SA Friday

I think the rule will have to stipulate that the activation has to happen before the last shot fired to accomidate the timer's limitations, and a penalty of some sort if it doesn't.

I don't know about classes in your area, but here's a list of people to look at for instruction: Max Michaels, Travis Tomassi, Ron Avery, Matt Burkett, Manny Bragg, Mike Seeklander.

Order a blade-tech DOH and tell them to add 1/4 of an inch to the depth of the sight channel to the holster. There is a place to add comments when you submit the order. Both of my DOH's are deep enough to accomidate that front sight, but I ordered them with the above change to the holster.

Brian, along with the above, how does one determine when targets should be taken inbetween shooting positions? Say for example the same above drill with two paper tgts between the steel and a shooting area between the boxes. Same drill as above, but should the paper be taken standing in one of the boxes or during the transition between boxes? What factors determine one over the other?

Based on your initial post, one of two possible paths will happen if you join the military. 1) You will have an epiphany in basic training and get your mind right, or 2) You will fake the change and force someone to try and fix you mind or kick you out. The first path is what one would hope happens, but the second path happens all too much. If you choose the second path, prepare for some serious hurt. Units just don't have the time to fix kids that can't get their minds on the right path at the moment. More times than not, it's easier to just wait a little while and when you screw up, they hammer you. For every one hour of enjoyed labor in the military, you will spend at least 8 hours doing something that you detest. Our culture has a tendency to glamourize the military experience. Movies and TV shows make it look cool and exciting. Well, it's not. It's indentured servitude, you are under contract. It pays well, but only after serving for more than 10 years. Before that, expect a regular income, but nothing to write home about. So, the military might be the wake up you need. Then again the military might just break you for life. Ultimately, it will come down to if you are going to act like you related in your orignal post, or if you're going to embrace the suck.

Wow, bet if you contacted them, as the inventor, they would send you a copy of the article.

IMO, you ARE quite literally what the casting crew is looking for as a shooter. Hell, I would push to have Nancy as a shooter too. That would be priceless footage every weekend. You know you can't deny it. You two need to send in a tape.

An 11lb recoil spring is running the ragged edge of an OOB even with a reduced striker spring. It might work now, but that spring is going to lose power over time. Not worth the potential gun problems IMO. 135pf 9mm ammo and a reliable running gun will get you far in this game. Just seen too many guns turned into puking machines chasing that next best level.

Box practice drills. Fire four rounds from a box, move and reload and fire four from a second box. Set the boses vertical, angeled, and horizontal to the targets. The Key is to learn how to leave the box and enter the box while engaging the targets. I also went back and watched the vid again a couple of times. Cutting down on your reload time is going to really come to play in combining moving and shooting. Perfecting a fast weak hand reload may very well be what you need to do to start encompassing some of the moving and shooting into your game. For the shorter distances, it will definately come into play. I'm not sure I would try to encompass drop-step take off's into your movements just yet. I would focus on smooth and quick reloads, gun up when entering and exiting positions, and intrigrating shooting while entering and leaving shooting locations.

Your basic shooting skills are solid. Now you need to focus on those areas where you can start molding shooting time and moving time together. On most of the arrays in the vid you are moving to a spot, shooting, then moving to the next spot. On the first array, draw and shoot moving into the targets, and then away from the array on the way to the second array. Reload, (gun up coming into the array) and start shooting the second array the instant you are in the right place. Step out and away from the array while shooting the last target in the second array. Reload and start taking steel while moving into position on the steel array. Step out and start moving away from the DT while shooting it. Reload and plant in the last shooting spot with the gun already up and start shooting the instant the first target's A zone is available. Picture shooting time and moving time as two different horizontal lines of equal length. The more you shoot while moving the more the two lines overlap. The final length of the combined two lines is your overall shooting time for the stage. Combining the two lines is the key to shortening your stage times.

Dude, Phoenix/Mesa area is shooting graceland. I literally couldn't afford to live there, but damned if I wouldn't like to give it a try.

Oh ya, that would be a home run for sure. No interview required...

Doc, I applaud you in setting this goal and hope you make it. With that said, I must also add that the above can only be afforded to Charlie's modesty. Regardless of what Charlie is willing to admit, he is far above the realm of average. Charlie's success can be identifed. First and foremost, his hand-eye coordination is second to none. Second, he as enough grip strength to crush a 2011 grip and pin a mag inside it while still pulling .10 splits. Third, he didn't have any preconceived notions about shooting when he started, so he had little to no bad habits to overcome. Fourth, he got very high level training at a very early start. He took at least three classes from three of the best USPSA shooters in that first year. Fifth, he has the time and financial accomidations to allow him to shoot a LOT. Last, he's willing to allow and accept criticism about his shooting from others. There is a lot to learn from watching Charlie go from U to M in such a short amount of time. Now if I can just convince him to practice his draws and reloads to shave that .2 seconds on each... Guess I'll have Ron pester him about it.

