April 2009 3-Gun Match...

I mentioned that I am the 3-Gun Coordinator for ENPS this year, right? So it is my responsibility to make sure that we have all three stages covered for each 3-Gun match.

For this match, Ron had a pistol stage, Doug had a rifle stage (and he thinks up good ones---always something a little tricky in them) and James was going to set up a shotgun stage. I'd verified this with each of them, everything was fine---until it was past 8am and our shotgun stage person hadn't shown up...

[sigh] So Rob grabbed a bunch of steel and two stars, and I grabbed some walls, and we set up a stage. James showed up later, and apparently there had been a miscommunication between him and Terry, so he thought it wasn't his month for a stage. Well, at least this way I know I have a shotgun stage for next time.

I started on the rifle stage, and I'll note that I haven't practiced rifle at all since the last time (which did NOT go well). That would have been the time when I clipped no-shoot targets all over the place, had to add extra shots, etc...

This time, however, I actually did some aiming, and it went well. I did still clip one no-shoot, but it also broke the perf into the A zone, so it counted for points also. Other than that, had all my hits in a really good time. (Matter of fact, the second fastest time.) I ended up with 3rd place overall. Taking an addition full second on my run for more precise aim would easily have put me into 2nd place, though probably not first. (Would have had to shoot many less C hits for first place, even with my fast time.)

But went well.

Pistol stage---was interesting. Had entirely too many C hits, plus one D (which is effectively a no-penalty miss, in my opinion) and there was one steel that wasn't too far away that it took me 5 shots to knock down. Yanking the trigger, I believe.

Even so, I was fast and accurate enough to get 3rd place overall again. So the results were good, even if my shooting was occasionally poor. Not how I'd like to run things, but in this case, it sufficed.

And then there was shotgun. Before I talk about shotgun, I'd like to mention for the record here that I was extremely sick during this match---sinus problems, coughing, couldn't breath or talk--and I'm sure that was why my shotgun stage went so badly.

Or maybe I still reload like an arthritic sloth.

Actually, my reloading IS still slow, because I haven't had made time to practice it. However, my aim is normally surprisingly good with the shotgun--I don't tend to miss very much.

This time, however, apparently was an anomaly. I certainly put plenty of misses out there. Had to reload much more than I should have, due to the many, many misses. It took me 73 seconds to run the shotgun stage---which was only 23 targets. That's over 3 seconds per hit!

Yeesh.

Well, I've got two months until the next 3-gun. And the next middle-month match is the Steel Man-vs-Man match, so I'd better also work on quick precision---which is what I need to work on anyway.

Precision trigger work, and shotgun reloading. Sounds like a good focus for the next month.

Here's the match:


Oh---I also rented Matt Burkett's Shotgun Mastery DVDs. After I watch them, I'll let you know how it helps.