Magazine Restriction In Limited/tactical 3 & Multi-gun

[kurtm]

After we all agree on this here subject, I think we should start looking at limiting how many shells you can grab out of a holder, before loading your shotgun!! Now I do 4, sometinmes 5, so we all know thats unfair, some people with small hands can't get 3 reliably so lets look into making it 2...yea thats it you can't grab more than 2 before stuffing them into your shotgun. And no more of these big old shell corsetts! lets limit the amount you can carry to say around 23 shells, that way you have enough for a field course.

I only bring this up to level the field as to reloading speed as compaired...well....to me, seeing as the rest of you are triing to use me as a demo anyway Shotgun reloading sholdn't be about how many shells you can hold in your hand, it should be about being able to reload the shotgun, it,s a skill that shold be FAIRLY tested.

Relig, how man local clubs run USPSA Multi-gun rules?? I couldn't find but 3 you must know of MANY more than I do, so I guess those FEW clubs should dictate to the rest? I can't believe the amount of people that came right out in this here post and said they don't really 3-gun, but they voted anyway just because it was uspsa. I think in this context the poll is unfairly skewed and should be LIMITED to those who 3-gun...I myself get in at lease 3-4 state and area USPSA 3-gun matches a year, so maybe we should limit.....me.... because all that shooting is just plain UNFAIR!!! KURTM

[Mick]

4! maybe 5 rounds in your hand?!!!! You cheat!

I can only hold 2!!!!

I'll bet you look at the front sight too...

[Brian Payne]

I was told the basics of 3-gun were to shoot the rifle accurately, shoot the handgun quickly, and load the shotgun fast.

We allow optics in the TO class and you can choose between a $60.00 Simmons up to optics costing $1200.00 or more. All compete head to head against each other. Now the thought of limiting magazine size to save in cost for new shooters does not seem to add up in my book.

People for limiting magazine capacity state that in most courses of fire, there is always time for a reload. That would make a Beta-mag a non-issue. For me, the Beta is used so that I have one less thing to think about in a course of fire. I don't really see it as a great advantage when it comes to reloading, but it does help a newer shooter concentrate on other aspects of the sport (like shooting the rifle accurately).

Higher capacity magazine are said to be less reliable. I haven't seen this to be true as of yet, but if that is the case let, let the hi-cap/beta mags stay and let the shooters take their chances.

Edited to add that I vote for leaving the mag. capacity issue just as it is.

Edited February 14, 2007 by Sgt

[bigbrowndog]

I really do like the reason some people use for voting to limit capacity,................cuz they do in pistol!!!!!!!

California and New Jersey do some really stupid things with gun laws, but maybe we should change all the gun laws. cuz they do!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Trapr

Kurt, I can grab 5 and a half And I know Kelly and Benny can beat 5

[bub8889]

4! maybe 5 rounds in your hand?!!!! You cheat!

I can only hold 2!!!!

I'll bet you look at the front sight too...

I have smaller hand also but if you leave a space between shells in the holder you can grap 1 between each finger and get 4 when you can only "palm" 2. to load start with the 1 between your thumb and pointer then yu just turn your wrist and push each shell in the tube with your thumb.

[GentlemanJim]

They will come back !....with a beta

[Religious Shooter]

Relig, how man local clubs run USPSA Multi-gun rules?? I couldn't find but 3 you must know of MANY more than I do, so I guess those FEW clubs should dictate to the rest?

If there are only three USPSA clubs... and for some reason they can vote on this poll ... wouldn't they be dictating to themselves?

Since "the rest" aren't USPSA clubs... WTF to those clubs care since they don't run USPSA rules?

Let those three clubs decide for themselves.

[BigDave]

30's for Lim/Tac

Why? Because it makes sense and to state otherwise is, in my opinion, intellectually dishonest. Equipment restrictions are used to differentiate divisions. Limited and it's younger, yet bigger brother Tactical, are not Open. And, what is Open? - anything goes. A second optic and a seldom used bipod isn't enough of a division seperation. A second optic (or third?), a bipod and a 40, 45, or a Beta - that makes sense.

Hey Kurt, come up here to the midwest, multigun is alive and well. And, I know where some killer brew pubs are. The first two rounds are on me.

[Flexmoney]

I can't believe the amount of people that came right out in this here post and said they don't really 3-gun, but they voted anyway just because it was uspsa.

Um...it is a poll asking about...and only about...USPSA 3-gunning.

Perhaps it should be more suprising that the we have such a number of 3-gunners that really don't care for USPSA that are posting and voting ?

[TRUBL]

I would say that most of the 3 gunners shoot alot of matches here.....including USPSA multi gun matches. All are fun and all are games (if they didnt keep score no one would be type of thing). I would listen to them and value their opinion more than someone that doesnt shoot this 3 gun game in any venue.

