9mm Major Why?

[Patrick Sweeney]

In an off-forum e-mail, I've been asked why keep working over the subject?  To put it delicately, the organization has not had a good track record in jumping the right way when the terrain changes.

Look at what happened when Stock became Limited, and Limited became an Open gun without comp or dot.  Or hi-cap mags and oal:  170, 140 and 126mm?

The powders are coming, and we will have to deal with the situation sooner or later.  The last time we decided to do something about this, we drove a whole lot of then-sponsors out of the sport.  Yes, there were other economic factors at work, but banning entire product lines from competition sure didn't help.

There are already factory loads in Super that make Major, loading data for other calibers that do it, and interested groups here and abroad.  We should at least figure out what our options are before we step in it again.

And who better than this forum to kick the idea around until it sits there nicely and behaves itself?

Personally, I'm not sure I'd prefer to be shooting a Limited gun in Super over one in 40, given roughly equal capacity.  However, if it were allowed and a manufacturer approached me and said "We want you to shoot for us and we'll pick up the expenses if you shoot our 9mm whizbang" you bet I'd give it serious thought.

One of the things that SASS does well is to entice sponsors into the program.  Except for the loyal sponsors we've had for the last decade, who do we have?  Why be a sponsor if what you make can't be used in the match?  Why be a sponsor if the group is so specialized that no one finds it interesting?

9mm Major by itself won't solve any of our problems, but would clear up a schizophrenic ballistic situation that makes us look strange, and give potential sponsors an opening.