JFlowers

I finally got to watch Revolutions. I found myself liking and caring about the small-part characters much more than the main characters... especially the APU and infantry soldiers. I think you always have to admire those who put themselves on the line in a battle they can not win because its the right thing to do. I really liked the young boy, not because he opened the gate with the Colonel's APU, but because he ran out into this massive firefight to reload an armored units guns. I still think the best parts of the movie are the firefight in the dock and the flight of THE HAMMER. I really liked when Naomi flipped THE HAMMER end over end and drove it down the maintenance tunnel with the Captain going "I didn't know the ship would do that". In the end, I got what I expected but not much more. I think as first viewing pleasures go, the original was much more of an experience.

Reading a current thread about checking timers and timesheets caused an incident I witnessed while working as general staff at a recent major match to resurface. A shooter was unhappy about a procedural called against him. The shooter refused to sign the scoresheet because "if he signed it he was accepting it and could not protest it". Since he was the next to last shooter on the stage, by the time this discussion was held, the squad was leaving and the shooter left with them. The RM was called, the situation explained. The RM put a note on the scoresheet and timed it and told us to turn it in as-is. My question is .... Was the shooter correct? Could the shooter have protested the procedural even after signing the scoresheet? Or by signing it was the shooter accepting it as is and lose the ability?

SherlockWV, Andrew is right about the major/minor issue. I can make major with the 357 SIG because I am shooting an Open gun and 9mm Major is allowed. I had assumed that your friend would be shooting production where he would download the rounds to minor where they would be pleasant to shoot and where he would be using 10rd magazines, rather than competing in Limited where he could not be classed as Major whether he could make it or not.

SherlockVW, The 357 SIG is indeed designed to be a "hot" round. But, there is not reason you can not load the round to pleasant shooting, with the right spring rates to function properly with the selected load. The 357 SIG is commonly defined as a 40SW case necked down to a 9mm bullet, but 357 SIG brass is actually slightly longer than necked down 40 brass. I run .355s (Zero 9mm 125gr JHP) in mine. The main issue with bullet selection, and the reason FPs are popular, is that they have flat sides and can be crimped well. Bullet setback can be an issue with 357 SIG. You can find reloading data in most newer manuals, like those available on the power manufacturers websites. Most recommend a powder that takes up the case so that bullet setbacks are stopped. One item to be aware of ... Speer 357 SIG brass. It seems that a lot amount of Speer brass was produced with undersized flash holes. When you decap once-fired Speer brass, you actually end up widening the flash hole. This makes the down stroke on the reloading press very hard and leaves a lip around the flash hole protruding into the primer pocket. I have taken to depriming Speer brash, setting it aside, and then cleaning up the primer pockets. I am currently working up loads, trying to determine the load that most efficently runs my 357 SIG open gun (a long story in itself). I am experimenting with a wide variety of powders, so let me know if you want to discuss this any. You can email me at jameslflowers@earthlink.net.

Man, I forgot my water at the match last weekend and definately paid the price. By the last stage, my mouth was dry and I knew I was headed for trouble. Luckily, I was finished and could stop at the store on my way home. The advice given here is great and something I think we all need to remember, especially as we are having consistent 90+ days in the South and its only MAY! A quick note on how this was handled at one match ...... One of our other shooting sports holds its NC State Championship in late August at the Rowan County Wildlife Club. When the ROs and Staff shot through on Thursday, they drank all the water that had been purchased to SELL during the match due to the (surprisingly hot) 100+ degree heat. The Match Committee quickly decided to acquire more (LOTS MORE!) and to give it away rather than sell it, as a gesture of concern for the shooters. During the match 85 cases of bottled water were distributed to the shooters. The Match Staff would pull up to a berm on a golf cart with coolers on the back and walk around presenting people with water. Out of the three days, one person was driven to a local hospital where they were re-hydrated and one person sat out several stages in the A/C club house, then caught up later. All in all, an amazing result due in large part to the Match Committees decision to almost force water out to the shooters.