Get the 550. I've loaded hundred of thousands of rounds without the auto-index of a 650 and haven't loaded a double charge yet. Blaming a reloader for a double charge is like blaming a gun for a murder. The 550 is easier to learn with and easier to change calibers with. I've taught brand new reloaders on this machine and never had a problem. If you want to upgrade after learning how to reload, you can either keep the 550 as a secondary caliber reloading machine or sell it. I've never seen a used 550 not get bought almost instantly. BTW, 650's have their issues too. They like to explode primer tubes. Different mechanism on the 550 and not prone to the hole-in-the-ceiling experience.

Come on Doc, shooting against Andre this is way too much thinking. Just shoot a set. He can't make 4 shots, and it gives you two shots at blocking.

Lol, I find myself thinking every time I watch an episode, "I'm way too big a dick to ever go on this show. I would end up the Johnny Fairplay of Top Shot for sure and be hated by the entire viewing audience." It would make good TV I guess, but it would be hard to make friends after that. Yay, Andre is finally gone. He should have went in Episode 1. Dude can't shoot, and never could.

Well, I will say this to kinda throw a wrench into some of the suggestions. I know of an MD who ran (and pretty sure is still running matches) at least one illegal stage and usually more at every one of his USPSA matches, did it knowingly and didn't care, refused to listen to anyone about it, didn't allow anyone to do stages or change the illegal stages to help out. If you pissed him off bad enough, he would tell you not to come back. So, your options are real easy in this situation, shut up and shoot or don't go out in the first place. I will give him one thing. He was consistant in his ways. You knew what to expect. Worst case scenario for this question does exist. And the only thing to do then is accept it as it is and shoot or not go out in the first place. Speaking as an MD, I prefer to be told about issues. I also like to received stage designs once and a while too. Why is it so many don't design stages at all?

Na, it would never work. We've all already seen that drama. Besides, they would just sit around and talk about all the idiotic stuff they've had to moderate. It would be like watching your parents.

THIS!

Ditto with the same problem. SV, EGW, and Cape will all resolve it. I went with the EGW and love it. It's tiny in comparison to a Dawson, but still feels like a cavern compared to doing a reload with a G34.

Or if it's allowed at your range, make T12 a low profile and leaned back target. This is your best stage to date IMO. Lots more options, shooting sequence decisions, and you are mixing long and short shots together depending on the sequence. I'm definately stealing this one for a club match

Used to have a dog with epilepsy years ago, a golden retreiver that was bred too close to it's pure lineage. This is probably what happened here too. His seizures were controllable through food selection. Some types of dogfood would set him off, and so we controlled his diet. Wet, canned, predominantly meat based dogfoods, and NO corn based additives. It stopped the majority of the grand mal seizures. Back then, all dried dog foods had corn in them. Now a days, there a much better selection. I would try Avo dog food. It can be a bitch to find, but most ranch supply stores I've checked carry it around here. That's where I would look.

I quantified what I meant by an acceptable rate of accuracy, and I do it without sorting my brass...

I am curious as to what criteria you use to sort your brass? Do you simply sort by manufacturer or do you go farther than that? That's fine for Bullseye shooters but for IDPA/USPSA it's a complete waste of time. +1 sorting brass is a complete waste of time for the accuracy needed in USPSA/IDPA/steel challange shooting. To original poster; don't get too caught up in high levels of precision. Get a round that will hold 2 1/2 inches at 25 yds off a bench in the right pf range, load up a couple million of the rounds, then go shooting... It's nice to have a couple of different recipes for various components if there's a shortage of something on the market, but changing ammo means changing your shooting timing. That sucks, and not in a good way.

A variance of +/- 0.002 is virtually nothing. Hell, a variance of +/- 0.002 (I might even say 0.005, but it would probably set off the truely anal reloaders of the world, those long distance rifle shooters...) is still not enough to cause a distinguishable difference even in precise long distance rifle rounds. You can quite literally get enough flex in the reloading machinisms or the pressure exerted at the bottom of your reloading stroke, or even in the tolerances of the calipers to get a variable of +/- 0.005 depending on how they are made. +/- 0.005 is what I strive for in OAL. Anything smaller just doesn't matter.