ClangClang

Yes, the early slides had a very deep channel milled into the slide for weight savings. This left the top of the slide so thin there was not enough metal remaining to perform the slide cut. You can easily tell with a photo of the inside of the slide. This is not a great photo, but it's the best I could find online in a couple seconds. You can see the full length channel cut into the slide. (Ignore the red circle) Newer slides do not have that channel cut. It is all steel.

I wouldn't institute a formal ban. This competitor simply owes you the amount of the chargeback. Until he settles his tab, he is unable to enter any of your matches. It's up to this joker whether he wants to stand on principle and give up USPSA or he wants to shoot.

My Gen 1 Sub2K was a jam-o-matic. Couldn't get it to run reliably even after some polishing work at ~1000 rounds down the pipe. Sold it off. I've heard the Gen 2 versions are a little better, but haven't ever shot one.

Highly unlikely. Not gonna happen for a gun designed directly for a USPSA division where SA isn't allowed at all.

This is one of the most intense, challenging, complex, and emotional matches I've ever shot. In 10+ years of competitive shooting all around the country, this match stands out as an absolute highlight and I'm more proud of my finishes here than anything else I've done in my shooting "career." As @Matt in TN mentioned above, the stages emulate real battles that 5th group has endured, often paying the ultimate price. Jimmy Moriarty was one of the Green Berets killed in the ambush on King Faisal Airbase in Jordan in 2016. Receiving an award from his father James Moriarty (who ran and shot the entire course, in his 70's, while wearing his late son's web gear) had me on the verge of breaking down in tears in front of 150 strangers. It's something I'll never forget. More on his story: https://www.nytimes.com/2016/11/06/world/middleeast/jordan-us-military-shooting.html I can't stress enough how unique this match is and I encourage everyone to consider adding it to their calendar. FYI, even in a COVID-19 year, it will probably sell out in just a couple minutes.

This is exactly what the Associated Gun Clubs range in Maryland has done. About ~20 different gun clubs across the entire region got together and created a range for members of any of the clubs to use. All the clubs have different "flavors" (one is for members of the local military base, one is for vets, one is a church-centric group, one is a Jewish group, one is action/practical-shooting focused, a couple are shotgun/clay focused, etc). To get a range badge, you need to be a dues-paying member any of the clubs (around $20-$30/year) and then go through the safety orientation, and pay for your range badge (~$185/year). The range has been around for 75 years and the board has historically been very "fudd" but that is slowly but surely changing because of the exact suggestions made in this thread - dedicated shooters got on the board of directors and drove the change. After 50 years of boring bench shooting, this past year they finally completed 4 action bays and now host IDPA, outlaw steel, and 2 Gun/3Gun matches. More info about how they're organized is on their website: https://associatedgunclubs.org

Better yet, get a Pelican Air 1615 which is suitcase-sized. Doesn't look like a gun at all. The case is 29"x15" and the hypotenuse is 32", long enough to fit a complete 16" AR with a muzzle device (as long as it's got a collapsible stock) and will fit just about any shotgun barrel. Only "negative" is you have to break down the shotgun and possibly your rifle, but for me, the benefits far outweigh the minor annoyance of 2 minutes of disassembly. NB: Even if your AR "fits" the case will probably pack better if you have it broken down.

Yes, but it's very easy. Unscrew the barrel nut with your hand, pull all the parts off, then loosen two hex screws. The whole thing takes about 60 seconds once you've done it a couple times.

The stock X5 Legion is definitely "good enough" to not hold you back from winning anything. Of course the caveat is if you're winning, you would have won no matter what was in your hands anyway. I think it's the best striker fired trigger on the market, aside from the Walther Q5 Match, which is a little crisper with less travel. But if you're coming from Glocks, it will be a breath of fresh air.

This video might be helpful for people with an X5 who are shooting it with irons.

Sounds like you live in NJ! I hope your town is good about extensions!

That's interesting. I know that within my little friend group, there are at least 5 (if not 7) different P320's with the 2 port Ultra comp on a subcompact slide. All run perfectly with pretty much any factory ammo except for Blazer Brass 115. I know one guy has occasional extraction issues with Geco 115 (maybe 1-2 rounds per 21 rd mag?). I believe everyone has stock Sig slides though, not the Norsso. I vaguely recall reading something about the Norsso slides being made to tighter tolerances and having tighter lockup for enhanced accuracy, but I could be making that up. However if true, it could be part of the issue - the tight fit is robbing the slide of energy. I would also be curious to know the exact weights of the Norsso vs stock slide. If the Norsso is heavier, that could also be contributing to your problem. Finally, some basic questions that are probably moot, but need to be asked. Gun is clean or dirty? What lube do you use, where do you apply it, and how much? In what kind of temperatures have you encountered these issues? How many rounds on your recoil spring? Have you been able to try another spring known to be good, just to confirm that you don't have a fluke bad spring?

Just to further drive home the post I made above: This is a screenshot from Ben Stoeger's instagram. It shows the effect on hit factors (i.e. how you win or lose matches) based on the balance of time vs accuracy (i.e. points) in your stage. It shows the same results for Major vs Minor. It's also why trying to devise a method for selecting when to shoot on the move vs shoot from static positions between movement is almost impossible. It's just too hard to make assumptions about the time it would take to move X distance while maintaining Y% accuracy.

