SPEAKER_03: 0:00

This is the NROI podcast, your source for factual information for USPSA and SCSA competition. This podcast is brought to you by the National Range Officers Institute, United States Practical Shooting Association, and Steel Challenge Shooting Association. All rolebooks can be found at USPSA.org slash rules, STSA.org slash rules, and on the USPSA and STSA apps available in your Apple App Store and Google Play Store. All rates for this podcast are reserved. No portion of this podcast may be used or redistributed without written permission from the director of the National Range Officers Institute. Rules discussions on this podcast do not constitute an official ruling. The discussions on this podcast are meant to inform and educate. The only official rulings are published as per the bylaws United States Practical Shooting Association. Questions about rules should be emailed to rules at USPSA.org. This is episode 86, recorded very late September 2025. Well everyone, the gang is back together. Troy has made it back to the United States from South Africa. We'll have his report shortly. I'm Kevin Emmel with the NRY podcast, and Troy McManus is here. Good evening, Troy.

SPEAKER_00: 1:16

Good evening.

SPEAKER_03: 1:17

And Joey Human. Good evening, Jody.

SPEAKER_02: 1:19

Good evening.

SPEAKER_03: 1:20

All right, Troy. Well, you made it back from South Africa. The U.S. team did pretty darn good, brought home a lot of metal. Um, so how about telling us what all went on down there?

SPEAKER_00: 1:33

All right, so we started off with an opening ceremony that was in a uh high school football stadium. And by football, I don't mean like American football, soccer and rugby, I think. But um, and it was packed full of people. There was a surprising number of spectators there. The usual parade uh was not very long because we just walked around the track. Um, obviously there's some security concerns in South Africa, and uh this was in Clerksdarp. Uh so Clerksdarp is a mining town and it's very spread out. So there wasn't really a a downtown area to walk through like you'd normally see for a for a usual opening ceremony for IPSC world shoot. But all the teams were represented. Um they had a little show, they had some native dancers and stuff like that. And then uh they were supposed to have the mayor come and speak, but he didn't show up. So the opening ceremony was was relatively short. Um they had a uh a snack area set up in the back side of the thing where they were serving beer and food after the after the thing went on. Well, they were serving the beer beforehand, but they did the food afterwards. So uh got a lot of pictures from that. Uh the U.S. delegation was there. We had 133 people that actually shot the world shoot, which is a pretty high number of people. I think we were second only to the Philippines for a number of shooters in here. And then Leighton and and his crew were doing a uh live streaming of the match. Uh they had cameras roaming around. Uh this was this was sort of a first-time thing for this production crew and for Layton and for us to try to live stream something from halfway around the world. Uh, but it was working out. We they picked up, I don't know, 44,000 views on the first day. And to be honest, it was just Leighton talking to me. I was kind of the guinea pig for sitting down and being interviewed. So if 44,000 people want to see me talk, um, it obviously picked up when they had people like Eric Griffell or Nelson Jonathan or or Shannon Smith or somebody speaking on the podcast. Uh so uh it turned out very good on the live stream, I mean, not a podcast. But uh on the last day, uh YouTube shut us down because it seemed like we violated some policy of theirs where they were handling a gun at the table where they were doing it, and it appeared that they pointed the gun at somebody, right? So evidently YouTube standards where you can shoot targets all day long, but you can't accidentally point a gun at somebody. And we really couldn't find the the footage where it looked like that, but somebody probably reported it. I don't know. Uh, but anyway, we got the live stream killed. But up till that point, we had tons of excuse me, tons of views and uh tons of people at the match actually coming and saying, hey, I watched this on YouTube yesterday, because you could you know pick it up again. It obviously wasn't live, but a lot of people at the match itself from all over the world coming and saying what a great thing they thought it was. The IPSC folks were fully in support of it. Uh I have to commend Leighton and his crew because man, it was hard work. They uh the crew showed up at the airport at the same time I got there, and I I was actually through uh immigration and stuff before they got through. They were on the same flight I was on, and I met Leighton, and then I see these four guys coming pushing about five carts. They had a couple of people helping them, just loaded down with pelican cases full of equipment. So they rented a couple of vans, and one of the vans they used for their production uh van and had to mount all of that stuff in there. It was it was very primitive though, because they were running off of a off of a circuit at the range that also fed the water pump that fed everything. So every once in a while they'd overload the circuit and lose power, but uh um it's you just they just had to go with what they had, right? Because I mean, obviously it was a very expensive proposition to get everybody over there. And I believe that Leighton uh financed that himself. I know USPSA didn't put the money into it um as an organization, but he wanted to get it done and they got it done. So uh as far as success on the first pass, it was good. I had a guy come up to me uh, I think the second or third day. Um shooting started every day at 6 30 in the morning because they had four flights every day, and it had an average of two minute and 26 second uh turnaround time. That was the expectation per shooter, right? So E6 and of course had the kind of had the 321 motif going. So your longer courses took a little longer, but they made it up on the shorter ones. How many stages I was out there about say what?

SPEAKER_02: 6:28

How many stages did they shoot each day?

SPEAKER_00: 6:31

Oh, they shot six stages each day. Okay. So there were five five areas with six stages in it, 30 stages all together. And then everybody had a day off, right? So even the range officers got a day off. So they shot for six days, but everybody that was actually competing only shot five of the six days. They all had a day off. So you choose six stages in that in that area, and um it went 6 30 to 9 o'clock, so two and a half hours. Yeah. Eight man squad, so which made it go a little bit quicker. Uh, but I was out there by six, six fifteen every day, and I was sitting in the in a production area, of course, nothing was going on yet, having some coffee, and and some guy walked up and said, Oh, I've been watching the the live stream and it's great. I was like, All right, thanks. I appreciate that. And he goes, but he said the video kind of sucks. So they were using cameras that had transmitters on them, but this range was big, right? It's very big, and so the transmitters would the the signal would get a little fuzzy, and so they didn't have the most beautiful live video ever. And I just looked at him and I said, Well, here's my suggestion for you. And he goes, What is it? I said, You do it next time. So he just turned around and walked away, right? Um, I mean, they were doing the best they could, right? I mean, you can't you can't transmit live with a camera that you know without some very strong Wi-Fi and stuff, and we were not allowed to get on the on the scoring Wi-Fi for obvious reasons. Um, they but speaking of that, they they actually set up a way that Leighton could get into the scoring system, and it was it was live feeding the scores as they were put in. So he could kind of tell who was doing what, when, and where. And that was just a gift from uh Jose Bolino, who runs the ESS scoring kind of thing. And uh he just he just got Leighton hooked into that. So they were very, very supportive of everything that that the U.S. folks were trying to do to live stream this match. And I think that's gonna be the the kind of the thing of the future. I think IPSC is gonna try to get behind some of that and see if they can't do it, because they got tons of positive response for it from all over the world.

unknown: 8:50

Right.

