Tactical 3-gun: TCGC July, 2008

Guest Blogger: The Hobo Brasser

I have joined the ranks of the small number (usually less than 20) who shoot “Tactical” at Tri-County on the fourth Sunday of each month. In January of this year Phil and Kyle, best friends who shoot together all the time (who are excellent shooters as well) took over running the matches. They have a low key approach to the sport and the matches. Tactical has very few rules beyond the obvious safety rules which are range rules. These include things like the180 rule, cold range, etc. One unique to Tactical is mandatory use of cover.

Sunday morning I showed up with a stage design in my head, because I know they usually need help and they don’t come with stages all ready designed. The exception is when Phil sets up a surprise stage. Last mouth he had one which sandbagged everyone, but more on that later. Kyle said to do it and so I set my stage up. It was simple, 5 steel targets, they use a lot of steel so that reset is easy and consumable supplies are at a minimum. Mine had 5 shooting positions, one shot on each steel with a carbine from each of the first 4 positions then pistol from the last position.

Three of the other four stages were more complicated and, in all, it was lots of fun. Yesterday’s match had a carbine emphasis, i.e., more carbines rounds that anything. The stages from 1 - 5 were: 1 - carbine/shotgun, 2 – carbine/pistol, 3 – carbine/shotgun, 4 – carbine/shotgun/ pistol, 5 – carbine/ pistol (mine). Usually the match starts around 10AM and is over with us out of there by 1PM. Yesterday was an exception for three reasons. First, it was a prize match with great weather. Second, there were 28 shooters. Third, we didn’t finish until 3:30PM. I expended 40 pistol rounds about 80 carbine and 21 shotgun.

I had to miss the regular USPSA match at Dundee on Saturday due to some family obligations, so this was a one match weekend, in the future when I can, I will shoot both matches. Judith and Iain were at both. Tactical is a hoot.

A few words about Phil’s surprise stage last month. He set it up so that white were the shoot targets and brown were the no shoots. There were a couple of shoot thrus and you had to move to avoid the shoot thru. Then he put clay targets on the ground to simulate land mines, if you stepped on one you were dead and done. You did not know the white were the shoot targets until you entered and read a sign right at the beginning. Most of us read the sign and proceeded reflexively to shoot the first no shoot (brown) target, yours truly included. It was a lot of fun.

There are a couple of things that bother me about Tactical, but I can live with them. On one stage we shot 6 carbine rounds at some rather tight targets then abandoned the carbine and finished up with pistol. The stage description only allowed 8 rounds in the carbine. Then it had to be abandoned empty with the magazine out and slide back. Good so far, but they allow the muzzle to point down range and the course design made the shooter cross in front of the muzzle. I put mine on a chair off to the left and pointed it into berm so I wouldn’t cover myself, but most did not. I would change that rule. That said, I like the fact that there are not too many rules. My friends will tell you that as much as I like USPSA/IPSC, I have said time and again we are getting too silly in our rules and too much like golf, which I also play, love and think has a lot of silly rules.

The other thing that bothers me is that more people will discover this sport and the matches will continue to get bigger and bigger.

Bob, a long time friend, who was on my squad took pictures and they are at http://picasaweb.google.com/Higbieb1/TriCountyTacticalMatch?authkey=Tp-od6cvZZE

[ed: copy & paste the URL above, or click here for the link.]