Sunday Match Day

Shot a match today at Brighton.

Very small turnout so we only had two squads running and 5 stages.

The forecast for rain and thunderstorms scared most people off, but it only spit some rain on occasion and was otherwise overcast and muggy.

I was an RO on one squad, and overall it went well, aside from feeling like I was herding cats at times. People were just not getting the concept that if you;re not on deck, the shooter, or reloading your magazines after shooting, you should be helping pasting to move things along.

As to my shooting, it was very mixed and inconsistent. Out of five stages two were lousy, and three were good.

First stage I was rather focused on two shooters shooting their first match ever, going over the procedure with them etc, and did not develop a stage plan before I shot and it showed when I stupidly missed a hidden target array of two targets that I really should have seen had I been properly concentrating. On another stage I did the same darn thing with a complete brain fade.

But, on two stages I was likely solidly B-class, including the dark shoot-house which was shot without lights inside and only outside illumination this time.Hit 14 targets with two shots each in 25 seconds. The other stage I nailed 14 targets in multiple arrays in under 20.72 seconds.  So those were good.

All three of those stages had solid stage plans and worked well.

So, I need to work on my consistency and stage planning, if I can just quit missing the hidden target array that would be nice.

A very nice little match, and shot with a great bunch of folks as usual.

Sunday Range Day - A Great Match

Shot a USPSA match today at Wayne County Racoon Hunters Club, which is always a challenging match.

Spencer came along and it was his first WCRHC match.

8 Stages, around 220 rounds.

Fun, challenging, sunny and warm out, and a good time was had.

Overall, I think I did rather well.

I shot two of the 8 stages clean with all Alphas, a personal best.

On top of that, I did not skip over and fail to engage a single target. Every target was addressed and engaged - even the rather tricksy ones.

On top of that, I had 2 and only 2 missed shots in the entire match -  I thought I only had 1 miss (a hit on the target but on the blacked-out hard cover rather than the brown scoring zone. But, in seeing the stats it says 2 so we'll go with the official count.

Overall I'm pleased with that performance and just have to start getting faster.

After that, we headed to meet up with friends from Jitsu at Great White Buffalo Brewing Co. Brew Pub in Northville, owned by a friend of ours and fellow jiu jitsu practitioner. The beer was excellent, and the bison burger rocked.

That was a very good day.

Sunday Match Day - The Romulus 4 Seasons Match

I went to the USPSA match in Romulus this morning. It was their first outdoor match of the year and it was full, with 96 shooters coming out.

Why do I call it the 4 Seasons Match?

Because we got to experience all 4 of Michigan's seasons in a single match.

It was sunny and warm;

It went overcast and cold;

It rained;

It hailed;

It was sunny and warm;

It went overcast and cold;

It rained again;

It was even more cold, dropping into the 30s.

Did I mention the rain and hail?  There was repeated bouts of rain and hail.

Yep, we got to experience winter, spring, summer, and fall all in one match.

On our second stage, just as I got the standby command, the sky opened up, and I was then shooting in the rain.  It was heavy enough that they paused the match for it blown over - but only after I had done my run.

Kinda sucked as water was covering my the shooting glasses and optic,  and it was coming down in sheets in front of targets so that cranked up the difficulty level just a bit.

Overall, I had a good, if kinda shivery, match.

I actually was able to develop some stage plans and shoot the plans.

I did not skate by a single target this time on any stage, even as some others on my squad did. That was good.

I almost had a miss-free 8 stage match.  

Of course, on the very last stage, after not a single miss the whole day I then did two of them.  One on a fast moving swinger and one miss at a longer distance target.  I could blame my hands being numbed with cold for that.  Lots of people were showing reduced performance by the last stage.

No results yet, but overall, I think I'm improving performance-wise.

Oh, and after the match I got to experience Michigan's 5th Season - Road Construction. 

Both 696 and 275 are torn up but good, both down to 2 lanes and the traffic is fugly. Took quite awhile to get home.

A great way to spend a Sunday, aside from the being stuck in traffic parts.

Spring Classifier Match And Happy Easter!

Quite a few shooters chose to celebrate Easter by shooting the Classifier match at the club in Brighton. Given that Brighton always does their matches on the second Sunday of the month and the first match of the year is always a special qualifier, it was today.

Overall, turnout was somewhat light with 4 squads of 8 shooters each.

I was RO on squad 4 and was joined by Spencer and Scott M for this match.  Always good to shoot with friends.  Had a good squad of nice folks and we got things going.

