You are correct. The SASS hand book does not use the words “while in your cart” because not everyone uses a cart.

I've never seen anyone NOT use a cart . . . with one exception. At End OF Trail, which was held at Raahague's in Norco for around 15 years, there was a prize for the most innovative or unusual "cart." The guy who won the prize one year had all his stuff packed onto a live Burro.

But the intent of the rule is that your actions should be opened unless your rifle is staged while you are on the line. Once again, this is for the benefit of the buy standers because gun carts are largely unattended unlike the revolvers that you carry with you holstered.

Nobody messes with anyone else's cart. And I seriously doubt that anyone would even dream of sneaking up and slipping a cartridge or shell into someone else's long guns.

I have herd that there is a general consensus, although it is not in the SASS hand book, that if the entire gun is fully covered in a sleeve that makes the trigger inaccessible you SHOULD be able to close the actions if your cart is stationary.

The entire gun is covered except for the last few inches of the butt stock.

And are you saying that the actions should be opened when you're moving your cart from one stage to the next?

The hand book does state that the R.O. should convey to the shooters any club rules that differ from SASS rules. Being a club rule does not make it any less valid weather you agree with it or not.

It wasn't a club rule. It was an arbitrary rule created by the match director. And when the attendence at the matches went from 80 to 90 competitors a month to 20-25, the club took a serious look at what was going on and started looking for a new match director.

Granted, some clubs go to extremes when it comes to rules and club membership may suffer from it. You do have to “sell” the appeal of the club to attract members. But ridiculing and laughing at someone that brings up a legitimate “club” safety rule is not what I consider to be the “Cowboy Way”

As I have said before, it was NOT a club rule.

And most of the people who shot in those matches were not members of the club, and in this area, there are a LOT of SASS shooters. And a lot of SASS matches. In fact, if you want, you can shoot a match every Saturday and Sunday throughout the entire year. When attendance dropped, the club began to lose around $800 dollars a month. And as we are buying the land, that's nothing to sneeze at.

Consider the possibility that there could be match directors who are less than competent, and some who like to throw their weight around.

I was a match director myself for a few years, and I pat myself on the back when saying that when I was a director, attendence at my matches went from 25 to 30 competitors a month to 65 to 70. People liked my matches, and word got around. These were combat matches by the way. I don't limit myself to only one type of competition. I shoot combat, IDPA, International Steel Challenge, Cowboy Action, as well as handgun and rifle metallic silouette and long range rifle.

Ken V.

Are you talking about at the range (gun club range versus police range) or daily carry of gun club members versus police officers?

The statistics I saw compared police departments to gun clubs. That's about all I know.

Ken V.

No matter how many points of views that either one of us brings up there is one fact:
Even by you own admission it is / was at least a club safety rule.
Safety rules at the gun range are for everyone. Not everyone except Ken V.

I don't know how many times I have to repeat myself . . . IT WAS NOT A CLUB RULE!

The SASS RO 1 guide book states:
Range Officers and shooters are expected to confront any participant observed in an unsafe situation, and it is expected the matter will be corrected and not repeated. ANY ARGUMENT concerning the correction of a safety related matter can be expected to result in the offending shooter’s ejection from the range.

It was NOT an unsafe situation! It was an arbitrary rule created by a match director who lost his position because of his silly rules. A lot of people complained about him, I just happened to be the first one who did it directly.

Generally safety guidelines and procedures are only set in place AFTER a serious accident / injury has already occurred that has a high possibility to occur again.

That was definitely NOT the case here. In the more than 25 years I've been shooting competitively, I have only seen or heard about three injuries, and that is from a combination of two gun clubs. One injury occurred when someone threw a knife at a hay bale (this was at a Cowboy match) and it bounced off and cut the thrower in the leg. He needed about a dozen stitches.

The second incident was when a shotgun slug ricocheted off of a steel plate and the sharp disc of lead that was left hit someone in the arm. This required around 8 stitches. From then on, shotgun slugs were either used on paper targets, or on steel targets more than 50 yards distant.

The third one happened to a good friend of mine. He reloaded his Benelli using a shotgun speedloader. The last shell to be pushed into the gun had a high primer, and when the end of the speedloader hit that primer, it fired the shell. Which in turn fired the shell in front of it. John ended up with about 30 pellets in his legs and arm. This of course was the most serious injury of all. He was out of the hospital in around four hours. He never missed a match, although he still has a pellet in the end of his dick.

Ken V.