SPEAKER_00: 8:51

Um like Kevin mentioned, our teams did well. Uh Open Team took gold. Uh uh Krista Seiler took first overall. Um, the revolver team took gold, uh, placed one, two, three on the podium. Uh ladies, uh, production optics did well. Uh standard, standard ladies did well. I think Karina Randolph placed uh second or third in that, but she shot it in the pre-match. So uh obviously she had gone back home and wasn't at the awards to get her medal, but they'll get a medal tour. Uh um I don't I didn't really see what all the rest of the results were, but I'm sure they're published somewhere. But the American teams did very well. The Filipinos were very strong. Uh the Brazilians had a very strong team as well. So uh all of those guys shot a good match. Uh of course, Eric Rafel won uh production or production optics or whatever he shot. So he was he was clearly the the winner. And by the last day, he was 100 points ahead of the next guy. So um there was there was no beating him in that match. And he he actually interviewed on the live stream as well. So uh a lot of people got to speak on there, they got to talk about a lot of things. Um, but overall it was a great match. Uh, the U.S. delegation was was very polite. We got tons of compliments on on our competitors being nice and polite, uh, very good sportsmanship. We didn't have any issues whatsoever. Uh Dan Olstadt was there as sort of a as a second uh team manager. And while he was a little bit unsure of his role as uh when we first got there, he he actually got into it and and understood what he was supposed to do, which is mostly support the teams. Uh you know, if they needed a scoring thing called, well then we would go and and talk to the deputy RM or the Rangemaster and go to stats and try to work it out, uh, which would left the teams free to kind of concentrate on what they were doing. Uh, we did intervene intervene on a couple of disqualifications that that did get overturned. Unfortunately, we had a couple that did not. Um, but sometimes there's just nothing you could do. It's very clear cut. So uh that's not something that you can always overturn. And then whenever they had a scoring challenge, we would try to make sure that they understood that they could take that to the chief range officer for that area, they could take that to the range master, right? So some of the people on these on these team teams, it was their first international match uh in another country, and didn't have a lot of experience doing IPST type stuff, and didn't really understand the procedures and stuff. So I think between um uh Dan and I, I think we were quite useful for helping the teams get get going, you know, and understand what they could and couldn't do and helping out things just some intervention. So uh there were several kind of major things that we helped work out. Uh the two range masters for the maps, uh Chris Prinzloo was the South African, and they typically appoint a deputy rangemaster from the host country. So that was Chris Prinzloo, uh heck of a good guy, very good rangemaster. And the other range master was uh I I will kill his last name. I don't remember. Uh I can't pronounce it, but his first name was Paolo, and he was very easy to get along with. Um, the stats folks were great. Uh the Bellino brothers were in there and uh did a lot of work for us. We managed to get a couple of photographer passes for people that were trying to cover some of the team stuff. Uh, so they were very helpful in that regard. And it worked out well. I mean, I can't say enough about uh how easy it was dealing with the the U.S. team and the rest of the delegates as far as sometimes how it was in the past, right? So we're all Americans, we expect things to go our way and we expect things to be done immediately. But when you're in a country like South Africa, uh you have to, like I always say, you have to lower your expectations, sir. So the permitting of getting the firearms in the country was a bit of a battle. Uh, not so much with ammunition, but the firearms permits were very slow and coming. And in fact, some people had their guns held at the airport while they were actually at the range. Uh they got them in time to shoot. I think one one of our delegates got his a day later, but they gave him a uh speed pass, they call it, and managed to uh catch him up. But it's just uh it's a police thing that they had police at the airport that were handling permits, but they couldn't approve everything by themselves. They had to pass it on to somebody up the line. That somebody up the line might have been in Johannesburg, uh, and then they would, you know, backburner it for a little while. It was like they they weren't in any big hurry to get that stuff done. But all of the teams from every country had the same issue. They weren't just picking on the Americans. So uh, but eventually everybody got their firearms, everybody got ammunition, and they were able to shoot the match. But it was one of the major headaches of the of the World Shoot match. Um, other than that, everything else was pretty good. The the food on the range was excellent. They had about four vendors there that were selling food. Uh I mentioned uh to Kevin and Jody there was a bar on the range. Uh, you could certainly go in there and have a drink and just set us on the door said no alcohol past this point. Now, I didn't see anybody, you know, walking around drunk or drinking if they were shooting or anything, but it was a good spot to hit at the end of the day, you know. Um but you know, good burgers, uh, they did good sausage. Uh there was a uh a Middle Eastern style place that had that had different foods that a lot of people spend their life. Uh chicken strips, they were big on chicken strips and you know, cold drinks and and all that kind of thing. So uh overall, uh the place was a little bit out of the way compared to the amount of travel you sometimes have to do from wherever you fly into to get to the remains. But you know, there were things for people to do around there that were very interesting as well. There were a lot of game preserves, there were a lot of uh places where you could see lions and giraffes and you know, all kind of hoofed animals and and some of the predators in the wild. So I think people had a good time when they went there. So uh long flight there, 17 hours and 17 and a half to come back just to get back to Atlanta. So a pretty long flight. Uh a little bit bumpy at times, but other than that, you know, if you're traveling that that far, you gotta just expect you're gonna be sitting down for quite a while. So um that's about it.

SPEAKER_02: 15:32

Well, I just I looked up the results and uh team you team USA also went one, two, and three and open. And there's a familiar name in third place. A lot of you know our instructor, George Jones. We bring up his name every once in a while on the podcast.

SPEAKER_01: 15:48

Hi, George.

SPEAKER_02: 15:49

Hi, George. Uh his son Brian, who if you take the RO class, he's in two of the videos we have in the RO class. His son Brian got third bronze third place at uh World Shoot. So very awesome.

SPEAKER_00: 16:01

You know, the funny thing about that is Brian took quite a bit of time off to attend medical school and a residency. Yeah, yeah, and become a practicing uh ophthalmologist, ophthalmological surgeon. His wife is the same thing. They have a baby, they have a new baby, and he jumped back in a yeah, he jumped back into shooting about a year and a half ago, and and here he is taking you know bronze on the podium at the World Shoot. So pretty amazing comeback, really, because a lot of folks don't come back from that. But no, I'm sure George is very proud. Yeah. So revolver team place one, two, three, four. Um, obviously there were four guys on the team, three best scores is what does the team thing. So they were gold team and then gold, silver, bronze on the podium as well. And the ladies did well. I think they took silver, right? Overall as a team. Ladies product optics.

SPEAKER_02: 16:57

And I'm trying to find the team results. I just see the individual results.

SPEAKER_00: 17:03

Yeah. So I didn't I haven't had time to look at anything. I'm I'm getting ready to go to Arkansas tomorrow for the section back.

SPEAKER_02: 17:11

And the results I found are like a PDF document. They're not like practice score where I can filter by lady and category.

SPEAKER_03: 17:18

Yeah, yeah. There's a whole bunch of photos up on the USPSA Facebook page.

SPEAKER_02: 17:23

So Yeah. I've seen them, but I can't remember. That was like yesterday or whenever I looked at them.

SPEAKER_00: 17:33

I flew out on Sunday and and skipped the awards because I needed to be back because I gotta go to Arkansas tomorrow.

SPEAKER_03: 17:42

Oh, are we ready to jump into the mailbag?

SPEAKER_01: 17:47

Sure.

SPEAKER_03: 17:48

Oh, sure. All right. Well, we you know, it's it's like this. Troy leaves Troy leaves the country and the mail went crazy. So that's fine. Um so first one we uh we had a you know, somebody wrote in long story, um, but basically long and the short of it is the RO's wrencher of his penalty and asked to see his own video and ended up uh disqualifying him on it. And we thought we would uh discuss the merits or not of that. And um so who wants to lead off?

SPEAKER_02: 18:29

Yeah, so basically he was shooting a stage, kind of had an X-shape shooting area, and he retreated uprange from right to left. And um, you know, for me watching the video, to me it was a very clear 180 break. Um reload.

unknown: 18:52

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02: 18:53

Um but the ROs didn't say anything. Let him complete the course of fire and then ask to see if they so they can confirm the call. Um I mean he he posted this on YouTube and it's like he admitted that he really he was stupid. He he said I stupidly gave him the video. He's like, yeah, you don't have to give the ROs the video. Um personally, if the ROs need to make the call based on what they see, um, and then the video can be used to dispute it if he doesn't agree with the call. Right. Right. Um, but the RO should have called it right there, stopped him, right? Called the RM. And then he could have potentially used his video to defend himself with the call and got reshoot.

SPEAKER_03: 19:42

All the video all the digital evidence rules are in the appeals section of things. Yeah. They're not in the not in the there's nothing in chapter 10 about you know, watch the competitor's video and issuing procedurals or disqualifications or whatever. It's that's that's over in the appeals section. So uh at this point, even I think I think that's a no.

SPEAKER_02: 20:06

Oh yeah, don't do it. It's bad form for the RO. And even if the RO was wearing a camera, right? You shouldn't be using it to make calls, you should be using it to support your calls.

SPEAKER_00: 20:17

Right.

unknown: 20:18

Right.

SPEAKER_02: 20:20

Yeah. And so it's like, you know, as an RO, you need to make the call based on what you see at that moment. Now, there are some people that say, well, if they don't stop you right away, they can't DQ you. And I've always said, well, sometimes there's a pause while they're picking their jaw off the ground after looking down the barrel of your gun. Or if it's an AD, they got to go through the rules in their head, okay, is that some something that we DQ for? Like at the local match I shot a couple of weeks, my first shot on one of the stages was a little early, unexpected, but it went into a target, right? And they didn't stop me. They didn't stop me, but afterwards they were like the we were talking about the ROs. I'm like, yeah. And she goes, Well, it went in the target, so it wasn't a DQ. I'm like, well, it had to meet one of the DQ rules for an AD. Unless it gone over it was within 10 feet of me, gone over a berm, whatever, you know. Um I mean, if it had been a real legit DQ, I would stop myself. Um, but at the same time, you know, I I don't know. You know, it might have taken them, it takes sometimes it takes you a few seconds as an RO to process what you saw and if it violates one of the rules, right? So, but they still they had plenty of time to stop him before they knew the course of fire based on the video I saw. Right. So basically, yes, um, ROs, you need to make your calls and not rely on ask competitors after the course of fire is over to see their video.

