Carlos

-on second look, there DOES seem to be a face there - looks a little like the man in the moon. Thx for the pic.

Can't say I see a face. But I see they STILL have not bothered to paint over that stupid "muffin man" graffitti. Barry is an embarassment IMHO. USPSA can do a lot better than that - especially for our premier events like the Nationals/Singl Stack classic. I hope that Barry looks a lot different for the cameras before the next televised event.

Armytimes link or try: http://www.armytimes.com/news/2008/05/army...anship_050408w/ Weapons training and qualification overhauled By Matthew Cox - Staff writer Posted : Sunday May 4, 2008 11:20:52 EDT FORT BENNING, Ga. — Trainers here are testing a new marksmanship qualification course that stresses shooting from behind cover, fixing jams and changing magazines — key skills all soldiers need in combat. The pilot program is a dramatic shift from the Army’s standard qualification course, an outdated exercise that trains soldiers on how to pass a test rather than how to master their weapons, said Col. Casey Haskins, commander of 198th Infantry Brigade. The 198th, a one-station training unit responsible for Basic Combat and Infantry Training at Benning, is overseeing sweeping changes to Basic Rifle Marksmanship. Currently in Initial Entry Training, BRM culminates with soldiers taking a timed test in which they fire 40 rounds of ammunition at 40 pop-up targets. Firing from Cold-War-era prone and foxhole positions, trainees must hit 23 to earn a passing score. “It focuses on meeting the minimum standard — 23 out of 40. Not too good,” Haskins said. “People train to the test ... We believe we need to teach people how to shoot.” In the proposed qualification test, trainees would shoot a total of 30 rounds at 15 targets. But it’s not as easy as it sounds. The new test requires trainees to shoot from three firing positions — kneeling unsupported, kneeling supported and prone unsupported. They also would use available cover, change magazines, clear weapon stoppages and shoot until the targets are “dead.” Throughout the test, shooters would be required to perform these tasks on their own rather than waiting for commands from their drill sergeants. “If we train soldiers properly, we should trust them to change magazines when they need to, not just when they are told to,” said Capt. Jeff Marshburn, commander of A Company, 2nd Battalion, 54th Infantry Regiment of the 198th at Benning. “We should trust them to seek cover ... and establish their position based on what they have at hand and the 40-out-of-40 really doesn’t get after that.” Marshburn, a former Special Forces sergeant, was tasked to develop the proposed new qualification course last fall. Currently, Marshburn’s trainees are qualifying on the Army’s standard course and shooting the new qualification as part of the pilot program. By late summer, the new course “could actually be used at the IET level and could be exported to the Army if it is deemed viable,” Marshburn said. But the retooled qualification course is only the latest piece to emerge from a marksmanship overhaul Benning launched last year to transform the way soldiers learn to shoot. The massive effort is in line with a new concept called Outcome-Based Training, spawned by the research and analyses that led to the new operations doctrine described in the recently revised Field Manual 3-0. Training officials at Benning said they believe this is the beginning of a cultural shift in the way the Army transforms civilian volunteers into combat soldiers. Outcome-Based Training will replace what has come to be viewed as a strict, by-the-book training doctrine that required “little or no thinking” with a new methodology designed to prepare soldiers for combat by teaching them why things work rather than just how to follow orders. “It’s teaching, not just training; the difference is soldiers learn why things work the way they work,” Haskins said. “The culture has to change. Our needs have changed.” Sweeping overhaul plans include future changes to basic training and the physical fitness training, as well as to marksmanship. Adjusting aim Perhaps the most significant changes to marksmanship that have come from the program so far deal with weapons zeroing, the process of adjusting the rifle’s sights to ensure that the bullets strike where the soldier aims on the target. Benning