Last three-gun match of the year.
I always hesitate posting match reviews until I have seen the results of a match. Not that it should really make much of a difference but I do.
None the less I shot a three gun match Sunday September 30 at a local club. It was a mixed bag of a match. In many ways it was a very good match. It had seven stages and that is very nice for a local match and all but three of them were multi-gun stages. It was not as good as the one at the Pardoe earlier this summer but certainly better than the one hosted by this same club earlier this year,
On the down side they setup three of the seven stages in a way that made them less than enjoyable. They were staging weapons, loaded weapons, down range and in one case a fellow competitor on my squad shot his own shotgun. The gun survived but it will need a new stock, he just clipped the toe of the stock just above the recoil pad. This really ruined that stage for me since I shot the stage right after he shot it. I was distracted worrying about hitting my own shotgun rather than shooting the stage real well.
Another beef I had with the match was the use of hanging steel targets. These suck for three-gun! Whether a target is hit or not is too subjective. Especially at long range where a 55 grain 223 bullet is not going to make a thick 12 inch steel plate move much and the RO is trying to look through a pair of binoculars and make the call. I know several times I hit targets that I did not get credit for and received a miss or had to shoot it again. I could hear the bullet impact the plate but the RO was either looking at the wrong plate or could not tell I hit it. That was very frustrating. I ended up taking third of eight competitors in the Limited division and probably should have had second but those hanging plate dinged me. I got two misses on one stage that IMHO I should not have gotten.
Despite these short comings the club is new to USPSA style matches and they have a nice large and well kept facility and I really do think that after putting on a few more matches and as more people get involved with the club the quality of the matches will improve.
So the match… I am always torn between describing the stages in numerical order or in the order we shot them. This review will be in the order I shot them just because I think you will see how the incident with the competitor shooting his shotgun effected me, maybe.
So we started on Stage 6 of the seven stage match. This was a three gun stage and put two guns in harms way.
As usual click on the images for larger version.
Your shotgun was stage on the left most barrel of the right set of barrels (the red and blue barrels). Your handgun was stage on the left most barrel of the left set. Those targets right next to the barrels are rifle targets. Are you nervous yet? I was. That is only a few feet between a target and a loaded weapon.
Mini Rant Why the hell would you stage a handgun on a stage like this. If this is suppose to be practical then my handgun should be in my holster on my hip not sitting on a barrel down range. I can understand staging long guns on tables, barrels, or in safe barrels on the range but the safest place for a loaded handgun is in a holster. A handgun not in a competitor's hand or in his holster is too easy to get pointed in a bad direction. I personally think a loaded handguns should never be stage anywhere but in a holster or if stage on a table or in a box then under immediate control of the shooter and not unattended down range.
The start position was standing in the box, rifle loaded, muzzle on the barrel. On the start signal you had to engage the rifle targets through the barrel. I got two misses when I hit the bottom edge of the barrel, I was resting my magazine on the frame in front of the barrel. 223 bullets don’t like clipping the barrel. Two other hits that went through the edge of the barrel went through the bottom edge of a target sideways. After shooting the two targets next to the barrel and the array of ten targets in the center you Grounded your cleared and safety on weapon in the barrel and then run forward to your shotgun shoot the eight red steel plates with birdshot. Your then put your shotgun back on the barrel, safety on but not required to be cleared and then over to your pistol for the five paper and two poppers on the left side. One of the poppers and two paper targets are hidden behind the left barrels. It was a rough start to the match.
Stage 7 was next for my squad and it was a shotgun only “jungle” run stage. You started in the corner of that yellow fault line in the foreground shotgun loaded and at low ready. On start signal you engage the steel targets. The three to the left and four closes on the right had to be shot from the start box. There were then charge line for the other arrays that don't show up in the picture. They used red paint on the green grass which made it hard on someone like me that is severely red-green (and a little yellow-blue) color blind. I liked this stage, I manage second place on it. I do well on moving and shooting shotgun stages.
Back to the start with Stage 1. This was the second stage that put a weapon is some jeopardy. It actually looks worse in the picture than it was but still made me nervous and affected my plan of attack for the stage.
You started this stage with you pistol loaded and holstered standing in the box in the foreground. Your rifle was staged, loaded, on a table that is between the two left most blue barrel in the way back background on the far side. As you can see shooting the left pistol targets from too far back on the stage could result in bullet passing close to your rifle.
The second two pictures are taken from next to the blue barrel were your rifle is. You can see the four paper rifle targets on the left and right and an array of 10 hanging steel plates. These plates were not too bad. I still don't like hanging plate but these were close enough (40-60yards) and light enough that when you hit them with a 223 it was very apparent.
Ahhh... Stage 2, the evil, shotgun killing, three gun stage. I did a panoramic of this one but for some reason, either me or the camera, did not get the right most picture. Off the right edge of the picture is a picnic table and then to the right of that a blue barrel.
Start position was pistol loaded on small table on the left side of the picture (it’s hard to see just in front of the right edge of the left door) your shotgun was on the table in the middle of the picture and your rifle loaded on the picnic table. The shooter stood behind the barrel, hands flat on the barrel. On start signal you retrieved your rifle an engage all the yellow hanging steel plates. There was an array of seven plates on the right, five in the middle and three on the left.
