JD45 Posted March 29, 2005 Share Posted March 29, 2005 I have never found anything on the evolution of IPSC pistols in those first 4 or 5 years. I would like to know how pistols changed in the first few years. What was the first year of Unlimited(open) class pistols? Who was the first to use a comp? When did the .38 Super start winning? How about the first race holsters? When did the Weaver stance stop winning matches? Thanks for any information that you can share. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
tightloop Posted March 29, 2005 Share Posted March 29, 2005 I started shooting in '78 and shot a Govt Mod 70 Series with S&W sights and a trigger job...shot it 8 months...then went to same gun with BoMar sights and a trigger job and mag release with a button on it, and Swenson ambi safety...shot it one year... Saw John Shaw win with a Clark Pin gun and immediately had my smith build one...cone bbl with half profile weight, then changed to full profile weight in 81, then used Devel 8 round mags the same year...then in 82 used a full profile weight with the Keeper System (kind of MagnaPort thru the slide and bbl)..shot it for 1.5 yrs then started using a Para frame, still shooting .45, but high cap..shot it for 8 months then tried shooting a BHP, broke it in 5 months, built another and broke it in 4 months, then built a SS, .38 Super in 84, still with irons and full profile cone weight...then in 85 experimented with Aim Point sight with both Para high cap .45 and then on the Super...Shot a Super with Aim Point till I stopped in mid 86... That covers my early development stuff...I am sure Patrick and others have more.. first holster was Safariland Chapman Hi Ride then with with Gordon Davis holsters, belt and mag holders, used to take the steel out of them and cut down the opening till just the tension screw was covered, used the California Challenger and others, then tried custom holsters but used Davis till I stopped in 86... Weaver stopped winning with the advent of Enos and TGO and their appearance on the shooting scene....really had stopped for most about late 85...but us old timers continued to shoot Weaver after that... Now shoot ModWeaver...for most stuff... Wink Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
old shooter Posted March 29, 2005 Share Posted March 29, 2005 I think that during the first years, most guns were about the same visualy with only the sights and finish making any noticable difference. Swenson guns were the best made. Several others started in the mid 70's and several made great guns, but little advancement. My gun was was a colt 70 series, with barsto bbl (45acp), nation match slide, bomar sights, 30 lpi checkering on the front and trigger guard. The frame was electroless nickel, slide blue. Checkered arched mainspring housing, and alum. trigger with a 4 lb pull. I later added a Plaxco Comp and bbl, and used one of Jack Breskovich's tungsten guide rods. I also used this gun for the Bianchi match. I met Gordon Davis at the nationals in Los Angeles, and went to his house with some of my friends (who knew him and took him some Lone Star Beer). He was making holsters in his garage, and suntanning them in his back yard. He built a holster for me that I used until I switched to a Bianchi break front holster. I was just quitting when the super was making inroads, and never shot a dot in competition at that time (ipsc no, bianchi yes) Well, so much for waxing nostalgic. As an aside, my match gun was stolen from my house and used in a murder. It now resides at the Anauac Tx sherrifs dept. Mike Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
GeorgeInNePa Posted March 30, 2005 Share Posted March 30, 2005 ...then in 85 experimented with Aim Point sight with both Para high cap .45 and then on the Super... Tightloop, I thought the Para frame came out in '88 or '89. Are you off a few years or am I confused? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
mcoliver Posted March 30, 2005 Share Posted March 30, 2005 How about full length guide rods? Were they also some fad that got started? I heard from some old timers refer to mine as stabilizers. Me thinks the original intent was probably really to increase weight and control recoil than protect the spring? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
MasterLefty Posted March 30, 2005 Share Posted March 30, 2005 I believe that Plaxco was the first to port his pin gun. In 1984, the devel follower was the hot ticket. 8+1 in your 45. (Caused a lot of crying by some at the 85 Nationals.) In 1985, TGO and Brian started running the 38 supers. I don't remember if they ran them at the Nats that year, but TGO won the '86 nationals shooting a Super. We were playing with full length guide rods in 1986, but I'm not sure when it started. My '86 gun had a 2 piece Wilson, but others in my club were playing with the Bertwoswuitch (sp) full length. My '85 gun was a model 10 S&W with a Mark II Aimpoint. I tried using a Mark III on a Clark mount on my 1911 in '86, but couldn't get use to the sight plane. During this time, the popular holster was the Davis (however, I ran a Dan Blocker). Kenny Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Bob Hostetter Posted March 30, 2005 Share Posted March 30, 2005 Lets see, my 1st gun was a Colt 1911 with a Bar Sto barrel, S&W rear sight and a welded on front sight, and a trigger job that was horrible. Mid 80's Shaw showed up at the Steel challenge with a Clark Pin Gun which was basicially a weight on the end of the barrel. Then Plaxco showed up with the same thing but ports cut into it. We started seeing the 38 Supers in my area around 1987-88 and they were considered the work of the devil......... Mac's 45 shop in Seal Beach built me a 1911 Colt with the grip cutoff and pieces added to allow the use of S&W 459 magazines around 1988-89. Man, what an advantage, it held around 14 rounds of major 9mm. Of course the pounding from the 115gr major 9's beat the solder joints in the grip to pieces and I had to get it done about every 4-5 months. Whiched to the P-9 when they came out, and then to the modular guns and never looked back............ The was no Open division back then, there was only one division until Limited was created in the early 90's (?). Plaxco was probably the 1st to use what we would call a comp. Robbie and Eno's were the 1st to really use the Super. Davis and Blocker's were the holsters to have until Ernie Hill came out with the "Fas Trac" holsters. Wasn't it Barnhart that showed up at the Nationals with the Dot for the 1st time? late 80's I think........... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
BrianH Posted March 30, 2005 Share Posted March 30, 2005 Within a hot second of Shaw bringing his pin gun to an IPSC match, every gunsmith was doing it. Bill Wilson's barrel weight was called the Accu-comp. Then he bored an expansion chamber in it (no ports!) and called it the Accu-comp 2. Then he cut 2 skinny ports in the sides (ala Brown/Plaxco) and called it the Accu-comp C System. One fat port in front and we had the Accu-comp LE, which when I started in 1989 was on pretty much every gun, because there were no other comp kits that were readily available. There was the Clark Pinmaster kit, the Springfield Armory Quik-comp (which was a POS), and the Jarvis Comp (I had all three!). Plaxco sold a comp kit until about '88 or '89, but I talked to his wife around then and she said he quit doing them. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
tightloop Posted March 30, 2005 Share Posted March 30, 2005 Yep, I think you are correct the Para frame was later in the 80's...remember I have CRS cause I am old...but the rest of it is pretty close.... I also remember using Jack Brescovich grip weights and very thin grips, and making a fixture to hollowbase H&G 68 bullets so they only weighed like 160 grs or something like that, then reduced the powder chg to something like 4.1 of 452 AA to make it on the chrony.. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
dirtypool40 Posted March 30, 2005 Share Posted March 30, 2005 I wish there were pics of all this stuff. I would love to see that cut and welded high cap. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Patrick Sweeney Posted March 30, 2005 Share Posted March 30, 2005 My progression was a bit different, as I spent a lot of time on bowling pins. I had a box-stock Ithaca that I ran until the very ealry 1980s, when the late Frank Paris built it into an IPSC gun: chromed frame, blue slide, Wichita sight (which broke) The front sight flew off, and Frank replaced it, and the gun ran fine. The soft Ithaca slide ate the barrle, so I replaced it, then when it did it again I simply installed a Caspian and Bar-sto in it. The first half of the 1980s was R&D on comped .45s. The second half was the struggle between comped .45s and single stack Supers. The first Para were frames only, in 1987. I built one, didn't like, and shelved it. The hot shooters in our area didn't use the Clark, Wislon or the rest becuase we had Dan McDonald. He buitl comps from scratch, and those of us in the know were seeing coned comps, straight triggers, full length guide rods and multi-port guns before 1984. We saw Supers here five minutes after their unveiling on the West coast and AZ. The hi-cap P9 guns were all the rage until 92-92 when the first modular 1911 frames came out. Jerry shot an Aimpoint in the 90 Nationals, and then Doug Koenig used a dot gun in the 1990 World Shoot. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
eerw Posted March 30, 2005 Share Posted March 30, 2005 great info.. I didn't get started till the mid-late 80s...so the first guns that I saw were comped..the club I started with there were a bunch of comped .45s and regular ole 5" .45s.. I can remember poring over the catalogs of Wilson and Clark. I actually started shooting with a Browing HiPower and was able to get my C class card with that..I shot a comped single stack iron sighted 38super for a couple of years after that, then to a dot in '91 If I remember I thought JerryB and Doug used a Tasco PDP2 in '90 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
BrianH Posted March 30, 2005 Share Posted March 30, 2005 John Dixon shot a Para .45 at the '92 or '93 nationals, but the frame was Beryllium Copper. I assume that's because they hadn't figured out casting steel. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
tightloop Posted March 30, 2005 Share Posted March 30, 2005 Yep, Eddie Jemenia initially tried to buff/sand all the pock marks out of Dixon's frame and finally gave up and handed it back to John.... Eddie was the Man in Houston in the early days....still is My Man...he built comps from solid blocks of 4340 stress relieved, in both half and full profile... I remember John and one of his buds showing up at a match, I think it was Jeff Wassom, when we shot the Speedy V...He had a 1x shotgun scope on his pistol and Jeff had an Aimpoint...I managed to win that match by hundreths of a Comstock point...they were 2nd and 3rd...think that was about 85 or so cause I was still shooting my .45 Pin/Keeper gun..... The first Para frame I got was also B/Copper and was too wide and square to fit my hand...also lots of pits in it...about 88 I think, after I had stopped shooting big time... This thread really deserves a couple of cold brews, sitting on the porch with Patrick, Mike Moore, and some of the other guys who went thru the IPSC gun wars.....man, I wish I had all those iterations of comps, etc we made back then...would be fun to see the progress then to now. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
