[ARCHIVED THREAD] - Pandemic 2013 (Page 1 of 2)
Posted: 3/29/2013 5:36:48 PM EDT
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Anyone doing it again this year? I just got the early registration email yesterday and signed up this morning. $300 and I went ahead and bought 200 rounds of .223 and 200 of 9mm to round me up to just over $500.
It was fun last year and I came home with a M&P 15-22, so I don't have a problem going back. Looks like Slidefire is a big sponsor this year. |
Seems there's a few NFOA people heading out there to join in the fun too. I have prior commitments, so I can't attend.  http://nebraskafirearms.org/forum/index.php/topic,8258.0.html
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They have a website? No idea what it is.  Zombies In The Heartland I'll be volunteering again. Say hi to the prize troll when you see me. 
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Hmmmm....I may try to make it out there just to watch. I don't think that I will be shooting to compete though. You should seriously shoot. I'm not very good and had a blast. Everyone is encouraging and the stages are setup up so you just have fun. If you're an awesome shot, great, if not, you'll still have a blast. |
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I just found out about this and wish I would have known about it earlier. ONly problem is my shooting buddy just got deployed and he won't be back until next year sometime  Where you at in KS? I'm 40 miles north of Belleville. I'm actually in SW KS about 6 hours from you. I visit Omaha often since I'm attending Pharmacy School at Creighton. |
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I just found out about this and wish I would have known about it earlier. ONly problem is my shooting buddy just got deployed and he won't be back until next year sometime Don't worry, they'll assign you some shooting buddies.
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This sounds fun. How many slots do they have? 300 slots up for sale, over 200 have been sold. |
I competed last year and had a blast. Already signed up for this year right when I got my early registration email. Been looking forward to it ever since last year. If you never been, you should go, you won't regret it. Lots of great people from excellent to beginner shooters.
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I'd need to see video of the worst shooter from 2012. I don't wanna be that guy for 2013.  LOL I was thinking the same. I really want to do this but my buddy is getting married June 1, wife's bday is June 2, and then I have to be in Omaha June 3. Next year however, I'm signing up as soon as they open it! |
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I'd need to see video of the worst shooter from 2012. I don't wanna be that guy for 2013. 
The easiest way to come in last is to run unreliable gear and not have your guns zeroed. Do they have a worst team award? 
So being fat, zero training and a flinch like I was hit with a cattle prod could still keep me in the pack?
I can keep the noisy end downrange though, so I have that going for me. |
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Do they have a worst team award?
So being fat, zero training and a flinch like I was hit with a cattle prod could still keep me in the pack?
I can keep the noisy end downrange though, so I have that going for me. I'm fat and half crippled.
We had a bunch of DQs last year, around a half dozen or so. Most (all?) of them were DQd for poor muzzle discipline, often covering themselves when holstering or clearing a malfunction. Accuracy trumps speed. If you can shoot true, you won't come in last. |
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I don't think I'll be able to shoot, but I'm going to take the drive up and see what's what. Are spectators allowed? Yes. It's a public park. 
Bring your shotgun, I'm pretty sure the skeet, trap, sporting clays, and five-stand fields will be open. That way you can get some shooting in too. I don't know if the regular rifle and pistol ranges will be open as I believe some of the sidematch stages are being held there. ETA: The rifle and pistol ranges will be closed for the match. |
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The prize table is shaping up to be very nice this year. I'm already very impressed and everything isn't even here yet!
