SpikeTV to do what they do best – take someone else’s idea and run with it. I kid Spike and Orion Multimedia…mostly. I’m just having a hard time imagining that whatever they put together is going to be better or more informative than The Best Defense. Which by the way, I heartily recommend. Rob, Mike, and Michael have put together a great product that basically amounts to a “must watch” for anyone serious about self-defense and concealed carry.
NRA Bianchi Cup Production Division rules clarification
There has been some discussion of the Production Division rules for NRA’s Bianchi Cup at the Brian Enos Forums that I’ve been periphrially involved in. A lot of it centers around the trigger pull weight, holsters, approved guns, etc. I called Tom Hughes, NRA’s Action Pistol director yesterday to get some clarification on the rules. So straight from the top, here is what we got from Tom.
The first question was “what do revolver shooters do about the trigger pull weight”? There are a lot of factory wheelguns that have triggers in single action mode that break at less than the required 3.5 pounds. My 627 Pro Series is right around 3, for example. According to Tom, the accepted solution for right now is to have a gunsmith remove the single action notch from the hammer of your wheelgun, while leaving the hammer spur intact. Production division excludes “visible external modifications”, so the internal change of removing the SA notch will allow your DA wheelgun to meet the requirements. Tom admits that it’s an inelegant solution, but Production division is in it’s second year, so they are still working out the kinks in the rules while trying to avoid the pitfalls seen by other shooting sports.
The second question is “what about Performance Center guns” – i.e. are they eligible for Production Division? The answer to this is “yes and no”. Because the Performance Center guns are catalog items available to the wide public, some of them are eligible for Production Division; however because some of the PC guns are clearly designed as “competition only” guns, those would be ineligible. The example Tom used was to look at the Performance Center 627 guns. There are several models of 627 available in the Smith and Wesson Performance Center catalog. This model is a vanilla 627. It has a five inch barrel, standard iron sights, and no “competition only” touches. This model would most likely be fine in Production Division.
Conversely, the 627-4 in .38 Super would not be eligible for Production division. The big “no-go” on this gun are the “competition” touches; for example the weighted end cap that replaces the compensator, or the compensator itself. Those items would land this gun in Metallic or Open division respectively.
Tom stressed to me that that the big thing to bear in mind when getting set up for Production division is that the division was designed to be a level playing field in terms of equipment. The idea is to create a division where revolvers, Glocks, Berettas and Sigs can meet on level terms without the rules giving a specific advantage to any given shooter.
Looking down the road, NRA is committed to growing the Production Division. There may be changes made in the future to make things more wheelgun friendly, but for now if you’re one of the few people shooting a revolver at this match, just understand that you’re going to need to get your gun worked on if the single action trigger is less than 3.5 pounds.
So here’s how your make your revolver eligible for Bianchi Cup’s Production Division in simple guideline format:
- Check your trigger pull weight. I suggest the RCBS Trigger pull scale, it’s about $35 from Cabelas and is accurate to within 0.25 lbs.
- If your trigger is at or below 3.5 lbs, get in touch with a good gunsmith.
- Remove the single action notch from the hammer (and have him do an action job while you’re at it to slick up the DA pull), but leave the hammer spur and all VISIBLE EXTERNAL PARTS intact.
- Your gun is now ready to rock and roll in the Bianchi Cup Production Division. Get yourself a good holster and some speedloader/moonclip holders and you’re off to the races!
Thanks to Tom Hughes at NRA for taking the time to talk to me and clarify these issues. I’m a huge fan of Bianchi Cup – I shot it in Production Division for the first time last year and was immediately hooked. There is something about a game where perfection is an achievable standard that really grabs me and makes me want to shoot it.
So fast it's scary
Dave Sevigny recently shot the IDPA Classifier COF in 59.74 seconds. To make Master Class you need to shoot it in 98.82 in the division he was shooting in.
I don’t quote Jodie Foster often, but there are times when her line from Maverick is appropriate: “Was that fast? I thought that was fast. Did you think that was fast?”
Inside the sausage factory
You may not know this, but the Indiana House and Senate record their sessions on video for posterity. With all the furor over the recently passed pro-gun bills, I wanted to give you guys a quick look at how HB 1068 (the permit database bill) made it through the amendment process an to its eventual passage. Notes are cribbed from my eyewitness source. Here’s the link to the video itself.
3:08 HB 1068 called to the floor.
3:36 Rep. Yarde offers amendment to expand the amount of time you have to apply for a lifetime permit before your current permit expires from 6 mos to 12 mos before the expiration.
4:57 Rep. Peggy Welch (bill author) opposed amendment and explained the ISP’s preference that the time not be extended because of the backlog they’ll suffer trying to process the permits.
