Here's my AAR from the match this weekend:

The 2018 River Bend Gun Club (RBGC) Run and Gun is over and it was a ton of fun. This was my first type of match like this, and it won’t be my last. The format is pretty much a 5K with guns and obstacles, so what’s not to like? I was fortunate enough to shoot well enough and run/walk fast enough to win 1st place.





The actual course was a 3.2 mile run around the hills and ranges of RBGC. Many thanks to the club and BoD for allowing us to do this! There were 5 stages and some obstacles thrown in to make it interesting along the way.

From the start at cowboy town, you ran down the hill and through the main entrance to MP2 for the first stage. After negotiating a rope obstacle (try not to get hung up!) you were greeted by RO’s who checked to make sure your rifle and pistol were clear and then explained the stage. Your pistol was placed in a box on the ground and your rifle inside the “helicopter” with you. On the beep, you loaded your pistol and engaged 8 steel plates, placed the pistol down and then loaded your rifle for 16 diamond steel plates at about 75 yards. All shooting was done inside the helicopter, remaining inside and not touching the ground outside. I shot the pistol from my knees, then engaged the rifle plates from a reverse kneeling position using the window as a brace. My scope was on about 2.5x, which allowed for enough magnification to place the circle of the reticle inside the plate, and still see targets easily to transition quickly. I had a couple extra shots on both pistol and rifle from trying to control breathing but finished the stage in 34.92 seconds. Once done, you cleared your rifle and pistol and took off to the next stage.

After MP2, you ran the main road to down by the creek, then ran along the creek and crossed it via some large boulders. With that done, you ran up-hill to the 600 yard line of the Hi-Power range where more RO’s were waiting. At that point, they cleared your guns again and gave the brief. Located at about 100, 300 and 600 yards were pieces of steel to be engaged with the rifle only. At the start signal, the 100 yard steel needed 3 hits, then you went prone to engage at 300 for 3 hits and finally 1 hit needed at 600. I shot at about the same 2.5x for the first two distances, where I had an extra shot or two standing and went for a very quick 3/3 at 300. The 600 I took I believe 5 shots to get a hit. I rushed the first shot, took a second good shot at a center hold, then bracketed left then right as I shot early and had no wind indicators.. and the nice muck absorbed my 5.56 rounds without any splash. I was at about 6x for this shot and made it holding about a half of a mil off the right edge. After I finished the RO said I missed left for my first couple shots. The lesson here when you can’t see, don’t keep holding the same shot! It just took me a couple shots until my rotation of bracketing got right. This took me 44.97 seconds to complete. Once again, they checked both pistol and rifle clear and off to Stage 3.

Stage 3 was a run down the hill from the Hi-Power range, then up the hill to the AP complex. This was a pistol only stage, which had 6 paper targets that needed 2x A zone hits to prevent a penalty. They were standing in a variety of positions and some had no-shoots in the way (which did incur penalties if hit). I ran this in 21.86 huffing and puffing, but had a clean run. After checking both guns were clear again, it was off to the longest running portion of about a mile and a half back to cowboy town. Along the way there was a low-crawl under some wires, and two A frames to go up and over on. The last 1/3 of this run was up the gradual hill from the main range area, then up the hill to cowboy town.

At cowboy town, Stage 4 was a blind stage that was pistol only. There was a door that had to be “breached” by kicking, pushing or ramming as you saw fit. Once through, there were 4 pistol targets outside the back of the shack that needed 2x A hits a piece. I ran this one in 12.74 from the unloaded and holstered start. From here, we ran down to the bottom of the hill for the last stage, which was rifle only. Here, you had an unloaded rifle start and then 5 targets from around a wall that needed either 2x A hits in the body, or 1x head shot a piece to neutralize. The targets were partially covered by “hard cover”, making for partial A zones. I opted to just go for head shots and fired 2 a piece more out of habit for an insurance shot each… which worked out to 14.11 seconds. After this you just had to run to the top of the hill to the finish line. The last 100 yards always seemed the toughest, but I ran it out as hard as I could. My total time with shooting, briefings, obstacles and all was 51 minutes and 11 seconds. Taking out shoot time my run time was 49 minutes and 2 seconds.


Post run with Bruce Perry the Match Director.


As I shot early, I didn’t have to wait on other shooters for any stages. If there was a backlog of shooters, you used a stopwatch to keep track of the wait time as directed by the Range Officers on the stage. This would then be taken off your run-time. On one hand, a few minutes might have been nice for some breathing time, but also having to wait would have been too much of a cool down to try to restart.

My run strategy since I’m not a regular was some running down-hill, jogging on the flat spots and speed walking on the up-hills. In practice it generally worked out that way, but I needed to do a few 20 yard or so walks in a few extra areas.

As you went along, you had to manage your ammo, mags and other kit. Every stage started unloaded, and there was no prep time at any stage other than the RO giving you the CoF. That meant trying to do some ammo management on the run and preparing before you got to the stage. My strategy here was a fresh mag for every stage (since stages were broadcast ahead of time), dumping partial mags into my bag and then loading my belt with the next stages worth of ammo as we went. I started with 2 pistol mags on the belt and one rifle mag since Stage 1 was both rifle and pistol. From there I dumped partial mags in my small sling bag and pulled out a fresh mag for the next stage as I came off the just completed stage. It worked well in that I had what I needed but didn’t have a ton on the belt while running. In review of rounds fired, I could have gotten by with one less mag each for rifle and pistol, but the weight penalty wasn’t too significant, and it gave me both insurance rounds and spare magazines should a mag get lost or suffer a severe malfunction.

