First Night Match

[mjoy64]

I participated in my first match at night this last Friday. I posted this under IDPA because we did use IDPA scoring and wear a cover garment (though not an official IDPA match). Wow... what an eye opener! Here are some of the things I learned:

- Equipment makes a huge difference. Guys with gun mounted lights and lasers shoot far faster that the guys sporting hand held flashlights. In terms of my home defense gun, I'm really seriously considering the laser. It just makes so much difference.

- When you are doing something for the first time, it is a crap shoot how well you will do it. If you're attempting to do it under stress, I imagine your odds for success go waaaaaay down! I did not have any way to secure my flashlight so I just stuck it in my jeans pocket and fished it out at the buzzer. On my first string, the buzzer went off, I'm fumbling to get out my flashlight and draw from holster, all the while attempting to shoot the first target on the move. I soon realized that I would have better luck keeping my gun and light pointed in the same direction if my flashlight hand was pressed against my gun hand. The first stage was not pretty for me.

- I do not have tritium night sights and at night my flashlight did not light up my fiber optic on the front sight in any meaningful way. This is the long way to say that all of my shooting was done basically as point shooting.

- Aiming Left to right isn't as difficult as determining whether you are too high or too low.

- It was cool to experience some different lighting conditions. We did plain old dark, strobe light, and light from flashers and headlights off of a car.

Mike

Edited January 4, 2009 by mjoy64

[Chills1994]

Just an FYI... the IDPA rulebook does NOT cover anything dealing with flashlights and/or lasers, so that match you shot in was kinda in UNcharted waters and IDPA HQ does NOT necessarily give its blessing to such a match.

Just so you know...

I'll go put on my flamesuit now....

[Duane Thomas]

You won't need it. We operate at a higher level around here.

[revchuck]

Mike - FWIW, IDPA doesn't permit gun-mounted lights, and lasers aren't addressed in the current rulebook (that I could find). While the match you shot wasn't technically "IDPA legal", it was a really good idea, if only to demonstrate how hard shooting at night really is. Since last year's IDPA Indoor Nationals featured a side match using flashlights and/or lasers, I expect this aspect to be addressed in the next revision of the rulebook.

If you haven't had any training in this (sounds that way from your post), now you know a good place to spend some of your budget.

I use a Comp-Tac holder for my SureFire 6P. It goes on my belt, behind my spare mag, whenever I go out in the dark.

[Steve J]

FYI. This post is about my match. I run an IDPA legal match on Saturday morning, but my Friday night Night Match is not billed as an IDPA match.

This is the match announcement for my night matches.

This match will be an IDPA style match using IDPA rules for the most part, but the divisions of competition are our own to allow people to compete with a carry gun or nightstand gun.

A white light, either hand held or gun mounted, is required for the night match. If you are using a gun mounted light, your holster must be able to accommodate the gun with the light already mounted at the start.

CLASS 1: Gun mounted light with laser

CLASS 2: Gun mounted light, no laser

CLASS 3: Hand held flashlight with laser

CLASS 4: Hand held flashlight, no laser

Edited January 5, 2009 by Steve J

[mjoy64]

Steve, I've fixed the original post. My apologies.

Mike

[Steve J]

Steve, I've fixed the original post. My apologies.

Mike

No worries, Mike. I would encourage you and anyone starting out in the dark to get a good tactical flashlight like the Surefire G2Z with tactical ring to start. Get your two handed hold down and learn to focus on the black silhouette of your sights on the illuminated target. It's really easy to let your eyes focus on the illuminated target instead of the sights. Once you train yourself to do that, and it only takes a few matches, then I would consider a gun mounted light and/or night sights for real world. Night sights in particular are critical in low light situations where you might not necessary have or need a flashlight.

For sanctioned IDPA matches that have no-light stages despite the lack of provision for that or the equipment in IDPA rules, you will want to have that good hand held light and the skills to use it with black sights.

[Boats]

Surefire has an very good paper on shooting with flashlights on there web-site. History Pros & Cons of most methods.

Boats

[midvalleyshooter]

FYI. This post is about my match. I run an IDPA legal match on Saturday morning, but my Friday night Night Match is not billed as an IDPA match.

This is the match announcement for my night matches.

This match will be an IDPA style match using IDPA rules for the most part, but the divisions of competition are our own to allow people to compete with a carry gun or nightstand gun.

A white light, either hand held or gun mounted, is required for the night match. If you are using a gun mounted light, your holster must be able to accommodate the gun with the light already mounted at the start.

CLASS 1: Gun mounted light with laser

CLASS 2: Gun mounted light, no laser

CLASS 3: Hand held flashlight with laser

CLASS 4: Hand held flashlight, no laser

Steve your night match sounds like fun. Do the guns with mounted lights and lasers provide an advantage? I know the best shooter will still win but whats your take on the practical use of the mounted stuff?

Keith

[Steve J]

CLASS 1: Gun mounted light with laser

CLASS 2: Gun mounted light, no laser

CLASS 3: Hand held flashlight with laser

CLASS 4: Hand held flashlight, no laser[/b][/i]

Steve your night match sounds like fun. Do the guns with mounted lights and lasers provide an advantage? I know the best shooter will still win but whats your take on the practical use of the mounted stuff?

Keith

I think the laser slows people down. It's a lot quicker to focus on your sights, especially if you have night sights, then to try to line up that dot down range.