Tons of cases from Midway. Brownells sent a bunch of AR tools and high-end cases. Stag provided several uppers. Parts from Battle Arms and Badger. Optics from Bushnell (a near $2k 1-6x), Leupold, Eotech, Vortex, and others. Cleaning supplies from Birchwood Casey. Lots of suppressors courtesy of Nebraska's own American Reaper Arms. Swag from lots of companies. And of course guns. Lots and lots of guns. The list goes on and on. The sponsors really came out in force this year to help support the shooters. |
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The prize table is shaping up to be very nice this year. I'm already very impressed and everything isn't even here yet! Tons of cases from Midway. Brownells sent a bunch of AR tools and high-end cases. Stag provided several uppers. Parts from Battle Arms and Badger. Optics from Bushnell (a near $2k 1-6x), Leupold, Eotech, Vortex, and others. Cleaning supplies from Birchwood Casey. Lots of suppressors courtesy of Nebraska's own American Reaper Arms. Swag from lots of companies. And of course guns. Lots and lots of guns. The list goes on and on. The sponsors really came out in force this year to help support the shooters. How does it compare to last year's table? That was impressive enough. |
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The prize table is shaping up to be very nice this year. I'm already very impressed and everything isn't even here yet! Tons of cases from Midway. Brownells sent a bunch of AR tools and high-end cases. Stag provided several uppers. Parts from Battle Arms and Badger. Optics from Bushnell (a near $2k 1-6x), Leupold, Eotech, Vortex, and others. Cleaning supplies from Birchwood Casey. Lots of suppressors courtesy of Nebraska's own American Reaper Arms. Swag from lots of companies. And of course guns. Lots and lots of guns. The list goes on and on. The sponsors really came out in force this year to help support the shooters. How does it compare to last year's table? That was impressive enough. Looks to be as good. This year we're doing three prize tables, one per division. I inventoried two Zeiss and three Nightforce scopes today. Had some Geissele stuff today too - they're a new sponsor this year. |
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The prize table is shaping up to be very nice this year. I'm already very impressed and everything isn't even here yet! Tons of cases from Midway. Brownells sent a bunch of AR tools and high-end cases. Stag provided several uppers. Parts from Battle Arms and Badger. Optics from Bushnell (a near $2k 1-6x), Leupold, Eotech, Vortex, and others. Cleaning supplies from Birchwood Casey. Lots of suppressors courtesy of Nebraska's own American Reaper Arms. Swag from lots of companies. And of course guns. Lots and lots of guns. The list goes on and on. The sponsors really came out in force this year to help support the shooters. How does it compare to last year's table? That was impressive enough. Looks to be as good. This year we're doing three prize tables, one per division. I inventoried two Zeiss and three Nightforce scopes today. Had some Geissele stuff today too - they're a new sponsor this year. Geissele is an awesome company. I'm sure they were generous. Hopefully they do the prize drawings for each division simultaneously. It would help speed things up. |
I shot the 10 competitive stages yesterday. I had a very good time despite ending up on my ass in the mud, having my shotgun fall ejection port down into the mud, and ending up with a second-degree sunburn. Wear sunscreen. 
My advice: Know your site dope. We have rifle targets from ~25 yards (maybe even a bit closer?) out to 200 yards with the majority being around 25 yards. The long range targets are metal swingers, but most (all?) of the other rifle targets are clay pigeons (just under 4.5" round). I strongly recommend against a 25yd zero for .223. I used 30rd rifle mags and never had to reload. Keeping a spare mag on your belt in case of malfunctions isn't a bad idea. I used 18rd pistol mags and never had to reload. Keeping a spare mag on your belt in case of malfunctions isn't a bad idea. Single stack shooters will definitely need reloads available. I recall at least one shotgun stage that required full reloading of my 8rd mag tube. Many stages were designed around 8 and 10 shotgun targets. No "long range" shotgun targets. #7 1/2 or #8 birdshot is fine (and nothing larger than 7 1/2 is allowed anyway). Most guys ran bulk packs, but some like the AA Super Handicap and Super Sport loads. There is at least one thrown (moving) clay target. WATCH YOUR MUZZLES. Poor muzzle control resulted in several DQs last year. |
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Hopefully they do the prize drawings for each division simultaneously. It would help speed things up. That is our intention. Should take ~1/3 the time it did last year. They have some new plans to speed up scores/stats too. Geissele contributed a bunch of great stuff, as did all of our sponsors. I hope people take notice of the sponsors and choose to patronize them in the future. One of the perks of working the prize table is that I get to handle a lot of this stuff beforehand. I got to check out one of the Geissele handguards and it is top notch. |
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Hopefully they do the prize drawings for each division simultaneously. It would help speed things up. That is our intention. Should take ~1/3 the time it did last year. They have some new plans to speed up scores/stats too. Geissele contributed a bunch of great stuff, as did all of our sponsors. I hope people take notice of the sponsors and choose to patronize them in the future. One of the perks of working the prize table is that I get to handle a lot of this stuff beforehand. I got to check out one of the Geissele handguards and it is top notch. Got to handle one at Cola Warrior and it is going to be the next rail I buy. |
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Exeter Arms is running one of the side matches again this year. We'll have 3 F/A lowers with 14.5" PWS uppers. Even if you aren't shooting the competition, stop by and shoot the breeze with us. See you all Fri, Sat, Sun(and Thur for you sponsors). Will there be any stories of heroism and courage? |
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Thanks to everyone who visited us at our bay this year. Sorry if there was trouble with the machine gun you shot. We were having some problems with the PWS bolt carriers being out of spec on the rear end.
