Hank Ellis

We had a new shooter this last weekend. Played L-10 and was squadded with me. Safe, and accurate. Solid basics. Sometime during a stage I asked if this was his first match. "Yeah." 'Well welcome to the game and my condolences.' "Condolences?" 'Yeah, your wallet will be a lot lighter from now on.' While waiting for the results to be posted we compared sights against his Springfield GI vs my Springfield loaded with a Dawson FO. A little while later I overheard him talking to a gunsmith about if he can put a set of sights on by the next match. 'Visual of hooking a fish and reeling him in.' ------------------------------------ Congrats on the L-10 win. And welcome to the game.

Space for the reloading setup is at a premium. Wife didn't want it in the house so to the outside storage building I was banished. It's a 10'x30' building and I took 4' of it. The rest is taken up with rakes, shovels, and other implements of destruction required by home ownership. Stuck a cheap air conditioner in the window and it's fairly comfortable in all seasons. It's a good example of what you can do in a compact space. Photo 01 is of the top of the bench. My last reloading session was 12ga and the Mec is still mounted. The Dillon is off to the right. The cut off 2l Coke bottle is my powder funnel. Basic design of the bench is from NRMA (National Reloading Manufacturer Assn.) plans. Puppy is heavy and sturdy. It doesn’t move. Photo 02 is the shelving below the bench and the floor where bullets and completed ammunition is stored. Photo 03 is shelving made from 2x2 and 1/4" plywood held together with building structural connectors (www.strongtie.com). Brass, hulls, case prep equipment, gun cleaning goodies, spare parts, etc., etc., all live here. The scuba tank on the floor is my 'air compressor'. Took a steel 72 scuba tank, hooked up a POS first stage regulator, ran a BC hose from the LP port, adapted a couple fittings to a Sears hose and voila. Compressed air for cleaning, airing tires, etc. A couple tanks last me a year. At $5 a fill it's cost effective. Photo 04 is an overview. It looks tighter than it is. As long as everything is in its place and the bench is kept clear of clutter it works. The wood ring behind the scuba tank is for shotgun patterning.

I was off work and slept in that morning. Wife went off to her job. I heard the cell phone go off but ignored it as the sleep was too good. I was awakened by her shaking me and telling me that "We're at war!". She had drove home to tell me the news. I stumbled to the tube and turned to CNN. Before she went back to work an hour or so later I told her, "Our lives have just changed." The next morning I woke up to an empty sky. (Enter Bruce Springsteen song) Sat in the front yard and marveled at how quiet it was. Wondered how it was going to affect my career in aviation. Just wondered in general. Getting to work that Thursday it was a madhouse. A few flights were authorized but the hoops to get it done and the hours to get authorization were nuts. A month or so later much was back to normal flight time wise but we and our customers screened the passengers and cargo much more closely. Several of my co-workers have served and all have returned safely. Slow day at work today. There was a choice of two conversations around the coffee pot. 9/11 or Katrina/Rita. Or both. Remember 9/11? How can you forget.

Not exactly. There's a very cost effective way around it. I have DirecTV. Unless you spring for one of the sports or premium packages, TOC isn't in the programming lineup. Sent an email to DirecTV and they will add the channel a la carte for $1.99 a month. That's the way I'm going. The cable companies will do the same. At The Outdoor Channel website you'll find that many cable companies, Comcast included, offer TOC a la carte. Worth a call or email to get it added.

We shot this one in early August. Here's the HF from the top shooters and the percentages from Sedro. (BTW, I'm not on this list.) Division Class Pts Pen Time HF Open A 36 0 3.30 10.9091 81.0443% Limited GM 40 0 3.19 12.5392 97.4925% Limited 10 A 35 0 3.90 8.9744 66.4084% Production M 34 0 3.90 8.7179 74.5865% Revolver M 38 0 5.62 6.7616 100.0000%

Springfield XD-40 Tact. 5" 30 rounds over a Pact MKIV chrono. Precision 185gr RNFP Winchester Brass Winchester SP Primer 2.5gr Hodgdon Clays 1.125" OAL Mean Vel: 722 fps Mean PF: 135 SD: 12 Be aware that Clays and lead will produce a bit of smoke. Use moly or jacketed bullets if you can with Clays.

