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Poppers at the '08 Nationals


kevin c

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Foward falling poppers (FFP's) are the new thing in range safety (no rounds skipping off the backward falling steel and leaving the range), and I've seen several versions, nearly all of which allowed calibration. The exceptions were the ones I saw used at the Nationals this year.

These were a design using an underslung hook fit into a notch on the back of the forwad leaning popper, holding it up. A hit backed up the popper enough to let the hook release and the popper would then fall. A simple and reliable design, but, short of tilting the whole popper base forwards or backwards on the range surface, I don't see that it was calibratable.

During the entire match, I did not see any solid hit on any popper fail to take it down, and that included base hits by nominally minor PF 9mm Production shooters. That might have been a relief to those contestants, but isn't that a ways off how steel is supposed to be used?

The rules say only that calibration of poppers must have them fall to minor pf loads when hit in the calibration zone, so these poppers meet that criterion, but I'd thought that they were generally NOT supposed to fall to minor loads when hit below that zone. Vis is an equal part of the triad of DVC, and is rewarded not only by higher points for peripheral hits, but surer/faster hits on calibrated steel. Is this something that we're giving up? I hope not.

Given issues of running a huge match in poor weather, perhaps this was considered a reasonable expedient. Perhaps PF is going to be strictly a chrono matter from now on. Perhaps its considered a good thing that the sport not risk rounds leaving the range by shooters hammering down rearward falling steel to access targets behind (just try that with a FFP) and that losing this portiion of the Power aspect of the sport is minor by comparison. But I, at least, am uncomfortable with this compromise.

Comments welcome.

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I'm not sure there is anything in the rules that supports your argument. While I can understand your concern the calibration requirement just talks about getting it down if hit in the cal circle with at least x ammo. There is nothing that says it can't go down to something else. I've seen many plates and plates racks that will fall to a .22 lr. I thought the poppers this year worked great. The only issued I saw were with the activators. FFP's have a harder time (at least it seems) yanking some activator cables. Especially the little US Poppers.

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Mebbe my memory is fading, but, at least where I shoot in California, there was at least the expectation that steel would not fall to minor loads when shot below the calibration zone.

Plates aren't calibratable anyway...

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I see what you're saying, but I'm not so sure it's all that big a deal. I saw several that didn't fall on edge hits and I think I remember one or two that didn't fall on very low hits as well (we're talking the bottom couple of inches). Everything above those extremely low hits that was full-diameter dropped the poppers. Since we're already running the chrono to ensure compliance, I think having poppers like this that don't require constant attention is a good thing so long as they don't fall on a really poor hit. Less time adjusting them and less time waiting for calibrations during the match.

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The length of the mechanism will make the popper lean forward more taking more pressure to release it. I don't think this is ideal though. The poppers do have to have a way to calibrate or the can not be used... They are there to determine power as well as a target.

Edited by JThompson
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The length of the cord will make the popper lean forward more taking more pressure to release it. I don't think this is ideal though. The poppers do have to have a way to calibrate or the can not be used... They are there to determine power as well as a target.

Cord? Are you referring to the latch? The one's I saw in Tulsa all had a pivoting metal hook swivel mounted to the back of the popper base. Mebbe there could be latches of different lengths for different tensions, but it wouldn't be as finely/infinitely adjustable as the screw mechanisms I see used on other poppers.

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Given the legal ramifications of a round leaving the range, I personally can accept the lack of the popper as a power factor determiner. With the change in the rules requiring that calibration ammo ammo be between 115.0 and 125.0 PF (Appendix C2 item 15) a popper that falls when hit with something larger than a .22 is a good thing. Personally I have seen a popper stand to a .38 Super that fell from a hit with 2007 Nationals calibration ammo lower in the calibration circle.

I would love to have all the poppers at our club replaced with FFP but cost will not allow that. Besides I seldom attract shrapnel more than twice a match and the backstop is pretty good at catching 2nd, 3rd and 4th shots at a popper.

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POWER isnt just about knocking down poppers. It's also about the power in your gun, your loads, and the recoil generated by all that.

It's alot easier, not to mention faster .... to shoot a minor PF open gun (for example: a steel gun) on a 32 round field course, than it is to shoot a MAJOR PF gun. Same thing could be said about shooting LIMITED minor. Maybe someone shooting a nice 9mm S_I short dustcover LTD gun could shave 2 or 3 seconds off of a guy shooting a MAJOR PF .40 gun.

I see what you mean Kevin, but I don't think we've lost anything from DVC.

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Given the legal ramifications of a round leaving the range, I personally can accept the lack of the popper as a power factor determiner. With the change in the rules requiring that calibration ammo ammo be between 115.0 and 125.0 PF (Appendix C2 item 15) a popper that falls when hit with something larger than a .22 is a good thing. Personally I have seen a popper stand to a .38 Super that fell from a hit with 2007 Nationals calibration ammo lower in the calibration circle.

