2010 Tiger Valley Team Match

[SinistralRifleman]

Traditionally team competitions have only been open to military, law enforcement or private security professionals. The Four Man Team competition hosted by Tiger Valley in Waco, TX is unique in that it allows everyday citizens to test themselves on stages similar to those at the national SWAT challenge competitions. Tiger Valley Founder, TJ Pilling was inspired to create the match when people on various message boards complained that the best matches in the country did not allow civilians to attend.

The Four Man Team Competition consisted of nine stages. Stages are a combination of shooting challenges, obstacles and physical challenges, and problem solving. Scoring was either based on time with penalties added in the form of time, or hits on target. Teamwork is critical to success; no one person can complete a stage for the team. Because the match is open to anyone with any skill to attend, competitors are required to clear their firearms when moving to another shooting position. There is no moving and shooting at this match. All stages require moving to a designated shooting zone and engaging targets individually or as a team.

This was the second time this event has been held. The 2009 competition was held in late June. The high heat and humidity added to the over all fatigue competitors suffered on an already physically demanding course. Simply staying hydrated enough to be able to finish the match was the challenge. Naturally, past competitors thought with the 2010 match being held in March, the cooler weather would make the match less challenging. They were in for quire a surprise.

The 2010 match weather was certainly cooler than the 2009 match, but presented the competitors with a different type of challenge; rain, cold, high winds, and muddy ground. The first day of the match began with torrential rains that made driving the 16 miles to the range from Waco proper a challenge in itself. The match was to begin at 7:30, but was delayed until the worst of the rain stopped. Competitors hiked down to the 200 yard line, about a 1,000 yard trip from the Tiger Valley command center, in rain and 30-40MPH winds. When the rain stopped, the now soaked competitors still had to deal with temperatures in the 40’s and high winds.

Stage 1 had all 4 shooters from a team on the 200 yard line engage 4 different targets on sticks that were being moved in the high power pits; a walker, a runner, a bobber, and a momentary display target with 15 rounds each. No more than 15 rounds could be fired per target, score was based on the number of hits a team achieved.

Stage 2 was a ¼ mile long shotgun “jungle run”. There were 4 shooting positions where competitors had to engage 4 targets each. The course took competitors through wet muddy ground and sections of water that could be up to knee level. Loading traditional tube fed shotguns under such wet and cold conditions was a challenge for many competitors. Mag fed shotguns had a distinct advantage on this stage because changing mags is not as much of a fine motor skill as loading individual shells. Still, by the end of the course some shooters were having difficulty using their hands because of the elements.

Stage 3 was an obstacle course with several shooting stations. Teams began outside of a helicopter prop on springs. They climbed into the helicopter one at a time to get one hit on a steel target with their pistols, clear them then run the rest of the course. There was a low crawl tunnel, window prop and 8 foot wall to get over intermixed with 3 rifle shooting stations where one team member would engage a steel plate with 6 hits. After everyone was over the wall, team climbed into a snipers hide through a hole 8 feet off the ground. The “sniper” shot at targets called out by the observer as listed in a notebook left in the hide.

Stage 4 was conducted from the top of a 12 feet tall platform. The team had 10 seconds to detonate a tannerite land mine. After 10 seconds or after the land mine was hit the entire team would engage about two dozen paper targets with 2 hits each.

Stage 5 had the team split up into two 2-man elements. One group sprinted 150 yards to engage about two dozen tiny steel rifle targets at 100 yards. The other went into a kill house to engage steel pistol targets, then carry a heavy gear crate back up a hill. The stage ended when both sub-units returned to the start point

Stage 6 had the team go through a series of bays covering about 200 yards in distance. The first 2 bays were steel targets representing pistol head shots, and the last 2 bays were paper rifle targets requiring 2 hits each. The stage ended with the last shot fired.

Day 2 had much better weather, the rain and clouds were gone and the sun was out. It was still just as muddy, the wind was still really bad, and almost as cold.

Stage 1 All 4 team members on the line shoot 15 rounds at one paper target at 400, 300, and 200 yards total possible 180 hits. Score is based on number of hits on paper

Stage 2 Team starts by engaging one steel target per shooter at 100 yards. The team then runs forward 200 yards to a kill house, 2 shooters go up stairs to shoot about 2 dozen rifle steel and 2 shooters go inside to shoot pistol steel. Time ends with last shot fired.

Stage 3 The team is back on the bays from Stage 6 of day 1. The twist this time is that the team must carry a 200 pound dummy on a litter bay to bay (engaging targets in each bay) 200 yards in, then 200 yards out. Time limit is 7 minutes

All told 12 teams competed this year and all of them finished. The team dynamic no doubt kept people on the range in bad weather that would have made others leave individual competitions. Congratulations to the winners and everyone who finished the competition; this truly was a test of mindset along with physical fitness and skill.

Personal thoughts:

The biggest irony of the match to me was this; the sort of people who talk the most about prepping for “the shit hitting the fan” that would learn the most from this competition were not present. Somethingawful.com, an Internet humor website, fielded 3 teams. OTFNation, another gamer nerd/humor website fielded a team. These teams were the bottom 1/3 of the results, but they all finished and never gave up. They can certainly consider themselves better than the internet trash talkers that never put their skills to the test or their egos on the line.

