38superman

I see that we also have a Limited 10 Super squad. I just don't understand why I wasn't on it. Not that I could compete with those guys but I'd get a much better view. Tls

The participation in those divisions will vary greatly from club to club. If you know which club(s) you plan to shoot with, you should be able to look back at their score sheets and check participation. Most clubs will post the data on their internet sites. The club I belong to allows "second gun" matches. Therefore, a lot of members shoot in more than one division as a reentry. This pretty much guarantees at least a dozen competitors in every division, usually more. If you really want to swim in a larger pond, you need to be thinking about limited. If you are dead set against limited consider production. It usually has a fair number of shooters and is not costly for equipment. Personally, if I were in love with my 1911 I would shoot it and try my best to beat whoever shows up. No matter if it's one shooter or 200. If you're that competitive you will get a real kick when you and your 1911 start beating guys with fat guns. I never would have believed it, but Hopalong beat me by a full second on the last classifier I shot. He was using a wheel gun and beat me although I didn't have to reload and he did. That *&^(^! Tls

Siggy, As a former owner of a gun shop, I will try to answer your question. Many of the folks that end up behind the counter are just people that "like" guns and enjoy being around them and talking about them. They usually have some shooting experience as hunters or in the military. Working with sales reps, spending a little time on the range, working around a gunsmith and reading gun related magazines, etc. gains them some general knowledge. The more experience they have using what they sell, the better they are. Some are little more than grocery clerks selling guns instead of Cherrios. They take whatever someone tells them at face value or what they see in a movie and repeat it as if it were gospel. Whatever their expertise they tend to become jaded by dealing with a customer base that contains a few truly knowledgable folks and a whole lot of neanderthals. I got to the point that I got sick of customers (particularly women) coming into the shop to look at a handgun for protection and saying "I don't need to learn to shoot. I don't want to shoot anybody, I just want to scare them away". I have watched in horror as police officers come in to look at a revolver and sling the cylinder closed because they saw Broderick Crawford do it on "Highway Patrol". I loved the guys that came in everyday and asked me if a 300 win mag was big enough for deer. I loved the guys that insisted that they would only deer hunt with a semi-automatic rifle. They would never consider a bolt because they needed those quick follow up shots. I wondered if they were hunting or going to war. A gunshop is a funny place. Firearms knowledge is something that a lot of people associate with manhood. They may have it and they may not but they are always going to try to impress you with it. It takes all kinds...... on both sides of the counter. Tony

I agree with Jake. I look at them as soon as they are available but only as a point of reference. I still shoot my game at my pace as well as I can. The only real value it has is that I can compare my score on a given stage and know if it was great, average or in the toilet. For example if GM's are shooting a field course in 19 seconds and I shoot it clean in 25, I know I am around 75% which is a respectable run for a B class shooter. My scores are as good as I can make them. The "wailing wall" only tells me whether I am a future contender or maybe I should take up golf. Tls

Terry it makes me feel better to know you guys can fly armed.......I still go with 'an armed society is a polite society'.....though they made me take that off my screen saver at work...something about making my coworkers nervous If your co-workers don't like that, they definately wouldn't like mine. My desktop background is a full screen picture of my Brazos Pro Sx. My screen saver (which pops up when I am gone) says: I couldn't come to work today. The voices said "Stay home and clean the guns". Tls

I am so sick of seeing this guys face plastered everywhere that I can't stand it anymore. Don't get me wrong. The Ramsey case was a heinous crime and if they finally have the guy then justice will be done. But, why the unbridled obsession with it? We have: Troops in a shooting war in Iraq English Muslims playing "How many airplanes can you blow up at once." Lebanon and Northern Israel reduced to rubble Hostile counties with maniac leaders developing nuclear weapons Energy Crisis Global Warming US manufacturing base i.e. Ford, Gm coming apart like a cheap suit Up to our eyeballs in illegal aliens And the lead story throughout the known universe is: Sicko child molester/killer caught.....maybe. Fascinating. Just once couldn't we keep our eyes on the ball? Rant mode: off Tls

I get good results from my SVI with 200 gr Montana Gold and VV N340. About 5.5 grs puts the power factor about where you want it. Accuracy has been outstanding. Can't speak about 200 gr Precision Deltas, but have tried their 180's with N320. Accuracy with this load was not as good as the MG/N340 in my gun. YMMV. Tls

This is starting to sound more like a pretty wide spread problem than a few isolated cases. I can't believe that there aren't half a dozen LE agencies pursuing this aggressively. The FBI routinely puts all my gun purchases on delay while they crawl up my butt with a microscope. If they feel the need to do that, why aren't they more concerned when so many guns end up in the hands of "persons unknown" through baggage theft? This is why I always drive to matches. I know it is unavoidable for some people, particularly those competing overseas. But if anyone wants my racegun, they are going to have to take it from me face to face. Sorry for your loss Matt. I know that has to hurt! Tls

Some of those implants are hard as steel. I wonder if they "ping" like a popper when hit? Tls

Wow,......check out all those Lim10 shooters. I've never seen numbers like that going head to head with limited. Interesting. Tls

It really shouldn't be too hard to catch these guys. All the airlines has to do is bait some luggage with a "firearms" tag and put in a dye pack like they use for bank robberies. When the thief opens it up he gets the blue smurf face and a trip to the iron bar hotel. Burn a few of these guys and this will stop. T

Eveyone seems to be singing from the same page of the hymnal. The consensus is: Take the time to line up your sights and aim each shot fired. Cool.......... Now just tell me how to do that and still get .18 splits. Tls

I have read the production guidelines for both IPSC and USPSA. The IPSC rules are explicit about no basepads that add capacity. However, the USPSA rules only state no weighted attachments. My intent here is not to add capacity, it is to add security. My mags will already hold more than 10 rounds. The problem is that the plastic basepad on my Para magazines is fragile and not very secure on the bottom of the mag. When I slam a magazine into the gun, the plastic tab has a tendency to give way and the basepad slides forward. I'm afraid it will come competely off and dump the spring, follower and ammo onto the ground during a mag change. I need a more robust means of locking the basepad onto the magazine. Does a Dawson or Grams basepad constitute a weighted attachment? If so, what are the alternatives to fix this problem? Tls

Why?

