I haven't poked around his website too much just yet, but it does look interesting.

http://www.shooting-performance.com/

He has a Skills Test you can access. It is a word .doc so you can print it out and then take it to the range.

http://www.shooting-performance.com/73.html

I think you then can type in your data, save it as a word .doc under a different name and then email it back to Mike Seeklander.

What he does with it after that I have no idea.

Certainly has a lot of good information. Thanks!

Why am I so impressed by Mike Seeklander?

I RO'ed the Single Stack Nat's on stage 10, the Six in Six challenge.

Out of the almost 300 shooters we ran through, Seeklander was the first of maybe 4 who got all 12 shots off and all hits on the targets in the first string seen here:

Posercam video Stage 10 SS Nat's: 6 in 6 challenge

It was definitely a separate the men from the boys kinda stage.

Was that a classifier Chills? I looked through the USPSA website and couldn't find a course description.
Are the targets bladed until the buzzer? and for 6 seconds? (six in six)

^^^ That is what is called a standards stage.

No, it is NOT classifier stage.

Besides, if it was, NOT many clubs would or could afford the air turners, the electric timer, the air hoses, the air compressor, and then to run electricity to a bay.

Yeah, the targets are on edge towards us at first.

Actually, the Single Stack Nationals, and I suppose all Area and Nationals events become classifiers in themselves.

Here is my buddy's classifier page:



You can see he shot the 2006, 2007, and 2008 Single Stack Nationals (SSN).

And his overal performance there was entered in as classifier percentages.

Now, I am not all up on the classifier stage process, but I think there were several stages at the 2008 Single Stack Nationals that they were trying to turn into classifier stages.

I think the Area and Nat's level matches is where some stages get tried out first and if the Powers That Be like it, they have some of the top guns (Leatham, Seeklander, Sevigny, Strader, Jarret, et al) there to shoot it, and their scores supposedly become like the High Hit Factors that us mere mortals' percentages are then based off of.

I think...

Granted there was some movement involved at this year's SS Nat's stages, but, in my opinion, there was a lot of stand and deliver accuracy intensive stages.... where you got severely penalized for misses (aka "mikes") and/or you hit a "no shoot" (and also a miss/mike).

I would have liked to have seen the round count pumped up a bit.

I think they capped off each stage to a max of 24 rounds.

A few more stages where the max ...err.. min is 32 rounds with more movement would be fine by me.

The rumor mill has it that "they are changing the format for next year".

So that might mean that they are going to push the min round counts up, add more movement, and the biggest thing I heard was to also shoot on Sunday.

The match fills up in January. So being able to shoot on Sunday would probably let them get another 100 to 150 shooters through.

That's what I am hearing from the rumor mill anyway...

quote:

Originally posted by Chills1994:
Now, I am not all up on the classifier stage process, but I think there were several stages at the 2008 Single Stack Nationals that they were trying to turn into classifier stages.

Three of the six CM 08 classifier stages were designed by the "2007 1911 Design Team." Whoever they are?

So, who knows, we might see some CM 09 classifiers designed by the "2008 1911 design team".



I wish the classifier stages had more movement in them.

This is just my opinion but, usually, at big matches it's being able to shoot and reload on the move that separates the men from the boys, but to me anyhow most of the classifier stages are bullseye events in disguise.

Yeah, sure, I could work on my weakhand and strong hand only shooting game...

But can't (shouldn't?) we all?

I have probably pissed and moan about what I see as a disconnect between the classifiers and real matches in a thread here before....

quote:

Originally posted by Chills1994:
I wish the classifier stages had more movement in them.

There are quite a few current classifier stages that do require movement. The problem is that they tend to be labor intensive for setup and don't get used very often.

one of these days, I will print out the classifiers and then 3 hole punch them and then stick them in a 3 ring binder and keep it in my range bag.

That way when I get to a match I can flip through it and see how I did last time and keep notes on how to shoot it better next time.

One of these days...

I don't think there are any secrets to shooting classifier stages. For the most part, there really aren't many options in how you shoot a stage aside from left to right or right to left.

In most cases, the time associated with whatever percent score you'd like to attain is pretty slow. It's that people, myself included, try to shoot way too fast and get poor hits or no hits or no-shoots.

