wsimpso1

Sono, Rifles are classed without regard to caliber. Summarizing the classes: Service is iron sighted semi-auto with a mag of atleast 8 rounds; Enhanced is one optical sight of 4x or less semi-auto of atleast 8 rounds; Open is a semi-auto with more than one optic or over 4x; Military Surplus is milsurp semiautos or bolt guns on the BATFE Curio and Relics list. All of these folks shoot normally two shots per target, and may have mandatory handgun transitions, or back up the rifle with the sidearm as they see fit. Safe transitions while retaining the rifle are required. Precision Rifle takes one head shot per target and engages targets under 25 yards with the sidearm. And you get big "cool" points for shooting anything above 5.56x45 or 7.62x39, so bring the .30. Hell, I want to see someone shoot a Garand, and I will supply the rifle! Me? Naw, I am a recoil wimp and shoot an 18" brake equipped AR15 with a 1.5-5x scope, which makes me OPEN. I expect that Tony will present some stages that use all of the 100 yards we have for both long shots and for covering ground while engaging a series of targets. I am expecting that we will have to move and shoot, use cover, reload on the clock, and there will be some tight shots both for hard cover and for no-shoots. I also expect to see some frangible targets, perhaps activating another target. We shall see what the MD and friends pull off. Billski

George and Tony, I believe that the rifle George posted a pic of has more than one optical sight: The scope on top and the dot sight on the handgaurd. Two optics or any optic sight over 4x makes it Open. Pull the dot from the handgaurd and the scope is 4x or less, and it is Enhanced. If someone were to show up with that rifle, I would feel seriously outgunned. George, you really are not going to travel to Michigan from CA for our match, are you? Billski

More detail at http://www.brianenos.com/forums/index.php?showtopic=35004 and http://www.brianenos.com/forums/index.php?...5&hl=gas+system This topic has been talked about before. What happens is that the people doing the writing become reluctant to repeat themselves, so you will not hear from them, but with the search tool, you can find what has already been written. If an old thread was useful, adda thankyou note, which brings it to the top again... Billski

At most of the local matches and practice sessions around here, policing brass is part of resetting the stages. Convention is that the RO (SO), the on-deck shooter, and the shooter that just finished are exempt from pasting/setting/policing brass, everybody else is supposed to do something, with the priority on pasting and setting steel. Big matches are lost brass affairs. There you get caught between using new brass for reliability in a match that really counts and wanting to use your oldest batch because you know that you are throwing it out. I suspect that the best scheme is buy a roll sizer, shoot either 9mm or 40S&W, and buy used brass in bulk. Then the loss of $0.02 a case is no big deal, even at a local match. Me? I shoot 45 ACP and 223 Rem, and I pick brass whenever I can. Billski

When I re-read the initial notes, I caught something about "solution" hurting the primers or powder. What are you talking about? For the tumbling of the cases, I would do what most of us were thinking about: A case tumbler with either corn cob or walnut shell media. Any liquid media additives (automotive anti-freeze, mineral spirits, Lyman's media additive) should be miniscule and will not hurt the ammo. Now if you are talking any of the chemical cleaners (like Brasso), you should not do that with any brass cases that you intend to shoot - ammonia is what causes head splits in cases and splits in primers too. Actually in all cold worked copper based alloys. Split has specific meaning - it is a crack that runs from the primer flash hole radially outward, like with splitting logs for a fire. Head splits were encountered in large numbers in everything from pistol ammo to artillery ammo by the British during the Boer War. This was one of two events that brought about the modern form of the science of failure analysis. Head splits wreck the piece and frequently would wipe out the whole gun crew too. They eventually (after getting into punishing the innocent) found that the horses must travel seperately from the ammunition - Urine has ammonia in it and that caused stress corrosion cracks. Once sealing got better (metal ammo cans), the horse-ammo link was broken. Billski

