CHA-LEE's Tale

[CHA-LEE]

The thing I forgot to mention is that I used totally clear lenses in my shooting glasses for this major match. The clear lenses worked great and I never ran into a situation where I felt that I couldn’t see my sights due to lighting issues, even in dusk. I think this match was a good test of using clear lenses as we went from morning, sunny afternoon, cloudy skies and dusk. I am sure that the photochromatic lenses would have been too dark in the cloudy or dusk lighting conditions. Being able to see my sights the whole match was nice. Now I just need to have the continued mental focus to keep my attention on the sights when I get worn out

[CHA-LEE]

I was able to get some shooting in this past weekend. On Friday I attended an Indoor Flashlight/low light match at the Boulder Rifle Club. This is one of the few matches where you can actually shoot in low or no night conditions and I wanted to give my home protection M&P 45 a run since it has night sights and I have not shot it in low or no light conditions. This match consisted of two 24 round stages in really low light. It wasn’t totally dark so I passed on using a flashlight and instead shot the stages straight up using only the night sights. It was dark enough that you could only see a faint dark outline of the targets but the night sights worked great. Its very different shooting and calling your shots by only seeing three glowing dots. I rocked the first stage in about half the time of the next closest competitor but I got two procedural penalties for having the muzzle of my gun past the threshold of a barricade. This is one of their funky rules where you can’t shoot with your gun past walls or ports. The painful thing is that their scoring is time plus and a single procedural adds 60 seconds to your stage time. I had a 22 second stage run but adding 120 seconds of penalties to it blew it out of the water. On the second stage I tried pushing the speed a little bit and got bitten by ending up with a mike/no shoot. With a miss having a penalty of 20 seconds and a no shoot being 40 seconds my whole match result was toast with all of the penalties. I really didn’t care where I ended up in the match though as my primary goal was to see now the M&P faired in low light conditions. I am glad to report that it worked great and it was really easy to shoot which was nice. Mission accomplished.

[CHA-LEE]

On Sunday I helped setup and work a local USPSA match that I am on the board at. The weather was suppose to be fantastic and it didn’t disappoint. The temperature was high 70’s with a slight breeze which was awesome. I busted my hump getting stages setup in the morning then when the match started I noticed that the squad I ended up on had a bunch of unmotivated workers. I got stuck with ROing and resetting the stage 90% of the time and more than once had to RO all the way up until it was my turn to shoot which lead to crappy stage performances. We had 18 people on the squad but some how we always ended up with only 4 – 5 people doing all of the work. The rest of the squad was either standing around shooting the shit or sitting in the shade off in la la land waiting for their turn to shoot. I repeatedly asked the squad to get working and help pitch in but it was like beating a dead horse. By the time we got to the fourth stage I was totally frustrated with the lazy squad and threw in the towel. I simply said “I am over it” then grabbed my range bag and left the match. I didn’t get to shoot the last two stages of the match. I think it was probably not the best thing to do but at the time I thought that my only options were to start flying off the handle and scream at the lazy asses in the squad or simply leave. So I chose to leave. It really ticks me off when we have an 18 person squad but we end up with the same 4 – 5 people working the whole match while the rest just sit back and watch. This is suppose to be a volunteer sport where everyone pitches in to make it happen, but the vast majority of the shooters on my squad didn’t get the memo

I am at my wits end trying diplomatic ways to resolve this issue. It’s a reoccurring issue and asking people to step up and work is obviously not getting through. I am going to propose to the club board that we make a list of the “Slackers” then start charging them a double entry fee for a minimum of 5 matches. If they want to be 100% consumers without lifting a finger to help out during the match then they should be paying more than the rest of us that actually pitch in and help the match move forward. I hate to make a proposal like that, but the only other thing that I can think of is to ask them to not come back.

[CHA-LEE]

Since I had Monday off and had a crappy match on Sunday I decided to go out and get some live fire practice in on Monday. It was just me and my buddy Matt who went out and practiced. We setup a challenging stage with a bunch of steel and a good mixture of open and tight paper shots. Matt forgot his shooting belt so we both ran the stages starting off and reloading from barrels. We also ran Limited 10 so it forced us to earn all of our hits and do at least one reload on each stage run. It was a good practice session that was really challenging and fun. We also tried shooting the 6 inch plates and mini poppers at about 15 yards by engaging them strong hand only and shooting from the hip. Holly cow that was hard!!! I was only able to hit one plate out of 10 rounds shot each time we tried it. It was fun trying some trick shooting like that. All told I shot about 100 rounds and it felt like a good practice session.

