Action Pistolero

Thanks, Mike. Hope to see ya there. I'll be bringing 3 others. Kevin

Cr, I believe the rule states that the gun must have a production run of 1000. Single or double action pistols are allowed. The problem with production is you really can't do anything to the gun. If it didn't come with an ambi thumb safety you can't install one. Production is just like Steve said. It was intended to get more people interested in shooting Action Pistol without them having to spend a bunch of money. If you're serious about shooting A/P then you will want a gun that fits into the Metallic class. The gun will be more shooter friendly. Kimberkid, What's the news on Winamac? Kevin

Steve, If you look closely in 3.1 (the first rule change) it says that all standard safeties must operate. It looks as if all competitors can go prone from 25 on back but I seem to remember Rudy saying that they could issue a match directors bulletin saying that only the Open class will go prone from 25 on back. I wouldn't get to Columbia and count on going prone on the plates. Kevin

40, It takes 144 rounds to get classified. Usually a match is 144 or 192 rounds. It is based on a percentage of the highest possible score. Here's the breakdown: High Master 99- 100% Master 96- 98.99% Expert 90- 95.99% Sharpshooter 80- 89.99% Marksman Below 80% If you fired a score of 1650 out of a possible 1920 your percentage would be 86% which would be a Sharpshooter class score. There are 3 different classifications: Open, Metallic, and Rimfire. Hope to see you on the range. Kevin

I have a marvel conversion that I installed on it's own Caspian frame. It's set up for Action Pistol so it has a shroud on it. I took the scope base off and it works fine. The comp works real well just keep an eye on the retaining screw. I had mine in with red lock tight and it still came off. I was told that I should install a 45 ejector. I haven't had any ejection problems. The only complaint that I have with mine is that the trigger pull is heavier than I like them. I'm using a 17 lb mainspring because anything lower than that won't set them off 100%. That puts the trigger pull in the 1.75lb range. I'm not sure about your question on the base pads. The single stack mags are Metalform 22 ACE mags. You will have to drill and tap them to accept base pads. I've never seen one of the double stack mags. It looks like you have all the parts listed for the frame. They are a real joy to shoot. I like to see how fast I can get all 6 shots off at 10 yards on the barricade. It's a hoot to see the reactions that I get. Kevin

Jim, Why a 147 gr bullet? If I'm looking for a steel load it would be light and fast. In other words, light recoil and fast slide speed. I shoot 9x23 almost exclusivley. To get the slide speed up you will have to increase velocity which will be a powerful load with the 147. I use 4.6 gr of supertarget with a 115 gr bullet. Not much more recoil than my 22 and velocity is 1100 fps. Kevin

GM, If your coming over from NZ start in Virginia. There's a match in Bedford the 2nd Sat. then Bluefield the next week then Hinton, WV the next and hopefully Winamac will be the next day and then your on your way to the warm up match on Monday. There is also a match in Hinton on April 30th if you get here early. There is usually a match in southern MO on the 21st but I can't remember the town. Kansas City also has matches but I don't get their schedule. If you can make it, come on over. Kevin

Steve, If you didn't booger it up too bad have someone weld it up and re-fit it. That's alot cheaper than a new one. I don't know why but I have the worst time fitting those. I boogered the one up on my STI and had welded and did the same thing again. I leave them to an expert. Did you mess the one up on your new gun or is this the KImber? Kevin

SRT, I'm not sure what you mean by "waffling" on the rules. The telecon's that we have had so far have been spent on keeping our barricade wings and getting some prone back. We have been trying to straighten out the messes from last year. I'd like to do some things to make the sport better instead of taking time to put out the fires. The grip safety issue came up out of the blue as far as I'm concerned. I was the only one that didn't cave but I'm only one voice out of 7. I'm hoping that when the trigger pull issue hits we can take care of both of them at the same time. The part that really bothers me is that we created the Open Modified category to get more new shooters to Bianchi. Now those shooters will have to fix the grip safety just to shoot Bianchi. If I was one of those shooters and heard about this rule change I think I'd go for the Steel Challenge instead. Seems to me NRA has just shot themselves in the foot on this one. I would assume that a shooter could go to check in with a letter from the gunsmith that the only safety built into the gun was the thumb safety. If it were me I would have another grip safety fitted as a back up. Columbia is a long way for me to go not to shoot. Kevin

