WEST HARTFORD, Conn. – Colt is pleased to announce the appointment of Joyce Rubino to the newly created position of Vice President, Marketing. Rubino was previously Controller and Vice President of Operations for Colt’s Manufacturing Company.
“We are thrilled to have Joyce leading Colt’s marketing operations,” said Dennis Veilleux, President and CEO of Colt. “Joyce has been an integral part of our team for a number of years, and has a proven track record of outstanding leadership. She is keenly aware of the issues and opportunities within our industry, and is well positioned to lead Colt’s marketing efforts.”
Rubino has been an instrumental leader in the growth and success of Colt’s commercial operations. Throughout her time with Colt, Rubino has navigated a number of challenging situations, consistently delivering effective and well-thought solutions. It is this knowledge and experience that will serve her well as she takes on the new role of Vice President, Marketing.
Photo Caption: Joyce Rubino is appointed as Colt’s Vice President of Marketing.
About Colt
Colt is one of the world’s leading designers, developers and manufacturers of firearms. The company has supplied civilian, military and law enforcement customers in the United States and throughout the world for more than 175 years. Our subsidiary, Colt Canada Corporation, is the Canadian government’s Center of Excellence for small arms and is the Canadian military’s sole supplier of the C7 rifle and C8 carbine. Colt operates its manufacturing facilities in West Hartford, Connecticut and Kitchener, Ontario. For more information on Colt and its subsidiaries, please visit www.colt.com.
We’ve all heard the arguments from the antis, but one of the thing that I notice both sides doing, that drives me baty, is arguing with they’re own side. Please understand, I don’t mean in-fighting, I mean discussing the issues with those who already agree with your side, and then walking away feeling as though you’ve accomplished anything. I’ve seen this happen at the range, but it’s rare for me to glimpse the other side mimicing the behavior.
Finally home from the 2013 IDPA Nats, and I have to say right off the bat that this was the toughest Nationals I’ve ever shot. I’ve shot Nats every year since 2011, and you can also sprinkle in a Carolina Cup and an Indoor Nationals as well. By far, this match was the toughest, most technical match in terms of shooting skills that I’ve ever seen at an IDPA match.
The Stages
You can’t really have a good match without good stages. One of the stage design elements that I’m big on as a shooter is balance – stages should be equally challenging for all divisions and should be designed so that Marksmen and Masters alike will find challenging elements in the stage. I shouldn’t be able to tell what the stage designer’s favorite division is just by looking at the stage, and at Nationals I couldn’t. All the stages were well designed and equitable for all the shooters. There was some controversy about the legality of certain stages, but I’ll leave that discussion for later. Every shooter shot the same stages, and they were good. A particular favorite of mine was stage three, the table stage. You start by shooting a target at contact distance, then flipping up the table for cover and burning down the remaining badguys. That scratched an itch I’ve had to flip a table and use it for cover since watching basically any 80s action movie ever.
The Range
US Shooting Academy is awesome. There’s a paved road that runs from bay to bay, cover on every bay for shelter from the sun/rain, huge giant bays with huge berms, and unlike a lot of ranges, it’s actually near stuff. If you want to leave the range to get supplies during a lunch break, there’s a Target 5 minutes away. Honestly, it’s amazing. If it wasn’t for the…entertainingly dangerous weather in Tulsa, they should have every match ever there.
The Officiating
Uneven officiating has been the bane of IDPA shooting for as long as I can remember. I talked to several shooters about the “referees” at this match, and the general consensus was that this was the best, and most evenly officiated IDPA match in recent memory. All the guns and gear were subjected to the same level of scrutiny across the board, no shooters were given “special attention” for procedurals or illegal gear. Cover was called evenly and fairly across the board, with SOs giving ample warnings and appropriate demonstrations of what is and isn’t cover. Overall, I have to tip my hat to the Safety Officer staff at this IDPA Nats. Those guys worked hard and did a great job this year, and I was really impressed.
My Performance
Another year, and another 4th place finish. Two years in a row I’ve finished fourth SSR Master at this match. Now, I didn’t do a lot of prep this year, and shot the entire match with a borrowed vest (thanks Brian!) but that’s still not an excuse. On day 1, I made one big mental mistake that cost me 3 seconds, and on day 2 I just didn’t shoot the gun very well. Three misses and a no-shoot add up to 12.5 seconds of lost time, and when you add in the light primer hit on one stage, I lost easily 14 seconds right there. The big takeaway from this match is that if I’m going to shoot IDPA Nationals in SSR, I need to actually train for it. Sure, the shooting skills transfer over, but there are enough little things that I do differently wearing a vest and shooting a roundgun that just shooting 200 rounds the week before the match isn’t going to cut the mustard.
