Rio Salado SubGun Matches

[SinistralRifleman]

For those of you who can't afford a machine gun, but have pistol caliber carbines, good news!

The Rio Salado Sub-Gun Match is now allowing Semi-Auto pistol caliber carbines to compete in their own separate division. These are fun, low key matches, get out and get some practice in.

www.riopractical.com/subgun/subgun.html

Semi Autos will all compete in one division until there are 10 or more regular competitors.

The next match is Saturday the 29th. Starts at 8AM, match fees are $20.00.

[TimW]

Arizona State Sub Gun Match

September 28th, 2007

Though I don’t own a full-auto sub-machinegun, a change in this year’s rules added a semi-auto class to the weapon types permitted in the match…meaning anyone with an Uzi carbine, HK94, 9mm AR-15 or other pistol-caliber semi-auto rifle was able to shoot.

There were three shooters in the semi-auto class (SA), me, one of the Cav Girls (Chrissy) and Woverine at Work. I used my Uzi SBR, Chrissy used another shooter’s 9mm subgun on semi-auto (only) and Wolverine at Work used an Olympic Arms 9mm AR-15, which uses Glock magazines. Given the plethora and cost of Glock mags, this is an interesting weapon to consider since it allows one to use the same mags they use for their handgun (assuming you carry a 9mm Glock, of course).

I didn’t realize this was a state-level match, and had seven stages versus the usual four stages. The stages were set up in such a way that, with a couple of exceptions, it might be possible for a semi-auto to do better (time wise) than a full-auto given the right shooter. I was not that shooter. 

The first stage started at the table with weapon loaded, on safe. Shooter pulled two markers, each numbered 1-3, which represented the number of hits per target and the number of reloads required prior to shooting your last round on the last target. I got semi-lucky in drawing 1 round per target with 2 reloads. The unlucky drew 3 and 3. Nobody in my squad (Sinistral Rifleman, Notgrownupyetpuppy, Chrissy, Wolverine at Work and me) got that unlucky. Best time in the match was 11.67, I shot it in 26.11 seconds, no penalties.

Next was The Carnival. This was an eight station stage. First, the shooter had to throw two hatchets at a hanging log. A miss was +5 seconds, a hit was no change, and sticking the hatchet in the log earned a -5 second bonus. I stuck one, and the other bounced off the log. Next was a grenade toss…two dummy grenades into two water barrels about five feet away. Next you picked up your unloaded weapon and shot three hanging water bottles (those small 12 ounce type), then off to a shooting port where you engaged four targets with 2 rounds each. After that, there were 2 targets into which the shooter had to fire 10 rounds (min) full-auto at one target, then 10 rounds at the next target. This was where the full-auto had an advantage. After this, there was the “Tic Tac Toe” station where nine pepper poppers were set up, and you had to knock down 3 in a row. I got rowdy and decided to shoot all nine targets, because I could. Then a rush to shoot two bad-guy targets with four rounds minimum each. Because all the other paper targets were 2 rounds each, I lost count and fired 4 on the first, then two on the second because I heard them hit. Then I remembered it was 4 on each, so I fired again…only to run out of ammo for the LAST round. A quick reload cured that, but my failure to recall the course-of-fire added unnecessary time. Fastest time was 40.57, I shot it in 86.01 seconds, including 15 seconds of penalties for misses, but minus 5 seconds for sticking the hatchet.

(more pics at the links below...sorry, there's a pic limit here....)

http://www.cavalryarms.com/competition/subgun/090.jpg

Third stage was Dance Dance Revolution. Inspired by the silly dance-game in video arcades, this one was challenging. It involved between 4 and 6 shooting boxes per station, and there were 3 stations. Each shooting box was colored. First stage had 2 colors, Blue and Orange, second stage had 5 colors, blue, orange, yellow, red and green, and the last station had eight, with some colors doubled up. At each station were an equal number of targets to the number of shooting boxes at each station. So, you had to remember which color you were in, which color you had already shot, and which color target you were shooting. Not as easy as it sounds, but easier than the game from which it was inspired. Fastest time was 32.31, I shot it in 53.81, which included missing one hit on a target for a 5 second penalty.

