3 Gun Nation SW Regional Day 2
I'm going to set aside the "background noise" from Day 2, because that deserves it's own blog, and I don't want it to be a part of actually shooting the match. I've got to start by giving some credit to 3-Gun Nation for finding a way to salvage the match after the bad weather on Saturday. Three stages did not make Day 2, which meant about 8 squads for 5 stages in both the morning and afternoon sessions, which means a lot of people, and a lot of waiting. Handled very well.
Had some good moments, and some bad moments on the range. I finished a fairly poor 134th of 166th Practical shooters, and I think that pretty much describes my overall performance. Of the 5 stages that I shot, and that counted, I had a high time on pistol stage that I shot in the dark, and I timed out on Stage 7, and those cost me, but the reality is, I need to work accuracy, as well as other things if I really want to get better out there. That said...onward!
Stage 4:
This was my best stage for the match, I was in the top 50% of Practical shooters, but I think I lost about 10 seconds for a variety of reasons. I had to get bumped back a couple of shooters, because there was an issue with my shotgun that manifested itself when Linda shot, and cost her an awful time. I'm grateful Aaron Hayes saw it happen, showed me the problem (water in the mag tub had gummed things up, and I had not cleaned it.) and he took the time to fix things for me. Big shout out to the shooter from the other squad who went running for a new spring, and saved me. I offered to pay for the spring, but he told me to pay it forward and help someone else, have I ever mentioned how awesome shooters can be?
In any case, without that "last" walk thru I would normally take, I did cement my plan in my head, and you'll see me hunting and pecking in a few spots for targets, because I was not 100% sure where I was supposed to engage them. Rookie mistake, but when my routine was changed, I did not recover, and it's pretty evident.
Not sure what I did on the shotgun reload, and why I racked the round out of the chamber, and once again I practiced accuracy by volume on the plate rack. If I was a fortune teller, I'd see Dot Drills in my future, because I really need to focus in on my accuracy.
It sounds like big gripes, but it's little things that I can fix, and those 10 seconds would have been the difference between 85th of the 166 Practical Shooters and 47th. I guess my point is that little details can really help me make a big jump on a stage like this.
Stage 5:
This one really hurt, because I made some mistakes, and again, I let myself down with my stage plan. I was in such a rush, I did not respect the steel plates that needed 2 hits, and while I was shooting at them, I was already thinking about moving, and of course I started missing. My splits and transitions thru the ports were pretty poor, not even close to what I did on "The Alamo" stage at the X-Treme match. Poor set-up, lack of confidence, these should have been easy hits for me. Moving down the range I ended up need to rack a round in after the reload, meaning I went dry and did not realize it. (Maybe I need to set the gun and mag's up so that the slide locks back on empty.) Instead of rolling from heel to toe, I was going slow, posting, and just generally shooting pistol slowly.
Now....I knew all of that, no question about it, but I let it get into my head, and dropped the mag and dumped the pistol, forgetting to engage the 2 pistol targets on the other side of the wall. No walk-thru excuse, I damn well knew it, and I just let the other stuff get in my head, and made a mistake. Going from bad to worse, I'd decided to shoot the steel knockdown plates with shotgun, because I love shotgun, and I felt more comfortable shooting shotgun on the move than my pistol. Well, while I was shooting, and missing the plates, I realized I was looking back at the missed paper, so I had no idea what the hell I was shooting at. I had to stop, reload, and shoot, and the time just kept on running.
I nailed the slugs, and while I hate shooting prone, handled the easy, close targets just fine, and had a hard time getting on my sights at the long plate rack. Once I had it, I was okay.
So really, this was a string of mental mistakes, and while I held it together, I don't even want to think about how much time I cost myself. In USPSA these days I feel like I can recover from a mental mistake, but in 3-Gun, there is so much going on that I'm back in a place where one mistake still causes me to spiral down the tubes. I know it'll take time, practice, and experience, but that's not a fun lesson to learn.
Stage 7:
I did come back to the stage that I did opted to not shoot the day before, and this does play a large part in my feelings about 3 Gun Nation, but as I said earlier, that's a separate story. After Stage 5, we had a bottleneck for Stage 6, so I reached out to the RM, and he went over to Stage 7, and got both Linda and I inserted into the shooting order.
This was just a shit show for me. I won't say I was unprepared, I was very much prepared, I just made mistake after mistake, and felt completely incompetent with my rifle, especially after I watched Linda shoot her stage, where she ran the rifle like a boss. Let's just start with the fact that I need to work with the rifle and get better. Bay style stages, rifle inside 75-100 yards, no issue there, but start moving the steel out into the 200 yard range, and all of a sudden, I struggle. I realize it's not PRC (Precision Rifle Competition), but instead of hosing, you need to exercise trigger control, breathing, and know your holds. Things that I guess are either new to me, or I need more time learning.
