Vehicles on Stage 5. Photo taken last week. Targets this week are in a different configuration and we shot from the driver’s seat of the center vehicle.
Sunday June 7th I shot another IDPA match up in Oxford. We had the opportunity to shoot from a vehicle and through the open windows of a car on the left and an SUV on the right. You just don’t get this kind of experience at a typical shooting range.
Stage Scenario: 6 targets, 2 shots each, shot in tactical priority (near to far). Start with the gun on the passenger seat. For IDPA purposes, the two targets shot through the windows of the adjacent vehicles (one on each side) were considered equal distance. The next two targets in front of the vehicle (one seen from the driver’s window, one seen from the passenger window) were considered equal distance. With the last two targets there was clearly one that was much farther away and had to be shot last.
Shooting the stage required quite a bit of movement back and forth, from driver side window to passenger side window. You have to think about moving up and over the steering wheel and taking your finger off the trigger with each transition. I found myself extending my arms through the windows for the first 2 targets but hanging an arm over the door for the 3rd and 5th targets.
The stage also required a reload and I ran into issues. I popped out a bit of profanity during the process of correcting the issue. All captured on video. Sigh. So what happened? I was testing out some reloads (147 gr) with a lower power factor (ie: lower recoil) and they were just too low power. With 50% of my reloads, the slide would lock back but the brass would not be ejected, so the reload resulted in a jam each time. This was the first one. The bad news: I let fly with my frustration. The good news: I never gave up. And I know I shouldn’t shoot these rounds in this gun.
I shoot slow. When I watch the video, it appears painfully slow to me. The final target was quite some distance so I put a third shot in it. Final accuracy count for the stage: down 2. If you are not familiar with match scoring that means I hit the zero zone on all but two shots. For each of those I hit outside the zero zone in the 1 point penalty area. I was accurate, but I was very slow and placed dead last for the match.
So once again, this isn’t about what a great shooter I am, but what a great learning experience shooting matches can provide.
Here’s the video, profanity included:
Who was the manufacturer on the reloads you were using?
A buddy who reloads. He advised me to shoot them in a local match before using them for a bigger match and I’m glad I did. Some gun/ammo combinations just don’t work well. From past experience, I’ve found there is no substitute for trying new things in an actual match.