It was the five in the middle that had the shooter shooting right over their shotgun. The competitor that shot his shotgun had knelt down to use the picnic table as a rest and the hit resulted due to the relatively large offset between the line of sight of an AR-15 and bore axis. He was sighting at a target but the bullet still rising to the line of sight clipped his shotgun.
After shooting the steel from behind the table you charged the array of six paper targets in the fore ground. You should have seen the dirt fly from the guy using the LR-10 (308win) on targets that close.
After the array of six targets you dumped you rifle in the barrel by the table and engage the four paper targets down range with slugs from your shotgun. Your shotgun then goes in the barrel and you run over and retrieve you pistol. The barrel was unpadded and I did not like the idea of putting two long guns in the same barrel. Guns get beat up that way.
From the left door way you shoot one paper target, two poppers and the Texas star. Then a run to the right to the other door, a paper, a popper that pops up another paper target an the second Texas star
If not for the shooting directly over your shotgun this was actually a pretty good stage. Although shooting yellow steel on green grass is hard on my poor color deficient eyes.
Stage 3 is a real simple steel stage. Five plates the white plate in the center is the stop plate shoot the other four are shot in any order. They had you shoot three strings. Sorry for the crappy picture of Stage 3 and 4 I forgot to take the pictures and snapped this one headed to my car after we were done.
Stage 4 was a nice little pistol stage. Start with heals back against left edge of the shooting box. There was four targets on the left and right and three targets with two poppers shot in the center under the wall.
And the final stage Stage 5 was pretty funny. Your shotgun was on a table off the left side of the picture. It started loaded with slugs. Your rifle was on the right table next to the bus. The start was sitting in a Chevy Cavalier, door shut hands on the wheel. These pictures were taken standing just in front of that Cavalier.
After the ten slugs at the five paper targets you loaded up with birdshot and shot the red steel targets four on the left side and eight on the right. After those you grounded you shot gun on the table and with the rifle engage the paper target from behind the table.
Finally you went into the bus and shot the long range steel. The target laser ranged just over 200 yards. The big round and diamond shaped plates were twelve inch plates the small rectangles where ~5x7inch. I really liked this stage. Shooting long range with iron sight is very satisfying.
So all in all it was not too bad. If stage two had simply put the table and barrel off to the left 10 yards it would have been great. Like I said they have a lot of potential there, hopefully they will full fill that potential.
ETA: oh... apparently there was a snafu in the scoring and after it was corrected I ended up coming in 2nd place behind a Master level shooter.
None the less I shot a three gun match Sunday September 30 at a local club. It was a mixed bag of a match. In many ways it was a very good match. It had seven stages and that is very nice for a local match and all but three of them were multi-gun stages. It was not as good as the one at the Pardoe earlier this summer but certainly better than the one hosted by this same club earlier this year,
On the down side they setup three of the seven stages in a way that made them less than enjoyable. They were staging weapons, loaded weapons, down range and in one case a fellow competitor on my squad shot his own shotgun. The gun survived but it will need a new stock, he just clipped the toe of the stock just above the recoil pad. This really ruined that stage for me since I shot the stage right after he shot it. I was distracted worrying about hitting my own shotgun rather than shooting the stage real well.
Another beef I had with the match was the use of hanging steel targets. These suck for three-gun! Whether a target is hit or not is too subjective. Especially at long range where a 55 grain 223 bullet is not going to make a thick 12 inch steel plate move much and the RO is trying to look through a pair of binoculars and make the call. I know several times I hit targets that I did not get credit for and received a miss or had to shoot it again. I could hear the bullet impact the plate but the RO was either looking at the wrong plate or could not tell I hit it. That was very frustrating. I ended up taking third of eight competitors in the Limited division and probably should have had second but those hanging plate dinged me. I got two misses on one stage that IMHO I should not have gotten.
Despite these short comings the club is new to USPSA style matches and they have a nice large and well kept facility and I really do think that after putting on a few more matches and as more people get involved with the club the quality of the matches will improve.
So the match… I am always torn between describing the stages in numerical order or in the order we shot them. This review will be in the order I shot them just because I think you will see how the incident with the competitor shooting his shotgun effected me, maybe.
So we started on Stage 6 of the seven stage match. This was a three gun stage and put two guns in harms way.
As usual click on the images for larger version.
Your shotgun was stage on the left most barrel of the right set of barrels (the red and blue barrels). Your handgun was stage on the left most barrel of the left set. Those targets right next to the barrels are rifle targets. Are you nervous yet? I was. That is only a few feet between a target and a loaded weapon.
Mini Rant Why the hell would you stage a handgun on a stage like this. If this is suppose to be practical then my handgun should be in my holster on my hip not sitting on a barrel down range. I can understand staging long guns on tables, barrels, or in safe barrels on the range but the safest place for a loaded handgun is in a holster. A handgun not in a competitor's hand or in his holster is too easy to get pointed in a bad direction. I personally think a loaded handguns should never be stage anywhere but in a holster or if stage on a table or in a box then under immediate control of the shooter and not unattended down range.
