Members of the Board,

Like many members of USPSA, I was unpleasantly surprised last Friday to read the announcement in the board minutes that annual dues were increasing by more than half, effective immediately. Rumors have been swirling for months that an increase might be coming, but to have it become reality effective immediately was not a step I thought the board would take.

I was shocked for a few reasons.

First, there was no case made at all to persuade the membership why this increase was necessary. We still have yet to see any financial reports from 2022, either the IRS Form 990 or the reviewed/audited financials from the accounting firm. All we have are rumors and hearsay about the size of the annual shortfall last year and the current rate of spending above revenues this year. There is no question that the organization is losing money, and the perception is meaningful efforts to cut back spending have not been undertaken. The appearance is that rather than fixing the leaks in the metaphorical bucket, instead the board is demanding the individual members pour more money in.

The only semblance at justification was the announcement issued, after the vote was taken and it was too late to register disagreement. The statement said in part, “every dollar of your membership fee is used judiciously,” which we are supposed to take on faith, given the lack of transparency and accounting around the financials going back to the beginning of 2022. Extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence, and we have been provided with none at all.

Second, there was no warning given. No opportunity for existing members to lock in a renewal for a few years or upgrade to a life membership before the rates went up. The fact that this was done with no notice to the membership indicates that the board knew that the membership would not approve, and if warned of the impending changes, would likely have renewed early to avoid paying the increased prices.

Third, the amount of the increase was large. The justification was that it was due to inflation, but at the same time it was because rates haven’t been raised in 20 years. You can’t have it both ways. If it’s inflation, then a raise commensurate with inflation, say, 10% might be appropriate. If it’s catching up for 20 years of lack of increases, then why the need to raise rates suddenly? Could it not be phased in over a few years?

Piece together these latter two factors, and it appears that the board is desperate for revenue, as if the financial crisis is large and extremely urgent.

Levying such a large increase, with zero warning to loyal members, and without any persuasion, only coercion, creates the perception that the board views the membership as having no other options but to knuckle under and pay it. The membership was not treated as partners or stakeholders to be convinced, but as subordinates to be ordered around, or perhaps subjects to be taxed.

There have been a host of alarming actions of the board over the past 6 years, but notably the membership did not get to have any input into any of those votes. However, every member gets to vote on whether to renew, and I think many members will choose to vote no if we do not reverse course immediately.

I have heard that there is a supplemental board meeting happening tomorrow, Wednesday, August 2nd. At this meeting, immediate action must be taken to attempt to undo some of the damage and show that the board listens to the members.

Accordingly, I ask that you discuss the following actions:

First, immediately roll back the changes to the fee structure. Allow members to renew their membership at the long-standing rates, as a token of appreciation for their loyalty and participation over the years. Make it known to new members on the fence that if they join now, they will lock in the savings for whatever membership they purchase.

Second, release the 2022 financial statements as well as the IRS Form 990. Release the report from the Fee Structure Committee, including their recommendations. Give the membership the same information you had at hand when beginning this discussion.

Third, make the case to the membership, the people actually paying the bills in this sport, as to the current financial projections, and how raising the dues will improve them. Make the case of what financial changes are being made to cut costs, and how much they are projected to save. Convince us, as an employee might convince their boss, that USPSA deserves a 60% raise.

Finally, allow members to provide comments to their Area Director so their voice can be heard. Once a proposal that is generally acceptable is reached, vote on it effective some date in the future, to allow existing and potential members to choose whether to go ahead and join or renew at the existing rates or not, as stated above.

The constant refrain throughout the swirling drama of the last few years is that none of it impacts the average shooter just competing locally, which has been true to some degree. However, by suddenly and dramatically hitting every member in the wallet, this has changed. I know the board is probably somewhat desensitized to outrage at this point, but this is a fundamentally different problem that must be considered carefully. You as the board have a small window in which to address this problem before the ink dries. Please do so.

Respectfully,

Ben Berry
L5380

The post Letter to the Board Regarding the Dues Increase appeared first on Berry Shooting.

The first email was sent in my best hail-mary attempt to find a loophole around the rule requiring that “every” competitor’s ammo be checked via chrono. In practice, this mandatory requirement results in no time to for random re-sampling, thus making–in my opinion–chrono easy to game, if someone were so inclined.

Our original intent of this was to speed the match up by not requiring every one single-file through chrono, while also creating the non-zero chance that you could be sampled on any given stage. This proposal is far from perfect, but I thought it would be an interesting learning experience and hopefully be a stepping-stone to improving the process going forward.

I agree with Troy that the plain reading of the rules requires every competitor to be chronographed. If he had left it at that, this conversation would have been unremarkable. What made my jaw drop was him asserting repeatedly that cheating doesn’t happen, before finally admitting that people have come to chrono saying they’d submitting the wrong ammo and wanting to substitute it. In my opinion, it is in the public interest of USPSA members to know that the head of the rules-enforcement organization is confident that cheating of this kind is not a problem. As I say in my emails, I have no idea if it is or not. But given the current system, we have no possible way to know.

From: Ben Berry
Sun, Aug 28, 2022 at 11:50 AM
To: DNROI, Jodi, Kevin

Hi Troy, Jodi, and Kevin:

Talking with Mike Adams, who is Range Master for the upcoming Carolina Classic, we were discussing our proposed procedure for running chrono. Rather than having chrono be a stage in the match such that competitors always know when and where they will be tested, we were discussing a system to randomly sample competitors. The idea would be that a Chrono Officer would be on a golf cart, picking a stage number out of a hat, driving up to it, and whoever the current shooter was would have 8 rounds pulled from the mags used on the stage and told to report to chrono to shoot the rounds before the end of the match or shoot for no score. This accomplishes the goal of C2.30 (“ammunition be collected from competitors as randomly as is possible”).

We have written up the detailed procedure here [linked], but the above is the gist of it.

The clarification that we would appreciate from you is the following. Mike has pointed out rule 5.6.1 which states “One or more official match chronographs are used to assist in the determination of the power factor of every competitor’s ammunition.”

One interpretation of this wording would be “The power factor of every single competitor’s ammunition must be determined by one or more chronographs.”, in other words, stating that chrono is mandatory for each competitor.

A second interpretation would be more like “When the power factor of a competitor’s ammunition is being determined, it must be by using one or more chronographs.” with no stipulation that every competitor must be tested, only that for those being tested, a chronograph is required.

If the first interpretation is taken, then indeed, we need to chronograph every single competitor in the contest, even if the process is easy to cheat (with the notorious single magazine of “chrono ammo” you present when you know the test is coming).

Rule C2.29 can similarly be interpreted in two ways, one stating every competitor must be chronographed, or the other being simply how the initial sample should be gathered from each competitor, if they have been selected for chrono checking.

Our hope with trying this experiment of randomly selecting competitors for testing was to create the small but credible chance that the ammo on each and every stage could be the one pulled for chronograph testing, thus creating risk of knowingly using underpowered ammo on any actual match stage, where no such risk currently exists, save perhaps for the risk of a failed calibration. Although the current system of having chrono as a stage in the match, with ammo collected either at chrono or on the first stage of the match, is well known, it is also very easily cheated by a savvy competitor. Thus, we were attempting to experiment with ways to improve on the formula.

However, if in your opinion the rules do not support such a random sampling procedure, we will of course comply.

