B.J. Norris

They have moved it to Fl in 2012, but dates have not been officially announced yet.

The newer Aimpoint hats are also button free.

Video of my match up on , will process and post some pics on my Facebook page tomorrow. Thanks to all the staff for their hard work, I was worn out enough after only 3 days!

I just learned that a soldier with a bright future in the service was killed last Thursday in Fallujah, Iraq. It truly sickens me that it was a fellow US Soldier that shot and killed not only PFC Noonan, but also SPC. John Carrillo Jr, as well as wounding a third. Out of the ways we talked about being injured downrange, being purposely shot by one of our own brothers never crossed our minds. I personally knew Noonan, having had the honor of sleeping on the next bunk during OSUT. He was always one of the hardest working and best soldiers in 1st Platoon, D Co. 1/50 during that cycle, and have no doubt that he carried that to 3/15, 4th INF BCT. RIP Brother, you'll be sorely missed.

+1, Safariland knocked it out of the park with these.

Charles has it, the target audience for this show is not the shooting industry. Those that want to see a shooting show will watch Shooting USA, 3-Gun Nation, Shooting Gallery, etc. If all of the USPSA and IDPA memberships stopped watching the show, I'd bet it wouldn't make a huge dent in the weekly viewership numbers. Outside of the Action Pistol sports, I don't know/understand a lot of other sports rules. Why? It takes a lot of time and effort to stay current not only with the letter, but meaning of the rules in a sport. Heck, it takes 5 minutes to explain the basics of how a USPSA match is scored, let alone any of the equipment. On the other hand, who hasn't heard of cutting a rope with a lever gun? Or the famous Annie Oakley shot with the mirror? People who are not hardcore shooters can easily understand these challenges and that is what makes the show a success.

Neomet, Glad you like the scope, I know you were on the fence for awhile, but once you use it, IMHO it's hard to use anything else. I'll try to answer some questions about the scope below. Different models of Micro: The H1, R1 and T1 are the very same scope. The difference being the finish, or in the case of the T-1, it has a NVD compatible coating on the glass and has a stronger guarantee against water damage. The switch, tube, emitter and assembly are identical. Dot size: This seems to be the biggest concern I see with the Micro series, and requires getting a little technical. On a C-More (which right now, is still the standard on Open pistols), the size of the dot is controlled by the size of the aperture (i.e. hole) that is drilled into the housing that the emitter fits in. Hence why the battery life is generally the same across the dot sizes, as the emitter is incredibly large in reference as to what is really needed. Aimpoint's ACET emitters are built to order, instead off-the-shelf components, so if they need a 2 MOA dot, they build a 2 MOA emitter. This is the reason the battery life is the industry standard, a Micro on setting 9 will run for 5 YEARS before needing a new battery. I know that I replaced my C-more battery at least once a month, while the orignal battery in the H-1 I've been using for about two years in my rimfire gun is still going strong. Dave, we'll have to agree to disagree, as my Micro looks every bit as big as almost every 6 MOA C-more I've had (except for that one that I know had to be mis-marked... it looked like a 12!) Technically speaking, building a Micro with a 6, 8 or 10 MOA dot is doable, but it will require a different emitter, which means investment. The best way to get them built is to ask Aimpoint directly for it. If you PM me, I will give you email address of the right person here in US to get your request to and he'll talk to Sweden from there. Remember, competitive shooting is a very small market, and one that they are hesitant to get back into with the history of what happened to the previous generations of scopes. There are a few things I'd love to tweak on the scopes for our purpose, but building 50-100 scopes for a set group of people is just not cost effective especially when these scopes just do not wear out. But in short, the more people that start using them, the better.

Thanks to Phil, the staff and all of the sponsors for an awesome event. It will be a sad day if I ever miss a Pro-Am for any reason. Youtube video.

Dave, In all honesty, I was throwing a shot in the dark, as we have so far been unable to find anything, and it seemed to match my symptoms and I had taken a fairly hard fall on my lumbar when I was young. After researching some more, I have found that it is easily seen on an x-ray, and with the amount of x-rays I've had, between the military and civilian worlds, it was be crazy to think that somebody didn't catch it. At this point, I will most likely head back to a chiropractor that I saw over Christmas break, who did have an idea what was wrong, and believed he could fix it. Chills, I was in the Army when I started having problems, but have since been voluntarily discharged, under a Chapter 11 ELS. When the military docs (well, I say doc, but all I ever saw was a P.A., even at the main hospital), couldn't find anything wrong, my senior DS and I thought it would most likely be for the best, at least for now until I could figure out what was going on. My CO did make sure to code my discharge so it would be possible for me to re-enlist if I desire to do so later, but for right now, I've got fix my back before I can really do anything. I can manage to shoot well, but trying to stay in shape has been a nightmare...

