I’m publishing this post the night before the Board meets to vote whether to remove Mike Foley as USPSA President. I’m assuming (and hoping) they get the votes required to do that. By my reading of the bylaws, the Vice President will be acting President until an election can be held to fill the position for the remainder of the current term through the end of 2023. The number of people talking about running is truly wild, but we will see who actually puts their name in and how the election shakes out. This article is my best effort to … Read More
What USPSA Nationals Could Be
I think the way that Nationals has been run for a while is broken. Instead of being the premier event of the year that the rest of the season builds up to, it’s a series of multiple events throughout the year, each one of which is on par with a state level championship, with many Area matches being higher quality. The match that people should be eager to shoot because there’s nothing else like it instead has anyone with a credit card signing up to maximize participation. Although there are facets of USPSA at the local level that make it … Read More
Letter to the Board Regarding the Motion to Remove Mike Foley
This is post 5 of 6 in the series “Mike Foley” Petition For The Removal of Mike Foley I Have No Faith the USPSA Board of Directors Will Do Anything About Mike Foley Mike Foley Has (At Least) 155,000 Reasons Per Year To Fight Any Attempts To Remove Him What To Do If The Board Does Not Remove Mike Foley Letter to the Board Regarding the Motion to Remove Mike Foley I Was Wrong I was asked to email my Area Director to register my opinion for or against the upcoming motion to remove Mike Foley as President of USPSA … Read More
True North August 2021 USPSA Wrapup
This was my second USPSA match in CO. I didn’t have any live fire since the last match, just dry fire with specific cues on getting a good grip on the Glock in the holster, getting a good wrap with my left hand on the front of the gun, staying low when moving, and pulling the trigger without moving the dot. In other words, basic field course skills. No work on high speed gun handling, which showed on the classifier at this match. Stage 5 This was an 18-round stage, so I made sure at Make Ready to get a … Read More
Sir Walter August 2021 Wrapup
Back in May, at Production Nationals, I picked up a Romeo 3 XL dot off the prize table, at first thinking I would just flip it for cash. But the idea started to grow, and here we are a few months later and this was my first USPSA match in CO. I had 3 practice sessions to get used to the Glock and the dot, which honestly hasn’t been as much of an adjustment as I was expecting. The best comparison I can make right now is that the dot is like going from a DA/SA or striker trigger to … Read More
The Case for 15 Round Production
When Production Division was created in the year 2000, it was explicitly a division for mostly stock guns. Following the rise of concealed carry in the 1980s, IDPA had splintered off in 1996, driven both by a wish for a sport with fewer race guns, and more focused on concealment and tactics. Meanwhile, the discussion in the US and internationally had finally come to a head and the need for a “stock gun” division was undeniable. Of course, that was also 6 years into the 10 year term of the US’s national Assault Weapons Ban, which among other things prohibited … Read More
Sir Walter June 2021 Wrapup
This was a very tough match for me. It’s tempting to blame having a kid in January for lack of dry fire, or the ongoing primer shortages for lack of live fire. But if I’m honest with myself, neither of those things really are at play. I have the best setup I’ve ever had in terms of dry fire: a two car garage, with concrete floors and plenty of space to move around. No more slippery hardwood floors or carpet. 20 feet of space to put up targets, more if I go diagonal. But I haven’t done it. I also … Read More
What To Do If The Board Does Not Remove Mike Foley
This is post 4 of 6 in the series “Mike Foley” Petition For The Removal of Mike Foley I Have No Faith the USPSA Board of Directors Will Do Anything About Mike Foley Mike Foley Has (At Least) 155,000 Reasons Per Year To Fight Any Attempts To Remove Him What To Do If The Board Does Not Remove Mike Foley Letter to the Board Regarding the Motion to Remove Mike Foley I Was Wrong I’ve had a lot of interesting conversations over the past few days since I started publishing this series of articles. Some thank me for bringing everything … Read More
Mike Foley Has (At Least) 155,000 Reasons Per Year To Fight Any Attempts To Remove Him
This is post 3 of 6 in the series “Mike Foley” Petition For The Removal of Mike Foley I Have No Faith the USPSA Board of Directors Will Do Anything About Mike Foley Mike Foley Has (At Least) 155,000 Reasons Per Year To Fight Any Attempts To Remove Him What To Do If The Board Does Not Remove Mike Foley Letter to the Board Regarding the Motion to Remove Mike Foley I Was Wrong Let’s wind the clock back to 2015. The previous year, the US had just hosted the World Shoot for the first time in 28 years. The … Read More
I Have No Faith the USPSA Board of Directors Will Do Anything About Mike Foley
This is post 2 of 6 in the series “Mike Foley” Petition For The Removal of Mike Foley I Have No Faith the USPSA Board of Directors Will Do Anything About Mike Foley Mike Foley Has (At Least) 155,000 Reasons Per Year To Fight Any Attempts To Remove Him What To Do If The Board Does Not Remove Mike Foley Letter to the Board Regarding the Motion to Remove Mike Foley I Was Wrong Yesterday’s post about USPSA President Mike Foley threatening me with a lifetime ban over a joke on Instagram was a review of facts, supported by screenshots. … Read More
Petition For The Removal of Mike Foley
