RickB

I called him about a year ago, and he said, "next year". Talked to him at Area 1, in June, and he said, "I don't know when". He did elaborate on the design, which uses a metal "collar" around the base of the tube, and a plastic basepad that would presumably attach via the patented pin system. I have three of the old, all-plastic pads, and two have cracked, so the metal collar is a good idea. Bevin said he'd have some sort of "arrangement" for those needing to exchange older, broken basepads - something other than a straight swap - but didn't have specifics. I can wait until next Spring, but will go with Dawson if nothing materializes from Grams.

Did the military "distribute" it? I see a Dept. of Homeland Security logo at the bottom, but nothing there refers to the armed forces or DoD. It looks like something that would be posted in an office building or retail store, with references to "staff" and "customers".

I keep hearing about broken ambis, but I wonder how predominantly right-handed shooters can break so many? I have them on all of my guns, I'm a lefty, and one time I've had to tweak the tongue-groove joint on one of them when it loosened slightly. I think the problem is that ambis appear to be installed by right-handers, for use by right-handers, so they don't stand up to much use. I have used, and use, both styles of Wilson, both wide and narrow Cylinder & Slide, narrow Ed Brown, Chip McCormick, and the new Kimber style that Duane describes. I also have a wide SV part that hasn't been installed in anything, yet. I'll vote for the Kimber, too. If you need a wide lever, then it might not work, but the levers are sized and shaped better than anything else I've tried (except the now-discontinued McCormick part, which has essentially the same levers as Kimber's). The Kimber design isn't as dependent on proper install as the Swenson-style safeties retained by the grip panel, and that might be its greatest strength.

That sounds like it could "work its way around", as another poster noted. It's not just the material of the buff that's good, but if you cut through the middle of the hole, the resulting "square" half is almost the perfect size and shape, needing just a little trimming for a perfect fit on top of the mainspring housing. I suppose a thick buff could alter the sear spring tension, but I've always used Wilson buffs, and have never had them interfere with the trigger. Pinning it down in that way, rather than just grinding down the business end of the grip safety so it doesn't work, gives a nice, solid feel to the gun, rather than having the grip safety rattling around in your grip. And, since some gunsmiths won't work on a gun with disabled safeties, simply removing the buff restores grip safety function. I'm attempting my first "sensitizing", and so far it hasn't worked. In dry fire and shooting groups on an indoor range there have been no problems, but I've "missed" the grip safety about 25% of the time on match draws. Every time I have the gun apart I take a couple of file strokes off the grip safety, and it will eventually either be adequately "sensitive", or it won't work at all.

Some grip styles result in the hands being above the grip safety pivot point, resulting in the grip safety being levered out, rather than depressed, and no manner of speed bump or "sensitizing" is going to fix it. There's a method of cutting-down a shock-buff to trap the grip safety in the depressed position, which allows it to be restored to function if necessary.

As recently as four or five years ago, there was only one.

Actually, it's not so much that people don't want their slide to lock back in USPSA, as they're willing to trade no lock-back at all for no premature lock-back, yes? I've seen shooters, who've lost count of how many rounds they've fired, rack out a round after a reload.

I've shot mine in both ESP and USPSA Limited (to justify spending on 17-round mags). I love the slim lines, which are in total contrast to most "modern" guns. I lucked into a nice trigger. It may go 5+ pounds, but it's very crisp. Reloads are a pain, coming and going. I have had some success polishing the front of the mag tubes, and applying a dry lube to both the mag and the disconnector plunger, but still give the gun a good shake, as if trying to get the last bit of salad dressing out of the bottle, to help the mag out on a reload.

"National" Match is one better than Match. Consider it a frame that goes to eleven. Seriously, there are National Match specs and dimensions, but they're based on modified U.S. Mil Specs (National Match pistols were made from standard U.S.G.I. frames), and there's no material added, so any "match" frame that weighs two ounces more than a stock Colt frame is going to have non-standard dimensions. Modern "National Match" parts are very unlikely to conform to true NM specs, and the term has generally come to mean any part that needs to be fitted.

Why would you want to convert a .45 to .40 for Single Stack? The best way to go about it would be to convert the .45 to cash, and buy a .40.

We will let shooters use non-compliant gear for a match or two, and will then still allow it occasionally. If a shooter has a carry gun that's not legal, I'm not above letting him get some trigger time with it at a match, but not for score, and not on a regular basis. A new shooter who shows up for his first match had better have something legal by the third match. I'm going to shoot a 44-and-a-half ounce, hi-cap .45 that won't fit in the box, at next weekend's match, but it's not for score, and I won't do it again any time soon. I agree that you risk chasing away shooters who expect to get a fair match, when you accommodate a shooter who doesn't follow the rules.

A buddy was going to wear cleats every day for a year, in preparation of our local sanctioned match. That's not how it works.

I have stockish looking Colts in .45 and .38 Super for IDPA. My "weapons" are a stockish Lightweight Commander and Detonics Combat Master in .45. My competition gun is a longslide, single stack .45 with all of the bells and whistles, but most of it is of little use, outside of the good sights and trigger. I've found that I don't like "custom features" when they're not custom work. I'd rather start with a base gun and add or modify to suit, rather than buy a production gun with most of what I want, but with often indifferent execution.

So, where does the engergy go? That is, if the hammer is more easily recocked, isn't the energy that could have been absorbed by the mainspring instead transferred to the shooter through the slide? I use a "heavy" (stock) mainspring for the same reason you use a light one. The energy is the same either way, but how the energy is "absorbed" or "transferred" is certainly different.

