Always Bring A Back-Up

[AzShooter1]

I have a Ruger Black Mamba that I use for Steel Challenge Matches. It's a great pistol and I shoot it a lot. Over 75k rounds through it and I think I take good care of it, cleaning after every match or shooting session, about 500 rounds per outing.

At the last Steel Challenge I had a number of failures. Magazines and bolt were swapped and still no luck so I pulled out my back-up to be able to finish the match. Since they are so similar the Match Director had no problems with my switch.

Going to clean it I found a small piece of metal from the Volquartsen LLV 4 upper had broken off. I called VQ on Monday, Tuesday they sent me a return label for UPS. On the following Tuesday I had my gun back all repaired with a new LLV upper and new barrel installed.

Great Customer Service from Volquartsen. Now I'm ready to shoot our next Steel Challenge match this Sunday. I shot it today with 400 rounds of Federal 525 pack of 36 grain plated bullets. Not one failure using 10 different magazines so I think it will work Sunday.

I did have a variety of problems over the last few month so I'm guessing the part had been breaking for a while. I always take my Mark IV 22/45 Lite with me as a Back-Up and it pays off occationally.

 

[jak67429]

I learned that lesson a long time ago. My first idpa match with a 1911, had some incorrectly sized factory ammo. It jammed the gun so bad I could not extract the round in the chamber. since then I take 2 complete setups and enough ammo to shoot the match twice and I never have an issue. Soon as I take just what I need something breaks and I can't finish the match.

 

[1KPerDay]

Yep I always being a backup for every gun I take to a match. I often forget the holster and/or mags and/or ammo for said backup though. LOL

 

[jmorris]

I have been lucky in that I haven’t needed a backup to complete a match but if I never had one there would have been others that had to sit out. Why I also bring twice the ammo I might need.

 

[Hoser]

I used to carry a complete spare parts box with almost everything I might need to fix a broken gun. Then one day I realized I had almost a complete gun or two in that tackle box.

Now I carry spare guns.