OK, this sub-forum is supposed to be about custom guns for competition...... so, I was at a competition this weekend and saw some custom guns. There.
Well, the 12th Annual Single Stack Classic is over. Once again I've been deprived of my rightful place as the winner by Rob Leatham and 62 other shooters who cheated by being better shooters than I am!
Yes, Rob won it. For the 12th time. It was not a cakewalk for him (not that it ever is necessarily, but a couple years ago his margin of victory was 20%!). This year, the SSC was affiliated with the USPSA, and became the Nationals for the USPSA's new, provisional, Single Stack Division. As such, the SSC became a more important match to more of the country's top shooters. The SSC has always attracted some great shooters besides Rob, but this year, well, there were more of them, capable of giving Rob a serious run for his money. There were plenty of Masters and Grand Masters. Half of the 240 or so competitors (up quite a bit from recent years) shot in Friday's good weather. Saturday, when Rob shot, it was rainy and chilly for half the day; after lunch there was no more rain and it was less chilly, but still the conditions were less ideal than they had been on Friday. The weather was not bloody awful, but it was a definite factor.
There were twelve stages and I didn't hear a complaint about any of them. They were not the kind that need serious choreographing to get through, which is how I think they should be (especially since I'm a such a poor choreographer). Generally, targets were out there a ways-- there were none of those stages where you're blowing pasters off with muzzle blast.... lots of 15 and 25 yarders.
I had a great squad consisting of some of my home boys (and one home girl), and some Ohio cops, who were extremely good shooters. Plus, LTW's Jason Burton. I wasn't sure what to expect from Jason, since he doesn't have a lot of competition under his belt. But after you've been around guns and shooting a while, you can spot things. I could see the first time Jason followed the RO's command to "load and make ready" that he was an experienced gun handler. The next eight hours saw this confrimed over and over-- he was competent and confident. Now, he
did cheat a little by shooting with Rob for a couple weeks before the match
, and when we talked about me brining some ammo to the match for him, since he was flying and I was driving, I tried to offset his unfair advantage a bit by testing several types a factory hardball and bringing him the hardest kicking, least accurate stuff I could find.
When it came time to award the prizes, there were some really nice custom guns up there.
Only competitors shooting Springfields were eligible for the custom guns, the customs being part of a Springfield contingency program. This is from a page right out of racing and it's perfectly legit if you look at it objectively. Springfield is and has been the main match sponsor; without them it ain't happenin'. Class winners won Springfields, but only "high Springfield shooter" in each class got a custom. And, in some cases, it was the same guy, so a few walked off with two guns. Let's see if I can remember just how many customs there were:
Ted Yost
Steve Morrison (MARS Armament)
Richard Heinie
Richard Heinie and Springfield Custom Shop collaboration
Matt Davis (of Heinie Specialty Products)
Springfield Custom Shop
There were one or two more but I'll have to dig out my match booklet and check by whom.
As we've seen in the Custom Pistols sub-forum, Ted's gun was pretty darned OK. What I didn't realize until Jason told me at the awards was that it comes with some spares, and of course that stupendous leather set by Josh Bulman. Now, the guy who got first pick at the prize table, Rob obviously, took the Heinie gun as he always does. I kinda figured he would, it's sorta traditional, and why break up the set if you know what I mean. Some of the customs were basically raffled out to those shooters who used Springfields. I thought this was wierd at first, and that they should have been awarded as prizes. But then I figured that the reasoning maybe was that, let's face it, a lot of shooters show up knowing they probably won't win a gun. But they still show up shooting a Springfield, and Springfield wanted them to have a shot at something.....long story short, Ted's gun went to some goofball gunsmith from down south who had built a prize gun for last year's SSC and decided to shoot the match this year..... what was that name.... oh yeah, John Harrison! I about spewed my drink out my nose when I heard his name called and was not sure if I should go shake his hand or strangle him! Well, when I walked up on him a few minutes later I started the strangling but he had such a grin on I couldn't follow through. I congratulated the lucky dog and helped him admire the gun.
More later as I recover from the trip. I'm sure match results will be up soon on Richard Heinie's site. Thanks to him and all the other sponsor, including but not limited to, Springfield Armory, Bladetch, Winchester..... I'll get the fulllist off the match info and post it unless somebody beats me to it.
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. Of course, it took about a blink of an eye to figure out which one to pick from the offerings 
. I am tuly delighted and really appreciate all the hard work that Ted and Josh put into this package. The craftsmanship is exquisite and will be treasured for years to come. Thanks to both of you! 
