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.

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 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.