That's Why They Call it a Practice Match

Although, I was almost able to call today a match that doesn't count, lots of my fellow shooters took full advantage of the relaxed nature of the match league's 4th Sunday 3-Gun Practice match to work out the kinks in their game. Okay...me first. Now I absolutely know not use Winchester-Western shells in anything but my double-barrel. They don't cycle in my Remington 1100 and they stick in both of my 870 pumps. Sure, I figured my old rescue project might have some bugs, but when my pristine First Gun started hiccupping on the things, it's time to consign W-W to the back of the odd ammo drawer. Oh, yeah, I also misread one stage description, which cost me lots of time, but I recovered to get all my hits.

Jon (pictured above) joined me in practice for next year's Superstition 3-Gun Match, going Heavy Metal (single-stack .45, 12 gauge pump, .308 iron-sight rifle) to satisfy some All-American, meat-eating, uber-Neanderthal urge to handicap ourselves to the point that our shoulders are guaranteed to sport bruises like this and this and we'd be reloading mofos shooting great big manly .45 ACP cartridges. Jon learned not to trust M1A magazines as being "GI Spec" and even his trusty 30-rounder betrayed him.

One guy who squadded with us had a tricked out Carbon-15 racegun with an ambidextrous safety. Although right-handed, he used the right-side safety switch, losing precious seconds adjusting his grip. We pointed out he'd done the same thing last month. Rob was a good sport and confessed it was a mental bloc. Friendly reinforcement! We beat him to a bloody pulp for being such a loon! Oh, no, we didn't. But it's making my sleep-deprived mind giggle like crazy. More after the results are posted.

Update: Predictably, Jon and I finished at the bottom of the rifle roster; he because of magazine troubles, me because of that brain fart on the stage description (I beat Jon on one stage by half a second, but his magazine problems were faster than my brain fart on the other rifle stage). That, and we were the only two not armed with poodle-shooters. We were surprised at the number of Pump Gunners that showed; six to the two auto-gunners playing the game. Jon and I finished first and third, respectively. Jon's time even beat one of the auto-gunners!