Oh, I was going to give the justification for tumbling. In the process of making gunpowders, raw powder kernels are tumbled to round the sharp corners, then they are tumbled to apply the flame retardants and flash retardants, and then they are tumbled to apply the graphite layer to keep static charges down, and then they are tumbled to blend different batches to achieve burn rate uniformity across batches of powder, and then sometimes the ammunition loader tumbles each barrel again to uniform it some more, and then the ammo sees all sorts of vibration in loading and distribution, and handling after purchase. While the fear exists that tumbling live rounds will break down the powder kernels, do we really believe that we will take it from good to dangerous with a few more minutes? I don't. The biggest problems that could be had with this ammo is: Difficult extraction due to rough cases grabbing the chambers; Under powered or misfiring ammo due to the powder or primers being hot aged - both are damaged by time at temperature. While they may go bang weakly or not at all, you can get a KaBoom by leaving a squib in the bore and fire a good round behind it, so be careful there. I personally like to have some more distance - I was involved in the aftermath of a fire where 357 Maximum Proof rounds sent their case heads flying and punched through plain single glazed windows fifteen feet away. No one was hurt, but then no one was there. Catch my drift? Billski

My Credentials: My first job out of Engineering School was as a product engineer for a little company that made guns in Ilion NY and ammunition in Bridgeport CT and Lonoke AR. First: Oil Soak and Bury is a Very Bad Idea! Toxins in the ground water and possible explosives left for sombody else to find... To shoot the ammo, you should: Wear latex or nitrile gloves and a dust mask, and rub the corrosion blooms from the ammo; Ten minutes in the tumbler to brighten the ammo up, and scrap the tumbler media (garbage can); Sort out cartridges with deep corrosion, cracks, lots of roughness, etc, and scrap those rounds; Shoot the rest. The rounds to be scrapped can be either pulled down or burned. Pulling lets you salvage the brass from the cases and from the primers. Primers should be deactivated by a brief dip in household (chlorine) bleach, which kills the primers. I would make simple little basket of hardware cloth. Then drain the primers and recycle them with the cases. All that oil does is make the primers less sensitive, it does not kill the explosive. Scrap powder is fertilizer, and pretty good fertilizer at that. Scatter it in the garden. Burning was (and may still be) the prefered method of disposal of live ammo. You need a secluded location, a burn pit, dry wood (old pallets), and a little bit of accelerant (kerosene works fine). Just build your fire stack with some wood, the ammo loose on top of the wood, more wood into a bonfire like stack, sprinkle your accelerant on it, and then float a match in. Oh, then put a hundred yards between the pyre and humans/pets. As the fire builds, the primers and powder will either be cooked off or broken down thermally. When ammo cooks off, it will burst the cases and throw the case heads a little ways. You need distance to give you room from lead oxide and other toxins in the ammo, and to keep case heads from hitting folks. After the fire goes out and cools, I would be inclined to shovel up the ash with the ammo bits in it and landfill it (garbage can). Billski

I am an old High Power guy, so I love the globe sight out there on the end of the barrel, but the issue front sight base out there would probably be better for Practical Rifle mix of ranges because you can see more around it and through it. I have gone over to using an unpowered scope (less to cause problems) in Practical Rifle (cateracts and the correction of them forced me into scoped rifles). I have been playing with the JP SRTS. Mine is mounted on the extreme front end of a rifle length handgaurd at about 1:30, and I only have it there for a backup sight for short range stages. While I suppose it might be OK for short range stuff in tandem with a high power scope, I would think that either a GI FSB/post or a globe sight hung on the muzzle at 1:30 might be a better tandem. With the long sight radius and the sight hieght adjusted to give you good hits, you would not even need a back sight for that close stuff, and then go to the scope for the long stuff. However, with a 1.5-5x scope, it does everything pretty well, even the occiasional 330 m IPSC target. I have not found the SRTS needed yet, but I just know that it will come in handy sometime, so I practice with it. Billski

