2013 Crimson Trace Midnight 3 Gun Invititational

[Jesse Tischauser]

Great job Chuck!

[ChrisCerino]

Got tied up at work and haven't been keeping up with the rest of our sponsors. My fault. I'm gonna try and get them all listed this week.

Springer Precision is a local Bend company that started doing work on Springfield XD's. I've watched the company get bigger and bigger over the years and go from a one man shop in his garage to bigger and bigger spaces with several employees. But I really like Springer because they're still responsive to shooters. Scott still manages to get out and shoot the occasional match but he also really listens to shooters. He's helped me out more than once building me something I couldn't get anywhere else. To give you an example, when Magpul came out with the new 40 rounders I asked Scott if he could make one of his couplers for them. I've now got three of them at home and I'll be running them next week at the match. From request to final design in hand in less than two months. (Probably closer to a month). Scott also does Cerakoting and is the man to contact for IonBond which is my favorite finish.

Otis is back again to help us out. They have a number of their excellent cleaning kits for shooters. From the great big shop sized ones to the little zip up kits I keep in my three gun bag when I go to matches.

Rubber City Armory is a new company to the match. Chris Cerino is making some awesome bolt carrier groups and related parts, all coated with their Black Nitride + coating. They look awesome. I'm going to be running one in my match rifle next week. (Assuming the post office comes through). It's a great product and I thank Chris for coming out again this year. On a side note, if you have any training needs, Chris is a great instructor. Spent a bit of time on the range with him at the end of June and came away very impressed.

Primary Weapons Systems...Todd Tuttle is nuts. I spoke to him this year at the SHOT Show. I hoped PWS would come back again since the stage with their gun was one of the highlights of the match last year. I always feel a bit guilty about hitting up people for stuff at SHOT since I know they are there to do business and sell stuff, not give me or my match free stuff. Not only did Todd make me feel welcome, but he dragged me around the show introducing me to other vendors (Like Gem-Tech) and getting even more people on board. PWS will have a number of guns for you to shoot this year. Stage 1 will have a Mk118 18" rifle set up with a suppressor, Leupold Mark 6 optic and FLIR thermal weapon sight. Stage 6 will be back again. Clearing the shoot house with the IR lasered Mk110 10.5" barrelled full auto. And everyone will have a chance at the side match with the PWS Diablo.

Thanks Chuck! Looking forward to being out there in a few days.

[Chuck Anderson]

FLIR has been a part of this match since the very beginning. They are located just across the highway from Crimson Trace and are great to work with. FLIR will be loaning us a very, very expensive optic to use at this match. One that most us would never be able to afford to play with. It'll be mounted up on Stage 1 and you'll be making the longest range shots of the match with it. Not sure how far out yet. I'll figure that out Tuesday night when I get to look through it and see how far away I can see the custom MGM targets we will be shooting at.

FNH USA is another of our first year companies coming back again. This year we have two stages with FNH firearms. Including the biggest guns in the match. Stage 7 will have you engaging steel with the Mk46 belt fed MG using Night Vision optics and IR Lasers. Stage 9 you'll start taking out a car with the Mk13 40mm grenade launcher before hosing down some close range paper with the SCAR. Gonna be a blast.

Hornady is also supplying us with lots of goodies for the prize table. 9mm bullets, .30 cal bullets, .22 bullets plus lots of other stuff. I've been using Hornady bullets for the last couple years, both for my long range rifle ammo and my Bianchi Cup pistol ammo. I'm also having a rifle rebarreled right now so I can shoot Hornady's 6.5 Creedmoor load. Good stuff.

Leupold is also on board again and are supplying scopes for several of the guns. Mark 6 1-6 (The scope I'm using in 3 Gun), The VX-6 Multigun (The one I used last year), HAMR's for the Mark 46 and the new Redfield Counterstrike to go on the SCAR. One of my first three gun scopes was the Leupold CQ/T and I ran that for a lot of years. I played around with a couple different scopes trying to find something better. I spent a lot of money on glass that wasn't as clear, the adjustments not as precise, until I came back to Leupold. Awesome glass.

Samson is a new sponsor this year. We were trying to get Andrew and Scott to come out and shoot this year but it seems Andrew is too busy being a super TV star to make it out. But even without coming they are still sending some great kit out for the shooters. I've been using the Samson forend for the last year and I really like it.

