FRONT SIGHT - uspsa

1991 USPSA
NATIONAL CHAMPIONSHIPS
By: Kerby Smith A-2386
Ever since Doug Koenig won
the World Match with a high
capacity electronic sighted pistol,
it was no surprise that the top
shooters would all be packing
some form of "space gun" for this
year's Nationals. The only
question was, would the guns
hold up for five days and 10
stages of the best IPSC match
in the country?
The major factory teams,
Colt, Smith & Wesson and
Springfield Armory, had shooters
using prototype pistols. Of
the factory teams, Springfield
Armory shooters Doug Koenig
and Rob Leatham had the most
mileage on their pistols and
seemed to have worked out most
of the problems with their P-9s
ahead of the match. The weak
link was the electronic sights.
Leatham said before the match
started that he would give $1000
for a scope that could be counted
on to last the raatch.
Colt's Jerry Barnhart chose
to use an unproven one-of-a-lcind
Colt customized by Bill Wilson
and George Heuning. The
Wilson/Heuning effort had been
to modify a traditional Colt
G-overnment Model frame so
that a double column CZ-75
style magazine could be used.
The pistol was chambered for
the wildcat 9x21 cartridge and
Barnhart could stuff 15 of the
135-grain pills in the magazine.
The only catch was that
Barnhart received the high
capacity pistol only a week and
a half before the match.
Convinced that he would need
a high capacity gun to be
competitive, Barnhart burned
4,000 rounds through the pistol
trying to get used to it before
November/December 1991
Tom Campbell — 1991 US National Stock
Champion
the Nationals.
Team Smith & Wesson was
running on the ragged edge as
well. Brian Enos and J. Michael
Plaxco ran out of time as they
tried to make the new .356
TS&W pistols work for this
year's Nationals. The new
truncated cone 135-grain bullet
that Federal is using is one of
the most accurate that Plaxco
has ever seen. Unfortunately,
when you try to race prototype
guns and ammo you sometimes
get behind the performance
curve.
Tom Campbell, who was off
Team Smith & Wesson at The
Masters, was back on the team
at the USPSA Nationals.
Campbell ground the grip
weights out of his S&W .45 Aut,o
so that it would make legal
weight in the stock class.
Campbell battled teammate
Jerry Miculek, the defending
USPSA National Stock and
Ftevolver champion in the stock
class. The two wound up
splitting the honors with
Campbell winning the U.S.
National Stock Championship
and Miculek winning the U.S.
National Revolver
Championship.
Judy Woolley was feeling
like the unwanted red-headed
stepchild of Team Smith &
Wesson when competitors asked
if she was shooting one of the
Performance Center pistols, and
she had to tell them no.
Woolley's gun was a S&W Model
1006 which she purchased
herself and had fitted with a Wil
Schuemann Hybrid
Compensator. Woolley was
shooting the lOmm Auto
exceptionally well until she
injured herself going prone on
Stage 10, "The Streets of
Khafji." Woolley injured her
strongside elbow going too
aggressively into the sandbags
at position B and had trouble
shooting her next stage, the
Standards, which accounted for
over 17 percent of the match
points in the tournament.
Woolley finished fifth among the
42 ladies that shot this year's
U.S. Nationals.
It looked like this year's
Nationals was going to resemble
more of an. endurance race than
a grand prix. The winner was
not going to be the fastest
shooter, but the one whose gun
was still functioning at the end
of the race.
Whether the guns held up
or not, it was evident from the
firing of the first shot that no
one was going to back off the
throttle. Last year the Super
Squad finished up on the
notorious computer stage ''House
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