JFlowers

At one time, Speer ran some batches of 357Sig brass with undersized flash holes. This forces the de-primer pin to actually have to punch the hole larger in order to push the primer out. Since 357Sig and 40SW are very similiar cases, its possible that some 40SW brass was run undersized as well.

Troop 77 in Lancaster, SC. Earned it in 1986.

Actually you forgot one.... Cowboy Action TV, the one produced by SASS with Ken Amasora (The Chiz) as its host.

Once during my youth, I worked for Carowind's Amusement Park, one of King's Island's sister park, located just outside of Charlotte, NC. On one of those days when the park is operating for the amusement of the workers and the gates are closed to the public we decided to do a marathon ride on the old White Lightning. White Lightning was a simple rollercoaster. The train was launched from the station, went thru the loop, up the hill, gravity pulled it backwards thru the loop, and then up the slow down hill behind the station. Simple. Well, after 36 non-stop rides (most with the train never stopping in the station, just getting a boost) we finally stopped and got off. Standing up was quite a trick as the ground wanted to keep moving!

1 - First 180+ mph run on the drag strip (Street-class drag car built from a 69 GTO) 2 - Sight of blue lights in front of you when you are winning your first $1000 heads-up street race (Same GTO) 3 - Impact of a bullet in the back (running from a situation I should not have been in doing something I knew better than being involved with. Amazing how much it don't hurt till you stop) 4 - That split second when you know you have lost the motorcycle and haven't hit the pavement yet (Thank God for leathers and helmets!) 5 - When the buzzer goes BEEP on that stage that will make or break your chances at a trophy for the match. (Not got the USPSA skills there yet, but have shot other sports at tht level). James

Actually, under the interpretation that 4.1.2 means that ALL scoring targets be a single color, wouldn't poppers have to be brown? I mean otherwise you would have paper in brown and steel in white and then ALL scoring targets are not a single color. So does 4.1.2.2 directly contridict 4.1.2 by recommending that steel be white. And penalties targets are "scored" so they should be the same color as everything else. Looks like the shoot the brown paper, don't shoot the white paper, shoot the white steel match philosphy is illegal. Thats why I think what 4.1.2 actually means is that EACH scoring target should be of a solid color, no candy stripes, polka dots, etc, but not necessarily all of the same color.

MBane, man, I hope you can turn American Rifleman around. The two guys sitting at the table hosting it seems like nice fellows but they come across awful flat and dull. And the show seems to try and pack too many sections in and doesn't really do anything well. Thats one thing I liked about Shooting Gallery and all the other new shows, single topics. Take one thing and give it 22 1/2 minutes so you can do an okay job of it. Any chance of seeing any of the shows extend to an hour format? 45 minutes of coverage, especially for the major events (Nationals, EOT, etc etc) would be even better than 22 1/2. James

Actually, I like that getting up in the dark. Now that sunrise comes earlier it means the morning drive is into the rising sun and Charlotte drivers are bad enough without glare to contend with!

Kevin, I would think that this could be a problem with any squadding format, shooters showing up to berms late due to stop-an-chats, bathroom breaks, etc. All a stage crew can do is give the same briefing, walk-thru, and prep time to each squad. Each shooter has a certain amount of responsibility to be there for that briefing. Open squadding just exaggerates the issue since the stage crew does not have a squad list they can check nor can they ask the squad "is everyone here" since no one really knows with the format. As to protests and arbitration, I don't know. But common sense says that if the crew of stage X gave the same briefing to each squad and Joe Shooter missed it cause he has buying a widget from Bob Vendor, then Joe Shooter had the same opportunity as everyone else can chose not to take advantage of it, so the responsibility is his not the stage crews. I have never shot a major event in any of the shooting sports with that type of open squadding. I can just imagine the headaches it would cause.

I will be there shooting on Friday and then working Sat. Hope to see lots of B.E.ers there.

Anyone notice that Stargate SG-1, Stargate Atlantis, and Battlestar Galactica all use the same firearms? Everyone is carrying an FN P90 SMG. Wonder if SciFi's production company got a volume discount from Steinbridge Rentals? Battlestar Galactica is now at three episodes with no dogfights.

These stories are about SciFi/Comic/Gaming Cons and its easy to laugh at those people as die-hard geeks, but I hate to tell you that the madness is much wider spread. I have worked for the last 11 years implementing one of the world's largest back office (HR, Benefits, Payroll, Recruitment, etc) software packages, 9 years as a traveling consultant and the last 2 years for a local employer. Each year the software vendor holds a huge conference for all its customers, implementation partners, and third party software partners. When the market was good, the conference was basically something you suffered through during the day for the hospitality suites and parties at night. Now we are talking about consultants making $140,000 a year and up, here. The liquor flowed like water. The year the small consulting firm I worked for merged with a larger one, the owner (a man) of my company showed up wearing a wedding dress and the CEO of the larger one was dressed as the groom! About 3am that morning, most of the company's officers and consultants were down in the pool with what I thought were inflated beach balls bouncing back and forth. What they were actually playing pool volleyball with was an inflated sheep sex doll!

Upgrade to the big boy! Denny Pub's Infamous 9lb Burger.

