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TriggerHippie

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Everything posted by TriggerHippie

  1. First draft. Please critique and suggest refinements or (o noes!) complete rearrangements. Don't hold anything back, I work in writing. I eat criticism and poop excellence! I'm assuming a rather small bay (bay #4 at Richmond if anyone knows it) with a berm on two sides. http://imageshack.us...vinyorkv01.jpg/
  2. Hmm. I think the easiest way may be to lay something out and email it to them as an image or PDF, ask, you know, "this look about right?" I cadged up a stage diagram the other day with Balsamiq, let's see if I can google where in the forums that stage ppt was.
  3. First draft. Steel should be at minimum safe steel distance, target orientation not exact. Any obvious issues?
  4. OK, first... what the hell is going on here... people are not supposed to be helpful on the Internet! Thanks everyone for the helpful suggestions and in particular the videos. From a review of previous stages and the concerns people have brought up, it seems the safest combination of, uh... stabber? and stabbee?... is a plastic utensil and foam. It just so happens I have a ton of Kaizen foam around (from making a guitar case rifle case which is another story). I really like the idea of running out of ammo and stabbing. (OMG, or beating up targets with an empty gun! How savage!) Unfortunately this also seems like a really good opportunity for people to shoot themselves while re-holstering in an adrenaline-soaked haze of stabbing and shooting. The safest way to mix things up by having the, er... thrill of stabbing something... with shooting, is to have the stabbing before you have the shooting. (I dare you to say that out loud with a straight face.) The safest implement I can think of to stab with is the spork. In contrast to a gun, I think it would take some serious contrivance to seriously injure yourself with a spork. Also I think it adds some whimsy to what would otherwise be a slightly, er... aggressive... stage. Stage design and a sense of theatre seem necessary to prevent the pre-shooting stabbing (which sounds like a morbid cop joke) from ending up seeming perfunctory. Here we go for the stage - I'll cadge up a drawing in a bit. Tentative name: The Reason We Don't Eat Out Anymore, Or, When Sporks Attack!!! Comstock scoring Audible start Shooter begins at far left of stage, seated at table. Unloaded firearm and magazines/speedloaders in "box" on separate table adjacent to shooter pointed downrange and staged per USPSA rules. At start signal, shooter engages upper A- and B-zone of two targets seated adjacent and opposite him at table using staged spork on table. Multiple sporks will be staged on the table in case a spork breaks. Shooter must stick one spork into each upper A-zone. Two targets may be engaged simultaneously with two sporks should the shooter so desire. Shooter may stand, lean over table and move around table prior to neutralizing the first two spork-only targets. After all spork targets are engaged and sporked, shooter retrieves weapon from table and loads. Moving left to right, shooter engages two target array "rooms" with a mix of paper targets and poppers. Scoring begins when first shot is fired, stops on last shot. Notes: Shooter may not use own knives. Stage sporks only must be used. The fastest to first shot will be awarded a stage prize (a box of sporks perhaps).
  5. Y'know, that looks a *lot* like Ronald Rosser's CMOH citation. In particular the trench section and all the running back and forth. Now there's another difficult to recreate one - what would you do, stage some grenades? (OH GOD YES PLEASE but no, that would be horribly unsafe). That dude... In the dictionary of manliness under "righteous vengeance" it should have this picture: No matter how much you shoot, you will never be as awesome as this guy Back on topic though, how about an Audie Murphy-themed stage reading artillery coordinates from a pad and cracking jokes while engaging with a rifle, then turning to engage close-range targets with shotgun or handgun? Is it allowable or unsafe in some unforeseeable way to force the shooter to perform some arbitrary task in this manner during the course of a stage? Edit: And it is COMPLETELY crazy that the course designers dug that insane trench system. Ft. Benning apparently goes all out! Now there's something difficult to re-create in a civilian context.
