The Down Range Forum
Member Section => Upcoming Events => Topic started by: alfsauve on March 12, 2024, 11:55:34 AM
-
My goal for 2024 was initially the Bianchi Cup. Got in touch with the two closest clubs, Tallahassee and Panama City, they shoot monthly and were very welcoming to hear that I might come down for their matches. Even maybe the afternoon before practice. It's a long way for a local match, but more importantly I'm just not ready. First there's the gun. I'd prefer my 6" 686 revolver even though it's just a recognition category and not a true division. That means everyone shoots it in the Open divisions because then they can have red-dots, comps and wings (wings are tabs you rest against the barricade to steady the gun). On top of that, while they've shortened it by a day, it's a long 2 day drive over, then a day of check-in and range familiarization, 2 days of shooting (2 stages a day) and then a day for tie breakers and re-shoots followed by 2 days back.
I was holding out that maybe in 2025, CMP, who now manages Bianchi, would hold it in Talladega. So I'm putting that on hold for the time being. I'll check with the Talladega folks when I go in May to see if not THE Bianchi cup if maybe they'll be holding local matches in the future.
IDPA: I'm sitting at 7 points toward World and if I run down to Valdosta and shoot in Rolling-on-the-River (Tier 4) match I'll have 10 total which should easily get me in World.
USPSA: I'm sort of shot out on it. Might do River Bend's year end match like last year, which we did with K targets sort of like PCSL.
STEEL CHALLENGE: My friend Mark Hu has pointed out that I'm in the top 100 in Iron Sighted Revolvers (yes there are more than 101) and has encouraged me to practice more. I've got one slot in World Speed Shoot in May and will only do the one gun this time. I'd love to at least move up to B class. 3 local matches before then.
GLOCK: I put down my G17 two years ago after coming in 3rd place (AmCiv division) at River Bend. RB is the second largest of Glock's matches and attracts a lot of competition. Well Kevin mentioned in a post of his how he'd like to make Master (didn't say which discipline) and I thought you know I could make Master in GSSF if I applied myself. River Bend takes a <60 to win and I didn't have time but to run a 100 rounds indoors and ended up with a 74.35. I knew going in this was only for practice. That was good enough for 10th place and top Super Senior ($75). What I need to do now is go to some of the smaller matches where a 70+ can win. So I'm running down to Shorter, AL next month where last year it was won with a 73.17. Practice, especially at plates, is what it'll take. Let's say the goal is to at least win one GSSF match. I already have indoor league Stock, Unlimited and 500 Club under my belt.
ICORE is a take or leave it for this year. Our March match was rained out. The Regional and National are too far away. If I can work it in great.
Given up on indoor IDPA and USPSA, or hit-factor matches, as we call it now, and will concentrate on 2 range sessions a week one indoor and one outdoor.
-
You go Alf. How far a drive is it? I want to encourage you to man up....
;D
-
Shorter, AL. 161miles
Talladega, AL 110miles
Valdosta, GA 260milles
Green Valley R&P, MO, 600miles
-
Sorry. Pictures. Proof.
-
600 miles is not a two nighter. 850 might be.
One of these will get you by: https://www.escortradar.com/products/escort-max-360c-mkii (https://www.escortradar.com/products/escort-max-360c-mkii)
-
Bianchi Cup on hold while I work on the gun and practice the course of fire (plates, practical and barricade). And the official word from Talladega is they're looking into what it would take to hold Bianchi Cup matches there. 2025 is back in MO.
Went to Shorter, AL and shot GSSF. Met one of my three goals. Shot plates in under 20seconds. However, Glock M and 5xGlock I didn't come close.
I did finish top Super Senior ($75) and 3rd place amateur against the masters in Competition ($75) AND got a $50 Glock store credit random prize.
Met Andrea Everett one of the top Glock shooters. Her score in Competition was 44.75s. Think she was using a G34. 5xGlock 19.97, Glock M 14.35, Plates 10.43. Nice lady and we have some friends in common. Shot on same Squad for 2 stages. It can be discouraging so for plates I went to a different bay. Plates if 4 times through so she's doing 2.6sec average from a low ready start. Record for the match was 2.27sec, btw. That's not that impressive, but the 5xGlock, 5 paper targets each at a different distance, 7 to 25yds she averaged 6.6sec. I think she dropped one point (2 rounds on each target, 3x through).
