IHAVEGAS

"I wasn't expecting the Spanish Inquisition!" Old Monty Python skit. Things can be taken way too seriously. The R.O. that volunteered his services seemed to approach the match with a just have fun & be safe attitude. Some would seek him out and others might seek folks with different personality traits. On the last squad I shot with (local match) the r.o. made it a point to pass gas loud when he could & one of his buddies contributed to the atmosphere as well. As things progressed pretty much nobody was safe from a little ribbing by the last stage. The match before (same club) I was squadded with a very serious group. Both groups ran a safe match. I had fun at both matches but I had a lot more fun with the guys that liked to kid around (although I'm not a fart person after a certain age you lose volume & have some legitimate worry about muscle control), the next guy would probably have preferred the more serious group. In any sport or social gathering I think you figure out which folks you have the most fun with & hopefully you allow some live and let live for the folks who approach things differently.

On my to do list. Thank you! Doing some physical therapist directed stuff that is helping but it is neat to have more options. Great to be able do do something that helps rather than back way off or quit doing what you like doing.

I'm late 50's & at the beginning of this year I started trying to be somewhat disciplined about dry fire & other practice. Didn't have issues for months but now if I shoot and dry fire practice like I want to, in my weak arm I get what the Doctor told me two weeks ago is commonly called tennis elbow. The Doc gave me some tennis elbow exercise and stretch things to do and I'm hoping that will allow me to fix or greatly improve issue #1. I also found reference to others getting and finding fixes for tennis elbow on another thread about dry fire practice, so, ok, I think I can fix this I think. Issue #2 is that my neck starts to bug me. I get what feels like a tendon/muscle soreness thing on the weak side of my neck and I get pops and cracks from side to side movement. The Doc (a gp) did not help with this, I'm going to set up an appointment with a good physical therapist in the near future but I was wondering if anyone else has dealt with a similar issue. Perhaps there is some stretching or exercise stuff that can help with this complaint as well?

Oh, by the way. If you send an XD to Springfield to have a nm barrel installed, they do not verify their work by sticking the gun in a rest & shooting a group. I'd never heard of any person or manufacturer doing custom accuracy work & not verifying results so I emailed them and asked if they had just forgotten to return the test target. Nope, didn't forget anything, on XD's they just do not check for results "We do not range test the pistol after a match barrel installed.".

The spring looked aok. Rounding is apparent on the edge of the striker safety at the point of contact between striker safety and striker. A guess would be that the striker drove past the safety due to something like: spring too light, spring not correctly installed, grit interfering with striker safety movement, aftermarket striker safety is just not strong enough, striker safety lever too tight against sear, reduced power striker safety spring is too marginal. In retrospect I wish I would have sent the titanium striker safety back to prp when I read the note that came with it stating that the gun could not be dry fired without snap caps (very impractical in a competition gun). For me I'm going to limit haphazard ( ) modifications to just the standard trigger kit & call that good enough.

"Sent an XD into Springfield to have a nm barrel installed." Parts are headed back but not in hand yet. I hear you and also wonder about the lawyer test bit, but my read on things is that the person who worked on my gun felt there was an issue with the striker safety that really needed to be addressed though. I got the trip the sear thing from a phone call to prp, he called it the pencil test if memory serves and said it was one of the tests that they require a gun to pass. If you drop something light in the barrel with gun pointing upward and then dry fire, the gun will launch it a foot or two in the air, if you repeat the process except trip the sear from the back instead of pulling the trigger , the striker safety should stop the striker and the pencil should not move. One of my two XD's at home was popping the pencil up a little bit when I manually tripped the sear, I next verified that the gun would dimple a primer. I'm far from qualified to know what apparent issues are important and which ones might not be. I do (now) like for my guns to pass the pencil test though & I really can't feel much difference in the gun with the original striker safety and striker safety spring installed. A bit of fiddling without parts replacement may well have resolved the pencil popping thing, but I got to wondering about what happens when you get a bit of grit here and there with the light springs installed and now I am probably a bit paranoid about it. =============================================================================================================== that in itself should be a reason for using a competent gunsmith for any modifications you may require. No one wants to hear about you or anyone else getting injured from the haphazard modification of a firearm. That is certainly a valid way to look at things.