The first bay we shot in had two different classifiers so we did one after the other.

First one was a nice warm up for everyone while requiring some thinking. 

An array T1-T3, with T3 mainly covered by a no-shoot and T1 having a tuxedo on with only the width of the A-Zone available at about 15 yards.

Had to shoot T1 6 shots, then switch to strong hand only, and shoot T3 6 times.  Then reset shoot T2 3 times freestyle and then 3 times weak hand only. 

Of course I had one mag jam to slow me down.  The Henning extensions and magazine follower doesn't seem to like 150 grain 9mm and I had stupidly only tested them with 115 which worked fine.  The standard factory 21 round mags handle it fine but when you add the Hennings to turn them into 23 round magazines, they keep choking on the 150 grain bullets.  Learned that the hard way on that stage.

4 more fun classifiers including one with a lot of running - and with one shooter almost getting DQ'd as he almost broke the 180 running downrange from one port to get to another. He likely hit 179 degrees before getting the gun back in the right direction.  We finished with a freestyle course of 30 rounds on 15 targets in the shoot house, which was a lot of fun.

A darn good way to spend what had turned into a beautiful sunny morning and early afternoon. Good bunch of people to shoot with.

Scores are not out yet, so I'm not sure how I did. I suspect I didn't get up into B class, not yet anyways.  It will still be something to keep working towards. 

I hope all my Christian readers are having a very happy Easter.

Sunday Match Day

Today was the Guga Ribas Invitational Match at WCRH Club.

An auspicious omen, as the penguin is my spirit animal.

9 stages with over 300 rounds, and it was a tail-kicker. 

I was the only Carry Optics shooter in my squad.  The vast majority were Open-class shooters with race guns, and there was a production and a single-stack shooter to round it out.

It was a nice bunch of shooters and a good squad. 

Interestingly, my squad was mostly Filipino  -- and damn good shooters too.  

Lots of Filipinos also came from not just the US but also Canada to shoot this match, which was kinda neat as well. Darn good bunch of folks all around.

Lots of fun and challenging stages, with difficulty likely on a par with a Sectional match as compared to a standard club match.  

I definitely made some mistakes, including shooting past cleverly hidden targets, which I really, really hate doing.  

If it was any consolation, and if it was it wasn't much, at least 6 of the shooters on my squad of 13 on the last stage we shot missed and waltzed past a target due to the cunning design of the stage.  

Aside from messing that up, my accuracy was pretty good though my penguin-waddling speed is still not quite where I'd like it to be.  

On the upside, I did not come in last, in either overall ranking nor in carry optics and I am shooting better than I did before and seeing some improvement. 

Some fun  stages, including one where you had to hit each target a minimum of three times as opposed to the normal two, and a neat stage where to get to the r you had to walk through a tight path lined with shotgun clays, and for every clay you broke it was a procedural.  I didn't break any, but a few of the squad did, to their dismay.

Still having trouble with the Henning mag extensions which slowed me down on a couple phases so I'm going to contact them for some tech support, as the problem continues. It looks like the spring and follower is not getting the round high enough to clear the front edge of magazine consistently.

Overall a good match with lots of improvement still needed and a fun time spent with a good bunch of people.

Sunday USPSA Day

So today I headed to Brighton this morning for a USPSA match,

Turnout was impressively small - just one squad worth of all of seven shooters but the match went on anyways.  It appears another club just started matches on the same day close by, which is pulling shooters away from the Brighton match.  It's also nearing the end of the competition season here in Michigan, so turnout is low because of that as well.

On the plus side, we had a lot of fun with just one squad moving through all five stages.  A good bunch of people indeed, and I was the secondary RSO so I got to run about half the small squad while the primary did the other half. That way we weren't being ROs when in the hole or on deck to shoot.

I'm overall quite happy with my performance - certainly I've gotten better at stage planning and my shooting is definitely showing improvement.   Had a couple magazine feeding issues that slowed me down, which was weird, and the first time that has happened.  It started in the later half of the match and was rather annoying.  Time to tear down and clean everything.

On the one classifier stage, I was the only one to shoot it clean and hit all Alphas, including 4 head-shot Alphas.  This classifier might not be actually used for classification - it's on trial at various clubs and is a lot of fun it's Classifier 22-04 "Calm Before The Storm".  You start seated outside the shooting box, with toes touching the shooting box.  You then get up at the beep, get your gun off the table in front of the shooting box then shoot 4 rounds at two targets of your choice, and then do a mandatory reload from the table and do 4 rounds on each of the remaining two targets. 