X Products is a new sponsor to the match. For those that aren't familiar, they are not XS Products. These guys make some really awesome drum magazines. A single drum instead of the Beta dual drum. It's more more compact. But they also make them for the big boys. Nothing like a 50 round .308 AR. Boom.

[tavman]

Looks to be even better than last year! I'm looking forward to it.

[Chuck Anderson]

Stag Arms signed on as a sponsor this year for the first time. Apparently they liked seeing Kalani and Jesse's faces all over the Shooting Gallery episode from last years match. You'd have thought it was a Stag Arms commercial. All kidding aside, Stag was another company that came to me to sponsor the match. They're also another company whose products I use. I actually just put together my new SBR yesterday with one of their parts kits. I've always had great success with their parts. Good stuff. (and they even include an extra takedown detent with their LPK's, not that I've ever lost one of those little buggers)

Glock is a first time sponsor this year. They are donating a certificate for the prize table and we'll all be using a Glock 17 on Stage 6. Suppressed by Gemtech and with an IR Laser of course. Those that know me, know how much I like my Glocks. I've played with all sorts of high end 2011's and 1911's. I've tried out just about every Production division gun there is and I still keep coming back to Glock for USPSA and 3 Gun. I carry one on duty, they work every time, they're insanely easy to disassemble and even with the abuse we heap on them in 3 Gun they still run. Plus you can just dump them and not worry about the safety coming off.

Sur-Tac is signing on as our Junior sponsor. Sur-Tac is a local company here in Oregon. They do some really great things with Cerakote and will be making some Juniors guns look awesome. They initially were going to set up the winning Junior with a complete 3 Gun Cerakote package. On top of that they're going to hook up some other juniors and do some individual guns as well. Gotta say, 5 years ago I really didn't care about what my guns looked like. Beat up, plain didn't matter. There's so much cool customization going on though now I had to get in on it. Cerakote is a great way to customize your stuff to stand out.

Carbon Arms will also be at the match and Mark's bringing a bunch of the TWinS loading systems for the prize table. And I'm putting him to work on a stage so you can all thank him as you shoot stage 2. I've been trying to play around with that funky new Load 2 method but I'm running a really old Benelli that just isn't set up for it. Mark's also bringing me back my new Versa Max from 303 Arms. Now maybe I can figure out how to load 8 shells in under 64 seconds which is pretty close to my current time. I've had one of his Pinwheels for a few months now and I've used it, without practice, in a couple matches and even that was pretty quick. Can't wait to see what I can do with a bit of practice.

Bryce Towsley will be coming and he sent us a half dozen autographed copy of his new book. I read...a lot. Way more that my Sgt. would like since I always seem to be kicked back with the Kindle when he walks by. I really like it when authors have an actual background in firearms. It drives me nuts when I read about some bad guy with a .347 magnum or some other silly thing. I'm looking forward to seeing what Bryce has for us.

A new sponsor to this match and three gun in general is RP Advanced Mobile Systems. I had to look them up when I first heard about them. They're another local Oregon company. They take commercial ATV's, Can-Am's, Polaris RZR's and gut them and refit them for military operations. We've got two of them coming for use that the match. One is going to be the Match Director's personal ride because....well because I said and it's cooler than my minivan. The other I've got something even better in mind for, but you'll have to see when you get to Bend.

Last, but certainly not least is I2 Night Vision. Pete Lesbo came out last year and hooked us up with NV gear, not just for the stage guns, but also for the media members that were there so they could film the match at it's best. Even though we completely dropped the ball on acknowledging Pete last year he's back for more abuse, and bringing even more gear. Three stages will have his night vision scopes, including the shoot house with the dual night vision goggles. Pete has been awesome to work with. He's one of those guys you kind of feel guilty calling and asking for more and more, but he keeps saying yes.

That's all I've got folks. See you all next week for some fun with guns at night in the desert. What could be better? Oh yeah, free BBQ every night. Belt feds and BBQ. That'll work.