SPEAKER_00: 21:52

That that had to be something of a shock though, right? It's like, can we see your video? And it's like, sure.

SPEAKER_02: 21:56

And then they're like, well, and to be fair, this was this guy's first major match, right? So he wasn't thinking.

unknown: 22:03

Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_00: 22:04

But you're I mean, you're right. You as a range officer, you need to make a call based on what you saw.

SPEAKER_01: 22:10

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00: 22:11

And if you're if you're wrong, if you just erred, you know, or were overly cautious or whatever, even if you like in your case, Jody, if if they had stopped you right away and then figured out that you're didn't meet the AD requirements, that's okay too, right? Yeah, yeah. So err on the side of caution sometimes. I I don't want people to think that they should be yelling stop every time they think they see something, but you know, right. There's times when you should and times when you shouldn't. And then yeah. Uh, but yeah, requesting the video from the competitor is not good. And then, like you said, if you're if the RO is wearing a camera, um, then that's for confirmation. It's not like, hey, stand right here and let me look at my video and see what you did.

SPEAKER_02: 22:53

You know let me go to the replay booth and assess the penalty. You know, it's just like the NFL, right? NFL uses video to, you know, they can't the call in the field stands unless there's conclusive video evidence.

SPEAKER_01: 23:06

Right. Yeah.

SPEAKER_02: 23:07

Right. And it's basically the same way for us.

unknown: 23:10

Right.

SPEAKER_00: 23:10

Yeah. Right. So I I bought a special pie timer this weekend and at the match. Uh it was they were the sponsor for the for the world shoot. And they have all kinds of accessories that come with it. There's a flat digital roll-up display, it's very flexible, waterproof. You can zip tie it to anything, very bright in the daylight. There's a camera that you can mount on a hat or whatever that's slaves to the timer. So when you hit the start button as a range officer, the camera starts, right? Cool. Uh very, yeah, very cool feature. But if you're going to use it as a competitor, there's an app too, and and you just turn it on with the app, and then you you have your first person point of view video, just like any other hat camp.

SPEAKER_01: 23:52

Right.

SPEAKER_00: 23:53

But you know, for a range officer, that would be awesome. But I don't think that as a range master, if I went up there and and you said, Oh, I stopped uh John here, you know, and then uh I looked at my video and then I disqualified him. I would be like, Well, you know, that's that's not what we how we need to do that, right? You need to make a call and then we'll use your video to confirm it, right? Or or unconfirm it, whatever.

SPEAKER_02: 24:20

Yeah, or overturn it.

SPEAKER_00: 24:21

Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I think that's some errant use of video.

unknown: 24:28

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00: 24:29

The other thing that the rule says about that is that you can't you can't stop a guy for a foot fault, right? Or give him a foot fault. And then when you when he wants to review his video, you can't say, Oh, well, here you broke the 182, so I'm gonna disqualify you for that. It's gotta be whatever is a call. The call that's in question.

SPEAKER_01: 24:46

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03: 24:46

Yeah. This is not like my quantitative analysis professor that if you uh wanted to get a point back on a test, he would re-grade the entire exam, and you might have a point back, but you'd lose three or four others. So we don't we don't do that. Yeah. So oh well. Alrighty. Um, you know, and this this is just you know part of the growing pains of digital evidence, and you know, it's a brand new thing to our sport. Um we're we're still learning and it will mature. Um, obviously, the technology behind uh some of this is is catching up with the sport, and we're gonna we're gonna, you know, from what Trey saw, and uh I think we're gonna start seeing a lot more of that type of stuff. Uh so yeah, it'll be it'll be interesting to see what the next couple years bring. Yep. Moving on, speaking of technology, um, sometimes our technology fails us um when timers go bad. Um and you know, sometimes it does happen that a competitor gets an unrealistic time, and that can be for all sorts of different reasons. Um the RO was inadvertently covering up the microphone on the timer, or it was full of water because it was raining, um, or they were holding it against their body when they shouldn't have been, or um sometime you know, hit the start button again after this competitor had started and completed part of the stage and reset the timer. Um had that happen dead. Yeah, had that exact thing happen during the RO class this weekend. Um, as the person made the reload, the guy the student hit the the go button again. Yeah. Um so they had a very quick time. Um and so that gave us an opportunity to talk about a little bit more about timers and what happens when you have something like that happen, and um, you know, what happens, you know, uh unrealistic times. Um, yeah, and the batteries start going a little flat. Um they do some really crazy things. Uh that's why for any timer that takes a battery cell that you can buy at the store, it's not rechargeable. Um, my Motosoparende, which I learned from my mentor Jay Warden, is figure out what kind of battery you need for the timer and take new ones and replace the battery with a known you know it's brand new because you just bought it. Battery because you, you know, oh, we put a new battery in it. Well, where'd that come from? Oh, that coffee can over there. You mean the one that says dead batteries on the front of it? Yeah. Um yeah, I I stopped having timer troubles at big matches when I started doing that. It's like, okay, there we go. I'm done. Um, so anyway, in this particular question that we got, uh Dylan, you know, actually he himself questioned his time on the stage, brought it up to the ROs. The ROs didn't want to do anything about it, didn't feel they should do it or could. I don't, we don't know. Um, but um there's some ramifications there. So I thought maybe we'd kind of dive into that a little bit deeper because I don't think we've talked about that part of it before.

SPEAKER_00: 28:05

Right. So errant times are always a questionable thing. Uh, one of the good tools you can use is if you have a timer that Bluetooth to the tablet, such as the AMG commanders or these uh special pies. Uh they record all of the shots that they pick up with splits and everything like that. So you can actually go back and look. Uh maybe it missed a shot, you know, because maybe this guy's shooting 0.2, 0.25 splits, and then all of a sudden there's a 0.5 or 0.6 split. That's not uh uh it's not congruent with how he was shooting the stage, right? So uh, but it gets an accurate time at the end and and reports it, and then it'll show number of shots, etc. So there's all kinds of reasons, like you said, why that timer might not pick up all of the shots, but the most important one is the last shot. Yep. But when you have a time that, and typically it's a time that's uh too short, right? Because long times are often caught on the stage because uh an ejected case hit the timer or the RO bumped it. You can look at it and say, you know, wow, here's a here's a three-second gap, right? And all of the shots were most of the shots were picked up, and this looks like the real time, and then there's this huge gap. Yeah, most of that can be fixed, but short times is what kind of blows people's minds because they say there's no way he could have shot it in that amount of time. So in this particular instance, the competitor did say, Yeah, I I didn't shoot it in that time, but he was away from the match, he was back home or somewhere else, which we mentioned on this before is one of the issues with multi day matches where you can shoot on Thursday, Friday, and then the match is still going on Saturday, Sunday. Uh people leave. So they determined that his time was unrealistic and wanted him to reshoot, but he he couldn't. So they ended up zero. Now, the exact procedure would have been for the range master or somebody to file a third-party arbitration and have them go through that actual process so that they have some documentation and some reasons for the time. And I mentioned that to the range master in this case. And then they ended up zeroing his timeout, which would have been the same process in a third-party R, but uh no documentation, right? Right. So it should be done officially, should be done the right way. And then that's kind of how it happens. So if the person can reshoot, then that's great, right? But um we were talking before the podcast started about the same sort of situation that happened with one of our revolver shooters at World Shoot. He shot the prematch, went back home, and then people were questioning his time on one of the stages. Of course, he's 20 plus hours away, he can't come back. I mean, the reshoot. So they ended up doing the third-party R. The uh Rangemaster actually filed it, which is legal, and then they zeroed his time out. He was kind of upset that his time got zeroed, and he said, Well, I have a video, and and they could just fudge it. Uh, they're not gonna fudge it, and we don't either, right? We're not gonna guess your time from a video or anything else. You're gonna actually have to shoot it again, or we figured out a way to get an accurate time. Yeah. So these uh special pie timers have a stop button on them, which is you might think is unusual, but they press it uh when it looks like you're finished so that it will not pick up uh something that strikes it, or you bumping it, or something. It it actually stops that time. It actually is still running, and there's a way to get any extra shots after you press the shot the stop button, but most people don't know how to use it. Um so on a couple of occasions, the RO at the world shoot accidentally pressed the stop button and it got, you know, these guys got a phenomenally short time because it's they quit uh it quit actually displaying times. It was still taking them, but you know, it was like a 15 or 16 second run was recorded at seven seconds, right? Because they bumped the stop button. So you got to be careful with it. But I think it's a it's a feature that could be useful, um, especially in a noisy environment or with very close uh bays or or very loud guns, you know. Yeah.