[titandriver]

Hey Cha-Lee here's how we handled the lazy non-workers: when they are the on-deck shooter we simply had all the folk that do work score the prior shooter and nobody tapes, sets steel, or RO's. All the workers go sit in the shade, load mags, etc. Once the see that the stage isn't reset & they can't shoot until it is, they'll get the message eventually!

Always enjoy your posts!

[CHA-LEE]

Titandriver> I see how that can work for a single dead beat non-worker. But how do you deal with 15+ dead beats on a 20 person squad?

[titandriver]

The workers, say all four or five of you, shoot first & then go sit,. If the other fifteen want to shoot then some off them will get the message.

[Brammy]

I was able to get some shooting in this past weekend. On Friday I attended an Indoor Flashlight/low light match at the Boulder Rifle Club. This is one of the few matches where you can actually shoot in low or no night conditions and I wanted to give my home protection M&P 45 a run since it has night sights and I have not shot it in low or no light conditions. This match consisted of two 24 round stages in really low light. It wasn’t totally dark so I passed on using a flashlight and instead shot the stages straight up using only the night sights. It was dark enough that you could only see a faint dark outline of the targets but the night sights worked great. Its very different shooting and calling your shots by only seeing three glowing dots. I rocked the first stage in about half the time of the next closest competitor but I got two procedural penalties for having the muzzle of my gun past the threshold of a barricade. This is one of their funky rules where you can’t shoot with your gun past walls or ports. The painful thing is that their scoring is time plus and a single procedural adds 60 seconds to your stage time. I had a 22 second stage run but adding 120 seconds of penalties to it blew it out of the water. On the second stage I tried pushing the speed a little bit and got bitten by ending up with a mike/no shoot. With a miss having a penalty of 20 seconds and a no shoot being 40 seconds my whole match result was toast with all of the penalties. I really didn’t care where I ended up in the match though as my primary goal was to see now the M&P faired in low light conditions. I am glad to report that it worked great and it was really easy to shoot which was nice. Mission accomplished.

Hi Cha-Lee....I wanted you to elaborate on the shot calling with 3 dot night sights....I haven't shot my carry gun with a similar 3 dot night sight set up in over a year (night shoots are rare in my neck of the woods), and since then I have become much better at shot calling and shooting the gun faster...my vision has definitely 'opened up' and I now see more..lol....what I did recall, is that the contrast of colours in the sights from rear (orange) to front (green) was not very evident when shooting the gun, and I never found the 3 dots anymore helpful than if only one was there.

My thinking is to use a all black rear sight with a front night sight, so that way the setup would be similar to a Limited gun fibre optic sight with all black rear sights....hopefully.

I can experiment by blacking out the rears(I have a set of Tru-glo's on a Glock 17) and dryfiring. I will finally get to test the setup at the end of the month as the club finally has a night shoot scheduled.

Let me know your thoughts on mine!

Edited September 6, 2011 by Brammy

[Brammy]

The workers, say all four or five of you, shoot first & then go sit,. If the other fifteen want to shoot then some off them will get the message.

Great idea....I am doing this the wrong way now...which is that me and the other few workers in the squad are doing all the RO'ing, taping and resetting while the deadbeats and prima-donna's slouch around....can't wait to see the looks on their faces when this plan goes into effect!!!

[CHA-LEE]

Brammy> I am no expert in low light shooting by any means but for me I think it would be really hard to call my shots with only a front night sight and a solid black rear blade. When the lighting is low enough you wouldn't be able to see the rear blade at all and you would just have to hope that the rear blade is properly aligned with the front sight. Having front and rear night sight dots at least gives you some reference to how well the front and rear sights are lined up even if you can't see the edges of the rear notch or front post. I clearly remember seeing the three dots as if they were on the same visual plane instead of seeing a definitive front and rear sight. I know that if I only had a front night sight I wouldn't be able to shoot accurately in low light conditions. On my competition gun I prefer a solid black rear blade and a front sight that has a small green fiber optic. This setup works really well out doors and in lit up indoor shooting conditions. But would be very hard to see properly in low light conditions.

For me seeing a three dot night sight setup was quite different than what I see on my normal competition gun. But I was still able to process what I was seeing, adjust as needed and do it all just as quickly as I would with my normal competition setup. So even though the three dot night sight setup is a totally different type of sight picture I could still use it effectively without really needing to think about it. I think all you really need is something on the front and rear of the gun that can be use to confirm sight alignment and your brain and actions will figure it out on the fly.