When it’s all said and done, I have to give the 2013 IDPA Nationals an absolute 5 star rating. It felt like a National championship should feel like, there were good events, a well laid out range, sponsor banners everywhere, and the sort of pomp and circumstance that says “this match is important.” Great job, IDPA.
At the 2013 IDPA Nationals, only two divisions have what appear to be on paper as tight races for the championships. Custom Defensive Pistol has Glenn Shelby as the runaway favorite to repeat as champion, Jerry Miculek will win his 1,532nd Enhanced Service Revolver title, and everyone expects Bob Vogel to run away with Stock Service Pistol like a fat kid with a purloined cookie. The biggest challenger to Glenn in CDP was Mike Seeklander, who was unfortunately DQ’d to an equipment issue. While there’s still the possibility of an upset in CDP, the two tightest divisions at Nationals this year are going to be Enhanced Service Pistol and Stock Service Revolver.
In ESP, at the start of the match there were two Distinguished Masters shooting, Matt Mink and Brandon Wright. They’re being chased by 20+ Master class shooters in ESP, including USPSA Grandmaster Nils Jonasson. Fans of the sport will remember Nils coming out of nowhere in 2010 to win USPSA Limited Nationals over a tough field; he followed that up in 2011 with 3rd place finishes at both Single Stack Nationals and Limited Nationals. Then in 2012 he won Single Stack Nationals, taking home his second USPSA National title. If there’s one shooter here to keep an eye on the ESP race, it’s Nils. What we’ll be watching to see is if he can adapt from the run and gun style of USPSA shooting to the more scenario based approach to IDPA.
Initially, Mike Seeklander, also a USPSA GM was expected to compete in ESP, but according to the Day 1 (or 3, depending on how you count) scores, Mike shot CDP. Mike was disqualified after his fifth stage for an equipment violation, while I’ve not spoken with him directly, word on the street is that he forgot to put the Series 80 parts back in his 1911 before the match. IDPA views the Series 80 parts on a 1911 as a safety which cannot be disabled, so a gun that doesn’t use them is automatically illegal.
Removing Mike from the ESP field (and the CDP field) brings the race in ESP to what appears to be a 3-way battle between Nils, Matt Mink, and Brandon Wright. Last year’s surprise ESP challenger Ravin Perry isn’t at this year’s match. There are quite a few unknowns on the match list this year as well; Eric Fuson started last year’s match strong and didn’t finish well; could he step his game up this year? We’ll find out the answers to all these questions by Saturday evening, as we go through two more full days of shooting at the IDPA Nationals.
Those little white specs you can see in the frame aren’t camera artifacts or pixels, they’re raindrops. This was the beginning of a pretty epic thunderstorm. Josh is reloading on stage 2, you can see the empty brass head towards the ground.
Welcome to what will become an occasional feature, wherein I shall regale you with stories of wine, women, and song…or maybe just yell about some stuff that’s annoying me to the point where mini-rants about it keep working their way into everything I try to write. If I sound a bit…well…
…just bear with me.
The Starbucks thing
Lots of people have said lots of things about Starbucks’ recent policy change wherein they ask people to stop carrying guns into their store. Reactions to this decision vary considerably. My own personal reaction is that it seems like the Starbucks management tried very hard to be non-offensive in their response. They could have said a bunch of really ridiculous stuff and would have been perfectly justified based on what some people have been foolish enough to do with firearms in their store. Instead, as Ms. Tam said, they politely asked people not to take guns to their stores. They managed to do this without resorting to a bunch of anti-gun hysterics in the statement, which no doubt took some considerable restraint and thought on their part…something we can’t get reliably from politicians or media figures. So kudos on at least making an effort there, Starbucks.