+1 on Dan's comments (unless someone has done a poor polishing job on the internal trigger parts). Really light requires a benchrest type. The Anschutz trigger is the hot ticket for High Power. Billski

I am another one that thinks that handloading is for accuracy and consistency. Where you need it, handload with good bullets and known loads. I know exactly where my 69 SMK and 77 SMK loads shoot, and above 200 yards, that matters. Below 200 yards, buying ammo by the thousand is tough to beat. Even for short range, I still handload because, well, I like moly on my bullets for distance. If the match has short and long, you want stick powders and all naked or all moly through the bore from the last cleaning. Going back and forth (powder and bullets) does change point of impact and group size. And don't get me started on Ball powder... So I moly my 55's and shoot IMR 4895 behind them, then use factory moly 69's or 77's with my favorite loads from High Power behind them. But if all you shoot is 100 yards on standard IPSC targets, factory works fine. Oh, and if you are blasting with LC or Win ammo, collect your once-fireds and make them gifts to your handloading buddies. Billski

Short answer is that you have to trim your brass befor it engages the throat and prevents free exit of the bullet. With most throats, you can probably let it get longer than 1.760", but that is the safe number. Your resizing adjustments have a big impact on this. The case fits in the chamber between the shoulder and the bolt. There has to be some free play here, or closing the bolt and then opeing the bolt will require big forces... When the firing pin strikes the primer, it drives the case shoulder against the chamber shoulder, leaving the free space between the case head and the bolt. Then as pressure starts building, the neck , shoulder, and forward part of the body expand and grab the chamber, then as pressures rise further, the case head sets back to the bolt, stretching the case wall at the rear of the case body, just forward of the solid head portion of the case. So, the case length will increase by the headspace clearance you leave from sizing. And the fired case is pretty representative of the chamber it was fired in. Military ammo usually fits pretty loosely in military chambers - for reliability. After firing, they are long. Then you size the case (squeezing the case down in diameter, which shoves metal towards the free end, which is the neck) and it gets longer. Then, when you fire it, the neck gets shoved towards the tapered throat, which can prevent the neck from releasing the bullet, and pressures can go way high. Kabooms are BAAAAAD! Far better to size your cases only as much as you need to get reliable chambering (the Stoney Point tools are nice for setting this up), then trim to 1.750", and then when sized length on any measured case goes back to 1.760" or more, trim the whole batch. For NRA High Power, most of us who pay attention to this stuff, will size fo 0.001 to 0.002" clearance. That could give several sizings between trims. If you like to go a lot of rounds between chamber cleaning, you might need more to maintain reliability. But if you set your sizer per factory instructions, you might have to trim every firing. One last point, when you are building accuracy ammo, like for High Power or the 330 m course I fired yesterday, you will want to trim and deburr every time in order to square up the case mouth for uniform bullet release, but that is another matter. Enjoy, Billski Since you are loading for range work, the cases will last longer, and so will your barrel, if you shorten the powder charge a half grain. At 100 yards, you will never notice the difference in velocity, it is generally (but not always) more accurate.

My Rem 700's go down to 2 pounds just fine. The factory trigger is, well, a factory trigger. If you want it to go below a pound, well, you might have to spend more on the trigger. Frankly, if the trigger will not be solid until you have it all the way up to four pounds, either you are turning the wrong screws, or the sharp edges that do the release have been rounded. The factory trigger has independant screws for engagement, overtravel, and trigger weight. Some High Power Champions say that the overtravel screw could be removed and forgotten about, but the length of engagment and trigger pulls weights both matter to the security of the striker during your bolt slap. Now if someone polished the engagment surfaces/edges and rounded them over, it will never be right. Unless the folks at Ilion have reason to believe that a ham fisted amatuer gunsmith has been at work, they are likely to fix it for free. After all, they do not want AD's either. Billski