[Brammy]

Cha_Lee....good point...I had been thinking more about low light conditions, but in really dim or No-light conditions, the all black rear would black out,then it would be a front sight only with no reference...definitely not good. I think the important thing is as you said is to see all the sights (front and rear) and for the brain to effectively process the sight picture and get the hits.

Back to USPSA...I run a similar set up with the fiber front and the all black rear....started with red, tried green, but have gone back to red since I have started shooting the open gun for the past few months, so I figure I just keep that red up front on all the guns. The green is definitely brighter in low light though as far as my eyes go.

Thanks for the feedback, I follow your posts and find your tips quite helpful, and congrats on the GM in limited. I currently have a A classification in Limited, and realise there is a ton of work to be done to get to a consistent M much-less GM, so hats off on the work ethic. The detailed rundown of your stages and video have been a great help to me in analyzing the stages, and raising my game plan as well, and I can tell you put a lot of work in this diary that you could have instead dedicated to your training. Thanks.

[MarkCO]

Way before I got into competition, I did a lot of "tactiacal stuff" with a variety of folks. This article on low light shooting was written like in 1996 or so... http://dfuse.us/nightsights.html

You will almost never have NO light and target ID is always an issue...carry-on...

[CHA-LEE]

This past weekend I went up to Steamboat springs with my wife. We celebrated our second wedding anniversary up there and it was great. It just so happened that the Yampa Valley Practical Shooters were having their monthly match that same weekend and my wife and I shot the match on Saturday. My wife is a fair weather shooter so she hasn’t gotten out to shoot much during the hot summer. The weather was awesome that weekend so she thought that it would be fun to do some shooting with me during our special weekend. The club match only had 4 stages but it was just right for my wife so I was happy. She had a really fun time shooting the match and did pretty good for not shooting at all for a few months. I had fun shooting as well and finished the match with no penalties and only one D zone hit. I didn’t get to film any of my stage runs as I was focused on keeping my lady on track during the match but I have listed my stage runs below in the order that I shot them.

Stage 2 – This was a medium length field course that had you starting on the back right side of the berm standing in a box with your hands clasped behind your back. At the signal you engaged a head shot only target through one port then moved to the left to engage three paper through another port. Then you moved forward down range as you reloaded and engaged four targets on the right side on the move. Then you had to engage four targets down range that were low and hiding behind barrels with some of them blocked by no shoots. To be honest the right side on the move paper was spread out just enough and blocked by no shoots well enough that it made for a pretty tricky section to shoot effectively while moving. That mixed with the low partial targets down range made it extra tricky. I simply told myself to keep moving and take however long it takes to break clean shots. This plan worked out well as I got all of my hits in a decent stage time. I think I could have shaved a second off my stage time by shooting the low partials more aggressively but the disaster factor was to high to push speed needlessly.

Stage 3 – This was classifier 06-03 called Can you Count. This is a two string classifier where you draw and shoot one target with 5 rounds, reload and engage another target with 5 rounds. The second string is a repeat of the first just one two different targets. I have shot this classifier many times before and know that it is all about not going crazy trying to shoot the 5 shots fast. I told my self to shoot smoothly because I knew that my slow draw and reload were going to kill the overall classifier run anyway. I was able to smoothly crank out .15 - .18 splits on every shot without a single issue or even hit of trigger freeze. But as I said before, my slow draw and reload sunk the overall result nationally as I ended up with a 65% result. The best I have ever shot this classifier is 77% and I know that I was shooting out of my mind and just got lucky to hit my draws and reloads. So I guess 65% isn’t so bad.

Stage 4 – This was a box to box medium length stage. You started in a box on the left and had to engage three targets down range then move to the right to a barricade box and engage three targets on the right of the barricade and four on the left. This stage had a good mixture of open and tight shots making it a lot harder than you would think it would be. You really had to mix up your shooting speed between targets or else you would pay the price on the tight no shoot blocked targets. I shot the stage clean and aggressively. I called one shot a marginal C zone hit and it ended up just inside the D zone. It sucked to have a D zone hit, but I at least called it marginal so I knew that the hit wasn’t going to be the best but would still be a hit.

Stage 1 – This was another medium length stage where you started in a box and your hands were flat on a barrel in front of you. There were two poppers with a single paper between them on the extreme left and right sides of the stage. Then there was a wall with a port that you could see four paper targets through the port. You could see all of the targets from the starting position but it did require that you rock from right to left as you engaged the middle targets through the port. You could move around the stage and run up to the port if you wanted. The only requirement was to engage all of the steel from the starting box. Since you could see everything from the starting box I figured that I would just dig in with a wide stance and engage all of the targets from the starting box. This plan worked out well and I was able to get all of my hits and shoot the steel one for one.

