NROI Podcast
Want to know more about the USPSA and SCSA Rules? Need to keep up on the rules changes? The NROI Podcast is the place to get the rules, from the source. Join us for discussions on the rules, history of the sport, and other topics.May contain infrequent use of mild profanity.
NROI Podcast
104. NROI Podcast July 2026 #2
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The NROI staff are back into the mailbag for this episode as well as doing a deep dive into the NROI RO Incident process. There are also updates for staff working Race Gun Nationals and Factory Gun Nationals.
Note: Transcriptions done by AI or other means may not be entirely accurate. This podcast, and any transcription thereof, does not constitute an official NROI ruling. Questions should be sent to rules@uspsa.org.
Welcome And Match Season Updates
SPEAKER_02This is the NROI podcast, your source for factual information for USPSA and SPSA competition. This podcast is brought to you by the National Range Officers Institute, United States Practical Shooting Association, and Steel Challenge Shooting Association. All role books can be found at USPSA.org slash rules, STSA.org slash rules, and on the USPSA and SPSA apps available in your Apple App Store and Google Play Store. All rights for this podcast are reserved. No portion of this podcast may be used or redistributed without written permission from the director of the National Range Officers Institute. Rules discussions on this podcast do not constitute an official ruling. Discussions on this podcast are meant to inform and educate. The only official rulings are published as per the bylaws of the United States Practical Shooting Association. Questions about rules should be emailed to rules at USPSA.org. This is episode 104, recorded mid-July 2026. Well everyone, welcome to the NRY podcast. I'm your host, Kevin M, and with me, as usual, are our director, Troy McManus. Good evening, Troy. Good evening, everyone. And our other assistant director, Jody Human. Good evening, Jody. Good evening. So let's see, Troy, you are up in the land of a thousand lakes uh for multigun nationals. How's that going?
SPEAKER_06Uh first two days have gone pretty smooth. Yesterday was hot, um, but everybody's struggled through. Today was cooler, but we've got a lot of smoke coming down from the boundary waters fires and stuff. So it's a little bit um daunting for people. Uh they have a, of course, they have a health advisory out for it, but so far it hadn't been too, too heavy, I don't think. But the staff shot yesterday and today, uh, no big issues with that. The stages are fun. There's some pretty good challenges in them. And um they're also running a five-stage rifle qualifier for uh IpSIC rifle world shoot coming up in 27. So that's an additional thing. So they're actually running 17 base, uh, which is pretty good. Yeah. A couple of jungle type runs, shotgun and pistol, some long-range rifle, the typical things you'd see at a multi-gun match, but uh pretty weighted pretty good between rifle, shotgun, and pistol. So nobody has an advantage on one or the other overall. But uh yeah, shot with a good bunch of guys, bunch of the staff today. I didn't shoot with them, I I helped score an RO, but uh it all went smooth. So hopefully the rest of the weekend does just as well.
SPEAKER_03Outstanding. Oh, very good.
SPEAKER_02Um and uh so just to let everybody that's that's waiting to know the for factor again nationals. Um the RMs have been assigned, and we just started working on assigning staff last night. So it's gonna be a bit um before we get those assignments out. We're trying to get them out as fast as we can, but it's a tedious process, and we want to make sure we do a good job. So um just sit on your thumbs for a bit and you will be notified uh one way or the other um here directly. I we don't really have a timeline, we didn't get that far, but we are we are working offline and not just in when we're on Zoom calls. So we made quite a bit of progress already. So anyway, if you're waiting to hear, that's where we're at.
SPEAKER_03What else? Anything else?
SPEAKER_06RaceCon prep is is progressing. Uh room list was put out, Jersey list was put out, per diem list was sent in. So if you're listening to this and you haven't paid attention to what's been posted, what's been emailed to you, what's been put on NRY.org on the staff link, um, you need to really look at that because we're not making changes two days before the match. So please take a look and confirm all your stuff.
SPEAKER_03Yeah. And no matter how hard you wind. So okay.
SPEAKER_02Well, should we just launch into it?
unknownYeah.
SPEAKER_02Anything else to go? All right.
Glock Kiral Backstraps Legal Status
SPEAKER_02So we this week we got three, three or four emails um about the Chiral backstraps for Glocks and their and their associated kin. And um, we still those still have not been made legal. Um the rules committee is looking at that. Um so but they're as of as of today, um, they are still not legal. And is that enough of a division change, Troy, that that's gonna have to go through the member comment or no?
SPEAKER_06Uh yeah. It's an equipment division change. The rules committee is pushing that to the board at this upcoming meeting. Um we don't anticipate any any kind of pushback or anything on putting that out, but it's got to go through the same procedure as anything else. So it could be tentatively legal on the 1st of January 2027. Um, it once it goes through the whole member comment process and then the board votes on it, et cetera, again. But yeah, that and there's a couple of other changes coming up. Uh suppressor zone rifles and multi-gun kind of thing. Uh just a few equipment division changes that are gonna have to go through the whole process.
