Carmoney

Great news for midwestern wheelgunners: Preliminary discussions are in place to bring the ICORE Midwest Regional back to the midwest in 2014! The ICORE board still has to approve it, but our home club in Ankeny, Iowa has offered to host the match next year. We have a beautiful new range that will be a perfect venue for the match.

When I discussed this with Kathy awhile back, she mentioned that they do have a super squad put together for the match. However, I know at least one or two of the top revolver shooters have elected (and are being permitted) to shoot on other squads. At the Single Stack Nationals, the members of the super squad are not given the choice anymore--this has been discussed at length elsewhere on the forum, but the short explanation for the new policy is to ensure that those likely to finish high in the match have the same shooting conditions throughout the match (which is an issue at Barry in May, where we are almost always assured of getting at least one day of rain). It also helps ensure more accurate scoring and honorable conduct, because the shooters who have the most serious "skin in the game" are all there to police each other and make sure nobody begs for perfect doubles, etc., that are not warranted. The first reason does not apply quite as much at the Revolver Nationals, since everybody will be shooting on the same day, and we'll all be dealing with the same weather. The second rationale, however, could be an issue--at least in theory. We had a scoring situation pop up at Nationals a few years ago that might have been handled differently if another member of the super squad had not spoken up--for better or worse.

No. I was curious though how does that 1.37 translate with a draw? It comes out sounding a lot like Yiddish. Very clever. Just keep in mind there are people from Tennessee and Oklahoma who participate here, so please try to keep the humor at a level they can understand.

The really smart move would be to continue your lifelong streak of not having car payments!! Your 02 Altima probably still has enough life left in it to give you time to save up the cash. (Now that I'm a middle-aged professional, I understand the value of not taking on personal debt to finance an asset that quickly depreciates. I only wish I had figured that out years ago when I was still a young professional!)

(sigh) It's just so sad, watching these poor guys who think they can buy success with hi-tech gizmos like trigger stops..... ;-)

I think you're going to find that polishing the cylinder, along with careful load selection, will be the practical answer to your problem. Hopalong is the guy who has the scoop on this, but I know he's been working on the road a lot lately. You might want to run a search--I specifically remember asking about sticky chambers in my 646 back around 2004, and Hopalong had the answers I needed.

Man, I'd gladly trade doing one static reload per match in order to have major scoring. All day, Brother. All day.

Goddam, that's a cool flag! Makes me wonder if this "Outlaw Series" is going to turn out to be more than just a test-bed.

Correct. The FMFP first showed up in the -6. I might add that some of these cylinder stop notch peening problems are caused--at least in part--by excessive roughness in slamming the gun shut during dryfire reload drills. You don't have to baby them, but some of the handling i have seen from a few of you monkeys is truly cringe-worthy. Go a little easy.

How about the 8 shot supporters who actually have them let it be known what matches they can attend. Then the Revo crowd could make an attempt to gather and compete. One where someone could get the scores of all of the 8 shot guys and have them tabulated with the 6 shot Revo's in a side bar. I say that due to the 8 shots would have to be in another Division as it stands now. A State/Sectional Match would be the 1st choice due to it being more representative of what COF's we would see in the future. At a club level we may be able to convince a few clubs to overlook the 8 shots and let them compete in Revo, without classifiers, the problem with that would be the wide variations in skill. A larger official match would show a more accurate representation of finishes if we could get together. It may mean some of us might not win say Production with an 8 shot but it would give us some data to work with. Mike, is Iowa going to hold a Sectional? There is the Great Plains, and I haven't heard of Kansas yet. I don't have an 8 shot, but I'd do this if you are willing. If Iowa has a Sectional I'll try to get there and if you'd let me borrow your 8 Shot I'd shoot Production against you with your 6 shot (you'd be in Revo though), if Kansas holds one we would just reverse it. If Kansas doesn't we could meet at the Great Plains and switch. If we do I'll see if I can't bring a few extra Revo's up, might have to bribe them but might just be worth it. What do you say? Dave, you're more than welcome to come up and shoot the Iowa Sectional (June 29-30, Ankeny Iowa). I was actually planning to shoot Production with my XD, but would be happy to switch to Revo and shoot my 625, or I would shoot an 8-shooter in L-10 (or whatever)--either way you want to run the test is fine with me. None of my 8-shot revolvers are Production legal. (You know what I like to do to hammer spurs!) You're welcome to shoot one of my 8-shots and I will supply the ammo. I have committed to work the match, so I will presumably be shooting with the ROs on Friday. If you want to shoot one of my 8-shots, come a day early and we can find a place for you to familiarize with the gun, sight in, etc. You're welcome to stay at my place, but be warned the accommodations aren't anything fancy! Right now I can't commit to the Great Plains Sectional. I have a jury trial starting the Monday after that match, and if the case doesn't get resolved, I will be here at the office working that whole weekend.

