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3-5 stages is hardly a state match if you are doing it as a one day in front of a cowboy match.

That would make it a clean stage, yep. Drop mag at end and rack to slide stop to make sure the 1911 is open and empty. GJ

He did have 3 misses. He had a jam preventing firing on T5 of the second sweep. Yes, it was "engaged" when he attempted to fire at it. But no round fired on it, and he skipped 2 targets in the second sweep (I assume) without engaging T6 and T7. How many unfired rounds fell out of gun when clearing the jam are inconsequential. A miss on T5. 2 misses for T6 and T7 that he did not shoot NOR engage, and a P for not engaging T6 (also T7, but P already earned). But, I did not read in the "theoretical play-by-play" that the shooter EXPRESSED his decision to skip 6 and 7 target "to save time" - so it's real hard to read that into the shooter's intent and not simply accept that they were working from memory shooting sweeps, and with the fresh magazine they started on T1 again. IMHO. So, P and 3 misses. GJ PS - the definitions section of the handbook, of course, sets the meaning of the term Engaged on page 38

The problem with having them at the same time is the Main Match is usually put on Thursday and Friday and the cowboy side match is Saturday and Sunday. When I held the WB state match as a stand alone event, we grew over 25% a year for five years even during the chicom pandemic. When the main match is held during the week, it’s hard for people who work to make it.

I'm late to the discussion (plenty of time just now after MORE damn surgery lol) . I really enjoyed the match.. both WB and CAS actually. Was it what I consider the perfect WB match? No. But I am also aware of the time/space/resetting constraints such a match has to live with. The all knockdown stage and Serenitys evil stage with the duelling trees were MY favourites (even though I fell into her trap, hit all the duelling tree plates and missed on a fast double tap on the big static plates!😁) Isn't WB MEANT to be more challenging? Surely there were enough big/closer targets in it? Anyway, I thoroughly enjoyed it. It is clear however that some (quite a few?) folks who shot it do NOT regularly shoot such matches...and thats got to be a factor in the number of DQ's... I'm not sure what the answer is but dumbing it down is not the answer I want to see.

Nope, they have GI style baseplates covered with leather. For the other sports where normal magazines are allowed, I use Tripp Research with Dawson Precision aluminum basepads. No plastic here.

General recommendation for making cowboy/WB shot loads, which are almost always loaded lighter than the minimum starting load normally published by Hodgdon or Alliant or VitaVouri, is to start with a 3/4 ounce wad and the powder weight from a 7/8 ounce load. Although there is a trend recently in conventional shotshell loading (trap, skeet, sporting clays) to load lighter payloads, they usually drop the shot weight to 3/4 ounce and add a little more powder to a published 7/8 or 1 ounce load and accept a higher velocity (like 1250 or 1300 FPS). That type of load does not make friends on the Cowboy range and has more recoil than you want when shooting fast. So, loads for Cowboy shells are almost never found in a published manual! They do not have a lot of "conventional" use. You have to either try stepping down powder a little at a time from what you do find published until you find a load that you like, or you get another pard who has a load built the same way who shares data with you. There's not a lot of SAFETY risk with decreasing powder weight in a load (and thus chamber pressure and velocity), but you do HAVE TO BE AWARE OF GOING SO LOW ON POWDER AS TO MAKE AN INCONSISTENT performing shell. The big danger - squibby shells that leave a wad stuck in the barrel which could bulge a barrel on the next shot, or even worse. You also have to be concerned that you have enough stack height (powder plus wad plus shot) that you can make a solid enough crimp to avoid shot leaking out! Next concern - TiteGroup is a fairly dense powder. The Clays or Red Dot you have been shooting are fluffy (low density) powders - only Trail Boss is significantly more fluffy. This leads to lower stack heights and poor sunken crimps that don't "seal" the petals at the center. So, fixing that? Use a tall wad....the pink Winchester-clone wad CB0175 from ClayBuster is often chosen, as it is one of the "taller" wads in any maker's 12 gauge wad line. Second suggestion - load in one of the smaller volume hulls. Any of the Remington target type hulls (STS, Nitro27, Gun Club, American Clay and Field). Or, the new Federal High Overall hull (which is just a maroon colored STS hull). Or, a Winchester AA-HS hull. Don't run yourself through the ringer and try to load very light loads in the econo Federal Top Gun, or any of the European hulls (Rio, Challenger, Nobel, Cheddite etc). Too much volume to have to fill to get the crimp to work well. Third (reluctant) suggestion - a little filler or an over-shot card or plastic disc over the shot. A Cheerio or similar cereal piece has been used by many light-load shooters. I avoid that, since I load on a progressive loader and don't like to slow down the process to stick something into hull after the shot drop. Fourth (even more reluctant) suggestion - trim hulls enough to make a good folded crimp, or even put a roll crimp on the light loads. I never would, ,though, and have never needed to. I find a light 7/8 ounce shot load in a Remington hull with a 7/8 ounce wad, with only enough powder to give me 1000 FPS, suits me just fine. Never have a knockdown fail to tip over, never have to worry with a flying clay bird, or a 20 yard KD target. Make a few slow 7/8 ounce loads - you may find you like them! The main "safety concern" that the powder makers who publish shotshell loads have is folks trying to load "too heavy" thinking that will kill more birds or varmints. So, they are quite concerned if you ask for anything outside of their pre-set range of chamber pressures that they consider best for conventional shooting (targets, upland game, rabbit and squirrel). But, they also want to be sure their published loads will cycle most of the semi-auto shotguns on the market. They get tired of answering mail (texts today I guess) saying - "Your starting load won't cycle my 3" chambered auto-go-boomer! They really don't worry too much about you modifying a recipe to go lighter, as long as you know how to stay away from squibby loads. If all you are willing to load is a published-minimum-load from Hodgdon, you are right, you won't find one light enough for pleasant Cowboy shooting. good luck, GJ

