Shot the local USPSA match this Saturday. Out of 26 shooters, I won with Jeff Bailey coming in second and Adam Mann coming in third.

Stages

Adam Mann and Charlie Wotkyns designed the stages for this match, and they did a great job. They were some of the most fun stages we’ve had at the club. We had an all-steel stage (“Scholtzen Steel”), a stage where we put up basically all of our moving targets (“Frankenstein”), a run-n-gun hoser stage (“The Walking Dead”), an El Presidente drill, a scenario based shoot (“Maverick Madness”, where you supposedly have to fight off a gang that invades a c-store), and  a stage where you had to work your way around a crapload of walls and through ports (Man the Barricades).

Impromptu Match-Directing

Normally my Dad acts as the match director and stats guy. However as he was terribly sick the day before, and didn’t expect to shoot, he gave me the rundown on the scoring system (Ios devices loaded with PractiScore) and sent me off.

I had to build the stages on the device when I got there (Adam and Charlie hadn’t written up any stage diagrams), then transfer them to all the other devices (there were three squads). All this went fairly smoothly although I missed a few things in the stages (disappearing targets, wrong target count, etc.) that caused confusion among the other squads, so I had to run back and forth the correct them. Not that big a deal but it did delay my squad from starting it’s first stage.

Stage issues

I took the squad where we start all of the new competitors (I had given them a class the previous night). I accidentally had us start on “Frankenstein”, where their unfamiliarity with some of our gimmicky targets caused a few reshoots (combined with un-calibrated steel). We took a good hour to finish that stage, but after that everything ran smooth.

My Performance

Even though I won the match, I could have done much better. I was fortunate that due to taping targets before they were scored I had a reshoot on “Frankenstein”, because I was rushed into shooting it after dealing with scoring issues on the other squads. I did well on the reshoot, 16.96 with no penalties. The next fastest was Adam Mann at 20.43.

“Frankenstein”. Look at all that crazy crap!

After about an hour on that stage we moved to “National Command Authority”. Basically an El Prez drill with two strings, one started facing uprange and one facing downrange. I screwed up my reload on string one, which knocked me down to third on that stage.

Next up, The Walking Dead. The new competitor squad got a real kick out of this stage, because they got to shoot fast. On the run. Around/over obstacles. I did pretty well but had a miss on the first array. Had trigger freeze while I was running by and I didn’t want to take an extra second to run back. Still, I finished the stage with a smile on my face! Even with the miss, I managed to pull out second place. I guess I was fast!

The next stage, the scenario shoot, was a load of fun, especially for an 18-round stage.

“Maverick Madness” has the shooter start off holding a pair of milk jugs in either hand. At the signal, put the jugs on the table behind you (must stay upright or 10 point penalty) and engage all targets from within the shooting area. Nine targets, all obscured behind a sea of no-shoot targets.

Being the gamer that I am, I started holding both the jug handles in my left hand, with my right hand loosely holding the body of one jug. On the start signal I drew with my strong hand, put the jugs down with my weak hand while shooting the first two targets one-handed. It worked, I had the fastest time in the whole match on that stage. Unfortunately one of the jugs tipped over when I put it down, so I got the 10 point penalty, putting me back in third.

Next stage, “Man the Barricades” was fairly straightforward, start behind a barricade, shoot three targets, head up and shoot some long-ish shots through a port, four hoser targets after that, then a big lean around a wall to pop the last four paper. I won this stage because I didn’t actually screw anything up. No misses, procedurals, dropped mags, etc. And I was fast.

Our last stage, “Scholtzen Steel” (the name of a steel supplier here in St. George), was a great stage to end on. All steel, 20 rounds. 15 Pepper poppers and a Texas Star. I won this stage, no penalties in 11.45 seconds. That was a very fast run for Limited division. I had a bit of an equipment advantage in that I have a Rescomp 21 round magazine, while most Limited division magazines only hold 20. With one in the chamber, there’s only room for one makeup shot or else you have to reload on the clock. I didn’t need it though, I only took one extra shot at a popper, and went one-for-one on the star.