Thought about shooting in the Master Stock division, same as the Competition division but no long slide (G34) guns allowed. Mostly everyone is shooting G17. Trouble is there aren't separate prizes for amateurs as there is in Competition division.
So off the Valdosta for Rolling on the River, a tier 4 IDPA match. It'll put me at 10 match points for World IDPA, which should get me in easily.
-
Valdosta's Rolling on the River IDPA match in April was moved to May because of the torrential flooding in south GA. On Wednesday the MD posted a picture of himself wading in one of the bays with about 18" of water. The river hadn't even begun to crest at that point at that point and by Saturday the were 3' under water. I withdrew from the rescheduled May match because that was Mothers Day. (Happy spouse, happy house.)
Instead in April I did ICORE, IDPA and Steel. Then in May we had a morning of Steel Challenge practice. MD set up two stages and everyone just took turns shooting until they ran out of ammo. No scores were kept. I got invited for a private practice session by my friend Mark who has purchased a "Practice Set" of steel plates. He can set up any one of the Steel Challenge stages. We've been up to River Bend 3 times so far. Practice only one stage a day. I've been putting 250 rounds down range which is the equivalent of shooting the stage 50 times. I bought myself a 10" and 12" plate and hanger and before Mark got to the range I did 100 draw-and-shoot-first-target drills at varying distances. I ended last Thursday's practice (Showdown stage) with a 4second run. Not Master level but right at "A" class shooter. Best I've ever done. Two more practice sessions next week maybe one just before I leave for World Speed Shoot.
-
<dislike using YouTube so have moved it to Vimeo>
Here's my last practice run at Steel Challenge last week. 4.06seconds. Just a hair under "A" classification. If I actually practice the stages "A" should be within reach.
https://player.vimeo.com/video/948375455
-
WORLD SPEED SHOOT
Did the practice help? Yes it did.
Did I do good? No I didn't. Worse match performance ever. No excuse. Got rattled on the first stage and couldn't shake it until about the 5th. My goal was to move to B class in ISR. I did not. I did however set 3 new stage best scores. I'm within 2 Seconds of B class now.
It was a pleasant day. A good squad mostly of shooting buddies and my new Zuca Range cart worked out fantastic. I'm busy designing and printing a PCC mount for it.
Here's my last stage where I'm pulling it all together. 15.56 which is B class. I'd need 14 for A.
https://player.vimeo.com/video/954476431
-
Need to cut my overall time by 5 seconds to move to B class in Steel Challenge. I only cut 3 seconds at World. So last Saturday I went to a local Steel Challenge match and cut 3 more seconds off. Yeah-h-h-h-h. I'm B class in Iron Sighted Revolver. No stages in the "A" level yet.
Now I'm going to work on PCCI where I'm already B and will try to move towards A. Neat thing is the PCCO division is PCC OPEN, which means you MAY use optics. So what'll I do at the So River matches where you can have 2 entries is enter as PCCO and PCCI. That way I can shoot PCCO with iron sights as practice on each stage then shoot it again in the PCCI division. Twice the ammo, twice the fun.
Practice session with a local Master shooter are really helping. What I'm finally getting the hang of is Smooth and Steady, not fast and jerky. Had several practice strings of 5 to Go stage this week that were 3.5seconds, which is exactly what I need to make A.
-
Nicely done, sir. One day I hope to make President's Hundred... just once.
Idea: Have we ever considered a Postal Matches section here? A local board does 'em, where everybody downloads the same target, shoots the same course of fire and then posts scans of the results. For addressing temptation to cheat, I'd be tempted to suggest declaring range and rangemaster before the shoot, then having the RM sign a declaration that "the attached target was observed by me and/or my RSO's to be shot in accordance with the rules and reqs of this course of fire. [Name], Rangemaster of [Facility], [date]."
-
Cutting that time off is great.
