Florida Open

[cpty1]

The Black hole was simply a tunnel about 7' tall and 40 to 50' long. There were 4 ports, 2 on each side, then some targets that had to be engaged from behind a fault line at the end of the tunnel. The ports inside the tunnel were obscured somewhat by black bags hanging down from the top of the tunnel so the ports were only visible once you were pretty much right on top of them. It wasn't a complicated stage at all but took longer than some of us would have liked. The separating factor was two plates that had to be engaged from the first two ports. Tight shots that required a long index if shot on the move from the one small area where they were both available at the same time, or which required getting deeply into the port on one side if they weren't engaged on the move. Setup and foot positioning into and around the first two ports was the key. Everything else was pretty much straight forward. Like a lot of Frank's stages, very deceptive.

[RKooi]

Congrats to Chris Patty for 10th overall Open. I guess it is a good thing I taught him a thing or two at the local match the weekend before he went to Frostproof

[cpty1]

Yes, I'm deeply indebted.

[SmittyFL]

It was a great match, congrats to all the forum members who were there. I saw more than one B.E. T-shirt.

If you didn't make it this year, you should really try for next. Nothing like shooting a good match to start off the season while getting a sunburn in February.

[Flexmoney]

The Black hole... Setup and foot positioning into and around the first two ports was the key.

Sounds like a pretty tough challenge...figuring out the "choke-point"...then executing a plan to deal with that choke-point.

[DogmaDog]

The Black Hole was the first stage I shot on Friday morning. The toughest part about it for my squad was that the sun was just rising, and when you shot through the port, condensation would fall off the black plastic. When I lined up my shot on the small plate on the right, all I could see was a gleaming, beautiful cloud of sparkling mist with intense sunlight coming through it. Uggg!

My favorite had to be Bio Lab, with the 3 doors activated by poppers, and several reasonable choices for how to shoot it.

Restricted Area confused the hell out of me...I engaged one target twice, and two targets not at all. Both shots on the swinger hit. Wish I'd had about 30 minutes more to figure out how to shoot that one.

Anyway, it was a really fun match, and went very smoothly, I thought.

DogmaDog

[Navy Joe]

Black Hole, last stage, hated it. Well that and Stage 6. They were the two highest Hf hoser stages and my go slow and get the points approach really killed me on those two. By and large I got my points, 1 miss, 8 or 9 Ds. I survived Restricted Area with one D on a stationary target. The world's fastest swinger was 2A, of course I unloaded into that thing. Bio-Lab was a lot of fun. One of the few people to walk off of Stage 4 with 24A.

My goals were top 10 Production (19th)

High Military Prod. Missed by less than 1%

and to win B production (4th)

Arrgh! Amazing how the class grew, 50 shooters and tough competition. Lots of IPSC M/USPSA U shooters in the class coming in from around the world to whip up on me. Great experience, look forward to next year. Really neat to see all the IPSC shooters from elsewhere come in.

[joseywales]

First time out to the FL Open. Absolutely great match. Good to get out of cold too (yeah, yeah, I'm a whiney-butt that lives in Texas so I really don't know what cold is...we define it here as anything below 70).

Went down with a friend from Dallas. We sent in our apps together so as to get squaded together, and then he goes and gets put in the Super Squad! Argh!

Oh well, as luck would have it, I got put in with what we'll call the 'other' super squad. Sevigny, Strader, Seeklander, Sindelar, Goloski. Very eye-opening match for me. It's a funny thing, none of these big players LOOKED that fast, but they are so smooth, with no wasted motion, with few to zero mistakes, that the times just turn out very low.

Lot of fun & learning with this squad too. During the course of the match, I asked questions about what's the advantage of shooting a stage this way, how do you sequence these targets, how do you keep the front sight from wobbling while shooting strong-hand, etc. Everyone was very helpful.

Dave Sevigny impressed me with his relaxed, "everybody's an equal" attitude. On several occasions, I saw him take shooters in our squad through how to execute the stage (and made sure they were comfortable with it...i.e., explain it several times if necessary). Saw Phil Strader and Julie Goloski do the same thing, several times.

You know, it is really fun to shoot with folks like that. The sport becomes so much more enjoyable when you get to see the folks at the top of this game that understand that it's equally important for the "John Doe shooter" to perform at his/her best & get to enjoy the sport too.

