The Night Before: 9th Annual Single Stack Championship

The Single Stack Championship match in Albany starts tomorrow (Saturday, July 9) at 9am. I remain phlegmatic about my expectations. SWMBO (She Who Must Be Obeyed) is bouyant with encouragement which sounds to me much like wishful thinking. I don't know. I just spent six hours helping set up the stages, and it is a gruelling (very challenging) set of courses of fire. I would love to shoot it with my Open gun. Trying to hit the targets while using a gun I can't see the sights of, however, is discouraging.

SWMBO has promised to take a lot of pictures at the match. I'll post the best of them Saturday Night on the blog.

The weatherman predicts nice weather.

We'll see.

In the meantime, over 100 people have signed up to shoot the match. Eight stages, about 200 rounds ... should be interesting. Chances are that the match will ultimately fill up with the 120 slots available.

For those who don't regularly participate in IPSC matches, 120 competitors is a VERY reputable turnout. Heck, anything over 60 people is a Major Match. We've had National Matches in USPSA (United States Practical Shooting Association) which attracted less than 400 shooters. This number of competitors is VERY respectable for a local match which recognizes only single-stack 1911-type equipment.

If you're in the area, consider coming out to watch the match (starting at 9am, running until about 1pm.) So far, we have only one Grandmaster signed up for the match ... but we have several Master Limited 10 shooters signed up, which represents a significant percentage of the best Single Stack shooters in the World.

You won't see this on CNN. But you'll see it in Oregon.

Single Stack competition is the best of a dying breed, and illustrates the way IPSC competition was originally designed to be played.

It's a GAME, folks!