motosapiens

I've gotten pretty good at taking apart CMC mags, but the good news is that they are not quite as finicky due to the metal followers. mags with plastic followers (wilson and tripp, for example) need to be kept much cleaner in my experience.

not necessarily a savings... but not really an added expense either. and I haven't seen any CO mags that are finicky. I don't care that much about 15 rounds vs 140mm. the only real issue with 15 rounds is you would still really need 4 pouches at a minimum, for those stages where someone unimaginative simply puts 4 8-round arrays together with no other reasonable place to reload. every serious shooter? in every division? that's what I see. I don't see any differences between co and prod in terms of mag cleaning. with or without mag extensions doesn't seem to make a difference, and the mags are much less finicky than 2011 maqgs.

Lots of us don't run our mags all the way forward. I'm more comfortable (and faster) with them set more to the side, and I've seen plenty of other M and GM shooters with similar setups. Seems like personal preference to me, not a matter of better vs worse.

i disagree with this 100%, and also with your earlier post about 140mm magazines being bad for CO. allowing more changes to guns makes it easier for people to be competitive with cheap guns, instead of having to buy semi-custom-shop race guns. 10 round magazines means people need to have 5-6 magazines, and 4-5 mag pouches at a minimum. with 140mm mags, I was able to be competitive with 2 pouches and 3 magazines (only 2 of which were extended length. we just set up mrs moto for CO last fall, and it was pretty reasonable. sig legion and an optic and 3 mag extensions and 3 mag pouches and we were ready to roll.

this is the truth. cz has no trouble in my experience with typical factory ammo, but if you compare that fatter ogive of many of the popular coated bullets with typical factory (or plated, or jacketed) bullets, the difference is pretty easy to see. As an RO, I am amazed how common it is for people to load bullets long enough to stick in the rifling and be hard to eject at ULSC.

unless it sometimes fails to lock back...... I don't pay much attention to lockback tho unless I'm shooting SS. Limited gun doesn't lock back, and who knows if my CO gun locks back or not... I've never shot it to empty, and probably never will.

that's actually an intriguing idea. esp if it turned out to be a loss of 5-6 rounds. OTOH, I think CO, Limited and SS are pretty much perfect just the way they are, and I dont really care about any of the other divisions.

there aren't really any shots in USPSA that require more accuracy than I actually have freehand (2" or so group at 15-20 yards). So it's pretty much always my fault if I miss.

i would have done that if mbx had just replaced their defective springs, but they basically told me to get lost, so I figured they didn't want my continued business.

we stopped using mbx springs in our mags because the last set wore out in a few weeks, and MBX was not interested in helping us. TTI springs work much better, but if you use the mbx followers, you'll have to bend the spring slightly to get the follower to sit at the right angle. We have had zero troubles since we started using the TTI springs. Its not as easy to get 21 rounds in the mag..... but I stopped doing that anyway because if i'm that worried about round count, it's easier and safer to just do a 2nd reload and shoot aggressively.

meh. it works fine. I actually went to 1.055 for my old xdm. it worked fine. I've had a number of guns with the same issue,j and it's easier for me to just load shorter than to pay someone to fix every barrel. if you choose a different bullet profile, it may not be an issue.

You may be overthinking this whole operation. I'm not sure I see the point of a Ransom Rest when developing uspsa loads. I have been totally unable to discover any bullet/oal/powder combination that wasn't at least as accurate as I am, with the exception of certain guns just hating certain bullets (keyholing, plating disintegration). I had to work up loads with 4 different bullets (different profiles, different weights, different mfrs) a few months ago to get rid of various free samples and prize-table pickups from the last couple years. Each one took me one trip to the range to chrono 5-10 rounds. some needed a minor adjustment after that, but I didn't bother to re-chrono. Once I figure out the oal my guns need for a particular bullet profile, i compare it to book loads or my own previous data and adjust the starting load to try to get 130 pf. if i shorten the oal by .05, i reduce the charge by .2 gr or so. if the only data I can find is for jacketed but I'm shooting coated, I reduce another .3-.4 gr. That's always been able to get me in the 120-140 pf range on the first try, and from there it's just a minor tweak to get where I want. all my load data for 147's is coated or plated, but based on those numbers, I would start with around 3.5 gr of n320 at 1.125 for zero jacketed bullets and go chrono it. Of course my manual doesn't even list n320 as an option for 147's, so you need to be comfortable going off the reservation and using your own brainpower. Fortunately, n320 and zero are both popular and consistent components. If you must use a ransom rest to make yourself feel better, I would probably advise to wait until you get the pf you desire, and then double check it. It won't do you any good if the most accurate load from your ransom rest only makes 122pf.