-
I wonder if competitions like GSSF, Bullseye, Action Piston and Steel Challenge (SC) which use the fixed stage setups could create a super postal competition on Practicscore?
Would that be feasible? Too many people? Who would be authorized to upload scores? I could see doing this once a month with SC by having the local match director upload the local match to a "super match" on Practiscore at the same time as the local match is uploaded. Each club uploads one match for the month. End of the month it's closed and everyone can go see how they stack up across the country.
-
Perhaps, but I have grave reservations about Practiscore myself--I have good reasons for keeping my name and exact location off the net as much as possible thanks to my ex's stalker, but they wanna blast that out for all the world to see and when I asked was greeted with a callously indifferent 'either deal with it or don't play.'
-
Practiscore: I see a lot of pseudonyms these days.
-
Local steel match Sunday. Shot PCCI, so I was NOT LAST place. Basically didn't gain any time. Trying to move PCCI from B to A classification. It was oppressive. Not so much the temperature but the humidity and the lack of breeze. All my practice should have helped but I'll blame it on conditions. Did win my division. First out of one entry for PCCI. Did beat 9 of the 13 CO shooters and the LTD, Production and Open shooters. It is a local match so not a lot of Masters to compete against.
The Ruger PC-9 had been doubling, and tripling, like I had a bump stock. I should keep a log book of changes, but I finally figured out I had replaced the hammer and trigger with ones from M-Carbo. Could be the cut of the sear, or the placement of the pivot pins or the disconnector pin or the sear pin on the trigger. I put the originals, at I think they were the originals, in. Ran a 100 rounds indoors with no malfunction and ran the whole match (6 stages) without incident. I've notice M-Carbo no longer offers the hammer and I think in one of my searches there was a complaint about it, but I can't find it now. I think I'll put the MCarbo trigger back in along with the Volquartzen trigger spring and see if the problem reappears.
But so much for PCCI for now. Got to put in time with Revo for IDPA Nationals next month. Gosh I think it's been 3 or 4 months since I shot IDPA. Got to remember how to do that.
-
Got to get back to revolver for the National IDPA next month. I went and shot my local ICORE match with my 4". They had a classifier called Almost Smoke and Hope. Set up like S&H from steel challenge but with scoreable targets. The center target was painted black, like hard cover, except for the 8", A, center ring. While you could shoot them in any order I elected to do it like S&H. 1,2, 5,4,3. We did three strings, Free Style, Strong Hand Only, & Weak Hand Only. I threw one in the black on WHO and lost 5 seconds. Otherwise I'd have won that stage and big time, see below.
AND - ICORE maintains a top 25 Leaderboard web page for all classifiers. I'm in the top for CS-45 classifier and, wait get this: I'm second place overall for classifer CS-029, right behind Josh Lentz. A lot of luck was involved here. But that give me a leg up into Master class. Not bad for a "B" class shooter. I'm encouraged to make "A" next month.
-
You are being way too modest. That's a lot less luck and a lot more skill to accomplish that.
-
TRUTH BE KNOWN:
That 91% was just too high to believe. I knew it was in my classifier list, but ICORE throws out the highest one, just because it might have been luck. Been chasing Steel Challenge and hadn't thought about ICORE since last summer until this week. So I did some checking.
Turns out that was a mistake in the upload of the times. That time should really apply to another classifier that I shot on the same day. I really only did about a 60% on this one, CS-29.
I've written ICORE explaining. Don't know if they'll go to the trouble to correct it or not. Others rightfully deserve the recognition. I'd love to keep it as my high-throw-away score, else a 75% one will be thrown out as my now highest score and instead of having one "A" score I'd be back to all "B"s.
Oh, well it was nice to strut around for a day or two.
-
Still pretty good.
-
First RE: ICORE. Got a note from them they fixed the erroneous classifier. What they did was remove me from the leader board, but they left it in my classifier log. So it counts as a high-score-throwaway, but the leaderboard now shows the appropriate placement. I'll take that. Now if I can just shoot 2 more "A" scores.
