Howdy,

Went to the TacPro three gun match yesterday.  Wow!  It was incredible!  This was the fourth time I've gone and every time it gets better and better.

There were 77 shooter and five stages.  I was squad leader of squad three.  But I didn't let the power go to my head or anything.  :)  Basically I just made sure that my guys didn't goof off, that we reset the steel and taped the targets between shooters, and that we moved quickly between stages, most of which you had to drive to and from.

We started with stage three, the long range rifle stage.  From about 200 yards at the beep go prone and shoot four 8 or 10 inch steel plates that are on an a-frame thing so they swing when hit.  There's a orange flag that becomes visible up top when you shoot it.  Once all four are hit, then run 50 feet(? I'm not that good with distance, so all ranges are approximate) to the next station, a low plywood wall that you had to kneel or sit behind to engage the same four targets.  Once they were hit again, run about 100 feet to a vertical plywood wall and shot them again but this time left handed!  180 second time limit.

I used my new RRA 16 inch flat top that I mounted a 4x Unertl scope on.  Did pretty good.  I had just sighted in the scope the day before, and ran out of daylight.  I was right on vertically, but I knew I was still off a bit to the left.  It took me a few shots to figure out how far to the right to hold for a hit.  Even then, I got rushed and went back to center hold a few times.  :)  Ran to the next station, missed twice, rested the rifle on the wall, hit the next four.  Ran to the last station.  Firing left handed was new to me, missed a lot.  Used the vertical wall as much as possible for a rest.  Got the first target, could not hit the second to save my life, so I moved on to three, hit it in one shot. Hit fourth in two or three, went back and took another four or five to hit the damn second target!  My time was 115 and change.  

Then we went up the road a bit to stage four, the all slugs shotgun stage.  Your the rear guard, armed with a shotgun with slugs only.  You have no slugs on you, only on the gun or at each of the four stations in wooden ammo boxes.  Start off holding a screwdriver like you're working on something.  Beep goes off and you hop on the wooden table (sheet of plywood abput three feet off the ground) go prone and engage the three visible peper poppers at about 50 yards?  There was a two by four on the table that you could not go past, so your legs ended up hanging off the plywood table.  Once the targets are down, you have to move to the next station, about 15 feet away, and engage three steel targets, to pepper poppers and a steel gong) at about 50 yards(?) using cover (a vertical plywood wall) and firing from the left shoulder!  Then go another 20 feet or so to the next station, another vertical plywood wall and engage three targets (two pepper poppers and a gong) at 50 yards or so from the right shoulder, using cover.  This was so that the lefties didn't have an unfair advantage.  Once those three were neutralized run around the wall and another thirty feet or so and using a short plywood for cover engage two pepper poppers at 50 or so yards.  Once you were off the plywood table at the begining you could stuff shells into your pockets, but you could use no pouches.  And if you ran out of ammo at any station, you were done.  120 second time limit.  

I did pretty good.  I used my 870.  I've got a sidesaddle on it that holds six, and a butt stock shell holder that holds five, so I had 19 rounds on the gun when I started.  Plus I'd put 11 slugs at each station.  Bepper went off and I hopped up on the table, laid down and mounted my gun.  I've never shot my shotgun from prone before and I was worried.  Also I was using untried slug ammo as I was unable to find any of the ammo I'd shot before in time.  First shot missed, but second, third and fourth hit.  Yay!  Reloaded four rounds from the table then stood up and ran off the end of the table.  Got to the next station and lucked out, fired four rounds to hit the three targets.  Started to shoot standing, but then decided to kneel and lean into the wall for stability.  Also had my hand smash into my face on the first round.  My stock is kinda short and I make sure my thumb does not wrap around when I shoot right handed so I don't smack myself.  Forgot when I shot that first left handed round and almost knocked my glasses off!  Ran to the next station and shot once from standing and missed, then knelt down and reloaded from the side saddle.  Shot three rounds and hit the two pepper poppers and the gong.  Hoped up and ran to the last stage where for some reason I thought I was out of ammo, and I forgot about the rounds in the butt stock holder, so I reloaded from the wooden ammo box.  Fumbled two rounds, then finally got two in, took two shots from kneeling and hit both the pepper poppers!  Wow, this Remington Slugger stuff is pretty good!  