Special thanks to American Reaper Arms for letting us try on their lower. It did run with a hydraulic buffer but we continued having trouble with our H1 buffers. Thanks to HPSP, the city of Grand Island and Hornady for hosting us. Last but not least, thanks to everyone who shot, you guys make it all worth it. |
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I attended, it was a fun match. Shot pretty well overall, didn't get a chance to see where I placed but if I had to hazard a guess it would be top 50 in Tactical. Turns out I suck more than I realized with a shotgun but at least I learned (by day 3) how to shoot it properly. The long range rifle stage was fun, it was easier than I expected with an Aimpoint Micro. I thought for sure I'd have some trouble but it wasn't bad. Being absolutely anal about my zero being on and knowing my corrections at range helps a ton of course though. I don't know if I will be back next year though... There were still a lot of rules inconsistencies from stage to stage, ROs were coaching like crazy, some ROs were encouraging other competitors to coach their friends... It's just, well, it's not a serious match. And I don't want to pay almost $400 for "fun match." |
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It was fun. All the dust blowing finaly got to my rifle and the last day. Should have cleaned it.
I would have shot tactical class if I knew the prizes were split up. That table had cooler prizes. Would have been nice to see what prizes there were, and see all that got donated too. Can't complain though as I was told it even the big matches don't have a prize table that good. Rules were good. IPSC and IDPA have so many rules it takes the fun out of it. |
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Quoted: Do you think it would be better to have a 2 day 8 stage "serious" match that cost less and a "range day" the final day with a $50 entry fee or something? Maybe. I've never run a match so I'm not sure how to suggest to fix it. I guess keeping rules consistent would go a long way in my book. And I don't feel comfortable (nor do I want) coaching by anyone. I find it distracting and the RO, who I can only assume was trying to help me, ended up making me lose my mental game with his coaching on one stage. Here are the major problems I had and some reasons why I didn't think it could be considered a serious match:
That's all I can think of off the top of my head. But that's only MY experience. I'm sure there are others that saw the same things or more. Quoted: It was fun. All the dust blowing finaly got to my rifle and the last day. Should have cleaned it. I would have shot tactical class if I knew the prizes were split up. That table had cooler prizes. Would have been nice to see what prizes there were, and see all that got donated too. Can't complain though as I was told it even the big matches don't have a prize table that good. Rules were good. IPSC and IDPA have so many rules it takes the fun out of it. Can you give me some examples of IPSC and IDPA rules that take the fun out of the game? Because randomly breaking rules you don't like because you're the ROs of the stage doesn't seem like fun to me. It seems counter to that, actually. Because it creates an unlevel playing field to arbitrarily break rules. I don't know about you but I don't find that in the least bit fun. And they can run the match however they want, but if they continue to run it like this, I will not be back next year or any following year. The match is clearly catering to new 3 gun shooters, and that's fine, but you're only new once. Even the new people will eventually see the glaring problem with running a match this way and they'll get tired of it and move on as well. If they want Pandemic to be sustainable, they need to change the way they're running it. Eventually, you run out of new shooters. |
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Full disclosure - I was part of the even staff and was in charge of prize distribution. I was introduced before prizes were handed out so many of you probably saw me. I was the short gimp in the long sleeve Hornady shirt.
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Thanks to everyone who visited us at our bay this year. Sorry if there was trouble with the machine gun you shot. We were having some problems with the PWS bolt carriers being out of spec on the rear end. Special thanks to American Reaper Arms for letting us try on their lower. It did run with a hydraulic buffer but we continued having trouble with our H1 buffers. Thanks to HPSP, the city of Grand Island and Hornady for hosting us. Last but not least, thanks to everyone who shot, you guys make it all worth it. Everyone I spoke to loved the American Reaper and Exeter Arms side stages. For many, this is the only exposure they receive to Class 3 stuff, and it's great that these sponsors have made that opportunity available. Quoted:
I attended, it was a fun match. Shot pretty well overall, didn't get a chance to see where I placed but if I had to hazard a guess it would be top 50 in Tactical. Turns out I suck more than I realized with a shotgun but at least I learned (by day 3) how to shoot it properly.
