Moltke

Oh wait I should say factory, 5th in factory

It wasn't sarcastic, it was a good time. Just surprising how many mistakes I could make in one major (like I had been saving them up or something)

Well that was fun, placed 5th at 3GN Nats

There are very successful shooters who change chokes every course of fire to "optimize" their shotgunning, and others who are also very successful that don't bother with it. If you are going to change chokes then the only way to do know what to do is through trial and error to understand what works and what doesn't. Gun, choke, load, target and distance all come into play during the testing and the decision making before every stage. However if you're not choked up for the hardest target then you're going to have a bad time... so that's really what you need to know. What is the hardest birdshot target and what's it going to take to bring it down? The people who don't want to mess with changing chokes all the time just choke up to a LM or MOD. There are several benefits to doing this such as using that tighter constriction all the time will give you the best chance of knocking over steel, plus you'll always be throwing the same pattern, and your slug zero won't be affected by changing chokes, so you don't have to worry about what to do - just shoot the gun. The idea here is to choke up for the hardest targets and just leave it that way all the time which is easy to train with & prep for but the drawback is sometimes on a really close target the pattern hasn't opened up and you need a more precise point of aim. Personally I've been shooting Remington Gun Club #7.5 shot at 1200 FPS through a MOD choke and haven't left a steel standing all year, only changing chokes to something lesser if its all clays or the steel is very close - but not because someone said to do that, because I went and tested what worked and what didn't.

10 October 2015 I finished 5th place Factory Division at 3 Gun Nationals in Tulsa OK, put on by 3-Gun Nation. The shooting was fast and I made many mistakes, so I think if I had shot clean & to my ability, then I would have placed 4th. Even without the long range shooting that 3 Gun normally has (even at regionals 300-400 yards) this match was an asskicker at 70 yards. I was surprised that none of the targets were un-hittable by the average person but it was a question of "who could do it the fastest" which made it so very hard to run at your optimal speed without making mistakes. I have a whole list of stuff to practice now if I can get it all down on paper before I forget it! PS. Tulsa can be a fun town at night especially with the high population of lonely single moms hunting out of towners looking for a good time

If it's going to be an identical build then personally I would rather spend it on arranging a class with a top shooter at the beginning of next year and the rest on ammo to continue your training and hone what you learned in that class as the year progresses.

Packed everything and doublechecked flight plan / hotel / rental car for 3GN Nationals in Tulsa.

I use a high Larue 1.93" mount as well, and specifically don't use the adjustable cheek piece. 1) because it flexes and 2) because it defeats the point of having your head more vertical "Heads up" is a good thing because the field of view is better when you're not tucked in tight but the point is to "see faster and better" and field of view is only part of the equation. To optimize this you'll want your head as upright as possible instead of canted or tilted because the more horizontal your eyes are to the course of fire, the faster and easier you're going to see your sights, the target, and transition between targets.

What's your power factor for your 9mm 3-Gun loads?

Pro vs Am designation was simply whatever you declared yourself when you registered for the match The high scores in each event for the "Pro" division might be 100/100 on Bullseye, 100/100 on standing rimfire, or 25/25 for Wobble For the average person who's not a regular competitor that could be an intimidating thing to have the bar set so high, so the Am division was created The high scores in each event for the "Am" division might be 70/100 on Bullseye, 65/100 on standing rimfire, or 12/25 for Wobble Here's how the stage points worked per stage Coming in 1st = 250 points Coming in 2nd = 249 points Coming in 3rd = 248 points ... and so on down to the last person in the division Whatever Pro won a course of fire got 250 points for it, and whatever Am won that same course of fire also got 250 However the high score for a Pro might be 30 sec for the 3-Gun stage, whereas for an Am it might have been 60 sec Either way, they still won their division and get the maximum points Shooting a perfect match and winning every stage would be 3000 possible points but nobody came close to that The top Pro shot 2631 and the top Am shot 2684 Even though the top Am had more stage points as an aggregate, its because they placed higher more consistently against other Am's Does that make sense?

