TRAINING LEAD-UP
Wednesday, Jul 9:
Went to Daniel Stowe Botanical Gardens for one of their free nights with my parents. I didn't bring a ruck, since it seems like a fancier place.
It's a neat place, with lots of different distinctive areas to explore. It sometimes feels like a random collection of things to see, but that adds to the surprise.
I went after work, so we only had a couple of hours to see as much as we could. We saw most of it, aside from the outer perimeter trails. There would be another free night in August where we could take our time a bit more or visit the areas that we liked the most.
There was a greenhouse with different themed areas.
There were traditional European gardens, as well as more natural areas, along with a Japanese-themed garden.
Thursday, Jul 10:
Glute and pec PT v2 in 23:35, "My Invention" in 36:13 for some full body work without smoking myself
Friday, Jul 11:
Went to Blackstone to try out some Platypus's. The grips were a bit large for me, so I can't get my trigger finger in the ideal spot. Cool-looking guns, though!
I also tried to shoot the dot on my DWX, but it got loose again. I asked the armorer about it, and he said that I had used screws that were too long.... that explains a lot!
TPG GUN RUN
I'm a big fan of events put on by The Proving Grounds. They are creative and fun. This would be their first venture into hosting gun runs, which is where I first got into competitive shooting. I was looking forward to seeing how they'd run it.
One big difference between this one and ones put on by most other companies would be that this would be scored in a "time plus" format, instead of pass/fail for the shooting stages. That would be nice. The penalties would be 10s for pistol misses and 20s for rifle misses.
There were tee times, like you kind of have to do for this event, with safety briefs for the morning crew vs the afternoon crew. I requested and got a morning run time. A bonus of that would be that I'd be free for the rest of the day to help out if they needed extra hands at any of the stages, although it did mean an early morning wakeup to make the drive down to Clinton House.
To help with safety at this event, each course of fire for each weapon system would end with hitting an orange stop plate with mag out and a single round chambered. If you missed, you'd have to reload, drop the mag again, and try again.
We'd be running 2.9 miles with 7 shooting stages. All stages would have 120s PAR times, except for stage 4, which would have a 240s PAR time since it required more movement.
The min round count was 100R / 75P, and I brought 5x17 round mags of pistol plus 83 loose rounds, plus 3 magsx15 rounds of pistol, plus 6x30mags of rifle.
Stage 1:
- After a 0.5 mi run to the field
- Go to the top of the platform and shoot 5 rifle steel L->R 2x through, then hit the orange plate with mag out to clear
- Shoot pistol steel L->R 2x through, then hit orange plate with mag out to end
Learnings/Outcomes: 41/64O, 2/3W
- Skipped the last pistol target on the first round after missing 10s worth already
- I timed out before the last normal non-orange pistol target
- I had walked the last few meters before getting to the start box, to let me HR go down
- Not bad overall
Stage 2: (pistol only)
- After another 1/2 mi run where I topped off my pistol mags
- Shoot 5 knock-downs
- Shoot 5 static steel 2x through then the orange plate with mag out
Learnings/Outcomes: 26/64O, 1/3W
- Passed since they were close enough targets, despite being small... maybe used 15 rounds with only a few misses at most
Stage 3: (rifle only)
- after running through a very shallow stream a short ways away
- Shoot L->R @100yd steel on 7? targets, 2x through from the hood of a car
- Repeat from a barrel, then hit the stop plate with mag out
Learnings/Outcomes: 7/64O, 1/3W
- I started moving to the barrel after only shooting 1x through from the car, since I missed the mention of going 2x through, but the RO called it out quickly, so no real harm... it probably helped that I called out "moving"
- Shooting the orange plate with no mag to brace on adds an extra challenge
- I did a decent amount of missing on a fox-shaped target
- I maybe could've held straighter on for the 100yd targets, vs aiming low
Stage 4: (240s PAR)
- After a 0.5 mi run
- Go down towards the pond and shoot 5 card suits 2x through, plus the orange plate with mag out
- Run to the first tree and shoot 5 white rifle steel L->R 2x through
- Repeat at a second tree, but add the orange plate with mag out at the end
- Run back to the start and shoot the pistol stop plate.