Each outside target has hardcover diagonally through it, and the center third and fourth target are one above the other with a no-shoot target in the middle.  Oh, the 4th and topmost target has a no-shoot covering the lower A-Zone, thus my 4 head-shot alphas. 

Quite a bit of fun to shoot, and I hope it does become an official classifier.

Still waiting for the result but I had a good time, and my speed and accuracy have both improved. I had some rather good runs with decent hit factors and not a single missed target nor missed shot in the entire match, which is happy-making.  

Update: Results sorta came in.  I can't see it on the Practiscore site that gives overall rankings, but only on a site that gives it by division.  So out of three Carry Optics Shooters, I came in 2nd, not bad considering the guy who came in first was really, really, good. I also had zero misses, no Deltas, 93 Alphas and 17 Charlies. Not too bad, and had I not had the malfunctions the times would have been better.  

Pretty happy with my performance at this match and it was a lot of fun.

Sunday Match Day

This morning I headed out to a match, in the rain.

Luckily, the rain subsided as I signed in and got ready. I was in a good squad of 11 shooters and we had a good time.

The morning went quite well, and thanks to the class I took last weekend, I was measurably more accurate and quicker shooting, and had better stage planning and was more aware of where the targets were.

Overall pretty happy with my performance, but, of course, there's plenty of room for improvement.  

I did not fail to engage a single target the entire match, compared to my normally sailing past at least one hidden one per match. Even better I did not engage any targets twice either. Better stage planning certainly helped, especially with the confusing stages where some target could only be seen form certain angles or were viewable from multiple locations.

Got the match results, and it turns out I shot one stage with a B-Class percentage, and the rest with mid to high C-class scores, with the overall percentage within 7% of a B-Class score, so that's a nice start to some improvement.

Gun School: Tim Herron's Practical Performance Class

This weekend I was near Fort Wayne Indiana for Tim Herron's Practical Performance Class hosted by Condition Red Response.

To say the class is excellent in terms of the detailed instruction and absolute flood of information and analysis you receive to increase and improve your shooting performance is an understatement.

Tim is a USPSA Grand Master and it shows.   To say he is both fast and accurate in shooting is an understatement. 

He also has an excellent teaching demeanor and is able to convey a lot of complex information broken down into understandable parts, as well as a very sharp eye to detect issues with each student's shooting and point out immediate techniques for improvement.

He explained USPSA's often confusing concept of Hit Factor in the simplest way possible - it is simply the number of points you collect per second on a stage.  He also talked about how the classification system worked, and discussed stage planning.

Yes, there was indeed a stage in the class. First time we ran it cold and  I sucked.  We then worked on all the techniques to learn to shoot better and faster as well as identify how to better plan and read a stage, and improve our overall shooting technique with tailored instruction to each student based on what Tim observed as we ran the stage.

In short, I was definitely in the bottom quarter of the sixteen shooters there in terms of ability walking into class.  Wonderfully humbling. This was good as it gave me a lot of room for improvement, and some improvement did indeed occur, not to mention the desire to further improve. 

There were some really exceptionally good shooters attending - some A and B class and many other proficient shooters, all very friendly and willing to exchange information and everyone supported each other during the class.  So, I learned a lot from not just Tim but my fellow classmates as well.  I did improve quite a bit on subsequent stage runs becoming both faster and more accurate both.

Carry Optic Pistols dominated the firearms choices present with SIG 320s being the majority.  We had a few Glocks, some 2011s, one Walther PDP, a Canik, and an Open gun, and some iron sight-only pistols as well. The SIGs ran impressively well and I may just look into one moving forward as they offer some definite advantages over the Glock -- except in the area of magazine cost where Glock has pretty much everyone beat. The experienced USPSA shooters highly recommended the SIG 320 and had lots of good suggestions.

Among many other drills over the two days, we did the rectangle drill, Blake Drill, and a barrel drill.  This specific barrel drill was designed to teach shooting on the move as well as transition flow and it was quite challenging. 

Lots of movement on the second day and my hip was telling me it was getting annoyed.   It certainly didn't help my speed any.

Tim diagnosed an issue with my grip and my shooting improved remarkably from that one small observation and change.