This website has been a tremendous resource to me in my practical shooting "career" (lol) and the same for virtually everyone who has ever stepped foot into the forum. It's been 7 years since I registered my account and I probably lurked for a good 2-3 years prior to that. I would be gutted to see it disappear. There truly is no other forum (which I'm aware of) dedicated to practical/competitive shooting with even 1/10th the traffic, participants, etc. BE is a truly unique resource and if it were to be shut down, the wealth of information that would be lost is staggering. As an internet denizen of 20+ years, and current employee in the technology/web application world, I can absolutely guarantee that charging an access fee to the general forum will ensure the forum's rapid death. The worst thing you could do is implement a change that would be rejected by the majority because most (but not all) people expect the internet to be free. It would dramatically lower site traffic which would instantly tank the value of the forum to advertisers. It would also tank the "value" of the forum to regular users, if the depth and breadth of knowledge here were to be significantly cut. Most people come here for advice/experience. If there's no one left to answer questions or discuss shooting, no one will bother posting at all. I don't think the proposal as laid out in the OP would be successful. The Classified forum doesn't have nearly the traffic that would warrant $180/year in fees. Virtually no one would participate. Perhaps in early 2019 the Classifieds were busy enough to warrant a charge, but once the "new" moderation scheme was implemented, my perception is that utilization dropped dramatically. Only a person with access to the traffic logs can say for sure, but I know I spend less time on Enos than I used to. The Classifieds were the major draw that would encourage me to log in multiple times per day to hunt for good deals, because they would often be sold in mere minutes. Now I swing through much less frequently and see fantastic deals sit for days on end. People don't want to risk catching a ban due to subjective criteria, so they just don't list items here and use other forums instead. I know I've stopped posting items here unless they're truly USPSA specific, whereas I used to be unafraid to list any shooting-related items. And I don't think anyone could look at my posting history and argue that I've abused the classifieds or posted anything other than direct technical discussion of practical shooting, yet still, I don't use the Classifieds, ergo the entire forums, nearly as much anymore. My humble suggestion for keeping the forums solvent: Implement banner ads to generate reliable base income. Targeted ads from your vendors and other firearms retails would be highly successful and be worth significant CPC to advertisers. I know I would click on an ad for a good sale on bullets/guns/etc. Tiered subscription services: Free - Unlimited forum usage. Limit on stored PMs (50?). No post signature. 50 posts before Classified access, and thereafter limited to 1 post per month in the Classifieds. If possible with forum software, also limit to only 1 bump per week. Limit search to only 1 every 60 seconds (saves significant server resources). Enthusiast - $5/month. Increase to 500 stored PMs. Immediate Classified access with 3 post per month limit, 1 bump per thread every 72 hours. Supporter - $15/month. All ads hidden. For the real BE diehards who would happily pay any nominal amount to support the forums. No limit on PM storage. Special badge/icon to identify under their avatar. Dedicated forum only for Supporter level accounts. Immediate classified access, limit 10 posts per month, 1 bump per thread every 24 hours, perhaps allow editing longer than 24 hours? Would make it much easier to manage sales posts for an individual user. Premium - $25/month, pre-paid annually. Same benefits as Supporter, plus 2 free tubs of slide glide each year and a 30 minute phone call once a year with Brian to ask a question relating to practical shooting, zen, mindset, philosophy, etc. I don't expect too many of these to sell, but it sure would be neat. When a Classified post is closed (i.e item is sold) auto-send a PM reminding the seller that donations, even 1% of the value of the sold items, help keep the forums afloat. Affiliate links to Amazon and other e-tailers (you might be doing this already, not sure) This sort of arrangement preserves (maybe even enhances?) site traffic which is what keeps the forum valuable, generates both advertising and user revenue, and doesn't inhibit anyone from participating in the discussion of practical shooting. Users can stop worrying if their content to classifieds ratio is high enough to avoid being spanked by the mods.The mods themselves would have a significant reduction in their moderation responsibilities and make life easier. I will remark that the one limit which I've seen implemented on other sites, but would urge you to avoid, are limitations on posting photos. For any pursuit relying on nuanced technical/mechanical detail (i.e. firearms), a picture is worth a thousand words. Keep the photo posting as pain-free and seamless as possible to ensure high value site content. I know that I would absolutely sign up for the "Enthusiast" level account if it were structured similar to the above. The way to scale revenue up on the internet is keep the costs low and the conversions high. Lower fees entice far more people to spend money, resulting in far higher revenue. $5/month is fairly easy to swallow. $3/month would be even easier - perhaps $36/year annual fee if prepaid? And to put my money where my mouth is, I just purchased your book and a tub of Slideglide. (Note: I initially went to make a donation, but the donation site isn't SSL secured, so I wasn't about to enter my CC details. Made a purchase instead. Secure the donation site and I'll go make a donation as well). For what it's worth, I did a quick calculation, and my (highly conservative) estimates show that Google AdSense would pay out ~$300/month. A higher CTR/CPC (which would likely be the case for these forums, due to how targeted/specific the audience is) would result in a dramatically higher revenue. Adsense would obviously not be the ideal choice for your advertising platform due to their anti-gun stance, but the indicative value remains.

I introduced the "Wuhan Handshake" today at my match and had a whole bunch of people using it by the end of the day.