This was a good match for me. Having only one D zone hit and no other penalties was nice. It was really nice to watch my wife shoot and have fun. She shot a solid match and it always amazes me how patent she can be in order to get her hits. Its funny to see how lady shooters usually start out ultra accurate and conservative. You usually have to prod them into doing things more aggressively. Unlike guys where they start out way too aggressive and you have to prod them into slowing down so they can get their hits. No wonder guys are more expensive to insure. We are genetically predisposed to running everything hard like a rental. Either way I am a super lucky guy to have a really cool wife who shoots a match with him on their get away wedding anniversary weekend. She is always awesome like that!!!

[CHA-LEE]

Well I am driving out to Las Vegas for the 2011 USPSA handgun nationals tonight. The plan is to drive through the night and get into Las Vegas around 10 – 11am tomorrow. Everything is packed up and ready to go. The only thing I have left to do is get some rest before I start the long drive tonight. Its going to be a packed week and a half of activities. I am taking the CRO course on Thursday and Friday then I have volunteered to RO the Open/L10/Revolver match. After ROing then I am going to shoot the Limited/Production match. I just hope that ROing the first part of the match does not impact my shooting performance for the second part. I have been keeping an eye on the weather forecast and its calling for mid 90’s all week. This is a LOT better than mid 100’s like it was two years ago. I have mixed feelings about this match. Its my first USPSA nationals so I am excited to see what its all about. But I am also leery of burning myself out and hurting my match performance. With these mixed feelings I have not set any specific performance goals for the match. All I can do is try to have fun and keep all of my hits in the brown targets. We will see how it goes

[eerw]

First thing...get there safely..take your time, rest when you need it.

Enjoy the setting, the experience. Nationals can be pretty cool.

you will do well, just let yourself shoot. good luck, have fun!

[Dwain C. Baer]

Good luck at the 2011 USPSA Nationals CHA-LEE Sounds like a great trip...enjoy

[Chris iliff]

Good luck Charlie. I am looking forward to reading your stage breakdowns and analysis from the Nationals. Go strong brother! You got the mojo!!!

[Brammy]

Good Luck at the Nationals Charlie!

[CHA-LEE]

I am back from the 2011 USPSA Handgun Nationals. This was my first nationals and it was jam packed with all kinds of activities. I went out a day early so I could attend the CRO class. The CRO class was interesting and I learned some good stuff. We had a full day in the class room then went out to critique some of the stages that were setup for the nationals. I have a little bit of stage creation homework to do after the class but its really nothing I haven’t been doing already for the matches I support. So it should be a breeze.

After the CRO Class I dove right into the Open/L10/Revolver match as an RO on Stages 3 & 4. During the four days ROing the Open/L10/Revolver match I got to see how the match was run from the match staff perspective. I did my fair share of running the timer, score keeping, and stage maintenance during the match. Along with picking up as much brass as I could between squads. It was cool to see all the big dogs run through my stages but more importantly it was nice to meet hundreds of every day shooters that came out to shoot the match and have fun. I did my best to be nice and fair while ROing and lost count of how many hands I shook or how many times I said “Good luck and have fun”. The stages that I was ROing were stand and shoot classifier style stages with no movement so there really was very little chance of shooters having an accident and DQing themselves. We didn’t have any DQ’s on our stages and only had to call the Range master once for a rules clarification. The Range Master is busy enough as it is so it was nice to not have to bother him much at all during the match. Before I knew it my RO tour of duty was over and it was my turn to shoot the Limited/Production match.

For the Limited Match I was on Squad 1 with a bunch of other Colorado shooters. On the first day we started on stage 1 and shot stages 1 – 6. The Second day we shot stages 7 – 11, then the final day we shot stages 12 – 20. I was able to see quite a few of my fellow Colorado shooters compete in the Open match and noticed that almost all of them were shooting a lot slower and more tentative than they normally do in a club match. After seeing that my goal for shooting the Limited match was to simply not shoot scared like they were. I would shoot the nationals stages in the same way and speed that I would shoot any other stage. This simplistic goal actually worked out pretty good for me. I gave myself the latitude to shoot the stages the best I could without any artificial expectation built into it. I was able to get most of my stage runs on video thanks to my awesome squad mates. Listed below are the stage break downs in the order that I shot them.