SPEAKER_02Yeah. So anyway, um, if you want to go ahead and buy one, that's fine, but they are not legal yet.
SPEAKER_00Um but it's just well they'd be legal and limited and open.
SPEAKER_03Yeah, limited and open and carry optics in production. Right. So all right.
Fake USPSA Numbers At Level II and above
SPEAKER_02Um there we got an interesting email um from a a match, uh level two match that had just occurred, and they discovered a number of people had registered and competed in their level two match using fake USPSA numbers. Um, they're not actually members. Um and so I thought we could, you know, that most matches check that.
SPEAKER_00Um before the match starts, usually.
SPEAKER_02Before the match starts. Um, and you can't necessarily check the download that you get from practice score because that's a batch process that only occurs however often it occurs. Um it's not necessarily up to date, you know, and I'm not sure we even know when that occurs. Uh Rick might.
SPEAKER_00But yeah, I think it's pretty regular, but there are some discrepancies before it. So usually what you do is you run the uh check through practice score and then you manually check the read the ones that come back as bad. Yeah. Um I know years ago, if people had changed from an annual membership to a three year or five year and the prefix changed, practice score would say they weren't, they had expired, but they had it. They just their prefix changed.
SPEAKER_03Right.
SPEAKER_00So um it's much because right now the only way you can check that um on the USPSA website if your club contact is you can look up by name. So that'll tell you if they're expired or if you know they don't exist. Um I know match directors who will remind people, hey, your membership expired. If you want to shoot a match, you better renew it, kind of thing. Right. But it's best through that before the match starts. So at check-in, you could be like, hey, your membership is expired. Do you I tried to contact you, but you never responded. Do you have proof that you have renewed?
SPEAKER_02Yep. Back in the day, we used to have the little trifold um fill this out to join USPSA, stack of those sitting on the registration table, and you'd fill it out and they put it, hand them a check. Okay, great.
SPEAKER_04Well now I used to go on the internet on your phone.
SPEAKER_02Hit the internet and uh get her done. Um I was cleaning out boxes in the shop the other day and ran across a box of that because the in as instructors, we used to have to carry those those materials with us in case somebody showed up at a class they needed to join at the class. And so I had a stash, and you know, as soon as it became available online, with I pretty much stopped carrying them. And I found this box of of them down in the shop.
SPEAKER_01And I went, yeah, nope, that's going to recycling. Well, we've also made it so you can't just join USPSA the day of class. So yeah. So you have to we want you to be classified and have some match experience now. Yeah, but that's more recent than going online.
SPEAKER_02Oh yeah.
unknownYeah.
SPEAKER_02So anyway, um and you can't sign up if you're not if you're not a member either. If you're if you're expired. So okay, very
Hammer Down With Magazine Disconnects
SPEAKER_02good. Um, and we get this question quite a bit. I hear I see it, I hear it a lot in classes, and especially in states that have required mags magazine safeties in handguns. And it's like, well, how do we do hammer down if we have to have a magazine safety? And um basically you need to have an empty magazine, or what a lot of people do is they get a hold of those practice magazines. Um, they're just a big chunk of plastic. Um, and that's usually enough to you don't most of the guns that I'm familiar with, you don't even have to put the magazine all the way in uh to defeat the safety. And then you can go ahead and drop the hammer. Um, so if you run into that, that's how you do it. Um, but and then don't please don't use a loaded magazine. That's just I know as long as you're not racking the slide, there's not really any danger, but it's yeah. Just not well, they would have a loaded gun after when they're not supposed to.
SPEAKER_00So yeah. That's not good. Yes.
SPEAKER_06And also you have to go through the whole thing again.
SPEAKER_00Also, if you're if you do have a magazine disconnect and you need to use a empty mag, please let the RM know before you start the coursifier. Hey, Mr. RO, at the end, I'm gonna have to use an empty magazine to do my hammer down.
unknownYeah.
SPEAKER_00Just so that RO knows, right?
SPEAKER_02Yep. And I've noticed a lot of people are doing that now. It wasn't that long ago than that. People didn't necessarily tell you, and all of a sudden they're reaching for a mag and you're like, what?
unknownYeah. Yeah.
SPEAKER_06Yeah. But that's the right procedure. Let your RO know. I have a mag disconnect, I have to put a mag in. And it is dummy mag suggestion is a real good one. That way there's no question you're putting some orange or blue plastic magazine in there.