Also 24-26 September I shot the Starlight 3 Gun night match which was held at the same location as the NRA WSC but at night, using the following weaponlights mounted on my guns Surefire X300 Ultra (600) Surefire M600 Ultra Scout (500) Streamlight TLR1 (300) Streamlight TLR1 (300) Nitecore HC 50 (565) In total I was armed with 2265 combined lumens and still came in the bottom third of shooters, which for me was pretty disappointing. I learned alot of new stuff about my skills at this competition, and differences when shooting at night, and also had some brutal reminders of things that I already knew - which bit me in the ass pretty good at this event. 1) Too much light is just as bad as not enough. My headlamp was amazingly bright and I could have shot the close range courses of fire without lights on my gun if I had to. However I wouldn't have been super fast. And in fact, with my extra super bright headlamp it caused a white wash effect on my shotgun sights preventing me from easily seeing beyond the gun. Adjusting the HC50 higher on my head helped alot but it slowed me down more than once and the lesson learned only really sank in that it was hurting my times after the event. 2) My 13 inch Armalite is a fireball throwing son-of-a-bitch at night and it is NOT the ideal gun for night shooting simply because of the muzzle brake. The muzzle brake didnt just white out my sights with light from the blast but at night with illumination I could see that it was blasting dust everywhere that I would otherwise not see during the day. I think an appropriate muzzle device would probably be a KX3 or similar option and just deal with whatever the recoil is because seeing clear and fast is more important. 3) Shooting a CZ race gun for a year then grabbing a Glock 19 without any practice or even checking the zero (POA vs POI) before heading to a major was a stupid choice. The gun was shooting very high, and I chose on one course of fire to shoot pistol on some hanging clay birds.... which was a minute long disaster instead of being 8-10 seconds with my CZ. Wow. I either need a race gun with a rail or change my Glock sights & zero the gun the way I need it for competitions. 4) Shooting the WSC and the Starlight 3 Gun was a ball busting, exhausting, and tiring experience that almost killed me. No actually, I was falling asleep while driving home late and it probably almost killed me. Would I do it over again? Hell yeah. Would I want to shoot PM PM PM with Starlight instead of alternating AM sessions? More hell yes. Just changing that aspect and doing PM PM PM would make hosting dual matches much better for next year. 5) This entire shooting match was Open division. No restrictions on equipment, magazine capacities, etc and so I put on a last minute 15rd tube for my Versamax. For the most part it worked fine but it was getting hung up here and there which is not surprising because thats way more spring tension than should be there without any adjustment. However, clearing a 1 second jam here and there was way better than stopping to load 8 for 5-6 seconds. 6) Visualiztion techniques don't change at night and if anything you need to visualize more. What is the target going to look like when illuminated? What about through the scope? When are you going to come off the sights? When are you going to stay on the sight? Which lights need to be on? Which targets might you forget? Where's your footwork going to take you? I made alot of choices with these questions that I would change now if I could. 7) The prize table for this match was sick and even in the bottom third of shooters I took home a bounty of sweet stuff to include a gun, scope, and ammo. What?? Yes. Awesome. Overall, this match rocked my world because I was tired and thought I was prepared - but I was NOT prepared. After learning alot this year I hope to come back and surprise people next year.

24-26 September Here are my thoughts on the NRA World Shooting Championship and why I am definitely going to shoot this event every year 1) The match fee was seemingly high at $395... however that's a mere pittance compared to what it would be buying into any 1 of the disciplines represented, let alone all of them! Guns, accessories, custom work, ammo, long range dope figured out... and then a stacked prize table with the guns, optics, ammo, and accessories used during the match? Awesome. 2) Shooting different disciplines rewarded competitors who had wider exposure to the various shooting sports (that aren't found on Enos) however since all but one course of fire was using modern guns, a high performing 3 gunner should expect to be pretty competitive. Going the extra mile to practice a Bianchi mover or sporting clays would set that person up for even larger success. 3) Some of this match was about luck (as always). I'll pick on the PRS stage because it's the easiest. Those rifles were zeroed so perfectly that without a wind effect to worry about, the hits were guaranteed (front bipod, rear bag, 2 minutes for 5 shots). However if the wind was rocking... then good luck shooting someone else's gun 800 yards with a dope that you didn't figure out yourself. 4) The aim of this competition was to see how well you can apply sight alignment and trigger control on demand. Sometimes it was how accurately can you do it, sometimes it was how fast can you do it, but there weren't any non-shooting tasks to distract you from what you were there to do - get on targets and press triggers. I really liked that this was purely about shooting. 5) The match winner Bruce Piatt regularly placed in the top 10 for each course of fire but his scores at DMR and PRS were statistical outliers from his normal range, coming in at 30th and 56th respectively. As a stage points match it goes to show scoring favors well rounded shooters and you don't have to win everything, to win everything. I came in 40th at the WSC and won a FNH SLP Competition shotgun used on the 3 Gun course of fire. An exhausting but rewarding weekend.

