Made of Win

I'm feeling good. The results of my last USPSA shoot came in while I was gone.

Now, this is a small club, so we're talking about shooting one stage. And the first stage every month is always a classifier; they tend to be simpler and less exciting, and they don't attract as many shooters. All that said, I'm still feeling pretty good.

We allow unlimited re-shoots, but only your first run is sent to USPSA for scoring. The results come in with the re-shoots figured in with the rest, so a lot of people hold two or three places. I generally shoot everything twice; my friend Leon shoots up to ten times per night, but he's 80-some years old and apparently figures he might as well buy ammo now that he doesn't have to buy diapers.

Overall, I came in 5th and 10th last Thursday. The 5th place run was actually my first time through; on my second run, I thought I'd try to speed up. I gained a second, but I traded three A hits for three C's, and it wasn't worth it. If you counted only first runs (and I do, since it makes my score look better) I would have been in second place overall, behind a guy shooting Open.

In Production class, I took 1st and 2nd place.

Now for more of that honesty. The stage was called "Six Chickens." As you might guess, that's six targets "hiding" behind three no-shoots, angled so it looks like they're peeking out from behind the no-shoot's shoulders. The drill was to draw and shoot freestyle, from a box, all six targets with one round, then make a mandatory reload, and finish by shooting all six again, one round each, but this time strong-hand only. That was the killer. As long as I'm being honest, I'll admit that five runs in Production by three shooters were scored as zeros because they hit no-shoots or fired extra rounds (I also learned what "Virginia Count" means that day--every extra round fired is a Procedural penalty!) to make hits on the targets. The one-handed shooting was killing people. That was one time when slowing down and just hitting everything was the best strategy, at least in our bunch. I was shooting at about the same speed or slower than these guys, but my first run (my slowest) was 11 A's and one C hit.
And as The Jarrett has revealed to us, that one was probably a bad bullet.

So, what does this mean for next week?

Well, next week, we'll shoot a more normal scenario with some more runnin' and gunnin' and the big crowd will be back. This will probably lead to me going back to the middle of the pack. But I don't care. This week, I savor the savory savor of TRIUMPH.