I have been pretty caught up in HHFs for each classifier and the associated times I would need to shoot get a good score. Not so much anymore. Last weekend for example, I never did any number checking before shooting the stage. I just walked up shot it like every other stage that day. The result just happened.

Yeah, you're right that does seem a little over the top.

I guess I could just print out my classifier page at the USPSA.org website, and then back track through my scores what points, raw time and hit factor was to get me that percentage.

That one sheet of paper would be easier to stuff into the range bag than a 3 ring binder.

Ahhh... heck... that's probably still too "anal"...

I should just go shoot.

quote:

Originally posted by Chills1994:
I should just go shoot.

That's the best plan.

^^^ Next, you're gonna tell me I should be dry firing.

Mike's a great shooter, as well as a great guy. We both used to work for the same agency a while back.

I shot the 2008 Single Stack Nationals (on Friday, in between the bouts of rain!) and the first string of Six In Six whupped my butt! I got off 7 rounds. All 7 were hits, but not the best 7 I've ever had!

Chills, y'all sure ran a great match. Are you gonna RO again next year? I'll be there once again.

^^^ Do you want the short version or the long version?

I've been known to be kinda verbose. It doesn't help that I type in all my posts in a bullet statment format either.

So I will try to give you a Cliff's Notes version to answer your question.

NO! I will not be RO'ing and/or shooting it again next year.

Okay forget the Cliff's Notes version...

Back in the fall of 2007, I busted my a$$ to make my way to Indy (from St. Louis) to take an RO class. Turns out Gary Stevens was our RO instructor. He is the Area 5 director and is also considered the grandfather/godfather of the Single Stack Division.

So yeah, in December or January I went ahead and sent my Single Stack Nat's application in along with my match fee, $150 I think. I also put a note in with it that I wanted to RO it, but with the stipulation that I was kinda new to RO'ing officially. But, if I were to be an RO...errr... clipboard commando, that they would reimburse my match fee. Which is like SOP for every other major match I have RO'ed/SO'ed.

The regulars who know they are going to be RO's don't even bother sending in a match fee I think. There are probably some who don't even fill out a match entry form either.

So anyway, as time was getting closer to the actual match date I called and emailed trying to get my match fee refunded.

Nope, nothing. Not even a reply. When I did finally get one, it was an email and I was already up at Barry, IL away from a computer to check it anyhow.

So my fellow RO's and I shot the match on Thursday, hurriedly, to avoid the thunderstorms.

That was a cluster fuck in itself.

We were cold, wet, hungry, and exhausted when we finally made it to the match hotel.

Now, mind you, either USPSA or the Single Stack Society was too cheap to put us up in the match hotel on Wednesday night. Unlike when I SO IDPA Nat's.

And since we were in Illinois which has no legal CCW, my buddy and I are lugging all our crap with us into the hotel lobby, which we can't leave unattended.

We check in, get the electronic key cards and head up the elevator to the 3rd floor, lugging all our stuff around, and me with about 5 pounds of mud on each shoe still.

Key card hits the lock, door opens to reveal just one huge bed. My buddy, who just so happened to have gone to West Point, and I look at each other and simultaneously said:

"Oh, HELL NO!"

(that was like the one funny point in that entire weekend)

So we head back downstairs to the lobby to try to get things straightened out. I am starting to get pissed.

(you won't like me when I'm angry )

We make it down to the lobby. My buddy finds Dick Heinie who I thought was supposed to be the guy running the show, the "buck stops here guy".

We tell him what's up.

He starts talking to the guy behind the counter. The counter guy says something like:

"This hotel only has 16 rooms that have double beds."

Dick Heinie turns to us and says something like:

"Oh, oh... sounds like trouble. I am outtahere."

And he ska-daddles off.

The guy behind the counter tells us that there is a sofa bed in our suite.

So we head up there once more, still lugging our crap with us, still tired, wet, hungry, and now very cantankerous.

Door opens, we look, and look and look.

No sofa bed.

So my buddy sits down at the desk and calls the hotel that had been the match hotel for several years running until this year.

They do have rooms available with double beds. We get a price.

