Minnesota Sectional and ENPS 3-Gun match...

Last Friday (06/27/08) I left home around 6am to drive to Minnesota to attend the MN Sectional Match---7 stages, and lots of people I didn't know. I ended up getting to the range at about 2pm or so, whereupon I wandered around and looked at the stages, and got to know the range a little bit.

I hate going into a match blind. The MN match didn't have any stage diagrams online, so I had no idea what the stages were like. When I got there, I sketched out stage diagrams for each stage, and tried to make up some preliminary plans. I didn't go out on the stages themselves---so no walk-throughs or anything. I just wanted to have ideas in mind of how I would run the stage.

Mostly, this was a good thing. I was shooting the following day, so taking the diagrams back to the hotel with me later that night gave me some time to think of alternate plans for each stage, depending on what I saw during the real walk-through--because the view from the shooting area is always different.

Saturday I got up bright and early, got ready, and went to the match. I had gotten into a squad with 6 other Production shooters, a couple of Limited folks, and a few Single Stack people. In other words, no Open guys. It was interesting to watch other people's stage solutions. Many were similar, but some of the things I thought useful no one else did--which could mean that I'm brilliant and they didn't think of it, or it was so silly that no one else thought it would be useful.

Who knows?

I had squadded myself with the one Production grandmaster, so I could watch how he shot and what he did. It was interesting. I got his stages all videotaped, and he was the one who volunteered to film my shooting when I asked if anyone would. Here is the video of me shooting, and a couple of his stages:

In the end--out of 33 Production shooters, I got 4th. The only ones who beat me were a GM, one M, and one A-class shooter. (I beat the other A-class guy.) Won 1st place in B-class, so I got a new plaque.

Scarily enough, I actually beat the GM on two stages! Of course, more precisely put, he flubbed two stages and I squeaked by and barely beat him---and he smoked me on the rest. I ended up with 79% of his score. :)

Watching the video, I can see two things I really need to work on:

1) Faster Reloads! Most aren't bad, but they certainly aren't fast. And a couple of flubs definitely cost me time on a few stages.
2) Distance shooting. Need to get more accurate. I had only three misses in the entire match (and no No-Shoots or any other penalties) ---but they were all in the same stage! Arg! 2 distant targets, and they just didn't happen. And I had thought I was getting better about distance accuracy! Apparently not.

As a side note: Had I even gotten "D" hits for those three shots, I would have placed 3rd in the match instead of 4th, and gotten another plaque---by beating another A-class shooter. Double-arg.

Overall---the match was fun, I have apparently gotten better, and I have another plaque for my wall. And I now have two specific things to work on before the Area 3 match at the end of July.

(Or the Great Plains Sectional Match in two weeks.)

After the match, I got some food and made it back to my hotel at around 8:30pm. I got some packing and such done, and went to bed around 9:30pm---because I then got up at 1:15am, showered, checked out of the hotel, and drove back home to participate in the ENPS 3-Gun match today. :) It is now 6:15pm, and I haven't had my nap yet. Oddly enough, I'm betting that I have no trouble sleeping tonight.

Regarding the 3-gun match: I won my division. Not much to say about my shooting in it today---the stages were pretty straightforward. I shot them decently, enough for the win. My shotgun reloading needs work.

Nothing particularly new there in terms of what I need to work on to get better.

Of course, it is always nice to win. :)

Oh---back to the sectional match. Running statistics on how I did (yeah, I'm a geek, but it gives me information) ---75% A hits. Need to do better! Especially in Production, those C hits really take away from the score. On the good side---only 3.3% D hits. (6 out of the entire match.)

Amusingly enough, out of the entire day I spent at the range for the match, I only spent 2.654 minutes (159.23 seconds) actually shooting. 2 minutes, 39.24 seconds. I would drive (round-trip) almost 14 hours and pay money to shoot for only 2 minutes, 39.24 seconds?

Apparently, the answer is yes. :)

Additional note regarding the MN Sectional, added 07/05/08: I just ran the numbers (because I can't help but look at statistics) and if I had been shooting in the Limited-10 division, with my exact same setup shooting Minor---I would have won the entire division.

I think I can feel good about that. :)

More Competitions...

Apparently, this is my summer to stretch myself, competition-wise, and try a couple more higher-level competitions.

Tomorrow I'm driving to Minnesota for the MN Sectional Match (after which I'm getting up earlearlyearly to drive back for the re-scheduled 3-Gun match at ENGC), mid-July I'm going to Sioux Falls for the Great Plain Sectional (the day after I work the Rock-Your-Glock match again), and at the end of July we have the Area 3 match (in the middle of which I'm also shooting a WWGC 3-Gun match).

Busy times! (Because the rest of my life is not being put on hold while I also do all these competitions.)

As an aside, hopefully in August we can get Ardi to come shoot the Rock-Your-Glock match. It'll be good to see how she does.

