hoser

Sterling, You are correct, the BOD voted to approve the new Tactical Division and now this Division will have to be published in Front Sight for 90 days prior to officially becoming a Division. Until then, it is still only a proposal, so feel free to contact your Area Director with suggestions on the Division. Arnie

Tactical rifle just gives our shooters another option. Nothing was taken away, nothing was changed. Now, if the BOD wanted to remove a Division, that would be a different matter to me. I would not vote to cut any Division without input from my Area members. But, having said that, the BOD and the President were, after all, elected to run USPSA. I do not regret my vote, I think Tactial Rifle will be great for the members of USPSA. Arnie Christianson Area 3 Director

The Area 3 match gives you your entry free, pays for 1/2 of your room and gives you lunch - if you work the entire match. Arnie

Rob Boudrie installed a forums type discussion board for USPSA. It seems that the previous upgrade of the member's page did not work for all types of computers and software, so Rob went back to the old style for member's comments. The forums type of discussion is much better for tracking posts by subject, so Rob installed an optional forums page for those members whose computers are able to use this type of system. Way to go, Rob! Arnie

The Open and Limited stages were NOT the same at the 2003 USPSA Nationals. Arnie

The USPSA Points Series will be intact again for 2004. Arnie Christianson Area 3 Director

"collegial, diligent and professional"..... Wow! Thanks, Joel. I guess we had you confused. Thanks for taking the time to attend the meeting. Arnie

Sidetracker, As Vince noted, the Springfield XD is not legal for IPSC Production, however, the XD is legal for USPSA Production. Arnie

When I started shooting there was no Limited Division, there was only....wait a minute, there were NO Divisions. I shot my first match with a pre-production Coonan .357 auto. Soon I realized that it was not competitive so I had a Coonan .357 comp gun built to run against all those .45 comp guns. Just in time to see hi-caps and optics come out. So, Dan Coonan showed me how to file off two sides of the rim of a .357 so there were two flats, so when you carefully loaded your rounds they would stay in a straight line so I could get 10 rounds in the mags. Then the EAA Gold Team came out and I got one of those. Finally, I could get enough rounds in the mags to compete. But, the EAA spent more time at the EAA Custom Shop being repaired than being shot, so I bought a used TRI that was made in Sandy Strayers garage. I still use that gun, even though it has been rebuilt twice now. But, if the Divisions were around when I started, I would have started in Lim10 because I had a Colt 1911 and the Coonan would not have been eligible for major because it was not .40 caliber. Arnie

Vince, I am sure you must know that young Denise would much rather spend the day working the match so she can get those four IROA points rather than accumulating all those umbrellas from the foo foo drinks. Nonetheless, I will see what we can do to attend the match and, of course, all the requisite festivities in the evening. Arnie

Ruh Roh! Did I just read that Denise wants me to take her to Bali for her birthday next year!!??!! I guess I better start saving up some money, Vince. Arnie

Joel is correct - USPSA has an exemption from IPSC to use USPSA rules even for Level III IPSC sanctioned matches. The last two Area 3 Tournaments received Level III sanctioning from Doug Lewis. All the courses were shoot them as you see them (unless a classifier is included). Level IV and V matches, even if held in the US, would use IPSC rules. Arnie

Brother Vince, When I make up hard cover on a target, the black tape covers the perf so that the bullet cannot strike the perf - hence no higher scoring zone available. When overlapping a shoot target with a penalty target and the perfs are overlapped, a hit touching the perf is touching the penalty target and the shoot target perf. By 9.5.3 that means the higher zone is scored. As I said before the way to avoid this is move the penalty target a short distance into the scoring zone so the perf is not available. Think about this: on a plain wide open shoot target the hit is into the non-scoring border. If an overlay shows that the bullet diameter touches the d zone perf, the competitor gets the d. The same goes for the shoot/penalty target scenario. If the a zone perf is available (by overlapping the perfs) and the bullet diameter touches the shoot target a zone perf, the competitor gets the a and the penalty. I think it is Darth who buys Hoser all the drinks (no beer for me) at the SHOT Show. Arnie

Oh venerable Darth, I mean no disrespect, but I most certainly disagree with your interpretation of scoring when the perfs are overlapped. I have spent a great deal of email time with John Amidon regarding this issue and we are in agreement: If the non-scoring perf of the no-shoot overlaps the A perf and the bullet diameter touches the perf, the A zone perf of the shoot target is still available and by 9.5.3, 9.5.4, 9.5.5 and 9.5.6 the hit counts for the higher value, i.e. an "alpha". If you do not want the hit to count as an A, just move the no-shoot target over a little more so the underlying perf is not available. Arnie, risking the wrath of Darth