The main thing is......lets not look to make the equipment so diffenent from match to match or between venues, USPSA is NOT a leader in the 3 gun sport, they are a follower. Not saying that to be nasty, it is just the fact. The board even came to alot of other 3 gun matches to see how they could improve the USPSA version of 3 gun. They came and talked to alot of 3 gunners, MD's that just didnt shoot USPSA 3 gun anymore, because it just was not working. I think USPSA is doing a great job now of becoming more complient with the IMGA/IMGA modified rules out there.

The main thing that may keep a person (or people) away from a 3 gun match is that the equipment is so much different than the other matches that are infact, well, the norm. Lets not look at changing equipment for each match or for even different organizations. We should be trying to keep the equipment consistant across the board.....you want more people to play this game?? Thats how you will do it.

Who do we compete against? mainly....ourselves. Who privides the challenge? ourselves. The equipment isnt going to change that. It isnt about the cost to be more competative, not at all. Give kurt only 2 shells to load at a time, he'll still kick our butts, make Daniel Horner use 20 round mags.....He'll still kick our butts. You will not level the playing field with equipment rules.....the top people have that natural ability, and maybe they practice too. Give Rob Leatham a Glock with an 8lb trigger and 10 round mags, make him shoot minor......he may not win a major match......but....he will still place very well, AND kick our butts.

It seems to me you are talking about leveling the playing field with equipment, thats a 'make me feel good thing' which (IMHO) is a bunch of bull. You wanna REALLY level the playing field with in a division as it stands right now??? I think we know the real answer to that. (and its not "if you cant beat them, break their legs").

WOW......should I get off the soap box now???

And no comments about my spelling!!!

[kurtm]

Tim, when it comes to spelling I am TRUELY LIMITED!! KURTM

[bigbrowndog]

Tim I think you spell "trouble" the same way I spell "trapper"

when can I expect my barrel clamp!!!

Trapr

[Flexmoney]

...USPSA is NOT a leader in the 3 gun sport, they are a follower. Not saying that to be nasty, it is just the fact.

I agree with that. But, lets look a little deeper. There is NO leader at all in the 3-gun sport. There is no organization, no support. Unless something changes, in five or ten years the sport will look exactly like it does now.

Lets not look at changing equipment for each match or for even different organizations. We should be trying to keep the equipment consistant across the board.....you want more people to play this game?? Thats how you will do it.

Do you think we have that now ? I don't go to various big matches, so I don't know. I do recall that, a few years ago when Burkett seemed to switch focus from pistol to 3-gun, that any time there was a match announcement...the first thing he would ask about was a link to the rules that were going to be used.

I agree that consistency is important.

[uscbigdawg]

So since it's looping around the minor point of a level playing field, let's remove that from the discussion completely.

No one has still answered the question of why not restrict ammo capacity in Tac/Limited USPSA rifle divisions when we do it for pistol and shotgun?

Rich

[Religious Shooter]

To a point consistency is good. But limiting Lim/Tactical to 30+1 isn't going to put off the USPSA shooter or the IMGA shooter equipment wise. All the shooter has to do is only load his/her magazine up to 30 rounds. That's it.

We aren't talking about a major difference here were you can use a .40 in HM at SMM3G and you can't use that same .40 in RM3G or pretty much any other IMGA match and past USPSA National matches in HM.

The 30+1 rule is a way for USPSA to further differentiate itself from the crowd. Being competitive in USPSA is going to actually cost less in Tactical/Lim rifle than IMGA.

And guess what... by the current results the 30+1 rule is favored by the voters. If you combine the other choices (e.g. the current rule needs changing) the "Run what you brung!" choice is loosing badly.

Who do we compete against? mainly....ourselves. Who privides the challenge? ourselves. The equipment isnt going to change that. It isnt about the cost to be more competative, not at all. Give kurt only 2 shells to load at a time, he'll still kick our butts, make Daniel Horner use 20 round mags.....He'll still kick our butts. You will not level the playing field with equipment rules.....the top people have that natural ability, and maybe they practice too. Give Rob Leatham a Glock with an 8lb trigger and 10 round mags, make him shoot minor......he may not win a major match......but....he will still place very well, AND kick our butts.

I don't know why you anti-30+1 guys keep on comparing the average shooter to the top shooters. I don't see anybody who is pro 30+1 saying that the low-totem pole shooter is gonna somehow beat or approach the best in the sport with the passage of this rule.

What I am personally saying is that it levels the field for people at the same level.

To use your example... make Daniel Horner run only 20 rounds and his peers that are equipped with 30/40/45/Betas are gonna kick his ass... badly.