SPEAKER_02And a lot of them are common common guns. I've noticed that the STLs to 3D print a dummy mag are out there. Um, so it's not even if if you have a 3D printer or have access to one, it's not even gonna be hard to create one. So um I don't know that I'd use PLA for it because you're sticking it into a hot gun. That could be that could be GUI. Um, but uh, you know, it's yeah, you can just 3D print one or there's you can just buy them.
SPEAKER_00Just carry a spare mag.
SPEAKER_02Or whittle one out of a hunk of wood. I mean, I don't care. Um you know, sit down in front of the campfire, grab a tree branch, and whittle you a magazine.
SPEAKER_06It'd be a whole cottage industry whittling magazines. So you go.
SPEAKER_00So do the dummy mags have to fit the mag gauge?
SPEAKER_05No, it's not stored that.
SPEAKER_02Oh my. Do they have a weight? Yeah, can you use it? Well, you definitely don't want to use most of the dummy mags for the has to fit the box of the magazine in because most of them are weighted. Um, the commercial ones, anyway, are weighted. Yeah. You probably don't want to use those. So, all right.
Helping Disabled Shooters Compete Safely
SPEAKER_02Um, and then we've we've over the over the years, we get a lot of questions about working with disabled shooters. Most recent one we got was uh working with a shooter who has lost a leg and is shooting on a prosthesis, and he just doesn't feel stable standing on his prosthesis. And so he's wanting to know if he can have a chair or a stool or something to shoot from. And the answer is when you're working with uh the disabled shooters, do what you need to do to help them. Um in some of the training materials. I think it's level two. We have a video of a gentleman that shoots. Yeah, he has no arms. We've talked about him on the podcast before, and he shoots entirely with his feet. It's amazing uh to watch. I am dumbfounded every time I show that video in a class um that he is able to do the things he's able to do. Um, but he has a chair that people are picking up and carrying around for him so he can shoot. Is he gonna win the match? No. Is he out there doing the thing and is he having fun? Yes. And that's the point. So do what you need to do to help um help folks enjoy the sport.
SPEAKER_06Yeah, yeah. Nothing wrong with having a chair to sit in while you shoot. Nobody even has to move it for you.
SPEAKER_03Now, outer limits might be the issue, but we have rules to allow for that too.
SPEAKER_02So yeah, so anyway, just yeah, basically just work with them. Um in USPSA, you know, depending on the situation, talk to the RM. Um, we may have to invoke uh 102-10 special penalty um or not, depending on what's going on. Um sometimes, you know, if if people have a disabled hand, um, they can't do like weekend, for instance. Um, you know, some we used to have a shooter here in the Pacific Northwest um who could not shoot weekhand. He only had an index finger and his thumb on his left hand. And um, and so he just would come find the RM before the match. And you know, we had it was agreed that, you know, a number of procedural penalties that he would receive, and away we went. I mean, he would not take no, we're not gonna give you a penalty. He insisted that we give him a penalty. So um, but yeah, that's so yeah, there's lots of ways to work with folks um to make sure that they can enjoy the sport.
Multi-Day Steel Challenge Entry Limits
SPEAKER_03All right.
SPEAKER_02Um we got a question about steel challenge matches being run over multiple days. So what this turned out to be is it's exactly the same match, um, the same run over two different days or three different days, um, so they can get enough people through or make it available to enough people for whatever reason. But it's not separate flights, it's the same thing. And apparently somebody is you know, was was wanting to shoot the same divisions on all three days or two to the three days or whatever. Um, that's not allowed. And Jody, you just ran into a similar situation this last weekend at the Area One Steel Challenge. You want to talk more about that?
SPEAKER_00Yeah, and uh for those of them wondering in the Steel Challenge rules, it's Rule 633. Uh competitors are limited to a single firearm per division. A competitor may, however, compete with the same firearm in multiple divisions within the same match. For example, competitor may use the same firearm in production and limit divisions, but would not be permitted to shoot twice in production or twice in limited. So, yeah, we uh at registration, uh competitor shooting two different flights was checking in. And I noticed she was registered for the same two divisions twice. So uh what we did was one was carry optics. We moved one of the entries into limited optics. And then the other one was uh rim fire pistol uh irons. And so uh we moved her second entry for that to rim fire pistol optics because in rim fire competitions in Steel Challenge, it's not like limited optics and carry optics where it requires an optic. It just says optics are permitted. So she could shoot her iron-sided gun in rim fire pistol optics. And I did have some ROs, you know, they called me to the stage and they were like, we just had a competitor shoot and they, you know, this and our iron sights and optics division. I'm like, yeah, it's totally cool. And they were looking at the rule book. I go, it doesn't say required. And they're like, huh. Okay. Um so I I I was glad they were looking it up and not, you know, trying to figure it out too. Um but yeah, you know, the whole point of this is it's you know, you can't shoot the same division twice because then you're just getting a practice run. Right. Um, I mean, you can't still are when you shoot two divisions, but at least it's scoring against a different group of people. Ideal ideally. But there there is a clear rule that says that, you know. Um same thing for USPSA matches. Yeah, you can shoot local matches, you can shoot some of them why you shoot more than one division, but it can't be the same division twice.