170 power factor, 23# main, 14# recoil. I could use a lighter spring or springs with my competition load, but still consider the gun a weapon, and don't want it configured in a way that precludes extensive use of full-power ammo.

The hammer must ride the disconnector rail, or the hammer won't remained cocked after manually racking the slide. I certainly would not modify a gun so that it depended on manually cocking the hammer before racking the slide.

This was my third Nationals ('02 Factory Gun, '06 Multi-Gun), and I very much appreciated the location; give me a dry 95 in Vegas over a wet 95 in Illinois, any time. The dusty/desert facility at Desert Sportsman (sic) is not unlike what I've seen at Parma, ID for Area 1 or Rio Salado, and just part of what a shooter must prepare for. The stages were extremely challenging, if not actually "difficult". That is, there was not a lot of strategizing required, but a whole lot of execution was in order. I had hoped for some 30-round, run-and-gun field courses (half a dozen or more, actually), and also found the "shuffle" theme a little too pervasive; more variety, please. And more variety in the means of making shots difficult, too; covering half the targets with no-shoots is a way to make things difficult, but not the only way. I will also echo the . . . obeservation above concerning the low ports; they were low enough that someone much over 6 feet tall had to adopt some odd, cramped squatting and kneeling postions, while not appearing to adversely affect anyone of average height (comments from those of average height?). "Short people" tell me I don't appreciate the overall advantage of being tall, so maybe ports are just leveling the playing field. The relative lack of table starts, and especially unloaded starts, was appreciated. I didn't eat at the range or at the awards/prize event, so can't comment. My absolute best memory from the match is the abundant cold water available at every stage. It may seem like a small thing, but it can literally be a life-saver. Second best was the hard-working staff. I've worked a nationals, as well as a couple of Area championship, and working can seem pretty thankless. It was great to see virtually everyone in my squad seeking-out the staff for a hand-shake and a "thanks" on every stage; it goes a long way in making the work seem worthwhile. Lasting negative memories? Only of the "the ones that got away" - targets I didn't hit, that is.

I'm not sure I understand either "relieve the top of the hammer", or "drag with the bottom of the slide"? It can be a good idea to reduce to a minimum the amount that the hammer is over-cocked by the slide, but this is to reduce the distance that the hammer falls to the sear, not to reduce "drag" on the slide; maybe reduce the amount of contact area of the hammer? On my gun with a SVI hammer, the contact area is about four times as large as that on my gun with a STI hammer, so I suppose there is more "drag" on the former, but I don't know why it would make much difference.

If the written procedure did not say the doorway couldn't be crossed before doing "A", then there should be no penalty for crossing the doorway. That said, he should have been dinged on any or all of the first three targets for not using cover, when cover (car) was available. He did all right as he approached the doorway and engaged the next target, but then after activating the mover, he made no attempt to get behind cover again before engaging. The activated swinger was, at that point a threat, visible (sort of) AND closer than the mover in the background, so the swinger should have been engaged before the mover. It was sort of an unmanageable situation. Maybe stepping on the activator, putting two through the NT, then getting the mover, then crossing the doorway would be the way to do it, but maybe not without a FTDR.

I shot my Detonics Combat Master for an entire season, including two sanctioned matches. I did load 7+1 when shooting non-BUG stages, but even so, it was a huge disadvantage compared to 5", 8+1 pistols, which is what I shot before and have since. It is my daily carry gun, so getting the trigger time under match conditions really increased my confidence in the gun and my ability to shoot it, but I went from usually finishing in the top three or four overall, to finishing third or fourth in class when I shot the short gun. If you are shooting a k-frame, or anything with really limited capacity, you are going to run into problems complying with the requirements of courses of fire. When the procedure says, "engage T1-T3 with two each, on the move", how are you going to do that with a 5-shooter? On an 18-round CoF, you will often run out of loaders, even if you don't run out of ammo, and you'll be fishing in your pockets for single rounds. It doesn't sound like much fun, even if it's doable.

It's unlikely to be an EXTRA reload, so much as a reload in a less advantageous time/place. I think I've shot one stage in the last twelve months that was more than 32 rounds. I've been shooting my L10 gun in Limited for about a year, so 18+1 is hardly going to be a handicap, and more like a bottomless mag! A couple of local shooters were quite competitive shooting Caspian .40s that were only 17+1, IIRC.

I had a popper fail to fall at my own (MD) sanctioned match. There were three poppers standing shoulder to shoulder, the outer two acting as activators for swingers. I pied around cover, fired three shots, heard ding-ding-ding, and didn't wait around. Both activators were a-activatin', so still no reason to think anything was wrong. When we went to score, the middle popper was standing, with an obvious edge hit. I appealed to my Area Coordinator, who happened to be standing right there, for a "calibration!". He reminded me that there is no calibration procedure in IDPA. I said, "I hit it with a .45 that's going to make major (everyone was chrono'd), so it ought to go down." Even if it wouldn't help me any, this was the "staff match", so if there was a problem with the steel, this was the time to find out. He shot it with a 9mm, about six inches above the hinge, and it didn't move. He shot it again, about three inches below the calibration zone, and it wobbled and fell. If it had been the next day, in the middle of the match, I probably would have wanted anyone in my position to get the same call, even if it's not spelled-out in the rule book.

It also has a pivoting trigger, and a disconnector that runs along the side of the frame (the frame there is paper-thin and prone to cracking . . . ask me how I know). Really, the PD only superficially resembles a 1911.

If the guy had said, "I've been mourning Michael Jackson, and wear the glove all the time", would you have given him the same warning?

Check the extractor tension. Stovepipes are usually an indication that the extractor is losing control of the case before the latter hits the ejector.