This whole discussion reminds me of when I was motorcycle drag racing. It's like deja vu all over again. I raced in C/S with a Kaw 900 Ninja. C/S stands for C Stock. The rule book for Stock was larger than several other classes combined. The intent of the division was to be entry level, bring your stock ride, slap on the number plate and let er rip. Didn't work out that way. Every little tiny bit of the bike was covered by the rules. How far down the fork tubes can you mount the triple clamps. What constitutes a 'working' generator. What fuel is legal. Swapping parts destined for other countries for US parts was common. My bike had Canadian jets and needles in US spec carbs. Degreeing of cams was OK. Ad nauseam. The guys at tech inspection hated to a see a S, SS, or XS bike. The safety items was a given. They were looking for how blatant was the cheating. They would find something. I would whip out the rule book and we would have an on site discussion of the 'intent' vs 'the letter' of a particular rule. I'd still be there after 3 or 4 others had gone in, tore down, got blessed and left. No, I never got dinged on a ruling. But I did push it. We racers had a joke, "Glad the rules in the book is in a soft binder so they can bend." My gaming paid off. I set 3 of the 4 records. Speed and ET in the 1/8, ET in the 1/4. What does this have to do with Production? Plenty. If we are not careful we can go down this same slope and have a division that is out of control on the rules. In my opinion the current USPSA rules work. It allows out of the box guns and shooters to compete on a level field. The slight customizing I see doesn't give a significant advantage. It still boils down to the shooter. Sweeping changes isn't what's needed. A tweak here, a tweak there should do it. Be careful what you wish for, you might get it.

My first firearm I owned, was a Ruger MKII. Still have it. Probably has 20 or 30,000 rounds through it. Broke an extractor several years ago. That's it. It has morphed into an open gun with OKO optics, Volquartzen grips and trigger group. Still fun to shoot. Also in the safe is a Taurus 94 9 shot revolver. The trigger is horrible double action. Heavy and gritty. Single action it isn't half bad. The trigger itself has a rough surface that left blood blisters on the trigger finger if shot double action a lot. Fixed it with a Dremel polishing wheel topped with clear fingernail polish. It is what it is, an inexpensive beater. I do not recommend this gun as a first firearm. Go with a Ruger MKII/III. Can't go wrong. Oh and tell your friend that 22 handguns are very picky about what ammo they like. Buy a box of everything he can get his hands on and shoot it for groups off a rest. In the beginning, buy the bulk pack stuff to gain skill. Later, don't be afraid to spend $3 or $4 a box if your serious about accuracy.

Get yourself a couple copies of Lance Armstrongs book "It's Not About The Bike". Keep one for yourself, give the other to your dad. I've given out 5 or 6 copies to cancer survivors who were going through their treatments. All came back to thank me and stated, what I'm going through ain't shjt compared to what Lance went through. My 78 year old aunt just completed radiation treatment for lung cancer. Future looks good. If a 78 year old woman, overweight, diabetic, with two heart attacks and a small stroke under her belt can whip cancer with prayer and a positive attitude, your dad can too.

You're on the right track. 1 ft/lb = 12 in/lb In this example, 7 ft/lb = 84 in/lb. Even large big bertha torque wrenches use in/lb to accurately torque items. The main rotor mast nut (jesus nut) of a Bell 206 is torqued to 3000 to 3300 in/lb (250 to 275 ft/lb) and the torque wrench we use is marked in in/lb. When you get to big cajones torque like the Bell 407 mast nut (600 or 800 ft/lb depending on mast configuration) then we go with a torque multiplier. Easier than going with an eight foot long wrench to smoke the nut down. FWIW: We also have an inch/ounce torque wrench for securing windshield screws. 1 in/lb = 16 in/oz. If you happen to work on items that give a Metric torque value in Newton/Meters, then your conversions are: 1 Nm = 0.737 ft/lb 1 ft/lb = 1.356 Nm [back to your regularly scheduled shooting forum.]

