Action Pistolero

Ed, I have put many thousands of rounds through my 1911's and have never had a problem with the slide stop or link. My guns were custom built so there was particular attention paid to this area. I am concerned that something is bad wrong if you found a crack in the slide stop and then broke a link. I believe the problem is your links are too small and you need a longer one. It may last for your last two matches but please have it looked at soon afterward. Be sure to explain to him that you had a cracked slide stop and a broken link. That will steer him in the right direction. Kevin

Ed, It's sounds to me that your pistol had the wrong size link in it. I think it's a good possibilty that the link was too short so the barrel was unable to sit all the way back into the frame during recoil. Since it was too short, the link, slide stop and foot of the barrel was absorbing all the recoil and the link finally gave up. I would take it to a competent gunsmith to get a new one installed. Your sear pin is not the problem. The reason the hammer was not cocking all the way was because the slide couldn't come back far enough to do the job. I would say that things got in a bind under recoil and stopped the slide. That would be why you could manually chamber another round. Good luck, Kevin

Doug, When I weigh bullets I will separate them into piles that are all close to the same weight. When I say that I mean one pile will be 115.0 to 115.1. The next one will be 115.2 to 115.3 and so on. The biggest pile is the one that I use. When I load for Bianchi I will weigh them out until I get 500 in one pile. That gives me enough to shoot the match, sight the gun in and have some to spare in case of a re-shoot. I tried the 115 gr xtp's and found a big weight difference between lot to lot. I was shooting the 125 gr hap's and didn't notice this but then again I bought them in cases of 3000. I now shoot Sierra 115 JHP. They are more consistant lot to lot. I'm going to get raked over the coals again for this but when I first tested my action gun with a schumann aet barrel I got a 0.498" group at 50 yards from a ransom rest following the above procedure. I haven't had the chance to do the testing on my current gun that I would like but it seems to respond well to the weghed bullets. A few weeks ago I shot an Action match with the new rules and shot a 480-42X Practical. Some people say that 2" groups at 50 is good enough for Action Pistol. I want the gun to shoot as tight of a group as possible. That way if I get careless during a match and the dot is on the edge of the plate I will still hit the plate. A 2" gun may or may not. A long time ago I had a Company Commander in Navy boot camp that was always saying "attention to detail people!!!" I've found that it works every time it's tried. I believe that the results that I have had prove my point. Confidence in your equipment and your loads makes a difference. Kevin

Doug, Welcome to the dark side! Now, weigh your bullets, trim your cases and weigh them and start again. You may be amazed at the results.

Little do you know that big brother is watching. I showed Rudy this forum over a year ago while visiting him at NRA HQ. That's how Gilchrist got the info for his "squeaky wheel" comment.

I have the same problem. I make sure that the shellplate is clean. Also, be sure that the thing that pushes the case in the shellplate is clean and has no left over media jammed in it. Be sure to lubricate it after cleaning. That seems to be critical. Mine used to do it often before I started doing this and now I still get a few every thousand rounds. Good luck. Kevin

John is one of those Gems that you find in life that you can only meet once and never forget your conversation with him. I had the pleasure of having more than a few chats with him and he always left a lasting impression on me. He and I were running neck and neck at a few matches and he was always offering me advice on how to do better. You couldn't find a more fierce competitor and a perfect gentleman at the same time. He and I were shooting the Barricade event at the MS regional this year and I fired 6 shots on his target by mistake. I felt like an absolute idiot and John just told me not to worry about it and took it in stride. John, you and your family are in all our thoughts and prayers. God Bless. Kevin Angstadt

GM, Thanks for the info on the Olympic rules. If anyone else knows of rules such as this please let me know. We need all the ammo that we can get. I don't have any idea on the side matches. Kevin