Stage 1 – Shooting on the Move – This stage had you starting on a wall to the left then you had to move to the back right and engage two paper and one mini popper. Then move to the middle left and step on a step pad while engaging two static targets and a swinger. After that you transitioned hard right to engage a single paper target then moved forward to the end were you had one static paper on the left then a popper that activated a swinger and a far static paper on the right. There was plenty of time to shoot the popper and then engage the far right paper and come back to finish on the swinger. I felt like I shot this stage pretty solid but ended up with two D zone hits which sucked. Unfortunately this stage didn’t get filmed due to camera man failure.

Stage 2 – Coffee Interrupted – This was a large field course that had you starting seated in a chair holding a mach coffee cup. At the buzzer you dropped the coffee cup and grabbed your unloaded gun off the table then engaged two targets on the right then moved down range to engage a series of targets through breaks in the walls. You could stand back from the ports and hunt for targets but move less or run up to the ports and hose them down. I decided to go with the battle axe approach and run up to the ports and hose down the targets as that seemed like the least chance of screwing up. The two down range ports had steel poppers that activated swingers and a drop out/back but there was always an extra static target in there to engage while waiting for the moving targets to expose themselves. I felt like I shot this stage pretty aggressive and effectively but ended up with a miss on the last target I engaged through the second port. A lot of these targets were partial targets and I was unloading the lead in a hurry so I can see how one of the shots on the last target ended up over one of the shoulders instead of in the brown. I was bummed that I got a miss but then again I was giving it all I had without holding back. Some times you get lucky and some times you don’t.

Stage 3 – Ends Then Odds – This was a classifier style stage. Three targets set out at varying distances with the last one at I believe 19 yards. You started loaded at surrender and at the buzzer you engaged each target with two rounds freestyle, reload, then reengage each target with 2 rounds each strong hand only. Since I ROed this stage in the last match I knew that a lot of people were getting beat up with having misses or extra shots. My only goal for this stage was to get all of my hits no matter how long it took. I succeeded in getting all of my hits so I was happy. This stage didn’t get filmed.

Stage 4 – Ellipse – Another classifier style stage. Four turtle targets set out in a front to back arch. This was a straight up draw and shoot two on each freestyle Comstock stage. The targets were out about 15 yards with the far outside targets blocked by hard cover on the bottom three quarters. The hard cover targets were hard shots. There was only about a four inch wide slit of A zone to hit on the top of these target so getting all of your points was going to be tuff. Since I watched hundreds of shooters shoot this same stage in the Open match I noticed that a lot of people were shooting very tentatively and slow. I figured that I would go the other rout and unload some lead in a fury and take as many makeup shots as I needed to get my hits. My stage time was great at 4.09 seconds, but I ended up with a miss on one of the fully open middle targets. I neglected to respect the middle open targets properly and paid the price. I still think I had the best plan for the stage though. If I would have gotten all my hits I would have easily had a top 5 stage run. This stage didn’t get filmed either. After slapping around the camera guy the rest of my stages got filmed.

Stage 5 – Sittin and Slidin – This was a large field course that was suppose to have two sliding targets but the setup crew couldn’t get them to work correctly so they replaced the sliders with a swinger and drop out target on both sides. There were a bunch of different ways to shoot this stage as you could see a lot of the same down range targets from multiple positions in the middle. I went with a pretty simple stage plan that broke it down into four main shooting positions. The hardest shots on this stage were the drop out targets so a lot respect was needed for them. I shot this stage a little funky as I needed a make up on a paper target from an awkward position. Then I got in a hurry at the end of the stage and just slung some shots at the last three targets and ended up with a miss. The miss was pure and simple failure to follow through. I think I could have shot this stage at least a second faster and with all of my hits if I could have done it again. But we only get one crack at it so I had to live with my original performance.

Stage 6 – Belly Up – This was another long field course that had you stating at a table with your palms flat on the X’s. When we shot this stage I asked the RO if I could stand behind the table basically facing up range and she said that I had to be “Facing Down Range” so that blew my plan of standing behind the table out of the water. I decided to start on the left side of the table as it would allow me to enter the shooting area more smoothly. The last day of the match I was watching a friend shoot the stage and there was a different RO running the shooters and he was allowing them to stand behind the table with their head partially turned down range so that was kind of crappy of them to be inconsistent about what was or wasn’t allowed for the starting position. Either way the stage was pretty straight forward. You moved to the right side to shoot a popper, static paper, then a swinger them moved to the back left port and engaged a popper that activated a clam shell and dropout/back target at the same time. There was no way that you could engage both of these moving targets on the same exposure. My plan for this was to shoot the popper then immediately start engaging the head of the drop out back and hopefully I would be done with that target by the time I transitioned down to clamshell to engage it before the blocking no shoot came up. This plan didn’t work out too well and I ended up with a solid no shoot hit in the head of the clam shell no shoot. I should have just dug in and took two head shots instead of trying to shoot the body of the clamshell before it closed. After that the rest of the stage was a fury of hose fest blasting. On the left and right followed by a door that activated a swinger. I gave up some time on clunky movement through the stage and that mixed with the no shoot hit turned this stage run into a dud.

