Ahem... this talk about 9mm(Para) I presume, not being a major calibre confuses me remarkably. 9X19, 9X21 and .38Super ARE major calibres. It's just this 4/10" rule in stock class that makes them "minor".
It only takes a racegun with heavy enough barrel and free bore in front of the forcing cone. Col at max. that will fit in to the mag. that usually being around 29.8 m/m in 9X19 weapons. and some high density slowish powder such as 3N37 or N105SuperMag. and á voilà U're there. Naturally if one isn't interested in occupying the wonderous world of airborne fingernails/fingers/other components of hands, the use of unjacketed heavyish projectiles is strongly recommended.
What bugs me in the present situation of stock class ruling is that in order to be competetive one needs a .40S&W gun that takes 16-17 rounds, and ammo that has been loaded with minimal amount fastest powder that the case/barrel combination possibly can take in order to minimize recoil and still make major.
This isn't too healthy a situation since the guns and the brass are remarkably stressed because of the effort of pushing heavy bullets like 180grainers to major velocity and having such a small combustion space behind the projectile.
This is fine by serious racegunners that have sponsors and so on but what I liked to see is a situation whereas an average clubman could shoot fairly competetively without fear of having his index finger on low earth orbit due to a microscopic change in new powder batch or wrong phase of the moon
As the stock class is supposed to be somewhat opposite phenomenon to Open class an availability to load brass, say 15 times or untill the primers start fall of their pockets would be compliant with the guidelines of the class.
Naturally the energy method of PF evaluation would be the most sensible or atleast "scientific" method but whatever the method is the limits should be set so that the "reasonability challenged" persons wouldn't be encouraged to push safety limits in their loadings and create bad public image of sport that one has a fairly good chance of noticing that the guy next to you has his mag stickin' ot of his foot and his index finger has found a new home in yer ear.
Of this "super major limit" discussion I've noticed that when U shoot an ipsc 'popper with softpoint bullet and the hit forms a bulge to back surface of the 'popper and the front end of the 'Popper's base hops slightly off the ground when the moving part slams down that fits my idea of "super major"
So far .45winMag and .50AE, latter with maximal load, have got the job done.
I don't know of the PF must be around 400 or so. I think that such a recoil should be compensated by remarkably higher scoring if one insist of using the biggest, baddest and machoest handgun available
Differrence of 10 or 20 in Pf isn't after all so remarkable in felt recoil.
Anyhow I suppose that the conversation on this subject will go on which is a good thing IMHO.
Gatt =