[benny hill]

I shot about 8 major 3-gun matches last year & all but one used multi-gun rules. They had the biggest turn out also. Maybr uspsa should pay attention to what the 3-gunners want instead of what the pistol shooters want.

[Jim Norman]

I am a three-gunner and I want one of two three things.

A limited round count, ala, Production or shotgun. Make it 20 major and 30 in minor.

OR

A magazine restriction, ala Limited or Limted-10. Set a length and load what it'll hold

OR

Allow the designer to mandate a reload after the first shot and before engaging the last target. Not where to reload, just that you have to reload. I don't even care if this is limited to no more than half the stages in the match. I just think that planning a relaod and having to perform it under preasure is a good thing. It also can help reduce the ridiculously high round counts we are starting to see on multi-gun stages.

My opinion, others are sure to vary.

Jim

[TRUBL]

By the way.......I don't own any mags for my AR's over 30 rounds but intend to someday

[Wakal]

30's for Lim/Tac

Why? Because it makes sense and to state otherwise is, in my opinion, intellectually dishonest. Equipment restrictions are used to differentiate divisions.

Exactly.

Shooting Open, I am NOT ALLOWED to fill my shotgun to its rated capacity (21, for those keeping score at home), and am limited (in open ) to 11. My pistol is forced to reduced capacity by the 170mm rule. My rifle? To infinity and beyond!

Shooting Limited/Tactical, my pistol is forced to reduced capacity by the 140mm rule. My shotgun is reduced to 9. My rifle? To infinity and beyond!

I'd like to see, just to break things up:

Limited: 140mm for pistols, 8+1 for shotgun, and 30 rounds for rifle

Tactical: 140mm for pistols, 8+1 for shotgun, and 40 rounds for rifle

Open: 170mm for pistols, unlimited for shotguns, unlimited for rifles. And that limitiation on pistols only because we already have Open/pistol rules

This discussion is NOT about price; the sidebars about "cost of equipment" is a straw man that needs to just go away. Magazines are the cheapest part of the game; 40's can be had for $12 new (plus a few bucks for a good spring), and the 90 round AR drums are under a hundred bucks.

The discussion is about why pistols and shotguns are capacity limited by Division, and rifles are not.

Alex

PS when I reload a shotgun, I do it 20 rounds at once

A

[Brian Payne]

What skills are we trying to test in 3-gun.

Shotgun: Reloading obviously. 9 rounds max. to start the stage, then open it up after that? or should it be 9 rounds max. all through the courses of fire? Opens up another can of worms best left for another poll.

Handgun: We are testing draws (will we someday need holster rules like IDPA?), reloads, target transitions, and accuracy (will we need rules for what type of iron sights are allowed?).

Rifle: We are testing accuracy, and target transitions. If we are testing reloading skills then what are we even allowing 30 round mags for? If we allow the course of fire to call for a mandatory reload, would it be legal for me to drop the mag at the beep and then stick in my beta-mag? or would we need a rule to combat this issue? Setting a rule for a round limit in the magazines would work, just hate the idea of giving up the freedom we have now. Is what we would gain really worth the new rule?

I don't like the set magazine length idea only because it would open up a whole new cottage industry for tuning magazines to hold one or two more rounds than the competitors magazine. (nice idea for a new business if the rules change ).

I am just not a big fan of more rules I guess. I fear the rules may not stop here.

Brian E. Payne

[glockster96]

While I do like Alex's suggestion on rules for the various divisions, I must ask (because I truly don't know) if the magazine dispute is something that is really contentious among competitors. I shot USPSA 3-gun matches at our local club for 5 years, and I can't recall anyone complaining about there not being a restriction on magazine capacity for rifles. Most complaints that I remember were based on other flaws in the old USPSA 3-gun rules.

Can I see the argument for having magazine capacities? Of course I can. I just can't see it being a make-or-break issue for new shooters, or for those of us who have shot a few matches. Someone else made the point above this post that new shooters stay or leave based on the attitudes of the local shooters. I agree, and think this is much more important to retention than making a rule based on what we think new folks might want.

Should we limit rifle capacity because we limit the other 2 guns? Well, there are other inconsistencies between the 3 guns, such as the ability in tactical to have an optic only on your rifle, and I haven't heard many complain that we can't put an optic on the pistol and shotgun. The argument that because we limit one gun (or 2, in this case) then we should limit them all just doesn't make sense in this light.

I stand by my original "Run what you brung" statement for rifle magazines. I think that Flex is on to the much more important issue, and that is having cohesion among the 3-gun organizations with a consistent set of rules regardless of organization. I doubt this will happen in my lifetime (I'm 29, so my optimism is not so high ), but it is a worthy cause to work towards in my opinion.

[bigbrowndog]

OK,.............. i'm just now getting over the laughter that was brought on by the statment "being competitive in lim/tac will cost less" because of magazines?????????

being competitive will ALWAYS cost more, in time, money, dedication, experience, and equipment!!

