Gooldylocks

Absolutely, much smaller amounts of actually good practice can be more than worth a ton of bad practice. Which is why I am still leaning in the PRS direction. But if you are averaging 1000 rounds of rifle a week that has to help haha.

Well that is way ABOVE average. Which is awesome. Clicking through Practiscore looking at every match labeled "USPSA", I see Ms and GMs as being quite sparse. Most matches have 1 or 2 at most. But this is a weird tangent. My apologies. Personal attacks don't really help a conversation at all. I know where you, and James, and Craig shoot so it seemed kind of implied, since you all shoot with a lot of really talented people down there. I read it as "well if you shot somewhere like we do you wouldn't think that." I see it was just a joke. Again, sorry.

Clearly I am avoiding that since I am on here hahaha. To be fair, you guys are the ones saying there is no heat out here without ever shooting here. At most majors (lvl 2s) in this area there are between 2-4 GMs and 4-10 Ms. I would say that seems pretty average for the country, isn't it? As an aside, congratulations on making M. (sincerely) I will see what I can do. Unfortunately most of the open shooters here locally are switching to PCC, which makes me cry.. There used to be like 5 Ms or higher at all of our club matches, but one doesn't shoot too much anymore and two of them have switched to pretend-rifle full time, so now there are usually only 2 or 3. #deletePCC If it is a 28 round stage with steel and tight shooting, I am going to do a reload 90%+ of the time. Planning a reload at 16-24 vs taking 3 makeups and having to do a reload on the fly that you weren't planning is worse, do you not agree? I am not, and never have, been telling people to not get mags that hold more ammunition. What I have been saying this whole time, and stand by, is that the difference between 26 and 30 isn't going to win you a match. This thread started as a new open shooter saying "is 21 in my 140s enough?" The short answer is a resounding "yes" as far as I am concerned. The longer, better answer is obviously if you have the money obviously upgrade your mags to 23/24 and 29/30.

More like over-caffeinated and under-slept, with a short fuse today haha.

I'm certain that I won't have that issue, but thanks for the concern. I don't need to do the experiment, I have already done it. It is to teach you something that you can't seem to grasp. Seriously Ben, it doesn't make nearly as big of a deal as you all think it does. lol okay A shooter. I will shoot my next match with ten just for you, would that make you happy?

Fact. People forget how serious the consequences really is for being lax about safety.

Use that factory STI tube, put TTI or Grams guts in it, put on TTI pad. 29 rounds. Much cheaper than an MBX. How many does your factory mag hold? If 26+, just go practice and get better to start with. you may be surprised.

Show me. Give me one example where it cost someone a match, because of their 26 rounds vs that guy with 29. I showed you several examples going the other direction, at least give me the courtesy of the same. Unless all you shoot is 30 round complete hoser stages with no where to reload, I would put money on it makes less difference than shooting on the move efficiently, shooting into and out of position well, and just being generally aggressive in how you shoot stages. All things you are pretty good at James, obviously. The major I won with 140s only had one other GM and 5 Ms (with one who should be a GM, and one who is a GM in Limited). I am too lazy to look up the matches where my friend (that shoots a 40, hearsay!) won to see what the heat was like at those matches. But just thinking back to them, they were pretty similar.

Shoot your next match with nothing but your 140s and tell me where you finish (% wise) compared to normal. My guess is exactly the same. Your last match you were at 85% of the winner, so let's see if that changes with 140s. It doesn't cost you anything 99% of the time, and the other 1% of the time it won't make a big enough difference to win or lose you a match.

Did that stage win him the match, or did he just get a couple more points than the next guy? My guess is Cody won, because he is a super solid shooter on every stage. Being consistent wins matches, as you know. Getting some extra points on that stage is certainly helpful but it probably wasn't the deciding factor. And again, I don't want everyone to think I am some anti-capacity guy. Mine hold 29, and 140s hold 24. I just realize that isn't what is going to win or lose me a match.

So I was having this exact conversation with my dad the other day, and I was pretty firmly in the "PRS/F-Class" camp. My dad has a couple of coworkers who were military snipers (Green Beret sniper and Marine Scout Sniper), and he was decidedly in the .mil camp. The one he works with now is the Marine Scout, who talks about shooting literally as much and as frequently as they wanted. On a normal day they could shoot a case or more ammo through their rifles, like it was just no thing. On bigger training days they would have their ammo delivered to the range in a truck. I'm guessing he probably shot more than the average sniper, as he was a hunter and big gun guy that loved shooting before he went in to the military, but it does prove a point to some degree: if you want to, you can shoot up a whole lot of ammo, to the point that it would be unattainable for even the dudes with ammo sponsors. So at this point I am a bit more undecided than I was before. I'm still leaning towards PRS shooters, but it makes you think.

