Neil Beverley Posted November 1, 2004 Share Posted November 1, 2004 Inspired by a discussion in the rules section I thought I would relate a little story about a very selective invitation only match from days gone by in the UK. Each year a certain club would put on a "special". Only about 30 shooters ever got to shoot the match per year. The basic rules were no wimps or whiners. No cheating b*stards. Only turn up if you expect to help. Conceal carry only. Real guns only. Men were men and sheep were grateful. I'm sure you get the picture. Every stage was a surprise stage. No walkthroughs. Very little by way of briefings. One year I recall there was a stage that was set up which only included No Shoot targets. Not a single scoring target. At that time they were coloured camouflage targets, the squared off variety that preceeded the Metric Target. Out of 28 competitors only 2 entered the range and (correctly) didn't fire a shot. Everyone else drilled at least one target. A lot of red faces as a result. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Vince Pinto Posted November 2, 2004 Share Posted November 2, 2004 Damn. If you and I were both American, I'd ask the Attorney General to invoke the 8th Amendment against you for "cruel and unusual punishment" for the "all Penalty Target" stage. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
rhino Posted November 2, 2004 Share Posted November 2, 2004 Neil, sounds like a good time! My original USPSA club back in the mid 90s used to have surprise stages frequently and they were the most fun of all. If I had my way, all stages would be surprise stages! That way you have to assess, think, and act on the fly! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
TheOtherErik Posted November 2, 2004 Share Posted November 2, 2004 At the Crazy Croc match in Dundee, OR they have their jungle run stage every year. No walk through. They only tell you the number of targets. What a total blast! 50 or so rounds of running and gunning down a path in the forrest. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
wide45 Posted November 2, 2004 Share Posted November 2, 2004 We used to run a suprise shotgun side match, on the sporting clays trail in the woods. The first one was a few hundred yrds. Nobody died, but we learned to make them a little shorter. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Paul B Posted November 2, 2004 Share Posted November 2, 2004 In my part of the country, every once in a while some one will put on what they call a "driveby" stage. It entails the shooter buckled into a seat in the bed of a pickup truck or a trailer and towed through a fairly long course of fire shooting targets out the rear as they appear. It is rarely less than 50 rounds and the target placement is so far from the "crowd" that no one can put together a map of the course. Additionally the shooter sits inside walls that limit the field of vision (and the field of fire) so it is hard for them to even remember where all the targets are. These stages were usually run on logging type roads at a fixed but challenging speed and the pressure to get every target and keep reloading the gun is amazing. When you are done there are empty cases and mags all over the pickup bed. Love to do another one of these. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
SiG Lady Posted November 2, 2004 Share Posted November 2, 2004 God, that sounds like a blast!! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Vince Pinto Posted November 2, 2004 Share Posted November 2, 2004 Every stage was a surprise stage. No walkthroughs. Very little by way of briefings. The only problem is that they're not surprise courses to the guys who actually design and/or build them. So, unless your setup crew aren't competitors, they either don't get to enjoy the fruits of their labours or they have a huge advantage if they do shoot them. This is why they're fun at low level matches like the one you described, but they're open to abuse at major matches. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
wide45 Posted November 2, 2004 Share Posted November 2, 2004 For our sidematch, we'd tote the targets out to the woods. In the morning, one guy would set it up and run it. No one else was allowed up the trail until they had shot it. Listening for the shots was not so helpful. One time I heard a competitor fire two shots shortly after the start. I figured there were two targets just up the trail. Turns out he had seen one target and missed with the first shot. I lucked out, because he never saw the second target, next to the first one. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Neil Beverley Posted November 2, 2004 Author Share Posted November 2, 2004 Every stage was a surprise stage. No walkthroughs. Very little by way of briefings. The only problem is that they're not surprise courses to the guys who actually design and/or build them. So, unless your setup crew aren't competitors, they either don't get to enjoy the fruits of their labours or they have a huge advantage if they do shoot them. This is why they're fun at low level matches like the one you described, but they're open to abuse at major matches. There were usually just 2 or 3 guys who built the match and they didn't shoot it. They got their kicks out of being devious. A shotgun venue I used to shoot at used to regularly put on a surprise stage to follow the course of a steep sided gully so not visible other than from on the course. The range owner would run the RO for the stage as competitor No. 1 and then the RO would take over and this worked fairly well. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Neil Beverley Posted November 2, 2004 Author Share Posted November 2, 2004 We used to run a suprise shotgun side match, on the sporting clays trail in the woods.The first one was a few hundred yrds. Nobody died, but we learned to make them a little shorter. In my early days I often shot some fairly extreme courses of fire but those days are long gone in the UK. I've shot while climbing a waterfall and I've shot stages in streams. We once had a surprise stage over about 600 yards an this included scramble nets, a "Burma" rope bridge, 3 tunnels in the stream, some mini water falls and generally rough terrain. More than once I've had to pour water out of the barrel before carrying on. And NO! I hadn't dropped the gun. It was all a long time ago but the memories linger on! I would add that I wouldn't permit such stages now for IPSC, either as a Course Reviewer or as an RM. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Paul B Posted November 2, 2004 Share Posted November 2, 2004 OK another war story. Once shot a total surprise match for submachineguns in deepest darkest Ohio. Used USPSA type rules and targets. Match was 600yds long down the middle of a streambed with 30 targets and it was a total mudbath. Luckily it was all downhill considering all the lead I was carrying. You couldn't even see the first target from the start and there was no remembering the course to help anyone else. Shot it with a MAC 10 in .45 caliber and taped 2 30 round magazines end to end for a quick change. When I ejected the first mag the other end with 30 more rounds fell straight into the mud about 6 inches. As a credit to the MAC I shoved it in anyway and it functioned just fine. I cleaned a lot of caked mud out of the gun afterward. Went through 3 or 4 mags as it's hard to shoot less than 3 shots out of a MAC in full auto. Came in second and threw away my clothes, but had more fun than anyone should have. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Flexmoney Posted November 2, 2004 Share Posted November 2, 2004 Any time you have to throw away your clothes...you gotta be having a good time. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
IPSCDRL Posted November 2, 2004 Share Posted November 2, 2004 In my part of the country, every once in a while some one will put on what they call a "driveby" stage. It entails the shooter buckled into a seat in the bed of a pickup truck or a trailer and towed through a fairly long course of fire shooting targets out the rear as they appear. It is rarely less than 50 rounds and the target placement is so far from the "crowd" that no one can put together a map of the course. Additionally the shooter sits inside walls that limit the field of vision (and the field of fire) so it is hard for them to even remember where all the targets are.These stages were usually run on logging type roads at a fixed but challenging speed and the pressure to get every target and keep reloading the gun is amazing. When you are done there are empty cases and mags all over the pickup bed. Love to do another one of these. Hmmm, sounds like my local club's end of the outdoor season finale. We do this every year. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Rob Boudrie Posted November 2, 2004 Share Posted November 2, 2004 We have run a "drive by" stage (not a surprise stage though) at the Northeaset Sectional. We didn't have a sectional for the last 2 years since the host lcub was putting on the Area 7 championship, but I hope we can have one in 2005. We didn't do a driveby at the Area Championship since theslight difference in truck speed, road bounce, etc. could have an effect on the fairness of a match used to select Area Championship and world shoot team slots. Without an elaborate mechanism for "sameness", my feeling is that a driveby only works for sectional or lower matches. Also, since driveby is generally "fixed time" it means "virginia count" scoring. Very few people scored our last driveby "clean" - even Todd J. had to work at it. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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