I'm never ceased to be amazed by the shooting community, 3-Gunners specifically today. I'm in another great squad, some excellent shooters like Nate Staskiewicz, Jay Carillo, Mark Roth, and Joe Pitha, but some other guys who are here because they love it. Unfortunately, the only 5 of us who are left to continue on to day 3, are the 4 I mentioned, and myself. The reason I'm again impressed though, is that this morning when I arrived, I ran into Dillen Easley in the parking lot, and told him about the magazine issues I was having. He reached into his bag and handed me 5 magazines, told me to go ahead and run them, and just return them to him at the end of match. I know that might sound like a small thing to people who don't shoot, but at about $125 a magazine, that's $600 of magazines he trusted to someone he doesn't know that well, and who was not even on his squad. In addition, I mentioned that my pistol was shooting low (part of the reason I'd struggled on the first day with it.) He lent me his Real Avid 1911 Pistol Tool which is what I needed to get in, and adjust my rear sight. I took it over to the pistol bay and made the adjustment I needed, and after a few clicks, moved my group up about the 2" it was shooting low. It made a world of difference today. Short version? Pay it forward, help the next guy out, because this community really pulls together. That's not something you see all that often.
Stage 4:
I'll start with the bad, I had issues inserting the magazine into the rifle, and that's the 2nd time this match it happened (it happened a 3rd later) but considering how much time I'm losing on the clock, I need to get this addressed and find out exactly why this is happening. Got my hits, struggled a bit with it, and it's obvious to me that getting more time with the rifle will help me, but if I want to improve in 3-Gun, this will be the single largest thing I can do to get better.
When I started with the shotgun, I again forgot to take the safety off, again, something I've done a few times, and it indicates to me that I just need practice, and more repetitions. I also had an issue where I forgot my stage plan and went the wrong way after I grounded the pistol, oh man....
I did however run the shotgun like a boss, I had a remarkable amount of doubles on the double Texas Star, I ran the pistol well, transitioned well, and had great hits. First signs of life in the past 2 days that things could start to go my way, and suddenly, with running magazines, I feel like I'm going to be automatic with my pistol again, I love building that confidence.
Stage 5:
Sometimes things just come together. and for me, this stage was my highlight of the day, even though it was not "perfect". I nailed the pistol, got all my hits, total confidence on the mini-IPSC targets. Sighting in the gun to hit where I expect it to hit was huge for me. I handled the pistol pretty damn well I thought, then I got to the rifle, had a couple of make-up shots, but it was not awful. After the 2nd miss on the longer steel (139 yards) I took a breath, re-focused and got the last 2. Going forward I hope I just keep going and "get it", but did what I needed to do. Closing with shotgun should have been good, but my one mistake caused me some big problems. For some reason after the slugs, I planned to re-load, but I ended up shooting the first knock down plate. After loading, that left me one round less than I planned, and sure enough, I ran it cleanly, but came up one round short. Once that happened, I went to reload, closed the bolt, remembered the match saver, went back to reload, and overall cost myself over 10 seconds. Dumb mistake, that won't happen again, and I will practice reloading using the match saver, that's what it's there for, and I hesitate using it because I'm slow with it, and I have not practiced it.
Stage 6:
The long range stage of the day, and the match, and I blew it....again. I struggled on the slugs, not sure why I did not hit, and that's the worst part. Got the close in pistol and rifle, but had issues with the clay's that were thrown. Don't start me on the long range either. I managed to take shot at all but one of the 400's. Again, rifle bites me in the ass, and it's going to take me a lot of rounds to do this, even prone, and gun braced, I felt like I had a hard time keeping steady. Yes, the wind did not help (another shooter told me aimed left of every plate), but honestly that's not the reason I struggled, it'll take time...that's all..
Stage 7:
Whew, not the way I wanted to end my day. We can start with the fact that could not properly sling my rifle, that hurt and cost me time. (Guess that's something else that I need to practice too.) Pistol had more make-up shots than I'd like, it was late, I was tired, and that's a bummer. Loading the shotgun from a bucket was not a lot of fun. Then we get to rifle, I was bound and determined to nail this, and I just could not get a rhythm going. I switched to two power one set of targets too soon, my plan was to switch after the big tree you can see. Why did that cost me? I entirely forgot to shoot at the last array, and had to absorb another 90 seconds in penalty for that.
There is a lot going on in 3-Gun, but that's kind of an excuse, I just did not have the stage plan firmly in my head, I let myself get frazzled by slinging the rifle wrong, and I let things go downhill. This stage was no harder than Stage 5, and I blew it.
Summary:
It was great to see Linda and Lauren come out to the range. I loved their Korked Baseball shirts, with their motivational message. Apparently the APD Marksmanship page liked it as well, because they took pictures of Linda and Lauren for their Facebook page, and wanted to talk to them. Besides being able to share some of the highs (Stage 5) and lows (6 and 7) with them, it was nice to hear Linda want to ask the RO's to go shoot a little at the end of a couple of stages. I think she realizes that she can do this, it's just a matter of going out there and doing it, along with committing to some practice. She does that she'll end up doing pretty well.
For me, it's about what I should have expected, and being honest I really ran Stage 5 pretty well, and that gives me some confidence that I can repeat that in other stages, and other matches, as long as I'm willing to put in some work. I shot things clean, the guns ran great, it's just a matter of consistently putting it together, and that will come in time.
I'm definitely more enthusiastic than I was on Friday night, and I realize that with patience and practice I'll get better. Damn, I really had a great time today!
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