Action Pistolero

From what I have been told Starline has changed the 9 super comp brass to accept heavier bullets. Whatever that means. They have also changed the headstamp so that it is not so easy to get 9 super and 38 super comp brass mixed up. RCBS makes honest to God 9x23 dies. 9mm dies work just fine. I guess 38 super dies would work but you would be working the brass a whole lot. Somewhere in the forum I saw pictures of Armscor brass that was split all to pieces. I don't think the savings would be worth it. Especially in the Colt. They should have used a fully supported barrel.

GM, You're right about the trigger control. That's what was nice about having a tack driver. I could be sloppy and still come out okay. When the snow cleared and I could start practicing again I noticed that I would fire 6 rounds at the plates in the times that I did when I was going prone. It's amazing how the training takes over because if I subtracted 2 seconds from my prone times I would get my standing times. In other words I was spending the same time shooting standing as I was prone. Now the trick is too re-train ourselves to shoot slower and concentrate more on the dot and trigger control. The whole time I was shooting the plates I felt like I was daring myself to take the dot off of the plate and then fire. It was a weird feeling! That 5 was at the 25 yard line. It goes back to the prone thing. I used to have to get it done when I went prone and now I can just sink the shots into the X ring. I don't think the top ten is going to change much either exept for a few that are not going to shoot. I don't think there will be that many 1920's. Maybe 3 or 4. I'd like to see 11-20 change a bit with me in there somewhere. I was 21st in 2002 and I want another taste of that. I think it's going to take 48 plates, a 480 barricade and a 476 mover and practical. Come to think of it, that's the kind of score needed to do it for the past few years. I think the plates will be a big factor though. It's all going to boil down to who can handle the pressure.

What a difference a week makes. Last Sat. I shot the MS. regional. It got real bad. Plates- 460 DAMN rule change! Mover 468- 27X Prac 469- 25X And the kicker Barricade 418-35X shot someone elses target. Total 1815- 133X Haven't shot that kind of score in 5 years. They gave me the Monkey award and tied it around my neck riding on my back. Now I have to look at this thing everyday until some lucky shooter gets it next year. Today, monthly match in Hinton, WV. Mover 475- 29X trigger- dot Plates 480! dot- trigger. first time this year. Barricade 478- 44X trigger- dot again Practical 473-31X Where'd that 5 come from. Must have been trigger dot. Total 1906-152X I was beginning to think that I was going to be able to get moved back down to Master class. I had already shot 2 scores out of High Master before today and all it takes is 7. I figured I was well on my way. I switched from a Gilmore tombstone sight to an Aimpoint 4 min dot. Made a big difference, especially on the plates. It's mounted on top of a Gilmore action gun that barely keeps all the shots in the X ring at 50 yards. If my gunsmith doesn't soon get my new gun finished I will have to shoot this one at the Cup.

Jay, It all depends on the state association. In TX, as long as you belong to the association you are eligible. In Va. you have to be a resident. The matches are in Bluefield, Va. and Hinton, Wv. Bluefield is on the Va.,Wv border off of I-77. It looks like you would have to take I-40 to Winston-Salem. Then I-74 to I-77. I did some work in Wilmington back in Jan. and it took me about 4.5 hours to get home. You may not want to make the trip for a monthly match but the regional and state matches at the end of Sep would be worth your while. It would be great if you could make it. Shooting Sports shows a match in Wilmington. Have you shot there? Alan Strawn called the guy up one time but it didn't strike Alan as much of a match. At least not one to drive a long way to. From what I hear they shoot steel at a club in Raleigh but I don't know exactly where it is. I shoot an unapproved Action match in Salisbury but all they shoot is the Los Alamitos and the Plates. It makes for good trigger time anyway. Are you going to make it to Bianchi this year? Soligen, What we are talking about here is tradition, the American way, and standing up for what you believe in. As an open class Action Pistol shooter we used to be able to shoot stages of the Practical event and Falling Plate event in the prone position. Due to this rule change that was forced on us by the Committee and the NRA we can no longer do that. They changed the rule even though the vast majority of us have let the NRA know that we didn't want this change. I and a whole lot of other people think this is wrong. If you get a chance go out and shoot an Action Pistol match. If I knew where you lived I could probably tell you where to find one.