Hey Guys, My PCP has still not been able to track down the cause of the pain in my lower lumbar area. X-rays, MRI and an ultrasound have all come back as normal. After doing some more research on my own, my symptoms seem to match Spondylolytic spondylolisthesis pretty much to the T. I was thrown off a horse when I was about 12 or 13, and fell probably 15-20 feet right onto my lumbar, so I have a feeling that this may something to do with it. Mostly, it's a dull burning pain after some type of physical activity, and it also seems very prone to re-injury. About a month ago, I could run (albeit fairly slow ~8:30-9 minute pace), and ruck with a 40 lb pack without too much discomfort, and figured I was on the upswing. But since moving over the past few weeks, it's almost impossible for me to run without a severe burning pain, and I can feel the muscles start to tighten after carrying the same ruck with about 20 pounds in it from the front door to my truck. At one time or another, I've been through the list of non-surgical remedies, and while some provide temporary relief, none have truly "fixed" the problem. Probably has what worked the best in terms of length of relief is Norflex, but at this point in my life, I'd really rather not take a muscle relaxer twice a day to be able to active... I'm working on getting an appointment with a specialist in town, but in the mean time, does anybody here have any experience with it? The corrective surgeries seem pretty heavy duty, and look like that wold put me out of pretty much anything for at least 6 months.

Doug, I always preferred the balance/feel of the 5.5", but shot better with the 7.25", go figure... To me, the 7.25" is more useful, since the longer sight radius makes shooting iron sights a lot easier, but still balances very well for Open.

+1 to Graham, even in OSUT during downtime we found interesting ways to have fun, like making the pull-up bar into a ropes course...

One must remember that there are two kinds of green loctite. The first (I forget the numbers), is a wicking grade that you can apply after assembly and will hold comparable to blue. The other green is an extremely thick, "retaining compound" that holds harder and to higher temps then red, and does NOT like to come loose, especially if applied with the loctite primer... This is usually what is applied to comps.

I don't really have a whole lot to add it that... +1000!

Hey Guys, I just put up some video from the match on Thanks to squad 20 for a great time!

Hey guys, I just want to make sure, but running an Aimpoint with a magnifier is legal in Tac-Optics correct? Thanks!

The sad part is that I was one of the only guys in my platoon that didn't have any pay issues from the get go... Grr...

Since I never had a chance to get on my MyPay account before getting discharged from the ARMY, I was unable to print off a copy of my W-2 from 2009 before the account was taken offline. Now, after over 6 weeks of phone calls to DFAS, I STILL haven't gotten one, and all they can tell me is that I need to send a fax to X number to request a copy. To top it off, I have no way of knowing if the fax was even received , as I guess the people that get them just "missed" the bold 24 point font asking them to call me and confirm that they got it...

Looks like I'll be sending my entry in today, will be my first 3-gun match. Should be interesting!

Ryan, If you ever get the chance (i.e. if we can ever get primers again...), take a box of 100 out to the range and shoot it with a .22, it's a huge eye-opener as to the real explosive force of primers. Made my Dad and I wonder if having 30+K of them stacked up in one place is really a good idea... My guess is that UPS figures that once they're in cases, the explosive content per area is cut way down, therefore it's not no longer haz-mat, but I don't know.

I run 5 on the belt, one in the gun and a barney mag using Safariland 771's.

Have you tried different ammo? I don't have a whole lot of time with a Sig (none on an M&P, waiting on one to come in), but as mentioned, it can be picky about ammo. As far as the barrel moving, that's almost inherent to all of the polymer guns.

I talked to Todd yesterday for a little bit about his plans. I won't spoil anything, but it'll be some good stuff coming out!

As a lot of people already know, I was discharged out of OSUT a couple weeks ago due to lower back problems. I won't go into a lot of detail here (there's more on my blog), but it really sucks... Only a couple weeks away from graduation and I had to come home...

+1, Even if the zero moves (which is very seldom), you can usually get it back to perfect within 5 shots because the adjustments are extremely consistent. But to answer the plastic vs. aluminum question. It is better, However, for me, it wasn't enough to justify the added weight, and the aluminum isn't without it's own unique set of challenges.