Wow, Vince! I didn't know you cared!!! Is the "action" you were referring to the squirt gun fight between Dino and myself at the Pan-Am? Brian, I think you want that refresher course at my house just so you can drain that 16 gallon keg in the beermeister, since I don't drink beer anymore. Arnie

The five year contract for PASA Park at Barry, IL only called for "one" Nationals to be held at PASA. There was no restriction on what kind of Nationals it would be. According to the USPSA bylaws, the President has sole authority over Nationals. All I have heard regarding a Nationals in Florida is rumor, nothing more. If there were to be a four year contract, I suspect the BOD would be asked to approve that contract. But, the location of Nationals is the responsibility of the President. Arnie

OOPS!! Sorry folks, I was trying to put that box around the quote and goofed up. Anyway, Brian, you don't have your rule book at work!!?? For shame! Renee, if the RO is positive that you did not engage a target with at least one round and it is not a disappearing target, you will receive an FTE no matter how many rounds you fired at the other targets. See 9.5.9 Arnie (who keeps a rulebook at work)

TDean wrote: I heard something about a shooter contacting an RO. The RO claimed intentional and the shooter arbitrated it, and won. Did you see it? Was it flagerant? This incident happened on my stage. I was working the clipboard, another RO was running the shooter. The shooter failed to put the dummy on the table, had two misses and two no-shoots. Finished shooting and then yelled back and started moving backwards FAST, looking for the RO. Finally managed to make very slight contact with the RO about 20 rounds uprange while the RO was falling backwards attempting to get out of the way. The shooter then shot at the first array where he had two hits and hit another no-shoot and then demanded a reshoot for RO contact. I denied the reshoot as the contact was slight and the RM backed up the call. The shooter filed an arb and won. In retrospect, I blew the call. I should have DQ'ed the shooter for unsportsmenlike conduct, but I was giving the benefit of doubt to the shooter. This shooter also tried to back into another RO during the open match, but the staff was wise to him by then. Arnie

Brian, Two things about the L1 RO class. One, though I appreciated your offer to help teach the class, NROI Instructors teach the class. Two, there is no problem with sitting in on a class, but this class was projected to be 35 students, which is about the maximum that one Instructor can handle. So, to preserve spaces for new RO students, I requested that you not sit in on the class. Sorry about the miscommunication. Arnie

Paul built an STI for my son, it is a beautiful looking gun and runs flawlessly. The last I talked to him, he was in Montreal, working as an independent consultant on prop firearms for the movie industry and playing in a band. I will check to see if I still have an email (he seldom ever checked his email) or a phone number for him. Arnie

Hey Everyone, keep in mind that the Area 3 Championship, to be held at the Minnetonka Game and Fish Club in St. Francis, MN will be filling up for shooting slots on Saturday. If you want to shoot the match on Saturday, you better get your entry form mailed in fairly soon. Entry forms are available in Front Sight or on the Area 3 webpage. Hope to see you at the match! Arnie Christianson Area 3 Director

Vince, Too late, Denise already has pointed out your reply!!! You are in deep doo doo, my Hong Kong friend. Just for your information, I have only tried lutefisk one time and it took me four years to recover, it was worse than SARS. I do admit to saying "uffda", "you betcha" and "ish" (which Denise had to ask me to translate) more often than you would think. Unfortunately, I grew up close to Canada and Dino also taught me to say "eh" a whole bunch with the "you betcha's". Oh, by the way, Ivan Ketler has already confirmed that he will be at the Area 3 match, what is your status? Are you afraid that we have a spot behind the remote berm for you? By the way, Denise asks if you will sponsor the high female at the Area 3 match with a prize consisting of pearls from Hong Kong. And, of course, you would be very remiss in not remembering the Match Director with pearls as well (either pink or black pearls would suffice). You Betcha. Arnie L2323 Area 3 Director NROI/IROA Range Master

I certainly feel that only NROI certified ROs and CROs should be allowed to officiate at major matches. Too many times I have seen bad calls made by "experienced" and "knowledgeable" ROs who have not bothered to take an RO class or who have not bothered to look at a rule book since the yellow edition. NROI has gone out of their way to teach that RO'ing is not an "us vs. them" affair. We are all shooters and some of us like to RO as well. It is our way of giving back to the sport and we care enough about the sport to become certified and stand up and do our job using our knowledge of the rules as we learned them by taking a class. It is too bad that there are not more RO classes offered, but I can speak for myself and say that I traveled 6 hours one-way to take my RO class and a year later traveled the same 6 hours to take a CRO class and that the time was well spent. Now, I have been a certified NROI Range Master/Instructor for six years and the only excuse for not having an RO class in your local area for three years is that no one from the club stepped forward to organize a class. NROI does not do the scheduling for RO/CRO classes, it is up to some in the club/section to organize the class and contact Sedro Woolley to schedule the class. Once Kim at Sedro gets the request for a class, she will assign an Instructor to teach the class.