Fishbreath

As the resident GP100 guy, I absolutely don't believe he's getting ignition at all out of a GP100 with a 4lb DA pull measured in any kind of sensible fashion. The diagnosis of broken/failing scale toward the end of that thread seems correct to me. They do clean up nicer than people give them credit for, though.

It is a very cool reticle, but it has a small quirk: if you turn up the brightness enough for it to bloom, the point of impact moves: bloom makes the chevron bigger, which moves the tip of the chevron higher up. Not even remotely a reason not to buy one, but something to keep an eye out for if you do.

See also 7.3.1, though: "For Level I and Level II matches a single person may be appointed to be both the Match Director and the Range Master." The vast majority of local matches will have one person wearing both hats.

For me, it takes the place of liquid chalk/grip enhancer, without being nearly as messy. It also helped with holding a hot cylinder when I was doing the strong hand reload.

Those are some awesome photos. It's also good to know I'm not the only person who wears a golf glove shooting! I've been using an rain glove, on the grounds that it feels like it'll wear out less quickly. How long do the standard ones last you?

I think I should probably clarify that 'going fast' in this case means 'fast as dictated by the rules'. They may not be burning stages down, but they are notching higher hit factors than they would be with other guns. It is possible to go fast in locap divisions, as @motosapienssaid, but it's a whole lot harder. Regrettably, I think you're right. Revolver is the most fun I've had in USPSA, and it's still my main division, but I don't think it's ever going to be any bigger than it is now (a few hundred people nationwide). Production has it hardest: not only was it a hot division in its day, it's also the one most easily cannibalized by CO.

I don't think you're wrong, necessarily, but I do think you're looking at it from the negative side (obsolete gear driving people away) rather than the positive side (cool new gear pulling people in). Production isn't dying because Production is frozen in time. It's dying because Carry Optics isn't dramatically more expensive (certainly not like Limited or Open), and it is dramatically faster. The average USPSA participant (in the sense of both the once-a-month club shooter and the serious traveling-to-majors competitor) likes to go fast. Carry Optics is about the fastest you can go per dollar without shooting a rifle. Simple as that.

To be fair to SNS, I don't get much, if any, lead buildup in the barrel. It's all in the forcing cone or around the B/C gap on the revolver, and in the compensator on the Open gun.

I haven't yet found a powder that doesn't cause lead fouling with SNS bullets, between the wheelgun and my .40 Open range toy. Bullseye, Clays, Zip, True Blue, CFE Pistol, 3N38... all yield massive amounts of buildup. I thought it might have been too much crimp, but pulled bullets don't show any marking on the coating at all, much less cuts.

I don't know if it's percolated fully through the Ruger DA lineup, but late models of GP100/Super GP have a screw-in firing pin bushing. Bowen makes a tool to remove it and an extended firing pin.

My Super GP (same lockwork as the Super Redhawk) runs about 6.5lb in DA (measured pulling from the bottom of the trigger, not the center) and will light Winchester and Federal primers. No notchiness, a little bit of stacking at the very end of the pull. SA is ~2.5lb. That's with a 12lb spring (factory is 14lb). I could probably get back down to an 11lb spring again, but I'm a little gun-shy on tweaks after all the trouble I had this year. It took quite a bit of stoning/polishing of bearing surfaces and a little bit of filing on the hammer to eliminate the notchiness.

For the way I have my gun and holster set up, I feel like it's a necessity. The DAA holster locks around the trigger guard, so guns with round trigger guards can wobble forward and back depending on how they fit the holster. That may be an artifact of using the N-frame insert for a Super GP100, though—it fits, but I know a guy who runs a 929 and doesn't think the muzzle support is needed. I've never tried the CR Speed holster, but I like my Alpha X enough that I don't feel the need to.

In the 99 series, there are 12 classifiers matching the 'stand in box, shoot at array on a plane, reload, shoot again'. From the 03 series to the current day, there are another 12, for a total of 24. (Neither figure counts standards courses with multiple strings and shooting positions.) From the 99 series to the 13 series, there are 8 classifiers that take substantial movement (i.e., on-the-clock movement more substantial than switching sides of a barricade). From the 18 series to the present day, there are 12, for a total of 20. The last few years have filled in a gap in the classifier book, for sure, but there are plenty of interesting, challenging classifiers that predate them.