To the the BE'ers who came thru Stage 8.... I hope you had a much fun shooting it in the rain as I had patching the holes you made. The Barrel Yard crew ruined several good pairs of shoes (except for 'Old Trench Foot' Tyrone Phillips who only wears shoes when his wife makes him) but we had a blast. I want to thank all of you who took the time to say THANKS. Normally its appreciated, but when you are wet and miserable, and there is a squad waiting for you to move the one that just finished out from under the test so you get no breaks, it really means a lot! James

Having just come from staffing Stage 8 "The Barrel Yard" of the 2004 Area 6 Match, I can say that I saw none of this from the 4 ROs who worked the stage (We had extras after they close Stage 9 and it helped due to the weather conditions. Only two DQs were given on the stage, one for a 180 and one for a round out of the berm. Both shooters hung their heads, shook our hands, and took their knocks. A third 180 DQ was given but the RO changed the call to RO Interference after he realized the competitor had come close but not broken the 180. All four ROs gave the competitors as much leeway as possible keeping safety always in mind with the sloppy weather conditions. The only "contention" generated by the stage were from scoring hits that became misses due to passing through hardcover. Most competitors when shown the holes in the hardcover accepted the misses, though some got upset about them. Many competitors asked for (and all recieved) overlays on single hole targets. Ocassionally the call did not go the shooters way and the shooter thought it should, but that is just the nature of the game. Out of approximately 300 competitors I think I saw 5 people leave the stage upset about an officiating call. Thats not us vs. them, thats just human competitive nature. I think that considering the ankle deep mud, bagged targets, and miserable conditions the match ran as smoothly was possible. I actually saw more of an "us for you" attitude. The Stage staffs had lunch brought to them and ate on the run, shot squads as soon as they showed up, anything that was needed to get the squads through the stages in a timely fashion. We ran Stage 8 from 8am til 6:45pm, non-stop to get the Sat squads through due to the weather related slowdowns. And I had a lot of fun doing it!!!!!!!! But the wife has always thought I was nuts! James Flowers

During the SC State Match this weekend, one of the biggest complaints from the stage crew I worked with were the targets. I don't know who had made them, but they were very thick and the perforations were very very light, making scoring somewhat difficult. Several times I thought to myself "I wish we were using Hotshot Targets, he does so much better a job on them". And now I find out he's out of business! Thats sad. Brian was a great guy and he lived less than a mile from where I grew up so I could pick up targets from him easily. If some other vendor was whining then USPSA really should have told them "HEY, its a free market economy, figure out how to compete" rather than shutting down Hotshots.

You know how Front Sight polls the shooters at the Nationals and publishes what they are shooting and all .... well after sorting two 5 gallon buckets of brass from Stage 8 of the SC State Match I have found that the caliber choice was pretty much what one would expect. Out of two 5 gallon buckets of brass I got ... 4 quart buckets of 45 ACP 10 quart buckets of 40 SW 7 quart buckets of 38 Super (Super, +p, Comp, and TJ all mixed) 2 quart buckets of 9mm ... and a lot of trash. I was surprised by two things ... 1) I thought more Open shooters were running 9mm guns, but it looks like 38 super still rules. 2) the number of shooters using Blazer aluminum cased ammo. I was very surprsed at the amount of Blazer I had to pitch. Oh well, useless info I hope someone found interesting

JFD, You would be amazed at the number of people who walked the stage and asked where the stepstool was for that high port! James

Mad, Your not the only one who wanted to bury their head! I was thinking more along the lines of burying the gun in one sand pile and my head in another! But, in the end it was a learning experience and I know what I need to work on. Working Stage 8 all day Saturday was a chore, but was fun as well. By the end of the day the four poppers on the left side were my most hated enemies after I had lifted them what felt like 300 times (7 squads of 11 is only 77 but it felt worse). Running a stage all day I learned a lot about stage design ... poppers will dig pits in the ground after they have been shot all day and change calibration doing it, drop turners need to be oiled every now and then. Pasters that will not stick to targets will stick to everything else. I would like to hear what people felt was too "gimmicky" ... other than the lawnmower... just so I can learn more about stage designing if nothing else. James Flowers

I have a ambedexerious Swenson Shielded Safety that has been mounted on my singlestack for Limited-10. Now that I have nearly finished building my Open gun, I want to move the Swenson to it. But the finger on the right side of the safety, that normally rides under the grip panel and holds the safety on, hits against the widebody part of the grip. Is there a trick to fitting safeties to widebodies? I looked at Brownells and they only sell one safety so it doesn't look like there is a SS and DS model. James

What is the maximum capacity of a Para P16 magazine with an Arredondo basepad? And what are the tricks for getting that capacity? Thanks James