IDPA Nats. HOT HOT HOT. They treated around a dozen cases of heat related ailments. Including me, though I caught myself early on and was going through a major cool down regimen. (Guzzling cold water and soaking my shirt in ice water, with me in it, and applying cold compresses to my head. My squad let me sit out pasting. I was able to bounce back and finish the match, though my scores weren't great. 9th out of 12 revolvers. Top Distinguished Sr. (=>75) 325 of 367 overall against all other divisions.
Nailed 3 Non-Threats. 2 of them were in the dark house. Perfect -0 hits on the wrong target. Of course then I got a PE and 2 misses, -10.
A lot of DQs, 21 or about 7%. Two I heard were for improper vests. We lost a CO master shooter on our second stage for sweeping himself at a covered port exclusion zone. Should have known better.
Some great stages. Then there was the low light. As I said under the flashlight thread., problem was the shooter was in full sun light trying to see into a dark room. It was the stage right after I started my cooling down, and I didn't do badly, but I definitely needed a brighter light. M U C H B R I G H T E R.
IDPA Nats move to TX for the next two years. I won't be going. GA State IPDA up next at the end of the month. Will see about shooting Bianchi Cup next spring.
-
GA State IDPA match in the books.
2nd Revolver and 1st Sharp Shooter Revolver. Plaque and everything. YEAHHHH.
A number of IDPA rule interpretations cause some consternation, but not any PEs. I can drop ammo, but not a speed loader on the same reload. Either or though. Can't game a stage by slinging a miss on an activator then coming back to shoot it later, must activate before moving on. All in all some good stages. I did have my gun lock up on a stage with cost me many points. Didn't appear to be the ammo. I went over to the safe area, open the cylinder and operated the action and whatever was out of time now worked. so the rest of the match went smoothly. I'd had the same Points Down as the #1 revolver shooter had it not been for that incident.
I'm obviously not going to IRC as much as I'd like to go back to PA it's not working personally this year. GSSF is just too big and too much competition in Talladega.
Guess that's it for the "big" ones this year.
-
I did realize a couple of weeks ago that Rimfire Challenge world championship was just over the AL border not to far from Huntsville. Booked and went this weekend. Having fun even though on my squad are some of the fastest kids in the world. You think sub 2 second Steel challenge stages are something? These kids, 15yo, can do 5 target stages in less than ONE second. Hoping just to be in the top half of the Distinguished Senior category. Oh and did get to hang out with some celebs or two. (Marshall was there too. He took the picture.)
-
Well that is really cool Alf!
Push hard in that competition. You are our rep...onward and upward!
-
Update?
-
World Rimfire Challenge
In a nut shell I ended up 177 out of 216 that shot. 10th of 17 Distinguished Seniors (75+) and 14th of 23 Military/Veteran category. I managed to be within one second of the Match Director, for what that's worth.
The world Jr champion was on my squad and wow. Those kids reflex's are amazing. A question in the shooters' meeting was whether it was a pre-mature start if you fired while the buzzer was still going off. In RC there may be 5 to 7 targets on each stage. In Steel Challenge where stages are always 5 targets the gold standard is <2seconds a string. On one of 5 target stages at RC Jesse Grant was shooting <1second times!!! We let all the Jr's shoot first each stage, that way we older ones could confirm our shooting strategy against the experts.
Prizes were given out in order of scoring. First time I've hung around for an actual prize table walk. Ruger, Rossi, Hogue, TandomKross and others came through and there were I think 39 guns. Tons of other stuff. More stuff than entries. Hunter's HD Gold of course but I think their market is saturated, as several $150 and $200 coupons were left over. And then there were sponsors who don't really appeal to this market. These are .22lr shooters. Reloading gear and AR 15 parts just aren't in demand by this group. EGW does sell Holosun and Vortex red-dots but mainly they are a gunsmithing and reloading tools, so I'm the only one, I think, that took one of there many $50 coupons.
Just a note before you ask. They've limited RC to semi-autos only and there are only 2 divisions. Open (red dots and comps allowed) and Limited with iron sights and no comps. You shot half the stages with pistol and half with rifle, so it's a mandatory 2 gun match if you will. They alternated pistol/rifle each stage this year which everyone seemed to like. About 40% of the shooters shot both divisions. So you might have 10 people on your squad but that was 14 entries.
