Bret Heidkamp

Is this still "on" to be used at this year's Open Nats? I'm pretty excited to see this in action, it sounds great. Peter, a big THANK YOU for developing this. My two cents: 1) I think anything to help stats at matches is great. The mountain of paperwork normally associated with stats is astounding, and we all know too well how fun it is waiting for final scores to be posted to check your HF's and points spreads. 2) On a local level, anything to help staff focus on the match / course vs. playing scorekeeper I view as a benefit. I'd rather have those people out on the range having fun with the rest of us than sitting in the clubhouse for most of the day entering scores. Plus, who really wants to aspire to doing that when the current stats people rotate out? There are not really that many people that want to do stats, but I suspect there are many that wouldn't mind printing finals and troubleshooting if scores are already entered. 3) I am all for a continued payment to the software developer. This is the only way programs get updated, and migrated to future platforms. The Palm may not be around in 5 or 10 years. Our rules or scoring may change. We may think that including Steel Challenge scoring (if it's not in there already) would be a great thing. This is the only way we can help make sure the software will be there when we need it. $5 a year? $15 a year? That's not enough to have an impact on anyone in this sport, I should think. Refusing to pay for development and future expansion / platform migrations will unfortunately get you exactly what you pay for. Not much. 4) I for one, look forward to getting rid of paper score sheets, and anything we can do to increase the appeal of our sport to newcomers and spectators is important. Too many times I been out practicing and had a potential new shooter walk up to me, then seen their eyes glaze over and enthusiasm for the sport wane when explaining there's more than just time involved to them. I don't even do that anymore. Now I just say scores and time are important. It would be great if I could say "your final score is right there on the Palm when you're done, so you can compare how you did with your squad" instead of "you'll be able to see and compare your final score when stats calculates everyone's HFs at the end of the day" Sorry for the ramble.... I just think the Palm system sounds awesome. Unfortunately I have never had the opportunity to use it.

Pompous - that's the word. Yes, it definitely sounds pompous to me.

I am so sick and tired of hearing people saying "Now, that being said...blah blah blah" during conversation, radio reports, etc. WTF? Do people really think others weren't listening? Yes, you said it already, I friggin' heard you. Or is it supposed to make us think your point is SO important?? It is condescending to the people that have to hear this - knock it off! I absolutely hate this trend. Do you?

95.0762% oh crap.

Shot this yesterday (open) - decent first string in 6-something, then a crappy reload to weakhand for an 8-something string. Down 5 pts. total. HF = 8.1100

Hey All, FYI - Nike landshark cleats are on sale at eastbay.com for $19.99 + 6.00 shipping.

action_figures.bmp

Please be careful on the custom molded plugs. I noticed mine didn't seal too well after the first season. It only takes a small (meaning you don't even notice it) gap for them to leak sound into your ear. One time a couple years ago I was shooting my bolt gun, and wearing the custom plugs. After about 20 rounds, I removed them to speak with a buddy. My left ear was ringing bad and even worse, all sounds I heard had a buzzy tone to them!! I didn't notice the plug was not sealed. These are custom plugs that were fitted to me at a hearing lab. They were fitted well, but were about 12 months old. Speaking to another friend that shoots skeet, he no longer uses custom plugs because the same thing happened to him (note: not the same vendor, that's not the problem). He says he cannot hear his watch ticking with his left ear, the one where the custom plug leaked sound. So, I spoke with a hearing clinic person, who told me the problem is our ears do not stop growing. The canal actually gets bigger and custom plugs can have fit issues after only 6 months. Personally, I actually find the EAR reusable yellow plugs with the 3 baffles to be every bit as comfortable as the custom plugs, much cheaper, and they seal better regardless of what is happening with your ears. They are $1.90 a pair, a steal. I really hope this helps someone. My two cents is do not shoot with custom plugs unless you get them remade every season.

Don't know if this has made the rounds, but it sure made my sides hurt...

I don't have the modded JP anymore, the holes were just at 12 o'clock right behind the first baffle, and further out in the second chamber if that makes sense. I do have my current modded Badger Ordnance. I would opt for a slimmer brake than the JP, like the Badger Ordnance here or use a Henning - For anyone reading this that wants a fully ported round style brake, look at Harrell Precision - they're only $30 bucks and are as good a design as any. I own one of their products - a portable reloading press, and the quality is good. If I wanted a round style brake, I'd buy one of these in an instant. In fact, I might do that just to have a few on hand for future hunting rifles. Here is a picture of the original comp, and the modded version on my 260 AI. It works very well with the mod, not so great without. Easy to spot your own hits at most any distance with the mod. I'm also including a picture of the Harrell brakes and the Henning brake. Harrell's site is www.harrellsprec.com be sure to see the portable reloading presses. Badger's site is www.badgerordnance.com Henning's brakes are available from me or Henning (I've got one left threaded 5/8-28 for a 308 or 260) at www.crosstac.com and I'll knock $20 off to the Benos world on this last one.

