2023 Competition Schedule

[BAC]

0-dawn thirty Miss Kitty and I are off to visit with Jerry at his range near Shreveport.  Southern Reginal ICORE Championship, brought to you by Ruger.  8 stages +Chrono.

I’ve become such a gamer, I’ve put a drop-offset on my CT holster.  I’m one of the highest class shooters in Classic Division, assuming Jerry doesn’t suddenly decide to shoot.  If I buckle down and take this seriously, I could take home the hardware.  Wow! Just wow!

Good luck!

[Rastus]

Best wishes and success to you!! 

Keep us posted!

[Rastus]

What?  No updates?

[alfsauve]

It's a very long drive.  10 hours including lunch and gas over, but managed to do it in 9:15 coming back with one less stop.  My butt still feels it.   We'll never do a 9+ hour trip again, that we learned

Shreveport is very interesting.  The casinos (6 I think) probably promised large prosperity but several were closed and I wasn't seeing any great wealth around town.  We saw among other sad sites like an abandoned large minor-league, or college sized, baseball park.  However we had a good social time there.  We ate at the Blind Tiger right downtown and had the most excellent Cajun and low country cooking.  We also ate at Orlandeaux's Café a most interesting establishment on Cross Lake in NW part of town.  Basically fried shrimp and catfish, but very well done and we had a delightful time with the staff and other diners.

Oh, SHOOTING!

First, you know it, but until you visit Shootout Lane it really doesn't sink in.  Yes it's Jerry's, and Clark Custom's, private range.  Yes they live right there.  You pass the houses on the way in.  Right on US80, 12mi out of Shreveport, which makes it very convenient.  It isn't owned/run by a club, but built to support the Clark and Miculek families practice and business, so it is a little different from other ranges.   Jerry did not compete but came to the awards ceremony for a few minutes and thanked us for coming.   

Second, this regional was put on mainly by the ICORE staff themselves, not by any local club.  They did a marvelous job. It was very hot and we finished before the major storms passed through.  4 guns given away and because the costs were low, they took the left over entry fee money and returned it to the shooters!!!  I won a box of .45 Bullets.

I probably shot the best I've ever done, though I didn't finish very high.  5/6 in Classic and 36/42 overall.  It was a tight race in Classic.  I was only 45 seconds off the leader! 10 seconds off 3rd place.  I even won one stage.  Had problems with my ammo and was irritated but powered on through.  I might have finished one or two places higher though.  Here's how I finished.

Classic 5   6    6   5   5  4   1  3
Overall 31 38 37  38 35 31 8  33

Yep I was hitting on all cylinders in stage 7.    One stage had black X rings which counted for -1 seconds on your time.  6 freestyle, 6 strong hand, 6 weak hand.  I laid 9 shots in the X ring.  Cool.

Okay, now on to World IDPA.   I'm have 8 points and first round cutoff, just announced, was in the 9s, so I'm waitlisted but should get in.   I'm flexible so I can wait until the day before to go (Talladega).

[Rastus]

I think you certainly shot well.  What was the problem/issue with the ammo and do you think if it had cooperated that you would have gone up in the standings some?

[Sponsor]

[alfsauve]

It all started when a piece of debris got in my expansion die which led to long sad tail of a sequence of horrible problems and mistakes, down to my seating die.

So basically I ended up with a batch of .38spl that was just a hair too big to easily "plunk" on chamber check.  I used a very crude roller to get the rounds back to where they would check okay.

Now here's the rub.  I have a spare cylinder that I use for chamber checking.  Safer and easier to handle than using one on the gun.  EXCEPT, it appears there's slight difference between the chamber sizes on that cylinder and my ICORE gun.  So I had about 1 sticky round per stage that I had to take time to manually press home.  Plus about 5 times the round would stick in the cylinder on extraction and I'd have to "slap" the cylinder rod with the palm of my support hand.  I have two holes in my hand because of this.  So yes it easily added up to enough time I could have made 3rd place.

I think I have all the dies clean out, repaired and in proper adjustment.  It's rather a delicate balance between the expansion die and the seating/crimp die and I somehow got both way out of whack.  Am going to try a taper crimp die.  I might forgo the power cop and separate seating and crimping.   

[Majer]

Alf, what press are you loading on? I use a Dillon 650 and seat and crimp separately using a Lee factory crimp die. I have these for all my pistol caliber. They resize the cartridge while crimping. Highly recommend them.

[alfsauve]

Thank you Majer.  I have such a Frankenstein of dies.  My sizer is a Dillion, the expansion is a Redding, Hornady powder measure, RCBS powder cop and a Hornady roll crimp/seater.  I use Hornady LnL AP so I have 5 stations.  Am looking at the taper crimp dies now and may go with the Lee.  Got to look at my .357 dies set and my "spare" parts. I might have one already just forgot about it.

[Rastus]

<snip> So yes it easily added up to enough time I could have made 3rd place. <snip>

Not to mention the added stress the issue caused.  That alone can account for the lower score.

[alfsauve]

USPSA GA STATE match is cancelled.  Scheduled for the end of Sep, the range owner decided to back out.  This is a privately owned range and the clubs that operate there pay rental for the use.  I don't know what contractual agreements were in place, but for the USPSA club to sue would mean certain end of use of the range going forward.  This range has done this before.  I showed up for a match there once and they had double booked the range.

There's really not enough time for another club to pick this up, clear the calendar, make all the plans, etc.  So my club, River Bend, has evidently picked up some of the sponsors and prizes and will have them available at their regular monthly match this month.  $20 entry fee, couple of thousand in prizes to be given away.  Instead of their normal 7 stages they've added 2 more and increased the squads to 9.  And are providing lunch.   This is NOT a sanctioned USPSA State match, but it'll be the closest thing to it this year.  Sounds like a good old time.

I wasn't going to shot USPSA much, if at all, but have decided to join in the fun.  Revolver Cult, err... I mean Division, wish me luck. 

And I've become such a gamer.  Put the drop-offset on my ICORE holster, but USPSA is a little stricter about "drop" so I can't use the Comp-Tac offset.  But of course, when you're a hammer everything's a nail.  I printed a 1" offset block for my Comp-Tac.   A trivial design but probably a challenge for some.  Love my 3D printer.