SPEAKER_02: 32:26

Um could be useful, but um I don't know if if it's absolutely necessary, but well, when we've seen inaccurate times, it's usually because the RO, when the glass shots are being fired, is not even looking at the timer to make sure it's picking up the shots.

SPEAKER_03: 32:43

Right.

SPEAKER_02: 32:44

That's the biggest thing. They're just there's holding the timer out there, especially PCCs. PCCs are notorious, but you know, you should always, always, always, all shooters, every shooter, be watching that timer, make sure it's at least changing. So you know you're getting those last shots.

SPEAKER_01: 33:00

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02: 33:01

And if it's not, you need to get closer and try to get it. Right. Um, and if you have any doubt that that time's accurate, it needs to be a reshoot. Um, so I had an email over the weekend where the staff shot the day before, right? Then came back and worked. And there were some competitors questioning one of the staff PCC shooters time on the stage. And uh the RM, you know, he made a call and he was just second guessing himself. And he was like, you know, he looked in the competitor app, and this guy, not all the shots got picked up, but you know, after talking with the ROs, the ROs were like, no, I'm sure I got the last shots, and the shots in the Pract Competitor app corresponded with the last array, you know, the number of shots and stuff. So they ended up, and then so, you know, he did go talk to the RO and be like, Well, there's no question about the time I'd like you to reshoot, you know, and he's like, Well, I didn't bring my gear because I'm just working today. Right. And so, you know, the RM decided just to keep the time. But he was, you know, I think second guessing himself. I'm like, but they didn't really have strong evidence that it was a bad time. Right. Right. Um, you know, and that's what I told him. I go, you gotta have evidence it's a bad time. Um, I also had someone ask about, you know, he thinks that, you know, um he shoots PCC as well, but he's had situations where they didn't have accurate times. And he's like, Well, I got videos, can't they just take times from my video? And I'm like, no, because the rules say it has to be a time measured by the timer. One, right. And then two, the thing with videos is some of the compression rates on some of the those like cell phone cameras and stuff use mess with the the audio in relation to the video. And so we can use the video to kind of get an approximate time. So, like if it comes up, it's a whole 10 seconds different. Okay, obviously there's something wrong with one of the back, you know, like the timer, or if it's like a second off or something, that's really hard to justify with the video because of that compression and stuff that goes on there. So I don't know. The biggest, like I said, most of the time the timer not picking up the shots is the RO not paying attention.

SPEAKER_03: 35:20

Yeah, right. So Troy, is the special pie that you got the one with two displays on it, or just the single display?

SPEAKER_00: 35:27

Um, the two display one is it's actually a uh an accessory you plug into the bottom of it.

SPEAKER_03: 35:32

Oh, is that what that is?

SPEAKER_00: 35:33

Okay, yeah. So when you're holding it out, you can actually see the display, right? Which a lot of people will comment, yeah, all of our timers have the display, the the the speaker and the microphone all on the same side, right? Right. So you can't it's makes it a little tougher to actually look at it. But this one, you slide this piece over the bottom of it, it plugs into the USB port on it, and it's displaying times uh on the bottom of the timer, whereas the rest of it can be facing the competitor, right? I like that. Yeah, I did too. Um, I actually I especially like it because the salesperson threw it in on the on the deal. So I'm gonna give you a gift.

SPEAKER_03: 36:14

I was like, all right, yeah, because it looks like well, the difference between the single display and the double display, and then I'm looking on Amazon. Um uh Design Pi has a store on Amazon with all this stuff on it. Um, the difference is about 60 bucks.

SPEAKER_00: 36:29

So exactly, yeah, yeah, 60 bucks. So it's um it the timer was inexpensive. She was given uh there were uh discounts for range officers there. So obviously I qualified, but um I got the camera and I wanted to get a display, but she had sold out, so I'm just gonna order one. And uh, but the display was really, really nice because it wasn't bulky, it wasn't hard, and it actually works uh on RF, not Bluetooth. So it will, if you're 40 yards downrange, the displays up front, it's still reading and picking up, right? So it never disconnects. And a Bluetooth is very robust. It uh I think two or three connections you can make through Bluetooth. So you can do the tablet, you could do something else, like uh when we used to use the printers, you can do you know, the camera. I think it bluetooth had a camera, I'm not sure, but um, so it's it's pretty pretty interesting. I'm I'm interested to try it out.

SPEAKER_03: 37:29

So damn it, Tory just cost me because I I kind of have this timer problem. And well, probably gonna have to buy one of these now, but oh well.

SPEAKER_02: 37:41

Well, they're about the same about the same price as all the other timers. Oh, yeah. Yeah, it's uh what I like about 140 bucks for the special pie, though. That's yeah, interesting name.

SPEAKER_00: 37:54

Special pie. Well, it's a Chinese company. Yeah, um, probably didn't it lost a little bit in translation. I'm sure. But it's uh it's it's it's very easy to program too, right? So I find the commanders kind of difficult to set part times accurately and and correctly, but this one is super easy to do. I mean, it's just right there all on the front buttons, and it says part time, yeah, put it in, and that's it, right? So uh volume is adjustable as well as the frequency of the start signal, right? So you can make it a lower frequency, you can make it a higher frequency. For all of you, they have a light chrono that you can attach a threat to it, light based chrono. It has a chronograph, yeah. Yeah, they were using that chronograph at at World Street. So it seemed to work well. I mean, I I didn't get a lot of complaints of of anybody that went to chronograph.

SPEAKER_03: 38:53

So do they have it in a box?

SPEAKER_00: 38:56

No, no, just sitting out there interesting. But chronograph was an interesting thing there as well because they if you have if you buy match ammunition, if you buy the official match ammunition, you don't have to go to chronograph, you don't have to shoot at chronograph, but you do have to go and present your uh receipt, right? Right. So people were trooping in and out of there, and they were pulling bullets and everything, and every once in a while they pull one and it would come flying out. Um let's go back to the video though at uh World Shoot because a lot of these bays were uh were enclosed, right? They were they were bricked in. Um in a couple of the areas, they were the areas were very, very tight, and the bays were smaller, but they had a brick wall, okay, and a and an entrance to the thing. So as tight as they were, they weren't letting anybody in there except the competitor and the ROs while that one person was shooting. So it was difficult for a lot of people to get video, and they were also pretty stingy with even the wide open bays as to who could go down, and uh there was no way you were gonna follow somebody down like we commonly do here, where we say stay behind the the last RO on a stage and you know you'll be fine. Uh yeah, there was none of that. So I don't know if that was just by design or by because you couldn't get into smaller bays in the in certain areas that they didn't let people do it in the bigger bays. Um, but it was kind of a sticking point for a lot of a lot of competitors, not just ours. It's like they won't even let me get in there to do a video. So there was a lot of over-the-wall shots, right? Um, a lot of cameras on a stick kind of thing.

unknown: 40:41

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00: 40:42

Um, but yeah, there was no following anybody down through the course of fire if you were if you were just taking cell phone video. So um that was one of the things that in the past, and uh for the PCC world shoot in Thailand, and uh I'm sorry, in the Czech Republic, they did it, they let people kind of approach on the stage. They wouldn't let you go too far down, but they would let you get in there, you know. But this was kind of different, different rules on the on the photographers, on the videographers, and on people just using cell phones to to catch competitive video.

SPEAKER_03: 41:17

So yeah, well, that kind of walks us into the next question a little bit. Uh got some feedback um from a shooter saying that uh while that he saw an instance where while the active shooter on the stage was still shooting, he found somebody walking already on the stage and walking this what the stage while it was actively being shot. Um and he was kind of upset about that. And I could certainly see that that's not necessarily a great idea. Um not, you know, I don't know what I know what y'all think.

SPEAKER_00: 41:57

I think it's kind of poor stage etiquette. Um, I think it's also kind of if this guy's report was accurate that that the competitor, when he said, hey, you shouldn't be here, or whatever he said to him, um, you know, kind of back talked him. Um I don't think that's appropriate either. I mean, once that competitor finishes shooting and the range is called clear, then you can have your walkthrough if you're the on-deck person. Um, but you are putting yourself in a bad spot if you're out there. Hey, you can distract the the ROs because they're concerned about you being out there. And second, if that competitor decides to come back up range for any reason, you could be the guy that ends up getting a gun pointed at him because you're not paying attention, right? Um, so yeah, it's it's just one of those things that you know, maybe if you're a competitor that does that, you might want to, you know, just freaking stop it, right?

