Carmoney

A 6 shooter makes 5 reloads on a 32 rd stage, an 8 shooter can do it with 3, same as a 10 shooter. No, 8 rd minor for Revo isn't sufficient handicap to offset the six shooters extra reloads. It all depends on stage design. On a 32-round field course, it's entirely possible that the stage can be broken down in such a way that those extra reloads can be made on the move, which would cost very little in terms of extra time--and in that situation, the faster reloads of the 625 in addition to the major P.F. scoring will tip the advantage back in favor of the 6-shooter. When Single Stack division was announced, several people on this forum proclaimed that 8 shots of major would never be able to win against 10 shots of minor. Obviously, that turned out to be completely wrong. I will agree that the difference we're talking about here in Revolver would be greater, but not nearly as much as some of you guys seem to think. The only time the 8-shooters would have a huge automatic advantage would be in matches where the designers set up tons and tons of 8-round arrays and very few options on how the stage can be attacked. I'll admit those matches do exist, but most of our major matches (Nats, most Area matches, most Level III matches, and many sectionals) tend to have stages that are better thought out. If USPSA ever decided to allow 8-rounders to compete with minor scoring, and assuming you owned a 627 and a 625 and shot them equally well, you would never truly know which gun would be advantageous until you saw the stages. And a lot of times, it would be very close to a wash.

So if I were to go to a national competition using a Ruger Alaskan loaded with .45 Colt and using speedloaders and be "seriously competitive" I would become somebody? What exactly is the criteria for being seriously competitive? I might have just found another hill to ice skate up. I don't think that the equipment determines who is seriously competitive, and to suggest such is in bad form. That is just me though, maybe the majority feels the same way you do. Well, to some extent I guess we're all skating uphill just by shooting USPSA with revolvers in the first place, right? When I talk about being "seriously competitive on the national level" I mean shooters who consistently finish high on the list at major matches--shooters who are in contention to win the division if Jerry is not there, or capable of finishing 2nd immediately behind Jerry against a strong field. Those guys--the guys who take the competitive aspect of the match seriously and who aren't there just to mess around--are all running moonclip guns shooting major loads, because to do otherwise would create a competitive disadvantage which they would not consider acceptable. Of course, that's not to say that you can't have fun with other equipment options, or that you can't find your own specific competitive challenges that you find personally enjoyable.

Check with whoever's doing the work, many of us prefer to simply modify the factory springs as opposed to installing aftermarket springs. (No sense spending the money on a spring kit if that's the case here.) Bobbing the hammer is a popular option on competition (and defensive) guns, although even more benefit is generated by taking more weight off the hammer than a simple bob job can accomplish--there's a ton of discussion on here that relates to this topic. I'd recommend doing a search, or even just looking back through a couple months' worth of discussion topics here on the Revo forum.

On the other hand, just throwing the 8-round rule in the trash would make it even worse, because then the bad stage designers would go back to creating stages with a whole slew of targets that can all be engaged from one or two sweet spots. We've all seen that scenario at "renegade" matches where the 8-round rule is ignored....

Yeah, unfortunately a lot of clubs do a really poor job of stage design--particularly clubs that do not have many serious shooters that travel to major matches. I think it takes repeated exposure to lots of well-designed stages at big matches to understand how things are supposed to be.

Dave, do I need to make another trip back east to quiet you up again?

Stan, you did miss something.....under the most recent edition of the rules (blue book), it notes that revolvers are exempt from the box rule, and from the equipment position on belt rule. (Page 74.) Also, nobody who is seriously competitive on the national level is shooting minor or using speedloaders. Bubber is the closest we have to being truly competitive with a 686, and I think he would admit that he's just being stubborn about it. I don't think it's as clear-cut that 6-rd. major could not keep up with 8-rd. minor if both formats were allowed in revolver division. The difference between major and minor scoring over the course of a match is big. And 6-rd. revolvers will always reload slightly faster. I will agree that in a match full of 8-shot arrays the 627 would probably win heads-up against the 625, in equally competent hands. But a good USPSA match will not load up so heavily on 8-shot arrays, and then you would have a real horse race between the formats.

Yes, you have been misinformed. As long as the firing pin protrusion is within reasonable spec, the actual length of the pin is not going to make a difference in ignition reliability. The shape of the tip, the weight of the pin, the amount of firing pin spring tension bearing rearward upon it, and the surface smoothness of the pin--those are the actual factors that matter. I recently re-tested a current production C&S extended firing pin to see if it added any sort of benefit in terms of ignition reliability. I adjusted the mainspring tension way down to the point I was just starting to get very occasional misfires with my match ammo. Then, leaving all other things exactly equal, I replaced the factory pin (the "good" mid-production Ti .495" round-tip version) with the C&S pin, and there was absolutely no difference in reliability. The gun still misfired occasionally. No benefit. Think about this: If you take a nail that is 3/4" long and another nail that is 1" long, and you drive them partially into a board by hitting each of them on the nailhead with a single hammer blow of exactly identical energy, would you expect the longer nail to go deeper into the wood? Of course not. Case closed.