SPEAKER_03All right.
Deflectors To Save Target Sticks
SPEAKER_02Yeah, and then uh we got a uh query, and I've gotten we've seen these in the past as well. People asking if if they it's okay for them to put some sort of uh bullet deflector in front of the wooden posts on Steel Challenge, um to be below their the plates so that their posts aren't getting eaten up quite so badly. Um I think back when two by fours were 94 cents, people didn't so much care. But now that even the the lovely ones from Lowe's at Home Depot that um look more like a twist drill and less like a two by four or five, you know, three, four, five bucks, people care a bit more. Um, yeah, you can go ahead and put something down there. It's you need to set it up to where you're not directing spider back up range or in an unsafe direction. Um I've seen chunks, I've seen people use pieces of uh heavier gauge angle iron um to deflect the bullets. I've also seen you know half sections of steel pipe um used that both work just fine. It's more setup, it's initially going to be more expense, um, and you're gonna have to maintain those, but you know, that's if you need to do it. And a good practice is to go ahead and fasten that right to the two by four post or four by four post if you use a four by fours, um, so that it doesn't ring, it just hits and is more of a dull thud. Um, because a lot of people shoot steel challenge by the ring, and if they miss and the guard is ringing, you're gonna get complaints.
SPEAKER_00So yeah. Um I shoot my last stage of the match, area one match, and I was shooting PCC. I wasn't missing, but I shot the stock plate on my last string and the whole post just broke. At least it was on my last string, so I didn't have to wait for them to come fix it.
SPEAKER_02But run out of ammo, she was over 1600.
SPEAKER_00Um, but you know, the thing is they have measurements for all the sticks on the stages, so they could be like, hey, we need a post for T1 on outer limits or whatever. And they knew exactly what height the post they needed, and they could bring it, and you know, it was a pretty quick to fix.
SPEAKER_03So yeah, they have it pretty well engineered over there, yeah.
SPEAKER_02So all right. Um, and then been kind of a late week, mailbag-wise. Um, I think 4th of July probably played into that a lot. There weren't a ton of match of bigger matches on 4th of July. Um yeah. Um, yeah, it interferes with the beer drinking and the shooting off of fireworks. So um anyway, um, I thought we would talk.
When To File An RO Incident
SPEAKER_02We've had uh a flurry of uh official NROI incident RO incident reports uh come in. Um we've I think we've had what three in the past month, Troy. Yeah, and we just finished one of them up and there's two in flight presently. And it occurred to me that maybe most most uh members don't understand that process. They know there's a form, maybe. Um, but I thought maybe we could start from okay, this happened. What kind of things should they submit an incident form for? Um, and you know what type of things are we gonna go, yeah. No, that's yeah, we're we're not dealing with that. That's not a match problem. That's that's a hint. Um, and uh then kind of walk it through the whole process of how you assign a committee, what the committee does, um, what happens when the committee renders their verdict to you, and just kind of cover the whole process so people have a better idea of what's going on.
