I shot my first Precision Tactial 2-Gun Series match this weekend at the K&M Shooting Center.  Here are my thoughts and videos from the day.

Safety:  There was a very concise, but complete safety briefing before the match.    While everyone at the match should have already been well aware of all the main gun safety rules, I feel like one area should have been emphasized:  muzzle discipline.  I can't even begin to count the number of times I was swept throughout the day.  Most of the times the guns were (at least should have been) unloaded, but a few times it was by shooters with loaded firearms running the course.  IMO, shooter's should have been given one "MUZZLE" warning and then DQ'ed on the second call.

Safety Officers:  Each of the stages only had one S.O.(2 of the stages had an S.O. and a spotter counting hits on the long steel) who was responsible for making sure the shooter was being safe, as well as keeping time and counting hits.  I believe that there should have been at least 1 S.O. and 1 scorekeeper for each stage.  A couple of the stages could have done with 2 S.O.'s since the shooting positions were so spread out.  Only having one S.O. caused a couple problems on the Rock and Pipe stage, since the S.O. had to stay on top of the first berm to see the long range hits, thus ended up far away from the shooter's position at the end of the stage.

My Performance:  I was overall disappointed in my performance.  I had only shot IDPA previously, so I was used to going fast, giving up a little accuracy, yet still placing well.  That was a terrible strategy in this match and I didn't start getting it through my head until the last 2 stages.  I finished every stage with time to spare, but my hits were nowhere near what I'm capable of, had I just slowed down a little.  This was my first time shooting this type of match (this was only the 3rd match in the entire series), so I'll just chalk it up to a learning experience and have a better game plan next time.  I was in the top 1/3 after the first 3 stages and ended up in the top half, since I had rifle trouble on the last stage and missed out on a lot of potential points.  I’ll be shooting for the top 10% at the next match.

Videos:

Stage 1 - Big Bay Stage

I was nervous (like usual on the first stage of the day).  My rifle was bouncing all over the place on the first few shots and I ended up shooting the hostage target right between the eyes.  I rushed my shots at the barricade and didn’t always wait on the reticle to settle on target before I squeezed off the shot.  My transition between the barricade and the pistol position was pretty fast, but then I rushed my pistol shots and didn’t reload between stations like I should have.  Conclusion:  SLOW DOWN AND GET THE HITS!

Stage 2 - Tower Stage

I forgot to turn my GoPro on until right after I started the stage.  I got pretty good hits on the rifle portion, but I fell apart at the pistol portion.  I had the fastest run of the day (up to that point), but it didn’t mean crap since I dropped so many points.   I made Expert with this gun at the last IDPA classifier, but watching these videos will make you think I’ve never shot a handgun before.  Conclusion:  Slow down and make sure to get the easy pistol hits.

Stage 3 - Shoot House Stage

Fun stage, but it was very loud inside the containers.  I had trouble getting stable to shoot the long steel on the timbers/tire outside and I couldn’t tell where my shots were going nor if they were hits or misses.  I only ended up getting 16/30 of the rifle hits.  I only had a few seconds to spare on this stage, so my pace was pretty good.  Conclusion:  Someone calling out hits and misses on the long range steel would have been nice, but overall, I wouldn’t change much about this stage.

Stage 4 - Rock and Pipe Stage

Lots of running on this stage.  One of the targets at the start was such a low hit percentage that I skipped it.  I knew time would be tight, so I tried to hurry.  Once again, I needed to take more time with the pistol shots.  Those long shots were longer than I originally realized and I needed to slow down much more so than I did.  I also should have reloaded between stations, but I'm not used to being able to drop loaded mags on the ground.  Another bad IDPA habit.  Conclusion:  Slow down and get the pistol hits, especially the long ones.  Also, think about strategic reload locations.

Stage 5 - Tires and Short Bus Stage

My best stage of the day, only missed one hit.  I knew I had plenty of time, so I told myself to slow down and try to get a perfect score.  Everything was going really well, until I jerked one of the pistol shots on the plate rack.  I finished with plenty of time to spare, so I could have taken more time and ensured every hit was dead on.  Conclusion:  I’m happy with this stage, but I wish I got that one extra hit to make it a perfect score.

Stage 6 - Rocks Stage

Major bummer on this stage.  We had the opportunity to shoot either large targets for 1pt each or small targets for 2pts each on the rifle portion.  I chose small because of the major points advantage and was doing pretty well until I failed to seat the magazine after the mandatory mag change.  What I didn’t realize was that there was dirt on the mag after the fall and it got into my rifle when I re-inserted it.  Once I cleared the jam and realized that the bolt wouldn’t seat, I decided not to risk trying to shoot it with dirt inside the chamber.  It threw me off so bad that I didn’t think I had much time to finish the stage (I had plenty of time), so I rushed through the pistol portion again and missed a couple shots I should have gotten.  Unfortunately I was unable to take advantage of the 36 potential remaining rifle points in this stage, which effectively put me way out of the running.  Conclusion:  Don’t put a dirty magazine in your rifle.

Hey, I'm interested in this competition but there's practically no information on their website at all. What kind of rifles do they allow/suggest and what kind of distances are you shooting at?

We shot anywhere from 5 yards out to over 200.  There are no restrictions on rifles or handguns, but it would be very difficult to compete with anything other than semi-auto, high capacity firearms.