with the "home" crowd, and people who read stupid internet tactical articles and magazines, and folks who check behind them in both directions before unloading their guns. That's fine; honestly, I can't fault IDPA because they are a business and they are going to make a lot more money if they focus their attention on that crowd. I still want to know how to salvage my gun. If I grind off the single action notch and make the gun truly double action only, will that fix anything or is the gun still going to be able to cycle with the cylinder open because of the removal of the "tang"?

Bill, there's also a big difference between shooting 105 PF out of a speedloader fed gun and shooting 165 out of a 4 inch gun, and as Mike mentioned, the structure of IDPA is around dictated areas of reload. Moonclips are a lot easier to deal with while moving, you minimize the risk of cases stuck under the ejector star, you get your brass back, etc etc.

Great, now I can say I was partially responsible for new nonsense. So now I have this 4 inch barreled gun which is COMPLETELY USELESS. I'm not a gunsmith so I can't fit a different hammer to the gun. Now I have to take one of my other used, junky 4 inch guns and have the whole gun done over? This is supposed to end the equipment race? Is there something I can do to the gun I have to fix this? I am not spending 600 bucks on making another gun legit just for IDPA. I heard about some secret meeting between Smith and Wesson and IDPA about this but I have trouble believing that there was this giant stewing argument about revolver hammers in the IDPA world when state championship matches don't even get 5 shooters in SSR. This stuff pisses me off because it's hard enough to shoot revolver in any game these days, and then folks spend all this money to do it, and then IDPA in particular comes up with all this bologna. This is just more consistently ridiculous nonsense. The gun can't fire when the cylinder is partially open/closed. Are we solely worried about rounds magically detonating when the cylinder is completely open, and devoid of bullets, and when a competitor has to have his finger off the trigger because he's reloading? This is obviously more "We don't want anyone to think that IDPA is a game, it's real life tactical training so people have to start treating it as such." It's pushing back at the user base and anyone here who plays it as a game is going to get ostracized. There was a recent story about an FTDR issued at a nearby state championship match that was absolutely amazing. Anyone who could conceivably be treated as playing a "game" is being punished. This whole rule is just a kick back at people who want nice trigger pulls, because those aren't "realistic" on revolvers. They might as well just put a minimum trigger pull weight - anything under 10 pounds is a DQ. I'm tempted to just go on and on but you guys all know what its about. Revo is a frustrating game to play, as someone else mentioned, its frustrating in USPSA, there are limited ICORE clubs, and now IDPA has this nonsense and the stages don't have to be revolver neutral. I went to a sanctioned match where the stage designers thought it was amusing that revolvers had to do tac loads on three stages, and on one of them when I made up shots on targets, the scorekeeper tried to issue an FTDR on me and then FOLLOWED ME to where I was sitting and lectured me for about five minutes on how to shoot revolvers properly and about the integrity of IDPA. If anyone can legit help me make my gun legal without buying another one or fitting another hammer, please let me know. Otherwise, I don't see much else point for this thread since we now have the ruling in black and white.

I would love for someone to set up a legit chrono at a local match sometime, and I'd definitely pay to shoot over it, or let the chrono owner shoot over it for me. I wouldn't want to sit through a chrono procedure at a Level 1 match though, unless it was set up as an awards match.

Carmoney, I'm in shock by your statement. It's like someone actually gets it. Logic on the internet. I'm getting scared. Someone pinch me.

Hook?...

Travis, my two cents is that if you have zero regard to power factor and you just want an advantage at these steel matches, the L frame may be a better choice. I don't shoot .45 myself but I know some ICORE guys have reported that they get erratic reloading results when they try to load 45 ACP to sub minor levels. I'd much rather have a 7th shot at minor power factor than only 6 shots. This is may be the difference between having to reload again or being able to make that last shot. As for recoil, the difference between a major PF gun and a sub minor 38 Special load is notable. Respectfully, I would not compare your performance to how you shot with other guns in the past, nor against how you perform against other people at the club in other divisions. It has little bearing on the capability of the equipment.

"What if we can make revolver a "one shot per target" division? Set a minimum power factor, and every shot scores major X 2, but only one hit per target is scored. This keeps wheel guns from getting hosed by 8-shot arrays. I guess we would still be hosed by 12- shot arrays, but so would production and SS shooters, so you don't see 12-shot arrays very often. I think this would get shooters more than allowing 8-shot guns, and this way nobody's gun is obsolete overnight. This is similar to what multigun does for "heavy metal" divisions, and it seems to work." We're not trying to reinvent the game here.

