This week on the podcast, I provide some corrections and updates regarding the bans handed down last week, and then discuss the importance of understanding the values that underlie past decisions and the importance of evaluating if they still apply today. Links: – Pat Brown’s response letter to his suspension (slides 3 and 4)
#81: Final Bans Announced
This week on the podcast, I review the outcome of the five members suspended back in July, and discuss the issues with how little has been disclosed about what they did to earn their respective punishments, as well as their limited ability to defend themselves from unknown charges.
#80: Chrono at the Carolina Classic 2022
This week on the podcast, I talk about things that went well and lessons learned from running chrono and equipment check at the Carolina Classic this past year. For the email exchange I mention during the episode about random sampling of competitors and cheating, see this blog post. To subscribe the podcast, just search “Short Course” in your podcast app, or add https://berryshooting.com/short-course.xml by URL.
Random Sampling of Competitor Ammo: An Email Exchange with DNROI
What follows is an email exchange I had with Troy McManus, DNROI, ahead of the 2022 Carolina Classic. I don’t want to be accused of taking quotes out of context, so I’m publishing the entire exchange here for anyone interested to read and decide. The first email was sent in my best hail-mary attempt to find a loophole around the rule requiring that “every” competitor’s ammo be checked via chrono. In practice, this mandatory requirement results in no time to for random re-sampling, thus making–in my opinion–chrono easy to game, if someone were so inclined. Our original intent of this … Read More
#79: Carolina Classic 2022 Lessons Learned
This week on the podcast, I go over how I shot the 2022 Carolina Classic, as well as review things that went well and lessons learned from how the match was run.
Match Video: 2022 Carolina Classic
As usual, I shot this match on staff day (Friday) and worked Saturday and Sunday. (This year, I was working chrono, which will be the topic of future posts and podcasts, but we’ll leave that for another day.) Coming into this match, I wasn’t feeling particularly trained up. I’d only shot about 5,000 rounds all year, and had no consistent dry fire schedule. To be honest, it was hard to summon the motivation to work hard at a sport that I saw as going so badly off the rails as the year went on. Since announcing my run for Area … Read More
#78: Running for Area 6 Director
This week on the podcast, I talk about my decision to run for Area 6 Director, and why I think it’s important that we stay and try to turn the existing organization around instead of quitting. As mentioned in the podcast, USPSA is requiring me to submit my nomination petition on their particular form, but they have previously allowed petitions that include pages with single signatures. I will have a paper petition with me at Sir Walter for the match this weekend, so if you’re coming to that match, you can sign it there. Otherwise, if you want to sign … Read More
How Good Could A Nationals Livestream Be?
USPSA as it is now is not really set up to be a spectator sport, and would need some significant changes to be close to as TV-friendly as something like basketball or football. That said, if we are doing the work to run a livestream of shooters from Nationals, and people are willing to watch it, what can we do to make it as good as possible? Last fall, during the Carry Optics Nationals, I was watching the YouTube livestream. It was boring, with brief moments of interesting content. I got to thinking what might make it better. With no … Read More
True North USPSA – May 2022
This was my first time back to True North in Oxford since last August, and the match was true to their usual style: almost every target partialed, tight shooting positions, and a seated start in the shoot house. I honestly wonder what the goal of such difficult target presentations is, since it definitely does not make the match a crowd pleaser, and attendance is usually pretty sparse. (A lot of folks were scared off by the threat of rain during the match and there were only 18 shooters split between two squads.) I ran “Production Optics” style, shooting my Stock … Read More
Does Staff Reset Need Better Branding?
I’ve been trying to convince people that staff reset is the way to run major USPSA matches for a while now. The match benefits from being able to get more shooters through the stage in the same amount of time. The ROs benefit from having a consistent reset process that reduces reshoots and questionable rules calls (“Was that hole pasted?”). The shooters benefit by being able to just focus on their shooting and have confidence that the score they got is the score they shot. And around here, the momentum is growing. The North Carolina Section match has been staff … Read More
SC Section 2022 Wrapup
Going into this match, my expectations were pretty low. Despite the weather turning nice recently, I had been sidelined from practicing or dry firing by a hand injury until about two weeks before the match. That said, in retrospect, I had the advantage of not having really changed my gear setup in years, so everything was very familiar. Boring does occasionally have its upsides. Going into the match, I was particularly worried about fumbling mags on reloads from further back on the belt, but that ended up being a non-issue. The one new piece of gear for this match was … Read More
Sir Walter November 2021 Wrapup – “Production Optics”
This month, I decided to take out the Stock 2 with the red dot on an EGW plate and shoot a match with it. It’d been running well in practice, and I thought it would be interesting to take it to a pretty tough local match. As I discuss at the end of the match video, I decided to shoot it with 15 round magazines, following on from last month’s match in “Production 15” (aka IPSC Production). In part because I was curious: there’s a lot of discussion about what the future of the US Carry Optics division should be, … Read More
#76: Tyler Turner on Participation vs Development
This week on the podcast, I had Tyler Turner on to continue the discussion from last time about what the goals of the sport should be: shooters developing and getting better, or just more warm bodies in matches? Here is an automated transcript of our discussion: Ben: Tyler Turner. Welcome to Short Course. Tyler: Thank you. Thank you. I’m happy to be here. Ben: People who’ve listened to the previous episode, know that you are the one who kind of kicked off a discussion. And this was shortly after the vote to remove Mike Foley and the discussion started to … Read More
Sir Walter October 2021 Wrapup
Now that the NC Section is done, I got to picking up my Tanfoglio Stock 2s that had been gathering dust while I spent some time with the Glock 17 in Carry Optics. (Don’t worry, I have a post coming with my thoughts on the experience and how it changed my game even coming back to the iron sight guns.) You might think I was itching to go back to the heavy steel guns after the punishing 9mm recoil in a twenty-something ounce Glock. But the reality is, the main thing I noticed coming back was just how much more … Read More
#75: Mason Lane on Participation vs Development
This is a lightly-edited transcript of the episode. Welcome to Short Course, Episode 75 for September 22nd, 2021. I’m your host, Ben Berry. I know this podcast has been a little sparse recently. I’ve been taking all the content that normally would be these solo episodes and writing them up as blog posts, which has been a generally a good thing. It’s been working out. And I see that continuing. But as we’re in an interesting chapter for the sport, I thought it might be an interesting chance to take the podcast and turn it into something a little bit … Read More
Carolina Classic 2021 Wrapup
The North Carolina Section match is over, and once again it went as well as it could. All the usual stuff like walking the prize table, staff reset, and five minute walkthroughs made this one of the best matches of the year for competitors. This is the third year that Steph has been the Section Coordinator and the process of planning and executing the match gets smoother every year. Setup Thursday was the build day, and it was mostly uneventful. When I was helping with setting up Stage 4, which was my design, the setup we’d used at a club … Read More
I Was Wrong
This is post 6 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 In May, I wrote an article with the deliberately-inflammatory title I Have No Faith the USPSA Board of Directors Will Do Anything About Mike Foley. At … Read More
My Recommendations To The Incoming USPSA President
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