I'm pretty much standardizing all my handgun loads on Clays and Titegroup. Keeps it simpler.

When did you adopt this new policy??

I would sure like to be there, Pat. But it's not looking good this time around--due to my job demands, I'm not going to have the time available for nearly as much out-of-town travel as I have the past few years.

The world would be such a better place if people would always follow my instructions.

What a great concept!

Nice pair.

I had the Weigand blade on a competition revo for awhile and discovered two problems with it: (1) It fits loosely and there is a fair bit of "wiggle" to the blade when it's installed, enough to compromise precision, particularly in terms of elevation. (2) Being made of aluminum, it will not take cold blue, and when the black anodizing gets thin from wear, you wind up with silver areas that cannot be readily touched up. I'm not saying it's a bad product, but those disadvantages do need to be considered.

I'd probably be willing to let him shoot at me with that load, as long as I had a catcher's mitt!

OK, let's say I'm wrong and they do another production run of 627-4s. From the prices we've seen on Performance Center stuff lately, they're going to be too expensive to possibly justify, at least from any practical perspective. There's really nothing all that magical about the 8-shot .38 Supers. There's nothing they can do that a regular .38/.357 can't do just as well.

The holster was unlocked. I knew that even unlocked, the holster would hold the gun in place just fine during the process of jumping to my feet. What I didn't factor in was my arm bumping the gun when I was winding up to throw the grenade. I also had one occasion at a MN Sectional several yeas ago when I accidentally left the holster locked and although the gun came out, I practically yanked my belt up under my armpits trying to break the gun loose from the holster. It was a situation where we shot two stages on the same bay, keeping the gun hot while moving from the finish of the first stage to the start position of the second stage. Of course I had locked the holster out of habit while walking along, and forgot to unlock it. I also remember a stage at Area 7 a couple years ago when you had to move from the start position about 10 or 12 feet, then hit the lever on a chicken launcher (I shit you not) with the strong hand before drawing the gun. With the CR Speed, the quandary became whether to gingerly move with the holster unlocked, or take extra time to unlatch the holster after launching the chicken. After the DQ, I finally just decided the miniscule speed advantage of the CR Speed holster is just not worth the risk and the hassle--for me, anyway. If I decide to shoot one of my 6.5" 25-2s one of these years, I may break it out again.

No, I definitely didn't mean it to sound that way! I remember years ago debating over beers about whether a person would be better armed with two J-frames or one full-sized carry gun. I usually took the side of the two J-frames, although I think it's pretty close to a wash.

I usually just shoot in Revolver division, then look at the overall (unofficial) combined match results to see how many auto shooters I whipped up on. Technically, my 8-shooters are not Production-legal because they have modifications that are externally visible. Mike P.S. Bill S., the current edition of the rulebook is available online at the USPSA website, in case you lost your hard copy of the book.

Yes..... But on the other hand, there are field champion animals that will never make truly good hunting dogs, because the tasks at which they excel in field trials may not reflect the reality of actual hunting. Many of the serious hunting dog people no longer put much stock in AKC field trial credentialing, for that reason. To give one example, around here when you see a "field champion pointer" for sale, the most likely reason he's for sale is because he's such a big runner that he's practically worthless for hunting pheasants on foot. But he won those field trials because the shooters and judges literally chased him around on horseback while he flew around and burned up the field. Not to mention the fact that his field champion pace may leave him too exhausted to hunt after an hour or two. Meanwhile, the talented, thorough, methodical upland pointing dog that consistently locates birds within reasonable range of the gun will never win the field trial "race," but will much more consistently produce results in the actual field. Just something to think about.

There's an exception to every rule, I guess. The serious hunting lab people I've spoken with (again, keep in mind this is Iowa, and hunting is a really big deal here) seem to have reached a consenses that the breeders are going out of their way to create more and more yellow and chocolate labs every year because that's what the young suburban housewives tend to want, for whatever reason. And that's no different than any other effort to breed in a particular "look" in terms of its gradual detrimental impact upon a breed. Or so it seems to me.

All this "practicing" stuff sounds completely unethical to me.

Just be careful. 9 is still really young for this stuff. That awful incident in MA involving the 8-year-old still haunts me. I think you're smart to do the airsoft thing. I'd plan to keep him on an Airsoft for a couple years, there's just a huge difference between a kid who's 8 or 9 and and kid who's 11 or 12.

They've really gone up in price--just like everything else gun-related. My dealer price on a 617 is now over $600. Unless you're direct with S&W, that's what they cost. (At first, I thought the specimen pictured in the auction was a pre-lock version, which the collectors/purists seem to like and pay extra for, but I'm pretty sure the seller is actually going to great pains to photograph the gun from angles that do not show the lock "zit" on the gun.)