I left the class with a ton of practical drills to use to improve my shooting, and  a much better understanding of how to do better, and of USPSA shooting itself which is really helpful.

I highly recommend Tim's class if you want to learn how to shoot faster and more accurately -- as well as on the move -- whether you participate in an action pistol game or not. There's measurable improvement after spending two days in class alone and he gives you the methodologies to improve further on your own  -- which is the hard part to keep the work up to have the improvements stick.

Practical Performance is a great class with a great teacher.

First Match Of The Season

It was a big day today.

First thing accomplished: Shot my first USPSA match of 2022.

It was mainly a classifier match with one long field course.

Most classifiers were stand and deliver type, with quite two different el Presidentes, the classic and the Nuevo, but we also had 21-01 Trigger Freeze which offered three arrays of targets and movement.

Only issue with the El Presidentes was the turn as the hip did not enjoy that much, but I made it work.

Moving around I was pretty slow but got there ok in all cases. Did use the cane to get to and from the different stages due to the rough ground and steep inclines and that worked out well enough.

Actually had a  clean run on one of the El Presidente 99-23 Front Sight with all Alphas. 

We also shot 13-05 Tick Tock into the darkhouse which made it a fair bit more difficult in identifying the targets.

A fun match with a good squad of shooters and good to be back in to it. Tosh and Scott were in my squad which made it fun.

Overall I think I'm still well and truly in C class territory, much of that due to slow movement right now, but my Hit Factor is creeping up into the 4-5 range rather than the 3 and lower where it used to be.

Update: Yep, still very much in C Class.

Sunday Match Day

The day began walking Piper at 0600.  I swear, she has an alarm clock in her butt, as she's up like clockwork. As I walked her, fog began forming until visibility dropped rather impressively.

 

I then walked Jett and after that had breakfast and headed out in the fog to Wayne County Racoon Hunters for what is likely the last outdoor match of the season. 

The fog had pretty much blown out by the time I arrived, and it was sweater weather with the last stage getting some rain.

Our squad was a little small as we had two last-minute cancellations.   Kept us busy pasting targets, and I was scorekeeper for a fair bit of the match which is fun to do. 

Two Master-class shooters were in the squad, and to say they were good is an understatement. Very neat to see how they analyzed stages and figured out the most efficient way to shoot them. Both were super nice and helpful, and gave lots of good advice on analyzing and shooting a stage. 

Happy to note I did well, at least for me, in this match.  Certainly the pre-stage coaching helped, as did observing how the Master-class shooters tackled the stages. 

 There were certainly some fun stages, such as this unloaded table start with two separate shooting boxes:

Still, I put in a C-class performance but I felt I improved.  

On the last stage I got as re-shoot due to range equipment failure.  Someone had setup the popper that triggered one of two swingers but had installed the stick backwards.  Instead of the popper pulling the stick when it fell, the stick kept the popper up and stopped the swinger from swinging. Oops.  Good thing I had brought enough ammo.  On the upside, getting to shoot that stage again did improve my performance with the first one acting as a live fire practice as the swingers were the last targets in that stage.  So, that worked out well.

A very fun match and I learned quite a bit.  Still an absolute ton to improve on.

Sunday Match Day

After taking Piper out at 6am today, I headed to Livingston for their USPSA match at 9.  Caffeine is my friend.

The day began with rain so between that and the ammo shortage, it made for a light turnout.

There were 6 shooters in my squad as opposed to normally 10.  All good people with good senses of humor and no one took themselves too seriously. We all had a fun and enjoyable time shooting the match.  With 6 people it moved along pretty quickly, but took awhile to paste between shooters as three people - the shooter, the RO, and the scorekeeper were all busy recording the score, but we made it work.

I had a good match, no missed targets.  Did hit one target twice as it showed up in two arrays to make sure I didn't miss any, which cost some time but not too bad.  Again mainly Alphas with a few charlies.  No deltas or mikes which was great.

Scores are not up yet so not sure how I did overall, but I'm happy with my performance.

Sunday Match Day

Headed to Romulus this morning for a USPSA match. WCRHC always puts on a challenging match, and this was no exception.

Got caught in traffic on the way there as they had closed 96 and 275 was down to a couple lanes and was a mess.

Managed to get through the mess and got there ok, checked in, paid the match fee and got ready.

First stage was a difficult retreat stage.  You started up range with the gun on a table and shot the 4 targets arrayed in front of you and then there were two sets of angled arrays behind you of two targets on each side per array and then a final array behind you of a single target on each side of the range right at the rear fault line. Breaking the 180 was a concern.