Parts are headed back but not in hand yet. I hear you and also wonder about the lawyer test bit, but my read on things is that the person who worked on my gun felt there was an issue with the striker safety that really needed to be addressed though. I got the trip the sear thing from a phone call to prp, he called it the pencil test if memory serves and said it was one of the tests that they require a gun to pass. If you drop something light in the barrel with gun pointing upward and then dry fire, the gun will launch it a foot or two in the air, if you repeat the process except trip the sear from the back instead of pulling the trigger , the striker safety should stop the striker and the pencil should not move. One of my two XD's at home was popping the pencil up a little bit when I manually tripped the sear, I next verified that the gun would dimple a primer. I'm far from qualified to know what apparent issues are important and which ones might not be. I do (now) like for my guns to pass the pencil test though & I really can't feel much difference in the gun with the original striker safety and striker safety spring installed. A bit of fiddling without parts replacement may well have resolved the pencil popping thing, but I got to wondering about what happens when you get a bit of grit here and there with the light springs installed and now I am probably a bit paranoid about it.

Sent an XD into Springfield to have a nm barrel installed. Got a call from them saying the gun would not pass their safety checks (it has owner installed prp trigger kit & titanium striker safety with lightened spring & titanium striker status indicator with lightened springs). They were nice & replaced the parts they did not like with stock parts free of charge. I suspect that all problems are related to installation errors I might have made and am not fussing about prp components. Got to checking over my other two XD's and found that one of them would dimple primers if you dropped the sear from the opening in the back of the gun and did not pull the trigger, the other was aok. Replaced the reduced power striker safety spring that I had installed on this gun and now both guns pass all safety checks that I know of (visible verification of correct function of safeties, sear, trigger & test of striker safety by manually dropping sear & test of grip safety). I'm wondering if anyone knows of a documented step by step safety check procedure for these guns similar to what you can find for 1911's and etc ? I discussed checks with prp on the phone and am now good with what they do but I did not get detailed info from Springfield. Springfield did say the gun did not pass their timing tests for firing pin block (striker safety) function, so I'm guessing that this gun had the same issue as my other gun did but it would be durn nice to have a way to be certain that I leave nothing important unverified at some point down the road.

There was an interesting article in one of the Doctors waiting room type health mags a few years back. It speculated that his ability to rapid fire thought streams (reference, some of the old Mork & Mindy & stand up when he was young) was very like Turrets Syndrome turned in a different direction. Regardless, I hate that he is gone.

S.O's & R.O.'s get discounted fees in my local area (midwest), but it is well below minimum wage all things considered, so it works out to be a nice gesture more than a financial boon. Still, it is the principle of the thing & it is appreciated. I feel the same way as noted above about doing the jobs, but, somebody has to do them. If few people step up then the jobs are much more like work than like fun. If several folks are willing to do their fair share & you end up with 2 or better yet 3 s.o.'s/r.o.'s per squad, then the jobs are not really jobs & everyone can have a fun match. Shot a local match yesterday, it was hot and muggy, 4 folks in total shared the scorekeeper & s.o. (actually r.o., it was a uspsa match) duties & the rest of the folks were master class pasters. At the end of the day everyone had had a fun match & had been allowed sufficient time for the fun stuff that brings us all to matches. Take away some of that support & you would have ended the day with a couple folks that had a miserable match & maybe too much time in the heat.

Wow. I agree with the cattle call in concept though. In IDPA & USPSA & Steels (and probably three gun, I have not paid attention to the local 3 gun matches) it is hard to find people who are willing to step up & take their turn at the timer and there is a lot of arm twisting & asking for help.

