A Weekend of Shooting

Had a great weekend. Saturday worked with the Club's Training Officer and 8 trainees. The Training Officer took them through a series of "shooting while moving" drills where the gun is on a table for the starting position.

After which we went and shot three stages. I ROed most of the students through these stages. I didn't have my gun with me so I wasn't shooting at all.

On the last stage I had to pick up a shooter for "breaking 90". In a "real" squad he would have been DQed (disqualified) but as this is training this is where we work with them to show them how to shoot a stage so that they don't put themselves in a position where they do this (where possible). His "mistake" was that he shot down the left side of the range first, then backed up to shoot the right stage. On the last target he didn't back up far enough.

I enjoyed the training session and the opportunity to do so much ROing - makes me feel more confident to do it on normal squad shoots.

Today I went up to the range to shoot. There were three squads and I joined a squad with my two mentors on it. I like to shoot with them were possible as I know that they will give me some tips on each stage and lots of constructive criticism.

The stages had been reorganised (and made harder) than the stages yesterday (Saturday shooters rarely put up no-shoots, the guys doing the stages on Sunday love them!).

The first stage had a wooden flap that had to be lifted to shoot the last four targets. I've not used one of these before-hand so I got some tips on how to approach it - luckily, as when i tried it first (with no gun) I "swept" myself! Anyway, I shot the stage fine without sweeping myself.

The second stage was another challenging one - it was "strong hand only" with four paper targets and three poppers. The starting position was facing uprange, loaded and holstered with hands on head. It's been a long time since I've done a start facing uprange and I was concerned that I'ld either forget to shoot "strong hand only" and/or miss all the poppers. (Normally I'm okay with poppers but last week had shaken my confidence - we had a stage with four poppers and it took me two mags to knock them off). Anyway, I took my time in the starting box to get my thoughts together and then shot the stage well ... all the poppers went down but I did totally miss one of the paper targets (scores on the other three were 2As, 2As, 1A & 1C).

Stage three was a little stage. The starting box was directly in front of a window with three targets (and a no-shoot), then there was a target to the left & right of the window which were not visible from the box. I had no problems on this stage, but I think I got one C and one D - the rest were As.

Stage four was an interesting one, three rooms in a row. In the first room there were two targets, one partially obscured by two no-shoots (you could move far left to get a clear shot on both targets). The centre room had three targets again, two of which were partially covered with a no-shoot AND the window into the room was blocked by two no-shoots so you either had to go over the no-shoots or under, (basically gun had to be put through the window either way). I went under (otherwise I would have had to shoot on my tiptoes). Then the third room had two targets that you had to shoot around the end of the room with a fault line stopping you stepping out to the right. One of the left-handed revolver shooters ended up on their butt as they over balanced (gun remainded facing downrange the whole time though) - it was one of those situations where you wish you had a camera running. Anyway I did good on the stage again - no no-shoots and no misses and again mainly As.

The last stage was a 24 round stage. The first two targets could be engaged from the starting box (with half a step) but they were through a portal (one portal for each target). I got a bit of assistance on how to shoot these without running up to the portal and I was pleased that I gave it a go and managed to get 2As on each of the targets. I shot the rest of the stage as I had planned and again only got 1C - the rest were As, EXCEPT the last target they scored (the third I had shot - it was a low target, probably 15m from the starting box, partially covered with a no-shoot) I missed the target completely (not happy! ... I should have shot it closer as I had to go over there anyway for targets 4 & 5). Still if you don't try these things you don't learn.

So all-in-all I was happy how I shot the stages today. Just hope I shoot as well at the next trophy shoot.