Next up, when I'm finally done at the first shooting position, watch my pistol on the run to the second position (that is if you can actually stomach watching the crappy shooting I exhibited on rifle). You'll notice several times that my pistol was bouncing in and out of my holster, and by some divine blessing it managed to stay in, and not fall out and DQ me. Aaron Hayes joking thought it was because I got a 6" pistol, if it was a 5" it would have come out, the RO's told me that I must have walked old ladies across the street because someone was looking out for me. I noticed it almost at the end. That issue won't ever crop up again, tightened the thumb screws, and that will forever be something I check on.
I struggled on the pistol steel, and again when I got to the plates, I totally lost all confidence between position 2 and 3. While I know what a good sight picture is, during that run, I thought I completely forgot, and had no business on it. I let it get away from me. That run over was an absolute low point for me.
Shotgun let me down a bit, again, or rather maybe I let myself down with it. I was only too happy to be done with the stage.
Stage 6:
Not too long ago in my shooting past, I would have been mentally wrecked by having a couple of rough stages on things I thought I would do pretty well at. Headed into the "long range" rifle stage, my confidence would have been horrible, and as expected, I would have guaranteed that I'd fail at this stage as well.
While I've struggled quite a bit the past 18 months shooting, I've grown in one spot that I'm actually pretty proud of, and I did it without really thinking about it, or trying. I left the negativity and frustration on the last stage, and I approached Stage 6 with confidence, and I decided that I was going to put myself in a position to succeed.
I did not exactly "kill it", but for me, I did okay. I was 123rd, I hit all the long range steel, and I actually found a groove, and I left the stage feeling like I can do that, and that all I need is a little time with the new Vortex Razor to get comfortable, and start to improve.
Rifle may have been faster prone, but for me I'm not good prone, and from the barricade, I was comfortable. I could have taken pistol faster, but I had seen a couple of people fall (not just stumble) on loose stones that were washed loose on the path, so I was trying to equally pay attention to my feet, and not just the targets, not a recipe for speed. The poppers were done decently, and I handled the shotgun.
Look, I'm not saying it was great, 123rd is not great by any stretch of the imagination, but if I can have a range of 45 as a best to 123rd as a worst, then I'm looking at a finish in the 80's, or around 50%, and while not being "amazing" would be some serious progress. If you look at the last couple of matches, the pieces are there, I've been okay on some in pistol, shotgun, and rifle, and I've struggled in some. Progress for me will mean finding some consistency, and starting to deliver a solid performance start to finish. I'm hoping that Fallen Brethren, just over 4 months from now I'll show it, and I'll keep building a little bit at a time to that point.
Side note? Love the commentary from Jay Carillo and Linda. I felt bad for Jason, he had an ammo issue that cost him his first stage, which would have ruined the match anyhow, and he DQ'd on the last stage we shot. Rough trip to Texas from Illinois for him, but I hope he knows how much I appreciate the opportunity to shoot with him. Even if I debated a stage brief with him, I learn so much about the sport from him, his friendship means a ton. He's a great guy!
Summary:
Match Scores
Some decent, some bad, some ugly, and a moment of personal growth that I'm really happy about. Now just to take that to the next level, and drop stuff the instant it happens, so it doesn't get me for a whole stage, but from match to stage, we'll take the progress where it happens!
I won't rant and rave, or go over all the things that I need to improve, if you watched a single minute, you see what I see, and I know what I need to do. I am seeing progress, not a ton, but progress all the same. Pretty good squad, some different challenges on stages, and the next 3-Gun Major is a couple of months away, and I'm looking forward to it. I'm going to try to spend a little more time with rifle during the next 60 days, and see if I can't show some bigger improvement with it. In addition, a couple of USPSA Major's in that time, so maybe I can kill 2 birds with one stone, and the pistol work will help me show some progress there as well.
Last fall, when Les came with me to the Dissident Arms match, we got this clip of him while shooting the all shotgun stage:
On Saturday night, Linda had an issue with the shotgun, rounds were only going half way onto the lifter, and getting stuck in the tube, after she shot, we found a pebble was in the tube, and I was able to shoot cleanly since I was after her. First stage on Sunday, she had the same issue, and when Aaron came by, he found all sorts of gunk in the mag tube. Apparently there was water in the dump bin on Saturday night, and it gunked up the existing crap in there, and caused Linda an issue. Of course after he cleaned it, I shot it on the stage just fine, and it ran the rest of the match. Short version, and why I bring the Les video up, is we got this snippet from Linda...although it was my fault for not cleaning the mag tube, she was mad at the shotgun in general.......
Me? I still love the Benelli, and I want another. Shotgun rocks!
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