I had a plan, did the plan and it went pretty well.

Next stage was pretty challenging with quite a few targets only visible from very fine angles. Had the plan and at port 2 planned to shoot two targets.  Shot two targets.  Wrong targets.

I had moved in just a bit too much and missed the two in the array I should have shot and shot other targets twice so they had 4 alphas each but that doesn't help.  As a result learning occurred.

I did mess up another stage by missing a target in a similar-ish fashion which didn't help any.  One of the more experienced shooters said it happens and that was a very challenging stage, and otherwise I was doing quite well.

Other stages did go quite well.  Still need to improve a lot.

Overall I'm decently accurate but I made these dumb mistakes which cost. Only had one D the whole match, 20 Cs and all the rest of the 175 rounds were As. Still not fast enough.  If I can just stop doing the dumb, I'll be in much better shape, need to figure out why I do that and how to track and ensure I hit the right targets better.

There was a very good bunch of shooters in my squad, also they're a very good bunch of people.   Even messing up shooting during a match is better than not shooting at all.

Sunday Classifier Match Day

Went to WCRHC for a USPSA match this morning.

It was an all-classifier match.  On the upside each stage was 12 rounds so it was done by 1 pm which was good as it was hotter than hot out. 

I shot Carry Optics.

Overall I did ok, mid to high C-Class this time.

The last stage of the day I had a nice run on Classifier 18-02  where I missed B class by all of 3%, and came in second in my entire squad for that one which had some very good shooters.  A lot of them being B class were pushing it a tad too fast so the wheels were coming off and they were hitting the hard cover and losing points.  I got all hits on a reasonable enough time.  Now if I could just do 3% better and also similarly better on 4 more classifiers I'd be in good shape.  Still definitely a work in progress though.

It was fun, shot with a great bunch of folks, and it was a great and well-run match as always at WCRHC.

A Good Match Today

I went to the local USPSA match.

This time I wasn't RO'ing as it was a pretty small turnout with only three squads to shoot.  This meant I actually got some time to focus and prepare a stage plan for each stage.  Not that it helped all that much, but it actually did help a bit.  

I'm pleased to report I did not miss nor fail to engage a single target , even the devilishly cleverly hidden ones, and had no misses  at all which is very happy-making.  Some of this is clearly some improved accuracy and some speed from taking the Modern Samurai Project class.

No functioning issues with an of my gear, and the dark house shoot was a lot of fun with the 509T functioning perfectly now that I've taken it out of auto-adjust mode.

Still awaiting the results, but aside from messing up a stage by unintentionally sliding my foot over and past a fault line for a couple final shots on the first stage, it went rather well.

Unfortunately there was no classifier so i can;t see if I was measurably shooting better  classification-wise.

A total of 145 rounds shot and it was a fun match with a good squad with some pretty darn impressive shooters to learn from.

Sunday USPSA Range Day With Murph

So today I headed off to pickup Murphy who was in town visiting and then to a USPSA match at my home club.

I was RSOing as usual and had three shooters on the squad that had never shot USPSA before, Murphy among them.

Overall thing went well.  But I'll let Murph describe how he did if he chooses to do so (hint: lookup significant advantage procedural penalty...).

Unfortunately one new shooter (not Murphy) when being told to unload and show clear thought that meant dropping the magazine and then pulling the trigger to discharge the round in the chamber.   

Not quite what we're looking for there.

We explained that to him and worked on a few other issues he had and he did alright for the rest of the match.  Not a DQ as it was in a safe direction and was before the slide forward, hammer down, holster command was given.

I did ok, but certainly not great.  Missed a hidden target in  two different stages which sucked and cost me some badly needed points. One problem I'm finding with RSO'ing is it takes my attention  away from  my own shooting and planning for the stages as I'm really focused on the shooter, safety and scoring which really is as it should be and not on my own stage plan.   I'll learn to handle both in time.

On the upside, the last stage of the day I had a plan, stuck to the plan, and did it quite well in reasonable time, with only one C and the rest A hits.  Rather pleased with that one.

So, it was a darn good time had by all and overall a really good squad.  Had one Open class shooter who was an older fellow and  a bit of an attitude - first stage he started pasting before the targets were scored which is not helpful.  He also didn't like when I said he should not do that as we need to score them first and the shooter has a right to see them before they are pasted.