For the past three years, we’ve had competitors’ bullets collected on the stage immediately before chrono, which adds a little more uncertainty to the collection, but not significantly, especially now that it’s become the known pattern for our match. Rather than making sure you have your magazine of chrono ammo on you for the first stage, a hypothetical cheater would make sure to use full power ammo for the stage immediately before chrono at our match.

I sincerely ask for the clarification, not in the interest of skirting the rules, but hoping to find within the rules an interpretation that allows for trying to do the best job we can at running a match as robust as possible to cheating, in a fair way to all competitors.

Ben Berry

From: Troy McManus
Sun, Aug 28, 2022 at 9:47 PM
To: Ben Berry

The plain language in both rules does not allow for random testing of a few select individuals. The word “every” in 5.6.1, and the word “each” in C2 #29 are there for a reason, and neither one says “from selected individuals”, they say “competitor”. Your proposed method essentially states, in not so many words, that people are cheating at chronograph, which in most matches, isn’t the case. The rules allow for random sampling of both initial chronograph samples (picking up a magazine or two after a completed COF and stripping rounds out, for example), and random re-testing of competitors, again collecting ammunition in a method of your choosing. Rules included below, highlights are mine.

Regards,

Troy

5.6.1 One or more official match chronographs are used to assist in the determination of the power factor of every competitor’s ammunition. In the absence of official match chronograph(s), the power factor declared by a competitor cannot be challenged.

Competitor Ammunition Collection and Storage

29. An initial sample of eight rounds of ammunition will be collected from each competitor at a time and place determined by Match Officials. Match Officials may require that a competitor’s ammunition be retested at any time during the match and may collect further samples as necessary.
30. It is recommended that ammunition be collected from competitors as randomly as is possible to ensure that the collected ammunition accurately matches the ammunition the competitor is actually using in competition.

From: Ben Berry
Mon, Aug 29, 2022 at 10:52 PM
To: DNROI

I appreciate the response and elaboration. We’ll go back to our previous procedure of collecting the rounds on the stage right before chrono.

That said, I ask the following, not in the interest of trying to change your mind, but to understand what you’re saying better.

> that people are cheating at chronograph, which in most matches, isn’t the case.

How can you know if people are cheating or not? To put it another way, if someone were cheating at chrono, the way it’s currently run, how could you tell?

Also, you say most matches, but not all. Which matches do you suspect there to be cheating at chrono?

I am also curious about the larger purpose of chrono. Chrono can only catch two types of people. First, those deliberately shooting softer ammo, if by mistake they submit their “real” ammo and not their “chrono” ammo for testing. Second, those who are trying to comply with the rules but inadvertently load or buy ammo that’s below their declared power factor. In the current system, only the second group will ever be caught. If someone chooses to cheat, we make it easy for them to get away with it, but if someone inadvertently is shooting weak ammo, they are bumped to minor or no score. In other words, the current system punishes the well-intentioned and gives a free ride to those with bad intentions. Is such a system worth buying equipment for, staffing with volunteers, and taking up time that could otherwise be another stage in the match? Is a system of chrono so easily cheated meaningfully different from no chrono at all?

From: Troy McManus
Tue, Aug 30, 2022 at 7:46 AM
To: Ben Berry

When I say most matches, my assumption is that people don’t cheat, except where they are tempted to because there is no chronograph. My issue with what you proposed is it seems that you believe everyone cheats, and I get that feeling from this email too. The rules allow for random resampling if a range official suspects someone is using ammo other than what they turned in for chronograph. USPSA rules put a fair amount of responsibility on the competitor, and rightly so. Conversely, running a match under the rules is the responsibility of the MD, RM, and staff. As Jodi points out, chronograph isn’t just for checking your power factor, and is a vital part of any level match. I believe that most people that fail some part of chronograph or equipment checks on the stage are simply ignorant of the rule, not cheaters. Or, they are allowed to violate certain rules at their local matches because, “it’s just a local”. I’ve been told many tales of people having special chrono ammo over the years, but in my experience, that hasn’t been the case, although I’m sure there are isolated cases. I just don’t think it’s that widespread a problem. If it’s a big problem in your area, then I’d like to hear about it, and who.

Regards,

Troy

From: Ben Berry
Wed, Aug 31, 2022 at 12:24 AM
To: DNROI

By no means do I think that everyone, or even a majority, cheats. But I think that certain personality types, the Tony Cowdens and Kyle Soles and Paul Hendrixes (yes, I know they are all in North Carolina) of the world, who see how easily the system is gamed, ask themselves why not get an edge? I doubt anyone in the top 10% of the scores in each division is cheating, but I think somewhere there are the paper-GMs-who-finish-mid-B, or the too-clever-for-their-own-good guys who just enjoy pushing the boundaries to see if they’ll get caught.

But again, at the end of the day, if the point of chrono is, as you say, to primarily catch people inadvertently breaking the rules instead of deliberately doing it, is it worth the cost? On the other hand, if we can run chrono in a way that puts the small but real chance of the ammo from any given stage being collected for testing, isn’t that a greater deterrent? You wouldn’t have to actually catch anyone cheating to have deterred them.

> As Jodi points out, chronograph isn’t just for checking your power factor,

Agreed. I’d happily have a system for checking equipment before the match starts. Perhaps that way competitors inadvertently over the weight limit or not fitting the box, etc could fix the issue before the match starts. Having that part of the procedure be mandatory at some point during the match makes perfect sense to me. It just seems strange to give would-be cheaters a chance to keep a mag of chrono ammo on them and pull bullets from that on command when asked. That seems like the biggest, most exploitable opportunity in the rules as they stand now. I have no idea if anyone is doing it, but if someone wanted to, that’s where I would imagine they’d start.

> in my experience, that hasn’t been the case, although I’m sure there are isolated cases. I just don’t think it’s that widespread a problem. If it’s a big problem in your area, then I’d like to hear about it, and who.

Once again, if it were a problem, how would you know? If they followed their procedure of using special chrono ammo, they could do so undetected for years.

I have no idea if people in my area are cheating at chrono. I was hoping to implement a new system at this year’s match to be somewhat more robust to it, but the rules don’t allow that. So I couldn’t and won’t be able to tell if anyone is cheating.

I say all this not to drag my feet and resist following the rules as written. That’s how the rulebook today reads, and I’ll follow it to the letter. I just want to start the conversation about whether the goals the current rules are structured around accomplishing are actually the goals that are the most worth pursuing. I appreciate your time reading all this and responding.

Troy McManus
Wed, Aug 31, 2022 at 7:47 AM
To: Ben Berry

The point isn’t necessarily to catch people making mistakes, although that happens. There are a number of ways to collect chronograph samples, at least one of which I think Jodi mentioned, that provide for a more random ammo sampling than a group collection prior to the start of the first stage. Speaking of first stages, prior to the start, when the squad is assembled, is a prime time to do equipment checks such as distance from the belt, height to the belt, type of gun, magazine holders, etc.

We have caught people that have turned in, per their words, “the wrong ammo” when collected, and who tried to change the samples. That wasn’t allowed, and those people either went minor or sub-minor. Likewise, we’ve seen people use two different color bullets, and questioned that. Turns out, they were made by the same manufacturer and were the same bullet weight, but the competitor had decided he liked the green bullets better than the black ones. We did not openly accuse any of them of cheating at the match, because the end result was either no-score or a reduced score, or all good, and we had no way to prove that what they were saying wasn’t true or that they had deliberately brought two different loads in order to fudge at chrono. I suspect the latter, but without some definite evidence of cheating, it wasn’t worth the hassle.