Mr. GJ and Mr. Eyesa JG - thank you for your quick response. Used Titewad quite a bit when first starting shooting Cowboy in 2003. Back in those day shot 45lc. Used Titewad until joining the Juneau Gun and Trap Club. Was there that I discovered called 'Clays'. Clays, from the Gun and Trap Club, cost $69 for a 8lb container back then. I never looked back. With what little I/we could afford back then, as much as afforded was spent on powder, primers and shot. Now that I am reverting to a powder that was used earlier, I did look to see if there was a shotgun load for Titegroup. Looking in Hodgdon's Loading Center (and other places) found the Titegroup settings for the 7/8oz load. However, could not find anything for a 3/4oz load. Any suggestions?? Also - thank you for the note that High Gun is the same as Titewad. Did not know that. Folks learn many good things on the SASS WB Forum. Eyesa - Why was there such a difference between the 3.9 and 4.0 grains of Titegroup? I pondered that while looking at the numbers displayed on my iPhones app for the chronograph and quickly came to the conclusion that had absolutely no idea why the difference. My reloading machines are Dillon 750s. I set the powder slide for the loads, weighed them on my RCBS Balance Beam Scale that was acquired in 1976 and reloaded 14 rounds of each load using the same weighing procedure. Still no real idea why the difference. Did decide to use the 4.0 load for my future 45acp loads when using Titegroup. Appreciate both of you responding here and a large thank you goes to both of you and anyone else reading this thread. J.J.

Look at the velocity variance of the 3.9 grain loads. Velocity range ran both lower and higher than for the 4.0 grain load. Sounds like that 3.9 grain load just was not a consistent performer. There should in general only be a slight increase in muzzle velocity going to 4.0 grains, but trying to compare one load that had velocities wandering all over to another more consistent load, it becomes to hard to draw much meaning in the differences. It's not a true decrease in velocity going with 4.0 grains, and if 25 rounds of each load were chronographed, the statistics would likely show a more realistic velocity average difference. "5 shot" velocity groups are suspect here. GJ

What should he have done to avoid the penalties, load a fresh mag, shoot the three targets 5,6,&7 then 1-4 for the next run and load another mag to complete this requiring dropping a mag with unfired rounds and one in the chamber? A newbie question! Thanks

I fail to see the correlation between a CAS rifle and a WB 1911. In the stated scenario the shooter should have enough ammo to complete the correct course of fire regardless of the time taken to clear the malfunction. If the shooter chooses to accept the misses and starts the next sweep in order to save time they should be awarded the misses and a spirit of the game penalty. Jim

Interesting. I see your point. Especially the part where the shooter skipped three targets without actually engaging them. By my thinking, shooter's choice only applies to the actual target that the malfunction occurred on. Skipping any additional targets should earn a P for failure to engage plus the misses. Only way not to earn the P is to declare the pistol broke. Then it would just be the misses. WBAS allows the shooter to carry extra mags just like SASS allows the shooter to carry extra ammo; so there is no justification for allowing the shooter to skip the other targets just because they dropped a partial magazine. My justification for the above is that sometimes in SASS more than 1 round is ejected when clearing a malfunction The shooter still has to reload and engage the remaining targets or they earn a P for failure to engage the remaining targets plus the misses.

Nice. Marshal Stone

We had fifteen shooters and a great time!

It just needs to be kept separate.

