El Chapo

My 03A3 with the loads I described has basically zero recoil. What is the rifle, 9 pounds? A 185 grain bullet at 1600 fps is at beast a glorified .357 Magnum.

I'm using a Lee 185 grain bullet that is marketed for 303 British. I size it with the .310 Lee sizer and powdercoat/install gas check. This is it: https://bulletmatch.com/bullets/lee-c312-185-1r-90371

I load 18 grains of Alliant 2400 and a bullet, no filler. I've loaned the rifle to numerous people who won the matches shooting against me, so I can share that not only has it worked very well, it's worked very well at making me take 2nd place to my own friends with my own rifle.

Major power factor is 165 now in USPSA and IDPA but it wasn't always. The power factor was changed from 175 to 165 a while back (the internet says that occurred in 2000, hardly 40 years ago). IPSC doesn't have one power factor for everything and it isn't 165, it's 170 except for open, where it's 160 (except for divisions that are minor only, where there is no major). So if you thought the 165 was set in stone, it's far from that. So, I propose to all of you who want higher power factor for rifles: why not 195 for the 1911? Factory military ammunition has been 230 grains @ 850 for at least 100 years, aka, a pf of 195. 5 grains of bullseye and a 230 grain bullet was the standard even for our grandfathers. So why not? If we're obsessed with power factor, why not shoot what Browning and God intended?

The traditional 45 ACP is 195 power factor. Can we require that? FWIW: modern is not the "entry" to traditional. I will not be shooting traditional and I have no interest in it, primarily because I don't want to shoot with 1 hand, be banned from having a beavertail, and so on. But if I can shoot a 9mm 1911 in modern, I would be thrilled about that, just so I don't have to load another cartridge for WBAS vs. all my other handgun shooting sports.

We need chrono stages and a chrono procedure in the rulebook before any of that matters.

Well I can tell you this: I absolutely insist on never loading anything lighter than published starting loads and I've been doing this for ~20 years. I definitely wouldn't tell someone else to do something I would never do myself.

I think it's a really bad idea for a new shooter to be deviating from book loads. He needs a faster burning powder, especially for low pressure cartridges like these.

I don't really understand the obsession with the 150 power factor for rifles. It is not appreciably harder to shoot a 150 pf rifle than it is to shoot one with cowboy loads. If we're serious about power factor, it should be 170 or even 180 for the pistols and just leave the rifles alone. A 45 doesn't run well at 150 and everyone already knows there is no chrono and no chrono procedure as it is, so it would just invite rampant cheating. 150 pf for 9mm does not require 160 grain bullets either, there's factory 147 grain loads doing well beyond that already and I could easily boost my basic 147 lead loads that I'm shooting to achieve 1020 fps. They're already going ~950 as it is because even a 9mm doesn't run that great at 125 pf unless it has a pretty light slide. I would completely agree that IF we are going to do an open category, it should allow any caliber 1911. I would take it a step further and it should allow any wood stock pump shotgun as well. Another thing I'd really like to see, which sadly I doubt I will ever see, is being allowed to use modern magazines with plastic basepads. I am not sure what we are achieving by banning the magazines virtually everyone else is using in their 1911s, but I would really like to lose the leather basepads and just use my normal magazine, even if they won't let me use my magwell. Maybe they should make a "classic" or "heavy metal" division for the purists. I might even join them, I have nothing against what they're trying to achieve other than that I think they are focused on the wrong thing. If we want to make Wild Bunch competitive with other shooting disciplines, the most meaningful changes that need to happen are that we need to have loaded starts, loaded movement, and stop banning common modern equipment like magazines. Those changes alone would make WBAS into a dynamic shooting sport that would completely sever it from those who want it to be cowboy with a 1911. Both loaded starts and loaded movement were permitted at Bordertown this year and it was an absolute blast. They called it "Historic 3 gun" rules. I call it "every other handgun sport on earth." But either way, those are the big changes that need to happen for this to become a dynamic shooting sport: loaded starts and loaded movement. Loading your gun is not a sport. Timing people loading their gun is not a competition; it's dangerous.

A pound wouldn't be worth my time, but I'm sure someone will want it. If there was someone out there who had a crate of 8 pound jugs it'd be a different story. The small containers were 10 ounces as well, so if that's what you have, that's closer to a half pound than a pound, really not worth the time. The next time Ramshot Competition is available, I'm probably going to buy 32 pounds of it or more. I could almost certainly load all my wild bunch ammo with it and there's probably not anything better.

There were major issues with getting signed up for this forum for a long time that have supposedly been fixed. That may be why many people talk about WBAS over there. Others may not even realize we have our own forum.

I really don't know why there is so much focus on power factor and further away targets to try to distinguish this from cowboy. Let us move with loaded 1911s and target placement can be made so much more interesting and complex. This is literally the only handgun shooting sport that I know of where loaded movement isn't allowed. Once that rule is relaxed, the sky is the limit. Nobody should care about rifle caliber nor target distance when there is movement. And for the record, I'm totally fine with higher power factor and I see no problem with raising the .45 power factor to 165 or even 175 as 150 is a joke, too, if that is to be our focus.

I need to try to make this match next year. It's a shame it's so close to Bordertown.

What is ROBS?

I take great pleasure in throwing it in the trash. The existence of small primer .45 really irritates me.