Before they brought on Rudy DuFour as the Action Pistol coordinator I was under the impression that NRA wanted rid of Action Pistol. In my opinion, Rudy has done a very good job getting everything put together after so much neglect. Now I'm not so sure again. I think you are right about this rule change being used to dump A/P. I'm sure that's what the sqeaky wheel getting replaced comment is all about. That's the reason that I wasn't in favor of boycotting Bianchi. Since they didn't listen to us before that would have been a good way to get their attention. Now that we have their attention now would be a good time to get everyone there that we can and hammer them face to face. You can't believe what you see in Shooting Sports. It takes atleast 4 months to get a match listed there. Of the registered matches, the State championship takes the longest because you must have approval from the state organization. I believe the Winnamac match is a state match and I have a Va. state match approved for the end of Sep. My monthly matches for Hinton and Bluefield were approved in Jan. and I haven't seen them either. The best place to check is on the NRA web site. Go to shooting tournaments where they list the nationals, regionals, and state championships and click on other tournaments. The matches get posted there alot faster. If NRA was so concerned about the perfect scores I think that they should have taken this route. Leave the prone alone. Shoot everyone through the four stages in 2 days. The shooters score would then be used to determine overall ranking and class winners. Take the top 35% and have them shoot 2 of the oddball events on Friday. Add their score from the last two events to the 4 event score to determine the winner and top 20.

Trader, Obviously you have not had alot of experience with Action Pistol. Where do you think they got the targets and plate racks used in Glock matches? There are 16 courses of fire in the Action Pistol rulebook and if the club already has a plate rack and D-1 targets they are ready to go. There are only two state champions listed in Shooting Sports because either the match director didn't send in the proper paperwork or the NRA lost it. I'm the 2003 Texas state champ. I apologize for seeming to jump down your throat but this is a touchy subject right now. Due to this rule change and a momentary loss of concentration I missed a plate today. I still won the match but the plates used to be conquered and I could spend my time working on one of the other events. Now I have to back up and start over. Yes. everyone else is in the same boat but I'm still ticked.

Flex, I see what you mean. I didn't mean for it to be taken that way but it is kind of funny. My predictions were right. I was able to clean the plates and shoot more X's at the longer distances but the short yard lines suffered. Target aquisition was a problem close up. Maybe one of these days we can get a sight that you can dial in magnification, choose between a dot and a tombstone and have different size tombstones for each yard line. I received my Shooting Sports today so I'm going to sit down and write Mr. Gilchrist a nice long note.

I don't know why but I didn't get much sleep last night thinking about Gilchrist's letter. Luckily, I don't have to work today. That word "squeaky" kept rolling around in my head. I went back and checked my first post under"proposed rule change" and figured out why. When Rudy told me about this change I asked him what the procedure was to get a topic on the committee's agenda. He said that they take letters written by the shooters and the results of his survey, which was taken at the cup last year, to make up the agenda. Apparently, the survey brought in only a few responses, which I would have taken to mean that the majority of us are satisfied with the way things are going. Rudy told me that they received several letters complaining about going prone and that's how it got on the agenda. I thought if only a few could bring on such a drastic change I wonder what 10 or 20 times more people could do. I emailed everyone I knew, Grant emailed everyone he knew, and I made a post on here to get everyone else involved. I figured we could at least get a debate going and possibly fix the problems in action pistol instead of forcing something on us that we didn't like. The last I checked, I had thought we lived in the United States where the majority ruled. I believe that we have all become victims of Affirmative Action. I wonder what kind of response they would get if they told the Highpower shooters that they could no longer use a sling. I think I've had enough of this. I'm going out to the range and try out a new piece of equipment so that I can possibly "dominate the field". Actually it's a 2 power Aimpoint and I want to see if it will make me concentrate harder on the plates and put more shots in the X ring. By the looks of this thing I'm having my doubts. The field of view seems to be very narrow.