We grab our stuff once more, and by this time I am so pissed I am stomping that 5 pounds off my shoes as we head down to the lobby for the 2nd time.

We find Bill Davis who is like the statician score keeper inputer guy.

My buddy tells him our plan to head to this other hotel if the 1911 Society would reimburse us for it.

Then out of the blue walks this gal right past us. She doesn't introduce herself at all and pipes right up with:

"I cannot speak for Dick Heinie or the 1911 Society to authorize such a thing."

Huh?



Who the hell are you again?

Turns out she is Sarah Davis, Dick Heinie's secretary and from what I have gathered now, wife to one of Dick Heinie's employees.

Just then, the counter guy pipes up with:

"Oh, a room just opened up for you guys that does have a sofa bed."

Sarah Davis with this real condescending tone says:

"Well, there ya go!"

Ug, no, not really. That wasn't part of the bargain either of us signed up for back in January when we volunteered and planned to take off work to staff this match.

My buddy relented, though, and was nice enough to volunteer to take the sofa bed.

So we head up to a room once again. I about have all the mud stomped off my shoes by then.

I'm still fuming.

My buddy takes a shower, while I arrange to meet the other set of RO's who got fuct with the same predicament, to go to dinner.

We head out to dinner.

I call up my then girlfriend and had her google maps her way from O'Fallon up to Barry, IL.

It's still a 3 hour drive.

The other RO who got screwed is the Missouri Section Coordinator.

He calls up Russel Culver. Who he is or how he fits into the 1911 Society food chain I have no idea???

Russel agreed to have the two other RO's go stay at another hotel that night and they would reimburse them.

So that makes their room available for my buddy to take.

I call the girlfriend back and tell her to not leave the house just yet.

We get back to the hotel. I am so steamed that I toss and turn until about 2 or 3 AM and have to be up early to RO the regular shooters on Friday (and then again on Saturday).

After all the shooting was done on Saturday, there was a separate drawing (raffle) for 2 guns strictly for the RO's.

If you had RO'ed the Single Stack for 11 years, well, your name got put into the hat 11 times. So my name was just in there once. My buddy's name twice, and the other RO, the Missouri Section Coordinator should have had his name in there like at least 5 times, probably closer to 8 or 11 really.

Two guys get picked for the guns.

But, wait, there was more stuff: slides, barrels, maybe, and then some other schwag.

That hat got run dry, and Darren and I are both looking at each other like:

"WTF?"

Becuase are names did not get called for any of that stuff and the hat was emptied.

So we both speculate that Sarah Davis deliberately left our names out of the hat for the gun drawings because we raised a big stink about the hotel room cluster fuck.

Talking about adding insult to injury....





So it's a whole once bitten twice shy thing.

I'll never go back to the Single Stack Nat's at PASA.

USPSA HQ needs to wrestle that match away from them, I guess, and put it down in Tulsa at the USSA just like Limited, Production, and Revolver Nat's.

Actually, putting Single Stack and Limited 10 together would NOT be a bad idea since it seems like a lot of guys shoot L-10 with their single stacks and the 10 round Chip McCormick mags.

All of the above you read, I also posted on the Brian Enos forum.

It was promptly cleaned up and my posts and my buddy's posts were deleted too.

I think the right people in the right amounts read it though.

I got enough PM's about it.

I even had several people PM to tell me that's not the first time USPSA has treated RO's like shit at national level events either.

I have also heard some other hinky stuff too, but I won't got into detail here... It's all just rumors and conjecture at this point, but as I like to say, the three fastest forms of communication are:

telephone
television
tell-a-shooter



Trust me, you do not want your targets scored by a tired and pissed off RO.

Oh, yeah, about a week or 10 days after the Single Stack, I finally got reimbursed for my match fee/ RO'ing duties.

Well, here's to hoping this thread wont get cleaned up either, and my post getting deleted.

LOL!

Kinda...

That bites!

Well, I sure hope it don't move to Tulsa; that's a little far for me to drive, as I'm in Georgia. I think PASA Park was a little over 7 hours.

there is a Western States Single Stack Classic, so no one said that some eastern USPSA'ers could gumption up and put on their own Eastern States Single Stack Classic.

Got my Personal Schedule today