Stage 7 – Faster…Faster – This was the first stage of Day two. Pretty simple speed shoot style stage. Start in the middle and engage three paper from the right port and then six steel from the left port. I had a slight hesitation before breaking my first shot as my grip was a little off but once the gun was running it was ok. The left side steel was deceivingly hard. The shooting area and location of the port made it some what awkward to shoot from and the mini poppers were pretty hard shots in this strange position.

Stage 8 – Paper and Poppers – This was another speed shoot stage. Start in the middle and engage an open turtle target and four poppers from the left port then move to the right and engage a single hard cover turtle target. I went to war on two of the poppers then proceeded to fling some shots at the last hard cover target and ended up with a miss. Sights? We need to use our sights? I obviously didn’t use mine on this stage and paid the price.

Stage 9 – Round Up – This was a really fun medium field course stage. You started at the back right of the shooting area and had to grab your unloaded gun off the top of a barrel. Then engage some tight no shoot blocked targets though a couple of ports, transition hard to the right and hit two more open paper targets. Reload as you go to the middle port and engage a mini popper out about 20 yards and then two more paper. Then shuffle around the barrels and engage a single paper followed by three more paper and a mini popper as you moved to the front right. I felt like I shot this stage really well except for needing four shots to hit the mini popper through the port. This easily cost me a couple of seconds on the stage run. It was a fun and challenging stage to shoot.

Stage 10 – Anyone There? – This was a shoot house stage with not too many targets to shoot but a bunch of running around needed. You started outside of the shoot house with your strong hand on the door knob. At the signal you entered and went to the back left and engaged two paper and a popper through a port. Then ran hard to the back right and engaged a single paper through one port then three more paper through another port. After that you hauled butt to the back of the house and opened a door so you could engage a popper, static paper and a swinger to finish. I shot the stage about as good as I could but running through the house aggressively was tuff. I am a big dude and need a lot of room to maneuver and the little hall ways were not playing nice. I just didn’t feel confident running full out inside the shoot house because I didn’t want to run into anything. I am sure I lost a couple seconds on that stage due to my poor movement through the stage. I didn’t get any video of this stage run as it was really hard for anyone to film you running around in that house.

Stage 11 - Just a Swinging – This was an interesting stage with a suspended shooting area. You started in the middle and had to move to the extreme left and right to engage three plates and one static paper on both extreme ends of the shooting area. If you slammed the suspended shooting area into the left or right side as you entered the shooting position it calmed it down quite a bit. But if you induced any front to back movement you were screwed because it could easily move 2 – 3 feet front to back. Initially I was thinking about shooting this stage strong hand only and using my weak hand to brace and stabilize myself by holding the railing. But the plates were very difficult shots to make strong hand only on a swaying platform. I instead adopted the “Slam it into the sides” technique and it seemed to work out pretty good. I only needed one make up shot on the plates and had all A’s on the paper. Amazingly enough this performance netted me a 3rd place finish on this stage. There were all kinds of nightmare stories going around about people going to war on the plates so I am sure this might be the least favorite stage for a lot of people.

Stage 12 – Lefty Lucy – This was the first stage of the third day. It was a pretty straight forward stage. You start in the middle and at the start you move to the right and engage a mini popper then two paper through a port. Then move to the left and engage two paper through a port and then finish on three paper on the left side of the wall. Since we were the morning squad and this was our first stage of the day the sun was just coming over the top of the side berm and the sun light was shining right into your eyes when you shot around the left side of the stage. When I shot the stage I could BARELY make out the silhouette of the three targets around the left side and all I could do was point shoot where I thought the targets were and hope that I got my hits. Lucky for me I ended up getting all of my hits.

