As I mentioned, State match this weekend so I am gaming it all week. Live fire tonight. We got the match book yesterday so I went out and practiced the only 2 accurately reproducible stages out of it. It doesn't hurt that neither has movement to tempt me to run. I did learn a thing or two.
First up was the warm up stage. I shot this same warm up stage last month at the club that is now hosting the state match. Out of 70 shooters, I had the best time at 5.28. It goes as follows, at the 5 yard line with 3 rounds in the gun draw and fire 2 to the body 1 to the head and then reload and repeat. Out of 8 attempts tonight my best clean run was 4.86. So what I learned here was that the time I posted last month is currently in the realm of about as good as I can do and I should be happy with it. Get a clean draw, grip correctly, make a smooth reload with a slight pause at insertion and things will be fine.
Next up was the standards stage. After a pretty convoluted one last year they made this one more straightforward. 3 targets one each at the 3, 12, and 24 yard line. Starting with 6 in the gun draw and fire 6 rounds to each target in tactical priority reloading as needed. This is where the gaming begins. In a standards stage concealment garments are optional. I was thinking I may wear mine to make it easier to do a tactical reload between the 12 and 24 yard target to avoiding doing a slide lock reload on the 24 yard target and then having to re engage. Of course this means you gun is also covered, or does it. As a friend pointed out to me, you can wear your garment but pin it behind your back on the gun side so you have an open draw. Dang gamers.
Because of range rules I cant place targets away from the back stop so I had to run each of these distances separately. At the 3 yard bill I was running a bout a .8 DTFH and then 18, 19, 20 splits to come out around 1.75 seconds. At the 12 yard distance I was starting from slide lock and then reloading on the beep and firing my 6 rounds. The reload and 6 shots were putting me at just over 4 seconds. At 24 yards things got interesting. I was trying out the tactical reload theory here so starting with removing the mag from the gun and stowing it in my vest pocket and the firing my 6. It takes my almost twice as long to do the tac load as a slide lock reload. Normally it doesn't matter because you are moving somewhere while doing it. This stage is stationary. So now the question remains, is it better to just do a slide lock reload 4 rounds into the 24 yard target and then re engage for the last 2 rounds?
I did try a final run from 3 with a full size target, and head circle for the 12 yard and a 2 inch sticker for the 24 yard target. It just isn't the same. There is something about shooting at distance that just scaling doesn't account for.
First up was the warm up stage. I shot this same warm up stage last month at the club that is now hosting the state match. Out of 70 shooters, I had the best time at 5.28. It goes as follows, at the 5 yard line with 3 rounds in the gun draw and fire 2 to the body 1 to the head and then reload and repeat. Out of 8 attempts tonight my best clean run was 4.86. So what I learned here was that the time I posted last month is currently in the realm of about as good as I can do and I should be happy with it. Get a clean draw, grip correctly, make a smooth reload with a slight pause at insertion and things will be fine.
Next up was the standards stage. After a pretty convoluted one last year they made this one more straightforward. 3 targets one each at the 3, 12, and 24 yard line. Starting with 6 in the gun draw and fire 6 rounds to each target in tactical priority reloading as needed. This is where the gaming begins. In a standards stage concealment garments are optional. I was thinking I may wear mine to make it easier to do a tactical reload between the 12 and 24 yard target to avoiding doing a slide lock reload on the 24 yard target and then having to re engage. Of course this means you gun is also covered, or does it. As a friend pointed out to me, you can wear your garment but pin it behind your back on the gun side so you have an open draw. Dang gamers.
Because of range rules I cant place targets away from the back stop so I had to run each of these distances separately. At the 3 yard bill I was running a bout a .8 DTFH and then 18, 19, 20 splits to come out around 1.75 seconds. At the 12 yard distance I was starting from slide lock and then reloading on the beep and firing my 6 rounds. The reload and 6 shots were putting me at just over 4 seconds. At 24 yards things got interesting. I was trying out the tactical reload theory here so starting with removing the mag from the gun and stowing it in my vest pocket and the firing my 6. It takes my almost twice as long to do the tac load as a slide lock reload. Normally it doesn't matter because you are moving somewhere while doing it. This stage is stationary. So now the question remains, is it better to just do a slide lock reload 4 rounds into the 24 yard target and then re engage for the last 2 rounds?
I did try a final run from 3 with a full size target, and head circle for the 12 yard and a 2 inch sticker for the 24 yard target. It just isn't the same. There is something about shooting at distance that just scaling doesn't account for.
