Sunday Range Day

Went to Wayne County Racoon Hinters Club in Romulus for a USPSA match today.

I'll wait for the standings to come out to see how I did, but overall it went ok but many mistakes in execution were made. So not a great, result but I learned a fair bit. I wasn't doing any RO'ing at this match and just helped paste targets whcih was a nice change of pace, and it was easier to see how others were delaing with the stages and learn from them accordingly.  I still need to work a lot more on that.

First stage I shot was Stage 3. 

It looked like this:

There's a swinger in front of the wall that is activated by stepping on the yellow box to the left side outside the firing zone.   Basically the best way to handle the stage is to shoot it from right to left starting as required at the orange spots on the PVC pipe outside the free-fire zone.

 

I was the second to shoot and I had a plan, did the plan and it was going well.  I engaged the targets, got to the box, stepped on the box with one foot and moved right behind the wall to engage the targets and swinger in front of the wall.  

All good getting my hits . . .  things are going great and then I realize my step on the box didn't activate the swinger!  I was well past the box and shooting other targets and getting toward the swinger. So I had to run back to activate it and move on.  Drat, next time stomp the heck out of those boxes.  Best laid plans and all that.

Next stage was a rather long and complicated one, and of course I was going first.  It also had a swinger and all sorts of ports, and a nice 180 trap if you weren't careful.  They forgot to demonstrate the swinger, but that wouldn't have changed the result anyways.  

So I got to the line, made ready,  reviewed the plan in my head, got the are you ready command, and as the beep went off and I draw someone loudly said "Wait!".  So I stopped.  Turns out it was two of the other shooters having a loud conversation right behind me and one said oh wait to the other.  No actual need to stop, but since I did we then started over again, Better safe than sorry. Threw the plan off a bit though.

The stage after that when I went up to shoot, after the previous shooter somone mis-rigged setting up a swinger so the popper it was attached to would not fall and activate it as the string was literally holding it in place by tension rather than the other way around. Yes, I sure was finding all the issues possible.  So I got to re-shoot that one for equipment failure, and once rigged properly I did pretty well.

Most other stages went ok, I did blow by a target on one stage and couldn't get back to it due to the design once I realized I was past it and it would have taken too long to get back so I took the miss and non-engage penalties.  Ouch. I'll try not to do that again.

The match got backed up one stage ahead of us due to a popper that kept breaking, which held everyone up, a lot.

Overall a lot of fun, got a lot of tips from other shooters that are a heckuva lot better than I am, and it was still a good match with a good squad, my many mistakes and all.

A very good match, and a great bunch of people with which to spend a Sunday on the range.