HK and Umarex have agreed to enter into an agreement to allow Umarex to produce licensed copies of the HK-416, the MP-5, and the MP-7 in .22 LR. These might be on display at SHOT ’10. I’ve heard mixed reports on the Umarex M4 clone in .22 LR, so the jury is out on these for the time being. One wonders though what this will do the GSG-5s marketshare, which you could argue was the gun that kicked off the whole “imitation black rifle” craze.
All that being said, I want one of the MP-7 clones. Bad.
Some information from the Match Director of the 2009 Indiana State Steel Challenge Championship, which will be held at Atlanta Conservation Club:
Date: October 17th!
TIME ::
RO and Volunteer Set-up 7:00 to 8:30 am
RO squads – 9:00 to 12:00 am
Lunch – Noon to 1:00 pm
Normal Match Check-In – 12:00 to 12:40 pm
Normal Match Shooter Meeting – 1:00 to 1:20 pm
Normal Match – 1:20 to 5:00 pm
Awards after scores are calculated, 6:00 pm or so.DIVISIONS :: (Not quite the same as SCSA nationals)
Production; Double action and “Safe action“. All GLOCKs, Beretta 92, SIG
229, 226 . . . Springfield XDs (because SCSA is part of USPSA).
Limited; Single action 1911’s with IRON sights, no compensators.
Open; Anything goes (semi-automatic).
Carbine; CF PISTOL calibers, ANY sights NO MAGNUM CALIBERS.
Cowboy; any SASS handgun division. <}:-})
Revolver; for all revolvers, IRON sights.
GSSF; Production guns, but WITHOUT the holster.22PO Rimfire Pistol Optic; .22LR, OPTIC sights. Pistol.
22PI Rimfire Pistol Iron; .22LR, IRON sights. Pistol.
22RO Rimfire Rifle Optic; .22LR, OPTIC sights. Rifle and Carbine.
22RI Rimfire Rifle Iron; .22LR, IRON sights. Rifle and Carbine.
22Rev6 Not available for the State Match
22Rev10 Not available for the State MatchCOSTS ::
$40 each gun/entry if you pre-register (NOT pre-PAID).
$60 each gun/entry if you do not pre-register.
RO's & vol's :: first entry FREE, additional entries $20 off.
$20 off for active military.
I don't want any money until October 17th, but to get the $40 rate, I need
to know you will be there. (Send an e-mail to:
[email protected] )REGISTRATION INFORMATION I NEED FROM YOU :: ALL 6 THINGS, BY OCTOBER 1st.
Full name —
State of residence —
Division(s) entered —
Gun to be used – for each division —
Special Recognition categories — (Please state NO S.R. if none apply.)
RO/Volunteer — or Normal Entry —I will figure up how much money you will need for entry fees on October
17th, and send you a confirmation e-mail.YOU CAN ENTER ANY NUMBER OF DIVISIONS — AS LONG AS THE HOLSTERING DOES NOT
CLASH.
The holster is the key to the whole second gun thing. If your second entry
is holster-less — GSSF, any (or all) of the .22 divisions, carbine, etc,
then you are all set. For that matter, if you shot, say, Revolver
Right-handed and Limited Left-handed — that would work from my perspective,
which is to keep the match moving. (I doubt that particular scenario would
happen, but if you are ambidextrous and want to try it, I am not going to
prohibit it.)STAGES ::
8 stages. All SCSA.ROUND COUNT ::
200 (well, 195) for a ‘clean’ match. Bring 300 to 400 per gun to have
plenty of ammo.No magazine capacity limits. (And, you may load ’em up !!!)
Minimum of 5 magazines (or speed-loaders) per gun.PRIZES ::
Plaques for winners of each Division, Smaller plaques for 2nd and 3rd in
some divisions.
There may be a prize for the overall lowest time of the match (ANY semi-auto
gun).
Special recognition plaques for :: Senior (55-64), Super Senior (65+),
Junior (17 and younger), Female, and Challenger. These will be determined
by relative finish WITHIN division. E.g. 3rd in a division of 10 = 0.3 and
2nd in a division of 4 = 0.5 — the 3rd place shooter is the winner of
special recognition.
Drawings for merchandise prizes will be administered by Jeff Brown. Each
entry will receive tickets ( # tbd ) that the shooter places in jars
corresponding to each prize. Random draw from the tickets placed in the
jars determines the winners. Merchandise prizes will NOT be awarded for
performance this year.NOTE ::
ACC IS A COLD RANGE. DO NOT “GUN-UP” IN, OR AT, YOUR CAR — USE THE SAFE
AREAS, PREFERABLY WITH AN R.O., OR JUST WAIT UNTIL THE FIRST STAGE.
