07 OPEN / L10 Nationals after-match reviews

[Bret Heidkamp]

This was, to me, the hardest Nationals I have shot. I thought it was tighter than normal, meaning tighter setups and narrower windows to take targets. If you were 6" off in your footwork, you could easily be hunting for a target. Interestingly, after the initial frustration wore off, the difficulty was actually good. Looking back on it, I remember most of the Nationals not being this way at all. I think this difficulty level really makes us better shooters. Great match, great location.

Our squad found the most "flow" on the last day at stage #1, Bunker Bust. That stage just had a great feel to it. We took the entire back section (all poppers and paper) from the rear port.

I would call the most herky-jerky stage as #6, Roundhouse Redoubt. It didn't have a real elegant shooting solution, and the barricade openings were fairly narrow compared to the widely set target arrays.

Then the clamshells at this match were decently quick - doable, but very fast. Stage #7 had a clamshell activated by sweeping the RFP off the table, which covered up T8 except for 1/2 of the head. When was the last time you practiced a 1/2 head shot? So of course I put two in the target before it shut. Two lovely alphas in the body, the lower of which was in the black by 1" !

The "Blockheads" stage was close targets, and they were only the heads, not the head + shoulder area shown in the drawing.

Stage 12, the only stage with prone shooting, had a rear fault line. We saw one shooter on our squad get a foot fault, and I know of one other. The odd thing is, they are both on the shorter end of the squad height-wise, and the tallest guys (myself and one other) didn't fault. Weird!

Stage 16, Dark Palace... there were two ways to shoot this: straight up the way it looks or just draw and take the plate, hit T1 on the way and run up to the end of the middle alley taking T6-9 while running up the alley. Then hose everything else from the end of the alley. Angled shots, but really close. I did it that way just because I wanted to have more fun shooting 22 rounds all in one massive hose-fest.

Well, without getting into the oddities of each stage that's about it until next year. There were 5 DQ's but I don't know what happened. There were some weird 180 issues where the stages were set at an angle to the side berms but had hallways, etc. that created visual illusions (the baseball stage #2 comes to mind here) which may have contributed.

I ended up 26th overall out of 227 shooters, with 5 of my stages in the top 16.

Post your nationals story... what was the funniest moment you saw? Worst stage? Best stage? Most penalties?

Edited June 24, 2007 by Bret Heidkamp

[mike cyrwus]

Roundhouse redoubt can burn and die a fiery death in hell.

Im a relative newbie, but Ive never, from start position, drawn on targets across my body, more than in this match, ever.

[BritinUSA]

The baseball stage (#2) was bizarre and I don't think it should have been in the match. I have some other issues with the setup of the stages on the berms. The stages (with the exception of #2) were very, very good. But the placement of them on the berms was a real issue.

[carinab]

Looking at the stage descriptions and the vids, were there too many monkey motions and prop tossing?

[Over the intercom voice]

Paging Shred, Paging Shred. You're wanted in the Nationals review thread.

[/Over the intercom voice]

[BritinUSA]

There were I think only 3 stages with inaPROPriate () mucking around;

The satchel stage (#14) this was not too bad as the bag only had to be carried 2 steps before you could readily chuck it at the activator pad thingy.

Stage 17, Cake Bomb was a rub your tummy, pat your head while hopping on one leg type of stage. Lots of stuff happening, besides the shooting, press the buzzer, grab the gun, put your foot on the activator doo-hicky and shoot everything strong handed.

The other one was RFP (Stage #7)... I don't want to talk about number 7, I hate that stage, passionately

[BritinUSA]

Other things I noticed at Nationals.

The stages went very well, fast reset time by the ROs, it helped that everyone on my squad helped with all the patching and steel setting etc.

Techwear was everywhere. I guess if you make a great product then everyone will buy it. I lost count of the different techwear shirts I saw.

I liked that the Border Patrol had a table at the vendor tent. Good to see those guys shooting the match too.

The awards went off very smoothly and quickly.

Stages were very clever and very challenging, the days of hosing full-size targets from 3 feet are over. Of course the top shooters blast through the partial targets like they were full-size and 3 feet away... Oh well, more practice for me next year...

I liked being on squad 29... great bunch of guys... Bryan Jones was so consistent throughout the match, Dean set some stages on fire and Beven was just a really great guy... The kind of person that Ford Prefect would describe as 'a really cool frood who knows where his towel is'

[rtr]

This was my first big match and my first Nationals, never shot anything larger than a state match before.

Overall it was a great experience, the stages were challenging without being overly difficult (at least for me a B open). The organization and way the event was run was very smooth.

I think I learned a lot about my abilities right now as well as got at least a glimpse at my potential (I finished 127th in Open but I finished 26th on stage 13 and had other top 75 stage finishes). Even though shooting that much in 4 days wore me out in some ways I'm more excited about shooting now than I have been in a long while.

Frankly I never understood why Nationals was such a big deal before, but I now would say to any shooter that you should definitely go if you can, it's a great experience. I also would recommend to first time nationals shooters to squad with some of your friends as that helped me a lot I think.

