A Long Way To The Top
Aussie rockers AC/DC were right when they proclaimed, “it’s a long way to the top if you wanna rock and roll.” While there wasn’t a lot wrong with my performance in my latest USPSA match…I’m still a long way from the top. To be perfectly honest, I’m never going to be a top performer in the sport, for multiple reasons. I don’t have the time or resources to train and shoot as much as I’d need to in order to level up, and I’m not getting any younger. Things like physical speed, aging eyes, and achy knees are all becoming more significant obstacles as the seasons roll on, and there isn’t much to be done about that. Take a look…
Still, there were a few things within this match that I can point to as “teachable moments". The first came on the first stage of the day. Near the end of the stage, there are two targets stacked alongside two barrels, and one of my rounds went a bit wide and struck a barrel, resulting in a scored miss. This put a damper on an otherwise decent stage, which included two swinging targets.
Hitting a barrel results in a scored miss on one target.
The next hiccup came on the next stage, Classifier 06-03, known as, “Can You Count”. This is a Virginia Count stage, where a specific number of shots are required, and extras result in a penalty. It is shot in two separate strings of ten rounds each; five rounds on each of two targets during each string…with a mandatory reload between targets. The targets are very close, resulting in fast times for most shooters, and also leaving very little room for error. The slightest flub costs time, of which there is little to spare on such a short, fast stage. My particular flub was a failure to seat the magazine firmly during my first reload, causing a failure to feed malfunction on the second round on the second target. I did a quick tap/rack to fix it (slowed down in the video), but it was enough to knock down my hit factor.
The loudest click you’ll ever hear…the result of rushing a reload and failing to seat the mag firmly.
Finally, on the fourth stage of the day, I got a case of “cerebral wind”…commonly known as a brain fart. My stage plan was to reload as I moved into the third position, giving me a full gun to engage all the targets at that point, and then reload again as I moved to the far right. Instead, I completely forgot my own plan and moved to position three without reloading, leaving me with only one round in the gun. I fire that round at the first available target and go to slide lock, forcing a standing reload and wasting precious time. Still, after that standing reload, I had enough ammo in the gun to engage the far right target array and then reload while moving to the final position of the stage. It wasn’t optimal, but I recovered well enough to take a Single Stack stage win…though there were only three of us in the division that day.
Feel the cerebral wind as I forget my own stage plan, miss a reload, and go to slide lock
Otherwise, the match went OK for me. The overall problem was shooting and moving too slowly to overcome the C-zone hits I shot (and a few D’s), and all I can really do about that is to shoot more A’s, and maybe try to speed up the reloads a bit. So maybe I won’t ever make it to the top…but I’m still going to rock and roll.
