El Chapo

Neither are going to do anything to the steel at those velocities. Hundreds of thousands of jacketed 124 grain hollow points at 1400 are going into mild steel poppers and plates every weekend at IPSC, USPSA, and Steel Challenge matches throughout the world every weekend.

But now they got their Classic and we're still talking about it. Even 1/4" and especially 3/8" mild steel will take jacketed bullets at 1400 fps all day long, so that's a non issue. Armored steel will take at least double that depending on distance. I also disagree with you that the pistol is more damaging to steel, it isn't momentum that damages steel, it's velocity. I can blast my AR at AR500 with jacketed bullets at 3200 mv at 50 yards and it has and will take that for years without any major issues. I shot my 20 practical exactly one time at a piece of AR500 at 100 yards, muzzle velocity 3850, bullet weight 39 grains, aka, 150 pf. It left a 3/16" deep divot in the AR500 that's still there to this day. A 55 grain M193 bullet at 3200 is 176 pf. You can blast the steel at half that distance until your barrel is shot out and the only thing that'll happen is it'll chip the paint.

I'm still trying to figure out how a failure to return to battery and a failure to feed are different things in this context. I suppose in this case, if the case still has bell in it because the crimp die hasn't knocked it out, it's both, since a round that doesn't fit in the chamber is never going to "feed." This is a good time to share with the forum that I chamber check all of my ammo, and for wild bunch, my current tool that I use for that is my barrel, taken out of the gun and sometimes in front of the TV. I figure any round that has been in the chamber before is likely to fit in it again.

I don't really understand why there is so much obsession with this issue. No shooter is going to be slower with a 150 pf rifle. It makes no difference. 150 pf is not a lot. No shooter is going to be faster with a .38 at 60 pf. In fact, most of them are probably shooting 100+ pf .38 anyway. If anything, we should be talking about raising the power factor for the pistol. 150pf in .45 Auto is very weak. Factory hardball is 195 pf. Major pf in IDPA and USPSA is 165 and 170 in IPSC outside of the Open division. It is much harder to shoot a pistol fast with one hand at 165+ pf than it is at 150, and much harder to shoot the pistol fast than any rifle at any power factor. If we were serious about power, we'd be mandating 180 or more, which isn't pushing .45 at all.

In USPSA, your gun will be weighed, it has to fit in a box, and the thumb safety has to work. After that, 3 rounds are fired over TWO chronographs, the velocities multiplied by your bullet weight from the round they pull a bullet from, and the power factor is calculated by taking the average and truncating any decimal. If you don't make power factor, they fire three more rounds and average again. If you still don't make power factor, the last of the 8 rounds collected from you, you're given an option. They can pull the bullet and re-calculate the power factor based on that bullet's weight or they can fire it and re-average your numbers and see if you make it. If you don't make major, you're scored minor. If you go sub minor, you shoot for no score. If your gun is overweight or doesn't fit in the official dimensioned box, you get bumped to the Open division, or if it's not offered at that match, you shoot for no score. If your thumb safety doesn't work, that gun is out of the match unless you can fix it. If you have another one and the rangemaster says okay, you shoot that gun. Both the old and new gun have to be chroned if it's safe to fire, but you won't be allowed to holster the gun with the broken thumb safety again. If you refuse or miss chrono somehow, you shoot for no score. And perhaps most importantly of all, if the chrono breaks, fails calibration, or is otherwise unavailable, everyone who was chronoed when the equipment was working gets the results they got, and everyone else gets their declared power factor regardless of the fact that they can't chrono. I've never seen or heard of that happening. The last major match I was at, a guy came all the way from Canada to shoot for no score because his safeties were about .010" too wide to fit in the box. I also shot one years ago where one guy loaded for the whole squad (posse) and all of them went minor, and it wasn't even close, 150-155 when the pf for major is 165. And as Bogus said, chrono is a stage. Everyone has to chrono when it's their time at that stage. Usually it goes quickly so it's nice if it's at lunch time, you'll get a longer break before the squad ahead of you gets done shooting. They also don't have to let you use the 8 rounds you gave them, they can ask for a mag off your belt anytime they want. This is recommended at all state level competitions and required at all regional and national level matches. This procedure isn't perfect but I've never seen someone get screwed by it. Although I barely made it at my last match--I won't go that close again. I'm not one to fly too close to the sun.

Or just rules for the sake of rules. If I won a match because someone's grip safety didn't work, I'd give the real winner the buckle. I still have guilt over a match win I had last year that was caused by a stage DQ for moving with a loaded gun, because even with the miss, the guy probably would have beaten me by something like 20 seconds if it wasn't for that rule.

I wonder why we care if the safeties work if we're not allowed to move with loaded guns or have loaded guns in our holsters. Would you really want to win a Wild Bunch match because your fellow competitor's grip safety didn't work when tested?

Doing it like that seems tremendously unfair and to send the wrong message. If it can't be done with calibrated equipment and for everyone, it shouldn't be done at all.

I guess I never really considered that to be an actual chronograph procedure because 1) it is not required at any level of match and 2) it doesn't really include any safeguards to ensure the equipment is reliable or even the testing is reliable. Which is probably why I have never seen a chrono at any SASS competition. An effective test procedure requires that scales and chronos be calibrated and usually multiple units are used to ensure accuracy. Nobody wants to ruin a major match for someone based on faulty information. I did pucker a little bit when my ammo only went 127 at my most recent match though. Chronoed 134 at home, and 133 out of another 9mm on Friday, only to barely make it on Saturday. I bet I won't do that again. That was with calibrated scales, two radar based chronographs, and a longer barrel!

