In the approximately nine years I’ve been playing gun games, I’ve seen a few DQ’s for safety reasons. (The percentage of DQs to shooters is actually quite minuscule.) These are typically 180° violations, or negligent discharges when reloading or moving. In the interest of full disclosure, my own DQ was for a dropped gun. There’s a reason for the strict safety rules in USPSA and IDPA and a reason all gun handling happens under the watchful eye of a safety officer. Thanks to those strict rules, the sports have an excellent safety record. Even experienced competitors make mistakes, and when it happens, it’s only right that they are done for the day. It hurts, but if your brain isn’t fully engaged, it could hurt even more more.

Despite being able to shoot in matches the past couple weeks, the foibles of life have prevented any actual range trips for practice. Finally after work Tuesday, my son and I took advantage of the moderate (i.e., below 95°) weather to hit the range before dinner. The shaded pistol bay was pleasant enough, even though we could hear thunder far off in the distance.

We did all of our shooting this trip from the 10 yard line. I wanted to focus on tighter shots, so much of my time was spent on head shots. I was mostly pleased with the results. A lot of those shots were taken in controlled pairs at the top of the IDPA target, or in body/head combinations.

I also expended a lot of my ammo on strong hand and weak hand only shooting. I have to say I impressed even myself with the strong hand only portion of that. 80% or more of those shots were in the -0 zone, and the rest barely out. However I was less satisfied with the weak hand shooting. About half of the hits were high right of the -0, and even a few crept into the -3 shoulder zone. I will definitely be putting in more time on that skill.

Since more than two shots in a string, as well as any movement, is now banned at the range, these trigger control focused drills help make the best use of my time, and ammo supply. It’s also the area where I think I need the most work. On future trips I hope to extend the one hand shooting out to 15 yards. If I can get good hits at 15 yards, the common 7 and 10 yard shots should come easy. (Wistfully stated.)

It was good time spent with my son. We are fortunate that our work schedules pretty much coincide, so we are able to get to the range together fairy frequently. We’ll enjoy that until he heads back to school later this summer.

This is a nice 7 mile out and back on the AT, with really nice views to the west at several points along the way, and the spectacular 270 degree view at Mary’s Rock as your reward at the turnaround point.

I did this this hike on Saturday July …

Today’s alert from VCDL has an important action item for gun owners and 2nd Amendment supporters nationwide.I just created a White House petition asking the President to urge Congress to pass H.R. 38 as soon as possible and get the bill on his desk!THI…

(Read instruction manual thoroughly to learn about your Instant Pot before trying this recipe.)

Ingredients:

– 1, 3 lb. pork roast, boneless and trimmed of excess fat
– 3 Tbs packed brown sugar
– 1 1/2 Tbs smoked paprika
– 1 tsp. ground cumin
– 1 tsp. coarse salt
– 1/4 tsp. freshly ground pepper
– 3/4 cup water
– 1/2 cup apple cider vinegar
– 1/2 cup ketchup
– hamburger buns

Ingredients:

– 1 medium head green cabbage, finely shredded
– 1/2 cup carrots, finely shredded
– 3/4 cup light mayonnaise
– 2 Tbs light sour cream
– 1 Tbs Splenda
– 2 Tbs white vinegar
– 1/2 to 1 Tbs dry mustard (depending if you want less or more of a kick to your slaw)
– 1/2 tsp. celery seed
– salt and pepper for taste, optional

We were visiting in Blacksburg this weekend, which happened to be the same weekend of Christiansburg Izaak Walton League’s monthly Action Pistol Match. Since I would be missing the monthly IDPA match at Rivanna, I decided to check out the Christiansburg match.

The Christiansburg Action Pistol matches use IDPA targets and scoring, and in general, follow IDPA rules. However the matches aren’t official IDPA matches, so there are some liberties taken to add some interesting challenges.

The first stage shot by the squad that I was on was a classic IDPA stage. There were two partial targets on either side of some barrels to be shot while stationary. Then while moving forward towards cover, two more partial targets were engaged. The final four targets were engaged from cover. It was a fun stage, though I didn’t shoot it as well as I would have liked, or frankly, expected. Well, maybe the morning kinks are worked out.

The second stage was an all steel stage. A variety of steel was set up; a Texas Star, square plates, animal targets, a swinging hostage target, and a very, very small steel IDPA target  — 17 in all. All steel was shot while stationary. It’s been a number of years since I shot a Texas Star, so that was fun. Hitting the steel “hostage” would be a hit on a non-threat adding to the challenge of the small red swinger. I didn’t hit the non-threat, but used all 31 one of my rounds, and left the tiniest target standing.

Arrow marks the little guy

The stage “Sucker Punch” offered another unique shooting challenge. The scenario was that you’ve been hit in the eye and knocked to the ground, losing the use of your strong-side eye. We had to use a bit of paper towel behind our glasses to block our vision in the eye, forcing us to aim with the weak side eye. The six open targets were engaged while laying on the ground on our strong side. This certainly was new challenge for me, but I was pleasantly surprised to do pretty well.

Next up was a standards stage with three targets with non-threats in between. The stage consisted of three six shot strings. The first shot freestyle from about 15 yards, followed by strong and weak hand strings shot while backing up, starting at about 7 yards.

A stage labeled “What a Drag” had us again shooting strong hand only, this time while dragging a “body.” Three targets were engaged strong hand only, while dragging the body to behind cover. At that position there were three more targets to shoot after dropping the dummy. We then moved to another wall where we hit a stomp plate which activated a drop turner, before hitting the last stationary target. Interestingly, this was my best stage of the match, placing 3rd of 19 in SSP.

Our last challenge, “Who’s You Daddy?” had us shooting from a seated position. We faced six targets arranged in stacked pairs. There was a target stand directly in front of us that we knocked over at the start. Once we were seated with that target blocking our view, one of the six targets was randomly marked as a non-threat by hanging a man’s tie on the target.

This was a very enjoyable and challenging match in a beautiful mountain setting. The other shooters I met were exceptionally friendly too. I didn’t shoot as well as I had hoped, but had a great time nonetheless. My finish was 19th of 55 overall and 4th out of 19 in SSP. I’ll be sure to check the club calendar whenever I’m visiting Blacksburg to see if I can make future matches.

A few more pictures from the match are here.

This creamy chicken and vegetable mixture is placed on whole-grain toast for a twist on chicken pot pie. Still that same savory flavor without all the fattening crust.Ingredients:- 3 Tbs olive oil- 1, 8 oz package cremini mushrooms, sliced- 1/4 cup all…

Each morning as I leave for work, I pass by my stack of “range stuff” in the garage. It makes me wish I was going to the range, instead of the office.One of these days, I’m going to be “too sick” to work.
[ This content originated at Musings Over a Pin…

After about 6 months, my first book is about a week away from being available on Amazon.com! Look out before 7/31/17. I’ll be giving away the first 200 copies of the book – yes free!! I’ll be publishing several videos sharing additional details and sharing some of the book’s golden nuggets. By 7/31, you’ll be […]

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