This is a 12-stage match, presented in 10 bays. Three stages are presented in one bay - they are quick, short stages (two 8-round, one 6-round) on which I presume each competitor shoots all 3 stages, back to back to back. Or side to side to side, as it were. I'll have pictures tomorrow. We -- the truncated (9-person) "Usual Suspects" squad -- didn't shoot that bay.
The arrangement was that we shoot 7 stages Saturday, then Sunday shoot the remaining 5 stages. Then there's a free BBQ. I assume that means we have to eat ribs. I hate ribs. I hope they have Kielbasa, but that's probably too much to ask. I'm not a big BBQ fan, which is surprising because I'm a carnivore. Nothing green, please. My friends and family have horrified me with tales of dying a nutrient starved early death for the past 60+ years. I'm still waiting.
We were the 5th squad, so we started out of Bay 5, which held a 32 round stage with two Texas Star targets. Then we went to the Bay 6 and shot another 32 round stage after waiting 20 minutes for the squad before us to clear the stage.
In fact, Bay 7, Bay 8, Bay 9 and Bay 10 also featured 32-round stages, at which we had to wait 20 minutes (more or less) for the previous squad to finish. They had 12 people, and they had 'issues'.
These are The Big Bays at Tri-County Gun Club. Most of them are 20-30 yards wide and 50 yards deep, and the match administration chose to fill most of them from berm to berm and from front to back of the bay. This made for a LOT of walking whether you're shooting, RO-ing, taping or setting steel. By 2pm we were on Bay 10 and my feet were absolutely killing me. I sat on my butt for most of the stage, but with only 9 people in the squad there aren't that many warm bodies to work the stage so I only got to sit down for 4 shooters, and I taped the 'close' targets for 3 of them.
It was an overcast, warm day which should have been perfect shooting weather. Unfortunately, it has rained the past 3 days in Oregon, not hard but daily, so while gravelled bays were not soggy the atmosphere was very humid. I had worn a light long-sleeve shirt under a golf shirt, but I went to my car and changed into a tee shirt for the rest of the match in an attempt to alleviate the effects of the muggy air. There were two 10-minute showers, not what Oregonians call "Rain" but enough that we were more comfortable putting on a light jacket to keep from getting too soaked. After the rain quit, the ground and the people steamed until the worst of the moisture in shirts and pants had evaporated. But you had to keep moving, because to stand still was to create your own personal climate which reminded me uncomfortably of my sojurn at Fort Benning in 1969. It wasn't quite like breathing through damp cotton, and certainly better than the burning summer sun and 90-plus degree temperature we usually expect this time of year, but it was enough for Fat Old Men like me to feel our age.
Our last stage of the day was a 16-round 'almost-hoser' stage stage, which completed my personal downfall. My gun didn't clear the USA holster ... first time in a long while I've had problems with the draw ... and I had a 2-second feeding jam that I still haven't figured out.
The earlier stages in the day were satisfactory for me. I was shooting B-class scores in B-class times, which wasn't enough to win anything but at least I could hold my head up. In the later stages, though, I seemed plagued with every kind of silly little problem I would never have expected. In one stage I blew past a long-distance target. In the Fixed Time stage, my last of four strings ended prematurely when my weak-hand string ended with a !Click! instead of a !Bang! I pulled the cartridge, and it had no primer. I assume it was old brass with an expanded primer pocket, and the primer just fell out of the case while I was shooting the stage.
It could have been much worse. It could have happened on the first round of the string, rather than the last.
We were the LAST squad off the range today. In a 250-round match, we had shot all six 32-round stages (with waits between stages), and a 16 round stage for nearly 200 rounds total. By my count, we will have about 53 rounds to shoot tomorrow, and then we get to wait for the BBQ to be set up. I'll have something to look forward to, while I'm waiting.
This monologue is pretty depressing, isn't it? Nobody likes to hear a cry-baby. But it does me good to get it out of my system, and if I can't tell you ... who can I tell?
GOOD Things!
Actually, so far I very much enjoyed the match despite my personal tribulations.
The 32-round stages were varied, and gave us the opportunity to play hard and long. The first two were pretty much hoser stages, if you ignore that one started out with a string of 8 poppers and two Texas Star arrays. Another was all paper, set up so you could run the whole vertical envelopment without stopping. Another had an inventive mixture of 50-yard and in-your-face paper targets.
Still another had you backing upfor the first five paper targets, then running madly downrange to shoot mixed paper and steel on one side, then running to the other side to shoot a mirror-image misture, with a bobber in the center to keep you honest.
The Fixed Time stage had four strings shooting 2 rounds each at 3 targets: six rounds free-style at 50 yards; the same at 40 yards with a reload in the middle; six rounds strong hand at 30 yards, and six rounds 'support hand' at 20 rounds. Par time was 6 seconds. I finished the reload-string at 6.30 seconds, just 1/100 second under the overtime-shot cut-off. I was smug, and although it was pure luck it took the sting out of the disappointment of the primerless-cartridge at the end of the 4th string.
The stage we finished on (Stage 1, Bay 1 - "Vegas Windows") had you start from a box with a holstered, unloaded gun. Two paper targets visible from the box, one was mostly covered except for the B-zone by a penalty target. Through a port on the left were 2 paper, one Pepper Popper. Same through the port on the right, except there was one more paper target to make it a 16-round stage.
The good news is, I did everything right: instead of loading and engaging the obvious targets from the starting box, I use the move-to-the-left-port time to load, took the middle targets with only a moments hesitation for the B-zone target, and hosed the right port targets. But because of the poor draw, and the jam, I got a less than impressive time. The good news was, I provided sight-gag for my squad.
Here's the funny thing. I spend the month of June having gun problems which turned out to be my own fault because I didn't lubricate the pistol adequately, despite my proclaimed advocacy of "if a little oil is good, more is better". I finally got that worked out the last month of June.
Then for the first three weeks of July I didn't shoot a single round. Instead, I've been watching Multi-gun matches and writing about them and publishing photos and videos.
Now I finally get a chance to shoot a match, and the gun works (usually), and I'm so out of shape that I don't have the stamina to bear up under 7 stages in one day.
Ironic, isn't it?
The funniest thing is, I was cleaning and OILING THE BEJIMEZE out of the pistol in preparation for the match, and I had the barrel in the slide and the recoil-spring assembly installed before I realized I hadn't installed the firing pin and spring back into the slide.
Imagine if I had started my first 32-round stage, and realized on the first trigger-pull that I had no firing pin?
Now, THAT would have been funny.
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So that it will not appear that the "Usual Suspects" squad is infested with a Bad Attitude, I offer this vidoe of our last stage, "Vegas Windows".
If it is not obvious to the viewer, we're old and tired but still having a good time.
