The match which I've been anticipating with so much excitement has completed, and I'm still excited.
Weather:
The unseasonable seventy-four degree weather showed up on time, and we actually found that it was too warm to be comfortable. We were clumping in the shade of the covered bays to keep from overheating. The unspoken agreement was the nobody would complain about the heat, but at least one person eventually complained about being 'too hot' and we laughed him down.
This is April in Oregon, right? Early April, in the Pacific North Wet. But there was more sweat than wet, even though I found at least one mud puddle in the margins of the access roadway. (No, I didn't take a picture of it; I figured you would take my word for it.)
SWMBO and I were both suffering from the debilitations of recovering from bad colds, so we couldn't RO very much. By the end of the match we had had enough, and we left before the awards ceremony. We would have liked to congratulated the winners, even though we knew we wouldn't have been among them. (Match Results available here. you can always find ARPC match results on Brian Berkley's excellent ARPC-INFO website here.) It didn't much matter, though, because we had a great time. We had great weather, challenging stages, and we got to see a lot of old friends and perhaps make some new friends.
The Gun:
Rob Shepherd of Major Nyne Guns and his charming (and very competitive) wife Caryn were there to deliver my repaired and thoroughly cleaned STI Race Gun in plenty of time for me to install my own backup Guide Rod Assembly before the match.
I'll never know how Rob got all the crud out of the compensator, but it looked good and shot great!
Except ... the backup Guide Rod Assembly (which I supplied ... no reflection on Rob's workmanship) wasn't right for the gun. I had two malfunctions, where the slide locked back on the next cartridge in the magazine requiring tap/rack/bang emergency recovery techniques. You can see them in the video (below). Fortunately, Rob had a spare Guide Rod which I'll use to replace the one I used today, along with a new ISMI ten-pound recoil spring which I got from Chuck Bradley at Shooters' Connection. I'll install the new Guide Rod and Spring before the match next weekend at Tri-County Gun Club.
Other than that, the gun (which Rob had sighted in for me at 12 yards ... I'll resight it again at 50 yards using my own ammunition) worked great. The only problem was that the gun hit at point-of-aim, and my personal point-of-aim was too frequently wandering across the no-shoot targets which were so frequently featured on these Mike McCarter designed stages.
There are times when I think that a pistol which is not sighted in has a better chance of giving me a high score. I excuse myself because I haven't done much competitive shooting for the past six months, but I realize that this is not an acceptable excuse. Fortunately, I already have enough ammunition reloaded for the next match, but I'll be doing more reloading. (Unfortunately ... remember the problems I mentioned a few months ago about bending decapping pins? I bent another one Thursday night; now I have to find the two-dozen pins I bought from Brownells and stored "in a safe place", which means I'll probably never see them again. But that's my problem.
People:
Guy Neill (author of the RELOADING column in USPSA's Front Sight magazine recently relocated to Oregon, and although he had mentioned months earlier that he was thinking about moving West to shoot with us, this was the first we knew that it was a fait accompli. Better, he had squadded with us so we had some time to make him feel welcome. Also, he kicked Geek Butt, if you'll excuse the expression. (Not that it was much of an accomplishment this week, but he proved once again that he is not only a charming friend but also very competitive.)
The Hobo Brasser just got back from umpteen months Snow-Birding in Texas, and he was full of stories of his excursions to Mexico ... maybe I should call them "incursions" if half of what he says is accurate. He and Whitefish spent a lot of time swapping stories with Guy, and at one time I wandered into a discussion of college mathametic tests for Engineering Students with Guy, The Hobo Brasser, and Vern. I wandered out as quickly as I can. Computer Geeks I can deal with, but I'm way over my head when confronted by an unholy trinity of Engineering Geeks. This is way too Dilbert for me.
Pictures and Videos:
I promised Brian Berkley (did I spell that right) that I would post a couple of videos I took of him. I suspect I won't have time to do that tonight, which is disappointing because he some good stages. Brian, I'll probably get to that Monday night (but see below).
I haven't even reviewed the 1GB+ photos and videos that I took at the match. I may never get them all posted, I went a little crazy. Fortunately, Mitch M. was on our squad and he not only took a lot of videos, he wasn't distracted by much more than a 100 mile commute from Bend to Albany; he sent me the link to a YouTube video of the match. I'll post it here, now, with the only comment that Mitch is doing a great job of filming and editing Action Videos of USPSA matches.
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