Joeywhat
11-14-2009, 05:09 PM
Had a great time today...saw a lot of familiar faces and met a few new ones. I think everybody had fun. Stages were pretty straight forward and not a ton of people today so it didn't run too long. Came away from this with a few lessons learned and a better idea of what I'd like to do in terms of firearms training in the future.
Stage 1
First stage on the 100 yard range. Started up near the benches on the left of the range and had to move to the right, engaging targets along the way. Shooter started in 'hostage' position, kneeling on ground hands on hand, with rifle on the deck within arms reach and magazine not inserted in rifle. First mag was downloaded to 6 rounds. Three targets to immediately engage after loading, then time to get up and start moving. You can either reload the rifle (with a full mag) at the this point or switch to pistol and move on. A small barrier separates the earlier targets from a few more, with some hostages mixed in. Shoot on the move or from behind cover! After moving to the far right of the range you have to get 6 hits on various steel targets about 75 or so yards away. This was done from behind a VTAC barrier, which has a slew of different 'ports' cut into the plywood that you have to shoot from. Each one is a little different and requires different skills to shoot through. 2 hits from any 3 ports and the round was done.
Biggest thing I learned here was that I am a FATASS. Definitely need to hit the gym. I also found that sighting in a rifle with a 50 yard zero at 25 yards isn't too hard to do...I had worries that sighting it at only 25 yards would cause some issues at distances...but it was dead nuts.
Stage 2
This was a 'snake drill' of sorts. Targets were to either side of the range and several barrels lined the middle, spaced a few feet apart. Shooter started at the beginning of the barrels and 'snaked' through them engaging targets as they came by. Two steel (pistol only) targets and a last cardboard target were at the end. The shooter started with an unloaded rifle and two magazines placed on the first barrel. One with six rounds, one with four rounds. More targets then rifle ammo, so at some point the transition to pistol must take place to finish the stage. Reloading quickly, efficiently and from behind cover was the key here, or just pulling out the blaster once the first mag ran dry.
Here I found that while I would've prefered to just fire through a single rifle mag and switch to pistol right away, I didn't. I'm still not 100% on my pistol skills and ended up relying on my rifle to make hits.
Stage 3
Zombie stage! Pretty straight forward here...shooter starts with rifle with 10 rounds in the mag and NO extra mags. Opens a door and finds two targets in the immediate area, and the rest of the horde not far behind. Head shots only! Again more targets then rifle ammo so the blaster came out eventually to finish up. Not much space to move in this one and a LOT of targets so you had to take cover or shoot fast.
What I learned here is that if you're not sure if you hit the target...shoot the mofo again. I THOUGHT I had made good hits on all the targets, but had forgotten one. I thought it had hits but wasn't sure. The extra second to hit it again would've been much better then the failure to neutralize I got...plus now the zombie horde continues as I became infected :rolleyes:
Stage 4
Blind stage. Shooter goes in with full gear (no downloaded mags) and no knowledge of the course of fire. Overall a pretty simple course...round a couple of corners and open up any targets that get in the way. The catch is that once you clear it with your rifle, you go back and do it again with your pistol...weak hand only. The only thing I didn't like about this stage was that you stopped and just went back to the beginning after clearing with the rifle. I would've rather had something where you don't stop and have to transition to the pistol and fight back to the beginning or something similar.
One of my biggest issues came out in this stage. First I found that while shooting weak hand only my left eye likes to take over. This caused a few misses...and once I realized what was happening I started to 'think' too much and started dropping shots low left :rolleyes: So practice is needed either keeping everything sighted with the right eye, or maybe closing an eye while shooting weak hand. For most of the match I didn't really 'think' about anything, just went the stages doing what was instructed. Here once I had the brain fart things went downhill fast...so I need to work on my mental game and keep things running smooth.
So overall it was a great match. I felt I did OK...certainly better then the Sept match...where we all had to endure the FAIL that was Steve's blind room clearing stage :rolleyes: I was REAL nervous going into the blind stage today thinking people would want to one-up Steve and make something even more humiliating.