SPEAKER_02: 42:54

Well this reminds me of it was the 2018 area one, right? I was RM and that was the match we had all the instructors as ROs on stage as mentoring CEOs, right? Yeah, and so I'm sitting there as RO and I hear George, uh hi George, uh talking with a competitor. And I so I just kind of am sitting there in case I am needed. And basically the guy was like, Well, I'm gonna do what I want until you show me the rule book. I can't do that. And so they talk for a little while longer, and then the guy stalks off, and I'm like, Hey, George, what was that all about? And he's like, Oh, he was like poaching other people's walkthrough time, right? He wasn't the on-deck shooter. And George politely asked him to stop doing it, and the guy was contesting that unless there's something in the rule book that says he can't do it, he can do it. And it kind of goes, I know we've talked about, you know, match etiquette before. Yeah, it's not a rule, but it's like general etiquette.

unknown: 43:48

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02: 43:50

Yeah, one of your nationals, uh, the guy who shot, I think, right after me, was a left-handed shooter, right? And he kept poaching my walkthrough time. And I finally said something to him. He goes, Well, it's not fair because I'm a lefty and you guys are always in my way. But I he messed me up on several of my stage plans because I was so ticked off.

SPEAKER_01: 44:10

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02: 44:10

Right. That I had to keep fighting him for my walkthrough times. And then after I, you know, said something to him, he kind of backed off and quit doing it. But that annoys me to no end.

SPEAKER_01: 44:22

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02: 44:22

Now, if I've done my walkthrough and stepped out of the stage, knock yourself out. But you know, it's kind of like there's these people who are just so obsessed with getting every minute of walkthrough time they can.

SPEAKER_00: 44:35

Um, yeah, I mean, bottom line, everybody gets a walkthrough period when they read the stage brief, and then as the on-deck shooter, you're entitled to that walkthrough. Nobody else should be out there poaching. You don't get it to, yeah, right? You don't get to walk every time that guy's finished shooting because you haven't submitted your stage plan or you're so obsessive compulsive, you gotta walk it too many times.

SPEAKER_02: 44:57

You're supposed to be on helping reset.

SPEAKER_00: 44:59

Exactly.

SPEAKER_03: 45:00

Yeah, yeah. If you want to see this page again, do it while you're taping.

SPEAKER_02: 45:04

Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, yeah. Sometimes as I'm walking out to tape, I'll stop in the shooting position and kind of gander. Oh, there's a target there that I didn't see. And then go walk out and tape targets.

SPEAKER_03: 45:15

With your dot with your with your dot on your tape gun.

SPEAKER_02: 45:19

No, but I got I do have a I got a little attachment for my tape gun now that holds white and black pasters.

SPEAKER_03: 45:25

So there you go.

SPEAKER_02: 45:27

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03: 45:27

So anyway. All right. Well, moving on. Um had a quite the discussion uh regarding uh creeping and false start and in steel challenge. The difference of you know, everybody, if you don't, if you don't realize in USPSA, we train all of our ROs to vary their cadence um between standby and the start signal. And in Steel Challenge, we do the tradition, and this goes back to when Mike and Mike go on Steel Challenge. Um, the tradition has been to use the same cadence with every with a shooter on all their strings. You can vary it between shooters. Um, most people, I don't think, do, but uh, you know, it's for the strings for that shooter, it should be the same cadence. And that's very different than USPSA. It does lend itself to being jumped for lack of a better term. Um, so let's maybe talk a little bit about the discussion that we all had about it and what we can't can't finally settle on.

SPEAKER_02: 46:36

Well, since we can't change the steel challenge rules to vary the paid start signal, um it's gonna have to it's you know it's basically an RO's call, right? As the RO, you control the beep, and if they're moving before you hit the beep, it's a false start. If they have to be moving at the beep, well then it's a it's creeping. But the guy was questioning because he's had people, competitors who stopped themselves and say they crept and they needed restart it, and was asking if that's legal. And the thing is, well, it's gonna be up to the RO to determine that, right? If the RO says you're creeping, well, you just stopped yourself. Um if the RO agrees it's a false start, it's a false start. So I I think the main the main point of the email was it's hard to determine. I've I've every time I've talked talked to Steel Challenge people, you know, because Steel Challenge basically encourages you to creep or try to jump the start signal. This is a very hard thing for them to come to terms with. And you know, we did update the the definitions of those thinking that would solve it. I don't think it has. Right, right. Um the steel challenge rules do need some probably clarification about what happens if a competitor stops themselves when they feel they were creeping and they weren't. Um but it's it's basically it's gonna be a call of the RO.

SPEAKER_00: 48:08

Right.

SPEAKER_02: 48:09

You know?

SPEAKER_00: 48:10

So the the difference in the USPSA rules about or definitions of false start is is different from the steel challenge one, right? So USPSA a false start is when you actually make your attempt at the course, draw your gun, or even fire shots without the timer going off. Uh but in steel challenge, the false start is movement prior to the start signal, right? And that's something the RO needs to be in control of and say, hey, stop, quit moving, you go back to are you ready and go over. Creeping is movement at the start signal, and that's the same definition as in the SPSA. And so creeping is a penalty thing, and so if you're moving at the start signal, right? And then you don't go ahead and shoot and take your three-second penalty, you self-stop. Um, in my opinion, you're at the risk of a 30-second penalty because you didn't hit that stop plate. Yep. And you're also at risk if you do it a lot, you're at risk of a 10-6-1 DQ, because essentially it's cheap, right?

SPEAKER_01: 49:15

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00: 49:16

Trying to trying to get a restart when you're actually creeping and would have earned a penalty if you shot. Right. Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_02: 49:23

So I don't think it's that common, but um basically if anyone's do if anyone's doing this a lot, you need to call the range master and get them involved.

SPEAKER_00: 49:32

Right. And yeah, and and the this the same cadence thing does uh sort of encourage people to anticipate your start signal, but still challenges a game of rhythm and muscle memory, and it's been that way since the beginning of the game, and that's how people do it, right? Yeah, so um I think there's just a lot more movement prior than you do creeping, I think.

SPEAKER_02: 49:57

I think there's just a lot of people who are, you know, it kind of hurts when you see those young kids with those like their four, you know, their total time for the stage is like as much as your one string. Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_03: 50:11

There's not time for the stage off your draw.

SPEAKER_00: 50:15

Yeah, you hear you hear a time and you're like, yeah, like Kevin said, it's like, was that for the stage? No, that was for the match.

SPEAKER_03: 50:27

Yeah, it's it's it's just you know, it's it's wonderfully young and have all that fast witch fiber sitting there ready to rock and roll for you.

SPEAKER_01: 50:37

Right.

SPEAKER_03: 50:37

Yeah, really good reflexes.

SPEAKER_02: 50:39

Um but you know um that's I mean, you know, so this is the thing, is like if if there's steel challenge people who are listening to the podcast and you have you have comments about creeping a false start, let us know. I mean, the rules can be updated, but we thought, you know, this was taken to the Steel Challenge committee and everything, and they thought that this would clarify things, but maybe it didn't.

SPEAKER_00: 51:09

Yep. Um, so like you mentioned, Jody, I mean the the RO needs to be in charge, you need to be watching what's going on. Um, and you need to anticipate what that competitor may be doing if he's starting to move a little bit, also just don't hit the start button, right? Yeah, that's how you avoid the whole creeping issue is you don't start them, tell them, hey, you're moving, keep still, start back, do all that stuff, right?

SPEAKER_02: 51:34

Go back to R you ready. Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_00: 51:37

Be observant, be in control, be it, be the guy in charge there, and don't just come, you know, continue to stomp your foot and hit the button. Like I've seen a lot of people do that. That's their rhythm, right? It's like one pump of the hand, one stomp of the foot, and then they hit the button, you know. And it's I guess it's like a drummer in a band or something. They gotta have a foot movement in it. It is a good one.

SPEAKER_02: 52:00

Well, just a warning for people who do do that. Right. Sometimes with the depending where the sun is, the competitor can see your shadow. Yeah. And they are gonna be watching for it and jumping you.

SPEAKER_03: 52:15

Yeah, yeah, right.

SPEAKER_02: 52:16

Without courage anticipation, yeah. Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_03: 52:21

So it's like I tell them like my class this weekend, and you know, it's like I've run tens of thousands of shooters, and I've never given a creeping penalty. And they say, Well, how do you do that? I said, You just don't start them. Yeah, you just let them fall out of the box or whatever they're gonna do. And you know, then then that then I show them the you know, hold still George video. Yeah, and uh, you know different George, yeah, different George, but uh um must be something about George's.

SPEAKER_00: 52:52

Uh that's my George, he lives down here by me.