I was partially a duck out of water. Most of these people primarily or only shoot .22lr. Which means they're not in the market for tactical guns or reloading gear. Many of them do shoot Steel Challenge, but not the other pistol sports. The ones I asked owned a self defense handgun, but have never shot it in competition. I didn't feel like my equipment was unworthy. Quite the opposite, my 10/22 with Tac-Sol barrel and Burris Fast Fire got some admiration. And my 22/45 with Holosun Comp fit right in with many others. If you did an equipment poll of the winners, probably Tandemkross and Voquartsen. Customized Rugers were probably dominant though.
NOTES:
Cavern Cove, AL is a great range especially for SASS. Large club there and the "town" had over 10 buildings with a few extra plain bays. All very flat and plenty of area to spread out behind the bays. Also mostly very short bays. The hill past the cowboy bays had 7 more conventional, long bays. We did 7 in cowboy town and 7 on the hill. Lots of room for vendors and food trucks. LOTS of RV parking many with power and water. This area is on the Tennessee River coming out of Chattanooga. It's very wide with lots of finger lakes and is exceedingly large "lake life" community with many marinas. Michael, Marshal, Kevin and I ate at two very good places. One was in a marina and the other on one of the finger lakes. <pic> Great time.
Disappointed more sponsors didn't have representation and booths. The range had a covered area they could use slightly away from the bays.
Glock was also a minor sponsor, which I'm sure RCSA was grateful, but nobody shooting steel shoots a floating barrel gun. It's all Ruger MKx, S&W SW22, Browning, Volquartson and maybe a few vintage fix barrel guns (or something custom based on Ruger or SW receiver).
BREAKDOWN:
Total Entries 216 Junior entries 44
Total People 151 Juniors 27 18%
Junior count includes 2 youths (<14)
Minimum round count was 445. Given say a 10% makeup shots that ~100,000 rounds downrange.
Mostly CCI and Anquila. I saw a smattering of others, but not much.
Rimfire Challenge organization:
-A little to be desired in marketing savvy. Ruger was the sponsor and their name/logo should have been more prominently displayed. Their web page still is touting the 2023 championship with little about the 2024. The matchbook had rambling articles by most of the BOD when what competitors want is schedule, rules and stages. Add in sponsor ads and that should be it. The matchbook was so big they couldn't post it on Practiscore, but had to email a link. (that's a clue)
-There were a number of unused cowboy bays and 3 people used the tables at them as "safe areas" and were DQ'd as a consequence, because they were not designated nor marked as such. Rather a DQ trap if you ask me. Not the first time World RC has been held here, they should have put out signs "NO GUNS IN THIS AREA" or something. At least made an announcement in the shooters meeting.
-A guy was selling 3D printed stuff, like sun screens for your red dot and magazine empty chamber indicators. Trouble was, he had to tell everyone, though while legal in USPSA, Steel Challenge, and IDPA, they are illegal in RC until January. Reason is their rules still say you must have an empty mag well when not shooting. To make matters weirder, ECIs are not required in RC, like they are in the other sports, because you always start and end with a bagged gun. RC is going to change their rules come Jan 2025. Seems odd they just don't have an ad-hoc BOD meeting and change the rule now. Anyway they were gracious enough to say that if you come to the line for your first stage with a mag block, no penalty, just don't put it back in till you leave the range. Get with the times RC.
-
It's great you got to go. Man I wish I had been there. I've been threatening getting up for it but life has been in the way.
Maybe next year...?
-
Same place next year I think. Great area. I think we only scratched the surface of eating places.
-
Finished up the year with some local Steel Challenge and ICORE. Nothing spectacular.
Going to Rimfire Challenge was definitely a highlight. I've built out an iron sighted 10/22 to go with my red-dot and am saving pennies for a second 22/45, so in 2025 I can shoot both divisions. Will probably concentrate on Steel Challenge in their rimfire divisions for the year.