Do I support their position? Of course not. But I understand why they’re doing it. One photo sums it up nicely:
Whatever else he is, he’s not helping his cause. Folks, I’ve open carried into a Starbucks before, long before any of this was a controversy. I did it with a 1911 on my hip, carried in a holster where it stayed. I was dressed reasonably and the folks at the shop assumed I was law enforcement. None of the patrons panicked or took any real notice. I’m about as pro-2nd amendment as someone can get, but if I saw a dude walking into the coffee shop with a shotgun, I’d be worried. I’d be especially worried if he unslung the thing and started handling it so his similarly clueless buddy could take a silly photo. If you make me worry about what the hell you’re doing with that gun, you’re losing the argument. I don’t want to walk into a coffee shop and wonder about where the muzzle on somebody’s shotgun is pointed. I know, I know…if I don’t see some dude playing with a shotgun in public and instantly want to hug him for being such a patriot, I’m somehow anti-freedom. You can save the vitriol. I suck, and you hate me. Got it.
…but calling me names doesn’t change the situation: Perception is reality, and you will not win the perception game with the nonsense in that photo. Posing with your shotgun on someone else’s property isn’t striking a bold blow for freedom, it’s doing damage to the cause you claim to be supporting. Evidence? A company that was neutral on the issue sticking to the law in the area where the store is located is now asking you to please very kindly NOT bring your shotgun to their store anymore.
The “We’re here! We’re queer! Get used to it!” style of in-your-face campaigning doesn’t work well as a general rule, especially when you can’t rely on a sympathetic media portrayal. What progress we’ve made has been attributable directly to fighting smart. Trying to impress the internet with pictures of you holding your shotgun in Starbucks isn’t fighting smart.
Tools in the Toolbox
I’m sure by now you’ve encountered the analogy of techniques for manipulating firearms or strategies for using them in self defense being referred to as “tools in the toolbox”. Doubtless something an instructor came up with on the fly in an moment of inspiration that was copied by other instructors, and by students, and spread from there. Curiously enough, some dudes who just wanted to be different came up with the idea that too many tools in your toolbox leads to confusion, and ultimately insist you’ll die screaming in a gunfight if you have too many “tools” in your “toolbox”.
This assertion makes my teeth itch.
I’m not a master mechanic, but I have spent a little bit of time working on cars, guns, and even electronic equipment. I’ve come to appreciate the value of good tools, and I’ve even collected a few that I keep handy. Some of them I use quite a bit, while others I use only for very specialized applications.
Walk into any really skilled person’s workshop and you’ll likely find quite an array of tools. A wood turner may have a dizzying array of chisels. A cabinet maker may have an entire wall of different router bits. The layman walking in off the street may have absolutely no idea what these tools do, and if you ask them to bring you a chisel or a router bit from this vast array of possibilities odds are they’ll bring you the wrong tool for the task at hand.
…but that’s not because there are too many tools. It’s because they don’t know how to use them. The person who accumulated all those tools did so because in the practice of their craft they eventually encountered a situation where they found that their existing options didn’t get the job done, so they had to acquire another tool. Through regular practice they learned to use the tools they had, learned the limitations of those tools, and sought out others to give them more capability. Further, the time they’ve put in with their tools gives them the ability to judge pretty well exactly which tool they need to fix the issue that’s in front of them. The experienced mechanic knows when it’s appropriate to use a torque wrench, and when it’s appropriate to use a breaker bar.
The person who is exposed to four different reload techniques but can’t successfully complete a reload in a timely manner under stress was not a victim of having learned too many techniques. He didn’t learn any techniques. He didn’t practice any of them to the point where he could reproduce them under stress. It’s not an overload of information, but a lack of skill and experience that is likely to produce inappropriate responses to the circumstances at hand. The person who does the work will understand when it’s time to use the slide release and when it’s time to grab the slide….or when it’s time to perform a tactical reload, and when it’s time to perform an emergency reload, etc.
A person who has done their homework will know when they need a screwdriver and when they need a socket wrench. The person who hasn’t done their homework won’t know what tool does what task. The remedy for that is not to get rid of everything but the hammer in the toolbox. The remedy is to learn something.
You Jelly? No, actually…
Some time ago in my series about modifying the Glock, I referenced a photo from Bill Jordan’s book No Second Place Winner. The photo is of Bill Jordan and another man that I’ve always seen identified as Delf “Jelly” Bryce. Apparently the other man in the photo is, in fact, Louis Werne Jr, another member of the Border Patrol. Mr. Werne’s son alerted me to the identity of the crouching man in the photo.
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