Got it. In my opinion, then, most of the muzzle brakes with holes all the way around (Gentry, Vais, etc) and the styles with opposing ports (JP, Henning, Badger, etc.) both work really well to reduce recoil. The only drawbacks are the ones with holes all the way around will kick up massive dirt when shot from prone. The ones with opposing ports don't do this, but neither design will control jump much at all. To me, I want to spot my own hits on the target, so I prefer a large level of compensation along with the brake. You can have both features - my personal preference is a side ported comp, with holes on top. I've modified both Badgers and JP's by adding top ports. Works very well. While the 308 isn't a 300 win mag for gas volume, you will see great results with just about any brake from the 308 case size. The only one I haven't favored is the front ported Vais design. One other thing - don't let anyone try to tell you top ports will ruin your accuracy because the brake isn't "balanced" anymore and it will tip the bullet on the way out - that's pure BS and I have both the field results and shooting ability to prove it. People that say things like that seem to be repeating an urban myth, and haven't actually done much to prove out their comment one way or the other.

The 308 has plenty of gas to work - but the JP is a brake, not a comp. Are you after less recoil, or less muzzle jump?

Actually, those mall ninjas don't have anything on the REAL Ninja site. Real Ultimate Power

Dang, that was a great test but I don't want to sign up on a dating site to get the results!

My two cents... I've shot these powders for well over 10 years now, back when nobody knew about 'em !!! The only thing that is frustrating is they are FAR less energetic than they were a long time ago. Between a shooting buddy and myself we've probably bought at least 25 to 30 of the 12-lb kegs of it. I mean, I've used this stuff a LOT. +1 on the 7625 being snappy, but the gun cycles and comes back on target faster for me. 4756 is definitely softer, and I'm considering going back to it because I don't practice as much anymore so my timing is a little slower. However, you have to pack quite a bit into the case... it is a slower powder. I used to use it with 124's at the old PF and it works well, but cases were full to the rim. Both are of the IMR powders are "medium" to "medium-light" on the carbon scale, to me. VV powders always are cleaner, but they cost too much (for me). I would call HS-6 "dirty" and VV 3NXX "clean" FYI AA#7 contains what I guess is a burn rate deterrent. It will sandblast your comp's baffles into oblong holes quickly. Don't use it. That was discovered wayyyyy back in IPSC time, like in the late 80's to early 90's. Unless they've changed the formula, which I would doubt, stay away unless you want to change your comp every season or so. Same with the old WAP, I had first hand experience with that. Hope this helps...

Guys, I'd like to check this out. Does anyone know his booth number at SHOT? Or, what is the company name? (please post soon, leaving tomorrow AM for SHOT) Thanks!!!

Eric, nice review, and I'm not trying to get into an argument here. Just trying to share what has worked for me. Let me just say I'm getting at one of the goals of patterning for me - to see if most pellets are being tossed to a particular quarter of the circle. I have seen this happen, and it's consistently weird. What causes it? Heck, I don't know. I do know changing wads or shells can make a difference. Maybe it's that a normal distribution would depend on reliable components. If the wad allows pellets to deform and turn into frisbees, resulting in flyers, this would result in inconsistent distributions, right? If the shot is soft, same thing. It would just make the bell curve a bit flatter and give some randomness to the pattern weighting results. Patterning a shotgun with whatever factory load(s) may give a shooter some insight. 30-45 yards is the long end of most shots in sporting clays, and much longer than skeet and most trap shots. You'd have to be at the back fence in handicap trap to see those distances. I've done all my patterns at 25 yards and it seems to be a good average distance. The program I linked is cool because it will show you the actual mathematical center of your shot. I'm rifle shooting the patterning samples, with a marked center of the target. The program does the painful number crunching to count the # of pellets in a 30" circle, the distribution, the true center, and how many pellet holes are in each quad. You can do as many targets as you want, and average them inside the program. It's pretty cool. I would never do this with the old manual method. The "true center" is pretty important for me, and to have a program just tell you that in a matter of seconds from a digital picture is awesome. Most of the top competitive local shotgunners that I know have done some pattern testing. Again, maybe it's just for confidence in the equipment. That being said, the one important thing I've found more than patterning is the impact board. It is really important to know where your shotgun is hitting. (For anyone not familiar with it, it is done usually at 16 yards or so, for an IC choke. You want to see if the main center point of the pattern is where you are looking. Differences mean an adjustment to the cheekpiece. This has given me the most benefit - knowing my pattern is 50/50 above/below and pointing out if it is left or right of my aim point is critical, IMO). However, I love those long crossing shots in sporting clays where you can practically count to 3 before the bird breaks. Anyone coming to this area I'll be happy to shoot clays with you.