Phil, Alan left out one point that was discussed and that concerned multiple entries at the Cup. This is a done deal and this is the way it will be handled. Next year, besides the awards that they had in the past, there is a new category called "Combined Aggregate". A shooter can enter open and metallic but not be eligable for awards in both. On the entry form the shooter will be asked which category (Open or Metallic) that the shooter wants to shoot for the National Championship. The shooter will then be eligable for awards in their desired championship and the Combined Aggregate. For example, I shoot open so I would shoot both open and metallic but I would be eligable for awards in open and the combined. Not metallic. This prevents a shooter from taking all the goodies in both open and metallic. There was some discussion about the entry for the second gun and what the prizes would be. I was under the impression that the prizes in the Combined would only be plaques. I would like to see the second entry fee be a little higher and the money used to purchase prizes in the Combined. If they used the money that way they could get several firearms and give them out by the Lewis system. I believe this would encourage more second entries and all of us would be shooting for something instead of just the top shooters. There is also an idea floating around on a better way to give out the competitor bag stuff at the end of the match. At this point I am not at liberty to say how it will be done but I will say that I think it will be better. There are some of us on the Committee that have ideas on how to make Action Pistol better and more fun but right now we are limited to trying to put out the fires that keep coming up. This trigger pull thing is the next blaze. As far as I know the Rules Committee has already met and there will not be a minimum trigger pull rule for 2005. The earliest it could happen would be Jan. 2006. Those of us that oppose this have some ideas on this problem but I will not discuss them in any electronic media. Kevin

Peter, Some say that guide rods improve accuracy while some do not. The pinching that you are getting is commonly known as hammer bite. Brownells has a Kings drop in grip safety but I wouldn't recommend one. It all boils down to how much you want to part with. I would suggest a Wilson with a raised pad at the base. To do this the frame will have to be cut and you will have to change to a commander style hammer. Kevin

mpolans, All of my slides are lightened in the rear. The way we did it was to stay behind the breachface atleast 3/8". We then took the rest of the slide down until there was 0.150"of metal above the firing pin hole. This leaves enough material so that you can cut a dovetail for a slide racker. I did this on my STI open class steel gun. I also cut the front of the slide so that it looks like my Beretta 92 slide. The gun runs real well with light loads and I can still put 20 rounds in the mags. Kevin

I never heard anything about the slide breaking and coming back into the shooters face. I was under the impression that the reason for the change was that someone could grab the slide from the front and pull and the slide would come off of the frame. My 2cents worth.

Rhino, That gun shoots only A/P and alot of it. If I want to shoot IPSC, Steel or IDPA I have a different set up for each. I think everyone could say something positive about their performance. I cleaned the Barricade and the Practical. Shot a 5 and an 8 on the mover at 25 yards and then missed those 2 plates on the first run at 25. I can remember getting a little exited like Rhino did and blew it. I finished up with an 1893- 150X. I'm tickled with the x count as that is the highest that I've shot in a while. As for the plates, well, you know. They bit everone. Out of 14 shooters no one cleaned them. They had one 470 and two 460's and the rest slid from there. When it comes to prize tables I always start with the lowest place finisher and work up at my matches like Alan said. I believe to get shooters coming back they need to get something for their money besides the shooting. Thanks for all the compliments. My wife says she wants to meet the guy you are talking about. For those of you that weren't there you missed a good match. It gave me a chance to catch up with some old friends and meet some new one's. After all, that's what A/P is all about. You never meet a stranger. Rhino, I've thought alot about your pinky problem and I think it would be your best bet if you just had it removed. Kevin

Rich, If you are talking about open shooters being able to use the barricade that was decided upon. We can still use the barricade like we have been. There was some talk about the Metallic shooters using the barricade PPC style but that never got anywhere. As far as I know the prone situation was in the 9 other agenda items that we didn't discuss. They like to keep meetings over the phone to an hour so the chairman just picked out the top four that he thought were most important. As it was we went over 1.5 hours on the 4 items. I am hoping that there will be another meeting before Nov. but the chairman didn't sound very interested. If we could have a face to face meeting alot more would get done. BigDave, There was no talk about promotion of the Cup. Rudy did give us a report that classified shooter and tournament numbers are up. Kevin