officials are now teaching soldiers to set a 200-meter battle-sight zero rather than the standard 300-meter battle-sight zero, since “98 percent of all engagements” in Iraq and Afghanistan happen at 200 meters, Haskins said. Between zero and 300 meters the bullet rises and drops six to nine inches, requiring the shooter to aim slightly lower than center-mass of the target for closer targets and slightly higher than center-mass for farther targets. But with a 200-meter zero, the bullet only rises and drops about two inches, meaning a shooter can aim center-mass at any target out to 200 meters. For 300 meter targets, shooters aim just below the head for the bullet to strike center-mass, trainers maintain. In addition, trainees learn to zero their weapons without the standard 25-meter zero target, a training tool used for decades that calculates exactly how many sight adjustments they need to make on their weapons to bring their bullets on target. Instead, trainees are beginning to zero on a special bull’s-eye target and learning how to calculate their own sight adjustments using a formula known as minute-of-angle. “My soldiers understand minutes of angle,” Marshburn said. For every click of windage on the rear sight on the M16, “it moves the strike of the round a half minute of angle, which is a half an inch at 100 yards or one inch at 200 yards.” The program also has led to improvements to more advanced ranges, such as a fire-team live-fire course that trainees are exposed to later in training. Sand bag positions have been replaced by realistic walls, old cars and other forms of cover soldiers in infantry training will experience in the urban combat landscapes such as Iraq. New war, new focus Last fall, Benning set out to revamp Army marksmanship training with a goal of shifting out of the Cold War mind-set that focused on preparing soldiers for a large-scale, defensive fight against invading Warsaw Pact armies. “We were still training in very defensive manner and we hadn’t stepped to train in a more offensive or reactionary manner that is required of soldiers in both Iraq and Afghanistan,” Marshburn said. In addition to drawing on their own combat experiences, trainers sought help from the Army Marksmanship Unit and the Asymmetric Warfare Group, a special unit established three years ago to help senior Army leaders find new tactics and technologies to make soldiers more lethal in combat. Many of the changes now in use at Benning come from the training methodology these units have been teaching to combat units for the past several years. BRM for many basic trainees at Benning has changed from high-stress, tightly controlled days to a relaxed regimen that allows soldiers to become comfortable with their weapons. “They develop a deeper understanding for mastering their weapon,” said Maj. Britton Yount, operations officer for the 198th. “It’s more of a professional instruction — that is crucial; that is a total change from how we used to do business in the past.” Basic trainees start off “shooting slick,” meaning without combat equipment. “We begin in a relaxed environment then add stress through more [challenges], not drill sergeants yelling at them,” Haskins said. It sounds like a radically new idea, but the Marine Corps uses a similar approach when it comes to recruit marksmanship training. The revised Army program puts a strong emphasis on drill sergeants giving trainees one-on-one coaching to catch problems early. This requires extending BRM from 11 days to 13, but drill sergeants take only half a company at a time, leaving the other 100 trainees in the unit to train on other tasks. The changes to the marksmanship program also require another 152 rounds of training ammunition per soldier. That’s a 32 percent increase over the 341 rounds trainees normally shoot. Benning officials stressed that the new BRM program can be taught with only minor changes to any of the Army’s existing ranges. “Our assumption is it can’t require construction,” Haskins said. “If it requires the commanding general to spend $10 million in range improvements, it won’t happen.” Retraining soldiers Maj. Gen. Walter Wojdakowski, Fort Benning’s commander and the proponent for Army marksmanship, is scheduled to decide sometime this summer on whether to adopt the marksmanship qualification test as a new Army standard. “The hope is to validate it over the next couple