Travis, 38 Short Colt still headspaces on the rim. The cylinder would have to be cut for moonclips to accept moonclipped bullets. You could load individual bullets into the cylinder without modification.

Mr Carmoney, it was nice to talk to you in person this year and match a name to a face. I'm glad someone brought this up. I think it's hard to convince people to seriously shoot a large match if they don't see a reason to. We're having trouble enough getting people to come and play with revolvers on the local level; sanctioned matches are not generally things that someone is willing to go shoot whatever division just for ha-has. I think the specific group of people who WOULD be surging the national event attendance are individuals who are already vested in action pistol shooting to a significant degree, found revolver shooting appealing, and are willing to devote at least half of their time to it. This year's IDPA Carolina Cup had 33 combined revolver shooters between Stock and Enhanced Service Revolver. Either the ESP or SSP Sharpshooter category ALONE is enough to top this aggregate amount. I think one question is, Who were the people that constituted this surge of revolver shooters at the Revolver Nationals? How many of them were Single Stack crossovers or local shooters who wanted to participate in a national level match close to home? Who are the shooters who participate in big matches (The USPSA Revo, the Memphis Charity match, the IRC, the bigger IDPA matches, ICORE Regional Events) who are potentially NOT shooting on the club level? Flipping that around, are there a significant amount of club level shooters that aren't shooting big matches? Is this just a matter of proportion? Think of your local clubs and a big division like Production. Of all the regulars who shoot Production, how many of them shoot major matches (IDPA Sanctioned, ICORE Official Matches, USPSA Level II or above)? Do those folks shoot one or two matches a year, or do they travel and shoot all year? My supposition is that it's a relatively small percentage at most places. If it's a small percentage for Production, it's going to be even smaller for a division that some people insist is a novelty division for old guys wearing suspenders. " would like to see local clubs have a match once a year where anyone shooting a revolver gets to shoot for $5(to cover USPSA fee's) instead of the regular match fee. I don't think this would make that big a difference but it might help generate a little interest." You could try. I think people are just vested in shooting whatever division they are shooting, just like we are vested in shooting revolver. There are a few folks who like to bounce between divisions for the fun of it, but most "serious" competitors I know are not constantly changing platforms when it comes to pistols. "S&W is busy with the plastic guns and AR's right now but IF they made a 5" 625 again and offered a few of them by draw for anyone shooting say 8 or 10 classifiers that year would that help sell more of them if the shooter thought they had a shot at winning something for there work" Didn't Smith and Wesson have something where people shooting matches could send in some info and be entered into a drawing for a gun? I think if you combine every revolver competition platform (action pistol, bullseye, PPC), we would still not really be a significant portion of Smith and Wesson's market. This ongoing challenge is on us, not on a manufacturer. The only thing I could see possibly working is if a revolver company started up it's own format, just like Glock has the "GSSF" events.

Quoted for truth.

There are no entrepreneurial souls on all of Brian Enos who would be able to manufacture new noses for all the folks with old style hammers?

"Couple of easy things to look at: First, open the cylinder and make sure the bolt face is flush with the recoil shield. If it sits a little below, it's not pushing the inner ejector of clear of that little hole. This might occur because the latch (or the latch boss) is a bit too long, and could use some careful trimming (SDM latches seem to me to often need trimming of their leading faces)." I assume the bolt face is what protrudes through the small hole and makes contact with the extractor star? If so, that surface is not flush with the opening, it is below flush. What do you advise trimming?

Euan, practice with a timer if available or even a stopwatch to get a sense of the time. The reload during the 10 and 3 yard strings is CRITICAL. They must be smooth or else you have to rush to crank out the rest of the rounds before the time expires.

Thanks guys, I'll check it out. I'm very wary about messing with anything this close to go time though, I just hate the mental feeling that "something isn't right" every time I open the cylinder.

I have a relatively new, new-production S&W Model 14. I'm not really happy with the trigger but I don't have time to mess with it anymore since I'm shooting this year's IRC. While I can sort of deal with a non-ideal trigger, there is this other problem that drives me nuts. The cylinder feels "sticky" to open. I feel like there is too much power behind the locking bolt that holds the cylinder into place, but I'm not sure if it's too long or something needs to be trimmed or what. I'm not really a gunsmith. The issue is not one of accumulated dirt or grit and the ejector rod is not loose. It's always been noticably sticky since it came out of the box and it does interfere a bit with my reloading process. Any ideas, Enosverse?

