STEEL CHALLENGE Shot my first handgun competition Monday night. Steel challenge at the Nampa Rod & Gun Club. Sixty shooters showed up for four stages: Accelerator, Pendulum, Showdown, Outer Limits. Each stage consisted of five targets of varying size, distance, and layout. Five timed runs were shot at each of three of the stages, and four runs at one stage. The worst time at each stage was thrown out; fastest/lowest cumulative time won. I found a lot of parallels to competition aerobatics. For instance, men and women competed together, neither age nor prior experience mattered, situational awareness was critical, and good hand, eye, and where a stage incorporated movement, foot coordination were a must. The equivalent to a zero in aerobatics was a max time of thirty seconds per run. Shooters were also divided into divisions based on gun type. I was in the largest division with 19 competitors: Centerfire Limited, which meant essentially stock handguns. I ran a 40-caliber Springfield with a 12-round magazine and factory sights. And I came in last place. This, too, paralleled my first attempt at competition aerobatics back in the mid-80s, where I came in 11th out of 13 in Sportsman flying a Super Decathlon. In both situations, I was fairly low time but game to give competition a try. Analysis: The average scores of the top five and the bottom five in my division were separated by a factor of 3.3. The middle group on average was twice as fast as the bottom five, but 1.6 times slower than the top five. Top tier shooters averaged 5-1/2 seconds per run through all stages; middle tier shooters averaged just shy of 9 seconds per run; bottom tier averaged 17-3/4 seconds per run. In other words, the top tier was really good, while those in my tier have a long way to go. The downfall in my case (and I suspect with the others in the bottom tier as well) was the number of time outs (“zeros” for my aerobatic competitor friends). I timed out on nearly half of my runs, inefficiently expending a lot of ammo along the way. My two best runs were the anomalies (see youtube/watch?v=WrkF_8zom4s) Goal: Focus on accuracy over speed to try to break into the middle tier (there’s no other place I can go but up!). The biggest fix on the list of things to work on will be trigger pull, which has been my nemesis since starting this process: I consistently send rounds to the 4 to 5 o’clock position. That and working more on longer range shots. Dry practice, which until now has been nearly absent, will have to become a serious part of the equation. Once trigger pull and accuracy have been addressed, then worry about speed. Once I figured out I couldn’t compete in aerobatics, I became an aerobatic instructor. We’ll see if history repeats...
Posted on: Wed, 19 Jun 2013 01:21:54 +0000
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