You can load magazines anywhere EXCEPT THE SAFE AREAS :: but DO NOT remove
your gun from its box or bag until you are on the line, ready to compete.
(Or you are at one of the SAFE AREAS, with an R.O. :: For example – if you
need to verify function, or clean something.)
I’ll be there as one of the ROs running a squad as well as trying for my first State Steel Championship – it should be a lot of fun, so don’t miss the match!
This is why I love being a shooter – sometimes you’ll get comments like this:
Think of that pivot as being the narrow point of an hourglass, laid on it’s side. With the revolver, both the front and rear sight are on the “away” side of that pivot, both moving in the same arc-of-cone together, with only the front sight describing a larger arc in the same cone geometry.
See, stuff like that is cool, I don’t care who you are.
I was going to have a long, drawn out post on stopping power, but this summarizes my point in its entirety:
Get a gun/cartridge combination that goes bang every time you pull the trigger and which you can shoot quickly and accurately. No common defensive handgun cartridge will quickly and reliably stop a human being who is committed to causing serious bodily harm, unless the bullet from that cartridge is applied to the correct anatomy. When the bullet is applied to the correct anatomy ANY of the 3 will serve equally well (9mm, .40, .45).
Get gun in a caliber of 9mm/.38 or larger. Shoot gun lots and lots. Problem solved.
The results are in for the first round of USPSA Nationals, which were held over the past three days for Production Division and Open Division. Here are your top 10 in Production:
Apologies to those whose full names I didn’t immediately recognize; and congrats to Bob Vogel for a successful defense of his Production Title, making it two straight wins in a row!
Your Open Division Top 10 finishers are:
Congratulations to all the Open shooters as well, who put on a great match. Right now, the Limited/10/Revolver Nationals are under-way – anyone want to put money on how much Jerry Miculek wins revolver division by?
Other Production Division results, your top three Lady shooters are as follows:
Keep checking back through the week as I update results from the USPSA Nationals!
I snagged this from my buddy Steve at the Firearm Blog, it’s the new Glock 17 with a thumb safety. This is one of those times where a good business decision leads to a poor engineering decision: the thumb safety is located right above the mag release and functions exactly like the mag release, i.e. you push in on it with your strong hand thumb.
Apparently it was designed this way at the request of the British military, because their SA-80 rifles have a similar safety. So, awesome business decision if Glock gets the contract, and now you’ll be able to shoot yourself in the leg with your Glock after accidentally ejecting the magazine!
Went out to Atlanta Conservation Club yesterday to get some practice in with my 625 before the upcoming IDPA Indiana State Championship. By the way, there are still slots available, so hit the ACC website to download a form to register. Anyway, I’m shooting the state match in the Enhanced Service Revolver division, which means I’m using my 625 in .45 ACP to shoot the match. I’m classified in this division as Sharpshooter, which is roughly analogous to USPSA “C” class.
So, like the idiot that I am, I figure “hey, here’s a fun idea. I’ll shoot the entire classifier match for practice and see where it comes out”. Why was this dumb? Because I shot a great classifier. I actually bumped myself up to Expert class right before the state championship. Now you’re probably wondering why this is a “bad thing”. Well, it’s because if I’m good enough to shoot “Expert” (which is roughly B class) then I had a very good statistical chance of winning the “Sharpshooter” division. By bumping myself, I now have to compete against a group of shooters where I am “middle of the pack”. No sandbagging for me, it would seem.
Of course, here’s the weird part. I was looking at my classifier score for my wheelgun compared to the last classifier I shot for Stock Service Pistol, and it was only 6 seconds slower with my wheelgun. The big difference is that with the 625 I was MUCH more accurate – 15 points down for the entire COF with the 625. With the SSP gun, I was much faster on my raw times, but a lot less accurate which lead to a lower class. This bears out my thinking that I’m more patient when shooting my 625, as the long trigger forces me to wait for shots and not just slap the trigger and run. The biggest difference was at the 20 yard stage of the match: usually I have a lot of points down on that stage, and while it was still my least accurate stage, using the 625 I had a lot better hits than I’ve ever had with a semi-automatic pistol.
Now I just need to find a bunch of .45 ACP ammo for the two major matches I have next month.
Did you listen to last night’s Gun Nuts Radio?. If you didn’t, you’re in luck because you can click that link to download the episode. Breda did a great show, and my thanks to JayG and everyone that called in for supporting Gun Nuts Radio. Click here for an .mp3 copy of last night’s show, and don’t forget you can also download the show from iTunes by searching for Gun Nuts Radio.
Next week we’ll be celebrating the return of my favorite bad TV show, NCIS, as well as talking about some exciting industry news. Don’t miss next week’s Gun Nuts Radio!