Gaming isn’t cheating, and there is a difference. I don’t classify gamers as cheaters–I try to learn from whatever mistake I may have made in course design or setup that allowed the gaming and go from there.

Many matches run courtesy checks on equipment and even power factor prior to the start of the match. We have done this at Nationals for years and will do it again this year. We invariably find people that have magazines that are too long, or that are not making the power factor they expected, or are overweight or using the wrong gun for the division. Nothing in the rules prevents this, and it’s a valuable service to the competitors. It can be tricky to manage due to restrictions on the range such as start times or location of the chrono station, but it should be available at all matches utilizing a chronograph.

I would suggest coming up with a novel way of sampling ammo (you just have to sample everyone) if you are concerned that you won’t be catching the cheaters. But, I also don’t worry about it too much either.
If you aren’t happy with the current rules, you can always suggest changes or rewrites to your Area director, and he can then submit them to the rules committee for consideration.

Good luck with the match. I see you are listed as the chronograph officer. That’s an important part of any match and I hope it’s successful for you.
I am on my way to set up Carry Optics Nationals.

Troy

The post Random Sampling of Competitor Ammo: An Email Exchange with DNROI appeared first on Berry Shooting.

Last fall, during the Carry Optics Nationals, I was watching the YouTube livestream. It was boring, with brief moments of interesting content. I got to thinking what might make it better. With no preparation, I just started an OBS stream and decided to wing it. It took me a while to figure things out, but here’s what I ended up with:

What makes this more interesting than the livestream by itself just cutting between stages?

Cutting out the dead time and using instant replay. Instead of having one chance to see someone from the Super Squad shoot a stage, and then spending a few minutes watching the targets get pasted, or cutting to another stage where someone less interesting to watch was shooting, I used the ability to back the livestream up and watch each Super Squad run multiple times, and break down elements I thought were interesting.

Live scoring. Luckily, Practiscore was being updated within a minute or two of the run being scored and approved. Since I was running on a few minute delay with the livestream, I could put up the scores of the run as soon as we were done watching it.

Keeping a running scoreboard. I was pretty surprised how interesting it was slotting each run into the very rudimentary white-text-with-no-background scoreboard I was using. I would watch a run and mentally think it was pretty good, or not great, and then seeing the score pop up relative to the other Super Squad shooters was fun. It’s always enlightening when reality doesn’t match your expectations and it helps you learn what you might not be taking into consideration.

Knowing who was shooting. This was admittedly just best-effort on my part, since I could only recognize so many of the shooters. But at least knowing who the current person is on the stage makes it much more interesting viewing than just having a banner that shows the stage number and title.

Showing stage diagrams. Since the camera angle is a static, wide-angle view where you can’t see the targets, showing the diagram of the stage helped to give some context to why guys were shooting certain targets certain ways. Of course, this is a place where actually having some kind of overhead view of the stage as-built (which never precisely matches the diagram) would be helpful. To take it to the next level, have the diagram labeled with target numbers that match the target numbers in Practiscore.

Voice-over commentary. I am by no means a top-level shooter, but I tried to point out the nuances that I noticed between the runs of each shooter. Someone who has spent years in the sport will inevitably pick out little details that someone who may have only shot a few matches would find interesting. So having one or two competitors provide that commentary would make the livestream interesting and even educational for folks who are not hardcore competitors.

I will say, I think the style of having multiple static cameras and cutting between them as the competitor moved through the stage works out quite well, almost certainly better than trying to have a cameraman follow each shooter through. As long as you have the cameras set up, a crew of one or two behind the scenes could run this livestream across multiple stages. Ideally, you’d have enough cameras to follow the super squad(s) as they move through the stages, even if it means having someone go and move the tripods around to keep up the squads as the move through the zone.

Having the livestream being done via YouTube so you can skip around and watch the parts you are interested in definitely helps. And by no means is this post meant to gripe because something is good but not perfect. I am just saying that the hard work is done of setting up the cameras, running fast enough wifi and internet, having a system to cut between different camera views. What I did on my livestream was comparatively quite easy, but doing something like that on the official livestream takes the raw material generated by their setup and turns it into a genuinely interesting experience.

The post How Good Could A Nationals Livestream Be? appeared first on Berry Shooting.

I ran “Production Optics” style, shooting my Stock 2 with Sig dot on it, but with 15 rounds in my mags. I had to do an extra reload on 3 of the 5 stages, but to be honest, I don’t really care. Since it looks like I’ll be continuing to switch back and forth between CO and Production depending on the match, just sticking with the same Production-legal basepads for both guns makes life easier in a lot of ways.

My attitude at this point is that I’ll shoot Production any time there’s competition in the match, like at South Carolina where there was legit heat in the division. But I would have been the only person at this match shooting Production, which cuts into the fun factor. My live and dry fire practice will be with the Production guns, and basically I’ll pick up the dot gun for a match if it seems like the right way to go.

Anyway, these were my first rounds behind a dot since October, but it really didn’t seem to be an issue. Even with the EGW dovetail dot mount, I had zero problems finding the dot all day.

Most of the stages were pretty straightforward one-way-to-shoot-them affairs with just minor options in target engagement order. Stage 4, our first of the day, presented the option (that I took) to go to the back right corner first and then run to the back left and shoot the way around the rest of the stage. Watching the other shooters run it and comparing their times to mine, I think on this stage, saving the back right position to the end was slightly faster; the uprange movement took less time than moving into and out of that back right position, and the headbox-only target didn’t really give you any ability to shoot entering or leaving that back right position. I was obviously aiming quite hard on that stage and shot all alphas, even on the tight partials.

Stage 5 was all alphas as well, except for a barely-on-the-paper delta from starting to transition off the target as soon as I started to pull the trigger on the second shot. The other delta of the day (outside of the classifier) was on Stage 2, on a wide-open 5-yard target coming into position. That said, out of the 18 shooters in the match I was one of only two with no mikes on the day, which I take as a minor achievement. I definitely laid a few in the hardcover, but I made each of them up, which worked out well.

The classifier was a bit of a mess because of the extra two seconds it took to slowly press-press-press-press the DA with my weak hand. Ended up being an alpha, but the time hurt. Even without that though, it would have only been an 85%ish run, despite what I thought was a fairly blistering String 1. I haven’t been practicing very much this year, and one-handed shooting has definitely taken a hit.

Stage execution went as planned on every stage which was good. My main regret watching the video is seeing the gun jump around more than it should. While I was aiming on a lot of the tight partials, I tended to relax my grip, especially with the left hand. That will be something to work on in live fire as the year goes on.

The post True North USPSA – May 2022 appeared first on Berry Shooting.

And around here, the momentum is growing. The North Carolina Section match has been staff reset at least since 2013, when I got into the sport. These days, Georgia and South Carolina are the same way. Rowan County Wildlife Club here in NC has hosted Area 6 twice now, and both times the match has been staff reset. I didn’t shoot this year, but last year we were running significantly ahead of schedule and the match easily could have accommodated more shooters. (In the past, A6D Bruce Wells has said that staff reset violates the volunteer spirit of the sport, but I was happy to see him quoted in the most recent issue of Front Sight as saying, “Our match was staff reset, which gave competitors time to visit with each other and check out the vendor tents.” Okay, so he missed the points about fairness and competitive equity, but I’ll take it.)

That said, I don’t know that the message of staff reset isn’t really spreading. So I got to thinking: does it need better branding?

