Stage start with magazine and empty gun on the barrel.

I shot the IDPA match in Oxford today. Frank let us opt out of cover garments due to the heat. That was a great start to the match. Our squad started on Stage 2 so shot Stage 1 last and I got a treat: something totally new. We started the stage with the gun unloaded and both the gun and magazine lying on a flat surface (barrel top).

When the buzzer went off, I picked up the gun and the magazine, loaded, racked a round into the chamber and got buzy shooting. The video clip shows the first half of the stage with 2 shots on each cardboard target and one shot to knock down the plate.

New challenges are the #1 thing I like about shooting matches. This isn’t a difficult way to start a stage but you do need to try to get the parts together and get it loaded quickly to get to the actual shooting. Here’s how it went: