Name one thing you learned at your last match...

[RickB]

Double-tapping forward falling poppers will net you a mike AND a Failure to Neutralize.

[deep6blue]

Shot my first match on March 11th. Lessons learned.

1. Always load your magazines fully.

2. Understand the course and plan in advance where you will change your magazines. Never let the gun run dry.

3. Know how the scoring works. Some scoring counts just the best hits on a target and misses are not counted. In this type, if you know you missed or don't like the hit, shoot again! In other scoring everything counts, misses subtract points.

4. Help the RO with scoring. It will help you understand what is going on.

5. Ask questions. Especially of those people in the upper classes. Most are more than happy to assist.



By the way, can anyone help with the names of scoring types? One was Virginia, I can't remember the other ones.

[Lycanthrope]

The other type of scoring would be "Comstock".

[Jeff22]

(1.) Gotta' SLOW DOWN sometimes. To begin the first stage of the match, it took me 5 shots to knock down 2 pepper poppers at 10 yards (that in turn deployed some bobbing targets, upon which I got decent hits). I don't usually get nervous before a match, but I often shoot too fast on the very first string of fire on the very first stage before I settle down.
(2.) On the very last stage (of 7) I did a speed in-battery reload and somehow induced a malfunction. I had to strip the mag out of the gun and start all over. I had 12 "a zone" hits out of 12 rounds fired, but a stage that should've taken me about 12 seconds took me 20+.

[JCC2]

Lots of fun but learnt a few things:

1.- Never, or rather NEVER use brand new magazines in a match....At one point of stage had to switch mags and had a brand new, never used, 13 round factory mag.... Made the change, fired, nothing ! Pulled the slide, empty chamber Raked again (I know ... my mistake .did not verify chambered round indicator) and fired..nothing ! This time I pulled out the mag, reinserted it hard and raked again and this time it finally worked... All in all lost about 4 secs ...

2.- In the last part of the final stage there was a popper at about 15 ft and I still had about 6 rounds in the mag so I figured 1 or 2 shots and I would be out.... Wrong ! It proved to be a really stubborn popper ! Took all the 6 rounds (I could hear the hits on the metal) and it would not fall ! I run out off ammo and had no more mags on me when I saw a discarded mag on the floor with some rounds still in it (had done a forced reload a few seconds before) so I picked it up and fortunately it had 1 shot and luckily that last shot did it ! Lesson learned...Allways carry one more mag than you think will need !

As allways, it was great fun !

Stay safe,

Juan Carlos

[ruger270man]

USPSA..

pace yourself, speed will come. no point in rushing through if you're going to score all C's, D's, and M's.

[Dennis Rogers]

It sucks to R.O./Shoot a match in cold rain and wind !!:barf:

[HiPowering Along]

Make sure you slam the (insert expletive of choice here) magazine home so a "bang" doesn't turn into a "click" followed by a "thud" and a finger being held up by the RO denoting additional time on your clock...'cuz the loaded magazine is on the ground looking up at you...

Slam pads are named that for a reason...

Arrugh....

[Rightwinger]

Waterproof score cards would be a great plan in the Seattle area.

[rhgunguy]

No matter how much I spend on a gun, I still shoot better with my CZ-75.

Glockopop, you are goin down!

[Lycanthrope]

1. A 2lb tigger DOES help.

2. Speed really comes from movement and transitions and splits between shots isn't as important.

[glockopop]

RH: I will cruuuuuush you!

PS...can I borrow your CZ next month?

[rhgunguy]

How come gop? Did Sig's legendary reliability turn out to be more of a myth? Just kidding. Mi blaster es su blaster. (<---A little Spanish to remind you of your recent vacation )

[GoSlash27]

#1 It's harder than it looks.
#2 I shoot low under stress
#3 The way you're used to doing it is faster than the fastest way you could do it.
#4 I have a bad holstering habit I wasn't even aware of.
#5 It's fun watching someone shoot IDPA with a revolver.
#6 It's fun watching someone qualify Master.
#7 This stuff is dangerously addictive.
#8 I've got alot of work to do before the next shoot

[glockopop]

You didn't perhaps go to the Linn County IDPA shoot did you? I couldn't make it, had to work. Hopefully I'll make the next one. I'm thinking about going to "Hell's Half Acre" next month. We should get a carpool going. I might know 1 or 2 others who'd like to tag along. PM me.

[GoSlash27]

glockpop,
Yeah I did. The next shoot will be the first weekend of May.

[rhgunguy]

Did I hear carpool for shooting? I'm in.

P.S.
Good time yesterday Glockopop. Will have to do it again.