“World Shoot” Reset

It’s spring 2021, and Production has gotten lumped into the spring Nationals, so I’m in Talladega for Nationals in May. It’s the end of the third day, Beaker and I are walking back from shooting the third zone of the match, the far isolated bays that were all IPSC-ish stages.

A white SUV rolls by and stops, windows down, and asks if we want a ride. I don’t recognize the car or the guy talking to us. I look at Beaker. Does he know these people? As it happens, it’s Rob Leatham and his match buddy, who have some room in the car, so they offer two random nobodies a ride. We pile into the back, and we start driving. Beaker and I had just been discussing the staff in that zone in particular, and how shooting this Nationals in many ways was a worse experience than shooting our Section match or A6. (This was about three hours before they ran out of food at the awards dinner.)

After 15 seconds or so of awkward silence as we start the ride back to our car, I just decide to go for it. As I recall, the conversation went something like this:

“Hey Rob, can I ask you a question?”

“Sure.”

“What do you think about the fact that even at Nationals, you have competitors pasting their own targets and setting steel?”

He pauses for a moment. “Well, I’m not sure. It’s the way it’s always been, you know? The only match I’ve ever been to where the shooters didn’t reset was the World Shoot.”

One of us in the backseat pipes up that actually, Area 6 just ran with staff reset a few weeks before, and it went well. Rob just hmmms thoughtfully. At that point, we’re at our car, we hop out, thank them again for the ride, and part ways.

But the wheels are turning in my head. Instead of staff reset, would we be better off calling it World Shoot reset? “Area 6 at Rowan County Wildlife Club, featuring 12 stages, chrono, and World Shoot reset!”

“Pit Crew” Reset

Pop’s Quest recorded a video on the way home from working the SC Section match a few weeks ago that hit on a new way of framing staff reset that I think really captures it. He compared it to the pit crew at a race. Whether you’re a NASCAR or Formula 1 fan, the idea of a pit crew instantly evokes the idea of everyone having a specific, rehearsed job. When the moment strikes, everyone jumps into action, completes their assigned tasks, gives the signal, and in seconds the car is away and back to racing.

And that’s exactly how a well-run stage goes with staff reset. The range is called clear, and each member of the staff has their assignment. Rob talked about the stage he worked at South Carolina, which had a stomp pad that activated a drop turner and a swinger. Their stage was the fastest running of any stage all day, where the complicated prop setup could easily have made it the one with all the backups and reshoots. Rob talks about how his specific job when the range was called clear was to go to the stomp pad and reset it. It wasn’t a guessing game of who was going to do it, the responsibility was clear, and when the moment came, everyone on that stage did their job.

So perhaps, especially given Rowan’s NASCAR heritage, we should start calling it pit crew reset?

One Funeral At A Time?

Planck wrote, “A new scientific truth does not triumph by convincing its opponents and making them see the light, but rather because its opponents eventually die and a new generation grows up that is familiar with it.” In my experience, staff reset has been the same way. One MD burns out, or the club doesn’t want to host it for another year, or a new Section Coordinator comes in that makes it a priority.

So perhaps this is just a matter of time. As the old guard hands things over, and a new generation take charge, perhaps we’ll starting seeing more matches run this way. Perhaps people traveling from other parts of the country will start to appreciate what a difference “World Shoot”/”pit crew” reset makes at Area 6. Who knows?

The post Does Staff Reset Need Better Branding? appeared first on Berry Shooting.

The one new piece of gear for this match was a Vice holster (yes, spelled like a crack pipe, not like the workbench clamp) from GX Products aka Lafe Kunkel. It took something like 4 months to get after ordering, because I’m pretty sure Lafe is still making every single one by hand. But the quality is impeccable. I was able to leave off the hair tie I usually keep on the holster mount for securing the gun during full-speed walkthroughs. The lever lock does the same thing, but you feel like way more of a badass when you flip it off and the magnet makes that cool snik sound. But I digress.

Stage 1

This was a 32 rounder that started with an unloaded gun and all mags on the barrel. I eventually decided there wasn’t any point trying to dance around it: just stuff three mags in your belt, load the gun, and shoot the stage like normal. Some folks talked about trying to move back to the barrel to pick up a mag as they left the first position instead of stuffing the mag at the start, but that was enough of a movement that it seemed like a wash at best. I did five minutes of experimentation in the hotel room the night before and what felt the most effortless to me was grabbing two mags with my left hand (basepads interlocked) and one with my right hand. Left hand stuffed a mag into pouch #2 while the right hand stuffed a mag into pouch #1. Then the left hand stuffed the other mag into pouch #3 while the right hand picked up the gun. Left hand grabbed a mag off the barrel, loaded while moving to the back corner, and that’s it. Went well, and I wouldn’t really do it any differently.

This is one of the situations where theoretically a magnet would have helped now that they are allowed in Production, but I can’t say I felt like I missed mine. Magnets are extremely fast to put the magazine on, but don’t hold the magazine in a consistent spot the same way a pouch does. (This is one place I find the DAA Racer/Racemaster pouches very easy to use: their funnel shape makes them very fast to stow mags into compared to something like the Ghost pouches I used previously.) And obviously, having to stow three mags, I would have needed a lot of magnets. Now, if it were a 26 round stage instead of 32, and we had 15 round Production, perhaps then it would be more tempting.

At that first shooting position, you had 9 rounds to shoot, three paper on your left, with a long paper and a popper on the right. The three paper on the left were interesting because the third one, which normally you would want to shoot as you moved forward, actually disappeared behind a barrel only a few steps forward of the first shooting position. The second paper was available perhaps five or six steps forward, and so most folks chose to skip the second target and come back to it and shoot it while pushing out of position. One strategy choice I maintained throughout the match was trying to avoid skipping targets I would have to come back to later, and I think it mostly served me well. In this case, I took what on paper seemed like a risky plan: shoot all 9 shots left to right, starting on the close paper and leaving on the big popper. The first target was actually the most restrictive instead of shooting angles, so I knew once I was set up to shoot it, I was in position for everything else.

In theory, leaving on the steel target was risky, but in practice you could see the whole target for the same five or six steps that you could see the second paper target on the left. If I had missed the popper as I started to shift my weight to leave position, I could have taken another one before getting up to too much speed. And I knew the magazine after that was only 8 rounds, so going to slide lock leaving the first position wouldn’t be an issue. Of course, as you can see, it went fine. I liked that sequence and would do it again.

The rest of the stage was mostly go-to-the-places-shoot-the-things. The only other two interesting notes were on target sequencing. First, going into the third magazine, I deliberately reloaded moving up to the spot to see the right tuxedo in the back of the stage, since that was the most precise position to hit. Once that was done, I could start shooting while walking toward the next two closer, open targets, before reloading for the last 7 shots of the stage. The target I took second to last was often taken by other shooters around the same place they took the two mini-poppers. But doing that meant transitioning right past it later in the stage, which as I mentioned, I was trying to avoid. And leaving it to the end also put it into a magazine of 7 where otherwise it would have put my mag #2 at 10 rounds as well, which was too risky.

The only real execution hiccup was the trigger freeze on the third to last target, which cost me a few tenths. But otherwise, very happy with the outcome. I put a lot of emphasis on letting the gun settle on the longer shots, and managed to only pick up 3 charlies total. I was the first shooter (as always) at 7:30 in the morning, so it was a good kickoff to the day.

Stage 2

This was a very plain-looking stage that had more going on than was obvious. The first two positions offered meaningful risk/reward tradeoffs on how aggressively to move into and out of position. The second two positions required precise movement to avoid going deep into each port. And then the final position was just a straight up test of settling back down and getting points at distance.