If you really care about breaking clays, you guys will want to check out this awesome program: Shotgun Insight Basically, you can snap a digital photo of your pattern(s) and the program does the calculations. Plus, it will even show you holes where a clay will slip through the pattern. It works best with about 10-12 pattern prints and it will keep the averages for you. It's all about what shoots in YOUR shotgun...and if you can get a cheap shell to pattern, so much the better. I have to admit I never wanted to count pellet holes. Thankfully this program exists. There is no way in h*ll that I would do this otherwise, and if it does nothing else it at least helps remove doubt about your pattern.

The center mag in your picture (stock mag) will crash into the slide during a reload. Try it by inserting the mag, pushing up on it, and try to move the slide (or look at your mags and note the flat spots that appear after using them for some time). The shaving is also a necessary mod for a "prone mag" - the trick to shooting 50 yd. prone standards. By shaving down the ears, you can firmly plant the pistol on the ground and have a very stable shooting position. If you do not shave the ears down, your slide will not cycle.

Pat, not be Mr. Negativity, but you want to shoot 110's in a 308 at 1K ??? Not gonna happen. The 308 at 1K is a 175's-only game. Don't even waste your time with the 110's.

You mean Beer Goggles... Changed quite a few faces at 2 AM when I was younger...

Update: I found out why our server went down. Our HOST company didn't pay their bill to the server data center. I guess I should say our EX-HOST company.

I think it's a great idea to acquire SC. Think of it this way: USPSA is a business (thankfully, one that is in the black). You can either grow organically (which is how we've done it so far) or by acquisition. Any business that does not grow, or becomes stagnant, dies. Not that USPSA wasn't growing, it was just going pretty slow, given the number of shooters in our country. I wouldn't be surprised to see a merger with Cowboy Action someday, either. Even though I have zero desire to dress up in old clothes or be called "Tex."

Ever notice how bad things tend to happen all at once? Or is it just me? Why does this just build up and hang around like a dark cloud until it rains down? Here is Friday of last week for me: It starts out with the office over 88 degrees first thing in the morning (it was 15 outside). The HVAC system controller malfunctioned and ran the heating system all night. Nice! I can't wait for the gas bill. The building maintenance guy comes over to our office but by the time it's figured out it is 5pm. Parts need to be shipped in. So, we will have no heat Friday, over the weekend, probably not until Monday/Tuesday at the best. Next up, my cell phone suddenly is holding only 10 minutes of charge. The battery is dying instantly. I'm Pres for an HOA of 350+ homes so of course this happens during a call when I'm talking to our HOA water system operator. He just manages to tell me something is wrong with our water system when my phone cuts out. Please don't let it be we don't have water in the community. I am imagining the volume of phone calls I am about to get. I'm at a restaurant and panicked because I can't get his number off my dead phone. Thanks Motorola. Next, our websites go down. Not just Apache, but the whole server is dead. This is a dedicated box. So, both CrossTac.com and ISTDesigns.com are down. This is the busiest time of year for our shooting accessories, and we're down. We're STILL down as of this writing. I immediately buy another server out of my disgust for how our current leasing company handled this and spend the weekend configuring it. I will be transferring all domains ASAP so if anyone is wondering what happened... Oh yeah, this is along with our email of course, and about 18 other sites we host. So now I'm getting calls on that, plus calls from customers wondering why I didn't respond to an email. We're backed up every night, but this died at the end of a day, before the nightly backup so there are transactions I'd like to keep. Plus, restoring from backup to a new server would not be pretty. Then Friday night we had to turn off all the office computers because they're transferring the 3-phase connection Saturday and need to interrupt the power for an unknown time. I really hope there is power in the morning. Cold, dark office, no email or websites... please make sure to buy something from us when we come back online! Bret So, what is your worst work day?

Closer to the tip but not so far that you push the pistol to the left (assuming RH shooter). The nail must still be kept at a 90 no matter where on your finger you touch the trigger.