Learnings/Outcomes: 35/64O, 3/3W
- Struggled with pistol, shooting high and left, maybe, on a couple of targets
- Had to move around and go off-hand for a couple of rifle targets, but I braced on the tree when I could
- I forgot about the stop plate after finishing rifle and was reloading my mags and adjusting gear already on the run... it was only when I got back near the stop plate that I was told that I had PARed out and I realized that I had forgotten about the stop plate
Stage 5:
- After a 1/2 mi run
- Grab an extremely light duffle and take it to the barricade and shoot rifle L->R 2x through @~100yd, then shoot the orange plate with mag out
- Bring the duffle to the second barricade and shoot pistol L->R 2x through, then shoot the orange plate with mag out
Learnings/Outcomes: 45/64O, 2/3W
- Bag was crazy light... I had mentally prepared for something heavier- Didn't get far on pistol, but they would've been hard, anyway
- I had thought about bracing on the bag for rifle, but I decided to try without it for faster setup and didn't reconsider... it might be worth it next time with such a light bag, though
- Even max zoom barely seemed enough for the rifle targets, somehow
Stage 6:
- After a 0.5 mi run, feeling out of shape
- Bring empty jerry can up to barrels
- Shoot pistol spinner then orange plate with mag out
- From the same spot, shoot the KYL rack 2x through, then the orange plate with mag out with rifle
Learnings/Outcomes: 30/64O, 1/3W
- The spinner wasn't that close, and I was missing from cumulative fatigue, so it took me a while, and I had to do a mag change
- The 4th KYL looked oddly shaped, like a music note pointing left, and the 5th target was small, so those targets took more time
- I only got 3/5 of the way through the KYL rack on the second go around
<I noticed that I had lost my holster's red dot cover on the run again>
<I was thirsty now, but I wasn't going to stop, since I was close to the end>
Stage 7:
- Run up the connex and shoot 7 rifle steel L->R 2x through and the orange plate with mag out
- Shoot pistol targets L->R 2x through then the orange plate with mag out
Learnings/Outcomes: 30/64O, 1/3W
- Went prone on rifle
- Good NPA = not hitting the wrong target after recoil
- Pistol was hard for me with the angle and fatigue, which isn't uncommon, so I timed out with 9 targets including the orange one left.
- Ran hard to the finish afterwards
Overall 24/64 O, 1/3W
- I finished 2.8 miles in 50:15.
- Always had a fresh rifle mag to use with my 6 rifle mags and 6 rifle stages
- I was glad to run when it was cloudy and 72* at 8:42
- I still sweat a lot despite drinking a lot this morning
- I didn't enjoy the orange plates during the match, but it does test mag change skills and HVT visual patience, since missing is costly
- You're better off skipping pistol orange plates if you miss the first time
- My criss-cross chest rig worked out well for keeping the rig straps on my shoulders again
- I could go with fewer pistol mags and top off as needed, carrying 5 instead of 8.
- Fatigue builds over the course of the run
- Thinking "slow squeeze back" definitely helped with pistol shots when I was still fresh, but it wasn't helping when I was already fatigued
- My rifle had a failure to eject or a click with no bang MFs on 2 stages... do I need to clean my ejector? or ammo problem? I may have to try to reproduce it off the clock to properly diagnose it
- It's a good thing I run well, ranking 15/64 there
- This holster's red dot cover can't be trusted anymore... the sling might've grabbed it or something
- The leg strap from Safariland was slipping down and around the bottom of my knee by the end of the run... I'm not a fan of the elastic and the design.
- I never stopped to re-tighten the WML on my pistol, so I did start to have re-holstering issues
- The RD was too bright if anything, and I see double reticles a bit, which makes it tough on smaller targets
- I held my breath a lot during rifle shooting out of necessity after running. It gets harder to maintain as the course of fire goes on, though
- Mag out for prone or modified prone does force you to be good at unsupported rifle
- The stages were a lot simpler than usual at this match, but they wanted to keep things on the risk-averse side this go-around to make sure they had a good baseline for running the event, which makes sense
RO @ Stage 4
- After I took some time to recover, I ROed from 10:30am-4:30pm
- Time goes by fast when there's a new runner coming about every 6 min, which is good
- Lots of yelling involved
- Lots of running/walking back and forth on a canted trail, gives me hints of hotspots by the end of the day
- Glad to be in the forest in the shade
- Glad it was close rifle that I had to spot, since it's easier to figure out what the plate's doing
- Good practice giving commands to stressed out people without getting stressed out myself
- Need to stay turned on to remember how many times through shooters have gone on an array, even when you're thrown off by a wrong target issue or target acquisition issue
- As an RO you want to help them find the targets vs doing bad for a silly reason, although target finding is an important skill
- White targets become speckled and grey and hard to see in the forest, depending on the lighting as the day goes on
- The targets were repainted before the PM shooters went
- People should move around if they can[t find the target... left, right, kup, down
- It can take a few runs to figure out the best place to stand, what to say, etc.
- So many guys are apparently colorblind, which is sad... they miss out on a cool thing in life and also have a harder life
- Some have trouble finding all the targets by rushing and not being open to moving or by being spazzed out
- You have to remember to get them to clear their rifle if they time out early, since there's no orange stop plate to do it.
- A hard ricochet off pistol steel left a mark on my thigh. Good to wear eye pro!
- People complain about having to squat to see the orange plate, but they could've just as easily taken a knee or chosen another position.
- "L-R" is better than saying "again", to make it clear that they need to repeat the array, as opposed to the most recent target
- I appreciate people who use suppressors.
- I didn't appreciate the lefty with a left ejection port
- I always stood where I could see the targets, so next time I'm at a target searching stage, I should also check where the RO is
- Needed to use clear lenses to see targets better
- Concussion headache later in the day after I got home
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