Leaving the first position, drawing to the partial and rolling out on the open target was a no-brainer. However, coming into the second position, most folks took the middle target, then the left one and the right. Trying to keep things simple and not skip targets, I took the same approach as the first position of the first stage: start the array on the tight target so I know I’m in position when I can shoot it. I definitely gave up some ground with that choice, and shooting major, taking that target on the move would have been required. But playing it safe there let me just hose right across the array, and start to roll out on the last target. The rest of the stage went exactly as planned.

The main execution mistake was not quite having the footwork and positioning visualized well enough, so that as I was moving through, I was slinging quite a few charlies. Once I got to the end and lasered in on the points for the last three targets, things were fine–although I did choose to play it safe and just eat two Cs on the far horizontal hard cover target. There was so little A-zone available, the target was relatively far, and the rest of the stage was pretty fast, meaning the points weren’t worth taking too much risk.

Stage 3

This stage boiled down to four positions: the lean around the left wall, the low port with two targets, the front middle with four targets visible from either opening plus the drop turner, and then the back corner. You could go to the middle right opening and get an easy view on the swinger, but the extra movement wasn’t really worth it.

The best four hits on the drop turner were scored, presenting the question of whether to shoot it or not. Videoing the timing and watching it on my phone the day before, I reckoned it took about a second for the turner to expose, you had about a second to shoot on the first exposure, a second of it hidden, and a second of the second exposure. So somewhere between 3 and 4 seconds if you wanted to shoot both exposures. I didn’t want to just give up all those points, but didn’t want to stand there the whole time either. I’m reasonably happy with the plan to shoot while backing up, but I did not get very good exposures of the target being at the angle I was at. To be honest I’m not sure where the misses went. Not sure if I had two shots on one pass and none on the other, or one on each.

On the other hand, Tyler Turner won the stage with a time two seconds faster than mine, by just posting up and shooting four shots on the first exposure. That lines up with the idea that the second exposure added about two seconds of time overall. Given the ability to basically be at “Can You Count” distance from the target and throw .20 splits to get four hits in under a second, I think that way was probably overall the best.

Stage 4

A pretty straightforward 24 round hosing section up front, with a little box-to-box shooting to start for 32 rounds total. Not too much to say about this one, since the front section in particular presented a very obvious short path where you could see all the targets from.

The 7 charlies I racked up hurt, especially because two separate targets (the last two of the third magazine) had a nice group with both shots in the c-zone. I just didn’t quite get the gun to the right spot on the target before touching off the shots. And of course the trigger freeze that cost me a good six tenths. I’m not sure where I gave up the other second and a half to Tyler, but some of it was coming into the second shooting box too hot and having to spend some time letting the gun settle. Not a disaster of a stage, but definitely some room for improvement.

Stage 5

I took a pretty different approach to this one than most folks I saw. The typical stage plan was to load, shoot the first four targets right to left or left to right, then turn and run uprange and shoot stuff from further back. (Sorry there’s no hat cam on this one. The GoPro started having a case of the Mondays for a few stages until I figured out what to do with it.)

Instead, my idea was to focus on getting the starting load done, then set up for the fairly specific leans for the left and right targets. Then start backing out of position, shooting the open targets dead ahead (shooting on the move at stuff right in front of you is always the easiest). Stick a reload while maintaining momentum, and then the next four shots on the left and two on the right will roll into view. I got to walk it through at full speed just once but it was enough to convince me the timing would work out, so I went with it, and I think it was fine. Even shooting a high cap division without the reload, I’d probably just gas the rearward movement a little more and keep the same plan. Turning your body uprange and then back around takes longer than you think, and so if you can just carry rearward momentum for three or four steps, you’d be surprised how efficient it can be. Supremely un-tactical though!

The rest of the stage went pretty well, with a few issues by an inch. The first was just barely a full diameter barrel hit on the last shot in the third position, and the second was a no-shoot on the perf on the second to last shot, which I made up in case it wasn’t touching. Tough to have two penalties on what had otherwise been a clean match, but I knew otherwise it was a great stage run with one charlie, so I let it go and kept going.

Stage 6

This was a pretty straightforward stage, with the only real choice being where to shoot the option target that I took from the start position. I paced off the distance and it was about the same from the start as it was from the middle of the shooting area, and taking it earlier saved setting up for a far target. Shooting it at the start let me get all the long shooting out of the way at the beginning, then just have the middle section of close hosing and launch to the end.

Once again, I took the approach in the last position of moving until I saw the tight target behind the barrel, and knew I was set up for the partial that was the last target of the stage. (I was not feeling lucky enough to shoot the partial on the move.) Obviously I over-cooked the movement a bit and had to do the one foot thing since my center of balance was slowly teetering out of the shooting area. But it worked out okay.

Stage 7

Everyone was talking about this one “Holy Monkey” swinger, but the verdict of the NC crew I was shooting with was to just be waiting on first pass, put two on it, and be done with it. The unpredictability past the first swing made it very risky, and each swing added an easy two seconds to your time, which was not worth it for a few extra points as long as you had two on the cardboard.

Unfortunately, somewhere in the first four targets, my GoPro decided to beep at me and shut off, which completely threw me off. I point-shot the third and fourth targets, resulting in the one D of the match, which was only barely on the paper. My target order in the second position also got thrown off, because I was thinking about the camera and then not seeing my sights. This camera has been very reliable for years, but something about it recently has made it stop recording after 20 or 30 seconds. After it happened again on stage 8, I figured out to just start the camera going way before I get the “Make Ready”, and that way if it turns off, I can just restart it.

Anyway, after hosing through the first two positions, I tightened everything else up, and managed AC on the swinger which I was more than happy with. I was not looking to do anything heroic on this one, just get it done.

Stage 8

The only real strategy choice on this stage was on the first four targets. In retrospect, this is a place where trying to shoot backing up on the second target did not really pay off, I don’t think. If I had to do it again, I’d take that target after shooting the back left outside target. Come back to the middle, shoot the two targets available from the back middle, then reload and run up to the front of the stage, where you had 20 rounds exactly, so no room for errors.

Other than that, went as planned.

Stage 9

I was feeling good about this one. The main thing that I did differently on my stage plan was after the third position with the two no-shoot partials. Most folks turned to the right and shot the open-and-partial double stack as they walked to the right. I chose to reload moving towards them, which meant by the time I got there and settled in, I could shoot them as fast as I could pull the trigger, and then shoot the three long targets. Shooting them from where I did had the effect of making the shots a few yards farther compared to moving to the front of the box while reloading. But I made sure to give myself permission to get a nice stable stance and just let the gun float to each target. Then I loaded, cut the corner slightly, shot the open target coming into position, and took the two double stacks from another stable setup.

I was especially pleased with the points on the far targets and partials throughout the stage, and knew this was a solid run as soon as I was done.

Stage 10

I thought this stage was going to be a dumb gimmick, but it actually turned out to be a pretty fair test. The activators were available from two different spots, and the bobbers were open targets that were not too far away. You had every chance to do well on this stage, if you could put it together.

When the bobbers first came out, each pair of targets were exposed at almost exactly the same time. But as they cycled in and out, one got ahead of the other, which I thought would be advantageous for shooting them without downtime. Shoot the first one to appear in each pair, then the second one, instead of rushing to shoot them in the same window of time.