Thanks to everyone who helped setup and take down the match, and the match director/RO's.
Stage 1
First stage on the 100 yard range. Started up near the benches on the left of the range and had to move to the right, engaging targets along the way. Shooter started in 'hostage' position, kneeling on ground hands on hand, with rifle on the deck within arms reach and magazine not inserted in rifle. First mag was downloaded to 6 rounds. Three targets to immediately engage after loading, then time to get up and start moving. You can either reload the rifle (with a full mag) at the this point or switch to pistol and move on. A small barrier separates the earlier targets from a few more, with some hostages mixed in. Shoot on the move or from behind cover! After moving to the far right of the range you have to get 6 hits on various steel targets about 75 or so yards away. This was done from behind a VTAC barrier, which has a slew of different 'ports' cut into the plywood that you have to shoot from. Each one is a little different and requires different skills to shoot through. 2 hits from any 3 ports and the round was done.
Biggest thing I learned here was that I am a FATASS. Definitely need to hit the gym. I also found that sighting in a rifle with a 50 yard zero at 25 yards isn't too hard to do...I had worries that sighting it at only 25 yards would cause some issues at distances...but it was dead nuts.
Stage 2
This was a 'snake drill' of sorts. Targets were to either side of the range and several barrels lined the middle, spaced a few feet apart. Shooter started at the beginning of the barrels and 'snaked' through them engaging targets as they came by. Two steel (pistol only) targets and a last cardboard target were at the end. The shooter started with an unloaded rifle and two magazines placed on the first barrel. One with six rounds, one with four rounds. More targets then rifle ammo, so at some point the transition to pistol must take place to finish the stage. Reloading quickly, efficiently and from behind cover was the key here, or just pulling out the blaster once the first mag ran dry.
Here I found that while I would've prefered to just fire through a single rifle mag and switch to pistol right away, I didn't. I'm still not 100% on my pistol skills and ended up relying on my rifle to make hits.
Stage 3
Zombie stage! Pretty straight forward here...shooter starts with rifle with 10 rounds in the mag and NO extra mags. Opens a door and finds two targets in the immediate area, and the rest of the horde not far behind. Head shots only! Again more targets then rifle ammo so the blaster came out eventually to finish up. Not much space to move in this one and a LOT of targets so you had to take cover or shoot fast.
What I learned here is that if you're not sure if you hit the target...shoot the mofo again. I THOUGHT I had made good hits on all the targets, but had forgotten one. I thought it had hits but wasn't sure. The extra second to hit it again would've been much better then the failure to neutralize I got...plus now the zombie horde continues as I became infected :rolleyes:
Stage 4
Blind stage. Shooter goes in with full gear (no downloaded mags) and no knowledge of the course of fire. Overall a pretty simple course...round a couple of corners and open up any targets that get in the way. The catch is that once you clear it with your rifle, you go back and do it again with your pistol...weak hand only. The only thing I didn't like about this stage was that you stopped and just went back to the beginning after clearing with the rifle. I would've rather had something where you don't stop and have to transition to the pistol and fight back to the beginning or something similar.
One of my biggest issues came out in this stage. First I found that while shooting weak hand only my left eye likes to take over. This caused a few misses...and once I realized what was happening I started to 'think' too much and started dropping shots low left :rolleyes: So practice is needed either keeping everything sighted with the right eye, or maybe closing an eye while shooting weak hand. For most of the match I didn't really 'think' about anything, just went the stages doing what was instructed. Here once I had the brain fart things went downhill fast...so I need to work on my mental game and keep things running smooth.
So overall it was a great match. I felt I did OK...certainly better then the Sept match...where we all had to endure the FAIL that was Steve's blind room clearing stage :rolleyes: I was REAL nervous going into the blind stage today thinking people would want to one-up Steve and make something even more humiliating.
Thanks to everyone who helped setup and take down the match, and the match director/RO's.