Edited June 25, 2007 by rtr

[open17]

First Nationals and had an absolute blast! Finished 110th in Open.

No Mikes

No Penalties

8 D hits

With a Glock.

Had one mag spring go bad, and a couple of brain malfunctions

but all in all a great match. Squad 13--some of the best people I

have ever had the pleasure of shooting with.

Bill

[Jman]

Stage 17, Cake Bomb was a rub your tummy, pat your head while hopping on one leg type of stage. Lots of stuff happening, besides the shooting, press the buzzer, grab the gun, put your foot on the activator doo-hicky and shoot everything strong handed.

...I was still trying to figure it out when I DQ'd.

Jim

[knightkrawler00]

I had a couple of firsts at the nationals. An FTE on Roundhouse Redoubt, and a dropped gun on Blockheads during the walkthrough. Of course, my first reaction was to pick the dang thing up, but luckily my brain caught up with me and called for an RO.

I didn't get the box off the table on RFP, then nailed the no-shoot, second and third penalty of the match. It wasn't until a friend asked what my time was that we realized my score card had no time on it. On the video, that box bounced off the wall for the reshoot and I just went for the head shots after cleaning up the two to the right.

This was my first Nationals and I had a great time. Got cleared by the doc on Monday to shoot, since I managed to break my hand and wrist a couple months ago, and still managed 56th in L10.

[JThompson]

I had a couple of firsts at the nationals. An FTE on Roundhouse Redoubt, and a dropped gun on Blockheads during the walkthrough. Of course, my first reaction was to pick the dang thing up, but luckily my brain caught up with me and called for an RO.

I didn't get the box off the table on RFP, then nailed the no-shoot, second and third penalty of the match. It wasn't until a friend asked what my time was that we realized my score card had no time on it. On the video, that box bounced off the wall for the reshoot and I just went for the head shots after cleaning up the two to the right.

This was my first Nationals and I had a great time. Got cleared by the doc on Monday to shoot, since I managed to break my hand and wrist a couple months ago, and still managed 56th in L10.

That's a greaqt first showing... esp with a just healing wrist. I assume you didn't get mch practice because of it. Good catch on not picking up the gun... the dah factor is there, but the DQ isn't.

JT

[jasmap]

The 1st 6 rounds of stage 17 started awesome for me except one thing....I had my ears on my head but I forgot to pull them over my ears. Made my ears ring for a sec. I wish that was the dumbest thing I did in the match but showing up for Stage 10 was apparently my biggest mistake.

Edited June 25, 2007 by jasmap

[iweiny]

This was my first Nationals and I had a great time. Got cleared by the doc on Monday to shoot, since I managed to break my hand and wrist a couple months ago, and still managed 56th in L10.

Go ahead take all the wind out of Trent and my sails... (Being happy we beat a cripple and all...

Seriously, we saw the xray of the hand... Not pretty. You did an awsome job considering... All of squad 32 did really well and we had a great time... Lorrie and I are looking forward to getting to shoot with all of you again.

Ira

[1911onr]

7 DQs out of 163 L10 shooters and 7 DQs out of 227 Open shooters. Is this typical?

[Bret Heidkamp]

I got a tidbit I just remembered - Henning told me he didn't go prone on stage 12, he knelt !!

He's taller than I am by 2", and apparently qualified as a Barnum & Bailey contortionist. I think my back would slip a disc if I tried that.

[Chuck Anderson]

I actually liked stage 2. We set it up in our section a couple weeks ago and it was pretty similar. I was thoroughly unimpressed with Stage 17. We had two shooters zero the stage after penalties. And talking to the Rangemaster was as usual like talking to a brick wall. The stage stated that you had to press the button and activate a buzzer and strobe light while shooting. The RO said during the walktrhrough that it would be a procedural per shot fired if the buzzer and light weren't going. I told them then that seemed a bit extreme if there was no advantage gained. They said that is the way they were told to score it and that several people had already zeroed the stage, we were the 13th squad to shoot it. One of our first shooters put his finger on the button but didn't realize he had to push it all the way down. 8 procedural. Another shooter had his finger on the button, pushed and had the light and buzzer going for two rounds, it slipped up for four rounds and he got it down for the last two. Didn't matter, he already zeroed it.

On the squad in front of us I also talked to a shooter who couldn't hear the buzzer at all during practice. He decided to watch the light before shooting to make sure. Only no one told him there is a 1.5 second delay before the light actually kicks on. He almost missed the drop turner waiting on it.

So here is my problem with this. While having your finger on the button, but not pressing it all the way, I don't see an advantage gained worthy of a proc. per shot fired. One procedural yes. If you take your finger off and shoot it freestyle that would definitely be a per shot fired to me. Or if you do any one of several other things. But not standing in exactly the same position as stipulated, just not pushing on button three pounds harder.

I suggested chatting with the CRO and RM, both of which didn't work and the two shooters didn't want to get a Nationals stage thrown out by arbitrating it. Especially when the RM said that if they won the Arb, it wouldn't change any previous shooters scores, just future ones. So you'd have 150 shooters that got penalized one way and the rest not???

