Day at The Range

I finally talked myself into participating in a defensive pistol match. I have caught the end of a few of these matches while waiting for them to finish up so I could shoot, and they looked interesting. I decided that I would give it a try, see if shooting one of these matches was as much fun as it looked.

This match was put on by the Cross Timbers IDPA and was shot at our outdoor range, JCSSA.

I showed up early and found the person who was running the match, introduced myself, and let him know that I had never shot a pistol match before. He turned me over to one of the other RO's who went through the safety rules and explained how a match was run. He did a very good job of making me feel comfortable with the basics of participating in this match.

I shot the match with my normal carry equipment, a Kimber Pro Carry II in a Milt Sparks Versa Max 2 sitting just forward of 3:00. My concealment was an untucked shirt, as usual. I thought they might make me wear a vest, but the shirt was adequate.

We shot 9 different stages, and I fired 139 rounds.

For my first match, I think I did pretty well. I did not lose, the Kimber functioned flawlessly (as expected), I did not shoot any of the target stands and only had one procedural penalty for shooting a target out of sequence, and one penalty for not having enough holes in a target. All in all a good day. The RO's did a great job of making sure I understood what was going on, and the other competitors were as friendly as I have come to expect gun folks to be.

I may have to add this match to my list of things I do each month.