I'm not gunny, but I noticed Jack has Glock instead of semmerling. Why did he change his "sidekick"? He doesn't have semmerling any more?

While I personally would not have one, they are very popular for the fact that the simple design makes it a very reliable, nearly indestructible handgun. No matter what you do to them when you pull the trigger it shoots. I have a friend that takes his INTO the Gulf of Mexico surf fishing and another that lost his and found it the next year when his lawn mower hit it. I have heard an account of one being ran over by an 18 wheeler and other traffic and not being damaged. I believe that Glock clams’ to submit their design to a 1000 hr saltwater submersion test. It is fast becoming the standard issue handgun for most Police forces through out the United States. That is my guess, reliability, but only FPW can give you the real reason.

While I personally would not have one, they are very popular for the fact that the simple design makes it a very reliable, nearly indestructible handgun. No matter what you do to them when you pull the trigger it shoots. I have a friend that takes his INTO the Gulf of Mexico surf fishing and another that lost his and found it the next year when his lawn mower hit it. I have heard an account of one being ran over by an 18 wheeler and other traffic and not being damaged. I believe that Glock clams’ to submit their design to a 1000 hr saltwater submersion test. It is fast becoming the standard issue handgun for most Police forces through out the United States. That is my guess, reliability, but only FPW can give you the real reason.

The reason Glocks are made the way they are is because they're, as the little birdie said; CHEEP! Mind you, it was over ten years ago, but last I heard, the production cost of a Glock was around $37 dollars. It's a throw-away gun, and the reason the frame is made of thermo-molded plastic is because it's CONSIDERABLY less expensive than machining a frame from a solid piece of steel or aluminum, or even investment casting a metal frame -- which still has to be machined in certain areas.

Yeah, they're reliable, but so are Beretta's, non-Colt 1911's, Smith & Wessons, and most other guns you can name.

Most autoloaders, if run over by a big-rig would at least have scratches in the steel and gouges in the plastic. This would be caused by being pressed into the rough surface of the pavement. Mind you, what's doing the pressing is a rubber tire filled with air. Most other guns wouldn't fare much, if any, worse.

I've never heard of any claims of a 1,000-hour salt water immersion test, but being as the slides -- as well as the internals -- are made of carbon steel I seriously doubt that they would come out of it without any rusting. Some of my police aquaintances have said that a lot of cops who work beach cities, get rid of their Glocks and buy stainless S&W's, stainless Beretta's, or stainless 1911-types.

As I understand it, many police departments went to Glocks because of the "Stupid Factor." Most cops don't practise their shooting skills and it seems that they need something as simple to operate as possible. And Glocks are simple to operate. On the other hand, Glock has come up with what is called the New York Trigger. This is a heavy trigger pull which hopefully would help keep cops from shooting themselves when they draw their guns -- which was not an uncommon occurrance.

Ken V.

As I understand it, many police departments went to Glocks because of the "Stupid Factor." Most cops don't practise their shooting skills and it seems that they need something as simple to operate as possible. And Glocks are simple to operate. On the other hand, Glock has come up with what is called the New York Trigger. This is a heavy trigger pull which hopefully would help keep cops from shooting themselves when they draw their guns -- which was not an uncommon occurrance.

Ken V.

Those comments do not accurately represent ANY of the officers or departments that I have ever been acquainted with.

Those comments do not accurately represent ANY of the officers or departments that I have ever been acquainted with.

One department I'm sure you're not acquainted with is the NYPD. Glock created the "New York Trigger" because of the AD (Accidental Discharge) problem so many NYPD officers were having. However, it DOES accurately represent ALL of the departments with which I am acquainted.

A number of years ago, I shot the "Bonus Course" at the LAPD Training Academy. This course is part of the LAPD Advanced Pistol Course, which is a speed and accuracy course, and is called "Bonus" because officers who qualify receive a "Bonus" in their monthly pay envelope. Depending on how well they qualify, this bonus can be as much as 8 to 10 percent. Which in my book is quite a nice bit of cash.

Well, the first time I shot the course, I was shooting a brace of Colt's Single Action revolvers. LAPD officers of course use their duty autoloaders. To shorten this up a bit; when the results came back, I had beat 90 percent of the LAPD.

I went back the next year and shot a 45 caliber 1911 long slide. This time I beat 97 percent of the LAPD. And as you probably know, 45 ACP has much higher recoil than the 9mm and 40 S&W, which are the most commonly used calibers in police departments today.