My time was 85 seconds and change.  One of the guys in our squad did it in 65 seconds and change, think he was second on that stage.  One guy was shooting a semi-auto of some sort with a 14.5 inch barrel.  What a fireball!  The RO _jumped_ back!  

Break for lunch.  Then we went to stage five, the suprise pistol stage.  No walk through ahead of time, and people that hadn't shot it yet had to wait behind a wall so we couldn't see what was there.  A VIP is in need of rescue.  He may be acting irationally, bad guys are in the area, shoot them on sight.  However, there is also a party of bowhunters in the area, please do not shoot them.  Targets will be on either side of the road, no time limit.  That's all we know before we start.  

Beep.  Draw my pistol, start walking down the road, scanning left and right for targets and no-shoots.  First one I find is a bow hunter (paper IPSC target painted camo with two hands on it), but right behind him is a steel popper.  Mike Harris was in charge of this stage and he set the poppers so be hard to knock down, many required two shots.  I didn't have a problem with that, if I hit it, it was in the head area and they went down.  I used my .45 1911.  I think there were 13 or 14 steel poppers, no paper targets.  At the end of the walk the VIP shows up as a runner on a wire.  A few people had shot him, but I did not.  When I got to the end of the stage I thought I'd screwed up and missed some targets in the woods on the left.  But it turns out that there were no targets on the left side of the road.  At the debriefing Mike mentioned that in the real world, once you're started shooting, stealh should go out the window, from that point on movemovemove.  

We should've gone to stage one next, but the previous squad was slooooooow, so we skipped ahead to stage two, shotgun/pistol.  You start off sitting on the back of your humvee (a pickup) when an RPG round hit it, killing your buddies.  You run around and grab a shotgun from the cab, then engage targets till it runs dry (maximum of eight rounds).  When it's empty, lock the action open and safely lay down the shotgun and draw pistol to engage the rest of the targets.  Must use cover, walls, barrels, window frames.  The last four steel poppers had to be shot from underneath a wall, so you had to go prone on the gravel.  I think there were 15 targets total.  60 second time limit.  

I did ok.  For some reason I thought my shotgun was empty when it still had one more round in it.  Then I forgot to lock the action open, so I had to go back and fix it.  The little poppers were hard to hit.   My time was 50 seconds I think.  

Then we headed back to stage one and the squad before us was still not finished!  They really were not helping to tape the targets, and they were taking a looong time to shoot the stage.  First stage was rifle/pistol combo.  Very short range for rifle, like 50 to 100 feet.  Wearing body armor, enter a house and engage targets (paper IPSC) until you run out of ammo (max of 30 rounds), then transition to pistol and get the rest.  You must retain the rilfe, no setting it down except to reload or to clear a jam in your pistol.  Two hits to the A zone neutralizes a target.  There were 20 targets in the house, have to shoot through several windows.

I was the second shooter this time.  I wore a medium sized body armor.  Damn was it hot and constricting!  Beep!  Open door, walk in, shoot target about six feet away.  Then second target 20 feet away or so.  Then I turn and shoot at two targets 80 to 100 feet away through a window.  This is where I screwed up.  I crowded the window frame and after three rounds my rifle was unable to eject, or the ejected round got thrown back into the receiver.  Either way, I was stopped.  Then I made my second mistake.  I didn't drop the mag first before trying to clear it.  All I did was make things worse ad it now had two rounds trying to go into the chamber.  I fiddled with it for a few seconds, then just said "Screw it" and drew my pistol and went on from there.  So instead of 15 targets with the rifle and 5 with the pistol I tried to hit 16 with the pistol and four with the rifle.  I had 40 rounds on me for my pistol.  2 shots to neutralize, it could be done if I was very accurate.  Remember, I had to hold my rifle in one hand while I shot with the other.  On the plus side, I went quick.  On the down side I failed to neutralize most of the targets, although I did engage them all and hit them all.  Each one not neutralized added 5 seconds to my time.  I'm not sure how I did on this stage, probably pretty badly.  

The prize table was well stocked.  They pick out a prize and then draw names at random.  I got a Black Hills Jacket.  Then at the end they put everyone's name back into the bowl and drew for a SWFA Super Sniper scope, a DPMS upper, and a Springfield XD-40.  I didn't win any of them :(  

I had a blast!  It was soo much fun.  My squad mates were all good guys, I think they all had fun.  


-skuld

Picture of the AR I used