I think I mentioned a few weeks back that I was hoping to participate in a shooting competition.
This past Saturday the event finally took place!
I did not do well, but had a lot of fun all the same. The other guys there were all very helpful and prevented it from being too intimidating.
It was a “3-gun” event, meaning you shot a rifle, shotgun, and pistol. I think at the more formal events they actually combine multiple guns into a single stage, but here we just had one long rifle stage, one shotgun stage, and then several pistol stages.
Given that pistol is by far my weakest skill, there wasn’t much chance of my taking home any bragging rights.
on the other hand my so called “better” guns weren’t real hot. I managed to talk someone into running a camera for me during the shotgun, and you can see that I kind of fell apart on the back half of the stage.
(The guy following me holding a box is the range officer, keeping time and making sure that nobody does anything unsafe during their turn)
The event wasn’t super competitive, so even with my less than optimal performance, I was able to make the top third in shotgun. I think it mostly gauges long neglected muscle memory in a few dozen guys who said “oh, they have a shotgun event?” and dug a gun out of the back of the safe. Had a few more people been drilling for this and I don’t think my fumbling with shells the entire time could have looked anything but sad.
The pistol stages were a lot of fun, but really drove home the fact that I don’t have great accuracy, nor do I transition between targets with anything that resembles speed or grace.
At the very least though, I had a lot of fun, and have a reason to practice now!
-Jordan
Nelsons 