gringop

Because the ranking for the different divisions are not the same. If you shot 120 seconds in SSP you would be an Expert, in ESP and CDP 120 seconds would be a Sharpshooter. Why should you get to sandbag in ESP and CDP just because you shoot a gun that is legal in all 3? If you shoot Expert in SSP you should be shooting against experts in CDP and ESP. It's not about what is the easiest, it's about earning your classification fair and square and competing against others at your ability level. As others have mentioned, at the club level, IDPA wants you to shoot in the highest classification that you hold if you haven't been classified in the division you are shooting. At sanctioned matches, you must be classified in the division that you are shooting. Gringop

I use a Bianchi Model 29 – Triple Threat™ Magazine Pouch. I bought it for my High Power mgs but depending on how tight I set the tension screws or if I remove them completely, I can carry any of my double stack mags; HP, Glock or M+P. look here It has held up extreamly well over the past 3 years of daily carry, practice and matches. I actualy have 2 of these pouches, one for double stacks and one for my 1911s. Both work great. Gringop

Ive had it happen in a match. The bolt was from Model1sales. I have since replaced it with a LMT MPI bolt. Sometimes it's worth spending the extra bucks. Gringop

While not as fast as using a lanyard or a pinky hold, you can always clamp the light in your strong side armpit when reloading or malf clearing. Most administrative manipulations can be managed with your elbow touching your side and the light secure in your armpit. For shooting, if you don't have night sights, you can get a good illumination of the sights and targets at the same time by using a cheek weld. Hold the light pointing out the bottom of your fist, thumb on the tailcap and place the heel of your palm on your cheek or the side of your jaw. The light will track with your head and does not jump around with recoil. If you have good SHO skills this works great. Gringop

Both of my ARs have Model1Sales uppers. My Optics gun broke the bolt in half at the cam pin hole last summer in a match. It had about 2-3K through it. I now have a LMT bolt in that gun and another for a spare. Model1Sales is like any other lower tier manufacturer, lower price with somewhat lower quality. Other than the broken bolt, I have had zero problems. To get the real high stress MPI bolts, you probably need to get Colt or LMT. AR15.com seems to like DelTon better than M1S, you might look at them. Gringop

I dry fire with Azoom snap caps at home and use them for dummy drills at the range. I do a lot of malf clearance and slide lock reload drills and need some kind of snap cap for them. Since I have them out I use them for normal dry fire too. I think that it probably reduces the wear and tear on the FP. I don't think that they are 100 % necessary, just good to have. I do keep spare FPs/strikers for all my pistols. Murphy's always waiting... Gringop

My coworkers girlfriend is a member of the Latino Comedy Project. They are wickedly funny. http://www.lcp.org/ Gringop

I dont think Militec is a good rust preventitive, it's mainly just a lube. You might want to try something else like Ezzox or BC Sheath for rust prevention. And +1 on the chrome/Ionbond/electroless nickel. They are well woth the cost. Gringop

The cable modem only wants to talk to one device at a time. It learns the MAC address of the device and keeps it in it's mem. So the way to teach it a new MAC address is to power it off for 10 or 15 min, plug the router only into the modem, power the modem back on. It should learn the MAC address of the router when the router starts sending traffic. If it still doesn't work with a 15 minute off time you need to call your cable company. Gringop

Garmin's websight will show you sample coverage of their various maps http://www8.garmin.com/cartography/ontheTrail/ Look at the MapSource Map Viewer in the upper left. Chose the topo map, east or west, that you need. Then find your area, zoom in, turn up the detail, find your lake and see what coverage the map gives you. If it doesn't show the buoys, docks, ramps that you want, you can always add those points yourself. You may be able to get the map you want by just getting the topo map. So you may not need $450 worth of software. Garmin is trying to sell you a bit too much hardware. If you don't need a floating super waterproof unit, you can get by with a 60cx. It is still pretty waterproof. The only difference between the 60cx and and the 60csx is a barametric altimiter and a electronic compass. You are already getting altitude from GPS so barimetric is not needed. So you can save some money with the 60cx. You can buy a 1 GB SD card that will hold almost the entire US topo map to replace the 64 MB card that comes with it. Mine was $35 from Frys. Loading the whole US over usb can be slow but you can take the SD card out and load it seperatly. If you really get into it, there are tools out there to allow you to make your own maps and put them into Garmin format. It is not a simple thing to do. Gringop

