mlmiller1

Are the bullets you are loading different shape or size than the ones you've been shooting? A different bullet shape may not run well in your gun. Another thing might be the way you are crimping the round. If you aren't pulling enough of the bell out of the brass, the brass may want to hang on the feed ramp. With a downloaded mag, the spring may have enough strength to get it over the "bump" in the brass. Try this, load a mag with 8 of your rounds, then top off with a couple of the factory rounds. If they run & this works, your problem is possibly weak mag springs with the crimp or bullet shape possibly compounding the problem. One other thing, are your rounds loaded long? Could they be long enough to be hanging slightly in the mag? These are just some ideas, at least a place to start, anyway. Good luck & come on back when you get it figured out & give us a report, ok? MLM

Steve, When is the self squadding going to open up? It sure would be nice to get that going soon. That way there is no sudden rush at the last minute. Thanks, Mark Miller

Robert, I keep getting an error message when I try to see the pic you posted. What is it & who is Will? MLM

We are ready to go! Just waiting for the self squadding to come up. Thanks you guys for putting this match on. It has been fun every year I've shot it & I even managed to talk my brother into coming from Florida to shoot with me. Hurry up April! MLM

No one that is against the round restriction has answered the question of why if we have mag limits in pistol, round limits in shotgun, why shouldn't we have round limits on the AR? Anyone? I'm in favor of a restriction but it really doesn't matter much to me. I'm curious though why no one is asking to have the limits removed from the pistol & shotgun so there would be less rules. If more rules is bad, & less rules is good, why not? HMMM. MLM

JJ, You recommend or suggest a sling to carry, what kind do you think is best to carry? Never having needed one, the choices are sort of overwhelming. Ching sling, Cheap mil-surp sling, nice leather hunting rifle sling? I'm confused. Anyone else have any suggestions? Still going to be a while before I can commit & send in my entry, I'm afraid. I do have the time off from work, though. Just the money thing now. Thanks, MLM

Ok, I'm going to color outside the lines here. I load v.v. 3n37 powder for 9, 40, & 45. It is very clean, meters well, has decent volume, & isn't particularly temperature sensitive. Of course, it costs a lot more & can be hard to find. I just load up on it when I get the chance. I'm down to about 25lbs right now. It is really nice powder but Titegroup works well for lots of folks. MLM

It will make me sleepier & grumpier, does that count? hahaha. Maybe Robert will have another sink filled with cold water to stick your hands in again to wake me up!

First off the disclaimer. I'm just a B shooter(barely) so this is just my opinion, regular shooter. I personally like high round count matches with lots of stages. I prefer most stages medium to high round count with a couple of small speed shoots added in, just for variation. The florida open has a couple of things I really like, the variations in speed you have to have--close targets, then far targets, close, then far. I also like no no shoots or (unlike the open) maybe just a few. What I don't like about the florida open were the tremendous wait times between stages & the lack of communication from the match officials. I like one day matches or two if necessary but I don't really care for half day shooting unless it is the last day of the match. I think it is a waste of time, personally. I enjoy having the stages posted online, in an accurate drawing. If there are prizes other than trophies, I like going in order of finish, not by random drawing. These are just my opinions, nothing else. I'm sure others have different opinions. Thanks for asking. MLM

Don'tcha hate it when that happens? I'm always doing that "this is easy" thing & then finding out it isn't quite so easy. One thing, though, if I need one mag, I bring two, if I need two, I bring three, etc. Always, just in case! That murphy thing gets me regularly but he doesn't normally do it with mags, anyway. Pretty quick reload from the back pocket, it sounds like, though. hahaha. Say, where is east of Mountainair? I didn't think anyone lived out there. I have a buddy that lives part of the year up north of Mountainair, on a piece of land surrounded by national forest. MLM

When I started shooting glocks, I had to move mine to the right all the way. The more experience I got, the better I got shooting a glock, the more I moved it toward the center. Seems I was doing the same thing everyone else did. If you can get a ransom rest or a glock shooter that has shot them for quite a while, you may find it is not the sight but the shooter. No insult intended to you or the guys that shot your gun. It is almost the norm when you first start shooting a glock. MLM

Bruce, Well worded post & in concept, I agree with many of your opinions. However, many of the things proposed are impractical to implement & maintain consistency across the range of local, area, & national matches. If you insist on implementation of a trigger pull check, I believe it needs to apply to every shot. The DA/SA guns would have a definitive advantage, (again an equipment race), for every shot after the first shot. I'm going to edit my long novel with a simplified version of what I had to say the other night. Many folks can't afford to play this game regularly. They might give it a try for a year or maybe just a match but in the end they can't or won't stay due to the cost. Not one of them is willing to say when asked why they don't come back "I can't afford it" instead they say "my gear won't keep up" or some other excuse. If you knew them, though, you'd find out the reality is they can't afford it. No way around that. All the membership drives, all the rule changes aren't going to supplement their income to the point they can & will stay members. The other major reason people join then leave is they can't win, even after practicing with a whole box of ammo! Can you believe that? There is also no way to keep members that can't stand to get beat. I'm glad they try the game but many of them just get too humiliated to stay. It is hard on their egos. I believe a 3% steady growth is excellent, by the way! MLM

Gary, Thank you! You certainly sound like you care & are interested in the opinions of those of us out here in the world. I appreciate what you do! MLM

I have a question for the two Garys. Do you think that the opinions posted & the polls taken will really affect the rules changes? I have opinions & I expressed them in the polls but does it really matter? If I thought it mattered, I would try to encourage others to vote or post. Even though the votes in the polls are only a small number of our membership, I believe they are fairly representative of the membership as a whole. Many of the folks that express their opinions are the folks that welcome the new shooters, they set up the matches, they r.o. & serve in all the other ways that this organization needs. It seems to me these folks opinions would carry some weight with the B.O.D. MLM

