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Well, it is called Wild Bunch ACTION SHOOTING! If I want entertainment, I’ll turn on the movie and watch it. For me the fun is in the challenge. Figuring out how I can shoot a stage to the best of my abilities. What can I do to better myself. I’ve said for years that WBAS isn’t for everyone. Neither is benchrest shooting, NASCAR racing or brain surgery.

Dang, sounds like a great match. I almost wish I had shot it. Oh well.

One of the boilerplate axioms in the entertainment business is, "The audience will let you know." Without arguing semantics, one of the reasons folks spend the time, money and effort that they do on this, or any other sort is for fun. Whether or not that's entertainment, you can argue on your own time. If the time effort and money spent doesn't offer some value or return on investment, then they will find something else to do. Most of us work hard for our money, and this should provide an escape or a pleasant getaway from the realities of modern life. After a match designer, be it legendary T.A. Chance, RePhil, or Lassiter, or your local guy/gal, designs stages for any length of time, they will find that shooters tend to comment on stages, favorably, or otherwise. The good ones should go into a file folder that you can trundle out again occasionally, and the ones with lots of "P"s or misses might go into another, rather more circular file. No more that one trick per stage. Par times should be roughly equal for all stages. Difficult scenarios should have easier target acquisition; tougher targets should have simpler instructions. Have a good mix of sweeps, but don't try to re-invent the wheel. Data mine your matches, listen to your shooters. Keep that file folder. And the audience will let you know. And always, respect to all those hearty souls who stay up late designing those stages, huck the steel before the match, and put it away when most of us have already headed home. Cheers, FJT

FJT had some good comments in the WB-EOT thread. I always expected that State level and above, certainly National or EOT matches to be challenging. In the past, the ones that I have competed in, they had their challenges, some more than others. After most "Big" Wild Bunch matches, I am mentally fatigued. I, and I have heard others say, that Wild Bunch is more fatiguing and difficult that Cowboy Action, and that the latter seem easier after a Wild Bunch match. More targets, more difficult targets, more control needed for the firearms due to the Power factor, more brass to retrieve, and more movement on tough stages have made it more challenging. Then you add in more equipment/ammo failures and often more penalties to add to the situation. Challenges abound. Perhaps for some, these aspects are too daunting; some want to be entertained with less of the above. It will be interesting to see how having a challenging shooting sport can mesh with having an entertaining shooting sport.

https://mdocweb.state.mi.us/OTIS2/otis2profile.aspx?mdocNumber=249215

Kingsnake has done both my 1911's with these. They're great

Mine run 15 recoil, 19 main. You can easily tell if you're sprung correctly. Fire a couple mags of your match ammo from one spot. Look for the center of the pattern of ejected cases. Step that off from your shooting position. If closer than 5 feet, you are sprung stronger than needed. (results in harder slide pull than needed, and can get to where you get a failure to eject) If pattern is more than 10 feet away, you are too lightly sprung (can batter the frame and slide). And the recoil and main springs usually "balance with each other" best with the recoil being about 3-4 pounds lighter than the main. The mainspring bore in the grip housing often needs honing to remove the roughness from factory machining. good luck, GJ

Simple answer is - yes, a 38 Spl rifle will be legal, especially since you already have it. And - Yes, current PF minimum is 60 for Rifle. If you need to access the handbook - it's at: SASS Rule Handbooks page Welcome to WB! GJ

This Artfull Bullet article shows some good pictures of the three common 1911 lip designs. https://www.artfulbullet.com/index.php?threads/1911-magazine-feed-lips.9672/ Magazines with lips which uniformly narrow for the full length from the back plate of the magazine up to the release point of the round - those are THE BEST for a "round ball" load. That was what was provided in both WWs to shoot military ball. Often called GI-Ball or tapered lip design. Magazines with wadcutter type lips, also called controlled feed lips, usually have a good chance of feeding non-ball loads. Especially made for short stubby nosed wadcutter loads for target shooting. These wadcutter loads will often pop up the round too fast in a military (tapered) lip mag and lead to point-up jams against the feed ramp. The wadcutter lips are usually parallel at the rear for a short way, then open to a clean release of the cartridge at a specific point engineered for best feeding of wadcutters and the stubby hollowpoints. Most good quality magazines today are made as the hybrid design, combining a shorter taper section at the rear, and then an opening of the lips which allows almost the same type of controlled feed of the wadcutter magazine. Like Boggus, I like a magazine with a hybrid lips for Wild Bunch, especially with bullet designs other than a 230 grain round nose. Hybrid lips give the most reliable feeding with a wide selection of bullet shapes, in my experience. good luck, GJ

I use the 7 rd stainless ones with hybrid lips and GI dimpled follower.

One of the biggest mistakes shooter do. Do Not use 5 round mag sequences. You go to a real WB match, and use 7 round sequences, shoot 5 as you have at home, and move, SDQ. Seen it done many times.

Good list of shooters so far, still plenty of time to sign up!

As we've seen in the past, if you make the match too challenging, (so no one can clean it, P traps, weird sweeps, target size and placement) and the shooters aren't having fun, "entertainment", they won't come back, "loss of revenue". No club can withstand loss of revenue.

I have handled this gun in .45 ACP at my shop and it is so nice. It will be in Modern category. https://www.handgunsmag.com/editorial/ruger-sr1911-lightweight-pistol-review/517369?utm_source=WhatCounts-Email&utm_medium=Email&utm_campaign=AMO12-Months-engagement&utm_content=AMO Tuesday#replay

Th Rugers are great guns. I don’t think a Lightweight would be my choice for Wild Bunch.

