IVC

I read the OP and the question was about sitting *on* the chair. Even if possible, it's a suboptimal starting position, so the only reason to use it is for entertainment purposes and to annoy the stage designer who thinks that his intent matters and WSB doesn't. Chair starts are very simple to define precisely - "back touching the back of the chair," "feet on the ground," "hands on knees," "feet in front of the chair," etc. These are phrases that easily and unambiguously define the starting position.

Those are way too small, especially since they are artificially smaller than they could be due to the IDPA designation. With the standard double wide grip, your daughter will likely have to rotate the gun in the strong hand to get to the magazine release.

I have seen/heard this before, but personally I have a very serious issue with it and am not sure that what you suggest is the way to go. Of course, I cannot make any claims for other people, so I will just state my opinion (grain of salt, and all that). There is an objective zeroing of a gun based on where and how the bullet flies relative to the sights. This will change with the type of bullet and powder, but will be very close in general because barrel is supposed to launch bullets in the direction of the bore, with differences in accuracy coming from how bullet engages rifling, its velocity and spin, concentricity of the bullet and a myriad of small details that can affect both POI (accuracy) and the spread (precision). One could argue that the torque generated by the bullet engaging rifling and getting spun will change how the gun shoots between free-hand, supported and from a mechanical rest. This effect is extremely small, if any, and will primarily affect movement of the gun in recoil and (I would argue) imperceptibly the POI itself, at least compared to other sources of error such as bullet inconsistency, brass variations, powder inconsistency and alike. It's a "second-order small" effect. So, there IS such thing as "objectively sighted-in gun." Putting aside the issue of sight picture**, any time the bullet does NOT strike where the sights are pointed it requires practice and correction. For starters, you cannot call the shots. Either you see the moment when the gun fires and realize you're pulling it off the target (you're calling shots and seeing that you have to correct your technique), OR, you're not seeing the sights at the time the gun fires (so the shot is off) and you're by definition not calling the shots correctly - you are only seeing the sights at the moment *before* the shot is fired, likely the moment you start pulling your trigger, but not the final position of the sights as the shot fires. (** My preference in sight picture is that the top of the sight matches center of the bullet at 25 yards for USPSA, but I would gladly shoot a bullseye match with the gun sighted such that the top of the sights touches the bottom of the black circle at the specified distance and for the specified target size. Also, my preference for USPSA changed, where couple of years ago I would sight-in the gun to where the fiber-optic dot was the POI, but there are many reasons why I now believe it's not a good system and why I eventually changed it.) Calling shots is arguably the most important advanced skill of shooting and setting the sights to compensate for suboptimal grip and/or trigger pull *guarantees* you're not doing it. That's a problem. Another problem is that as you refine your grip and trigger pull, you will start missing. When you start missing, instead of getting the correct feedback that you're doing *better*, you will get exactly the opposite - that you're doing *worse*. So, you will actually prevent yourself from getting better because you will want to fall back to the bad habit any time you actually do get better. That's quite counterproductive. The "low left" for right-handed shooters is the usual pattern when rushing with trigger pull and not having refined (enough) grip and/or trigger control. If you add movement (transitions), it can also be because of the imprecise stopping, imprecise timing or even just "riding the sights" during the transition. The sarcastic "fix" is to tell the shooter to "aim high-right." That is another reason why I personally would never want to shoot a gun that doesn't have a very specific POI (relative to POA) which can be measured and confirmed in the vise and which is not in any way shooter-specific.

As others pointed out, it's about how the gun is set up. A race gun, such as SVI, which is set up for 1.200 OAL will feed better and will allow the use of faster powders without creating overpressure issues, resulting in a nicer recoil profile. I got the recipe for my SVI directly from the builder (Casey) and he said to use VV N310 and 1.200 OAL. I had to do some initial minor adjustments in the load, but otherwise it was "one and done" setup until I changed from CMJ to coated bullets. At that time I had to drop the powder load a bit, but it was again "one and done" when I got to the 170+ PF. I am not a big fan of constant tinkering with the loads unless there is a problem. The longs won't feed in my TS and Tangfolio, but that's expected since those are cut for regular .40. You have to match the OAL to your specific chamber by doing a plunk test if you aren't told which OAL to use by the manufacturer.