The match this weekend will be interesting--I have no idea what the stages are going to be like. All of the other larger matches have posted stages online, so I have some idea--but not Minnesota. Granted, stage diagrams don't really give you exact knowledge of how to deal with them, but the general gist of the stage comes through and it gives you an idea of what strategic plans you want to keep in mind. (Tactical plans have to wait until you see the exact stage layout.) But for the MN match, I've got nothing.

So I'm driving out starting early tomorrow morning so that I can get there early afternoon, and wander around the range, watching other people shoot. That way I can draw myself some stage diagrams, and do some planning. Julie can't go with me, so I'll be on my own. Hopefully I'll be able to get someone to film me, but no guarantees there.

Somewhat nervous about this---every other major match I've been to (all two of them :) ) have either been at my home club, or I had someone with me. This time, I'm on my own.

I'll let you know how it went....

Oh---just remembered: I managed to get my registration in on time, so I'm going to Missouri in August for a NROI Level I seminar. Finally, I get to take the basic RO class. I've been wanting to for quite some time, so it'll be nice to get my RO ticket.

3-Gun match today....

...was canceled due to excessive rain and mud.

Drat.

I was looking forward to it---it is such a completely different type of shooting/thinking than a normal pistol match.

It had just started raining when I got to the range at around 8am, and then it POURED. Hail, lightning, buckets of rain---just terrible. The canopies blew over (of course) and the range turned into a connection of rivers as the water pooled and then ran across the ground.

The rain actually stopped by about 9am---but the pools of water were so huge, and the mud was so deep everywhere that it would have been a huge, muddy, dangerous mess to try to shoot in. We are working on upgrading the range for the Area 3 match later this year, so the ground is torn up in spots, and the gravel isn't down covering the dirt---so we get mud.

Thus, we tore down the stages we had made, and went home.

And now, it is sunny, 79 degrees, and perfectly calm out---perfect for shooting. Of course.

Grrr. Well, I'm going to the range tomorrow to work on my distance shooting with my varmint rifle again--have to practice for the Weeping Water 3-Gun match in a month. On Tuesday, I'll go pistol shooting again, and work on that.

I was going to post pictures/video of the storm this morning, but decided it wasn't worth the bandwidth. Take my word for it---it was quite a storm.

June Rock-Your-Glock match, plus general practice...

So today was the first Rock-Your-Glock match this year, and Julie and I said we'd help Zeeb out with it. So we showed up at around 7am (ug---early!), helped set up, then ROed pretty much all day. Julie shot her XD-9, and I shot my Glock 34 and my Glock 26. (Stock division and subcompact division). As usual, it was a lot of fun. I managed to get an all-time low score (low is good, by the way) on the plates today with my G34. 15.21 seconds---that was the total time for four strings of shooting, each string knocking down 6 plates. In other words, from a bell-tone start, firing at least 24 shots in 15.21 seconds.

I'm pretty happy about that. :)

Julie had problems on her first plate run---and then for the other three runs, just mowed down the plates. Never took her more than 8 shots to drop them all, and mostly it just took 7. Her last run dropped them all in 10 seconds, which is EXCELLENT.

I didn't get my all-time lowest score overall today, but it was pretty close. I managed to win the Amateur/Stock division today (out of 34 people), so that made me happy. If I had been in the Master/Unlimited class, I'd have gotten second by only a couple of seconds. I got third in the SingleStack/Subcompact division, which I can live with since I got beat by Les and Dennis, both of whom were shooting single stack firearms. Here's a link to the results.

That is the third time I've won my division---won it twice last year, and now once this year. I think that means I have to be in the Master's division from now on. [sigh] Great. I liked winning my division. Maybe Zeeb will let me stay in Stock class since I haven't won three times this year... (Additional note: talked to him today---[sigh]. Master division from now on.)

Here is video from the match today. We forgot to film the 5-to-25 stage, but we got the rest of mine. I got Julie's Glock 'M stage, but she didn't want me to film her plates stage---which is too bad. Her last three runs were outstanding.



In other news, I took my AR out the other day and practiced a bit with it. We have a 3-Gun match tomorrow, and in our last match I won my division because my rifle stage went so well---and I'd like to keep that going. :) I really should have also practiced my shotgun reloading, but that hasn't happened yet. Rifle shooting went pretty well---I've figured out how to be stable while holding the rifle, and moving, and transitioning, so it is working fairly well. (We'll see if I still say that after tomorrow.) For me, for this type of match, I hold my AR-15 in an entry/assault-style manner, instead of a more typical rifle manner--and it works much better for me. The aperture sight is easier to see through, the rifle doesn't move much when I shoot it, and overall I transition better from one target to the next. My ability to hit center-mass consistently at all ranges just goes up when I hold the rifle in a more frontal fashion--near and far targets. I tried going back to standard rifle pose, and the recoil change made it difficult to stay on target.

Pistol will be okay. Shotgun? Well, we'll see. Haven't practiced, so I don't think it'll have gotten any better. On the upside, it shouldn't be any WORSE than normal.

We'll find out tomorrow...

Took my new varmint rifle out to the range today...

...and boy did I have fun!

