May-hem

This month’s USPSA match at Miami Rifle & Pistol Club was a fun one. Even though the threat of incoming “May-hem” from severe weather forced match organizers to simplify some stages (for speedier resets and post-match tear down), it was still a good challenge…for me at least.

This was the first match I shot with my own 9mm reloads, and the ammo performed just fine. I could even cut back the powder charge a skosh and still make minor power factor. I haven’t decided yet if I’ll do that or not, but I’ll probably tinker with it a bit and see what I can come up with.

Other than just being slow and still shooting too many C’s and D’s (and a couple of mikes and no-shoots), I only had two big problems. The first came on the next to last stage, when I took way too many shots to knock down three mini poppers. I don’t know…maybe settle down and take an extra half second to settle the sights and not jerk the trigger? That mess caused my round count for the rest of the stage to be off, resulting in standing reloads and in turn, too much time. Did I mention I was slow?

Took way too long to get those poppers to fall.

Then on the last stage of the day, I first had to contend with a re-shoot due to a range equipment failure (popper fell down). Then, I had a weird malfunction in the next to last position. In this position, there was a door covering a port which had to be opened before engaging four paper targets. The consensus was that the easiest and safest way to open it was to just poke it open with the gun, as it was held in place by only a light magnet. I got the port opened and the first shot off just fine, and then…nothing. I did a couple of tap/racks, but noticed that the next round was not feeding. So I simply dumped that mag and went to a fresh one, and finished the stage. Again…too much time.

First shot through the opened port went just fine…then, malfunction.

I haven’t checked my mags yet, but I suspect a bit of dirt or gravel had gotten in there and jammed up the magazine. I was hoping to get another look in the video, but my GoPro wasn’t angled down enough to capture it. Let’s go to the videotape!

Still, despite scores that weren’t as good as I would have liked (they never are)…I had just as much fun as anybody. Next match is less than four weeks away!