7:24 roll call amendment vote — passed and engrossed for third reading.
And that’s just part of how a bill becomes law!
Right now, both HB 1068 and HB 1065 are headed for the Indiana Senate. I strongly encourage all my Indiana readers out there to contact your Senators and urge them to support these important pieces of pro-gun legislation.
Apparently there was some kind of speech last night
I wouldn’t know, I was watching SWAT Magazine TV and the other fine programs on Outdoor Channel’s Wednesday Night at the Range.
However, I have heard anecdotally that President Obama wanted to “help” small business owners and “create more jobs” or something like that. I have some advice for you, Mr. President from my lofty perch as a small business owner. I mentioned this yesterday, but it bears repeating.
STOP. TAKING. MY. MONEY.
Seriously. You want to pump some money in the economy? Don’t take so much from businesses. Small, medium, large, whatever – when you take money from us, that’s money that we cannot put into hiring new employees, spend on marketing, or growing our business. And when our business don’t grow, the economy suffers. This stuff isn’t hard, it doesn’t take a friggin’ econ degree (oh hey, what’s that on my wall, is that an econ degree?) to know that crippling private enterprise is a really bad way to “stimulate” the economy.
Gun Nuts Radio: Pro Series Revolvers!
Click here for last night’s 30 minute episode of Gun Nuts Radio, which featured discussion on the Smith & Wesson Pro Series revolvers, a call in from Rep Mike Murphy to expand on the recent bills that passed the Indiana House, and finally a call from The Kevin Baker discussing property rights.
The show opened with about 10 minutes on the Pro Series guns, focusing primarily on the Model 60 J-Frame, the 686 SSR, and the 627 Pro. I’ve been very impressed with these guns so far, especially the Model 60 which has been living on my belt for the past several days. The gun carries great, and the 3 inch barrel with Trijicon night sight makes for an accurate concealed carry option.
Click here to listen to all of last night’s show!
After the gun talk, Mike Murphy came on to discuss two major bills that passed the Indiana House – our Parking Lots and Handgun Permit Database bill. That lead to the discussion on property rights that Kevin joined in on, which was a great way to wrap up last night’s show. For the full show in .mp3 format, just click here. For our Apple fans out there, the show is always available by clicking the button for 
which will open up the iTunes store and allow you to subscribe to the downloads.
Thanks to everyone who listened and called in last night, and thank you in advance to everyone who will download the show! If you have ideas for a future show, comments, or suggestions, please send them to the Gun Nuts Inbox at [email protected] – we’d love to get your feedback!
You stay classy, Verne Smith
Yesterday during the passage of the parking lots bill, Rep. Verne Smith (D-Chicagolandia) decided that instead of offering a principled opposition to the bill that instead he would slur the NRA on the House floor and generally act the fool. Here’s a firsthand account of his actions:
Rep. Vernon Smith (D-14) spoke against the Parking Lot bill (HB 1065). He got up and said, “If you can’t beat ’em, join ’em”. Then he put on a trucker hat backwards, said that was the closest thing he had to an NRA hat, pulled out a toy revolver and shot it a couple of times in the air, and then said he was a member of the NRA, he wanted to return to the “Wild West”, he believed in signing up babies for membership in NRA, and he thought we should all pack Colt .45s in our kids’ school lunches.
He said that when he gave his tithe at church, he thought his reward should be a gun. He said when he goes to the casinos, instead of winnings in money, he wanted his winnings in guns.
You stay classy, Verne Smith.
Update: In comments, Ashley provides a link to an article that covered the story as well as a great picture of Verne Smith staying classy. Click the link for the article, here’s the picture (credit Evansville Courier Press) with bonus Rule 3 violation!
Indiana Permit Database bill clears House!
The bill closing access to the Indiana Handgun Permit database passed the House today. HB 1068 passed 84-11, thanks in no small part to the hard work of Hoosiers like you contacting your state legislators to support this bill!
Thank you everyone, and I’ll keep you posted as the bills head to the Senate and eventually to My Man Mitch’s desk.
Gun Nuts Tonight: Pro Series Guns
Tonight on Gun Nuts Radio at 9pm Eastern, we’re going to take an inside look at the Pro Series revolvers from Smith & Wesson. The show for tonight has been shortened to 30 minutes, however you’re not going to want to miss the live feed as I’ll have 3 of the S&W Pro Series revolvers with us tonight on camera.
That’s tonight at 9pm Eastern time at www.blogtalkradio.com/gunnuts – don’t miss the live broadcast, but if you do the show will be available for download the next day as well! Also tonight we’re going to try and preserve the camera feed which will then be uploaded to YouTube for viewing – at least the portion where we’re reviewing the revolvers.
Tune in tonight at 9pm Eastern time for Gun Nuts Radio!