I shoot a basically stock SA 1911 single stack in L-10. In 2.5 years and 25,000 rounds it has been flawless. Any problems I had were traced to operator error or errors in reloading. I give it a good top end cleaning once a month and do a full teardown twice a year. Once a year the recoil and firing pin springs are changed. Not lavished maintenance but not neglected either. The day before a match I do my usual routine. Inventory the range bag. Case gauge the match ammo. Clean the barrel and relube the top end. The people with the letter M on thier classification card will never have anything to worry about from me. I'm just a guy who likes to shoot and hopefully improve. Currently classed at 50% and ever so slowly moving up. I'm throwing a party if I ever make B class. I've been plagued with a problem I haven't found a solution for. I collect penalties like kids collect baseball cards. I do fine in practice but at the match it all falls apart. Stage 1, long field course. Draw bang bang click huh rack bang click huh reload (repeat as necessary). The gun is choking! What has happened to old reliable? Finished the stage with a patheticly slow time. But no Mikes, no-shoots, no penalties. Stage 2, stand and deliver paper and steel. Same as stage 1. About ready to pack up and head home to see whats wrong with the gun but hey lets at least do the classifier, besides I've already paid for it. Since the gun may not work lets go for all A's on the classifier and let the time be what it is. Dropped 10 on a 60 point stage. Not great but they way I've been shooting lately I'll take it. Oh, and the gun ran fine. Gee, only two more stages. May as well finish the match. Finished the match with the gun giving me a problem or two but nothing like stage 1 and 2. Finished the match with no penalties. First time ever. Woohoo. Got home and the gun teardown revealed the following: Recoil spring had taken a set. Recoil spring missing about 3 coils. Firing pin spring broken. Firing pin stop cracked. Replaced what I could and ordered the rest. Also noticed the tub of slide glide on the table from when I cleaned the gun the day before. It was slide glide 1. Heavier than the slide glide lite I normally use. Poopy. I know what happened to the gun. What happened to the shooter? Looking at the score sheet my jaw hit the keyboard. The classifier will move me up a small percentage. My overall stage percentage didn't really change from my historical average. What! I'm shooting a broken gun and my overall doesn't change! But my scores did change. Sure the time was in the sundial range but I didn't collect a penalty. Did the gun problems change my focus from time to points? Did the gun problems simply change my focus? Was this change of focus something I needed to see to break through my penalty collecting habit? I feel something is within my grasp but I'm not sure what it is. Just need to take this event and wrap my brain around it for a while.

I still shoot lead for practice in a .45. But for any match I switch to Precisions. One stage a while back swore me off lead for competition. Simple stage. Standing. Gun on table. At the buzz engage the three full papers standing from above table. Then go under the table and engage 4 partials with lots of no-shoot and hard cover. You couldn't just hose it. There was some aiming involved. Oh, and there were no-shoots at either side of the table to restrict light which also restricted the breeze. Anyone that shot lead was hosed on this stage as the smoke obscured the targets in short order. Lesson learned. Lead has its place but can be a liability in competition.

Too bad I can't edit my previous post. Things have changed a bit and I have started reloading shotshells. A couple reasons. -Cost savings. Those cheap Rio shells from the gun club I mentioned are no more. The Wally World Winchester value packs don't perform for me. Tried the Estates and although they did pretty well I have to mail order them. Shipping ate up any savings. So it's back to the old standard. Win AA at Academy for $4.97 on sale and $5.17 normally. Using the following components: WST at $58 / 4lbs, Win WAA12 wads at $5.19 / 250, Win 209 primers at $25.99 / 1000, Lawrence shot at $26.59 / 25lbs, and free hulls, I came up with a reloaded cost of $3.99 a box. Not spectacular but a savings none the less. Switching to Clays and Claybuster wads brings the reloaded cost down to $3.71 a box. A bit better. The major cost in reloading shotshells is the shot. The local gun club does a bulk buy a couple times a year and they are able to get the price down to $18 / 25lbs. That gets the reloaded price down to $3.10 a box. Now we're talking. -Performance Those El Cheapo shells just didn't work for me. Didn't like that some didn't feed right, some felt a bit 'light', some didn't bust the bird when it should have. My reloads are on par with factory Win AA shells. Trust in your ammo is a something required for total shooting performance. -Custom Loads Something I haven't pursued but I have thought about. The shotgun PF is 520 and popper calibration is used with 1oz load at 1180 fps. Your generic light target load is 1 1/8oz at 1145 fps for a PF of 563. I'm thinking you could lighten up the loads a bit to say 540 PF and still be safe at the chrono and steel. 1oz at 1235 or 1 1/8oz at 1100 fps. Something to think about. FWIW: I decided on the Mec Grabber as my press. Found one on eBay for $157 shipped. Toss in a universal charge bar and few other goodies and I got set up for $225. At the rate I'm shooting it will pay for itself in about 10 months. It's got its quirks but once adjusted it turns out fine shells at a reasonable rate.