This is post 1 of 6 in the series “Mike Foley” Petition For The Removal of Mike Foley I Have No Faith the USPSA Board of Directors Will Do Anything About Mike Foley Mike Foley Has (At Least) 155,000 Reasons Per Year To Fight Any Attempts To Remove Him What To Do If The Board Does Not Remove Mike Foley Letter to the Board Regarding the Motion to Remove Mike Foley I Was Wrong What follows is my email, with screenshots, to Bruce Wells, Area 6 Director, and the other 7 Area Directors, sent three years ago, on June 4th, … Read More
2021 Locap Nationals Wrapup
So, the second weekend of May has come and gone, and with it Nationals for Production, Single Stack, Revolver, and Limited 10. Timing First, the match was Mother’s Day weekend. You can say it’s a greeting card holiday sure, but this was just such an unforced error. A week earlier or a week later wouldn’t have worked? You don’t schedule matches on the weekend of major holidays if you can avoid it, and minor ones should be avoided where possible. Of course, the problem is they have to find three different weeks on the calendar for three different Nationals this … Read More
South Carolina Section Match 2021 Wrapup
Shot the SC Section championship this past weekend and it was outstanding. One of the best matches I’ve ever shot. Highlights in no particular order: Not bad scenery. The foothills of upstate SC in the spring were more scenic than I was expecting, and Belton Gun Club itself is pretty rural. Beats the flatness of Florida any day in my book. Good quality stages. The stages were solid, and mostly of the variety of it being pretty obvious which targets to shoot from where. The options, as such, mostly came in how aggressively to move and how early to start … Read More
“What happened to Short Course?”
The story of the Short Course podcast, which I launched in January of 2018 actually goes back to 2013, when my friend Luke was launching a podcast to go along with his Triangle Tactical blog. Then, like now, I could always find something shooting related to talk about, and I ended up joining a few episodes and then becoming a co-host of that show. For two and a half years, Luke and I, every week, would spend 4-6 hours prepping and recording the roughly hour-long episodes. All good things end, and so eventually I couldn’t dedicate that much time to … Read More
Area 6 2021 Wrapup
(Photo by Trigger Pull Photography) The highest-profile match to be held in North Carolina has come and gone, and I think it will go down as being largely a success: Rowan County Wildlife Association hosting the 2021 Area 6 Championship. Stages and Setup When the stages were first posted, it was definitely a bit confusing. Some of the stages, from designers such as Gerrit Heinrich and Bryce Dupuy, looked excellent. Some of them looked half-baked, at best. For one thing, many of the stages would not fit in the bays Rowan had available. (Somewhat confusingly, although Rowan had 12 bays … Read More
PCC and Carry Optics Belong in USPSA
At this point, maybe no one questions the two most recently-added divisions, but I’m old enough to remember when USPSA only had 6 divisions, before PCC and Carry Optics were added. I remember the debates and discussions about adding new gear specs to the sport for the first time in 15 years. When CO was proposed as a provisional division, with no slide milling except for the optic and a 10 round magazine cap, it seemed like an interesting, but niche place to compete. You’d get a few die-hard enthusiasts, but otherwise it wasn’t that much higher barrier to entry. … Read More
Chrono: Trust, but verify
This is post 5 of 5 in the series “2020 Carolina Classic” A series about things that went well in the 2020 Carolina Classic Match Format & Stage Inspection Walking the Prize Table Five Minute Walkthroughs Staff Reset Chrono: Trust, but verify The way that most major matches run chrono, including Nationals in my experience, would be trivially easy to cheat if you wanted to. Just keep a box or mag of full-power chrono ammo in your bag and take it with you when you walk up to chrono, and you can use whatever else you want for the rest … Read More
Staff Reset
This is post 4 of 5 in the series “2020 Carolina Classic” A series about things that went well in the 2020 Carolina Classic Match Format & Stage Inspection Walking the Prize Table Five Minute Walkthroughs Staff Reset Chrono: Trust, but verify When you pay your match fee for a Level 2 or above match, what are you actually buying? Debugged stages? Consistent staff for every stage? More competition? Trophies? I submit that it is also entirely reasonable for big matches to have staff do all the pasting and reset for you, leaving you to just worry about refilling your … Read More
Five Minute Walkthroughs
This is post 3 of 5 in the series “2020 Carolina Classic” A series about things that went well in the 2020 Carolina Classic Match Format & Stage Inspection Walking the Prize Table Five Minute Walkthroughs Staff Reset Chrono: Trust, but verify It’s become somewhat common at matches to cut walkthroughs down to 4 or even 3 minutes in an effort, misguided in my opinion, to save time and get more shooters through the match. First, this is bad for competitors. On any given stage, one of two things will be true. Either the stage will have a small shooting … Read More
Walking the Prize Table
This is post 2 of 5 in the series “2020 Carolina Classic” A series about things that went well in the 2020 Carolina Classic Match Format & Stage Inspection Walking the Prize Table Five Minute Walkthroughs Staff Reset Chrono: Trust, but verify Typically you only walk a prize table at bigger Area matches and Nationals where all the shooters end on the same day and there is a formal awards ceremony. Because of the multi-day schedule, only half the competitors will be on the range each day, which poses a problem. Most level 2 matches solve this by just randomly … Read More