SPEAKER_03: 52:54

Oh, isn't it? Okay, yeah. Uh George had a bad day at that match, if that was all right. Um, you know, that's but that's I mean, that's a great video because it really clearly shows the difference uh between false start and creeping with those two videos. But uh, yeah, so I was telling you if you just never hit the button, you'll never have to give a creeping penalty if you use a time running instant and you're paying attention. Yep. That's the key.

SPEAKER_01: 53:22

Yep.

SPEAKER_03: 53:24

All right, moving on. Um got several questions about this. I I'm not sure why people are trying to go back to no optics, but whatever. Um got some questions from folks that are going, hey, if I decide to take the optic off my handgun um and shoot just in production, for for instance, um, do I have to put in a plate to fill in the the gap on on the slide? Um or or not. And I think it kind of depends on division.

SPEAKER_02: 53:57

Yes. So it used to be for production you had to have the plate back on. But we when we allowed for aftermarket slides, we took away that provision, and you can actually lighten your slides now. Yeah. So for production, but I think the guy that asked was single stack, he maybe was to play in the L10.

SPEAKER_01: 54:20

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02: 54:20

Um, and the problem with single stack, it doesn't really say, but lightening your slide is prohibited in in single stack. So we told him you had to put a plate on if he took the object off. I think that's what we told him, right?

SPEAKER_00: 54:34

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02: 54:34

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00: 54:37

It looks better with the plate back on it, too.

SPEAKER_02: 54:40

Well, yeah, it kind of looks they're kind of ugly with no plate back on there. But but production, it used to be a rule in production, right? But we got rid of it.

SPEAKER_03: 54:50

So yeah, and obviously in limited, limited 10, open limited optics. Yeah, knock yourself out, have fun. Yeah, we don't care for theirs either. Yeah, you know, you want to mill for an optic on the side of the slide and do a gangster style and have one on top so you can do it normally. Hey, just you know, knock yourself out.

SPEAKER_02: 55:08

I tell you about the guy a couple years ago at Area One that had the slide racker, a slide racker. It was he was shooting open. He had a slide racker in the front dovetail for the front sight.

SPEAKER_03: 55:21

I've seen those, yeah. Yeah, well, his I don't think it lasted the match, so it would drive me absolutely crazy to see that up there reciprocating though.

SPEAKER_02: 55:29

Oh yeah, yeah, it would be it'd be like And I would be catching it on everything. Yeah, yeah. It was the first time I'd seen that, it was interesting.

SPEAKER_03: 55:38

Anyway, I digress. Kind of like the the revolver shooters that show up at those huge buckhorn front sights and then leave them sticking in the frame of a port.

unknown: 55:49

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00: 55:50

Speaking of which, you were talking about people going back to to Iron Slight. So classic is in IpsyC is single stack in USPSA, right?

unknown: 56:00

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00: 56:01

So one of our prematched competitors from the US published a picture. It was a still taken from the video of his hat cam of the uh probably the front inch of his slide just blowing completely off the gun right in the middle of a stage. Damn. And he was like, you know, he goes, modified 1911 with uh with three sight blockers for sale. And the whole front end came off it, man. And I sent I sent that picture back to Mara. I was like, look at this, you know. She goes, What am I looking at? I said, Well, the front end of a 1911 flying off in the middle of the stakes. She's like, oops.

SPEAKER_03: 56:42

Yeah, hopefully you had a backup.

SPEAKER_00: 56:45

He did, but um I was like, Hey, did you get your gun fixed? He's like, Hell no, man. The thing blew apart. JB Weld, you can't.

SPEAKER_02: 56:54

Yeah, JB Weld, it'd be fine. Right.

SPEAKER_00: 56:58

So yeah, I mean, it was it was bushing and um and everything came right off the top. The whole thing came off. So it's kind of a catastrophic failure. It's one of those things like, well, that was a little crack up there, but it'd be all right.

SPEAKER_02: 57:13

Until it becomes a big crack, I'm not gonna worry.

SPEAKER_00: 57:15

Well, you know, an IPSC in classic, you have to have stirrup cuts, right?

SPEAKER_01: 57:20

Oh, yeah.

SPEAKER_00: 57:20

And I was like, maybe he got a little too aggressive making the stirrup cuts.

SPEAKER_03: 57:25

Could be could be. Or he didn't round the corners any these square square spots. Nope, nope, that those will fracture every freaking time.

SPEAKER_02: 57:34

Mr. Drumell did a bad job.

SPEAKER_00: 57:36

Yeah, it was that interesting picture. Yeah, well, I mean, we're laughing about it now, and he was a couple days later, but he wasn't laughing when it happened.

SPEAKER_02: 57:44

So I'm sure he wasn't, no.

SPEAKER_03: 57:47

Yeah, that would ruin your day. All right, moving on. Um, every once in a while we get somebody who writes in and talk, asks us about, you know, I'm in a wheelchair, can I shoot your sport? Um, or variations on that theme. And the answer to that is yes. And it's Steel Challenge itself really lends itself to folks in uh using wheelchairs or other assistive, you know, devices, uh walkers, rollators, crutches, whatever. Um, I know a number of people that have shot Steel Challenge on crutches. Um you know, it's outer limits gets a little interesting, but um, you can always just take the penalty and just stay in the in the box. But um so but yeah, the answer is yes. And even in USPSA, um we make allowances for folks that are using you know their mobility limited so that they can enjoy the sport. So it's a good idea to let the uh club that you're gonna go shoot at know that you're coming and know that you're in a chair so they can be prepared for you. Um especially for USPSA. Yeah, especially for USPSA. For steel challenge, not quite as much, but you know, even in Steel Challenge, you may run into ranges that have pretty deep gravel. Um, and you may not be able to roll um in that. And you know, but a lot of places also have ways around that. You know, they can throw down a piece of plywood and let you roll around on that or or what have you. So um just you know, talk with the the club that you're gonna go shoot at before you go and and get their take on things, let them know you're coming. Um most of all of them I know about um are more than happy to uh make accommodations and and let you go. You might always end up being the last shooter on a stage, especially if they have to do something to the stage to allow you to shoot it. Um so, but you know, just you know, come on out and uh just be aware we are not going to let you draw your handgun from your lap. Um the chances of having a negligent discharge into your leg are far too high for that. So you will need to use a holster of some sort, but we do allow you to mount your holster to the frame of your wheelchair or your rollator or, you know, what have you. Um, so yeah, it's there's lots of allowances there um to the point where and we have the rules allow for people to help push your your conveyance around the range, um, pick it up and carry it if they have to. So, you know, it's we we do everything we can to help everybody shoot the sport. All right, moving on. Um, got an interesting comment from a major match that happened in the last couple weeks. Um and the the person that wrote in was going out hey, I was at this match, and chronograph was not weighing bullets, and they were just taking the weight as stated, is that legit? So let's talk about weighing bullets at Chronograph.

SPEAKER_02: 1:00:58

Well, first I want to clarify apparently what happened is the scale was didn't make it to the range that day.

SPEAKER_03: 1:01:05

It happened.

SPEAKER_02: 1:01:05

So they did it for one day. Um, and the person was just asking me if this was was allowed, and I pointed him to the appendix where it says if a scale is not available or broken, chronograph can use declared bullet weights. Um but you know if you do do chronograph, don't half-ass it. Um you know, scales, you can get battery powered scales, you can get you can have solar, you know, get a uh jackery. Yeah, get a jackery and you know, whatever. Um just make sure it's it can be checked with you have calibration ways to check it. Um but if you're gonna do chrono, you know, some people are like, well, we just measure the velocities and bullet weights. We don't do the equipment check part of it. It doesn't take long to do the equipment check. Um you know, working on a chronograph endorsement will explain all this and why we do it. But um should yes, chronographs should be weighing bullets, but there is an allowance in case something happens like the scale is broken or got forgotten. Um that they don't have to.

SPEAKER_03: 1:02:13

Yeah. So yeah, in the case of scales, a chronograph, one is none, two is one, have as many as you can get. I mean, they're cheap.

SPEAKER_02: 1:02:22

Um well, and also just point out you like for this gun scale, you need something like a postal scale. Yes, right. Um, and then you need a different scale for the bullet weight. Yeah. A lot of us have neuro reloading benches that we can use. They're perfect for bullet weight, but yeah, you do need two different scales because that's I mean, even vastly different weight.