Thanks Garrison much appreciated. We hadn't seen Alliant Red Dot for many many years down here, then all of a sudden nearly every gun shop in Oz had these big 4kg canisters of it, of course after such a long powder drought it flew off the shelves.

SHB Pg 19, top of page. Handling Conventions - Shotguns - In Wild Bunch Action Shooting, side by side/double barrel shotguns are loaded under TO supervision at the staging location and staged open. The action may not close until “after the beep.” Any additional rounds needed must be loaded from the body or other specified staging position. If vertical staging is used, the double/side by side will have to be staged empty. It's allowed at the Start of the Stage, not any other time during the stage.

In Quickload, 3.9 grains @ 1.255" length with a 228 grain Lee bullet RN gets you 158 pf @ 10,696 psi. Bumping that to the 4.5 grain start load gets 182 pf @ 15,082 psi. All out of a 5" barrel. Quickload has the PF a little higher than predicted by the data you posted, but it's pretty close. I just got some Clean Shot and I may try it in .45 ACP the next time I load for WB. I'd have to reduce my Clays load to ~3 grains to get similar performance to 3.9 grains of Clean Shot, which probably wouldn't cycle very well. Maybe Clean Shot is as great as people say it is! I have 5 pounds to try.

Link to Lovex D032 https://explosia.cz/app/uploads/2016/11/reloading_Lovex_EN.pdf Link to Shooters World Clean Shot https://shootersworldpowder.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/02/Clean-Shot-Load-Data-Pistol.pdf Looking at the data for D032 / Clean shot it will work for 45 ACP although the starting load is a little hot for WB ( PF of about 180 )

I use VV N320 Have won 2 World Senior Traditional Championships with it. Marshal Stone

N310 would be the common choice for .45 although there are slower powders that would work if needed.

Buckshot - I know that the Red Dot you have a stock of would work REAL well for you. It was not on my list because here in the US, Alliant has not released any to the marketplace for 18 months or so now. Same reason my list did not include Clays - has been impossible to find ever since Ukraine was invaded. And, if you have a newly-made ADI powder that is a Clays replacement, that would work well too. GJ

Vitivhouri is being used by a lot of shooters in the States

Clays if you have it available there? I think it feels softer than WST but some will argue the other way. Shot 1000’s and 1000’s of 230 gr bullets on top of 3.9 of clays for USPSA. I would guess 3.4-3.6 would make a nice Wild Bunch load. Clays has not been available here for a couple years so I switched to WST. LF.

I'm not sure what availability of powders in Australia looks like right now, but to answer this with a US-suitable reply, I'd have to say TiteGroup (aka High Gun). A good replacement for both pistol cartridge and shotgun, but slightly louder report and can be slightly dirty at low pressure. Followed up with 700-X,Trail Boss, Bullseye, Solo 1000 and Winchester Super Handicap (won't be much data for these last two). If you have to drop to slower powders, then Unique or Win 231. We are not seeing any Alliant pistol/shotgun powders in our marketplace in US. good luck, GJ

I recently bought a Tisas 2011 and I am amazed with the quality for $520. It seemed too good to be true, but it isn't.

I took the opportunity to shoot our Wild Bunch Lite category at my local club. I also shot my usual Gunfighter category as well. It was our first hot weather day and I was drenched in sweat by the end. I think between that and shooting each stage twice I didn't shoot very well. But here are videos of the same stage one as gunfighter and one as WBL

Add this to this list: https://americanhandgunner.com/handguns/sds-arms-tisas-asf-m1911a1/

You would be guessing correctly.

I don't know but would guess that a corporation didn't pay all that for her to go to EOT.

Those last 2 comments sound like they came from people that have never shot a true WB match. Makes me think that their expectations were for a SASS match shot with a 1911 and not an action match that required people to actually use their front sight. I do wonder about the comment "I was working all the time". Were the posses small? Were shooters not pulling their weight by failing to step up and do posse chores?

Who do you think submitted that photo to Sass? My brother took it on my phone, and I uploaded all of the awards photos since no one else was taking photos. I have to agree that I keep hoping to see the progress and equal standing promised, but I still have yet to even get a single acknowledgement from a Sass official on my win. I had several lengthy interactions will all of them afterwards and not a word about it to either of us national champions. Throughout the rest of week I had a bunch of other wonderful shooters come up and congratulate me, some I don't think I had ever even met before but they could be bothered to say something nice out of the blue. I was at least hoping for better treatment from our official magazine...

I was hoping so see some "proof is in the pudding" with all the talk of giving Wild Bunch Equal standing. I was disappointed this morning to find the National Championship didn't make the cover. In my mind, there are four national champions. Feel free to say I'm a stick in the mud, but if we really want to promote and grow WB then we should give it recognition as well.