My goal when I signed up for the match was to see where I stood against THE production GM. Thought if I could shoot 75% of his score, I did well. I ran a little bit lower than that at 70%. So now I understand better where I stand, had a tone of fun, learned a few things, and identified things that I need to work on.

Heartily recommend this match.

[B.J. Norris]

Not a good match for me. 6th B Open, 53rd, overall. Gun only ran 100% on 3 stages, the other 7 it got ugly pretty regular..... Thank goodness Bob @ Brazos let me borrow a gun for the Open shoot-off, which I ended up winning. Did anybody else think that the guy running the prize tabe was being a bit too much much a a drill sarge by yelling "Pick a bag, pick a bag, go, go, go" all the time? Could've done without that part,but otherwise a great match just like last year, if you can go, then go. You won't regret it.

[eric nielsen]

{never mind - camo binoculars are fine}

Edited February 26, 2004 by caspian28r

[blkbrd]

First, Thank you Frank all the staff and helpers that put on the match it was great, how you can make 300 shooters from all over the world happy is beyond me.

IPSCg34, you were right about the prize table nazzi, As we didnt start getting to the prize table till like 8pm I think he just wanted to get home. but I do appreciate the bag of goodies to go along with my trophy. My binoculars are black and I really like the gargoils.

After I tanked bad on my first 2 stages got rid of a bunch of excess adrinalin and gave up on doing well and decided just to have fun. I shot pretty well for me considering this was my first major match and only had my limited gun for 3 small matches before the Open.

[shred]

While I wasn't there this year, I'm going to divert into a bit of ranting about prize table operation.. seems like the people running it always get more and more impatient as the day (and night) wear on.. The top shooters seem to get all week to pick stuff out, then the organizers start trying to catch up by urging other shooters through faster and faster. What's up with that? The top guys know exactly where they're getting their prizes from, and there aren't that many to choose from. It's the mid-pack shooters that have to decide "do I want this box of parts or that one"? Speed up the top shooters, please. Even if I'm there, I'll be happy to grab a gun and go.

[gmshtr]

Great match, again. Looks like I've got some rust to shake off!!

And shred, I hate to inform you that no one was grabbing guns off of the table. Travis, me, etc picked up the same thing everyone else did....bino's, some gargoyle sunglasses, and a $25 gift certificiate.

Didn't Frank say that Smith & Wesson was their biggest sponsor this year???? HMMM.

Fire at will!

Phil

[JWK]

Who got the AR donated by SAW CUSTOM?

[cpty1]

It wasn't a complete AR, but an AR upper. It was an award that was designated to one of the military categories. Frank announced to where it was designated but I can't remember now where. To echo gmshtr's comments, there were no guns, or frames on any of the prize tables. There was a 6" 45 slide and a commander length 40 slide on the open division prize table.

[ErikW]

Prize Table Solution: Steel Challenge style. Distribute a list, then call out the picks as they are taken.

[shred]

OK, so no guns, but any sane prize table will put the prizes in some sort of order. The first people up know where to look.. give them the same 30 seconds to pick as everybody else. Would that really be a problem?

(btw, the SC also seems to run long in the top part of the list as everybody has some sort of genetic need to fondle each and every firearm still left)

[Turtle]

Didn't Frank say that Smith & Wesson was their biggest sponsor this year???? HMMM.

Yes, Frank did say that but I didn't catch on.....did anyone see any of their stuff at the table? Oh well, anyway...I guess I wasn't the only one who left with the feeling "what just happened here?!?"

It was my first time at the match and it certainly was a great time. Good stages, good people, good weather, what else could you want? To shoot better you say, well you can't have everything.

Great match, I highly recommend it to all, next year.

Skipper, you're still THE MAN and at least you won the shoot off. This will be the year of the Skipper! (and Team Shooters Paradise)

[Kevin Kline]

JWK,

I won the SAW Custom AR upper. It was awarded to high Law Enforcement in LImited 10. Looks like a pretty nice unit, flat top and all. Now to pick up a quick AR lower for a few bucks and I'll be off and running.

Kevin Insco

[3quartertime]

Just wanted to give a shout out to the;

Top lady D class limited 10 shooter...

STI contingency winner...

D-Lo's better half,

Jane Ball

AKA

WVPPS Range Babe.

Congrads!!!