This is an honest to God pic of my land line phone. Rotary Pulse dial, Baby! "Dr Watson! Come quickly! I need you!" I do have a wireless on the same line that can switch to Tone for menu navigation. So DSL for Inet, one land line, 2 land line phones, one cell phone (paid for by work), one pager (work) one Palm PDA. And no Bluetooth earpiece for the ultimate modern dork look. Gringop

He rode a blazing saddle He wore a shining star His job to offer battle to bad men near and far He conquered fear and he conquered hate He turned dark night into day He made his blazing saddle a torch to light the way When outlaws ruled the west And fear filled the land A cry went out for a man with guts to take the west in hand They needed a man who was brave and true with justice for all as his aim Then out of the sun rode a man with a gun And Bart was his name Yes Bart was his name He rode a blazing saddle He wore a shining star His job to offer battle to bad men near and far He conquered fear and he conquered hate He turned dark night into day He made his blazing saddle a torch to light the way Gringop

Dremel, file, or scratch some horizonal lines on the rear surface of the slide stop where the spring plunger rides. Make the lines slightly below where the plunger contacts the slide stop in it normal slide-forward position. Nothing too deep, just something to make it a bit harder for the slide stop to rise up under recoil and lock the slide open. If they are too deep and/or too sharp they will wear on the plunger. You want them to be shallow enough to allow the slide stop to be pushed up by the mag follower for normal operation. I have done this on many of my 1911 that had slide stop issues and it works great. Gringop

I was on my 2000 Honda ST1100. http://lonestar.texas.net/~mberg/st1100/2small.jpg My brother was on a Yamaha FJR 1300, 2003 I think. Our buddy was on a Honda ST1300, 2005. We averaged 60.4 mph for the whole trip. It was a lot slower in the mountains but we made up a lot of time on the flats through eastern MN and west Texas. We tried to run 80 -85 mph unless we found a rabbit who passed us then we would trail him 1/2 mile behind. No ticket or warnings this trip. My personal best was 105 mph while passing some trucks on NM. Ya gotta love a bike that will do that and more while fully loaded and with a lard ass like me on it. And get 40 mpg. Gringop edited to fix link

I just got back from an 8-day motorcycle trip through the Southwest. Saw everything from deserts to snow covered mountains, from Hopi hogans to the wooden framed miner's houses in Siverton, CO. We played in the water of the Colorado at Lee's Ferry and got snowed on a bit at Jacob's Lake, 46 miles away. We met a young couple bicycling unsupported from Phoenix to the Canadian border, I guess that is one good way to see how compatible you are. Every year I look forward to this trip, not just as an excuse to get away from work but to remind myself what this country is all about. It's not just about who is running for President, what color Ipod is cool this week or which rehab Britney checked into lately. It's about the waters of the Rio Grande turning Hatch, NM into a green oasis when all the land around is desolate desert. It's about the mule deer that raced me down the mountain road in at Emery Pass in Gila National Park. It's about the vast devastation of the Morenci Open Pit copper mine giving way to the incredible beauty of the mountains along the Coronado Trail in Eastern AZ. It's about all the people we met and places we went and food we ate and the fact that I could carry concealed the whole trip. I don't think there is another country on this earth that can offer such opportunities. I can't wait to do it again. http://lonestar.texas.net/~mberg/vacation-...on-5-19-07.html Gringop.

Lawrence of Arabia. "Colonel Brighton: Damn it, Lawrence! Who do you take your orders from? Tafas: Lord Feisal, in Lord Feisal's tent." "T.E. Lawrence: My lord, I think... I think your book is right. 'The desert is an ocean in which no oar is dipped' and on this ocean the Bedu go where they please and strike where they please. This is the way the Bedu have always fought. You're famed throughout the world for fighting in this way and this is the way you should fight now! " The original Special Forces solder. Gringop

A hard impact of the slide slamming into battery will force the whole frame forward a bit. The hammer has it's own mass and a good bit of that mass is up in the head. The frame goes forward, the hammer head stays back until the mainspring forces it forward. The sear and hammer hooks engage stopping the hammer's foreward rotation. Also, when the frame goes forward the trigger tends to bounce rearward. Combine the trigger's rearward movement with the hammer bouncing on the sear and you can get the sear disengaging slightly from the hammer hooks All of this motion is not very pronounced but it does happen. If you have a delicate 2lbs. trigger, over time enough of these slide drops can and has damaged sears and hammer hooks. Many Bullseye shooters make it a habit to hold down the trigger when releasing the slide to protect their trigger jobs. This being said, I have dropped the slide on my Kimbers many times without ruining my home job gunplumber 4.5 lbs trigger. My heavy trigger/sear springs seem to protect the sear pretty well. That doesn't mean it is a good idea, and if I had a high dollar race gun with a 2lbs trigger I would not do it. Thanks, Gringop