http://www.cavalryarms.com/competition/subgun/039.jpg

http://www.cavalryarms.com/competition/subgun/050.jpg

http://www.cavalryarms.com/competition/subgun/066.jpg

Fourth stage involved shooting two steel plates and two Texas stars (think a pinwheel with plates that you shoot off…then the star starts spinning because it becomes unbalanced). About 10 feet in front of those targets was a wall of barrels that you had to shoot around. The stage allowed for a “funnel” as you walked closer toward the barrels, so you could engage the targets from further away in order to be able to shoot around the wall more easily. The course involved 1 round on a plate, then one plate on the star, then go to the other side and do the same thing. Lather, rinse, repeat, alternating sides until the last plate from the Texas star was dropped. Fastest time was 31.71, I shot it in 53.00 seconds, no penalties.

http://www.cavalryarms.com/competition/subgun/003.jpg

Fifth was the bowling pin shoot. Similar to trying to knock down the pins using a softball, this stage had the shooter firing from three different ports at three different sets of three bowling pins…one stacked on top of two on the bottom, for a pyramid. The bottom two pins were mostly covered up by steel plates, leaving about ½ of the neck exposed. Due to the nature of the setup, however, when the first set of pins fell, they often took out several others, too. My first round caused all the first pins to fall, which then caused all the second set to fall but one, leaving me one pin in the second set, and all the pins in the third. Chrissy knocked over all the pins but one in the last set with her first shot. That went buy quickly, but not quickly enough. Fastest time was 3.93 (I think someone got very lucky with falling pins), I shot it in 19.06 seconds.

http://www.cavalryarms.com/competition/subgun/136.jpg

http://www.cavalryarms.com/competition/subgun/138.jpg

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The sixth stage as was the Baghdad Memorial hospital. Starting with a loaded weapon at port arm, engage 6 IDPA targets with 3 rounds each, advance to a window in the building, engage two more. Entering the building, the shooter had to engage a large pepper popper target through a window with a very narrow angle of the shot. The pepper popper was set rather “hard”, so it took about 6 rounds from my <Ahnold voice> Uzi 9 millimetah </Ahnold voice> before it fell. When it did, it activated a no-shoot swinging target, through which you had to drop all the plates off a Texas star. Moving to the next window, engage 5 targets with 3 rounds each, then out a door, shooting 4 targets (3rds each) then up to another shooting box for the final 3 target @ 3rds each. I hit the no-shoot, incurring a 5 second penalty. Fastest time was 37.81 and I shot it in 74.70 seconds, including the penalty.

http://www.cavalryarms.com/competition/subgun/178.jpg

http://www.cavalryarms.com/competition/subgun/184.jpg

http://www.cavalryarms.com/competition/subgun/192.jpg

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The last stage was the Carnival Shooting Game. This involved a paper target that had 6 cartoon characters on it, and was a sub-gun version of the idea of shooting the red star with the BB gun arcade game. In this iteration, however, you had to get two rounds per character to finish the stage. Since I’d never shot my Uzi so close (I was about 5 yards), I wasn’t used to the sight-offset, so it took quite a few rounds to figure where I was shooting…like a whole mag. I fired about 10 rounds, then decided to just shoot them all as fast as I could. Of course, I didn’t hit crap, so I had to reload and try again. I missed 2 of the characters, incurring 10 seconds of penalties. Fastest time was 5.26, and I shot it in 47.36 w/penalties.

Overall, it was a fun match with some very creative stages. Additionally, except for one of the stages, semi-auto wasn’t at that big a disadvantage at this match, if at all. The right shooter with a gun with a decent trigger (i.e. not an Uzi) would have done alright, I believe.

The Rio Salado Thursday Night Subgun match is held on the second Thursday of each month starting at 5:00 P.M. The regular 5th Saturday (of the month) matches start at 9:00 A.M. in the wintertime and 8:00 A.M. in the Summer time. Check the Rio Salado Calendar of Events for the latest information at www.riopractical.com

Check out the entire match phot series at http://www.cavalryarms.com/CS.html and look under State Subgun Match.