You can use the plastic ones but.... For reliability and longetivity I would go with the metal feed lips at a minimum. The best mag for the 10/22 out there is the factory mag. The 10/22 uses the forward edge of the feed lips as the ejector. Plastic can't hold up to the abuse. I've seen a plastic feed lip Butler Creek mag melted down by couple of young'uns and two bricks of ammo in an afternoon. Also, most aftermarket mags can't be disassembled for cleaning. If you go with factory mags you will want to tune them a bit. Every so often one will have a bit of flashing that needs to be removed. Cranking up the spring tension helps in the function also. 10/22 Rotory Mag Service The link in post 3 is broken but has been relocated here. Another mag service link.

Hey Rich, help me out here. I've got a XD Tact in .40. It has had the slide lightened. I'm running a .40 minor load at 135pf. I understand that the stock spring is 18lb. Should I run the stock rate spring or is it possible or desireable to run a 16lb spring? Thanks in advance.

Another guy only ... When cinching down the legstraps of your skydiving rig, make sure none of your 'package' is caught under the straps. It will be painfully obvious of your error on canopy deployment. Every male jumper I know has done this, once. One did it twice but I think he enjoyed it.

When I stuck my toe in this game 15 years ago (then left but that's another story), there were two stages at our Wednesday night practice that you were going to get guaranteed. El Prez - I don't remember any other classifier but the Prez that has been around as long as the game has. 50' Standards - Box A, gun loaded, arms down. Draw, fire 6 freestyle, reload, fire 6 kneeling, reload, fire 6 prone. All one string. Another item I remember from back then was a lot of strong hand, weak hand stuff. Nothing extreme but usuable, practical exercises. Edited to add: Oh yeah, another thing I remember was the round count being a lot lower than it is now. It was a rare bird to have to reload more than twice using 8 round mags. My original Ernie Hill rig had 3 mag pouches. I stuffed the Barney mag and my starter mag in my back pocket (still do). Most stages were 6, 12, or 18 rounds. A real ammo burner was 24. We also tried make it revolver neutral as everyone shot heads up then.

Just an update on my Precision OAL issue. Figured that seating to the same bullet base depth would do the trick as others here mentioned. What I had on hand was 230 LRN, 230 jacketed, 230 Berrys plated, and 230 Precision. The longest bullet was the 230 lead RN which is my practice load and passes the case gauge and the barrel chamber test. I load the 230 LRN to 1.260". Subtracted the Precision length from the LRN length and ended up with a 1.220" OAL. Random checks showed a OAL from 1.220 to 1.225. Every one dropped in the barrel with a 'clink'. Thanks for the info.

Vets have a deep love for their ships. "Turning it into razor blades" is their term for cutting it up for scrap metal. Many would rather give up a kidney than see their ship given the blow torch. Although reefing isn't the first choice it is far better than most of the alternatives. The enviro hazards was legit. A year or so ago a large amount of PCBs were discovered and had to be cleaned up. Lead based paint had to be removed. The list seemed endless. Can't point a finger too hard at the 'crunchy people'. No one doubted that the benefits of reefing, they just want to make sure it was done right and as clean as practical. It was the first one the Gummit did and there was a learning curve for all involved. The plan was to sink her upright so that the top of the island is at 60' so it wouldn't be a marine navagation hazard. That would put the flight deck at 130', the max depth for recreational divers. The depth to the bottom is 212', would give the techies and Navy divers a huge playground to work with. That they sunk a 900' long, 150' tall ship and it go right is one for the textbooks. Upright and pretty close to the planned depths. Good job Navy.Be prepared for more reefings in the future. The Gummit has taken a clue from the Canadians and has started a reef program to be a cost effective solution to obsolete warships. There are few wreck spots I want to visit before they slam the lid on my face. Bermuda for the multitude of natural shipwrecks. Truk as a war grave. Bikini Atoll to see first hand the effects of a nuclear blast. Yes, radiation levels have dropped and Bikini is open for diving. The equipment and skill requirements are rather stiff for Bikini however.

