(Photo by Trigger Pull Photography) The highest-profile match to be held in North Carolina has come and gone, and I think it will go down as being largely a success: Rowan County Wildlife Association hosting the 2021 Area 6 Championship. Stages and Setup When the stages were first posted, it was definitely a bit confusing. Some of the stages, from designers such as Gerrit Heinrich and Bryce Dupuy, looked excellent. Some of them looked half-baked, at best. For one thing, many of the stages would not fit in the bays Rowan had available. (Somewhat confusingly, although Rowan had 12 bays … Read More
PCC and Carry Optics Belong in USPSA
At this point, maybe no one questions the two most recently-added divisions, but I’m old enough to remember when USPSA only had 6 divisions, before PCC and Carry Optics were added. I remember the debates and discussions about adding new gear specs to the sport for the first time in 15 years. When CO was proposed as a provisional division, with no slide milling except for the optic and a 10 round magazine cap, it seemed like an interesting, but niche place to compete. You’d get a few die-hard enthusiasts, but otherwise it wasn’t that much higher barrier to entry. … Read More
Chrono: Trust, but verify
This is post 5 of 5 in the series “2020 Carolina Classic” A series about things that went well in the 2020 Carolina Classic Match Format & Stage Inspection Walking the Prize Table Five Minute Walkthroughs Staff Reset Chrono: Trust, but verify The way that most major matches run chrono, including Nationals in my experience, would be trivially easy to cheat if you wanted to. Just keep a box or mag of full-power chrono ammo in your bag and take it with you when you walk up to chrono, and you can use whatever else you want for the rest … Read More
Staff Reset
This is post 4 of 5 in the series “2020 Carolina Classic” A series about things that went well in the 2020 Carolina Classic Match Format & Stage Inspection Walking the Prize Table Five Minute Walkthroughs Staff Reset Chrono: Trust, but verify When you pay your match fee for a Level 2 or above match, what are you actually buying? Debugged stages? Consistent staff for every stage? More competition? Trophies? I submit that it is also entirely reasonable for big matches to have staff do all the pasting and reset for you, leaving you to just worry about refilling your … Read More
Five Minute Walkthroughs
This is post 3 of 5 in the series “2020 Carolina Classic” A series about things that went well in the 2020 Carolina Classic Match Format & Stage Inspection Walking the Prize Table Five Minute Walkthroughs Staff Reset Chrono: Trust, but verify It’s become somewhat common at matches to cut walkthroughs down to 4 or even 3 minutes in an effort, misguided in my opinion, to save time and get more shooters through the match. First, this is bad for competitors. On any given stage, one of two things will be true. Either the stage will have a small shooting … Read More
Walking the Prize Table
This is post 2 of 5 in the series “2020 Carolina Classic” A series about things that went well in the 2020 Carolina Classic Match Format & Stage Inspection Walking the Prize Table Five Minute Walkthroughs Staff Reset Chrono: Trust, but verify Typically you only walk a prize table at bigger Area matches and Nationals where all the shooters end on the same day and there is a formal awards ceremony. Because of the multi-day schedule, only half the competitors will be on the range each day, which poses a problem. Most level 2 matches solve this by just randomly … Read More
Match Format & Stage Inspection
This is post 1 of 5 in the series “2020 Carolina Classic” A series about things that went well in the 2020 Carolina Classic Match Format & Stage Inspection Walking the Prize Table Five Minute Walkthroughs Staff Reset Chrono: Trust, but verify It’s been a few months now since the 2020 Carolina Classic, and I wanted to reiterate all the things that went into the planning and execution of the match that went well, to hopefully be emulated by more matches in the future. This is the first of a series that will be posted, one each day, for the … Read More
RO Stories: Bullet Stuck In The Target
Back in the winter of 2012, I was shooting Single Stack at the Sir Walter USPSA match, and walking around scoring the targets, we found just what you see above on one of them: a 230 grain FMJ stuck literally halfway through the target. This provoked two questions. First, how the heck did this happen? And second, how the heck do you score it? The answer to the first question turned out to be logical once we figured it out: the bullet had first skimmed the barrel that was partially obscuring the target, which robbed it of a lot of … Read More
Polymer Offseason 2020