Rules do have intent, but it is also true that the intent doesn't matter in applying them. My observation was that it's better not to have a rule than have a rule that is easily circumvented. Either require a "production light," and even then it's a matter of months before manufacturers start selling a "USPSA Special," or simply allow dead weight and call it a WML. Adding rules that do nothing just clutters the rule book.

Of course there is no explicit wording of this sort, but there are rules where indeed the benefit of the doubt goes to the shooter. The most obvious one is the 180 - if you can tell WITH CERTAINTY that the 180 is broken, it's as black and white as the the old movies. However, if you only see it was in the VICINITY of 180 but cannot be absolutely sure whether the plane was broken, and this is pretty much true for any infraction that is within a few degrees, the benefit of the doubt (there, I used that term) goes to the shooter because you are not CERTAIN about the call. The "benefit of the doubt" is not to cut shooters slack, but to account for the uncertainty in your call as the RO when you are not 100% sure.

You wouldn't know the count at the beep and if you counted to, say, 15 before he reloaded, that would be assessment "during COF," not at the "point in time at the start signal."

I see your point and, upon reflection, would agree with you. It's not so much about "keep the equipment legal throughout the COF" as it is "have a simple and uniform way to interpret and enforce the rules." When you think about it, a lot of discussion about gear is superficial to begin with. A good shooter will be good regardless of small shifts in the holster or pouch position. It's more a matter of keeping uniformity and perceived competitive equity by having a set of rules that can be enforced, and having the rules enforced at a point in time seems to accomplish it well. The exception, obviously, would be non-compliant magazine capacities in Production or L10. Those are throughout the COF.

Just out of curiosity, why would you concentrate on the "moment in time" when it can be "start signal to the end of COF," or even "start signal to the last shot" (which is the actual time of the stage)? If everyone shoots in compliant configuration, then there aren't any issues with any gear that wasn't used while shooting, or that was not compliant between the stages. Oh, and remove the "required" from the CO. I believe it was to prevent a certain shooter from shooting his irons in CO during early stages of the division, but it's no longer needed since optics provides a clear advantage. Anyone wanting to handicap themselves in CO should be welcome. The whole "bump to open when the red dot fails" shouldn't even be a discussion.

The intent is simple - if you want to have a light, you can't fill the equivalent container with lead just to increase weight. The "must be functional" is actually not a good solution to the problem because it's easy to create a WML that is mostly lead, with a puny micro-light in it just for compliance. A better approach would be either to have a weight limit, or to let people shot whatever they want. It's a game anyways, and with this micro-regulation we're looking more like IDPA.

That was exactly the point I was making - that the "start signal" is not used in any equipment-related rules that I can think of off of the top of my head partly because it's NOT the beginning of the COF and mostly because the rules are just what they are. Separately, the rules *should* indeed be changed and simplified such that the division compliance is required and enforced from the start signal until the end of the COF. There are a lot of things that can happen between "Make Ready" and the start signal that are really of no consequence to the shooting, yet are technically not allowed. Similarly, there are a lot of things that can happen when the shooter is not shooting at all and which are not strictly compatible with the rules that apply "always." For example, I don't think anyone would move to Open a Production guy who strapped his holster a bit too forward (prior to the latest rule changes) after coming out of a port-a-potty if the guy realized it and corrected it before the next stage. Or that anyone would move to Open a CO guy who walks around without optics on his gun while he is trying to retrieve a replacement for his failed optics.

I guess it would depend on whether it's considered a magazine pouch or not. Never gave it too much thought, my comment was about start signal...

A more interesting question is whether it's a bump to Open if the sight falls off outside the COF - the equipment rule doesn't specify that it's only applicable during the COF.

I cannot think of any rule that would be linked to the start signal alone. There are rules that apply only during a COF and there are rules that apply all the time. As an example, having a magnet on the belt in Production, even if not used, would be a bump to Open. The same with any magazine pouch in the front, whether used or not. The recent rule changes eliminated this issue, but it's still true that rules apply either always or during a COF.

This is probably true of any gun that is less competition ready than your primary gun. Shoot a gun with long trigger and you have to have a better trigger pull. Shoot a gun with shorter radius and you have to have better aligned sights. Shoot a gun that is gritty, or doesn't fit as well, and you'll have to do everything better. However, it's questionable whether it will help you directly with shooting your primary gun - it's a great tool to isolate individual issues and pay attention to them, but you will still have to improve directly on your primary gun if you want to translate it to the competition. For example, in competition your problem shouldn't be aligning the sights, but the time it takes to align them only to the acceptable sight picture, no more and no less. This is different for different guns. Similarly, the "fast trigger pull without disturbing the acceptable sight picture" is something that is gun-specific because of both the trigger and the grip. Shooting a gun that doesn't fit you well and with a long/gritty/stacking/overtravelling/etc. trigger will help you work on separation of grip from the trigger finger, but you'll have to do it correctly on your primary gun, no more and no less than you need. There is such thing as "too much follow-through" as much as there is "too good a sight picture."