Good news is my club (RBGC) has now approved Steel Challenge practice on most of the bays. In addition my master shooter friends practice 3 mornings a week and I'm invited to shoot with them. They've also arranged that the target stands and posts be kept at every bay. Anyone can bring their own own steel and setup a stage. If you're not familiar, Steel Challenge targets are laid out from the perspective of the shooter. If your bay isn't perfectly level, then the post height will vary. River Bend has surveyed each bay and placed semi-permanent markers at each target location. They then published target heights for each. So while a target might be spec'd as 5.5' high, from the shooting position, the actual post holding it may only be 42" because the bay slopes upward. Friends Mark and Tim own a complete practice set, so when they both are practicing we can set up as many as 4 stages at a time. I own one 10" and one 12", so if I buy 3 more 10's then I can setup 5-to-Go on my own.
On to 2025
-
I need a few of those steel challenge targets. I've shot it at USSA but that was nearly a lifetime ago and I'm too far in the woods to get out anywhere within 1-1/2 hour drive to practice.
What sizes should I be getting? A single 10, a single 12 and three 10's or..??
I've bought from these guys for torso's : https://www.xsteeltargets.com/collections/on-sale-now (https://www.xsteeltargets.com/collections/on-sale-now)
-
My friends bought from https://shootingtargets7.com/ (https://shootingtargets7.com/)
They’re zinc coated and don’t need to be painted for practice sessions.
Not cheap, but very high quality. I got a 10” and a 12” so I can practice first shot, when I’m at the range by myself. Mark and Tim each purchased a full practice set which allows them to set up any one Steel Challenge stage. I think thats 4-10”, 5-12” & 4-rectangles. I might add 3-10s and 2-12s this year which will let me practice the harder stages.
-
Oh yeah...that's a good place to go. They have sets not just singles.
I might start out with the "Five to Go" stage setup no bases. I can get by with the torso's I have for 18x24 plates. Bases would be nice but I have an auger I paid good money for with the tractor that I no longer use now that my fences are set up.....I can put a bunch of holes in the ground.
-
They have the complete match set, including bases, which are expensive. While our club has metal bases, Tim, Mark and I are happy with our home made wooden ones. 1x3 legs and cross pieces, with 2x4 blocks to hold the post. We orient the post small side towards shooter, which is how the Shooting Targets 7 hangers are made. We also tape a small rectangle of steel to the post below the plate. Misses then don't tear of the post as badly.
I'm not willing to invest in an entire practice set, but I think have a set of rounds (4x10" and 4x12") would fulfill my practice needs without breaking the bank.
-
Just checked on their web site, for those interested.
A complete Steel Challenge set, all 8 stages is $3,500. Just steel and hangers. 40 metal bases adds $2,000.
A practice set (4x10, 5x12, 4xrectangles) is $1,000. 5 metal bases would add $650.
I've got 1x10 and 1x12 and have just ordered 1x10 and 3 hangers. Comes out to $105, free shipping.
I think I'll do the $100/mo till I get all 9 rounds w/ 5 hangers.
Got to add you own 2x4 posts and for competition of course the 11 shooting boxes.
-
Yeah...ouch. Now that I am retired and poor and all. I do however have the real estate to put up 8 stages...
-
ICORE just posted the results of their 2024 Postal Match. I did okay, for me. I think. They've made it difficult to tell.
They decided not to utilize Practiscore, this year. They did in 2023, but now they've posted their own PDFs of Google Sheets they created. Unfortunately these "sheets" aren't searchable and are not copy-able. They didn't number the results, so you have to actually count down the rows to see how you did. I was confused why they had a "Master" results document, but not one for "A", "B", "C" and "D" classification. Then I realized they redefined the term Master, as in Combined. Combined all the scores together - master.
The best I can count is I ended up 63 out of 184 Classic division shooters. WELL EXCEPT. Being a postal match, you can enter multiple times. Well that's confusing, because if I took out the multiple entries only counting each person's best score then I'd move up some, though then there'd be less entries.
Sorry. Just ranting because they misspelt my name. But seriously folks the tool is there. It's free. Use it.