Scores in from MWDS 5-26-2012 match

Scores are in and they're pretty much what I figured they would be. I am staying pretty consistent from what I'm seeing. My overall time was 214.69 with 56 points down. Out of 78 shooters, I was the 35 most accurate and the 58th in overall time. That's pretty much been what I've been doing the last 6-8 matches. My accuracy had usually been in or around the top third, but my speed has usually been in the bottom third. Of the 6 stages, I was 58th on stage one , 41st, on stage two, 59th on stage three, 70th on stage four, 70th on stage five, and 44th on stage six. Stages four and five killed me. Both were the one handed stages, so I guess I know where a lot of my time at the range will be spent this summer. Without that hit on the non-threat on stage 4, I move up five places.

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

IDPA match at MWDS 5-26-2012

Had a great time at the IDPA match at Mecklenburg Wildlife Defensive Shooters yesterday. Good and challenging 6 stages. Bit of a warm day with a high of 92 which definitely affected me. I did wind up with a pretty nasty migraine which I was lucky enough to have my wife with me to drive home. I had hoped with the new medicine, that I'd be able to get by, but it looks like I'll be done with IDPA for the summer until the weather cools off. Anyway, off to the stages.

Stage 1 has you starting off facing downrange, at buzzer, you turn to your left and engage 3 targets in tactical sequence with 2 rounds while retreating. After that, you engage 4 more targets from around the end of the barrier. See video below:

Stage 2 had you engaging a total of 6 targets with 2 shots. Three targets you engage from a window while slicing the pie. After engaging those, you go to low cover and engage two more targets. After that, you go to the end of the barricade and engage the last target. Lots of folks went to their knees for low cover. I went to a crouch. I was afraid at my age and weight, if I went to my knees, I might not have been able to get back up. Pretty good crouch for a 44 year old pushing 280lbs. See video below:

Stage 3 had the first of our moving targets. The premise is that you are taking out the trash with the trash in your weak hand. At buzzer, you open the trash can with strong hand which activates a pop-up target which you engage with 2 rounds. From there, you move to the right and engage a series of 6 targets shooting furthest to nearest. This simulates a drug addled target closing in on you taking a lot of damage. Unlimited round count, so you'll see me make up a shot at the end. I wound up getting two shots out of three onto the pop-up in the 3 scoring zone low and just outside the 1. Getting better, but I'm still pretty bad with moving targets. See video below:

Stage 4 had us shooting strong handed. Bleh. I don't shoot near enough one handed and it showed. From the barricade with briefcase in weak hand, you draw and shoot the first target around the left side of the barricade, then, while moving to the right, you must shoot each of the next 4 targets while moving. Each target must receive at least one shot before you reach the next barricade or you must retreat back to the left side and reload. Once you reach the right side, you can set down the briefcase and shoot two more targets using both hands around the right side of the barricade. Unfortunately, I did get a shot through the non-threat  high on the left shoulder. I should have waited half a second longer to get more to the right before I took that shot. See video below:

Stage 5 had 6 targets, from the buzzer, you draw and shoot in any order, 1 shot to the body strong handed, 1 shot to the body weak handed, and 1 shot to the head free-style (two handed). I decided to go with the head shots first, then strong hand, then weak hand, this way I could do a standard reload after 11 rounds with the gun in my weak hand. Well that was the plan anyway. Slide didn't lock back after the 11th round, so it threw me off. Anyway, excuse the video, it stops filming while I'm doing my head shots and picks back up when I transition to strong hand and works fine from there. 

Stage 6 had multiple movers. From the buzzer, you move right and shoot one target with two shots, then two steel poppers, the first activates a swinging target and the second a clam-shell. You must shoot both steel before engaging any other paper, so after getting the steel down, I engaged the clam-shell. After the clam-shell, I shoot another target behind the barrels you can't see, then move to the left side of the barricade and shoot the near target, 3 shots at the swinger, and 2 shots at the last target behind the barrels. As I approached the first target I shot for scoring, I was baffled, I saw only one hole, I couldn't have missed that badly, but the safety officer pulled me in close and you could see the hole was elongated by two shots. I had key-holed the shot. It looked like a side-ways eight. That was pretty cool. Never done that before. Anyway, see video below.

No scores yet, but I'm not really competing with anyone but myself. Other than winding up with a crappy migraine, I had a great time and really enjoy hanging out with the folks who shoot IDPA. Well, that's it for me. Remember, shoot safe, shoot straight!

Saturday at the range 5-19-2012

Decided to hit the range for some therapy yesterday. Worked at 10 yards and my first 5 shots told me how the day was going to go. First shot, dead x. Next four shots, slowly trending low and left. I never really did get all that comfortable yesterday. Not really sure why. I spent most of my ammo working on head shots at 10 yards at a standard IDPA target. Out of roughly 125 rounds at the head, I had 3 miss to the left and around 20 in the low left 1 scoring zone. Definitely not what I wanted to see. I can say that I was picking up my speed a little more, so that my have had me slapping the trigger a little more.

I'm still using the stock trigger on the M&P 9mm which most people will tell you is about the worst thing about the gun. Smith and Wesson did a great job designing and building the gun, but left a lot to be desired on the trigger. Finding the reset of the stock trigger is probably even worst then the break of the trigger itself. One of these days, I may break down and get the Apex  Action Enhancement Kit, either duty or competition. I'd like to try them out first to see how they feel. I'm just worried about a sub three pound trigger pull of the competition kit. If I do the Apex kit, I'm definitely getting the Reset Assist Mechanism as well. That is one of the things I miss about the Glock 19 I had. The Glock had a very tactile reset. You could feel it and almost hear the reset. With the M&P, the reset is very mushy. The Apex RAM kit is supposed to fix that as well.