of months with different companies shooting it and export it to the Army as an alternative qualification course that can be used in lieu of the 40-out-of-40,” he said. Unlike the current test — twice a year for most active-duty soldiers, once a year for reservists — the new qualification course moves away from the one-shot-per-target mentality and forces trainees to shoot certain targets as many as three times before they fall. This is intended to teach soldiers a crucial lesson learned from the battlefield that it often takes more than one shot to “kill a target,” Haskins said. “Sometimes you have to shoot a guy two or three times before he dies,” he said. The proposed qualification also forces trainees to fix stoppages on their own, a practice that the current qualification program discourages, Haskins said. “If you raise your hand and say ‘I have a malfunction and I can’t fix it,’ you get rewarded,” he said. “You get an alibi and you get more targets.” To ensure stoppages will occur, each of the three 10-round magazines is loaded with one dummy round. It’s “thrown in there anywhere in the magazine to induce a malfunction, so the soldiers have to apply immediate action,” Marshburn said. “The different focus we have taken with the marksmanship training has provided the soldiers with a much greater understanding of the weapons system and fundamentals of marksmanship.” But before this marksmanship overhaul could focus on training new soldiers, it faced a bigger challenge: redesigning how it trains the older soldiers who become drill sergeants and leaders. For the past seven months, a handful of AWG trainers have been running a five-day leader certification course. Students start from scratch and learn in the same environment they will use to instruct their young trainees. “There is a personal feel to the training,” said 1st Sgt. Steve Walker, who is part of an Indiana Reserve training unit that makes up A Company, 1st Battalion, 198th Infantry, at Benning. “We are not just getting a block of instruction, where we go out and execute it with a bunch of commands. It has that mentor-student feel to it.” John Porter, a retired Army sergeant major and training adviser with AWG, said the techniques he and other AWG members are teaching at Benning are the same methods he learned throughout his 22 years of service in special operations units. The training methodology taught in the course goes beyond marksmanship, trainers maintain. It can be applied to land navigation, first aid or any other soldier skill, they said. “When they walk away from here, they are better shooters, they are better trainers and they are better leaders,” he said. The soft-spoken veteran wears the expression of a proud teacher when he describes how this new approach to training is forging a more capable breed of soldiers. “It’s working like you wouldn’t believe,” he said. “In the end, with this methodology, they will be more lethal.” Here are three shooting tips trainers are stressing as part of Fort Benning’s new approach to marksmanship: 1. Rest your magazine on the ground when shooting from the prone. This goes against years of training guidance that said this would lead to ammunition feeding problems. Not true, say professional shooters. If your weapon jams, something else is causing it. Resting the magazine on the ground while in the prone steadies the weapon as well as any sandbag, without harming the magazine or the weapon’s cycling of rounds. ——— 2. Practice follow-through and reset. This is the marksmanship fundamental that follows steady position, aiming, breath control and trigger squeeze. After you shoot, hold the trigger to the rear, reacquire your target and reset the trigger by letting your finger come forward until you hear a metallic click. Why is this important? Accomplished shooters have learned that the recoil of the weapon causes most shooters to let their finger come off the trigger after each shot. This creates a slightly different trigger squeeze every time. A consistent trigger is the key to accurate shooting. Using this technique gives the shooter more consistency and control when taking multiple shots at a target. ——— 3. Use a natural point of aim. Don’t twist at the waist when sighting in on a new target from a standing position. It throws you off balance. Instead, pivot at the feet and shift your weight to a comfortable firing position.