  6. If you move to the bay, do a membership at Richmond Rod & Gun; it is the strongest range in the area in terms of access to world-class shooters and events. Twice-monthly USPSA matches and once-monthly IDPA matches, in addition to the access to the action range on weekends and at odd times during the week when it's available, makes membership well worth it. Chabot if it is closer is also a very nice club with twice-monthly multi-gun matches as well as PPC. Both Chabot and Richmond seem to have very active rifle-shooting scenes as well as skeet fields. Chabot is in my opinion a little nicer for static line shooting where you're hanging out, chrono'ing ammo and shooting groups, though it is fairly remote. There are a number of local indoor ranges which do not seem to cater to the competitive shooting scene at all, and a few I will not mention which seem to cater entirely to the paranoid-fantasist home-defense types. Although it is a substantial drive from the Bay Area, an occasional trip to the Sacramento Valley shooting range in Sloughhouse is well worth it, in terms of access to very high quality instruction as well as 300, 800 and 1,000 yard ranges. And, of course, I hope you can stand our insane gun laws. Join Cal Guns Foundation and help us un-f**k these laws please Cheers -
  7. That is a superb idea, but... Yowza! $2,499 for the charging MGM target? I had no idea range equipment was this magnitude of "expensive". I will be *much* more respectful of the action range equipment now... Maybe I could try talking the Richmond Rod & Gun Club into investing in a set The first thing that occurred to me was to make some smartass comment about how you could use R/C trucks instead, but then I realized that someone probably already thought of that and it would actually be a really effective way to destroy an R/C truck ("Dude, you shot the truck!" "Awww, dangit...") and also difficult to keep as standard across all the shooters. What about hanging targets on a big-ass upside-down menorah-shaped wire contraption sliding across another wire fixed to two stakes? I could probably cobble that together just with what's at the range. A cheap electrical motor could be used to draw the targets. Wire would be easy to repair if (inevitably it would seem) shot accidentally. I can't help but think though that someone has tried and discarded the upside-down menorah idea.
  8. Greetings. I'm a beginning 3-gun and USPSA shooter in the Bay Area, shooting primarily at the Chabot Range and Richmond Rod & Gun Club (at which I am a member). I handload .223 and .45 ACP and I'm interested primarily in exchanging technical advice and learning the art of stage construction, as I have a bit of experience designing first-person shooter levels and I'm learning that a flair for stage construction seems to go a long way in the action shooting sport. I'm still at the "run what ya brung" stage in handgun shooting; I shoot a Kimber 1911, a Noveske Rogue Hunter/Armalite SPR hybrid .556 rifle, and a Mossberg 930 JM. I started the account to ask a few stage construction questions I couldn't see answered anywhere else. I'm looking forward to learning more about the sport as I go on. Cheers all.
  9. Jtielke, So what were the primary safety concerns if any when you used the knife in the IDPA setting? Did they stage one particular knife then have you abandon it? From just thinking about it, sweeping the knife hand seems like the first obvious concern. Accidental self-inflicted cuts another. It also occurs to me that... enthusiastic... stabbers might have their hands slip down a knife without a guard (like the folding knives a lot of people carry). So better to have a straightforward, preferably dull-edged blade. Other than the fact that it's a steel or rubber knife, then it's pretty much the same as any IDPA stage requiring the competitor to carry something, it would seem. So far the safest way I can think of to do this would be to have an unloaded firearm table start. At beep engage bad-breath-distance targets (old tore-up targets that are mostly tape perhaps) with stage knife. Abandon stage knife (style points for leaving it stuck in the last target!), pick up and load handgun, proceed with course of fire. Screaming optional.
  10. Haha really? I can't imagine that my, uh... "stab and dash"?... scenario would be that unique with all the zombie fantasists out there. I recall seeing a grip technique with the hands joined together and the off-hand holding an edged-weapon, blade-down, which kind of inspired this.
  11. I'm relatively new to stage design and I was wondering if there would be game-stopper safety or rules issues with having a knife (real or rubber?) as a stage prop which could be used to neutralize targets. Surprisingly a Google search seems to turn up naught as far as precedent stages or similar questions. I was envisioning a stage where competitors would be either compelled to carry the knife throughout the stage (necessitating the use of knife/pistol gripping techniques), or alternatively just to use the knife for the first few targets and then abandon or drop the knife afterwards. For a "knife", I was thinking something that poked small, easy to tape holes, like this old Chinese spike bayonet I have lying around. It sounds like loads of awesome fun to have the ability to use the knife to neutralize targets, although this opens up a can of worms as to scoring knife hits vice gun hits and puts the stage firmly into the "outlaw" category. Has anyone ever thought of or even tried something similar to this? Thanks.
