Fishbreath

Ruger has definitely stopped making Super GP100s of both flavors—the last ones came off the line in early 2021, according to the serial number lookup tool. They may also have slowed or stopped their single action lines. Ruger is, however, still making 6-round .357 GP100s in various sizes. They may also be making SP101s. I assume that's a margins/priorities decision: they probably make more on the mass market wheelguns than on the specialty products like competition and SA guns, and demand is still high. I expect the Super GPs to return to production at some point.

In Revolver, shooting 7 or more shots before a reload if you've declared major is a bump to Open under 6.2.5.1 ("if a competitor fails to satisfy the equipment or other requirements of a declared handgun division [...]"). The maximum ammunition capacity based on declared power factor is a division requirement, even though it varies based on declared power factor.

Made them myself. They've stood up to fairly aggressive dry fire so far. We'll see how they handle a match.

In my experience, blued steel or plated moons with an octagonal or star-shaped hole, like the Revolver Supply option or SpeedBeez 627-shaped clips, work great with the magnets. TK Custom stainless are okay, maybe a bit light on the hold, and TK blued hold way too strongly. I'm using TK stainless for the .357 gun and Revolver Supply plated for the 9mm. I've been exploring 3D-printing some revolver accessories for sale—maybe I'll take a look at IDPA-legal moon clip carriers.

For USPSA, I used a SpeedBeez belt rack for my first two years. I decided to retrofit it with some custom posts this year, with alignment fins for the moon clips and individual adjustment. An unexpected benefit is that the outward-angled carriers are much easier to load from an ammo-on-table start.

It's true. I haven't yet paid a dime for factory service, not even shipping, and you'd have to squint pretty hard to call some of it warranty work, but I'm pretty limited on what I can do on my own. The hammer body, trigger body (that is, the part that has the hammer dog cam surface, the SA sear, and the DA sear), ejector (and the little screw that holds it in), and firing pin are the biggest of the items Ruger won't sell you. The pawl is listed as factory-only, but Numrich has factory new options in stock. Bowen makes an extended firing pin, which in combination with the screw-in firing pin bushing on late model Ruger DA guns solves that one, but otherwise the aftermarket options are also nonexistent.

Ruger calls that part factory fit and won't sell it to random folks like me, unfortunately.

I guess I'll order one, and block out an evening for some very careful filing. Thanks!

With light drag from my finger and no fired cases, it's late to lock on all chambers. With fired cases and no finger drag, it's late on one or two, sometimes.

They don't jam in that far—they just very lightly bind on the 'leade' between the chamber and the chamber throat. On reflection, I don't really want to muck around with extra-short loads when I can just buy a .357" bullet from Bang and Clang instead. Hopefully the fact that they're softer than the usual coated bullet will counteract the slight undersize compared to the throats.

I'm actually looking for another one, so my main and backup guns aren't in different calibers. I have a few moon clips of dummies loaded to 1.1", and they chamber.

147gr.

I recently came into a 9mm Super GP100, which has .3575" chamber throats and thus probably wants a .358" bullet, if I'm using coated. The problem there is that the Super GP has short chambers with a sharp taper into the chamber throat, so my preferred round nose Blue Bullets in .358 interfere with the throat unless they're loaded very short: 1.100" or so. With a longish round-nose bullet, that doesn't leave a lot of case capacity—the bullet is seated .329" into the case, according to Gordon's Reloading Tool, which also says that my usual minor powders (Clays, Bullseye, Ramshot Zip, soon N320) generate some hair-raising pressures at that length. Are there any CZ guys running super-short loads with a similar seating depth? Or should I look at different bullets?

Presumably it'll be on Practiscore like always, but it doesn't seem to be searchable/public yet. USPSA social media says open registration starts Saturday, March 5 at 7pm ET.

I'm planning on making the trip this year, provided I get a slot in open registration.

I'll check with fired cases when I get home. As far as I can tell, the crane is straight—the gap between it and the frame is the same all along its height.

After dry fire last night, I discovered that my .357 Super GP has late carry-up timing on two or three chambers: if I thumb the hammer back very slowly in single action, it will reach full cock before the cylinder latch engages the appropriate notch on the cylinder. I don't think it's actively causing any problems—my earlier lead fouling issues seem to be resolved by a different bullet/powder combination—but it does seem like the kind of thing I probably shouldn't leave for too long. Numrich apparently sells pawls, even though Ruger lists them as factory-fit parts, so I can give that a try. I think it's at least as likely to be the ratchet, though—its teeth have notably different profiles that correspond to the differences in carry-up timing between the chambers. Am I making something out of nothing? Do I try a fresh pawl? I'm reluctant to send it to the factory for a look, because a) they just had it, and b) my backup-gun-to-be is there already, and I'd rather have one than zero.