BrianH Posted March 30, 2005 Share Posted March 30, 2005 The first 5 years was mostly the Pachmayr Combat Special (and all the gunsmith copies), and if you were hot shit a Hoag longslide, or maybe a Clark longslide, and the Swenson .45 if you could get one. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Bob Hostetter Posted March 30, 2005 Share Posted March 30, 2005 I still have that hand made frame but can't find the beavertail that went with it. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
old shooter Posted March 30, 2005 Share Posted March 30, 2005 Oh, yea, I forgot about my Safari Arms beavertail, thats when the bloody hand stopped......Man, I want an old custom single stack again. I still have my H&G 68 8-cav mould. I think that I still have some loads and brass from the 70's. Mike Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
MasterLefty Posted March 31, 2005 Share Posted March 31, 2005 ...and making a fixture to hollowbase H&G 68 bullets so they only weighed like 160 grs or something like that, then reduced the powder chg to something like 4.1 of 452AA to make it on the chrony.. <{POST_SNAPBACK}> How did you get there with 4.1 gr? I had to throw 5.2 gr of 452AA to get a 200gr H&G 68 to run major. Kenny Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Alan Meek Posted March 31, 2005 Share Posted March 31, 2005 When I started shooting USPSA/IPSC back in 1988 I started with a Taurus 99 9mm. Ringed the barrel and had a Bar-Sto Barrel installed. Then I Had Bob Perkins from Bob's Cop Shop install a compensator. The Comp is pretty cool as the end will screw out and I have two discs that I can swap out. Also have a tool to clean the comp of all debris. Next I had a Gold Cup that I then replaced it with my first 38 Super. Plyed with a Delta Elite but when I heard about the .40 S&W shipped Said Delta Elite o\to Bar-Sto and had Irv fit a .40 Barrel and had a Plaxco 2 Chamber comp installed. Interesting fact about this barrel is it was engraved with both 10mm and .40 S&W designation. When USPSA banned unramped barrels in the 38 Super the .40 became my primary USPSA gun. Then I jacked up the .40 Top end and slid a Caspian Hi-Cap frame under the top. Shot this configuration until I replaced the comp with a design by a friend from SoCal. Continued to shoot this configuration until I retired the gun a year ago. With the exception of the Gold Cup and Delta elite frame I still have all guns I have used to shoot USPSA/IPSC Stell Challenge with. (Just can't seem to part with them) Alan Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
tightloop Posted March 31, 2005 Share Posted March 31, 2005 MASTERLEFTY When you hog out the bottom so the projectile only weighs 150 or so grains, you can make 875fps with 4.1....and a 6" bbl... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
TxD Posted March 31, 2005 Share Posted March 31, 2005 MASTERLEFTYWhen you hog out the bottom so the projectile only weighs 150 or so grains, you can make 875fps with 4.1....and a 6" bbl... <{POST_SNAPBACK}> Masterlefty, you have got to understand that you still claimed the bullet weight at 200 gr when shot over the crono. I started in 86, and one of the first matches was in the Hill Country west of Austin. They would put up a post and shoot at it with a three gun team (handgun, rifle, shotgun). Fastest to cut it down, won. I remember Chippy driving into the range in an old beater pick up that had seen better days. Shot a lot with Dixon around Houston. He taught me it's not the splits, it's the transitions that win the stage. I think it was 88 when he finished second at the World Shoot. He also won Area 4, 6 or 8 times. Tightloop is right. We had a lot happening in the mid/late 80's. Come on, tell them about the stolen trophy. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Flexmoney Posted March 31, 2005 Share Posted March 31, 2005 The "Stolen Trophy" story has earned it's own thread: http://www.brianenos.com/forums/index.php?showtopic=22574 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
AikiDale Posted June 6, 2006 Share Posted June 6, 2006 This seemed like the right place for this question, when and why did magazines get to be 140 and 170 mm rather than fit flush with the end of the grip? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Flatland Shooter Posted June 6, 2006 Share Posted June 6, 2006 (edited) Edited June 6, 2006 by Flatland Shooter Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
uscbigdawg Posted June 6, 2006 Share Posted June 6, 2006 You can pick up some of the older Lenny Magill videos and see some of the high tech parts back in the day. Pistol Masters and How To Shoot Fast and Accurately are two favorites. From Chip McCormick and his 8 round magazines, Safariland holsters and the Sig P9 shot by Angelo Spagnoli. Then you pick up videos like the first 3-Gun Nationals, and see all kinds of weirdness. Too, I think I have a video of a Nationals from the early 90's showing a welded up Caspian mag that I think Jethro or Matt Burkett was using where they stated they only had to make one reload for the match. Let's see...then there's my buddy Blake that's been in the sport way too long and actually has a CMC GunRacer pistol in immaculate condition. Just never shoots it and didn't that much when he had it as he picked up a couple of Limcats quickly after. Rich Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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