Saturday match at MWDS

This past Saturday, we had a great match at Mecklenburg Wildlife Defensive Shooters. At last count, they had 103 shooters which may have been a record. The weather was beautiful with lots of sun, bright blue skies, and the smell of gunpowder. For as many shooters as we had, we still finished in around 4.5 hours.

MWDS always puts on decent matches and this one was no exception. Scores aren't available yet, but we had a lot of fun. Not much movement on this match, but lots of head shots and some strong and weak hand only shooting. I didn't pay much attention to my scores as this is the first "match" that I've shot since early December and I've only shot a couple hundred rounds since then. This match was mostly about accuracy and not breaking the rules. I did fine all the way up until the 6th stage. Wound up with my only procedural of the day. Everything else was good. No safety rules broken, no hits on a non-threat, and no misses.

I wanted to start on stage one and work my way through, unfortunately, stage 1 was booked, so I moved over and started on stage four. So, stage four had you facing four targets at about 4-5 yards, draw and shoot each target once, then each target twice, and finally one head shot for each target. Below is the video for stage 4. Sorry I missed the beginning.

Stage 5 had you shooting at targets at approximately 15 yards. Starting behind a barricade (like the qualifier), you drew your weapon and shot twice at each of 3 targets, perform a tactical reload with retention, and fire at the 3 targets again from the other side.Again, no real problems here. See video below:

Stage 6 was a sitting stage. From a seated position, you drew your weapon, and fired two shots at the threat target first (behind and between the two no-threat targets), then engaged the other 5 targets with two shots each. Below you can see one of our fastest shooters take care of the "problem". 

Back up the hill and down the hill to stage 1. This was a one-handed stage. From approximately 7-8 yards, you draw and shoot one handed, 3 shots at each target, tactical reload with retention, and then shoot 3 shots at each target with your other hand. This wasn't a great stage for me as I don't shoot a lot of one handed rounds. It was good in the fact that I didn't miss any shots with all 12 on target. I think I was down 5 of one target and 7 on the other target. I again took video of one of our best shooters which can be seen below:

Stage two was the first movement stage for us. From behind the barricade, you draw and shoot two shots to the body and one shot to the head of each target while "slicing the pie", move forward, and shoot two shots to the body and one shot to the head of the next two targets. Had to be cognizant of moving forward in that you don't go out too wide and become open to the far targets. See video below, again, sorry I got it started a bit late. Shooting video on my android does leave a bit of lag between pushing record and it starting.

And finally on to stage 3. This is the stage I flubbed. The scenario is this. You are at an ATM machine taking a withdrawal when you are confronted by 3 thugs with an innocent by stander close by. Your turn, draw your weapon, shoot the thugs in any order, but 1 shot each before following up with a 2nd shot. Then move forward to the end of the wall and shoot two shots at each of four targets. Oh, and they switch the non-threat out for each shooter. Basically they had a pair of hands painted on cardboard and hung it around the necks of a different target for each shooter. Unfortunately, by this time I was a bit tired and had a migraine coming up. Didn't help that my gun locked up tight after firing the first 3 rounds at each target. The spent casing must've swelled up to much to be extracted and the next round nose-dived under it. Slide was locked back fully and the mag wouldn't eject. I attempted the standard tap and rack maneuver, but the slide was going no where and I couldn't get the magazine out of it. After the safety office called stop and we were discussing what happened, I managed to get the magazine out, but was totally frazzled at that point. 

Anyway, because it was a club match and not sanctioned, they did allow me to re-shoot it. Unfortunately, I forgot about engaging each target once before the follow up shots. Turned, drew my weapon, and fired 6 beautiful down zero shots, but not in the prescribed manner for my procedural error. Moved to the end of the barricade and finished with 8 good shots at the other four targets. I believe I was down a total of 2 points this stage, but add in the procedural and it was easily the worst stage for me. Please excuse the video. It was rough trying to find an angle to get the targets inside the ATM bay and still get the 4 outside the bay, but I did the best I could. See below:

Well, that's it for me. Hope everyone had a great weekend. Remember, shoot safe, shoot straight!

**Forgot to add that MWDS is going to have a classifier next month for those who need to qualify or re-qualify. It will most likely be held on Sunday instead of Saturday.**