The problem with not DQ'ing a shooter who commits a DQ'able offense (new to shooting, new to the club, or otherwise) is the liability that you take on should anything happen during the rest of the match. Lets say you take Joe Newshooter aside and talk with him about safety rules prior to the match. Then on Stage 2, he breaks the 180 and puts a shot into a prop. Instead of DQ'ing him, you choose instead to have a stern discussion with him and let him continue. Then on Stage 4, he runs with his finger on the trigger, runs into a prop, breaks the 180 as he falls down, and shoots himself in the foot. His lawyer is gonna have a field day with the fact that he had commited unsafe acts and that regardless of the rules, the choice had been made to let him continue shooting and therefore your negligence contributed to the injury his client substained. BS in your eyes and mine since we believe in personal responsibility, but works in court. Thats why I have always felt that you have to DQ the shooter. But you can soften the blow in many many ways. The squad can comiserate with him (or her), keep them busy and engaged with other squad work. Have an older experienced shooter work with them on the stage after the match on that stage. Refund their money (if you charged a new shooter to shoot anyway) or tell them that you will count the next match as their first. Its a fine line between the safety lessons that need to be taught, the rules that need to be followed, and keeping new shooters interested and coming back. I know that I for one don't have an answer to the question, but I do feel that we can not compromise safety in the name of fun.

While the new Galactica is definately interesting, I find that for me it has the same problem that Enterprise had..... stop the sociopolitical commentary and get back to the action! Star Trek was a hit because Kirk always beat up the bad guys and got the girl, simple direct and effective TV! I don't mind a meaningful show every now and then, but Galactica hasn't blown anything up in two episodes (Starbuck lost on the planet and Number 6 doing the PR number) now. One thing you could always count on Stargate SG-1 for was action on a regular basis. Atlantis has its moments. They have the storyline for some great action, but often seem too busy trying to fill in the backstory to get on with it. Hey, I can suspend belief enough to buy the story, so quit trying to make me believe and lets it busy defending the Pegasus Galaxy from the Wraith! I mean the last person to blow up any Wraith was the hot babe on the visited planet who turned out to be an Accended Ancient who has the hots for Major Shepard. Okay, maybe I'm juvenile. But many people must have similiar opinions since Law & Order and CSI are hits and they all start out with violence!

Ron, I agree with you. In the end I think it's not the DQ, but how its done that will decide if the new shooter returns or no.

This is the one weekend out of the month when the club holding its match is on Sunday (12:30pm) rather than Saturday (9:30am). Of course, Sat was a nice pretty day and we had freezing rain coming down Sun morn. So I decide to stay home and what do you know, it stops raining about 10am. So I change clothes and pack the range bag and then it starts raining again. On well, missed last week, rained out this week, no match next week, hopefully the 1st Sat in March will be on! James

The open gun I bought and am enjoying has a 5 1/2" guide rod which extends slightly from the front of the slide underneath the comp. Does that extra 1/2" of guide rod gain anything? I was thinking about replacing the solid rod with a 5" Sprinco, but was wondering if the missing 1/2" would cause a problem. Thanks for your thoughts on this! James

Thanks Guys. Due to a change in the personal situation, it looks like its going to be exercise and dry fire practice until late spring so hopefully I can overcome any muscle fatigue and mental tensioning by then. BE and the BE'ers are a great bunch!

In order to meet my 2005 shooting goals I have started a Dry Fire Practice routine each night, consisting of Draws to Par Time, Mag Changes, Target Transitions, etc. I have noticed that I build a significantly uncomfortable amount of tension in my shoulders during my practice, tension I either don't experience or don't notice on the range. By the end of a drill series (say 10 draws to par time. Thanks to Matt Burkett for a cool browser based target and timer) I will be very tight in my shoulders, tight enough to be just plain uncomfortable. Hopefully, some of my fellow BE'ers have experienced this and can give me some advice on dealing with this. Thanks!

Besides being censorship, is this not breach of contract? I mean GoDaddy.Com paid good money for two SuperBowl ad spots and then a random decision is made to pull a paid for ad because some old foggie thinks its 'inappropriate' when the girl in the ad has on as much if not more clothing than the NFL cheerleaders shown during the game. Sounds like the NFL and Fox would be in breach of contract to GoDaddy.Com for failure to provide paid for services, though I am sure Fox has an escape clause in the contract.

JFD, The Mec-Gar magazines are 2mm shorter than the Para magazines, which is why they are advertised as 15 round magazines rather than 16 round. I can not use them with Dawson basepads as they hit my magwell and will not lock up on the mag catch, but I can use them with Arredondo basepads. My barney magazine is a Mec-Gar with a rubber pad glued to the bottom. Other than the shortness causing the Dawson bases not to work, I have not had any problem out of the Mec-Gars. If you watch EBay you can find Para magazines for sale frequently, you just have to be careful that they are not seller 10 round limited capacity magazines and just not saying anything. Some of the standard capacity 16 round magazines sell for more than the price of new ones! CDNN Investments is also a good place to check for magazines. James

One of my goals for 2005 is to start shooting "clean" matches.... that is matches with no misses. Well, today I shot SPSA with no misses on any target I shot at, but missed the clean match by that one target I ran passed and forgot to shoot at! Oh, well! It was a definate improvement over the my typical match performance...... I shot well, the gun ran well, oh well! More practice ... shoot again in 7 days! James

Malfunction, I went to a Hogue wraparound on my Kimber. It gives you a grip 1.31in wide compared to the Para's 1.44in wide and makes the fore to after measurement basically the same. James

SASS does not use the Range Officers to "clear" guns. Guns move from the firing line to a designated unloading table where they are cleared by the officer running the unloading table. This saves time and is safer since you have four guns to clear and you don't want the shooter trying to show the RO that gun A is clear while trying to hold Gun B,C, and D and single actions take a bit more effort to clear. Guns also come to the line loaded, as they are loaded at a Loading Table under the eye of another officer. So it takes FOUR people to run a SASS stage: Loading, Unloading, Scorekeeper, RO.