I shot Square Deal's match today, and it was a ball! Louie and company put on a heck of a fun match. One stage went to 330m, while the others went from standards with a twist (El Pres with a frangible target on each sweep, close targets that were tough to get a rifle on while seeing the sights, wiggling platforms) to mixes of subsized targets and full sized ones, to a house shot cold (targets were outside, you was inside) and a couple of big field courses. It dragged a lot of us out of our comfort zone and wil force a lot of us to look at our riflery differently. And it was a lot of fun too! For a guy who's experience greater than 100 yards has all been NRA High Power, the long range stage was an eye opener. Bravo! On the entertainment side, our RO was shooting an M1A, and was fast. And there were spectators. Truth be known, they family members and folks scoping things out for their turn on Sunday, but hey, we should take all of the spectators we can get. I saw something else too. When someone ran a stage nicely, there were not only compliments, but there was applause. This is a crowd to emulate. I wish that I could have hung out longer, but I came in from Michigan, and needed to guide a little airplane home before it turned into a punkin. I am definitely going back for more. Other people were saying the same thing... Billski

Several points: Seeing Bullet Holes - Let it go! You really do need to quit being dependant upon seeing bullet holes. Calling shots and knowing where they went are ESSENTIAL. Once you know where the shots are going, you can trust that the good ones are there and make up the bad ones and eventually only fire the good ones and get good at that. But the first step is being able to call individual shots. Brian talks about this extensively in his book, and there are many believers on this forum. What You Must See - See The Front Sight! The front sight in relation to the rear sight is FAR more important than the details of the target. If your focus on the front sight is poor, yopu do not know where the front sight is in the back sight, and alignment matters more than where you place the sights on the target. This too is the subject of many forums and a chunk of Brian's book too. Glasses/Contact Lenses - I have it worse than you. I had cateract surgery, so I have zero distance accomodation. My shooting glasses for iron sights have the dominant eye focus shifted to give clear focus slightly further away than the front sight while the off-side eye is set up purely for distance. No bifocals, yet they allow everything on the range. I went through the process of working them out with my optometrist for NRA High Power Service Rifle, where the front sight has to be SHARP and the target is always accepted as being very soft. Got my Expert's card there before I got into "practical" shooting, and the glasses work fine here too. Now for what we do in our games, I suppose that a bit more distance out would actually be better, and that is an experiment I intend to perform with my next right lens. Now at 50 years, you have some accomodation left, so you could set the aiming eye lens for a little beyond where the front sight is, and use your remaining accomodation to pull the sight into focus, while using a distance correction for the non-aiming eye. But seriously, once you have acquired the target, you need to see the front sight above all else. So make that happen. Then start working on calling shots... Billski