Here is the list (scroll down - its quite complete): LINK to nraila or try: http://www.nraila.org/Issues/FactSheets/Read.aspx?ID=15

Excellent write up! Very fair and balanced. I've said before that EAA (the importer) leaves something to be desired when it comes to knowing the requirements of our sport; I agree w/ your advice to contact Henning for all things relating to use of these guns in USPSA. PS - nice to see the 75s gaining some ground on the 2011s. Brand competition means we all win.

He is no relation of mine. RE politics: back in the 90s, some co-workers went to see a "Michele Shoked" concert (is she even still alive?). The politics REALLY turned them off. And though I really like the music of Rage Against the Machine, I could live without their radical-fringe rants & their views.

Mine cracked. Twice. First time, I had it welded. Later, another crack formed and the weld flew off with a chunk of hammer. Gun still ran though. I just had the shop weld it again & build the area back up. Since its a wear part & you are the second owner, I am not seeing how SV is responsible for replacing the part. Moreover, the EDM process leaves a razor sharp edge that is more prone to cracking than a rounded edge or a peened surface. Cracking is just part of the tradeoff for having an EDM'd part. New hammers are under $100; welding up the hammer costs even less and gives the part a unique, unusual look. Regards, C.

You are in for an excellent class. While I have not trained with Phil since he moved to USSA, I think it's worth considering Phil's background: -Phil is a former training officer for a federal police force (Capitol Hill Police). His day job back then was to find the most effective way to train every single person the department sent his way - and that pool included all conceivable personality types as well as every skill level imaginable. His job was made tougher still by equipment and budget constraints, and yet, he made sure everyone passed their qualifications (while also being an entrepreneur, father and active competitor). -Beyond daily LEO training though, Phil managed to come within a single round of besting TGO at the nationals a few years back (so far as I know they are still good friends). He's won titles in IDPA and PPC too, not to mention Bianchi. And he's been to at least 2 IPSC world shoots as well as a slew of international shoots. -Taken together, Phil's ability to both teach and win at the highest level of the sport equal an outstanding instructional ability. In selecting USSA for your course, I believe you have made a wise choice. Regards, Douglas

Excellent! Thank you in advance to Olympic for their support. More excellent: when I followed the link to the match website & clicked on Rules, it lead directly to the USPSA 3gun rules page. Good to see that not every big 3gun match out there feels the need to write their own set of rules.

We don't have cable - but I caught part of an episode over the weekend at a hotel. Gripping! 2 Q.s: 1) What was the problem with some of the crabs that filled the trap? Were they the wrong species or protected or something? 2) What was that fist fight about? Seemed like a bad argument in one episode.

Quick correction: almost all the "TMJ'd" or "electroplated" bullets use a lead core that is swaged from pure lead - meanign the lead core ios very very soft. These include: Speer Gold Dots, Speer Lawman, Speer Blazer, Berry's, and Ranier. ONE brand uses a hard-cast lead core that much harder lead than pure soft swaged lead; it is then plated. That brand is Frontier from South Africa. They are the only one I know of that does not use a swaged core.

Since Bloomberg is behind this, I can think of only 2 reasons why he did this to Walmart now: 1) He saw an opportunity for an easy victory by selecting Walmart since they are under heavy attack from forces trying to unionize them and it makes sense that Walmart would do ANYHTING for what they percieve as postitive press right now. -and Bloomberg will seek to expand these sorts of "agreements" to other retailers, then demonize the retailers who do not bow down to such blackmail. or, 2) Bloomberg has shown that he really hates all types of guns and will attack gun ownership/sales in any way possible. As proof of this possibility, I am fairly sure that Walmart does not sell handguns. Moreover, I don't think they sell anything that could be called a "assault weapon." The guns Walmart does sell are about the last ones that will actually be used to wound or kill during a crime (though they are still confiscated from folks with restraining orders, from drunks, convicted criminals, etc - so they do end up in evidence rooms). Thus, Bloomberg's "victory" will have no effect at all on reducing crime (which is why I think his motive is described by #1 above).

Well, I collected brass that had been outside so long that it had turned completely black! A little vinegar, some old lemon juice, a vitamin C tablet and an asprin for good measure and it looked almost like brass again. Then into the tumbler & through the gun yet again! Now THAT is cheap.

The gun is plenty accurate. Reliable too. Nothing wrong with Sigs. The frames are aluminum alloy (though they do make a steel frame 9mm if it matters to you). Trigger is DA/SA like my CZs - so I think its fine too. Might want to go a little lighter on the stock DA. Add sights. (are there Warrens/Sevignys for the Sig?).

Good post! Most people with lead problems EAT the stuff. Simple, right? Don't eat lead! BUT, as pointed out, many smokers do not realize they are "eating" lead while they smoke because their hands are covered in lead dust while shooting and that dust ends up on the cigarette/cigar (and then into your mouth it goes). After a match, do you ever eat out with friends? I do. But first think I do is wash all that lead dust off my lips; I usually shoot a semi-auto handgun and with every shot, the slide is slinging lead dust RIGHT at my face. I only eat with a fork. Even fries, pizza and burgers - I eat 'em with a fork. My shooting buddies probably think I am either germ-phobic or a snob (or both!). Real reason is that even after I wash up, the lead is still on my clothes and it might just be on my hands - so why risk it? The numbers above are for "blood-lead level" and provide a snap-shot in time for lead exposure. But, lead is absorbed into the bones like calcium, and the blood-lead level test does not measure bone-lead level. I prefer to avoid the whole mess by not eating lead in the first place. Regards, D.

