The Screaming Amateur squad started out shooting stages five, six, seven and eight on Sunday morning at 11am, with stages one thru four Sunday afternoon. I was extremely bummed that Lauren had strep throat and as a result Linda was not going to be able to shoot. She had been looking forward to this match for a long time, and she'd been practicing 30-40 minutes a day at home for the last few weeks, just to get herself ready to go. It was a "bigger" match, and really her first of that kind. There is a MISS match next Sunday (Wednesday as well) that she'll shoot, and it won't be quite the same, but she'll be back out there.
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Final Scores
Production Scores By Class
Video's will go up in match order, 1-8 instead of the order that I shot them, so this means, last four stages first.
Stage 1 Kriss Kross:
Jumping into this stage (yeah...obligatory reference...) This is one we spent prep-time on Saturday while working the match, and originally I planned on starting off going the other direction and saving a reload. However, once we got out there, I decided to do it the way I did, and reload coming across. That was actually going backward, but the reload going right kept the gun downrange never near the 180, and it's more comfortable reloading moving right. It was almost a bobble, as I did not seat the mag, thankfully it was a long crossing, and I could tap and get my grip again before I hit the 3rd position. I was pleased with the up-range paper, headed into my first position downrange, I actually forgot the order I wanted to engage the targets, and my hesitation showed. It took me time to re-orient myself, and get thru the position, after the reload, I had the final position in the order that I wanted, and other than a misfire due to a high primer, I ran it the way I wanted. There was obviously some lost time here, and confidence in my end stage plan was lacking. I did however get good hits.
Stage 2 Double Barrel:
This was a stage that I RO'd all day on Saturday, so I knew the times I wanted, I knew how to run it, and guess what? I made a mistake. My plan was to take a step back, and shoot the 4 steel thru the first 2 barrels, I wanted to make sure I did not get sucked into the barrels. I had to take an extra shot or two thru the first barrels, so I dropped and reloaded as I was moving into the 3rd position, with just paper left, I knew I'd have enough for all 4 paper targets. It was a good decision since I did it on the move, even though I moved more than I had to, this is where I started to get sucked into the ports, and then when I ran to the last two positions I got stuck in the ports, exactly as I did not want to do. Probably my worst hits on any stage.
Stage 3 CM 13-5 Tick-Tock (Former Classifier)
Probably my best overall stage of the day. I bested all my practice times, and ran it in 9.19 seconds, and you see me have a trigger freeze after the 7th shot on the first string. In other words, I probably could have done it a hair faster. I also had excellent hits on this stage, and my hit factor was 7.84, which would have been 83% run if this was still a classifier, and assuming the high hit factor was 9.5. In other words, a high "A" run. Ran this the way I practiced it.
Stage 4 Massage Room:
Okay, I'll start by saying that the stage itself was just plain stupid, starting laying down, hands by your sides on a massage table? Really? This turned into my worst stage of the day, and I hated ending on it. I started off rolling to my left, and I tore up the left side, I was accurate, and fast, I went to the right position, with a good reload, and was again quick, but I did have what I believe was my only miss of the match on a paper that came up, it was Alpha, and Mike. Coming back to anchor down behind the table was tough, and a very uncomfortable position. I had a hard time with the steel, and you've seen lately, that's something I've eaten up. What could have been a great closing stage, ended up with a struggle on steel. I'm just not used to shooting from a crouch. Evidently something I will need to work on, shooting more around barriers, getting low, and so on.
Stage 5: Monopolized
This was the first stage of the day for me, and again required some pre-planning so I would not draw until I was safe from a 180 call, and then going backwards again. If you watch, you'll see I was hesitant and slow coming out of the first position to hit an angle target in the middle. After I was downrange at the 3rd position, I turned to run across the range, and realized that I'd missed 2 targets, and hesitated, had my support hand off the gun, and had to double clutch to hit the target. Never should have had my support hand off. I cruised into the last position and did what I had to do. Overall it came out okay, I was halfway decent even on my squad, and it had me thinking positive and confident going into the rest of the match. It's also a huge improvement from a shooter who has always struggled to get warm, and usually has had issues on my first stage.
Stage 6 Don't Open, Zombies!:
Again, a stage I had RO'd on Saturday, so I should have had my stuff together. I started on the door, popped it quick, and started shooting, but I missed the 2nd target twice, realized I could not even see my front sight, and had to re-acquire my sight picture, and start again. I did it, got my 2 Alpha's, and took off to the last position where I did what I had to do. This was not a very good stage for me, but if I had let the mistake get to me, I never would have re-focused, and I did have all Alpha's after that. One of those that in the past I'd have let spiral into the toilet, instead it was just not great.
Stage 7 Margaritaville:
It's obvious to see a quick mistake that I had, at the sound of the buzzer, I looked up, and did not watch the gun into my hand, and I missed my grip. That's a focus issue, I know better. My hits were alphas on the paper, but I shot low on the elevated steel plates. Thanks to Jay Carillo for pointing that out, higher elevations have been an issue, and honestly I'm not sure what I need to do to hit them more effectively. It was only one make-up, but this is something that I can improve. Not a bad job at all on this stage, not quite as fast as I'd have liked, but I can live with my work here.
Stage 8 Surrounded:
I got lucky here. For the first time since I've been shooting, a re-shoot saved me, usually a re-shoot is the devil, and is even worse than the first time. My first run was slow, I hit a no-shoot and called it, but I lucked out that an activator was not set-up, and I could not shoot it, so I was granted a re-shoot, right at the bitter end. My second run thru things was actually very solid. I had a good cadence at my first position, with Alpha hits, the second position, the sound of falling steel is great, but I did slow down with an elevated cardboard target. The reload coming back to the door was not all that quick, I did not show urgency getting to the mag, or getting it back in the gun. I think I was preparing to open the door towards me. My third position went the way I wanted, paper, the activator, the small steel plate, and coming back to finish on the mover. You can see how the mover not working on my first run saved me...and on my last 2 shots.
Full Match:
Summary:
Third place in "C" class (10 Production C shooters were registered), 71st overall and 55% of the match winner. This is major league progress, and I can confidently say that this is the best match that I've ever shot, start to finish. I got hits, good hits for the most part, only 1 miss, I did not touch a no-shoot all day long (at least not that counted!). I had good reloads, good stage plans, I drew well, and I shot safe. I'm not underselling, I'm very happy with that sort of progress.
The video shows things that can be improved, focus, ports, cadence, and the best part is that those things are identifiable, and can be improved with practice. I'm proud of the improvement, but not content with where I'm at, there is still drive, hunger, and lot of desire to improve. This was the coming out party that I was hoping to have. Thank you to absolutely everyone who has helped and supported me in trying to reach my goal, thanks also to the phenomenal squad of shooters I spent the day with, Les, Terry, Kozy, Jay, Rob, both Tony's, Brad, Luis and Mikhail, Linda and Emil were definitely missed.
As a special treat, here is the match video from "C" class winner, and sandbagger extraordinaire Terry:
He gave a whole new meaning to "Make Ready" on the massage stage, costing Les and I a case of beer.
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