Carmoney

Yep, and it works both ways.....most good revolver shooters are also good with the other guns also. I enjoy shooting the bottom-feeders (especially single-stack 1911s) myself! The most dedicated wheelgunner I know might be our own D.Carden--he's an A-class revolver guy who doesn't even own any auto-pistols. (Not many of us can say that!) Still, I'll betcha he could pick up a decent 1911 or Glock, practice with it for a week, and have no trouble competing at roughly the same class level at his next IPSC match.

Thanks for those nice comments, Chuck. Sam and I are heading out to Colorado this weekend to shoot our first ICORE match--we're sure looking forward to it! I understand your point on the raw numbers. Hopalong started out this whole conversation by pointing out how few shooters you get at the USPSA matches. Out of 300+ shooters at the Florida Open, one of the biggest USPSA matches of the year, only 9 of us shot wheelguns (most of us contributors to this sub-forum, in fact....) In some areas of the country, they get more than 9 revo shooters showing up for local IDPA matches. I agree that to spur on more interest in USPSA Revolver it would sure help to have intelligent and inventive course design--it is SO typical now to see long courses with one 8-round array after another after another. Nice for L-10 and single-stackers, sorta sucks for Revolver (unless you're a total diehard wacko). But it's a vicious circle, because if enough wheelgunners show up and shoot, we can shoot against each other and then it doesn't matter......you know what I mean.

Chuck, that may have been true a couple years back, but many of the best revolver shooters in the country have quit shooting IDPA, never started in the first place, or just shoot IDPA casually for something to do on non-match weekends. Even putting aside for purposes of this conversation the whole SSR/ESR debacle that has severely damaged morale among the IDPA wheelgunners (who were still a small minority in that game), it should be remembered that nothing sends shivers up a true revolver shooter's spine quite like starting a challenging 32-round long IPSC/USPSA assault course--and knowing you have to be thinking three times harder than the Open/Limited guys just to get through the course! It's really cool! On the other hand, nothing throws cold water on a true revolver competitor than to be at an IDPA match and be told you have to do a "tactical reload", a concept which is of dubious value with autopistols, and which is completely stupid as IDPA applies to revolvers ("stuff the whole mess in a pocket..."). Yuck. Most of the best revolver shooters out there today are focused on IPSC. Or so it seems to me. Mike

I'll be shooting Revolver. Mike Carmoney

I was on the range when a shooter bloodied his hand this way. It was at a pin match in Waterloo, IA a number of years ago, and I'm pretty certain it was a .45 or 10mm (not a .38 Super). No serious injuries, fortunately. Mike

Yeah, that bushing barrel's going to put Rob at such a disadvantage we may never never hear from him again!

I'll admit I liked the Subway event a whole lot more before they added the Thunderzap crap into the mix. That ammo was horrendously, god-awfully overloaded (typical of Richard's mindset), and you had to literally beat the ejector rod against the wooden rail to dislodge the bulging, primer-flattened empty brass--causing the cylinders to fall clear off some of the guns, and the ejector rods to bend on most of them. I suspect the reason Thunderzap didn't sell is that somebody convinced Richard that the stuff was +P+++ and not safe to distribute to the general public. Fine for us Second Chance shooters, though..... The Thunderzap ammo also hit way way low even at 25 feet, causing you to have to aim at the necks of the pins to get hits in the fat part with most (but not all) of the guns. So far, so good. The real problems started when some of the shooters started taking the guns off the line, sometimes even off the range back to the cabin (which was not really a problem if the girls down front knew ya). One year there was a notably "good" M-65 that hit pretty close to point of aim--one of the shooters did a quick action job on it back at the cabin, he and his buddies shot the event, then they conveniently "forgot" to return it until the last day of the match. Obviously, many of us felt this went beyond the usual spirit of gamesmanship that Richard had chided Sweeney about.... Still--all that said--a fun concept, and a fun event. Mike

Interesting. There was an RO down at the Florida Open who kept shrieking at everybody for handling empty mags in the safe area. Everybody treaded very lightly, perhaps because they weren't completely sure of the rule--one poor guy I remember was visibly shaken by the scolding. Since I was shooting revolver, and he didn't tell me to keep my hands off the cylinder, I had no personal axe to grind and just kept my mouth shut. The RO otherwise seemed like a good guy. Safety is fine. Safety is mandatory, in fact. But there are a few IPSC shooters who still can't get over some innate, subconscious fear of firearms--probably spawned by a lack of guns in the house when they were kids. (Or so it seems to me...) Mike

Cliff--just need to get somebody making a 10-shot revo now, huh? Sam (Carmoney) and I got our slots off the wait list today, so we're definitely on-board for Nat'ls. See you there. Mike

Kim from USPSA just called--Sam and I were offered slots from the L/P/R waiting list. We accepted, of course! Mike

Why did "El Conquistador" not shoot his trademark revolver??

