2016 GA State Championships USPSA

[alfsauve]

Don't shoot USPSA often, in fact it's probably been four or five years.   But hey, they're doing RO squads on Friday before the Sat-Sun championship and they decided to open up some slots to the public.   I took one of them.  In fact of the 9 revolver shooter in this match, I think 5 of us are shooting in my squad on Friday.  Since, these squads are not made of newbie shooters and none of us qualify for the "super squad", we'll have a little less walk through time and we'll paste as they're called to speed things along.  Plus there's about half as many squads on Friday as there are stages so we're spaced out and there won't be one squad catching up with another.

Now this is ONLY the GA State match, I don't see any really big TV names.  There is a Tata Eusebio, Open Master, Super Senior.  KC's dad maybe?  There are 14 GM's and 33 Masters.  The highest revolver shooter is an "A". 

So why shoot this, as I'm unclassified and not eligible for prizes?

1)  It fits my schedule.
2)  It's good practice for IRC.  Heck any competition can be good practice.

It'll be my first time out with my 929 and moon clips in a competition.  I intend to take it easy, have fun.   It'll be a long day for me.  I've planned my diet.   No ham burger and fries for lunch for me.  Turkey and cheese sandwich and a peach.  Got Smart Water and protein bars for snacks.  Have my high folding chair to rest in.

[Conagher 45]

How smooth is the action on the Smith Revolvers these days ?

[les snyder]

Alf... good luck... I used to like shooting the Ga State matches... weather was always a month cooler than Fla...

[alfsauve]

How smooth is the action on the Smith Revolvers these days ?

The DA is very smooth, right after you install an Apex hammer and spring kit and polish all the parts.

[MikeBjerum]

So why shoot this, as I'm unclassified and not eligible for prizes?

1)  It fits my schedule.
2)  It's good practice for IRC.  Heck any competition can be good practice.

Because any day making empty brass is a good day.

I leave soon, doing laundry, bills, and some paperwork first, for Alda, NE for American Marksman.  No practice, but a weekend of shooting other people's guns with other shooters can't be all bad.

[Sponsor]

[alfsauve]

Because any day making empty brass is a good day.

I leave soon, doing laundry, bills, and some paperwork first, for Alda, NE for American Marksman.  No practice, but a weekend of shooting other people's guns with other shooters can't be all bad.

So right on both counts.  Have a great time with AM.   Hope you do well.

[alfsauve]

EXHAUSTED.   A very long day for a Super Senior.   But it was fun.  It was challenging and rewarding.

Did I do well?   As of Friday night I'm 52 out of 279 shooters.   Of course 220 of those haven't shot yet.

90+ degrees, no breezes, 100%+ humidity.    I put in over 15,000 steps and 7+ miles. 

You can tell I was getting tired as my Hit Factor really dropped off on the last two stages.  That plus our squad started on Stage 2.  Which meant the the next to last stage was on one end of the range (the most humid bay) and the last stage was a 1/4 mile away, uphill on the hottest, sunniest bay.   PLUS I shot first on the last stage.  Totally failed to engage one target. Didn't even know it was there,  So spent, I failed to count the targets during walk through.

GOOD THINGS:

• Cleaned Stage 6.
• Two Alphas on the swinger, Stage 11.  <grin>
• Got 1176 points out of a possible 1280.
• No NS's
• The Misses were from half covered targets so not like I "missed" the paper.

Out of 256 rounds
215 A
2 B
31 C
2 D
6 M


It was my first time out with the 929 and using moon clips.  I'm not use to counting to 8.
I learned I can study a stage and do a decent plan.  I hate swingers but always seem to do well on them. 

I shot American Eagle (Federal) 147gr commercial ammo and, whew, barely made PF.  125.4.  Interesting.

If you're interested, compared to the leader for Friday, I'm at 31%.  ;(

The most FUN thing.  The expression on the RO when I shot some of the targets on the run one handed.  The RO was a very nice, young dude, but total USPSA guy.  He's only heard of IDPA or ICORE.  He said he'd never seen anyone shoot one handed in USPSA.   (I got A's on those targets by the way.)

[tombogan03884]

Cool.

[Rastus]

Sounds like a good showing to me.

[alfsauve]

More analysis later, but here's the final results.

Despite finishing 5th, from the bottom, out of 296 competitors, I'm pretty happy with what I did.  Only 26% of top score of all competitors, but 57% of Revolver top score.

USPSA is a RUN and gun game.  Emphasis on RUN.   I knew this going in.  I'm just more concerned about accuracy.  I'll stop and take an extra shot to bring a "C" up to an "A".  That and my exhausted performance on the last two stages, "I could'a been a contenda".    So it's simple, give up accuracy for speed. 
 

Using A zone hits as a measure of accuracy,  here's the revolver shooters, their classification and their "A" zone hits.   Max hits on paper (forget the steel) was 234.

R,A   196
R,B   197
R,GM   177
R,C   200
R,C   128
R,D   198
R,U   193

Now here's the "A" zone hits by the top 10 competitors (Division, Class, A's)

O,GM   161
O,M   181
O,GM   187
O,M   172
O,GM   174
O,A   178
O,M   164
O,A   178
L,GM   177
O,M   160

Now I know these guys can be super accurate if they want to, but they've discovered the balance between speed and accuracy to get top scores.    Coming from an IHMSA background, this is hard for me.