It does make a detectable difference, too—a 160gr revolver minor load over Clays is softer than a 160gr minor load over CFE Pistol, all else being equal, enough that you notice if you're shooting slow and paying attention. I haven't tried a similar pair of loads in a semi-auto, though. The slide hitting the stops might be enough to overwhelm it.

I wish my local stores had that kind of selection!

I'm in a similar boat: not zero visualization skills, but relatively poor ones by the standard of people who can imagine a complete scene. So, my stage visualization is much more kinetic than it is visual: I'll close my eyes and pantomime what's going to happen based on the memorized stage, taking little steps for movement. (You may recall that Anderson doesn't visualize moving at all, according to him.) There's also Ben Berry's 'event-driven shooting', which he covers in an episode of Short Course. He describes it in a visual context, but I think it would yield to a less visual approach too. The gist is that you just memorize the sequence of events, similar to waktasz's suggestion. You start with low detail: (start -> shoot array 1 left to right -> run to array 2 with reload, etc.) and refine, as you have time/need (start -> do that thing with my hand that helps on surrender draws -> see sight over center of available target on target 1, etc.). I find that the latter approach gets a bit muddled in my head, and that miming the stage is the best way for me to fix it in my mind to the point that I can shoot it subconsciously. I also find that shooting has been improving my visualization skills: by dint of so much dry fire, I can call to mind a reasonably clear picture of bits and pieces of a USPSA stage now, or of my sights on a target.

I think I must have explained myself pretty poorly, if I come across as being hung up on my match placement.

As Bagellord said, if I'm one of the 12, I do. See also ranges with a little 12-man, three-stage local match: they're all invested in the results, too. But zooming in a bit, it's less the number of shooters and more the amount of competition. Would you rather shoot against 100 shooters, all of whom you know you'll beat, or 10 shooters, who will give you a guaranteed tooth and nail battle? Even one shooter on par with me suffices to get the competitive juices flowing. There are two revolver competitors who occasionally show up at local matches near me who give me a run for my money, and it's always nice seeing them. When they aren't around, I get to practice internal motivation instead and see how far up the overall I can get, or shoot a match with an eye toward good video and convincing people of the virtues of the wheelgun in USPSA.

At the 2021 WSSC, the smallest divisions were Single Stack (12 shooters, Gorka Ibanez over David Olhasso and Jessie Harrison), Production (12, Sal Luna, Nils, Shane Coley), ISR (13, Poggie, Alex Bakken, Lance Bratcher), and OSR (15, Poggie, Ryan Wagner, David Olhasso). I don't shoot Steel Challenge, but I recognize almost all of those names, and wouldn't put any of the ones I do recognize in the same category as your racing driver who couldn't back up his titles. Would you? Pretty sure we covered this in some previous go-around, but I keep that in my signature because it's a fun mathematical coincidence, not an achievement (except insofar as being able to say, with tongue in cheek, "I was briefly King of the Scrubs!" is an achievement). While "C-class National Champion" is parallel in terms of coincidence to "#1 C <date range>", if I included the former, people might actually think I was bragging instead of joking, which is not my intent.

This is, indeed, not our first rodeo. I follow your reasoning, and accept that it's a valid cause for concern in the general case, but I don't think it applies to USPSA for three reasons: 1. USPSA is several orders of magnitude too niche for the sport to have a reputation at all among people who don't know about it. There's no risk of underqualified national champions giving it a bad name, because it's so obscure in the first place. 2. Even your average A or B class shooter looks like John Wick to the uninitiated viewer. 3. Specific to Revolver, I don't buy the implied argument that the revolver super squad is substantially worse relative to the field than the super squad in other divisions. Would Sailer, Nils, JJ, et al. win if they picked up Circle Stack and practiced up? Probably, but that's true of any division they shoot—it speaks to the quality of the shooter more than that of the competition. "The very top guys are shooting other divisions" isn't an argument that the divisions they aren't shooting are worth less. I'm not sure I agree, again modulo participation numbers. Steel Challenge does, admittedly, have an awful lot of divisions, and probably shouldn't add more without more participation, but are you willing to call out specific Steel Challenge nationals winners, by name, as undeserving of their titles? Now, the picture changes at a sub-national level, but I don't see a lot of small-division shooters bragging about wins against easy fields, either.

If you're going to have revolvers at all, they need to be separate: they're different from ye standard Production gun in ways a Single Stack 1911 isn't. It's a massive competitive equity issue—you don't need to look any farther than classifier high hit factors to see it. I think you should have revolvers, too, because they represent both an important part of the history of combat handgunning (in which USPSA has its roots, although it's now a sporting endeavor in the same way fencing used to be swordfighting), and half of the taxonomy of handguns, even if they're not widely used in competition. And finally, a drum I bang all the time: low-participation divisions aren't hurting anyone. I've written all of these thoughts up in more detail here.