The start position was standing in the box, rifle loaded, muzzle on the barrel. On the start signal you had to engage the rifle targets through the barrel. I got two misses when I hit the bottom edge of the barrel, I was resting my magazine on the frame in front of the barrel. 223 bullets don’t like clipping the barrel. Two other hits that went through the edge of the barrel went through the bottom edge of a target sideways. After shooting the two targets next to the barrel and the array of ten targets in the center you Grounded your cleared and safety on weapon in the barrel and then run forward to your shotgun shoot the eight red steel plates with birdshot. Your then put your shotgun back on the barrel, safety on but not required to be cleared and then over to your pistol for the five paper and two poppers on the left side. One of the poppers and two paper targets are hidden behind the left barrels. It was a rough start to the match.
Stage 7 was next for my squad and it was a shotgun only “jungle” run stage. You started in the corner of that yellow fault line in the foreground shotgun loaded and at low ready. On start signal you engage the steel targets. The three to the left and four closes on the right had to be shot from the start box. There were then charge line for the other arrays that don't show up in the picture. They used red paint on the green grass which made it hard on someone like me that is severely red-green (and a little yellow-blue) color blind. I liked this stage, I manage second place on it. I do well on moving and shooting shotgun stages.
Back to the start with Stage 1. This was the second stage that put a weapon is some jeopardy. It actually looks worse in the picture than it was but still made me nervous and affected my plan of attack for the stage.
You started this stage with you pistol loaded and holstered standing in the box in the foreground. Your rifle was staged, loaded, on a table that is between the two left most blue barrel in the way back background on the far side. As you can see shooting the left pistol targets from too far back on the stage could result in bullet passing close to your rifle.
The second two pictures are taken from next to the blue barrel were your rifle is. You can see the four paper rifle targets on the left and right and an array of 10 hanging steel plates. These plates were not too bad. I still don't like hanging plate but these were close enough (40-60yards) and light enough that when you hit them with a 223 it was very apparent.
Ahhh... Stage 2, the evil, shotgun killing, three gun stage. I did a panoramic of this one but for some reason, either me or the camera, did not get the right most picture. Off the right edge of the picture is a picnic table and then to the right of that a blue barrel.
Start position was pistol loaded on small table on the left side of the picture (it’s hard to see just in front of the right edge of the left door) your shotgun was on the table in the middle of the picture and your rifle loaded on the picnic table. The shooter stood behind the barrel, hands flat on the barrel. On start signal you retrieved your rifle an engage all the yellow hanging steel plates. There was an array of seven plates on the right, five in the middle and three on the left.
It was the five in the middle that had the shooter shooting right over their shotgun. The competitor that shot his shotgun had knelt down to use the picnic table as a rest and the hit resulted due to the relatively large offset between the line of sight of an AR-15 and bore axis. He was sighting at a target but the bullet still rising to the line of sight clipped his shotgun.
After shooting the steel from behind the table you charged the array of six paper targets in the fore ground. You should have seen the dirt fly from the guy using the LR-10 (308win) on targets that close.
After the array of six targets you dumped you rifle in the barrel by the table and engage the four paper targets down range with slugs from your shotgun. Your shotgun then goes in the barrel and you run over and retrieve you pistol. The barrel was unpadded and I did not like the idea of putting two long guns in the same barrel. Guns get beat up that way.
From the left door way you shoot one paper target, two poppers and the Texas star. Then a run to the right to the other door, a paper, a popper that pops up another paper target an the second Texas star
If not for the shooting directly over your shotgun this was actually a pretty good stage. Although shooting yellow steel on green grass is hard on my poor color deficient eyes.
Stage 3 is a real simple steel stage. Five plates the white plate in the center is the stop plate shoot the other four are shot in any order. They had you shoot three strings. Sorry for the crappy picture of Stage 3 and 4 I forgot to take the pictures and snapped this one headed to my car after we were done.
Stage 4 was a nice little pistol stage. Start with heals back against left edge of the shooting box. There was four targets on the left and right and three targets with two poppers shot in the center under the wall.
And the final stage Stage 5 was pretty funny. Your shotgun was on a table off the left side of the picture. It started loaded with slugs. Your rifle was on the right table next to the bus. The start was sitting in a Chevy Cavalier, door shut hands on the wheel. These pictures were taken standing just in front of that Cavalier.
After the ten slugs at the five paper targets you loaded up with birdshot and shot the red steel targets four on the left side and eight on the right. After those you grounded you shot gun on the table and with the rifle engage the paper target from behind the table.
Finally you went into the bus and shot the long range steel. The target laser ranged just over 200 yards. The big round and diamond shaped plates were twelve inch plates the small rectangles where ~5x7inch. I really liked this stage. Shooting long range with iron sight is very satisfying.
So all in all it was not too bad. If stage two had simply put the table and barrel off to the left 10 yards it would have been great. Like I said they have a lot of potential there, hopefully they will full fill that potential.
ETA: oh... apparently there was a snafu in the scoring and after it was corrected I ended up coming in 2nd place behind a Master level shooter.