Looks like the closest Action match is at Berrien Springs which is on the west side of the state. I talked to the guy a few weeks ago and he seems very interested in getting a first class Action program set up. My understading is that NRA went to look at the range because they wanted to host Bianchi. The guys name is Martin Prillwitz at 404-461-9978 or he has someone working with him by the name of Bruce. Email is bruce@flagelmorgan.com. I would stick with the 1911 and not mess with a Beretta. The Beretta would be okay for IDPA but there would be a disadvantage in the other sports. Para is supposed to be coming out with a high cap 9 in LDA. They should be out in Jan. It's listed on their web site but when I tried to find one they said Jan. I'm not sure if it's available in single action but I would assume that it is. Kevin

You didn't mention Action Pistol. Doesn't suprise me though. You could shoot Action with a Ruger Mk111 and a red dot. A cheap and fun way to start. Where are you located? I may be able to find you a match. Kevin

I have received numerous emails and phone calls concerning the letter that NRA sent out recently concerning the 2005 rule changes. Hopefully, this post will eliminate some of the confusion. Open Modified is a gun commonly used for IPSC or Steel shooting. It can have all the bells and whistles that the Open class guns have except wings. The Open Modified category is a sub category of the Open class just like Production is a sub category of Metallic. Shooters choosing to shoot in this category will shoot the courses of fire just like the Metallic shooters. In other words you cannot use the Barricade for support and no shooting prone except at 50 yards on the Practical. I realize that the letter states that it is the shooters option to shoot from prone at 25 yards on the plates and 25 and 50 yards on the Practical. The Committee did not discuss making any changes concerning prone shooting for Metallic, Production or Open modified shooters. Prone shooting for these shooters will remain only an option at 50 yards on the Practical. The changes were made for the Open class only. All standard safeties must operate means all guns competing. Not just Open Modified. My gun is going back to the gunsmith tomorrow to fix this. The guns will be checked as you check your guns in and get that sticker. This will be done at Green Valley on Monday and the Hotel on Tuesday. As far as I know "all standard safeties must operate" means the series 80 stuff had better work. I have discussed one way to get around this in one of my other posts. It all boils down to this. If you show up at check in with a non operational safety you will have to fix it or not shoot the match. I don't agree with the changes concerning safeties but majority rules so I have to suck it up and get mine re-activated. I had thought that we were good to go on these rule changes but they have to be approved by the Board of Directors. This will take place around Jan. 8th and 9th. I'm assuming that they will just rubber stamp the A/P and Rules Committees recommendations. What I don't want to see happen is a bunch of shooters contacting NRA and causing a big stink over this. It didn't help us last year when we tried it and I don't want to see it work against us this year. I know it doesn't seem like much but it took alot of convincing to get what we got. We have to make changes a little at a time. All you Match Directors need to get the word out and let your shooters know about Brian's web page so that we can get the information out to the shooters and so Brian can make some money. The best way we can thank Brian for this venue is to buy what we need from him. Kevin

Anyone that uses this forum has no excuses about not hearing about rule changes. If you will notice that everything that was mentioned in that letter from Rudy has already been discussed in this thread. I no sooner walked in the door last night after 10 days on the road and received a phone call from a shooter that was all confused about the changes. He had a good excuse. He doesn't have web access. The rule changes for next year are official but they have to wait until Jan 1st before they can be published. They were approved by the A/P committee and the rules committee in Nov. As far as I know the next A/P committee meeting will be at Bianchi. I believe it normally takes place on Sunday after the match. Kevin

Doug, You snuck that one in on me. I just checked www.alco target.com. They have the D-2 targets. Kevin

My practice regimen will be to start off shooting groups at 50. I want to gain the confidence that I can sink them in the X ring. Practice what you don't like. That's normally where your weak spots are. I had a good shooter tell me that he hates the Practical and that's where he falls apart. When you're shooting the plates at the longer distances pay attention to what's going on in front of you ie how the gun lifts in recoil and where the front sight was as the shot broke. Try to hit the plates in the middle up close and try to hit that spot all the way back. On the Barricade shoot the shots at 25 and 35 without a par time in the timer. Just use the timer to start and concentrate on getting the shots in the middle. Then work on picking up the speed to the time limits. I will be working on the longer distances on the mover. I don't care if it is snowing. Keep the practice sessions to 2 to 300 rounds. Any more than that and you just get tired and more frustrated. Then it becomes a waste of ammo. How did the Glock match go? Kevin

I use the old style and I believe that you'll find that quite a few of us prefer the old style. Mine gets jammed up sometimes and for some reason a burr develops. The burr is inside the measure where the powder bar slides back and forth. I use a file to remove the burr and it goes back to working like new. Kevin