One final note for matches with a variety of problems to solve... the key is consistency in doing most things well instead of having really good and really bad performances in different areas. In this case, I wasn’t the fastest runner, but I shot well enough to have a good blend that allowed me to finish 1st place.

I tried not to over-equip and carry too much gear, relying on making shots count and that I've got stuff that works. Here is my gear breakdown:



Rifle – AR-15 mutt gun that I’ve used for a variety of shooting games. At it’s heart is a 20” Proof Research carbon fiber barrel. It helps provide the weight and balance of a 16” barrel but allows for greater velocities and smoother operation than the shorter barrels. The rail is a BCM 15” which is light and slim, and everything else on the gun is fairly standard. Of importance to me is reliability and being well balanced, which this rifle is for me. The trigger is a Geissele Designated Marksman model tuned to my liking. A Blue Force Gear padded Vickers sling did the trick for shooting and running.

Optic – Nightforce ATACR 1-8x24 F1 with FC-DM reticle. A low power variable (LPV) scope is perfect for carbine shooting games with short and long shots due to the 1x magnification for close targets, up to 6-8x for longer shots. The durability and trust in my Nightforce is great when banging the scope around, low crawling with the rifle and more. The ATACR has ED glass, which offers a superb image that’s easy to use and stay behind. I had a solid 100 yard zero and knew my hold overs to 600 yards. While the ATACR is a lot of scope, good glass is a force multiplier that I’ll gladly drag along.

Pistol – Glock 17 Gen5. Simply, it works and it’s not too heavy. I’ve used Glocks for a long time and the newer Gen5s are a step up in my opinion. My holster of choice is the Safariland ALS holster, which offers retention while also being super fast on the draw.

Belt Kit – HSGI Slim Grip belt and pistol/rifle TACOs. I’ve been using this setup for a couple years now for a variety of things and I am super happy with it. The belt has a grippy rubber inside to keep it from sliding around but isn’t too thick and heavy. The TACOs are great as they can be used for nearly any rifle or pistol mag that I use. I cinched down the shock cords so that the mags wouldn’t come out even when hanging upside down.

Bag – I debated on this and found an old Kavu bag that I have which worked out to be perfect. This bag is a single strap bag, which I really liked. I didn’t have to take it off for anything but could slide it around to dump depleted mags and grab new ones, or negotiate obstacles. It wasn’t weighted down too heavily, so it didn’t really jostle around when running with the strap tight. I wanted to carry a little water, so I stuck in a bladder with a half-liter of water, and electrical taped the tube to the strap.

Notables on clothes – My pants were Kuhl Renegade Stealths which are a softshell material. I’ve used them for a variety of outdoor uses where it’ll be moist or wet out as they help repel water versus absorb it. Despite having to go through a little mud and water, they didn’t absorb any water at all. As for shoes, I used Salomon SpeedCross 4s which offered great traction throughout the course. With some Smartwool light wool socks I didn’t have any blister or hotspot problems with my feet.

Finally, RBGC was one of the places that I got started in competitive shooting, and it was great catching up with old friends that I hadn't seen in a while. Sorry if I didn’t get to meet up and talk to everyone. I’m already looking forward to the next one of these.

Very cool, I miss doing run-n-gun. I like your setup, very simple and it obviously worked.

Congrats.

These look like fun, but I hate running.   I’ll run a course, but I just don’t know about 3-5mi.  Never been into distance.

Maybe I’ll see if my body can handle it one of these matches.

Outstanding. You'll be hooked now and you'll be coming to Oklahoma for the Oklahoma RnG. Look me up when you do.

Sounds like a giant waste of time

Looks like an awesome event OP, congrats!

Run & Guns are a blast.  I've done the Pawnee, OK one the last three years.  Going again this year, doing the 10k.

I talked a few buddies to get in on this match also. Pretty sure we all had a good time and enjoyed ourselves.

Much like OP, my shooting allowed my dismal runtime to still score well. I guess I've overdeveloped the Fight instinct and left the Flight instinct alone.

I had a case of the Macho's and ran in a PC with plates, except for slowing me down it wasn't a huge bother. I use a SKD PIG and really really love it, its a bit dated but I've never worn another that was as comfortable or provided the flexibility. I also wear this for WOD's, CW, courses, training. whatever, its a solid rig. It was also overkill for this match. I over packed and brought 5 pistol mags and 4 rifle mags, could have gotten away with about half that.

The shooting aspect was pretty simple, nothing really technical or super challenging. Not sure if I liked the simple stuff or think it should be more challenging. The issue with waiting to hit the shooting stages after the runs while those ahead of you cycled through sort of gave those waiting a chance to catch their breath and get some eyes on the stages.

I think more challenging obstacles should be added, something that smokes your upper body as well as your lower body, preferably right before a nice little rifle stage . You could also add some technical aspects, to engage the brain while runners are tired and wont be thinking easily. Like disassembling an AK or something....

Also, I missed the peeps and Cola... so sad.

I had the most fun ever at a shooting event.  My smile was as big as MapCap's which then grew even bigger as I told everyone what I had done on the weekend.

The photo below is me .... I fast walked mostly.

A special note about my gear: My dad passed away little over a year ago. He and my mom are violently anti-gun. I had always wanted to take my dad shooting to show him the sport that I love.  I never had the chance because his politics would not allow it.   On this run, I wore his pants so we could finally go shooting together. I know he was with me and having a great time because I hit the 600 yard target on my first shot and I kept getting wedgies throughout the course.

I can't wait for the next one at Riverbend and am going to try to do Legion 911 in KY.

Photo by Lisa Stennett

Attached File

It was my first Run and Gun but wont be my last.  I loved it and can't wait for the next one.