Bill Wilson In Front Sight

[chuckbradley]

The article implied he was against the arms race but at the same time it shows pictures of him pushing the edge with his comped, weighted, 38 super(higher capacity) pistol.

I've heard from numerous people the idea that Bill Wilson was a gamey SOB equipment-wise in the day, and so his comments today on not liking the equipment race back then are thus disingenuous. That's simply not true. I remember reading an interview with Wilson in American Handgunner back in the late '80s/early '90s. At the time all I knew about Bill Wilson was the fact his company was famous for developing compguns (the AccuComp LE, anyone?) so I figured as I started reading that he would be heavily pro-compgun. I was surprised to find (yes, even back then) that he stated in no uncertain terms he didn't like the equipment race, he preferred "real guns."

And yes, I'm sure Wilson used some gamey equipment in the day. What a lot of people don't seem to remember, if they ever knew, is there was a time that Bill Wilson was one of the best IPSC shooters on Earth. In the very early '90s, Robbie and Brian were of course in a class by themselves - but Bill Wilson was arguably the best of everyone else. When you're a top shooter, I would theorize that sometimes you do things equipment-wise that are necessary to stay a top shooter that you might not particularly like or approve of. I can respect that.

What I respect is somebody whose actions mirror what they believe even if it means loosing a trophy or market share. Of course in Bills case maybe what he believed changed as the market share changed. Its hard to deny the events that led to the creation of IDPA. It wasnt just bill who demanded that USPSA change to a 10 round limit it was a group of single stack gun builders who had been put out of the IPSC market by the wide bodies. They came to Andy Hollar as a group. It is evident it wasnt about real guns but to make the single stack guns marketable again. Now maybe to sell the idea of IDPA the talk of the "real" guns was built into the marketing of the new organization. I am convinced the whole intent was to create a market for the single stack guns and to spite USPSA for not caving to the demands. My dad always told me that if you follow the dollar you will find the truth.

[XRe]

I am convinced the whole intent was to create a market for the single stack guns...

Even if this was the long and short of it, can you really blame him?? It's common in business, after all. If you suddenly find yourself without a market segment... go make one!

[ima45dv8]

Chuck, do you know if this was Wilson calling for an across-the-board limit of 10 rounds in *all* guns, or was this when he and some others were campaigning to get a Limited division started so as to appease folks who didn't have/shoot Open guns? I wasn't at the meeting with Andy Hollar but have discussed this with someone who was (read that as, "I'm spreading 2nd-hand information, at best") and got the "wanted a separate division" version of the story.

TIA,

...Mark

[Duane Thomas]

Wow. And to think, he laid the groundwork in American Handgunner by pretending to have these opinions years before actually forming IDPA. Pretty sneaky, that Wilson feller.

[Patrick Sweeney]

I was shooting then, and Bill wasn't the only one not happy with the way things were going. A lot of shooters were royally p***sed that their "high dollar" (in 1990 money) guns were obsoleted by hi-cap guns. Having spent $1200 1990 dollars for a really nice single-stack .38 Super only to see it relegated to scrap as a competitive machine made a lot of shooters unhappy.

I still have a single-stack Open gun that I shot for less than two seasons until I could build a Caspian. Its a tackdriver and obsolete.

As a gunsmith I was more than happy to build what I needed, and build what others needed. Looking back, it is easy to say we should have done things one way or another. Looking back, I'd be wealthy now if I'd just done a few things different. Down that path lies madness.

[chuckbradley]

Dave-

Like I said he is a hell of a businessman. And i would have probably done the same thing. Some like to make it out that it was done out of a strong belief in being a tactical purist instead of a marketing strategy which is what I have a rpoblem with. I just like to look at things as they realy are not like it was meant to be portrayed. It just doesnt make sense that those beliefs, that were so strong to cause a man to turn his back on what he helped to create, werent strong enough to keep him from manufacturing, marketing , selling, profiting and using to compete the very same things that he felt so strongly against. This is not said to diminish Bill but to show the error in the logic he was just a tactical purist from the beginning.

