Night Shoot
Saturday night was an interesting experience for me. I headed out to Copperhead Creek for a night match that was put on by AR-15 Targets, and had one heck of a good time. 55 shooters divided into carbine, pistol light mounted, pistol light unmounted were signed up and ready to roll. STI gave away a gun, Heli-gunner gave away a night shoot ride, there was a night vision monocular given away, and there was a special stage that was a ton of fun. The special stage was with a suppressed full auto AR, shooters were given a helmet with a single night vision optic, and the gun had a laser mounted to it. See the laser thru the optic, shoot four steel targets at say 40-60 yards, then do a full auto mag dump on a close paper target. Having never seen the equipment much less shot it, I thought it was completely awesome!
The match itself had some good and bad for me. I finished 5th among 15 shooters who were shooting pistol mounted. I cost myself all my penalty points on one stage, with a serious error, and had that not happened, I would have finished 2nd in division. Short version is that I had just bought a Streamlight TLR-1 HL flashlight, put it on the gun, and did the barest minimum with it before heading to the range. On the 2nd stage I shot, which was a memory stage because there were multiple shoot thru's to no-shoot targets, so certain targets could only be taken from certain angles I made a mistake. I double hit the switch, and turned on strobe light mode, it took me half a second to figure out what I did, and make the decision to try to shoot anyhow. I'm sure a baller would have been fine, but I was thrown by the unexpected, and while I had a great raw time, I lost 20 seconds for hitting no shoot targets. The bottom line, which I know and just did not prepare for, is that you should always know you gear. I should have known the flashlight had a strobe mode, I should have known how to turn it on, and how to turn it off. Dumb preparation mistake for me.
My other mental mistake was on the final stage, I knew it took 20 rounds, and I knew I had 18 rounds in the magazine, my plan was to shoot the first two arrays, (6 targets) and then reload while getting into position for the final array. Inexplicably, I did not reload, and went dry on the last target, I should have taken a penalty, because I was dumbfounded, and wasted several seconds looking at my gun, then once I reloaded I had failure to feed, and had to drop the mag, put in another mag, and take my last two shots. In total, I had 20 seconds in between my final two targets. Just a dumb mental mistake on my part, and something I know better. I'm definitely frustrated because I'm better than that kind of a mistake, and when it happens I know what to do, and standing there with a dumb look on my face looking at my gun is not it.
So what went right? Well, I shot the match cleanly, I had no misses. Scoring with one "A" zone hit, or simply 2 on the paper makes it pretty easy, but being the first time I shot in the dark, I'll take that. No slow feet, I ran, I hustled, and I focused on getting into position with the gun ready to go as soon as I hit the spot, and I made sure I aggressively got out of positions. Eliminate the 2 mistakes that I was responsible for, and I would have finished 11th overall, and 2nd in my division. Instead 5th, and and 22nd overall. The layoff reared it's ugly head, but I'm definitely passionate about getting out there. It felt amazing to get out and shoot with confidence, my accuracy was, in reality, USPSA good, no "D" shots that I saw, and most often 2 closely grouped shots with a great shooting cadence.
I have not forgotten about Part 2 of my shooting offseason plan, I'm finishing up the entire plan, got some feedback from Les, and am looking to make the most of the 2015 season. I should have that done and posted by the end of the week.