What are you trying to fix? If it is unreliable, that is one thing, if you want quicker recoil recovery, that is another. Let's think for a minute how the AR15 mechanism works. The bullet is shoved down the bore by a bunch of hot gases. After the bullet goes by the port, these same hot gases start flowing down the tube, and a wave travels at the local speed of sound in the gases (gun gases are hot and thus have much higher speed of sound than the air around us). When this wave reaches the carrier it commences to accelerate the carrier and buffer backwards, then hits the cam pin, unlocking the bolt, pulling the case out of the chamber, blah, blah, blah... In a 20" barrelled rifle, the gas port is about 4" from the muzzle, and the bullet is long gone and the gun gases have largely drained from the chamber by the time that the bolt actually starts to pull the case from the chamber. Gene Stoner and Armalite, and then Colt and the Ordnance folks worked out the gas port size and free travel of the carrier before it starts to open the bolt and extract the empty case, so the timing is pretty good and it works very reliably. In the CAR15, with the 11" through 14" barrels, the timing of everything was still pretty good. The bullet leaves shortly after the gas pulse starts down the gas tube, and again, it worked pretty reliably too. Along comes the rule that civilian barrels can not be less than 16", so the makers used 16" barrels but kept the port in the same place where an 11" gun would have it. The bullet goes a long ways (and takes a longer time) after the gas pulse starts down the tube, and what do you know, some shorties try to yank the case from the chamber too soon, and they short stroke (too much carrier energy is used up getting the case out of the chamber leaving too little to run the carrier all of the way back), rip rims off cases, etc. Some shorties are reliable with only certain ammo, others work fine, and others just do not want to behave at all. The logical solution is to place the gas port closer to the muzzle, and we do have makers of 16" barrel systems with mid length handgaurds and there is more sight radius too. But many makers still do the CAR length handguards and gas tube and front sight base position... What's a mother to do? So along comes some guys that want their shorties to work, and learning what I just described to you guys about timing, came up with ways to delay opening. One of them comes up with the pigtail, which puts a long gas tube on a short space, thus delaying the carrier movement until chamber pressures have come down, and another guy comes up with a larger diameter gas tube, which causes some expansion and thus lowers temperatures, reducing the local speed of sound in the tube, which also delays opening a bit. Pretty clever, huh? In both cases the duration of the pulse is somewhat extended by these changes and total impulse driving the carrier/buffer is lower too (energy is lost in the process). The combination makes the opening occur a little later, and they work for making unreliable shorties more reliable. Of course, polishing the chamber and feed ramps might help quite a bit too. Then somebody else comes along with the idea to slow the cyclic rate and reduce recoil. They build a different buffer/weight/spring system that dissapates some of the energy acting to move the carrier and buffer hydraulically. The potential problem with that is that the Enidine for shorties is likely set up for the standard gas tube. Add one of these systems that delays things a bit and reduces the total impulse to an Enidine, which also dissapates energy, and the combination may result in short stroking... So, If you want a shorty to stop ripping rims, try a fat tube or a pigtail. If you want less recoil, maybe the Enidine is the ticket, or a light JP carrier. I would definitely apply a good brake to the muzzle if I wanted faster recovery. If combining the Enidine and a Pigtail does work fine, great. Combinations of non-standard parts and the Enidine, well, I would rate them most likely to act up. If they act up, and you have checked chamber shape and size and throat length and polished the chamber, then maybe a slight enlargement of the gas port is in order. My shorty? It works fine with a polished chamber, but if I were to replace the barrel, it would get a mid-length handgaurd set (then polish the chamber and ramps). My competition gun? It has a Miculek Brake and GI gas tube/bolt/carrier/buffer system and a polished chamber and ramps. Works great. Light carriers? Adjustable gas blocks? UGH! Billski Good Luck

I have shot USPSA stages that were longer than 32... Lessee, one at Detroit Sportsman's Congress was four arrays of four targets with movement between each, so that is 32 plus a fifth array of either two or three targets, so it was 36 or 38 rounds. Shooting it in L10 and changing mags on the move between arrays meant a fifth mag was needed. Four on the belt was necessary and that left no mag for covering a malf, which meant my stripper mag in my pocket was my backup mag, which I loaded full too. It seems to me that I have shot other stages at either DSC or at Livingston Gun Club and needed all four belt mags too... Yeah, four mags on the belt are needed for USPSA Production, Limited 10, and Single Stack. In fact, if you are shooting Single Stack Major, you might look into a single to give you a fifth mag on your belt - it would give some flexibility in where to do your reloads. Billski

Rika, It sounds like you know the Japanese version, while I know the American Golf version. Just as your prime competitor is about to walk to the tee, ask her if she inhales on the back swing, or if she exhales? Same result... Doing such a thing is mean. It is a good thing that we consider such activity bad form, because trying to call it as bad sportsmanship would be tough. Billski

What model is that Leupold? The pick just took us to the website, not a specific scope.