Duane-

The interview in the late 80's or early 90's, and timing matters here, was when the wide body frames starting taking hold with the Para and P9 guns(and forgot caspian). The trip/mccormick frame was being designed and patented at that same time also. Soembody else can provide the specific dates on these since it was just before i got in the game.

Mark-

I wasnt at the meeting. I heard about it at the Nationals that year and did talk with Andy about it later although not in depth. I was standing outside the match registration at the hotel and was led to believe the meeting had just taken place. My understanding is they wanted limited to go to 10 rounds. It wasnt about open. Later on we got a seperate division known as Limited 10. Maybe they did want a new division and it got miscommunicated , the 10 round limit was the main point of it all either way.

At first there was allot of bitterness but in the long run IDPA has actually helped IPSC grow. It brought new shooters in that were too intimidated by the percieved expense and level of competition USPSA had to offer. Yes there was allot of IPSC bashing at IDPA matches, at least locally, but I think all that did was spark interest with the new shooters in the forbiden fruit, IPSC. Once into shooting competition they evolved over to IPSC, or at least allot of them have, helping USPSA. I think that may be why the article was done to offer that Olive branch and confrim that the 2 sports now help each other in one way or another. I no longer think USPSA is threatned by IDPA like I did when it first started up. The thing I loved second to family was being threatened. I was bitter but am no longer. I hope the relations between the two groups continues to improve.

Edited March 3, 2006 by chuckbradley

[Vlad]

There is a fine line between protecting investment and preventing progress. As far as I'm concerned this is a volunteer hobbie played with devices of a technological nature. If you do not expect advances and changes, then it will hurt more when it happens. I think any organization should make sure that no equipment that was complient yesterday becomes non-compliant tomorow without a long lead, but we should not be in the business of protecting people investments by guaranteeing that their old equipment will remain competitive for ever by legislating against progress.

Yeah, it stinks when you are the guy the bought a top of the line laptop the day before the new model was announced, but does anyone honestly think that the shooting sports were better off when the only guns available where hand build items which took forever to be delivered?

I love my 1911 but I think the continuing efforts to build ever more narrow sports and/or divisions around the old workhorse is a misguided (if well intentioned) effort. It is one thing to dress up as a cowboy and shoot old six guns, while re-enacting some movie version of the past, but it is a completly different ball game for organizations claiming to be "practical" to keep on trying to draw narrow boxes in which only a certain design is competitive by definition. I have no problem with defining the game in practical terms and then seeing whats popular and I have a serious problem with deciding what your favorite toy is and then dictating what is practical around it.

[9x21]

Perhaps Wilson's Combat is ready for a come back to USPSA/IPSC shooters. He pretty much left us when the hi-cap mag ban started. They have brought back the "ACCU-COMP for 2006 in our Carry Comp series of pistols" and their polymer hi cap 9mm. Maybe hi-cap supergrades are in our future..........AHH, the good old days

[revchuck]

Perhaps Wilson's Combat is ready for a come back to USPSA/IPSC shooters. He pretty much left us when the hi-cap mag ban started. They have brought back the "ACCU-COMP for 2006 in our Carry Comp series of pistols" and their polymer hi cap 9mm. Maybe hi-cap supergrades are in our future..........AHH, the good old days

Did he ever really leave? Let's see...whose magazines are the favorite for single stacks in L10? And what's the name of the new provisional division?

A lot of people wouldn't shoot USPSA because of the perceived cost of a comp gun and the hassles involved in running one. When IDPA was formed, those people came out and joined and shot and enjoyed themselves. This was apparently the "2x4 upside the head" that USPSA needed to create a division for these folks. It's now common to see shooters who have a rig that's legal and used in both USPSA Production and SSP. Both organizations have benefitted.

The good old days are NOW.

[PJONES5]

Perhaps Wilson's Combat is ready for a come back to USPSA/IPSC shooters. He pretty much left us when the hi-cap mag ban started. They have brought back the "ACCU-COMP for 2006 in our Carry Comp series of pistols" and their polymer hi cap 9mm. Maybe hi-cap supergrades are in our future..........AHH, the good old days

Did he ever really leave? Let's see...whose magazines are the favorite for single stacks in L10? And what's the name of the new provisional division?