Take a look at this thread concerning Precision RNFP bullets and OAL. My gun has run flawlessly with Precision bullets ... until last Sunday. I had the mother of all jams. Finished the stage with a time that could be recorded on a sundial. The problem was I was loading way too long. The offending round clearly had rifle marks. Chambering and ejecting several rounds resulted in the same thing. I was loading to an OAL of 1.260 with LRN bullets and not changing the seating die for Precision bullets which netted me a 1.240 OAL. I'll need to shorten to 1.225 to 1.230 using the black bullets. Maybe even shorter. Although the ammo passes the case gauge it didn't pass the final case gauge, the guns barrel. Of course, changing the OAL is going to change the pressure which is going to change the velocity which means back to the chrono to work the load up again. Gee...and it worked so well for over 2 years.

Or you can do what one gentleman did at the Louisiana Section Match. Production revolver. Shot his revolver in Production with Production legal gear and gear placement. His jousting at windmills paid off. 1st C. FWIW: This gentleman is a B Limited shooter who was not progressing and getting bit burnt out. Switched to the wheelgun and he is having a ball.

The attached photo is of the Oriskany berthed at NAS Pensacola taken 14 May 2006, the day before she was towed to sea for reefing. I'm looking forward to the honor of diving her. The scuba community is abuzz about it. With deep dive and Nitrox certifications it will be accessable. If you scuba you should have these certs anyway. It did settle about 5' to 15' deeper than planned but in the big scheme of things it's not a big deal. Those diving it will have to do their homework. Go on air and you can go to 130' but your bottom time at that depth will only be 9 minutes. Go with various Nitrox mixtures and balance max depth, PO2 levels, and bottom time to get the dive you want. Even with EAN28 and a 1.5 PO2 your bottom time is still only 11 minutes at 130'. Getting to the flight deck isn't the end all anyway. The view from 20' above the deck will be grand. Your generic EAN32 and 1.4 PO2 will get you to 100' for 27 minutes. Good enough for me. Personally I can guess I'll be going through a lot of tanks and never go past 100' and still see plenty. Tech divers are positively getting a woody over the newest artificial reef. For more diving info: http://www.mbtdivers.com/ Seeing the Mighty O before her reefing topped off a day touring the Naval Aviation Museum. Seeing and touching the little Grumman Widgeon that sunk a German U-Boat in the Gulf of Mexico outside of Houma, LA during WWII tied together a piece of history for me. I work at the former Houma Air Base and the remnants of the base are still visible including the pilings for the blimp hangar.

Sounds interesting. Where are the rules published?

Horsefeathers and balderdash.I use Trail Boss. It meters fine through my measures. I have disabled the 'failsafe' mechanism through a variation of EricW retrograde. My powder measuring process is to throw 10 charges in the pan and measure that. The average of 10 charges is my charge. Rechecking the powder throw after a few hundred rounds it's never off by more than .2gr for 10 charges. Trail Boss works fine. I did read somewhere that if your charge is more than 5.0gr that you'll have to use the large powder bar as you have run out of adjustment on the small powder bar. FWIW: Gave it a try in .45 with Precision Moly bullets. Couldn't get to a confortable major PF at max load. Also had a strange, hard to describe feel to it. Use it as it is promoted, lead bullets in revolvers. More FWIW: Good reloading practice is start low and work up slowly. You can go too low. S&W 686 4". 158gr LSWC. 2.0gr Trail Boss. 427fps. Glad the Pact Chrono beeps when it records a reading. I was wondering if the bullets made it out of the barrel. It was a riot watching the bullets go downrange.

Thanks to all who've posted tips on this thread. It got my 1100 running. Lubed the gas system with 5W-20 Castrol GTX (it's what I had laying around). Oriented the splits in the piston parts 180 degrees from each other in the 3 and 9 o'clock position. Started with 3.25 dram loads and it cycled but not with 3.0 dram loads. Drilled out the gas ports one at a time till the 3.0 loads cycled. But the 2.75 dram loads wouldn't cycle. Continued opening the gas ports till the 2.75 loads cycled then finished with opening one port one more drill size for insurance. Ended up with one with a #44 and the other with a #45. Now I need to make sure it works with the mag extension. Once that's done it's off for an EasyLoader install. Finally a 200 round marathon at the skeet range to make sure it'll run through a match. Woo hoo. Thanks again.