The VOTE may show "the shooters" want a round restriction, but how many have already stated, that they don't shoot 3 gun.

Fewer shooters go to BIG USPSA 3 gun matches??? Why, possibly because they have too many, confusing, rules. Possibly because, until very recently the scoring program was ridiculously confusing. When was the last time the USPSA 3 gun/Nationals was "Sold Out"

So lets make more rules!!

Someone said that the only difference between Open and Lim/Tac was optic and bipod, there are a few more differences, 5, if memory serves me right.

EQUIPMENT LIMITING, DOES NOT LEVEL THE PLAYING FIELD.

trapr

[Religious Shooter]

EQUIPMENT LIMITING, DOES NOT LEVEL THE PLAYING FIELD.

Limiting equipment doesn't level the playing field? Use you Limited/Tactical/HM equipment in Open. Are you telling me that you will be effective against your peers?

Give me a break. Equipment limiting doesn't level the playing field...

Doesn't the fact that you will get trounced if you shoot Open with your Lim/Tact/HM gear tell you that it does?

Fewer shooters go to BIG USPSA 3 gun matches??? Why, possibly because they have too many, confusing, rules. Possibly because, until very recently the scoring program was ridiculously confusing. When was the last time the USPSA 3 gun/Nationals was "Sold Out"

So lets make more rules!!

Are you admitting that you don't shoot much of USPSA MG matches?

I don't see how can you say "they have too many, confusing, rules" if you have participated in USPSA MG.

What rules are confusing? I shot the last three USPSA Nationals and I've shot RM3G, I've shot SMM3G. I didn't see "too many, confusing, rules" when I shot the Nationals. And for the must part the shooting part of RM3G and SMM3G wasn't too different from a USPSA match.

OK,.............. i'm just now getting over the laughter that was brought on by the statment "being competitive in lim/tac will cost less" because of magazines?????????

All you will need are 30's and maybe 20's in USPSA Tactical/Limited.

In addition to the 30's/20's you will need a Beta ($230) and a GOOD 40/45 rounder ($40-60) to be competitive in IMGA Tact Scope/Iron.

$270-$290.

How's that not cheaper?

The VOTE may show "the shooters" want a round restriction, but how many have already stated, that they don't shoot 3 gun.

It goes both ways. If you read the threads you will see that there are a couple of folks who don't shoot USPSA MG (not just any MG but USPSA MG) and are Anti 30+1 and who voted for "Run what you brung".

[bigbrowndog]

RS, have you looked at results for matches!!! I thought this thread was about shooting against, like competitors, so given that. I would feel quite comfortable shooting against, like competitors in open, or tac. And have done so on more than one occassion, Some local clubs have placed me in TAC class, when I shoot IRONS, and I have shot in heads up matches against Open and Tac shooters, when shooting Irons. I have also done it in pistol matches, LTD. against all comers, and have rarely been disappointed.

You also missed the part about, what cost refers to, you seem to assume its about dollars for equipment, and forget that dollars for experience and practice enter into the problem.

I'd like to think, that the majority of shooters out there, realize 250.00 is not going to turn them into class winners overnight. If it did, there would be a glut of magazine manufacturers, which in turn would probably drive the price down, anyway.

As for USPSA MG/3gun, I shoot whatever matches, I want to or am able to make. So, yes I do shoot USPSA MG/3gun matches when I find one I want to shoot. When you check your scores after a stage do you need a calculator, or can you figure it in your head. (read that as confusing). Look at the proposed rule changes for handgun, I have some many questions, I decided to just wait and see what happpens before deciding to go and buy new equipment. ( read that as confusing)

Trapr

[kurtm]

Let,s see. I won high over all at area 6 3-gun year befor last with an iron sight rifle iron sight pistol and a limited shotgun! Now that high over all was taking everyones scores and combineng them, not the combining of points after the points were added for class, so lets see. iron against open....I won, Limited pistol against open poistols, I won. limited shotgun against open speed loader shotguns...well I won. Limit the playing field all you want but I will tell you right now it sure as heck doesn't level it! Leveling the playing field would look more like breaking Daniel Horners legs and poking out his shooting eye, it would look like breaking all of Tarans fingers and making him us a muzzel loader. It looks more to me that you want bracket racing where the faster guys get time handicaps so you can reach the finish line about the same time. ANYONE can put a magazine into a carbine/rifle but very darn few can hit a 10" circle at 380 yards with an iron sighted rifle with any consistency, and as soon as you figure out how to "limit" that type of performance you will be on your way to "leveling the playing field", but don't couch it in restrictions level the playing field cause it just aint so! KURT( intellectually dishonest ) MILLER