A lot of people wouldn't shoot USPSA because of the perceived cost of a comp gun and the hassles involved in running one. When IDPA was formed, those people came out and joined and shot and enjoyed themselves. This was apparently the "2x4 upside the head" that USPSA needed to create a division for these folks. It's now common to see shooters who have a rig that's legal and used in both USPSA Production and SSP. Both organizations have benefitted.

The good old days are NOW.

+1

PAT

[tightloop]

- but Bill Wilson was arguably the best of everyone else.

Well, arguably is the operative word here...I am old enough to have shot against and with all the guys of that era...and IMO while Bill was one of the top shooters,there were more than a dozen who pretty regularly took his lunch money....Shaw, Plaxco, Campbell, Fowler, Dalton, McCormick, Wassom, Dixon, Barnhart, Pruitt and a bunch of those guys who came from Arizona..Bill was like Chuck Taylor after a fashion...always near the top, but never quite there for the win...

Don't get me wrong, he was then and still is now a heck of a shooter...but the best of the rest...that is arguable....

[eric nielsen]

I was there at the first Limited Nationals and there were a couple highly-visible "teams" or contingents of folks, one surrounding Bill Wilson, the other a maker of a really nice new fixed sight system that of course was looking for a home after the intro of optics into IPSC.

Sort of an odd scene with the cliques tending to stand together, arms crossed, commenting amongst themselves on the stages and the shooters. You could feel a weird vibe from them that in words would be something like, "We're here, and we'll support the heck out of this new thing [Limited division] as long as it goes exactly the direction we want."

I could feel the Thought Police on the hairs of my neck.

[Duane Thomas]

The good old days are NOW.

I agree. "May you live in interesting times" isn't always a curse. These are years in the evolution of proactical pistol shooting that, decades from now, people will still be discussing - and wishing they'd been there. That's kind of how I feel about the late '80s/early '90s. But today we've got IDPA, Production division in USPSA, a Single Stack Nationals coming up in USPSA (who'da ever thunk it?). We've got the classic big dogs, Robbie and Todd and Jerry Michulek (Jerry Barnhart.....come back!) still at the top of their game and kicking ass. We've got a new generation of big dogs in people like Dave Sevigny and Ernie Langdon coming in and finding the previous big dogs still have teeth. It's an exciting, wonderful time to be participating in these crazy sport, and I for one am LOVING it.

[jkelly]

As a short time IDPA/USPSA shooter, this thread along with the recent article on Mr. Wilson in Front Sight has been very informative and filled in much missing information in my understanding of the history of these two shooting sports. Thank you to those involved!

It’s nice to know that once Mr. Wilson was an ultimate gamer and a fierce competitor. Hopefully that knowledge will remove the stigma of the “gamer” label from the IDPA lexicon.

The information presented by non-IDPA partisan long-time shooters indicates that Mr. Wilson’s motivation for his bias against the equipment race and for creating IDPA seems to have been at least somewhat business based. And that should quash the idea that IDPA was created as a moral answer to the evils of USPSA.

With these two barriers removed things should only get better between the two shooting games. Right?

Respectfully,

jkelly

[GeorgeInNePa]

As a short time IDPA/USPSA shooter, this thread along with the recent article on Mr. Wilson in Front Sight has been very informative and filled in much missing information in my understanding of the history of these two shooting sports. Thank you to those involved!

It’s nice to know that once Mr. Wilson was an ultimate gamer and a fierce competitor. Hopefully that knowledge will remove the stigma of the “gamer” label from the IDPA lexicon.

The information presented by non-IDPA partisan long-time shooters indicates that Mr. Wilson’s motivation for his bias against the equipment race and for creating IDPA seems to have been at least somewhat business based. And that should quash the idea that IDPA was created as a moral answer to the evils of USPSA.

With these two barriers removed things should only get better between the two shooting games. Right?

Respectfully,

jkelly

It's all just shooting. There is no such thing as a "gamer". There is just someone who wants to be the winner.

"In the end, there can be only one."