As you can see though, I missed the key element of shooting the second activator before the right inside double stack. I recovered fairly well from the mistake, and amazingly enough was able to get four alphas on the two right targets on their first, synchronized exposure. But that threw me off my plan enough that I rushed shooting the left bobbers, and had to take two passes at each one, and racked up a miss on my first shot on the pair.

My raw time on the stage still ended up being the fastest by a little, but the profuse charlies and the mike made this an 89% finish. I knew from looking at Practiscore Competitor that I had a chance to win the match if I could snatch the stage win on this last stage by a good margin, but that wasn’t going to happen. Still, I’m happy with the recovery and how the stage went.

Summary

Overall, I shot way better than I expected given the limited practice. Shooting 10 stages in 6 hours thanks to staff reset was amazing as always. I was genuinely not really looking forward to this match due to my lack of preparation, but it’s now given me quite a bit of fire in the belly to get back into things and keep building on what’s clearly a more solid foundation than I gave myself credit for.

This is the second year that Belton has put on the match and they are doing a great job. The stages were a good mix of shot difficulties (tight and open targets; near, medium, and far shots), and even the three unloaded starts I didn’t mind. Making the low-capacity shooters stuff 3 or 4 mags on Stage 1 was kinda lame, and could have easily been designed differently. In general, the round count on most stages was higher than it needed to be, and every stage could have had at least one target deleted with no real loss to the stage in my estimation. Having more variety (more than 27-32 rounds) in stage design is a good thing, but for being a typical high-round count American match, this one did not disappoint.

The post SC Section 2022 Wrapup appeared first on Berry Shooting.

This month, I decided to take out the Stock 2 with the red dot on an EGW plate and shoot a match with it. It’d been running well in practice, and I thought it would be interesting to take it to a pretty tough local match.

As I discuss at the end of the match video, I decided to shoot it with 15 round magazines, following on from last month’s match in “Production 15” (aka IPSC Production). In part because I was curious: there’s a lot of discussion about what the future of the US Carry Optics division should be, and I was curious to see in a match context what the difference between 15 and 23 rounds would be in stage planning. (I had to do an extra reload on 3 of the 5 medium or long courses of the day.)

The second reason, as you see at the end of the match video, is that the 23 rounders with the fancy Grams spring and follower kits just do not feed 147 Flat Point bullets. I know this comes with the territory, and I’ll switch bullet profiles to find something that will work with these mags if I choose to keep going with this setup. (The Glock 23 round mags fed the Flat Points just fine, strangely enough.) Also, the mags don’t reliably lock back, which I’m sure I can probably improve with Mr. Dremel. But this is exactly the kind of thing that is not interesting to me and I would prefer to compete in a division that didn’t require it. I’ve been shooting these Tanfos for 5 years now without changing so much as a magazine spring and they feed and lock back 100%.

If I have to change my gear and ammo to work in more finicky magazines, I’ll do it, rather than being the one curmudgeon who won’t stay with the times. But I still think it’s a bit pointless–capacity isn’t an advantage when everyone has exactly the same size magazines. If the purposes of equipment divisions is to establish various level playing fields upon which competitors can compete, then you can assume everyone will have the same gear. Why 140mm for CO? Why not 170? There is no defining reason except it seemed like a good idea at the time. In my opinion, the division is just fine with 15 round magazines, and much closer to actual practical applications. (The name “Carry Optics” is stupid to start with, but how many people carry their red dot gun with a 23 rounder under their T-shirt?)

Anyway, on to the stages.

I was happy with my performance overall, with one Delta and one No-shoot for the day, shooting 91% of points overall. (A few stages like 5 and 8 really dragged that down.)

Stage 8

As I was shooting, I was calling lots of second-shot charlies, but this was such a close, hoser stage I just couldn’t find it to slow down and aim more. Most of the CO guys didn’t have to reload on the 20 rounder, but I don’t know that it particularly slowed me down.

Stage 1a

A quick unloaded start short course that turned out to be a fun stage. I’m always surprised how short stages like this have a surprising number of ways to shoot them. At least on my squad, folks seemed to like it.

I had just a little hangup with the magazine going into the gun, but after that everything went well. The targets were open and only about 7 yards away, so all Alphas isn’t the hardest thing in the world, but I was happy with it.

Stage 1b

On this stage, a bad habit of mine bit me. I tend to start exiting positions early. My visualization was to start moving while shooting the third target, the open bottom target on the double stack. But as you can see in the third person, I’m shooting the top partial with a foot in the air. This was totally pointless from a movement perspective and certainly didn’t help control the gun.

I saw the dot dip into the white as soon as it went off and sent another one without hesitation, but still, I couldn’t take back the bad hit. I need to work on being patient and not actually starting to shift my weight or move until it’s actually time.

Stage 2

On this stage, I had to reload twice, because the way the stage was set up left 10 rounds from one spot in the middle. (In the design, the barrel was further uprange so you couldn’t see the two targets in the “alley” from one position.) I struggled with both reloads, just a lack of practice and reps on this gun with these mags. Definitely something to work on.

Stage 3

Everything went pretty much to plan here. The popper at the end not going down was from a low, partial hit that made a good noise but didn’t have enough juice to put the steel down. But I kept the gun up, so as soon as it looked like it was an issue, I sent another. So the recovery at least was good.

Stage 4

Another stage that went almost exactly to plan. I did my reload two targets later than visualized. Not exactly sure why I didn’t do it coming out of the port with the steel. I think I was focusing too much on hitting the spot on the fault lines to shoot the next 4 shots.

Stage 5

There was a good amount of discussion about this stage, and I chose the plan to shoot on the move around the side instead of posting up and shooting and then cutting through the middle. I think it mostly worked out, but the charlies ate me alive during the shooting on the move. Also, the last target, I was planning to pivot to, but with the PVC fault lines I didn’t know exactly where I was in relation to it. I ended up stepping back and being off-balance and shot falling out of the shooting area which I try to avoid whenever possible, for reasons like this. I called the bad shots as soon as I shot them, but it wasn’t worth getting back in the shooting area to make them up.

Stage 6

The left popper activated the left swinger, the right popper the right swinger, and the middle popper the left max trap, which in turn activated the right max trap. I chose what was actually a pretty safe plan, to hit middle-left-right and then wait for the max traps then shoot the swingers. (This is one of those stages where it really helps to get to see people on the squad in front of you shoot it, and we didn’t. I was third or fourth on the stage, so I had to pick a plan and go with it.)

I saw another shooter on the squad run the more aggressive left-middle-right plan and pick up the left swinger before the max traps. It was definitely faster and more aggressive, but with less margin for error. He shaved a second off the time (5.5 instead of 6.6) which is a huge difference when calculating a hit factor. If I’d seen it run that way before I shot, I’d know I would have had to match it.

CM 99-11 El Presidente

Bad draw with the gun hanging up in the holster because I pulled out instead of straight up, and a bad reload. Plus 4 charlies. I definitely have not been keeping my stand-and-shoot skills sharp the last few years, and it usually shows on classifiers.

The post Sir Walter November 2021 Wrapup – “Production Optics” appeared first on Berry Shooting.

You might think I was itching to go back to the heavy steel guns after the punishing 9mm recoil in a twenty-something ounce Glock. But the reality is, the main thing I noticed coming back was just how much more substantial the Tanfos felt in hand. It’s a totaly subjective thing, but the Glock just never got to the point of feeling nice in the hand. It is brutally efficient and cost-effective, but it does lack a certain heft and quality that the Itallian Stallions have. It’s totally intangible, but I was excited to dry fire with them again, where the Glock always felt a bit like a chore. Does it shoot any better? Not especially. But there’s something to be said for picking pretty much any viable gun as long as you’re excited about it and motivated to put in the time to improve with it.