1.125 is way too long for blue RN bullets in my shadow2. I prefer the 115gr RN for faster cycling and quicker return of the sights (and more bullets per $), and I load them to 1.08-ish.

i find out the day before match day, when I show up to watch some of the staff shoot and inspect the stages.

except for mackenzie bragg and cole busch, I didn't really notice any big-name sponsored steel challenge shooters missing this year. Not sure what their story is but I think both of them are at an age where college (and possibly the opposite sex) is starting to be a consideration.

when you build stages for matches, how often do they turn out exactly the same as your diagram?

? we just bought them and put ammo in them and they ran perfectly. Maybe we are doing it wrong.

You mean big name sponsored *USPSA* shooters? Yeah, not too many of them, but there are a crap ton of big name sponsored steel shooters, Like Grant Kunkel, Chris Barrett, Nate Gibson, Kolby Pavlock, Emily and Bridget Cunningham, Tresa Weaver, and also a bunch of noobs on their way to being big-name sponsored steel shooters like Kenshiro. It's really a different sport than USPSA, and while there is some crossover, if you want to be good at steel, you have to really work at it, not just show up with your USPSA classification and expect to kick azz.

when ammo is plentiful, i have shot both SS and limited, using the same exact setup. 40 is overkill, but I shoot faster with a trojan 40 at 145pf than with with an sti 9mm at 125 pf. the sights just settle more quickly. For me, it doesn't make sense to put together a dedicated centerfire steel rig, so I always just use the same guns I use for USPSA, which is much more important to me. I took the 9mm to worlds this time because it simplified the ammo (mrs moto was shooting pcc and CO), but I regretted it. I borrowed her sig legion CO gun as well, to avoid bringing an extra gun (mine is a shadow2, and we were already flying with 2 rifles and 4 pistols). Kinda regretted that too, but for the first time ever shooting her gun, it wasn't as bad as one would have expected. I do think iron sights centerfire divisions are declining, and I guess I don't really care. I had more fun shooting CO with a borrowed gun than SS, but maybe that's because I'm elderly.

haha, they'll still end up somewhere different. I build a stage for every match at my home club, and the start position is the last thing I choose, after talking with some other good shooters in different divisions to see what would offer the most options and require the most thought or just be more interesting.

it seems like for the majority of stages, the marks actually end up in a different place than the diagram. sometimes slightly different, sometimes wildly different. I think having info in the book that ends up being wrong is confusing, and it makes more sense to me to just leave it out in that case.

i would say making stage plans in advance is a complete and total waste of time, but if you have the time to waste, be my guest. I tried it once and that was enough to learn my lesson. I think this is the correct answer for most experienced shooters, although the start positions do often change when the stages are put on the ground.

meh, i just shoot with a cinder block duct-taped to my ass. I love the challenge and being able to beat elderly and crippled people who haven't chosen to handicap themselves.

Ok, a very limited basis. I think in general it's best to clarify before throwing people or organizations under the bus. I believe I even saw that same wording in a matchbook a couple years ago, and it also turned out to be a mistake, so I'm not at all surprised about this one. Thanks to Troy for setting everyone's mind at rest. Looking forward to a fun and challenging match.

I noticed the same thing and made a mental note to ask troy about it. Not that it matters much to me this time since I am shooting the staff match, but generally when I am not working a match, I try to show up in time to see a whole day of staff shooting. Didn't have any issues with that at race gun nats in the fall.