Gryff

We were told in the low-light stage (Stage 15) that if the Newbolds didn't fall, they were a Miss. Therefore, shoot it until it is down. If shoots were going through it without knocking it down for some shooters, then that is a problem at a big match like this. But I had no difficulties with any of them personally. -Jim

I'm guessing that the two metal bars supporting the swingers were considered targets. I know that from your prone firing position, you could not see the paper targets until you had shot their feet out and made the targets swing down onto their sides. I felt terrible for one of the guys on my squad who went completely dry trying to hit those bars. You couldn't help feel for him when he realized that he just shot through his last mag (exacerbated by the fact that not only were Sevigny and Langdon squadded with us, but that we had 20-30 people watching us at any given moment on Friday). An small, but interesting aspect of that Stage was the decision to reload or not before going prone. At the start signal, you engaged two targets with two rounds each, then went prone. If you shoot the stage clean, then you need to only expend 10 rounds (four paper, two metal "legs"). But if you have more than one miss on those legs and didn't tac-reload before going prone, then you are going to have to do a prone reload (those legs were 3" wide, angled away from you, and about 10 yards down range...not the biggest targets in the world). If you are ESP or SSP, do you tac-reload or not before going prone? I saw lots of competitors take the insurance and reload before going down, but ironically, I didn't pay attention when the superstars on my squad (Sevigny, Langdon, etc.) went through the stage. Again, minor but interesting. -Jim

Olhasso took CDP Division Champion with an XD-45. Sevigny shot a Glock 21SF and is 1st Place CDP Master. Langdon shot an M&P45 and won 2nd Place CDP Master. So, the top three CDP shooters all ran plastic guns. I was on the same squad as Sevigny, Langdon, Carrell, Vogel and Warren. Talk about a treat getting to watch those guys (not to mention Randi Rogers - "Holy Terror" to SASS shooters is now the "IDPA Lady National Champion")! I think seeing how those people did it helped me significantly with my shooting at the match. It was also interesting to see how friendly those guys are to each other, but also non-stop analytical of each other. It seemed like they knew at any given moment exactly how many seconds they were behind/ahead of each other. I'm used to my personal style of analysis, which is "well, I know I haven't wet myself on any stage yet..." Our squad did not get run through the chrono (we shot Friday PM and Saturday AM). I was told that the results were too inconsistent to be reliable. And except for 10 minutes of rain on Friday, it was a great match. - Jim