Edited August 9, 2013 by Chuck Anderson

[sendit223]

I was having trouble keeping track of all the reasons this match is the best of, so I made a Top Ten List

#10 Free BBQ daily

#9 Visible Lasers

#8 IR lasers

#7 Select fire stage guns

#6 Suppressed stage guns

#5 Belt feds

#4 Night vision

#3 High end clip on thermal

#2 Grenade Launcher

and the #1 thing that makes this 3 Gun match the best ......insane prize table. I remember from last year all the rifles, sights, and pistols, but most of all that thermal from FLIR.

Thanks Chuck for all the work, to the generous sponsors, and all the people behind the scenes like Roseann Stover from CTC.

Sendit

[Doug H.]

Last, but certainly not least is I2 Night Vision. Pete Lesbo came out last year and hooked us up with NV gear, not just for the stage guns, but also for the media members that were there so they could film the match at it's best. Even though we completely dropped the ball on acknowledging Pete last year he's back for more abuse, and bringing even more gear. Three stages will have his night vision scopes, including the shoot house with the dual night vision goggles. Pete has been awesome to work with. He's one of those guys you kind of feel guilty calling and asking for more and more, but he keeps saying yes.

Pete is a great guy and always fun to have at a match. In fact Pete and Iain Harrison (Crimson Trace Rep at the time) are what got this match started by putting on the dark stage at the 2011 Northwest Multigun Challenge with CT IR Lasers and Night Vision Gear. From there it evolved from a single stage to a whole match. If you are interested in Night Vision, Pete is the guy to talk to.

Doug

[Jesse Tischauser]

Crazy! I just downloaded my very first Match App on my iPhone. How awesome is Crimson Trace y'all?!?!

[CraigS.]

Crazy! I just downloaded my very first Match App on my iPhone. How awesome is Crimson Trace y'all?!?!

I just did the same too .. its really nice to have the match schedule,stages,rules as an RO or a competitor .

It shows the level of time and detail put in to make this match something great !

[Smokecloud]

No I-phone, have a Motorola Droid with Android stuff, any app for that? I got the link for the I-phone stuff. I'm very excited about this match, its here, its here!

[trickpony]

Can't wait to shoot (and RO) this match. Never quite ready with all the lights and lasers for the guns but it'll be a blast no matter how ill prepared I am

Thanks Chuck for all your hard work! And a big thanks to all the sponsors who stepped up to support this awesome match!

[Jesse Tischauser]

Chuck is this like trooper where we can run multiple guns and reconfigure stuff between stages? Trying to get my kit finalized tonight before I zero all my sweet Crimson Trace lights and lasers tonight.

[Jesse Tischauser]

How late can we test fire and/or walk stages Thursday night?

[MarkH]

This just in:

"All-

Greetings from Bend, Oregon, as we're in final preparations for your arrival here at the 2nd Annual M3GI Event!

I have some late-breaking news that we're not very excited about, but need to let each of you know:

As of last night (August 13th), it was determined that the Rail Master Pro™ (laser and light combination for rails) prototypes we intended to give you will not be available. Our engineering staff worked around the clock for the past 6 weeks in an effort to have it ready for you to play with. Unfortunately, that timeline proved to be too aggressive (it won't be available to the public until October) and we just couldn't make the final adjustments to feel confident you would have a user experience that was 100%.

Instead, we will be providing you a Rail Master Green Laser AND a Rail Master Light. These are two of our top 5 selling products and will functionally fulfill the promise we made you for a rail mounted laser and light.

Again, we sincerely apologize for the "game time decision". As the industry leader, we at Crimson Trace hold ourselves to a pretty high standard and we hope you understand.

Enjoy the new products we're providing for you to shoot the match and we hope one of you will accept a big, cardboard, $10,000 check from us on Sunday!

See you soon,

Kent Thomas"

[sendit223]

They are shooting RIGHT NOW.....lasers, night vision, grenade launchers....the rest of us will be on in 48 hours!!!

Sendit

[Chuck Anderson]

How late can we test fire and/or walk stages Thursday night?

You can be out there tonight till about 8:30 to walk them. Staff will start shooting about 9 and need a bit of time for setup.

You can change/reconfigure kit every stage if you want. We had one guy try that to get a functional shotgun. But only one gun per type, per stage. You can't lay a half dozen shotguns all over the range.

[Jesse Tischauser]

How late can we test fire and/or walk stages Thursday night?

You can be out there tonight till about 8:30 to walk them. Staff will start shooting about 9 and need a bit of time for setup.