I would love to have all the poppers at our club replaced with FFP but cost will not allow that. Besides I seldom attract shrapnel more than twice a match and the backstop is pretty good at catching 2nd, 3rd and 4th shots at a popper.

I didn't make myself clear... I don't have a problem with forward falling poppers.. I would like to see a better option taht allowed more calibration than the ones we are talking about here.

Edited by JThompson
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I only read the first post here. So be kind on the flames ...ok. Those poppers are a very sore subject.

I've been to USSA for every handgun Nationals held there. Let me tell you about those poppers. They are crap. The plate is so hard you really can't drill it to use as an activator. The first year they had BIG problems getting them to fall reliably and stay in calibration. The manufacters fix sucked the muddy crap we dealt with this year. The manufacter even sent out a guy to look into the problems the first year. I talked to him and he showed me a paper full of suggestions on how to fix the poppers. From all of the suggestions I read, the manufacter didn't use any of them. For the second year, like I said the fix sucked. And we still have to fix it and repair it squadly with most of the poppers. Wayne, Tom, David, and several other have dealt with those crappy poppers for way to long. And the guys that work at USSA have to deal with them too.

Maybe Tom Fee will buy new poppers when he improve the bay floors.

Ok rant off....... nite.

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Ok, I remember the sucky poppers in 2006. They burned me really bad and knocked me out of the top 16. I don't remember any issues in 2007 (although that could be a memory issue, the rain was so bad I don't remember much else). I RO'd the Pro-Am and shot both Nationals there in 2008 and didn't see a single popper have an issue that wasn't related to an activator. They seemed like they worked great. And I hated them in 2006. Don't really know what your current issue but they seem to work okay now.

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I would love to have all the poppers at our club replaced with FFP but cost will not allow that. Besides I seldom attract shrapnel more than twice a match and the backstop is pretty good at catching 2nd, 3rd and 4th shots at a popper.

Give Tom Drazy a call. We gave him a bunch of our rearward falling popper faces before we had the WI sectional, and he converted them to FF and supplied the bases. We did have to fine tune them a little after we got them but we did not have any issues during our sectional this past week-end. We used the FF for all of our activator poppers so the shooters could not drive them down to get it to activate faster.

Tom

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I only read the first post here. So be kind on the flames ...ok. Those poppers are a very sore subject.

I've been to USSA for every handgun Nationals held there. Let me tell you about those poppers. They are crap. The plate is so hard you really can't drill it to use as an activator. The first year they had BIG problems getting them to fall reliably and stay in calibration. The manufacters fix sucked the muddy crap we dealt with this year. The manufacter even sent out a guy to look into the problems the first year. I talked to him and he showed me a paper full of suggestions on how to fix the poppers. From all of the suggestions I read, the manufacter didn't use any of them. For the second year, like I said the fix sucked. And we still have to fix it and repair it squadly with most of the poppers. Wayne, Tom, David, and several other have dealt with those crappy poppers for way to long. And the guys that work at USSA have to deal with them too.

Maybe Tom Fee will buy new poppers when he improve the bay floors.

Ok rant off....... nite.

I shoot monthly at USSA, and those poppers they have currently are awesome.

no complaints here

Mike "edge-hit" Cyrwus

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I can't recall of hearing for a popper calibration at the nats this year. They seemed to fall quite easily.

While I do have some reservations about them falling with a slight hit, I think it's better than them not going over at all.

Hi,

There were about 6 or 7 calibrations this year. Mostly on stage 13. I put a new design of a forward faller on that stage. It is ajustiable for calibration. If it was edge hit or low hit, it did not fall, but everytime it was hit in the correct place, it worked fine. To my understanding, it did not fail once in either match. By the way, I have repaired EVERY popper that belongs to USSA on the range at least once, most of the more than 5 times. I have been the "Mr.Fixit" for the last 5 Natoinals on this range. Shotguns bend the latch over easily, we had to hammer them back into place after just about every squad. We have ground, bent, hammered, or welded just about everything we can. There were 4 poppers on the range that I did not have to work on, I brought 2 and there were 2 from Max Davidson, (Maxco) that worked.

Thanks

Tom Drazy

Drazy Metal Works

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I think forward falling poppers are a step in the right direction from a safety aspect. Most of us have been clipped by a piece of schrapnel coming off a rear falling popper - some sting, some draw blood. What if one of those errant pieces catches a juglar vein and the injury is fatal? The excuse of too costly to implement won't fly if sombody get mortally wounded.

IIRC Chuck Bradley posted a spine chilling story of how one of his boys needed stitches from catching "flak" from a popper. If there is a safer product out there that yields the same result it should be in use.

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I think it would be very difficult to set up a popper so that it falls with a minor calibre hit (125 PF) and not with a 110-115PF inside the calibration zone. In fact I'd say that any mechanism that was that sensitive would not last a match.