Hmm. I had an AD/ND on Saturday while practicing with my MP40. Must be the weekend for ADs. Mine hit the target but was a definate AD. Then there was the IDPA match that I dumped a round into the ground about 2 feet in front of me. Man, that draw was wicked fast. I taped and shagged brass for the rest of the match. Gave me some time to think about being in control vs. hauling ass on the ragged edge. Now we come to the .40 hole in the headboard of my bed. After I put it there with a very stupid ND, I sat around waiting for the cops and contemplating the loss of one or more of my guns. The point of all this is that these things can happen. We can reduce the possiblity by adhering to and understanding the 4 rules of safe gun handling and by learning lessons from our mistakes. What you don't need to do is allow a past mistake to affect your future actions. Spend an appropriate amount of time to understand what allowed the incident to happen, create a plan to correct the issue and the put it behind you and drive on. The past is past and you need to look to the future. Gringop

I would recommend one of the base Kimber models and use Wilson 8 round mags with 7 rounds in the mags. I have had 3 Kimbers and they ran great with every kind of ammo that I fed them. Keep the gun and the mags reasonably clean, shoot em at matches to make sure they run under all conditions and don't worry about it. Thanks, Gringop

+1 on the MP. I was able to get the trigger sweetened up with about 30 minutes of work, parts are availble from Brownells. The mags get sucked right into the magwell, this is the fastest reloading gun I have ever shot, including my 1911s. The stock sights are not that great but there are now lots of good aftermarket ones availible. My MP40 is now my favorite gun. Looking for a cheap price on a compact now. Gringop

My daily ride, 2000 St 1100/ http://lonestar.texas.net/~mberg/st1100/2small.jpg My middle age crazy ride. 2001 Gsxr 600. http://lonestar.texas.net/~mberg/texas/3.jpg Both laugh at 100 mph. It's good to laugh a lot. Gringop

After waiting for 9 months after they came out I picked up an MP40 for a good price at a gunshow. The ergos beat my Glock hands down. The trigger was weird at first but with instuctions from Mp-Pistol.com (Dan Berwell) I was able to get it down to 4 1/4 lbs which helped a lot. I got 3rd place in SSP at my first IDPA match with it. The gun is that good. After cleaning up the QC on my reloads it has run 100%. It was 100% out of box with factory ammo. It points good, it shoots good, it feels good. I have yet to get my hands on a MP40 Compact but when I do I might pick it up for concealed carry. The full size is a bit large for concealed carry but I have done it. The design is good, the trigger can be improved with little effort, the parts are availible from Brownells, what is not to like. The factory sights are not the best. I blacked out the rear dots with a Sharpy. There are after market sights availible. As for holsters see the other posts. I am using it in a Milt Sparks that was built for a HK compact, it kinda fits. I have a Sparks EX Companion on order but it's a long wait. Suffice to say, I really like my MP40. edited to add "I am a lefty, too" Gringop

I broke my charging handle today while lubing the bolt carrier and hand cycling. It broke right at the front Model1Sales upper. I know about the steel charging handles at Brownells but they are $50+ and out of stock right now. I may get one in the future. Here is my question. Being a lefty, I use the charging handle to drop the bolt during reloads and never use the bolt release button. Could this have contributed to the stress on my charging handle? I was working on my reloads today at the range. Has anyone else broken their charging handle under normal usage ( not clearing a stuck case)? Thanks, Gringop

If you are not going to carry it, get a steel frame. I have a 642 airweight and a 640 steel and the steel is definately easier to shot. It will last longer, too. Thanks, Mark

I too use an untucked shirt for carry and IDPA. I use a technieque I learned from an Insights Training class although I have tried the Hackathorn Rip. Insights teaches to use the curled fingers to lift the bottom of the cover garment over the pistol grip and use the thumb to keep the garment off of the grip until it is drawn. It's easier to demonstrate than describe. Since it's one handed, you don't have to worry about the off hand being out of position. It's kinda fun, being the only one at a match that doesn't look like a wanna be photographer. Thanks, Gringop "Shoot what you carry, carry what you shoot."