You can change/reconfigure kit every stage if you want. We had one guy try that to get a functional shotgun. But only one gun per type, per stage. You can't lay a half dozen shotguns all over the range.

Thanks Chuck. That last part sounds like a fun idea for a match!

[Heshin]

I feel like a little kid waiting for Christmas! Can't wait to hit the road tomorrow, this is gonna be an awesome match!

[coctailer]

I'll race you there!!

I'm leaving Portland at around 9am. Lucky Staff are shooting the match right now!!

[MarkCO]

Done! Fast, fun and great people. Thanks Crimson Trace, Chuck, Travis and all the sponsors, media and participants coming out.

[Jesse Tischauser]

Stages look fast and furious!!! Can't wait for tonight and an afternoon nap.

[kyojin]

Great match! Was awesome being able to shoot weapons I never would have access to otherwise. Thanks to Chuck, Travis, Crimson Trace, RO's, and all the great sponsors.

[raysracer]

Million thanks to Chuck and Crimson Trace. This is by far the best and most over the top match I've ever been to! Thanks to all the sponsors.

I'm going to need a new "shooting bucket list". Grenade launcher, SAW, suppressed, NVG, and of course, the "awesome" selector switch using someone else's ammo.

[coctailer]

AAR and constructive criticism.......

I was a bit worried that this match wouldn't be as well run as last year. (They set the bar high with the awesome match last year)

I was stoked to enjoy a match that was EVEN SMOOTHER than last year!!

We finished way earlier. Stages ran faster. The ROs were "Night Match Veterans" so they were less stressed (Or so they seemed) and they ran each stage with more efficiency.

I need to send a bill to Jerry Miculek for rental on my knife. :-)

I shot 2 stages on the first day like a BOSS, and 3 stages like a MORON. Even on my crappy stages, I was still smiling because it was so much fun.

I DQed on the first stage on the second day. Stupid me snagged my light from my rifle on a banner as I was moving to a second position and it swung the muzzle riiiiiiiiiiiiight to the 180 mark. I wasn't pissed, and it was a good call by the RO to stop me.

I agreed with the judgement by Travis, but told them I'm sticking around to tape and set for the rest of the match.

Prize table and free stuff was great like last year. The food was perfect like last year.

The constructive criticism part:

A: More steel, and less paper to tape will help speed up reset on stages.

B: A designated "unload area" facing away from down range and into the berm sideways will speed up reset so people can tape while the shooter is unloading. Some stages had this already.

C: The advertising banners were illuminated by the blue lights too much. They would be better on the berms. Still visible, but not illuminating the targets. It should be dark wherever we are shooting.

D: An ice chest with water at each stage will keep the ROs and shooters from running to the ice chests in the tent for hydration.

E: Wood floor in the tent was awesome.

For the shooters:

A: USE THE CRIMSON TRACE LASERS AND LIGHTS!!! (or whatever lights/lasers you own) they are free for the competitors, and help massively.

Some of the new invitees ran their guns without the lasers, aaaaaand SOME of them regretted it after they watched the dudes from last year that knew how much they helped in the blacknessness.

B: Get rid of the bipods, and anything that adds extra weight. You Practical Rifle shooters will want to dump some "must be attached at the start signal" stuff.

C: Light and/or Laser will make you faster. I have always poo-poo'ed lasers in the past. Last year I learned that they reeeeeeeeally help for night matches and would be a supreme asset for personal defense in real life.

For the ROs:

A: Nothing to say. Perfection is the word I would use for you guys. All other shooting sports should take lessons from you.

For the Match:

A: Wherever I am working or positioned in the world, I WILL MAKE THIS MATCH every year!!

For Roseann:

Thank You. You RULE.

[trevoro]

If I could only shoot one match a year, it would be this one. The only downside is that I'm going to have a hard time getting excited about the monthly USPSA match now. Everything else I've shot just pales in comparison to grenade launchers and full-autos with night vision IR lasers and thermal scopes. This match is a once in a lifetime thing for me that I've been lucky enough to participate in twice!

Seriously awesome stuff!

Thank you to Chuck, Crimson Trace (a firm believer ever since last year's match) and everyone else involved in pulling it off. It was the highlight of the year for me - right up there with my daughter taking her first steps. ; )