Some stuff to consider 1) The match fee was seemingly high at $395... however that's a mere pittance compared to what it would be buying into any 1 of the disciplines represented, let alone all of them! Guns, accessories, custom work, ammo, long range dope figured out... and then a stacked prize table with the guns, optics, ammo, and accessories used during the match? Awesome. 2) Shooting different disciplines rewarded competitors who had wider exposure to the various shooting sports (that aren't found on Enos) however since all but one course of fire was using modern guns, a high performing 3 gunner should expect to be pretty competitive. Going the extra mile to practice a Bianchi mover or sporting clays would set that person up for even larger success. 3) Some of this match was about luck (as always). I'll pick on the PRS stage because it's the easiest. Those rifles were zeroed so perfectly that without a wind effect to worry about, the hits were guaranteed (front bipod, rear bag, 2 minutes for 5 shots). However if the wind was rocking... then good luck shooting someone else's gun 800 yards with a dope that you didn't figure out yourself. 4) The aim of this competition was to see how well you can apply sight alignment and trigger control on demand. Sometimes it was how accurately can you do it, sometimes it was how fast can you do it, but there weren't any non-shooting tasks to distract you from what you were there to do - get on targets and press triggers. I really liked that this was purely about shooting. 5) The match winner Bruce Piatt regularly placed in the top 10 for each course of fire but his scores at DMR and PRS were statistical outliers from his normal range, coming in at 30th and 56th respectively. As a stage points match it goes to show scoring favors well rounded shooters and you don't have to win everything, to win everything.

Blue Ridge 3G is the same weekend at Rockcastle http://www.brianenos.com/forums/index.php?showtopic=209536

I just received an email explaining this match was canceled and asking me to email an address for a entry fee refund. Very sad.

Practiscore https://practiscore.com/results/b3601457-a598-4627-963b-e34d0c89d74a/index

Over the weekend I shot my first night match doing Starlight 3Gun at Peacemaker, while also shooting the NRA World Shoot during the days. I got exposed to some new shooting disciplines and learning occurred. Yay!

Having never done this competition or anything like it before, this was a steep learning curve for me. I thought the cowboy action course of fire was actually the most fun stage of the match and if I didn't have to play dress up to participate then I would seek out some cowboy action stuff around here. I hope that everyone had a nice time and it was really cool to meet some of you in person.

This was fun I hope we do it again next year!!

We are less than 2 weeks away from this event so which divisions have enough people?

Prepped my gear for the Starlight 3 Gun night fire

This info has been up for a while https://wsc.nra.org/stages/

Looks like I'm way behind the curve compared to some. With pistol and rifle, all shots are sighted and I'm only starting to experiment with a target focus for shotgunning

Over the weekend held another 3-Gun practice day locally and helped the two guys that showed up and didn't mind getting rained on all day

12 Sep 2015 This was my monthly group training day I host at Echo Valley and pretty much nobody who I was expecting to show up, actually showed up. Cancellations for weather and other reasons but I did have 2 new guys come out and their first time was more like a focused training class than a general practice session. I hope that they got a lot out of the experience and I hope that they will be back. Neither of them have a regular practice schedule and neither follow an actual plan, they just kind of go to the range and shoot stuff OR they just go to matches alot. Neither of those things are a plan for success if you actually want to improve. So I started us with an accuracy warmup, engaged in some remedial training, then a movement exercise focused on efficiency, more advice and training, then some shotgun wide transitions and speed shooting, with more advice and training, especially about reloading, and finally rifle positional shooting out to 200 yards, with some very focused changes to how they sit, sight, and get stable before making a quick shot. It was a good day for it being a rainy mess the whole time but luckily we were under the covered shelter for most of it. I look forward to seeing the next match and asking if the training they received today made any difference in their scores while on the clock, but only time will tell.