We have the chronograph to do our calibration and determination of PF. I don't think we need poppers to do the same thing. We need poppers to fall when they are hit, otherwise we end up with calibration checks and re-shoots and match delays.

I had no complaints with the poppers at Nationals, they worked flawlessly, even in the pouring rain and soggy ground.

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I think it would be very difficult to set up a popper so that it falls with a minor calibre hit (125 PF) and not with a 110-115PF inside the calibration zone. In fact I'd say that any mechanism that was that sensitive would not last a match.

We have the chronograph to do our calibration and determination of PF. I don't think we need poppers to do the same thing. We need poppers to fall when they are hit, otherwise we end up with calibration checks and re-shoots and match delays.

I had no complaints with the poppers at Nationals, they worked flawlessly, even in the pouring rain and soggy ground.

Then by that way of thinking we need to pull the rules that says we can not have only plates on a stage right? Since all the power factor stuff is determined at chrono... of which I have only seen at high level matches. I think if we aren't careful here we might open it up for lots of... new loads. ;) I dunno... it could be a slippery slope to me.... I haven't made my mind up on the issue, I'm just throwing out ideas.

Edited by JThompson
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Then by that way of thinking we need to pull the rules that says we can not have only plates on a stage right? Since all the power factor stuff is determined at chrono... of which I have only seen at high level matches. I think if we aren't careful here we might open it up for lots of... new loads. ;) I dunno... it could be a slippery slope to me.... I haven't made my mind up on the issue, I'm just throwing out ideas.

according to our current rules: if a match does not have a chrono...you must accept the shooters declared PF. if a popper fails to go down at such a match, it's an automatic reshoot if the competitor requests a calibration (since a calibration can't be performed...because there is no chrono to test whatever ammo might be used for calibration purposes). [it's likely that most local matches are not run this way, but this is what our rules currently state]

therefore...according to our own rules, it's silly to claim to try to test PF with poppers at most local matches (or any match without a chrono), since technically, any hit on a popper will either take it down, or be grounds for a reshoot.

also, if your goal is to test PF with steel, and keep people from cheating, you're only going to catch the minor-PF cheaters. someone cheating on major will still easily take down all properly set steel, even if they're well below 165PF. and i seriously doubt many people are loading to 120PF on purpose. heck, even my weak-@ss grip can handle 125 PF...

i'm not sure why you can't have a COF comprised only of metal plates, but it doesn't make sense that it's because of PF issues. after all, there's no problem with all-paper stages.

Edited by driver8M3
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Kevin, I can appreciate where you are coming from. Shooting Production, I load my ammo to a 137pf for two reasons:

1) So that I will NEVER sweat even the coldest days at the chrono

C) To put down even the heaviest set steel with less than perfect shots

If all one must do to knock down a popper is graze it...even with a 127pf, that takes away one of my reasons for loading a little hot, but not the other.

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I asked for a calibration at the Nationals on a piece of steel this year. I asked because I had 2 edge hits on it and it didn't fall. It did fall when it was shot by Troy and his calibration gun. I have no complaints about this years poppers though. I simply should've shot that piece of steel better.

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FWIW

Appendix C1 of the 2008 USPSA Rulebook

2. "...The calibration ammunition, when tested through each designated handgun, should achieve a power factor between 115.0 and 125.0 to qualify.

5. For initial calibration, each popper must be set to fall when hit within the calibration zone with a single shot fired from the designated handgun using the calibration ammunition.

As it stands the requirement for steel is simply that it must fall when shot with the minor pf approved ammo, without any mention of a minimum calibration requirement for the steel.

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therefore...according to our own rules, it's silly to claim to try to test PF with poppers at most local matches (or any match without a chrono), since technically, any hit on a popper will either take it down, or be grounds for a reshoot.

also, if your goal is to test PF with steel, and keep people from cheating, you're only going to catch the minor-PF cheaters. someone cheating on major will still easily take down all properly set steel, even if they're well below 165PF. and i seriously doubt many people are loading to 120PF on purpose. heck, even my weak-@ss grip can handle 125 PF...

i'm not sure why you can't have a COF comprised only of metal plates, but it doesn't make sense that it's because of PF issues. after all, there's no problem with all-paper stages.

Properly calibrated poppers serve the same purppose as A/C/D zones on cardboard targets.

It's not just about the PF, it's also about the accuracy. Hit in the zone (or in the harder-to-hit area above the zone) with any ammo that makes PF and you should have a score.

Hit below the zone, with minor PF and your chances of score go down. Supposedly, a lot. Which takes more time to make up bad shots (all aspects of DVC, if you will).

With major PF you've got a little more leeway to score with a hit below the zone (just as cardboard A/C zones give major PF a little more advantage in scoring).

So no, steel doesn't test PF. But proper calibrated steel does not reward poor shooting.

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