Bloghorn

Apparently, every year there’s a memorial day high-power and CMP match on the west coast. Not wanting to be outdone, MCB Quantico hosted this year the first Armed Forces memorial match. There were about 80 shooters (60 NRA, 20 CMP), and I decided to join in on the fun.

The day started with the Marine Corps lighting off a couple fireworks.

We were all very happy to find out they weren’t competing.

After that, we moseyed down to the 200 yard line to set up for the 200 yard shots, which were 2 sighters + 20 record shots offhand slow fire, then 2 sighters + 20 record shots sitting in 60 seconds rapid fire (with a forced mag change). I didn’t do as well as I thought I would. But notice that in the following pictures I have like a gun, a spotting scope, and some ammo, and everyone else has shooting jackets and fancy equipment. So there might be some consolation in that.

The view from 300 yards (the bipod was removed during shooting):

Some of you may be wondering how exactly the targets are moved around. Well I’ll let you in on a little secret: there are PEOPLE working in the pit! Yes, these pit pullers sit there all day long (for $30/shooter) and pull and score your targets.

Here’s a slow fire target. The white circle is on a spindle placed in the last shot fired so the spotter can see it, and the orange dot indicates the score. The score positions are (clockwise from 9 o’ clock) 5, 6, miss, 7, 8, 9, 10, X.

Here’s a target from one of the rapid fire stages. Instead of scoring each shot, orange golf tees are placed in the holes and the scores are tallied on a chalkboard for the spotter.

Here’s the firing line at the 600 yard shot. The sky cleared up quite a bit and I even got a pretty nasty sunburn out of the experience. I’m in lane 11, 5 shooters from the left:

The guy in the red behind me is an Army officer spotting and scoring me. He shot after me, and we swapped (me spotting and scoring him) when he shot. Cool guy. I broke his ECI though.

600 yards is FAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAR!

I lost the first 3 heats’ scores, but here’s my 2 strings from 600 yards:

2+20 @ 600
Sighters :  9 10
Record-S1:  5 10  X  7  6  8  7  8 10  7 = 78 1x
Record-S2: 10  9  7  7  7  8 10  6  8  7 = 79
= 157 1x

[EDIT]: After an email from the event staff, I now have all my scores:

- 200 yards standing slow fire: 165 1x
- 200 yards seated rapid fire: 170 3x
- 300 yards prone rapid fire: 184 1x
- 600 yards prone slow fire: 157 2x

Total score: 676/800

And with my refund check, I think I’m gunna buy an NRA service rifle. So I can stop feeling like I’m cheating in tactical class.

The NRA range is awesome. And the ROs are pretty cool guys and gals. I really gotta start going more often.

Anyway, every Tuesday is activity day at the range. This Tuesday was the IPSC competition that happens every month. You sign up for a one hour block, show up, and for $20 you get to run 4 courses of fire. here’s how they set it up:

STAGE 1

Start condition is a hot pistol holstered, hands on the orange tape on the side of the wood board. On the buzzer, the shooter draws and engages each paper target with 2 rounds and each steel target until it drops, all without leaving the orange box on the ground. After all targets have been engaged, shooter moves to the stage 2 setup and engages all of those targets.

I started slow and deliberate, but I sped up after the first target. One shot, one kill on the steel, no faults. I did a reload while moving between the two locations, as they had us download all of our mags to 10 rounds for the entire competition. Time: 14 seconds.

STAGE 2:

This was a two string stage. Start condition is a hot pistol placed on the table pointed downrange, hands in the air with elbows locked. On the buzzer, the shooter engages the left popper  ONLY and two rounds per paper target. For the second string, the start condition is the same, but the shooter engages the right popper and two rounds per paper with STRONG HAND ONLY.

I sped a little on this stage and put one round in the no shoot. But all other shots were good. I need to work on my strong hand only shooting.

STAGE 3:

Start condition is a hot pistol holstered, hands on the orange Xes. On the buzzer the shooter engages each target ONCE from EACH position: leaning left, through the hole in the middle, and leaning right. Total of 24 rounds, 3 per target.

I reloaded moving between each position, and the speed reloads went smooth and perfect. Instead of retaining the mags I just dumped them and did a full speed reload instead of a tac reload. I missed twice, though.

STAGE 4:

Start condition is an unloaded pistol placed on the table with a magazine beside it, shooter in the chair, hands on the knees. On the buzzer, shooter gets up, loads the pistol, and engages each paper target once and each steel target until they fall.

One thing you may notice is that the poppers are TINY and in front of no-shoots. Because the tiny poppers alone weren’t evil enough, I guess. After engaging all of the paper targets I was out of ammo and the slide locked back, so I smacked a new mag in and was able to slingshot the slide. I only shot the no-shoot behind the poppers once, the guy that was running an open class pistol shot it 4 times on one and once on the other, though. So I think I did comparatively well.