Another interesting incident:

I went out to the gun club one Sunday to test some loads in 44 Magnum -- chronograph them, shoot paper to check for accuracy, that sort of thing. While heading to one of the back bays, a friend stopped me to talk for a while. He was RO-ing on a stage of a three-gun match. He invited me to shoot that stage for a lark. I told him all I had with me was a Single Action Ruger Super Blackhawk and a Marlin Model 94 rifle, both of which were chambered in 44 mag. He said, "That's okay, go ahead and shoot them."

I watched a couple of guys shoot the course and then shot it myself.

You started in a shooters box on the right side of the bay, and while moving to a shooters box on the left, you fired six shots onto an IPSC target about 15 yards in front of you. You had to be moving, and you had to shoot all six shots before you stepped into the left side shooters box. Once you were in the left box, you reloaded and did the same thing moving back to the first box while firing on a target about 20 yards in front. Everyone shot autoloaders, but when I got to the left box, I had to reload my single action from loose cartridges in my shirt pocket. It wasn't just a simple mag change.

Anyway, when you got back to the starting place in the right box, you holstered your handgun, picked up your long gun (which was fully loaded -- in my case with 13 rounds) and fired six shots on another target about 30 yards in front of you while moving forward. Then you stepped into another shooters box (both feet) and without having to reload, you stepped out of the box and fired another six rounds on a target around 35 yards away while moving backward to your original position. The clock stopped when you stepped back into the original shooters box.

My reload was a bit fumbly, having to load from my pocket, but all my shots were in the "A"-Zones and my time wasn't all that bad -- even though I was shooting hot 44 mags instead of the 9mm and 223's that most people were shooting.

After I finished testing my loads and the match was over, my friend came by and told me why he wanted me to shoot that match with my single action and lever gun. It seems that some of the shooters there that day were members of the Huntington Beach SWAT team. And they were in his Squad. After every stage they shot, they were "high five"-ing, and "You The Man"-ing each other, while they were turning in the worst times and accuracy scores in the group. I gather that seeing themselves get handily beat by someone shooting 19th century-type guns -- guns with considerably heavier recoil than their 9mm Beretta's, AR's and MP-5's, was a rather sobering experience. My friend told me that after seeing my score and comparing it with their own scores, the high fiving stopped.

Then there's the "Friendship Match" at Lake Elsinore Combat, between us "civilians," and cops from all over Southern Califnordia. There were 44 entries; 23 "civilians," and 21 cops. Most of the cops claimed to be the best shots in their respective departments. The highest finishing cop placed 17th, the second highest cop finished 25th, and it was cops all the rest of the way to the bottom of the list.

When I was Match Director for Combat Matches, the occasional cop would show up -- having heard about the match -- with his chest out, his shoulders back, his gut sucked in, and intending to show these civilians "how it was done." They invariably finished DFL, (Dead F***ing Last) and went away with their tails between their legs even though I almost emplored them to come back and shoot again; "That's the only way you're going to get better. After all, we shoot these matches every month!" Only one cop did come back. And he got to be pretty good.

I can relate other experiences, but this is enough for now.

Anyway, that pretty much sums up my experiences with cops and shooting.

Ken V.

I can relate other experiences, but this is enough for now.
Ken V.

PLEASE, NO MORE! Once again you use a whole page to do nothing but pat yourself on the back. It has been my experience that those that feel the need to constantly brag, that are never wrong about anything, and have to have the last word, are the ones whose eyes turn a unique shade of brown when they speak (or type). You made a very broad statement about how most cops do not practice their shooting, have limited mental capabilities there by needing a gun with a stupid factor built in, and have a tendency to shoot themselves. Yet if you can wade through all the “how fantastic you are B.S.” you quantify none of your statements. But you did let us know that you saw some officers at the range practicing their shooting competitively, they obviously had no problems operating their weapons (besides not being as good as you of course) and you did not mention that any of them shot themselves. Why don’t you tell us how many officers are in all the precincts that make up the entire NYPD and out of all of those, the exact number that shot themselves over what given amount of time and the situation that they were in when it happened. Also I would like to know what the actual percentages are nation / world wide that make up the “most cops” that do not practice their shooting and just how they can do that and still qualify with the gun they carry. I would also like to suggest that you find some cops and tell them your opinion of their need to carry a gun with a stupid factor. While I have no doubt that you probably believe that you are smartest person that YOU know and truly a legend in your own mind, you need to realize that it is a vast world outside the minute, finite realm of the amazing Ken V where you reign supreme.

Oh, Ken, looks like you've been shot down.

/ducking and running really fast