2nd IDPA match - What a blast!

Had my second IDPA match today at Central Carolinas Shooting Club in Edgemoor, SC today. Weather was great. Not too hot, nice breeze blowing. This is especially important for me. I believe I had a heat related illness in the early 90's which really causes me to now have issues when I'm outside and in the sun. Doesn't really matter if it's hot or cold, but it's worse when it's HOT. I usually wind up with a migraine which can knock me down for anywhere from four to six hours. So far, so good. No migraine yet. I stayed very hydrated with water and Gatorade, kept a wet towel around my neck, and attempted to stay in the shade as much as possible. Anyway, now on to the match.

CCSC had five courses of fire in their four berm protected areas today. Berm 3 had 2 courses of fire which you would run consecutively. I do have some pictures of the COF's, but from a camera phone, you can't expect much.

Course one was another first for me.  My first steel targets. I didn't get end stage pictures of COF1 as they were still putting it together as I was getting my pics done. Basically, you had four targets to engage in tactical sequence (each target gets one shot before the targets can be shot a second time). In these four, you had paper, steel, paper, and steel. You could shoot them, left to right, or right to left. Didn't matter. Only issue for me is that the two paper targets were turned on their sides and cutout like dogs. For some reason, I just don't seem to shoot those well. After those four were engaged, you had to move to another position and knock down a target which engaged a drop turner. My first drop turner! I was only down 1 on the drop turner and boy was it fast. After that, you engaged  engage four more targets as they become visible in ranges from about five to 25 yards. On this COF, I shot it in 33.69 seconds with 11 points down.

COF2 also had a drop turner.You started up against four barrels facing downrange. At tone, you engage all the targets as they become visible to you from cover. I was first up on this one which I didn't like, but what the heck. I showed folks how not to shoot it. I engaged my targets going left first. The reason I did this is that there was a drop turner activator to the right which I wanted to save for my last shots. Now one thing I thought I did at the last match was when I was engaging targets from the left behind cover, that I closed my right eye and used my left eye to aim. Not good when that happens. I found myself doing the same thing again. I figured that out and engaged my targets around the left side, a couple pretty far out, maybe 25-30 yards. Engaged as many as I could see, came back to right, engaged the last paper target, then the activator for the drop turner. Hit the drop turner with no issues. What I didn't realize was that it was a double drop, it would be visible twice. This COF turned out to be my worst. I was down sixteen points, but ten of those points were on the furthest target. This is the one I think I shot left eyed. I hit it three times, but one shot was in the three zone, and the next two were outside of scoring (just nicked the target). That gave me a miss (down five), and a failure to neutralize (down five). So that one target cost me ten points down or over twenty-five percent of my total down points. This COF I shot in 33.42 and down sixteen total points.

COF3 was pretty simple. Another first here. I got to shoot a snubby five-shot revolver. You had five targets that you had to engage from a sitting position using the revolver with a "no shoot" covering two of the targets. Oh, the revolver was in a box too, so you had to drop the magazine you were "reading", take the revolver out of a wooden box, and engage the targets with one shot each without hitting the "no shoot". I didn't do too badly here, but I lost some time. Three of the targets were pretty easy to hit, but the two behind the "no shoot" presented a bit of a problem. The one to the right I could get the 0 zone fairly easily, but when I leaned to engage the one to the left, I just couldn't take the shot, so I elevated and gave it a head shot. I lost at least two seconds trying to find the 0 zone on that target. COF3 I shot in 10.83 seconds with two points down.



COF4 would be my best of the day, which is odd because I had another really long shot of about twenty-five to thirty yards. This COF you were standing at the apex of an inverted V. To the right were 3 targets you had to shoot through a "window". One was the long shot, and two were covered by a "no shoot". After those three, you had to engage another leaning target with "hard cover" (hard cover is when they paint the target black and any rounds in the black count as a miss). After that, you had to engage one more paper target and last was another steel popper. I shot this in 31.33 seconds and only one down.

Finally, COF five had you engage a total of eight targets. You had to draw, move forward to cover and engage two targets to the left. From there, you moved up to a "wall" on the left and engage two more visible targets, then move to the right of the "wall" and engage four more targets as they become visible. The first two targets were fairly close at five to seven yards, but the other six were probably fifteen yards or longer. Seemed that way anyway. This COF I did in 34.90 seconds and down eight points.

Anyway, if I figured the scoring correctly (certainly not official here), I shot the COF's in 163.17 and down 38. So, did I improve. Maybe. One less COF, but I didn't hit a "no shoot" and still no safety issues. Still, I had a lot of fun, so it was definitely worth it.

That's it for me. Remember, shoot safe, shoot straight!