38superman

+1 I have done a lot of buying and selling with other forum members. I have often received funds from buyers that relied on good faith from me. I have also gone out on a limb more than once by sending certified funds and waiting for the seller to ship the goods. Some of the transactions involved thousands of dollars for expensive race guns. I have never been disappointed. I tend to invest more trust in fellow shooters and sure that's true for most of us. It's always a shame when that trust is violated. I hope your situation gets resolved. Tony

I wish there was something I could say or do that would make this better. Sadly, no one has the words that can take away the pain of a loss like that. Best Wishes, Tls

The conventional wisdom has always been not to do this anywhere near where you are hunting. Since the stands are normally something of a hike from where we park our vehicles I normally make this the last thing I do before setting out to the stand. I can normally stay there for several hours and can usually make it back to the truck before I have to go again. I used to take an empty plastic water bottle in just in case but only had to use it once or twice. (tough to do for a girl). I carried it out in my pack and emptied it when I got back. However, the point is that if you limit your fluids and make the most of your opportunites, you shouldn't have a problem in a tree stand. Tls

The one time I had a round with no powder, the primer fired but I didn't hear it. It sounded like the hammer fell on an empty chamber. I racked the slide and saw an empty case eject with my peripheral vision. Didn't think too much about it until I tried to shoot again and discovered the gun hadn't gone into battery. Closer inspection revealed a bullet stuck in the bore. It didn't travel quite far enough to allow a loaded round to chamber behind it. If the bullet had traveled a few millimeters further ..... bad news. My loads are done on a 650 with a powder check but load enough rounds and sooner or later Muphy's law is applied. I consider myself careful and dilligent when I load, but in the course of thousands upon thousands of rounds, you only have to screw up once. I can't speak for anyone else but when I'm shooting a stage, if I pull the trigger and the gun doesn't fire I rack the slide as fast as I can and try again. Who doesn't? I must say it is something that causes me a great deal of concern. Tls

Drift all you want. It matters not. It's a totally subjective question. There's no way to answer whether one division is more fun than another. Tony

I've shot in this match every year that I have been in this sport. It has its positives and a few negatives but on the whole it is one that I don't want to miss. It's a good kick off to the new season and a chance to go to a warm weather major match in February. I say chance because at the last match, Frostproof wasn't frost proof. However, every other year it's been blue skys and 70 degrees. There are mostly long field courses and a high round count. There is no "Super Squad" so you never know who you might get to shoot with. The match usually draws a lot of international shooters so it's pretty colorful. Frank gives trophies and plaques to Division and class winners but seems to favor the Open and Limited divisions. He generally has a decent prize table and in the past your entry put you in a drawing for a Harley. The match is relatively expensive and usually pretty crowded but well worth the time and money to attend. It is as good as any area match I have ever attended and I keep going back for more. Tony

PM Sent.

I tried. Okay Micah, I know a challenge when I hear it. NTPS, second Saturday in December. If you can beat me I'll buy all the beer you can drink after the match. I warn you. While your gun is empty and they boil at you, transmogrified into an Eye and a Hand, you may stand, screaming and reloading, your mind far away and absent, letting your hands do their reloading trick. You could hold up a hand, tell them you had spent a thousand years learning this trick and others, tell them of the guns and the blood that had blessed them? Not with your mouth. But your hands could speak their own tale." And whilst you are doing all that, I will not be standing with my gun empty, screaming or reloading, mind far away and doing any reloading trick. I will be blasting holes in targets for my reloading trick will be done when the RO speaks his well known tale "Load and Make Ready". Tony

There you have it. Another sad tale of a thread that started life asking questions about Open vs Limited and degenerated into .... never mind. I had the same thing happen to a cousin of mine. He started out okay and then ..... But it's okay, he'll soon be out of rehab. T

Which is more fun? What kind of question is that? It's like asking would you rather make love to Jessica Alba or Jessica Biel. Now that we have put that in perspective, I will tell you some of what I found when I started shooting open. Open is definately faster on distant targets, partial targets, plate racks, Texas Stars, etc. Targets that are close up and personal are faster for me with open sights. An example of this would be the classifier "Can you Count". Some times I actually lose time looking for the dot after the draw and especially on weak hand classifiers. More practice should certainly remedy that. Open is a "top heavy" division. When you jump in this pool you are really swimming with the sharks. I can walk away from a club match feeling like I did pretty well and discover later that I finished 15th out of 16. There are a number of fringe benefits such as smaller bullets which are cheaper (and lighter). Much easier on the back to pack around several hundred 38 supers than several hundred 45's or 40's. There are many more subtle differences too numerous to mention. Which is more fun? Well for my taste I'll take Jessica. Tony

Damn, I just stumbled across this thread this morning. I would have gladly made a donation if I had known in time. I'm proud of you guys. Tony

there will always be the anomaly..and you do what's best for your performance..but always be a student of the game. +1 I wouldn't call it hype, just information. There is a lot of differing opinions and advice floating around, some of it good, some not so good. You just have to sift through it and "separate the wheat from the chaff" to find what works best for you. Tony