[GoSlash27]

BTW,
Where is Hell's half acre?

[lodraw]

my knees are shot

[Duxman]

I was too tired the night before to do an equipment check. So I decided to forgo. Woke up late and ran out the door with range bag and picked up my bro in law to go to match - 1.3 hours away by car.

When we got there and I opened up my range bag - NO HOLSTER. Luckily my cc holster fit my match gun, so we were able to shoot that day. But that is the last time I do not triple check my equipment before going out.

[GoSlash27]

If anybody needs rescued from terrorists....I'm probably not the guy you want.

[Jeff22]

Shot in my first IPSC match since March on Sunday morning.

(1.) The temperature was over 90 degrees with high humidity by 10:30am. The heat index was around 100. Remember to HYDRATE in hot weather. (The club had jugs of water on 3 of the 5 stages and everybody was taking great care to drink enough -- I didn't see anybody who appeared to be suffering from the heat enough to affect their performance or create safety issues.)

(2.) I've got to slow down a little when engaging targets partially screened by hard cover. In a couple of cases we engaged targets that had only a hit zone the width of the B zone running down the body of the target, with the rest of the target protected by hard cover. In three cases, I got a center A zone hit with my first shot on the target and pulled one just over the line into cover on the second shot. I think it was a trigger control issue rather than being sloppy on the sights.

(3.) I got ahead of myself on transitioning between multiple targets on the last stage and pulled a couple shots into the D zone.

(4.) One of the other competitors noticed that when I was trying to go fast, sometimes my finger broke contact with the trigger as I was resetting the sear for the next shot. I wasn't aware of that at all. I was shooting my duty gun, a DAK Sig, with a L-O-N-G trigger stroke, so that might've had something to do with it.

(5.) Practicing strong hand only and weak hand only shooting is a good idea before any match. The classifier we shot had 12 rounds out of 24 fired with only one hand.

(6.) I did see an experienced master-class shooter using an optically sighted comp gun in one of those funny skeleton comp rigs loose his gun on the draw on the classifier and get a match DQ for a safety violation. He handled it very well and stayed to help RO the other stages. He said he'd never had that happen before, and that it was probably caused by a lapse in concentration while he was trying to go too fast.

[GoSlash27]

What I learned Sunday:
1) Hold-off changes with time of day.
2)Nobody eats donuts when it's a hundred degrees out.
3) The timer is an evil contraption that renders me brainless instantly.
4) If I'm ever holding hostages and the officer holds his hands up in a surrender position that looks like he's listening to headphones....I'm gonna pee myself.

[GoSlash27]

Geez...I feel like I'm blogging here....

What I learned yesterday:
I've got to spend more time on threat recognition and less time on trigger pulling.
I was exposed to my first IDPA no-shoot target (buff-colored with hands painted on it) after having gotten used to IPSC no-shoot targets (painted white).

I did not do well.

I drew and retreated to cover, dispatching baddies on the way with doubletaps and CRAP!....I killed an innocent bystander because I didn't check for hands. This really bothered me.

I also had a malfunction during my carjacking. Buzzer goes off, I pick up my sidearm from the floor....and the mag falls out!
They let me start over, but I would've been screwed IRL.

[HiPowering Along]

Murphy is at every match

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

1)Slow is Smooth
2)Smooth is Fast
3)Fast is Deadly

4)Frontsight, Press

5)Always bring extra ammo

6)Every plan is a good plan untill the timer goes off

Ain't number 6 the beautiful truth?

Well, for only the second match I've shot, the State Match that I just participated in went fairly well. Placed fifth in my division (14 in it), and if I'd just kept my head about me, I'd have placed a tad higher.

• When hitting the reactor targets, make dang sure the hits are as high as you can make them to take advantage of the leverage principle
• And if the bloody reactor target is just standing there smiling at you, don't be ashamed to reload so you can have two shots left in the gun to take out the other swinger that only shows it's face ONCE for two hits!
• Have a simple, large grin on your face when you tell the RO that "that's not a miss - it's a perfect double on the head shot, isn't it???"
• Emergency reloads are OK to drop the empty mag on - if you've kept your head about you and drop the mag when you've shot the 10 in it, you'd better keep retention of the mag if the pipe is still full! If not, the nice RO holds up his left arm and index finger indicating "you bad...., have three seconds..."
• HAVE FUN - I DID!!!
• Slow down just a tad - missing targets isn't good for the score, nor is shooting the bloody things out of order.
  
• Enjoy the time shooting with others - they'll probably wind up being a friend later on!
• Practice, shoot some more matches, practice, shoot some more matches...and just HAVE FUN!!!