Stage 13 – Sitting in the sun – This was a speed shoot style stage that had you seated in a chair and all your mags and unloaded gun were on the table in front of you. The big poppers in the middle of both sides activated the swingers on their respective sides. My stage plan was simple. Load the gun and shoot the right mini popper, big one, then left mini popper followed by the swinger. Then repeat for the other side. Well the buzzer went off and my plan went to crap. I missed the second mini popper and tried to “Hurry” shooting the swinger which netting me two Delta’s. Then I move over to the left side and I edge hit the big popper and it does not fall so I have to go back and reengage it before the swinger comes out and I get one C and a D hit on it. Holly craptacular batman!!!. This was really the only stage that I seriously screwed up during the whole match. So I guess I can’t complain too much.

Stage 14 – 75 Max – This was another short stage with two shooting positions. You started facing up range and turned and engaged three paper and a popper from one side then three more paper and two more poppers from the right side of the stage. I start shooting the stage and on my 6th shot I have a case head separation which leaves the brass jammed in the chamber. I couldn’t finish the stage due to the failure and had to take a Zero for the stage run. I would later learn that this ammo failure cost me a top 16 finish in Limited which is a real bummer. This is what I get for using random range brass for big matches. Big lesson learned here….. ALWAYS USE NEW BRASS FOR BIG MATCHES!!!!

Stage 15 – Be Good – This stage had you starting in the middle. At the start you move to the left and engage three targets then move to the right and engage three more paper along with two mini poppers. I chose to shoot the left side first because I knew that I wouldn’t be able to start shooting any of those targets as I was settling into the shooting position after moving hard from the right. Alternately the right side had a full open target that you could engage as you eased into the shooting position. My grip was a little light as I engaged the first target on the right and it resulted in two insanely fast bump fire shots. The splits between those shots had to be like a .07 or .08. I figured that the second shot HAD TO be there shooting that fast but much to my surprise I ended up with an Alpha Mike on that target. The really fast splits on that target got the attention of the CRO and he thought that my gun was doubling. I tried to convince him that it was a bump fire situation and my gun wasn’t failing and doubling but he didn’t want to hear it. He didn’t make me switch to my backup gun but he did go down to the rest of the berms and tell the other CRO’s to watch out for my gun doubling as I shot the other stages. This kind of ticked me off. If I felt that my gun was malfunctioning and shooting when I didn’t intend it to there would be NO WAY that I would continue to shoot it and I would gladly switch over to my backup gun. I felt like I was being singled out because I could shoot really fast.

Stage 16 – Hosing – This was another start in the middle and engage some targets on the left and right kind of stage. All of the targets were fairly close so the name of “Hosing” for the stage was appropriate. I ended up with two D zone hits in the middle section of the stage as I was transitioning through the targets while engaging them. My time was ok, but the two D’s hurt.

Stage 17 – Highs and Lows – This was another short speed shoot style stage. You started at the back right corner then had the choice of crouching down to engage three paper and a popper through the low port then coming up and engaging three more paper and another popper through the high port. A lot of people actually used this plan and I wanted to as well, but I couldn’t get low enough to shoot comfortably and be able to exit the shooting position quickly. Being a big dude has its set backs and this was one of those times. So instead I chose to shoot the right high port first then move to the left and get closer to the low port to engage the final targets. My first shot at the paper in the low port went right into a no shoot which sucked. The only saving grace on this stage is that I had all Alphas which made the no shoot hit sting a little less, but it still hurt.

Stage 18 – Timing is critical – This was another speed shoot type of stage. You could start on the far right or left of the shooting area. There were two static paper on both the far right and left then swingers behind them. Down the middle were three poppers. The back popper activated the left swinger, the middle popper activated the right swinger and the front popper didn’t activate anything. I decided to use a conservative plan on this stage by engaging the far right paper first then the poppers from back to front then the right swinger. Move to the left and engage the two static left paper then finish on the left swinger. This plan worked out pretty good but I think I could have shot the static paper a little faster.

Stage 19 – Road Trip Detour – This was a long field course stage. It had you starting in the back right of the stage and you had to shoot a popper that activated a bobber. These were fairly far shots and a lot of people were rushing their shots on the static paper to the right of the bobber. So I set a goal of getting two solid A zone hits on the right static paper as there was plenty of time to do that before the bobber exposed its self. After that you had a bunch of run and gun left and right shooting followed by some port work. This was the only berm that didn’t have a back berm. When I got to the last port I felt totally out of place because I was shooting at targets and there was no back berm to speak of other than a hill about a mile away. This was really strange to experience. I shot this stage a little tentative as I didn’t want to give away too many points hosing the side targets. The only way I could have shot this stage better would have been to shoot faster but I didn’t want to risk not getting my hits especially after zeroing a stage earlier in the day.