The long range rifle stage was fun, it was easier than I expected with an Aimpoint Micro. I thought for sure I'd have some trouble but it wasn't bad. Being absolutely anal about my zero being on and knowing my corrections at range helps a ton of course though. I don't know if I will be back next year though... There were still a lot of rules inconsistencies from stage to stage, ROs were coaching like crazy, some ROs were encouraging other competitors to coach their friends... It's just, well, it's not a serious match. And I don't want to pay almost $400 for "fun match." I saw a few people do exceedingly well on the long range stage with red dots. And I saw others with 3-9x scopes that were shooting 8" to the right, or 6" too high. I watched stutzcattle rock the long range stage with a Micro and an SBR. He knew his zero, had good gear, and got it done. Captain Barska who boresighted his rig the night before at the Holiday Inn was not quite as lucky. I wasn't an RO and spent little time on the line this weekend, so I'm not sure what was going on with coaching, or lack thereof. What rule inconsistencies did you encounter? The closest thing to coaching I saw was at the 200yd stage were spectators and ROs were calling hits and helping folks walk their shots in. Quoted:
It was fun. All the dust blowing finaly got to my rifle and the last day. Should have cleaned it. I would have shot tactical class if I knew the prizes were split up. That table had cooler prizes. Would have been nice to see what prizes there were, and see all that got donated too. Can't complain though as I was told it even the big matches don't have a prize table that good. Rules were good. IPSC and IDPA have so many rules it takes the fun out of it. The prizes this year were zip-tied and sealed because last year we had problems with people stealing from the bags/packs. For example, someone would take a $100 gift card out of an ammo box and put it in another then take it, short changing someone else. We knew people would not be happy that many of the packs were "mystery" packs, but a $250+ mystery pack is better than an empty range bag. We'd still be drawing prizes if we let everyone inspect bag contents while under supervision. I was overruled on the physical order of the prizes. I wanted prizes in value order with the expensive stuff and the guns at one end and the smaller stuff at the other. The decision was made by someone over me to put things in a random order. The prizes were divided based on the percentage of shooters. Tactical had the most shooters so they had more stuff on their table. Value was proportional based on the number of shooters per division. Over 2,100 individual items were on the prize tables. Some companies sent several items (Stag sent five uppers) while others sent one (Utter Precision sent one FLIR Scout). Midway USA sent an entire UPS truck full of soft goods. Some people got one thing, such a gun or an optic, while others got eight things such as a range bag, a hat, gun oil, lens pen, shirt, muzzle device, tactical latch, and a pack of targets. I saw people pass by a Zeiss scope in favor of a Ruger LCP or take an Eotech over a Daniel Defense upper. This match went better in almost every way I can think of compared to last year. I can't remember the last time I saw so many happy people. While some folks were disappointed to walk the table towards the end, they all seemed grateful and appreciative and I couldn't turn around without someone thanking me. The match reinforced something I've heard before: Gun people really are the best people. |
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Quoted: The prizes this year were zip-tied and sealed because last year we had problems with people stealing from the bags/packs. For example, someone would take a $100 gift card out of an ammo box and put it in another then take it, short changing someone else. We knew people would not be happy that many of the packs were "mystery" packs, but a $250+ mystery pack is better than an empty range bag. We'd still be drawing prizes if we let everyone inspect bag contents while under supervision. I was overruled on the physical order of the prizes. I wanted prizes in value order with the expensive stuff and the guns at one end and the smaller stuff at the other. The decision was made by someone over me to put things in a random order. The prizes were divided based on the percentage of shooters. Tactical had the most shooters so they had more stuff on their table. Value was proportional based on the number of shooters per division. This makes more sense. I wish you had not been overridden as that would've made the prize table significantly more logical and far less "good luck grab bag" like. I would've been far more happy with your solution than the one we were given. |
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Do you think it would be better to have a 2 day 8 stage "serious" match that cost less and a "range day" the final day with a $50 entry fee or something? Maybe. I've never run a match so I'm not sure how to suggest to fix it. I guess keeping rules consistent would go a long way in my book. And I don't feel comfortable (nor do I want) coaching by anyone. I find it distracting and the RO, who I can only assume was trying to help me, ended up making me lose my mental game with his coaching on one stage. Here are the major problems I had and some reasons why I didn't think it could be considered a serious match:
That's all I can think of off the top of my head. But that's only MY experience. I'm sure there are others that saw the same things or more.
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It was fun. All the dust blowing finaly got to my rifle and the last day. Should have cleaned it. I would have shot tactical class if I knew the prizes were split up. That table had cooler prizes. Would have been nice to see what prizes there were, and see all that got donated too. Can't complain though as I was told it even the big matches don't have a prize table that good. Rules were good. IPSC and IDPA have so many rules it takes the fun out of it. Can you give me some examples of IPSC and IDPA rules that take the fun out of the game? Because randomly breaking rules you don't like because you're the ROs of the stage doesn't seem like fun to me. It seems counter to that, actually. Because it creates an unlevel playing field to arbitrarily break rules. I don't know about you but I don't find that in the least bit fun. And they can run the match however they want, but if they continue to run it like this, I will not be back next year or any following year. The match is clearly catering to new 3 gun shooters, and that's fine, but you're only new once. Even the new people will eventually see the glaring problem with running a match this way and they'll get tired of it and move on as well. If they want Pandemic to be sustainable, they need to change the way they're running it. Eventually, you run out of new shooters. Holy fuck. Someone didn't get their name drawn til last did they? There's a lot of WTF with your posts. 
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