Factory Gun Nationals -- Results

[Duane Thomas]

"One interesting fact is the number of unclassified shooters, lim-10 had the most. This match was announced months in advance, you would think more people would've got classified before shooting it. I heard the match was full but there was only 260+ shooters. Didn't the BOD set the number of slots for a nationals at around 450 awhile back."

Talked to Michael Voight, according to him USPSA originally envisaged the Factory Nats as a 200 shooter event because they weren't sure many people would want to shoot it. Response was WAY beyond what they expected so they expanded it to a 300 slot match. My own shooter # was 307 - I believe I may have been the last peson to get a slot, and I probably couldn't have gotten that if I hadn't had assignments from two magazines to write it up. My understanding is that 50 or 60 people were put on standby. 276 people actually shot the match, which is pretty DAMN impressive considering this is the first-ever major match for divisions of competition not even three years old.

[Duane Thomas]

"It'll be interesting to see the numbers at the racegun Nationals...harder venue to get too, but are the racey guns more popular than the "factory' ones?"

No. Given the difficulty and expense of finding and purchasing high cap mags, and the legal concerns in assembling your own, I wouldn't be incredibly surprised to see the number of Open and even Limited shooters begin a slow decline in the next few years. IMHO Limited-10 and Production are the future of the sport.  

[Duane Thomas]

"So...what gear did everybody shoot?  

Any of the big-dogs shoot a single-stack?  TGO?"

Interviewed all the "name" shooters at the match, took photos of their guns. Let's see if I can remember this off the top of my head....

Rob Leatham shot his stainless Springfield Trophy match 6" longslide. "Back to the Future" was the theme of the match, and it was great to see this gun win, as the 6" .45 was the first IPSC racegun.

Ron Avery also shot a 6" .45 singlestack. STI (?) I think.

Jerry Barnhart shot the same high-cap .40 (downloaded of course) he's used to win three Nationals. He just keeps rebuilding it and shooting it some more.

Todd Jarrett shot a Para Ordnance LDA .40. Except for some minor work to the sights it was totally stock.

David Sevigny's Glock WAS totally stock. Interesting note, not too long before the match David pulled out any modified trigger parts and replaced them with factory stock units. He'd had one instance of the gun doubling, which indicated to him it was no longer safe with the modified parts. He installed the stock trigger components, tried them out and said, "Ah, all that polishing doesn't make that much difference," and just left them untouched.

I wish to God I could remember what Ernest Langdon was shooting. Beretta 9mm, obviously. My mind wants to say it was a 92 Elite. I'll check my interviews and let you know.

Lisa Munson, Travis Tomasie, Phil Strader and Michael Voight all shot downloaded .40 high-caps. I know in Lisa's and Travis' case they were SVIs, and if memory serves me correctly (which it may not) Michael's was as well.

Jerry Miculek shot an S&W 625. What a shock, right?

Richard Bitow, the Area One Revolver Champion, was also on the Super Squad. Rich's gun was a blued steel Smith 25 with 6-1/8" barrel. I asked Rich what modifications if any he'd done to the gun. He replied, "Well....the barrel is untouched....and the rear sight. Everything else has been 'touched'."

(Edited by Duane Thomas at 9:05 pm on July 24, 2002)

[BSeevers]

"Check out Travis's El Prez HF! Un-human!"

I was there to see it. It was PRETTY. The only guy in the entire match to do a sub-5 second El Prez - 55 points in 4.71 seconds. T absolutely NAILED the load. I wanna be just like him when I grow up. Wait a minute, he's 10 years younger than me....

Steve Marsden had a 4.95 with same points. Both are outstanding competition scores

[ErikW]

Don Bednorz, in the L10 top 16 also had a single stack. I believe Travis and Phil, among others, had short dust cover scalloped slide guns. Frank Garcia and Tony Hawkins, among others, had long/wide/slab/bull guns. I guess there aren't combined stage results on the web, but Sevigny beat them all on a speed shoot with a Glock and Jarrett beat everybody on at least one stage with his LDA. And they shot Minor!

Jerry and Rudi shot Smith 625s... Rudi had trouble with his.

There was no L10 super squad, just a combined division super squad. They followed my squad, the ladies super squad. (Don't ask me why I was on it.) So I got to see them shoot some. I don't know if it was the heat and humidity or what, but a lot of them seemed to make a lot of mistakes. On their second stage I saw Miculek trigger freeze twice, Travis blow a reload, and Phil spray and pray steel on his way to a standing reload.

[Patrick Sweeney]

And for those who missed it, Rich Bitows El Prez was a thing of beauty.  50 points, 5.75 seconds, with a 25-2.  And he mentioned afterwards that he usually only drops four or five points at that speed.

He is a founding member of the dremel gunsmiths club.  With chubby little hands he's ground it everywhere he needs to to reach.  And then let it rust in the humidity.  I thought I had ugly gear, then I met Rich.

[Flexmoney]

5.75 with a revolver!!!  wow.

Speaking of fast...how did the shoot-offs go?

[ErikW]

TGO was in a class of his own at the shootoffs.

Langdon won the Production shootoff, Miculek took Revolver.

[cpty1]

Division winners in the shootoff were Rob in Lim-10, Langdon in production, and Jerry in revolver.  In the final, Jerry beat Langdon and then in turn got beat by Rob.  They modified the format to compensate for the wheel gun by removing two standard poppers, the US stop popper, and the mandatory reload requirement that was in place prior to the grand finale.  

[Shooter Grrl]

Did they do Top 8 or Top 16 for final results and shootoffs?

[davecutts]

I'm sure it has been asked before, but why a 6 inch gun for 45, but a 5 inch for 40?

[cpty1]

For the overall match, they did plaques for top 16 in both Lim-10 and production, not sure about revolver.  In the shootoffs it was top 16 from Lim-10, top 8 from production, and top 4 revolver.  They also had a ladies shootoff earlier in the morning, I'm not sure how many they allowed there as I missed most of that piece.

[Duane Thomas]

"And for those who missed it, Rich Bitows El Prez was a thing of beauty. š50 points, 5.75 seconds, with a 25-2. šAnd he mentioned afterwards that he usually only drops four or five points at that speed."

It was indeed, especially considering that, of all the shooters I saw at the match, Rich was probably hardest hit by the heat and humidity. Short of breath, any moment not shooting spent standing under a handy shade tree or sprawling motionless in a chair or bleacher. And his skin....well let's just say I never knew a Japanese guy could flush that dark. It was scary to watch. I told him at one point. "Don't worry, Rich. Just remember, if you have a heart attack....I have EMT training." As he moved toward the box for his El Prez he seemed to have trouble even walking. He joked about it, got set. And what happened next was....absolute magic. It was the single most impressive example of pure human spirit combined with shooting skill I have ever seen in my life.

[Duane Thomas]

"Steve Marsden had a 4.95 with same points. Both are outstanding competition scores"

Woops! I should have said Travis was the only member of the Super Squad to crack the magic 5-second mark. T won the stage on the El Prez BTW. Of course, he won three stages out there....

[kbear38S]

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Quote: from Shooter Grrl on 8:53 am on July 25, 2002

Fingers crossed.... legs crossed.... toes crossed... oh please... oh please... oh please....    Lord, don't let them move me up a week before the Nationals.

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You're really trying to throw that in the face of the classification godz, don't ya think?

I suggest you build an alter of range brass and old targets on top the back range berm and burn some sheep guts using powder from pulled bullets at the chrono station. It's the only thing that works.

[TravisT]

TD and DT ( )- Thanks a million for the recognition my friends!

If anybody is looking for more gear details, let me know and I might be able to help.

TT

[Duane Thomas]

Travis! You're BACK!!

[Singlestack]

Travis,

It was a pleasure meeting you at the FGNs. You are a class act young man and like TGO, a true attribute to our sport. I look foward to seeing you shoot again.

[Singlestack]

HEY DT,

I pictured you older and fatter.  

(easy everyone, inside joke)

[Steve Anderson]

What was the course of fire for the shoot offs?

SA

[TravisT]

John- Thank you! It was great meeting you!

Steve- The shoot off configuration was 6 PP’s and 1 USP stop plate (with a load), like so:

I I I  i  I I I

The cylinder vs. slide shoot off was simply 4 PP's. Roberto was averaging a 1.6 on this....yes, his mojo was workin’ overtime

[Steve Anderson]

Thanks Travis,

Are the complete shootoff results available anywhere, with times?

Also, what was the start position?

Thanks,

SA

[cpty1]

Could be wrong but I don't think the times are listed anywhere.  Start position was hands relaxed at sides for every divisional shootoff.  The only changes made were the removal of two poppers for the shootoff between divisional winners to accomodate the revolver and each group could decide whether their reload would be required anywhere in the string or specifically before the stop popper.  Production guys voted to do the reload before the last popper, and limited voted anywhere in the string.  Can't remember how the revolver guys decided to do it.    Generally speaking production winning times were around 4.25 and limited was around 3.25.

(Edited by cpty1 at 4:21 pm on July 28, 2002)

[Patrick Sweeney]

No, the shootoffs changed after the Ladies shot.  John Amidon asked the revovler shooters (Jerry and me) about the format, shoot the six, reload and shoot the stop popper.

We both felt that requiring a reload specifically before the stop popper would mean real slow shooting.  (Who could afford a miss and thus second reload?)  So, it was changed to a reload anytime between the first and last shot.

What it meant was us revolver shooters shot six, then picked up any misses, then dropped the stop popper.  The Production and L-10 guys dropped the three right poppers, then reloaded and went left to right to the stop popper.

For the mixed, it was four poppers, draw and hose.  I think TGO went his last six runs with the longest one 1.7-somehting, and most 1.55 to 1.61.  Jerry Miculek tried to keep up, and shot down as fast as 1.74, but it wasn't enough.

[cpty1]

No, shooters in the Top 8 production division shootoff voted to required the reload specifically before the stop popper.  I don't know why we did it that way because as mentioned, the times would be a bit slower because it takes longer to get on a US popper after a reload than a standard size popper.  I did concur to shoot in this fashion but moreso because three or four people had already voiced wanting to do it that way, and I figured it was the same for all 8 of us.  Limited guys did shoot as Patrick stated.