For you really smart guys, has anyone considered whether different barometric pressures will give different charge weights for the same setting on your powder drop? I've noticed from day to day, without changing anything on the loader, approx same time of day, same temp, roughly the same humidity, that the powder weight seems to vary approx .1gr up or down & the only difference I can point to is a variation in the barometric pressure. Is that possible? Like Shred says, it may just be the scale, but as far as outside factors, pressure is the only difference I can find. Just a thought, anyway. MLM

JJ, Denise, is there a need for slings on either long gun? I prefer to case them between stages but I've been reading about some matches requiring a sling, just thought I would ask. I'm looking forward to this match, if all goes well I'll be there! Mark Miller

Since you are a new shooter, they probably haven't asked you to help tape & reset the steel but if you will go out & lend a hand, you'll soon learn where each & every target is located. New folks usually get off pretty light but as you get experience, you will be expected to start lending a hand. Tape different targets each time you go out there. By the time it is your turn, you'll know where they all are! Good luck, keep asking questions. MLM

Great shooting, especially for a beginner. All the points brought up seem very legitimate & can help you in big ways, especially the reloads & movement. A couple of little things I might add. Stage 1, at the end when you shot a paper target, then went to the poppers, your gun dropped out of firing position as you moved from the paper to the poppers & then you did it again on the other side. Not a big deal, but you asked! Also, you might check out Matt Burkett's instructions on entering a box. The classifier stage was very good but as you dropped into the box, it looked like some wasted time. Plus it seemed you started your reload late as you were moving. Not big things or large time wasters but maybe something worth thinking about. Again, good shooting! Keep up the good work. Mark

JJ, Denise, Thanks a lot for the reply. I have the signup now. We start picking vacations up at the fire station next shift, so I'll see if I can get time off & get up there. I'm working on my shooting calendar right now. Looks like a lot of fun! See you then, hopefully! Mark

I can't get the application to open, is anyone else having this problem? Sounds like a very interesting match. Rules don't say anything about minor/major power factor. Is that a concern? Thanks, Mark

There was no talk about uspsa is right or ipsc is wrong. Nothing like that. What I heard was uspsa is separating itself from ipsc. The next rule book will be uspsa rule book, no crossover. MV said he wants to be supportive of ipsc but wants to be separate. The things most ipsc shooters overseas have to go through to even compete are so extreme that we basically have to compromise to play with them. We(uspsa) shooters don't want to compromise or be more politically correct. We don't want, as an example, to start accepting airsoft into our ranks. There is a place for airsoft but if we accept it into uspsa, then our government may start thinking that airsoft is good enough for us, that we don't need real guns. That sort of thing is what was discussed. That isn't saying ipsc is wrong or uspsa is right, it just says we have differences & we need to be separate. It made good sense to me. MV will continue working with ipsc, by the way, & he also said he wants ranges to continue having ipsc matches here in the U.S. but he was against making "crossover" matches. As for production, MV seems to want only two "stock" gun catagories. Making that work & be realistic is the hard part. As Brit in US pointed out at the meeting, ipsc production(or whatever they call it) is impossible to police. The rules for a "stock" gun are so unrealistic it is not enforceable at all. MV seemed to have a plan of some sort. Hopefully the BOD got it worked out, I think they were voting on the new rules within a couple of weeks of the natl's. MLM

Not that this adds anything particularly to what everyone has had to say but at the "Members Meeting" which happened during the Nationals & had maybe 20 attendees other than the BOD guys, Michael Voigt pretty well made it clear that the nat'ls next year would be in Montana & Tulsa. As a side note, I think the meeting was a great idea, too bad it got one little line in the match book with no explanation of what a member's meeting was, much less who was going to be there. I was at the least impressed with several of the bod guys & my opinion of MV changed quite a bit. Before this, I thought bad things(let's leave it at that) of him, after the meeting I could at least understand him & the direction uspsa is going a little bit. It was an interesting time, at least for the most part. Then of course, some guy showed up late & wanted to go through the whole list of things he had missed while explaining his particular skew on it all. That was when we left. I think there were several interesting ideas tossed out for us to think about. You guys that missed it, missed out. MLM

I personally like the classification system. I know it is fraught with misbehavior but for new shooters, they need the chance to beat others like themselves, either new or just not motivated. Many of you have been shooting so long that perhaps you have forgotten what it was like when you first started. Now I'm not a really new guy but I can still remember. If it had been totally heads up when I first started, I don't think I would have kept at it. Now, perhaps just an X class for those that want to be in it would be fine but for now, I'll stay where I am, B class but slowly moving up. It is good for your ego to win something once in a while & to that end, classes are the only way for most of us to achieve that. If X class was completelyvoluntary, that would be fine with me, go for it. MLM

Does anyone know if this will count for a classifier? I am certain the top D shooter(IDPA convert--first uspsa match besides a club match), that just got classified the week before the match, would like to move up. That kid has lots of talent!!! He hasn't even started reloading yet. He shot factory UMC yellow box ammo. The top C shooter came over from IDPA a year or so ago & has been really coming on like gangbusters. He shot so smoothly it was a joy to watch. He has been playing in single stack all year, I guess having all those extra bullets helped him out! Hopefully Jimmy & Artie will send the scores in. It was a really fun match, I thought. One of the best times I've had. MLM

Troy, thanks for the answer. That seems strange to me that we self squad for a lot of the big matches but not nationals. I guess the matches that use self squadding cause themselves lots of extra trouble????? Jamie, You can squad with us if you would like. Squad 32 is only showing 9. I know Kim said there were others coming or whatever but maybe you could beg your way in if you want. We need another Texan. Kim seems pretty reasonable & willing to go way out of her way to help folks out. MLM