Sunk by Stage 2, Again: Shooter’s Log

This past weekend the Texarkana Gun Club had it's monthly USPSA/IPSC match, I actually had some high hopes going into this one that I might come out of it in a much better position than last month, alas, twas not to be, again.

In all actuality my shooting was pretty darn good this month, but that Classifier Stage did me in again. You may recall if you read this blog regularly that last month I missed three shots on the Classifier Stage and that messed up my overall score rather badly. This time I didn't miss, I hit it too much!  The idea was to shoot 7 targets, 1 time each, reload and shoot them again, once each. that would be a total of 14 shots on the stage. For some reason in my pea-brain I decided to shoot them 2 times each through the first 5 targets before I realized I was doing it wrong, which put me 5 shots over the round limit for that stage. That gave me 5, 10-point procedural penalties on one stage where the stage total was only 75 points. That, as it turns out again, is a bad thing. And what really makes it worse is my shots were dead-on. This was my first stage of the day, no warming up, just cold draw and shoot, and I was hitting them great! Just too many times. Helloooo welcome to What-a-Dork, may I help you?

Thank God I have a sense of humor, live and learn.

Overall I placed 25th out of 38 shooters on the day, 6th out of 12 in my Power Factor classification. Not bad, but should have done much better.

Another problem nagging me that day is what as known as FTF or failure to feed. This is when your ammunition keeps getting jammed while feeding upward into the chamber. This "issue" slowed my stage times down a lot, because each time it happens you have to stop and rack the slide to clear the jam. Luckily it didn't seem to affect my aim much, but it sure slowed me down. Frustrating to say the least.

I'll get that feed problem worked out before the next match, which by the way is coming up on Saturday, June 4th. The match starts at 10am but if you would like to shoot you need to be there around 9:30 to get signed in and have a little prep time. If you're an experienced shooter, just new at shooting in competition, don't let that concern you. The group that I normally shoot with has several new'ish shooters in it and we all help each other through the stages. The skill level of the folks shooting in these local club-level matches is all over the map. We'll do our best to make to feel welcome and right at home.

A lot of newbies ask "what do I have to have to get started?" Here you go:

• Pistol (List of approved production guns is here.)
• Holster, belt and magazine pouches.
• Extra magazines (figure up to 40 rounds per stage.) (I carry 4, 17-round magazines for my Taurus and I haven't run out yet)
• About 200 rounds of ammo per match.
• Safety Glasses
• Hearing Protection
• Water (it's hot out there)

If you would like to see all the rules of USPSA shooting, please follow this link to their website.

As always if you would like to join us, if you're looking for a good instructor or you just need a great place to shoot in the area, go to TexarkanaGunClub.org for more information.

Shoot safely.