So anyway, I wasn’t really all that excited about shooting a low-cap match, so I decided to dust off “Production 15” and register for the match in Limited Minor. My gear would have roughly fit IPSC Production, with no externally visible modifications, gear behind the hip bone, and 15 rounds in my mags. It saved me a reload on most of the stages. But more interestingly, it just meant that on stages like 4, you were able to shoot leaving one position and entering the next one without having to stick a load between. Is that more “interesting” than the “stage planning” that some people claim to enjoy with ten rounds? Not to me, but opinions vary.

Stage 8

First stage of the day, second time I’d been shooting with iron sights in months, so I was confirming the sights a little more than usual, especially on the partial targets in the first half of the stage. In the first position, the safer plan would have been to draw to the steel with the DA trigger pull and then shoot the partial and leave. However, I knew it was very realistic to draw to a close distance, high-risk partial and get two alphas on it without that much real jeopardy. I intended to shift my weight a little more as I was shooting the steel to start to leave, but that didn’t quite happen. I still would have shot that order again though.

And then the second half of the stage was just fun shooting and moving. I knew I was shooting to 14 and didn’t want to sling a bunch of makeup shots, so it all worked out just fine.

Stage 1A

This was a 12-round short course of my design. It and Stage 1B were the result of me designing target arrays outside of the permanent plate rack in the bay and then realizing they were better as separate short courses rather than being strung together with a sprint in between. (I will also admit that knowing I didn’t have to stick a load in these was part of the draw for shooting 15 rounds at this match.)

I was genuinely surprised at how many interesting ways there were to run such a “simple” stage. The whole stage hinged on the central array of steel where the big poppers blocked the small one from either end of the shooting area, but it was wide open from the middle. As should always be the way when you design a stage, I had a few different ideas of ways to shoot it, but until I stood there on the ground, I didn’t have my mind up how to shoot it.

I settled on a strategy that emphasized railing fast shots on 3 of the 4 paper from standing, shooting the big poppers rolling out of position, and take the mini and the last paper from the end. I am completely happy with my execution.

Stage 1B

This short course didn’t really have as many options since you pretty much shot everything left to right or right to left (with the middle array shot reverse of that). But it tested the specific skills required to execute either the left-to-right or right-to-left stage plan. There were also basically two different approaches to the left array of three targets: open-partial-open and roll out on the last open, or open-open-partial to “ride the recoil” up the stack. I chose the first plan and would stick with it every time. (You may notice this array of an open target next to an open-noshoot-partial stack shows up in my stages fairly regularly. I think it’s a challenging array that offers some interesting options in approaching it, and use it often. Especially in these small bays, having that open-partial stack can add some real interesting shooting without taking up much space.)

The other gotcha of this stage is that the middle “array” was really not one array. The right target was visible half a step from where you shot the left array, and the left target with the no-shoot on it was visible a half step away from where you shot the right hand target. So although this stage on paper looks like three arrays and three positions, it really is more like two wide positions that you roll out of/in to.

I called a bad shot on the first target and went back to make it up before rolling out of position, which put me a little ahead of myself, and on the fourth target, by the time I went to take my second shot, I was losing most of the A zone behind the barrel. I just shot the charlie and moved on, since the time to get the alpha would not possibly be worth it. So in that sense, going too fast cost me points, but not in the usual sense folks mean it.

At least on my squad, the combination of the two stages was a well-liked, unusual challenge. Everyone wanted another shot at one or the other of the short courses, which just serves as yet another reminder that you don’t need 32 rounds, or even 20 rounds to make a challenging, interesting stage.

Stage 2

This was also a stage of my design, a bit of a hail mary attempt to see how much of a field course I could pack into this tiny bay. It turned out fairly well, but I heard the build crew had some challenges getting the angles right.

Aside from the the folks that ran through the barrels and shot the front section left-to-right, pretty much everyone had to run the stage in the same general order. The main choices came down to choosing your target order, hitting the right spots, and blending the middle positions.

My main execution error was right after the reload. My plan was to shoot open-partial-open and start shifting my weight on the last target. As it was, when doing the wide transition, my eye snapped to the open target and I shot it first, meaning I had to stay planted for the partial. That led to pushing out of position a little hot leading to being off balance on my toes for the last two targets. Not ideal, but fine.

The other choice I suppose was whether to shoot the tight lean in the first position first or last. You could move into position, shoot that difficult target, and then unwind from the lean a bit to shoot the rest. Or you could do what I did, which is move in, lean more as I shot, and then just drop step out of position. I don’t find myself doing a lot of drop steps, but this is an instance I deliberately chose it as a strategy (also knowing I didn’t have to reload leaving that position). It worked out as planned.

Stage 3

The fourth target here was the main source of debate, of whether to shoot it on the way back, or to take it while moving forward to the middle of the stage. Walking through the stage, I made the choice that I would shoot the first three targets backing up, and by the time I was done with the third target, the fourth one would only be two steps away. Rather than turning my body just to turn back, I just visualized keeping my hands on the gun, carrying that momentum, and having a little patience until the target came into view, shooting it, and only then turning to move uprange and make the turn around the corner.

You also had the choice to shoot the open paper at that back left position coming into the position or leaving it. It seemed pretty clear to me that I was going to be trailing the gun coming in, so it was better to take it leaving. I also told myself it would give me a chance to be sure the popper was falling before leaving. As you can see in the video, after shooting it, I hesitate and look at the popper, so my plan became a self-fulfilling prophecy. Cost a few tenths, no big deal, but it was less than ideal.

The middle position of the stage went more or less as planned. The only exception is the stupidly risky way I shot the double swinger. I had visualized putting two shots on each target in one pass each. But as you can see, as I transitioned to the swinger, instead of aiming at the target that was coming into view, I tried to squeeze in a shot on the one that was going away. (This is a pattern that will show up later and I need to knock the hell off.) As you can see, I shoot 1-2-1. Even having made the mistake of shooting the one quick shot before the target swung out of view, I should have assumed that shot was a miss and put two shots on it on the second exposure like I had planned. (As it was, it was a lucky delta so I escaped a miss. But I can see how unhelpful my strategy was and how close to disaster it put me.)

The last thing worth noting on this stage is that the last four targets looked on paper like two separate positions. But as you can see from my run, if you moved far enough, you only had a take a step while doing the wide transition between the outside targets and they were basically one position. It doesn’t come up all the time, but often enough it’s worth looking to see if you can skip shooting on the move by just moving a little bit more (while reloading, if you have to) and then post up in one spot and shoot a bunch of targets.

Stage 4

This stage was a bit of a memory stage, and I visualized it as many times as I possibly could. Ironically, somehow I ended up thinking in the second position that I hadn’t shot all 8 shots I was supposed to take from there, thus my hesitation leaving position. Once my conscious mind kicked in, it said to trust the plan and just get out of there.

There were a few different ways to approach the first two positions, but almost all of them benefited from not having to reload between them.

I shot the stage all As, but with 3 makeup shots, which my rule of thumb says adds roughly a charlie’s worth of time. This is a useful heuristic for analyzing stages. Even if you shoot a hard cover mike and make it up with an alpha, you’ve still incurred some extra time that you can’t get rid of.