RESULTS

- Overall: 26/33 (28.96% of leader)
- In-class: 11/18 (Production)

Things I learned:
- You can’t see where your shots are going very well when shooting IPSC
- I need to get another mag pouch, using all 3 mags I had on me was disconcerting
- I need to practice a LOT more with pistol

After watching the Magpul training videos lovingly supplied by our sponsors Dallas Shooting Supplies, I noticed that in a couple of scenes Chris or Travis have a camera mounted on their gun. I thought it looked like a really cool effect, and would be useful for training as well as reviewing our runs in competition. Plus, those who are interested could watch us in action from a new and exciting angle. Check out the trailer, about 27 second in is what I’m talking about:

So after researching the options online, I settled on the GoPro HD Helmet Hero because of the attachments and included waterproof / shockproof case (for when it “rains sideways” again). One of the included attachments was PERFECT for what i wanted to use it for, so i strapped it on and headed for the range.

Cool, huh? I haven’t decided on whether I should mount it facing forwards or rearwards yet. But either way, I need to get better at editing video…

It’s been a couple weeks, and I finally got all the videos uploaded.

The PA Team

Here were the weather conditions in Waco, TX the morning of the event:

Yeah, not pretty. But we competed like champs nonetheless, and here are the videos.

• Stage 1 -Shotgun Jungle Run – On the timer teams will start in the start/stop box located by the tower with unloaded shotguns and 16 rounds of shotgun ammunition. On the timer, shooters will move to the pepper popper station and load (4) rounds each (max) and engage 4 pepper poppers from fault line. Once engaged, shooters will show clear to RO’s and move down trail stopping at each fault line station and engaging skeet at each of (3) fault lines, showing clear before moving out of position. Once all 4 arrays of targets are hit, time stops on the last shot. Five minutes max time.
• Stage 2 - Tower Scramble – Four shooters will be on the first floor of the tower. On the timer one or all shooters will engage the land mine with fire for a total of 10 seconds or until the mine explodes. Other targets cannot be engaged for 10 seconds or until mine detonates. Once mine or ten seconds have elapsed, shooters will engage other targets at their discretion. Each target must have two hits to neutralize.
• Stage 3 - Helicopter Assault – All teams begin stage in the start box. Each shooter will have their rifle and one magazine staged at one of the three barricades and one in the tower. Pistols will be holstered. On the timer one shooter will enter the helicopter and engage the pistol target until hit. After hitting the steel pistol target, the shooter will holster down range and exit the same side. Once that shooter has exited the next shooter moves into the helicopter until all four have engaged the pistol target. Upon exiting the helo, the shooters, either individually or as a team, will move through the obstacles (tunnel/window/wall) to their rifle station, where they will engage a steel target with six rounds each. Once the steel is hit, they will clear, safety and ground their weapons, moving to the tower, entering through the scuttle hole. Once all team members are in the tower, one of the shooters will act as a spotter and retrieve the target notebook and call out the steel box target for the tower shooter to engage. When the shooter hits the designated steel target, the spotter will use binoculars to identify the designated colored paper target in each box then call the paper target in the opened box for the shooter to engage with one round and one round only. Once all three boxes are opened and three shots fired time will stop. Five minutes max time.
• Stage 5 – Zombieland - On timer shooters will move from the start box to shooting positions and engage all targets with head shots for a total of one round in each head. Once all head shots are made on paper, shooters will unload and show clear and move into north 1 bay and engage all steel with pistols with one hit in each head from shooting box. All Zombies must be hit before any team member can move into next bay. All steel targets must be shot with pistol and all paper must be hit with rifle. Rifles must be cleared before moving. Pistols must be holstered. Once all Zombies are hit, shooters must move back to start box.
• Stage 8 – Hostage Rescue – Shooters will start in start box at the entrance to the North bays. On timer, shooters will move and engage all targets from shooting boxes. From the shooting positions in each bay, paper will be engaged with rifle and steel with pistol. Rifles must be cleared before moving. Pistols must be holstered. Once shooters arrive at North bay three, team will split in half, two moving to shoot house bay and two engaging targets in bay three. As shooters move to the shoot house, one will breach the door and one will move into house and engage targets. Once he calls that the building is clear, other team members will help remove downed person to stop box located outside building.

Since the last update, The Awful Shooting Squad landed our first sponsor! Wohoo free stuff in return for being corporate whores!

So far, they’ve contributed ammo, funds, and even the new Magpul DVDs Dynamic Handgun and Aerial Operations. These guys are awesome.

We’ve also been practicing like men possessed. Due to the distance between where we live, we don’t get much team time. But yesterday, the fates conspired and we were all able to meet and go out to a range and practice on some IPSC targets like the ones that we’ll be killing at Tiger Valley.

I’m getting more and more confident in our ability to shoot competitively with the other teams. Moving around still needs work, but we have another month to practice that.