This particular problem sounds familiar, but I did not find it in a search... There are two latches in the M1100/1187 family of shotguns. Between the two of them, they control feeding of shells onto the Shell Carrier. One is the Feed Latch, a long spring steel latch that is staked into the right side of the reciever, and it is opened and closed by notches the action bars as the action cycles. This latch actually releases one round onto the Shell Carrier as the action approaches being fully open. This one is pretty robust, being as it is a strong spring with the action bars cycling it. And its failure mode is usually that it comes out and needs to be properly reinstalled by staking - Most gun shops can do this properly for you in five minutes, and then you should be set for years. Some people buy the tool. The other is the Intercepter Latch, and it is retained in the left side of the reciever in a stud with a little ring. It pivots and has a little spring that normally holds it out of the way. During part of the operating cycle, the front of the Intercepter Latch is rotated forward of the next shell in the magazine. This allows one shell to feed but keeps the next one from feeding. It is spring loaded to pop back out of the way. As cking pointed out, this latch can be sloppy, and maybe fitting a thicker clip will make it work better. My suspiscion is that it is sticking in the way of the shells. If so, you need to buy some clips (they can be damaged easily), then disassemble it, clean it up, dress off any chips that would interfere with it moving about, and then lube and reassemble it. Shawn Carlock at Defensive Edge does a mod with a collar and tiny socket head screw to replace the stud and clip for retention of the Intercepter Latch. It is pictured on this thread - http://www.brianenos.com/forums/index.php?...topic=15780&hl= along with descriptions of the loading mods the are out there. Good luck. Billski

Glad to hear that you got it running. If you decide to bump the orifice to make it work for lighter loads, go in very small increments. Gas flow in sonic orifices goes roughly with the 4th power of the diameter, so carefully determine the current size (gauging with the back end or the drill bit works well) and go up only to the next drill size between tests. And on the piston, seal, I believe Eric had it right. The Rem online manual covers it well, but I will review it here: The piston has the chamfer on the inside and is cylindrical on the outside. The piston goes on the mag tube first with the flat surface to the rear, ready to hit the front of the action bars, which are also flat; The seal has the chamfer on the outside and is cylindrical on the inside. It goes on the mag tube next with the chamfer of the piston and seal mating up with each other. That puts the contoured surface towards the muzzle, and causes the two parts to slide easily when operated by hand, but to seal fairly tightly when gas pressure is on them; If you have a seal activator, it goes on next. The folks at Ilion finished this after I left the company, so I lack the detail knowledge that might be available elsewhere; The "O" Ring goes on last. If it is the Rem part, check it often, and always have a spare in your bag. Or (better plan) buy a bunch from Eric and change them everytime you clean it, which should be every couple hundred rounds. Lube with motor oil or your favorite gun lube (motor oil is cheaper and works great on the gas system). This gas system does not like to run dry. Go enjoy a soft shooting shotgun! Billski

Louie, Thanks for posting the improved version of the stage description. I am prepped and looking forward to this match. Billski

OK, I am trying to prepare for the New York State USPSA Rifle Match at Square Deal. Louie and the crew did a great job of getting the info out,but now I have some questions on specifics. This will be my first IPSC rifle match at over 100 yards, so I am trying to mentally rehearse this thing. Keeping holdover and windage in my head will be a bit of a challenge, so I am trying to get some other things locked in. "Should Have Zeroed My Rifle" has strobes, plates and a popper. I have never shot steel with a rifle, much less anything called a strobe. So: Strobe target at 330 m. It is illustrated like a standard target. What is it? Is it standard IPSC metric target size? Does it fire a strobe light to indicate hits? A Zone Strobe at 200 m. It is illustrated like a standard target with the A Zone shown. What is it? Is is standard IPSC metric target size, and will only an A Zone hit trigger the "strobe"? Plates at 100 and 250 m. The USPSA book says that plates can be 15 to 30 cm (6 to 12"). What size are these going to be? I assume that they will be fixed, what with the RO's calling hits. Popper at 75 m. Are these full sized or mini's? Thanks Billski Should_Have_Zeroed_My_Rifle.pdf