Meangreen - I'd suggest glancing over the rules. Ammunition must make 120 Power Factor (Bullet weight times velocity). One round out of five tested must pass. Some factory 158 grain bullets are also approved and do not need to pass the chronograph. Semi wadcutters can be used but they are not ideal, reloading is very important to your time and the wider meplat makes loading the SWCs slower than round nose.

Sorry to hear, but everyone is OK and it's a learning experience. I wouldn't let that dissuade you from shooting different divisions, but if you think it's a training issue, it may be worth doing some dry fire practice beforehand. In this case, reloading the gun had nothing to do with turning the wrong way. If you had a cylinder open while turning the wrong way, it still would have been a no-go. Shoot safe and good luck!

I just shot the "Think of the Children" Sanctioned Match in Lewistown PA and the New York State IDPA Championship with this evil, modified hammer gun without any issue. I think that as long as the hammer block safety flag is still in place, the gun is OK.

Reuel, have you ever worked a match on either a local or sanctioned match for any major action pistol discipline (IDPA, ICORE, USPSA/IPSC, Steel Challenge, NRA Action Pistol)? The scores don't magically spit out in 20 minutes. I'd be worried if my scores were spat out that fast. I assume your complaint is about USPSA scoring. If you're too lazy to try to learn about the scoring system, don't play the game and don't complain about it. Or you can be part of the "I'll just shoot and whatever happens, happens" crowd. Time plus scoring places extreme penalty on an error. In USPSA you can mess up a stage and still recover from it because of the way match points are awarded. In IDPA or ICORE, I could win 5 stages of a 6 stage match and then if I botch the 6th stage bad enough, the last place shooter on every stage could still beat me. Addendum: For the sake of being helpful, here's a guide to USPSA scoring written by a revolver guy who posts here. http://www.nepaidpascores.net/misc/USPSAscoringbyKenO.pdf

Deleted original reply. I talked to Kitty this past weekend, they are still working on it. I'm looking forward to seeing what they have.

Sounds interesting, I'd like to see how it effects a match. Perhaps when you're farther along you could show the results of a local match, and then the results with the new system applied. I agree with seanc, good shooters are good shooters. I feel like USPSA has this stigma that you can just run around like a jerk and spray Charlies and Deltas and magically win. We also see how far this gets new-to-USPSA Production shooters who think they're really fast because they burn down targets at the club level when shooting another action pistol sport. Time is certainly a more favored factor of USPSA but I think efficiency is the important part. I'm pretty sure I could destroy Taran Butler in a foot race, in pushups and situps, and in other fitness terms. The guy would still kick my ass to here and back. I think this is with revolver ESPECIALLY, you have to hit Alphas (or down Zero in IDPA) as quickly as possible, period. No ifs ands or buts about it. It's simple and it's brutal because there are no excuses and no makeup shots. The penalties differ from game to game in terms of how bad you are dinged for NOT having those perfect shots, but at the end of the day the TOP GUYS (and personally, I want to be a top guy) are shooting bullseyes. I also agree that the Standards overtime penalty is ridiculous because that .31 extra seconds is a MATCH ENDER if you really want to be a top dog. 10 seconds is like two extra runs on a Steel Challenege-esque stage or an additional classifier or like, 4 or 5 extra reloads on a field course. If there's any issue I have with the accuracy to time ratio, it's that one.

"I agree that there is really no contest with an 8 minor revo against an 11 shot production auto. So USPSA should throw the production revolver guys a bone and allow the 8 shot revolver guys to shoot major power factor. It would be big fun to get to use the 357 mag as a 357 against the wee 9 millimeters. What's more production than a stock 5" 627 shooting the ammo it was designed to fire I feel like once we start going down this road, we'll have to make all sorts of concessions. If revolvers can shoot major power factor, then shouldn't a "popular production" style single stack gun also be able to compete outside of the Single Stack division? Of course, when shooting major it may end up having less than 10 rounds so then we'll have to make a scoring concession. Etc etc.

"It's about making USPSA Revolver more fun for more people. For the 70-year-old guy with arthritis, or the ladies and younger shooters with smaller hands, who don't do well with N-frames firing major-power loads. For those shooters who want to shoot their local club matches and be able to put pressure on the shooters in the other divisions." Quoted for truth.