Shooting Production

I've subscribed to "Trevormaster" on YouTube.

Trevor is a talented Master-class USPSA competitor, and often I would almost rather watch (and envy) him demonstrate his skills than shoot the stage myself. He's that good.

This video comprises all six stages in a 2009 Club Match at Tri-County Gun Club. It's rare when an entire match can be completed in less than 2 minutes of actual shooting time.

I loved the challenging (and very well balanced) stage designs, and I was entirely impressed by Trevor's over-all competence, smooth lightening-fast reloads, skill in determining the best tactical approach to every stage, ability to shoot accurately even in awkward 'off-balance' stances, and ability to transition seamlessly from one target array to the next. It's especially impressive when you factor in the 10-round magazine limitation of Production Division, which almost always requires the shooter to reload while moving between arrays.

With most competitors, when we watch them shoot stages this quickly, we say "It looked great on video!" This is shorthand for "I know you can't get consistent hits shooting that fast".

But with this young school-teacher, I won't even bother going to the score sheets to count miss-penalties and low-A-zone hit-countss on the total points scored. I have full confidence that he got his hits and most likely came in first in his Division for the match.

Trevor is currently a Master-class shooter in most USPSA Divisions. Is he GrandMaster material? Well, yes, at least potentially. The cost to his personal life would be ... perhaps excessive. I doubt that Trevor would ever be able to make the difficult decision to give up his richly rewarding career as a teacher. And he is relatively recently married, which suggests that he would be loathe to spend so muct time away from home while following the competitions circuit.. He seems to have his priorities established in a conservative mode, and I can't see him searching for a Sponsor. Especially one which would require a lot of travel, practice and competition time for as many years as he can endure.

He is the iconic "Talented Amateur", and inspires us all to strive to achieve (but probably never will) the skills which he demonstrates. This seems to be a role in which he finds himself quite comfortable, though I don't doubt he would feel embarrassed being categorized in that manner. He's an unassuming gentleman, very friendly and open. He never seems too busy to stop and chat. In many ways, his attitude toward competition is similar to that of Travis Tomasie. (When did my idols begin to be younger than me? It hasn't been a recent phenomenon.)


I can't shoot this well. Can you?