Initial firearm: Fulton Armory custom shop .223 varmint with a 20" stainless threaded barrel, 1 in 9 twist, Rock River 2-stage trigger
Modifications: ERGO grip, Miculek compensator, Harris Bipod, 4-14x scope, stock weight insert (because, you know, the gun wasn't heavy enough already)
Now, I'd previously taken it to one of the pistol bays and sighted it in at 25 yards to get an initial zero, but that was it. And I was pretty worried, because this is the first time I've ever mounted a scope on a rifle---and I need this rifle to be accurate. Primarily because I'm not.

Well, that's not quite true---I do all right. But I don't have nearly the practice with long guns that I do with handguns. And while the equipment can't make up for a bad shooter, bad equipment will manage to make me even worse. So I headed to the 600 yard range today hoping that I could sight it in and be consistent with it at 200 yards, enough to hit bowling pins. (See the earlier post about the Weeping Water 3-Gun matches for why...)

Went out, took a couple shots at a target at 100 yards to make sure I was fairly close, and found that I was right on for windage, and about 6 inches high at 100 yards. So I then put targets out at 200 yards, and took some shots----and didn't hit the targets at all. Well, great.

Oh wait---I was just shooting high. [whew] When looking at the target holders, I could see that my shots were again still just fine for windage, but about 10 inches high. (Apparently, Zeeb's ammo has significant velocity in my rifle. Next time out I'm going to have to chrono it.)

So I dialed down the scope, shot some more, did some small adjustments here and there, and shot some more...and this rifle is fantastic. Using just a bipod, (no sandbag for the back or anything, just me shooting) I can keep 5 shots within a 2-inch diameter circle firing fairly rapidly. Not slow fire---rapid! Here is an example of one of my targets. Each square is 1 inch in size. (The holding high bit is my fault, because I have a target that looks similar with the group just below the center.)
And then, at the end of the day, I took some shots at a metal gong at 200 yards. There is a large metal gong out there, but next to it is a much, much smaller metal star. I wanted to see how I could do with that---and here is a picture of the star, with my hand showing the group size of 5 rapid shots.
That is about a 4-inch group. Now, benchrest shooters will think that is horrible. (2 MOA for a varmint rifle? Yuck!) However, this wasn't exactly shooting slow-fire from a bench with sandbags. As such, I'm HAPPY! When I shoot slower, I easily get 1 MOA from this rifle, and that is without sandbags. With them---well, I'll let you know when I go out next time. But it'll be even better than that.

I'll note that with the Miculek compensator, this rifle is LOUD. However, with how heavy it is (it weighs a ton) it hardly moves at all when shot---I can keep the sights on a 4-inch circle at 14x at 200 yards through the recoil. Pretty cool, hmm?

Here's a video of some of my last shots of the day:



I love this rifle! Can't wait to try it in the WWGC 3-Gun match in a couple of months...

June USPSA Pistol Match...

And a beautiful warm day it was for the match today! Four stages---three regular (one of which I designed) and one classifier.

And of course, the one bad stage I had was my own. Arg. This is the third time in a row when I have messed up my own stage! (Today I couldn't hit a large popper. Normally, I plug one of the no-shoot targets.) I have to stop doing this to myself. Here is the video from today:

The classifier went pretty well today---according to a USPSA calculator, I might end with with around 70% for my national percentage. (Currently, my average is 68.11%, and if this new one IS a 70%, it'll be replacing a 58%, which should raise my percentage nicely--running the numbers, I may end up with a 70% overall average. Halfway to A class!) Watching the video, I moved pretty smoothly, and the reloads aren't bad (could be faster, but for the moment, they are all right) but my draw is pretty slow, for some reason. Matter of fact, any time I go from anything else to shooting (for example, from a reload to firing, or from a draw to firing) my initial target acquisition is just not very fast. Guess those are the drills I'm going to be working on this month.

Those and long-range accuracy. Plus, the specific setups for the classifier in the Area 3 match. :)

I won today's match, but it was very close. I got 100%, Joel got a 98%, and Dennis got a 95%. I beat Joel on three out of the four stages, then did badly on the last (my own). However, Dennis beat ME on those first three stages, but then blew my stage badly enough to fall to third place.

So in other words, we three are very close. This is good, though---having close competition to push yourself is a good thing.

This past week I took a couple of my Hapkido students out shooting---hopefully they'll be interested enough to keep it up, and try the USPSA stuff. Ardi has been shooting twice, and Josh once---we'll probably go again next week. I have belt/holster/gear for each of them, so next week we'll have them trying some draws from a holster. I should be able to get some video/pictures of that, and I'll add them in when I have time.

Tomorrow, I'll be heading out to the range to see if I can sight in my varmint rifle at 200 yards so that I can use it for the Weeping Water 3-gun shoots. I'm hoping that my scope mounting was good enough, so that it works out. We'll see. Zeeb got one of those stock weights for me, and I put it in my rifle---it weighs 800 pounds now. (Okay, not really, but it certainly feels that way!)

I'll write more with a range report on the varmint rifle tomorrow. Hopefully, including pictures.