"It's main use would be for USPSA limited and other stuff like IDPA and Steel challenge." I don't like the Xdm, or any lightweight polymer gun, for shooting 40 major. Do not know if you are thinking limited major or minor though. Also, so far I don't have a 40 load that is not higher recoil than necessary for 125 pf in IDPA & for steels, this is likely fixable at the reloading bench though. My gun for your stated purposes is an XD in 9mm, but it is used for production class instead of limited. Going that route really keeps costs down.

If two SOs are working the stage, then the timekeeper is watching the gun while the scorekeeper is watching for cover and other PEs. I really wanted to stay out of this, but I am a SO in training (to support my local club, I have no aspirations to SO at any regional or national matches). What I have been taught again and again in a firm manner is that the SO's #1 job is the gun and safety. It is the ASO's job to call cover. I have SOed about 20 to 30 shooters and I find it difficult to make cover calls when I am so focused on the gun. However when the cover call is really obvious its pretty easy. + 1 If you are positioning yourself to consistently make the most accurate cover assessments then you are not best positioned for job 1.

Dry fire has shown me that if you practice the wrong things it will really screw you up. It is easy to not have a firm enough grip during practice & etc. and that stuff really shows up under match pressure. It is also easy to lose sight patience and etc while focusing on a par time, and some of the things that work for the book authors (just bring the mag to the magwell during reload practice for example) may or may not take you in a good direction. Last thing was that a 'rush rush rush before the darn timer beeps again' attitude was 100% not what I needed to enable me to attempt to run a smooth stage with good accuracy. I think what I'm doing now is tailored to work for me and it does seem to be bringing me confidence & improved mechanics, so that is my answer to the o.p.'s question. Until I had something tailored to work for me I think I was partially proving that bad practice habits makes for worse results at matches.

The Rockford Files: Backlash of the Hunter [Pilot][edit] Jim: You know what's wrong with karate Jerry? It's based on the ridiculous assumption that the other guy will fight fair.

I don't, have friends that use one shot aerosol also & they don't either. I suspect that what lube is left on the cases helps the bullets travel up the mags & to the gun chamber, but that is only speculation.

Put the brass in a paper bag, hold the bag over your head, then jump up and down and scream like a chicken. Or any of the other fine methods noted previously. I use one shot on 40's and it works well.

STI would probably be happy to tell you their reasoning if you gave them a call.

O.P. (or anybody for that matter). Would like to purchase tools & instructions so I can start doing my own trigger jobs also. Any advice (e.g., buy this tool, by that dvd, run away run away give up on the notion entirely, etc.) from your experience would be appreciated.

My primary gun and backup guns are near identical (5" STI Edge based) except the primary has slide cuts & a couple pounds lighter recoil spring. The primary feels softer shooting and easier to control.

"Never argue with an idiot, bystanders can not tell the difference". Anybody else have that saying come to mind when you scan the argumentative threads?

Might ask hq what the dimensional tolerance is. For example, the IDPA box size tolerance is -0 + 1/16". Else 8.2.5.2.7 gets you legally in the game with a re-crown as noted above. I payed either $40 or $50 to get a 2011 re-crowned last year so I'm guessing you could do it to a wheel gun without mortgaging the farm.

One club didn't get decent set up help. Match normally started at 10 I think. Things still got done on time but when start time came around the MD announced that since help was not there when needed the shooting would start an hour late. Reports are that this approach was effective.

I believe you have it backwards. It's like saying if granny is mowing and bailing hay, then she probably doesn't need the handicapped spot and a motorized cart at walmart. Ok I get low marks for the analogy. Should have just said something like 'watching somebody shoot a stage does not tell you how much of a toll they are paying in pain and effort - or how much gas they have left in the tank'.

I honestly hope that if you still want to and are able to shoot at an advanced age or just a decreased level of health, there will be folks there that understand the lawn chair or UTV or etc. I like the idea that your buddies will step in a bit to help you keep coming out & having fun. Not to ignore your point that some folks (all ages) could do more. Side note, a local MD told me that during a match last year they had to threaten the super squad with time penalties in order to get the pasting done .