SPEAKER_03: 1:02:45

Even the little fold-up drug dealer scales that you can buy on Amazon for 15, 20 bucks um are amazingly accurate for what they are. And um, I mean, I have a analytical balance, uh, you know, good analytical scale um hooked up to my powder, my computerized powder measure for loading PRS ammo. And I've compared that to all the digital scales in the house, including my kitchen state scale I used to bake bread with. And you know, they aren't perfect, but they're close enough. And you know, they're they're they're darn good now. Not all kitchen scales will weigh in grains. So just be be advised. You may you may you may have to learn what that conversion is, but um, you know, that's you know, the the one I my chick kitchen scale does not do grains, but uh my little drug dealer scale does.

SPEAKER_02: 1:03:42

Well, I mean, is it like benefit to the cheap the cheaper scales? Is it benefit to the shooter? Or it adds a little extra weight to the bullet? Because if it's taking weight off the bullet, then they might not like it.

SPEAKER_03: 1:03:55

Um I all mine weighed heavy.

SPEAKER_02: 1:03:58

Okay.

SPEAKER_03: 1:03:58

As long as it's you know, yeah, and and I was checking them. I was checking him with check weights against my electrical balance and and the the check weights are a known Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. You buy those as a as a known weight, and then you know, so and then my analytical balance is calibrated with the check weights. So I mean, yeah, it's all it's not just you know, and yes, you can do it if you have a super accurate way of measuring water, and but nobody needs to do that. We all had to do that when we took organisation. Let's not make it complicated, Kevin. Yeah, we all did that when we took organic chemistry. You don't need to do that again, right?

SPEAKER_00: 1:04:43

So, but yeah. So an interesting, interesting thing about that is you know, a lot of people go to chronograph and and they'll you know, they'll have a 124-grain bullet and they'll weigh in at 123.8 or 123.9, and they're you know, they're gonna, I'm calling my bullet guy. Well, manufacturing challenges are probably not so precise, so you're gonna expect a template. Yeah, yeah. And sometimes they're a little heavy, right? So yeah, um, depends on who made it, how they made it, all that stuff, what it's coated with. So sometimes when they pull a bullet, they pull a little coating off. Um, and so it weighs a little light. So an interesting thing is that IPSC had a minimum bullet weight of 115 grains for PCCs, right? And they put it in there because they were concerned about um too much velocity damage and steel. Right. So, like you couldn't shoot a hundred grain or a 90 grain at whatever speed it had to go to make minor. Um, when that popped up in the rules committee, I argued about it and said you need some tolerance on the low side because, like I just mentioned, manufacturing uh differences, pulling some coating off and everything, and they were absolutely adamant it had to be a floor of 115.

SPEAKER_02: 1:06:00

Oh, they did.

SPEAKER_00: 1:06:01

Oh, wow. So at the R Ipsey Nationals this year, there were two competitors, PCC competitors, they weighed in at 114.9, right? Yeah, so you can't just for the rules. I couldn't just say, well, look, that's close enough. Uh, but we did pull another bullet and weigh it, and they and they made weight, okay. So uh that was fine. Uh, but at the at the general assembly, one of the rules proposals that they voted on was to lower that to 113 grains.

SPEAKER_01: 1:06:31

There you go.

SPEAKER_00: 1:06:32

And that that actually passed. Right. Um, I know several people on the rules committee were probably gritting their teeth about it because they were adamant that it had to be a minimum of 115. And but if if you show up with 115s, which is a common PCC bullet, yeah, um, and it goes 114.9, you by the old rule, you couldn't shoot them, right? Yeah, it was unsafe ammunition, and it was just kind of ridiculous, right? Uh that you know, I said, you know, two grain, two grains isn't gonna make any difference in impact on a piece of steel, they're not gonna hyperload that, you know. Yeah, um, so anyway, it did pass at the assembly, and it passed by a pretty large margin, actually. So um a little bit of common sense prevailed, I think, and you know, a little bit of a break for the competitor there. But you know, if you go to chronograph and they weigh your bullet and it's a little light or it's a lot light, um, and then you're not making power factor, then sometimes rather than shooting that last one, you might want to weigh it. Yeah. You can't grab a heavier bullet, you know. Right. Yes. But also as a competitor, you might want to ask them to recalibrate their scale, and and they certainly should do that, right? Check weight it and do all that to make sure that it's weighing right.

SPEAKER_03: 1:07:49

So if you don't know where to get check weights, Amazon is your friend.

SPEAKER_00: 1:07:58

Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_03: 1:07:58

Um Amazon. Pretty much, pretty much. And and they're cheap. Um you need a pretty heavy you know, hefty one to for your gun scale, and you know, one for your you know, for your your bullet scale, depending on you know, some scales have a defined, like my Dylan scale has two different check weights um that you use to define the curve. Um, and it's very repeatable and very accurate. Um, and but standard scales, some scales you can't even calibrate them, but you put the check weight on and go, oh, it weighs 0.01. We just know we have to manually manually calibrate it. Yeah. Okay, next question. Um Got somebody wrote in and said, What do you do about somebody a guy shot a steel plate under a wall? Um that so the wall, you know, there's a there's a gap under the wall, and he shot a steel plate far too close um by shooting under the wall. What do you do?

SPEAKER_02: 1:09:03

Oh, so this is a follow-up to last month's question of the month.

SPEAKER_03: 1:09:07

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02: 1:09:08

Where we had the popper that was visible under a wall and a competitor forgot there was a wall there and shot it, right? Um and you know, so and this is so let's say it's that situation that the poppers at an unsafe distance. They're supposed to be behind a wall. That's solid. It goes from ground to infinity. So I mean, obviously that's something that needs to be fixed. Um, but they were asking, do they DQ the competitor? And I'm like, it was a hypothetical just based on the question of the month. And probably what I would do is declare forbidden action. Um but well, that'd be one option. So no one does it again, the guy gets a reshoot. Um, because it's a stage design issue, because that wall is supposed to be it's supposed to be a solid wall.

unknown: 1:09:59

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02: 1:10:00

But the target was just tempting the guy shot at it. Now, if someone shot at it intentionally to game a reshoot, well, there's a different rule for that. But you know, probably either you need to fix it by putting a vision bearer, a bear, a barrel stack, another wall, piece of wall, cardboard refrigerator box. He has something to prevent it so it can't be seen. If you can't do that, there's the forbidden action option. Um, like I said, if it was someone intentionally doing it, well, then 106-1 comes into play. But that's why it's important. Like, you know, I know that I've set up uh been arm at matches where they have walls like that that were in the picture. And there are these poppers that are sitting there and they were so tempting. And so I was making them put barrels in front of them, right? And they were just all griping and like, why are we doing that? I'm like, take away any potential issues.

SPEAKER_03: 1:10:50

Right. You know, as soon as you think nobody will do that, someone's gonna do it. The second or the third shooter will do it.

SPEAKER_02: 1:10:56

And you know, it's very tempting that you know, mini popper under a wall that's got a big gap under the bottom. It's like your brain's not your brain just sees the target. It doesn't say, well, that's supposed to be uh behind it, it's behind a invisible transparent wall.

SPEAKER_01: 1:11:10

That's right, you know.

SPEAKER_02: 1:11:12

So um basically be a little more smart with your stage design, then it won't happen.

SPEAKER_03: 1:11:16

Yeah, well, that's a much more of a stage setup issue than design, but yeah. Well, yeah, that's what I meant. Yes, setup, yeah. Yeah. All right. Um, then we got an interesting question about uh, you know, somebody saw competitors using spelling salts at a USPSA match, and what was our stance on that? And that led into a deep dive into Wada. Um and ammonia-based spelling salts are not banned by Wada. I the everything I I found a number of references saying that the NFL has banned them. And then I watched several place kickers were using ammonia.

SPEAKER_02: 1:11:57

I saw the Seahawks kicker taking a whiff. And I was like, oh look.

SPEAKER_03: 1:12:02

It doesn't look like it's that banned. So I'm not really or maybe it's only banned from linemen. I don't know. Anyway, uh long story short, here, folks, is uh at this point in time, Wada has not banned it, USPSA has not banned it. Um I will caution those folks that are going, oh gee, that sounds good. That long-term use of ammonia inhalants does come with the price, like anything else you put in your body and your lungs. Uh it's your choice. You make the decision, deal with consequences. So um, but for now, that's that is those that is allowed. Um I I live close to an agricultural facility. I get doses of ammonia in a fairly regular research lab to do it. I don't I don't need to be doing that.

SPEAKER_02: 1:12:54

Not up on my list of things to inhale willingly.

SPEAKER_03: 1:12:58

No, right right up there with hyper acetic acid. Yeah. Um and chlorine, chloroform, that's a good one, yeah.

SPEAKER_02: 1:13:07

And phenol.

