Cledus

Shot Steve's 9mm last weekend. It's horrible, I'll give him $20 for it -- just to help his family recover from the shame. With cheap Wallyworld white box FMJ ammo it punched a cloverleaf at 25 yards. It's definately a keeper.

I think Steve should divvy up his guns amongst us and take up bowling. Kevin, my gun is now waiting on a new Kmart barrel. Long story made short, busted the barrel underlug and replacing the busted Storm Lake with a Kart. Glad no one got bent out of shape over my comment about not believing gun magazine tests. Only know a couple of the folks who post here regularly and that input could be taken as condescending. Quickly spotted the mention of a gun magazine article and remembered the time I read an article in Guns and Ammo or Shooting Times about the "best ever" "you gotta have one" Pachmayr custom shop gold cups. I bought one. The article had actual facts in it, like Pachmayr customized the gun, and when chambered properly it would go bang. It takes a skilled craftsman to take a brand new late 1970s Colt Gold Cup and create feed problems, install rubber pachmayr grips, and ensure it shot no better than a 12 inch group at 25 yards. Then there was the time I sent a 44 mag to Mag-Na-Porting for a 99% reduction in recoil. And the Dan Wesson custom shop 44 sillouette revolver. It felt like one of their highly touted craftsman filled the action with sand. And....... It only took me 20 some years to figure out you buy guns like cars, test drive one first.

Word of caution, be careful what you buy. I'm sure there's a large group of high dollar guns that do perform up to their advertised capabilities, or better. American-Guns-N-Lies will publish an article about the New And Improved Llama 32 HR Magnum shooting half inch groups at 100 yards..... Or the new Russian 28 gauge side by side that'll down geese that're 80 yards up. Find someone you know/trust who has one, to get an idea of its true performance. Learned this one the hard way several years ago, twice. FYI: the best gun test articles are in Guns Of The West magazine. Half the tests tell you it went bang and looks cool. Comments like "didn't measure the groups, but they were plenty good." They don't publish much measurable information.

Kevin, We're allowing two guns for the state and regional -- using your match as our template (if something works, use it). It should be a hoot. Allan, hope to see you back in TX one of these days.

Allgoodhits/MJ, Yes, have tried your idea, and still do it. This especially works great for new shooters. Take any of the four bianchi events, start on the first stage and just shoot it at a comfortable speed/cadence. Keep doing this until you're comfortable, then move on/back to the next stage. Naturally at some point in time you gotta break out the timer and start the whole drill under time, one stage at a time. But at least you know you CAN hit the Xring. Although it's exceptionally difficult to do under time, if you can shoot for the Xring and not worry about the time during matches, you'll have the accuracy down, and speed will catch up over time. But that's easier said than done. Take your time and get three solid Xs, 30 points. Or blaze away and hope for a 10, an 8 and four fives, 38 points. As far as the mover goes, we do as you described, maybe only get 2 or 3 shots off at the 10 yard line, but make each shot count. Additionally, take a black (or other color you like) marker and make a couple big dots on the target at your lead point. Shoot at those dots. This will do two things, ensure you have the correct lead point, as well as proving to yourself you can hit the X and 10 rings on the mover. It's slow, and takes time. But when you watch a new shooter hit two Xs in a row on the mover and that huge smile, you know it's positive progress as opposed to them getting 5 5s and 1 8 on the first pass and wondering what happened. It's all good and worthwhile practice. You start feeling confident in yourself. Then I drive across two states to shoot a match, forget my right side safety fell off and was in my pocket and dropped 5 shots on the barricade. I've got dozens of anecdotes like this where I drove XX miles and did XX... On the bright side, for the first time in 13 months I beat Dirty Steve in the MS category. Normally I shoot open gun, but have shot MS off and on the past two years. Somewhere Dirty Steve bragged about shooting a 463 on the mover -- he did, I scored the target. I was trying to beat him with his own gun for bragging rights and beat me like a step child..... Good luck

Back in the mid 90s I asked about American rifleman at the bianchi cup shooters meeting. They said the magazine was affiliated with NRA, but that was about it. The magazines are their own entity. To publish competition information, NRA would have to purchase advertisement space. Finally, they (can't remember the guy's name on the competitions board, just remember one was from MN and another napped through the meeting) stated "Shooting Sports" was sufficient. Love the 4-wheeler aricle comments. Ever read American handgunner? Can anyone explain why they always have two complete, multi-page articles on knives? I looked through a couple knife magazines and none of them had firearm articles in them. Personally I'm waiting for American rifleman to publish a feature on archery -- that'll be the brass ring.