Stage 20 – Double Down – The final stage of the match and it’s a long field course. This stage had a bunch of different ways to shoot it. Each side of the stage had a single popper that activated a clamshell and dropout/back target at the same time. But the shooting area was too far back to be able to engage both while they were exposed. So you were forced to pick on to shoot while it was exposed and just take a head shot on the other one after it got done moving. My initial stage plan had me starting by engaging the middle targets then go to the left and then finish on the right. But I didn’t want to eat the time in the middle by doing a standing draw to engage the middle targets. So I revamped by stage plan which had me starting by moving left first then coming back to the middle. I only had two shooters before me to burn in the stage plan which wasn’t enough time and it shows in my performance. I indexed on the wrong target twice during the stage run which wasted at least a second of stage time. But I got all of my hits and had a fairly solid finish to the match.

When all of the results were tallied I ended up 21st in Limited at 81% of the winner Shannon Smith. Honestly I was surprised to finish that high up on the list with a grand total of 5 Misses, Two No shoots and Zeroing a 75 point stage. The thing that really sucks is if I would have been able to capture 50 – 60 points off of the stage I Zeroed, which was totally possible, I would have been 14th overall. Making the top 16 at my first nationals would have been really awesome. But it wasn’t meant to be I guess. I can accept getting beat by other shooters out performing me but when you get beat by failing equipment its no fun. I was able to pull a certificate for a free C-More off the prize table which was nice but I was kind of surprised by the slim pickings of the prize table. I have seen Area matches with WAY better prize tables than what was there at the nats. That is kind of mind boggling to me. You would think that the nationals would have the best stocked prize table out of all the matches, but I guess it doesn’t go that way.

For my first nationals event I had a good time, learned a lot and got the chance to meet a lot of really nice people. Will I be back next year? I am not sure yet. Given how much time this match takes I could easily attend 3 – 4 Area matches instead. I have a whole year to make up my mind on going back so I am not going to worry about it too much right now.

[BR]

Charlie-

Congrats on an awesome match and great finish!

-br

[Chris iliff]

Good job Charlie!

Great write ups! I've been waiting for them. I'll be reading them over and over. Thanks man.

[CHA-LEE]

This past weekend was a brutal schedule. I have been rebuilding the engine and transmission on my 2005 GTO and worked on getting it reinstalled on Saturday. After 10 straight hours of wrenching I got it about 90% installed before I was totally worn out. On Sunday I was the Match Director for a local USPSA match and had to get up early, setup, run, shoot, and tear down. I was so beat and worn out from the day before I was totally not into the shooting and it really showed in my performance. I ended up with three misses total for the match. My mind was still on getting my GTO back together and after the match was over I dove back into the install and finally got it finished and fired up at about 9PM. To say I was wiped out is an understatement. I slept like the dead on Sunday night.

Tonight I am going to an Indoor USPSA match. Hopefully I can keep my attention focused on the shooting tonight. We will see how it goes.

[CHA-LEE]

Is been a while since I posted anything. I have been focusing on getting my GTO project completed before the winter weather shows up and keeps me from driving it. I got the GTO all back together and am in “Break In” and “Tuning” mode. I almost have all of the break in miles on it and all that is left is to polish up the tuning and get it on the dyno to see how it ends up power wide. The butt dyno says its going to be very strong, but we will see how it goes once we get it on the real dyno. I am hoping for about 750 rear wheel horsepower as that should be enough to provide some really entertaining driving conditions.

I helped setup a stage at a local match last weekend on Saturday. I wasn’t really into the shooting but it was fun shooting with friends. I noticed during last weeks Monday match that my gun wasn’t returning correctly post shot so I swapped out the recoil spring with a new one for the Saturday match and it was back to normal. I think I need to be more diligent at replacing the recoil spring more often. The old 10lb recoil spring felt like an 8lb – 9lb it was so wore out.

This Saturday I am the Match Director for a local match so a lot of work is in order. Hopefully I can get the work done and not let it affect my shooting performance too much.

[frunkenstein]

I'll be there and hopefully i wont be shooting single action this week.LOL. I need to get acouple of decent classifiers in before I get cut on again.

[GForceLizard]

...get it on the dyno to see how it ends up power wide. The butt dyno says its going to be very strong, but we will see how it goes once we get it on the real dyno. I am hoping for about 750 rear wheel horsepower as that should be enough to provide some really entertaining driving conditions.

Sounds cool. Keep us updated and post a picture of the dyno chart.