Shoot next to Alan for a while and you get used to shooting at your own speed. I'm normally shooting the third plate as he finishes. The reason for different rules is so the many are not punished because of a few. There are some shooters that can't or don't want to go prone. Here's what it all boils down too: If you have good eyes, don't want to go prone and you don't want to spend alot of money shoot Production. If you have good eyes, don't care to go prone and can spend a little more money shoot Metallic. If you have bad eyes, can't go prone and can spend some more money then shoot Open Modified. If you just want to flop around or shoot standing on your head from 25 on back, can spend a good bit of money and just want to have one hell of a good time shooting a match then shoot Open. If you have bad eyes, can't go prone and can't afford the ammo for the production gun, I'm sorry I can't help you. I'll get off the soapbox now. Kevin

Mike, Thanks for the compliment. I try to hit the center of each plate on my first run to give me an aiming point for the rest. I try to hit the same spot every time. If I don't hit the mark I usually still hit the plate. If your just aiming at the plate sometimes you veer off the plate before the shot breaks. Steve runs the matches in San Antonio that I have shot for the last 4 years. He was having problems in Oct. and I shot the gun and found the shots going left, I believe. If anything Steve needs to learn to use that little screw on the side of the rear sight. The one commonly known as the windage adjustment to the rest of us. Just picking, Steve. If I can ever get the damn slide and frame fitted on my new STI I will be playing with Metallic. The little experience that I have shooting the plates with one I have found that I am constantly changing my aiming points at the different distances. When I get things ironed out I plan on sighting the gun in at every distance so that I can aim at the same point on the plate just like my Open gun. I'll adjust the sight at each yard line. Steve can give you some helpful info himself. We were shooting the State match in Lake Charles and Steve said to me "be sure your mags are seated all the way". I remember thinking that I haven't had that problem with this gun. Sure enough, I was shooting the mover at the 25 yard line and only got one shot off!!!! I check that every time now. Did you find out anything about the match at Winamac? Kevin

I just talked to Rudy and confirmed that there will not be a seperate classification for Production. Also, there has been some talk around about the prone rules changing for Metallic and the new Open Modified. The rules are still the same. No prone except at 50 yards. The change only affected the Open class shooters. Kevin

SRT, As far as I know the only classifications are Open and Metallic. Production is no more than a sub category of Metallic therefore your Metallic classification is used. Production is just one of those things to try to get more shooters at Bianchi. The new Open Modified is the same thing. Kevin

mac266, If the sights came on the gun from the factory it would be considered a Production gun. However, the only match that I have seen that has a Production class is Bianchi. I fired 9 registered and countless monthly matches last year and Bianchi was the only one that had it. I'm the match director for two clubs that run Action matches and we find that not enough shooters show up with a production gun to warrant a different class. Where's the match? I need all the practice that I can get. Kevin

Tangram, The test to see if the over travel screw is turned in too far is to hold the hammer back with your left thumb and hold the trigger back. Slowly release the hammer. If you feel the hammer catch on something turn the screw out a little. Repeat the process until you no longer feel that catch. The catch that you are feeling is the hammer hooks hitting the sear. That's why you can turn that screw in far enough so that the gun will not fire. If you don't remove the catch you will mess up a good trigger job. Kevin

Mike, I still haven't heard anything about the series 80 stuff. I would "lighten" the slide by taking the markings off of the sides and plug the plunger hole. Will the match be at Winimac or Brookston next year? I hope it will be on Sunday so we can make it. I got a call from Rudy today and he had a few questions. Apparently someone wanted to know if they could put a mover type base on their Metallic gun. I couldn't think of any reason why not except for that catch all thing about the "spirit" of the match. He has been getting emails about the rule change concerning prone. Somehow shooters are getting the impression that going prone from 25 on back was for all competitors. This was discussed for the open class only, not Metallic, Production or Open Modified. Kevin

I start with the last place finisher and work my way up. The top finishers are getting cash and other awards so everyone walks away with something. Guns would be a different story. A random drawing would be best for those. The Kansas City guys do it right, in my opinion. The match fee is $85 and you get a $50 certificate from Zero and a $50 certificate from Starline as you make your first trip to the prize table.

It's official! We have our prone back at 25 yards on the plates and practical. I wanted atleast from 20 on back but Doug and I only have two voices against five. Open Modified is a go so all you IPSC and Steel guys have no more excuses. These shooters will fire the four stages the same as the Metallic guys which means no prone except at 50 and no using the Barricade. You won't meet a finer bunch of shooters anywhere else. I had a blast my first time out. Those of you that have been before can bring a friend and you both can save $50 on your entry fees. The second gun is only $25. I have been told that you will shoot your primary gun all the way through first. Just be sure your grip safety works. I'll be getting mine repaired in a few weeks. For you Series 80 shooters I'm not sure what to tell you. The rule will say "all standard safeties must operate". You could say that the series 80 feature is a safety feature and not a safety device. See ya in Columbia, Kevin