TreblePlink

Adding to those you've listed - I would suggest two old books which are usually available through abebooks.com ... Fast and Fancy, by Ed McGivern [revolver shooting legend] and The Pistol Shooter's Treasury, by Gil Hebard [Oriented toward Bullseye].

I've not taken a class, but have been looking for a decent one for pistol - hopefully within driving distance of KY. I've looked at Dave Sevigny - none scheduled, Max Michel - nothing scheduled, Todd Jarrett - his web page presents a nice photo, but no links are clickable in my Firefox browser. Emailed Brian - none planned. Any suggestions?

In .45, I try to stay away from the following: "WIN NT" - these are the non-toxic primer flavor - with SMALL primers. As others have mentioned "A-merc" tend to be highly variable in hardness - sometimes requiring 500% of normal resizing pressure. Finally, I find Remington "R-P" brass to be okay for lead bullets, but marginal for jacketed - the case walls mic about .001 thinner than others and neck tension can be marginal. This problem is even more severe in the "UMC" cases, - I throw those away. Sometimes Winchester "WCC" can have crimped primers - and I haven't figured out a way to cope with those on a 550. The old reliables IMHO are "Winchester", "Federal", and "PMC". Many others are fine too, but YMMV.

Yesterday while shooting L10 at Dixon TN, I had a major jam using 10 round .45 metalform mags; these mags came highly recommended from an experienced IPSC shooter - but in my Kimber Gold Match w/mag funnel it got stuck. Early on, I had stoppages from my own failure to seat the mag firmly enough, so I've been hitting them pretty hard recently. The metalform insertion stop is a relatively small stamped protrusion - the camming action of repeated insertion tends to reduce its profile - to the point where I inserted past the stop, wedging it in REALLY well. Several of us spent 10 minutes fussing with it to remove the mag. I'm not sure I can recommend Metalform mags. So, in an effort to salvage the ones I have, using a tig welder set on 20 amps, reverse polarity, I added a silver solder BLOB to the stop. We'll see how this works. I'm attaching a photo of the mag fix - if anyone else has seen this problem I'd like to hear about it. Treb

I don't have a list to post (its pretty similar to what's here) BUT for those who may not have discovered it, probably the very best source for finding many of these titles is the online used book broker abebooks.com They represent many used book dealers with an online database search and order system that's worked well for me. Particularly for rare or out-of-print stuff.

I agree with Shipster - being a relative newbie myself, having shot some local matches at a few different clubs, I've seen a fair group of fellow newbies at each. Organized assistance has been variable. I have to wonder if retention isn't a bigger problem than attraction. The folks that have made it out to the local match are ripe for recruitment. I would suggest that formal guidance be more standardized, - a written handout and mentoring. If this was someone other than the RO, who is usually plenty busy, it would be best. Maybe a club member could be waived match entry fees for mentoring a squad with newbies?

Thanks for the help - I felt like two of the four stages went well. What is really wierd is that on one stage I had a CLICK! which I must have cleared but just after the string I had no memory of the failure until I found my bad round amongst the brass. It all went by so fast it was as if my subconscious was doing the shooting. This mindset thing is obviously a big part of it, and I'm now begining to see how books can be written on this very abstract subject. Another mystery is how I managed to shear off my rear sight DURING the plate rack string that I shot for fun. I thought I could just drive out the rear sight hinge pin, and then loosen the height adjust screw, but the Kimber guy said I must press out the dovetail assembly. So the Gold Match slide is back to Kimber - they were good enough to fix it under warranty.

Lexington on Sunday - I'm sure thinking about it. Unless the weather is as crappy as last weekend, I'm going to try. Let's see - leave at o'dark-thirty ... Thanks all for the good advice. A consistent theme for beginners seems to be accuracy is everything - never mind if it takes two seconds per round to achieve it ! I just got four 10 rd metalform mags - that should help some. Thanks.

Thanks, folks. answering an earlier reply, at Owensboro I met Gary W and Wayne P. I don't know if they're on this forum or not. I could have met gunruner, but uh I'm not quite sure yet how to translate these psuedo names - not all have real names posted. Tell me again why we have them if email isn't published? Reading some guidance on Bill drills etc, there's often benchmark times associated with finishing the six rounds. I just got a Pact combination chrono and shot timer. Most of the times are without clear reference to class. For instance, it would seem easier to rip 6 rounds in 2.4 seconds on target at X distance with a compensated gun than it would with a L10 rig. On the draw at 20 feet (1 rnd) I'm reliably doing 1.5 seconds, sometimes down to 1.2, but its hard to gauge benchmarks. Are most of the quoted times for open rigs? TreblePlink

Well, I joined USPSA and shot my first match at Owensboro Kentucky a week ago. I’ve shot various pistols informally for 20 years, but had never tried an organized effort toward real skill improvement. Late last fall I became interested in IPSC, bought a Kimber gold match .45 (a big accuracy improvement over my old Government model Springfield), and got some guidance from Ghost dog about upgrading my reloading facilities. On his excellent advice, I bought a 550 and love it. Now it’s cheap to shoot enough rounds to develop some muscle memory. I’m reading Brian’s book, and watching some videos. My first impressions from the match were about what I expected – I have a lot to learn, a lot of dry firing ahead of me, and with 8 rd mags in L10, a lot of mag change practice. The qualifier with four targets, left hand, free style, 3 rounds with mag change, then 3 more, then right hand – each in 4.5 seconds was –uh challenging to say the least! On the positive side, the folks at Owensboro were very helpful, and provided good guidance. It was a bunch of fun and I’m going back. On the negative side, it would seem that the real focus is shooting the 28 round space blasters in open, where one must push the pressure limits on 38 super to make major. It looked like 70 percent of the folks were in either limited or open. It doesn’t look like a standard 8 rd 1911 in the traditional .45 can compete unless one can change mags like mr. Leatham. I notice that the Single Stack Classic really does encourage 8 rounds of .45 – so I’m going. Despite this, I’m hooked. Are these impressions accurate? This forum is an excellent resource, TreblePlink in Bowling Green KY.

I don't know the details and motivation behind Thompson's decision, and I hesitate to condemn his action without those facts. When you’re young and healthy it’s easy to be righteous and denounce suicide. Later in life, when you’ve watched a close friend or family member die a slow, agonizing, and painful death (in the case of my father at age 62, myeloma – bone cancer) only because of laws preventing a more peaceful and dignified passing, you might begin to consider that there are certain situations where the individual may be better off with an early exit. It seems to me to be more of a personal thing, and for another person, it’s certainly none of my business.

Here in Bowling Green, Kentucky the club charges $35 per year for unlimited use of the outdoor range. Unfortunately, there's no organized practical shooting locally. Mostly bullseye.