I feel your pain. I have been struggling with the same issue. In fact, when time is not a factor I am a pretty fair marksman. My first year in IPSC I never had a problem with accuracy. I was shooting a single stack in L10 and always had high points/low times = middle of the pack scores. When I moved to Limited and started to really press for speed, scores jumped up, things were going well for a few months, then the problems set in. My accuracy just evaporated and misses abound. I have tried to focus on hits in my practice and in matches to no avail. I just can't make myself slow down. I totaly trashed the local match yesterday. Had mikes on every stage but one. Some stages had several. Curiously I almost always get my hits on the moving targets. Its the static targets that seem to be bullet proof. Range doesn't seem to matter either. I am at a loss as to how to fix it short of just walking through the stage and shooting it like a bullseye match. What would that accomplish? I want to move forward, not start over. Tls

Just remember...the Florida Open might not need USPSA at all. (I have no ties to the FL Open...I've never even shot it. Just an observation.) The Fla Open may need USPSA more than they think they do. I have shot this match twice and there is a lot to like about it. It is a well run match. The stages are always interesting and a lot of fun. I love Florida. A Pina Colada by the pool in February makes life worth living. There is also a lot not to like. It is expensive. It is a long way to travel. It was not in the point series There is an abundance of under-classifed international shooters (IMHO). Class winners are only recognized in the largest divisions in spite of participation that rivals any Area match. Level three participation & a classifier or two would go a long way toward fixing the negative aspects of the match. Tony

The only way you can get a 230 gr 45 slug down to 125 PF is to lauch it from a sling shot. T

Okay, You guys forced me into this. The original question was: In the context of calibrating a popper, is there a difference in using a 147 gr bullet at 125 PF vs doing the calibration with a 115 gr bullet at 125 PF. I could dust off my physics book and do an in depth engineering analysis to see just what the actual differences are. However, after taking into account, moment of inertia, modulus of elasticity, and rockwell hardness of a cantilevered simple beam aka (the popper), momentum, mass, velocity, jacket hardness, bullet alloy, ballistic coefficent of the bullet, angles of incidence and refraction, coefficient of friction on the hinge of the popper, rotational torque due to rate of twist, atmospheric pressure, rotation of the earth, gravitional effects due to alignment of the stars, sun and moon, ...... The rocket science will still show no Practical difference. Who gets the bill? Tls

I understand the formulas guys. I was trying to keep this in laymens terms and not conduct a physics class. T

Just off the top of my head, Energy is a function of mass x velocity. Power factor is basically the same equation, bullet weight x velocity. Without doing any real analysis I'd say that any two loads that have the same power factor are going to have similar muzzle energy. The only difference is this. A lighter / faster load may have the same energy as a heavier / slower load at the muzzle but will retain less energy down range. High velocity loads bleed energy at a higher rate until the bullet becomes subsonic. This however is splitting hairs. At the ranges we shoot it should make no practical difference. For the purposes of calibrating steel it shouldn't matter. A 125 power factor is a 125 power factor, regardless of what bullet weight you use to attain it. Tls

Hmmm...... I'm not sure a 338 Win Mag is enough gun for prairie dogs. It wouldn't be humane to wound them. I'm thinking 50 BMG. Tls

Jake, I Agree. Maybe that's been the problem all along. The effort to bring the PS to the masses has it backward. Make the series something special and the masses will come to it. "If you build it they will come"? Tls

Addendum to my previous post. We need to add a little glamour to this race. Something along the lines of the Bianchi Cup. Imagine: Winner of the "Shooting USA" Point Series Championship The "Jeff Cooper Trophy" to be awarded by Jim Scoutten on camera. Tls

I thought about what you are suggesting and I'm not sure I could support it. It amounts to "grading on a curve" taking the classification percentage of the winning shooter and grading everyone else against that. It's sounds reasonable at first glance but it doesn't take too long to start poking holes in it when you start to think about it. For example: What do you do if the match winner is one of those guys that brings his 58% classification to the match and turns in a master class performance? This because he hasn't filed a classifier since 1997? (don't get me started) I think you just have to take the sectional out of the equation altogether or give them less weight. Maybe the point series should be restricted to Level III or higher matches to guarantee the participation makes the results relevant. I know, I know..... that makes it tough for those that can't travel so much. Not a good way to bring the PS to the masses. Not an appealling option, but it's either that or make all matches a PS match and disallow any match/division that can't field enough A/M/GM shooters to be meaningful in a multimatch competition. There's got to be a way to do this in a fair and equitable manner. We just have to find it. Tony

I hate to rain on that parade but "our nations best warriors" (the military) are prohibited by treaty from having expanding bullets. Such ammo might be permissible for some law enforcement agencies but I doubt many of them get terrorists in their sights very often. More often it's some morally-challenged trustee of modern chemistry that thinks it's easier to steal for a living that work for it. Hard to see how you could promote this as an anti-terrorist round. Tls