Nothing wrong with a 6-lb DA pull. Go much lighter and you're going to start having troubles with either unreliable ignition or sluggish rebound anyway. Besides, it's almost impossible to use a trigger gauge to measure a DA pull on a revolver.

Back in the day, the original intention was to make sure 8-major (1911 .45) stayed roughly competitive with 13-minor (Browning Hi-Power 9mm). Those were the two common platforms in the game back then, before all the hi-cap major stuff came into use. Minor scoring was designed to create a pretty serious penalty--particularly for the lower to average level shooter who gets quite a few C and D hits--over the course of the match. This is one reason why I continue to strongly suspect that 8-minor might not make 6-major obsolescent after all. We all bitched about the 2012 Nats in Vegas being a bunch of 8-shot arrays that kept disappearing from view, allowing few options. It sure felt that way at the time. Yet Matt noted that he only did a relatively few standing reloads during the match with his 625! Very interesting! The more I think about it, the more convinced I am that 6-major would still be fully viable even if 8-minor were allowed. If testing and experience proves out my theory on that, maybe we could all be persuaded that adding 8-minor would not create a wholesale change in the division, and maybe we could start to view it as an option without any serious downside. Seriously guys, I mess around in USPSA with a lot of different types of platforms, and have particularly shot quite a bit of Revo, SS, and Production over the years. I have a pretty good idea of how the divisions compare. 6-major is tough, but then again 8-minor would be pretty damn tough, too. By the time you make sure you get mostly A-hits, and never miss, and have to the absorb slightly slower reloads, you might very well discover that you could have done just as well with your 625 after all. Or so it seems to me. (For the last 7-8 years.)

Maybe we could revamp the old USPSA Point Series program somehow. I always thought it was a cool idea.

I know an IDPA match director who had a few rounds of his CDP match ammo stolen out of his range bag. (Turns out that ammo was nowhere close to 165 p.f. when checked over a chrono.......or so I've heard......)

I've had this conversation a couple times with different guys in the last few days. I wish I just bought a brazos.... Guys, don't get depressed! Think big picture--this is exciting stuff for Revolver shooting in USPSA. Nats this year is going to be the Clash of the Titans!

Sure, anything's worth consideration at this point. I really like the choice offered in SS between 8-major and 10-minor. I shoot SS quite a bit and I believe those two options are usually both viable, depending on stage design. Personally, I think it would be fun to have the same sort of choice in Revolver. But I don't want to obsolete 6-major. The perception is that 6-major could not compete in USPSA against 8-minor. I think continued testing with an open mind could prove that wrong!

I was part of the conversation at Nationals in Vegas when several of us talked to Phil about the future of Revo Division. Jerry indicated he was in favor of the 8-minor option, and he was very candid about the fact that the recoil of the .45 revolver has become painful for him. (That was certainly not the first time Jerry has mentioned the issues with his hands and elbows, by the way--he been open about that for the last several years.) Matt and Cliff and I spoke up also. During that conversation, we all threw in our two cents' worth, with everybody's positions being pretty much the same as they are here. My comment to Phil was that I have always liked the idea of allowing 8-minor in Revo, and I think we've reached the point where we should consider doing pretty much anything to keep the division from dying on the vine. I don't think it's unsportsmanlike or wrong for Jerry to want to continue competing in USPSA Revo with a gun that isn't painful to shoot. No true competitor should want to beat Jerry simply by outlasting him to the point where it's simply too painful for Jerry's hands. That would be a hollow victory, wouldn't it? I don't think that's how Matt (for example) would want to win. If allowing 8-minor would put the serious competitors on a more even playing field, where it's all about pure shooting capability rather than who's hands are in pain, wouldn't that be a good thing for the game?

