There’s an ISPC match tomorrow. I’d like to go. I’ve been wanting to compete, but it’s just not happening for various reasons.

Thing is, I suspect tomorrow’s match will likely suffer the same fate as my prior attempt at competition. Weather predictions are for rain through much of the weekend, possibly heavy.

I’m happy, we are in desperate need of rain. Any rain we can get is good and I’m not going to argue with (other than wanting more). But given the predictions and the way the sky looks even this morning, I’m not going to plan on tomorrow’s IPSC shoot being my first. Another time….

Meantime, I must prepare for what’s coming next….

My second attempt at pistol competition was a bust. The Aggies say if you do something 3 times it becomes tradition… so I hope my next effort is successful. 🙂

While most of the Austin area didn’t get rain yesterday, apparently parts of it did. One of those parts was the Austin Rifle Club. Got there this morning and the match was cancelled. They got dumped on with rain and the new action bays were muddy. Some were also full of standing water. The bays were only recently completed and I’m going to guess this was the first time they were rained upon. So while most of the drainage was good, it wasn’t perfect and this was the first time they got to see that. A lot of ARC members were standing around talking about that and how they’d have to fix the bays to remedy it. So… while perhaps the match didn’t happen, hopefully the rain meant good things for the future.

Before I left I dropped an email to foo.c to see if he wanted to join. He called me back, I missed it (don’t know how…. but the iPhone’s vibrate apparently doesn’t vibrate enough, and for whatever reason I didn’t hear the ring either). Called him from the muddy parking lot and asked if he just wanted to go to the regular bays at ARC to shoot. I swung by his house, picked him up, we came back to ARC and shot for a while.

I got to try out his new Rock Island Armory 1911. It’s not as sweet at his Wilson, but pretty darn close. Certainly makes you wonder if all the money in something like a Wilson is really worth it. Wilson had a slightly better trigger, the RIA wasn’t too bad. He also had this Sig P6 which … gah… if you can’t say something nice don’t say anything at all, so I’ll just stop. 🙂  Fun little beater gun, but wow, that DA/SA action is ugly and the DA pull is junkyard dog ugly.

I shot my Buck Mark a bunch. Gosh that gun is fun to shoot.

Then got some trigger time with my XD-9. The fiber popped out of the front sight. Put it back in but it popped out again and I couldn’t find it. That sucks. I’ll contact Dawson Precision in the morning. I was shooting OK. It’s evident I haven’t been to the range in a while. Dry fire all you want, in fact you should dry fire a lot. But in the end, you gotta get to the range some because you need that recoil to really make things go. Darn this ammo shortage situation… a big reason why I haven’t been to the range and only dry firing. 😦  Still, shot OK.

So, while today wasn’t the day I wanted, it was the day I needed. Happy to have gotten the trigger time. Good to hang out with a friend. I’ll try competition again some other time.

I’ve mentioned I’ve wanted to try competition shooting. I figured a good place to start was Steel Challenge type of competition. One time I was ready to go, but it didn’t happen. Now Austin Lone Star Practical Pistol Club has moved to the Austin Rifle Club because of their newly built action shooting bays.

This is the fourth Sunday of the month, which means a steel match.

I’m going to try it.

I’m going to shoot my .22 Buck Mark with iron sights (total stock factory gun). It’s the cheapest thing to shoot and I’ve got far more .22 LR ammo than anything else.

I’m excited at trying out competition for the first time. I’m a little nervous because I have no idea what to expect, and ensuring I have all the right equipment for how they like to do things. But I’m looking forward to giving this a try.

My goal? Just to shoot and have fun, get familiar with the club and people and how everything works. But if Caleb’s Shooting Sports Jargonizer is correct, that really means I want to win. 😉  Actually to win or not doesn’t matter (tho I’d love it). The real desire is to not come in last place, especially because of procedural errors, rules infractions (especially safety issues), or disqualifications. 🙂

I’ll be back….

For some time I’ve wanted to try my hand at shooting competitions. The main reason I haven’t? Scheduling. Things have been happening lately tho that have spurred me to get off my duff and finally try competition shooting. I still have to get my schedule happy, but at least my desire to do competition has moved from passing thought to “OK, let’s seriously consider this.”

As you can see here and here, the Austin and greater Central Texas area provides for a lot of competitions. Shotguns, rifles, carbines, pistols, combinations of them (e.g .3-gun), and just various types. So where to begin? I figure I’m going to start with handgun-only competitions, because that keeps it simple to start. But even with handgun-only there’s still many things to try. So I asked my mentor what to do and he suggested I start with Steel Challenge-based competition. There’s the ALSPPC that sounds like a good group to get started with.

I think steel will be a good way to start. It’s a simpler competition, by design, which is good for breaking into the world of competition shooting (less to worry about). Given the skills I’m working on and need to improve upon, Steel Challenge seems right up the alley: distances 7-35 yards, every shot must count, speed is important but accuracy more important (slow hit better than a fast miss). It really seems exactly the sort of thing I need right now. An additional benefit is you can shoot it with a .22 rimfire handgun… given the state of ammo today, that’s a great thing. Furthermore, kids can shoot! If Daugther eventually wants to try, she can! As I was researching for this post, I came across videos of a Tori Nonaka, who appears to be a 13-year old girl shooting Steel and IPSC competitions and being quite good at it:

I watch her videos and am not just impressed with her shooting, but I can’t help but think of my own Daugther and wondering if that might be her someday. 🙂

But back to steel… here’s some resources:

• Steel Challenge Shooting Association — the official website.
• The Rules
• The Stages. Another listing of the stages. Provides for different file formats.
• History
• Past Champs. Men’s Records. Women’s Records.
• Shooting tips from Karl and Penny.
• ALSPPC’s entry on their steel matches.
• YouTube search on “steel challenge”. It’s great to watch the top-level shooters and the “Joe Blow” club matches.

So, at this point I’ve got more reading, practice, and preparation to do. But as soon as my schedule will allow me, I’m going to try shooting steel.