Shorter sight radius makes the same angular misalignment show as *less* linear misalignment, so my guess is that what you observed was just the issues with the different grip and different overall gun, something that you would clean up in dry fire. Once you get used to it, you should notice two things: the sights are *less* sensitive to your grip (less wobbly) AND (consequently) the acceptable sight picture at the same shot difficulty needs to be more refined. Maybe you observed that you need a more refined acceptable sight picture to have a good shot, rather than "the sights take longer to settle" - they'll settle faster but you'll have to indeed wait a bit longer because you will need a more precise sight picture. Is this what you observed?

+1 to the difference between "I want to win a match" and "I want to shoot what I've brung [sic]." More importantly, "winning a match" is a way more involved process than a simple "I want/wish." Those who can win matches of any meaningful size are also those who can do magic with sub-optimal guns - remember, to be fast you have to *move* efficiently, you have to *transition* efficiently, you have to shoot *sooner* and leave positions *earlier*, etc. Absolutely none of these depend on which gun you are shooting. Only if you're losing to the top guys by a few seconds does it matter what your splits are, and splits are pretty much the only thing that will be different between different guns with the same sights.

Intent doesn't matter and "variability of interpretations" is irrelevant. I've seen stage designers and ROs get upset about someone "gaming a stage" simply because the shooter found a way not to do what they wanted done, even if it was of absolutely no benefit to the stage. "Creative interpretations" most of the time just hinder the shooter, while providing entertainment to the rest of the squad, and there is nothing wrong with that. When there is a serious issue, such as the infamous shooting while standing on the outside wall legs in order to get to a swinger before activating it, those get fixed in the rules as we can see in the most current iteration of the rulebook. In the case of the OP, so what if someone wants to sit on the back of the chair? A shooter might even turn the chair sideways and claim it's not in the WSB. Why even care? Just let them do their own thing and watch them lose time. Even if they can eek out a fraction of a second, unless it's the top competitor at the top match, it won't translate to any meaningful match performance improvement. Quite the opposite - messing around with the rules for the sake of messing around with the rules and not paying attention to the shooting problem at hand is a sure way to have good time, entertain your squad and not finish at the best place you could've finished.

The minimum I would accept is three shots. It tells me about the *group* I can get with the specific method of shooting and skill level, so I can judge whether it's good enough or not for what I'm using the gun. This covers my own inconsistencies because it's an actual group from the specific gun and from the specific individual.

Even if it was shot from a vise it wouldn't be enough. A single shot doesn't tell you anything about the spread, and the spread exists and is inherent in the gun itself even under ideal conditions (perfect hold, e.g., vise, and perfect trigger pull).

Do some draws with eyes closed, then open your eyes and confirm it's properly lined up. As you draw, "feel" everything you cannot see, especially the final position of the gun. It's as if you're trying to "see by feel" without your eyes. It's amazing how much you can pay attention to your movement and the final gun position when the visual input is taken away. You have to trust this feel.

I'm also surprised nobody mentioned the obvious "problem" with trying to create magazine rules in PCC - since they are NOT inside the grip, they can be as wide as they need to be. A drum magazine, or a a pyramid shaped one would bypass any length restriction, so it would have to be a restriction on the number of rounds. It couldn't be ten, because "nobody shoots 10 round divisions" and it wouldn't make sense to pick a random number that is between 10 and 60.

DAA has an extended spacer that will work for pretty much any big stick. The more of a problem is the location for the uber-long sticks so that they don't poke you in the eye.

It's funny that one group wants to limit capacity for one division, while another group wants to relax capacity for another. There is quite a bit of bickering about expanding Production to either 15, or to the length limits like C/O. Certainly can't please everyone.

Once you have enough rounds to avoid a reload it really doesn't matter what the capacity is. PCC guys reload on malfunctions, the rest of pistol divisions reload as part of the plan. Most reload only once anyways, and quite a few Open (now also C/O) shooters don't have to reload on some stages.