Short And Sweet

Usually my club closes out the USPSA season every October with a "monster match," with high round count stages (like 40-50 rounds or more!). But 2020 being...well, 2020...my club opted to end our already covid-shortened season with a shorter match and lower round counts to save scarce ammo. In fact, the six stages were so short (between 10-16 rounds) that we were able to run two iterations of the same match, one in the morning and another in the afternoon.

I only shot the morning match, and I did OK, though there were a couple of hiccups (as usual). On the Stage 1 classifier (13-05 “Tick Tock”), I muffed the unloaded start when I didn’t slam the magazine home firmly enough, and it didn’t seat; I had to do a quick tap-rack to get the gun in action, costing me a little time. Then I threw a miss after I fumbled the mandatory reload. I didn’t have the magazine lined up properly when i went to slam it home, and it didn’t go in smoothly.. You’ll see me rush the first shot coming off of the mandatory reload; it looks to me like I got on the trigger as I was coming back on the lower target after the reload, broke it too soon, and went low and left. I got in a rush and paid the price.

Had to tap/rack after the mandatory…and insufficiently firm…reload on Stage 1.

Next, I had what I thought was a good plan for Stage 2...but the plan is only as good as the execution. At the beginning of the stage, I intended to hit the activator right from the seated start position, but couldn't quite reach it like I thought I could. I kinda lost my balance for a moment, though I did recover and run my plan. Right up to the point where I got a miss and hit a no-shoot on the longer shot on the left position, resulting in my worst hit factor of the day.

A miss and hit a no-shoot right here…another half-second to steady my sights may have prevented it.

Here’s the match video, though some of the barricades and other obstacles blocked a good view of some of the shots from my earmuff-mounted GoPro…

Still, I was happy with my match overall. The stages were fun, and having a simpler, quicker match was a nice change of pace. It would be a great format for a new USPSA shooter to get started on, making for simpler stage plans and fewer possibilities for discouraging DQs. (Maybe we ought to do a match like this at the beginning of the season next year?) I do think this format favored the athletic and faster shooters running Open and Limited guns, so as a Single Stack shooter running major power factor, I didn’t place very high. Even within Single Stack, I was up against several shooters who are simply better than I am, and my placement in the division reflects that. Still, punctuating a shortened season with a fun, short match was a good way to wrap things up. Hope to see you at a match next spring!