In for the results. I’m sure I’m in the middle to the bottom of the pack. Not at all my best match. But that’s on me. I didn't shoot all that well but I still had a really fun time. I shot the Reising in Iron Sights division, mostly because I haven't played with that gun much in several years. It runs well, but it's difficult to shoot well in this type of competition. I had a handful of magazine-related malfunctions on the Uzi in Unlimited. But that's all it takes.
Now that we've had a week or so to decompress, here are a few of my thoughts. I really liked the stages. It was technically more difficult than many matches that we shoot. And I enjoyed that. The brown steel targets were deceptive. We all get used to shooting "good enough". But when there is a scoring zone within a larger steel target and anywhere outside of that zone is a "miss", if we're just listening for a "ping" on steel, all of the sudden that might not be good enough.
There were a lot of penalties handed out at this match. I believe we had one shooter on my squad who shot the match clean (no penalties) in his morning run. And it wouldn't surprise me if that was the only clean run of the day. It would be interesting to see the breakdown of raw time + penalties.
One that bit me on Stage 1 was the array of ten poppers in an L-shape that had to be taken down in a single burst. Once the burst stopped, anything left standing could not be reengaged and was a penalty. I mowed them all down in a burst with the Reising in the morning, but when I ran this stage in the afternoon with the Uzi, I fired one shot and then had a malfunction. So I ended up with nine penalties. This is where you need to have your gun/ammo/gear all sorted out beforehand. Very high disaster factor.
I read some comments here about the hidden target on Stage 4. Yeah, you really couldn't see it. It was a large black steel target in the shade behind a bush. You just had to shoot into the bush in the right area. But I will say it was clearly pointed out during the walk-through. There were one or two people who shot in the wrong area of the bush at first, but they were able to adjust and find it.
Everyone seemed to like the stage with the four Texas stars. I had a pretty good run on that one at the end of the day with the Uzi.
Hopefully we will get to do it again next year. Thanks to John for putting it on!