In producing my match videos (shameless plug), I get to watch a lot of film on a wide variety of shooters. Guiding the fresh magazine into the gun is not the most common problem that I see on tape. Looking it in, or doing it by feel does not really seem to be the main issue. The problem for a lot of shooters is getting the spent magazine out of the gun. Most everyone (myself included) tries to drop the magazine and then roll the wrist so that the mag well is pivoted toward the incoming magazine. This is a timing issue. The gun needs to be held vertical long enough to allow the spent mag to clear the mag well. If you roll the gun too soon the spent mag may hang up and not clear the gun before the fresh mag arrives. I also see alot of shooters shaking the gun when the spent mag does not drop freely or quickly enough. Sometimes a magazine with a few rounds left has the weight to drop okay, but an empty may not if there is any drag inside the gun. If you have already grabbed a mag off your belt and your weak hand is full, you have a real problem if the empty mag is hung in the gun. This is an issue that can arise when changing mag wells on an S_I. Magwells are not drop in components. If the grip is not modified and the new magwell fitted properly, It may pinch the grip enough so that some mags drop freely, others don't. Just my tip of the day. Tony

I really believe that if you are going to compete in multiple divisions, you need to keep the same firearms platform if possible. Staying with a gun that has the same weight, balance, grip angle etc. should be a definate advantage. It's also an advantage if you can use the same holster and magazines across platforms. If you are used to a 1911 and want to migrate to USPSA production, consider a Para LDA. I would try to find a used one that has been tuned up by a good gunsmith. Tony

Happy Birthday to the Corps and all the fine men and women that serve. Tony

I could do that...... I just don't want to show off. T

My definition of combat "anything" is simple. The gun fires when the trigger is pulled and the bullet goes where the sights are aimed. I personally keep an XD-9 handy. If that's not enough firepower to defend my bedroom, I guess I'll have to use the claymores. Tony

Hey Jack, I know it's tough to have to sit out matches due to medical issues. I tore up my leg at the Fla Open last year and couldn't compete for 2 months. Take the time to dry fire, load ammo, standing target practice. You will come back stronger than before. As for your Gamecocks, all I can say is I never used to worry about it when I saw them on our schedule. Now I do. McFadden and Jones are the real deal. I really hope McFadden wins the big trophy. We were fortunate our defense kept them under control and we managed to sneak out of Fayetteville with a win. Now if we could just find a little more offense........ War Eagle Tony

I'm speechless. T

Sorry but I refuse to be labeled. I love this sport and I do everything in my power to be as good at it as I possibly can be. I go to the gym regularly to do strength and aerobic training. At the age of 55 that is something I do for one reason only. Shooting. I can't be competitive otherwise. We all have constraints on our time, money, health (and in some cases, talent). That reality will probably keep me from the highest levels of the sport, but it will never stop me from trying. The world I live with may keep me a hobbyist, but in my heart I am a competitor. I may never win that championship trophy, but I like to think that my best effort makes that trophy mean something. Tony

Why would you want to give up a round of capacity to do that? Not to mention the time required to rack the slide on the clock? I can rack the slide pretty quick and one rounds down isn't tough to over come with you have 9+1 and have an 8 round array, plus it gets rid of the first shot double action. I believe it would be legal. However, a better solution would be a good action/trigger job. The DA first shot should not be so traumatic that you are willing to sacrifice time and ammo to avoid it. Tony

+1 Howard nailed it.

I never really thought about it at all until this thread was posted. Now that you mention it, I realize that I don't look at the gun when I am doing reloads during a match. However, I do practice reloads and I do look at it when I am practicing. I think the difference is that in a match my focus stays on the course of fire and the reloads are done "using the force" There are no sights on a basketball. When you dribble you are surveying the court, not watching the ball. When you shoot you look at the hoop, not the ball. I can put my hand in my back pocket 100 times out of a 100. I don't need to see it to know where it is. I think you will get a lot of different opinions on this. That is mine, FWIW. Tony

As far a functionality goes, the Win and Fed seem to be interchangable in my guns. There is no measurable difference in the loads. As others have said, the Feds seem to be a little more sensitive and ignite easily. This seems to make it the primer of choice among the wheel gunners. I personally avoid the Feds because I had one detonate outside the gun. A few rounds fell off my bench and onto a wooden floor and one of them went kaboom. That's a little too touchy for my taste. All my guns have a hard enough firing pin strike so that I don't need the more sensitive primers. Tony

Sorry Flex, when I was adding things in, I was trying to clarify, not muddy the water. I didn't think I contradicted myself but maybe I did. It comes down to this. If you are moving between arrays you are not supposed to have your finger in the trigger guard. If you touch one off at such a time that is clearly a DQ offense. In my judgement, once you reach a point where you are bringing the gun to bear on a target and have the right to bring your finger to the trigger, you are now "engaging the target". At such a time you can still screw up and bump the trigger before you meant to shoot which is what I did. The point I was trying to make is that we have rules to cover AD's but there are times when it is difficult to know where to draw the line. There is a fine line where movement ends and engagement begins. In the case of someone falling down, that is pretty cut and dried. At other times it is simply a matter of the RO's judgement and how he decides to interpret the rules. Hope that helps explain my meaning. Tony