So I'm new just starting and trying to get into wild bunch I have already made up the ammo for the 1911. I was wondering if I can use a 38 rifle or if I need to use a 44 or a 45. Second question the power factor for wild bunch rifles is 60 right. Edit thank you in advance.

Number your mags so you can identify any problem mags. +1 on case gauge. +1 on Bulge Buster for rounds that do not fit case gauge. +1 on knowing how to clear malfunctions. Be safe and have fun.

No

Do people still need to know who SASS #4 is to register? Maybe not, since that wasn't mentioned.

15 recoil. 17 main.

Glad you're here!

Best bet is to read the Shooters Handbook for all your firearms questions.

Howdy, Dave; I am pretty sure they did believe that they were shooting a true WB match. It may not have been to their taste. That's a subjective evaluation, to be sure. They had only shot a few matches prior to this and wanted to see if they would enjoy it as much as their local matches, on the Big Stage. "I was working all the time" was a reference to the amount of concentration and effort that the match required. Once again, tastes may vary, but they didn't feel there were any stages which they could relax a bit and run their gun as easily as they wanted. Hope that provides a bit of clarification. Cheers, FJT

They absolutely are slower with the lighter bullet. Having spent way more time and money testing it, the 230 at 700-725 fps is the way to go. Anyone want my leftover 250 gr bullets I was trying to see if they were worth it….

Thank you, sir. Got tired of breaking pins and figured there had to be a better way. Best, Boggus

I am watching the evolution of Wild Bunch with a great deal of interest, as I enjoy it as much (and maybe more than...!) Cowboy Action Shooting. Evolution does not reward that which is best; it rewards that which is best suited to survive, given a certain set of conditions at the time. I was intrigued by the match; the abrupt changes made to WB were undertaken to increase the interest in the game, and, given the modestly robust turnout, with a host of new attendees, may have worked. But I feel like the match itself ran contrary to that ethos. I shot it, and did reasonably well. But, this is the entertainment business, and, listening to shooters who attended, I heard a few things which stuck with me. 1.) "I was never having any fun. I was working the whole time." 2.) "It was humbling; perhaps even humiliating, to have one shooter clean the match." 3.) "When the Super Bowl comes around, they don't move the goalposts back another 20 yards." I'm not sure what the game plan is, but I didn't think it was a great match. I respect all the work that went into it, and the workers who made it so. Also, I will shoot whatever you put in front of me. But the Fast Guys (and Gals!) will still win, and match organizers might do well to consider the experience they are offering for the 80% who want to shoot safely and just have a good time. Cheers, FJT

Just wanted to close the loop here. THANK YOU to everyone that directed me the @Boggus Deal firing pin solution! Got mine in the mail today and 10 min later was out test firing it. What a great solution! I'm all set now and the M12 is much smoother. NOTE: I did leave the bolt lock/retaining lever installed as I really don't notice it interfering with the action at lease on my M12. Ready for my next WB Match! Totes

There were a lot of SDQ. Too many of the adjacent stages had targets painted opposite, in ex. one stage the red was a multi hit and black targets were single hits. The next stage the targets were painted in the opposite way and added to confusion. The kill em all stage, was challenging for the shooters and TO alike since there were only 7 targets to a position and you could not shoot targets at the next position. This lead to lots of clearing guns for movement and SDQ. Every stage was rifle not last, which was found to be needed based on the prior year's speed rifle sidematch with 38s. We need to get back to a 150PF, so we can keep the game playable as you want. First five stages offered a little more flexibility in how the stages were shot vs the last five.

One of the positives of this forum and the cowboy forum being different is here you can send pics in the private messages. You can’t do that on the cowboy wire.

Regardless of how well tuned your 1911 is or how well you reload your ammo, knowing how to safely and quickly clear a jam is not something to be overlooked. Things happen and I've seen far too many newer shooters struggle with what to do when it happens. Going to slide lock, manually pulling mag from the mag well, clearing a FTF safely and indetifying what can't quickly be fixed should be learned/practiced. When things decide to go wrong, it can really eat up time fixing it. Totes

Practice, practice,practice and then also practice for the worst. Be able to clear jams and such safely and quickly. Test all your magazines to be sure they feed and release freely. Then practice, practice, practice some more. Get someone else to load your magazines with a snap cap (dud round) in one of them somewhere. It will help you practice clearing your pistol and using your "barney".

Don't look for your mags. You don't need to pull them in a specific order. Just drop your hand and grab what you touch. Keep the pistol up when you change mags, don't lower, insert, raise, takes too much time and you have to regain the target. You don't need to hammer the bottom of the mag into the pistol, just put it in right the first time. Whirlwind Wendy taught me all this.

More time is wasted on mag changes than anything else in WBAS. Don't take the gun too far down from the line of sight and practise with your eyes CLOSED. You have to feel the change to get it right. Watch shooters, most have the gun in a lowered position and canted when changing magazines. Both are time wasters. Many change the position from mag change to mag change, they don't know where they have the gun and have to look for it. GOOD LUCK.

Really? Any data to back that up? Maybe, just maybe it's that type of thinking that's drove people away from Wild Bunch. If Wild Bunch matches were written for those 99%, it would probably have the following/participation as Cowboy matches do today. Totes