GM, All I can say is that I feel your pain. I tried but there is also a lawyer on the committee. I want to thank you all for your vote of confidence and hope that I can live up to your expectations. There were 13 items on the agenda but since we were doing it over the phone we were limited to 4. At this rate, it would take 2 more teleconferances or 1 face to face meeting. This all needs to be done before Nov. so it will impact the rules for next year. There was alot of talk about how much it would cost NRA to implement these things. In my mind I can't see how they could afford not to. If participation is what it's all about then the increase in entries would offset any costs incurred. Kimberkid, I'm all signed up for the regional in Brookston so I hope to see you there. Kevin

The A/P Committee had it's teleconferance today and some good things happened. There were 4 items on the agenda: Change the rules on the Barricade. Change Production to DA only. Make corrections to the A/P distinguished program. All safety features on guns must work. The Barricade rule change was shot down! We had alot of discussion about "Open- Modified". Everyone seemed to warm up to this idea. It was then put on the shelf for another date. Unfortunately, it doesn't look like anything will happen before next years Cup. Production will remain as it is. There was some mention of requiring a minimum trigger pull but nothing was decided. We did make a change to the Distiguished program concerning the 10 points that are awarded to the match winner. The 10 points will go to the highest non- distiguished shooter. We also talked about changing the criteria to earn a distinguished badge for the Metallic people. The last thing we discussed was about safeties. I put up a good fight but the "liability" word hit and it was all over. Apparently, the other NRA sports all say something about the safeties having to work and they wanted A/P to fall in line with that. The biggest problem that I can see is that we have opened up another big can of worms. Not only will we 1911 shooters have to unpin, weld up and re-fit or replace our grip safeties but the series 80 guys will have to reactivate those also. I brought up an idea about getting our prone back but that was shelved until we have the discussion about Open- modified. I also brought up an idea about giving us something to aim at on the cardboard targets. Most of you know that at the Cup if you don't shoot with the Super squad or get lucky you won't see the rings on the target. I mentioned that if we could put a black paster on the target we would have a place to actually aim. After all this sport is all about accuracy and all other NRA sports have an actual bullseye on their targets. I was happy to see that Mike Voight sent an email reflecting this. But this idea too was shelved until a later date. All in all I think it turned out pretty well. There was some talk about an actual face to face meeting or another conferance but we'll have to see. It would be good if we could have another one before the rules committee meets in Nov. Kevin

LGator and Rhino, Just checked the rulebook to be sure but you can use the barricade for support in the Los Alamitos. It's only the four cup events where things get screwy. Since we're on this subject, how would you metallic guys feel about being able to shoot the Barricade event using the barricade for support PPC style? That means no part of the gun could touch the barricade, only the shooters hands. Kevin

When checking extractor tension I disassemble the top half and slide a dummy round under the extractor. I put the barrel back in and push it up into the locking lugs and then slide the barrel back out of the slide. The round should stay put. I bought an extractor tuning tool from Brownells that's made by Jack Weigand. It works really well. They also sell a kit that you can measure the amount of tension. You could try to deepen the cut. At this point what do you have to loose. When you radius the extreactor behind the claw just barely round the edge. Hope this helps. Kevin

Two Registered matches, one weekend!!!! The Dawn Sportsmans Club in Hinton, Wv. will host the 2004 Hillbilly Cup Action Pistol Regional on Sep 25th. Classes will be open, metallic sight and rimfire. Competitors will be allowed to enter two classes. Courses of fire will be Mover, Falling Plates, Barricade and Practical. Turning targets will be utilized. Awards will be plaques as well as cash. The Triangle Sportsmans Club in Bluefield, Va. will host the 2004 Cardinal Cup Action Pistol State Championship on Sep 26th. Classes will be open, metallic sight and rimfire. Competitors will be allowed to enter two classes. Courses of fire will be Mover, Falling Plates, Los Alamitos and Speedload Challenge. Turning targets will be utilized. You do not have to belong to the state association or be a Va. resident to compete. The overall champion must be a Va. resident to receive the plaque from the state association. I will, however, award the overall champions in each class with a plaque in addition to prize money. The two Clubs are about 40 miles apart. I am planning on the match Motel to be in Princeton, Wv., which is about halfway between the two clubs. Those interested please contact me via this forum with your email address so that I can send you the match bulletins and entry forms. Kevin