The gun mounted light, on the other hand, is like shooting in broad daylight if you're not being forced to use the momentary switch to just illuminate when shooting. Of course, it's still the indian more than the arrow as evidenced by the results, but I guarantee the guys on the top in Class 4 (handheld) would be even faster with a gun mounted light, but some of us go for "IDPA legal".

We enforced a 10-round magazine limit.

Steve J Class 4 77.26

Jakob D Class 4 83.70

Chris H Class 2 84.66

Alan C Class 4 86.66

Zeb P Class 4 87.28

Frank L Class 1 89.99

Tim M Class 4 90.87

Michael H Class 1 92.36

Paul W Class 1 95.57

Peter L Class 4 98.74

Robert W Class 4 100.33

Rick K Class 1 103.91

Tom J Class 2 110.96

Robert C Class 1 111.67

Paul B Class 4 113.15

Mark S Class 2 114.95

Dave S Class 4 116.32

Erik D Class 1 117.74

Larry W Class 4 120.56

Doug J Class 2 122.25

Jon B Class 1 126.41

Mike J Class 4 132.08

Robert R Class 2 132.22

John H Class 4 151.29

Jim W Class 4 165.27

Sammy H Class 4 206.34

Darrell D Class 4 240.13

[Duane Thomas]

I think the laser slows people down. It's a lot quicker to focus on your sights, especially if you have night sights, then to try to line up that dot down range.

Actually, from watching numerous people use night sights and lasers at matches, I'd say - granted a skilled shooter using the laser - it's a LOT faster to use the laser. Frankly, I'm not the world's biggest night sights fan. In my experience they're not nearly as visible in low light as a lot of people like to believe, and once you fire the first round, if your gun has any sort of significant muzzle flash, you lose enough night vision that the dots become invisible. On the other hand, with a laser, you just put the red dot in the center of the target and rap out a series of center hits. Easy.

Having said that, I'd MUCH rather have a gun mounted light than either of the other options.

[HSMITH]

Shoot the laser like an open gun and you can go REALLY fast with all your accuracy, not to mention it is a hell of a lot of fun.

Last year at the WIIT they had a low light stage with a hand held flashlight (everyone used the same light), I shot the match in Open and shooting an Open gun in a 32 round go fast stage with a flashlight was AWESOME!! It was my first competitive use of a flashlight and I think I won the stage in Open, but I had been playing with a flashlight around the house quite a bit in the week before as I had just bought a new light and wanted to get used to it. Familiarity is the key with a hand held light.

[Merlin Orr]

Shot one stage in the dark at the indoor match a couple of weeks ago. I borrowed a little small light a guy had that had a large rubber O ring on the end of it. Put the O ring over the first finger and when the buzzer went off turned the light on by pressing the end of the light with my thumb then flipped the light up between my ring finger and my "here's your IQ finger" and help my normal two handed hold. Worked really well and any where my gun went the target was illuminated. Most of the guys shot with a larger light and it was not as fast or easy for them..(So it appeared anyway).

The little light was a good one and I am definitely going to have one rigged the same way in the future. The guy I borrowed it from said he took a class from someone on defensive shooting and was turned onto it at the class.

I am a believer now.

[mike4045]

I shot a couple of IPSC night matches.They are fun and something different. I ran a light laser combo. The laser was much easier and faster. At the time I was shooting open so it was alot like shooting a dot. The killer was that it was mounted to my Beretta storm. I wish they still had the match regularly. I have a rail on my limited gun now.

Mike

[HSMITH]

Merlin, Streamlight made a Thunder Ranch light that is set up with a belt/pocket clip and an O-ring already. It is a nice light, I really like mine and it is the best way to 'syringe' the light and still be able to reload or whatever else you need to do while still keeping the light handy and quick back into action. I think they might have been discontinued, but there are still a few on ebay so they may not be. Here is a link to the light I am talking about.

[Nik Habicht]

Frankly, I'm not the world's biggest night sights fan. In my experience they're not nearly as visible in low light as a lot of people like to believe, and once you fire the first round, if your gun has any sort of significant muzzle flash, you lose enough night vision that the dots become invisible.

I've noticed over the years that night sights are helpful when competing on indoor ranges where the illumination (and the amount of light or contrast hitting your sights) can change dramatically as you move through a stage. Would I prefer a gun-mounted white light? Sure. Am I gonna rely on that while eschewing night sights? Nope --- night sights will continue to exist on many of my blasters....

[Duane Thomas]

Last year at the WIIT they had a low light stage with a hand held flashlight (everyone used the same light), I shot the match in Open...

Every year at a local USPSA club they have a night match that's MD'd by one of our local law enforement guys. It's great, we have stages where the only illumination comes from a rotating police car light bar, some where targets are backlit, on several occasions we've had to shoot stages with BRIGHT lights shining right into our eyes.

Anyway, at this match they relax the USPSA "no gun mounted flashlights" rule. If you have it, you can run it. I didn't even know this was "that" match before I showed up, but I happened to have one of those little cheapy plastic Glock lights in my backpack. On just about every stage I came in second - WAY ahead of just about everyone else. The only guy who regularly beat me was the guy with the Open gun. This was a revelation to me: up until then I didn't know that, if you adjusted the dot intensity low, you could use an Open gun for low light shooting and it would work great. Almost like having a laser.

[AFH]

If you are interested in an IDPA sanctioned low/no light match, check out the Virginia Indoor Regional being held March 19-22 in Chesapeake, VA. This match has been running for several years and consists of 5 stages in the dark and 5 with the lights on. Working the match was a great education in light manipulation and low light shooting techniques.

Andy