I hit Chick-Owa Sportsman’s Club tonight for another “action pistol” shoot. My recap on the last shoot can be found here.
This one was a single stage that we ran through a few times each. Two “good” hits required on 3 different cardboard silhouettes with a steel spinner obscured by a hostage at the end was the whole stage. Shoot well and it’s only 7 rounds.
I cleared my first run with 24 shots. Had a little trouble with that steel spinner at the end there. Total time: 73 seconds. My 3rd run was down to 19 seconds which was about par for the course. The winner came through in just over 11 seconds but he “cheated” a bit — no use of concealment, firing on the move the whole time. Nothing wrong with that though. Just a different way of solving the problem at hand.
On my 4th run I had a couple of malfunctions with my Glock 23C. Basically it’s due for a cleaning. I’ve been letting it slide on purpose, opting to carry my 1911 while I let the Glock get gunked up. I’m not sure if it was a premature slide lock or if the feed ramp is getting too dirty for those flat-nosed .40S&W rounds to glide up it. What made me happy there is I cleared the first malfunction with a mag change without thinking about it and the 2nd one, where I had no more mags and could see brass, did a quick tap-rack-bang without any thought. That was a bit comforting but I should have just done a tap-rack-bang on the first one. That was a mistake.
But, in the end after doing two of these shoots I’ve learned that I mostly need to work on:
- My accuracy (sight picture and trigger control are lacking under any stress)
- My reloads
- My presentation
- My speed
Yeah, about the only thing I really feel up to snuff on is safe handling. And I’m OK with that, for now.
Oh, and I will admit that I was the only one to put any holes into a “no shoot” target. Shooting the course “as designed” had you putting holes into a bad guy about 15 yards away with a “no shoot” just to the right of that halfway down range. I pulled two shots to the right and winged the “no shoot” guy. My bad. I think he’d have lived though.