Funny note: if you quote someone who mentioned you in their comment, it sends you a notification saying that "Gooldylocks mentioned you in a comment." ...thanks, Tapatalk?

I never said it didn't cost something, I said what the cost was irrelevant. There's a difference. I also never once said more rounds isn't better or that you shouldn't get more if you can (which you imply I did by saying "makes good sense"). Just that if you have as many rounds in your mags as the OP says he does, he will be fine. If you want to drop the money on pads and guts definitely do that, but if not just go practice. It isn't a big deal. All reloads have the potential for failure. Everything has the potential for failure at some level. The jet you are flying in could lose an engine for no reason, the nuclear reactor at OSU could catastrophically fail, the bridges we drive on could collapse. So we make the chance of that happening very very very tiny. Dryfire more. Make botching a reload a thing of the past. I see so many open shooters that are afraid to reload at matches. It just doesn't make any sense. Get comfortable with them then don't worry about it.

Hmm, maybe I will. And that isn't the point I am making anyway, I'm saying that the whole "You can't win if you don't have 29 round mags" is a complete crock, and gave several real examples proving that exact point. If your big sticks hold 26+ and your 140s hold 20+, you are fine. If you can get more then awesome, but don't think that is what is preventing you from winning matches. A reload will make "x" movement take longer than that same movement without a reload. However, if you practice until reloads just happen without thought, then it really doesn't cost much. Not to mention that the vast majority of people aren't capitalizing on their movement anyway. Get better at that, since it makes a lot bigger difference.

Random only, forever and always. Usually do 2-5 seconds I think off the top of my head.

This entire thread is ridiculous. Like Burgess said several posts ago, it really doesn't matter. One of our buddies has won several sectional matches with a 40 open gun, placed in the top 5 at an area match with a glock 35 and no comp in open, and I have won a sectional with nothing but 140 magazines. It just doesn't matter. Big sticks allow you to shoot more aggressively on steel arrays. Big sticks allow you to have more freedom in where you reload. All this discussion about reloads "Only hurt" your HF is silly, because it isn't really true. With a 140mm mag you still have plenty of options on where you do a reload, and worst case scenario you do 2 reloads for an extra security blanket. Big whoop, dry fire more so it is a non-issue. My .02

Brian "Honcho" Williams is their gunsmith/owner (I'm pretty sure), he builds pretty sweet guns based on his Instagram. He builds all of the guns/test mules to torture test their parts as well. That gun looks great.

Ruger announced a new rifle, if you are still interested in Magnums like you said in the OP. Looks really sexy, only issue would potentially be the 24" barrel rather than a 26. Hopefully it shoots! https://ruger.com/products/HawkeyeLRT/models.html

Shoot on the move into and out of the positions whenever possible. As soon as you call the last shot of an array as good, you should be moving as explosively as possible to the next place. On the reload, you hesitated for a moment before initiating. As soon as you commit to leaving that position, you should have the magazine dropping and be going for the next. See what I said above. One of your biggest time savers (worth multiple seconds on this stage I'm guessing) is actually shooting faster. Drive that gun between targets like you mean it. With how close all the targets are, your splits and transitions should be nearly the same for every target. On array 1 for instance, it sounds like: bangbang bang bang bang bang bang bang. It should probably sound more like: babang bang bang bangbangbangbang. If that makes sense?

Well most of us are annoyed for obvious reasons at Photobucket and their new ridiculous rules, and pulling pictures from tons of forums. I was on Sniper's Hide and saw a thread on a way to fix it so that you can still see images that were uploaded previously. I tested it and it worked, so I thought I would let you all know. Big thanks to NukeMMC on Sniper's Hide for posting it!

EGA doesn't make a version for anything other that 2011s at this point. If your TS is wobbling in your DAA, you could buy a SP01 block and then fit it specifically to your trigger guard.

I have used the double alpha RM, Safariland 014 as well. It is my favorite. The draw is by far the smoothest of the three, the adjustments are easy to make and stay where you put them (cough DAA cough), and it is comfortable on my leg all day at the range.

Everglades is making a new and improved version, I have been using one for several months now. http://www.evergladesammo.com/shooting-accessories/holsters/everglades-magnetic-race-holster.html

I know at least 3 people who are B class or lower who have made Master in PCC. I would say our anecdotes are about equal in their validity.

Agreed. That is all I'm saying as well. Not have it be fluid from now on, just a one time recalculation and fix. My friend I was discussing this with just now also said maybe emailing all those with a PCC classification telling them "unless you petition to stay, we are recalculating everyone's classifications on such and such a date." And then if they want to fill out the objection and keep their current card they can, but everyone can still see their % is like 71% or whatever while they are a GM.