Stage 5

This stage was pretty wide open, and the 13 shots on the left side certainly presented the option to shoot on the move all the way through, right from the start position. Not being totally confident with the iron sights, and knowing I had 16 rounds in the gun, I opted to just run over, post up, and shift around to get the few targets that were hidden by barrels. I think that was the right play. If I’d had the dot and 23 rounds on tap in the gun, I think shooting almost the whole thing on the move would have been the play (and same goes for Limited and Open, of course).

The middle section required hitting a fairly specific spot and pretty much staying there until you were done shooting. That went well.

The mini-poppers at the end I remember feeling like they were painfully slow. But for being at 15ish yards and shot from a bladed-off stance with 16 rounds to shoot 13, I’m pretty happy with that part of the stage. It could have gone much worse.

Stage 6

This stage I executed pretty much how I visualized it. The first swinger was so fast I was only going for one shot per pass. I will admit being surprised how long it took for the swinger to come out, but there was zero to do except sit there and wait for it.

My plan on the second swinger was to go for two shots on one pass. But like on Stage 3, I got greedy and tried to sneak a shot in while it was mid-swing, rather than just waiting for it to come out and give me a good presentation to execute my plan. Luckily I did put two shots on it after that first one, but still ended up with a charlie and a delta on the perf. Lots of room for improvement.

I need to retrain myself when I see swingers in the match to plan not to try to transition and get a shot off in the middle of a swing. Just move the gun over, get ready for when I get a good full presentation.

CM 09-13 Table Stakes

Not much to say here. The load went okay, but I got the left hand grip was just not quite right after bringing it down. The gun was flipping a lot more than usual, but I was timing it pretty okay. On the very last shot, I was breaking the shot as the gun was coming out of recoil and was just a few hundredths too late as the front sight went from target to no-shoot. Clearly my unloaded starts need some work, but to be honest I wasn’t too worried about it. For my first match back on the gun and the iron sights, I was happy with the overall result.

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7.1.8 Director NROI(“DNROI”) – While serving at a match as a member of the staff carries the same overall authority as the Match Director and Range Master. The DNROI while on staff will be there to assist the Match Director and Range Master in all endeavors to keep things running smoothly and help to make the match a success.

I thought this was a particularly strange and non-sensical rule. In what scenario would DNROI be working a match as staff, but not an RM, but need a rule to allow him to step in and overrule the MD and/or RM. If someone arbitrated the decision of the DNROI, would he get to choose the Arb Committee (which is the defined purview of the MD)? How can one person have the “same authority” as both positions?

It’s a very strange rule that reeks of central control and a need to be top dog at a match, even if you weren’t asked to work it.

What I got wrong is that this isn’t a new rule. I’ve been an RO since 2014 and thought I’d read just about ever rule in the old red-cover rulebook, and that one didn’t ring any bells. I did a quick cursory glance at my paper copy and didn’t see it.

The post was already writing itself in my head. The online rulebooks with no changelogs beyond the most recent revision made it impossible to tell when… You get the idea. But after I dashed off the post and hist publish, a reader pointed out 7.1.8 was in that 2014 rulebook. I looked again and saw that sure enough, he was right. The whole post was built on the foundation that this was a new rule, snuck into the “evergreen” rulebook by a USPSA President bent on personal control and his compliant board.

But it wasn’t true. I took the post down. I know only a few dozen people probably saw anything about it in the 20 minutes before I realized the issue and removed it. But for those people, I wanted to follow up. It was a quick post, dashed off in an evening after dinner, between finishing my CRO exam and designing the stages for the local match I help out with. I am very much human and that means sometimes I see what I want to see, even when it doesn’t quite match reality.

I do think that there is a lot of work to undo the mess that’s been made by Mike Foley and the Board that approved his measures. But this isn’t one of them. It remains a weirdly controlling rule, while at the same time being applicable in a vanishingly small number of instances. It’s probably worth revising at some point. But it’s definitely not the low-hanging fruit of things that need to be fixed. And for anyone that read that post yesterday and thought it did, that’s on me. I always try to be careful and considered in these posts, even when they are at times sensational and inflammatory. I’ll slow down and double check the facts the next time I think I have a story too good to be true.

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Setup

Thursday was the build day, and it was mostly uneventful. When I was helping with setting up Stage 4, which was my design, the setup we’d used at a club match for the hiding double-plate swinger before activation just wouldn’t work here. So we made the call and changed it to a single plate swinger and added another popper to keep the round count consistent. The new sequence of going activator, big popper, swinging plate was still pretty interesting and definitely rewarded shooters who got right.

Also, after having watched 200 or so competitors shoot the stage, I am of the mind that the back left and back right positions were just pointlessly duplicative. Removing the back left position would have made the whole stage better in a few ways. First, dropping the round count from 29 to 25 would give competitors more options of where to reload and more ammo. Second, it would make a wider range of stage plans more viable, since cutting to the middle left position on the start would be weighed against going to the right first and not having to back up. Having two positions where you had to stop hard and post up also just distracted from what was, in my opinion, the interesting challenge of the stage, which was navigating the front two positions and the barrels in the shooting area.

My Match

This was my third USPSA match in CO, although I’d shot a handful of other matches and practice sessions with the dot. I was feeling generally comfortable with the overall setup, which I think mostly showed in my performance. My mindset at the match was to focus on gripping the gun well, and shoot the second shot on each target as soon as the dot was back. The end result was decent but not overwhelming speed but aiming pretty hard on every medium-difficulty-or-harder target. Across 8 of the 9 stages, I had a total of 22 charlies which is pretty respectable. (The other stage was 3 charlies but 2 deltas as well. Hosing too fast.) I am also quite happy–especially for shooting on staff day–that I didn’t have a single visualization or execution mistake. I executed every stage according to plan which has been a struggle for me in the past.

Stages

There are only a few individual stage performances that are worth saying something about specifically.

Stage 7, my first of the day, didn’t really have any options to speak of, just two positions and a swinger that you pretty much had to get on the first swing. I knew it was an aggressive plan, but shooting it, I didn’t feel out of control at any point. Everything went exactly as visualized which was a bit of surprise. Good start to the day.

Stage 2 is the one where I had the two deltas–ironic because it was certainly the stage with the easiest shot difficulty of any. My GoPro beeped and turned off halfway through, which was a minor distraction. The third target was charlie delta with a good group, so that was just an error with transitioning to the wrong spot. I don’t know that I could have moved through it much quicker, but definitely getting more grip on the gun and returning it faster would have helped me get done shooting the targets sooner as I moved through.

Other than that, I ended up aiming a lot, despite that not really being a conscious focus of my planning and visualization. Given the sparse practice I’ve had this year and being relatively new to the gun, I’m definitely happier with a conservative, consistent result than swinging for the fences. I don’t feel that the gun is holding me back. Even the availability of ammo hasn’t been a huge issue since I’ve adjusted my practice to use low round count drills. There’s just a certain amount of time behind the gun required to really keep moving up to the next level that I’m not able to dedicate in dry fire and live fire right now.

Summary

Switching to CO for this match was definitely the right call. There was a ton of heat in the division and it was an interesting test to get really let the high cap gun stretch its legs. I’m still pretty ambivalent about shooting a dot versus irons, but it’s undeniable that you can just get more shooting done when you’re not having to reload every four targets. Not really sure what I shoot after this. Can’t say I’m hooked on CO per se, but going back to 10 rounds doesn’t sound like a barrel of laughs either.

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