I started putting my shooting skills to the test with competitions this year. It began, oddly enough, with the 36 hour Bragg Alpha Shooter. Since that's only offered once a year at most, though, I looked for other opportunities. Tactical Games always seemed to be sold out when I checked, but a friend recommended Gun Runs. They were awesome, and I wanted to look for even more styles of competitions to try. A friend posted about the Jericho R.E.A.D.Y. tournament, which sounded a bit TG-esque, from my limited knowledge of TG. It was close, so I signed up!
The event has 3 "battles", where you have to complete some course of fire. Points matter a lot, but time also matters. The shooting was quite challenging, with smaller targets than I was used to. You were tested on off-hand shooting, positional shooting from various props, shooting from distances of 10yd to 100yd, technique such as sight over bore on rifle, and shooting under physical stress. There were often many steps to memorize and track in the course of fire, too.
There might've been about 7 participants. After the stage brief, we'd all go in sequence, so we got to watch how each person approached the positions and everything. That's nice for learning. They mix up the sequence each time, to make it fair. For the last stage, though, which includes a longer 2.3 mile run for the start, they had the highest ranked people go first, though, I think, to avoid backlogs, since they did timed releases for each participant on that one.
Lessons:
- Work on precise pistol
- It was nice getting to keep the cards that we hit, as a souvenir
- Rifle on arms instead of back FTW on low crawls
Notes:
- Shooting with the mag on the wall was really hard.
- The organizer suggested that for rifle, instead of trying to be super precise for a big target, I can afford to go faster with a bit less precision and still hit (referring to the low ladder wall portion).
- If you have to shoulder a 60# dummy while shooting, mag changes are much harder if you only have one free hand to work with! Also, boys tend to over-estimate the weight of things. It was not 80#, for example. It was awkward, which made it feel heavier.
Notes:
- My eye pro got really foggy after the run, which made hits on the 100yd target really difficult to get.
This was a fantastic event. It was fun to try a totally new style of competition. It provided a lot of learning experiences from the different ways that our skills were put to the test. It was also the first time I got to use a plate carrier during a competition. The Crye JPC 2.0 did fine, no issues there. I might've placed 5 or 6 out of 7, but me and two others were neck and neck in the points, which was encouraging.
POST-JERICHO
Tuesday, Dec 14:
PATHFINDER Compete Propel Animal Movement Challenge with 30#R and 45#SB. Almost, but didn't quite finish the seated SB drag portion. That was a lot to do. Low/high crawl took 22 min, crab walk took another 20 min, kangaroo was fast, duck took a while. Drags are fast.
Wednesday, Dec 15:
A firearms instructor told me about the "ball and dummy" drill, so I tried it out with brass casings. They kept causing malfunctions, so that didn't work out. At least I got a fun free target to use.
Thursday, Dec 16:
After dropping my sister off at the airport, I got to watch planes take off, and even land (which is rare).
Her takeoff was delayed, but we were able to hold fingers from a distance.
Day 25 - Love | BREATH 30 day yoga with Adriene for 23 min.
No comments:
Post a Comment