People also like to talk trash about cops; at least one police department was represented; their members taking first place. My team of experienced action competitors got third place; as far as I can tell while we might have out shoot them on some stages, they got us on the physical aspects. I am fairly certain the wounded man carry stage did us in. We were in the lead at the end of day one, and they beat us by a large margin on that last stage. It was a close race in any case. Congratulations to the officers on the team that finished first, they are a credit to their agency.

The more events like this I do, the more asinine I find Internet equipment debates. Come out and prove it on the field. An otherwise good shooter had the battery cover on his trueglo red dot come off while in the middle of the stage and had to go to iron sights; given all the obstacles, running around, and shooting its hard to say what exactly happened to it; but 1,100 miles from home after lots of fine recreational shooting, it let him down.

Lessons I learned to do better next time:

1) Better cold weather/wet weather gear. The cold won’t put you down the same way heat will, it just grates on your morale. Hip waders would have actually been appropriate attire for this environment, select clothing appropriate for your AO. I personally need wet weather boots, pants, and better gloves.

2) While I didn’t feel lacking on the sprinting portions of the match, to better prepare for it next time I will incorporate a 10-minute cycle of sprinting for 30-45 seconds resting for 15 into my workout routine vs constant pace cardio. There was a lot of sprinting to target engagement areas, mowing targets down and moving again

3) Practice moving large heavy things as a team, individually work on upper body strength

Competition shooting is a great venue to learn about yourself and your equipment, and find motivation to better yourself. One need not necessarily jump right into the most extreme match out there, like Tiger Valley, but get out and do something. Shoot the ACTS match in Tucson and you’ll get a taste of what we had at Tiger Valley on a monthly basis.

Results

http://www.tigervalley.com/news/misc/4ManTactical3.20-21.2010.pdf

My team was 0.1184 points behind first place, 0.0513 points behind second place. That's almost within the realm of "too close to call" given some scoring oddities we saw. Results open up much more dramatically from there

Videos:

Stage 2

Stage 3

Stage 4

Stage 5

Stage 6

Edited March 25, 2010 by SinistralRifleman

[Dragon]

http://www.youtube.com/results?search_query=tigervalley+4-man&search_type=&aq=f

here are some video last year.

[TXMXRACER]

For the record,team#10 which was 2nd place were not LEO's. We are just a bunch of normal Texas 3-gunners. I didn't want anyone to think we were passing ourselves off as LEO. Congrats to everyone who finished the match. It was pretty tough conditions.

Shane Guinther

[SinistralRifleman]

For the record,team#10 which was 2nd place were not LEO's. We are just a bunch of normal Texas 3-gunners. I didn't want anyone to think we were passing ourselves off as LEO. Congrats to everyone who finished the match. It was pretty tough conditions.

Shane Guinther

Sorry, someone else at the match told me you guys were. Well done nonetheless. Edited the initial post accordingly.

Edited March 25, 2010 by SinistralRifleman

[Space Cowboy]

Thanks for the report. We shot this match last year and had a great time. Tiger Valley puts on some great matches. Hopefully we will be able to make the next one.

[TXMXRACER]

For the record,team#10 which was 2nd place were not LEO's. We are just a bunch of normal Texas 3-gunners. I didn't want anyone to think we were passing ourselves off as LEO. Congrats to everyone who finished the match. It was pretty tough conditions.

Shane Guinther

Sorry, someone else at the match told me you guys were. Well done nonetheless. Edited the initial post accordingly.

No problem russel,just didn't want people to think we were mis-representing ourselves.

[HiCapMag]

Damn. True grit match for sure. Thanks for the report and the video SinistralRifleman

We had a great time last year. TJ puts together great matches.

Hope to be back next year.

Edited March 26, 2010 by HiCapMag

[Jesse Tischauser]

Keep us posted on these matches BEFORE they occur next time. This looks like fun and its a team thing so I have someone wles to blame.

[wugguswhompus]

I have no idea how this match was scored........plus a few stages were strange......I know I cleared the steel portions on a stage and we were still penalized for 8 ftn on 1 portion......how this was decided...i dont know..............i enjoyed the match.....weather doesnt bother me nearly as bad as it does others. Also I feel pretty good about our performance considering i was the only memnber of my team who had the proper gear.....better luck next year.....................also look for a showing from the USMC CMT. Maybe....

[kellyn]

That makes 2 of us! I have no idea how we were scored. But it was fun nonetheless. Congrats to the winners!

[CavalryArms]

tough match to be sure congrats to all the teams!

Edited April 6, 2010 by CavalryArms

[SinistralRifleman]

I'm pretty sure the scoring was similar to this Japanese game show: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u5V-2PPa4fQ

[Jadeslade]

Nice! Thanks for the video. This sounds like my kind of match. I take long underwear in the summer-maybe my friends won't razz me so much after checking this out. I take gloves too-gloves suck but cold sucks worse. How did you find this? Thanks.