Took a break from USPSA this weekend to shoot a non-USPSA steel match. (Been shooting USPSA for about 18 months and closing in on my "C" card.) So, I'm shooting this local steel match and doing pretty well through the first five stages and right on through to the last two shots of the sixth and final stage. That’s when I suffered an epic meltdown on the last two targets of the match.
The final stage consisted of 30 roughly-square 6” plates arrayed in a shallow arc at distances from about 30 to 45 feet from the starting table. I was shooting my Production 9mm M&P FS with red fiber optic front, black Dawson rear, and 115 grain Blazer aluminums (my usual gun and load). The stage was going nice and smooth, deliberately unrushed, and I put the first 28 plates down with 31 shots. No hosing.
So, now I’m down to my last 9 shots in my fourth mag. I acquire what I believe is an excellent dead-center sight picture on the deepest far left plate, and… Bang!/Miss!, Bang!/Miss!, Bang!/Miss!
Huh? Wha? Oh, well… I swivel to my right and acquire what I believe is an excellent dead-center sight picture on the deepest far right plate, and… Bang!/Miss!, Bang!/Miss!, Bang!/Miss!
What the...??!! I’m now down to my last two shots and don’t wish to prolong the agony with a reload, so I take an agonizingly slow and perfect sighting of the same right plate and finally clang it down. I swivel left and perform the same painfully slow procedure on the left plate which clangs down as I go to merciful lockout. And so, my fellow Americans, what should have been an acceptable 60-second run collapsed into a 103-second ordeal.
What the heck happened to me?