What A Good Report Includes
SPEAKER_06Sure. So we have on the webpage uh USGSA webpage under the NROI tab, incident uh forms and then incident report. This is to report uh basically bad behavior on the part of any certified range officer, right? Um it's not for he scored my target at Charlie and I thought it was an alpha, right? Yeah, it's not for uh you know he he gave me the range commands wrong or something like that. It's for screwing up whether it was intentional or not, for essentially bad behavior, poor customer service, that kind of thing. And especially things that weren't resolved to your satisfaction at the match, okay? So you fill that out, you send it in to me. Um you need witnesses, you need time and date, you need more information. And I saw this guy do this, and and then this happened, right? Um, it should be firsthand, it should not be uh secondhand and third hand information, basically hearsay. Uh reporting uh reporting a person for that is if you can't give us the details exactly what happened, then it's kind of pointless. But anyway, once we get that in, I take a look at it. If I believe it has merit, which most of them do, um, I'll pull the instructors and say, can anybody work an incident report? So out of the people that say that they can, I'll pick three people. It's generally a three-person uh team, and send them that incident report, and then it's up to them to contact your witnesses. I will provide contact information off the database if they don't have it or if they didn't provide it. And so that team will contact everybody, the complainant, the person being complained about, uh, any witnesses, et cetera, and gather all the information they can. And it's an interview kind of process. Um people are on that list as witnesses and refuse to participate, which is fine. That's your right. You don't have to give it up if you don't want to. Uh, but most people do cooperate. Um, and then the committee finds what level
How The Investigation And Tiers Work
SPEAKER_06this is. So there's two levels. There's tier one, which is sort of minor incidence, tier two, which is more serious. Um, they'll determine which tier this fits into, and then in each tier there are certain levels of discipline. So it could be tier one, uh, you know, basically verbal counseling, uh letter of concern, letter of correction, uh, stuff like that. You go to tier two, it can be uh suspension of the RO certification to removal of RO certification to all the way to referring this to the USPSA Discipline Committee for further discipline. So once the group has done the investigation and uh finished up with it to their satisfaction, they'll write a report to me, they'll send all the documentation, et cetera. I will put that all together in one document and it gets reported to the board. I also generally follow the recommendations of the of the disciplinary committee or incident report committee that may say we take this as a tier one incident and we think it warrants a letter of correction. Um so I generally follow that. They usually point out the points that brought them to that conclusion, so that's always included in the letter. And then that letter of correction or whatever, or suspension, whatever we do, suspension of your CRO, of your RO credentials or removal of those or whatever, uh is reported to the person that got complained about. And most of the time I don't hear anything back, sometimes I do. Um, the last couple have been letters of correction or letters of concern. Which letters of concern is is like, look, uh you screwed up here. We don't think that you get anything on purpose, but it's still bad optics for you. It's still this and that. This is the right way to do it, that kind of thing. Letter correction goes, you should you should never do this. This is the reason that we did this. This is a problem you have to overcome, that kind of thing. Uh so then once that's sent, and I send it uh via email and I also mail it. Um like I said, it gets reported to the board. I haven't received any feedback from the board on any of the ones that we turned in, except for one that was completely uh turned in. It was turned in just frivolously, and and there was nothing to do about it. So, but some of the a couple of the board members thought that we had you know swept that under the rug, but that's not the case. We just determined there was no merit to the complaint. So um, but that's generally how it works, and most of the time it's not that serious, although I think we're I think well, we're not working it, but I just got a report from a uh section coordinator that pretty bad news about one of his people. Now he's barring him from competition, but he's not certified, so it's it's outside of NRI's uh purview, so to speak. But something like that would probably earn you uh removal of your certification for sure, and then probably get you into uh the USPSA discipline process. And this we're talking about anger management uh problems, we're talking about uh racial slurs, that kind of thing. So uh nothing that that we we don't typically see that with with most of our ROs. It's usually kind of a minor thing. Um people just don't, I guess the best way is they kind of forget their manner sometimes. And I mean, we're all human. Somebody, you know, at some point you probably do that. And then if somebody was upset enough about it, then they turn this essential report in. But again, most cases of this are handled at the range, right? By the range administration, the range master, your master director, et cetera. So that's how the process works. Um, we take every one of them seriously. If we determine that it has no merit, then it has no merit. But most of them do have something. And I think the the discipline, the uh incident report committee folks have done a great job over the past few years handling these. Like Kevin said, we had a spate of them here recently, but that's kind of unusual, right? Yeah, I mean, we are kind of at the peak of fruit and season, I guess, but uh it's kind of unusual to get that many at once. Uh I mean, in the past couple years, I think we've had maybe two a year. So I don't know, maybe it's something in the water, maybe it's the heat. I don't know.
SPEAKER_02Well, we've talked about it more on the podcast. I think people are potentially more aware of it. And I think that that plays into it.
Email Responses, Witnesses, And Deadlines
SPEAKER_02Uh one thing I'll mention is it is you know, the committees typically are going to tell you how they want you to respond. And most of the committees, at least all the ones I have been on, we have wanted we have sent you questions by email, we want you to respond by email. Um typically don't want to deal with phone calls because it's, you know, when you we get a written response, we have your response, it's in writing, we know exactly what you said. When you get into phone call territory, um, you know, they're they don't buy it let us have you know court stenographers. Uh, you know, we don't have a way we we could easily misinterpret or you know, something that you said, and then it it leads to you know issues down the road. Um, I, you know, like I said, all the all of the incident reports that I have been on, and I it's I've probably done seven, eight, nine, ten of them um while I've been an instructor, um, have always been uh everything done by writing, you know, by email. Um and the quicker you get that turned back around, the the better it works for everybody. Um if we have to remind you two and three and four times, at some point, um, you know, we had one here recently where almost a week had gone by. We knew that the the individual being contacted had read the emails uh because we've got return receipt, email return receipts, um, but they weren't responding. And the next email was gonna be with a deadline for a response. So then we were just gonna proceed um with Addie's response because we're not gonna just you don't just make it go away by not responding. It's and and you and not having a response, if you aren't gonna speak for yourself, then um that doesn't work, that it doesn't help you. So but anyway, and so yeah, and you know, just because you notify that are notified that you're part of an incident report, you may just be a witness. Um you probably shouldn't be surprised because you probably saw what happened. Um, and a lot of times people will tell you we have had people that were listed as witnesses when we contacted them, they were surprised in other incidents that they were surprised they were listed. Um and they didn't really have much to add. But um, sometimes I I've we've had incident reports where everybody on the squad was listed as a witness. And you know, some of them were I was up you know at this at the safe table, um, you know, clinging mags, or I was at, you know, in the porta potty, I didn't see it.