1-7" chrome lined Colt (float tube fore-end) with 55 FMJBT, 62 FMJBT, and Sierra 69 BTHP. 55's and 62's shoot about 4" at 200 yards, the 69's shoot under 3"; 1-7.7" Krieger (my High Power Service Rifle) with Sierra 69, 77 and 80 BTHP. These all shoot well under 2" at 200 yards. Billski

In High Power we shoot to 600 yards and expect 1 minute rifles. More matches are lost at 600 than anywhere else. What would be small accuracy issues for anybody else can be a big deal in High Power. Break-in is fairly highly regarded in High Power, and those of us that do it attribute it with more consistent zero and a longer accurate life of the barrel. The idea is to smooth out the roughness of the throat area and then allow for a nice uniform progression of the throat over time. This takes a clean barrel for each shot for as many as 10 to 25 rounds. If you just shoot it and clean every couple hundred rounds, that 10 rounds each on a clean barrel could take 2000 rounds, with the zero and your loads floating around the whole time. Not fun if you are trying to refine your zero using 1/4 minute clicks. Cleaning is not so highly regarded by High Power shooters. Most High Power shooters will clean before the last practice session prior to a big match, and then not touch the barrel until after the big match. This might 200-250 rounds for a weekend match or over 300 rounds to get through the Nationals. And there are folks that say "just shoot it" there too, like Derrick Martin of Accuracy Speaks, but he is in the minority, even among the 'smiths. 12 time High Power champ David Tubb practices what he preaches, and he preaches break-in, either with shoot and clean or with his abrasive bullets, and then a few fine abrasive bullets every 500 rounds. For us shooting fast a furious? How many of us need a one minute rifle for our game? Well, if all you do is 100 yard matches on nothing tougher than IDPA targets, you do not. But if you are faced with a rack of 8" plates at 300 yards, you might like to know that your rifle will consistently place rounds inside of a 3" circle after you correct for distance and wind. Billski And the neat thing is that you get to choose. See ya on the range.

Vlad, Points to you for setting up and running matches, and then doing a post-brief and quality check on your match afterwards. Keep it up and you will only produce better matches this way. You are trying and that is important. Keep it up. More people need to remember that when the experienced guys get disgusted and quit, you have lost all of the knowledge and bruising that the experience taught to the experienced guys. Enthusiasm of the new guys that take over will not make up for the lost experience and then you will get to break in another bunch of newbies. Go easy on the MD and stage designers, particularly if they are running post briefs and learning. So it was a tough stage, but if they are all easy, what good does that do anybody? I like the tough ones because I do train at 25 yards all three ways. Seriously, the long shot WHO with the close no-shoot was probably too much. Making it tough with hard cover probably would have been better and still made even Avery happy. If the stage is hard, but the shooters can take away some shread of self respect, it helps. I like the idea of "balancing" and of "progressive" stages. Balanced stages have some easy stuff along with hard ones, and progressive stages, well, the better you are the less targets you will leave unshot. There were several things that you could do with this type of stage design. For balanced stage design, start the freestyle run in the box and place a fault line close, and run the hardest target plus two others where the fire zone gives them to you. Targets that you can not see, you can not shoot. Vision barriers may help too. For SHO and WHO runs, you have a second start box and fault line further down the alley and it exposes only three targets of lesser difficulty. This way, the lesser trained shooters can leave with some dignity and less loathing. For a progressive stage design, you might design the stage with three levels of difficulty, and the number of hits is going to tell the tale. Leave in the hard shot but with hard cover instead of the no-shoot, and two others of decreasing difficulty. Almost all shooters should be able to make the easier shots freestyle, and only the best at long shots should get them all. In both cases, you should be able to seperate the shooters by ability with their raw scores and the time will finish seperating them without destroying dignity. Keep at this design effort and the stages will get better. Billski