Day at The Range

It is the second Sunday of the month, so it must be time for the Lone Star IDSA match, and today was a great day for it. Sunshine, mild temperatures and a slight breeze made for great conditions for running and gunning. This was my first match since the Gun Blogger Summer Camp, and is the last match before the club championship. I was looking forward to seeing if I have made any improvement with Todd's instruction.

After watching a couple matches, V decided that I needed a tacticool vest like all the other folks shooting the matches. I generally just use the gear and clothing that I normally wear on the street in matches, but today I decided to use my new vest and my Blackhawk CQC Level 1 Holster.

I was the only stock single stack shooter today, and I had my work cut out for me. There were six stages, and the minimum round count was 22 rounds per stage. 8 rounds per magazine, minimum of 22 rounds per stage, it's a good thing I have plenty of mag holders.

I shot the first three stages clean with good (for me) times. I was pumped. Then they called the first shooter for Stage 4, JR. This was a tough stage. Half the stage was strong hand only, and have weak hand only. Most targets were engaged from behind cover, a couple on the move. Oh, did I mention the "no-shoots"? This was an evil stage, and I was the first shooter. I was also the first one to put a hole in a "no-shoot" target for the stage, and the first to have a couple "failure to neutralize" targets on this stage. 40 seconds of added penalty time hurt. Over the next two stages I had one more failure to neutralize for a total of 50 seconds of penalty time for the match. One of these days I'm going to shoot a clean match, just not today.

Have I improved? Yes, very much so. I shot 4 out of 6 stages clean. I need to work on getting my mag changes done at the most opportune times, you know, follow my game plan. Focus, focus, focus.

Update: The match results are in and I came in first of the single stacks. That is pretty cool. This was also the first match where everyone, even the Master Class shooters, had at least one failure to neutralize.