SPEAKER_06So um, you know, that's and that's the shot shotgun approach to witness naming.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, yeah, just grab everybody on the squad and it's like, can I have a match list?
SPEAKER_06But I'll tell you what's what's useless when you do that is when you turn that in and you list witnesses and it says entire squad.
SPEAKER_02That's totally useless.
SPEAKER_06We don't have no names, no, no nothing. Right. That's we can't use that. I I can't go look up your squad and practice school.
SPEAKER_03Yeah, we don't have that information. So entire squad.
SPEAKER_06But like Kevin said, most of them, if you have a 12-man, 13-person squad, I guarantee you 50% of them didn't see what was going on.
SPEAKER_00Oh yeah.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, unless it was really bad.
SPEAKER_00I mean, I know I worked one where the person, the complaint, the person who filed the form, included a screenshot of the names of the people on the squad.
SPEAKER_05Yeah.
SPEAKER_00That was helpful. You know, so if you're gonna say the entire squad, at least provide us a list.
SPEAKER_03You know. Yeah.
SPEAKER_00And if there's and then and then identify maybe the uh two or three that saw the most.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, and if it's a common name, try and help us out. Because um you'd be surprised how many John Smiths or Jay Smith we have in the organization. Um and we can sometimes guess because oh, let's see, the match was in, you know, the match was in uh Pennsylvania, so and this one lives in Pennsylvania, it's probably that one. But then yeah, it just gets messy. And so, you know, try and help us out. And the one that my favorite was well, he's kind of a tall guy and he had brown hair and he was wearing a red hat. Like, um yeah, that doesn't help at all.
SPEAKER_06Yeah. Let us a picture.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, that didn't help either. Have to post it on the Facebook page. Do you know this man? Right.
SPEAKER_00We're looking to talk to this like the police, the police do for shoplisters. Yeah. Do you know this man? We are looking to talk to him about an incident that happened at X match.
SPEAKER_02Are you a USBSA shooter? Are you kind of tall? Do you have brown hair and wear a red hat? Please contact us immediately. I'll never forget that one. That was I think that was my very first incident form way back when it was like, really? How can you do that? So yeah.
SPEAKER_00Um we we have what 46,000 members now? So, you know.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, a little over 46,000.
SPEAKER_00Yeah.
SPEAKER_02So there's one of the lot of people.
What Incident Reports Cannot Cover
SPEAKER_02Um and you know, and we also don't get involved in just because someone's an R.O. You know, if you're out of if you're out uh enjoying the nightlife after a match or after the days, you know, mat working the match, and someone who happens to be an RO um says or does something that you find offensive, don't file an incident report. That's not match related. Um, there's nothing we can do. You know, we're not gonna we're not gonna do that.
SPEAKER_03That's that's you know, you're an adult, you deal with it like an adult. Yes, we've had those. We absolutely have had those. So it's been a while. Anyway, well, that's all I had on the list. Anything else we want to talk about tonight?
SPEAKER_06I think I'm good.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, you're probably tired and ready to find a find the bed.
SPEAKER_06Yeah, it's about that, Tom.
SPEAKER_02Yeah. Jody, anything from
Listener Feedback And Release Timing
SPEAKER_02you? Any other stories from Area One?
SPEAKER_00Um probably not that needs to get brought into this. I did, you know, there was a competitor who was uh thanked us for doing the podcast, and he was amazed that we are still doing it after what, 100 some episodes and uh that we're we keep on schedule fairly good.
SPEAKER_02So yeah, we are headed into that part of the season where we may bounce a week or two either direction just because all the match stuff going on. So yeah, um if we know in advance, we'll let you know. But just because I I always I know people are paying attention when uh last this last episode, episode 103, for whatever stupid reason when I scheduled it, I scheduled it to go Tuesday morning instead of Monday morning. And at 7 a.m. at 710, I had an email going, Hey, no podcast. Like should have been down there. And it wasn't even Warren. Hi, Warren. Um, it was somebody on the East Coast, and you know, as I I quickly fixed it and got it published, and you know, but it's like, damn, people are actually paying attention.