@matteekay is the resident Rhino expert, so he may be able to give you some more specific guidance.

I don't consciously count my shots, but I have noticed a little voice in my head that goes from a whisper to a shout as I go from six to eight shots in a cylinder: "reload reload RELOAD".

I like my race holsters at about 2:00, but I also like them with adjustable toe-in, so I can wear the gun a bit further forward and still have it point directly in front of me.

My .40 gun seems to run better around 185PF than it does around 165, at least with the medium-slow powders I have on hand (CFE Pistol, True Blue).

On 21-01, though, the Limited HHF is a little lower than the CO HHF.

I've been screwing around with a .40 Open Glock of late. I ran a 22 slide for the match I shot with it last year, and am planning on moving to a 35-length slide once all my parts come in. I don't think it makes a big difference. The 22 size is more akin to the current vogue in 2011s, but since I'm working with 3D-printed frames, I think the longer slide will help me stop breaking guns. I'd strongly recommend a barrel/compensator combo with a flat and a set screw. I'm running the SJC compensator, and it works loose almost immediately no matter what I try to secure it with. (Some of that may have to do with the Wolff uncaptured guide rod, which seems to hit the bottom of the compensator sometimes, though.)

Another .357. I do toy with the idea of going 9mm, since I've seen more of those up for sale than the .357s and the caliber does have advantages, but have a hard time justifying it on the basis of having to buy brass, moons, and dies all over again. When I was getting into revolver competition in early 2020, a few of the local shops had .357 Super GPs, so I got to pick one up before I bought it. Next to the 929 the same shop had, I preferred the way the Super GP pointed. If ever you're looking to move it for cash, drop me a line!

As I twiddle my thumbs and watch Gunbroker and my preferred local/online dealers for a backup gun, I decided to nose around the Ruger serial number lookup page in search of how many there actually are. Supposing that the serial number prefixes CS3 (for .357) and CS6 (for 9mm) are the only ones used for those models, Ruger has produced a grand total of 1159 Super GPs, 959 in .357 and the remaining 200 in 9mm. No wonder they're hard to come by!

When my gun came back from Ruger after its last trip there, it was perfectly clean, including all the crud that had built up on the top strap and around the forcing cone. I asked the customer service email how they did it, and alas, they didn't tell me. Ultrasonic cleaner, maybe? I'm tempted to get a jug of the Brownell's ultrasonic gun cleaning solution, to see how well it works.

I got substantially better this year when I stopped caring about how fast I was going and started shooting at the pace dictated by the sights. It does take a lot of practice for that pace to be fast enough to win, though. So I guess I'd say that speed is more important, insofar as you have to be able to shoot about 90% points at a similar pace to the people you want to challenge to beat them. You can get away with 85% and a little faster, or 95% and a little slower, but you can't shoot enough points to go a lot slower, and you can't go fast enough to shoot really terrible points and win.

The Hogue part is, predictably, excellent. I didn't expect to like the outward cant, but I find it's unobjectionable on actually trying it. It's a bit longer from stem to stern than my homebrew release, and large where it's important to be large, at the tail end. My strong hand thumb ends up directly below the paddle, so it's easy to find. It's manufactured in two parts: the paddle attaches to the body of the cylinder release with a dovetail, and is locked in place with a set screw. I don't foresee any problems with that arrangement—there isn't much push/pull force on the paddle at all. All told, a fine product that solves a serious weakness for the platform—the stock GP100 cylinder release is very hard to hit in a hurry.

I haven't tried Hodgdon-brand Clays yet, but I haven't yet come across a 160gr/Clays load that doesn't end up with me spending an hour with dental picks and a magnifying glass to clear all the lead fouling off. That's the main reason behind my 147gr switch. This gun just does not care for the classic 160gr .38 Short Colt, it seems.