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

Scores in for CCSC 5-12-2012 match

Well, it was pretty much as ugly as I thought. Total match time was 129.83 seconds which was the worst of the stock service pistol marksman shooters. Raw time was 111.83 with 26 points down. I lost 21 points down on the first two stages which had all the movers. What this tells me is that my static work at the range is helping with my accuracy, but I have no real way to work on moving targets or shooting on the move at this point other than to keep shooting matches. I'm still following the advice of Morgan Allen which is to take my time and work on my accuracy and let the speed come with experience.

For stages 3-1, 3-2, and stage 4, I was only down a total of 5 points. Overall, it was pretty much what I expected. I was pretty slow on my times being the 41st out of 51 in overall time. As to accuracy I was the tied for 21st most accurate with 3 other shooters. Still, had a great time. Couldn't ask for better weather and as always, the people are the best thing about the sport. While they may be competing with you, they love to see you excel and get better.

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

IDPA match at CCSC 5-12-2012

Had a great time at Central Carolinas Shooting Club down in Edgemoor, South Carolina. Pretty challenging stages. Had another two firsts today, one of which I froze on, and one I did ok on, but could have done better. I didn't keep track of my times or scores and they're not posted yet, so I'll update them when they become available, but after stage 1 where I started, let's just say I won't be competing with anyone for winning any trophies anytime soon. I did meet some new people, one of which was Tony Hill who is also a member of the North Carolina Gun Owners website. It's nice to meet people in real life that you've seen postings from on a website. I also finally joined CCSC. I've been shooting there for a little over a year now and I've been meaning to join for a while, guess when I hurt my shoulder, I put everything on hold wondering if I was going to have to have surgery or not. Still not 100%, but I'd say I'm about 98%. Gets a little sore every now and again, but maybe that's just me getting a little bit older. I am working out with weights a little bit more and it seems like I don't get as sore with free weights as I do with the machines, so maybe I'll stay with those. So, I guess we can move on to the stages.

We did four bays yesterday with bay 3 having stages on it. Please excuse the videos, they again are done with my android phone and stage 2 was done from distance so you could see the double charger with the drop turner at the end. 

Stage 1: You started close up between two targets with one a little further away, at buzzer, you draw, and from retention(from the hip) shoot the two nearest targets in tactical sequence (each of the targets must be engaged with 1 shot before any target gets a second shot, commonly known as 1-2-1 for shooting the two targets). Then while retreating, engage the further target with two shots (if you don't shoot the target while retreating, you get a procedural penalty). After that, you withdraw back down the "hallway" being careful to keep your muzzle pointed downrange, look around the corner, engage target with two shots, move forward to next corner, engage steel popper which activate a killer clamshell (engaged target pops up, then a non threat covers it)and double-drop turner simultaneously. After those, you turn the corner and engage two more static targets. I did great on everything except the clamshell and double-drop turner. First shot on clamshell was a 0, second hit the non-threat, just way too fast and truth be told, I wasn't prepared for how fast it was, nor did I shoot it correctly. I waited for the target to come all the way up. I should have been shooting at it as it was rising. By the time I fired my second shot, the double-drop turner was already on it's second turn, so no chance to even shoot that. In any event, not a great way to start the day, but still a lot of fun. Here's the video of someone shooting it. He had a lot of problems with his gun, but did fine once he got it cleared.

Stage 2: You start in a doorway and flip on a light switch, in front of you is a low non-threat target about 3-4ft tall, the light switch activates a double charging target, when this reaches the end, it activates the drop turner. From there, you can go right or left, doesn't matter, I went left, through the window is a non-threat with two targets behind it, you have to shoot the two targets, slicing the pie as they become visible through the window. After that, move to the right, and shoot two targets, one low right and on it's side and cut out like a dog, and one between two barrels. Here is a video of one of our better shooters engaging the course of fire. Again, it's from a distance so you can see the chargers and the drop turner. 

Stage 3: The two "strings" on stage 3 were designed to be revolver friendly. There aren't many revolver shooters out there, but we do have a couple of dedicated revolver shooters and CCSC does a good job trying to set at least one stage that is revolver friendly. The first string on stage 3 has 3 targets, one is upright, one is at about 60 degrees, and on is on it's side on the ground. At buzzer, you draw, shoot two to the body of targets 1 and 2 and one to the head of target 3. For semi-auto shooters, our mags were down-loaded to 6 rounds. We could reload if we missed, but it wasn't really necessary. I don't think we had anyone that missed and I think only one person took an extra shot and only because they weren't sure their headshot was a good score. See video below:

Stage3 - String 2: Standing behind 3 barrels, gun in box, magazine loaded, no round in chamber, at buzzer, you draw, engage two nearest targets around the non-threat with 1 body shot, 1 head shot, then kneel and place two body shots to far target which was about 20 yards I guess. Again, a revolver friendly stage. Minimum round count was 6 and that is what most people did. Poor Damon in the video. Well, you'll see. He's a great shooter and he did excellent for what happened.

Stage 4: Nothing really major here, just a lot of movement. Only thing is at start, you are looking perpendicular to down range. At buzzer, draw and shoot the first two targets in tactical sequence (1-2-1), turn 180, shoot third target that is perpendicular to down range. Come to corner, shoot fourth target that is WAY down range (25 yards was my guess). Move forward, shoot fifth target on the right while moving. Stop before corner on left, and shoot sixth target to left around corner. Turn left down hallway to right corner and shoot seventh and eighth targets behind non-threat. Sounds easy, right? Description doesn't do it justice. I took two videos. One of a shooter running the course, and then a walk-through. See both below.

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