SPEAKER_00Um, I did on uh setup day for the match, I did wear my just freaking stop shirt, you know. And then I was thinking about it, you know, we haven't had to use that saying most recent in the couple last episodes, so yeah, but we overused the crap out of it a couple episodes ago. Well, yeah, but I I'm just commenting that people are doing a good job in applying the rules because we haven't had to use it lately.
SPEAKER_03True. Yep.
SPEAKER_00Um you know, so keep up the good work. Yeah. I hope that means that everyone's doing good work. Yeah. Or we're just not hearing about it if there is problems. Um but yeah, I mean, right now it's major match season season.
The Traveling Match Truck Idea
SPEAKER_00And uh I did see a comment on Facebook about someone saying, you know, USPSA should have a truck. Uh there's some you know, clubs that may not know if they want to host a USPSA match. USPSA, someone should have a box truck full of props for a whole match and drive around and set up matches at these clubs.
SPEAKER_06Oh, I read that.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, yeah. Most of the people who are match directors are like, hell no, I can barely keep my matches going. Why would I and then someone combo, no, no, USPSA should do that.
SPEAKER_06Because we have employees, yeah.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, well, we don't have employees to drive around the nation to do that.
SPEAKER_03Right. I mean, it would be interesting, it would be interesting to do for a while.
SPEAKER_02But you know, like one season, and then you I think you'd pretty much be done.
SPEAKER_06Well, I mean like SIG does it, right? With the with SIG challenge, but it's three stages, they're all the same. And so they can pack that into a pretty good sized trailer and pull it around with a truck and set it up and do that, but that's not a match, right?
SPEAKER_00No. Well, it's a SIG match, not a USPSA match, right?
SPEAKER_05Yeah, yeah.
SPEAKER_00Yeah. Well, yeah, I mean, I it's an interesting concept, but it's kind of like at the traveling roadshow for USPSA.
SPEAKER_05Yeah.
SPEAKER_00I don't know if you know the current employees we have don't have time to do that. No, for sure.
Starting A Club With Simple Props
SPEAKER_00Um you know, the thing is, you know, if your club is considering starting USPSA Club, go to some of the clubs nearby. Yeah, I know people don't like to drive, but if there's a club, Matt, if there's a USPSA Club an hour or two away, get a group of a few people together and go and experience it and check it out. Um, you know, the thing I've learned is match directors are more than willing to offer advice to new MDs. Because uh we have again, we have over 46,000 members and some matches sell out within minutes. Um we need more matches, but we rely on volunteers and ranges and clubs to run those matches. So um if you're considering it, do it. Uh go check out a club. Uh just remember, you know, as a new club, you can run matches with very few props using the level one exceptions as you build up your uh inventory of props and walls and such. So, you know, do it.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, and if you're if you're starting out as a club and you know, it's um if you're gonna do if you know, if I was gonna start a club from scratch today, I had a range, the first thing I would set up an offer, I would get a suite of steel and I would set up enough steel to where I could set up, say, four steel of the steel talent stages and use that as a revenue generator. Um, you know, just to start getting some money going, getting, you know, the matches going, and then, you know, keeping, you know, building out that, you know, depending on how many bays you have. Maybe you only have three bays. So maybe you're gonna shoot three and then set up three more and shoot a total of six of the steel challenge uh stages. Um your steel challenge match. Maybe you're only gonna shoot three. Um, but you can use that to start getting some money flowing in because your cost, once you paid for the steel, it's just paint. And you know, that's it's not a ton of money. So you can you can lay in some some capital. Um USPSA, you really don't you don't have to have steel to shoot USPSA. You can do it all with cardboard. Um, you know, you can build walls out of whatever you can build walls out of. Um, you know, stop by the appliance place and get refrigerator boxes or you know, whatever, uh, and build walls. They're not gonna hold up in the weather, but they're good enough for a match or two. And, you know, just get going. Make
Match Fees And Building A War Chest
SPEAKER_02sure you set your match fee such that you're actually making money on every match. Um a club that I was part of for a long time. Um, initially, when they actually sat down and figured it out, they were losing like 75 cents a shooter at every match because they hadn't raised their match fee in forever, and the price of uh cardboard targets had gone up enough that they were losing money um every time they had a match. So they had to raise the match fee. So make sure that your match fee is ready, you know, is high enough that you're actually making a little bit of money so you can build a war chest to invest in you know more props and you know, build, you know, build more props, buy more props, whatever. Um, you really can, especially as popular as a sport has gotten, to where people are filling out matches and they're having to run matches over, you know, like steel challenge matches over multiple days of the weekend in order to get everybody through. That's a good problem to have. And you can really start generating some revenue um and use that money to build out your your your club, build out your capabilities. So um, you know, it's but there's also a really bad problem with match director burnout.