Then he argued with me about range commands as he apparently was used to the much older ones.  "Nope", I said, "we're using the standard USPSA commands here, sir".

Then finally on the last stage he said he would be shooting from the back of the free fire zone and didn't want me in the free fire zone.  That's not really up to him as I go where I need to be to do this properly and I'll note I did not block a single shooter at any time during the match (or in prior matches I've RSOs for that matter.  You often need to be behind the shooter in the FFF ZOne in order for the timer to pickup the shot sound, not to mention be able to handle a safety issue if it comes up, and scoring issues as well.   In any case I simply said "make ready".  Dolt then did not actually shoot from the back of the free fire zone.

Even better, I beat him at that stage on time and accuracy, and I was shooting carry optics with my carry Glock and he was slinging a $5,000 gun.   Shooting well is the best revenge I suppose.

So, it was a good match and everyone had fun in a safe manner.

Then home to my place to eat some ribs I had smoked in the smoker last Wednesday, and enjoy an adult beverage while going over the events of the day.

Anyways, more adventures are scheduled for tomorrow with Murph, weather permitting.

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.

Sunday Match Day - First Outdoor USPSA Match Of 2021

I got up early this morning, Picked Tosh up along the way and headed to the range.

First outdoor match of the season and my first as a certified RO.  Happily enough it rained both before and after, but not during, the match.  So we had mud but we were not playing in the rain, which was nice.

It was a special classifier match - 6 classifiers and 1 field course.

The classifiers interestingly enough all required movement which made them a bit more fun than the traditional stand and deliver classifier courses of fire. 

I had a good squad to RO and we moved right along.  I brought along the Glock with the 509T and shot Concealed Carry Optics from my carry appendix holster and appendix Koala mag pouch as you can now shoot form appendix in CCO division. 

Still awaiting the results, but I think both using the same drawstroke and having put in some dryfire time have made me a tad bit better.  I'm definitely more accurate and slightly faster but there is still lots of room for improvement.  Probably still C-Class but hopefully a bit more towards the upper end, but we'll see.  Hit factors were generally and consistently in the  high 4s to 5 somethings which was an improvement for me.

Overall it was a good match and I ro'd rather smoothly.  

I only had the one horrible, awful, no-good very bad stage.  Last one of the day - the darkhouse field course.  12 paper targets.  I was shooting first of course.

It started well from the entryway I was hitting targets with aplomb, but as I entered the darker interior the 509T dimmed slightly and I lost the dot which was an unpleasant surprise.  That was not happy-making.  I then fumbled the reload as well. So yes, it sucked and I ended up owing hit factors for that one.  Learned a lot from that mess though and I'll make sure it won't happen again, so that's something.

Overall a darn fun and positive start to the match season.

A Helpful And Welcome USPSA Rule Change

USPSA just announced some rule changes that are very happy making.

The quick summary is that Carry Optics and Production shooters can now use appendix carry holsters without being moved to Open division, the handguns can have flashlights attached, so long as they actually work, and magazines can be carried forward of the hip,  are also acceptable in those divisions. 

In short, I can now compete using my carry gear with the PHLster Floodlight holster without getting booted to Open, which is very nice.

Definitely a nice and timely rule change to let people compete with their carry gear as more and more people are using appendix carry and slide-mounted optics.

Weekend Knowledge Gain: USPSA NROI Range Officer Course

So this weekend each morning I got up early, walked the dog, and then headed to Romulus for the Level 1 Range Officers Seminar.

Since I've been shooting USPSA more now, and helping out as a range officer at my local club, I decided to get official.

A huge benefit of the class is you get to understand the rules better as a result of taking the class, so you become a better range officer and a better shooter within the rules as well.

Wondering why you got that procedural or how you got that score?  The class explains the whys, the hows, and the wherefores. 

Teaching the class was the always awesome Gary J.  - a Range Master Instructor, very experienced shooter, course designer, and RO.  In short, he knows what he's talking about, has extensive experience doing what he's talking about, and knows how to teach it.

Gary was excellent as the instructor and highly effective in imparting a ton of required knowledge in a very short time. 

A very good bunch of students were talking the class - 26 in all. Ranging in age from teens to seniors and everyone had a good attitude about learning the material and being a good RO.  Being a good RO requires knowledge, judgment,  and attitude components and everyone in class certainly had the right attitude about learning and acting as an RO.  It's not about power tripping, it's about appreciating the sport and wanting it to run well and fairly.