SPEAKER_03: 1:13:08

Cyanide. Uh I used to work in a hemoglobin lab, and we had cyanide all over the place. And you got, you know, everybody would be talking about the smell, and it's like that's when I learned I can't actually smell cyanide. So does it smell like almonds? It's not supposed to smell like. Yeah, it doesn't have a smell to me. Um, so I guess if you're looking to off me, it's free to go. Um, I won't ever smell it coming. Um then somebody wrote in and asked, well, can I use, you know, does straight edge, do I have to use an overlay? Can I use something else as a straight edge? And um, yeah. Um I've seen I used I use hotel, I teach classes, you know, to use the hotel room keys. Um if you'd only if you only have one overlay or if you want an opaque overlay or an opaque straight edge, hotel room keys work great. Um$100 bills, uh, you know, whatever you've got that has a straight edge on it works just fine.

SPEAKER_02: 1:14:12

It has to be crisp, new$100 bills to work effectively.

SPEAKER_03: 1:14:15

Well, yeah, yeah, and then you need to test it by spending it later, right? You gotta do the security check with the strip. Yeah.

SPEAKER_02: 1:14:24

I mean, it's bet it's better when it's not your$100 bill.

SPEAKER_03: 1:14:27

Well, it's I was I was actually I was gay, I was straight edging uh competitor's hit at a national's one year, and and I went, Oh, I need a straight edge, and about that fast the guy's hundred dollar bills that he was holding on to in case he needed to file an arb appeared. Um, and I just kind of looked at him and said, Yeah, no, I'm not such a mess. But uh, because somebody would get a picture of that and you know where it would end up. But um hey, we haven't had a good controversy anymore. Not in hours.

SPEAKER_00: 1:14:58

Shut your mouth.

SPEAKER_03: 1:15:00

Not in hours. Um so anyway, um, and then we had this rash of my gun isn't on the list. How come my gun isn't on the list? Um, and I think there were two or three of them that if you read the fine print at the top of the list of all the guns, the fine print read underneath the you know, the manufacturer the for instance, that was one of them. Um, it yeah, all the guns in that model line are in. Uh, we just didn't list them each individually. Uh so if you're looking at the gun list and you're trying to decide if your gun's in there or not, read the fine print. Um, you know, if it's if it is some subset model of the XYZ gun, um and the thing says all the subs are in, you're in. Um but yeah.

SPEAKER_02: 1:15:54

Yeah, just okay. One thing people don't realize single action only guns. Yeah, so 2011s, 1911s. Any other single action only gun, not allowed production carry office. Right, they're never gonna be you're never gonna find your staccatos on the list. Um, another thing is if it's a gun that is based on this gun that's on the list, that doesn't count either. Yeah.

SPEAKER_00: 1:16:22

Because it's an individual gun that's gotta get submitted and very gotta be the same kind of family, variations of the same gun or okay.

SPEAKER_02: 1:16:30

Yeah, not a different brand. Well, not a different brand that's based on this brand.

SPEAKER_03: 1:16:34

In one of the one of the instances, it was a one of the Glock clones.

SPEAKER_02: 1:16:38

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03: 1:16:38

Um, that wasn't on the list. And um, I didn't even realize that. And then I went and looked at them and I went, hey, that looks like a Glock. Um, you know, so you know, in that case, then the manufacturer needs to submit it um to be for consideration and be added to the list. You know, there's some paperwork you have to fill out. And uh, as we've covered before, it has to be the manufacturer, you don't get to do it. Um, that's not you you don't get to send, you know, arranged, you know, send your gun to Troy and say, hey, put my gun on the list. No, that's not how it works.

SPEAKER_00: 1:17:14

So I get a couple like that every year. Yeah. The other question we get is you know, I don't see my uh staccato on the list, but you know, I I want to shoot in limited, is illegal. It's like, look, the only list we maintain is for production and kari optics, yeah.

SPEAKER_01: 1:17:32

Right.

SPEAKER_00: 1:17:32

So we don't list anything else. There's no approved guns for open, limited, limited 10, revolver, plastic, uh single stack. They have to have certain characteristics in single stack, but there's no list, right?

SPEAKER_03: 1:17:45

Can you imagine how long that freaking list would be?

SPEAKER_00: 1:17:48

Oh, it would be crazy.

SPEAKER_03: 1:17:50

Well, I I could people have been building these things in their garage for 50 years.

SPEAKER_00: 1:17:56

Yeah. All your guns, all guns except this one are allowed. That would be the easiest way to do it. But uh IPSC has the same sort of list and and they have the same sort of criteria and they have the same arguments. Uh they put a couple guns on our on their list that are not on ours because uh for whatever reason they did it. Um without naming names, they're they're basically single action guns that are on the IPSC production list, yeah. Uh, but not on ours, right? Because they are indeed single action. The single action is described by the manufacturer. So um, but other than that, I mean, paperwork is we say paperwork, it's an electronic form. And then the gun gets submitted for for evaluation and testing, and it's returned to the manufacturer from my FFL. And all I do is make sure it fits the box, make sure the trigger is the action is exactly as described, and you know, there's no other disqualifying things on the gun, and it gets sent back to the manufacturer. So it's a pretty simple process, just a form that's available on the webpage, and you know, but you can't send it in and and where it says um you know, relationship or or you know, what's your position in the company, you can't say consumer or you know, shooter or something like that. I've got I get a couple like that every year, and it's always you can always tell it's like uh you know, says title, and uh I got one that said mister. Well well, Mr. Brown. I'm sorry, but this form is not acceptable. Yeah, what's your title, Mr.? Yeah, yeah, youra, Mistress of the Dark.

SPEAKER_03: 1:19:55

All right, and kind of along the same lines, I I got a question, I filled a question this last week. And hey, is is this ammo okay? It's not on to shoot at matches, it's not on the list. They're like, well, yeah. Um, you know, you don't have to shoot ammo off the ammo list. Um, that is that's that's for special circumstances at majors. Um, there's reasons that you want it might want to do that at majors, especially if you don't want to fly with ammo and you can arrange for it to be the last there. Um, but um that's that is not a only this ammo because um yeah, there's a number of manufacturers that would really dis be disappointed if we said suddenly said re loaded ammo was not okay.

SPEAKER_02: 1:20:44

Um not to mention all the hand loaders.

SPEAKER_03: 1:20:47

Well, that's what I mean. Like you know, loaders. Yeah. Yeah, so it's like the list is okay and all the all the you know, all the big companies.

SPEAKER_02: 1:20:57

Well, I mean the certified ammo list is if you want to go to a match and have basically chrono insurance. Um, or like you said, don't want to have to fly with ammo. So I switched from since I decided to fly to nationals, I switched to limited optics, which I'm not classified in, so this will be good. Um, and bought ammo to have shipped directly to the match. Yeah. Because I didn't want to deal with shipping open ammo. Because I'm lazy.

SPEAKER_03: 1:21:25

Well, that our UPS hub is closed.

SPEAKER_02: 1:21:29

Well, that's why, yeah, it was gonna take a little extra work. And so it's no longer as easy to ship ammo as it used to be. I think I have to call them and get them to pick it up now, but yeah. I also read that they since they closed the deep at the customer hubs, UPS stores are supposed to ship them.

SPEAKER_03: 1:21:45

I asked when I was in there the other day, and the young lady behind the counter did not know. Yeah. So, which means if you showed up with it, they would probably say no. Probably.

SPEAKER_02: 1:21:55

That's why I I just made my order to Ely and Yep.

SPEAKER_03: 1:22:02

Well, that's the list as I have it. You guys have anything you special you want to talk about or add, or um I will say that we have been getting a lot of class requests already for 2026. Yeah. We got four today. Uh well, it's the same club, so yeah, but you know, still it's four seminars. Um and you know, the club I was at this weekend is talking about more set, you know, some seminars next year already. And so it's uh yeah, it's a growth industry, I guess. So if you're thinking about hold you know holding a class, and you should be if you have especially if you haven't had one at your club for a while, um, or in your area, it's a good idea to go ahead and you know pick the weekend and get in there. Uh avoid the weekends. Nashville's dates are out for next year, so avoid those weekends. Some of the areas have posted their dates. Avoid those weekends if you can, um, at least regionally. And uh, you know, we'll do our best to get you an instructor uh signed, but get in there um get them, you know, get those requests in. Um, I think it looked like the early late winter, early spring was starting to fill up. So, well, with that, folks, if you have questions, comments, whatever, rules at uspsta.org, send us an email and we'll get back to you as soon as we can. Thanks everybody for listening, and we'll see you in two weeks. Good night. Are you looking to take your first range officer class? Maybe you're looking to upgrade the chief range officer or auto summary restaurant. A complete list of upcoming classes.