ALSPPC 1/5/08 USPSA Match

Not a bad little match for the first foray of the year. The weather around La Grange, TX started off overcast and a bit cool, but warmed to the mid-70s and cleared to partly cloudy skies by 11:00am. I won the Open division in the match, and was High Overall. Here's the video - my comments follow....




This was the typical 5 stage local match. My squad started on Stage 5, so that's where the video starts. As you can see, the stage was a short little 27 round "field" course - if a 3' square shooting box for the shooting area counts as a "field course". It was really more of a big speed shoot, and had the high hit factor you'd expect. I was down 7 points here, which puts me just shy of 95% of points. The footwork was a bit goofy, and I ended up out of position moving into the last array - thus the foot shuffle, but the last set of targets was through a 4"x8" port that was positioned about 5' away from the box, so you had to angle yourself around to see all the targets. The only real mistake here was the 2nd to the last shot on the middle array - a little trigger freeze here, and I broke the 2nd shot on the last target off to the right. I had to make that one up, and then move on - that always costs time.

From there to stage 1. I had to wait 7 or 8 minutes, and had 3 false starts on the stage as targets downrange kept blowing over in the wind that kicked up as the sky cleared. Even so, I had a decent run, excepting my 3 to the last shot, which went over a headshot target at the end - I called it, but didn't make it up for reasons I can't really explain. I was happy with how I got the gun up and ready for the 2nd array, moved hard into the third, and took the Texas start 1 for 1, without the luxury of shooting it in an optimal pattern...

Stage 2 was the classifier, 99-12 Take Your Choice. The 100% hit factor for this one appears to be an 11 - so my 11.3772 is enough for a 103% run there. Unfortunately, the club doesn't own a Bianchi Barricade prop, so the box was a bit wider on each side, and one could see over the top of the barricade (though shooting that way wasn't really a good option for me). This might have made the lean to the inside targets a bit easier, but probably isn't enough to scream about.

Stage 3 really could only be shot one way - you could make some choices on the outside arrays, but nothing too incredible. The plates you hear are 6" squares - I chose to pin up at the beginning and hammer the near target, then take the plates, and sweep the last two as I departed. I took two extra shots here - without them, I'd have been sub-7 seconds on this stage. As it is, this was another high hit factor run.

Stage 4 was the only stage I made any real large mistakes on in the match. My name was pulled first, and I didn't really get comfortable with the stage before I began - definitely a mental error, and one I've recognized in my game, but not fully corrected, yet. C'est la vie. Better to do this in a local match. The middle array is 1 Pepper Popper and 9 US poppers, and I basically hosed at it, not really calling shots, and in the end, ran the gun dry and had to do a standing reload. A tough break, too - the only shot in that array that I fully remember calling was on the first target I shot in the middle - but it didn't go over. It subsequently passed calibration, so I had a miss... to go with another miss on the right side that resulted from - foolishly - trying to make up time lost in the middle. I know better, of course.... Interestingly, another of those same US Poppers (the kind with the funky L-hinge that sometimes have issues...) did not fall when center punched with a 230gr .45 bullet at Major power factor.... so I don't feel so bad about my missed popper... Those targets have sat in a trailer for two years with no use, and this is only their second match, so they could probably use a little TLC in the form of some lube...

Fun match, and a good way to open the season. Hard to tell I literally hadn't shot the gun in over a month (since the last ALSPPC match), isn't it??? ;)