I sure wish we had a procedure in the rules.

My Ariats (which I bought because they have a spur ledge) are as sneaker based as they get. They are boot shaped objects, yet they look like traditionally constructed cowboy boots as much as anything. Packers are also legal in any category, and while conventionally constructed, they aren't "movie cowboy" boots by any stretch. And there are a ton of leather or faux leather sneakers that people wear all the time, just pick a color leather comes in. I had knee surgery a few years ago so I feel your pain.

There are no wild bunch footwear requirements other than that "athletic shoes" and "combat boots" are not allowed.. There is no rule that boots are required. And in most of CAS, there are no footwear requirements other than these two stipulations, either. Many people wear sneaker based shoes and nobody says anything.

I run a 19 pound hammer spring as I have had light strikes with CCI primers with a 17, only with large pistol though. 17 pops everything in small pistol.

My combinations are the choice of Single Stack and IPSC Classic division shooters in something like 60 countries. There were something like 230 shooters at the (all 1911) match I was at in Mesa the weekend before EoT, I would be willing to bet that not a single one of them had a 16 pound recoil spring in their gun. And the PF there is 165 for major (USPSA) and 170 in IPSC.

Both of those are much hotter than I will be loading. That's about where I am now with my current load, I run a 14 pound spring with that. Most everyone was running 12.5 and even 10 pound springs in .40 S&W limited guns 20+ years ago with 180s at 950+. My slide was lightened, many are not though. I have been running a 14 pound spring with 170+ PF ammo for 40,000 rounds through my .45 without breaking anything. Basically nobody in IPSC or USPSA is running a 16 pound spring, that is the spring for factory 195 pf ammo. Going down from a 14 to a 12.5 is a small jump for me. I run a 10 pound in a 9mm with 130 pf ammo, 12.5 is the next step up from there. A 16-17 pound spring is massive overkill for 150 PF ammo. Maybe not enough to cause the gun to short stroke (but maybe), but like most factory guns, massively oversprung. Literally the first thing I do when I get a 1911 is remove all the springs and replace them with lighter ones. A stiffer spring stores more energy in both directions, which goes right into your wrists in recoil and slams the front sight down when the slide closes.

The benefit to a lighter weight bullet is to get more slide speed at the same power factor. 150 pf is pretty low for 45 Auto. I am going to try some 200 grain bullets this year for that same reason. I have had much better luck with round nose bullets in my 1911s, so if my 200 grain SWCs don't have the reliability I'm hoping for, I will be shooting a true 230 grain round nose bullet, which is historically what I've shot in Wild Bunch. I am going to be backing them down a bit as the ammunition I was shooting last year was loaded to ~170 pf. I had backed it down some from my typical load but I'm going to lighter springs and a significantly lighter load this year and dropping down to a 12.5 pound recoil spring. If you're shooting a stock 1911 with a 23 pound main and 16 pound recoil spring, you're going to want to load to a higher power factor, as the 1911 is designed for 195 power factor ammunition. I recommend the fastest powder you have in inventory, in this case, Titegroup, although many people say not to use it with coated bullets. I have not ever loaded Titegroup in anything so take this advice for what you paid for it. I was using Clays powder last year, I may continue to do that if I have enough left or switch to Clean Shot or WST.

I'd gladly shoot 150 pf out of my rifle and not feel a thing. Now raising the handgun to 175 or more, now we're talking.

I looked at the overall and the top cowboys and top cowboys. 8 classic shooters in the top 20 for men and 11 in the top 20 for the ladies. That doesn't appear to have made much difference, but it remains to be seen with more data.

I think that it's clear by now that's what people thought they wanted. I'm curious to see if the scores are different.

You guys are a bad influence. I want to shoot classic now. Someone needs to sell me another 73.

Dawson Precision makes sights for just about every 1911. Mine is a .090" plain black.

I like my 38 rifle just fine. Maybe I'll even load some 150 pf loads just for fun. The splits will be the same anyway. I'm never going to understand the obsession with that, I guess I'll see this year since there's going to be so many "classic" shooters.

So nothing different.

What were the terms of the open category?

You can buy a 1911 for $300 these days, not sure I have seen a $1000 1911 in anyone's holster at a WB match. My wild bunch gun definitely wasn't $1000, not now nor 22 years ago when I bought it. Pump shotguns are under $500. There are M12s on Gunbroker for $3-400 all the time. Rifle there's a lot of cheaper options, but yeah, a 73 costs more than a thousand bucks. Gen Z put Creed back on the charts 30 years later. Dozens of them were shooting at the match I was at last weekend, which has a similar cost of entry. They're showing up and doing very well. A friend of mine won the USPSA Production Nationals in 2016, I believe he was 18 years old at the time. He isn't quite Gen Z, but he was shooting at 12. Interesting how the goal post moved after I pointed out that your response is not credible. Nobody has marketed it to them, and it's not "cool," so they're not doing it. They aren't having kids, either, the birthrate among them is a fraction of what it was for our generations. I don't know how Creed is getting people who weren't even born when the records came out to come to their concerts, but their concerts are full of people who weren't born when I first heard the songs, which I didn't think were particularly remarkable even then. The youth are the future of everything. If we don't market to them, we're done. Make it "cool" and they'll show up. I shot my first match a few weeks after my 21st birthday when I became old enough to buy a handgun. There's no reason we can't reel them in. I shot more when I was in my 20s than I do now, and I actively try to find the time now compared to then when I just showed up. If PRS, USPSA, NRL22, IPSC, IDPA, ATA, NSSA, and so on can do it, we can, too.