SRT, Can you feel the hate! I asked Rudy about this when he informed me that the committee was going to change the rule concerning prone. He said something about companies in the shooting industry were against the change. I took that to mean that Don was against it so it wouldn't happen. The ICORE guys wouldn't have a problem with using the barricade for support. The revolver shooters are the ones that started it in the first place. You know as well as I do that the average IPSC gun can't hold a candle to the accuracy of an action gun. So if they were serious about the game they would have a gun set up for action anyway. I will be sending Mr. Gilchrist an email regarding his note in Shooting Sports. I believe the last count that I heard on the rule change was 108 responded. 22 were for the change, 5 were undecided and the rest were against. It doesn't take a genius to figure out why so many are ticked off. The stock shooters already run for the marbles in their class. They pay $5000. Open got $7500. If they had more than 30 shooters maybe they would pay out more. Who knows, with this rule change we may have more stock shooters than open.

Eric, I have been loading the 9X23 for the past 7 years. I use 9 supercomp cases and crimp the bullet .002 to .003. That makes my measurement at the case mouth .378. This has always worked well for me. Kevin

STInky, I've had this problem several times. I never could pin any jamming problems on it but as a perfectionist I just can't stand for something to work differently than it once did. Most of the time it is dirt that has wedged itself between the link and the foot. Try spraying gun scrubber in the foot to get it loose. It could also be that the link or foot has a burr on it. Inspect the link and foot for this burr and then take the link out. If it's on the link a couple of passes on fine sandpaper usually does the trick. If it's on the foot gently use a file to remove it. I find that if I take care to have the link positioned against the barrel upon disassembly the barrel comes out of the slide alot easier and the link doesn't get banged up. Kevin

Jim, I had the same problem you are. I trimmed on the follower, tried an Arrendo follower,cut a coil off the spring and cussed a whole lot. I emailed STI and they told me to do what I had already done. It boils down to this, if the first round staggers to one side you can only get 9 in it. If it staggers to the other side you can get 10 in it. It's the luck of the draw as to which side the first cartridge moves to. The solution was that STI made a deal with me and it involved high caps. I would try an SV mag before I went the high cap route but Brownell's doesn't show one so I can't tell if they exist. You could always contact your Senators and tell them not to support the continuation to the '94 gun ban. That way you will be able to get high caps without investing a small fortune. Kevin

From the lack of participation in this topic one could assume that the Cup is not going to be very popular this year. I wonder why? Could it be because of the new rule cange? It's taken alot of wind out of my sails. A friend of mine is not going, mostly because of the rule change. We've made the trip for the last 4 years. We usually shoot the match at Hinton, WV and drive to Winamac to shoot Jim's match and then on to Columbia to shoot the warm up match on Monday. It makes for a gruelling weekend with all the driving but we've had alot of fun doing it. Since he's not going this year I'll have to skip Winamac and just make the trip to Columbia. Since this is also a "World" shoot, one would hope that the prizes would be more plentiful. I got a 10% off certificate from Nill grips and a few bags of Montana Gold bullets for 31st place last year. Doug told me that besides his check he got a gun cleaning kit. I have been told that they are charging the extra $25 so that they can have payouts in the world category. I wonder if this is optional. I forgot to ask. I believe the most exitement we are going to see this year is at the shooters meeting. Kevin

Steve, I'll see ya there. We will be shooting Sat AM, PM and Sun AM. This will be my 4th year. It's getting to the point where I enjoy this match more than the Cup. I have seen very few people draw from the holster or reload from the belt. Low ready is the way to go. I noticed they are limiting velocities to around 1370 this year. They had a whole lot of welding going on last year. They always have two stages with small targets. I believe they are called Hosers Nightmare and John Wayne. If you have a big dot in your C-more you may want to find one with a smaller dot. I had an STI set up with a variable dot Tasco PDP5 just for this match and I've come in 6th for the past 2 years. Count to nine on the first mag then 10 on the others. Kevin Angstadt