Back in the dim mists of 2012 and 2013, I spent the offseason shooting a 1911 in Single Stack and CDP. When November 2014 rolled around and I took a Steve Anderson class, I was motivated to just keep dry firing through the winter and shooting Production, which I’ve continued to do every year since then. I might take some time off from practice when it’s cold out, but I haven’t shot a match with a different gun than my main once since. At the time, it was an M&P Pro, then in the 2016-2017 winter I switched to a … Read More
Match Video: Sir Walter, January 2021
It was a good day out at the range with friends, and surprisingly warm if a little muddy in places. SC Section, Area 6, and Production Nationals are all coming up fast, so this is the first match of my 2021 season and it’s a good start. Scores are here. Since the last two matches, when I was shooting my M&P Pro, I had taken a few weeks off over Christmas and gotten back into dry fire with the Stock 2, putting in two sessions the week before this match. For the most part, it all came right back, although … Read More
Stage Brief: SWGC Jan 2021 Stage 2
For the first of what I intend to be a recurring series, I want to talk through interesting stages and break down what I think we can learn from each one. First up, we have this stage that I designed for the January 2021 USPSA match at Sir Walter Gun Club. Here’s the screenshot I sent (along with the sketchup file) to the build team: The yellow lines are the fault lines, and the pairs of Xs on the ground are steel markers we stake into the ground as a start position. Options Usually when people talk about options in … Read More
“Just fundamentals faster”
There is an idea in shooting instruction that there is no such thing as advanced techniques, just the same fundamentals applied faster. There are two possible reasons that I can think of that someone would say this. The first, more charitable one, is the emphasis that fundamentals don’t change and there are no secret ninja tricks. If you want to get good, you have to have good fundamentals. And, as far as it goes, I think that’s true. But there are some “fundamental” techniques that just don’t come in to play if you’re trying to shoot fast in a USPSA … Read More
Dry Fire Goals – January 2021
In my experience, the main problem with dry fire practice is that I try to do too much all at once. I want to work on five different deficiencies. I want to work on things on the move before I have made progress standing still. I tell myself I should dry fire for long stretches of time, and I end up putting it off until it’s too late in the evening to even put the belt on. The only solution that I’ve found to this is organization and planning. Write down (on paper, not your phone) a list of the … Read More
#73: 2020 Carolina Classic, Part 2
This week on the podcast, I talk about this year’s NC match from the staff perspective. I discuss everything that went well and is worth emulating, including the format of the shooting days, 5 minute walkthroughs, all-staff reset, and more.
#72: 2020 Carolina Classic, Part 1
This week on the podcast, I talk about this year’s NC Section championship, focusing on my season leading up to the match and my performance during the match.
Change of Plans (September 2020)
Since the NC Section match wrapped up last week, things have slowed down a bit and I’ve had time to look ahead to what my training looks like for the rest of the year. As an aside, it’s worth mentioning that my training this summer has been basically none, with a handful of live fire sessions and basically no dry fire since March. This was largely a consequence of things reaching a breaking point for me at my old job, which has now changed. Also, we just found out that the 2021 Area 6 match will be two hours away, … Read More
#71: Saying Nice Things About IDPA
This week on the podcast, I say nice things about IDPA and discuss some things that I think they get right: things like simpler rules, more social culture, better range commands, and banning memory stages.
#70: SC Section 2020
This week on the podcast, I talk about the recent 2020 South Carolina Section match. I discuss whether it’s better to leave stages in or throw them out, why three minute walkthroughs are still a bad idea, andhow I shot the match overall.
#69: Improving Local Matches
This week on the podcast, I talk about the April 19th GoShoot USPSA match, and some things that I think they do differently that are worth emulating.
#68: No Such Thing As A Perfect Match
This week on the podcast, I talk about the idea that there is no such thing as a perfect match. First, as a competitor: you’ll never have a match without flaws, and that’s fine. Second, as a match attendee: there will always be something imperfect about the match, and all you can do is let it go and shoot the challenge in front of you.