Guys, I just signed up for this match. 12 stages of Steel Challenge-style audible steel, 300 rounds plus, $50 entry fee. I've heard they have a good prize table. I shot the Fall Classic down there last year, and for those of you who haven't seen this range, it is a really nice facility. I've heard lots of good things about this steel match, and finally managed to get the schedule cleared so I can go. I'll be shooting "centerfire revolver limited" division with my 627. Anybody interested?? Mike 2005SteelEntryForm.pdf

Thanks, Ben--not bad for a guy who wears a suit to work every day, huh! Mike

Go to any local (or bigger) IPSC, IDPA, steel or pin match and start counting malfunctions. You will see plenty with the autos. It is very, very rare to see a revolver malfunction under match conditions. I have competed with revolvers almost exclusively since the late '80s. (This makes me an "iconoclast" according to one of Duane's articles from a few months back!) I'm sure my round count is well into six figures. Over the years, I have had two genuine malfunctions with revolvers--both times the stud broke off the hand on two different S&W 25-2s, turning the guns into single-shot "non-revolvers." I've also had a handful of clicks caused by crappy factory or handloaded ammo (see discussion of primer seating depth elsewhere in this category). At the typical IPSC match, you will see at least one poor auto shooter have more gun problems in one friggin' stage than I've had over 17 years of competition with wheelguns!! At today's match, it was a Glock guy that was having most of the problems. Other than bad ammo and the very rare catastrophic part failure, about the only thing that causes trouble with quality revolvers is dirt. And dirt and bad ammo are both things that the shooter can keep under control. Mike

I use all sorts of mixed .40 brass in my M646 revolver, and I can tell you for sure that the Speer brass fits distinctly looser in the moonclips. The rim dimensions seem to be a little different--so I'm wondering if this might be part of the problem Ryan45Kim is noticing. Mike

If we're playing the name game, I'd like to propose this one as well: bountyhunter: "the quicker-picker-upper"

After seeing videotape (or perhaps film) of Cooper shooting a 1911 with only the thumb and index finger, I tried it myself. Single-stack .45 with factory ball. He's absolutely right, and it can be easily done by anyone with decent hand strength. It's kinda like shooting the Tommy gun with the butt against your face--it sure seems like it would be a problem, but it's really no big deal. Mike

BYW, I decided to take the time to do a nice blend job on the S&A magwell on my alloy-framed .45--it's not a bit faster than a dropped-in S&A, but it does add to the aesthetics!

Ben, last year I built up a pretty cool single-stack around the Les Baer .45 match barrel I won out at the Steel Challenge. I used a Les Baer aircraft aluminum frame and an STI slide as the main components. I've owned, shot, and sometimes carried a Commander for years, but don't recall ever shooting a full-size 1911 with an alloy frame until I test-fired this gun. The gun came out pretty nice, and shoots great! With full-power loads, I do think it recoils a little more (in my hands, at least) than my steel-frame single-stack 1911s, but it's still very manageable. I have used it in the CDP division (I'm out of IDPA these days), and would do so again without hesitation. It would also be a good carry gun, although the trigger is set up for competition use. The best part--I completed all the work myself. No grumpy gunsmiths. Mike

Mitchell Ota also wrote a good book on pin-shooting, with an introduction by Richard Davis. It is no longer in print, but if you can obtain a copy, it's a fun read and has some pretty useful information for pin-shooting. (Has anybody heard from Ota recently?) Mike

Ming the Merciless. <{POST_SNAPBACK}> you mean "Mink the Merciless," right?

John Jovino also marketed an oddball semi-custom snubby big-bore which was built on the Astra .44 Magnum. Pretty cool looking gun, but it was a friggin' Astra, you know? I think it was called the "Eliminator" or something like that... I remember articles about these guns running in early editions of "Combat Handguns" and Phil Engeldrum's old "Pistolero" magazine. That old Lew Horton shorty N-frame stuff is pretty collectible these days, too--we all should've bought two of each back when it was readily available.

The short 625s are 3" guns, not 2-1/2" (remember, you measure from the rear of the barrel, not the spot where it begins protruding from the frame). The Horton 25-3s were chambered for .45 Colt. The closest thing to a true snubby on a 25-2 was the 2-3/4" Effector model, produced on a limited basis by the John Jovino Co. in NYC. (They bought regular 25-2s from S&W, then cut them, rounded the grip-frame, did the actions, etc.) Very cool guns. I want one fairly badly, but not for the $799 that was the asking price on the last one I saw for sale.... Other gunsmiths (like Austin Behlert) did one-off N-frame snubbies on a custom basis. Mike

The 25-3 is chambered for .45 Colt. Smith & Wesson just couldn't abide the thought of carving their (then) number one competitor's name on the side of their special anniversary model! That's all there is to it.

Pretty smooth overall. Nice job Rob!