Jay, As far as I'm cocerned there are no real Action shooters on the committee. Yes, Phil does shoot Action but only the Cup and maybe a few matches in MS. There are no real grass roots shooters on the committee. I have inquired as to how one gets on the committee and so far no word. I have emailed Mr. Hemphill and have yet to get a response. Rudy told me that he thought that the chairman had to appoint someone. I was told that Phil and Don pushed for this rule change so it seems to me that those of us opposed to this change will never get on the committee. I was told the reason for this was Phil and Don are getting too old and fat to go prone anymore so they didn't want the rest of us doing it. It all boils down to this WE'RE SCREWED!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! The only thing that I believe would get their attention is if shooters like Doug K would not shoot this year. His sponsors probably wouldn't like this very much and I don't think it would be worth risking one's way of making a living. I hate to say this, but I hope the participation this year is down in significant numbers so maybe we will get there attention. Kevin

Dog, I'm assuming that you are sizing the cases first. After sizing they normally get around .005 longer. Measure 10 cases and the trim to the shortest case minus 1 or 2 thou. You only want to square up the case mouth anyway. I trim pistol brass too. Don't let them beat you up about it. I mentioned it on here and I got the third degree. They really let me have it when I told them about the kind of accuracy I get because of my routine. My routine is size, trim, debur, chamfer and sort by weight. I don't really have time for it but it has paid off to get me 4 regionals and 3 state championships. It's amazing what confidence in your loads can do for your performance. Kevin Angstadt

Here's my trick. Measure case wall thickness then bullet diameter. Double the case wall thickness and add bullet diameter. Subtract .003" and that's what the measurement at the case mouth of a loaded round should be. Brass of different head stamps can have different case wall thicknesses. They can also vary greatly in OAL. A short case will not have enough crimp and a long case will have too much. Stick with brass of same headstamp. Crimping on a progressive press can be tricky. Try to work the handle the same every time. Check the feed ramp in the pistol. I bought an STI short block kit a few years ago and the feedramp was so rough it was stripping copper off of the bullet. If it shows a copper streak polish it until all the tool marks are gone.

I spoke with Rudy earlier this week to find out how the conference call went with the AP committee last Friday. He informed me that the proposed rule change will stand which means the rules committee will rubber stamp the AP committee's proposal. This rule change will not affect all AP matches. As a match director. I can issue a bulletin that says shooters can go prone wherever they want. This will however affect the Cup. It will be interesting to see how many shooters show up. 2004 may be my last. I have put my heart and soul into this sport for the past 5 years and this rule change ticks me off to no end. Now I will have to take several steps back and work on things I already mastered instead of working on techniques to carry me forward. To some shooters this will sound like I'm whining. To others, they know what I'm talking about. I will say this, I feel more comfortable going prone but I can still shoot well standing. I will take great pleasure in beating the proponents of this rule change.

Rhino, Come on down to my neck of the woods. (Virginia) It's funny because around here IPSC shooters are like that. I've met a few like what you are talking about in AP. Once you start kicking their butt they come around. For the most part, I have found that you won't meet a better bunch.

Chuck, AP is dying because it is too difficult for the run of the mill shooter. The average shooter may do well in an IPSC match but will be blown away in a AP match. I have found that they commonly don't have the fundamentals to shoot accurately. They just spray and pray. I'll drive 4 hours or more to get to an AP match. I won't do that for an IPSC match. Phil, I have shot AP matches in stock, open and rimfire. I get more enjoyment shooting the open class. Shoot the stock class for a while and then move up to open. There is nothing to say that you have to shoot open right away. Come on down to one of my matches and you can shoot my gun and see what you think. Bruce, Instead of punishing the rest of us because you and Doug can shoot a real high X count, I think they need to change the "Cup" a little. Have everyone shoot the four events on Wed and Thurs. Take the top 25%, in both open and stock, and shoot 2 additional stages such as the Unsupported Standards and the Advanced Military Pistol. Add the scores from the four events plus the last two to get the final aggregate. This will do several things. It will lower the X counts, eliminate the requirement to shoot a perfect score to win (somewhat), and give the shooters who don't want to shoot anything but the 4 events a reason to shoot something else. I have run into a lot of shooters that show up for a match and if one of the other events is to be shot they pack up and leave. The top 25% are always within 20 or 30 points of the winner. This would shake things up a bit and make it more interesting, I think. Plus give us more shooting. Besides, if you can shoot a 480-48x on the Unsupported Standards you more than deserve to win.

