state of competitive handgun shooting in 1979

[Carmoney]

Digging through my bookshelf for some morning reading material, I found an old copy of Guns magazine from 1979. Although I subscribed to at least one gun magazine that year (Guns & Ammo), I'm pretty sure this was something I picked up more recently because of an article covering a particular revolver I own.

Anyway, there were three references to competition shooting that I thought were interesting.

1. Massad Ayoob reported the infamous incident at an IPSC match in New England where the stage began with the competitor seated at a card table, with the gun loaded in Condition 2 (hammer down on a loaded chamber!) on the table under a folded newspaper. On the start signal, Mas grabbed his 1911, cocked the hammer, and BLAM!--blasted a .45-caliber hole through the table and nearly shot himself in the foot. Mas indicated that while he had caught flak from a number of other gunwriters for admitting the safety violation, most of them acknowledged experiencing some sort of similar incident during their shooting careers.

2. In the same article, Massad Ayoob discussed a letter he had received from the NRA, which followed up a previous column where he had mentioned the possibility that a competitive NRA Bullseye or PPC shooter might consider having a loaded and holstered backup handgun on the belt, to draw and use (classic New York Reload!) during the match in the event of a malfunction of the main competition handgun. The letter from the NRA informed Mas that his idea would violate at least 17 different NRA Bullseye match rules.

3. Another writer reviewed a custom revolver--the one similar to mine--and mentioned in passing that he had recently been invited to compete at the first annual event that John Bianchi had organized at the Chapman Academy in Columbia, MO, and was looking forward to using the custom wheelgun in "this new Bianchi Cup shoot-out."

Interesting insight into the state of competition handgun shooting 34 years ago.

[Guy Neill]

Things were a bit, shall we say - looser, back in those days - but we had fun.

And learned a few things along the way.

Guy