While like any company, most of those who work for UPS are great people, I had the misfortune to have a package run into one who was not. Some years ago when shipping frearms was much simpler, I shipped a very nice Weatherby Mark V to a gunsmith out west for some repair. The smith told me upfront to invest in a solid gun case and ship the rifle in the case, the case in a box. I did and grumbled about the extra shipping that it cost me. The 'smith got the rifle without problem, did the work, and shipped it back. When the package arrived it was in sad shape. Based on the damage to the box, the scars on the case, and the boot prints... it was pretty obvious someone had laid the package across an open space between two supports and jumped up and down on it! I was appalled that one of UPS's workers would treat any package this way. The driver was appalled as well, but basically shrugged and told me to call the office. The party I reached at UPS did everything but call me a liar and accuse me of fraudulently creating the damage. After several phone calls and a series of conversations whose pleasentness decreased each time, I got a final answer from UPS ... "well, since the primary item you were shipping was not damaged we see no claim here for payment". The case had saved my rifle, and UPS thought that was good enough! Fortunately since that time, I have had great experiences with UPS (and less than stellar with FedEx).

While not a certified RO, I volunteered to help out in any way possible, an offer which was gladly accepted. I will be there on Friday shooting with the ROs and working Saturday doing whatever is needed. James

Shred and Vince, While the specifics of how this should be penalized are specific to each sport, this issue itself is not. SASS recently made changes to it ruleset to provide a penalty mechanism for competitors who "blew-off" a non-shooting stage activity. Personally, I have always (As a SASS RO) believed in the good faith attempt. If the competitor threw the baby at the crib and missed, oh well thats was their choice and they eat the penalty. If the competitor made a good faith effort to put the baby in the crib and it not just perfectly aligned just so, well thats a reasonable attempt. I also agree that a penalty-per-shot is extremely steep for a non-shooting activity. The penalty should be appropriate to the amount of time gained by not doing the activity. If the activity will take 5 seconds then 10 seconds is appropriate. I do like Vince's suggestion that the activity be linked to something else. The weighted object activating swingers or opening a port is an excellent example of a way to force the activity to be done without needing a penalty mechanism. However, its not one that is always easy at the club level. James Flowers

I am looking for some advice on where I can find 170mm magazines for my Para P16-40 based open gun. Were 170mm magazines made? Do they come up for sale on occasion? Does someone make a +9 or so basepad that makes a stock P16 magazine into 170mm? Will the magazines from other manufacturers work? If I can find old big sticks, who makes replacement parts to keep them functioning? Thanks James

One of the gun shops that made the list is Hyatts Gun Shop in Charlotte, NC. I asked Larry Hyatt the last time I saw him about the story. His reply was that the numbers were based not on guns used in crimes, but on the number of ATF traces a store got. Since he has been in business almost 70 years and is the largest gun shop around, it only makes since he would have more traces! I like the cola and chip reference! James Flowers

I have recently acquired a relatively new open gun at a doll of a price. Its previous owner was getting out of USPSA and into SASS and I was giving SASS a break and picking USPSA back up, so we worked out a great deal. The gun is built on a P16/40 that had been converted to 357 SIG. I am not real sure why he choose to convert it from 40. I am planning to shoot it as-is for a while. But I am also thinking about converting it back to 40SW. I am also thinking about building a 40SW Limited Slide for the gun. I would probably sell the OPEN slide and buy parts for Tommy Abernathy to build the LIMITED one (nice thing about living down the road from Tommy). Anyone have any experience with 357 SIG as an open gun? James Flowers

Since I work for the local Government, lots of things are blocked here. Since I work for IT, I usually know why they are blocked. Here, like many companies, knowing the IT guys won't help. We have bought an outgoing filter software and they constantly update the blocking list. All the IT shop here does was choose the catagories they wanted blocked. So when sites like BrianEnos get marked as MATURE, or when Jim Shanahan's gets marked as SEXUAL EXPLICT (too funny) its often coming from the software company that writes the filter. In these cases, the site management needs to yell at the software company about the rating they have been giving. All IT here can do is unblock a site manually. then when the next download comes in, we have to do it again. So every two weeks, on Monday morn, someone starts unblocking a list of sites that the software company blocks that IT doesn't want blocked. And yes, the idiot surfing gambling or porn sites on a slow afternoon at work is your worst enemy in this. James Flowers

TDean, Whats the dot you have located in central NC? Looking at the USPSA website I don't see a match listed (but I have been known to miss things). James

I have been shooting Valiant 200gr LRNFP over W231 and AA#5 (7.5grs), and Valiant 230gr LRN over WSL and WAP(6.4grs). I have found that I really like the AA#5 which everone tells me will blow up my gun and WAP which is no longer produced. So I am looking for a new load as well. The W231 I have found to be very smokey. I also found that I really liked the Coated Lead Bullets from Precision, but the shipping is hefty.

USPSA Limited-10 : Kimber Custom Eclipse