Yesterday was spent in class going over how to be a range officer and the main rules, and how to find the answers in the rule book to things that would likely occur.  We also talked a bit about course construction and how to RO at a match including higher level matches. 

A lot of safety issues were discussed which is rather important, and we saw a few videos that illustrated what not to do.   Importantly, make sure the range is clear before starting the next shooter - Always.

Lots of learning occurred - By the end of the morning Saturday I understood the puzzle of the target perforation shot, which was one of the things driving me nuts previously.  Now I get it and why it is scored the way it is scored.

Lunch was BBQ and it was awesome.

After lunch, we returned to discuss disqualifications and related matters.

Then we went over some best RO practices and started going over the range commands.  Getting the range commands perfect is actually important and in some cases giving the wrong range command can cause a re-shoot to occur or even worse,  shooter confusion and a potentially unsafe situation.  Often shooters at larger matches may be traveling and are not be fluent in English and instead rely on the exact commands to know what to do.   So, memorizing range commands correctly was a must.

So,  Saturday night I spent a few minutes memorizing the range commands as instructed, this paid off Sunday morning.

Sunday was drizzling a cold rain all morning, so we did a lot in the classroom first.

We  mainly worked on range commands in groups.  

Then the rubber guns came out and there would be an RO, a scorekeeper and a shooter and the "shooter" drew a card to see what he would do.  Many cards had the shooter shoot the scenario straight, but others had them commit a safety or procedural violation, or otherwise act in strange ways such as not paying attention to the range commands and the RO and scorekeeper had to sort it out and know what was happening and what to do and what rule applied and if a procedural, a quick admonition,  or a disqualification was appropriate.  

Hi-jinks ensued, learning occurred.

Then on to the range for a couple live fire runs without any deliberate safety violations but with the  shooter retaining the right to cause procedural problems or ham it up without flagging anyone or deliberately acting in an unsafe manner.

Interestingly enough, it turns out one of the readers of my blog from Traverse City was attending the class and he figured out it was me.  It was very nice to meet the gentleman and we had a good conversation during some of the downtime.

I'm happy to report that I was the first one to do a clean run live as a range officer - no command mistakes, scoring mistakes,  or bad positioning or other mess ups on my part, which was happy-making. 

Lots of learning occurred just by watching others as the live fire exercises played out - scoring issues would come up, positioning issues came up and lots of range commands needed to be made clear.  All good stuff.

Now to do the online test and I'll be official.

The NROI Level One RO class is a great way to be able to better understand the rules of USPSA and to enable you to help your club or section in holding matches.  I certainly learned a lot, and will be a much better range officer and USPSA shooter as a result.

Sunday Indoor Match Day

So today I headed over to DSC for their indoor USPSA match.

First time shooting there, and also the first time shooting a match with a different gun, but more on that later.

It was a very well organized match.  Between Covid restrictions and the match being held in a confined space indoors, your squad gets a starting time and you show up then.

Tosh, Duffy, and I had a 12:30 start so we got there a bit early, paid our match fee and geared up.

4 stages with the first stage being a classifier.  After the classifier, there were three fun, short, and challenging stages.

Since they were all in the one room, space was at a premium but they did a real nice job laying it out.

Each of the three stages was shot by a different shooter one after the other, and then all scored together.  it moved along very quickly.

These other three stages were small but brain teasers.

In Stage 1 it was Amoeba/Classic targets rather than standard targets and you had to shoot 6 rounds at each of the first three targets and transition to two shots on each that you had to engage after moving as they were hidden behind a wall.

In Stage 2 it was multiple targets separated into three shooting positions.  Rather fun and not too complicated.

Stage 3 however was a brain twister.  Virginia count, three shooting boxes, each one closer to the target but each each offset differently.  It was mandatory to shoot 8 rounds form each box and each of the 4 targets had to be hit 6 times.   Stacking on targets was allowed,  but you couldn't go back and you had to do the match right, and some were more hidden from certain locations.

So I engaged T1 with 6 shots and T2 with two, then moved to Box 2 and hit T2 with 4 more shots and hit T4 with 4 shots.  Then in Box 3 I hit T4 with 2 shots and finished by nailing T3 with 6 shots.

Math is hard.  Lots of procedural penalties occurred on stages 1 and 3 due to shooters messing that up. 

A fun match with a good bunch of people, took about an hour to get through and shoot all 4 stages.  I definitely would shoot there again.