Chuck, You can still compete with your revolver. Just ask George Mowbray. He was clean this year going into the mover. Then he shot the worst mover that I have seen him shoot in 5 years to wind up with a 1904. Seems to me that you could do what everyone else here is telling us to do and that is practice. Big Dave, How many AP matches do you shoot each month? Are they all at the same range? The reason I ask this is that last year I shot 25 AP matches in 9 states. Six of them were registered. If I had the time I would have shot more. Every one of these matches are run by dedicated open class shooters. If you tick these people off there may not be as many approved matches as we have now. I know this first hand as I run matches at 2 clubs. I dropped 3 matches this year because I am fed up with the rule change and NRA's attitude. NRA made the right changes with metallic. Instead of making all these changes within a short period of time they need to sit back and see where the growth is. As I told Rudy, I believe metallic will grow to the point where we have an equal number between open and metallic. Let that grow and leave us alone. If you are going to get serious about a shooting sport than you are going to have to have a gun dedicated to that sport to do very well. Ask Rob what other sport he shoots the gun he shot this year at the cup. Last weekend was the first match that I shot since last fall that I went prone where I wanted to. I didn't shoot very well but a funny thing happened. I had fun!!!!!!!!!! Besides all that up and down is like doing crunches and helps keep down the spare tire. My performance at this years cup proved that I don't have to go prone to do well. I came in 17th overall and 3rd in the plates. I shot a 1900 the hard way. I bombed on the mover and the barricade. I came back and cleaned the plates and dropped one 8 on the practical. I like going prone and have fun shooting that way. If I can't have fun than what's the point. Kevin

Rhino, Here's a list of the modifications that are allowed fresh from the Jan 1, 2004 rulebook and yes, the damn prone rule change is in there. (a) Replacement or modification of grips to fit a competitors hand or facilitate loading. No part of the grip may encircle the hand. Thumb rests are prohibited. ( Wide target style hammers and triggers. © Checkering and stippling are allowed. (d) Replacement of factory metallic sights with those of another manufacturer. (e) External finishes, either protective or decorative, or othernon-functional embellishments such as engraving, inlays, or inscriptions. So the answer to your question is yes, your S&A magwell is allowed. The other question that was asked about a barrel being changed would not be allowed in production unless it was a replacement made by the manufacturer of the gun. If STI catalogued their pistol with a Kart barrel then it would be allowed.

rhino, I would call NRA to get your classification changed. Talk to Rudy first. They made the new class but the score cards that match directors turn in do not have Production listed. It took them several years to get Stock on there so in the mean time I would cross out stock (at the bottom of the card where the scores are written in) and write in Production from now on. Technically, you would have to shoot the state match as unclassified in production. Even if you hurry I doubt if you could get a new card by the state match.

Sounds to me like the bolt in the middle of the shellplate is too loose. Try tightening it up a little and see what happens. I have mine set so that it drags just a little. My 2 cents worth.

Bruce, Nice to see that the X count for you two hasn't suffered very much. From what I have been able to figure out that's why we got this stinking rule change in the first place. Now I have more ammo to hit them with at the shooters meeting. I was hoping to make it to Topton yesterday but I finally got my new gun and things aren't working out very well. I don't have the first round loaded for the Cup. See ya in a few weeks, Kevin Angstadt

BigDave, I don't know where you learned your math but the way they taught us here in Va your score of 1627 works out to be 85%. Here's the break down: High Master: 99-100% Master: 96-98.99% Expert: 90-95.99% Sharpshooter: 80-89.99% Markman: Below 80% There's one thing Alan knows and that's the rulebook. It's been a learning experience for all of us. Last year they changed the way they using the scores to move shooters to the next higher class. Normally they take the average for atleast 288 rounds but last year it only took 144. It also took only 144 rounds to get classified the first time. There were a few shooters shooting the Cup as unclassified and had been shooting there for 5 years. Kevin