Avoiding Match Director Burnout
SPEAKER_02Um, so make sure you build a core of people to help with the match directing. Don't take it all on yourself because. From experience, you won't be able to do it for too many years before all of a sudden what used to be really fun, you're like, Oh god, it's Sunday, I have to go set up a match. And uh it that's not fun anymore. Um, so you know, do a get a committee or do a some clubs do a rotating schedule, they'll have three or four match directors and they just rotate every month. It's a different match director, so you don't get burned out um as quickly. So yeah, but uh it it's it's a great sport. It's easy, it's really pretty easy to get going. Um, you know, don't look at all the stuff on YouTube with you know, swingers and you know bobbers and all sorts of crazy targets and walls and other various props and think you have to have all that before you can have your first match.
SPEAKER_03You don't. It's that will that will come. Yeah, but you know, just that in the first time that that idea's been floated.
SPEAKER_06I mean, I remember years back we thought about uh, you know, what if we put all this in a truck and moved it from here to there? I mean, like an 18-wheeler kind of thing, right?
SPEAKER_04Right.
SPEAKER_06And that went about as far as any other idea like that. So who would drive it? Who owns the truck? Yeah, that's a lot of money, right? Are we gonna recoup that from setting matches up somewhere? Yeah.
SPEAKER_02So well, it's I mean it's a it's a corollary to many years when we were in Vegas, uh, well, even before we went to Vegas, there was a group that was saying, well, you know, we should just put everything we need for nationals in a semi-18-wheeler trailer and just you know, drag it onto the map, you know, to to the range and just set up the match. And, you know, we wouldn't have to depend on, you know, does the local club have enough stuff to do it? And yeah again, you know, and we we have connects in various places that we store things in, but it's not cheap to pick up and move a connex across the country. So you know, it's it's it's it and it, you know, what we what we're doing works, and I think the RF the way we're doing it with the RFP method now, um, you know, clubs that are interested in doing it have at least have enough to get a good start on it and in terms of having a match. And I think that's I think that's I think that's gonna work well.
unknownYeah.
SPEAKER_03All right.
NROI Classes And How To Host
SPEAKER_03Um have you looked recently, Tori, how many classes we've had up for this year?
SPEAKER_02I didn't think to look today.
SPEAKER_06Um I think my last report to the board we were at 86, 88.
SPEAKER_03And we've had one or two come in.
SPEAKER_06So yeah.
SPEAKER_03Yeah. Okay.
SPEAKER_06So I think we'll I think we may break last year's record.
SPEAKER_03Yep. So we'll see. Yeah.
SPEAKER_04So if you know um right now is kind of a lull, but oh yeah, we'll start getting some towards fall.
SPEAKER_06Well, they want to do a CRO seminar prior to Race Gun in Ohio. So I'm driving up there anyway, so I'll go a couple days up early and do that. I need to get that set up on the seminar request form. And it'll be free to the staff members. Right. They want to bump up to CRO and nominal charge for the rest because not a lot of expenses that won't already be covered.
SPEAKER_03So that's cool.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, we always used to do that on changeover day on the back to backs, but we don't do back to backs anymore.
SPEAKER_06So this is the this would be the I don't know, eighth and ninth of August, I guess.
SPEAKER_03Sounds about right.
SPEAKER_06I need to get that set up. I keep forgetting about it, and then I wanted to talk to Dan Click about cost for it, but we'll just do it free for the staff and nominal for the other people.
SPEAKER_03Yeah. All right. Yeah.
SPEAKER_02So well, if your club is thinking about having a class, um get online, fill out the request a class form, and uh we'll we'll get you on the calendar and get an instructor assigned and get you your class. So um there is there is still some you know some room in the fall. Um so get after. We do have we already have classes scheduled in into 2027, a few. Uh so um get on there and and get it scheduled. And we'll be looking forward to coming and visiting with you and teaching a class for us. And as always, if you have questions, comments, whatever, uh rules at uspsa.org. And it is match season. We're kind of busy um getting two nationals up and rolling. Um, Troy's got the third one going right now. Um, and matches all over the place, so it may take us a little bit longer than normal to respond, but you will get a response. And um, anything else from either one of you?
SPEAKER_04Oh, I'm good.
SPEAKER_02No, all good here.
SPEAKER_03All right. Well, thanks everybody and have a good night. Good night.
SPEAKER_04Right.
Seminar Links And Final Reminder
SPEAKER_02Are you looking to take your first range officer class? Maybe you're looking to upgrade to chief range officer or audit a seminar to brush up on your rules knowledge. The complete list of upcoming classes can be found by following the link to find nroy seminars under the nroy tab at usbsa.org. No class is near you. Your club can sponsor an NRY seminar. Follow the request seminar link under the NRY tab at USPSA.org.