3-Gun Match on Apr 20th...

So we had the three-gun match last Sunday--I showed up early to set up the pistol stage for it, then took a look at the other stages. The shotgun stage was pretty straightforward---walk sideways and hit the rows of plates and poppers. Unfortunately, my pistol stage wasn't a whole lot better. It required movement, some angles, and a few careful spots with no-shoot targets. However, when I set it up, I forgot one target (so that messed up scoring) and the layout was such that it was pretty obvious how it should be shot--so not a whole lot of creativity on the shooter's part was necessary.

I've done better in my stage designs. It was still fun to shoot--but it could have been better.

Zeeb came up with the rifle stage, and it was interesting--if you weren't paying attention, you forgot about targets, and unfortunately many people did exactly that. Several people (who normally shoot very well) had several missed targets. (And that is a -30 points for each---2 misses, and one failure-to-engage. Ouch!) Luckily, I wasn't one of them.

I (of course) forgot to have one of the stages filmed for me this time, but it was the shotgun stage, which wasn't very interesting to watch anyway---since I still reload shotgun at a rate of one round every 20 minutes, it just takes awhile.

Actually, my reloading, while not good, has at least gotten better, so I'm around the middle of the pack now instead of clear at the bottom. It helps that I shoot really fast and am pretty accurate. The reloading needs work (lots!) but at least it isn't as horrible as when I started.

Here is a video with two of the other stages:

My squad started with the shotgun stage, then rifle, then pistol. Shotgun was fine, but when I tried the rifle stage for the first time, I couldn't get my rifle's safety off! How stupid of a malfunction is that?! I'm up there, the rifle cycles, a round is loaded, a magazine is in---but I can't get the safety off so I can't shoot!

Luckily for me, since I hadn't shot any rounds, they let me attempt to fix the problem and come back for another chance. (And yes, the problem was fixable.) Scarily enough, I rocked on the rifle stage this time. I don't know what happened (though I do note that I have installed new trigger springs and fixed the sights on my rifle since last time) but I scored third out of 24 on the rifle stage---and the only two people who beat me had optical sights (red dots, I think) on their rifles. I'm using just ordinary iron sights. Hmm. Maybe that practicing I did made a difference. Ya think?

The pistol stage went okay---right up until I went back to the beginning and realized that I clipped a no-shoot target. [sigh] Overall, though, it went well. Matter of fact, I even won the Limited Division, beating Chris Zeeb and Rob Thorne. THAT doesn't happen much, if at all. As usual, a fun day--but that rifle stage went really well.

John had his FN2000 out again--there is a gun that looks strange.


Alex was there shooting again, and did really well (as usual). I had to include a picture of him shooting an AR.


Speaking of ARs----I got mine yesterday! I got a call from my FFL dealer last Thursday, and I finally got a chance to pick it up yesterday. It is beautiful! (Well, at least I think so.) I put the scope and bipod on it yesterday, and today I'll add the extended cocking lever handle. I may not get a chance to shoot it until this coming weekend, though. [sigh]

I put the scope on in a temporary fashion--having never done it before, I didn't want to lock it down (with Loc-Tite) completely until I was sure this was how I wanted it. I might want a higher set of bases, and I may want it moved forward or backwards. I think I have it set where I want it--but I want to shoot it a few times first to make certain. Anyway, here it what it looks like right now:



Isn't it just beautiful? :)

Of course, here is what I look like when I want to shoot it...

In other news, I'm going to try the Weeping Water 3-Gun shoot this coming Saturday. Pistol on plate racks, shotgun on poppers, and ARs on 200-yard distant bowling pins. I wonder if I can hit anything at 200 yards? I don't believe I've ever tried on anything smaller than a human silhouette target. And I'm not even shooting my own rifle! I didn't know if my rifle would be here yet, so Chris said I could use his--and mine won't be sighted in time, even though I have it. So I'll try it with his. I'm sure that the rifle will be accurate enough. I wonder how I'll be?

The Weeping Water match is a man-on-man style--so I'll get at least two tries before I'm out. It should be interesting, though--you go directly from pistol to shotgun to rifle with no pauses, and can only move when the current targets have fallen. Those bowling pins, though, apparently are the main things to worry about. We'll see how I do...

April Pistol Match...

It's a little later than I normally post--but hey, my computer is disassembled and strewn about, so that isn't surprising. That is why it is taking awhile for the video to show up, too.

Anyway---this month's pistol match went pretty well! No, I didn't get first. However, I did get 99.907% of the top score. :) Overall, it went well. Smooth shooting (for the most part), decent accuracy, not top speed but decently quick.

One of the things I think I need to work on has to do with how much I trust myself at various distances. I know people always say "shoot only A hits, and the speed will come" but there comes a point when the "A" is going to happen, but you still slow down, check, make sure it is perfect, then squeeze the trigger---and you didn't need to take that long.

My shooting was nice and smooth--but the downside of that is that sometimes when the targets were closer, I could have sped up my shooting and still easily gotten "A" hits. However, I had a "smooth cadence" in my head from the prior sequence of shots, so that speed and cadence is what happened the entire stage. That isn't a bad thing necessarily--but I'll do better if I match my shooting speed to my accuracy level for that target--and maybe it'll be different for the next. "Smooth cadence" sounds good---but the cadence isn't the point. Human minds like repetitive timing, though, so I need to shoot, not time myself.

It was a good match, and I thoroughly enjoyed it---two longer complicated stages, and two short-but-technical stages. I am capable of doing better---but I am not unhappy with how it went.

Three-Gun match in a couple of weeks (well, one week now) and I'm designing the pistol stage. It is probably going to look something like this:

...but not necessarily. I'm probably going to try to alter it so that people have more choices with regard to how they decide to shoot it. (This version---it is pretty straightforward as to what happens. Good stages, though, I think, give some other openings occasionally. So, we'll see what happens.

Still waiting to hear about my new AR-15 from Fulton Armory. [sigh] I hate waiting.