I found it much easier to switch back and forth between revolver and auto platforms once I started keeping the revolver in my strong hand and doing the reloads with the weak hand.

Very interesting! If all you guys would give this idea half a chance, I am convinced we will find that 6-major and 8-minor are not nearly as far apart as most of you people think!! In fact, those two options might be pretty dang close, especially in the context of the major match situation, where the stages are varied and well-designed. I believed that back in 2005 when this topic first arose here, and I continue to believe it today.

What if a competitor could win a million dollars if he could take all 5 national titles in the same year! Does that sound crazy? Actually, it's not crazy at all. USPSA should check to see what the underwriters at Lloyd's at London would charge for a premium on a policy that would insure a million dollar prize for such a feat. (This would be similar to when they insure against a contestant sinking a hole-in-one at a charity golf tournament or a radio show caller making a half-court basketball shot during half-time.) It might turn out to be surprisingly affordable, and talk about stirring up interest!

I think everybody's position on this has been pretty well staked out. Thanks everybody for all the interesting and constructive input. As a group, we appear to be roughly 2/3 in favor of allowing 8-minor, and 1/3 opposed. Both sides include highly-experienced and prominent revolver shooters. As much as I favor the change, I don't believe we have a mandate at this point to change the rules. I suggest we all look forward to a great 2013 USPSA Nationals (which I predict will be the greatest gathering of S&W 625s ever in one place!) and see how things shake out during the rest of the year. If we see proportional increases in participation at the various sectionals and area matches around the country, then I think that will mean that Revolver Division is alive and healthy. If by the end of 2013 we still have miserable participation in the division overall, I think it will be time to propose some changes through our board of directors.

That is the intention of this thread, Cliff. Here's the truth. There are a very few people who are really good in Revolver Division as it sits today. You and I are both in that group. We enjoy the challenge of breaking down the stages by 6, and hitting those fast reloads, and all that advanced stuff. But beyond the top few, everybody else with a revolver struggles like hell just to survive the friggin' match. That's why so many people get started in Revolver, are very enthusiastic for a year or two, and then they're gone. They just get tired of persistently failing to master something which is damn difficult. Just think of all the people we know who were all gung ho on Revolver but we never see anymore! The elite revolver people like you and me (and the rest of the "Super 17") will always show up, but everybody else eventually drifts away to something they find more fun. So yeah, I'm talking about finding a way to make Revo Division more fun to more people. And yeah, that probably means we need to make it a little easier for them. A little more humane than making them reload every 6 rounds and forcing them to use a gun that is inherently difficult for those with arthritic or female or small or old hands to shoot well. So if that means we compromise the purity of the challenge somewhat, I'm willing to do that in order to get more people to shoot Revolver with--locally, regionally, and nationally.

Exactly right. Especially if it turns out that 6-major isn't necessarily the handicap that people perceive it to be at first blush. As of right now, 71 people have answered the poll indicating that they would shoot USPSA more if they could run 8-minor. Even just those 71 people would make a noticeable increase in revolver participation in USPSA nationwide. Sad but true. I don't have any misconception that we're suddenly going to see a gigantic influx of new participants by allowing 8-minor. But even a modest increase in our numbers would be meaningful, at this point. Would we really lose anybody? I don't know, but I would not want that to happen.

YES!! I love that somebody is taking me up on this. And I have always wanted to shoot an Area 2 Championship and have never had the chance. Let's do this thing! I have added the match to my calendar. Right now I have a trial set to start on Nov. 4, but that case is likely to settle. Now, I know Area 2 is traditionally really hard to get into--now that I'm a "semi-regular" at Rio Salado, maybe that will help?? ;-)

Captain Ahab. That's funny-ass stuff right there!