I agree - I would not be concerned about pressure problems with a minor load - particularly in a gun as modern and strong as an M&P. The warnings in reloading manuals are there for "worst case scenarios" like a load on the edge of safe pressure being used in a marginal gun - like an antique pistol. Your gun being .40, is modern as are all .40s. Magnum primers have been linked (in some cases) to pitting of the breach face over time. Apparently due to failure to seal or some such. Just keep an eye on it. Regards, D.

LINK to news report (in part): The New York Times (4/8, Kanter) reports from Edmondthorpe, England, "Thieves peeled long strips of lead from the roof of St. Michael and All Angels, until a barking dog sent them fleeing from this tiny Leicestershire village. But by then, they had left a hole of about 100 square feet in the top of the 800-year-old church." The Times continues, "For centuries, people have stolen religious artifacts in Europe, including chunks of religious buildings, but Britain is in the midst of an accelerating crime wave that some experts call the most concerted assault on churches since the Reformation." The Times adds, "Instead of doctrinal differences, the motivation is the near record price that lead - the stuff many old church roofs are made of - is fetching on commodity markets. ... Lead's price on global markets has rocketed sevenfold in the last six years, largely because of rising demand from industrializing countries like China and India. Centuries ago, its malleability made it a popular building material; now it is sought mainly for use in batteries for vehicles and backup power systems for computer and mobile phone networks. It is also used to make bullets and shot, cables and paints. ... Because of booming demand, new mines are opening in South America and Asia, where deposits are plentiful. There is also a growing business in recycling lead, mainly from used batteries (where 75 percent of lead ends up) but also scrap metal."

Hi Sifu128! The most common cause of high lead levels is ingestion (eating lead dust) - which is my the NRA Range at HQ asks shooters to wash their face after shooting (to take lead dust off the lips and mouth). When we tumble fired brass, the fine black dust comes in part from the primers, which contain an eplosive compound call "lead styphnate" - a form of lead. That dust tends to land everywhere and often makes its way into food. I am sure you will be fine, though I agree that its best to tumble, sift and sort brass outside or at least in the garage. Regards, D.

Good question! Here is the hard part about an answer: -there are about 6 to 12 different big matches that all call themselves "3gun" or "multigun" and they all have different rules. What a mess! The facts you need to make a handgun decision are: -do the rules for all the 3gun/multigun shoots you plan to shoot recognize Major/minor? -are there magazine capacity or length restrictions? -are their holster restrictions? - and even if there are NO restrictions, then, -will the rules require you to (or I should say, the course designs) re-holster a loaded handgun "on the clock"? All of these factors may matter - depending on who's match/rules you plan to play under. Regards, D.

Looks bad: don't play with cannons or you'll do more than shoot your eye out. LINK to youtube video

At one time, both Phil Strader (pre USSA) and Dave Sevigny were sponsored by Atlanta Arms and were using thier 147 grn "Black Box" competition 9mm load for USPSA Production division and for IDPA - but that is a highly specialized competition load. Why do you ask?

Hi JT - the finish came out even. I think its my photography skills that are lacking. Krautwagon - I recently parked one of "GotM4?" s 1911s that he had blasted months ago at some Harley Davidson shop & then coated with chain-wax (it took us hours to get rid of all that *&!@* chain wax!). But once the metal was fully de-greased, the 1911 park turned out great! Keep the parts suspended in the solution and don't let them rest on the bottom of the container. If you park indoors, use VERY STRONG ventilation; the fumes are not that bad (nothing near as toxic as say, hot bluing chemicals) but also not something you want to inhale constantly in an enclosed space.

Flex summed it up nicely. Will add that almost any "75" should work well no matter who makes it (including the newest 75 - Armalite's "AR-24"). I own & shoot 75s from IMI/Tanfoglio, ITM-Solothurn, and even CZ. Going into 2008, I would not count out the soon-to-be-introduced STI "GP-6" or "Grand Power" - since if any company understands USPSA, its STI. Greater brand competition in Production means we ALL win.

Seem to be a lot of Ramshot fans among former users of 335. Cleanliness is usually cited as the reason.