The MD actually came down and said that it was an advantage to not have the light and siren going . I don't know of anyone else but I doubt anyone other than BJ Norris could have seen the light while shooting it was set so low and even with electronic muffs I didn't hear the weak siren.

By a rough count over 50 people zeroed that stage. A nationals placement shouldn't be based on a silly little gimmick like that. (And no I didn't get any procedurals on it.)

[Bret Heidkamp]

By a rough count over 50 people zeroed that stage. A nationals placement shouldn't be based on a silly little gimmick like that. (And no I didn't get any procedurals on it.)

I didn't realize that 50 people had zeroed it, yikes! I agree the stage was hokey. I actually taped my "button finger" because I was worried about ripping my fingernail backwards on the stupid ledge around the button. (The button was recessed, like one of those industrial machine buttons)

I think they should have said to shoot the stage strong hand only. That prop added nothing interesting to the stage in my opinion.

Edited June 25, 2007 by Bret Heidkamp

[Bret Heidkamp]

You know, the other thing I noticed at this year's match were the plaques awarded. I admit I haven't attended a nationals in a few years, but we used to have really cool leaded crystal trophies - which I always thought separated them from the norm. I was bummed to see the basic wooden plaques awarded at this match. I didn't win one this year, but I have two old crystal ones that I've saved from past Nationals, and will keep forever because they look different. I just think a Nationals trophy should look unique (other than what is written on it).

The prize table also was leaner than I remember.

Anybody else note these things?

[Carlos]

By a rough count over 50 people zeroed that stage. A nationals placement shouldn't be based on a silly little gimmick like that. (And no I didn't get any procedurals on it.)

Seems to be a clear lesson in stage design from such a result (i.e. don't replicate that stage).

[dubletap]

First of all I want to preface my comments by saying I was one of the 7 DQ's in L10. 1st DQ ever... I went too far forward and was called for breaking the 180. The reason this is possibly one of the safest sports is because we don't mess with safety and I wouldn't have it any other way. I did it, I was gone, I shook the hands of the RO's, I got to take pictures. My comment has nothing to do with being DQ'ed.

That said, my comment/question is this Nationals typical of recent Nationals? The last one that I attended was in '95 the Open Nats in Reno, and I only recently started shooting again after laying off from '99 - '05. I know it's about the shooting and I'm all for that, but what happened to the pageantry? I remember the Nationals as having moderate - highly elaborate built stages and props. This had none of that. Most stages were delineated by black plastic panels with a stage sponsor banner. Area 2 had a fireman pole, a helicopter, a humvee, a graveyard, a thatched hut, a roller coaster. (not that I want to see that one again) I understand that many of the Area and Sectional matches still go all out with stages and props as was done in years past. It seems to me that the Nationals should be special, it's an event that we have to earn a slot for, many times by competing all year at the local clubs. That takes commitment on the part of the shooters and it should be rewarded. I'm not picking on Missoula, from the pictures and videos I saw from the Open/Production match in Tulsa last year it seemed like the same thing. I want good hard shooting, I'm not a fan of circus stages, but the Nationals should be special all the way around.

Flame on!

[Jake Di Vita]

I agree with you. In order to be taken professionally by people....it has to appear professional.

[carinab]

On occasion there will be a camera crew following the ladies squad for a stage or two. I remember talking with a crew member from one of the shows (don't remember which one - sorry) and his comment was that our sport doesn't televise well is because the stages look a bit cheesy. He said spray painted designs and bathroom props really don't carry well onto the small screen. I got to say I thought the Tulsa set up was fine though. The grey screen material they used was quite a bit spiffier than the orange netting I remember from a couple of nationals.

[Alan Meek]

... I remember talking with a crew member from one of the shows (don't remember which one - sorry) and his comment was that our sport doesn't televise well is because the stages look a bit cheesy. He said spray painted designs and bathroom props really don't carry well onto the small screen.....

Perception is reality

[BritinUSA]

I liked the clean lines of the stages from the Tulsa nationals last year. All the walls were made of the same material, black frames and black see-through mesh. I thought it looked very professional.

The World Shoots in UK and Brazil were great for props. You don't often get to shoot off the top of a London double-decker bus and haul ass down 6" deep steps with mud, rain and wet leaves all over them (good times). Brazil had their Army stuff peppered all over the stages, so we got to shoot around armoured personnel carriers and artillery. We also got to run over rope bridges, and slide down an aluminium slide (that was about 180F in the hot sun, burnt bum anyone ?)

The reason the sport does not translate well to the small screen is that you can't see where the bullets hit. Stages with all steel would be exciting to watch as there is a visible indicator of whether the shot hit the target or not. Same with skeet shooting, everyone can keep score. With our stuff it could never be shown live cos the scoring takes too long.

Set up a field stage with all steel and it would be something to watch.

[ChuckS]

Perception is reality

I always thought that Reality is Perception.

Brian???