  12. I've actually toyed around with a few programs: Ballistic, iSnipe, KAC BulletFlight Lvl.2 and iStrelok. This DA discussion is fascinating and I'll have to investigate more to see if I can find a good ballistic option that uses this data. Ballistic offers a truing option similar to Atrag. Given this it's probably the best option. I find it slightly clunky compared to BulletFlight, which is clearly more intended for field use. iSnipe rides middle of the pack; it's nice that it pulls meteorological data and slope angle automatically, but these are data that I pull from other applications anyway. iStrelok has a handy reticle view which I find easier to use than the other readouts. It works best with a Horus reticle or similar mil-grid. The reticle view is strangely zoom-agnostic (target size remains the same as zoom increases) which makes this readout slightly odd to use, but it does give you a very good idea of what your holdover should be with a BDC or mil/MOA hash reticle. It is worth noting also that iStrelok has an easy to use zero-atmosphere setting which allows you to vary atmospherics between where you zeroed and where you're shooting; I have not tested this function extensively but it seems a nice feature to have for people that shoot in multiple environments and altitudes. Some other applications which are not mentioned but useful in the ballistic/field shooting capacity: Clinometer Theodolite (augmented-reality land-navigation hacking) Spyglass (like Theodolite, adds a slightly more intuitive map shortcut, includes more ranging features) Weather Underground (pulls weather data from local stations - not as good as a weather meter but for most range shooting acceptably precise, particularly if your range has its own weather station, as many do)
  13. Oh, nice. Couldn't hurt to drop a respectful e-mail. Can't seem to find a "post historian" for Ft. Bragg though - perhaps the museum might suffice? I know, how about a movie-based stage! "At the audible start signal, using a bolt-action, iron-sighted rifle of at least .30-06 caliber engage twenty-five paper targets at a distance of 25 yards..." Aren't 1903's fed by stripper clips? The mind boggles. Keeping in mind that York had a rifle with a 6-round magazine and five-round CLIPS (yes clips) the mind further boggles at what he might have had to do as far as weapon manipulation during his fight. It is mildly amusing to think that perhaps a similar rounds-per-magazine limitation might be imposed upon modern rifles. Perhaps a further condition of .30-06/.308/7.62 fire one round per machine gunner target, while 5.56/7.62x39/5.45 fire two rounds (and ten-round magazines)?
  14. Hey. I'm a long-time lurker and reader; I created an account to ask this question actually, as it's the first time I've seen a question that hasn't been answered. Has anyone given any thought to a multi-gun stage based upon Alvin York's CMOH citation? As a first stage, I'd like to design a stage based on Alvin York's Medal of Honor citation. As near as I can tell, someone posted it as a throwaway thought in a stage design thread, but no one's ever really discussed it much since. From what I've been able to glean from a bit of Google-fu, it sounds difficult even with modern optics and firearms. However, its distance (25 yards) and layout (I'm theorizing an L-shaped machine gun ambush), in addition to the fact that the feat was undertaken from a stationary position seem to make it well-suited for a rifle/handgun stage. So, there are 25-28 credited total kills for York's encounter, depending on whether the regimental account or the biographical account is taken. 6 handgun targets done far to near, per his diary, gives us 19-22 targets simulating machine gunners followed by six handgun targets. I do not know how many Germans it took to service a Maxim gun, but Wikipedia suggests a crew of four. This gives us 5 to 6 groups of 4 targets; let's call it 6 of 4 targets. All the machine gunner targets were taken with headshots; figure a clay disc or a decapitated USPSA target up against a berm at 25 yards could serve. Here, I am unfamiliar with the layout of machine gun ambushes. With two lines and six positions covering 270 degrees, is it as simple as two lines of three evenly spaced target groups? The handgun targets are a little easier for me to figure out. They were engaged from far to near while the targets were at a dead run from a distance of 25 yards. Ideally six targets with heads only exposed would charge upon completion of the upper array, but more feasibly, assuming Mr. York had a split time of 1 second (is that realistic?) we'd get an array of six USPSA targets with the bodies covered with black, spaced 2.5 yards yards apart; that means the nearest target is 10 yards away from the shooter. So the stage goes: Start with loaded rifle (five 5 round magazines if you want to be really authentic!) at low ready and loaded handgun. Engage 25-yard target arrays with rifle, one round each. Clear and abandon rifle and engage upper A-zone (perhaps this should be made clear with hard cover?) of the "running" handgun targets far to near. Does this sound sensible?
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