Most of the Japanese shooters do go prone at all the distances on the plates. I've tried it but I never could get comfortable with it. The 10 yard line is easy enough standing. I don't see any advantage to it but I'm not going to tell anyone that they can't.

A rule change has been approved by the NRA Action Pistol Committee that says that open class shooters can only go prone on the 50 yard stage of the practical. The reason that I was given was to prevent the 183- 186 X counts. This rule change will not greatly affect the likes of Doug K and Bruce P but it will have a great impact on the shooters that have regular jobs. The next step for this change is to go in front of the rules committee which will meet on Nov. 2nd. My understanding is that unless we raise enough stink about this to have an emergency Action Pistol committee meeting called the rules committee will just rubber stamp the recommendation of the A/P committee. I urge all of you who care about the future of Action Pistol to e-mail Rudy DuFour at actionpistol@nrahq.org and express your opinion. Apparently, all it took to do this was a few people complaining about not being able to go prone to force this on the rest of us. I guess it all boils down to the squeaky wheel getting all the grease. If we knew what would be on the A/P committees agenda before they met, we could voice our opinions to stop this kind of stuff. Let's become the squeaky wheel and show NRA how the majority of us think. Kevin Angstadt

Now that you guys have been raking me over the coals for the past week, it is time for a few lessons. Doug K does have a barrel fixture to test his barrels. My memory tells me that he found one to shoot around .3" at 50. It then shoots .5" out of his gun. I have heard that Riley Gilmore's gun will do the same. Twenty-one years ago I was in Navy boot camp. I had a company commander who's favorite saying was "attention to detail, people". After 8 weeks of getting that pounded into your head it is not easily forgot. As it turns out, atleast in my case, this saying can be applied to my business and to my shooting. Over the past several years I have excelled at both. I use that saying to squeeze every bit of accuracy that I can out of my 1911. I start out with new 9 Super Comp brass. The brass is sized and then trimmed to within .001". I trim because several years ago I received some brass from Starline that was longer than the max. case length after sizing. After I checked my loads I noticed a significant accuracy increase. The case mouths are then deburred and chamfered. I weigh the cases and sort them in piles that weigh within .2 grains of each other. I load the cases in my 650 and size them again and load a primer. I use Federal Gold Medal Match small pistol primers. I don't trust the 650 for powder dropping or cartridge overall length. I drop 5.1 grains of 231 from a Redding competition powder measure. I use Hornady's 124 gr. Hap bullet and weigh them out to within .1 gr. I load those cases with a set of Redding competition dies with seperate seating and crimping operations on a Rock Chucker press. The cartridge oal is 1.235" with a .002" crimp. You precision rifle shooters will recognize these steps. If I was loading a case with a shoulder I would outside neck turn also. I don't go to this trouble for a monthly match or practice ammo but if I'm at a state, regional or nationals you can bet that my ammo is perfect. Action Pistol is all about precision. I want my barrel, slide and frame fit to be tight but smooth. A railed gun gives me that and lasts for a long time. I know my ammo will perform well because I make sure that it is as perfect as I can make it. This way if the nut behind the trigger gets sloppy and lets the shot go when the dot is on the edge of the plate, it will still hit the plate. There are no eights on the plates.

gumshoe, As an avid action pistol shooter I highly recommend them. I'm currently having another action gun built which will make my fourth that has been railed. When I first got my current action gun it would shoot just under 0.5" at 50. After 70,000+ and it's second barrel, it's starting to get loose. I still get groups under 1.5" but I want better. As soon as shooting season is over I will be sending it back for bigger rails. Doug Jones has done all of mine. He can be reached at 248-852-6490. The price is $230 plus shipping to him. The return shipping is included in the price. Kevin

I believe sv45 was talking about NRA action pistol or Bianchi Cup style matches. From the looks of it, your web page is talking about USPSA/IPSC style matches. Kevin