Man-on-Man Steel Challenge Match, May 18th 2008

Today was the Man-on-Man Steel Challenge, where each person directly competed against someone else. In the morning was the pistol section, and after lunch was the shotgun section. There were also shotgun and .22LR pistol side matches.

Pistol Division Rules: Competitors shot against each other on identical arrays of steel. First one completed wins. To advance to the next round, you have to beat your opponent 2 out of 3 times. The array had 2 plates (one large, one small), two small poppers, two large poppers, and one stop plate. The stop plates were arranged at angles so that at each competitor shot theirs, they feel at an angle such that whichever stop plate ended up on the bottom denoted the winner.

The pistol divisions were Production/Revolver, Limited, and Open. The pistol competitions were double-elimination.

Shotgun rules: Almost the same, except that we dropped the two plates, and merely shot the four poppers and the stop plates. The divisions were separated by action type---pump-action and semi-auto shotgun.

The day wasn't particularly conducive to video, but I managed to get a couple of short clips that were decent. Here is the video of a few runs. Remember, for someone to actually win against their opponent, they had to win two out of three runs.

I won the Production/Revolver Division! Of course, that would be a bit more impressive had there been more than two people in it. :) Terry and I ran against each other once to determine the "Production Winner", then I unilaterally stuck us ALSO into the Limited Division.

Whereupon, to my shock, I managed to place second! Lost to Dennis (of course) --- matter of fact, I lost to him twice. He was the one who knocked me out to the loser's bracket a couple of matches in, then I won back to the winner's bracket for the first/second place match---and he won again. [sigh] Amusingly enough, both of us were shooting weapons/equipment that qualified for Production division---neither of us had firearms and gear customized like the Limited folks.

In shotgun, I won the pump-action division again! (I won it last year.) After which I went up against the winner of the semi-auto division and got thoroughly spanked.

There were also two side matches---shotgun on a plate rack (fastest run wins) and a .22LR match where the targets had a whole deck of playing cards on it---reversed so that you could only see the backs of the cards. For the .22 match, you get twelve shots on the target, after which you turn it around and pick out the best poker hand you could. Best poker hand overall wins. I may end up winning that one, as I ended up with a full house, aces over fives. (I don't know yet--I left before everyone was done shooting the side matches.)

Overall---a fun day. My shooting was decently quick, my accuracy good enough, though I had moments of random trigger-pulling. The shotgun went rather well. Again, I can shoot the darn thing nice and fast (and accurately) I just can't reload it quickly.

Two weeks to the next pistol match. Time for some dry-fire practice.